Starting Over at Steeple Ridge (Timeless Romance Single Book 3)

by Liz Isaacson

  It felt nice. Real nice.

  Missy worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she swept out the tack room in the main barn. What had she been thinking? Nudging Tucker like they were old pals? Teasing him like he was one of the cowboys she’d grown up with?

  He decidedly wasn’t. He didn’t even own a cowboy hat, or cowboy boots, and the belt buckle on those khaki pants was much too small. A disgrace, really.

  Her face heated as she remembered how she’d analyzed every line of his body, the way he filled out his shirt, the length in his legs, the shock of dark hair she wanted to touch.

  She shook her head, finished her task in the main barn, and turned when someone called, “Missy!”

  Wiping her hands on her jeans, Missy walked toward Jewel Murphy, who held a clipboard in her hand. “We’re done inside,” Jewel said. “I just need someone to walk through with me and sign off.” She smiled, and Missy was glad to see the friend she’d known since she’d moved to Island Park permanently. “Then we’ll be finished here.”

  Tucker had left an hour ago, a fact Missy both liked and disliked. He’d bumbled around the farm while she showed him the office, talked about the summer camps, pulled out the folders of financial information. He hadn’t touched much, and he’d said even less. He was so far out of his league it wasn’t even funny, and a stab of longing to have Jamie back almost sent Missy to her knees.

  “All right,” Missy said. “I guess I can do it.”

  “Jamie said you could.” Jewel pulled open the back door and went inside the house, wisps of dark hair that had fallen out of her ponytail blowing around her face. “So, what do you think of the new owner?”

  “He’s … fine.” The scent of antiseptic and lilac air freshener hit her full in the face as she entered the house. It didn’t smell anything the way it used to—like Jamie’s attempts at southwestern cooking—and Missy felt like her life was being erased, one piece at a time.

  Jewel giggled, and Missy couldn’t help smiling too. “He sure is fine,” Jewel said, before pointing out what she and her crew had done in the kitchen, the front room, the bathroom, and the bedrooms on the main level.

  With the inspection complete, Missy signed all the paperwork and handed it back to Jewel. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

  Jewel drew her into a hug. “It was good to see you. You should come into town more often.”

  Missy waved at the empty walls. “This place keeps me busy. And it’ll be insane for a while until Tucker figures out how to run the place.”

  Jewel’s hazel eyes sparkled. “I heard you weren’t too busy to go out with Everett.”

  Missy’s stomach flipped over. “That’s … we’re not going to do that again.”

  Jewel cocked her head to the side. “No? Everett’s a good guy.”

  Missy sighed. “Yeah, I know he is.” And he was. Hardworking. Faithful. Worked at an accounting firm in nearby Burlington, where Missy’s family lived. “We’re just not compatible.”

  “You went out with him once.”

  “Three times, actually,” Missy said, moving toward the front door. She couldn’t be contained behind these walls anymore. “I don’t know, Jewel. He’s just not my type.”

  “Missy.” Jewel put her hand on Missy’s arm. “You are going to get married again, right?”

  “I don’t know.” Missy’s insides swirled, and she cleared her throat. “What about you and Mitchell? Why haven’t you guys tied the knot yet?”

  “Oh, I’m working on it.” Jewel laughed, the sound joyful and carefree, the way Jewel had always been. Missy envied her. Though they were several years apart in age, Jewel had ridden at Steeple Ridge in the first couple of years Missy had been an instructor. Jewel had attended Missy’s wedding to Kelton, been there when it ended, let her have her time to put things back together, and now was here pushing her to get dating again.

  Missy had tried. Honest, she had. She’d gone out with half a dozen men over the past year, and none of them seemed like a good fit for her. She was beginning to wonder if she’d already used her chance at being a wife and mother.

  “Going home after church this weekend?” Jewel asked.

  “I always do,” Missy said.

  “It’s supposed to snow all weekend.”

  Missy frowned and then groaned. “I thought that was over.”

  “Last big snowstorm of the season,” Jewel said. “That’s why I asked. You’ve been complaining about those tires on your truck for months.” Jewel hooked her arm through Missy’s as they walked toward Jewel’s car. “Come over to my place instead. I’ll make that wild rice soup you like, and we’ll talk about how you can get City Boy Jenkins to ask you out.”

  A smile tugged at Missy’s mouth. “I’m not interested in him.” The little white lie slid easily from her lips, but warmth filled her as she remembered the way they’d stared at each other, the tether between them instant and charged. It had surprised her, and scared her, and she certainly wasn’t in a place to have her heart get stomped on again. “Besides, he’s my boss.”

  “Boss with benefits.” Jewel’s eyebrows waggled, and she laughed. “But seriously, I worry about you driving up to Burlington in the snow.”

  “I’ll check the weather. It’s still a few days away.”

  Jewel got in her car. “Okay, see you at church then.”

  Missy agreed and stuck her hands in her pockets as Jewel backed out onto the country lane that would lead her back to town. The farm sat five miles outside of Island Park, and Missy took a few last moments to enjoy the silence hanging in the air before she told Fritz to “load up,” got in her truck, and followed Jewel.

  Just outside of town, Missy turned right and headed another half mile down the road. Her cottage was one of five on the outskirts of Island Park, and she loved the little community of neighbors here. She loved the wide open space. Loved her large yard, where Fritz could chase squirrels and rabbits. The way her backyard edged a wooded area that separated this row of homes from the ones facing the town.

  She popped in a frozen pizza for dinner and took a few minutes to put together a green salad, her thoughts revolving through the past three years of her life. From the moment she’d decided to file for divorce from Kelton, everything had turned upside down.

  “Not true,” she muttered as she cored a tomato. Her life had been shaken to its foundations the day she started dating Kelton Hamilton. She knew that now, though she didn’t until the day she’d married him.

  After their honeymoon, Kelton had turned into a different person. Different than she’d known in high school. Different than the man who’d hung out on the farm with her, who’d rode through the woods with her, who’d doted on her throughout their courtship.

  But after that, every hour she spent at the farm was one too many. Every time she didn’t have dinner waiting for him when he got home from work turned into a verbal attack that would take her weeks to erase from her mind. She began to adjust everything in her life, put things she liked on the back burner in favor of activities Kelton wanted to do. She’d started anticipating his mood before he got home, fixing everything she could to make him happy. But none of it seemed to help. Kelton was never happy, and eventually, Missy realized she could never make him happy.

  She also realized she wasn’t happy, and she couldn’t imagine living the rest of her life with a man she didn’t even like anymore. So she’d filed for divorce, and if she hadn’t trained horses with one of Island Park’s police officers, she felt sure Kelton’s departure would’ve been much more violent.

  He lived in Montpelier now, where his parents had moved, and Missy was glad she could go visit her family in Burlington without any chance of running into him. The restraining order against him was still in place, and she’d assumed all the debt he’d racked up in her name despite her efforts to talk to the credit card companies.

  She’d gone to counseling in Burlington every week for a year before buying the cottage and making Island Park her permanent
home. After she ate and with the TV on low, she fell asleep, happier than she’d ever been with Kelton, but still as lonely as ever.

  The next morning, she used the public entrance to Steeple Ridge Farm and found Tucker’s hulking truck in the dirt parking lot. A flash of annoyance shot through her even as admiration drowned it. At least he was here, even if he had no idea what to do with himself, as evidenced by the fact that he was still sitting in his monstrous vehicle.

  Missy got out and lifted her hand in a wave, surprised by how much she liked seeing him there. She’d been determined to dislike him, but she hadn’t counted on his rugged good looks or the charming smile he flashed as he leapt down from his truck.

  “Morning.” He reached back into the cab of his truck and reappeared with two to-go mugs of coffee in his hands. “I didn’t know what you liked, but you looked like you’d at least like cream and sugar.” He extended one of the cups toward her before he realized she had one already.

  She lifted it a couple of inches. “Caramel latte.” She grinned. “At least you went to The Bean. That’s the best place in town.”

  “It’s the only place in town.” Tucker chuckled as he lifted his coffee to his lips.

  “That’s not true. Harry makes coffee and so does the pancake house. And there’s the doughnut shop. They have coffee too.”

  Tucker met her eyes, a gleam in his. “I like the simplicity of only one coffee shop.”

  She squinted, trying to put the pieces of him together. Today, he wore a black leather jacket over a white collared shirt and charcoal slacks. His shoes were so shiny, the morning sun glinted off the toes.

  “Where did you used to live?” she asked.

  “New York City.”

  She shouldn’t have felt surprised, but a vein of it still squirmed through her. “And you came to Island Park? Why?”

  “I bought a horse farm here,” he said simply. “So.” He exhaled, the question-and-answer period obviously over. “What’s the first thing we do around here?” He scanned the farm before his gaze wandered back to hers.

  “We feed the horses,” she said, stepping toward the front office. “We’ll have to do some paperwork after that, and this afternoon there are a couple of people coming for riding lessons. Then there are a few kids that take lessons after school.”

  He blinked at her, his pale, city face seeming to get whiter by the moment. He coughed and took a large swig of coffee. “Can I shadow you?” he asked.

  A sigh heaved through her, but she managed to keep it silent. “Sure. Which do you want to learn how to do first?”

  “I might lose my mind if I have to do paperwork.” He chuckled and ran his fingers through his thick hair. He flinched the tiniest bit before a mask slid into place. “I mean, of course I know how to do paperwork. I just don’t want to start my day with that.”

  Missy smiled. Something about his nervousness was endearing to her. “I never want to start my day with paperwork either.” She turned, a flirtatious look in her eye. “The horses then.”

  Relief wound through Tucker, along with a healthy helping of desire he couldn’t quite understand. His friend and business partner had urged him to get back into the dating pool after his divorce, but the water was cold in New York City, and choppy, and sometimes infested with sharks.

  He’d steered clear for years, but now, he thought perhaps small-town life really did hold something he couldn’t find in the city. He’d always suspected it did, and as he followed Missy into the main barn, the allure of the slower country life suddenly got a lot sweeter.

  She flipped on lights, though natural daylight flooded in from both ends of the barn. She clucked at the horses as she unlatched the barred top of each box stall. Tucker copied Missy by unlocking the bars on the other side of the aisle. Horses clopped forward and hung their heads over the lower part of the stall.

  “What are their names?” he asked.

  She tapped a black box next to the stall she’d just unlocked. “We write their names here.”

  Tucker glanced at the black horse that had just lifted its nose over the railing, then to the chalkboard square next to its head. “Cocoa.” He’d raised his arm six inches when Missy clamped her fingers around it. A streak of heat shot into the back of his throat.

  “Cocoa doesn’t like men,” Missy said quickly. “I’ll handle her.” She nodded down the row. “You keep on unlocking the stalls. We’ll take this lot outside this morning to the pasture and switch them out with the back barn tenants this afternoon.”

  Tucker took a deep breath of the air perfumed by Missy’s near presence, stared at the spot where her fingers still gripped his arm, and lifted his eyes back to hers. A perfect storm swirled within their depths, and she released him in a jerky movement. “Sorry.”

  He nodded and moved to the next stall, his nerves buzzing like someone had injected live bees into his bloodstream. He hadn’t felt anything like this in a really long time. He’d wondered at one point just before buying the farm if he’d ever be able to feel something for someone again. He had no siblings, and he only saw his cousins every few years. He had his company, a few friends there, his business partner—but no one he really felt anything truly real for.

  But as he watched Missy’s quick, deft fingers as she put reins on horse after horse and lead them out to the pasture, as she taught him how to harness the horses to the wash stalls and operate the water machinery, and as she led him into the office and showed him who to call to get the fertilizing of the hay fields scheduled, he found he really enjoyed her company.

  After lunch, Missy handed him the reins attached to the tallest horse Tucker had ever seen and said, “This is Mint Brownie, and you get to wash him today.”

  Tucker’s insides iced but thawed when she laughed. “It’s okay, Tucker. I’ll be down to help in a couple of minutes.”

  “All right,” Tucker said, though he couldn’t quite get his feet to move. She stepped to the next stall and then the next, slipping the reins around the horses’ heads and leading them down the aisle.

  Tucker jolted when he realized he’d been staring at Missy as she led the horses outside. As she did everything. The way the horses followed her everywhere—the way that golden retriever wasn’t ever more than five feet from her—spoke of her character, her gentle demeanor, her calm spirit.

  He ducked his head and said, “C’mon, boy,” before taking his first step toward the wash stalls. He had the horse hooked to the lines to keep its head up, and he moved to the sink to start the water. He remembered to give it a few minutes to warm up, remembered to attach the shampoo line before lifting the hose and aiming it at Mint Brownie.

  Tucker took a deep breath, unsure if this dark-chocolate creature would take the first spray well. He ran his hand down the horse’s back and gave a small pump of the water, the way Missy had. It shot against the cement, and Mint Brownie didn’t so much as move.

  “Ah, so you’re one of the good ones,” Tucker said. “Well, let’s do this then.” He sprayed the horse’s flank and set about scrubbing the dirt and hay from the animal’s coat. “So how long you been here at Steeple Ridge?” he asked. When the horse didn’t answer, Tucker continued. “It’s my first day.” He moved in front of the horse and looked into its eyes. “How do you think I’m doing? I hope you don’t feel bad that you’re my first bath.”

  He glanced over his shoulder but couldn’t see Missy. “I hope I don’t mess up too badly,” he said, moving around the horse and getting the job done, though the water soaked his shoes and made every step a sloppy mess.

  Tucker probably needed to invest in some cowboy boots, a hat, maybe a shirt that didn’t have to be buttoned from top to bottom. He hadn’t been in Island Park long, but there wasn’t much to explore. He’d been to the grocery store last night and found a pizza joint, a couple of places to drive through to get a burger, the coffee stand, and an assortment of shops—including a department store—lining Main Street. Surely he could find something more farm-worthy to
wear.

  He kept talking to the horse like it cared what he wore, or where he’d come from, or that he thought Missy was the prettiest woman he’d met in a long, long time, concluding with, “That Missy, she runs a tight barn, doesn’t she?”

  Mint Brownie had no opinion on the matter, and Tucker finished the bath before Missy showed her pretty face again. “Wow, Tucker,” she said. “This is great.” She ran her hand down the horse’s nose. “Not even any leftover suds.” She grinned at the horse, flashing those straight, white teeth. “Now you brush him dry.” The voice she used with the horse was completely sugar-coated, while the tone she used with him held more power and authority.

  Tucker turned back to the shelf above the sink and retrieved the brush. He slicked the water out of the horse’s hair as Missy got a brown-and-white horse set up for a bath in the stall next to his. She barely finished before the first rider showed up at the farm. Missy promptly put on a glorious smile and hugged the woman, who was probably five or six years older than Tucker.

  Missy stepped back and said, “Tucker, this is Susan DeWitt. She’s been riding for about a year.”

  Tucker smiled, said hello, and shook her hand.

  “She rides Mint Brownie. Can you bring him out to the arena?”

  “Sure,” Tucker said, but he had no idea how to get a horse ready for a riding lesson. Or where the arena was. He figured he could find Missy and Susan easy enough, so he simply turned back to the stable, where he’d put the horse back in his stall after the washing.

  Missy sidled up to him and whispered, “Just bring him out, Tucker. I’ll get all the equipment from the tack room.”

  He glanced down at her, and though she didn’t linger long, that zing of attraction slipped down his arms and leapt across the small space between them. He blinked, then breathed, and she backed away.

  It took every ounce of Tucker’s willpower not to turn around and watch her retreat. But he did it. Put one foot in front of the other and collected the horse from its stall. When he made it outside, he realized the arena was inside, so he backtracked and went through the first door just inside the barn. A viewing room sat just to his left, but Susan had come to her lesson alone.