“Or I could escort you to tomorrow’s meeting of the Tuesday Night Margarita Club. I understand that’s one way to hit them all at once.”
“They told you about that, huh?”
He shrugged. “Lucy mentioned it. More along the lines of there will be husbands and fiancés in the bar, so if I wanted to meet someone I wouldn’t be interested in dating, I should drop by and she’d provide the introductions.”
“They’re all really nice guys—a rancher or two, some soldiers. Guys you’d have stuff in common with.” Though she suspected he could find something in common with every single person in Tallgrass. You know cows? So do I. You like to shoot? I’m a great shot. You’ve driven through Kansas? So have I. And the one everyone could answer positively: You like food? Me, too. No matter where he went, no matter how short a time he stayed, the man had never met a stranger.
That was not a bad thing to say about someone.
With a nod that it was settled—health willing—Elliot closed the door, then circled the truck to climb in. She gave him a chance to pull out of the driveway and onto the street heading out of the apartment complex before a thought occurred to her from earlier. “Where have you been staying since you got into town?”
A muscle in Elliot’s jaw quirked, and he took his time slowing to a complete stop at the main street, even though there was only a Yield sign. After a moment, he glanced at her. “There’s a great campground out at Tall Grass Lake, and the backseat is pretty comfortable once I move all the stuff out of it.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the boxes and duffel bags, a laundry basket, boots on one floorboard, Stetson turned on its crown on the highest stack of boxes. He’d been living in his truck. She imagined Mouse got to sleep wherever she wanted, except on the Stetson, and everything else just got shifted around to suit Elliot’s current need: home or vehicle.
When she turned forward again, she caught a glimpse of the flush on his cheeks. He should know she didn’t feel sorry for him. It didn’t lessen her opinion of him one bit. She’d been extraordinarily blessed that her boss had kept her on the payroll and that Scott’s life insurance was invested and earning interest to help her if she ever became fully disabled. Finding jobs could be tough. Getting a new start required money, and until a person got that money coming in, he did what he had to do.
“When Scott and I got married, after we rented an apartment and paid deposits on utilities and everything, we had about two hundred bucks left over that wasn’t already set aside for something. Originally we didn’t plan on having a honeymoon, but we both had paydays coming up in a couple weeks, so we splurged. We loaded some clothes in backpacks and climbed on the back of his motorcycle and took off.
“I was a city girl. Did I mention that? I’d lived my whole life in Jacksonville. When he said we’d camp out at night so our money would go further, I thought it sounded great. And it was the first night. The second night I couldn’t find a single spot on the ground big enough for my butt that didn’t have rocks sticking up. The third night we got three inches of rain in three hours.” She’d been so miserable that she’d cried that night, though Scott had never known. She’d worked hard to keep the quaver out of her voice and to pretend the tears were raindrops.
“The next day we stopped at the next town and bought a cheap little tent with walls and a floor. When it rained again, we zipped ourselves inside and…” She blew out her breath and made a show of fanning herself. After a moment, she added reverently, “Damn, I loved that tent.”
Elliot was grinning when she looked at him again, all hints of his flush gone. “There’s nothing wrong with close quarters when you’ve got someone to share them with.”
“Or when you have a plan. You know, my mother used to talk about how she was going to move to New York when the time was right, when she had enough money to just make the move and not worry about getting a job right away. But the time was never right, she never stopped spending every dollar she got her hands on, and as far as I know, she’s still living in Florida dreaming. Too many people are like that. They never take chances. They stay where they have a bed and a job, no matter how much they hate it, and they wish for something better, but they never try to make those wishes come true. They just can’t take a chance.”
Elliot’s expression turned serious. “You take chances, don’t you, Fia?”
“Since I was fifteen.” She thought about it a moment, then admitted, “Sometimes they bite me on the ass. Most of the time, though, life is good.” Gazing out the side window as buildings passed in a blur, she whispered again, this time with gratitude, “Life is good.”
* * *
If Dillon had been given the chance to pick a worse time to have company, he didn’t think he could have chosen any better than Monday evening, when Jessy told him Cadence and her aunt were on their way out. He’d been up since dawn, had a throb on his calf where a horse had kicked him, had smashed his index and middle fingers with a wrench, and still hadn’t heard from BB. He was sweaty, dirty, tired, hungry, and stank to high heaven. On top of that, the chief cook—Jessy—had announced that she and Dalton were going to Walleyed Joe’s for dinner and hustled his brother out the door. Now he had to entertain company and scrounge up his own dinner.
He breathed deeply, splashed water from the laundry room sink over his face, and dried it on paper towels as the sound of a vehicle on the drive filtered through the open windows. He wouldn’t care if it was just Cadence, though no aunt in her right mind would leave her teenage niece in the care of a disreputable cowboy, and even if she were willing, he wouldn’t let her. What kind of nightmare could that turn into?
Boots echoing on the wood floor, he went out the back door again—Jessy had stricter rules than his mother about wearing boots inside the house. His dog, Oliver, a big-eyed mutt, trotted over to follow him around the house while Dalton’s mutt, Oz, stayed sprawled where he was under the oak.
The SUV parked beside his pickup had been spotless before the short drive on the gravel road. It made his truck, older than he was, look even filthier in comparison. He depended on rain to rinse off the worst of the dirt. Jessy teased that if he actually washed it, he’d find that the grime and tree sap were the only things holding it together.
Cadence and Marti had wandered over to the corral, leaning on the wood fence. The girl was about to vibrate out of her skin, her weight shifting from foot to foot. The woman stood tall and still. She wore shorts but not in the way every other woman he knew wore shorts. Short, rumpled, comfortable, or meant to impress—that was what he was used to. Marti’s were longer than most, made of some material that had to be expensive, and honest to God looked starched and creased. Her shirt was black, short-sleeved, clung to her breasts and her middle, and he would bet next month’s paycheck that it was softer than anything he’d ever touched.
He’d bet Marti was, too.
Cadence noticed him first, a smile stretching across her face. “Mr. Smith! They’re so pretty!”
He glanced from her to the horses grazing across the way. To his mind, paints and palominos were the best of a beautiful animal. He’d rodeoed on one and now raised the other, and there wasn’t another animal in the world he’d rather spend his time with.
Unless he counted humans in that bunch. Then he could think of one. Six years old, round little face, dark eyes, and hair that in summer had turned the silvery golden shade of the palominos’ coats. Lilah.
Rubbing restlessly at the ache in his gut, he stopped next to Cadence and whistled. Every horse’s ears pricked, a few slowly continuing to munch but the rest bolting into motion. The drumming hooves of the most distant ones who reached a full gallop made the air shimmer and did something of the same inside him. Ever since he was a kid, the sound of horses’ hooves pounding the ground had filled him with awe. The only thing better was when he was hearing it from the saddle instead of the fence.
“Oh my gosh, they’re incredible,” Cadence whispered. The horses crowded close, jostling e
ach other for position as she stroked one velvety muzzle, then another. When one nuzzled her palm, looking for treats, she laughed delightedly. “Oh, I’ve missed you guys.”
Dillon walked along the fence line to the corner post, where Jessy had left a bucket of apple and cinnamon flavored horse treats. He passed it to Marti, who handed it to Cadence, and she immediately popped the top off. He and Marti watched them feed for a couple of moments in silence,
A light breeze blew across the pasture, bringing with it the fragrant scents of new growth, flowering fruit trees, and horse manure. From a source much closer, he smelled sunshine and rain and ocean waves, fresh-picked strawberries and just-mown hay, favorite meals and favorite memories. Damn, Marti Levin smelled exactly like all the good things in life.
She glanced his way. “Thanks for the offer.”
There’d been a time when he would have tried to charm her and probably succeeded. Now his first impulse was to grunt and leave it at that. The fact that she was Jessy’s friend, though, forced him to reply. “No problem.”
“I was crazy about the beach when I was her age. When I had to stay away for more than a few days, the next time I went, I threw myself to the sand and tried to hug every single grain.”
That was a difficult image to form. He’d figured she’d been every bit as proper and elegant as a child as she was now, always cool and in control of her world. A carefree, beach-loving kid just didn’t compute. But life had interfered. Her husband had died far younger than he should have. Like Dillon, she’d lost dreams.
Even cool, controlled, elegant people could lose dreams.
She was tall, only a few inches shorter than him, and if the glare of the setting sun bothered her, she didn’t let it show. She’d tucked sunglasses into her hair instead of covering her eyes with them. Her hands were bare of jewelry, no treasured wedding ring, no bracelet or watch. The outline in her hip pocket of a cell phone made the watch unnecessary, and if she was like the rest of the margarita club, she didn’t need jewelry to remind her of the person she loved most.
As the horses kept pushing each other out of the way, Cadence kept moving down the fence in an effort to give each one attention.
“The first time I saw the ocean…” Dillon’s voice sounded gritty, like he hadn’t talked to anyone all day, when sometimes it seemed all he did was to talk—to Oliver and Oz, to the horses and the cows, to Jessy. Not so much to Dalton, but maybe that would change.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t think I moved for twenty-four hours. I’d just left home a few months before and followed the rodeo circuit to San Diego. It was an amazing sight after riding my way across West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California desert.”
Marti smiled faintly. “I grew up five miles from the beach back East. My friends and I lived there, even in winter when the ocean was moody and cold.” After a moment, she stated, “You were gone a long time.”
Everyone in town who’d ever known the Smith family knew that. It had been Jessy who’d reconnected him with his family—or rather, Oliver, the stray dog she’d been walking who’d adopted Dillon the instant he’d seen him. He was grateful to her for that and a lot of other things. He loved her for it—though, thank God, not in a romantic sort of way. He and Dalton had enough issues between them already.
“I thought I was looking for something.” The admission surprised him. He never talked to anyone about his leaving.
“Did you find it?”
He rested his forearms on the top rail of the fence, clasped his hands together, and shook his head. “Turned out, I was just running away from something else.” The honesty surprised him even more.
That brought Marti’s clear, sharp gaze to his face. He knew what she saw. The impassive expression he wore most of the time wasn’t just an expression. It was him. The day he’d woken up after the accident, he’d found everything inside him frozen in place: the emotion, the regret, the anger, the self-hatred. He’d stayed that way through the trial, through the months in prison, through the months since his release. He could still hurt. He could be grateful for small things. He could laugh. He could even love again, as Jessy, Oliver, and Oz had proven.
He just couldn’t get rid of that frozen knot inside him.
“Have you made peace with it?”
That wasn’t a concept he had much familiarity with. For as long as he could remember, he’d felt different—thought about different things, wanted different things. When he was riding the rodeos, drinking, and partying with all the pretty girls, he’d thought that was what he wanted. Then he’d met Tina and found some measure of satisfaction there. Lilah had deepened it before prison had ripped it right out of him.
Now he didn’t know what he wanted or even what he needed. Whatever it was, he was pretty sure he didn’t deserve it.
He didn’t have to find out how long Marti would have let the silence drag out because Cadence came back to them, a short line of horses following her. “You’ve got the best job in the world, Mr. Smith, taking care of these girls.”
He smiled at her enthusiasm. He had to admit, his job was one of the things right about his life now. He’d missed these pastures and woods, the house, the barn, the creek way out back. “Do me a favor. Call me Dillon.”
Cadence’s gaze darted to her aunt, who nodded, then back to him. “When I e-mail Mom, I’m going to tell her that instead of college, I’ve decided to become a rancher. That will make her freak.”
“Add that you’re learning barrel racing so you can win one of those great big belt buckles to wear when you get back home,” Marti suggested. “That’ll make her hair catch fire.” They both laughed easily, their eyes crinkling the same way, their laughs full and indelicate. Not quite what he’d expected.
He suspected much about Marti Levin might not be what he’d expected. And she seriously did smell like everything good. He really needed to get himself a bottle of that.
Maybe even two.
* * *
Elliot liked the first day of every job he’d ever had, with the exception of the Army, when he’d been scared snotless that he wouldn’t live up to his family’s, the training cadre’s, and his own expectations. Prairie Harts was no exception. He’d spent the morning making bread, steering clear of the professional mixers with their dough hooks and doing it the way Grandma had taught him, kneading by hand. It had been a long time since he’d made bread, but the instant he’d dug his fingers into the sticky mass, it had all come back to him: the hours he’d spent learning the right “feel” for every different bread they made, the smells, the texture, the rising, the baking, the tasting.
After work, he’d gone to one of the apartment complexes Fia had shown him last night and laid down the first month’s rent plus a deposit for a good-sized studio apartment. It came unfurnished except for the Murphy bed that folded out of a closet, but hey, he and Mouse didn’t need much else. The building was old, brick and stone, erected in the 1930s, recently remodeled but retaining its gracefully shabby air, and the price was within his budget. He liked gracefully shabby.
Leaving Mouse asleep on the bed, he picked up his keys, wallet, and Stetson and headed to the truck. The margarita girls liked to get an early start on their evening, and given that he had to be at work at 4 a.m., he was going to have an early end to his.
When he arrived at Fia’s duplex, she was sitting on the stoop, face tilted back to catch a few rays from the setting sun. She was…
Instead of trying to narrow it to one word, he gave a heavy, happy sigh.
She would have gotten in by herself, but with a reminder that his mama didn’t raise him that way, he loped around the truck, opened the door, and helped her climb up. In exchange, he got a close-up view of gorgeous legs and muscles and, beneath the shift of flowy fabric, just a hint of the nice, sweet curve of her hip.
“Good day?” she asked.
“Damn good day.” When he climbed behind the steering wheel again, he repeated the question. “Good day?”
&nbs
p; She raised her hand and made a so-so gesture. When she didn’t elaborate, he kept himself from pressing for more. “So tell me who I’m going to meet tonight,” he said instead.
Her expression lightened. “There’s Carly. She’s married to Dane, who was Airborne, and found out a few weeks ago that she’s pregnant. And Therese, who’s married to Keegan, who was a medic. Between them, they’ve got three kids and are thinking about a fourth. Ilena married a pediatrician last Christmas. Her son will be one next month, and I’m one of his many godmothers. We spoil him rotten.”
“As godmothers should.”
“You know Patricia and Lucy, of course. There’s also Marti. Her husband and Lucy’s were good friends, and they were killed in the same battle. Jessy’s our Southern belle—red-haired, green-eyed, makes every man within a hundred yards look twice—and she’s married to Dalton, who has a ranch outside town. His brother Dillon comes, too, sometimes. Bennie comes when her classes allow. She married Calvin just before he got out of the Army and got pregnant immediately. She’s not going to wait too long the way she did with her first husband. None of them are.”
After a moment’s reflection, she went on, “That’s all of our regular group, but there are ten to fifteen others who come when they have the chance.”
Elliot turned east onto Main Street. The margarita club met at The Three Amigos, the Mexican restaurant in the strip mall where he and Fia had run into each other last Friday night. “What about you and Scott? Did you wait too long?”
“We didn’t wait for anything,” she replied with a laugh. “We traded phone numbers the first night we met, had sex the second night, and were married within a month. We didn’t need to date a long time or have a year-long engagement to know we were meant to be together.”
He was silently agreeing with her, that sometimes a person just knew, when she glanced at him. “Does it bother you? When I talk like that about Scott? I mean, when you and I are…” Again, she made that wig-wag motion with her hand.
A Summer to Remember Page 11
