Dillon cut into his sausage. “I hope you’re not getting too attached to Kitty, then. If she takes your offer, your relationship with her will come to a quick end.”
Landon paused, fork midway in the air. He’d been so focused on the notion of working out an arrangement with Kitty that he hadn’t considered she would go back to Washington afterward. That wasn’t at all what he wanted.
“I told you,” Dillon said. “His girlfriends never last long.”
Jaxon shook his head at Landon. “You really didn’t think that through?” He gestured at Preston with his knife. “See, this is why you need a good education—so you don’t make rooky mistakes, like paying your girlfriend to leave.”
Preston took a sullen bite of his eggs. “Dating her is the mistake.”
“Nah,” Jaxon told Preston, “you’re looking at this from the wrong angle. It’s a good thing that Landon is dating Kitty because whether Landon means to influence her or not, he will.” It was clear from the way Jaxon was smiling that he found Landon’s dating predicaments entertaining. “Kitty will eat up his sweet talk. Or at least she would if Landon knew how to sweet-talk anyone.” Jaxon nodded at Preston and Dillon. “We may have to teach him something about romance.”
Landon set his napkin down on the table. His brothers were getting far too involved in his business. Maybe Kitty was right about the benefits of privacy. “I don’t need your help, thanks. My talk is sweet enough.”
Audrey had abandoned her show and skipped over to where Jaxon sat. “Why is Uncle Landon going to sweet-talk Kitty?”
“It’s grown-up stuff,” Jaxon said. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
How much had the girl overheard? The last thing Landon needed was for her to repeat something to Kitty that she shouldn’t. “Don’t go saying anything about the ranch to Miss Benton,” he told her.
“You mean ‘bout you influencing her?”
“Yeah, that.” She had heard. The girl was far too smart for her own good.
“Why not?” Audrey asked.
“Just don’t,” Landon said.
She scrunched up her lips, clearly unhappy about this instruction.
“It’s grown-up stuff,” Jaxon repeated, ending the topic.
Audrey huffed dramatically and took a drink of her milk. “I hate grown-up stuff.”
Jaxon ruffled her dark hair. “You should. Once you grow up, life is nothing but paying bills and taxes.”
Audrey replaced her cup on the table and skipped back to the family room. Jaxon lowered his voice and added, “With a few benefits along the way, like dating the girl next door.”
Landon and his brothers took their regular place at the left side of the chapel for the sermon. After their parents died, Landon promised his grandma he would take his brothers to church every week. For the most part, he’d kept that promise. As isolated as he and his brothers were on the ranch, church was a place where they could check in with people.
Kitty sat alone on a bench a few pews up, which was too bad. Church would be a good place to show Kitty what the community was like—full of kind, friendly people. . She wore a dark blue dress, and her hair was swept up in a knot—a look more suited to a high-powered business meeting than their usual church service. The congregation was mostly made up of ranchers, artists, young families, and retirees, but there were a few single people in their twenties, people who could become Kitty’s friends.
He wanted to sit next to her but figured that wouldn’t be the best way to keep their relationship a secret. Besides, he might have a hard time keeping his attention on the sermon if he smelled her perfume. The scent of it would give him flashbacks to last night and the way Kitty looked under the starlight.
After the sermon, Landon sauntered to the foyer, his eyes following Kitty. She read the bulletin posted on the wall, then stood there, looking a little lost. Usually, within minutes someone would’ve gone up to a newcomer and struck up a conversation. But not today. No one seemed to notice Kitty at all. No, that wasn’t right. A few people shot her looks and then turned away. She’d said that everyone in town was mad at her about the golf course. Was she right about that?
Kitty turned and caught his eye. He raised his eyebrows in question. The question being: Did she want him to come over and talk to her? He was starting to think that keeping their relationship hidden was a stupid idea. Let people talk. Let her parents disapprove. He wanted to spend time with her, not watch her from a distance. She gave a shake of her head. Dang. She still wanted to be incognito.
While he was trying to convey with his eyebrows that he didn’t care what people thought and she shouldn’t either, Mrs. Bassencherry, the chorister and self-appointed town crier, swooped over to him, full of consolation. “I heard what the Bentons plan to do with Coyote Glen.” She laid her hand on Landon’s arm. “Cal never would have wanted you to lose access to his wells.” Her gaze momentarily cut over to Kitty and she harumphed.
Better put a stop to this line of conversation. “You can’t blame Miss Benton for wanting to inherit her grandfather’s land. Besides, I’m hopeful we’ll be able to work out an arrangement.”
The woman hardly seemed to hear him. “She thinks she can run a ranch without any sort of experience.” She clucked her tongue. “You wouldn’t show up at your grandfather’s dental practice and think you knew how to fill teeth.”
Before Landon could comment, Mrs. Perry joined them. She had a daughter in grad school and every time the daughter came home, Mrs. Perry dropped not-so-subtle hints that Landon should ask her out. “You’re talking about Kate, aren’t you?” She tsked in disapproval. “Don’t you worry. She’s never going to make it on a ranch. She’s got city girl written all over her.”
“She’s actually very…” Landon paused. He didn’t want to give away too much, “…competent and hardworking. We should do our best to make her feel at home.”
Mrs. Perry blinked at him in surprise. Mrs. Bassencherry put her hand to her chest. “You’re such a generous soul, Landon. I’ve always thought so.”
“Well, it’s like the Good Book says. We need to love our neighbors.” He intended to work on that very seriously. Some commandments were easier to keep than others.
Chapter Thirteen
Over the next month, Landon found himself going over to Coyote Glen a couple times a week to help Kitty with one thing or another. After all, he had to make sure the ranch ran smoothly. It might be his property someday. And he had to make sure Kitty got her money’s worth for the remodel she was doing at his house.
He’d given her a free hand in choosing the colors and style because he didn’t know what he wanted, except that he was very sure he didn’t want to look at fabric swatches, color pallets, or light fixtures. Trying to do interior design seemed like doing a jigsaw puzzle that you built along the way with lots of wrong pieces. It was better to leave the decisions to the expert.
Landon’s brothers were less than thrilled by the renovations. A team of workers ripped up all the tile on the bottom floor of the house and the family had to stay off of it for two days while new wood-like tile was laid.
“Couldn’t you have dated a woman with a normal job?” Preston complained while tiptoeing across the floor to go to school. “A chef would’ve been good. I wouldn’t have minded someone who wanted to cook for us.”
“Or a landscaper,” Jaxon added, steering Audrey toward the front door. “The palo verdes by the barn need pruning.”
Landon didn’t mind any of the mess because Kitty came over every day to check on the project. And besides, once the workers finished the floor, it looked downright classy. Kitty began adding furniture, rugs, and lamps to complete the rooms.
After Dewayne had turned in for the day, Kitty would frequently head over to the Wyle Away. She and Landon rode horses through winding desert trails and watched the sun set behind the mountains. They cooked s’mores at his barbeque pit and let the embers float up until they joined the star-studded sky. Once when Dewayne
was gone, Landon came over to Coyote Glen, and they ate a candlelit dinner in the gazebo in her backyard. Cal had always said his wife’s roses that surrounded the gazebo were a mass of thorny nonsense, but he’d tended them with silent devotion after she was gone.
One day while Kitty was over at the Wyle Away, they stood on his veranda, talking. She motioned to the wooden porch swing behind them. “That could use new cushions. Do you want me to order some?”
The red checkered cushions had grown faded and threadbare, but they stayed there year after year as a reminder of the past. His father made the porch swing for his mother when they first were married. Landon had grown up seeing his parents sitting there, hand in hand, discussing their day while the sun went down.
Kitty wandered over to the swing for a better look. “Blue would match the color scheme inside.”
“Nah.” Landon didn’t move from his spot, leaning against the railing. “Those have sentimental value. They were my mother’s.”
“Trust me, as a woman I can tell you it would bother your mom to know that the first thing people see when they come to the house is threadbare cushions. But…” Kitty pressed a hand against a cushion, testing it, “we could reupholster them and leave the original fabric inside. That way you’d know it’s there and the new fabric would protect them from more damage.” She ran her hand over the back of the swing. “This is in good condition.”
Landon had refinished it a couple years ago. “Solid oak. My dad built it to last.”
She sat down and gave it a tentative swing. The chain didn’t even squeak. “How come you never use this?”
He sat in it all the time, just not with the women he dated. Doing that would have seemed like he was ready to step into his parents’ shoes, into that sort of relationship. And he wasn’t.
Man, maybe Dillon was right and Landon actually did have commitment issues.
Kitty swayed gently back and forth, waiting to hear why he didn’t ever sit on the swing. He couldn’t explain, so he shrugged. “I do sometimes.”
She patted the cushion next to her, an invitation to join her.
He stayed where he was.
Now that he was thinking about it—intensely and a little desperately—he couldn’t be entirely blamed for having commitment issues. He’d loved his parents and they’d died. He’d depended on Ethan, and his older brother had gone off to school in California and left the ranch for Landon to run. Ethan rarely ever came back. Landon had cared about Kitty’s grandparents, and they were both gone now too. Landon’s life had been a succession of people leaving him. If that hadn’t been enough to make him shy away from commitment, Jaxon’s disastrous relationship with Audrey’s mother had shown Landon just how badly things could turn out.
No wonder he hadn’t gotten serious with any of the women he dated.
Despite all that, he was letting his heart get tangled with a woman who wanted nothing to do with Arizona. If she’d been any other woman, he would’ve already started distancing himself from her. And really, if he had any sense of self-preservation, he’d start putting up some emotional barriers now.
He ought to tell Kitty he had some things he needed to do tonight and put an end to this visit. Instead, he noted how her hair lay across her shoulders in soft waves. In the shade of the patio, her green eyes looked darker, like the green of a pasture at dusk when everything was relaxing. Her lips appeared darker too and the curve of them was soft and inviting.
She added an element of softness to everything she touched: the decorations, her ranch, and him. He’d even begun to admit that the pigeons and mourning doves were beautiful in flight and not just annoyances that got into the feed and made a mess everywhere.
Maybe it was time for him to get over his commitment issues. And yet he still didn’t move. He just stood there watching her and weighed the probability of pain later against the benefits of tasting those lips now.
Kitty suddenly stopped swinging, her eyes widened, and she shot to her feet. For one irrational moment, he thought she’d somehow realized that the swing symbolized commitment and wanted nothing to do with it. A sting like a splinter lodged itself in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “The swing’s become a sort of shrine to your parents, hasn’t it? I should have asked before I sat down.”
Of course, Kitty hadn’t been able to read his thoughts. Landon finally pulled himself away from the porch railing and strolled over to her. “It isn’t a shrine. It’s not like that. It’s just…” Commitment issues.
She turned and evaluated the cushions again, her cheeks flushed. “The easiest thing to do would be to drape a blanket over the swing. It would both hide and protect the cushions, and you could use it on cold nights to keep warm.” He knew she was switching the subject to save him from the uncomfortable topic of losing his parents. She was thoughtful that way and sweet.
Landon’s brothers told him he didn’t have to keep putting his personal life on hold for them. They had a point. And as Jaxon said, sometimes a woman was worth the disappointment later.
Kitty stepped away from the swing. “If you want, I could find a blanket for you—something soft that would fit your style.”
He took her hand, threading his fingers through hers. “Don’t worry. I think I can find something I like—something soft that fits my style.”
Perhaps he said the words with too much meaning. She peered at him through lowered lashes. “I thought you didn’t know what sort of thing you liked?”
He sat on the swing and pulled her next to him. Still holding her hand, he set the swing gently rocking. “I may have changed my mind about that.”
Now he just needed to change her mind about staying in Arizona. She belonged here. This was where her family was from. For the next half hour, they sat talking and watched the sun edge toward the horizon, painting the sky pink as it went.
Landon ran his thumb over the back of Kitty’s hand. “There isn’t a landscape as wide, open, and beautiful as the patch of ground the two of us live on. You realize that, don’t you?”
“The sunsets are pretty,” she allowed, “but the land is so sparse and brown. Seattle has green everywhere. Trees willingly grow there.” She gestured to a sissoo near the porch. “You don’t have to haul them in from somewhere else and trap them in the soil.”
“Trap them?” he repeated. “You mean because they have roots?”
“If they didn’t, you’d see them all hitchhiking up the 82 to Washington.”
And that, he supposed, was how she felt about living in Arizona, trapped and wanting to cut herself from her roots. She’d leave as soon as she could. This relationship was not going to help his commitment issues. “If you’re partial to trees, you can have as many here as you care to water. Citrus and pecan orchards grow just fine.”
She swung her feet slowly back and forth. “Pine trees are my favorite. They can’t grow here.”
“Sure, they can. You must have seen some pines in Bisbee or Tucson.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You mean the ones that look like they’re trying to be oaks, but they’ve got pine needles instead of leaves? Those don’t count.”
“People shape them that way. They’re still pines.”
She grunted to show her opinion of those misguided trees. “Washington has ranches, doesn’t it? Your cows would be really happy there. They could eat all the grass they wanted instead of that spindly stuff they find around here. And you wouldn’t have to worry about water so much because it falls from the sky, like, all the time.”
For a moment he considered the idea, starting over in another state just to be close to her. But Jaxon and Preston needed his help to run the ranch. He shook his head. “I’m a lot like that sissoo. My roots are here.”
She didn’t speak, and he didn’t like the feel of that silence. It was too heavy, the hush of someone pulling away. Her fingers were laced through his, lying motionless in his hand. He gave them an encouraging squeeze. “We can come to some sort of compromi
se.”
“If we meet in the middle, that would put us, where—the top part of Nevada?”
“You could be an interior designer here, couldn’t you? You’d find lots of clients in Tucson.”
“Ah.” Her voice turned the subject light again. “I could live among the land of the misshapen pines.”
He squeezed her hand again, half-heartedly this time. “Misshapen pines deserve love too. They’re sort of like pigeons.”
She laughed and changed the subject to trimming the trees that edged her backyard.
So she wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of staying. He gave her his advice on trimming, all the while chiding himself for sitting with her on his parents’ porch swing. She didn’t want to stay in Arizona, and now he would think of this conversation every time he used the porch swing. Turned out, commitment issues had a plus side. They kept you from getting hurt. He ought to rely on them again.
But the next day he found himself driving to a nursery in Bisbee. He bought an Afghan pine and planted it in her lawn so she would be able to see it from her bedroom window. It was small, barely as tall as him, but it was shaped like a pine tree, and it had potential to be large and beautiful. That was the important thing.
The kiss she gave him when she saw it made him decide to never give her bouquets of flowers. He would buy her pine trees instead.
Chapter Fourteen
Landon received estimates for Coyote Glen’s land from three different real estate agents. The lowest was $2,200,000 the highest $2,450,000. That included the state lease and BML permit. The cattle weren’t part of the figures. The wells on the deeded land were the important thing.
Landon had procrastinated moving forward with an offer. He hadn’t even mentioned the estimates to his brothers. While they had access to Coyote Glen’s wells, there was no benefit in rushing things, and he wanted more time to convince Kitty of Arizona’s charms.
The Cowboy and the Girl Next Door: (A Clean, Enemies to Lovers Romance) Wyle Away Ranch Book 1 Page 12
