“I didn’t mean—” Krista began.
“Don’t bother,” Shelby advised. “You’ve already unleashed the beast.”
“Ye gad, I know. Jenny, don’t—” Clicka-click went the camera, no doubt catching Krista with her mouth flapping, as usual. Speaking of blackmail. “I said models,” she protested. “I wasn’t talking about me and Shelby!”
“You’re just as hot as the local talent,” Jenny countered. “Well, at least Shelby is.”
Krista gaped. “You did not just say that about me.”
“About us, really. Smile!”
Shelby slung an arm around her shoulders, lifted her wine, and said, “Sex for Dummies!”
Krista was laughing when the camera clicked, then whooped when Shelby got a hand on her head and dunked her beneath the warm suds. The world went wet and loud for a moment, as the sound of the underwater jets drowned out everything else. Then she broke the surface and lunged for Shelby. “I am so going to get you for that!”
She heard the camera doing its click-whirr thing but didn’t care as Shelby feinted and dodged, eluding her in the small, slippery space, then doubled back and dunked her again, shouting, “City girls fight dirty!”
When Krista came back up, she was laughing. “That wasn’t the sort of slogan I was thinking of.” But at the same time, this was exactly what she needed—the camera, the wrestling match, laughing so hard her lungs burned and her ribs ached . . . and the reminder that love might come and go, but friends and family were forever.
*
Late Saturday afternoon, Wyatt turned off the main road and rolled through the stone pillars of Mustang Ridge, wincing when Old Blue bottomed out from all the weight he’d loaded in the back.
“Think she’ll like it?” he asked as Klepto did a whole-body wag, excited to be back at the ranch. “Yeah.” Wyatt patted the wiry back end. “I think so, too.”
It took him an hour to offload his gift, another to install it. Then he stood back and nodded, well satisfied. “Okay, that’ll do it. Let’s go pick up our girl.”
He had called ahead, so she was waiting for him when he rolled in, standing on the bunkhouse porch wearing her patchwork skirt, a denim shirt rolled up past her elbows, and a broad smile of welcome. And his danged heart skipped a beat.
Always before, he’d thought that was just a saying. Now he knew better.
He parked and opened the door, releasing Klepto to bounce around, barking his fool head off while Wyatt crossed to Krista, caught her by the waist and spun her around, surprising a laugh out of her. When he let her down, he felt her skirt brush his legs as he lowered his head to claim the kiss he’d been thinking about for eight hundred miles, give or take.
Her lips parted; her breath mingled with his. And he felt more of a homecoming in this moment than he had when he pulled up in front of his cabin outside of Denver, or even when he stepped back into the workshop he had built himself from steel, stone, and wood. Burying his hands in her soft, loose hair, he drank in her flavor and surrounded himself with flowers and rain. Then he eased away to feather kisses along her mouth, her cheek, across her jaw to her ear. There, he whispered, “I have a surprise for you.”
“Really?” She craned to look in the back of the truck, which was still half full of pistons and tractor parts.
“It’s not in there. Want to go for a little ride?”
She looked down at her skirt. “Should I change?”
“In the truck,” he clarified. “Just a short drive.” He pulled a blue bandanna out of his back pocket, shook it out. “Oh, and did I mention the part about the blindfold?”
*
With Wyatt’s bandanna tied over her eyes, Krista could see some lights and darks, but nothing more. She could feel the bumps as the truck turned onto the road, the pressure of Wyatt’s fingers where they held hands on the bench seat, and the warmth of the late-day sun on her skin. Her heart drummed lightly in anticipation—of the gift, of having him back, of the night ahead. The week ahead. “Are we there yet?”
He chuckled. “Almost.”
The truck slowed, then turned. “We’re going to the ranch?” she asked. “Did you bring something for the horses?”
“No and no.” The truck rolled to a stop and the engine cut out. “We’re here.”
“At the end of the driveway?”
“You’re not very good at playing along with surprises, are you?” There was a chuckle in his voice. He came around the truck, opened the door, unclipped her seat belt, and took her hand. “Come on out. I’ve got you.”
“You know I’m not allowed to play in traffic, right?”
“Would you hush already?” He clapped a hand across her mouth and marched her over a section of grass, then onto the driveway. Moments later, the blindfold tugged and fell free, and he said softly into her ear, “Surprise.”
“What—” she began, but then broke off at the sight of twin twisted arches of new metal supporting the old sign. The missing horseshoes had been replaced, welded back into place, so the arch was unbroken, the sentiment unquestionable.
WELCOME TO MUSTANG RIDGE.
“Oh, Wyatt.” It came out as a whisper. “You fixed our sign.”
He hooked an arm around her waist, and snugged her back against his body. “I did. Do you like it?”
“I love it.” Her voice broke slightly. “You didn’t just fix what was there, you made it look even better. More modern. But you kept the bones.”
“That’s the story of Mustang Ridge, isn’t it?” He kissed the top of her head. “Every generation takes what’s already there, preserves the best parts of the past and brings the rest up to date.”
Tears prickled. “I wish Big Skye could see that.”
“Maybe he doesn’t, but I do.” He looked up at the sign. “This is important, Krista. What you do here is important. You make Mustang Ridge a home, not just for your family and employees, but for the guests, too. And that matters.”
She closed her eyes and felt a tear break free. “Thank you. For understanding me, for making the sign so much better than it used to be.” And for coming back, she managed not to say. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she went up on her tiptoes to kiss him, whispering against his lips. “Now I owe you one.”
“Not even close.”
“What if I said I was going to repay you by . . .” She whispered it in his ear.
“Annnd, we’re headed back to the bunkhouse!”
She laughed as he practically dragged her to the truck, boosted her in, and slammed the door, getting them back down the road in no time flat. They barely made it through the door before he was kissing her, holding her, overbalancing her onto the couch in a tangle of limbs and half-attached clothing. Then they were rolling, tugging, stripping each other naked in a flurry of kisses and happy sighs until, finally, Krista arched her body, took him inside her, and let the heat carry her away.
21
Early the next morning, with her system still humming from last night and a happy tune playing in her head—something along the lines of Welcome to Mustang Ridge. There’s wine and cake in the fridge, dum diddly ump de dum—Krista danced into the kitchen of the main house. And stopped dead, mouth dropping open. “What the . . . ?”
There were cupcakes everywhere.
Hundreds of the prettily frosted desserts were crammed onto every available flat surface and stacked in the cooling racks like rainbow-colored chicks in a brooder, wearing fluted paper cups and topped with sprinkles and saucy little decorations in every possible color, making it look like someone had blasted a bazooka full of Skittles into the normally neatly ordered space. The air was so sweet it made Krista’s molars ache; the ovens were going full blast, counting down six more batches, even though there wasn’t any place to put them; and the big mixers were running, their arms whirling in synchrony, like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice had taken up baking rather than brooms. That, combined with the three overhead fans running at top speed, made the place look like a culinary f
unhouse gone mad.
Pulse bumping—what was going on here?—Krista stepped into the room, calling, “Gran?”
“In the pantry, sweetie,” came the muffled answer. “Could you help? I need more flour.”
Hastening in that direction, Krista found her grandmother climbing down from a step stool, lugging a ten-pound bag of King Arthur. “I would have gotten it for you!”
“Not this one. I need the other one, too. It’s toward the back, and I can’t quite reach it.” Which would make twenty pounds of flour to go along with the liter of vanilla, two bags of sugar, and three packages of chocolate chips that sat by the pantry door.
Looking from the pile to Gran and back again, Krista said, “Are you going for the Guinness Book record for the most cupcakes produced by a single human being in a twelve-hour period?”
“Poosh.” Gran waved her off. “The Helping Paws for Veterans bake sale is today.”
“Are they expecting an army?”
“Never mind. I’ll get it myself.” On a mission, Gran elbowed past and started up the stepladder, only then realizing she was still carrying the first bag. She stalled on the top step, wobbling.
Krista reached out. “Let me—”
“I’ve got it!” Drawing back, Gran heaved the bag into the kitchen . . . and it missed the counter entirely, hit the floor, and detonated with a whump of powdery white. Krista’s jaw dropped as the cloud whirled in the updraft of the ceiling fans, coating everything in a twenty-foot radius, including most of the cupcakes.
Gran scrambled down off the step stool and charged into the kitchen, making sneaker prints in the white. “Quick! Turn off the fans.” She picked up one of the white-dusted cupcakes and shook it, sending more sprinkles flying than flour. “We can fix this, but we have to hurry.”
“Gran, you’ve got plenty.”
“Not of the pink ones,” she said, voice going panicky. “Oohhhh. How are we going to clean these off?”
“Garden hose?” Krista suggested. She didn’t know what was going on, but the Willy Wonka factor was increasing by the second. “Shop vac?”
“Krista May, be serious! This is—”
“Yes. What is it?”
“It’s . . .” Gran trailed off. Blinked. Then her shoulders sagged, and she said, “Ridiculous. That’s what it is. It’s ridiculous, just like your grandfather.”
Uh-oh. Amusement draining, Krista closed the distance between them, her boots slipping a little in the spilled flour. “What did he do?”
“He called me old.”
Krista smothered a wince. Oh, Gramps. How could you? “I’m sure he didn’t mean it the way it came out.”
“Yes, he did.” Gran jerked up her chin, eyes flashing. “I am, of course. I’m old, old, old. It doesn’t bother me to say it. But that’s not the same as hearing him say it.”
There was no arguing that one. To Big Skye, old was a curse word. “Oh, Gran.” Krista put her chin on her grandmother’s shoulder and wrapped her arms around her thin waist. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Not really. And don’t worry, I pinned his ears back for it.” She huffed. “I love the man, but when he gets in a mood, he’s enough to drive a sane woman to drink.”
“Or bake.”
That got a watery laugh out of Gran. “Or bake,” she agreed. “In my defense, there really is a charity thing today. I just got a little carried away.” She patted Krista’s hands where they linked across the front of her flour-dusted apron. “Don’t fret, sweetie. We’ll be fine. We always are, eventually.”
What would it be like to have that sort of confidence in a relationship? “Is there anything I can do?”
“Could you check on him? I know the doctor said he’s fine, but I worry.”
They all did, especially since he rode out alone every day. “Of course. If I don’t catch him at the barn, I’ll ride out after him. Want me to bring him a cupcake?”
“Ha! Stubborn old goat will be lucky if I don’t feed him sprouts and tofu for the rest of the week.”
*
When Krista reached the barn, she found Deke and a couple of the guys finishing up cleaning the stalls. “Morning,” she called as she came through the sliders. “Any drama to report?”
“Nothing yet.” Deke did the knock-on-wood thing with a nearby stall door. “You?”
“Not that you guys need to worry about. Is my grandfather around?”
“Haven’t seen him, but we cleaned the back barn first. He could’ve gone the long way around.”
“Thanks.” She tipped her hat. “Carry on.”
The short covered walkway that connected the new and old barns had been intended to make things easier in the winter, but got stuffy in the summer, especially since Big Skye kept the doors closed at each end, the EMPLOYEES ONLY signs prominent. When Krista pushed through, though, the air freshened back up, bringing the scents of horses, sawdust, and hay. The back barn was narrower, the ceiling lower, with six stalls on one side, tack, grain, and grooming areas on the other, and a trophy case on one wall that held a mix of silver buckles, trophy cups, and framed photos—her and Jenny mugging for the camera at the old Harvest Fair Rodeo; their parents riding hand in hand in a long-ago Summer’s End Parade; Big Skye making the eight-second buzzer on a saddle bronc back in the day.
“Gramps?” she called, but didn’t get any answer. The stalls were empty and a glance in the tack stall showed no sign of his favorite saddle. But as she turned back for the main barn, hoofbeats sounded outside the open double doors.
They didn’t sound good, though. The normal four-beat cadence of a flat-footed walk had taken on the syncopation that said the horse was hurting.
Krista hurried outside just as Bueno shambled through the back gate. The old mustang had his head down and his back humped under the saddle, not because he was trying to buck, but because he was trying to keep his weight off his front feet. Which wasn’t easy when he was balancing a rider who sat square in the saddle, seeming oblivious.
“Gramps!” She rushed to Bueno’s head. “What happened? Are you okay?”
He scowled down at her. “Of course. What kind of a question is that?”
“But Bueno—”
“It’s a loose shoe, for Pete’s sake. I brought him back down rather than riding it off and busting up his foot, didn’t I?”
She gaped. “This is more than a loose shoe!”
“Arthritis, then. He hasn’t warmed all the way up yet.” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which made something else all too obvious.
“Oh, Gramps.” Her chest tightened and sudden tears prickled—at the horse’s pain, at her grandfather’s confusion, at the realization that everything was about to change, and not in a good way. “Get down.” Her voice broke.
He flushed. “Now you listen here—”
“Please!” Something in her tone must have gotten through, because he grumbled and stepped stiffly down from the saddle, leaning hard on his stirrup and thudding to the ground.
Bueno swayed unsteadily, flinching as the weight forced him to balance on his front feet. But the tough mustang didn’t even flatten his ears. He just rocked back onto his hind feet, like a dog stretching its spine, and looked at his longtime partner with stoic resignation, as if to say, If this is what you want from me, you’ve got it.
Big Skye scowled as the horse’s discomfort finally seemed to register. “Nick must have quicked him when he reset that shoe. Serves me right for letting a vet set nails.” He patted the sweaty bay neck. “Sorry, hoss. I’ll pull that shoe for you. Set you back to rights.”
But when Krista crouched and ran her hands down the animal’s legs to his blazing-hot hooves, she knew it was far worse than a bad nail. Guilt stung—how long had this been going on? How had they all missed it? Rising, she bracketed her mouth with her hands, and bellowed, “Deke! I need you!”
Seconds later, his head popped out of a stall window in the main barn. “Yo!”
“Call Ni
ck. Tell him to get here ASAP. Bueno is foundering, bad.”
Deke cursed—the horseman’s universal response to the word founder—and disappeared.
Big Skye spluttered. “What are you talking about, founder? That’s crazy talk. He’s just a little stiff, and we sure as blazes don’t need the vet!”
He didn’t see it. How did he not see it? She couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe, but she forced her voice level and met her grandfather’s faded, angry blue eyes as she said, very clearly and distinctly, “Bueno doesn’t have a hot nail, Gramps. He’s got laminitis.”
The condition was a bad one, with the hoof wall separating and sloughing off while the bony structures of the front feet rotated and dropped, sometimes so badly that they came through the bottom of the horse’s soles. It was incredibly painful and often fatal. And the earlier it was treated, the better the horse’s chance.
Hoping to hell they weren’t already too late, Krista whipped out her phone. It didn’t have enough bars to call out, but it had enough juice to connect to the in-ranch network they had set up last summer. Gran picked up on the second ring. “Did you tell him about the sprouts and tofu?”
“We didn’t get that far. Bueno’s foundering.”
“No! How bad is it?”
“Bad. Can you fill two of those big tubs with ice and have Dad bring them down here in the cart? And keep the icemaker going. We’re going to need it.”
When she rang off, Big Skye put himself in front of Krista with his arms folded and his eyes blazing. “You’re getting mighty big for your britches these days, Missy, and I don’t like it one gosh-darned bit.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, even as her heart tore cleanly in two. “You don’t have to agree with me, or even like me, but I’m not letting you torture this horse for one more second. And, news flash? You’d better start being nicer to Gran, too.”
“Ahem.” Deke stood in a nearby doorway, looking like he wished he could retreat and do the whole I just got here, didn’t overhear anything routine. When Krista gave him a “go ahead” wave, he said, “Ruth is going to do her best to get someone out here ASAP, but she says there are emergencies across the board this morning. Best case scenario, Nick will be here in two or three hours. Worst, case, late this afternoon.”
Harvest at Mustang Ridge Page 20