by Laura Moore
He loved both views equally.
His booted steps rang on the gravel road and his breath came out in short puffs. He hadn’t eaten breakfast and so was looking forward to the staff meeting. This morning his family and the available staff were serving as taste testers for Roo Rodgers’s late spring menu. And though he was resisting the mass gooey excess of emotion that accompanied Valentine’s Day, he had to admit he was looking forward to seeing one woman in particular. He wondered what he could do to get Tess’s back up this morning. He’d developed a real talent for it. A man shouldn’t waste his talents.
In the pocket of his jacket his cellphone buzzed. Pulling it out, he pressed the talk button. “Ward here,” he answered, and lengthened his stride. The main lodge had come into view.
“Ward, can you believe it? Carrie said ‘Yes’!”
Romantic cynic though he might be, Ward wasn’t so jaded he’d begrudge his best friend’s happiness. The joy in Brian’s voice was so outsized it could have reached Ward without the aid of all the cell towers or satellites positioned between California and Massachusetts.
His own face split into a grin. “So you finally mustered the courage to ask her. Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, well, now that she’s finished writing the paper she’s giving at Harvard next week and has stopped looking like a zombie—Ow!” Brian’s grunt of pain was mixed with laughter. “My fiancée’s finding me objectionable already. Listen, Carrie wants to get on the line, too, so that we can ask you something. Make sure you congratulate her at having landed such a prize among men.”
Ward shook his head in amusement as Brian’s second grunt was followed by the unmistakable sound of lips meeting and clinging moistly, separating, then joining again. Clearing his throat loudly, he said, “Ahem, kids, don’t forget you’re not alone. I can hear you.”
“Sorry.” Brian’s voice held a telling huskiness. “Can’t help it. She’s so cute. And she’s going to marry me—hold on for one more sec.”
Rolling his eyes, Ward pulled open the door to the main lodge’s lobby. All was quiet. The breakfast for the guests wasn’t scheduled to begin for another forty-five minutes. He waved to Estelle, who was on duty at the front desk and also on the phone—likely talking to someone back east as well, or perhaps booking a reservation from an interested party in Europe—and opened a door to Estelle’s left that led to the back offices. The carpeted hall absorbed his footsteps.
The second round of smooching ended, and then Carrie’s breathless voice sounded in his ear as he settled into the chair behind his desk. “Hi, Ward!”
“Congratulations, beautiful. Mom’s going to be over the moon when she hears your and Brian’s news. You know how she is. Oh, and do me a favor and scoot away from that man before he gets any happier.”
“Hey!” Brian interjected, laughing. “I thought you were my friend! Maybe I shouldn’t ask you to be my best man at the wedding.”
Ward went still. Then he swallowed. “Brian, thank you—thank you for this honor.”
“Come on, as if there were ever any question whom I’d want by my side on the most important day of my life. You’re not just my best and oldest friend. If it weren’t for you, it’s doubtful I’d even be around to kiss Carrie, let alone marry her.”
A familiar wave of self-consciousness washed over Ward. He wished Brian would stop thinking of him as his personal savior. All that had happened more than two decades ago and the events had escalated so quickly—the gang of hoods forming a menacing circle around Brian, Ward’s decision to run over and help the new kid at school—what remained was pretty much a blur of heart-pounding, fear-blurred images.
While he might shake off the mantle of hero, one thing he would never reject was the bond of friendship forged between Brian and him that long-ago afternoon.
Determined to steer the conversation away from any further mention of his supposed heroism, he said, “Tell me more, guys. Have you set a date? I need to know when to line up the dancing girls for the bachelor party.”
“You can think again about that idea,” Carrie said as Brian exclaimed simultaneously, “Dancing girls, sweet! You’re right, Ward, I should have popped the question long ago.”
Ward grinned. “I foresee a lifetime of marital bliss, kids. It’s all right, Carrie. I’m sure I can line up some old, wrinkled dancers who dress in purple kaftans for Brian’s bachelor party.”
“Thank you. That would be most acceptable.” Carrie’s voice was appropriately prim, but then she ruined it by giggling.
“I serve to please. So when and where’s the wedding of the year to take place?”
In the quiet of Ward’s office, Brian’s voice was as clear as if he were three feet rather than three thousand miles away. “Well, bud, that’s why we wanted to call you before anyone else. We don’t want a huge wedding—”
“Just a beautiful one in a place we both love,” Carrie chimed in. “Obviously the first place that came to mind was Silver Creek. We were wondering whether we might be able to have the wedding at the ranch.”
“Sure. Mom and Dad will be thrilled. You know they consider Brian a third son. When do you want to tie the knot?”
“We were thinking of the first weekend in June. Carrie’s teaching a summer school course, but it doesn’t start until the week after.”
Damn, early June? Memorial Day marked the beginning of the guest ranch’s high season, when the gardens were bright with color, and the weather was perfect for all sorts of activities—hiking, biking, riding, fishing, swimming, and kayaking, not to mention the touring of vineyards near and far. Brian had worked a number of summers at the ranch alongside Ward and Reid, with Quinn tagging along after them. He knew how crazy the summer season got.
The excitement of Carrie’s accepting his proposal must have caused a memory lapse.
For a moment “Uh-hmm,” was all he could manage. Finally he pulled himself together. “I’ll have to check with the front desk about reservations.” Even as he said the words he knew he’d do his utmost to arrange things according to their wishes. “Okay, you’ve got the wedding date. How many people are you thinking of inviting?”
“Well, we’ve done a quick tally and think about sixty, though we might have to go higher once the parents get involved. A hundred max.”
Ward coughed. A hundred? In case he’d needed proof, here it was. Love really did do a number on the brain cells. “I know you guys haven’t been here in a while, what with your job, Brian, and Carrie’s slog through the galaxies, but that would be all the rooms on the ranch plus spillover. We’ll have to choose a couple of hotels and B&Bs nearby and book blocks of rooms quickly.”
“We know it’s a huge favor to ask. But Carrie and I have such wonderful memories of our summer stays there with you—”
“Of course. Listen, I’ll have to run this by the supreme powers, but lucky for you I remembered to get Mom a Valentine’s present.”
“As if you’d ever neglect to,” Carrie scoffed.
“Give Adele a big hug from both of us,” Brian said.
“Will do. So let me go scout out the situation and I’ll get back to you later today.”
“Thanks a million, bud. We wanted to be able to tell Carrie’s folks that we’ve got the wedding location fixed before they began pressuring us to hold it in Greenwich.”
“Greenwich is just not our style. At Silver Creek we’ll have a wedding to remember,” Carrie added.
“I’ll do my best for you, beautiful,” Ward promised.
“You’re so wonderful, Ward.” At Brian’s immediate objection, she giggled again. “Sorry, I guess today I have to hide my devotion to you.”
“Say hi to everyone for us.”
“And give your dad a big kiss.”
“That’s something he’d rather you deliver personally, Carrie,” Ward said with a laugh.
His laughter died as he slid the cell back into his jacket pocket. As focused as he’d been on the more immediate problem—the organizatio
nal headache of hosting a wedding for Brian and Carrie—he’d been able to ignore another, bigger and far more personal, headache, one guaranteed to plague him throughout the entire wedding weekend. Probably for even longer than that. A wedding at Silver Creek meant he’d have to deal with Carrie’s stepsister, Erica.
Having his mercenary ex-fiancée anywhere near Silver Creek was not high on Ward’s wish list.
“GOOD MORNING, TESS. Happy Valentine’s Day!” Adele Knowles said as she breezed into the meeting room.
Tess paused in the middle of setting out on the long oak table a selection of delicacies that Roo had baked. She’d learned to skip breakfast on these special mornings when a taste testing was involved.
“Hi, Adele. Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too.” She’d sent her mother, father, and brother Valentine’s cards—Christopher’s a big goofy one with an enormous sparkly heart—but other than that she was trying to ignore the holiday. Her heart just wasn’t in it.
“Don’t you look pretty. I love that necklace.”
Tess smiled. “Thanks, it was a present from Anna.” The necklace was made of oversized purple resin beads. Tess had paired it with a charcoal gray wool tailored sheath and a wide black patent leather belt. Her stiletto-heeled pumps—also black patent—were arguably better suited to strolling down Fifth Avenue and giving hot dog–eating construction workers a lunchtime thrill than to her new job as Adele Knowles’s assistant, which basically called for shadowing the older woman and helping out in the main lodge wherever and whenever she was needed, but for some reason Tess couldn’t seem to dress in any other fashion. Since her arrival in Acacia, her outfits had become increasingly citified.
“This would be Anna of the ‘Let’s blindfold you, spin you around like a top, and let your finger decide your fate’ fame?”
A vestige of embarrassment remained at having succumbed to Anna’s crazy plan, yet Tess managed to smile happily and reply, “The one and only.”
Five weeks later and Tess was still coming to grips with the fact that her finger had landed pretty much smack-dab in the middle of one of Silver Creek Ranch’s pastures. Most likely on a cowpat.
How could she not feel out of place? Acacia, with its bustling downtown of—count ’em—four streets, had a population of 1,147. Just a bit different than New York City, where, depending on the time of day, it could feel like 1,147 people were crammed into a single subway car.
Thanks to Anna’s game of “Pin your Future on the Map,” she was now in the land of the redwoods and Bigfoot. Okay, the wildly huge trees were located farther to the north, as were the reported Sasquatch sightings, but still, she’d never seen so much nature in her life. Hence the stiletto heels. If worse came to worst and she was attacked by a wild animal, she could use them as a weapon.
“Anna’s fashion taste matches her bold schemes,” Adele said. “I like your friend more every time you mention her. Do you think she could get me one of those necklaces in blue to go with my scarf?”
Adele was undoubtedly the best thing about Tess’s new life. She was smart, a savvy businesswoman, and as generous as the day was long. Tess couldn’t believe she’d gotten so lucky as to land a job as her assistant.
And she was eager to repay Adele’s generosity toward her however she could. “Sure,” she said with a nod. “I’ll call Anna and ask where she found the necklace—I think a deep sapphire would go really well with that scarf. It’s beautiful, by the way.”
Another thing to admire about Adele was her taste. Her style of dressing was what Tess would term “relaxed California,” with lots of unstructured knits and natural fibers, but she always knew how to jazz it up with accessories to enhance her outfit. Adele might be the owner of a three-thousand-acre ranch surrounded by mountains and timber and where there were more animals—wait, she corrected herself, the term was “livestock”—than people, a place where the nearest high-rise was miles away and decent public transportation even farther, and where the only taxi was a rusted-out Dodge driven by one Ralph Cummins, a ponytailed grandfather who had a real casual attitude toward steering, but Adele could rival any New York doyenne when it came to looking great.
Her employer fingered the magenta-and-cerulean-blue-patterned silk scarf draped about her shoulders. “Isn’t it lovely? Ward gave it to me. He left the package propped against our front door, wrapped with a bow. So sweet of him,” she said with a proud maternal smile.
Tess’s gaze shifted to a framed photograph resting upon the wide window ledge. Taken by a travel magazine that had run an article on the ranch, the photo showed the Knowles family standing in front of the main lodge. Her focus zeroed in on the tall, rugged, dark-haired man standing to the right in the picture, and her smile faded.
The photo had been taken in the summer. Ward’s face was deeply tanned, and the curling ends of his hair were burnished with glints of gold. He was staring directly into the camera. The photographer had captured his steady gaze and his rock-solid confidence, too. It was there in the tilt of his square chin. Now that Tess knew what to look for, she saw the pride that was such a part of him, that he wore as easily as his business suits.
That she’d mistaken him for a ranch hand, a lowly employee—someone on her level—still had the power to cause a flush of hot embarrassment to crawl over her cheeks. Though Ward might choose to dress 85 percent of the time in faded jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, and a creased cowboy hat—the basic wardrobe of so many here at Silver Creek Ranch—he was every inch the powerful modern prince, heir to this Northern California kingdom.
And she’d had it with princes, whether they hailed from the East or West Coast, whether they dressed up or down. It was just too damned bad that Ward Knowles happened to look like the finest dark prince ever to come out of central casting.
As usual, she did her best to hide her antipathy. “Yes, that was very sweet of him.” Of course Ward had bought his mother a Valentine’s present. He was proud and arrogant but absolutely devoted to his family. She’d give him credit for that.
Adele glanced at her. Tess often had the uncomfortable impression that Adele guessed precisely how much Ward rubbed her the wrong way. But if the amused twinkle in Adele’s eyes was any indication, Tess’s refusal to sign up as Ward’s number one fan didn’t bother her much.
“I realize you and Ward got off to a somewhat shaky start, Tess. But you know, he didn’t really kill your car.”
“No, of course not,” she agreed in a dry tone. She didn’t say—and wild horses would not have been able to drag the truth out of her—that what had disturbed her almost as much as her car dying in front of the main lodge was how Ward had thrust his arm into the car, and her reaction when his arm had grazed her breasts.
How could a fleeting touch have generated so much electricity that her body still remembered the sizzle? The gnawing want?
So yes, she felt more than uneasy about Ward; she begrudged him the way he had aroused her. And how, in the weeks since her arrival, when she’d done her utmost to steer clear of him and forget the effect he’d had on her, she couldn’t. It didn’t help her peace of mind that whenever she was around him she found her initial impression of him reinforced. He remained irritatingly high-handed and eminently able to ignore her. He was as unconcerned about the plight of her car as he was about the fact that a simple brush of his arm had left her gasping like a sex-starved ninny.
Why should he be concerned about her? an inner voice asked. How she felt was her problem. So was her car. And she knew she’d better solve both problems. She couldn’t take many more taxi rides into Acacia with Ralph Cummins. From the amount of time he spent on the wrong side of the road, it was possible Ralph believed he was in Australia. A few more weeks and the money she was putting aside from her paycheck might be enough to afford a new used car.
She’d figure out, too, how to quash the unwanted and strange fascination that filled her whenever she stole a glance at Ward’s profile or heard the low timbre of his voice. It just might take a while.
“Something in your expression tells me you still believe he’s responsible for your car’s unfortunate demise.”
Tess jumped guiltily. She wondered how long she’d been scowling at Ward’s image. “It’s just that in New York when a guy comes up and sticks his arm into your car, it’s to steal your purse. I guess in California they do things differently. But, frankly, I’d rather he’d snatched my pursed than played Terminator with my car.”
Adele laughed lightly. “And that’s what’s interesting about stories—there are at least two sides to them. The way Ward tells it, he was alarmed by the amount of black smoke pouring out your hood.”
A handy excuse. But Tess refused to spoil the morning by thinking about Ward. Turning back to the conference table, she adjusted a plate of lemon macaroons a hair to the right, aligning the plate with the others she’d placed on the polished conference table.
Her gesture drew Adele’s attention. “Mmm, this looks lovely. What’s Roo baked for us?”
Tess relaxed. Here was a safer topic than Adele’s handsome and imperious son, and one where she could prove her professional chops. She pointed to the different delicacies she’d arranged on china plates as she rattled them off. “These are lemon macaroons, and she also wants us to try an orange-scented olive oil cake, chocolate oatmeal drop cookies, hazelnut apricot bar cookies, and a rum apple cake. The plate at the end of the table has goat’s milk cheesecake bites—they’re made from Silver Creek’s own goats, of course.” She picked up the last plate. “And these are pistachio and fig cookies—”
“Oh, Lord have mercy!” Adele held her hands up as if warding off an attack. “I need to be able to zip the dress I’ve chosen for tonight. Daniel’s taking me to our favorite restaurant in Healdsburg.”