by Liz Isaacson
“Yeah, sure,” Scarlett said, glancing at Hudson too. “Hudson and I can chat later.”
The other cowboy watched Scarlett for another moment, then nodded and touched the brim of his cowboy hat before moving toward Carson. “Hey, Carson,” he said as he brushed past, and Carson got the distinct impression that he and Adele had just interrupted something between Hudson and Scarlett.
“Okay, so like I said, our first session next Saturday is sold out. That evening class went next, and then the morning sessions started filling. I was watching on the computer, and we got eleven people to sign up for once a week classes in the first thirty minutes.” Adele spoke as if she’d just gotten everything she wanted for Christmas, her exuberance and excitement contagious as she had Scarlett pull up the website she’d put together herself.
“It’s not perfect,” she said. “But it gets the job done. Carson helped me find the back-end plug-ins we needed for commerce.” She flicked her gaze at him and then focused back on the screen.
“The money goes into an account I set up on Wednesday morning, and we’ve never talked about how to pay the ranch.”
“I have a business account too,” Scarlett said. “You can just transfer it to that, right?”
“I’m sure we can.” Adele looked at Carson again.
“We can write you a check,” Carson said, wondering when he’d become a partner in the goat yoga operation. “Or pay through electronic payment using your email address.”
“Let’s just do that,” Scarlett said.
“Tell me the email you want me to send it to,” Carson said. “We’ll pay…what, Adele? End of every week? Every month?”
They both looked at Scarlett, who wore an equally blank look on her face. “Whatever works for you guys,” she said.
“I’ll decide,” Carson said, giving a nod to Adele.
“And how will the class work again?” Scarlett asked, and Adele started detailing how the sessions were broken down, how good the goats were getting, and how their social media accounts were going to explode once the classes actually started.
“So I need to keep posting,” she said. “Our Facebook and Instagram is so new.” She looked at Carson with worry in her eyes.
“Well, you’re good at that,” Scarlett said. “I mean, your—”
“Sh,” Adele said, much too loudly and for far too long. She stared at Scarlett and then briefly met Carson’s eyes.
The meeting wrapped up a few minutes later, and Carson left through the back door with Adele. He wanted to wake up in the morning fight-free, but he also wanted to know more about her.
“What was she going to say back there?” he asked, pausing on the lawn so when Adele kept walking, she wouldn’t be able to reach him.
“About what?” she asked.
“When she said you were good at social media.”
She paused too and turned around. He caught the tail-end of her eyeroll. “My first husband worked in Hollywood,” she said. “I got very good at managing his social media presence.”
Carson’s eyebrows went up. “First husband? So you’ve been married before.”
“That’s right.” Adele paced back toward him. “Is that a problem for you?”
“Not at all,” he said, wondering why it would be a problem for him. Did she think…well, what did she think? They worked together, and he hadn’t been shy about asking her out. She still hadn’t accepted though.
Something pulsed between them, and she asked, “What about you? Ever been married?”
“No, ma’am.” He instinctively touched the brim of his cowboy hat and glanced down. “I, uh, didn’t even date that much in Montana. The ranch was kind of isolated.”
A charged sparkle entered her eyes, and she took a slow step forward. “A handsome cowboy like you didn’t date?” She grinned at him and reached up to touch his cowboy hat right where he had.
A flare moved through him though she hadn’t even touched him.
“See you after lunch,” she said, taking a couple of steps backward before turning and walking away from him. He watched her go, his blood running hotter with every sway of her hips.
Sunday morning found Carson frowning at his phone. Adele had invited him to church.
Church.
Carson had been sitting on the front porch with a carving knife in his hand, and the piece he’d been whittling had lost its shape the moment he’d read her question. The war inside him continued to rage, and he still hadn’t answered her.
Hudson came out of his cabin and got in his truck, wearing a pair of black slacks, a white shirt, and a gray and purple tie. So he was going to church too. He didn’t see Carson on the porch, but Carson watched until his truck couldn’t be heard or seen anymore. Several minutes later, his truck rumbled past the turn-off into the Community, and Carson got the very real feeling that he’d just been left on the ranch alone.
Sure enough, Adele’s next text said, Didn’t hear from you. I’m making lunch after church if you want to come.
He couldn’t answer right away, because he didn’t want her to know he’d seen her earlier text and ignored it. He hadn’t really ignored it. He hadn’t known how to respond. He wanted to spend time with her. He just didn’t want to do it in a church.
The guilt threading through him stung, just like he expected it to. He set down the knife and tossed the useless piece of wood. “Come on Teddy,” he said to his dog. “Tony, let’s go for a walk.”
He had to get away from his house for a bit, and this ranch was huge. Hudson had asked him to go on some mapping expeditions, and Carson had readily agreed. He walked with the dogs over to the stables, saddled Moonbeam, a pretty black horse with a splash of white across her back, and set out with the sunshine as an additional companion. The fresh air had always cleared his mind, and today was no different.
Problem was, with his mind clear, new thoughts found a place inside his head. And today, all he could think about was Adele, the goats, and why he didn’t want to go to church. He pulled out his phone and sent a quick message back to Adele.
Lunch would be great.
Maybe if he didn’t say anything about church, he wouldn’t have to sort through the tangle of feelings inside him regarding his religion. But if it mattered to Adele at all, Carson knew he’d have to explain eventually.
She’d mentioned she was from Georgia, and he didn’t know a whole lot about the South—other than they took their religions seriously. He’d wanted to ask her what had brought her to California, but the conversation had moved to something else quickly, and he didn’t want to seem too interested in her.
A handsome cowboy like you.
Her words from the other day vibrated through his mind. Maybe it didn’t matter if she knew he was interested in her—because he was. And it might be possible that she was interested in him too.
He let Moonbeam plod along, and he didn’t take any notes of where he saw things on the ranch. Hudson was doing all of that, and Carson just went along for an extra set of eyes.
“What do you think, Moonbeam?” he asked the horse, and she lifted her head a few inches. “Should I ask Adele out again? Maybe she’d say yes this time.”
Moonbeam gave a little whinny, and it almost sounded like she’d said, “Maybe.”
Chapter 9
Adele sat beside Scarlett in the chapel, but her mind wandered along unknown paths on the ranch. Carson hadn’t texted until church had already started, but she’d fired off a quick invitation to lunch, and he’d confirmed.
The buzzing in her bloodstream had nothing to do with the sermon, and she couldn’t focus for more than two seconds. She had found a nice cut of brisket at the grocery store, and she’d done a video on all the prep for it already this morning.
She’d invited Scarlett and Hudson and Gramps, and it wasn’t until she’d announced she’d be making some of her famous—well, back home in Savannah-famous—Southern barbecue that she’d realized they’d be coming to her house.
Her
house.
She didn’t let anyone in her house. So the thoughts rotated and gnawed their way through her mind, first along the lines of wondering if she could get all the lights and camera equipment down and hidden in her bedroom.
Then she’d remember how long it had taken her to get them mounted, how she’d sliced her finger on the wire pot rack, and how she’d tweaked the cameras for two weeks before she had all the angles right and knew where to put her pots and dishes.
She couldn’t take down the equipment. And she couldn’t tell anyone about her food videos. She wasn’t sure why, but she wanted to hold onto the secret a little bit longer.
She leaned over to Scarlett. “Can we eat at your place?”
Scarlett looked at her, blinking a few times as if to clear her mind so there was room for Adele’s question. “What?”
“For lunch,” she said. “My…air conditioning isn’t working all that well.”
“Sure,” Scarlett said, and she practically snuggled into Hudson’s side.
Adele went back to obsessing over Carson, and if she shouldn’t have invited him to lunch. But she wanted to see him today, and he obviously wasn’t terribly interested in attending church.
Besides, Carson had asked her out a couple of times, and she wanted to go, especially the more time she spent with him. He had a gentle touch with the goats—and with her. He possessed a calm demeanor, and she felt better with him and after she’d spent time with him than she had in a very long time.
Her grip on her phone tightened, and she once again tried to focus on what Pastor Williams was saying. She’d grown up with a religious mother and father, and she did enjoy the peace that came when she attended church services.
The problem was, she didn’t know how to hold onto that peace for longer than a few hours after church. And she really wanted more of it in her life.
As she listened, she realized that the only time she felt that calm reassurance in her life was when she was making her videos. She’d wanted to be a chef for so long, and maybe she should just take the leap, get a loan, and go to culinary school. If she waited until she had enough money to afford the tuition, she’d never go. Hank’s debts would keep her paying for years and years, and she was already forty-three-years-old.
Familiar desperation rose in her throat, and she couldn’t swallow it away no matter how hard she tried. The hymn started, and she scrambled to her feet to add her voice to the chorus. She enjoyed the ebb and flow of the music as it moved through her, and the tune stayed with her as she filed out of the chapel behind Hudson and Scarlett.
She laced her arm through Gramps’s as they crossed the parking lot to Hudson’s truck. “Did you like the service, Gramps?” she asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Pastor Williams used to bring my wife the best peach preserves in the world.”
“Really?” Adele asked, though Gramps had told her about the peach preserves a few times now. She smiled at him. “Your wife used to put them on graham crackers.” In fact, his stories of his wife had inspired Adele to try the sweet, crunchy snacks with the goats.
“Yes,” Gramps said. “I think I’ll have that for lunch when we get back.”
“Oh, I’m making lunch today,” she said. “Remember?”
“Yes, yes. Lunch with you.” She helped him into the truck and settled beside him in the back seat. The short ride up the canyon brought them to the robot mailbox that Scarlett loved so much and had told her all about.
It was still in disarray, but Hudson had promised to have it ready before the Forever Friends team came to the ranch. He passed the turn-off toward the Community, and Adele employed all of her willpower to keep from looking down that way to see if she might catch a glimpse of Carson.
“Give me a couple of hours, okay? It takes a while to smoke brisket,” she said, and Hudson jerked his attention to her in the rear-view mirror.
“Brisket?”
“Oh, that got your attention, huh?” She laughed and Hudson grinned.
“Well, yeah. I mean, brisket.”
“He’s a meat lover,” Scarlett said.
“Most men are,” Adele said. “Shoot. Should I not be making brisket? Do you think that will entice Carson?” She looked at Scarlett, who twisted from her position in the front seat. Why had she even asked that? She’d invited Carson to lunch. Invited him.
“Entice him to do what?” Scarlett asked, clear confusion in her eyes.
Adele folded her arms and said, “I don’t know.” She really wanted to get out of the truck, but it was still moving. Hudson pulled into Scarlett’s driveway a minute later, and Adele opened the door before the vehicle stopped all the way.
She moved faster than even she knew she could, waving when she heard Scarlett call, “See you in a bit.” Adele crossed the lawn and dashed up her steps and into her cabin, locking the door and pressing her back into the door behind her. Her breath came quickly, and she closed her eyes for a few moments.
“Brisket,” she said, setting herself into motion. She could get the video done before she needed to cart everything across the grass to the homestead. She pulled it out of the oven and put it on the granite pieces directly under the camera.
She poked it, shredded a little bit, and determined it wasn’t quite ready yet. Back in the oven, with a touch more water on the wood chips in the bottom of the roasting pan. Smoke billowed up, and she covered everything with aluminum foil to force it into the meat and not out of the vent at the back.
She worked through a kale salad and put a pot on her single burner to make a batch of creamed corn. She measured and pinched salt, pepper, and cornstarch, that soothing calmness she craved coming over her.
At least until someone knocked.
Adele’s attention flew to the front door. She pushed her hair off her forehead, cursing this short cut she’d gotten a couple of weeks ago. Sweaty, and with too much out to hide, she stood very still.
The knocking came again, this time with Carson calling, “Adele?” The doorknob rattled as if he’d come in without being invited. Fury raged through her, and she was suddenly grateful that she’d bought and installed that second lock.
She practically ran across the room to the front door and said, “Lunch is at the homestead, and it’s not ready yet.”
“Maybe I could come in and just hang out until it is.”
Adele exhaled, once again torn right in half. When he turned the knob again, she couldn’t believe she’d ever found him attractive. Or that she’d been considering going out with him. That she’d invited him to this stupid lunch in the first place.
Without thinking—or maybe she’d lost her mind—she undid the locks and pulled the door open a couple of inches. “You can’t come in.”
Carson stood there in those ultra-clean jeans, that cowboy hat on his head, and those gorgeous blue eyes drinking her up. “Why not?”
“You just can’t.”
He cocked his head and smiled, and dang if she almost didn’t invite him in. “Come on.”
“No,” she said, stepping forward as if to block him. “I don’t like people watching me cook.” He was so much taller than her, and if he came closer, he’d be able to see over her head and into the kitchen.
“It smells great. I’m not going to judge you.”
“Get off my porch!” she said, and it may have morphed into a yell.
Carson blinked, pure surprise flowing across his face. It was immediately replaced with a dark look, and his jaw jumped as he ground his teeth together.
“Go on,” she said. “Lunch isn’t ready yet.”
He glared at her, and she said, “You can’t come in. Have you seen anything?”
“What would I see?”
“Please just go,” she said, but there wasn’t any whining in her voice. More like barking.
Carson growled, moved down the steps, and said loudly, “I wasn’t coming in. Jeez. I knocked. I didn’t see anything. What are you doing in there anyway?” He shook his head as he marched
away. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. You’re crazy.”
“You’re uninvited to lunch,” Adele called after him, pure fury driving her toward irrationality. Tears—actual tears—leaked down her face, and she swiped at them angrily. She couldn’t believe this man had driven her to crying. She never cried.
Carson disappeared around the corner of the homestead at the same time Scarlett moved up the steps, her face one of worry.
“Hey, sweetie.” She guided Adele back toward the cabin, and she realized she’d come out on the front porch completely, leaving her cabin wide open for anyone to see.
“He is impossible,” Adele said, practically a shout. “Impossible!” The yell made Scarlett flinch away from her.
Then she put her arm around Adele, who had more tears spilling down her face.
“Okay,” Scarlett said. “Come on. Let’s get inside.” She guided Adele into her cabin, and Adele was so distraught she didn’t realize what had happened until Scarlett closed the door behind them.
And now she had someone in her house. She faced Scarlett, her heart racing like it was trying to win the Kentucky Derby.
Chapter 10
Carson showed up at the homestead the next morning, right on time. Just because he’d been uninvited to lunch and then spent the afternoon and evening alone didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do his job.
And Scarlett had asked to meet with him this morning.
He yawned, stifling it quickly when she called, “Come in.” He couldn’t let anyone know that he’d lain awake for a lot of the night. The rest of it, he’d wandered the ranch under the glow of the moon, wondering where he’d gone so wrong.
His anger and frustration with God had returned in full force, and he’d spent hours trying to figure out why he’d had to lose his ranch in Montana. Why his mother had left him alone with his dad and brother. Why, when he’d done everything right, they’d still gotten a reward and he’d been forced to leave the only life he’d ever known.
And why, when he’d been getting along so well with Adele, things had then gone so badly.