She followed the direction of his outstretched arm. There, on the hill, tucked among cottonwoods, stood the white gazebo from Laura’s wedding. The white and blue gauzy curtains still hung, fluttering in the breeze.
Krista had no idea what he was going on about.
“It’s a ways away from the traffic, but I figured you’d prefer privacy and people can still see it from the trucks.”
He had made a spa for her. They’d not seen each other all week, but he’d been helping her to succeed.
“No, it’s...perfect. But how did you move it?”
“Same way we got it into place the first time. Set a pallet on the bale forks and lifted it up. It’s not eight feet across, no heavier than a bale. Come.”
He tugged on her hand which he still held and which she’d made no attempt to remove. For appearance’s sake, of course.
Will highlighted additional features of the gazebo as they stepped inside the airy hexagon. “The blue barrel over on the side is for the waste water, and I set up a hot water urn—” he drummed his fingers on the metal side “—to the generator for your basin. There’s a cooler for cold water, too.”
“Absolutely wow. Thank you. This is way beyond the call of duty. Not that you had to do anything at all,” she added hastily.
“Didn’t feel like a duty,” he said softly.
There was no one around and he was acting as if they were still a couple. Maybe it was easier for him to stay in the role all the time. “You better not have busted up your shoulder doing this.”
“I repeat. Pallet, bale forks.”
Krista assessed the interior for her purposes. All the wedding paraphernalia had been replaced with a wood patio table, the urn and two lawn chairs. The chairs were wooden with thick cushions in blue and white stripes.
Krista spun to Will. “These are from Janet’s deck. I noticed them at the wedding. She’ll kill you if she finds out you took them.”
“She already found out. She and Dad were sitting on the other two when I came in for them.”
“She let you take them?”
“No, but Dad did.” Will sprawled on a lawn chair and indicated the other for her.
She sat down gingerly, still not believing her luck. “I always liked your dad.”
“Everybody does. He doesn’t have an enemy in the world.”
“Good way to live,” Krista said absently, mentally staging the space with her product and gear.
“The only way to live,” Will said, “if your last name is Claverley. We built this place on hard work and a reputation for fair dealings.”
The rack of pedicure lotions she was imagining collapsed at Will’s casual arrogance. “And Montgomery. My sisters and I run businesses, too. Bridget runs a third-generation family restaurant, you know. The Claverleys didn’t invent honesty.”
Will pulled himself up in his seat. “I didn’t mean any offense, Krista. Just filling you in on my family.”
“Because of the fake couple thing? The more I learn the better I can play the part?”
His eyes locked onto hers. “Because I want you to know me better so you can feel closer to me. Because I wanted to bring a bit of my world into yours.”
Krista at once melted and jerked to attention. Will was up to something. Even from this distance, the rodeo announcer’s voice still floated up to them, calling out entrants. The patter between him and the rodeo clown and the crowd’s easy laughter at their jokes were like a TV show running in the background.
“Hey, shouldn’t you be down at the arena? Networking or whatever you call it when a bunch of you lean on a fence.”
Will relaxed into his chair, stretching his legs into her space. “My phone’s on if anybody needs me.”
“Good,” Krista said. “Time you gave your shoulder a rest anyway.”
“You know,” he said, “outside of my family and Brock, my old rodeo buddy, you’re the only person today who’s asked about my shoulder.” He hooked his boot under her ankle. She supposed that a particularly astute eye might gaze up the hill, along the stairs to note his casual yet intimate move.
She nodded at where their ankles crossed. “This for the fakery bit?”
“I’m not faking anything right now.”
He had to be, because otherwise it meant—no, things were clear between them, but—the gazebo, the public declaration of her as his girlfriend—he was making this far too real. Except hadn’t they agreed that they weren’t suited?
“Exactly. I’m the girl who can’t ride, has no idea what a bale fork is, much less how you make them.”
“Horses aren’t a big mystery.”
“Maybe not to you, but I know more about life on the moon than about them.”
“You been to the moon?”
Relieved they were in safer territory, Krista settled into her chair. “Nearly. Mara and I traveled every continent with my parents.”
“Every continent? Including Antarctica?”
“Yep. Only for three days, though, when I was eleven.”
“Laura was always telling us your stories about traveling around. I guess Spirit Lake was pretty dull when you came here for high school.”
“Yes and no. My parents still took us on trips during the holidays, but I also got excited to come here where I already had friends and family.”
“Outside of the rodeo circuit, I haven’t been anywhere.”
“You’re thirty. You must’ve been somewhere.”
He squinted, as if trying to remember. “I’ve been out to my dad’s cousins’ ranches.”
“Ranches? As in plural?”
“One in British Columbia and then there’s another in Ontario. There’s another one out in Nova Scotia. But that’s a fruit farm. Haven’t been there.”
The Claverleys were a dynasty. “The Montgomery properties extend from Penny’s all the way to my shop and then one story above. Do all the Claverley ranches have horses, except for the fruit farm, of course?”
“Even the fruit farm. Horses, cattle, some grain.”
“So... I was wondering...do you make hay?”
Will smiled. “We have a section of hay, yes.”
“You realize that I have no idea what you just said?”
“How about I take you around one day?”
“Sure.” Except one day would happen after this weekend when they were no longer a fake couple...or anything, for that matter. She centered on where her white boot rested on his dark brown one. “So we would revert to friends status at that point, right?”
His hazel eyes bored into hers. “No. More.” She sucked in her breath. He wanted her as his girlfriend, his serious, maybe-marriage girlfriend. Ten years ago she would’ve leaped at the chance. And hadn’t her imagination just converted coming down the stairs of a rodeo stand into a wedding scene?
But...her bulging salon calendar wouldn’t fit into his strict ranching routine. Gauzy gazebos aside, she needed to be in town five, six days a week to run her business, and he couldn’t exactly bring the ranch to her. Which meant he’d expect her to come to him. And now that she’d found her passion, she wasn’t about to give it up for crazy big horses and bloated cows and bales. Neither could she ever see him caring about lotions or nail polish. A relationship might work if they both had a common passion—cooking, squash, traveling—but they didn’t. She would have to pretend an interest or he would, and that would not end well.
She opened her mouth at the same time a distressed shout and gasp rose from the crowd. The rodeo announcer came on. “Rider Brock Holloway is down. Our paramedics are coming in now.”
Will bolted to his feet. “I’ve got to go.”
Brock must be the rodeo friend he’d mentioned. “Do you want me to come?” she called after him.
“No,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
>
He slipped through the fence and ran down the dirt lane. She should follow him, regardless of what he said. To do what, though? Play the part of the rodeo champ’s girlfriend or be his real one?
CHAPTER NINE
AS KRISTA EMERGED moments later onto the grass slope overlooking the arena, she spotted Janet, arms crossed, standing alone, eyes fastened like everyone else’s on the drama below.
Krista joined her, if only because she didn’t want to be alone herself. Janet glanced at her before returning to the rider with two paramedics crouched beside him. Two rodeo attendants hovered close, and there was Will crossing the arena to the group.
“Last year,” she said quietly, “I stood in this exact same spot when Will was there flat on his back.”
Already fretting over Will’s present injury, Krista couldn’t conceive of the desperate waiting Janet must’ve endured. “It must’ve been horrible.”
Janet gave a tight nod. “I saw him go down. I had no idea if it was his head, spine... I couldn’t do a thing. Just watch. And pray.”
Tomorrow it could be Will down there, again injured. And she would be forced to watch him ride, as his dutiful girlfriend. Her stomach lurched.
Janet gusted out her breath. “I was so thankful it was only his arm. And collarbone. But his arm was broken in three places and his elbow shattered. A year on and his shoulder’s still out of whack.”
Krista resisted voicing her own worries. Next to Janet’s lived experience, hers would sound weak, even insincere. “So, the rider. He and Will are buddies?”
“Good friends. Except when they’re competing.”
“Really? I have a hard time picturing Will as competitive. He always seems so...laid-back.”
Will’s mom looked at Krista square-on. “You haven’t seen his determination when he gets something stuck in his head. There’s no shaking him loose.”
No. More. Will had made up his mind. He’d expect her to...and fast.
She was saved from having to respond to Janet by the paramedics easing Brock into a sitting position. As one, Krista and Janet released their breath while the crowd broke into encouraging applause. The clapping rose to a roar as Brock rose to his feet and walked with the paramedics, Will close.
“Good,” Janet said. “I don’t have to call his family.”
“That’s your job?”
“The hospital always calls, of course, but we always like to let them know we’re thinking of them and help out if we can. The families are often hours away, some out-of-province, out-of-country once. Only had to do it twelve times in thirty-three years, but the tradition is that the ‘matriarch’ does it,” Janet said, with a twist of her mouth.
Krista imagined that if she and Will—well, if they took it to the next step and then the steps proceeded to marriage, the job would eventually fall to her. What if—
“Say, Janet, has there always been a Claverley in a rodeo?”
“All four generations have had at least one, usually more. If not here, then somewhere in Alberta.”
“So every generation of Claverley mothers has had to stand here and watch?”
Janet gazed out over the scene. “Every single generation. Watch and pray.”
That decided it. If it wasn’t bad enough that she was a poor fit for country life, she did not have the guts to watch her husband, much less her children, get maimed—or worse. And stand by helpless.
She demanded honesty from Will, but she was telling herself the biggest lie. The simple fact of the matter was that for all he called her brave, she didn’t have what it took to love a strong, determined family man like Will Claverley.
“Now I’m praying,” Krista blurted out. “That it rains tomorrow so Will doesn’t have to ride with a hurt shoulder.”
Arms still crossed, Janet’s pretty nails dug into her flesh. “That makes two of us.”
* * *
“KRISTA MONTGOMERY. You the one Will told to step away from the edge?”
Krista looked up from wiping her basin to find a man who seemed to have stepped out of a cowboy poster. Tall, square-jawed, great teeth. Only discrepancy was the sling and cast on his left arm. “I am. And you must be Brock Holloway.”
“The one and the same.” He held up her card. “Here for the best ten minutes of my day.”
She’d hoped to sneak a break to answer a string of texts from Will and her sisters. Since eleven thirty, rodeo goers had filed in for their speed spa pedicure. She’d never seen so many naked toes in her life. But hey, this was Will’s friend. “Step right up.”
While Brock made himself comfortable in the lawn chair, Krista inserted a fresh liner into her basin and poured in warm water.
“Quite the operation you have here.”
“Will set it up for me.”
“He always had a head for details.” Brock reached down to haul off his boots but his bandaged arm made it awkward.
“Here,” Krista said, “let me.” It was like pulling lids off rusty cans but finally his feet were free, his socks sliding off, too.
She perched on her stool. “Roll up your pants if you can and drop your little piggies into the water.”
He did so, Krista assisting with his jeans, and then leaned back. “This is worth the ten bucks right here.”
She set his foot on her lap and took up her file. “Thought you’d be resting somewhere else today.”
“Home’s a camper out by the bush over there.” He pointed over his shoulder in the general direction of the temporary parking lot. “I’ll head out in a couple of days but can’t drive while I’m on the sedatives.”
“You and Will can compare injuries.”
“No use. He’d win hands down.”
Brock, Krista realized, was the perfect one to ask for details. Like her, he wasn’t family but...close. “You...you were there when it happened... Will’s fall?”
“Yep. I’d already ridden and was back with the others watching. He’d come away with a clean ride. The outrider was coming up alongside but the horse threw in a sudden twist and Will went flying and then the horse kicked him.”
“How bad was it?”
“As bad as it gets. Torn tendons. Broken collarbone. Will has had I don’t know how many surgeries.”
“Five.” It was Will. He walked into the gazebo, completely disregarding that she was with a client. “You’re a hard woman to get a hold of. Thought I’d come in person.”
This was the closest they’d been, since they’d sat together in the gazebo. Last night, Will had texted to say that he planned to go to the hospital with Brock, and she’d been secretly relieved that he’d not wanted her to accompany him. She wasn’t at all sure how to tell Will that she didn’t have the guts to launch a relationship with him.
“I got your texts and was about to answer when your buddy took off his boots.”
Will pulled the spare lawn chair from its place against the far railings and dragged it across so it was crowded right close to Brock and Krista.
“You’re butting in on my time,” Brock said, swapping out one foot for the other at Krista’s direction.
“I could say the same,” Will said. “Krista’s off duty.”
“How do you figure that?” Krista said. She didn’t even know there was an end to her day. Not that she needed any more work. She’d rustled up four bookings and two more wanted to chat about autumn bridal parties. One had even inquired about a Christmas party. Her fake girlfriend arrangement had paid off beyond her wildest hopes. It had also complicated her personal life beyond belief.
“Because you haven’t had a break in five hours. You’re wiped, and we were in the middle of a conversation which your client here interrupted.” He stared pointedly at Brock. “And seeing as how he lives two hours south of Calgary, he won’t become a regular.”
“Not so fast,” Brock said, liftin
g both feet onto Krista’s lap, where she patted them dry. “I’d come up regular for this treatment.” His eyes widened as Krista applied her massage. “Very regular,” he said and slumped back, closing his eyes.
Will looked ready to send his buddy back to the hospital with further injuries.
“You ready to ride tonight?” she asked by way of distraction.
“Hopefully it’ll happen. There was a hailstorm west of town. More are expected. Even chance it’ll get rained out.”
The best news today. But Krista kept her face absolutely neutral under Will’s fixed gaze. Still, her expression must’ve conveyed enough. “You’d be happy, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not going to deny I care more about your health than a charity ride. I get the importance of the charity, but a delay of a few weeks won’t change the long-term outcomes for the kids. It will change yours. There are lots of people behind the kids, but no one for you. Except your mom and me, it seems.”
Brock cracked open an eye. “Maybe after I’m done here, you could give him a shoulder massage.”
“My shoulder’s fine,” Will growled and said to Krista, “You done with his hoofs?”
She wasn’t but for the sake of harmony, she lowered Brock’s feet onto the mat. “All done. Anytime you’re out this way, drop by. I’ll give you my good-guy deal.”
With excruciating consideration, Brock gentled the sock top over one set of toes. He raised woeful eyes to Krista. “Seeing as how I’m all hurt, would you mind helping me along?”
“All right, that’s it,” Will said. He snatched up Brock’s boots, stepped to the gazebo entrance and flung them. “Go fetch.”
Hilarity lit Brock’s face but he wiped his expression into one of indignation when Will turned back. “Hey, you’ve no right to—”
“Go,” Will said. “You’re not using my girlfriend to pull on your boots.”
Brock pulled himself to his feet with an exaggerated sigh. “Fine. So much for the Claverley hospitality. Good to meet you, Krista.” He paused. “Hey, Will.”
“Yeah?”
“Krista’s right. This—” he pointed to his bandaged arm “—might be my wake-up call. You already got yours. Time to answer it.”
Harlequin Heartwarming June 2021 Box Set Page 83