She made a funny face at him.
But that's just the kind of guy he was. He drove the same truck for ten years. Worked at the same job he'd had in high school—although with vastly different responsibilities now. Loved the same woman for a good twelve years.
Yeah, he was a little stubborn.
Her dog was standing stiffly, nose pointed up slightly, and Ashley looked like she might be inclined to back away.
"What's the matter?"
"Atlas got a hit on your truck," she said, like he ought to know what that meant. "Do you have something illegal in there? Drugs, bomb-making supplies?"
She looked so serious that he laughed. "Real funny."
"Look at him." She jerked her chin toward the dog. "He smells something."
"Yeah, something good." Ryan reached over the side of the truck bed and pulled out a plastic bag he'd tucked down there.
Ashley looked like she wanted to bolt, but her eyes were glued to his hands as he unwrapped… a couple of foil-wrapped treats.
"They're pumpkin dog biscuits—basically pumpkin and molasses," he told her, crouching down to the dog's level and offering one on the flat of his hand.
The dog looked back at her, its tail wagging a slow whuff through the air.
She still looked skeptical.
"I baked them myself."
She nodded to the dog, who zoomed forward and took the thing before Ryan had even registered the slide of its tongue across his palm.
"Thought I might need a bribe for your partner here."
When he tilted his head back so he could get a clear view of her face without the brim of his Stetson in his way, she was looking at him like he'd told her he was an alien from another planet.
Like she didn't understand him at all.
Maybe she never had.
He gave the second biscuit to the dog, who snarfed it down in two bites. Ryan stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans.
Ashley was looking into the truck bed, eyes focused on the extra-large dog crate he'd borrowed from the store. He'd secured it in the back of the truck with numerous industrial-strength bungee cords.
Then she looked back at him like she still couldn't figure him out. Her eyes narrowed in on his chest.
"Are you wearing…?" She started to say something, and then her voice faded out. "You don't still…?"
"Work for your parents?" he finished for her. He'd left directly from work and hadn't changed out of his T-shirt that bore the logo for the feed store. Did she really not know? He was surprised her parents hadn't mentioned him—or maybe Ashley had steered the conversation away from him if it ever came up.
Her expression turned chagrined, like she was embarrassed she'd asked or embarrassed for him, but he wasn't ashamed of it.
"Did you read any of my letters?" he asked.
"What letters?" She said the words flippantly, and for a moment, he wondered if something had gone wrong and somehow he'd sent all those letters to someone else.
But her hand tightened on the leash, her knuckles flashing white.
Why would she lie? Maybe she didn't want to talk about it right now.
"I do still work at the feed store," he said. He worked to keep his voice easy and his expression mellow—he wasn't looking to scare her off by pushing too hard. "I'm the manager now."
"Hmm."
Oh, that sound! Like she had something else to say. "What?" he asked.
"I thought… seems like I heard you'd dropped out of college, too."
This time he had to work to make himself sound easy and relaxed. Not to grind his back teeth. "I guess not everybody's cut out be a traditional student."
She hadn't really asked a question, and he didn't correct her.
Maybe she really hadn't gotten his letters. In them, he'd told her all about switching from a full-time student to a non-traditional night student, taking only part time classes. Back when her dad had started having a hard time keeping things straight at the store.
Was that really how she saw him? A deadbeat in the same job he'd had since high school, a college dropout?
If so, he didn't sound like the kind of guy that would attract someone as smart and well-traveled as Ashley. If he was going to win her, he had his work cut out for him.
And how was he going to tell her everything he'd done for her family while she'd been overseas? He sure wasn't about to go bragging. But she was a smart cookie.
Once she started seeing things around the feed store, she'd understand. He hoped.
And then what about her parents' farmland? Would she understand why he'd leased it? That was another situation entirely, separate from the feed store. Maybe he'd better wait to bring it up.
"You want the dog in the back or up front?" he asked.
She looked at him with her eyes somewhat narrowed. Maybe he'd surprised her in some way by not arguing or being embarrassed about who he was. He didn't know.
"It's pretty hot out. He'd probably prefer the A/C," she murmured.
Ryan shrugged. "Fine by me. Means you'll have to sit in the center. Next to me," he added, in case she didn't get what he meant.
He quickly loaded up her boxes and bags, securing the whole thing with a few more ties, since they'd be on the interstate.
She and the dog were already in the cab when he got back from returning the luggage cart, and it wasn't Ashley's sweet-smelling breath that hit him in the face when he slid into the driver's seat.
The huge shepherd sat in the middle seat. On his haunches, he was easily as tall as Ryan seated. And although he panted in an easy doggie smile, it wasn't exactly who Ryan wanted to snuggle up to.
Ryan leaned around the dog to shoot her a disbelieving look.
She smiled a ghost of a smile.
Ah well. Maybe winning her smile was worth sitting next to the monster of a dog all the way back to Redbud Trails. As long as it didn't bite.
#
Ryan had to be the most easygoing person alive.
It irritated the snot out of Ashley.
She was hot and sticky from the walk out to his truck—although the icy air blasting in her face was helping with that—and though she hated to admit it, she was still flustered from his impromptu kiss.
Aside from that moment when he asked if she wanted something to eat—she didn't—they were both quiet as he navigated the city traffic. He tuned the radio to a country station, and she found herself relaxing. Which was dangerous. She didn't know what to expect from this grown-up Ryan.
In high school, he'd asked her out all the time. It had been a running joke between them. She'd always said no. The one time she'd actually contemplated going on a date with him, she'd dismissed the idea. He was two years her junior. He'd been immature. She'd been thinking about college and her future, then blasted by the news of her adoption.
It had all been a joke. Right?
After they'd made it out of the city and the traffic had spread out some, he stretched one arm across the back of the seats, his fingertips brushing her shoulder and sending a cascade of sparks down her spine. She threaded her fingers into Atlas's fur.
"So you said you wanted to talk to me. Is there something going on with my parents?" Or had the warning about the surprise welcome home party been his only motivation for coming? With Ryan, she never knew. Back in high school, he'd always been the jokester.
He tapped his fingers on the seatback, and they brushed against her again. She straightened her spine, hoping to put some centimeters between her shoulder and his touch.
"I just wanted to explain that things have changed around the store, are different than you might remember."
"How so?"
"Lots of things. New timecard scanning system and computerized—"
Atlas must've decided he'd had enough of sitting, because he lay down with am exhaled whuff. He was so big that his rear pushed into Ashley's thigh, and he set his paws into Ryan's lap and rested his head on top of them.
She'd never seen anything like it. Atlas wa
s her dog. She'd trained him since he'd come into the program. He'd never had another trainer and had never really responded to others, though he would occasionally accept affection from some of the soldiers where they'd been stationed overseas. He bore it more for their sake than for his own.
He'd never rested on someone else's lap before. What had Ryan put in those dog treats?
Ryan looked a little unsure about having the dog so close.
"I'll make him sit up," she offered.
Atlas cocked one ear, like he knew they were talking about him, but otherwise he didn't move. Traitor.
"He's fine, I guess. Long as he doesn't bump the steering wheel."
She'd been surprised that Ryan had thought about putting a crate for Atlas in the truck. Some irresponsible people might've just put a dog loose in the truck bed—which was a recipe for disaster as the animal could get hurt or killed—but Ryan had thought to secure the crate, and she'd even seen a cushion when she'd glanced inside it. And he hadn't balked at all when she'd suggested Atlas sit in the cab.
She didn't want to think about him making special overtures for her dog.
"You were saying something about computers," she reminded him in a murmur.
"Yeah. Your pops put in a POS—point-of-sale system. It's easier on the cashier and has the inventory right on the computer—"
"My dad put in a computer thing?"
Interestingly, pink crept up into Ryan's neck and bled into his cheeks. Was he blushing? "All right, it might not have been your dad's idea, but having the records on computer has been much easier. Even he would tell you so."
"Whose idea was it?"
"Ah. Mine." He seemed uncomfortable admitting to it. The question was why?
"So you're the manager now, and you've installed some new systems. What else?"
He shifted his shoulders—his hand along the back of the seat bumped her back. "Your dad doesn't spend as much time in the store. It's been hard for him. He's probably a lot different than you remember, too."
She swallowed hard. "His Alzheimer's?"
Ryan nodded. Serious, for once.
Guilt panged. She hadn't made as many visits home as she could've. When she'd had leave, she'd often used the excuse of needing to care for Atlas to stay at Lackland.
Her parents had been older than many of her friends' parents. It hadn't made sense when she'd been a kid, but when she found out she'd been adopted, it all became clear. They'd been in their fifties already when she was a teenager. And now… her dad was slipping away.
"Your mom was bringing him to the store more, but after her attack, she's been staying home more and more."
Ashley's heart stuttered. "What attack?"
He glanced at her, brows down over his eyes like he was puzzled. "You really didn't read my letters. Your mom didn't tell you when she was down at the hospital after…your arm??"
Her mom had stayed with her through those first agonizing weeks of pain. Ashley had been in and out of consciousness. She could barely remember those days.
And every once in awhile, she remembered the vivid dreams she'd had, that Ryan had come to her in the hospital.
Which was ridiculous, of course. Why would he have?
And although he sometimes joked about loving her, like he had with his poster board sign back in the terminal, he didn't really think about her like that.
It must've been the strong pain medications they'd been giving her.
Ryan was silent as he pulled off the highway at an exit in the middle of nowhere. One lonely gas station interrupted the flat landscape. He pulled the truck into the parking lot, far from both the pumps and the tiny store, and shoved it into park.
Ashley's heart thundered in her ears. Had something happened to her mom and no one had told her about it?
Ryan shifted, turned toward her a little bit. Atlas groaned at the insult of being moved out of his comfortable position, but he raised his head as Ryan did. Ryan moved his palm to cup her shoulder and she braced herself.
"Your mom had a mild heart attack in early March."
Three weeks before Ashley's near-fatal run in with terrorists. The information bomb burst with painful accuracy in her stomach and sent shards of pain through her.
Ashley could barely breathe through the tightness in her chest. "And no one told me?"
He shook his head, those brown eyes filled with compassion until she couldn't look at him. She turned her face to the window, not really seeing what was outside. Her eyes burned, but she didn't cry. She never cried.
Ryan didn't move his hand from her shoulder. She should shrug off his comfort, but she didn't.
"Your dad… maybe he wasn't lucid enough to call. I don't know. Maybe your mom told him not to. Maybe she didn't want you to worry—she knew you were working in dangerous territory."
"Who took care of them?" she whispered.
But somehow, she knew what he was going to say before he said it.
"Your mom had been working in the flower bed outside—overexerting herself. That's what the doctor said—and her neighbor saw her fall. She called 9-1-1 and then called the store, and I came. Your dad was pretty shaken up. I sat with him at the hospital. And Pastor Philip came up and stayed the night with us."
And she hadn't been there.
"Why didn't you call me? Or send an email or something?" Her voice was shaking but the accusation was clear.
"I wrote it in the next letter I sent."
She shook her head. Whether she was denying the letters she'd never read or denying that he'd tried to do the right thing, she didn't know.
"You never did give me your phone number over there. Didn't feel right to snoop through your parents' things. I wasn't sure it was my place."
She blinked several times to clear the hot film from her eyes. Finally, she had calmed enough to turn back and smile tightly at him. Maybe now they could go. She wanted to be home, to see her parents for herself.
To be out of this truck. Away from Ryan.
"I'm surprised her doctors let her come to see me, only weeks after something like that."
Now he was looking at her funny again, forehead wrinkled. "They were concerned—that's why she had a travel buddy."
She went hot and cold as his words sank in. Travel buddy.
And then what she'd thought had been dreams or her imagination under medication and unbearable pain suddenly became very real.
Her eyes flew to his face. She shrugged off his hand out of pure self-preservation.
"You—?"
She couldn't finish, because she didn't know what she'd meant to say.
If he'd really been there, he'd…
He'd spent countless hours at her bedside while she'd sweated through phantom pains in her missing arm.
Read to her from a classic book, his voice soothing and low.
Told her funny stories from home, even though she'd been unable to muster a laugh.
And…
He'd seen her at her weakest.
She'd thought it couldn't have been real, but now, looking at his frown, she knew she was the one who'd made a mistake. A big one.
She'd underestimated him.
"Yeah," he said. "I was there."
"I thought I'd dreamed it," she whispered.
And felt a little like she was having a nightmare.
Chapter Two
An hour after they'd pulled off the highway, Ryan delivered Ashley home.
She'd been quiet since his revelation in the truck. He wasn't sure how she'd forgotten that he'd been at her bedside all those weeks ago. She'd seemed lucid enough at the time, but maybe she'd been on more pain medication than he'd thought.
Or maybe she'd wanted to block it out.
He was feeling like his mission to make her fall in love with him had more roadblocks than he'd planned for.
But that was a problem for tomorrow. She was going to be seeing her parents and probably overwhelmed by the crowd. He'd do what he could to make it easier for her.
/> The Reynolds family lived in a two-story clapboard house in town as the farmland he leased didn't have a residence on it. He'd heard rumors that Joe had always meant to build out there but had put his business first and lived in town to be closer to the store.
Cars were parked in the drive, down the block, and around the corner. People spilled out the front door and onto the lawn. The big banner he'd hung across the front porch waved gently in the breeze. Welcome home, Ash!
When they pulled to a stop, the dog lifted its head off his lap. He hoped the animal had been comfortable, because he could feel the doggie-jaw sized moist spot on his thigh where, despite the A/C, he'd sweated through his jeans. He wouldn't have minded if it had been Ashley's warm skin against him. The dog just felt like a bad consolation prize.
Motionless, Ashley groaned.
"You'll be fine," he said. He stepped from the car and walked around to open her door, but she'd already wrangled it open by stretching her left arm across her body.
After a long, frightened gaze at the house, she looked up the street in one direction, then turned her head in the other. "Atlas probably needs to take a walk."
Was she thinking about bolting?
He heard a shout from inside the house. "Ashley's here!"
"She made it!"
Several people called out her name.
"I'll take him," Ryan offered, extending his hand for the leash.
She hesitated.
"You aren't going to have a chance." He heard the screen door open, and the voices got louder.
She turned toward the people streaming out of the house, then back to him with a terrified look on her face. Sure, improvised explosive devices in enemy territory, no problem. A crowd of old friends, and she looked like she wanted to run.
She relinquished the leash to him, and the dog followed him amiably enough to a neighbor's yard to do his business. Ryan craned his head over his shoulder, watching Ashley's friends envelope her in the crowd. Her blonde head bobbed among them as he watched her accept hugs and pats on the back.
Where was Mary, Ashley's mom? Probably in the kitchen, worried about being a good hostess.
The dog seemed uninterested in sniffing around, so Ryan left the crowded front yard behind. He took him around to the backyard and made sure there was a bowl of water and a patch of shade near the porch, then snuck in the back door. In the kitchen, Mary was frantically putting cold cuts on a serving platter.
With Love, Cowboy [Love Letters from Cowboy] Page 2
