Dancing in the Moonlight

by RaeAnne Thayne

  She bristled. “I’m not running away. I have things to do—unlike some people, who apparently can spend all day mending fence and accosting unsuspecting women.”

  “I hope those things involve stretching out and taking the weight off your prosthesis.”

  “Eventually. I need to put my horse away first and make some notes in the ranch logs.”

  “I’ll take care of your horse. Go make your notes so you can take it easy.”

  She would have argued with him—on principle if nothing else—if she wasn’t so desperate to get away from him.

  “Thank you,” she muttered, though the words tasted bitter as a bad cucumber.

  While she was gnawing on it, she might as well devour the whole thing. “Thank you also for your help today. It would have taken me a week if I’d been on my own.”

  If she expected him to gloat or give her a bad time, she was doomed to disappointment. He only nodded. “You’re welcome. I’m glad we got the fence line checked.”

  She nodded, wanting only for this day to be over. Aware of his gaze following her, she turned and made her way toward the ranch office in the barn.

  She had to hope he couldn’t see the wobble in her knees—both of them, not just the overworked left one.

  When she turned the corner of the barn and was certain he could no longer see her, she let out a long, slow breath and leaned a hand against the weathered wood planks.

  What was the point of that little demonstration? For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to prove. If he wanted to show she had questionable taste in men, he’d certainly made his point.

  Dalton or not, the man certainly knew how to kiss. She still couldn’t seem to catch her breath.

  She pressed two fingers to her lips as if she could still taste the imprint of his mouth there, then shook her head at her own ridiculous reaction, far out of proportion to what had happened.

  Still, it had been an incredible kiss. She supposed if she’d ever given it much thought, she might have expected it of Seth Dalton. The youngest of the three brothers was the ladies’ man of the family, the one who left every woman in the county sighing and giddy.

  Whoever would have thought the quiet, studious doctor would have such hidden depths?

  Not that she would ever allow herself the opportunity to plumb those depths. That was the first and only kiss she would ever share with Jake Dalton, no matter how proficient at it he might be.

  Even if he wasn’t Hank Dalton’s son, she couldn’t let this happen again.

  Like it was some kind of grim lodestone, she rubbed the spot just below her knee where flesh met metal.

  It had been difficult to remember his surname all morning. He was a good companion and a hard worker, when he wasn’t manufacturing excuses for her to take a break.

  She saw right through his efforts. On the one hand, she had to admit she had been grateful to him for his sensitivity to the frustrations and the challenges she faced in doing things that had always been second nature to her six months ago.

  On the other hand, each time he had made up some silly reason to take a break had been another painful reminder that she couldn’t keep up with him, that her life had changed dramatically.

  Different was not the same thing as over, she reminded herself as she opened the barn door and walked inside. The barn smelled sweet and musty, a combination that instantly transported her back to her childhood.

  Dust motes floated like gold flakes in the sunbeams shining down from the rafters, and the air smelled of horses and new hay and life.

  She paused for a moment to enjoy the memories that rushed back, of chasing mischievous kittens through the barn, of learning to saddle a horse for the first time in one of the stalls that lined the wall, of the stomach-twirling excitement of swinging on the rope Abel hung from the crossbeams, to land in piles of soft hay below.

  She spied the rope, still there but looped over the rafters, and she could vividly picture her father standing about where she was, watching with delight as she would swing down from the loft, shrieking all the way until she let go and landed in the welcoming piles of hay.

  It was a good memory, one she hadn’t thought of in years. She wondered if, before her accident, she ever would have taken time to notice something as quietly lovely as a barn in springtime, to remember that long-ago moment with her father.

  She would have been in too much of a hurry to get somewhere important.

  A person learning to walk all over again moved at a slower pace by necessity. Sometimes that wasn’t always such a bad thing.

  She made her way through the barn to the ranch office. The small room was cluttered with tack and coiled rope and other odds and ends. She pulled out the log book Guillermo had always maintained religiously in his neat, precise English.

  Under the day’s date, she wrote, “Rode entire perimeter of ranch checking fence. Significant repairs performed on southwest corner and near road.”

  Kissed Jake Dalton until I couldn’t think straight. Knees still wobbly.

  She set down her pencil when she realized where her mind carried her again. At least she’d only thought that last bit, not written it down. It might be a little tough to explain to her mother.

  Nothing like that would happen again, she thought sternly. She couldn’t allow it.

  Right now she needed to focus on the job at hand. There would be time later to worry about the good doctor—and what he might be after.

  She turned back to the log, which inevitably drew her thoughts to her uncle. He should be here making this notation. He should have been out there today checking the fenceline. Perhaps it was time she paid him a visit and begged him to come to his senses.

  Anything to keep Jake Dalton from showing up to torment her again.

  She found time the next evening after dinner. Viviana had phone calls to make, she said, so Maggie told her she wanted to drive into town to pick up a few things at the small market.

  Guillermo’s house, a mile toward town on Cold Creek Road, hadn’t changed in all the years she’d known him—still just as small and square, with clapboard siding that received a new coat of white paint every other year whether it needed it or not.

  It was too early for the extravagant display of roses he tended so carefully to burst along the fence, but cheerful spring flowers neatly lined the sidewalk and an American flag hung proudly on a flagpole in the front yard. A large yellow ribbon dangled just below it, and she felt emotion well up in her throat, knowing it was for her.

  Chickens ran for cover when she pulled into the driveway and as soon as she turned off the engine, a couple of border collies hurried out of the shade to investigate the visitor.

  When he wasn’t raising Murray Grey cattle for her mother, Guillermo bred and trained the smart cattle dogs. The two who came out didn’t bark, they just waited politely for attention.

  She patted them both in turn and was just preparing to head off in search of her uncle when he rounded the corner of the garage, a shovel in his hand.

  His brown eyes widened when he saw her, then they filled with raw emotion.

  In one quick move he dropped the shovel to the concrete driveway with a thud and rushed to her side and reached for her. “Lena! Oh Lena, it is good you are home.”

  Guillermo spoke Spanish, though she knew he was comfortable in English, also.

  “It is wonderful to see you, as well,” she responded in the same language. It was, she thought.

  Though only a few inches taller than she was, she had always considered Guillermo one of her heroes. He was quiet and sturdy, a steady source of strength throughout her life, even before her father’s death.

  Abel and Guillermo had been brothers and best friends, had come together from Argentina to ranch together. After Abel’s death, Guillermo had taken over as ranch manager and had also stepped up to assume a more-active fatherly role in her life.

  After she enlisted, she could still remember how he sat her down for a
heart-to-heart talk before she left for basic training.

  “To serve your country is a good thing you are doing,” he told her. “You make me proud. Hold your head high and serve with honor and courage. Never be ashamed of what you have done and always do your best to stand for what is right.”

  More than once throughout her years of service, his quiet advice rang in her ears, saving her from what could have been major career mistakes.

  “How about a Pepsi?” he asked now, and she couldn’t help her smile. Like the flag out front and his neat, ordered flower beds, some things never changed. He’d been giving her cola since she was old enough to drink from a straw. “Sure.”

  “Come. Sit.”

  She followed him onto the porch and took one of the two comfortable rockers that had been there as long as she could remember. She could vividly remember playing on the little postage-stamp front yard while her uncle and father sat on this front porch drinking beer and shooting the breeze.

  Guillermo joined her in a moment and set a tray with a couple of Pepsis and some pretzels on a little table between the rockers.

  She sipped at her drink, enjoying the unobstructed view of the mountains he enjoyed here.

  Her uncle didn’t seem in any hurry to determine the reason for her visit, though surely he must have his suspicions. Instead, they made small talk about her drive up from Arizona, about how her car was running, about the litter of puppies he was just about ready to wean.

  Finally she gathered her nerve and blurted out the topic she knew had to be on both their minds.

  “Guillermo, what’s going on? Why aren’t you at the Luna?”

  He scratched his cheek, where the day’s salt-and-pepper stubble already showed. “Did your mother send you?”

  “No,” she confessed. “She told me not to come.”

  “When will you learn to listen to your mama, little girl?”

  “I can’t believe that whatever happened between you two can’t be mended. Think of the history you share! You’ve been running the Luna for years. You have a financial and emotional stake in it. It’s as much yours as Mama’s and you both know it.”

  He said nothing, just sipped his cola and watched a car drive past, and she wanted to scream with frustration.

  For two mature adults, both her mother and her uncle were acting like children having a playground brawl, and for the life of her, she couldn’t understand it.

  “Tío! What is this about? Tell me that much at least. Mama won’t say anything. She just said you fought and she fired you.”

  His dark gaze narrowed over the rim of his soda. “She did not fire me. I quit.”

  “What difference does it make who did what? She’s still over her head trying to run the ranch by herself.”

  A frown flitted across his weathered, handsome features. “She did not find someone to help her yet?”

  Just me. She wanted to say. Me and a sexy, interfering doctor who should mind his own blasted business.

  Instead she only shook her head. “She hasn’t hired anybody yet. She’s got an ad in the paper and a couple of ag job Web sites, but she hasn’t had any takers.”

  “She will find someone. The Luna is a good operation.”

  “It’s a good operation because you built it into one! You’re the one who brought in the Murray Grey’s, who watched the market enough to know when the time would be right for their marbled beef. We all know that. Mama’s just being stubborn.”

  “She is good at that, no?” Though his words were hard, Maggie thought she saw something odd flicker in his eyes at the mention of her mother.

  “I’d say the two of you are about even in that department. Isn’t there anything I can say to change your mind?”

  “Not on this,” he said firmly. “I am not welcome at the Luna now even if I wanted to return, and that is as it should be.”

  “Tío!”

  “No, Lena. I have taken a new job now.”

  “So I hear. I can’t believe it, though. You said you’d never work for one of the Hollywood invaders who are taking over all the good ranch land.”

  “Things change. Mr. Hartford at least wants to raise cattle and not bison.”

  She opened her mouth to argue again, but he held up a hand. “Enough, Lena. Your mother has made her choice. And I have made mine.”

  Choice about what? she wondered, but before she could ask, her uncle quickly changed the subject, asking about her time in Afghanistan before her injury, how her leg was doing, what her plans were now that she’d returned to Pine Gulch.

  Though she tried several times to draw the conversation back to the Luna and her mother, each time Guillermo neatly sidestepped her question until she finally threw up her hands.

  “Okay, I’ve had it with both of you. You both want to throw away a good team, years of history, go right ahead.”

  Her words seemed to distress her uncle, but he didn’t argue with her.

  She stayed for another half hour then took her leave.

  Guillermo hugged her tightly after he had walked her to her car. “You are a good girl, Lena. Take care of your mother and yourself. But don’t forget your old tío.”

  “I won’t,” she assured him.

  “What is between your mother and myself, that is one thing. But you are always welcome on my porch.”

  She smiled, kissed his leathery cheek, then climbed carefully into her Subaru and drove away.

  He had to admit, he had thought she would bail on him.

  Four days later Jake stood at the reception area of his clinic and watched Maggie’s little Subaru SUV pull into the parking lot. The afternoon sunlight shone silver when she swung out a pair of forearm crutches, then leveraged herself onto them and started making her painstaking way toward the door.

  A thick knot of emotions churned through him as he watched her slow approach—awe and respect and a distinctive kind of pride he knew he had no right to feel.

  She wore tan slacks and a crisp white shirt that would have looked severe if not for the turquois-and-silver choker and matching earrings she wore with it.

  She had pulled her thick hair back in a headband, and she looked springy and bright and so beautiful he decided he would have been content to spend the rest of the afternoon just gazing at her.

  Though she wore her prosthesis, she wasn’t putting weight on it, and his mind started racing through all the possible reasons for that. Had she reinjured herself? Was there a problem with the fit?

  He wanted to rush out to help her as she made her cautious way across the parking lot to the clinic, but he managed to restrain himself, though it was just about the toughest thing he’d ever had to do.

  If he made any kind of scene, he had no doubt she would turn around, head back to her car and take off. She didn’t seem to welcome any effort on his part to help her, no matter how well intentioned, so he forced himself to remain at the door.

  At last she reached him.

  “You’re here. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  She frowned. “I may not have been involved in making this stupid deal, but I refuse to be the one to break it, either. My mother gave you her word, and the Cruz family honors its promises.”

  Her implication that his family couldn’t say the same was obvious, but he decided to overlook it for now.

  “Come in. We don’t open for another ten minutes or so. That should give you a few moments to look around.”

  She made a face but moved through the doorway, her shoulder brushing his chest as she hobbled past.

  She smelled divine, like the lavender in his mother’s garden, and he tried to disguise his deep inhalation as a regular breath.

  She paused for a moment, looking around the waiting area of the clinic, and he tried to read her reaction to the changes he’d made since taking over from Doc Whitaker.

  Beyond the obvious cosmetic changes—the new row of windows looking over the mountains, the comfortable furniture with its clean lines—the entire clinic was designe
d to soothe frayed nerves and help patients feel more comfortable.

  A few things hadn’t changed from Doc Whitaker’s time, and one of those was coming around the receptionist counter with a smile.

  “Magdalena, you remember Carol Bass? She’s been the receptionist and dragon at the gate for going on thirty years now.”

  Maggie smiled with delight, and Jake wondered what he would have to do to become the recipient of one of those looks.

  “Of course,” she exclaimed. “I still remember all those cherry lollipops you used to dole out if we didn’t cry during shots.”

  Carol gave Maggie a hearty hug. “I still give them to the kids. Amazing how a litle sugar will take away the worst sting.”

  “I figured that out with my patients in Phoenix. Even the grown kids handle shots better with a little chocolate.”

  Carol returned her smile before her expression grew solemn and she squeezed Maggie’s hand. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you over there, honey. I hope you know how much your service means to all of us here in Pine Gulch.”

  Maggie’s shoulders stiffened and she looked uncomfortable at the sudden direction of the conversation, but she merely smiled. “Thank you. And you should know how much I appreciated the card and flowers you and Dale sent me after I returned stateside. They were so lovely. All the nurses at Walter Reed raved about them. I was very touched that you thought of me.”

  He had sent her flowers, too. Most likely she tossed them when she’d seen his name on the card.

  He caught the bitterness in his thoughts and chided himself. She could do what she wanted with his flowers. He hadn’t sent them to earn her undying appreciation.

  “Of course we thought of you,” Carol answered firmly. “This whole town prayed for you after you were hurt over there. We’re still praying for you, honey.”

  Maggie looked overwhelmed suddenly by Carol’s solicitude, fragile as antique glass, and he gave in to his fierce need to protect her.

  “Why don’t I give you a quick tour before the clinic opens again so you know your way around when the patients start showing up?”