“Wow. Lots of choices.” Kinsley set her purse down on a chair, the clipboard on the table.“Yeah. Faith said you like big breakfasts, so she came early to make it for you.""She came back from her place in town just to make breakfast?""Yeah, lucky for us, we were allowed to have some.” Elliot gave her a cautious smile. "Faith likes people to feel at home here. Which is good because soon this will be her home.”
Kinsley looked around, her hands folded together in front of her like she was waiting for something to happen. “Has everyone else eaten already?”
“Yep. Zach and Kane are riding fence."
Kinsley shot him a puzzled look. “So you don’t need to help them?”
Her question was innocent, but it hit a sore spot with deadly accuracy. “You don’t need more than two people for that.” He tried to sound casual about it. He knew exactly why he wasn’t involved.
He had been chasing a CFR championship for so long now, he had drifted too far both from the ranch and his family. Any job he took on was simply a side-hustle to make money to hit another rodeo. Because of this, he was gone a lot and had left his father and brother on their own for so long he felt he had no right to be part of the ranch.
And taking off with Faith over two years ago had only added to the tension between him and Kane.
“They don’t really need me,” he said hoping he sounded more unconcerned than he felt. Since coming to the ranch, Mason often helped Kane, but he and Tricia wouldn’t be back for a couple of days. They were visiting the father of Tricia’s first husband, Roger Bouche, down in Sweet Creek.
“But your father is getting kind of old,” Kinsley pressed. “And you’re part of the family, aren’t you?”
She sounded genuinely puzzled, but it would take too many hours to explain to her the drive that kept him on the road, the remorse that had kept him away from Tall Timber, and the ghost he was trying to exorcise from his life.
“Zach is like an old bull. He just keeps going. Besides, I’ve got my own plans.”
"Faith said you're a saddle bronc rider. I've never met anyone who does rodeo. So, where do you go with that? What kind of future does that have?"
Her question caught at the reality he'd managed to avoid for most of his career. A reality that hit him with a thud every time he landed wrong on the arena floor, every time he wrenched yet another body part on a rank bronc. It was a young man's game, and he wasn't getting younger.
"A short future. The pension plan sucks and the job security is sketchy." He gave her another grin. "It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't know rodeo…" He let his sentence drift off as he caught himself thinking about the same future she referred to. Then he shrugged. "It's a challenge. A kind of thrill."
His reasons sounded lame, even to him, but he wasn't about to share his concerns about his future with her. He'd been doing this too long, and he was too close to doubt his focus now.
"I guess I wouldn't understand," was her bland response.
“I’ll just be outside,” he said, walking away from the table before she could ask any more pointed questions.
He scraped the crumbs off his plate into the sink as he had been taught, yanked open the dishwasher, and set the plate and his mug inside. As he closed it, he looked out the window to the fields beyond the house. Somewhere out there Kane and his father were riding, out in the wide open spaces, sky above, earth below, wind in their faces.
He put on his boots and headed out, his thoughts chasing him, remembering the days he and his other foster brother, Lucas, would be with them. The four of them on horseback, working together. Then coming back to the ranch where their foster mother, Grace, would be making dinner and Tricia would be working with one of her barrel-racing horses or hanging out with Drew, her on-and-off boyfriend.
They would sit down at the table all together. A family.
Lucas was the first to leave, signing up for the armed forces as soon as he finished high school, as he always said he would. Kane, Elliot, and Tricia stayed at the ranch. Rodeo was a big part of their lives at that time. Tricia with her barrel racing and Kane and Elliot with their team roping and saddle bronc riding.
Then Grace died of a massive heart attack and the family fell apart. Zach, full of grief over the loss of his beloved wife, retreated into himself. Kane, engaged to Faith at that time, grew morose and withdrawn. Elliot just went crazy. He had never known a mother before coming to the Tye household. Grace was a calming influence, a loving counterpoint to the vicious anger of his biological father. Her death was a body blow that made him lose his focus. His equilibrium.
He and Tricia started partying hard. When Tricia and Drew got pregnant, Elliot went with them to the courthouse as a witness to their quickie marriage. On the way back, Drew was driving, drunk. One wrong turn of the wheel, and the car went end over end. Elliot only remembered waking up in the hospital a few days later with bruised ribs and a broken arm. Drew was dead, and Tricia was gone.
His life got darker, more restless. The rodeo season was done, and he was angry and bored. He started hanging out with Faith the weekends when Kane was too busy on the ranch to go out with her. When Faith talked about ditching her future as a lawyer in her grandfather's firm, Elliot encouraged her to follow her dreams of playing guitar full-time. To that end he introduced her to a friend of his who had his own band and was looking for someone with Faith's talent. Kane and Faith fought, Elliot took Faith's side. And when he and Faith left together, Kane presumed the worst. He cut himself off from any contact with Elliot, blaming him for Faith's choices. Choices that sent her down a road leading nowhere.
Elliot clenched his fists, thinking about his own choices and the situation he had put Kane and Zach in.
He suspected that if he wanted, they would find a place for him on the ranch. But he didn’t feel he had a right to lay a claim to that.
Elliot got to the corrals and wanted to check on his horse before Kinsley came out. Sancho stood dozing in the sun, his eyelids barely lifting as Elliot came near him.
“Hey buddy, I think we'll use you in the wedding. You and Seamus. You’re the quietest animals we’ve got on the place.” Elliot ran his fingers through Sancho’s tangled mane, then patted him on the neck. “But that’s for another time. For now we need to find a place to have this infernal wedding.”
He walked back to the fence. Then, just to make sure his arm was still in good shape, vaulted over the rails. Perfect landing. He flexed his hand, satisfied.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, walking across the yard. Birds sang, and a gentle breeze wafted the bugs away. Above him the sky hung like an unbroken bowl of blue from horizon to horizon. A gentle peace wafted over him as he looked over the yard.
There was the barn he and Kane had helped build when they were only teenagers. There were the fences he and his dad had put up the summer that Kane had spent sick in bed, fighting a viral infection that the doctors couldn’t diagnose. The tack shed he, Lucas, and Kane had built as a surprise for Tricia. The barn they used to play in when they were all getting along.
He frowned as he saw one of the barn doors hanging askew on its hinges. He should fix that before Tricia, Mason, and the twins came back from their trip to see their grandfather.
The door of the house opened, and Kinsley stepped out carrying her clipboard. Could she look any more uptight and businesslike? He waved to her, and she came walking over.
“So where do you think we should start?” she asked, looking askance at the horses in the corral.
Yeah, we’ll be dealing with them later, Elliot thought.
“Let’s first figure out where to put the tent.” Elliot strode past the corrals to the large open space on one side of the house. “I’m still not convinced the weather will cooperate,” he said. “June tends to be our rainy month.”
“I’m glad we can agree on that. The weather not cooperating, that is. I read that on the internet.”
“You checked it out?”
“Also part of my plann
ing process,” she said. “I did some more research, and considering the size of the guest list and the fact that Faith wants a dance floor, we’ll need a thirty-two hundred square-foot tent. Unfortunately that will take up most of the space in this yard.”
Kinsley was writing something. A plan of the yard, Elliot noticed. “Looks like you been doing other planning too,” he said.
“It’s my job to be pro-active and on top of things. I did this last night,” she said. And there it was again. That cool, collected tone.
“Well, I think no matter what, we should hold the reception in the tent.” Elliot dropped his hands on his hips, glancing up at the sky as if checking to see what the weather might hold.
“Sounds like a good idea to me. But if I know Faith, she will want to have everything outside. So I’ll have to make sure that I can manage her and her expectations.”
“Manage her? That sounds more like you’re planning a hostile takeover than a wedding.”
She flashed him an annoyed look, and he guessed she didn’t like his sense of humor.
“This is my job, and I am a professional. I’ve had to deal with dozens of starry-eyed brides who needed a dose of reality. I try to find a balance between what they want and what will work.”
“How many of these weddings have you done?”
“More than you can count.”
“I dunno. Math may have not been my best subject in school, but I can count pretty high.” She sounded a little prickly, and he knew he should leave it alone. But something about her attitude toward the whole situation made him want to needle her. Just a little.
“I’ve been involved in over fifty weddings."
“Fifty? That explains the dispassionate attitude.”
“What you mean, dispassionate?”
“Like I said, you’re so businesslike. This is supposed to be the happiest day of any girl’s life, but I guess to you it’s just a job.”
“It’s what I’ve done for the last eight years. I’ve learned how to handle brides and their dreams. So, yes. In a way it is just a job.” She made another note on her clipboard and gave him a cool look that clearly said, Mind your own business.
“I just thought because she’s your friend, and she seems to really like you, that you might be more emotionally invested in this. This is a happily ever after moment. I thought girls lapped this stuff up.”
And just like that, her face grew hard. Remote. “First of all, it’s chauvinistic to think all a girl wants is to get married.”
“Don’t you?”
She bit her lip and turned away from him. “That’s none of your business.”
Guess he’d stepped over some invisible line and been slapped back.
“And second of all, happily-ever-after only belongs in fairy tales." Her tone was so cool it made him shiver.
“A cynical wedding planner. That’s rather an oxymoron, don’t you think?” he asked, unable to let it go.
“Not really. I’ve planned enough weddings that didn’t…well…”
Her sentence drifted off and he wondered what she was going to say. But he guessed from the way her lips were pressed together he wasn’t getting an answer.
But as she moved ahead of him, he frowned.
She was limping.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asked, guilt washing over him. “Did you get hurt when you fell yesterday?”
She paused, her head lowered, but she gave an emphatic shake of her head. “No.”
Elliot waited, wondering if she would say anything more but she wrote something on her clipboard, her movements hard and jagged.
“So we agree on putting the tent here?” she asked, turning around but keeping her eyes down, her lips in a thin line.
Guess that topic was closed, which made him feel even guiltier about her spill. But though he wasn’t the most avid reader, he was fluent in body language. This girl was saying loud and clear, Back. Off.
Okay. Back to business then. “If Faith sticks with the list she and Kane wrote up and doesn’t decide to invite everyone she ever met while she toured and everyone in Rockyview, we can easily fit a tent here that can seat one hundred and fifty people.”
This netted him a nod. “We might have to go with seating for one hundred and sixty, just to give us wiggle room,” she said.
“But she’s only inviting a hundred and twenty.”
Kinsley tapped her pen some more, looking distracted. “I know. But when I planned my wedding—“
She stopped, and Elliot’s ears perked up. “I didn’t know you were married.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. That must be difficult.”
Kinsley waved off his apology. “I’m not divorced. I just never…well…never got past planning the wedding.” Her pencil tapped faster as if she was still dealing with the emotions of that. She shot him a look and in her eyes he caught a glimpse of pain and sorrow but as quickly as it came it left.
Oh boy, he wasn’t hitting it out of the park here. This girl was one huge bundle of conflicted emotions.
“So we’ll put up the tent here,” she said, her voice brisk and businesslike, shutting that topic down. “Let’s see where you thought of doing the ceremony.”
He followed a few steps behind her as she strode away, her previous comment igniting his curiosity, as did the hitch in her step.
She certainly was a mystery. It seemed every moment with her he made yet another misstep and raised more questions.
Not that he was about to ask her anything. She wore that suit like armor, and her prickly attitude was enough to put him off.
But in spite of that, he couldn’t forget that brief moment of vulnerability.
* * *
“So what’s on tap for today?” Kinsley asked, finishing her coffee and looking over at Faith. This morning she’d gotten up earlier than yesterday, determined not to look like a slacker.
She had hoped to have eaten and be working in her room before everyone got up.
Kinsley prided herself on her work ethic, but how was she to know the Tye family kept such early hours? As a result, she was now eating with the entire family, something she’d hoped to avoid.
“Just give me a minute,” Faith said, then looked back at her laptop she had sitting on the table beside her, her fingers flying over the keyboard.
Kane and his father were talking about the hay they had to cut today and fixing one of the balers. Elliot sat beside Kane, buttering his toast, not participating in the conversation. Yesterday he had said they didn't need him. Guess they didn't today either, which surprised her. She’d have thought he would be more involved in the ranch.
“Well, that’s perfect,” Faith announced, turning to Kane, her smile wide. “Fred Den Engelson is delivering the buggy today. Will you be around to help unload it when it comes?”
Kinsley stifled a beat of nervousness at the mention of the buggy.
You don’t have to drive it. You don’t have to have anything to do with the horses. Let it go.
Kane looked over at Faith with a rueful smile and shook his head. “Sorry, honey. Dad and I have to get the baler going as soon as possible. We need to finish getting this hay up before the wedding.”
“I thought you were going to wait until Mason was back. He helped you the last time.”
“He won’t be back for a couple of days, and the hay is dry now. What with Joe quitting on us, we don’t have much of a choice.”
Faith made a face but then with a shrug turned to Elliot. “So, guess you’ll be helping when the buggy comes.”
“I guess that’s my job these days.” Elliot’s voice clearly held a note of reluctance.
“Have you decided which horses to use?” Kane asked him.
“I think Sancho and Seaumus would be our best choices,” Elliot said.
“Are you sure? Seamus hasn’t been handled for years.”
“I checked with Mason and Tricia. They told me they did some work with Seamus. He’s good. Besides, Tri
cia used to ride him. If anyone would know him, she would.”
Kane scratched his chin with his forefinger as if thinking.
“Look, if you want me to help with this wedding you’re going to have to trust my judgment,” Elliot said, his voice holding a hard edge that startled Kinsley.
“Of course. Sorry.” Kane gave him a half-hearted smile, but Elliot didn’t seem mollified.
“Kinsley, I heard you went to Carmen’s place yesterday evening to talk to her about catering,” Zach said, seemingly eager to change the subject to something safer. “How did that go?”
“It went well.” Kinsley wiped her mouth with a napkin and laid it on her lap, stifling her concerns about that particular situation. When she’d gotten to Carmen’s, something was burning in the microwave, something else was boiling on the stove, and Carmen was on the phone. “She insisted on letting me try samples of the appetizers she hoped to serve.”
“You’re going with Carmen?” Elliot asked. “Why not Kerry who runs Mug Shots? She’s a lot of fun, makes great food and has been around forever.”
“And she’s booked until forever too. Carmen said she wants to shift more into catering from running the coffee shop. I thought I would give her a chance.” Then Faith stopped, giving Elliot a sly look. “Will that be a problem?”
Elliot gave a quick shake of his head. “No. Of course not. Me and Carmen are good.”
Kinsley sensed there was something else going on, and as she caught Kane’s smirk and Faith’s teasing look, she guessed what it was.
“Old girlfriend?” she asked him.
“Ages ago. High school romance.” He shrugged, as if to show it didn’t matter anymore.
“Apparently she was the only girl to break Elliot’s heart,” Faith put in with an exaggerated sigh of sympathy.
“I think we can do without this trip down memory lane.” Elliot leaned back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest.
But he was grinning.
“You could try again, you know,” Faith teased.
“I thought Carmen was dating some school teacher named Brent,” Kane said. “At least that’s what Joe said before he figured he couldn’t stick around to watch his own hopes for Carmen’s affections die.”
Taming the Cowboy Page 4
