“Bad breath? Really? I’ve kissed the man. Trust me, he doesn’t have bad breath!” She saw Shane look at her quizzically out of the corner of her eye. “Why is she so determined I marry Bobby?”
“She wants him to start a boxed lunch service. You know, so hikers can pick up picnic lunches before they go out. Or whoever. She thinks it’s a service the café should be offering, and she thinks Bobby can do it.”
“And Bobby will only do this if we’re married?” She didn’t understand the logic, but she knew it was her mother’s lack of logic, rather than her brother’s lack of ability to explain what was happening.
“I have no idea. I’ve never understood how that woman’s mind works. I just wanted to warn you that she was calling all of us. She’s—more determined than I’ve ever seen.”
Kelsi sighed, rubbing the back of her neck and the tension there. “I never even liked Bobby Blakely. Remember when I kept coming home crying in elementary school because a mean boy was chasing me around at recess with a snake? And then putting notes in my locker with hearts on them?”
“Yeah.”
“That was Bobby. He was showing his love by using reptiles!”
Will snorted out a laugh. “He’s got a way with women apparently.”
“I don’t even want to have to work with him, much less marry the idiot! Mom says I need to get over the reptile-thing.”
“Well, you probably do need to forgive him for the reptile-thing, but marry him? I think you and the sheriff are better-suited.”
Kelsi blinked a couple of times in surprise. “You do? Why?”
“Because everyone knows how long he’s waited to date you, and he’s so kind to you. He’s what you deserve, Kelsi. Give the man a chance.”
She didn’t look at Shane as she asked, “But what if I get bored again?”
“Are you really worried about that?” Will asked. “Look, you dated all the popular boys in high school. The ones who were jerks with a capital J. The ones I would have told you to steer clear of if I’d thought you would listen to me. Shane isn’t like that. He’s good for you.”
“Maybe.” That was all she was willing to concede at the moment. “I missed calls from Wade and Jess as well. Are they calling me to tell me the same thing?”
“Probably. Mom was calling all of us tonight.”
“Thanks for the warning, big brother.”
“No problem. Just make sure I get the biggest slice of wedding cake.”
Kelsi ended the call, turning to Shane. “My mom is calling my brothers. And my cousin. I’m sure that she’s trying to get people here to pressure me to marry Bobby as well.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” he asked.
“I’m going to think. I’ll figure something out by tomorrow, I’m sure.”
“Something like how wonderful it would be to be the local sheriff’s wife?”
Kelsi groaned. “That’s one option, isn’t it?”
“It is.” He frowned at her. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”
She nodded. “Mom and Dad are expecting us to do everything they say right now. I might really get pressure from the others to marry Bobby.”
“Let me drive,” he said, getting out to walk around to the passenger side. “I’m not sure you should drive upset.”
“I just feel like my life is spiraling out of control!” she said, obediently scooting across to the passenger seat. “I’m not sure what to do!”
“Well, you know what I think you should do,” he said, grinning over at her.
“And if I decide I’m bored and uninterested in you in two weeks? Then what will you say?”
“I’ll know I need to step up my game. It’s my job to be sure I don’t bore you. I’ll make sure we get date nights. I’ll take you out and teach you to shoot.”
Kelsi perked up at that. “You will? Can I get a lavender gun?”
“Why do you need a lavender gun?”
“Because even self-defense accessories should be pretty!”
He groaned, running his fingers through his hair before starting the truck. “They should? What about my gun for work?”
“Oh, loan it to me for an hour. I’ll get it all blinged up for you!”
“Blinged up? The bad guys will laugh me out of town.”
“What bad guys? You’re the sheriff of Riston, Idaho where the most exciting thing that ever happens is old Jaclyn Hardy gets scared and kills one of her lawn gnomes with a hoe in the middle of the night!”
Shane laughed. “That was hilarious! How long has she managed the RV park on the ranch for your family?” He hadn’t been amused when he’d been called out of bed by one of the guests at the ranch, but in retrospect, it was hilarious.
“Honestly, I have no idea. I remember going to her house when I was a little girl and playing with her bunnies, so it’s been a really long time.”
“Why exactly does she have so many rabbits?”
“She said she’s too unique to be a crazy cat lady, so she’s going to be the best reality-challenged bunny lady around.” Kelsi shrugged. “As far as I can tell, she’s the only bunny lady around, reality-challenged or not. She’s always been one of my favorite people.”
“I heard she talks to the gnomes. Is that true?”
“Never!” Kelsi responded, sounding offended at the accusation.
“Oh, good. I was worried she wasn’t sane enough to be on her own.”
“She only talks to the fairies and the leprechauns. She said the gnomes are too stuck up for the likes of her, so she ignores them for the most part.”
“Does she have a psychiatrist?”
“As far as I know, she hasn’t left the ranch in twenty years. She has everything she needs brought to her, or she goes to the general store onsite to buy it.” She shrugged. “She doesn’t hurt anyone, and we all love her. I think she should be left alone.”
“You should talk to her about Bobby Blakely. Maybe she’ll give you good advice.”
Kelsi sighed. “She was Grandma Kelsey’s best friend when they were young, and when Grandma married Granddad and moved here, Jaclyn was part of the package. She really played a big role in my up-bringing. Every time I got too mad at my siblings, I’d declare a bunny day and go to live with her. I never lasted more than an hour or two, because when I got there, she’d make me start cleaning the bunnies’ litter boxes. I hated that job!”
He laughed softly. “Which is why you always got it, I’m sure!”
“She also would make snickerdoodles, and every time I visited her, she would give me milk and snickerdoodles, and she would serve it all on this fancy tea set. I always felt so grown up at her house.”
“Go talk to her then. I’m sure she’ll have good advice for you.”
“Or she might just send me on errands. She does that sometimes!” Kelsi shrugged. “Either way, I’ll go talk to her tomorrow.”
“What are your big plans for your day off?”
“I’ll sleep until seven, which is like manna from heaven for me, go to town for church at nine. After church, I’ll come home and do my laundry, which is my favorite part of the weekend, and then I’ll go see Jaclyn and chat with her. It’s been a couple of weeks, and I like to make sure she’s okay.”
“I’m glad you still have her. It sounds like you miss your grandmother a lot.”
She nodded emphatically. “I do. She was my strength. I think I always felt extra close to her because of the name thing, but I’m not sure if that’s all it was. Dani and I looked just like she did, except for the eyes. I used to stare at her wedding pictures, and know I’d look like that one day, and be filled with pride that I looked like her.”
“And do you? Look like her that is?”
“Exactly. It’s funny, but I was always one of the tallest kids in school. Mom would say that we were going to be as tall as the pine trees, but we both stopped growing in fifth grade when we were the same height as Grandma Kelsey. She’d just pat us and say, ‘There’s
a whole lot of wonderful packed into that height.’ Dani loved her too. Dani and I were really close when we were little.”
“What happened?”
Kelsi shrugged. “It’s not that we’re not close now. I love her. We just kind of grew apart. We didn’t like being dressed identically all the time, so we were thrilled when we could start wearing whatever we wanted to wear. She wanted to dress more…casually, I guess is the best word. I enjoyed dressing up and being a little more feminine. So we kind of grew apart in every way. I think she just wanted to be Dani instead of Kelsianddani. For years our names were all one word. Or worse yet. The twins. One of our teachers couldn’t tell us apart, so she just called us both twin. She’d point at one of us and say, ‘What do you think, twin?’ We tried correcting her for the first month, but it became obvious she just didn’t care. We were two halves of a whole for way too long.”
“That’s sad. I’m glad you two still get along though. It would be awful if people behaving like that ruined your relationship with your sister.” Shane pulled onto the road leading to the café and the ranch house.
“Let’s just stop at the café so you can get your truck.” She knew he’d feel obligated to see her home, because she knew that’s the kind of man he was.
“Nah. I’ll walk back to my truck after taking you home.” He drove past the café and parked in the parking lot on the other side of the ranch house from the highway. “The parking lot of the café is too lit up at night. I don’t feel like I can kiss you goodnight there. Not in a way that will make your toes curl anyway.”
She made a face at that. “You always think you have to make my toes curl.”
“I do have to make your toes curl. You have such pretty little toes.”
Kelsi raised an eyebrow at him. “And why have you noticed my toes?”
“You sometimes wear sandals to church in the summer. I notice everything about you, Kelsi Weston.”
“You do, do you? I notice everything about you too, Sheriff Shane.”
“You do not. You didn’t even know where I lived!”
“So? Your house isn’t you. I notice you. You’re wearing a new shirt today, and I like it. The blue and brown plaid bring out your eyes. Do you have any idea how much I love your eyes? They always make me feel like I’m drowning in a giant vat of chocolate.”
“Oh, and I know you like chocolate.”
“You show me a woman who doesn’t like chocolate, and I’ll show you one who really did have her taste buds burned off. Chocolate is the only reason for getting up in the mornings! Chocolate is better than anything!”
He laughed. “I will bring you some chocolate.” He unbuckled and scooted toward her on the truck seat. “What are you doing tomorrow evening? Can I see you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Tomorrow night is family dinner at the café, and it’s my turn to cook.”
“Want some help?” He had no idea why, but he wanted to be there for her family dinner. He wanted all of them to accept him as her future, whether they really believed he would be part of it or not.
She tilted her head to one side and finally nodded. “Sure. I was planning on cooking lasagna and making a salad and garlic bread to go with it. Does that sound good? With a family as big as mine, I always feel like I should make enough for an Italian family, so I tend to make lots of Italian.”
“You realize that makes no sense, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Making sense all the time is a sign of a boring brain.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I can meet you at the café at four maybe? What time is dinner?”
“We usually eat at six. Meet me at four-thirty. That’ll be enough time to get everything ready.” She reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Thanks for a wonderful day and for not laughing at my quest for Bigfoot. We’ll find him someday.”
He grinned, leaning down to brush her lips with his. “And when we do, we need to get him to pose for pictures, so you can prove to your brothers you were right all along.”
“And Dani. And Jess, who hasn’t been quite as bad as the others about the whole Bigfoot thing, but she was still annoying.”
“How was she annoying?”
“She was always too busy to go with me!” Kelsi complained. “A cousin who loved me would have been willing to search for Bigfoot every weekend!”
He grinned, pulling her against him for another kiss. “We’ll prove them all wrong. Dream of me.”
She sighed, stroking his cheek. “How could I do anything else?” She slipped out of the truck and went into the house, her mind racing. He was different than Donn, that was for sure. But how could she know if she could make a marriage work with him? She had to get her mother off her back about Bobby, because once her siblings all started to put pressure on her to not make her mother angry, she wasn’t sure if she could stand strong.
Maybe marrying Shane right away was the best idea. When she closed her eyes that night, she pictured herself and Shane in the mouse ears like he’d mentioned, and she had a smile on her face. He was a good man, and he loved her. Would it be so wrong to marry him before she was sure of her own feelings?
Chapter Six
After finishing her laundry the next day, Kelsi made the fifteen minute walk from the ranch house across the ranch to the small cabin where Jaclyn Hardy lived. She was excited to see her old friend and wished she took more time to stop and see her. The older woman had no family, other than Kelsi and her siblings, so one of them should be checking on her more often than once a week.
Kelsi made her way through the army of gnomes, leprechauns, and fairies that cavorted in the yard. They looked like they’d recently been scrubbed clean, which wouldn’t surprise her one little bit. Jaclyn had always preferred her army of outdoor fantasy creatures to people.
She knocked on the door and immediately heard a yell in response. “Keep your pants on! I’m coming!” When the door was flung open, Jaclyn’s eyes grew wide as she smiled. “If it isn’t my favorite Weston child! To what do I owe this pleasure?” She opened her door wide, inviting Kelsi to come in.
As soon as she stepped into the house, one of the bunnies hopped across her foot, and Kelsi squatted down to pat its head. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. What’s your name?”
“The bunnies don’t talk, you know. They’re not stuck up like the gnomes, but they’re kind of stupid,” Jaclyn told her. “I’m going to get our tea ready. You want milk or actual tea this time?”
Now that she was an adult, the older woman always gave her a choice of beverage, but Kelsi wanted things to be like they’d always been. “I’d like milk please.”
“Well, sit down. I’ll be back in a moment, and we’ll chat about whatever has your mind so clouded.”
Kelsi looked around the room, and smiled at the familiarity. Everything stayed the same there, except the color of the bunnies. She knew that none of the rabbits had ever come from a pet store. The first had been injured, and Jaclyn had nursed it back to life. Then she’d found another and brought it in.
With the speed of the rabbits procreating, and the addition of more over the years, the older woman usually had between twenty and thirty bunnies in her house at all times.
When Jaclyn came back with the tea, she put it on the coffee table, pouring her tea into a cup, and handing Kelsi her milk. “Snickerdoodle?” she asked, offering the plate.
“I would love a snickerdoodle.” Kelsi took two, putting them on the small plate Jaclyn provided. She knew how much Jaclyn loved her rituals where tea was concerned.
“Talk to me about what’s happening, Kelsi. I can see by your eyes that you have a dilemma and, fitting for your age, it’s centered around men. Three of them, I think?”
Kelsi sighed, wondering how Jaclyn always knew what she was thinking. “Well, you know I’ve been dating Donn for a long time...”
“Donn was an idiot. If he’s the first one, cross him off your list. You should have gotten rid of that boy seven years ago.�
�
“Yes, ma’am,” Kelsi answered automatically, knowing Jaclyn was right. “The second man is Sheriff Shane.”
“Oh! I know Sheriff Shane! He was the one who came to check on me after I clobbered poor George to death, thinking he was a snake.” Jaclyn sniffled. “I miss George.”
Kelsi patted the older woman’s hand. “That’s right. Well, as soon as Donn left town, the sheriff asked me out. We’ve seen each other several times, and I have to admit, I’m developing feelings for him.”
“Shane’s a good man. Strong. He’d be a good husband for you. You’d have strong, beautiful babies together.”
Kelsi blushed, not quite ready to think about the babies she might have with the sheriff. “The third man is a boy I knew in elementary school who my mother met on her travels. He’s a cook now, and since the café just lost its cook…”
“Did that good-for-nothing Kathy finally find a rich guest to run off with?” Jaclyn asked, shaking her head as she peered at Kelsi over her teacup.
Kelsi nodded. She was always amazed by what Jaclyn knew when she never left the ranch. There seemed to be no local gossip the woman wasn’t privy to. She wondered if her informant was the same as her mother’s. “She did, and now Bobby is coming back to cook for the café, which is good in one way, because I don’t have to find someone.”
“And that sister of yours doesn’t need to be around people any more than necessary,” Jaclyn said, shaking her head.
“Very true! I don’t want him here though. Mother thinks I need to marry him, and she’s started calling my siblings and telling them to put pressure on me to marry Bobby when he gets here. All I remember about Bobby is he was annoying and chased Dani and me around the playground at recess with snakes and lizards.”
“Oh, that Bobby. I remember him. No, you’re better off without that boy. The sheriff is the one for you,” Jaclyn spoke with an air of authority, as if she could see all the men and knew what Kelsi needed.
Short-Order Sheriff (River's End Ranch Book 1) Page 7
