by Kara Lennox
“Okay, okay,” Cal tried again. “I’ll make a deal with you. You come riding with me and I promise not to touch you or even talk about us dating.”
Then what’s your point? She almost asked the question out loud. But that would have revealed more about her intentions than his.
He answered almost as if she’d gone ahead and asked. “I have an ulterior motive. I need your mind.”
Now it was getting thick! “My mind? You’re the one who made straight As and had perfect SAT scores.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who sets goals and solves strategic problems. And that’s the sort of critical thinking I require.”
Willow was intrigued despite herself. What sort of critical thinking did Cal need? If he had some problem at the ranch or with the horses, there were many more knowledgeable people he could ask than her. Besides, since the accident her brain wasn’t exactly at its best and brightest.
But she couldn’t resist the challenge.
“All right. You help me by cutting up the fruit for tomorrow, and I’ll lend you my brain, such as it is. But let’s forget the horseback riding. Critical thinking requires brainstorming, and that requires paper and pen. We can go back to Nana’s and spread out in the den.”
“Deal.”
Then she just realized what she’d done. She’d invited him over. Late at night. It was almost like…a date.
Chapter Seven
Nana was still up watching a movie when Willow arrived home, slightly breathless. She was grateful Nana wasn’t like most grandmothers. She didn’t go to bed early. She was a night owl who especially liked staying up to watch Letterman—which made her a darn good chaperone.
And that was what Willow needed right now. What had she been thinking, inviting Cal to come over this late at night? She’d taken pains to indicate it wasn’t a date, but she knew it would feel like one if she didn’t work at it.
He had promised not to touch her. But she had made no such promise. He probably had more to worry about than she did.
“I’ve lost my mind and invited Cal to come over,” she announced as soon as she came in the door. “I told him I’d help him with a project.”
Nana shot out of her recliner, simultaneously switching off the TV right in the middle of the weather update. “This is wonderful. I’ll get out the cookies, and—”
“No, no. Don’t do anything special. This isn’t a date. You don’t have to disappear—in fact, I don’t want you to disappear. We won’t be waiting for you to go to bed so we can make out. I’m just helping him with something.”
“I’m pleased to see you’re talking with him again. Does this mean—”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Willow said coolly, “except that I realized it’s stupid to hold a grudge for all these years, and I’ve made myself get over it.”
“Good for you.”
“We’re not dating. I don’t have time to date. I’m leaving for med school in three weeks and I have enough complications in my life without developing some adolescent crush on a guy.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too—”
“Don’t start with me.” Willow folded her arms and glared.
Nana started to protest further, but the front doorbell rang. She flashed what could only be described as a triumphant smile. “I’ll get that. You fix your hair,” she admonished. “Put on some lipstick.”
Willow sighed. Her grandmother hadn’t heard a word past I’ve invited Cal to come over. Nonetheless, Willow peeked at herself in a hall mirror and realized she did look something of a mess. Caving in to a bit of feminine vanity, she ducked into the bathroom, took her hair down from its coiled braid and ran a brush through it, and put some clear gloss on her lips.
They were dry from the hot weather, she reasoned. And she wasn’t primping. She was simply maintaining reasonable hygienic standards.
By the time she emerged, Cal was already in the kitchen—eating from the always-ready supply of cookies in the cookie jar. He knew where to find them. Nana was pouring him a glass of milk.
“Willow, Cal is here,” Nana said superfluously. “Do you want some milk, too?”
“No, thanks, I’m still full from dinner. Hi, Cal. We can work in here at the table, since Nana’s watching TV in the den.”
Nana yawned elaborately. “Oh, no, dear, I’m going right to bed. Just can’t stay up late like I used to. You two have fun.” She pulled a disappearing act worthy of a magician’s rabbit.
Willow shrugged. “She can’t help herself. She wants us to be like we were in the old days. Maybe because she’s feeling her age.”
Cal grinned. “I don’t think that’s it. I could say something, but I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, you’re just hoping I’ll beg you to say it anyway. No, no, we’re not playing that game.” She found a legal pad and pen in the cabinet under the kitchen wall phone. “We might as well work in the kitchen, anyway, since we’re already here.” She sat down at the table across from him, pen in hand, poised. “So, shoot. What are you working on?”
Cal seemed resigned to actually getting down to business. “I started thinking about what you said. About how I’m throwing away my future and not living up to my potential and all that.”
She cringed, hearing her harsh words thrown back at her. Still, she wouldn’t retract them. They’d needed to be said.
“I’ve decided you’re right,” he continued. “The last three years, I’ve just been treading water, waiting for an opportunity to present itself, the way it always did for me in the past. But this time, it didn’t.”
She waited, sensing he was on to something important. Whatever it was he wanted to talk about, it mattered a great deal to him. He seemed uncharacteristically hesitant about revealing whatever it was.
“So,” he continued, “I started asking myself some questions. About what I really wanted. And the answer was pretty easy. I want to be a horse trainer. Full-time. Helping out occasionally with Wade’s horses just makes me hungry to do more.”
Willow was honestly delighted. She wasn’t imagining things. She had seen something in Cal’s face that afternoon, some hint that he’d been engaged in the work he was meant to do. “I think that’s wonderful,” she said without reservation.
“So how do I do it? I thought of trying to get on with someone established. But—”
“No buts right now.” Willow could feel Cal’s excitement and anticipation, and it was contagious. “I know nothing about horse training, but I know brainstorming. We’ll write down as many ideas about becoming a horse trainer as we can. Then we’ll evaluate them later.”
She was in her element now. She loved this kind of thing. For half an hour, she and Cal threw out ideas, everything from running ads in the paper to joining the circus to getting a government grant to tame wild mustangs. She scribbled furiously in the legal pad, elated to discover that this part of her brain worked just fine. Occasionally she threw out an idea that had already been discussed only minutes earlier, proving her memory was still short-circuiting. But instead of panicking when it happened, she just tossed aside her lapses with an “Oh, sorry,” and they went on.
They worked in perfect harmony, two minds with one purpose. They drew charts, made lists, asked questions, moving from brainstorming to generating a workable plan as they determined which areas of the concept required further research and which could be acted upon right away.
At last, Willow happened to glance at the clock and she gasped. “Cal, it’s two o’clock in the morning!”
He grinned. “Don’t worry, I won’t get in trouble for missing my curfew.”
“I have to get up in four hours.” She couldn’t believe she’d gotten so carried away. But she’d had fun, she realized. Helping someone else figure out his dream and how to live it was almost as good as living her own dream. Especially when that person was Cal.
How could she have believed he was without ambition? He had real passion. All he’d needed was a goal tailor-made for
the passion, and he was off like a rocket. With her help—
Whoa. This was a one-time deal, she reminded herself. As interesting as she found the prospect of starting a horse-training venture, it was Cal’s deal, not hers. She had other priorities.
“I guess I better get going.” His reluctance was obvious. “I’ve got to squeeze in a trip to the library tomorrow, so I need to get an early start.”
“And I’ll call the Pattersons for you.” Her mother had mentioned that their neighbor’s Shetland pony had gone berserk during the recent tornado and now couldn’t be touched. That sounded like a job custom-made for Cal. She wondered if other horses in the area had been traumatized by the storm.
“And the Internet search?” he asked hopefully.
“Oh, right.” She wrote that down on her follow-up list, then also added it to the notebook around her neck. She’d promised to do a search of other horse trainers in the area to see what sorts of Web sites they had, if any, and how they marketed themselves to the public. “I can use Wade’s computer after breakfast. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Cal stood and gathered up the stack of papers they generated, as well as a couple of motivational books Willow was lending him. “I really don’t know how to thank you for this, Willow. I was hoping maybe I’d get a ten-minute pep talk, some reassurance that I wasn’t crazy for wanting to do this. I never expected you to put in all this work.”
“It’ll be thanks enough if you make this thing work. Besides, I had fun.”
“I’ll make it work. I’ll talk to both Jon and Wade tomorrow about referrals. I just hope Jon doesn’t decide to fire me when he finds out I want to do something else besides herd Hardison cattle.”
“He won’t. He’ll want to help. Everyone wants to be part of a dream, especially a big, exciting dream like this one.” She stood, too, intending to walk him to the door.
“Do you really think it’s exciting? Or is it just a pipe dream?”
She could hear the emotion in his voice. This was so important to him that he was afraid to commit to it totally just in case it didn’t come true. If he let fear block him, he would never take those first, crucial steps toward achieving his dream. “Exciting and very doable,” she told him. “You have a unique approach to horse training. You’ve built a better mousetrap. The world is going to beat a path to your door. You have to believe in yourself for this to work.”
“I’ll believe in me if you will.”
That was when Willow realized she was in trouble. She hadn’t just signed on for a few hours of brainstorming. She was in on the ground floor of an immense undertaking. She’d become part and parcel to Cal’s dream.
Oh, hell.
HE WAS GOING to kiss her. No, he wasn’t, damn it. Like a fool, he’d promised he wouldn’t lay a hand on her this evening if she helped him. And he did not break promises. Ever.
Then he realized it was a moot point, because Willow was kissing him. Yeah, that’s what really happened, he thought dazedly. She threw her arms around his neck and planted one right on his mouth, surprising the bejabers out of him.
The pile of papers he’d held in one hand fluttered to the floor like autumn leaves. Kissing Willow was like a long-forgotten dream. He thought he remembered what it felt like when he wasn’t with her. Then when she was in his arms, he realized his memory didn’t do her justice at all.
The kiss was short for all its intensity. Willow pulled away first, out of breath, her face slightly flushed. “Oh, my God, what am I doing?”
“Don’t panic on me, Willow. It was just a kiss.”
She pulled away even farther, sliding her arms down his shoulders, taking a step back. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I just got caught up in all the excitement.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“But I’m sending you mixed signals. I…I don’t know what I want. I know what I should want, but…”
“This doesn’t have to mean anything.” It was a blatant lie. It meant a lot to him, having her kiss him, especially since this time she knew exactly whom she was kissing. He would be up the other half of the night, pondering what was going on with her. But she didn’t have to know that. “A kiss between friends, okay?”
“It’s just that—”
“Willow, listen to me. Tonight, you showed me how to do what you do best—planning, preparing, being logical. Now let me give you a little advice about what I do best—living in the moment. Stop obsessing about the past and worrying about the future. Enjoy the here and now.”
He touched her chin, gently turning her head until she had to look at him again.
“That was a very nice kiss. Thank you again.” He kissed her on the cheek, then her forehead. “Now go get some sleep. I’ll let myself out.”
It almost killed him to pick up his papers, then turn and walk away when he knew she was receptive to him, knew her hormones were racing through her veins right now, confusing the heck out of her. He could take advantage of that confusion, but he had made that mistake once and was still paying for it. Instead, he hoped he was leaving her wanting more.
WILLOW WOKE early the next morning after a poor couple of hours of sleep. She showered and dressed quickly, braided her hair, then quietly slipped out of the bathroom, hoping she could get out of the house before her grandmother woke. She wasn’t feeling up to Nana’s questions this morning. Her grandmother would want to know all about her visit with Cal and the project they’d worked on until two in the morning. And Nana would know exactly what time Cal left last night. She was a light sleeper.
But Nana was already up. The coffee was brewing, and she was assembling the ingredients for some baked treat.
“You’re up awfully early,” Willow commented as she snitched half a cup of half-brewed coffee. A few swallows were all she needed to wake herself up enough to drive to the camp.
“I went to bed so early last night that my eyes popped open at the crack of dawn.”
“I can’t believe you bailed out on me after I asked you to stick around,” Willow scolded, though there was no real bite to the remark. “Mmm, blueberry muffins?”
“No. The blueberries at Grubbs’ were too pricey. I’m thinking of banana bread.”
“Even better. I’ll have some later. I’ve got to run. I’m making waffles this morning for the kiddos.”
“You’re going to race out the door without telling me what happened with Cal?” Nana asked, sounding distressed.
“Have to. Don’t worry, you can interrogate me tonight when I get home.”
“Just tell me one thing. Did he kiss you?”
“Nana!”
“He did, he did!” she crowed.
Willow sighed. “The truth? He was a perfect gentle-man. I’m the bad one. I kissed him. I went completely out of my mind.”
“Nothing wrong with that. If you can’t go crazy over a man, what can you go crazy over?”
Willow smiled despite herself. “I have to scoot. See you tonight.”
AFTER THE WAFFLE and fruit salad breakfast extravaganza and cleanup, Willow had all of thirty minutes free before she had to start lunch preparations. She consulted her notebook, which had become her life-line, and recalled the tasks she’d promised to perform for Cal.
Instead of the surge of excitement she felt last night, she felt a stab of apprehension. What if she was encouraging Cal to pursue the wrong dream? What if, like vet school, he spent a lot of time and money on this venture and then realized that it was wrong, too? What did she know about horse training, after all? Maybe she should have tried to talk him into returning to vet school.
Her doubts whirled around her head as she used Wade’s computer to search the Internet for other horse trainers in the area. She found very few, and the ones who did have an Internet presence seemed to be traditional workhorse and rodeo trainers. She didn’t find any nearby who dealt with animal behavior problems, which was where she and Cal had determined his focus should be. That, at least, was encouraging.
Ne
xt, she called the Pattersons about their traumatized pony.
“I don’t think I know Cal Chandler,” Mrs. Patterson said in her deep, smoker’s voice. “Is he someone your parents know?”
Oh, Lord, Willow didn’t want Mrs. Patterson going to them for a recommendation. Cal wasn’t exactly high on their list.
“He’s Old Doc Chandler’s grandson and Winn Chandler’s son,” Willow said, figuring everyone knew one or the other of the best-known vets working in the tri-county area. “He works for the Hardison Ranch.”
“I appreciate your trying to help,” Mrs. Patterson said, “and I’m sure this young man is wonderful, but Pepper won’t let anyone near him, not even my daughter. And they’re deeply bonded.”
“Please, Mrs. Patterson, just let him try.” Willow didn’t want to sound desperate, but she knew that if anyone could help, Cal could.
“Well, if you’ll come out with him. My husband doesn’t like letting strangers near our animals.”
“I, um, okay,” Willow agreed without much enthusiasm. She’d been planning to perform the tasks she’d promised Cal she would do, then extricate herself from his plans. Much as she wanted to see Cal succeed, she had her own future to think about. She’d been putting off her own trip to the library to do some research on cognitive impairments. Though her neurologist had assured Willow she was doing everything that could be done, she wasn’t so sure. Maybe there was some type of therapy, an exercise or a drug, that could speed things up.
Less than three weeks until she was supposed to show up at med school, and there was no way she would be able to handle the demands given her current abilities. Or rather, lack of abilities.
CAL DIDN’T WANT to admit it, but he was nervous as he drove Highway 17 toward Mooresville. Doing a favor for Wade Hardison was one thing. Saddle-breaking young quarter horses was something he could do in his sleep.
But approaching a strange, dysfunctional pony owned by people he’d never met and who might be expecting miracles—Well, it was just scary.