Riding High

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

Sarah made him feel at home in this massive two-story log house, but the structure itself seemed to welcome him each time he pulled up in front. The wide center section flanked by two wings jutting out at a forty-five-degree angle reminded him of arms spread in an embrace. A covered porch lined with rocking chairs ran the length of the house and symbolized hospitality. Now that summer had arrived, evenings found the chairs occupied by any of the Chance clan who happened to drop by.

  He stopped the truck and shut down the engine before turning to Lily. “How long since you’ve been here?”

  “Oh, gosh, quite a while. I’ve been so busy with Peaceful Kingdom that I haven’t been over since I moved back here. My parents were invited to Nick’s high school graduation party, and they brought me along, but we’re talking almost fifteen years ago. After that...let me think. I kept in touch with Nick off and on through email. When Jonathan Chance died in that rollover, I was at Berkeley. My parents went to the funeral, but I couldn’t come home for it. I would have missed too many classes and my parents advised me not to come.” She paused. “I should have, anyway.”

  “I’m sure everyone understood.”

  “Of course they did. The Chances aren’t petty about things like that, but I still wish I’d made the effort. I’ve run into various family members in town since I’ve been back, and they’re always nice to me.”

  “Have you met Pete, Sarah’s new husband?”

  “I have.” She smiled. “They were eating lunch at the diner one day when I was there. Seems like a terrific guy, and I love the idea of the camp for disadvantaged boys that he and Sarah run every summer.”

  “Uh-oh. I just remembered something. That camp starts next Sunday.”

  “It does? Well, I guess it would. I tend to lose track of time, especially lately.”

  “I forgot about it until now, too, but that means we might only have next Saturday as an option for the adoption fair.”

  “Yikes.” She blew out a breath. “That’s too soon.”

  “Maybe not. If we concentrate on training five or six horses and get those adopted, we’ll significantly reduce the overcrowding. By then you’ll have the fence built. You’d be in much better shape.”

  “I don’t know. A week...” Uncertainty shadowed her blue eyes.

  “We can do it. I have several gaps in my appointment schedule next week. I won’t fill them.”

  “No! You’ll lose money!”

  He shrugged. “I’ll make it up later. No big deal.”

  “I should pay you, then.”

  “We’ve been over that. No dice. I’m not hurting for money, so let’s not talk about it anymore, okay? I want to do this. It’s important to me, too, now.”

  “Okay.” She hesitated. “But do you really think we can be ready in a week?”

  “Yeah, I do.” Unfastening his seat belt, he leaned toward her and gave her a quick kiss. “Have faith.” The kiss had been a last-minute decision, and he needed every ounce of willpower he possessed to end it immediately and open the driver’s-side door.

  But he’d wanted to try a small laser strike and see what happened. Apparently his strategy had the desired effect. By the time he rounded the front of the truck and opened her door, which took several seconds, she was still seated and she seemed a little dazed.

  “Ready to go in?”

  “Sure.” She swallowed hard and started down.

  He offered her a hand, which she accepted without comment. He released his hold the moment she had both feet on the gravel drive.

  “That was sneaky, Regan.” She glanced up at him.

  “Meaning you didn’t like it?”

  “Oh, I liked it. But I wasn’t expecting it.”

  That made him smile. “Aren’t you the woman who told me she likes the unexpected? The one who doesn’t want to be bored?”

  Her expression was priceless. He’d turned her words back on her, and apparently she wasn’t used to that. She couldn’t seem to decide whether to challenge his statement or laugh. In the end, she laughed. “Touché.”

  “Just so you know, I’ve wanted to do that ever since you showed up at the corral this morning, but I couldn’t find the right moment.”

  “You’ve wanted to kiss me all that time?”

  “Not a full-out kiss, because we had stuff to do, but something quick and to the point, just to let you know I’m thinking about it.”

  “By it, are you referring to kissing...or something else?”

  “Kissing.”

  She looked skeptical.

  “That’s all, I swear. If I allowed myself to think of something else, the drive over here would have been painful.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “My, you are being honest, aren’t you?”

  “That’s my goal. Come on.” He tilted his head toward the steps leading up to the front porch. “Let’s go see if the Chance contingent has next weekend available for our adoption fair. But first I need to warn you about something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They have a couch in the living room. Don’t read too much into that. They’re still very interesting people.”

  She rolled her eyes. “This is going to turn into a thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” He grinned at her and felt that flash of happiness he was beginning to associate with Lily. “Our first inside joke.”

  * * *

  SARAH, HER SILVER hair styled in its usual sleek bob, met Lily and Regan at the door. She was dressed casually in jeans and a denim shirt, but Sarah could make any outfit look elegant. As she greeted them, Lily remembered why she admired this woman so much. Sarah behaved as if she’d been gifted with two of the most anticipated guests in the world, A-listers who had graced her with their presence.

  When Sarah was glad to see someone, she pulled out all the stops. Rumor had it that when she wasn’t glad to see someone, her reception could turn a sunny day into an ice storm. She never lost her poise, but she could freeze people in their tracks. Lily planned to stay in Sarah’s good graces.

  “I’m so happy about you buying Peaceful Kingdom, Lily.” Sarah took her by the arm. “You were the perfect person to do it. We’re all gathered in the kitchen gobbling up the last of Mary Lou’s coffee cake, but she saved two big pieces for you and Regan.”

  “Mary Lou’s still your cook?” Lily remembered her from the graduation party fifteen years ago. The feisty woman had taken Lily aside and told her not to settle for some guy who wanted to keep her barefoot and pregnant. It was good advice, and Lily had never forgotten it.

  “She’s still our cook,” Sarah said. “I don’t know what we’d do without her. She’s married now, you know.”

  “Mary Lou? She’s the one who urged me not to get married.”

  “And she was against it for years.” Sarah chuckled as she guided Lily through the living room, which had, as Regan had mentioned, a leather couch, not to mention some heavy-looking leather armchairs. “But we have a ranch hand named Watkins who’d had his eye on her ever since he came to work for us. He’s wooed her off and on, and finally, two summers ago, he convinced her to marry him.”

  “I’m astounded. I thought she’d never tie the knot.” Lily had a brief glimpse of the large rock fireplace that anchored the living area, and she decided that a room like that needed a weighty couch and several sturdy armchairs. The high beamed ceilings, the winding wooden staircase that led to the second floor, and the immense wagon-wheel chandelier all seemed to demand substantial furniture. Lily’s modest living room did not. Case closed.

  “They seem pretty happy.” Sarah led Regan and Lily down a long hallway lined with family pictures. “They ran off and got married on a cruise ship, so they’ve been threatening to renew their vows with a ceremony here at the ranch. We have a busy summer coming up, but if they really want to, I’ll make
it work.”

  Lily didn’t doubt Sarah’s abilities, which gave her hope that an adoption fair really could take place at Peaceful Kingdom, even within the short time frame. Usually she went with the flow and didn’t worry too much about how everything turned out. But she felt more responsibility for the animals than she had for any project she’d taken on in the past. She needed more clarification. “You must be getting ready for the boys to arrive.”

  “We are, but we’ve been doing this for several years, now. We’re not as panicked about having those nine kids here as we were the first couple of times. And Regan, I have to say that your little sister Cassidy is the most energetic young woman I’ve ever met. She’ll have no trouble keeping up with those boys. I just worry that they’ll disturb you, even if your room is in the other wing. They can be loud.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Regan said.

  Lily pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. She didn’t think Regan wanted to move in with her specifically to avoid living on the same floor with nine adolescent boys, but that had to be a bonus. She wondered when he planned to let Sarah know he was changing his place of residence. Maybe not right now, when several family members were gathered, including his twin sister, Tyler. Lily appreciated him holding off.

  When they entered a large dining room with several round tables for eight, Lily was disoriented. “I don’t remember this part at all.”

  “It hadn’t been built when Nick graduated from high school, and I think that was the last time you were here,” Sarah said.

  “Wow, you have a good memory. I had to stop and go back over some dates before I could be sure about that, but I think you’re right. It’s been almost fifteen years.”

  “Jonathan and I designed this room because we had a habit of gathering all the ranch hands for lunch as a way to keep in touch on a regular basis. As we hired more hands over the years, they didn’t fit in the old dining room anymore. We added this one, turned the old space into a family dining area and enlarged the kitchen and Mary Lou’s living quarters.”

  Lily glanced around and pictured the tables filled with cowboys joking with each other while they tucked into Mary Lou’s excellent meals. Although Lily would never want a big operation like this, she appreciated the ranch’s contribution to the community. It employed a lot of people and was famous for taking in both animals and people who needed another shot at straightening out their lives.

  Thinking about that, Lily had an epiphany. Her urge to take over Peaceful Kingdom had its roots here at the Last Chance. As a thirteen-year-old she’d been dazzled by the Chance mystique. But until now, she hadn’t made the connection between the ranch’s reputation for helping others and her current decision to save Peaceful Kingdom.

  She decided against mentioning that now, when she was about to ask a favor. It might not come across as sincerely as she meant it. She knew now, though, that without being exposed to the Last Chance, she wouldn’t have been motivated to buy Peaceful Kingdom. She wouldn’t have met Regan, either.

  She didn’t want to put too much weight on this budding relationship, but several of her friends at Berkeley would be raving about karma at this point. She wasn’t ready to do that, but Regan’s intensity this morning in the barn made her wonder what kind of cosmic energy they were stirring up.

  Whatever was going on, she experienced the world more vividly as a result. The stealth kiss from Regan lingered on her mouth and continued to send little shock waves through her system. Her energy level was unusually high even though she hadn’t slept much, and she couldn’t blame caffeine because she’d had only one cup of coffee this morning. She also kept involuntarily glancing at Regan as if needing to make that visual connection on a regular basis. Weird. That was a new habit she needed to break now that they would be in a room full of people.

  As it turned out, the kitchen was extremely crowded. Sarah waved Lily to a vacant chair at the oval table before sitting down herself, but Regan remained standing, as did all the other men.

  Fortunately Lily knew most of those gathered there. She immediately recognized dark-haired, dark-eyed Jack Chance, and Lily had met his blonde wife, Josie, one night when Josie happened to be checking on things at the Spirits and Spurs, the tavern she owned in Shoshone. Josie’s brother Alex stood behind the chair of his wife, Tyler, the event planner.

  Lily noticed the strong resemblance between Regan and his twin, and she saw a look pass between them after Lily had been introduced. Tyler’s expression said clearly we need to talk. Regan merely smiled.

  Until this moment, Lily hadn’t met Nick’s wife, Dominique, although she’d seen pictures. Dominique was even more beautiful in person. With her short hair and big eyes, she reminded Lily of a young Audrey Hepburn. No wonder Nick had fallen for her.

  Morgan, Gabe Chance’s obviously pregnant wife and one of Regan’s redheaded sisters, greeted Lily with enthusiasm. “Yay, another redhead in the group! That makes four of us if I count Sara Bianca, which I most certainly do.”

  “Speaking of my favorite niece,” Regan said, “where did you stash her?”

  “Cassidy’s watching her and the other kids so we can have a little peace and quiet while we talk about this adoption fair,” Josie said. “So ignore whatever you hear from upstairs, because we all plan to.”

  “Everybody have coffee?” Mary Lou Simms, a little grayer than Lily remembered but just as perky, appeared with a carafe in hand. “Hey, I know you! You’re the little King girl, all grown up. Nobody told me it was you. I just heard the name Lily, but I didn’t put two and two together.”

  “You remember me?” Lily was flattered.

  “’Course I do. You were smart as a whip.” She laughed. “’Spose you still are. With all that brainpower, I hoped you wouldn’t get married too soon and stunt your potential. You didn’t, did you?”

  “Nope.” Lily held up her left hand. “No ring. But I see you’re wearing one.”

  “I am.” Mary Lou’s cheeks turned pink. “That old coot wore me down. And I have to say, I’m not quite as opposed to matrimony as I used to be. It has a few benefits.”

  Jack Chance put his arm around her. “Good thing you said that, Mary Lou, considering that every person in this room with the exception of Regan and Lily are hitched. Voicing the opposite opinion might affect your popularity.”

  “Nah.” Sarah’s husband, Pete, a lanky man in his sixties, pushed away from where he’d been leaning against the kitchen counter. “Mary Lou can voice any opinion she wants as long as she keeps making that coffee cake. Is there any left?”

  “Two pieces,” Mary Lou said. “And they’re reserved for our guests.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Lily said. “Someone else can have mine.”

  Jack’s eyebrows lifted. “Careful what you say, there, Lily King. Turning down a piece of Mary Lou’s coffee cake is loaded with implications. Implications you may not have taken into consideration before you made that rash statement.”

  “He’s right.” Nick winked at her. “You’re in danger of insulting the cook.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to—”

  “And, besides that,” Nick continued, “everybody for miles around knows this is the best coffee cake in Wyoming, so if you won’t at least try it, we’ll all doubt your intelligence.”

  “Okay, then, I—”

  “Furthermore—” Nick held up a third finger “—if you don’t eat your cake, you’ll cause a brawl in this kitchen when we all get to fighting over your share. I know you don’t want any of that to happen, so you’d best eat up and be quiet.”

  “I’ll just do that, then.” She smiled at everyone and picked up her fork. The cake was incredible, so she didn’t have to fake her moan of pleasure, but after that first bite she spent a solid minute praising the taste and texture, until Nick made a slicing motion across his throat and she went back
to eating.

  “You’ll have to get used to this kind of thing,” Morgan said. “I’d like to tell you that they’re not always like this, but they are. You should have seen them on skis last winter. Not a one of them would agree to wear regular ski clothes. Instead they showed up for the bunny slope in jeans, sheepskin jackets and Stetsons.”

  “We were stylin’,” Gabe said.

  His wife glanced at him. “You were ridiculous.”

  “We were not. C’mon, guys, back me up on this one. We made a statement on the slopes, did we not?”

  A chorus of agreement was followed by protests from the wives, and no telling how long the argument would have continued if Jack hadn’t banged a spoon against his coffee mug. “As I recall, we gathered here to discuss Lily’s adoption fair. Shall we proceed?”

  “Yeah,” Mary Lou said. “And you were worried about your kids making too much noise. But for the record, my Watkins was the only smart guy who wore ski pants on the bunny slope.”

  That started it up again. Lily thought they were hysterical. She’d known the adoption fair was necessary, but she hadn’t known it would be fun. She glanced at Regan and grinned. Being connected to the Chance family was a good thing. She just hadn’t realized how good.

  Then she thought of something else. She’d been warmly welcomed into this group because she was with Regan. If things worked out between them, the door to the Last Chance would always be open to her. But if the relationship went downhill, then all that lovely friendliness could disappear.

  As Jack might explain it, becoming involved with Regan was filled with implications, implications she might not have considered before she rashly kissed the guy. She’d been able to take back her rejection of the coffee cake, but she couldn’t take back those kisses. Nor did she want to. In fact, she hoped there would be more to come. She’d take Regan’s kisses over coffee cake any day.

  9

  PROUD OF HIMSELF for coming up with the adoption fair plan and suggesting the Chance family as a resource, Regan watched as the event took shape. His twin sister really knew her stuff when it came to planning shindigs like this. He loved seeing Tyler in action, her Italian heritage coming out in elaborate hand gestures as she described her vision of the fair.