Luck Be A Lady (Destiny Bay Romances-The Ranchers Book 5)

by Helen Conrad

  Kelly knew it was crazy to hope to see Cody again. She wasn’t sure if she even liked him and she knew darn well he would never fit into her life in any way. So why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?

  She was grateful that he’d brought her cell phone back to her. In fact, she was trying to find his number so that she could call him with her thanks when she gave that a second thought and realized how dumb it was to do anything to prolong the acquaintance. He was an alien being from another world and he’d certainly taken one look at how she lived and run like a rabbit.

  No, it was best to forget about the man. Leave well enough alone. Don’t make waves. Let sleeping dogs lie. And all those other cautionary sayings.

  So she fixed some spaghetti for dinner and now she and Tammy were doing dishes.

  “Mom,” Tammy said brightly. “Are you ever going to get married again?”

  That was a shocker. Kelly put down the cloth she was using and stared at her daughter. Inside, she was suddenly shaky. This was something they had never discussed before. What should she say? How could a child like Tammy ever understand the complexities of a decision like that?

  “Why would I get married?” she answered, trying to sound upbeat and failing miserably. “You and I are doing fine on our own. Aren’t we?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  To her relief, Tammy seemed to be taking the subject lightly.

  “But I was just thinking. Heather’s mom said that Suzy’s dad was hot on your trail, so…”

  “She said what?” Kelly was aghast.

  “Hot on your trail. Don’t blame me. That is exactly what she said. I remember because….”

  “Heather’s mom doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” And was about to get a phone call from Kelly telling her to mind her own business. Kelly was seething.

  “Oh, I know, but it made me think.” Tammy looked lovingly at her parent. “Maybe you really should get a husband. You’re really still young. And I’m not going to be around forever and you need someone…”

  Kelly felt tears threaten. How could she be in this position? Was Tammy her daughter…or a mother figure? It was hard to tell. She was so serious, so ready to take charge of things. It broke her heart.

  Fighting back her first reaction, she forced herself to stay calm.

  “Tammy, sweetheart, I know you’ve got my best interests at heart, but I don’t need anyone. Honest. Just put it out of your mind. I’m not getting married.”

  Tammy hesitated. “Okay, I believe you,” she said quietly, her eyes huge. “But just in case, could you promise me one thing?”

  “What is it?”

  “Could you promise me you won’t marry Suzy’s dad? Because I don’t really like him.”

  Kelly took a deep breath and had to hold back her laughter. That was an easy one. “Don’t worry Tammy,” she told her daughter, giving her a tight bear hug. “I promise you that. Cross my heart. I won’t marry Mr. Waxman.”

  “Good.” Tammy hugged her back. “But if you change your mind…”

  “Never!”

  “...and decide to marry someone, that gambler guy wouldn’t be so bad. Don’t you think?”

  *** *** *** ***

  Cody wasn’t sure how it happened. He’d been out at the ranch working with the new trainer he'd hired and he was coming back to town late and now he was just taking side streets, cruising around to give himself time to think, and then all of a sudden, he was on Kelly’s street. He pulled up in front and stared at the house. What was he doing here? He ought to turn for home.

  But he didn’t. Instead, he turned off the engine and slid out of the car and started walking to her front door. And it all seemed to be beyond his control.

  She didn’t take long to open the door.

  “Hey,” he said, smiling at her.

  “Hey,” she said back, but she wasn’t smiling. “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged. “I was driving by and saw your light on.”

  She stared at him. “Cody, I live in a cul-de-sac.”

  He shrugged. “Well, maybe I was hoping I would see your light on,” he admitted, refusing to be embarrassed. “I just wanted to drop by and see how you’re doing. It’s been about a week since we met in that alley. I thought it was time to check up on you.” He raised an eyebrow. “So how are you?”

  Suddenly, she couldn’t suppress her smile. “I’m fine.”

  He smiled back. “I can see that.”

  She swallowed hard. Her heart was beating like a caged bird in her chest. “Would you…uh…like to come in?”

  He hesitated, then shouldered his way in. “Sure. Just for a second.”

  “Just for a second.” She smiled again. She just couldn’t help it.

  “I know it’s late.”

  She nodded. “It’s very late. In fact, I hardly ever answer the door this late.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “But I saw you through the peep hole and you looked so….”

  “What?”

  Good. Handsome. Masculine. Sexy. But she didn’t say that. Instead, she offered, “Would you like to sit down?”

  He glanced at the couch. He could sit there. She might sit beside him. And then he would reach out at some point and put his arm across the back of the sofa. She would lean back a little, and then he would slip his arm around her shoulders. Little by little, he would pull her closer, until her sweet mouth would be so close, nothing would keep him from….

  Okay, that was a bad idea. Coming here was a bad idea to begin with. He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head.

  “No thanks,” he said, rejecting the offer to sit. “I really don’t want to get in the way here. Maybe I ought to….”

  “Would you like some lemonade?” she shot at him before he could say he was leaving.

  He scrunched up his face. Lemonade. That made sense. She was a lemonade and sunshine sort of girl. And how exactly did that fit in with his life? No way he could figure.

  “No thanks.”

  She nodded as if she’d expected that. Then she looked at him sideways. They were still standing in the entryway, as though they couldn’t decide what was coming next. “Then what do you want, Cody? What could you possibly be doing here?”

  He looked at her. He had no answer for that. He listened to the music she had playing in the background.

  “You’re playing sad songs tonight,” he noted.

  She nodded.

  He wanted to touch her soft skin, touch her face. The more he looked at her, the more something inside him seemed to melt, but he held it back.

  “So your husband….?”

  He left a space for her to fill but she took her time doing it.

  “He died,” she said, looking away. “He’s not here anymore.”

  Okay, so that cleared that question up. But there were others.

  “Why are you still here?” he asked her. “You don’t like gambling, you don’t like Las Vegas. Why not go back where you came from?” He raised one dark eyebrow. “Where did you come from?”

  “California. Destiny Bay, on the coast.”

  “Ah.” His sister was married to a guy from Destiny Bay. “Why not go back?”

  She hesitated, looking conflicted, her eyes a bit stormy. “It’s not that easy,” she said, looking up at him. “I have a child and a job. We built a life here. It’s hard to pull up those roots and replant them somewhere else.”

  He nodded. He could understand that. “Destiny Bay’s a nice place,” he noted.

  She sighed, shaking her head. “I would love to take my daughter back to Destiny Bay. That would be the best thing for her.”

  “You think so?”

  She nodded.

  “Then why not do it?”

  She frowned, looking away. She hadn’t paid as much attention to her family on the coast as she should have recently. But they still were her family. That still was home, and a wonderful place to grow up. Suddenly she felt tears stinging her eyes. If only she could
take Tammy back to Destiny Bay. That would make all the difference.

  Blinking the tears away, she looked up at him again. Enough with his questions—time he answered a few.

  “What did you do wrong with your life that you ended up a gambler?” she asked, out of the blue.

  His head went back. He hadn’t expected that. “I love gambling."

  “But isn’t it like… a disease?”

  “No.” Now he was starting to get mad. “Sure, there are people who have an addiction to it. That’s not good. But that’s not me.”

  She nodded, but her face had a skeptical look.

  “I enjoy it because I’m good at it,” he explained. “You know how it is with life. There are so many things you’re just not good at. So when you find something that suits you, that fits your personality and gives you a chance to shine—you tend to go toward that lifestyle. Whatever it may be.”

  “A gambler,” she said softly, as though to herself. “A real born gambler.” A worried line appeared above her eyebrows.

  He groaned. This was his cue to leave, wasn’t it? He was crazy if he thought he was going to get anywhere with this one. But still, like a toothache, he couldn't leave it alone.

  "Hey, I've got other talents," he said. "I'm…I'm good with horses."

  And deep down inside, he groaned. What the hell was he doing? He never talked to anyone about his ranch, about what he was doing out there, what he was dreaming of. And he damn sure never took any of his girl friends out there. His ranch was something apart. It wasn't meant to be folded into this life he had in town. It was precious to him and he wanted to leave it that way.

  But she didn't know all of that.

  At the mention of horses, her face had gone thoughtful and her eyes had taken on a dreamy quality. "I like horses," she said, staring off and away from him. "I used to ride when I was a girl, in Destiny Bay. Maybe if I took Tammy back there…" She gave a start as though she'd just realized what she was saying and who she was saying it to. "Never mind," she said quickly, looking at him with a challenge in her eyes. "It's getting late."

  "Uh huh."

  She might as well have said, "Time to go home, Cody."

  “You win some, you lose some,” he muttered as he made his way back to his car. No, she wasn’t for him. He had to find a way to get her out of his mind.

  *** *** ***

  “Orchids! The man wants to grow vanda orchids in his backyard in the middle of the desert!” Sadie glared at the tall, eerily beautiful plants in the special order she was preparing as though it were all their fault. Her long, capable hands rested on slender hips, her carefully coiffured curls quivered.

  Kelly laughed affectionately. Sadie had run nurseries for years and she took her plants very personally. They were like little armies of soldiers she sent out into the world to create peace and beauty. She didn’t like it when a mission failed, no matter what the reason.

  “Who’s your customer?” Kelly asked.

  “Monty Cross. He runs one of those casinos downtown and thinks he can order nature around like he does his employees. ‘Just get them for me,’ he says. ‘I don’t care what the experts say. I’ll grow ‘em beside my tomato plants.’” Sadie made a sound that came across suspiciously like a growl of frustrated anger. In her forties, she was still careful of the appearance that must have been strikingly beautiful in her younger years. There weren’t many women who could have pulled off the feat of keeping an elegant manicure intact while working with plants and soil every day.

  With the back of a gloved hand, Kelly pushed her hair back from her eyes. Resting her trowel on its ledge beside the potting bench she advised, “Let him try to grow them. Who knows? Maybe he’ll discover some new way to make them thrive where the days blister and the nights freeze.” She rose, casting off her gloves, and went on to her next chore, preparing the new shipment of cut flowers that had just arrived for sale.

  Sadie shook her head, not ready to concede an inch to the hated Monty Cross. Wiping her hands on her brightly colored coveralls, she turned away from the delicate purple flowers in disgust. “They’ll die in a week,” she proclaimed, shaking her scarlet-nailed fist at an uncaring world. “Then he’ll be back in here, wanting a refund.”

  Kelly chuckled as she watched Sadie march away bristling with indignation. Once she was alone in the greenhouse, she returned to work, clipping the ends off the stems of tall carnations and sticking them deep into buckets of specially prepared water. The sugar and spice scent of the flowers filled her head and she breathed it in deeply. She loved working with growing things.

  The greenhouse was attached to the main building of the nursery. Another wing housed the retail shop and florist center, but the greenhouse was Kelly’s favorite. Filled to the rafters with every kind of plant, it provided a respite from the desert atmosphere. There she could grow things that belonged in a more humid and temperate climate.

  So why was she still out here in the desert? Good question, and Cody’s questions of the night before had brought that back into play. She’d been born and raised by the ocean. Sometimes she yearned for the cool breezes, the peace of the massive ocean. She’d married young and never been back except for short visits. But her husband needed to be in Las Vegas and once he’d achieved fame and fortune as one of the top jet boat racers in the country, this was where they stayed, close to his sponsors, close to the lakes where he did most of his racing. They’d settled in, had Tammy, and by the time Tim had been killed in that awful accident, roots had been sunk in the sand and it just seemed too late to move on.

  She smiled a little sadly to herself, brushing loose dirt off the skirt of her simple, scoop-necked, checkered dress. “I guess it’s true,” she whispered, reaching up to touch the ballerina-fat blossom of a hanging fuchsia. “You can’t really turn your back on your roots.” She grinned at the plants lining the benches all around her. “Remember that, you guys,” she told them sternly.

  A shout from outside drew her attention. She went to the window. In the vacant lot next door to the nursery, Tammy was throwing a ball against a wall and catching it. Her face was flushed and her lower lip was caught by her teeth. All in all, she was a picture of intensity.

  Kelly smiled again, relaxing against the windowsill and watching for a few choice moments. Tammy was determined to be the first female ball player drafted by the Dodgers, and Kelly wasn’t about to stifle her dreams with warnings of reality.

  “At least she has dreams,” she thought wistfully, then stiffened as she caught sight of her own reflection in the windowpane. The faint, misty mirror image reminded her of a younger Kelly, the girl she’d once been. She’d had dreams then, too. The world had been an open opportunity just waiting for her to explore it. Where had that young girl gone? she wondered, her melancholy mood growing. The dreams were dust now. She had no time for them. She had a living to make and a daughter to raise. She did what she had to do. Dreams were a luxury out in the real world.

  “Not quite true,” she corrected herself. Tammy was still her dream. Tammy was all she had left. Looking back out, she smiled again as she watched her daughter catch a high ball she’d thrown for herself. When she was ten years of age, Kelly remembered playing with dolls and setting up lemonade stands with teddy bears in chairs as the prime customers. But Tammy took

  after her father. He would have been so proud.

  She closed her eyes for just a moment. Sometimes it felt like they were so alone, she and Tammy. All alone.

  She opened her eyes again and sighed, leaning on her elbows to watch Tammy chase an errant throw into the street. Alone was actually how she liked it. Most of the time.

  Of course, they had Glenn. But he was just a friend and could never be anything more, no matter how much he wanted to. Still, she felt the need for someone else to share the burdens, to put an arm around her when the days seemed to last forever.

  There hadn’t been anyone, not since Tim had died. Tim. She hated thinking of him. The pain always flashed f
or just a moment, and for fragments of a second a picture of the crash appeared before her mind’s eye. No matter how well she thought she’d gotten used to the image, it surprised her every time, making her gasp again and her heart beat just a little faster. She clenched her fists, forcing the memories away and looked outside—just in time to see a red Porsche stop in the nursery parking lot.

  She didn’t doubt for a moment that it was Cody Marin. Mesmerized, she stared as he emerged from the little car. He was dressed like a model from the pages of a men’s magazine, his suit light but elegant, his shirt the color of a Nevada sky at dusk.

  The only thing that set the image slightly askew was the length of his hair. Its black fullness was a little too long, a little too shaggy to go with the rest of his appearance. And something about its cut set off his high cheekbones and emphasized the obvious strain of Native American in his blood.

  Kelly wasn’t surprised to see him. Something in her had known that he would show up eventually. But that didn’t mean that she was happy about it.

  She watched as he called out a greeting to Tammy.

  Tammy stopped what she was doing and ran over to greet him, surprising Kelly and reminding her that this man was a force to be reckoned with. She began to back away from the window, her mind racing. Her first instinct was to run and hide, but she stopped herself. That would be silly. After all, Cody Marin was nothing to be afraid of.

  He'd stopped by the night before, and that had been a surprise. The sexual pull between the two of them was obvious. It gave her a delightful buzz, but scared her at the same time. That way lay madness, and she knew it. He knew it too, from the way he’d left, fast as a scalded cat.

  Now he was here and she wondered what had changed. Had he decided to risk it all? Well, she hadn’t. She didn’t want to talk to the man anymore. He represented trouble. “But trouble is better faced than run from,” she reminded herself with one of her grandmother’s favorite sayings.

  She sighed and started for the door, then caught herself reaching for her hair. So what if it was a tangled mess? Nursery work was hard and physical and there was certainly no reason to pretend any differently. She would go and find out what he wanted, then get back to work.