“So...” Grinning, he turned to Val. “You all going out to the ranch for the Fourth?”
At that, the splotches practically glowed. Wasn’t until he caught the pain, however, sharp as broken glass in those bright blue eyes, that he realized how deeply he’d put his foot in it. Because too late he remembered Tomas practically knocking down his door that Fourth of July all those years ago, his own eyes bright, his smile about to split his face in two.
“She said yes, bro! Holy hell, we’re gonna get married!”
“Damn, Val... I’m sorry—”
“Why?” She reached for the baby, tucking Risa’s soft curls under her chin. The way she mothered her girls... Man, that tugged at something deep inside Levi he didn’t know could be tugged. Making him want things he’d had no idea he’d wanted. “Since clearly nobody else gives a rat’s ass how I might feel about it.”
Levi plowed his hands into his fatigues’ pockets. “Well, I do. No, I forgot for a moment, and I really am sorry about that. But you know what? You don’t want to go, just tell everybody else to back off. Whether you do or not, or why, is nobody’s business but yours.”
“But the girls...”
“Their grandparents can take ’em. Or mine. Or me, for that matter, if you trust me that far. But don’t you dare let anybody push you around. Because believe me—I know how that goes.”
* * *
It took a second for Levi’s words to register. And more than the words, what was behind them. Because, once again, he was giving her permission to do what she felt was best for her. Instead of telling her what was best for her.
Pointing out, actually, that she didn’t need anyone’s permission to do—or not do—anything.
“Thank you,” she said.
He looked surprised. “What for?”
“For backing me up.”
“You mean, like friends are supposed to?”
She almost smiled. “Yeah.”
He glanced away, squinting in the late-day sunlight clinging to the mountaintops, cloaking the yard—and the man in front of her—in a peachy gold, bronzing his damp skin, his curls. The T-shirt hugging his broad chest and shoulders. She hadn’t realized how late it’d gotten.
Levi looked back, his eyes landing on the babbling baby slapping Val’s chest. He smiled, then dug his keys out of his pocket.
“I’ll be back tomorrow to set those posts. Josh said he’d come over to help string the fence, since he’s got more experience than me. But as far as the kitchen goes...” His chest expanded with the force of his breath. “It occurs to me I was probably one of those people pushing you to make decisions before you were ready. If so, I apologize. God knows I never liked being pushed, so for me to do the same thing to you...” He shook his head. “So no rush. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
Then, with a nod, he walked around front to his truck, singing softly to himself. Wasn’t until after she heard the roar of the truck’s engine as he pulled away that his last words sank in, that he wasn’t going anywhere. Words she should have found as reassuring as what he’d said about not letting other people push her around.
Instead, she felt as if the rug had been yanked out from underneath her all over again. Because the idea of him sticking around...
Bah.
Chapter Eight
“Mama!”
Val looked at her daughter, hands on hips as she stood in the master bedroom’s doorway, shaking her head.
“What?”
Hands went out, all dramatic-like. “That’s what you wear, like, every day. This is a party! You need to look pretty!”
Gee, thanks, kid, Val thought, as Risa—wobbling on her brand-new sparkly pink sneakers, fistfuls of hobnail bedspread clutched in her vice-like grip—screeched at the kitten trying to take a nap in the center of the bed. Val glanced at the baby, then the mildly pissed cat—whom Josie had finally named Skunk, of all things—before frowning at herself in the banged-up cheval mirror that’d seen who knew how many reflections over the years. Personally, she didn’t see what was wrong with the outfit—jeans, a tank top, a cropped denim jacket for when it cooled off, later on. Dangly earrings. Because, hey. Like Josie said—party. And the only pair of cowboy boots she owned, harking back from before she was married—the first thing she’d purchased with her own money. Deep red leather with, appropriately enough for the occasion, two blue and ivory stripes along the sides and matching stars across the instep.
Because, yes, she was going to the damn fireworks display out on the damn ranch. Not because anybody, or everybody, had bullied her into it, but because, dammit, the weenie wuss routine was not gonna cut it. Although she hadn’t counted on being given a fashion critique by a seven-year-old. Who, Val had to admit, looked totes adorbs in a frilly little flowered dress and embroidered denim jacket and her own cowboy boots. New ones—because her feet would keep growing—that Connie had bought for her.
The cat yawned. The baby laughed. Val sighed. “And what would you suggest I wear?”
“A dress. Duh.”
Now the dog wandered in, giving first Val, then Risa, a sniff before curling up into a ball under the window and immediately passing out.
“You do realize most of the women will be in jeans, right?”
“All I’m saying is that you can do better.” And with that, her daughter marched to the piddly closet, rifled through Val’s even more piddly wardrobe and pulled out the only dress she owned. From the very back of the closet. A dress she’d never worn. Never had the chance.
She knew she should’ve gotten rid of the damn thing.
“And you, young lady, were snooping.”
Kid didn’t even have the courtesy to look guilty. “You never said I couldn’t,” she said matter-of-factly, flipping the dress around like a saleswoman determined to score. The skirt softly flared, beckoning. “This is so pretty.”
Yes, it was. A rare indulgence, ordered online on a whim. Although at least it had been half-off, so not a terrible indulgence. And Val remembered, when she unwrapped it, her moan at how soft the fabric was. How, after she slipped it on, she’d felt as if she were lying in a field of wildflowers, blues and purples, reds and deep pinks and white... How feminine the deep V neckline and cinched waist and floaty skirt had made her feel.
How she’d imagined the look on Tommy’s face when he saw her in it.
Val held her breath, waiting for the ache. The sting of tears. Something.
But...nothing. Not right now, anyway.
“Please try it on, Mama?”
Yeah, back in the Land of the Pushy People, all righty. But how could she say no to her snoopy little girl, who’d plopped down on the old stuffed chair in the corner of the room with her chunky little sister on her lap, calmly explaining to the baby that kitties didn’t much like being screeched at. So Val toed off the boots and wriggled out of her jeans, her hair going all staticky when she tugged off the top—Josie giggled—then slipped on the dress. It floated over her body, weightlessly settling around her bony hips and ribs. Like a lover’s sigh, she thought, her cheeks warming.
“Ohmigosh! You’re so beautiful! Like a princess!”
The spell broken, Val laughed. “Not hardly,” she said, running a comb through her hair before tugging the boots back on.
“You’re gonna wear boots? With that dress?”
“Why not?” Val pointed to her daughter’s feet. “You are.”
“But I’m a kid.”
You were never a kid, Val thought, then said, “Well, too bad. Because tonight I’m wearing cowboy boots with my dress. And this,” she added, slipping the jacket back on and admiring her shabby chic country self in the mirror. It’d been a long time since she’d worn her hair loose, too. She hadn’t even realized how long it’d gotten, nearly to her waist in places. If she had a grain of sense she’d either put it up or at least braid it, but...no. Go big or go home and all that.
Grunting, Josie stood and came up beside her, the baby straddling her hip. Ki
d was a lot stronger than she looked. Like Val was herself, she thought before pulling them both close. One blonde, two brunettes, three rockin’ chicks. “Do the Lopez girls rule, or what?”
Josie grinned, giving Val a glimpse of what she was going to look like in a few years. Also, heart palpitations. “Everybody there is so going to be looking at you!”
Yeah. Just what she wanted.
In the mirror, she saw Josie frown. “What are you doing?”
“It’s a little chilly, don’t you think?” she said, fastening most of the jacket’s silver buttons, and her daughter released a you-are-hopeless sigh.
* * *
His cowboy hat angled against the sinking sun and a longneck dangling from his fingers, Levi propped the heel of one boot up against the massive gnarled trunk of a geriatric cottonwood, watching. Waiting. The air was already beginning to cool in the near-constant breeze rustling the bright green leaves, sending puffs of “cotton” floating across the front yard. More dirt than grass, pretty much like he remembered, but what grass there was was lush in the deep late-day shade.
From a half-dozen grills brought in for the occasion—and overseen by an equal number of people Levi didn’t know—barbecue smoke tangoed with the cottony wisps, the scent reminding him of when he’d cooked up those steaks for Val and him a while back. The sun wouldn’t set for a while, taking the wind with it. But once it did, it’d be a perfect night for fireworks. For other things, too, if one were inclined to let one’s mind drift, like the smoke, in that direction.
Not that he was.
Never mind that, from the moment he’d heard Val and the kids were coming, he hadn’t taken his eyes off the patch of pasture nearest the house, now chock-full of pickups and SUVs. None of ’em hers.
All around him folks milled about, yakking and laughing. Whispering Pines didn’t seem so tiny once you got half the population jockeying for positions at the twenty-five-foot-long food table. And no wonder, considering the endless variety of dishes and casseroles on display, from pulled pork to steaming enchiladas, fried chicken and huge vats of spicy pinto beans, salads and rolls and every kind of dessert you could imagine.
And if the culinary delights weren’t enough, the hacienda’s massive flagstone porch took almost obscene advantage of the incredible view of the Sangre de Cristos, canopied by an endless sky with what people told him was a blazing tangle of purples and oranges and turquoises.
He took a swig of the beer, thinking how weird it was that this had been home for the first eighteen years of his life. How badly he’d wanted to escape. But whatever issues Levi might’ve had with wanting a different life from his father’s, he doubted there was a more beautiful spot on earth. He smiled again, remembering that dinky two-bedroom house in town he and Tomas moved into after graduation, living the mighty fine bachelor life as only a pair of clueless nineteen-year-olds could.
Until Tomas and Val got married, anyway.
Good old Gus wandered over to stand under the tree with Levi, crossing his short arms high over his beach ball belly. Somebody’s dog flounced over, carrying a stick in its mouth. Levi obliged.
“Seems like more people come every year, don’ it?” the housekeeper said, his heavy northern New Mexican Spanish accent losing more end consonants as time went on. “Good thing I wen’ back and bought more hamburger buns. Not to mention hamburgers.”
At one time, the ranch had been all about steaks on the hoof. These days, however, it was a much leaner—and smaller—operation, the property’s resources now devoted to breeding and training champion quarter horses. Even so, for a hundred years, maybe more, town and ranch had been inextricably connected, because Granville Blake—and his predecessors—had seen to it that they were.
Still focused on the makeshift parking lot, Levi smiled. “I remember when you and my mother did most of the cooking yourselves.”
Gus snorted. “Those days, I don’ miss. It was your mother, though, who put the bee in Mr. Gran’s bonnet about turning it into a potluck. Except for the grilling, of course. They getting on okay?” he said, nodding at Levi’s parents, chatting with Zach as he tried to keep tabs on two hyperexcited little boys. He hadn’t seen his brothers much since that dinner—because even in small towns, folks got busy. But they talked. Texted. It was good.
“They are,” Levi said, finally answering Gus’s question. “I heard Dad’s even riding again?”
“Yep, was out last week, in fact...”
But Levi barely heard Gus’s comment, his gaze fixed on a certain old Toyota RAV4 that’d just pulled into the field. And behind that, the same Explorer Tomas learned to drive in more than fifteen years ago. A minute later, everyone disembarked from both vehicles, including Tommy’s grandmother, her black dress shapeless as a garbage bag and nearly as shiny. Smiling, Pete Lopez tucked the old woman’s hand in the crook of his arm before starting toward the house. Connie strapped Risa into a stroller, only to then fuss nonstop as the damn thing bumped and lurched over the uneven pasture.
But it was Val—hauling a half-dozen pie boxes as Josie bounced around, beside, in front of her, constantly yammering—who stole Levi’s breath. The breeze snatched at her loose hair, filmy gold in the slanted sun, then at the hem of her dress, at total odds with the beat-up boots, her worn denim jacket. Then she looked up, her gaze catching in Levi’s, and...
Damn.
Beside him, he heard Gus’s low chuckle. “Gal looks like she could use some help,” he said, walking away.
She wasn’t the only one, Levi thought as he started toward the family, annoyed he couldn’t reach her fast enough, half wanting to turn tail and get the hell out of there. Yes, even after all that waiting—
“Levi!” Her outfit similar to her mother’s, Josie ran over, skinny arms and legs going in a dozen different directions. The arms stopped windmilling long enough to wrap around Levi’s waist, allowing him a whiff of baby shampoo when her head briefly pressed into his stomach. Then she leaned back, grinning, and he thought no fireworks on earth could possibly rival the glittering in those dark eyes. Not to mention the explosions going on inside his head, at how this kid simply liked him for him. No judgment, no expectations.
She grinned, showing off the ridged beginnings of big-girl front teeth. “This is gonna be so much fun, huh?”
“That’s the plan,” he said, and she giggled. And for a moment, Tomas was right here, all that unbridled joy expressed in this elf-child with the sparkling eyes. His heart turning over in his chest, Levi hauled her into his arms, where she threw hers around his neck and kissed his cheek.
Hell. Yep, he was head over heels in love. And damned if those protective feelings didn’t kick in, hard.
“See that man over there in the blue shirt?” he whispered into her curls. “With the bolo tie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s Gus. He knew your daddy really well. Why don’t you go on over, and he’ll hook you up with the best food on the table.”
Josie looked back at Val, who nodded.
“Okay,” she said, sliding down Levi’s leg as he lowered her to the ground before she took off. By now the others had caught up, Tomas’s grandmother snagging his wrist in cool, trembling fingers before pulling him aside. A thousand wrinkles shifted when she smiled, although he caught the censure, too, in those dark eyes.
“You’ve been a bad boy,” Angelita said in Spanish, her soft white curls like the old-fashioned spun-glass angel hair she’d put on her Christmas tree when Tommy and him were kids. “Not coming to see me.” Then she wagged one of those skinny fingers at him, saying in English, “I should strip you of your honorary grandson status.”
“And you’d have every right. I’m sorry—”
Lita winked. “And I’m sure you have better things to do than spend time with an old woman, no?” Her gaze slid to Val, crouched in front of the stroller as she tried to calm a fussy Risa, before coming to rest back on Levi. “I miss my Tomas so much,” she said with a long sigh, and Levi gently t
ugged her to his side, like she used to do with him when he was a kid. Of course, she used to swat him, too, when he’d been naughty. Because sometimes love hurts, she used to say.
Wasn’t that the truth?
“We all do,” he said.
She sighed again, then motioned for him to lean down so she could kiss his cheek, only to make a face.
“You need to shave,” she said, then toddled off to rejoin the family...and Levi finally met Val’s questioning gaze. And, oh, yeah, reached for the pies.
“Let me get those for you—”
“No, I’m good—”
“For godssake, Val,” Connie said, grunting as she shoved the stroller over another bump on the ground. “Let the man help you!”
Levi grinned. Casually. Like his heart wasn’t about to hammer right out of his chest, for reasons only partly influenced by how hot Val looked in that crazy getup. “You heard the woman. Hand ’em over.”
With an eye-roll worthy of her daughter, Val complied. Only to then cross her arms as if she had no idea what to do with her hands. “Just so you know,” she said so only he could hear, “I’m not here because anybody bullied me into it.”
“Didn’t think you were.” He paused, partly to gather his thoughts, partly to get a stronger bead on her scent, something musky and flowery that had rattled those thoughts to begin with. “But I’m glad you are.” He glanced down at her, walking beside him, her arms all tight against her ribs and a frown dug into her forehead, and he wished like hell he could make it better. “For Josie’s sake, if nothing else. But for yours, too.”
She didn’t say anything for a second. Then, looking straight ahead, she said, “Why for me?”
“Same reason I’m here, I suppose. To nudge us both back to feeling normal again.”
Another pause. “Thought you said that wasn’t even possible.”
“I think we owe it to Tommy to at least try, right?” They’d reached the veranda by now, where Levi shifted things around on the table’s dessert end to make room for the pies. Trying not to read too much into her silence, he opened the first box, nearly falling over from the heady scent. “What are these?”
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