Mr. Congeniality

by Sherry Lewis

  She walked to the far end of the porch where shadows would protect her from the glare of the kitchen light. The forest hovered on the edge of the clearing—the pine trees lurked blue-black in the night, the quivering aspen leaves shimmered in the moonlight. The sky was darker than any she’d ever seen, but it seemed brilliantly alive at the same time—as if she could gather a handful of stars if she swept her hand through it.

  “They look close enough to touch, don’t they?” Dean’s voice came from behind her.

  She whipped around quickly and found him lounging against the door frame, thumbs hooked into his pockets, one foot crossed over the other. The breeze teased the hair away from his forehead, and the light coming from the doorway bathed him in a soft golden glow.

  Her reaction was so strong and unexpected, Annie had trouble remembering what he’d asked her and even more trouble remembering her vow to ignore her attraction for him. “It’s incredible,” she said after a pause that felt embarrassingly long. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Dean stepped away from the door frame and came a little closer. “That’s probably because you’ve always lived in the city where the lights get in the way.”

  She could feel his voice in her pulse. The woodsy scent he wore drifted across the space between them, filling her senses and making it even harder to hang on to common sense. “Is that what makes the difference?”

  “So I’m told.” Dean turned his gaze to the sky and Annie was finally able to catch her breath.

  He leaned against the porch rail and trailed his gaze toward the two cabins they could see from where they stood. “Whenever I’m outside on a night like this, with the stars overhead and the forest and mountains surrounding me, I always feel small and insignificant.”

  Annie flashed him a brief smile. “If you feel small and insignificant, I should probably feel puny.”

  Dean laughed softly and sent her a sidelong glance that lingered on her face. He looked away again and silence fell, but it seemed charged with something that made Annie’s skin tingle. If she was having a similar effect on Dean he didn’t show it, but she felt foolish for letting that disappoint her.

  “We probably won’t have many nights like this after tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be glad to finally be bringing money in, but I’ll miss this.”

  Annie leaned her head against the smooth pine pole at her side. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere so peaceful.”

  “That’s what made me fall in love with this country the first time I saw it. And when I was trying to find a place to start over, there wasn’t another location that interested me.”

  Even with Irma’s warnings ringing in her ears, Annie couldn’t resist asking about his past. “After a career in baseball, what made you decide to open a dude ranch?”

  Dean shrugged one shoulder. “I needed something to do.”

  Relieved that he didn’t seem annoyed, Annie laughed softly. “Ask a silly question… It’s just that one doesn’t exactly seem to flow from the other.” He seemed so unconcerned, she found herself relaxing slightly. “Maybe it’s because I’m in the middle of making a switch myself that I’m so curious about how you got here.”

  Dean glanced toward the stables and seemed to be collecting his thoughts. “I came here for the first time about four years ago. A teammate of mine grew up in the area and brought me here. From the very first day, I felt as if I’d come home to Whistle River, and I came here as often as I could after that.” He looked out at the trees and his expression grew almost wistful. “This ranch stood deserted for several years after its previous owner died. Gary and I came out here on horseback a couple of times, and I knew I had to own this property.” His gaze drifted slowly across the clearing. “When the doctors finally convinced me that my career was over, this was the first place—the only place, really—that I thought of. I poured my life savings into renovating it and now I’m holding my breath that other people will feel the same way about it that I do.”

  “They will,” Annie assured him. “Once people see the Eagle’s Nest, you won’t be able to keep them away. I certainly didn’t expect to like it so much, and I’d love to come back as a guest.”

  Annie couldn’t read the sudden change in Dean’s expression. “You’d be welcome, of course. I hope building the rest of our clientele will be that easy, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”

  Annie thought about how much work she and Spence had put into taking over Holladay House—the seemingly endless days, the weeks that felt as if they’d lasted a year, and the sleep deprivation she thought she’d never recover from—and laughed at her own statement.

  “Well, it might be a little harder than that,” she admitted, “but the Eagle’s Nest has a very nice feeling. I came outside to look for Nessa, but instead I’ve been standing here and feeling all my cares slip away. That can’t hurt business.”

  Again, that strange expression crossed Dean’s face, but he turned his eyes away before she could read them.

  “Maybe it’s being in the middle of nature that makes me feel that way,” she continued. “It’s so consistent. I see the mountains that have been here for billions of years, the forest that keeps growing, the creek that keeps flowing, and I feel comforted. They prove that no matter how big my troubles might feel, the sun will still come up in the morning, the trees and the mountains will be here, and the water will still be splashing over the rocks.”

  Dean focused on an aspen tree at the end of the porch. “Sometimes that constancy is annoying. Your whole world can be falling apart and Mother Nature doesn’t even bat an eye. The sun comes out and the birds sing as if you and your problems don’t matter in the least.”

  Irma’s warning not to bring up the past echoed through Annie’s mind again, but curiosity was stronger. Annie didn’t want to spend the entire summer tiptoeing around this man and his moods. “Maybe it depends on the catastrophe,” she said. “I like knowing that it would take more than what I’m going through to upset this world.”

  Dean turned to face her. “You must be talking about your divorce. Or is there something else?”

  Annie blinked in surprise. “It’s a really tough divorce. We’ve been legally separated for eight months and the judge has granted our divorce, but it won’t be final until the end of the summer. I guess he thought we needed time in case we wanted to change our minds.”

  “And will you?”

  “No.” The intensity of his gaze made her skin tingle. There was more than idle curiosity in those dark eyes and Annie’s heart gave a leap of anticipation. “No, I won’t.”

  “You sound pretty certain.”

  “I am certain.” Memories of the day her world shattered tore a shudder from her. “I found my husband making love to another woman. That’s a mental image I’ll probably never lose, and it would be impossible to climb into the same bed with him or even eat at the same table with him after seeing that. It’s hard even to have a conversation with him at times.”

  Dean nodded in understanding. “Still, I get the feeling the divorce isn’t the whole story.”

  “There’s also Nessa,” she admitted, running one hand along the polished wood railing. “She hopes that Spence and I will change our minds, and maybe that’s why she’s fighting so hard not to leave Chicago. I don’t want her to be unhappy, but she’ll be even more miserable if we tried to put things back together.”

  Dean leaned forward slightly. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because she would be. It’s pretty hard to be happy when you’re living in the middle of tension all the time. And since I could never trust him again, there’d be plenty of tension.”

  Dean seemed about ready to touch her arm, then caught himself. He fell silent and Annie found herself wondering about his struggles. Since they were becoming friends, she didn’t feel right pretending not to know his story.

  The moon, the stars, the soft breeze all combined to give Annie courage. Curiosity and the warmth of a budding friendship
bolstered it. Wise or foolish, she was beginning to care about Dean and she wanted to know what put a smile on his face and what made him frown. And it was only fair. He’d asked about her life. As the old saying went, turnabout was fair play.

  She just hoped Dean had heard that one.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ANNIE LET THE SILENCE linger between them for a few more seconds and studied the night sky while she tried to figure out how to broach the subject of Dean’s accident. When she couldn’t come up with anything subtle, she decided to just plunge in. “You’re going through some rough things yourself,” she said, watching him covertly in case he reacted badly. “Irma told me about your accident.”

  Dean skimmed a glance across her face. His eyes didn’t change, but Annie didn’t miss the stiffening of his shoulders and the tightening of the muscles in his jaw. “I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m sure she thought you deserved a warning.”

  “Do you mind?”

  He shook his head. “It’s no secret.”

  Annie let out a silent sigh of relief. “I know you’re probably reluctant to talk about it—”

  “I don’t like talking about it. There’s no point.”

  Annie couldn’t agree with that. “I don’t know what I would have done after I found Spence with Catherine if I hadn’t been able to talk through what I was feeling. My mom listened to me for hours. My best friend listened to me for twice as long.” She cautiously added, “Sometimes talking can help a person deal with a tragedy.”

  “I’ve dealt with mine.” His voice sharpened, but he held up one hand and dipped his head while he tried to pull himself together. “I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “I didn’t mean to snap, but everyone I know has been nagging me to talk about the accident. Doctors, therapists and clergy have tried a hundred different ways of getting me to discuss it. But no amount of talking will ever change the facts.”

  Annie sat on the porch rail beside him. “Maybe that’s because they know that keeping your feelings bottled up will only hurt you. I’m a good listener if talking would help you deal with the facts better.”

  Dean pushed up from the railing as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. “The fact is,” he said abruptly, “my life will never be the same, thanks to a woman who shouldn’t have been behind the wheel of a car on a snowy night. She took away my career, the woman I might have actually married and eventually my home. In the blink of an eye, she stole my self-respect, my dignity and my future in front of the Mini Mart on Highway 74. Those are the facts, Annie. Tell me how a few conversations are going to change them.”

  The vehemence of his reaction left her speechless, but Annie had brought it on herself and she knew that if she buckled now she’d have a hard time earning his respect later. She kept her gaze locked with his, even though the glare in his eyes frightened her a little.

  “I can’t argue with most of that,” she said. “I don’t know the details of your accident. But nothing can take away your dignity and self-respect unless you hand it away. And as for the future, you haven’t lost that. You’re still here, still healthy and breathing—”

  Dean cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand. “Have you ever been in the hospital?”

  “Yes, when Nessa was born.”

  “Have you ever been hooked up to tubes and monitors and machines? Or had complete strangers doing things for you that no one should ever have to do? Or been patted on the head like a child because you sat up or went to the bathroom by yourself?”

  His anger was so fierce, Annie had to fight to hold on to her courage. “No. And I’m sorry you have. But the fact that you survived all that and that you’re…well look at you, Dean. You’re incredibly fit and strong. I would never have known you’d been injured if Irma hadn’t told me.”

  “I’m functional,” he snarled. “That’s it. I’ll never have the physical agility to play baseball again.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s only one thing. There are so many other things you can do. I’ve seen you doing some of them.”

  Dean laughed harshly and turned away. “Making my mark in the Major League was the only thing I ever wanted to do, the only goal I ever had. At times it feels like losing my career is the same as losing my ability to breathe.”

  “But—”

  “Logically, I know it’s not the same at all,” he said. “I do okay most of the time, I guess. Until something happens to bring it all up again.”

  Annie wondered if her questions were solely responsible, or if something else had happened to bring on this reaction. Maybe it was selfish on her part, but she wanted to think there was something else.

  Dean wheeled back suddenly, his eyes glittering with some emotion Annie couldn’t identify. “Put yourself in my place, Annie. What if someone took away your dream? What if, without warning, you were told you could never cook again?”

  “I’d find something else to do—just like you have.”

  Dean made a noise and turned his attention back toward the sky. His voice had become more restrained, almost impersonal. “The answers look easy when it’s someone else’s life. They’re not so obvious when it’s your own. All I can say is, be thankful you haven’t lost your dreams.”

  He seemed so comfortable with his assumption, Annie felt her own temper flare. “You act as if you’re the only person in the world who’s ever suffered a setback,” she said, trying to keep her tone as cool as his. “Well, this may come as a surprise, but you’re not. I not only lost my marriage, I lost my career along with it, so don’t think I don’t understand what you’re feeling.”

  Dean smiled sadly. “I know I’m not the only person hurting, but you have to admit that losing a marriage isn’t the same thing as losing your entire identity. Not in this day and age.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that. You haven’t ever been married, so you can’t even imagine how it feels to find out your life isn’t what you thought it was. That the person you’ve loved and trusted for sixteen years isn’t who you thought he was. That everything you believed in was really a lie and the future you worked toward almost as long as you can remember was nothing more than a pipe dream.” Her breath was coming hard and fast and her anger had taken the chill off the evening. “You have no idea what that does to a person’s identity, do you?”

  The muscles in Dean’s jaw stopped twitching. “No, I don’t. Not firsthand. I only know there’s a whole lot of damage done in the name of love.”

  That strange mixture of vulnerability and aggression Annie had glimpsed the first time she met him clouded his eyes again, but she was too angry to care. “There’s a lot of good, too. And I believe that you always find what you look for in this life. If you want to believe that life’s unfair to you, then you’ll find proof of that everywhere you look. I’m starting over on a new career, too. But I know how lucky I am to be able to do it. I worked for a long time to get where I was. A long time. And then I had to walk away from everything—and not by choice. And in a few months my daughter’s going to leave me to live with her father because she doesn’t want to leave her friends. But I refuse to make myself miserable by pouting over my bad luck. Just do me a favor. While you’re feeling miserable about the life you’ve got, try to remember that the road the rest of us are on isn’t easy, either.”

  Dean smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “It seems that what I consider a healthy grip on reality turns into self-pity in your eyes. Maybe now you can understand why I prefer not to talk about my past.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond, but turned away and strode into the shadows. It was only after he left that Annie realized Irma was right. It was pain that brought on his Dr.-Jekyll-and-Mr.-Hyde act, but Annie would have bet everything she owned that physical pain wasn’t the only issue.

  DEAN STOOD IN A GROVE of trees for what felt like forever after Annie slammed the kitchen door battling a mixture of amusement and irritation, of admiration and annoyance. He was irritated with her for bringing up subjects that
were better left alone, annoyed with himself for responding the way he had. He couldn’t believe all the admissions he’d made before he could stop himself. He should have kept the vows he’d made to forget baseball and to never talk about the accident. But, then, he seemed to forget a whole lot of things when Annie Holladay was around.

  Determined to put some distance between them, he began walking even though he had no place to go. He shouldn’t have let his worries about Carol and his inadequacies in dealing with Tyler affect him so much, but he was the only family they had and his sense of responsibility sometimes overwhelmed him. It seemed natural to associate Carol, whose drinking problem had returned, with the woman who’d caused his accident. Dean had been thinking about that fateful night and growing increasingly angry for hours before he had run into Annie.

  He definitely owed Annie an apology, but what would he say? That he was sorry, but for the first time in hours he’d been able to stop thinking about the drunk driver who’d ruined his life because Annie’s eyes and hair and skin had distracted him? That he hadn’t meant to snap, but he’d been thinking about kissing her when she’d blindsided him with questions about his accident?

  He laughed, and the sound echoed in the still night air. Oh, yeah. Either of those explanations would really sweep her off her feet. His feet stopped working and his eyes locked on a stand of aspen a few feet away. Did he want to sweep Annie off her feet?

  She was attractive, he couldn’t deny that. And nice. And full of fire. He was starting to care for her. But she was technically still married, and she had a daughter who needed a father figure. Those were two facts Dean couldn’t afford to forget. Even if he’d been interested in a relationship, this was about the worst possible time to consider one. The ranch was opening tomorrow and he needed to stay tightly focused on business. His entire future was hinged on making the Eagle’s Nest a success.