She’d asked him if he was okay, and he seemed okay. But that kiss…. Her fingers drifted to her lips, and she startled when she touched them. She shut down her Internet browser and padded down the hall to her bedroom. She should’ve gone to bed an hour ago, yet Tanner had dominated her thoughts so completely, she hadn’t.
With only two weeks until his homecare ended, Summer wished he had a plan. Wished his plan included her. But they’d only been dating officially for five weeks; she’d only known him for seven. But he carried so much strength in his person, he commanded a room when he entered it.
She understood easily how he’d dominated the rodeo circuit, why women—why everyone—gravitated toward him. He’d been surprisingly soft-spoken, but she’d learned over the past several weeks that he hadn’t always been that way. That just about a year ago he’d decided to make a change in his life. Make room for God in his life.
If anything, learning that about him had made him more attractive to Summer. “Like you need another reason to fall in love with him,” she muttered as she climbed into bed. She froze, every muscle in her body seizing.
Was she in love with Tanner Wolf?
She blinked, blinked. She’d been in love with one other man in her life. Drew. And it felt a lot like this.
She muscles turned spongy and she collapsed onto her back, a smile spreading from one side of her face to the other.
You are in love with him, she thought as a giggle leaked from her lips. At the same time as her euphoria, a sense of dread settled over her. She’d gone and fallen in love with a man who might not even be in town next month.
She rolled onto her side, her eyes staring into the darkness. She’d be strong like Tanner was. Whatever the next several weeks held, she’d be glad she had this brief time with him.
“Thank you,” she whispered into the blackness, to the Lord. “Thank you for letting me love again.”
Over the course of the next week, Tanner kept putting her off. He cancelled all their usual evening appointments for physical therapy, and that meant all of their dinners and subsequent good-night kisses.
Finally, Summer had had enough. She called Tanner, who answered on the second ring. “Hey, there,” he said with a smile in his voice.
“Hey, yourself,” she said, the frustration she felt coming through in her tone. “Where are you?”
“I’m, uh….”
She stood on the lawn of his apartment, and she knew he wasn’t home.
“I’m, well, I’m out at the ranch.”
Her eyebrows shot toward her hairline. “The ranch?” Based on the only time she’d taken him out there, she was surprised he’d return. He hadn’t seemed keen on sticking around, and he’d confessed that the ranch symbolized everything he’d lost. “What are you doing out there?”
“Remember how I told you Ethan kept badgering me about the equine therapy program?”
“Hey!” another man said somewhere on Tanner’s end of the line. “I did not badger you.”
Tanner chuckled. “Well, I finally decided to take him up on his offer.”
“Oh, so you’ve been ditching me every night this week for a horse.”
“Several horses,” Tanner said. “I work with a different one each night. They all kinda like me.”
“Of course they do,” she said dryly. She turned her back to his front door like someone might have their ear pressed to the wood to eavesdrop. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out to the ranch?”
“It was….” His voice dropped. “Something I was working through on my own.”
She couldn’t even begin to understand what Tanner had gone through emotionally when he’d lost the rodeo. It was his career. His livelihood. His entire world. She hadn’t seen him experience anger, or remorse, or grief. But maybe he’d been suppressing it all this time.
A new, terrifying thought entered her mind. “You’re not riding a horse, are you?”
“No, ma’am.” He laughed. “Thank you, Nurse Hamblin, for checking up on me.”
“Hey, someone has to.”
“Where are you now?”
She hurried away from his building. “Just walking downtown.” It was almost true. Another block or two and she’d be downtown. “Wondering if I’d have to eat dinner alone again.”
“I’m real sorry, sweetheart. Ethan’s just taking me out to the ranch now. I’ll be a couple hours.”
Now that she knew what he was doing, she didn’t mind. “It’s okay.”
“I do need to talk to you later,” he said. “Maybe I can have Ethan drop me off at your place?”
Her throat narrowed. What did he want to talk about?
“Summer?”
“My place is fine,” she blurted before she could lose her confidence. “See you in a couple of hours.”
Summer paced for most of those two hours, her overworked mind conjuring up every possible scenario. By the time Tanner knocked and pushed his way into her living room, she felt near tears.
He grinned, gathered her close, gave her a sweet kiss hello. His warm hands cupped the back of her neck and he breathed her in deep, deep. “I missed you.”
Everything inside her calmed. She wrapped her arms around him and held on.
“One more week,” he said, drawing himself away from her.
She eyed him. “Yeah. You don’t think you’ll need to enroll in further homecare?”
“I don’t think so, no. Doctor Verdad said I can take off the walking cast if my leg feels strong enough, and I can do the strengthening exercises on my own.” He kept his cowboy hat tipped down and she couldn’t see his eyes.
“So I guess you’ll be cleared to travel.”
“I expect to be, yes.”
“And you’re going back to Colorado Springs.” She wasn’t even attempting to make her voice sound like a question.
He lifted his eyes to hers, and she saw something new in them. New, and unidentifiable. At least before he looked away. “Yes, Summer. I’m going to go back to Colorado Springs for a little while. Maybe a week. Maybe two. I was hoping—” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. He took a step toward her and one away.
He drew a breath and looked right at her. Everything between them fell away, leaving her feeling exposed and vulnerable. He looked every bit as unmasked as she felt. “I was hoping you’d come with me. Meet my mother as my girlfriend. Stay at my house—it’s plenty big for both of us. Nothing funny, I swear. Go meet my new nephew with me. That sort of thing.”
Surprise shot through her. “You want—you want me to go with you?”
“If you can get the time off.”
Summer didn’t have untold millions sitting in a bank account somewhere. Taking a week off work was probably doable. She had enough vacation days for that. “I’ll see what I can do when I get to work in the morning.”
A smile split his face. “What do you think the chances are?”
“I don’t know. Depends on how many other people have put in to have the time off.”
He swept toward her with that power she admired about him, broken leg and all. “I really want you to come.”
“I’ll be sure to put that on my vacation request.” She laughed as he caught her in his arms. “Doctor Brady should appreciate that.”
Tanner sobered, his eyes taking on that super-serious edge they did sometimes. “I really want you to come,” he said again. “Because I’m in love with you.”
Summer sucked in a breath, hardly believing her ears. Tanner watched her with warmth in his eyes and those large hands holding her against his chest. “Tanner—”
“I know it’s fast,” he said. “But hey, I’m kind of a fast guy. When I figure out what I want, I go for it.” He gave her half a grin, but it carried some nervous energy.
“What do you want?” she asked. “With your life, I mean.”
“Still working that part out. But I do know I want you in it for a good, long while.” His face softened. The edge in his eye melted. He dipped his
mouth closer to hers, and when he kissed her, she realized what was different. What had been different in his touch.
He loved her.
11
“I can’t get work off.” Summer sniffed as if she’d been crying. “Three nurses already put in for time off, and—”
Tanner swung his legs over the side of the couch and rubbed the back of his head. “Let’s go a different week then.”
“No.” Her voice definitely sounded nasally. Choked up. Tanner started looking for his boots so he could go see her. “You go without me. I’ll go next time. This way, you’ll be able to stay as long as you want. Might be better anyway.”
“It won’t be better,” he said. “I can wait. My mom isn’t going anywhere.” He’d need to make all his phone calls again, but he could. He didn’t want to make the six-hour drive without Summer. The very thought sounded like torture. He’d told her he loved her, and he’d never felt something so deep, so pure. He’d never felt so free.
She hadn’t said it back, but everything in her eyes, everything in her touch, testified that she loved him too. He’d have to trust those feelings for now. Sure, it was a fast relationship, but like he’d said, when he knew what he wanted, he did it. It was getting to that point that seemed to take time.
Summer was a passionate woman too. She could fall in love quickly, he knew. Women like her often did, which was why he didn’t want to go to Colorado Springs without her. He wouldn’t hurt her if he could help it.
She’d started talking, and he hadn’t heard all of it. But he heard her when she said, “You should just go.”
Tanner didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what she wanted him to say, what she really wanted him to do. He pressed his eyes closed and offered up a prayer requesting help. He’d felt like he needed to get home to visit as soon as possible.
“When can you get off?” he asked.
“Not until almost Halloween.”
Tanner’s heart sank, taking his hopes with it. “It’s only the beginning of September.”
“Margie has a daughter getting married. Belinda wants her baby’s first birthday off. Jean always goes to Jamaica in the fall.” She sounded crestfallen, but determined too. “You just go,” she said. “You’ll call me every night and tell me about your mom, and the baby, and your house.”
Helplessness pushed against his every breath. “Okay,” he said. “And we’ll go near Halloween. Can you put in for the time off now?”
“I already did,” she said.
“Great.” He hung up and decided to get up and do his physical therapy. The week passed, and he got his cast off and his travel to Colorado okayed by Dr. Verdad. He packed and picked up his truck from Ethan’s.
“So I’m set to leave in the morning,” he said to Summer on Sunday evening. He ran his fingers through her hair. “I’ll be gone a week or so.”
“I know,” she said sleepily. “I’m on swing shift, remember?”
“I remember.” He smiled up at the stars. Now that he could get around easier, they’d been spending evenings in her backyard, where she had a hammock. “No calls before noon.”
“Unless it’s an emergency.”
When it was time for him to go, he cupped her face in his hands, whispered, “I love you, Summer,” and kissed her. It didn’t feel like a final kiss to him, though she pulled away sooner than he liked. She smiled, but it held sadness. Sadness he wished he could erase. Sadness he never wanted to see in those blue eyes.
The next morning, the fall sky matched the color of Summer’s eyes. He smiled into it and made sure to stop every two hours to get out and walk. His leg needed the extra circulation, and he disliked the weakness he felt in his knee. He made it to Colorado Springs without any problems.
His mother was working, so he went to his house first. Embarrassment squirreled through him when he pulled up to the gate and remembered it required a code to enter. What a different life he had here. He felt like a foreigner in his own life, pulling into his own garage. Four wide, each housed a different truck.
What would Summer think of that? he wondered as he glanced down the row of them. They all gleamed as if they’d just been washed. The garage floor was likewise spotless, and Tanner knew that the mansion he lived in would be equally clean. After all, he paid good money to keep it that way whether he was home or not.
Sure enough, Clarissa had been in recently. Tanner took in the vaulted ceilings and long, tiled halls. Again, he wasn’t quite sure who lived here. Him, or a version of himself he no longer was. Gooseflesh broke out on his arms as an uncomfortable feeling descended on him.
He didn’t belong here. Didn’t belong in this house. All of this extravagance belonged to the Tanner Wolf of the past. The man he’d left behind somewhere between here and Three Rivers.
Suddenly, he craved the simplicity of Three Rivers. Of having one grocer, and a handful of choices for dinner, and a rusty old ranch truck to get around.
He pulled out his phone to text Summer, but paused with her name called up on his screen. He couldn’t explain this to her. Horror that he’d almost brought her here snaked through him. He navigated out to his contacts and found Theo. He dialed that number as he crossed the house to the other side, where his master suite was.
“Tanner,” Theo said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Theo,” Tanner said. “I’m back in town. Wondering if you might be able to come over to the house sometime this week.”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I want to sell my place,” Tanner said.
“You want to…sell your place?”
“That’s right.”
“The place I spent a year looking for? The one that couldn’t be within five miles to the freeway? The one that needed to have at least a half an acre of land? That house?”
Tanner cringed at his vainness. His past vainness. “Yes, Theo. That house. It doesn’t…suit me anymore.”
Theo laughed, the sound as dark and rich as freshly brewed coffee. “You said that house was perfect. And it was.”
“I’ve changed,” he said simply.
“I’ll say you have.” Theo exhaled. “So where will we be looking next? And if you say The Ranches, I’m hanging up.”
Tanner scoffed at the idea of living on a fabricated ranch. “Even I haven’t changed that much.”
“Good. Because I can’t stand the drive out there.”
“Well, then you’re probably really going to hate what I say next.”
“I’m ready.”
“I’m looking to buy something—something nice—in Three Rivers, Texas.”
*
Once he’d convinced Theo that no, he was not joking, and yes, he wanted to relocate to the Texas panhandle as soon as possible, he showered and headed over to his mother’s house. She pulled into the driveway just before him, and he swept her into a hug before she could even truly stand.
“Hey, Ma.” He grinned down at her before he realized something was terribly wrong. A fist of ice punched him in his still-healing lungs. “What’s wrong?”
“Kamry just called. Bill’s been in a car accident.”
Tanner’s world sped and blurred. “An accident?” he managed to put through a too-tight throat. “Is he okay?”
“She said she didn’t know. That we could come as soon as we could.” She held up her phone. “I just hung up with her.”
“Let’s go.” Tanner started for his truck, which he’d parked behind her car. They didn’t speak on the way over, each lost in the last time they’d made a drive like this. They’d been separated then, connected only by a telephone call every so often as Tanner made his way home from Florida, where he’d been competing in one of the biggest rodeos in the country.
But his dad had just been in a car accident. He’d passed away before Tanner made it home.
Please, he prayed. Please let Bill be okay.
His mother rushed ahead of him into the hospital. They found Kamry in the waiting room, alone. “Where a
re the boys?” his mother asked. “The baby?”
“They were all in the car with Bill.” Her face bore splotches; her makeup had smudged around her eyes. “They won’t tell me much of anything. They just keep saying a doctor will come out when there’s something to tell.”
Tanner didn’t know what to do to comfort Kamry. He stepped up to her and encircled her in his arms. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered as she sagged into him. Then he prayed that he would be right.
An hour later, a doctor did come out to talk to Kamry. Everyone was alive, but they had various injuries. Only the baby had escaped unscathed because of the infant carrier. He took them back to see Bill and the two little boys, and with every step, Tanner felt his future changing.
How could he leave town next week? How could he leave them all and go back to Three Rivers? Back to traveling the rodeo circuit?
Bill needed his help right now, and in the coming months. Kamry would too. Tanner didn’t believe for a single second that Bill’s accident happening on the day Tanner arrived back in town was coincidence. No, God had brought him here to be a strength and support to his family.
And that was what he needed to do. Long-term.
12
Summer’s stomach writhed with every minute that passed. Tanner hadn’t texted her when he’d gotten to his house in Colorado Springs. That would’ve been hours ago. He hadn’t called as she got off her shift. That was twenty minutes ago.
By morning, when she’d still heard nothing from him, she sent him a text—way before noon, as she’d had a hard time sleeping. He didn’t respond.
She attacked her kitchen and bathroom with organic cleaning supplies, and an hour later, her house was the cleanest it’d been that year. Frustrated, with hours still until she needed to be at work, she called Belinda.
“Want to go to lunch?”
“Sure, I’m just finishing up with Oliver’s bath.”
“Is an hour okay?”
A splash sounded on Belinda’s end of the line. “Should be fine. I can take Ollie to daycare after that and we’ll go to work together. Chinese?”
Lucky Number Thirteen: An Inspirational Western Romance Novella (Three Rivers Ranch Romance Book 9) Page 7