Cherish and Protect: a small town romantic suspense novel (Heroes of Evers, TX Book 6)

by Lori Ryan

  “Don’t forget, he would have seen you in the news when he could get news from the states. He would have no reason to think you weren’t okay,” Cora said. When she’d been married to Patrick Kensington, she’d lived her life in a fishbowl as part of the Kensington dynasty. A family of Senators and high-powered businessmen, they were seen in the news and at events on a regular basis. Laura had been very good at hiding her shame—and her bruises—from the world.

  Laura’s next words looked like they cost her a lot to say, and she was used to talking about her past. “Patrick convinced me James was dead about six months into our marriage.” None of the women needed the explanation for that. They knew Patrick had controlled everything Laura did, everyone she talked to. “From what we were told by the Army, James wasn’t captured until almost two years after that. Patrick convinced him for all that time, that it was me answering those emails, but I never blamed James for not figuring it out. Patrick was incredibly manipulative. He knew how to convince people of anything.” Laura finally said.

  “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to bring things down,” Emma said.

  “Hey, I wanted to hear about nookie,” Cora said, raising her hands and bringing back a much-needed lightness to the conversation.

  Presley grinned. “I’m not talking about it. But he is going to build some display shelves and the checkout counter for the flower shop.”

  “He builds things?” Ashley asked.

  Laura nodded. “There was some old wood-working stuff in the barn and he took to it. It’s been good for him to have something to do.”

  “And his style is going to be perfect for the shop,” Presley said.

  “Tell us more about your grand opening plans, Pres,” Lily said.

  “Actually, I wanted to get your opinion of something. I was reading a blog about small businesses and several of the people commenting had been successful with offering something free for the first month. Most of them were the type of place that offers classes, like an exercise place or a gymnastics school. For the first month they were open, they filled their classes with people and gave them away free. When they started charging, they had full rosters and were able to maintain that over time. I was brainstorming a way to apply that to the flower shop. What do you think of free flowers for the first week I’m open? It would cost a good chunk of money, and obviously I would limit it to a few of the smaller designs I’ve got planned and only one per customer, but I thought it might get people in the door.”

  The women seemed to consider it and Katelyn grinned. “I like it. You could run ads promoting it as a romantic gesture. Like, swing by and grab a bouquet for your loved one kind of thing. Then the men see that their women like to have flowers brought home to them and maybe they come back.”

  “Or the women get them for their men,” Emma said, pertly.

  “Or a woman brings one home to her woman,” Ashley said.

  “We get the point,” Laura cut in.

  “So you like it?” Presley asked.

  The women all murmured their agreement.

  “You’ll need to decide how to advertise it and how far and wide you want to advertise it,” Lily said. Her experience as a small business owner was turning out to be a big help. “If you have ten percent of the population of Evers take you up on the offer, that’s one thing, but ten percent of Evers plus three or four of the surrounding towns might be another.”

  “You could always do something like limit it to the first fifty customers and offer anyone after that a coupon for a percentage off,” Ashley said.

  “People like coupons where they get to spin a wheel or choose from a hat. They might get ten percent off, or they might get twenty or five,” Emma said.

  “And get their email and mailing addresses as part of the deal,” Lily said. “Build your mailing list.”

  Presley had pulled her phone out and was tapping notes. Some of this she’d thought of and some she hadn’t. She’d been taking an online course on newsletter marketing and knew she needed to start building her contact list right from the start. She couldn’t picture a big spinning wheel for the coupons in her store, but they could pick a coupon out of a flower pot or something cute like that.

  They spent the next hour tossing around ideas for her grand opening and she got the names of a couple of artists who might do her logo for the shop. After that, things devolved as the margaritas flowed and several cartons of ice cream made an appearance. All the while, Presley grinned at the thought that she didn’t need to say no to any of it. Sure, she wanted to stay healthy, but she no longer had to maintain the body of an athlete. Nor did she have to run home and get to bed because she had a show to get up for at four in the morning.

  Her life, for once, was all hers.

  22

  “Hey, Dad.” Presley stood in the doorway of the observation room in the indoor riding ring. It was a long room in one corner of the ring that had windows facing the ring, letting viewers watch anyone riding in the ring in a comfortable, climate controlled space. There were couches and a refrigerator, and even a television mounted in one corner of the ceiling.

  It was the last place Presley expected to find her father. He was usually out in the center of the ring, shouting instructions to his pupils. The observation room was for parents and riders who were waiting for their lessons.

  His gaze was distracted when he turned to her, but he offered a small smile. It was all the greeting she was going to get.

  Presley turned to see who he was watching and was surprised to see the ring was empty.

  “You okay, dad? I went up to the house, but mom wasn’t home.”

  He continued to stare at the ring and she wondered what he was seeing in his mind’s eye. “Your mother went to stay in the New York apartment for a while.”

  “What?” Presley looked at her father, willing him to look at her instead of the empty arena. She’d often wondered what their relationship would have been like if she hadn’t been a good rider. What if she’d had a clue when she took her first jump on a horse that she might fall and break her neck? What if she’d been afraid instead of riding hell bent for leather over that first obstacle? Would she have seen much of her dad?

  Who knows, maybe she wouldn’t have seen as much of him, but maybe their relationship would have been a softer one, instead of one where he pushed her to the brink time and time again, always pressing her to be the best, to do better, to reach farther.

  “Dad?” She prompted when he didn’t answer. They only used the New York apartment when they were in the northeast for shows. Her mother had never gone there on her own before.

  He turned, looking only briefly at her before moving to sit on one of the leather couches. “Your mom’s going to stay in New York for a little while. We, uh,” he ran a hand through his hair, “we haven’t been getting along all that well since the incident with the horse. I’m going to talk to Harry and Davenport’s owner. I have to see if we can make this right, but I want to try to do it in a way that keeps your mom from . . .”

  He didn’t finish, but she got what he was saying. He didn’t want her mom to have to face any consequences for what she’d done. Presley couldn’t help but think that maybe her mom needed to face the consequences of her actions for once. Still, she understood all too well what this would do. If this got out, her dad’s career, everything he loved and worked for, would likely be destroyed. Her mother’s actions might take them all down.

  Harry cared about the well-being of the horses. If they couldn’t convince him her mother wouldn’t act in a way that could harm them again, he wouldn’t go along with trying to settle the matter quietly, no matter how much money her parents threw at him and Davenport’s owner.

  She didn’t know what to say, so she sat, putting her hand on her dad’s arm. Why was it so hard to talk to him?

  Because you have no relationship beyond riding, a little voice in her head said, and Presley had to blink to fend off the tears that pricked at her eyes. It was true.
There were no memories of family vacations, no happy Christmas mornings, no kissing her dad goodbye as she left for her prom. The trips they’d gone on had been to horse shows, or occasionally, to visit a horse her father was thinking of buying.

  Her mother and her had taken shopping trips from time-to-time, jetting to Milan or London or Paris for a week to satisfy her mother’s urge to find the latest fashions. But her father never went on those trips. In fact, more often than not, neither did Presley. They interfered too much with her riding schedule.

  Christmas mornings had been quiet in her house. She was an only child, so she’d opened her gifts with her parents watching from the couch as they sipped their coffee before her father and her went out to the stable to ride.

  And the prom. Well, that hadn’t happened at all. She’d been home schooled by tutors who traveled with her when she went to compete or when she was away training with her team in preparation for the nationals or the Olympic games.

  Her dad put his hand over hers and smiled at her again. “It’s all right. We just needed a little break from each other while I try to work through all this. She’ll be back soon.”

  Presley nodded, but she felt sick to her stomach. It was silly, really, and she was probably overreacting. It was silly to feel the sudden panicky need to know her parents were going to be okay. That they would be happy and together, and that they’d be that way for a long time. That nothing would change with them.

  Was it selfish that she wanted to be able to change her own life, but didn’t want them to change at all?

  She leaned against her father and put her arms around his strong arm. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head and Presley closed her eyes. The movement was small and almost meaningless. Except that it was something he’d never done before.

  23

  Presley sat crossed-legged on James’s bed, trying to focus on the software in front of her. She was working her way through the tutorial exercises for the software she would use to run her business. It would do everything from helping her plan out orders for people, to designing the arrangements. It let her check out walk-in clients and create detailed invoices for larger orders. She could also use it to schedule and manage orders and her delivery calendar. And if she didn’t keep her eyes off James, she wasn’t going to learn how to use it anytime soon.

  James stood in the center of the space, hands taped and gloved, chest and shoulders glistening with sweat, as he hit a large weight bag over and over. He’d been at it for thirty minutes and it was still mouthwatering to watch.

  She looked back at her computer. She had ten more slides to read in the training section she was on, then she planned to look through the real estate listings. It was time for her to find a place to live downtown. Her family’s home and stables sat on a large stretch of land that was twenty minutes outside of Evers. She could commute if she needed to, but it made more sense for her to move closer. Besides, now that she didn’t have the excuse of being close to the barn for the horses, it was more than a little lame for her to be living in her parents’ house, even if she was in the in-law suite.

  She looked back up at James, who hadn’t broken his focus on the bag. She was pretty sure he was going to punch a hole right through to the other side of it, but she didn’t mind the show. He was intense and sexy as sin. He seemed to go into a zone when he did this, but not in the way he sometimes did when he seemed to blackout, leaving himself and her for a time and falling into a trance that could be scary to watch. No, this was different.

  She had been spending more and more time in the loft with him. It would be tempting to fantasize that they might be moving toward living together, with all the time they spent in bed at his place, but she wouldn’t let herself go there. She wasn’t foolish enough to spin that little web of lies for herself. Not again.

  James froze, arms in mid punch, and she would swear he wasn’t breathing. In a flash, he was moving again, stripping off his gloves and struggling to tear the tape from his hands as he moved to the bedside table.

  She recognized it and stayed still as he dove for his journal and pen. He scribbled for several minutes before sitting back and holding the journal in his lap. She’d seen him like this when he woke from dreams.

  Other times, he wouldn’t wake. He would talk in his sleep, mentioning names. Silva, Catalina. Lulu would wake him and he’d hold the dog. Twice, he’d turned to hold Presley instead of the dog.

  “What is it?” She asked now. “Did you remember more?”

  It had taken a long time for him to tell her what he was writing and she hadn’t pressed. She knew that wasn’t the kind of relationship he wanted from her.

  He nodded.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  He shook his head, but put the journal back on the table and turned to crawl to her. She hadn’t looked on purpose, but she couldn’t help but see the word guns and the word crates scrawled on the page.

  Presley squealed when he came down over her, pushing her laptop out of the way. He lay on her, sweaty body and all, laughing and capturing her mouth with his own.

  She wrinkled her nose. “You’re so sweaty.”

  He growled. “We’ll shower when we’re done.”

  Presley laughed but fell silent when his mouth moved down her throat and he wrapped one arm around her, using it to shift her down the bed till she lay on her back. And then he was over her and the distraction was complete. Sweaty or not, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was his touch and the way he made her feel. The way he made her come apart in his arms.

  24

  James let his hand linger on Presley’s leg when he gave her a leg up into the saddle.

  “Feel good?”

  She smiled down at him. “It does. I missed this.” Her ankle was fully healed, and she was happy to be back on Tess.

  James mounted a rescue horse Cade had rehabbed next to her.

  He raised a brow at her. “Second thoughts on retiring?”

  “Not at all.” Presley turned Tess and led her out over the worn path through the back of the property. Cade had told them the trail would lead to a small pond and an open field where they could picnic. May had whipped up a homemade lunch that had made Presley’s mouth water as she watched everything being packed into the little cooler backpack James had slung on his shoulders.

  Tess wasn’t thrilled to be following along behind James’s horse, but Presley was happy for the chance to watch James from the back. She pressed her lips together as she focused on the sight of his muscles rippling beneath his t-shirt. There was something to be said for a no-strings-attached, this-can’t-go-anywhere relationship based solely on sex. If a little piece of her insisted she was lying as she had the thought, she shoved that piece aside. She was going to enjoy this. End of story.

  “Cade thinks he might have a home for Jelly Bean,” James said, referring to the horse he rode.

  “I still think that’s an utterly ridiculous name for a horse that’s anything bigger than fourteen hands,” Presley said. “But I’m glad to hear he might have a home for him. Unless you wanted to keep him for yourself.”

  James only offered a shrug in response and she wondered if he was resisting the urge to tie himself to anyone or anyplace. Even though he was living on the ranch, there was a very temporary feel to him. She had tried, recently, to let herself feel what he might be feeling, and she had come to the conclusion that maybe it was hard for him to trust in any of this. That maybe he didn’t want to believe that he could have a life where he was safe and didn’t have anything to fear.

  She didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride out to the pond and he didn’t seem to feel the need to break the silence either. James was like that, always happy to let silence stretch on when others, including herself at times, might feel the need to fill it.

  They circled to the backside of the pond before stopping and settling in for lunch.

  “I really don’t take advantage of May’s offers to cook for me enough,”
James said as he spread the food onto the blanket Presley had spread on the ground.

  Presley’s stomach rumbled in response and she pressed a hand to it, laughing. “My stomach agrees.”

  There was chicken salad, cut apples, and chunks of cheese. Presley opened one container and smiled. “Pie. She packed apple pie.”

  James laughed as Presley loaded her plate high.

  “Don’t laugh at me,” she scowled. “I’m taking advantage of my retirement. I can eat whatever I want now.”

  “You had a strict diet?”

  Presley nodded, her mouth too full of chicken salad to answer.

  “Makes sense, I guess, but I hadn’t really thought about it. I would have thought you kept in shape with all the riding and wouldn’t have had to worry about gaining weight with all the calories your training schedule burned.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I’m about to find out how many extra calories my figure can handle without hours of riding in a day.”

  James just shook his head and laughed, digging into his own plate.

  When they’d finished, neither one of them wanted to go anywhere and the horses seemed content to graze on grass while James stretched out. He laid his head on Presley’s legs, taking her arm and wrapping it around his torso.