Kissed by a Rancher

by Sara Orwig

  “I don’t plan to marry him or want to. Right now I stand by my decision about us, and anyway, you’re really busy with work.”

  “That’s the truth. We’ll talk this spring, but if you change your mind and want to go out, call me.”

  “Thanks, Lamont. I will. I need to relieve Justin,” she added, starting toward the front. Lamont walked beside her. He would look at the problem from all angles he could think of and then draw his conclusion and tell her.

  He sighed and shifted. “Perhaps you’re right and we should go out with others for a while.”

  “I think it’s a good idea,” she said.

  “Beckett single men don’t ask you out because they know we date. Once they see me out with someone else, they’ll start asking you out. Also, most everyone in town knows you’ve been to New York with a man from Dallas.”

  She smiled at him. “I’m not eager to go out with other men in town.”

  “Maybe not,” he replied, looking distracted. “Abby, don’t forget that I’m around if you want to talk. We’re friends, no matter what.”

  “Yes, we are,” she said, hurting and trying to be careful what she said. “That’s nice, Lamont, and I value your friendship.” Impulsively, she brushed a light kiss on his cheek. “Go back to your work and we’ll talk again later.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. “I guess I should have done more, maybe taken you less for granted.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. I think this will be better for you, too.”

  “Perhaps,” he said cautiously. “Take care.” Lamont left her in the lobby as he went out the front door. In that moment, she was more certain than ever that she would never marry Lamont. Had she fallen in love with Josh so much that she would never love any other man? Was this a love for a lifetime? She thought of the old legend of kissing in the heart-shaped shadow. She had never really believed in it and still didn’t, but in her life, it might come true. It wouldn’t be true for Josh.

  When her phone buzzed, she saw Josh was calling again. She still didn’t want to talk yet. She hurt and if she talked to him, she felt he would realize her unhappiness. She didn’t want him to. In a couple of hours, she would get back into her routine and be better able to handle talking to him.

  Maybe she would get over him much sooner than she thought because she had just told him goodbye today. By the time a week passed, she might feel better about everything and able to think about telling Josh goodbye without any sadness.

  Right now that didn’t seem possible. He wanted to talk to her, so he must feel something—lust came to mind. He didn’t feel anything else or he would never have asked her to live with him and travel with him.

  * * *

  Josh put away his phone. He couldn’t concentrate on catching up on emails and text messages because Abby wouldn’t pick up. He had talked to Benny and knew she was back at the inn. No matter how busy she was, she would normally answer her phone, so the only reason for no answer had to be that she didn’t want to talk to him.

  Surprising himself, he already missed her. He had had various women in his life, affairs, some lasting longer than others, but he couldn’t recall ever missing any woman the way he missed Abby. Even though he couldn’t get her out of his mind, he had to because there was no future for them. She had made that clear before she boarded the plane. He wondered if she wanted marriage—somehow he suspected he might have gotten the same flat refusal if he had proposed marriage. It wouldn’t have been with anger, though. She had been annoyed by being asked to move in with him.

  He didn’t know why it surprised her or why it angered her. Even if she didn’t want to move in, she should have understood why he asked her. She should have been pleased that he liked her enough to ask. He never had understood Abby, and he still didn’t. As simple as her life was, she was in many ways a mystery to him.

  He needed to get his mind back on his business and forget her. Impatiently he pulled a stack of papers in front of him, looked at his calendar and swore. He picked up the first paper to read, forgetting about Abby.

  She was out of his thoughts about fifteen minutes, until he recalled making love with her.

  “Dammit, Abby,” he whispered. How could she permeate his thoughts and life to such an extent? He could not have fallen in love, and Abby was definitely not the woman for him. She would never reciprocate any love from him except on a physical level, and she had ended that as swiftly as it had begun. “Dammit,” he repeated in the empty office. He suspected she would not go out with him again, which was unique in his experience with women. It annoyed him now because he wanted to see her.

  He shook his head. “Get a grip, Calhoun,” he told himself. He should forget her and go on with life. They’d had a weekend. A month from now, it would be nothing except a dim memory. He was not in love with her. It would not do him any good if he was. He ran through the reasons again. He bent over papers on his desk to focus on work. Thirty minutes later, he realized he was staring into space, wondering whether Abby could work without thinking about him.

  Nine

  Abby’s mother wanted to see her pictures from New York, so Abby copied all her photos to her laptop and then deleted from her phone the ones with Josh, leaving only the most obvious tourist pictures.

  She headed next door and found her mom in the kitchen peeling potatoes for dinner. “Have a seat. Grandma is at her friend Imogene’s house. Imogene’s son came by and picked up your grandmother since she hasn’t been able to get out for so long. She will be back in a couple of days.”

  Abby gave her mother a light squeeze around the waist. “Let me help you. You sit and I’ll peel.”

  “No, I’m through and ready for a break,” she said, dumping a bowl of peeled potatoes into a slow cooker that had the delicious aroma of a cooking roast.

  “That smells so good. It makes me want to go back and change my menu for tonight,” she said, watching her mother put a lid on the cooker, then wash and dry her hands.

  “Did you have a good time in New York and at the ranch?”

  “I had a wonderful time. I saw so many sights. I brought you something,” she said, handing her mother a package wrapped in white paper and tied in blue ribbon.

  “How nice. Let’s get a cup of tea and sit while I open this.”

  “When she gets back, I have something for Grandma, too,” Abby said.

  Her mother opened her present and raised the lid on a box to find a sterling necklace. “Abby, it’s beautiful. I love it. Thank you.” She smiled at her daughter. “Now I want to hear about the trip and see pictures.”

  “I had a wonderful time,” she said again. “I had a suite in the new hotel. Look at my pictures and I’ll show you where I went.” She spent the next hour talking to her mother about her trip. Finally she put away her phone and stood. “I’d better get back.”

  “You don’t think you’ll see Josh again?” her mother asked.

  Abby shook her head. “No, there wasn’t anything between us. He just asked me because I’d never been anywhere and he was going anyway. Also, as I told you, he asked because he was grateful to me for letting him stay at the B and B the night of the blizzard. I think this whole trip was a thank you for that,” she said, trying to make light of Josh’s attention.

  Her mother studied her as they walked to the back door and stepped outside. “You really don’t think you’ll see him again?”

  “No, I won’t. It was just a special trip, Mom—what I said before, there isn’t anything between us.”

  “I’m glad you had a good time, and I’m glad you’re not in love with him, honey. I think that’s for the best.”

  “I agree. I’ll see you tomorrow. Thanks again for covering for me while I was gone.”

  She hurried back to the inn to take over the front desk. Josh had stopped calling, and she wasn’
t surprised. She didn’t expect to hear any more from him.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon the first Friday in April, Abby looked at her reflection in the mirror. She wore navy slacks and a matching navy blouse. Her hair was parted and fell around her face. Her mother had covered the front while she had bought groceries, and she went to the front desk to relieve her mother.

  No one was in the lobby. She heard a television and someone on the piano in the living room. She went to her room and pulled out her phone to look at the old, unreturned calls from Josh. She deleted all of them and sat browsing through the New York pictures on her phone. Josh wasn’t in them, but she could see him in every one of them.

  She didn’t know about her future. Right now she just wanted to forget Josh Calhoun and go on with her life.

  She would rather stay in her room and not have to talk to everyone, but she should relieve her mom, so she placed her phone in a dresser drawer and went to find her mother.

  She found her in the living room and walked with her to the lobby. As her mother slipped into her coat, she said, “Josh Calhoun called you. I can see why you enjoyed going to New York with him.”

  “He’s nice.”

  “He was very friendly, and we talked awhile. He told me he was sorry he didn’t get to meet me and Grandma, because he’d heard a lot about us. He said it had been a lifesaver for you to let him stay during the blizzard.”

  “Josh can be charming, Mom. I won’t deny that.”

  “He asked me to tell you that he called.”

  “Thanks. It’s not important.”

  Her mother let out a long sigh as she frowned. “Abby, maybe I was wrong in being worried. Not all charming men are like your father. Don’t be too influenced by the past. Josh seems to want to talk to you very much.”

  “Maybe, Mom, but I don’t want to move in with him.”

  Her mother’s brows arched. “If that’s what he wants, then I’m glad you’re not talking to him. That you don’t need. Call me when you want me to cover again. If I can’t, I’ll tell you.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” she said, kissing her mother’s cheek as she hugged her lightly.

  She followed her mother out and watched until she went inside next door. Then Abby went to her room. Tonight the guests would just have to be on their own or come get her because she didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  The phone extension rang in her room, and she picked it up. She talked with Colleen Grimes, her best friend, for a long time. It was a relief to tell Colleen a bit about Josh as well as breaking it off with Lamont. She was closer in some ways to Colleen than anyone else. Her sister was young, so her views of some things were not the same as Abby’s, but she and Colleen had grown up knowing each other and had been best friends since first grade. They talked for almost an hour until she finally told Colleen goodbye.

  She could hear her cell phone ringing in the drawer. She had heard it once when she talked to Colleen. After it stopped, she crossed the room to turn it off. Her mother would call on the inn’s phone if she needed her. Otherwise, Abby couldn’t think of any call she would want to take.

  That night she didn’t sleep much but lay in the dark, recalling being in Josh’s arms, kissing him, making love. She couldn’t forget the fun and laughter they had shared. She wouldn’t even think about traveling with him and what that life would be like, because it would never happen.

  It was almost dawn when she fell into a restless sleep that was filled with dreams of Josh.

  When she stirred in the morning, she felt groggy. She thought of her night and of Josh, wondering when he would stop calling and start forgetting her.

  * * *

  She spent the next week trying to immerse herself in work. Signs of spring finally began to appear even though late this year. With spring, their business picked up with guests who traveled once the weather improved.

  Josh had stopped calling, and she wondered if he had already started seeing someone else. She guessed that he usually had a woman in his life. Some probably longer and more important than others. No matter how much she hurt thinking about him, she couldn’t stop remembering and wondering about him.

  With the passing of another week, she didn’t feel one degree less drawn to Josh. Actually, the hurt seemed to increase with each day instead of diminishing, but she still assumed that after a bit more time, it would fade until it was gone and he was an unimportant memory.

  She hoped that’s what would happen. Josh had stopped calling, so she assumed he was moving on with his life, and she felt certain he had stopped thinking about her or wanting to see her. She expected to get over Josh eventually and just have the wonderful memories of New York.

  She busied herself baking a cake and a pie for tomorrow. When she went to her room, she sat at her computer. She went through and wiped out all the pictures with Josh, which were already gone from her phone. As she did, she was unable to keep from crying. Josh was out of her life. Even if he wanted to see her again, she wouldn’t because it would just mean more hurt, but she knew he was gone for good when his calls stopped.

  In spite of keeping busy, she still couldn’t keep Josh out of her thoughts. Who was he taking out this weekend?

  * * *

  It was the last Friday in April, and Josh struggled to pay attention to what was happening around him. He was in the executive meeting room at his brother Jake’s Dallas office for a board of directors meeting.

  Hands went up and he had no idea what he was voting on, but fortunately, it looked as if it would be unanimous. Even though he tried to focus on what was being said, in minutes his thoughts drifted to Abby. He wanted to see her again, and he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t at least talk to him on the phone. What harm could that be?

  His own actions puzzled him. He had never pursued a woman who obviously didn’t want him in her life. Never before Abby. He just couldn’t forget her.

  The meeting was adjourned, and he remained in his seat. He was going to lunch with Jake. He didn’t know who else from the board would go with them to eat, and he hoped he could pay more attention through lunch and get Abby out of his thoughts.

  One by one, the others left the meeting room until the sole person left was Jake, who looked at him.

  “We’re the only ones going to lunch?” Josh asked.

  “Yes. Everyone else had something to do.”

  Josh stood. “Okay. I’m ready to go. What’s the deal with Mike? I never heard another thing from you about seeing him and Savannah when they return from their honeymoon.”

  “They’re taking longer on their honeymoon because Scotty is doing fine and very happy staying with Lindsay. He loves his aunt Lindsay and doesn’t want to leave. Then we’ll keep him for a couple of nights, so Mike and Savannah are getting an extended honeymoon. I’ll have a family dinner when they come back. The minute I have a possible date for the dinner, I’ll send a text to everyone and let all of you know.”

  “Very good.”

  They left Jake’s office building and walked down the street to the restaurant where they usually ate. After they had ordered hamburgers, Jake studied Josh. “Are you having business problems?”

  “No. What makes you ask that? Things couldn’t be going better—well, I guess they could be better, but they’re plenty okay right now. No complaints. Financially, if the way this year has started is any indication, this is going to be a very good year.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “Why the question?”

  “You didn’t know what was going on in that meeting today.”

  “Now, how do you know that?”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m your brother, remember? I’ve known you a long time. I know when your thoughts are somewhere else, and they were really somewhere else—not much like you in a business meeting.”
<
br />   “Guess I was just thinking about a small chain of boutique hotels that has been presented to me at work as a good buy. My staff thinks I need to make a decision soon if I really want this. We don’t usually deal with boutique hotels—it’s a new concept to me. I just want to know what I’m getting into.”

  “I’d think your staff could handle that.”

  “They can, but I’ve been thinking about it. You had a good meeting today.”

  “I hate to say I’m going to profit out of marrying Madison, but so far, all indications are that her land is going to be lucrative for drilling.”

  “You don’t know yet, but I’m glad it’s looking that way.”

  “You never count on anything until it’s absolutely signed, sealed and delivered and completely done,” Jake said with a smile.

  “It’s paid off to be cautious. As for Madison, she’ll be as happy as you are if you’re right about her land. She knows that isn’t why you married her.”

  “That’s right.” They ate in silence for a few minutes until Jake set down his water glass. “How was your trip to New York? I know you didn’t go for a hotel opening.”

  Josh smiled. “No, I didn’t, and it was fun.”

  “Ah, so are you seeing the B and B owner regularly now?”

  “No, I’m not. It was fun and it’s over. She isn’t exactly my type, but she was nice and she’d never been anywhere, so I took her to New York.”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m not going to ask any more. I’d better get back to the office. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah, I am, and I’ll get the check this time.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Jake said.

  They walked back to Jake’s office, where Josh told him goodbye, got in his car and drove to his office. He was busy the rest of the afternoon and finally drove home after five. He worked out, swam and ate leftovers even though there were casseroles in the refrigerator for him. A lot of the time he thought about Abby until he grabbed his phone and called one of the women he considered a good friend. He asked her out for the following night. The minute he finished the call, he regretted it because he didn’t really want to go out with any woman except Abby.