One Perfect Year

by Melinda Curtis

  “You let them baby you.” Christine printed Ryan’s name next to town council on her notepad. “Someday, when you’re running your own winery, you’ll thank me for this experience.”

  “Highly improbable.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. “Your grandmother is on the town council. You could at least handle her yourself.”

  “Rose, Mildred and my grandmother are practically inseparable. You’ll need to charm them all at the same time.” Christine tapped her pencil on the list. “I’ve been talking to my grandmother about this, but you need those three to stand as one.”

  Ryan sighed in defeat, slumping farther in his chair. “I guess I know where I’m going for lunch.”

  He may have known, but Shelby needed clarification. “What are you asking me to do with Mae? Didn’t she agree to the sale?”

  “Yes, but Dream Day Bridal is her life’s work.” Christine’s volume dropped into serious territory, the space occupied by doctors, lawyers and morticians. Shelby’s skin prickled. “Mae lost her husband this spring. She’ll need someone who understands...” Christine paused and Shelby’s skin prickle spread. “She’ll need someone compassionate as she clears out her things.”

  Shelby knew Christine had been about to say, “Someone who understands losing a spouse.” There was a skill set Shelby didn’t want on her resume: widow hand-holder.

  Before Shelby could challenge the assignment again, Christine, the queen of efficiency, pushed forward. “You can use the winery truck to move her things out of the shop as soon as the contract is signed. I’ll schedule a Dumpster for delivery midweek. Mae gave me a set of keys.” Christine handed Shelby a key ring with a purple high-heeled shoe charm. “Her children live in another state. She’s alone. If you could just be a sympathetic ear to her and watch for any more of those out-of-touch episodes, I’d sleep easier at night.”

  “I asked my grandfather if he’d noticed anything unusual about her behavior.” The metal key ring felt cold in Shelby’s hand. “But Grandpa hadn’t seen or heard of Mae doing anything like what we witnessed.” The drifting conversations. Conversations with a dead husband. The rants about Shelby’s clothes.

  “Do you want to reconsider trading?” Ryan whispered.

  Shelby shook her head. She supposed widows should stick together. She’d just be clear with Mae over and over again, if necessary. There’d be no talk of Shelby getting married again or pairing up with Gage.

  “Moving on...” Ignoring their irascible assistant winemaker, Christine reviewed her list. “I called in a favor with Utley Construction. They can assess the basic work needed at the bridal shop to prep for our casks and tanks. We used them for all the original work here, and they have experience remodeling and installing wine cellar equipment. Can you meet them at the shop by seven Tuesday morning, Shelby?”

  “Yes.” Shelby tried to recapture some of her excitement at learning she’d have not one, but two wine cellars to manage. Tried. And failed.

  * * *

  GAGE RESTED AGAINST the stall door, watching Sugar Lips and her colt. The maternity barn at the equine hospital was unusually quiet. The hushed sound of hooves on hay, nickers and snorts were a soothing backdrop to his confusion about Shelby.

  They’d achieved some sort of common ground where she actually looked at him when they spoke. But what did it mean? More important, what did he want it to mean?

  What he wanted it to mean was a pipe dream.

  His mind wrestled with the potential outcomes.

  Hypothesis Number One: in two months, he’d leave Harmony Valley, completely over his infatuation with Shelby. Since Nick’s death, she’d changed. He’d changed. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibilities that his attraction to her would fade.

  Hypothesis Number Two: in two months, she’d fall in love with him and they’d leave Harmony Valley together, bound for Kentucky. And pigs regularly flew.

  Hypothesis Number Three: in two months, he’d give up on Kentucky regardless of how Shelby felt for him and stay in Harmony Valley.

  He knew himself well enough to be truly worried about the third outcome. That worry slid beneath his shoulder blades, unbalancing and unwelcome.

  Sugar Lips twitched her ears in his direction, but otherwise ignored Gage.

  Her chestnut foal blinked wide eyes at him from around his mother’s tail. With bold steps, the colt approached Gage, tilting his head as if trying to figure him out.

  “You wouldn’t compromise your dreams for a girl, would you, buddy?”

  The future Triple Crown winner came nearer, and stretched his graceful neck toward Gage. His velvety chin touched Gage’s forearm as he tried to nibble his first human.

  Gage moved his arm out of the way. “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Footsteps at the entrance to the barn sent the colt bolting to the other side of his mama, who stomped impatiently.

  “You’re not fooling anyone, Sugar Lips,” Gage said. “When it comes to your son, you’re a total softy.” As was Gage when it came to Shelby.

  “Dr. Jamero?”

  Gage bent backward to see who’d entered the barn, only a mild resulting twinge in his spine. “Dr. Faraji.” The last person Gage wanted to see was Leo. He knew how to capitalize when Gage stumbled.

  “What’s this I hear about potential scheduling conflicts? Are you leaving early for Kentucky?” Leo carried a clipboard, wore a lab coat and a satisfied smile. “Dr. Thomason warned Far Turn Farms that you might not be present for the next maiden delivery.”

  The satisfaction in Leo’s tone stomped on Gage’s nerves like an angry, rearing stallion. “I told Dr. Thomason I’d come if he gave me enough warning.”

  “No need to bother.” Leo’s smooth accent should have soothed, but Gage had heard those notes a few times too many for him to take Leo’s words at face value. “I’ll be here for the next Far Turn delivery. You will be surprised how quickly they will learn to ask for me instead of you.”

  Gage rejected several uncharitable retorts.

  “What is it that’s taking you away?” Leo barely glanced into Sugar Lips’s stall. For a vet, the man had practically no personal interest in animals.

  “I’m helping out back home.” Gage struggled to keep his voice even. It nearly killed him to admit, “Small town. Small animals.”

  Leo raised a brow and chuckled. “Sounds like destiny, my friend.” In the elite equine world, treating everyday pets was perceived to be low on the importance scale.

  It may have only been perception, but Leo’s laughter stung Gage’s pride nonetheless. “It’s only until my job in Kentucky opens up.” Only until the current vet retired. Gage tried to sound confident. He was afraid he came across as angry and defensive.

  “You’re not as coldhearted as you’d have the interns believe,” Leo said cagily. “Can I have your picture of Secretariat?”

  “No.” Gage stared icily. That picture had been a gift from a grateful horse breeder.

  Leo crossed his arms over the clipboard. “Small animals don’t admire greatness like his. Why not leave it here?”

  The colt stuck his nose over the top of the door, sniffing and angling his head for a peek at them. Leo continued to ignore the little guy, being more interested in the glory of being a veterinarian at a prestigious facility than in the animals that were his patients.

  How can I give this up?

  “Leave the picture where it belongs, Dr. Jamero,” Leo pressed.

  How can I give this up to him?

  “It belongs with me.” The steel in Gage’s voice stiffened his backbone. “In Kentucky.”

  Leo moved toward the next stall. “You’re a small animal doctor now, Jamero. Best to accept it and move on.” He laughed, each note a jab at Gage’s wounded pride. “And while you’re at it, leave me the number of that employer in Kentucky. I kne
w all along I was the better fit for the job.”

  There was no way Gage was letting his infatuation with Shelby grow, no way he was staying in Harmony Valley permanently.

  That’s what he told himself anyway, mile after mile on the drive back to town.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “YOU CAME BACK.” Shelby sat at the kitchen table with her laptop open, dark circles beneath her eyes.

  Gage grimaced as he removed his coat and hung it up. “You thought I wouldn’t?”

  Shelby hesitated a little too long before answering. “Grandpa’s excited about reopening the clinic.” She straightened papers into a neat stack, and then shoved them into a folder. “He went to bed early.”

  “While you stayed up because I left two years ago and you thought I’d do it again.” Gage felt as if he’d come home before curfew, and been accused of wrongdoing when he’d been studying at the library. He set the picture of Secretariat against a floor-level kitchen cabinet.

  “What a pretty horse.”

  Secretariat wasn’t just a pretty horse. He was the horse, at least to Gage, and his blood ran in Sugar Lips’s veins. Gage ignored Shelby’s attempt to change the subject. “I gave you my word I’d be here for two months. If I say I’m going to drive to Cloverdale to get you coffee, will you doubt me returning then, too?”

  She surprised him by smiling, albeit sadly. “I might.”

  Her not trusting him was perfect. Oh, it hurt. Like a Sugar Lips kick aimed right at his heart. But it blew all his hypotheses to pieces. No need to wait two months for rejection. She was giving it to him straight, right now. Kentucky was all but assured. He could lock it into his GPS. Put a security deposit on an apartment in Lexington. Wrap the Secretariat picture in packing material.

  “I don’t put my trust in people or situations anymore,” Shelby all but whispered. “It’s like you said last night. Life can be lost.” She snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

  Gage opened his mouth to rebuke her, but instead, he said, “I wish there was a way I could restore your trust.” The personal pep talk he’d given himself while driving back to Harmony Valley? The advice about Shelby and keeping his distance? A wasted exercise.

  He wanted to thunk his head. More than once.

  Maybe that would knock his thinking on track. But there was her barnacle expression and her comments about living her life alone. Without any kind of relationships. Before he could stop himself, he said, “You’re going to love again, Shelby.”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “What kind of life is it without love?” He refused to back off. Her blue eyes stared blankly at the kitchen wall as he answered his own question.

  She’d be alone. She’d be less than the person she could be. And what a further tragedy that would be...

  She’d laugh less, smile less, try less. Suddenly, he saw the results of her locking away her heart. She’d never have a baby, never know how love created one of its greatest gifts.

  That’s not right.

  The words in his head sounded as if Nick had spoken them.

  Gage’s insides twisted with a sense of frustrated obligation. In the two years they’d been apart, she’d become more confident in some ways. In others, she’d withdrawn, her sense of humor conspicuously absent. “Hearts don’t stop loving just because they’re broken once or twice.” How he wished they did.

  She slid her folder into her black laptop bag, careful not to look at him. “Did you check on my Saint Bernard on your way in?”

  She cared too much about that dog, but maybe... “You think it’s safer to love a dog than a person?”

  He could see her answer. A slight blush tinged her cheeks.

  “Animals can leave you as abruptly as people, Shel. Don’t put your love—don’t put your trust—in that dog. He’s too well behaved to be left behind. His family will show up one day. Soon.”

  She shrugged. “Is he better?”

  “Why do you always have to make things so hard?” Gage rubbed the back of his neck. “Yes, he’s improving.” Gage had stopped by the clinic before heading over here. “He’ll need exercise in another day or so.”

  “I’ll walk him.” Her eyes sparked with enthusiasm. For a dog. Worse still, for someone else’s dog. “Or I could take him to work with me. In fact, he doesn’t need to stay at the clinic at all. Mushu would enjoy some company at night.”

  “You’re getting carried away. Don’t get attached.” Not to a dog.

  And not to him. He was Kentucky bound.

  “He needs me.” She closed her laptop. “You want to know how to restore my faith in you?”

  “Yes.” Heaven help him.

  “Let’s put your dog adoption conditions on the calendar. If no one returns for him, when will you consider him officially adoptable?”

  She was on cruise control, ignoring the warning signs that said Slow Down and Curves Ahead. But what could he do? “Shelters have varying policies. A week. Ten days.”

  “What do you consider the right amount of time?”

  Whatever he said, she was going to hold him to it. Gage considered carefully. He weighed the fact that the dog looked as if he’d been loose and without food for several days against Shelby’s capacity for patience. “A week. Give it a week.”

  “Deal.” Shelby came around the table, presumably to shake on it.

  Suddenly inspired, Gage stepped back. “What do I get out of this deal?”

  She hesitated. “My trust?” She phrased it like a question. Trust was something she clearly had no intention of giving him again.

  All those mountains he and Nick climbed with rope, crampons and axes had never seemed as treacherous as the climb to regain her trust. There was a cavernous hole inside him, he’d lost everything that mattered to him once and had only been fooling himself up until now. “We both know it’ll take more than this for you to trust me again.”

  Shelby crossed her arms, knotting them tight. “You could tell me why you left after the funeral.”

  The tilt to her chin would have sent him tumbling in defeat if it hadn’t hit him then. An idea. One that would put her on the path to love again. “Here’s what I want. When a week has passed and you take the dog home, you’ll go out on a date.”

  “Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes. “With who? Mayor Larry?”

  “I’ll find someone.” Worst case? He’d set her up with Leo. “Deal?”

  She paused.

  “If the dog’s still here in a week, he could be yours.” Gage smiled and held out his hand.

  She grasped it firmly.

  And then her grip shifted. She took both his hands in hers, holding out his arms in a sort of informal exam. “You were with that mean horse today. Show me you didn’t get kicked or bit or whatever it is peevish mares do.”

  He froze. What was she asking? To examine his body for fresh wounds?

  She squeezed his hands. “Show me.”

  “No.” He took a step back.

  Her hands fell away, but she moved closer to him. “Don’t be embarrassed. I’ve seen you without your shirt on. I put antibiotic on your back after the brambles got you, remember?”

  He did. He’d been pretending to sleep in the raft, watching her instead of where they were going. He’d lunged forward to protect her from being scraped by blackberry brambles. “I didn’t get in a stall with any mares today. I don’t need medical attention.” Talk about mistrust. Shelby didn’t take him at his word and he didn’t have any faith he’d be able to take her into his arms if she asked him to.

  He took another step away from her.

  She matched his stride. “I’m not offering to give it. I just want to make sure you aren’t keeping something from me.”

  He was keeping a huge secret from her, but it had nothing to
do with medical attention and horses. “This is not how you build trust. You can’t just back me into a corner.” But she had. He glanced over his shoulder. He had another three feet until the kitchen door.

  “It’s not about trust, Gage.” He had to strain to hear her voice. “It’s about reassuring me you’re safe.”

  She reached for him, resting her hand on the hem of his T-shirt.

  He wanted to tell her she was out of line and playing with fire, but her hand...her warmth. It tested him as he’d never been tested before.

  He silently hoped for the appearance of Doc, a sudden rumble of thunder, a phone call, anything to distract her.

  “Please.” Her blue-eyed gaze softened. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight wondering if you were in danger today.”

  “I packed my things and tied up loose ends. No more,” he said gruffly. Her fingers tugged at the gray cotton at his waist. “If you took me at my word, you’d know I was safe. Trust is about not needing proof.”

  “I trusted Nick when he said he’d be careful. I trusted you when you told me at the funeral we’d talk soon.” Her voice hardened and pressed upon him, edging him closer to obeying her wishes. And then he had to strain to hear her add, “I need to see for myself.”

  The pain and vulnerability in her voice nearly undid him.

  It was a small thing, really. Her gaze showed no embarrassment. No heat either. There was merely concern.

  Okay, then. She wants a clinical exam.

  Showing her his bare torso would be like doing a good deed—helping a granny cross the road or returning a stray dog to its owners. He’d strip and she’d sleep better tonight. The exhaustion would ease around her eyes tomorrow.

  He removed her hand from his hip, and peeled off the gray cotton. “There’s nothing new here to see.”

  She blinked once at his chest, then walked behind him.

  “No new bruises.” Her whisper danced across his shoulders. He felt the barest of touches near Sugar Lips’s strike zone. “And this one is turning green.”

  He stared at the picture of Secretariat, patron saint of horse enthusiasts and foolish veterinarians.