Riding for Love (A Western Romance)

by Susedik, Tina

  “I thought you could use a friend right now.”

  Eve set her glass down. “Josie Franks, what are you talking about?”

  “I bumped into Tom at the store yesterday. He told me about the problems you’re having.”

  Suspicion reared. “And you came out here for that?” She sat up, grabbed a piece of chocolate, peeled off the wrapping, and popped the decadent treat into her mouth. “There’s something else going on. Spill, Josie.”

  “Rose Johanson was with him.”

  “And . . .?”

  “She told me about Denton being back in town.”

  “Uh huh?”

  “And that you had a little altercation with him.”

  Eve snorted. “No altercation. My truck rammed into his SUV. My insurance will pay for the damage. End of story.” She crossed her ankles on a stool. “So, how are Mike and the kids?”

  This time Josie snorted while topping off their glasses. “Don’t change the subject, Eve. What about your escapade at dinner with Max?”

  “Geez, Rose talked a lot, didn’t she?”

  “C’mon, girl. Your old boyfriend, whom I know you’ve never gotten over, returns to town and in a span of a few days, you bump into him twice. Sounds like providence to me.”

  Eve slugged back her wine and hiccupped. “Providence, schmovidence.”

  Josie took Eve’s glass. “I forgot how quickly you get drunk. We need to get some food into you.” She pushed herself out of the chair and went into the house.

  Eve sighed. Her friend was lucky. Married to a great guy. Two kids. A dog. Job she loved. At least she had a job she loved—the ranch, horses, employees, Tom. Sometimes, no a lot of the time, the longing for someone to share these details came over her like a buffalo stampede. Someone to help with the burdens and the joys of owning a business. Someone, who at the end of a long day, joined her on the front porch swing with a glass of wine, discussed the day’s happenings and enjoyed their children’s antics as they chased the dog around the yard.

  The man’s arm would be draped lazily across her shoulders. Bees hummed as they happily gathered nectar from the hundreds of flowers growing in the center garden in the raindrop-shaped driveway turnaround, along the paths to the cabins and lodge and the walkway to her house. Birds singing their night songs and the sounds of horses nickering from the pasture in the front of the barn would add to the relaxed atmosphere. He would turn her face toward his and his blue eyes would gaze lovingly into her brown ones before his mouth gently touched hers in a welcoming kiss.

  His love of horses would, of course, match hers. She visualized quiet rides together where they would go to her secluded lake to make love, maybe even creating one of their four children. Many times she and her imaginary lover would get wild and crazy and enjoy each other on the back of a horse. A horseback love scene in one of her favorite romance novels got her excited every time she read it. She wasn’t sure how it would even work, but the idea held merit.

  The phone rang, interrupting her highly erotic visions. Josie’s voice came through the open window.

  “Oh, hi. How have you been? Yes, it’s been a long time. Evie? She’s outside. Hold on, Denton, I’ll get her for you.”

  Eve jumped out of her chair, searching for a place to hide. A dive under the dank, dirty porch was not a good idea and the barn was too far away. She had one foot off the porch when Josie opened the front door and held out the phone.

  “Dammit, Josie, no,” she mouthed, refusing to take the phone.

  Josie covered the mouthpiece. “Dammit back at you, Eve. Rose told me he’s been calling you over and over. For Pete’s sake, would it hurt you to go to dinner with him? What are you? Chicken?” She pantomimed chicken wings flapping.

  “I hate you, Josie Franks.” Eve sat in her chair and covered her head with her hands.

  Josie pushed the phone at her once again. “No, you don’t. Now take the damn phone.”

  She took a deep breath and let Josie put the phone in her hands. “Do, too,” she snapped, turning her back on her friend.

  “What do you want, Dent?” Eve asked, her heart beating like the hummingbirds flitting from feeder to feeder on the porch outside her office window. “I thought I asked you not to call me anymore.” During the past week he’d phoned at least twice a day asking her to meet him. Each time, her resolve weakened a little more, especially when she realized those blue eyes in her dreams were his.

  “Eve, please.”

  The pleading tone in his voice nearly got to her. Then righteous anger took over. He deserved to be hurting. As much as she hated to admit it, he was wearing her down and she felt less and less like keeping him away.

  “Eve? Are you there?”

  “Yes, Denton, I’m here.” Eve sighed, sticking her tongue out at Josie. “What do you want?”

  “I only want to meet with you and hear me out.”

  “What difference would it make?” She pictured him running his hand through his hair in frustration.

  Ready to turn him down once more, she remembered Max and Tom telling her to listen to his side of the story. Except for her heart, what could it hurt? Maybe talking with him would exorcise the feelings she’d been harboring all these years. Maybe she would find out he had turned into a real toad or a beast that beat women and tortured children for kicks. Then he would truly be out of her life once and for all.

  Eve wiped her damp hands on her jeans and let out a calming breath. “Oh, all right, Dent,” she answered with resignation, ignoring her friend’s fist punch in the air. “When and where?”

  “Really?” He paused as if waiting for her to change her mind. He named a familiar supper club in a nearby city. “Tomorrow night? I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  ”Fine. But I’ll drive myself and meet you,” she said.

  “Great! Seven it is,” he said, his relief ringing clearly across the phone line.

  Eve clicked off the phone and turned to her friend. “Satisfied?”

  Josie smirked. “Oh, boy, you betcha, girl.” She grabbed the wine glasses and put a bottle of wine under her arm. “Okay. Now what are you going to wear?”

  “Jeans?”

  “No way in hell, sister. You need to knock him on his can. Make him sorry he ever left you.” She moved to the door. “Grab those snacks.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Your room. It’s been way too long since we’ve closet shopped, and I want to make sure you look perfect.”

  Denton arrived at the restaurant early, nerves tingling, palms sweating, resisting the urge for a strong brandy to bolster his confidence. He needed a clear mind tonight. He toyed with his glass of beer as he sat at the bar. How had life come to this? The last person on earth, besides his mother, he’d ever wanted to hurt was Eve. From the fateful day of his senior year to today, Eve was never far from his thoughts. He chuckled.

  She’d crashed into his life like she had on Main Street. They’d been in band together, so he knew of her, but she was a year younger and they didn’t run in the same circles. Her family was poor and his father’s business, while not making them rich, certainly put them at opposite ends of the financial spectrum. His parents, owners of a manufacturing plant, loved and were devoted to each other and him. Her father, an abusive alcoholic, and her mother, in denial, were no help to their only child.

  One morning after the school year started, he’d squatted by his locker, trying to decide if he needed his calculus book, when a bunch of guys from his football team ambled down the hallway, laughing and teasing a girl with dark hair. She spun around in circles trying to get out of their reach.

  Whether from dizziness or one of the guys pushing her, she crashed into his locker door, knocking him face forward into the metal container. She fell to the floor, her books flying in all directions. His
‘buddies’ continued to taunt her, kicking the books down the hallway.

  Denton sprang back from the locker, ready to give someone hell, when he met the girl’s eyes. Large, dark, and full of unshed tears, they tugged at his heart. Her waist-length, thick black hair had come out of its clip and hung around her face like a curtain. He resisted the urge to reach out and see if it was as soft as it seemed. He turned to his friends.

  “Knock it off, you jerks, before I knock you on your asses,” he yelled. Taller than most of them, his threats held meaning. They stopped.

  “Hey, Dent, my man. Just having some fun with old Evie, here.” A guy called Snook laughed. “She’s nobody.”

  Denton resisted the urge to smash Snook’s face in. “Hell, isn’t she your cousin? I thought family stuck together.”

  Snook glared down his pointed nose at Eve and snorted. “I guess she is. Her daddy’s the family drunk, and they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He jabbed one of his buddies in the ribs at his lame joke.

  “Yeah, well, your daddy sleeps with whores, so what does that make your mother?”

  Snook came at Denton, but the timely arrival of a teacher stopped the altercation. The bell for the first period rang, and the group moved on. Denton reached down to help Eve, but she was busy trying to collect her books strewn across the hallway.

  “Here, let me,” he offered.

  She shook her head as tears ran down her face.

  “We’ll be late for band. Let me help,” he said again as he bent over to pick up her flute case.

  At the same time Eve grabbed the case, stood, and smacked Denton in the chin with the top of her head. They fell to the floor, Denton hitting his head on a locker.

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m such a klutz. Everyone says so,” she cried after a few dazed seconds.

  “Eve, stop. It’s not your fault. Those idiots are such jerks.” He grabbed her hand and helped her stand. “C’mon, we can’t go to band looking like this,” he said, rubbing a newly forming lump on the back of his head. “You’re crying, and I have a headache. Let’s go talk to the principal.” For the first time in his high school career, Denton Johanson missed a class, or two.

  Denton took a drink and shook his head at the bartender’s question about another beer. He grinned at the memories flowing around his brain. With a few exceptions, the next year had been one of the happiest in his life.

  After leaving the principal’s office, they sat in his car and talked. By the end of the missed second period, he found her to be an intelligent, sad young woman. By the end of the third period, with the first shock and his headache worn off, they laughed at the incident. By the time lunch hour rolled around, he was just a little bit in love.

  It had taken a while to convince her to go out with him. She always had an excuse. She had to take care of chores, make supper, do homework. He didn’t realize until much later the differences in their backgrounds made her uncomfortable. He only knew the connection between them made him smile at the oddest times and the need to be with her grew strong. Even the hassles from his so-called friends didn’t stop him from going out with Eve; not their taunts, threats to stop being friends with him, nor their sexual innuendos about his relationship with her. He couldn’t believe his friends were so narrow-minded, especially her jerk cousin, Snook. They all thought because of her background, he had free rein with her.

  Of course, he wanted to. His teenage hormones ran as rampant as any other male in school. His dreams about what he would like to do woke him up with such a hard-on, he was surprised the damn thing didn’t snap off like a frozen branch during an ice storm. But he respected Eve too much to do anything more than kiss her and do some petting, so his hand had become his favorite nighttime friend.

  Denton glanced at his watch. Ten minutes late. Would she stand him up? A shadow crossed the door. His pulse jumped, and his breath caught in the back of his throat as she came toward him. He resisted the urge to wipe his sweating palms on his slacks.

  Although she looked classy in off-white dress slacks and a light green high-collared sweater, it wasn’t lost on him she hadn’t dressed like that for her date with the vet. Instead of heels showing off her fantastic legs, she wore black flats. Instead of her long hair sweeping down her spine, it was swept back in a simple bun at the base of her neck. She looked sexy as hell.

  Eve had been a nervous wreck ever since Denton’s phone call yesterday. She stood in the vestibule of the restaurant, letting her eyes adjust to the dim interior. Walking up to him would be one of the hardest things she’d done in a long time. She clenched her fists to keep from wiping sweaty hands on her slacks and hoped her eyes didn’t reflect the long night and copious amounts of wine Josie and she had imbibed.

  After tossing, turning, and worrying about what story he would have to tell and how she would react, Eve finally fell asleep as the sun came up with a rosy hue. In her dreams she greeted him as a cool, sophisticated woman, who didn’t give a fig about the past or him. More likely it was fear of throwing herself in his arms and giving him a kiss that would make up for their years apart.

  She’d left Josie sleeping in the spare room and dragged herself up at six for morning chores. Tom finally told her to go back to bed and sleep off her grumpies. Wanting to be refreshed and have a clear head for her confrontation, she took him up on his suggestion and managed to get in a few extra hours of sleep.

  Later, she found a note in the kitchen from Josie saying she had to get home to make sure her husband had the kids off to Saturday morning activities. She thanked her for the hangover, and admonished Eve to wear the short sundress with bolero jacket they picked. “You look like a model. Knock his socks off, sweetie. And try to have some fun.”

  Eve chuckled. She didn’t want to be sexy for Denton. She didn’t want to have fun. Hell, she didn’t want to be here. After Tom shooed her from the barn mid-afternoon and said he’d handle evening chores, time had crawled. She’d decided to splurge on a bubble bath in her whirlpool tub.

  After a quick snack to ease her queasy stomach, Eve dressed for the evening hoping Josie never found out she opted for casual not sexy. With dismay, she still had an hour to kill.

  She knew what to do—clean her disastrous room. Clothes were strewn across the bed and tossed on the antique fainting couch under the large window overlooking a row of pine trees running along the driveway. Several pairs of shoes lay on the corner fireplace hearth; a pair of nylons she’d poked a fingernail through flung on her dresser. Three empty bottles of wine lay on their sides at the foot of the bed and empty bags of chips and chocolate bar wrappers mingled with discarded clothing.

  Eve smiled. She needed more evenings like this, headache and all.

  With the chaos and mess of her childhood, she’d become rather a neat freak. Leaving it until later would drive her crazy and right now she didn’t need to add to her craziness for agreeing to meet with Denton.

  She straightened up the bedroom and went into the adjoining bathroom. The bubbles in the tub had died. She flipped the plug, and while the water drained, put away her make-up and hairdryer, wiped off the counter, and tossed wine corks in the garbage. The ring around the tub would have to wait until tomorrow.

  After eyeing the clock, she sighed. There was still too much time left.

  She fussed with her hair, re-applied the lipstick chewed off from biting her bottom lip, and considered changing her clothes. Shrugging in the mirror, Eve finally gave up and went downstairs. She checked the garage door lock, clicked off the light in the laundry room across from the stairway, and tidied her office desk. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “What the hell, I may as well leave early and get this over with. Maybe I’ll calm down on the drive into town.” Grabbing her purse and keys, she walked out the door, across the covered porch, and out
to her car. Tom came toward her from the barn.

  “Well, girl, let’s see what you decided to wear.”

  Eve performed a pirouette.

  He affected a thoughtful pose. “Mmm . . . Let’s see,” he said in an effeminate voice. “Understated, yet elegant. Powerful, yet feminine.” He frowned. “And a bit too sexy.”

  Eve laughed at his impersonation of the gay hairdresser in town, who happened to be a good friend of theirs. “I don’t know about sexy, Tom. At least I hope not ‘sexy.’”

  Tom draped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “You’ll knock his socks off, Eve.”

  “It’s not his socks I want to knock off,” she commented dryly. “I’m thinking more along the lines of knocking his block off. The big, fat jerk.”

  Tom laughed. “He didn’t seem big or fat. A jerk, yes, but not big or fat.”

  Eve frowned. “When on earth did you see Denton?”

  Tom blushed and slapped his battered hat against his leg. “Rose invited me over for supper the other night. Denton arrived before I left. He’s been putting in some long hours trying to figure out the company’s financial situation.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Nothing more than hello and good-bye,” Tom answered. “Hey, you’d better get going. You don’t want to keep him waiting too long, or he might leave.”

  Eve glanced at her watch and gasped. Now, instead of being too early, she was going to be at least ten minutes late, which might be a good thing. She certainly didn’t want Denton to think she was anxious to see him.