Crossing Nevada

by Jeannie Watt

  Once the pleats were done and they started constructing the bodice, Darcy frowned. She read and reread the instructions, then handed them to Tess. “I don’t quite understand this part about turning the corner at the small dot. It’s like there’s something missing.”

  “That’s how I feel every time I read these things.” And she’d read the instructions a lot, trying to visualize what she’d be doing.

  “Let’s try this,” Darcy said, pinning the fabric and then comparing it to the diagram.

  “It doesn’t look right,” Emma chimed in.

  “Okay, then maybe...” Darcy unpinned and repinned.

  “Uh-uh,” her sister said. Across the room Lizzie was deeply involved with the sketch pad, which was now on her lap.

  “What do you think?” Darcy asked, comparing her pin job to the diagram so that Tess could see.

  “Doesn’t match.” Tess took the fabric and had to agree with Darcy. There seemed to be a step missing.

  “Take it to Tia,” Emma said.

  “Yeah,” Darcy agreed. “It’d be better than picking out a bunch of seams later.”

  “I thought this was easy.”

  “It is. Except for this part.” Darcy folded the instructions. “Would you care if I took this home and showed my aunt and dropped it off tomorrow on my way home from school?”

  “Sure,” Tess said with a small shrug. Why should she care if Zach’s sister-in-law thought she was an idiot?

  When she looked over at Lizzie, her hands were in her lap and the sketchbook was back on the crate. Tess took a chance.

  She walked over to the girl and crouched down so that they were at eye level. “I’m sorry I told you a lie about my face and scared you.”

  “I wasn’t scared.”

  “I’m sorry I told you a lie.”

  “Grown-ups aren’t supposed to lie.”

  Tess exhaled, hoping she hadn’t lost the moment. “I was scared,” she said.

  “Of what?” Lizzie asked, showing more interest.

  “Strangers. When you guys would walk by my house, my dogs would go nuts and it scared me. Every time it happened it scared me, since I live alone, so I wanted you guys to stop walking by.”

  “Then why didn’t you just tell us that?” Lizzie asked.

  Tess gave a weary smile. “I should have. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Lizzie considered for a moment then cocked her head. “So what really did happen to your face?”

  Tess was ready. She’d known she’d have to eventually come up with some kind of an answer, so she’d worked on it and, heaven help her, she was about to tell another grown-up lie using Darcy’s theory about the car wreck as a springboard. “I got into an accident. A piece of metal slashed my face.”

  Lizzie’s eyes were huge. Tess truly hoped she hadn’t made a mistake telling her.

  “A car accident, like Daddy said?”

  Tess sidestepped the question. “I’m kind of shy about people seeing my face now, so that’s why I wasn’t very friendly.”

  “Your face isn’t that bad,” Lizzie said, repeating what Darcy had said when she’d come looking for the cat.

  “Thanks,” Tess said, getting to her feet. “You want to take a few cookies home? I can’t eat all of these. Maybe you can put them in your lunches tomorrow.”

  “Great idea,” Darcy said from behind Tess, but she needn’t have given her sister the blatant hint as to how to respond, because the little girl was smiling now.

  “I’ll put them in some foil,” Tess said.

  * * *

  ZACH RODE OVER to Tess’s house on his way to check the last stretch of fence on the mountain. He didn’t bother pretending to himself that he was checking the cows, although he’d give them the once-over on his way by. He was going to see the neighbor lady, following instinct, cautiously seeing where it was leading him. For the past several days he’d been thinking about something other than the ranch slowly slipping into the red or worrying about whether he’d be able to give his girls the life he wanted to. For the past several days he’d been feeling alive again.

  Tess wasn’t home. Her car was gone so Zach reined Roscoe around and headed out for his last long day on the mountain.

  When he got back to the ranch six hours later, Beth Ann was sitting on the porch.

  “Where are the girls?” he asked as he dismounted. Roscoe put his head down and started eating.

  “They walked home.”

  “And they’re not here yet?”

  Beth Ann shook her head. “Nope. They were going to stop over there—” he pointed at Tess’s house “—to drop off the pattern instructions I explained to Darcy last night.”

  “You don’t look happy about it.” Zach hadn’t seen this coming, but maybe he should have. Beth Ann was very protective of the girls.

  She shrugged casually. “What do we know about her?”

  “Not a lot,” Zach conceded. He swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted. “But the read I’m getting now isn’t the same as the one I was getting before.”

  “Oh, really. Have you been spending a lot of time reading with her?” Zach’s eyebrows lifted at her snarky question and Beth Ann let out a huff of breath. “Never mind. It’s just that those are your daughters over there and you don’t know this woman.”

  “I’m getting to know her.”

  The startled look Beth Ann gave him made him feel suddenly guilty. Was her reaction because she sensed that he was attracted to Tess? Was she upset because somehow that made him unfaithful to her sister?

  Logically, probably not, but there were a lot of emotions tied up in losing a sister, and a wife. For a long time he hadn’t been ready to move on. He still wasn’t certain he was ready, but he couldn’t deny that he found Tess intriguing.

  “Here they come,” Beth Ann said, lifting her chin toward the county road. Zach turned to see his three girls passing the gate posts.

  “None the worse for their experience, it seems.”

  Beth Ann sent him a sharp look, but didn’t answer. Instead she pushed herself to her feet and dusted off her pants. “I’ll go see if they need help with their homework.”

  She started down the walk to the driveway.

  “Hey,” Zach said. She turned to look at him and he realized he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He just didn’t want her going away mad or thinking he didn’t appreciate all she did. “Come by for dinner tonight.”

  She hesitated for a moment then said, “Okay.”

  Zach picked up Roscoe’s reins and led the horse toward the tack shed, where he unsaddled him and turned him out into the pasture with the other horses. By the time he was done with the evening feeding and got back to the kitchen, the girls had the table set and Beth Ann was making a salad to go with the slow cooker stew. She smiled at him when he came in, a peace offering, then went back to mixing greens.

  Everything was back to normal. The way he liked it. The fragile status quo they’d maintained over the past three years was back in place and he felt himself relax.

  * * *

  THE GIRLS STOPPED by Tess’s house after school as they’d promised the day before, when they’d visited to drop off and explain the pattern instructions. The dogs rushed to the door as the kids clamored up onto the porch and knocked, their tails wagging excitedly.

  “I hope you guys haven’t lost your edge,” Tess said as she went to the door.

  Lizzie smiled as she walked in, a different kid than the last time. “Can
I look at your dress drawings?”

  “Sure,” Tess said.

  “Any cookies?” Emma asked, setting her backpack on the floor next to the door.

  “Not today, but maybe next time.”

  “We still have a bunch at home,” Darcy said.

  “We’re not at home,” Emma pointed out.

  Mental note—have after-school snacks on hand. Tess smiled a little as she followed Darcy to the sewing table. Her grandmother had kept snacks. It’d been nice. Funny how she was thinking about her grandmother so much more than she had in several years.

  Because her time with her grandmother had been the most stable time of her life? And she wanted a stable life more than anything?

  Probably.

  Modeling had been anything but stable—talk about a career rife with uncertainty. Surviving in the business had given her a boost in confidence...confidence she was struggling to get back after the slasher had shot it all to hell.

  Darcy waved her over to the table. “So here’s what we do...”

  Half an hour later when the girls were ready to leave, Tess had a nicely pleated and draped bodice finished.

  “I’m going to try to do the rest of the dress on my own,” Tess told Darcy as they walked to the door.

  “All right. But call me if you have any problems. Or better yet, stop and we’ll figure them out.”

  Yes, ma’am. Tess smiled. Lizzie looked up at her after putting on her oddly colored purplish-gray coat.

  “Can I have one of your pictures to put on my wall?” she asked.

  “Liz!” Darcy said irritably.

  “It’s okay,” Tess said. “Why don’t we look at them and you can pick one next time you come.”

  “Thanks.” The little girl grinned and Tess could see a gap where she’d lost a bottom tooth. But she didn’t comment because she had no idea if the gap made Lizzie proud—or self-conscious. Funny how a very visible injury gave one a whole new perspective.

  Tess watched the girls go, feeling unexpectedly depressed that things could not be different. That she couldn’t tell Zach the truth about herself. He seemed trustworthy.

  You don’t know him. You can’t take that kind of risk.

  Personal safety aside, her trust issues were too deeply ingrained to be easily set aside—issues intimately tied to her experiences with her less than trustworthy family. Her mother, who would always take Eddie’s side. Jared, her older stepbrother, who’d become more sexually aggressive as she matured. Sometimes she wondered how she’d gotten out of that house without being raped. It’d been coming though.

  Tess had run away after he’d broken down her door. The only thing that had saved her that day was that Jared hadn’t realized Eddie was still home, in a stupor in his bedroom.

  What an irony. Saved by Eddie. He’d staggered out demanding to know what the hell had just happened and Tess had grabbed her pocketbook and ran. She’d never gone back. Instead she’d borrowed some clothes and fifty bucks from a friend and taken a bus to Seattle. There she’d lived with the older sister of the same friend for a couple weeks, then eventually ended up in a halfway house.

  Not a good time. The only decent memory she had was of Mikey, who’d spent most of his time with her and her grandmother instead of at home with his own family. He hadn’t been able to stand life with Eddie, either, and left home before Tess had, even though he’d been a year younger than her. She’d never heard from him again, didn’t even know if he was still alive. Sometimes she considered doing an internet search, but what was the point? A lot of the memories they shared were not good ones. The good days had ended when her grandmother had died and then had picked up again—for her anyway—on that marvelous day when she’d been taken on by the Dresden Agency.

  The years in between had been tamped deep down into a dark place she’d rarely visited...until Eddie had come back.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ZACH WAS CHANGING the oil in the tractor when a shadow fell over him. He looked over his shoulder, still hanging on to the funnel stuck in the crankcase, to see Tess standing in the open barn door.

  She stayed right where she was, the early-afternoon sun behind her throwing her face into shadows.

  “Hey,” he said as he turned back to pour the last quart of oil into the plastic funnel.

  “Hey, yourself.” The shadow moved as she came closer, crossing the short distance between the door and tractor.

  “Are you here to learn to ride?”

  “Yes.”

  Her matter-of-fact answer surprised him. “I didn’t think you were going to.” It had been several days since he’d made the offer.

  She folded her arms over her chest, looking as if she was protecting herself. “I’ve been known to take my time before coming to a decision.”

  “But now you have.” He shook the funnel, then lifted it and held the oil rag onto the bottom. Then he set the funnel aside and replaced the cap on the crankcase. He took his time wiping his hands and realized he was moving slowly, treating Tess like a spooky colt. Sudden movements were not going to send her running.

  He hoped. He still had no idea why he was so drawn to her, especially after their shaky beginning. Part of it was physical—scarred or not, she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever met—but the attraction went deeper than that. Beyond the face and the long legs and perfect ass. He loved it when she smiled at him. When she trusted him enough to joke with him, gave him glimpses of who she really was.

  “Dirty work,” he said as he bunched up the rag in one hand.

  “I’m aware.”

  And then those translucent green eyes were on him. Wide. Thoughtful. And still a touch wary, as always.

  “I’m glad you came over.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Roscoe needs the kinks worked out of him.”

  She gave a surprised laugh, her uninjured eye crinkling at the corner, the wariness melting away. For the moment anyway. He’d seen her relax, then retreat moments later many times. He didn’t want that to happen today.

  “Well, you’re in luck because I brought my spurs,” she said.

  “Spurs don’t work on Roscoe.”

  “No?”

  Zach shook his head as he came closer, still dabbing at his hands with the rag, more for something to do than because of the remnant oil.

  “He’s too tough for spurs. Besides, spurs are really for guidance.”

  “I thought they were for jamming the horse in the ribs to make him go.”

  Zach laughed. “Trust me, the last thing you want is for Roscoe to go. And spurs are just extensions of the rider’s heels. For nudging, directing, communicating. Never for pain.”

  “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Learn something new every day.”

  “Do you want to go and meet your mount?”

  Tess gave a quick shrug, a shadow of uncertainty crossing her face now that the zero hour had arrived. A second later the bravado was back.

  “Sure.” She smiled up at him. “Lead the way.”

  * * *

  TESS FOLLOWED ZACH out of the barn, savoring the warmth of the sun. Being nervous always made her feel cold. She hadn’t intended to be nervous, but between Zach and the prospect of climbing up onto a beast that weighed ten times what she did, yeah, she was a bit jittery.

  “I’ll put you on Lizzie’s horse.”

  “Is it taller than my dogs?” she asked.

  “
Barely.” Zach walked to a large corral with four horses inside eating hay. There was Roscoe, the horse that had bucked off Zach, a striking black-and-white pinto, and a very short black horse with a white spot on its nose and a yellowish horse. “That’s Snippy,” he said, pointing at the black. “Lizzie learned to ride on her. She’s very steady.”

  “How long ago did she learn to ride?”

  Zach considered for a moment. “About two years ago. We took a lot of family rides after Karen died. Before that she rode with me. Took the reins and steered.” He smiled distantly.

  “Whose horse is that?” She pointed at the pinto.

  “That’s Emma’s mare, Belle. Emma gets to go to 4-H horse camp this year, so Belle’s getting a lot of attention. And the buckskin is mine, but Beth Ann rides him when we gather.”

  “Gather what?”

  “Cattle.” He pointed out into the field beyond the corral where two more horses grazed beside two small calves. Tess wondered if he was going to tell her his horses also acted as surrogate mothers, since there wasn’t a cow in sight, but instead he said, “That sorrel out there, the reddish horse, is Darcy’s.”

  “And the other?” She knew the answer before she’d finished the question and wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “Karen’s.” One corner of Zach’s mouth tightened. “Bing’s getting pretty old. She bought him when she was in high school and I think he was twelve then. He was her first horse.”

  Bing...

  Mr. Bingley from Pride and Prejudice. It had to be. But Tess wasn’t going to ask.

  “So...” He put a hand on the fence and turned to her with a half smile. “I’ll saddle up Snippy and let’s get you a’ horseback.”

  Tess nodded with more confidence than she felt, although she wasn’t certain if it was Zach or the prospect of horseback riding that made her nerves hum—or perhaps a combination of the two.