by B. J Daniels
Maybe not as addled as Poppy thought.
“I don’t know exactly what you have planned,” Dorothea continued, narrowing her eyes as she openly studied her. “But I can’t let you hurt him.”
“I’m just here to cook,” Poppy said.
“Cook.” Dorothea chuckled. “Cooking up trouble, that’s what you’re up to. As for the rest of the guests...” She shook her head. “Just remember—”
“You’re watching me. Got it. Would you like a cookie?” She offered the full plate to her.
Dorothea’s gaze narrowed as she studied the cookies for a moment before she picked up one. She took a bite, clearly savoring the taste for a few moments before her eyes flew wide open and she cried, “The boys’ mother used to make cookies like these.”
“Kate taught me how when I was a girl. It’s my favorite recipe. Would you like another one?”
The woman looked longingly at the plate of cookies, but declined. “You are diabolical. But it isn’t going to work, you know.”
Poppy gave her an innocent look.
“It will take more than his mother’s cookie recipe to get him to fall for you.”
But it was a start, she thought as they both turned to see that Will and his guests had returned—early. One of the guests was limping and holding his arm.
CHAPTER FIVE
WILL WASN’T SURPRISED when Dorothea was the first one to come rushing out of the lodge toward them. The woman had an insatiable curiosity, but she also was always there to help with whatever needed to be done. It was the worry on her face that concerned him. Had something else happened while he was gone?
“Why is one of the guests holding his arm?” she asked as Will drew up his horse to let the others proceed on to the barn and corral.
“A couple of the horses started bucking,” he said. “Dean was thrown off.”
“Not Lexi?” she asked, her gaze going to where Lexi alone was leading their horses toward the corral. Past them, the wranglers were unsaddling and taking care of the horses.
Will frowned. “Why would you ask about Lexi?” He shook his head. “Never mind. Yes, Lexi’s horse was the other one. Dean got bucked off. He’s limping and his arm seems to be sprained, but not broken, thank goodness. Lexi’s horse tried to buck her off, but she stayed on.”
Dorothea nodded. “I knew it. Didn’t I tell you?”
Will groaned. “Don’t start, okay?” He didn’t need this. He was worried about Lexi and Dean. He was also worried about the horses and still puzzled over what had caused the problems. “I need to check the two horses. Can you see to Dean? Ice, bandage on his wrist, rest, you know the drill.” He rode off, leaving her standing outside the barn.
“I’m the one who taught you the drill,” she said to his retreating back.
Dismounting, he walked his horse the rest of the way. As he passed Lexi, he noticed that she was pale as fresh snow. Clearly she was still shaken. He hated that her first ride had gone so badly. Dean was limping toward the lodge. Dorothea had joined him. She’d had nursing training in college, which had certainly come in handy here on the ranch. Will could see that she was questioning Dean about what had happened. The woman loved knowing what was going on, he thought with a shake of his head as he went to join the wranglers to help with the horses.
Will especially wanted to check the horse Lexi had been on. It was a gentle mare that he’d never had any trouble with before. He was checking the saddle to see if it had been correctly cinched. He also checked for burrs or anything that could have set off the mare.
“I don’t think that was the problem,” Huck, the oldest wrangler, said as he joined him. Huck had worked for the ranch for years. He motioned to the tack room. Will followed him inside and closed the door.
“Did you see something?” he asked the wrangler.
“I stayed behind and checked the area after the rest of you headed back. I knew something had to have spooked those horses.” Huck reached into his pocket and pulled out a snake.
Will’s first reaction was to jerk back until he realized that the snake was made of rubber. But it was real enough that it had fooled him. Coiled on the ground, it would have definitely spooked the horses.
He swore. “Where did that come from?”
Huck shrugged. “It isn’t weathered so I’d say it got dropped on the trail today.”
“One of the guests purposely dropped the snake to spook the horses bringing up the rear?” Will shook his head. “To be funny?”
“Maybe. These are greenhorns.”
Or trying to seriously hurt someone?
“Who was riding in front of Lexi and Dean?” he asked the wrangler.
Huck thought for a moment. “There was you and Big Jack, his youngest son...”
“Mick.” Will remembered that Kirk had been riding up there near Mick, but when they got in an argument, he’d ridden back a few horses.
“Behind Mick would have been the dark-haired flirty one and the older brunette.”
“Allison and Ruby.”
“Then the blonde, Channing.”
Will grinned at the wrangler. “You remember her name, but none of the others?”
Huck ignored that. “The moody blond snowboarder.”
“Kirk.”
“Then Lexi, Lamar and Dean. The way I figure it, someone ahead of Lexi dropped it. Her horse saw it, might even have kicked it out of the way. Once her horse started bucking, Dean’s horse either then saw the snake or was reacting to Lexi’s mare.”
“So Lamar’s horse didn’t react?”
“He’d reined in when Lexi stopped and Dean started to pass him and Lexi,” Huck said as he tried to reconstruct the scene.
“So Dean tried to pass Lexi’s horse on the trail,” Will said, trying to understand what had happened. “He could have dropped the snake but you said her horse had already stopped for some reason.”
“I didn’t see anyone drop anything, but I wasn’t watching the whole time, either.”
Will realized it would be hard to nail down who might have dropped the snake. “Not all the horses might have seen the snake. Or the ones in front could have kicked it up. Lexi’s horse reacted first, though, right?”
The wrangler nodded. “I was busy trying to calm Lexi’s horse so I didn’t notice the snake until I stayed behind to search the area. That’s when I found it on the edge of the trail in the bushes. When I first saw the snake, I thought for a second it was real, too. Wrong time of year, though. Too cold for rattlesnakes even if we had them at this elevation.”
“Let’s keep this to ourselves for now. Hopefully this is the last of the pranks.” If that was what it had been.
He pushed open the tack room door and stepped out. As he glanced toward the main lodge, he saw Big Jack and his oldest son in what was clearly a heated argument. Past them, he could see Lexi. She’d stopped on the front porch of the lodge and was looking toward the cabins.
Will followed her gaze. Mick was standing outside of cabin four talking to Allison. Kirk was on the porch of cabin six. He had appeared to be watching Mick and Allison with interest before he looked past them to Lexi.
When Will returned his gaze to Lexi, he saw her hurry inside the lodge as if suddenly cold—or scared. But he had that bad feeling again that he was going to regret opening the guest ranch early for Big Jack and his employees.
* * *
WITH FIRST AID kit in hand, Dorothea joined Dean in cabin two. He’d been sitting on the bed in the first bedroom with the door open, his head down, his hurt wrist cradled on his lap. She’d knocked, but he hadn’t seemed to have heard. She’d tried the front door to find it not even closed all the way.
As she pushed it open and stepped in, she realized that he hadn’t seen or heard her enter so she studied him for a long moment. Was he in pain because of his wrist? Or was there more going on with hi
m?
As usual, Will had prepped her on who was coming so she’d known all of their names, their jobs at On the Fly and a description of each guest. Wyatt Sterling had prided himself on the personal touch, which meant everyone who worked closely with the guests had to be able to call them by name. Dorothea had seen staff get sent packing for breaking one of his rules.
Dorothea was a quick study and had had a pretty good feel for each of the guests even before she’d laid eyes on them. Dean’s description had been so nondescript that she wasn’t surprised how average he was from his height to his appearance.
In his midtwenties, his hair had begun to thin. He wore thick glasses with black plastic frames that he continually was pushing up his nose. But he also acted as if something was bothering him besides his wrist, she thought.
He must have sensed her because he looked up.
She quickly said, “I knocked. You didn’t hear me. I brought something for your wrist.”
Dean pushed up the glasses and got to his feet as she stepped into the cabin. She noticed three shirts hanging in the open closet and several pairs of slacks. He’d also brought dress shoes, along with what were obviously new cowboy boots on his feet.
“Let’s do this in the living room, maybe at the desk,” Dorothea suggested, seeing how uncomfortable he was to have her in his bedroom.
“I don’t think any of that is necessary. I’m sure my wrist is fine,” he said.
“It will heal faster if you put some ice on it for twenty minutes at a time over the next few days until you can have a doctor take a look at it. For now I can wrap it. The main thing is to let your wrist rest.”
He looked as if he wanted to argue, but then seemed resigned. “Why did my horse do what it did?” Dean asked as she bandaged the wrist and then had him hold the ice pack on it.
“They’re horses.” She shrugged. “They’re skittish and can get spooked. Usually don’t, though. That’s why it’s always good to be hanging on. Sounds like your peaceful trail ride turned into a rodeo. It will go better next time.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“Haven’t you heard that old saw about how important it is to get back on the horse?” she joked as she stood to leave. “You can bring the ice pack to the lodge when you come up for dinner and I’ll replace it.”
“I’ll pass on dinner.” He sounded sullen and angry, caught apparently in a why-me loop.
“Suit yourself.” Dorothea thought about giving him a pep talk, but decided against it. Let him pout. He might be better off in his cabin alone since she didn’t think being bucked off his horse was his only problem with being here. He seemed alienated from the rest of the crew. Which could also be a blessing.
“Call on the phone if you need anything,” she said.
He glanced at the phone as if seeing it for the first time.
“It isn’t connected to anything but the lodge,” she told him in case he was hoping to call someone to get him out of here.
He grunted and she left him to mope, worried that his accident was the beginning of another set of bad luck.
* * *
AS WILL WALKED into the lodge later after helping with the horses, he caught a strong whiff of sage and groaned. He wasn’t surprised to find Dorothea had a green candle on the large square coffee table in front of the fireplace and she was now waving a sage branch around. He’d been here before with the woman and since the guests usually didn’t mind the smell—and didn’t know what was going on—he ignored her home-remedy attempts to protect them all from evil.
Actually, he hoped it worked, because it appeared one of the guests had purposely tried to hurt one of the others with that rubber snake, and they may need all the positive energy they could get.
Big Jack had come in and gone straight to the bar to pour himself a drink. With the ride being cut short, they had more downtime than normal before dinner was served. Will thought he could use a drink himself so he joined the man, who looked as if he had a lot on his mind.
“Dorothea tended to Dean’s sprained wrist,” he told the owner of the company. He merely nodded as if that was the least of his concerns.
“I hate to see anyone get hurt the first day.”
“It’s Dean’s luck,” Big Jack said. “If anyone was going to get hurt, it would be him.”
Will could see that the man wasn’t interested in visiting. “I think I’ll check on dinner,” he said and, taking his drink, headed for the kitchen.
Big Jack didn’t seem to notice, dropping into one of the deep leather chairs and staring into his glass as if he thought he might see the answer to his problems in the ice bobbing around in the amber liquid.
In the kitchen, Will found Poppy hard at work. She was singing softly to herself, a song he didn’t recognize. At the sound of his step behind her, she abruptly stopped singing and turned. Her cheeks flushed as she said, “I didn’t realize I had company.”
“Pretty song,” he said.
“It was one my father used to sing to me at night when we lived in the cabin near here,” she said, turning back to her work. She was chopping green onions with obvious skill. Next to her, she had butter melting in a large skillet. He watched her stop to stir the butter slowly. The woman could make melting butter feel like an aphrodisiac, he thought with a groan.
“Was there something you needed?” she asked as she put down her spoon and scraped the chopped onions into the pan.
His stomach growled as she added finely minced garlic. “No, I was just checking to see how you were doing.”
She turned to smile at him. “I’m glad you’re here. I need you to tell me what you think of this.” She dipped a spoon from the drawer into something she had cooking in a pan on a back burner and offered him a bite.
It happened so fast that he didn’t have a chance to decline. At least, that’s what he told himself. He took the spoon in his mouth, aware of how intimate it felt as she stepped close and slipped the mouthful between his lips.
The moment the sauce touched his tongue, his senses skyrocketed. He’d never tasted anything like it. It was sweet and savory with a depth of flavor that made it hard to discern all the ingredients.
He closed his lips over the spoon so as not to waste a drop of the wonderful potion. Poppy smiled and slowly withdrew the flatware from between his lips.
“What do you think?” she asked, her gaze locking with his as she waited for his verdict.
“Oh, my word.” He licked his lips. He couldn’t help himself. “That is...amazing.”
Her smile broadened. “I’m glad you like it. It’s my top-secret recipe.”
He was still savoring the sauce with all his senses on alert when she reached over with her finger to catch a dab at the corner of his mouth. He watched her finger, still wet with the dab of sauce, go from his lips to her own mouth. He felt a flutter low in his belly as her gaze met his as she sucked the savory sauce from her finger.
Will’s body reacted even as he told himself there was no denying it. This woman had come up here to take him down—just as Dorothea had warned him.
“That is good,” Poppy said with a laugh. “What was I going to tell you? Oh, yes, I’m serving that sauce tonight with the honey-glazed roast beef now in the oven, along with whipped garlic potatoes, asparagus hollandaise and roasted root vegetables in a maple reduction with a side of smoked duck salad in a light citrus vinaigrette. For dessert—”
“Stop,” he said, raising a hand. “You’re killing me.” He wondered if that was her plan. But that wasn’t all she was doing and she knew it. “Surprise me.”
She smiled, her gaze locking with his. “There is nothing I would love more. Than to surprise you.”
Will took a breath. Now that he knew the score, he told himself Poppy couldn’t get to him. Not with her amazing food or her secret sauces. And yet, he couldn’t forget the way sh
e’d taken the dab of sauce from the corner of his mouth and put it in her mouth, her lips closing over her finger... He cleared his voice. He had to put an end to this.
“I love your cooking,” he said, “but I hate to see you toiling over a hot stove the whole time you’re here.”
“It’s a labor of love for me and it’s what you hired me to do.”
Not exactly. Buckshot’s menu tonight was barbecued beef, beans and baked potatoes with ice cream sundaes for dessert. Buckshot spent as little time in the kitchen as was absolutely necessary.
“I was thinking that while you’re here we should get you out on a horse. I remember how much you loved riding. I’d hate to think of you in this kitchen working nonstop.”
She smiled as if she thought it was his guilt talking. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
But he feared he did. Now that he was onto her, though, he thought maybe he could turn the tables. She wanted to play games? This cowboy was more than ready. He just needed to get on even footing, which meant getting on the back of a horse.
* * *
POPPY HAD BEEN touched by Will’s offer to take her horseback riding in spite of herself. It had seemed to come from his heart. She quickly reminded herself that it was probably just guilt for the way he’d treated her when they were young. She really doubted he was concerned about her wearing herself out cooking since that’s what he’d hired her to do.
She had so few days to pull this off she couldn’t help but worry that it wouldn’t be enough time. Today was Sunday. The retreat was over Wednesday after a late breakfast and she would have no reason to stay any longer. It would be back to Whitefish with possibly no other chance to ever get this close to Will.
“Patience,” she told herself. She tried to relax as she recalled the look on his face when she’d given him a taste of her secret sauce. He was definitely enraptured with her cooking.
Which was a start.
But she’d decided to pull out all the stops when she’d taken that drop of sauce from the corner of his mouth to her own. She’d gotten to him, she was sure of it. It had been cheesy and childish and yet she couldn’t help taking pleasure in that moment. She told herself that Will deserved it and so much more.