by Cindy Dees
“That’s so clever!”
He threw her a vaguely scornful look as if she was a hopeless city slicker. Which would not be wrong. He drove for a solid half hour, which made her feel worse than she already did about inconveniencing him.
Hillsdale looked a lot like Sunny Creek without the charming old-fashioned Main Street. She waited in the truck while he went inside the urgent care clinic. A tall, handsome man with coffee-colored skin pushing a wheelchair came back out with Wes.
“Hi. I’m Dr. Cooper. I hear you tried to fly and it didn’t go so well.”
She grinned ruefully at him. “I’ll get it right next time.”
“I like your optimism, ma’am,” the doctor replied.
“Oh, Lord. Don’t ma’am me. I grew up in a military family and I despise the whole sir and ma’am thing.”
Dr. Cooper shrugged. “Gonna be mighty hard to break folks of that habit in these parts... Miss.”
She smiled warmly. “You can call me Jessica.”
“Only if you’ll call me Ben. Or Doc.”
She happened to glance over at Wes and was startled to see his jaw as hard as a rock. He didn’t like her flirting with the hot doctor, huh? Too bad. Ben was good-looking, and had a great smile and a winning personality. She continued to banter with the doctor as he wheeled her inside and took a quick X-ray of her ankle.
He pushed her into a hospital-style room to wait while he read the X-ray.
Wes poked his head in the door. “You okay?” he asked reluctantly.
“Look, Wes, I know you hate my guts, and that being polite to me is the last thing you want to do. You don’t have to keep up appearances for my sake. If you want to go on home, I’ll figure out some way to get back to my car and pick it up. And then I’ll be on my way.”
The look of indecision that entered his eyes would have been funny if it weren’t for the cause—his hatred of her warring with his innate good manners.
“Go home, Wes,” she said firmly. “I’ll take care of myself. You’ve made it crystal clear you want nothing to do with me. I’m sorry I bothered you by warning you that you’re in danger. I won’t make that mistake again.”
He frowned and backed out of the room. She immediately felt bad. She shouldn’t have snapped at him. After all, it wasn’t his fault she’d taken a header off his porch.
“Well, Jessica, I have good news and bad news for you,” Dr. Cooper announced, coming around the corner into her room.
“Do tell.”
“The good news is your ankle isn’t broken. The bad news is you’ve sprained it pretty badly. I’m going to tape it up, and I’ll need you to elevate and ice it, and stay off it for a couple weeks.”
“Weeks?” she squawked.
“Like I said, it’s a bad sprain. If you don’t let it heal properly before you start gallivanting around on it, you’ll have lingering problems with the joint forever and will risk repeat sprains down the road.”
“Great,” she huffed.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“Nowhere at the moment.”
A momentary frown puckered Cooper’s brow. “You’re not with Wes, then?”
“Emphatically not.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “There’s a story behind that answer, but I won’t pry. There’s a nice bed-and-breakfast in Sunny Creek I can recommend. My mother runs the place, actually.”
“Well, then, clearly that’s where I have to stay to recuperate.”
“Will Wes give you a ride over there, or can you hang on for an hour till I’m off shift here? I can drive ov—”
“I’ll take her,” Wes interrupted from the doorway.
Cooper looked up, startled, along with Jessica. “Um, okay, then.” The doctor turned back to her. “I’m going to prescribe you a painkiller and some anti-inflammatories for the next week. Take the pain pills only as needed and stop taking them as soon as you can tolerate the pain.”
She nodded, half listening to the remaining instructions about propping up the foot and icing it for twenty minutes every hour while she was awake. She stood and got fitted for a pair of crutches—which were total overkill, by the way—bemused over why Wes had insisted on taking her back to Sunny Creek. Surely he wasn’t jealous of Ben, was he? Jealousy would connote him giving a damn about her and wanting her not to have feelings for other men.
The ride back to Sunny Creek was silent. Wes seemed distracted and irritated, and her ankle throbbed enough that she didn’t have the stomach for a fight with him.
The truck turned onto the street of dilapidated Victorian mansions, and she roused herself enough to ask, “Where did all these big homes come from?”
“Copper barons built them at the turn of the century. But the mines are all played out, and the copper boom busted decades ago.”
“They’re beautiful. Too bad someone’s not restoring them.”
Wes looked at her askance. He pulled up at the end of the street in front of one of the few restored Victorians. A small, wrought iron sign in the front yard announced it to be the Brock House and a historic bed-and-breakfast.
Wes hovered as she tried out the crutches and hop-stepped up the sidewalk. She was careful not to slip on the steps and made it to the front door all by herself. “I’ll take it from here,” she murmured to Wes. “Thanks for your help. Again.”
He scowled darkly and all but ran back to his truck, obviously eager to get away from her.
The front door opened, and a tall, attractive woman from whom Ben Cooper obviously got his good looks stood there. “You must be Jessica. I’m Annabelle Cooper. Ben called and told me to expect you. I’ve made up a room for you, and we’ve got an elevator, so you won’t have to use the stairs.”
Jessica smiled gratefully. The elevator turned out not to be much larger than a phone booth, and it was a cozy fit for her and Ben’s mother together. Her room was a lovely space with great light from a big bay window with a cushioned window seat in it. But Jessica made her way directly to the bed, exhausted by, frankly, the whole past several months.
“I brought in some extra pillows for you to use to prop up your ankle. And there’s an ice bucket beside the bed with an ice bag in it. Here’s a pitcher of water and a glass for your pills, and that’s a buzzer for you to call downstairs if you need anything.”
“Good grief. You’ve thought of everything! I can’t thank you enough,” Jessica said warmly.
“We’ll have you up and around in no time. You look tired, honey. Why don’t you just go on and take a little nap. I’ll wake you in time for supper.”
Without further ado, Jessica collapsed, staying awake only long enough to stick her foot on some pillows and swath her ankle in ice packs. And then she passed out. For the first time since her drugging, she fell asleep and really slept, deeply and dreamlessly.
The next few days passed in a painkiller-induced blur. She slept constantly and followed the doctor’s orders in caring for her ankle. By day five, her ankle felt much better, and she was so housebound she could scream in spite of the steady stream of books and movies her hostess supplied to her.
Annabelle, who took being a perfect hostess to a whole new level of greatness, suggested that Jessica ride along with her on a trip to a new antiques store in Hillsdale, and offered to swing by the clinic first to let Ben have a look at her ankle.
Ben declared her to be mending nicely, took off the tape around her ankle and replaced it with a thick sports bandage. He said that she could drive a little and put some weight on it if she was careful. But she was to continue using the crutches for another week.
The antiques store had apparently just been purchased by a newcomer to the area, a pretty young woman named Charlotte Adams. Jessica hop-stepped inside and smiled in delight. Whoever had bought the inventory for this place had taste extremely similar to hers. The furnishings and
decorations were authentic, elegant and occasionally just quirky enough to be fun and young.
The proprietor, a pretty brunette, welcomed them to the store and apologized for being thin in selection. She had apparently bought an existing antiques store and culled the old inventory but was still in the process of finding new suppliers.
Annabelle was shopping for a new sofa for the downstairs sitting room, and Jessica gently steered the woman away from a piece that would have overpowered the room, instead suggesting a smaller sofa that was slightly less opulent in its carved decorations. Jessica and Charlotte agreed the piece needed reupholstering, and all three women put their heads together over fabric books in search of the perfect fabric. The other two deferred to Jessica’s trained design taste and went with the rich burgundy fabric she suggested.
The bell rang at the front of the store just as Charlotte was starting to write up the sale with Annabelle, and Jessica murmured, “I’ll go say hello. You two finish up here.”
She made her way on her crutches to the front of the store and spied a tall, striking woman with snow-white hair and patrician features. “Hi. I’m Jessica. Charlotte will be with you in a minute.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Miranda Morgan.”
Whoa. The formidable Morgan matriarch in the flesh. Wes had told her stories about this woman. She trained horses when she was younger and apparently could shoot the eye out of a squirrel at fifty paces. The way Wes told it, even his tough-as-shoe-leather father was intimidated by her, and she ran the Morgan clan with an iron fist.
Jessica blurted, “Wes’s mother?”
“You know my son?”
“Um, yes. We’ve met.” In an effort to avoid the inevitable question of how she knew Wes and from where, Jessica added quickly, “Can I help you find something while Charlotte finishes up with another customer?”
Of course, Jessica didn’t work here and had no idea what the inventory was, but she was frantic to avoid awkward questions about herself and Wes.
“I need to redecorate a cabin on my ranch. It’s tiny, but big men use it, so I don’t know what to do for furniture in the space.”
Jessica spied a drawing pad on the counter with graph paper ideal for sketching out a room. She opened the pad and picked up the pencil conveniently beside it. “Tell me about the layout of the cabin.”
Miranda described the space, estimating its size, and Jessica quickly drew it out. “Like that?” she asked when she was done.
Miranda nodded. “I’m not sure on the dimensions, honestly. It has been a while since I spent any time there.”
“It will be necessary to measure the space because a foot or two either way will make a big difference in what will fit in the space. For example...” She trailed off as she sketched out two possible layouts for the cabin’s main room, one for a larger space and one for a smaller space.
“I gather you’re an interior designer?” Miranda asked.
Jessica nodded modestly. “I specialize in restoring old properties to the historically correct plans and decorations.”
“Really? That’s fascinating. Did I mention that this cabin is the original homestead of the first Morgans to settle on Runaway Ranch?”
“No! That’s so cool! I confess, Old West isn’t my forte, but I could certainly research the period and give you some suggestions if you’d like. The trick, of course, is to blend modern comfort with authentic period feel.”
“Exactly!” Miranda smiled broadly at her. “I’m not fond of dealing with this design stuff. I like my house to look nice and be comfortable, but I leave making that happen to professionals.”
“Is there another designer in the area who’s already up to speed on Western decor?”
Miranda shook her head. “I paid a fortune to bring in a designer from Denver when we built the new main house. He did a fine job, but it seems silly to fly in some fancy designer for a tiny hunting cabin. Would you be willing to do it?”
Jessica blinked. She loved a challenge and getting this small space right would be one. Every detail would matter because of the limited space to set a mood and make an impression. Light-colored woods would brighten up the space. She could lay a hardwood floor diagonally to trick the eye...
She looked up, blinking. “Since I’m already redoing the space in my mind, I guess you’ve got yourself a designer. When can I come up and see the space and measure it?”
“Anytime. No one’s staying there since my son, Chase, moved to Sunny Creek to be with his fiancée. They’re renovating a house she bought a few months back.”
“I’ll have to pick up my car before I can drive out to see you. I got snowed in at the Outlaw Ranch last week. I’m hoping the snow has melted enough with this warm snap the past few days for me to go get it soon.”
“Outlaw, you said?” Miranda asked sharply.
Jessica winced. Crud. The whole point had been to avoid nosy questions about her and Wes. She said quickly, “I didn’t realize how fast snow could accumulate in the mountains, and I got stuck up that way. Wes was kind enough to take me in for a night. But then I sprained my ankle and haven’t been back to pick up my car.”
“Wes took you in? As in he was actually sociable with you?” Miranda asked in surprise.
“Well, more or less. He wasn’t thrilled to have me show up at his door unannounced. But he was certainly courteous about letting me spend the night until the storm blew out.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
Now why on earth would his mother find that interesting?
Miranda continued, “Runaway’s property adjoins the Outlaw Ranch. It’s right by where I live. How about I give you a ride to my son’s place? You can pick up your car and then follow me to Runaway Ranch. I’ll show you where the cabin is.”
Charlotte came out of the back room just then, and Jessica asked to borrow a measuring tape and the design pad. Charlotte grinned. “Only if you’ll throw a little of the furnishing business from your project my way.”
Jessica gave her a quick hug. “I promise.”
In short order, Jessica’s crutches were put in the back seat of a sleek German sedan, and Jessica was installed in the passenger seat. Miranda took off driving for home, speeding like a Formula 1 driver and taking the winding mountain roads like she was in a race. Jessica liked to drive fast, but she had nothing on Wes’s mother in the vehicular-daredevil department.
Jessica’s knuckles were white as she gripped the door handle, and she held her breath for most of the ride to Outlaw Ranch. When the grimy arch over the driveway came into view, she actually sighed in relief to have made it there alive.
Miranda sped across the pasture on the gravel drive and pulled up in front of the house, which looked even more decrepit in bright sunlight. “Now there’s a house I’d love to see you redo. I can’t believe Wes insisted on buying it. But he was determined to make it on his own. My husband offered him the position of ranch manager at Runaway, but that stubborn boy was having no part of it.”
“How long has Wes owned this place?”
“Just a few months. He bought it when he left the military and came home to live.”
“I imagine he’ll fix the place up as he has time, then. He struck me as a rather organized and neat person.”
Miranda’s eyes darkened with pain. “He used to be that way. I don’t know anymore. His military career changed him, and not for the better. I’m sure something bad happened to him, but he won’t talk about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said softly.
Miranda shook herself out of her worried reverie. “Don’t mind me. Wes will be fine. We Morgans always bounce back from adversity.”
Jessica wasn’t so sure about that. She’d done a heck of a number on Wes. She sighed. “Let me go see if Wes is home. If not, maybe he left the keys in my car.”
Just then, the front door opened and Wes
jogged down the front steps. Jessica noticed that the missing one had been replaced by a new step that was bright, fresh wood, yellow in contrast to the weathered gray of the other steps.
He wore jeans, cowboy boots and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal his muscular forearms. He looked like a model out of a television commercial.
“Lord, I hate that beard,” Miranda muttered.
Jessica hid a smile. She preferred Wes clean-shaven, too, but she could still see the strong jaw and lean cheeks in her mind’s eye and tended to look past the dark, shaggy beard.
He came across the yard to stand beside Miranda’s car window, one hand on the roof of the car, leaning down to peer inside. “Well. This is a surprise.”
He didn’t sound as if he found it a particularly pleasant one.
“What brings you here, Mother?”
“Can’t a parent stop by to check on her son and say hello?”
“They can. But you didn’t come here for that and we both know it.”
Jessica was startled by the anger in his voice. Not happy to see Mommy Dearest, was he? Had Miranda been included in the big falling-out with his father that Patricia at the diner had mentioned?
“I just came by to drop off Jessica so she can pick up her car.”
That was her cue. Jessica stepped out of the German sedan and fished her crutches from the back seat. Wes stared at her over the roof of the car, an entire unspoken tirade turbulent in his dark blue eyes. Nope. Still not the least bit happy to see her.
As for her, however, her stomach was jumping nervously and she felt the pulse pounding hard in her neck. How was it he still had that effect on her after all this time? She knew it was over with him. But her body totally hadn’t gotten the memo. She still reacted like a girl in the presence of her first crush when he was around.
“How the hell did you two meet?” he demanded suspiciously.
Jessica answered quickly lest Miranda reveal more than was prudent to Wes, especially in light of their shared past of which Miranda knew nothing. “We met at the new antiques store in Hillsdale. We struck up a conversation and your mother ended up offering to bring me here to get my car since it was on her way home.”