“Okay,” she muttered. “Admit it. Grandma would be happy as long as I wore something that matched, was clean and in good condition. I dressed up for Chance.”
Closing her eyes, she groaned softly. “What am I doing? Why am I trying to impress him?” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so stressed over choosing an outfit. It also wasn’t the first time he’d seen her in something other than jeans and a comfy top. She’d dressed nice the previous Sunday too. And she hadn’t even worried about it.
That was before they’d had a little time to themselves. Before he put his arm around her and said he wanted to convince her to stay. Before something shifted in their relationship.
Turning sideways, she checked to make sure that her coral pink cotton sweater and gray light wool slacks weren’t too tight. Would he think she was trying to show off her figure? Did he even think she had a figure worth showing off? Turning farther, she looked over her shoulder, trying to see how she looked from the back. Was her mother right? Was she getting saddlebags? Did she need liposuction?
“Emily Rose Denny, stop it!” She spun around, facing the mirror, and glared at herself. “Quit right now. You look fine. Relax and enjoy the day. The man has seen you at your worst, and he still keeps hanging around.”
Technically, she was the one hanging around the Callahans. But Chance didn’t have to go with her today. He could have easily come up with a dozen excuses not to. “Calm down and get out of here so you aren’t late.”
She put on a short, soft white wool jacket, grabbed her purse, and walked briskly down the hallway.
As she entered the living room, Dub came out of his office across from her. “Headin’ out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s a cold front moving in this evening, and the roads might turn icy. Try to get in before dark.”
“All right. Thanks.”
Dub nodded and smiled. “Drive safe.”
“Always. This time especially. I don’t want Chance deciding he has to take over.”
“I doubt he’ll give you too much hassle. Will might be a different story, but Chance is pretty laid back about most things. Have a good time.”
“We will.”
Emily went out the back door and across the driveway to where her van was parked. As she pulled around in back of Chance’s house, he came out the door, pausing to pull it closed behind him. Her heart skidded to a halt for a mini-second. Whoa . . .
He usually wore well-used jeans, a western shirt, cowboy boots or heavy work boots, and sometimes a cap. Nothing fancy, just normal, everyday clothes. She’d seen him dressed up the previous Sunday – good black jeans, a soft white western shirt, and highly polished black cowboy boots. He’d been handsome enough to make all the women in church take notice.
Today, he’d kept the black jeans and boots but added a green western shirt and a black western-style wool sport coat. Topping it all was a black western hat. Funny, she’d expected a white hat – didn’t the good guys always wear a white hat? But the man looked amazing in black.
When he reached the van, he took off his hat and got in, leaning between the bucket seats to lay it upside down on the backseat. He straightened and met her gaze. “Mornin’.”
Emily croaked a reply and stared as he fastened his seat belt. The combination of black coat, green shirt, dark brown hair, and those green eyes would befuddle any woman’s brain. Reaching for her water bottle in the holder in the console, she took a long swig and amended her earlier assessment. The man didn’t merely look amazing; he was knee-weakening gorgeous.
“Grandma’s going to love you.” She set the bottle back in the holder and shifted into drive, forcing her mind to focus on the task at hand.
“Oh yeah? I scrub up good, huh?” His eyes danced merrily.
“And you know it. You’re going to give her and her cronies something to talk about for at least a week.”
He frowned. “Is that all?”
“I said at least.” She shot him a smile as they drove past the ranch house and down the dirt road. Noting the speculative gleam in his eyes, she looked a little closer. “What are you scheming?”
He casually scratched the back of his neck, his expression changing to pure innocence. “Maybe I should really give them something to talk about. Like kiss you when I know your grandma is watching. Maybe even in front of her friends.”
“Don’t even think about it.” Don’t you, either, Emily Rose.
“But I like to think about kissing you.” The twinkle was back in his eyes.
Her mouth went dry. She wasn’t about to admit that her imagination had gone there a few times too. “Well, don’t.” He watched her for a minute, nodded once, and rested the back of his head against the seat. “You’re right. The first time I kiss you shouldn’t be in front of an audience. It should just be you, me, and the moonlight.”
For a second, she halfway considered booting him out of the van. She needed to end this before it got started. Too late. Besides, when had she become such a chicken? Before she could come up with something to change the subject, he did.
“You look nice this morning.”
Nice? That’s all she got for her trouble? “Thank you.”
“You’re always pretty, even when you’re grubby.”
She sneaked a peek in his direction. He watched the road as they approached the ranch entrance, then slid his gaze toward her, his expression tender. “But today you’re beautiful.”
“Thank you.” Much better. “I always try to look nice for Grandma.” Well, she did. She just didn’t usually try quite so hard. Now if Gram didn’t say anything about it, she’d be all right. She doubted she’d be so lucky.
“Did you go to the museum with Mom and the rest of the gang yesterday?” As she turned onto the highway, he pulled down the visor above the windshield.
“Yes. They love it. They’re so excited about it and grateful. I didn’t mention the treasure hiding in the storeroom. You should have heard Maybelle’s scream when she spotted the X-ray Shoe Fitter. Half of them wanted to plug it in and check their feet. I was glad the electrical cord wasn’t there.”
“She’ll probably ask me for it the next time she sees me. I’ll refuse and tease her a little. She’ll give up after a few tries.”
“Good. Now, tell me your life story, Callahan.”
Chance laughed and shifted slightly. “In twenty-five words or less?”
“Nope. We have a couple of hours, so go for it.”
“Not that much to tell. I’ve lived on the ranch all my life. Even when I was a kid I liked to play with trucks and bulldozers. I’ve always been interested in building things. I started working for a local contractor the summer before my junior year in high school.”
“Did you work on the ranch too?”
“Sure. Learned to ride a horse when I was four and started helping with the roundup when I was eight. We’ve always had plenty of things to do here, both fun and work. A lot of the time, it’s a combination of the two. Pitchin’ in around the ranch was a part of growing up. We figured every kid did it.”
“Unlike this little rich girl who never even washed her own clothes until she went off to college.”
“I never did my own laundry until I moved out.” He smiled, his expression nostalgic. “I started to toss everything into the washer at once, then decided I’d better ask Mom how to do it. The first thing she told me was to put my new red shirt in with a couple of old ones and not anything else. But I accidently got a white sock mixed in.”
“Did it come out pink?”
“Yes, ma’am. I sure was glad that was the only thing that was ruined. It would have been embarrassing to wear a pink T-shirt to the construction site the next day.”
“I would have made a similar mistake, except with a purple shirt, if I hadn’t called Grandma Rose before I did my first load. I waited until my roommate left for class so she wouldn’t overhear how inept I was.”
“And ask questions.”
/> “Exactly. So your dad didn’t object to you working somewhere else?”
“No. He and Mom have been great at letting us choose our own interests. Dad made it clear, though, that he preferred I live out here instead of moving off somewhere else. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love living at the ranch. My house is the first one I ever built.”
“No way. That can’t be your first one.”
“Guess I should rephrase that. I’d worked in construction for about eight years, learning the various trades. It’s the first one I did as a general contractor. Did most of the work myself, unless the task took more than two hands or one back. I didn’t do the plumbing, either. Hate to mess with plumbing. But almost everything else is my handiwork.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks. I’m proud of it, even if I made a few mistakes along the way. There are things I’d do differently now, but nothing big enough to want to build another house.”
“Did you design it too?”
“I started with a basic design that I bought, then changed it to suit me. After I finished mine, I built Will’s. I tried to make them complement the ranch house, but not have anything so similar that it looked like a suburban development.”
“Jenna and Nate’s house would have really stuck out then.”
“That was another reason not to make them cookie-cutter. It was our grandparents’ house. Mom used it as a guesthouse for a while, then Jenna and Zach moved in last fall. Jen’s always loved it, and she was ready to be on her own. Her divorce was hard on her. It took a while for her to make peace with the whole thing.”
“She’s told me a little bit about it. How does someone get over that kind of hurt?”
“The only way is with the Lord’s help. We did what we could, but it took the Lord and the love of a good man to completely set her free from the past. Nate has loved her forever, so she has no worries about him taking off for greener pastures. They’re both content with all creation.”
Emily slowed down as they approached a pickup driving slowly along the wide bar ditch between the highway and a barbed wire fence. A cow trotted along in front of the truck.
“Looks like Milt’s got a hole in the fence.” Emily slowed down even more, keeping her eye on the cow. She’d been in West Texas long enough to know that the animal might take a notion to cut across the road in front of her without any warning.
Chance lowered the window as they crept alongside the truck. “Need any help?”
The middle-aged, skinny cowboy gave him a big grin. “Naw, even if it would be fun to see you chase that cantankerous critter and get your fancy coat all dusty.” He glanced back at the cow, then leaned down a little to peer at Emily. “Mornin’, Miss Emily.”
“Good morning, Milt,” Emily called, smiling at him. She’d met him the night of the fire when he came into the shelter for a short rest from fighting the blaze.
“Where y’all headed?”
“We’re going to Eden,” said Chance. “To visit Emily’s grandmother.”
Milt grinned again. “Watch out, son. Being introduced to the grandma ranks right up there with meetin’ the parents.”
“I’m hoping so.” Chance winked at Emily and waved at Milt as they eased past the pickup and the cow. Rolling up the window, he chuckled. “Milt ought to know. He’s married to wife number three.”
“Think this one will stick?”
“Maybe. They’ve been married about five years, I think. He was pretty wild in his younger days, but he’s settled down a lot. Probably because the current missus isn’t somebody he met at a honky-tonk.”
Reaching the speed limit, Emily flipped on the cruise control and rested both feet on the floorboard. “What do you like to do besides build things and play cowboy?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “I don’t play cowboy. I is one.”
She laughed and turned the heater down a notch. “I know. I didn’t mean anything derogatory. I know you work hard at both jobs. But what makes you tick?”
“My heart?” He placed one hand on his chest and tipped his head as if he were listening. “Still going strong. Tick, tick, tick.”
“Isn’t thump, thump, thump more like it?”
“Don’t be such a stickler for semantics.” He surprised her by reaching out and trailing his finger along her cheek. “Now, it’s thumping.”
So was hers. Since her face turned pink, the dratted man undoubtedly knew it too. “Okay, how do you spend your time besides working and flirting?”
He grinned. “I play the guitar.”
“Are you any good?”
“Good enough to play with the worship team at church. I alternate months with a couple of other guys. We only have one piano player but have a surplus of people on the guitar.”
“You have some good vocalists on the team too. I’ve enjoyed the music.”
“Maybe you should join them.”
“Not a good idea. I’m not a bad singer, but I’m not good enough to be in front of a microphone. Stick me in the middle of the congregation where I can blend in with everybody else, and I do fine. How about you? Do you like to sing?”
“Like it, but I’m not very good. I’ll stay with you in the middle of the congregation. The cows don’t seem to mind my melodies, though.”
“The cows?”
“Sometimes I’ll sing to them if we’re holding them in a trap and waiting on another bunch to be brought in.”
Emily envisioned the wire mesh cage a neighbor had used to trap a stray cat. He had put a bowl of food inside, and when the cat went in to eat, it tripped a wire and the door slammed shut. The poor cat was terrified. “How do you trap cows?”
“By putting them in a fenced pasture. Generally, the pastures on our ranch are big – ”
Emily nodded. “Will said each one might be five to ten thousand acres.”
“That’s right. In this country, the grass can be sparse, so it takes more land than in a lot of places to support a cow. The traps are only a half section to a section.” When he saw her puzzled expression, a tiny smile lifted one corner of his lips. “A section is 640 acres.”
“That still seems big to me. Don’t you have to round them up again?”
“Sometimes. Usually, a couple of riders will hold them fairly close together while we’re waiting on the rest of the cattle. When the other cowboys bring them in, we herd the whole bunch to wherever they’re supposed to go. Depending on the time of the year, we might simply be moving them to fresh pasture. Most of the time we’re either rounding them up to brand and vaccinate the new calves in the spring roundup or separating the calves from their mamas in the fall roundup. You’ll see the whole process in late April or early May when we have our roundup.”
“That will be interesting. I’ve seen roundups in the movies and on TV but never in person.”
“Some shows are more accurate than others, but I’m sure you have the gist of it.”
Over the next hour and a half, Emily learned that Chance had taken some business and accounting classes at the nearby community college, but he’d never had any desire to get a degree or go off to a university like his siblings. He’d spent most of his work time learning various aspects of the building trade from the man whose company he eventually purchased.
These days, he focused more on supervising and running the business than swinging a hammer. Emily had the impression that he missed the more physical part of the job.
When they pulled up in front of her grandmother’s farmhouse, a slender woman stepped out onto the front porch. Her beloved Rose wasn’t quite five foot eight like she used to be, but she had maintained her height better than some older women Emily knew. Rose waited as they got out of the van and stretched out the kinks. “Good morning, Mr. Callahan.”
“Mornin’, ma’am.” Chance sent her one of his “make ’em swoon” smiles. “Please call me Chance. Mr. Callahan is my daddy.”
Her grandmother laughed and nodded. “Welcome, Chance.”
E
mily shut her door and walked around the front of the vehicle to where he waited politely. They strolled up to the porch, and Emily gave her grandmother a hug.
Gram stepped back and gave them both the once-over. “You look lovely today, my dear. Dressed up a bit more than you usually do for your ol’ grandma.” She winked at Chance. “Reckon it has somethin’ to do with this handsome man. Doesn’t she look pretty this morning, Chance?”
Emily’s face grew hot.
“Yes, ma’am, she does. But she always looks pretty, no matter what she’s wearing.”
“I do like your young man.” Gram caught Emily’s elbow and ushered her toward the house as Chance scurried to open the screen door for them.
“He’s not my young man,” Emily muttered as they stepped into the living room. “He’s just a friend.”
Grandma Rose patted her arm and leaned close to her ear. “And I’m the queen of England.”
9
“Emily girl, you get prettier every time I see you.” A tall, stout woman who appeared to be about the same age as Grandma Rose wrapped her pudgy arms around Emily and squeezed. The hug only lasted a couple of seconds before the sweet-faced lady zeroed in on Chance. She took a small step closer, crunching the gravel in the church parking lot beneath her sturdy black shoes. “And who is this fine-looking young man?”
“This is my friend, Chance Callahan. Chance, this is Bertie Sparks, Grandma’s BFF.”
Bertie was clearly taken aback. “Say what?”
Emily grinned and slid her arm around the woman’s waist. “Her best friend forever.”
Bertie huffed out a breath. “Whew. I thought you were calling me her big fat friend. Which I am, but I’d be put out if you said so.”
“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything like that at all.” Her expression mortified, Emily shot Chance a little “help me out here” glance.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am. So you’ve known Miss Rose a long time?” Chance shifted slightly closer, drawing the woman’s gaze with his body as well as his voice.
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