So he left the question hanging.
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he repeated.
They said prickly goodbyes, and Slade shut his phone.
By the time he pulled in at the Curly-Burly, it was nearly dark out, and Shea and Jasper were waiting in the shop’s empty parking lot.
Slade frowned as he rolled down his truck window. “What are you doing out here?” he asked. He’d expected both the girl and the dog to wait inside with his mom, if only because that would have been the sensible thing to do.
“Grands invited us to stay to supper, but I said she needed a break from me and Jasper, and you were on your way, so we waited outside,” Shea explained matter-of-factly, opening the rear door to hoist the dog into the truck. That done, she climbed into the passenger seat.
“Did the two of you get into it about something?” Slade asked. “Maybe you hit Mom up for a day off and she didn’t like it?”
Shea gave him a look. “Grands and I,” she said pointedly, “get along just fine.”
He smiled. “But you’re not so sure you and me do,” he ventured.
“The jury’s still out on that one, Sheriff,” she told him.
This time, he laughed. “You’re off tomorrow, right?” he asked, setting out for home. The shop was always closed on Sundays because, despite her poker-playing and her scandalous past, Callie Barlow was a churchgoing woman.
“Right,” Shea confirmed, leaving the statement open-ended so it sounded like a question.
“Me, too,” he said. “Maybe we’ll go out to Whisper Creek first thing in the morning, feed the new horses, and take them out on the range, see what they’re made of.”
The freeze, such as it had been, was off. Slade was clearly forgiven for worrying the kid by being late—all it took was the mention of a horse.
“I can ride Chessie? For sure?”
“I want to try her out first,” Slade clarified. “If she’s used to the saddle, like the auction flyer says she is, you can take her for a spin.”
“Except I don’t own a saddle,” Shea pointed out.
“We’ll scrape something up,” Slade promised.
That was when she ambushed him, came right out of left field with, “You were with her, huh? With Joslyn, I mean.”
“Suppose I said that was none of your business?” he asked after a pause.
“I like her, you know,” Shea persisted coyly. “Even if we did get into that little tiff after the auction.”
“Good,” Slade said. “I like her, too.”
“Grands told me Joslyn was involved in some kind of mess a long time ago,” Shea fished.
“She was an innocent bystander,” Slade told the girl. “And I’m surprised at your grandmother. She doesn’t usually go in for gossip.”
The eye-roll came then. “Get a clue, Dad,” Shea advised generously. “Grands runs a beauty shop. The place is a regular clearinghouse for gossip.”
The gate leading up to the ranch house was just ahead by then, and Slade signaled a turn out of pure habit, even though there were no other vehicles on the road. The porch light was lit, thanks to Opal, and the kitchen windows glowed in homey welcome.
As soon as Slade stopped the truck, Jasper started whining and scrabbling at the door with one paw, anxious to be released into all that inviting grass.
Slade let him out on his side, and the dog immediately lifted a hind leg to the rear tire. Shea, meanwhile, sprinted toward the house.
“What’s the hurry?” Slade asked.
“Opal made peanut-butter-banana pie,” Shea called back. “And, besides, I need to charge my phone. The battery icon is flashing, and it’s bright red.”
“God forbid,” Slade said with a rueful grin. A person would have thought she was a lone astronaut, light-years from home, and the cell was her last connection to Earth.
Jasper, much relieved, trotted over to nuzzle Slade’s pant leg with his nose.
Slade bent to ruffle the dog’s ears, looked up at the first stars of the night. And he thought about Joslyn, the scent of her hair, the way she smiled, the sounds she made when he’d pleased her in bed. He shook his head, remembering the failed condom—and her quick assurance that there would be no baby. Strange as it seemed—he was old-fashioned enough to believe that people ought to be married to each other if they were going to have children together—the remark had left him with a hollow ache in the middle of his chest.
The back door creaked open as he and Jasper approached the house.
“Dad,” Shea called. “Have you seen my phone charger?”
He chuckled. “No,” he said, stepping inside the kitchen.
The room, like the rest of the house, gleamed with cleanliness, and something smelled really, really good.
A note from Opal waited in the center of the table. “A man called to ask if you were going to declare your candidacy for sheriff,” she’d written. “I took down his name and number and left the paper by the phone. Chicken casserole in the oven. Martie will bring me home after bingo.” She’d signed with a huge O with eyes in it and a smiling mouth.
Slade ignored the phone message, got out some pot holders and removed the foil-covered dish from the oven.
Shea was busy ransacking the place for her charger.
“Can the search wait until after supper?” Slade asked mildly, setting the food in the center of the table, which had already been set for two.
“As if,” Shea responded, starting toward the stairs. “Tiffany thinks Justin is this close to asking her out, and Melanie is pretty sure Aidan is going to break up with her any minute now. And—” her words died away as she pounded up to the second floor.
Slade gave Jasper more kibble, just in case he was still hungry, washed his hands and sat down to eat.
Shea returned momentarily in triumph, holding the charger like a trophy. “Opal must have put it on my dresser,” she said. “I know I left it on the kitchen counter the last time I used it.”
“Shea,” Slade said patiently, “sit down and eat, will you, please?”
Shea plugged in her phone, washed up at the sink and joined him at the table. “I guess you probably don’t want to discuss Joslyn,” she said, dishing up a generous helping of supper.
“I guess you’re probably right,” Slade answered, speaking with exaggerated slowness.
“You think I’m too young to know what’s going on, don’t you?”
“I think you’re too young for a lot of things,” Slade said.
“You bought Joslyn a horse. Am I supposed to think you’re not interested in her?”
“You’re supposed to think about your own concerns,” Slade reasoned quietly, a little amused and trying to hide it, “and leave mine to me.”
She scanned Opal’s note, still resting against the sugar bowl in the middle of the table. “Are you going to run for sheriff again?” she asked.
“Good,” Slade replied. “A slightly less invasive question. The answer is—I’m not sure yet.”
“What would you do for a job if you weren’t sheriff?”
He smiled. Opal made one mean casserole, and he was nearly ready for a second helping by then. “I’d find a way to get by,” he said.
Shea gave a long-suffering sigh, her fork poised above a chunk of chicken on her plate. “Were you this secretive with Mom? Because if you were, it’s no wonder you two got divorced.”
Slade chuckled again. “I’m not being secretive,” he said. “I haven’t decided, that’s all. About running for sheriff again, I mean.”
“You don’t like the job?”
“I don’t hate it,” he said carefully.
“Wow,” Shea replied. “That’s a ringing endorsement.”
“Okay. The truth is, I’d rather be a rancher.”
“Then do that,” Shea reasoned with a little shrug.
“It isn’t that simple.”
“Sure it is,” Shea said. “Provided you can make a living ranching, anyway.”
For th
e first time in his life, he didn’t need to make a living. It was a startling concept for a man who’d worked since he was old enough to mow lawns and deliver newspapers. On what John Carmody had left him, he could live well himself, provide for his mom, contribute to causes he believed in and never so much as put a nick in the principle.
“I’ll get by all right,” he said, enjoying the magnitude of that understatement.
He thought about the big horse race—he had until Labor Day weekend to get himself and the gelding ready, and even though it was only June, he knew the time would pass quickly.
“I need a name for the gelding,” he threw out.
Shea laid down her fork and looked over at him, her eyes bright. “How about ‘Highlander’?” she suggested.
Slade would have gone with something less flashy, but Shea seemed so pleased that he couldn’t shoot down her idea. “Okay,” he said.
“Try to curb your enthusiasm, Dad,” Shea responded, but she was still twinkling. “Highlander is a great name. So is Chessie. Joslyn’s mare is—?”
“Sundance,” Slade answered.
“That’s good,” Shea declared. “Does she even know how to ride? Joslyn, I mean?”
“Do you?” Slade countered, finding himself back on the subject he’d been hoping to avoid. Not that Joslyn had been out of his mind since he’d left her, even once.
“I rode with you when I was little, remember?”
Slade grinned. He’d never seen a happier kid than Shea had been, perched behind him on a horse. “I remember,” he said.
Before she could turn the topic back to Joslyn—obviously, there was a lot Shea wanted to know about her—they heard a car coming up the driveway, saw headlights flash across the kitchen wall.
Cheerful goodbyes rang out like faraway bells, and soon the back door opened and Opal came inside.
Jasper rushed to greet her, and she laughed and patted his head as she took in Slade and Shea there at the table.
Remembering his manners, Slade pushed back his chair and stood.
“Oh, sit down,” Opal ordered with a smile and a wave of one hand. “If we stand on ceremony around here, well, it’ll just be too complicated.”
Slade grinned and lowered himself back into his chair.
“How was bingo?” Shea asked eagerly as Opal set aside her big purse and hung up her cardigan sweater. “Did you win?”
Opal laughed, went to the sink and washed her hands. Then she fetched the apron she’d brought along from Kendra’s and tied it around her waist. “No,” she said, “but I had a fine time seeing all my old friends again.”
“Opal,” Slade said as the woman began running hot water into the sink. “Sit down and have a piece of pie with us.”
“Just let me get these dishes started,” she answered, approaching the table to collect their now-empty plates and utensils. “Anyways, I’ve got no room left for pie. Martie and I had a big supper over at the Butter Biscuit before bingo.”
“Your workday is over,” Slade said, gently but firmly. “Leave those dishes to me.”
“Or me,” Shea added.
Pleased and reluctant and shaking her head at all the fuss, Opal sat down at the table.
“I’m not sure I have room for pie myself,” Slade admitted. “That was one fine casserole, Opal.”
She beamed at the compliment.
Shea got up, cleared the table and brewed a cup of herbal tea for Opal.
“Why, thank you, child,” Opal said with a gratified sigh. “Now, tell me all about that livestock auction you went to. Did you buy yourselves some horses?”
“Three of them,” Shea said, bustling back to the sink and plunging both hands into the sudsy water. “Dad got a gelding—Highlander. I got a chestnut mare—Chessie. And even Joslyn got one—a pretty palomino she calls Sundance.”
Slade saw Opal’s eyes widen slightly as she took in the implications of that third horse.
“Well, I’ll be,” she marveled with a twinkle and commenced to sipping her tea.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JOSLYN SAT UP IN BED, blinking away the last vestiges of a sound sleep, and reached for her jangling cell phone on the nightstand. The sun was barely peeking through the slats in the blinds, she noted, as Lucy-Maude, draped luxuriously across her ankles, displeased by the disturbance, bestirred herself with a petulant little meow.
Joslyn, meanwhile, struggled to pull herself together—making love with Slade the day before, for all its glorious and fevered frenzy, had left her loose-jointed with satisfaction and made her feel more like a small, expanding universe than a substantial person, bordered in skin.
Rummy languor was quickly replaced by concern, though, as full consciousness dawned—of course the caller was Kendra. Who else could it be at this hour? On Kendra’s end, it must have been late afternoon by then, if not early evening.
Still, her friend usually took the time difference into consideration.
Had the end finally come—had Jeffrey died? Or had he revealed his big secret, the reason for her trip to England, whatever it was?
Joslyn’s heart shinnied into her throat as she croaked out, “Hello?”
But the rueful chuckle on the other end of the line belonged to a man, not to Kendra. In fact, it was Slade’s alone, as surely as if it had been trademarked to him.
“Morning,” he said, and there was something intimate in the sound, as though they’d woken up in the same bed together instead of several miles apart. “Sorry to call so early, but Shea and I are about to head out to Whisper Creek to feed the horses, and we wondered if you might want to go along. Because of Sundance, I mean.”
Relief swept through Joslyn, swiftly followed by the embarrassingly graphic recollection of how she’d responded to this man’s lovemaking the day before, in the guesthouse shower and then the bed.
Joslyn hadn’t had time to process everything yet, mentally, emotionally or physically, and she’d hoped for some kind of grace period before the next encounter with Slade. She was also, conversely, eager to see him again.
“Joslyn?” Slade prompted, when she didn’t speak right away. His voice was throaty, and there was a smile hidden away in it, a private one meant for her alone. “Are you still there?”
She gulped and swung her legs over the side of the bed in the staff apartment.
Lucy-Maude, prowling the dresser top in lockstep with her own reflection in the mirror, issued a low, soft complaint.
As short as their acquaintance had been, Joslyn knew what that sound meant: the cat wanted breakfast—immediately if not sooner.
“Uh—yes,” Joslyn stammered, pushing her hair back from her face with one hand. The thought of seeing Slade again so soon was daunting, but spending time with Sundance was another matter. “I’m here.” She couldn’t stifle a yawn. “Sorry—I was just—”
“Asleep,” Slade supplied, with hoarse good humor that, for some incomprehensible reason, made her think of the long, hard lines of his body. He had a small tattoo on his right shoulder, she recalled dizzily, an eagle just spreading its wings to take flight. “I shouldn’t have called. You go ahead and dive back under the covers—Shea and I will take care of Sundance, of course, right along with the others.”
“No,” Joslyn blurted, and then blushed, because she knew she’d sounded so eager. “I mean—I’d like to help. With the horses, I mean. Shall I meet you and Shea at Whisper Creek?”
“We’ll pick you up at your place,” Slade offered. His tone affected her like a slow caress—he hadn’t said a single word about what had happened between them, and yet the conversation was starting to feel a lot like phone sex.
Joslyn sprang up off the edge of the mattress, only too aware that she had bed head, sleep-puffed eyes and probably a crease in her cheek from the pillowcase. “How long do I have?” she asked, trying hard to sound nonchalant.
Fat chance. She was totally “chalant”—if there was such a thing.
Slade chuckled as if she’d spoken that ridiculou
s thought right out loud, and she blushed again. “Take as long as you need,” he drawled. “But we’re only going to a barn, Joslyn, not a Saturday night dance.” A pause. “Will twenty minutes be time enough for you?”
Twenty minutes? For a complete overhaul?
Just like a man to think such a feat was even possible.
“Sure,” Joslyn was quick to say. She sounded perky in her own ears, which made her a little annoyed with herself. She was behaving like a teenager with a bad crush, not a grown woman living her own life.
Such as that life was.
Another chuckle, inciting another ripple of fire between her pelvic bones. “See you soon,” Slade said.
After brief goodbyes, Joslyn fed the cat, grabbed up clean clothes and underwear, darted into the overwhelmingly pink bathroom, pulled the shower curtain along the bar above the tub with a brisk rattle and turned on the water. She stripped, showered in record time, wrapped herself in a towel, and gave her hair a quick blow-dry. It came out frizzy.
She brushed her teeth, pulled on the jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt she’d gathered earlier, and semitamed her wild hair by putting it into another ponytail. By the time Slade and Shea arrived with Jasper along for the ride, Joslyn felt as breathless as if she’d just run a foot race.
Dressed for wrangling in old jeans, worn boots and a blue chambray shirt open just far enough at the throat, Slade crossed the sunporch and rapped lightly at the kitchen door.
His easy grin slanted as he looked Joslyn over, and, for a moment, she felt as though she was bared to him again, to his eyes and his hands and his mouth… .
Don’t, she told herself sternly, silently. Don’t think about how good it was.
Again, fat chance. Just being in the same general area as this man made her nerves pulse and then throb in rhythm to some silent song the cosmos was singing.
When they reached the truck, and Slade opened the passenger side door for her, Shea greeted her from the backseat with a smile and said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask any more personal questions. Dad said he’d ground me if I did, and that would mean I couldn’t ride Chessie, go online or use my cell phone.”
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