by Amanda Renee
The walk across the dirt-covered parking area seemed like miles instead of the hundred yards it was. With each step...each breath...she regretted not getting in the car and driving away. There was no reason for him to be waiting for her and they had nothing left to discuss, yet there they were, face-to-face. So close she could reach out and feel his heart thump against her palm again.
But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Oh, Lord, she wanted to.
“I hope this is a sign you’ve allowed Peyton and Missy to play together again.”
“Tori and I haven’t even discussed after school, yet. I had to drop off a donation check from my firm this evening and we ended up staying for a few hours.”
Ryder slid his hands in his pockets and leaned against the bunkhouse doorjamb, his hat shielding half of his face from the outdoor wall lantern. “I meant what I said yesterday. I can stay away from any areas Peyton might be when she’s here after school.”
“I don’t doubt that, considering you were working here for a few days before I even saw you. I’m afraid I may have overreacted and for that I apologize. That doesn’t mean I still don’t have concerns—you can never be too careful when it comes to your kid. But I don’t think you want to harm my daughter.”
“I would have reacted the same way if the situation had been reversed and we were talking about Missy, not that she’s my daughter anymore.” Ryder looked past her toward the house. “Tori should have given you a heads-up. That’s on her.”
She appreciated his honesty and her heart broke for him. In her career, she’d seen many non-biological parents struggle to maintain a relationship with their children when their marriage ended, or their ex moved on with someone else. “Missy is still a part of you, and Tori still wants you involved in her life or else you wouldn’t be here.”
“On some level she does. I had never adopted Missy. I’d been there ever since she was born, but she always had Tori’s last name, even after we’d married.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize that. I assumed you had.”
“There never seemed to be a reason to make it official. Everyone had accepted I was her father. And then I wasn’t. Nate hasn’t adopted her either and maybe that’s something Tori doesn’t want. This way Missy is only ever her daughter.” Ryder laughed. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this.”
She couldn’t help but be touched that he was opening up to her. Again, Chelsea wanted to comfort him and take away the pain. “It’s all right. We all need someone to talk to. I can’t fathom how difficult it must be for you to watch another man parent the daughter you raised for the first four years of her life.” For the first time, she saw Ryder for who he was. An outsider—an employee—working for the family that once belonged to him. A lesser man wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
Unbiddenly, she found herself even more attracted to him.
“It sure as hell hasn’t been easy,” he said. “I try not to infringe on their time together even though Tori asks me to join them for dinner almost every night. I don’t want to confuse Missy or upset Nate. My sister-in-law invited me to dinner tonight, so I at least got to see part of my family.”
“That’s wonderful!” Chelsea couldn’t help the tiny squeal of delight that escaped her lips. He hadn’t been on a date? Not that it’s any of your business. “How did it go?” She imagined sitting around the table with the people whose father he’d accidentally killed had to have been somewhat strained.
“It was good. I hadn’t seen my brother’s wife in over ten years. They had dated back in high school and had gone their separate ways until last year. It was nice catching up with Belle and my niece, who wasn’t even five the last I saw her. I met my new nephew, who I couldn’t get enough of. The little bugger just sucks you in with those big baby blues.” Ryder pushed back his hat, giving her full view of his sexy I-can-melt-ice-cream-by-just-looking-at-it smile that flashed across his face. “We’re planning to get together again soon.”
Chelsea checked over her shoulder to make sure Peyton was all right. She wanted to ask him about his other brothers and his mother, but it was way past her daughter’s bedtime. “It sounds like you had a good night. And speaking of good-night, I need to head out.”
Ryder uncrossed his feet and pushed off the doorjamb. “Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.” He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his thick sandy blond hair, which was a little longer on top than she expected. Now he really looked like James Dean. “Maybe we can grab a drink or a bite to eat sometime.”
Did he just ask her out? I think he did. Chelsea opened her mouth to say yes and then the earlier conversation with her boss shoved its way to the forefront of her brain. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re Tori’s ex-husband and I’m not sure how she would feel about that, especially since she’s the only person I have to watch Peyton. I just think it would be awkward asking her to babysit my kid while I’m out with her ex. Besides, I don’t really have any free time.”
Ryder shrugged. “No, hey, I get it.” He tugged his keys from his pocket and slid one into the lock of his door. “Be careful driving home. Good night.”
“Thanks.” Before she could say good-night in return, he shut the door. She ran her fingers lightly over the worn wood, once again remembering the rhythmic drumming of his beating heart. She closed her eyes, willing herself to walk away. But she couldn’t. She made a fist and knocked on the door.
Ryder opened it, his shirt unbuttoned and hanging loosely from his jeans. Her eyes immediately fell to the bare skin where her hand had rested yesterday before rising to meet his gaze.
“Yes?” A more arrogant man would have grinned at her obvious stupefaction. Instead, his eyes bore into hers, making her wonder if he could see inside her soul.
“I can’t make any promises, but I will talk to Tori and see what she says about...” About what? Her dating Ryder? One drink is not a date. “If she doesn’t have a problem with us hanging out, then we’ll take it from there.” Ugh! Could she have been any vaguer?
His slow, easy smile exposed dimples she hadn’t noticed before. “Sounds good.”
“Okay then, um, well, good night.” Oh, come on, Chelsea. She spoke in front of people for a living, yet here she was stumbling over her words like a lovesick teenager.
“Good night, Chelsea.”
Guh! The sound of her name on his lips caused every inch of her body to tingle. Before she made more of a fool out of herself, she turned away and walked to her car. When she didn’t hear the door close behind her, she knew he was watching. Why couldn’t she have worn something a little sexier than a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt? Peyton looked up at her from the car. Because she was the mother of a nine-year-old and she didn’t need to wear sexy outfits in front of the ranch hand.
She gave Ryder a quick wave before ducking inside the safety of her car. It, along with her house and job needed to remain Ryder-free zones. She flipped on the interior light and twisted in the seat to face her daughter. “I’m sorry I took so long,” she signed.
Peyton smiled. “That’s okay, Mommy,” she said as she signed.
Chelsea gave her daughter’s knee a quick squeeze before turning off the light and starting the engine. Peyton hummed softly. Something she’d done since she’d been a year old. She may not hear her own voice, but she could still feel the vibrations in her mouth and the back of her throat. The tune sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place it until her daughter began singing the words.
“Mommy and Ryder, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
Chelsea met her daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage.” Peyton giggled before singing the song again.
Chelsea groaned as she pulled onto the main road. So much for her car being a Ryder-free zone.
&
nbsp; Chapter 4
Nate reined alongside Ryder, interrupting his memories of last night with Chelsea. Even though he’d only spoken with her for a few minutes, it had felt more intimate than a casual conversation.
“How are they looking?” Nate asked as they watched their new arrivals drink from the creek cutting through the south pasture.
“They’re keeping their distance, which is understandable after what they’ve been through.” Ryder despised how the Bureau of Land Management cruelly handled their wild horse roundups. “One of those tourism helicopters flew overhead earlier and spooked them. They probably thought they were being herded again. You might want to contact the helicopter company and see if they’ll consider changing their flight pattern or at least fly at a higher elevation. They were way too low for my taste.”
“I’ll let Tori know.”
Ryder nodded as a silence fell between them. He’d never minded company before his incarceration. But after not having a single minute alone for five and a half years, he craved the solitude.
“Are you settling in all right?”
Ryder hesitated before answering, uncertain if Nate asked because he genuinely cared or if he resented him for living and working there. “It’s an adjustment. I can never thank you enough for allowing me to stay here. I promise it won’t be forever.”
“Oh, I know it won’t.” The firm set of Nate’s jaw answered that question. “Tori has a lot of faith in you. Don’t let her down.”
“I won’t.”
“So, did you ask her out?” Nate asked a bit too enthusiastically.
“What? No! I would never cross that line.”
Nate stared at him for a second before realizing what he’d asked. “I’m not talking about my wife. Geez, what kind of man do you think I am? I meant Chelsea.”
Of course he did. The woman he couldn’t shake from his thoughts...or his dreams. Her denim blue eyes were forever ingrained in his soul. When he was around her, he’d never felt more lost—and found—in all his life. He just didn’t know what had prompted Nate to ask about her.
“Where did that come from?”
“Our kitchen window faces the bunkhouse, so we had a ringside seat. You two looked friendly, which surprised us after the fit she pitched over you working here. Come on, don’t keep me in suspense. Did you ask her out or not?”
It had been bad enough Peyton had watched them from the car, let alone his ex-wife and her husband. “We talked about maybe getting something to eat, but Chelsea wants to run it by Tori first.” Ryder’s conversations with Nate were already awkward despite both of their best efforts. Discussing Tori’s feelings about the possibility of her ex-husband dating her friend made it all that much worse. “She doesn’t want to step on any toes.”
“Why should Tori care?” Nate angled his horse to face Ryder. “You two divorced years ago. Clearly she’s moved on. Besides, it’s not like it was a real romance. You married for Missy’s sake. That was an admirable thing to do and Tori will always be grateful.”
Admirable? Grateful? Nate made it sound as if he’d been a figurehead and nothing more. They had been a family even though he and Tori had never been in love with each other. He held his tongue, not wanting to start a fight with the man who had the power to end his freedom with a single phone call.
Nate was marking his territory and Ryder had already decided he liked him better when he was on the road. The man may have agreed to let him live on the ranch, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. “I think it’s the attorney in her. They always have to verify things.”
“There’s a barn dance at Schneiders Dance Hall tonight and Tori told me Chelsea will be there.”
Yeah, because setting him up with someone else meant he wouldn’t be interested in Tori. Maybe if he didn’t respond, Nate would go away.
“You should get to know her better since you two will be spending more time around each other.”
Now Nate had his attention. “What do you mean?”
“Chelsea volunteered to work here on the weekends, for a few hours at least. She claims not to know anything about horses, but Tori and I figured you could change that.”
Ryder inwardly groaned. “Whose idea was that?” Attraction or not, he didn’t want to mix business with pleasure. Not when his freedom depended on his job performance.
“Judd’s, but she agreed.”
“I bet.” Tori’s brother looked like he had just stepped out of an issue of Men’s Fitness. She’d probably agreed to volunteer because of him.
“So, are you coming to the dance? Tori, Missy and I will be there.”
Along with the rest of the town. He was still trying to warm up from his frosty reception at the Iron Horse Bar & Grill a few nights ago. “I’m not sure if the timing is right.”
“The timing’s perfect. You’re single and Chelsea’s single.”
“I never took you for a matchmaker, Nate.” Sadie shifted beneath him, sensing the tension in his body. “I meant Saddle Ridge isn’t ready to accept me as an active member of society just yet.”
“I don’t know much about you outside of what Tori has told me. But you don’t seem like a man who lets other people dictate his life. No one else would have gone to jail and allowed their family and friends to ostracize them for a crime they didn’t commit. That alone takes balls the size of Montana. This is the hand you chose to play. So play it. Go all in and live a little. Right now, you’re using everyone else as an excuse not to.”
Nate nudged his horse backward, then took off in a run down the hill. Since when had not wanting to upset anyone become an excuse? Under any other circumstances, he would have brushed off the whispers and stares. But he’d killed a man everyone had known and loved. At least they thought he had. That was what they needed to believe because the truth would destroy what remained of his severely fractured family.
He finished out the rest of the day without running into Tori or Nate again. The weekend volunteers made it easier for him to focus on taming wild horses to ready them for adoption than endure forced conversations with people who were either afraid of or angry with him. Tonight, he planned to swing by his uncle Jax’s grave to pay his respects since he hadn’t been able to attend the funeral last year. Afterward, he would head to the supermarket to grab a thick steak to throw on the grill. That was all it took to make him happy. He’d always been a simple man...just needed food, shelter and the company of a loyal friend or two. So what if it was Saturday night and Chelsea would be at Schneiders surrounded by eligible men?
Men without prison records.
Men without baggage.
Men that weren’t him.
Who was he kidding? He was going to Schneiders.
* * *
Chelsea would have stayed home tonight if Missy hadn’t already told Peyton about the barn dance. Jocelyn had mentioned earlier that she’d be there, too. Hopefully, she hadn’t lined up available men for her to check out. No thank you. She still hadn’t decided whether or not to go on a date with Ryder. If she could get Tori alone later, she’d talk to her about it. Maybe. A part of her wanted her friend to have a problem with Chelsea dating her ex-husband. The other part feared she wouldn’t. And then what would happen? Would she really do it?
She hadn’t dated since before Peyton was born and even then, Peyton’s biological father hadn’t exactly courted her. They’d had sex a few times, she’d gotten pregnant and that was that. Raising her daughter alone had left little time for socializing. Between finishing college, law school and working...and then moving to Saddle Ridge last year, she already had a jam-packed schedule. So why had she agreed to volunteer at Free Rein?
Because she needed her head examined. Her attraction to the cowboy had been the driving force behind it when her motivation should’ve been the animals and the animals alone. Thankfully she’d had the good sense to request what she assumed
would be a Ryder-free job. That was one man she couldn’t picture in an office pushing papers. He was raw and rugged and belonged outdoors.
Once again, her mind wandered where it shouldn’t.
Chelsea stood in front of her bedroom’s full-length mirror and stared at her reflection after changing for the tenth...or twentieth time. “This is crazy. I don’t even know if he’ll be there tonight.” Chances were he wouldn’t since he still had a lot of family to catch up with. “It’s just a silly dance.”
Her black rhinestone top, jeans and black cowboy boots would have to do. Plus, they made her look ten pounds thinner and after the way she’d been stress eating lately, she could use the help.
Downstairs, she hustled Peyton into the car and drove the couple miles to Schneiders Dance Hall. Behind the main building, they had a large timber-framed barn where they held weddings and parties in addition to the monthly concerts and all-ages welcome barn dances. She had attended a wedding there a few months ago and had been more impressed by the authentic post-and-beam construction than she had been by the event itself.
Peyton flattened her palm against the car window, feeling the vibrations of the music. They hadn’t even finished parking and Chelsea could make out every word the band played. She reached for Peyton’s hand as they got out, surprised by how many people were there. Crowded places made her nervous. It had been one thing when she’d been able to yell her daughter’s name to get her attention. It was a whole other story now that she had to rely on Peyton seeing her first. She stood just shy of four feet tall and easily disappeared in a crowd.
Peyton bounced up and down in excitement as they walked inside. Rows of line dancers boot-scooted and toe-stomped under strands of twinkling white lights that hung from the barn’s exposed beams as couples twirled and two-stepped around them. Peyton spotted some of her friends from school and tugged her in their direction. At least she felt normal amongst the other kids. It had been three long years of adjustments and they still had a lot to learn. Chelsea was glad the children had one another to talk to tonight because she would bet money that ninety-nine percent of the people there had no way to communicate with her daughter unless they typed it out on their phone and showed it to her. It amazed her how long it took most people to recognize Peyton was deaf and not some kid screwing around. Yet educators continued to stress the importance of learning a second language like Spanish or French, but rarely mentioned sign language. It frosted her that few schools even offered it as an elective when approximately three kids out of every thousand were born with a discernible amount of hearing loss.
