by Leigh Riker
“This time,” she’d told Harry, “I’m hoping for another girl.”
“You don’t want three boys to chase around?”
“No. Two of each.” A girl would complete the neat life she’d expected to live with him and their children. Together she and Harry would learn the baby’s sex at her next appointment. They’d stood in this same spot that other night, his arms around her, his cheek against her hair.
“I think we should buy a new crib and dresser, don’t you? After the first three, everything looks a bit worn. So, maybe a changing table and rocking chair too,” she’d said. Harry hadn’t uttered a word. When Elizabeth turned in his embrace, she caught a look on his face that he quickly tried to mask.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No, nothing.” Harry had pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “What could be wrong?”
“Aren’t you as excited as I am?”
“Sure,” he’d told her. “Sure.”
The tragedy of miscarriage had soon shattered her dream, and all along he’d been lying. Not long after that she was living a very public nightmare, and Elizabeth not only knew about his past affair but about his other daughter. He’d already had two of each. Without the last baby she’d yearned for, then abruptly lost, her body still felt empty, hollowed out.
She, Jordan, Stella and Seth were their own little family now, and maybe forever, but always for Elizabeth there would be someone missing. Not Harry—although, the possibility of her taking him back was her mother’s favorite refrain. Elizabeth was still young, Claudia claimed. She also suggested that if Elizabeth didn’t find a way to forgive her ex, which wouldn’t happen, perhaps in time she’d meet someone new. A flash of thought made Elizabeth weak in the knees.
If she were looking, which she was not, Dallas did make a great first impression. Tall, well-built, broad-shouldered. Nice, as Jenna had said. It was the first thing that came to mind about him, but Elizabeth wouldn’t go there. Could not. The memory of that one afternoon, in bright daylight, in the room near this barren nursery, was enough. There wouldn’t be another day like that either, and besides, soon he’d likely be gone, out of her life. That message had been plain enough. The only thing on my mind is to pull off my rodeo...then take off for the circuit before I lose what’s left of my career.
In fact, he was gone now to see his parents, he’d said.
Unlike Elizabeth, Dallas had no other strings; in her cherished children, she had three of them. She didn’t—shouldn’t—want what he might offer, though, of course, he hadn’t even tried. Neighbors, that was all, as it should be.
Lost in her nighttime misery, she leaned against the door frame. It was as if her kids had left her to these forlorn spaces, to silence, to the shadow of a sister, a brother...a ghost.
She yearned for their laughter and fights and weeping, their beautiful faces so peaceful in sleep. Sometimes, she crept in to check on them at night, simply to watch. Jenna said Hadley did that too with their twins.
Elizabeth dashed at the sudden wetness on her face. She’d loved being pregnant, filled with life, knowing she was loved.
Was that the reason she’d let Dallas hold her the very day her marriage officially ended? Because she couldn’t stand the thought of everything being over? Of being left loveless in the aftermath of miscarriage too? She’d felt so lost. It seemed she still was. A dangerous state of affairs with someone like Dallas living next door. Or, it would be if he hadn’t set her straight.
“This summer will last forever,” she said aloud.
Elizabeth pushed away from the door frame. Enough self-pity. She went downstairs, opened a pint of rum raisin ice cream and ate the whole thing. Cold comfort.
She really needed to get that job she and Jenna had talked about.
CHAPTER SIX
“HEY, DALLAS,” LOGAN HUNTER called over his shoulder.
Dallas raised a hand in greeting. He didn’t know Logan well, but he’d met him and his brother at a cookout at Clara McMann’s once. “Five minutes,” his brother, Sawyer McCord, added, “and we’ll be done here.”
At the Circle H, Dallas had found them working side by side in the outdoor ring, where a flashy chestnut colt made circles in the dust, urged on by the lunge line playing out from Logan’s hand and the light whip that Sawyer held. The adult twins, like Dallas’s niece and nephew, seemed to be in sync, their movements coordinated without the need for verbal cues. But Dallas knew it hadn’t always been that way. Their family rift, if not the same as his separation from Hadley, had been enough to make Sawyer change his last name.
Dallas felt his insides start to unwind. His few days in Denver had turned into a week, but the visit only increased the concern he felt for his folks. As he’d suspected, his mom wasn’t doing as well as she and his dad had tried to tell him, and Dallas had come back to Barren feeling even more tense. In spite of their loving nature, and the recent attempts they’d made to talk about the damage from his childhood, his parents could be masters of deception.
But he could see that his mother’s color was as bad as before, if not worse. And how she tired so easily that even going out for an early-bird dinner—his treat—had sent her to bed before eight o’clock.
This morning, as a distraction, he was making a tour of area ranches, trying to drum up interest in his rodeo-that-might-not-happen-after-all.
Dallas didn’t have much time, so he had to multitask and find riders, a venue and the necessary stock for the events all at once. If the thing didn’t work out and there was no rodeo after all, the cowboys wouldn’t have to pay their entry fees. No risk.
Sawyer gestured with the whip at the colt. “What do you think of this guy?”
Dallas, who seemed to be a temporary local celebrity, climbed the four-board wooden fence and surveyed the horse, but mostly he watched the two men. Both athletic-looking with deep blue eyes and dark hair, they were identical rather than fraternal twins like Hadley’s two, Luke and Grace. He wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other except that now Sawyer wore a shirt and tie, probably because he’d soon head into town for his other job as a family physician at the office he and old Doc Baxter shared.
Watching the sun gleam off the colt’s sleek hide, Dallas finally said, “Good lines.” The Circle H kept its stock in prime condition, including the bison herd the twins’ grandfather ran on this land. In the distance, Logan’s newer Black Angus grazed on rich summer grass, the warm air filled with the sounds of their shifting hooves and, from a solitary paddock, the occasional bellow of the lonely bull apparently longing for love.
Dallas couldn’t smile. He wasn’t in the market for romance, but an image of Lizzie, her neat dark hair and unhappy green eyes, slid across the screen of his mind anyway. A dangerous bit of woolgathering on his part. Years ago Dallas had learned from his drug-addicted birth parents that marriage wasn’t for him—and neither was a family—at least, not until he was financially secure and emotionally ready. A woman so recently divorced and with children—Lizzie had three of them!—should send up bright red warning flares. He’d already made one mistake with her, and the last time he saw her they’d quarreled.
“That all you can say?” Sawyer asked, the whip twitching toward the colt’s backside to keep him moving.
“Horses aren’t part of my skill set,” Dallas said, although he could ride. “I leave that to you and the Circle H, but he’s sure a fine specimen. Now, put me on that black bull out there and you’ll see some action.” Sawyer, always the doctor, sent him a skeptical look. “My hip’s okay,” Dallas said, then saw his opening. He already had his brother and Calvin on the roster. “I hear you two did some rodeoing back in the day.”
Logan reeled in the chestnut colt, its hide showing damp patches from the workout. It stood blowing, head down, at Logan’s shoulder. “What boy from Barren hasn’t?”
Dallas couldn’t think of any, but he
was new to the area. “I’m hoping no one,” he said, “because I’m setting up a rodeo for later this summer and I need cowboys.”
“Full rodeo? Not just bull riders?” Walking the colt around the ring to cool him, Logan grinned. “That being your specialty.”
Dallas squared his shoulders. “All-out event. With a starting parade and everything, including barrel racing.” That was if, other than the valuable specialty horses owned by those barrel riders, he could find other stock. During his stay with his folks, Dallas had made some calls but had come up empty with the contractors he knew best, and he was worried about that.
“Where? You aren’t thinking of the fairgrounds, are you?”
Dallas shoved his hat back on his head. Everyone he talked to seemed to have the same opinion. “Well, yeah.”
“Won’t happen, Dallas.”
“It will if I can come up with the right name to handle some permits.”
Sawyer led the horse to the gate. “Have you been over to the site?”
“Not yet.”
“You won’t like what you see. Believe me, the place is a wreck. It hasn’t been used in years. Bleachers are falling down, the arena footing’s lumpy—no good even when it was in use—and what about the chutes? They don’t exist, never did. Our county fair was always a kind of third-, no, make that fourth-class, event. Mostly for local kids to show their pigs and calves, and for people to display their best pies and homemade jams.”
That part sounded good to Dallas. He hadn’t considered such a competition to enhance the other events and draw in the crowd. “Guess the fairgrounds are my next stop.”
He walked with the other men to the barn. Logan put the colt in its clean stall with a fresh bucket of water, and Sawyer slid the door shut. They both turned to him.
Logan wiped sweat from his forehead. “You’re taking on a lot, you know that, right?”
“Nothing new,” Dallas agreed. “I’m still going through with the plan.”
“Just you?” Sawyer asked.
“So far.” Thoughts of Lizzie filled his mind. Maybe instead of getting the name from her, he’d run into the person at the fairgrounds—or someone else would tip them off beforehand, and he—or she—would approach Dallas regarding the permit. If not, he’d find another way.
The Circle H boys were both trying to hide their grins. “Who’s gonna ride?” Sawyer asked.
Dallas tensed. “Me. Calvin Stern. My brother.”
“Really? You talked Hadley into that?”
“He volunteered,” Dallas said.
“Next thing, you’ll be telling us Finn Donovan has signed on.” Which sounded like a private joke about the county sheriff. Maybe, with Finn’s smaller ranch, they didn’t think of him as a cowboy.
“I haven’t talked to him. But I will.” The sheriff might know about permits.
“No wonder you ride bulls. You guys are gluttons for punishment.” Another common reaction that Dallas was used to. Logan’s arms were crossed as he leaned against the colt’s stall. He glanced at Sawyer, who stood in the middle of the barn aisle, tongue in his cheek, probably trying not to laugh. Well, let them. “What do you think, Tom?” Logan asked, the name another private joke between them, apparently.
Sawyer gave his brother the side-eye. “I haven’t been in an arena except the one here since I was out of high school.”
“Me either,” Logan said. Dallas knew he’d led an interesting life. Rather than stay on the Circle H, Logan had become a test pilot, but he gave that up after he’d remarried to ranch with his twin and their grandfather. He’d recently added an airstrip to the property, just to keep his hand in, Hadley had also told Dallas, but more importantly as a safety measure. During a spring flood years ago when the ranch road had become impassable, Logan had nearly lost his first child, who’d been ill with pneumonia, and he wasn’t taking that chance again.
Logan clapped Sawyer on the shoulder. “Let’s do it.”
Dallas blinked at them. “You want to enter?”
“Two for the price of one,” they said in unison.
His roster was growing. Dallas left the Circle H wearing a grin.
* * *
THE DAY AFTER her pity party in the might-have-been-nursery, Elizabeth had talked to Sawyer’s wife, Olivia McCord, at her antiques store, and now, thanks to Jenna’s suggestion, she had a job. On her first day here, she’d been training with Olivia’s young assistant, but that didn’t seem to be going well for Elizabeth or Rebecca Carter.
In the center of the showroom floor, Becca fussed over a Brussels lace tablecloth with an Olivia McCord Antiques price tag that could have bought Elizabeth a high-end salon treatment. Showing her the way to fold the cloth, Becca couldn’t make the sides match up neatly. Olivia must have seen the girl’s fumbling attempts, because she marched from her office. “This is delicate, Becca, so please be careful. One of my clients who collects lace, Bernice Caldwell, is coming in today to take a look at it. She’ll be here any minute.”
Elizabeth stood back with Becca while Olivia refolded then set the cloth on a wooden rack with bars that held similar items.
“Do you want us to inventory the glassware next from that estate sale last weekend?” Becca asked.
Olivia was now flying around the room, straightening things that Becca had shown Elizabeth before, her mouth set. She lined up some gleaming silver plates, then spun around. “I’ll take care of the estate items. You can tidy up the front counter. When I came in this morning, there were papers scattered everywhere.”
Becca sent Elizabeth a rueful glance. Blond ponytail swinging, she hurried toward the front desk. “If you need help, Mrs. Barnes, just call.”
“Thank you, Becca.”
Hands on her hips, Olivia gazed after her young employee. “I promised her poor father I’d instill a good work ethic in that girl, but I wonder,” she whispered. “There are times—many of them—when even I despair.”
“She seems to be trying hard, Libby.”
She sighed. “Becca shows up on time, but she never quite grasps the truly important stuff. Like finding just the right item for someone. Rather than call me in to close a sale, she talks up the completely wrong chest of drawers or occasional chair to someone, and I lose money I could have made. Our numbers are down this month. I’m hoping you’ll be able to help raise them.”
Elizabeth studied the slender girl, who was now on the phone across the room, talking with her hands as she spoke to the caller. “Maybe Becca just needs more coaching,” she said. And I will too. Had Olivia given Becca a job out of the goodness of her heart? The woman wasn’t as tough as people thought. Had she felt sorry for Elizabeth as well?
“If only coaching would help,” Olivia said. “Becca’s had a number of jobs since she graduated from high school, but none of them stuck. She wasn’t interested in college, still lives at home on the Carter farm outside of Farrier, and lately she’s taken up with a man of whom her father doesn’t approve.”
Elizabeth felt sorry for the girl. “Once she settles in, she may be okay.”
“She’s been working here for six months.”
“Olivia, I’m about to make a hundred mistakes. I can run my home without effort because that’s my territory, my comfort zone—” my refuge “—but it’s been a long time since I worked for someone else. I’d hate to ruin your business or our friendship.”
Olivia shook her head. “No, Becca’s different. She’s a failure to launch. I’ve given her antiques books to read. I’ve spent hours trying to school her about our inventory, urged her to showcase the pieces that have been sitting too long on the floor so we can move them even at a discounted price, but Becca hasn’t improved. Please don’t ask her for advice. If I hadn’t promised to take her under my wing at least until September, I’d let her go. She’s certainly a challenge.”
Elizabeth watched Becca ski
m through the store, straightening a lace doily on a nineteenth-century drum table, righting a ceramic figurine of a Parisian lady, running a hand over the top of a mahogany sideboard to check for dust. “Conscientious, though,” she said just as Becca banged into the delicate-looking Louis XVI vanity chair in the center of the room and knocked it over.
Rushing to the rescue again, Olivia said under her breath, “Reminds me of my son Nick when he was seven years old.”
Elizabeth refrained from further comment. Olivia could well have two subpar employees on her hands. It wasn’t until later, after Olivia had left the shop to grab lunch at the café, that Elizabeth had an opportunity to talk to the girl alone.
“Let’s take a break, Becca.” It wouldn’t hurt to get to know her, and as a mother Elizabeth had felt an immediate instinct to nurture her. Pretty and petite, with clear blue eyes and a satiny complexion, Becca struck Elizabeth as a rather wounded soul, with which she could empathize. They sat in Olivia’s office with cups of tea. Becca curled her legs under her in one of the two chairs, and Elizabeth perched on the other. “Do you like working here, Becca?”
“My dad thought I would. Olivia doesn’t like me, though.”
Elizabeth’s heart sank. “That’s not true. She hired you.”
“Because he talked her into it.” That jibed with what Olivia had said, but Elizabeth was surprised Becca was that aware. “I’ve been a waitress at the café, a stock clerk at Earl’s Hardware, an online customer service rep for a software company, a teacher’s assistant at the elementary school. One summer I helped answer phones at Doc and Sawyer’s medical office. But I never last anywhere. I guess I’ll be putting this one on my list soon.”