A single blink was Krista’s only outward response. “And you think leading dude-level trail rides and teaching a mustang to do a bellhop skit is going to fix that?”
“We’re doing a bellhop skit?”
“Wyatt.” The word was a warning. One that said he could either be honest with her or brush her off, but he had to make a choice.
Trying to find the right words when he had already said far more than he normally would, he answered, “I didn’t really have an agenda. I hope you’ll believe that. It was more that things fell into place in a way that made sense—you needed help and I was getting bored at Sam’s place, and I figured I owed you one. And, yeah, I’m hoping that getting back in the saddle full-time will help with the block.”
“Has it?”
“It’s only been a couple of days.”
“Which means no.”
“It means I’m not sure.” Thinking he knew what she was getting at, he nudged Jupiter forward so the horses were parallel and Krista was less than an arm’s length away. He didn’t reach for her, though. Didn’t figure he had the right, even though she had kissed him. “You’ve got me until the end of the season. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about what I do. I guess I just wanted to go back to being a cowboy for a couple of months.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I’m telling you anyway.” He reached out and gripped her thigh—not a move a guy would make in the normal day-to-day, but not that unusual in the saddle, when it was an easy reach. “I’m not going to bail on you this time, Krista. That’s a promise.”
She hesitated, eyes darkening. “I don’t—”
Her gelding jerked his head up and gave a piercing whinny, the kind that said, Hey! I see a horse!
Wyatt swiveled around to see a lone rider up on the ridge, standing beside the marker stones and scanning his land with a pair of binoculars. And watching them get up close and personal.
*
“Big Skye caught you and Wyatt kissing?” Stace’s eyes went big and round, and the chestnut mare she was riding tossed her head.
“Shh,” Krista hissed. “Keep it down.” They were at the back of the double line of riders as the group started up the last set of hills toward home, with Wyatt in front and Junior keeping an eye on the middle of the pack. But just because she and Stace were eating dust didn’t mean she wanted to broadcast things. “And he didn’t kiss me that time. He just had his hand on my leg.” Which didn’t sound much better, did it?
“There was another time?” The assistant wrangler—and soon to be fully accredited child psychologist—was practically bouncing in her saddle. “Tell me, tell me!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Krista said firmly. “It’s not going to happen again.”
“The way he’s been sneaking looks at you all day? I’m not buying it.”
Krista didn’t let herself ask, didn’t let herself glance in his direction. Not when she had peeked far too many times already today, trying to reconcile the cowboy at the head of the line with the man who wore tuxes and worked with steel and iron, or the one who had walked out on her without a word. It was one thing to realize they were both different people now, another to know what to do about it. Her cautious self said the answer was nothing . . . but it wasn’t easy to ignore the way everything around her seemed sharper and more interesting suddenly, her body more in tune with the sway of the saddle and the way a subtle arch of her back pushed her breasts up and out beneath her shirt. She had told Gran and Dory that it took her longer than a week to get interested in a guy, but there was no doubt she was interested now, despite everything. It was like part of her was programmed to want this particular cowboy even when her better sense knew it was stupid.
Stace nudged her with a boot. “You’re totally thinking about it. I can tell.”
“I don’t want to be. I’d rather be—” Krista broke off as the double line of horses ahead of them wavered and broke. “Whoops! Can you grab Bramble?”
“On it!” Stace urged her horse up the line to where Bernie Trigg—a former investment banker who was shaping up to be this week’s “I rode a horse once” know-it-all—had gotten tangled up in his reins again, sending his saintly mustang mare into a slow, disorganized spin. Stace bumped her horse into Bramble and unhooked his left rein with a cheerful, “Bernie, are you showing off for the ladies again?”
“What? Oh, right!” Bernie—stout, florid, and flushed—jumped on the excuse, puffing up his chest. “Absolutely. I was showing them a reining pattern. The horse I used to ride spun on a dime, you know.”
As Stace got Bernie sorted out, Krista filed her thoughts of Wyatt under chemistry alone isn’t enough and followed Bernie’s so-called “ladies”—a former nurse who had turned her knitting hobby into a cottage industry and looked more amused than impressed by him, and a Manhattanite who seemed to be buying his bluster—through the outer perimeter fence and along the single-lane dirt road to the parking lot.
The guests dismounted with the help of several barn staffers, who surreptitiously propped them up while their saddle-locked joints loosened and the pins and needles disappeared. There were far more smiles than groans, though, and signs of growing confidence as the greenhorns gathered their reins and led their mounts into the barn. Wyatt was right in the thick of it all, helping a couple of the guys with their cinches, nudging two horses apart when they started making pissy faces at each other, and directing the steady flow into the barn. As he led Brutus after the guests, he looked over, found Krista watching him, and winked.
Heat washed over her—at the wink, at getting caught staring—but she gave him a thumbs-up for a job well done. Then, shaking her head at herself, she swung down and headed into the barn along with the last couple of stragglers.
One of them waited for her. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?” Tall and ballerina-elegant, she wore a happy smile and a smudge on one cheek.
Bebe the florist, Krista’s memory banks supplied, along with the thought that Bebe and Botanist Joe made a good match, but lived on opposite sides of the country. “The backcountry you mean? Gosh, yes, especially on a day like today, when the sky is clear and looks like it goes on forever.”
“That, too. But I was talking about the flirting. Me and Joe. You and Wyatt.” The older woman gave a happy sigh as they passed through the doors into the shadowy cool of the barn. “Even if it doesn’t turn into anything, it’s lovely to feel those sparkles again.”
Krista should probably set Bebe straight and defuse the gossip. Lord knew she was going to have to do the same with her family after what Big Skye had seen earlier. She and Wyatt hadn’t been kissing, hadn’t been doing anything, really—but a ranch boss wouldn’t let a wrangler put his hand on her thigh unless she wanted it there.
As Wyatt’s deep, resonant voice rolled through the barn, though, chiding Tracy and Trixie for underselling their horse experience and getting trilled laughter in return, Krista found herself nodding. “You know what, Bebe? You’re right. Sparkles are very nice.”
If nothing else, it was nice to know she still had them inside her, and that passion—at least the way she did it—didn’t belong solely to her younger self.
Over the next half hour, the guests untacked and groomed their horses, then filtered back to their cabins to shower and get ready for dinner. As the barn quieted down, Krista slipped into Lucky’s stall and methodically ran her hands over his body and down his legs to his hooves. Straightening, she patted his shoulder. “Looking good. Do me a favor and keep it that way, okay?”
“Does he need the reminder?” Wyatt asked.
She turned to find him standing in the doorway with his shoulder propped and his thumbs hitched in his pockets, making a picture that she could imagine getting shared around on the Internet with all sorts of Save a horse, ride a cowboy captions.
Reminding herself it was one thing to feel the sizzle, another to act on it, she brushed Lucky’s forelock away from the white diamond in the center of his forehead. “I threa
ten to bubble wrap him some days. It’s hard to see now because scar hair comes in white, but he tried to lobotomize himself at eighteen months. He was playing with his buddies, lost his footing and fell on the fence. Three months later, he stepped on himself and nearly tore off one heel. A week after that, he got hold of a two-pound bag of individually wrapped peppermints and ate the whole thing, wrappers and all.” She sighed. “And that’s not even counting the two hoof abscesses and a summer cold.” Except she was totally counting them. It was one thing to deal with her retirees’ many issues, another when her favorite baby horse seemed bent on self-destruction. “Anyway.” She gave the gelding a final pat and left the stall, waiting for Wyatt to get out of the way so their bodies wouldn’t brush. “Good job today,” she said as she closed the door. “The guests love you.”
He fell in beside her as they headed up the barn aisle with Klepto trailing behind. “You’ve got a top-notch setup and they’re making it easy.”
“This is a good group.” She rolled open the sliding doors wide enough for them to slip through. “Not every week is going to be this— Oh!” She stopped dead at the sight of her parents and grandparents standing in the parking lot, shoulder to shoulder and looking braced for a shoot-out.
Her stomach headed for her toes. She loved her family, she did—loved the way they fit together, laughed together, worked together, especially these days. And there had been times in her life that she had been incredibly grateful to have her parents and grandparents backing her up, letting her lean on them, or giving her a needed kick in the butt. Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those times. In fact, it was times like this that she thought longingly of a one-bedroom apartment or a little cabin in the woods, someplace where she didn’t have a well-meaning committee weighing in on her every move. What had happened to “We trust your judgment, honey”? Gah!
She stepped in front of Wyatt. “Hang on. It wasn’t what it looked like. We were just—”
Without warning, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind, bringing a quick impression of warm skin and rough calluses. Then she was set firmly aside as Wyatt moved up to face the others. “I’ve got this.”
10
As a rule, Wyatt didn’t do complicated, he didn’t do long-term, and he sure as heck didn’t do meet-the-parents. He didn’t know exactly how he had wound up one-for-three on that, but he’d meant it when he said he wasn’t going to bail on her this time. More, he wasn’t going to bail on himself, or the better man he had tried to be in the years since he’d walked out on her.
Squaring off opposite her family, he held still as big, grizzled Ed Skye gave him a long up-and-down, and said, “We’d like a word with you, Webb.”
“I’d say you’re due several. First, though, I owe you folk an apology for a meal I missed eight years ago.”
Beside him, Krista sucked in a breath. “Wyatt, you don’t have to—”
“Yeah, I do.” At first he’d been relieved that she hadn’t asked him about that night. Now he felt like it needed to be said, not just to her, but to all of them. “I panicked. I’m not proud, but that’s the short and long of it.”
Ed Skye’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
He tried to get it right. “I was twenty-four, and I’d been out on my own since after high school, rodeoing to help support my ma and my sister because my old man couldn’t be bothered. So you’d think I’d be mature for a college kid. Maybe I was, in some ways. Not where it came to Krista, though.” He glanced over, saw that she had backed off a few steps, face pale. “I fell hard for her, and I fell fast, and suddenly I wasn’t just thinking about getting a job and saving for my own place anymore. There was Krista, Mustang Ridge, her plans to start a dude ranch. . . . It was incredible, she was incredible, and there was this whole new life opening up in front of me. But then . . .” He faced her fully, because telling the others was taking the easy way out. “I wish I could say there was something big, a defining moment when I knew I couldn’t do it. But there wasn’t. It was more that in those last couple of weeks before graduation, that big wide world you were offering me started feeling smaller and smaller, like I was a bull caught in a squeeze chute. I kept checking out job listings that weren’t anywhere near Wyoming. Then, when that wasn’t enough, I called on a couple.” When he got the offer, it was like a gate had opened up at the far end of the chute and he had glimpsed brilliant green grass beyond. “That night, when it came down to meeting your family, taking the next step . . . I just couldn’t. I wanted to be with you, but I wanted everything to stay the way it was at school, with all of us looking forward to whatever came next. I couldn’t”—commit, box myself in, lock myself down—“be the guy you needed.”
She didn’t say a word. He didn’t know if that was a good sign or bad. The others, too, were silent. Watching him. Listening. Judging. Finding him as lacking as he found himself when it came to those last few weeks of school.
“That night, I was getting dressed to head to the restaurant, when . . . I don’t know. I just blanked.” Standing frozen in front of the mirror, seeing a stranger in the glass and feeling like the tie she’d bought him for the occasion was cutting off his air. So he’d hacked off the tie with his pocket knife, pulled his bags out of the closet, and started stuffing them full. His face had been wet, his heart sick, but that hadn’t stopped him. “I drove straight through to Texas, where there was a job waiting for me.”
He had lasted eight months there, seven at the next place, then bounced around until he hooked up with Ryan and learned that mixing metal with fire and an eight-pound hammer could forge a quiet place in a man’s brain.
Nearing the end, wanting to get it over with, he said, “I’m sorry for embarrassing you in front of your family and ruining graduation. Most of all, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you all of it sooner, and in person, the way I should have. That was about as wrong a thing as I’ve ever done, and one of my biggest regrets.” When Krista didn’t say anything, just stood there staring at him with a blankness he hoped to hell covered anger rather than pain, he turned to the others and said, “I was old enough to know better and handle it like a man, and I didn’t. If any of you want to take a swing at me for it, then go ahead.”
For a second he thought Krista’s grandfather was going to take him up on the offer. Instead, he harrumphed and said, “It’s one thing to own what you did wrong, another to not do it again. And the two of you looked pretty close this morning.”
“We were just talking.” Which was the truth, but not really an answer. Wyatt wasn’t even sure he had an answer, because the more he was around her, the more he remembered why he had fallen so hard in the first place. Krista was unique. Special. She saw the best in everyone but wasn’t a pushover. She was a caretaker, a nurturer, and sat a horse in a way that made a man want to write a bad country song. None of which he was going to say to her parents or grandparents, especially when he was just passing through. So instead, he said, “With all due respect to each one of you, what happened this morning is between me and Krista. I’m going to leave it up to her when and if she wants to discuss it.” He turned to her. “That work for you?”
He didn’t get an answer, though, because she was gone.
*
Down by the lake, on the far side of the boathouse where nobody would see her unless they came looking, Krista pressed her face against the rough wall, shaking with the force of her sobs. The tears burned her eyes, her skin, and the place where she had bitten her lower lip hard enough to draw blood as she forced herself not to react to his story, not to let him embarrass her all over again in front of her family.
Damn him. Damn him. Why couldn’t he have left it alone? She hadn’t asked, hadn’t wanted to know. She just wanted to move on.
The tears hurt. Everything hurt—her head pounded, and her heart felt gaping and raw. She didn’t want to feel this way, hated that he still had power over her.
She didn’t want to be twenty again, didn’t want to remember the restaurant, the mad rush to t
he apartment, the walls collapsing in on her as she read his letter out loud to her family. Which hadn’t been the worst of it. The worst had been waking up the next morning with her eyes and throat raw, then turning to find Jenny asleep beside her, and having it come crashing down on her all over again—that he had lied to her, left her, hadn’t loved her enough.
Her dreams of having a family and a forever-after with Wyatt had died hard over tear-soaked weeks and months. Yet somehow there were more tears now, more grief, and the new panic-sting of knowing she was in danger of doing it all over again.
God, this sucked. Why did it still hurt like this? And why was he the only one who made her feel?
“Ah, hell, Krista,” Wyatt’s voice said suddenly from right behind her. “I’m sorry.”
She jerked and spun toward him, galvanized by horror—that he had come after her, that he had seen her like this—and her hands came up against his chest as he put his arms around her. His pecs were warm and firm beneath the material of his work shirt, his body solid.
She tried to shove away, but he held on tight. Furious, she smacked his chest and glared up at him. “Let go of me!”
Eyes dark, he shook his head. “I can’t do that. Not when you’re this upset.”
“Leave me alone!”
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