Her Rodeo Rancher

by M. K. Stelmack

  “Like a little heat?”

  “Where?”

  “With electrodes to your prefrontal cortex. On your back, silly. Here. I’ll power it on, and you decide for yourself.”

  She knew the exact moment the heat hit him. He melted, his shoulders sinking down. The tension in his face disappeared. He must be in constant low-level pain. She hoped he was getting physio or massages from someone.

  “I could get used to this,” he said.

  “So the chair can give you a massage, but not me?”

  “I’ve seen what you did to my mother. I need to operate a vehicle to get home, so no thanks.”

  That was almost a compliment. She decided to take it.

  “You relax while I prepare the basin. You can adjust with the remote.”

  While in the bathroom, she texted her sister to say she’d be late with a client.

  You just said you were done for the day, Mara responded.

  A walk-in. For a pedicure.

  That needed doing right now?

  If she so much as mentioned Will to Mara, the double whammy of psychologist and sister, there would be no extracting herself until a full analysis under the influence of wine and chocolates was completed. Her other sister, Bridget, might also be called in. A long story. I’ll explain when I get home. Around 8. Then she ditched her phone and quickly carried the full basin to Will to avoid any more badgering texts.

  She tossed in a handful of salts, and switched on the heat and vibration modes.

  “Who knew a pedicure was so high-tech?” Will said as she pulled up to his soaking feet on her wheeled stool, also a black leather one. She felt a spurt of proprietary pride at how impressed he was with her setup. Not for nothing had she brought in the best of the best...at the cheapest of the cheapest.

  “Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of hands-on work.” She’d made it sound as if he was looking forward to her touching him. Which they both knew wasn’t the case. She patted the footrest. “Bring those puppies up here and we’ll start.”

  Her work was cut out for her. Side calluses, rough heels, dryness, nail ridges, overgrown cuticles. She might have to send a second text to Mara, tacking on an extra half hour.

  She thought her expression was neutral enough but then he said, “You don’t need to go whole hog on them. We’ll be here all night.”

  How insulting. “First, we won’t be here all night. Second, your feet deserve my pedicure. These two babies might be the farthest body part from your head, but they’ve been with you every step of your life. The least you can do is treat them to my care.”

  They regarded each other down the long length of his legs, then his toes did a wiggly dance. “Well, then. Have at ’em.”

  Krista clipped ’em, nipped ’em, soaked ’em, and then she applied the paddle to remove the calluses. His foot jerked in her lap. He squirmed, grinning.

  She gasped. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.” How embarrassing. The last thing she wanted Will Claverley thinking was that she was deliberately tickling him.

  She tried again with a firmer stroke. His foot twisted in her grasp like a caught fish. “You’re doing it,” he sputtered from laughter, “on purpose.”

  “I swear I’m not. It happens if I don’t apply enough pressure. Here, I’ll switch to a coarser grade. That might help.”

  It didn’t. He giggled, tried to squelch it and up it bubbled again. “Couldn’t we skip this step?”

  “Will, that would be like—I dunno—you in the rodeo, asking if you can skip the step of actually riding the horse.”

  “I can’t keep laughing.”

  “No,” she said, “that most certainly won’t do.”

  He frowned. “You’re not making fun of me, are you?”

  It was hilarious actually, and with any other client, they’d both be giggling. But if what his heart wanted was not to laugh, then that’s what she would deliver. “No,” she said honestly, “I’m not.”

  He sat back. “Talk to me, then. Distract me. Tell me what’s been going on in your life.”

  What about her life could possibly interest him? “Well, as you can see, I run my own little spa. I opened up in February and it’s been going great. I could always do with more clients.” She bit her lip. That was unprofessional of her to complain about lack of business to a client. Because really, that’s all Will was. She gave a quick swipe of his foot and pressed his sole with her hand, as if she’d pulled off a wax strip. His grin faded. “Okay, I’m good. Continue.”

  “I, uh, offer a full range of spa treatments—manicures, pedicures, massages. I—uh—” swipe, apply pressure, wait for grin to pass “—also am a hairstylist.”

  Swipe and apply pressure. “So what made you decide to open this spa?” Will squeaked out.

  She could tell him of her epiphany while giving an impromptu foot massage to a tired actress in Toronto but Will wanted a distraction, not a longwinded testimonial. Better to keep it simple. “Because I finally found something I was good at.”

  “Found? You never struck me as somebody who had to find a thing. More like you could take your pick.”

  Another almost compliment. She couldn’t be sure if he meant it but Will Claverley had never held out on her before. Still, it was odd to hear him say nice things to her, to even confess that he wanted to see her in person. It felt too much like how she’d wanted him to be ten years ago.

  “Look, why don’t I charge through both feet as fast as possible and then you can relax and we won’t need to talk about me anymore?”

  He gripped the arms of his chair and gave her the go-ahead nod.

  Two minutes later, he lay back in his chair, breathing heavily but free of giggles.

  “I think it’s over,” she mock-whispered. She stroked the sensitive middle part of his foot. He didn’t flinch. “Indeed, we’re done here.”

  Their eyes met. They had created a new memory between them. Something else besides the decade-old humiliation. One of lightness and laughter and touch, though not one he’d want repeated or spoken of. She’d keep the secret of his ticklish feet, just as he’d kept silent about her asking him out. For which Krista was eternally grateful.

  She cupped her hands around his feet. “This’ll be our second little secret.”

  Will hesitated, then gave a brief nod.

  “All right, then,” she said quickly, “bath time.” She lowered his feet into the basin, searching for something to say.

  He seemed happy to stick to the subject of her, though. “So,” he said. “you were saying business is going great.”

  “Thanks to your sister. She’s brought a lot of business my way. Word of mouth is big in this line of work.”

  “That and giving a service people keep coming back for.”

  She didn’t know if that was yet another compliment, so she went with a neutral “True.” She lifted his dripping foot onto her lap and wrapped it in a towel. “I guess the key is to find enough mouths to put the word into.”

  “Who are your clients?”

  “Women. All ages, really. Right now, I’m trying to cast out as wide a net as possible and then if I develop a niche, focus on expanding that.” Finished with drying his foot, she applied lotion and began her foot massage. His eyes widened and he tensed. She said nothing, and he slowly relaxed. Twice in the same day, a Claverley had succumbed to her magic touch.

  Instead of sinking into silence, however, Will seemed determined to fight it with talk. “Who have you been catching?”

  This was where the truth came out. “To be honest, friends of Laura, married or getting married. Which means they either live on a ranch or are marrying into a ranch or cattle operation. So yeah, my niche so far is country, especially country weddings.”

  “I’m going to quite a few weddings myself. Which ones are you involved in?”

 
Krista hesitated, not sure if she ought to reveal the names of her clients. Then again, everybody knew everybody in Spirit Lake, and hadn’t Will already proved he could be discreet? “There’s Laura’s and Ryan’s. I’m a guest.”

  “Best man here.”

  “There’s Laura’s friend, Caris. I’m doing hair for the bridal party, and she also wants me there for the photographs.”

  “I’m a groomsman.”

  “Amanda’s wedding?”

  “Guest only.”

  “Me, too. High school friends. I’m also doing bridal makeup.”

  She set aside his freshly massaged foot and patted her lap. He obediently lifted his other foot for its turn. “I have an idea,” he said, “that might help us both.”

  Us both. As if they were partners. Krista feigned disinterest. “Oh?”

  “You remember Dana?”

  Her excitement fizzled. Had Laura got it wrong about their sibling-like status and Will was about to spring for a bridal package? No, Laura would’ve said something. Anyway, it shouldn’t matter either way. She began to massage his foot with the same professional care she gave to every client.

  “I do,” Krista said. “You two are buddies.”

  “We are, but the thing is she used to help me out when the rodeo came to the ranch.” He hitched in his seat and looked as uncomfortable as when she’d been scraping at his feet. “We had an agreement. We’ve never dated, but during those few days, we’d pretend to because when I was in the rodeo, I—uh—got a lot of...unintended attention.”

  Krista knew those girls. “Buckle bunnies.” Girls who hung around rodeos to hook up with a cowboy and if not, to steal his trophy buckle, or at least vie for bragging rights.

  “Yeah. But when Dana was by my side, she kept them on the other side of the fence, so to speak.”

  Krista had no idea where he was going with this. Was he going to introduce Krista to the buckle bunnies as prospective clients?

  “Only this year, Dana can’t help. I don’t want to get into her reasons.

  “So, I’m kinda short my—uh, pretend girlfriend.”

  “But why do you need one? You won’t be competing in this year’s rodeo, right?”

  “No, and I probably won’t get as much interest because of that, but I was still planning to do a celebrity ride. It’s a fundraiser for Alyssa’s nephew.”

  Alyssa was Laura’s maid of honor, and she’d told Krista about the event herself. Jacob had been in and out of the hospital for leukemia treatments since January. Alyssa and her family’s fear must be constant. Krista would be devastated if either of her nieces, nine and six, got that diagnosis. Will’s ride would raise money for the Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, a short two-hour drive away. “Why not ask Alyssa to be your fake girlfriend?”

  Will hitched again. “Well, that’s the thing. I get the feeling she’s...more into me than I’m into her.”

  Krista sympathized with Alyssa. She knew exactly how it felt to get the big thumbs-down from Will. “And you don’t want to send mixed signals.”

  “Right. So... I was thinking...” He looked at her long and hard.

  No. He couldn’t possibly—“You want me to be your fake girlfriend?”

  “Only for those few days. You and I seem to get along well enough and we both agree we’re not exactly suited.”

  “Yes,” Krista said firmly, “definitely. Polar opposites. And opposites attract but then—”

  “Blow apart,” Will concluded.

  He sounded like his mother. Krista cut to the point. “You want me to be your girlfriend because we mix like cake and cabbage. We both know that we don’t want each other so we don’t have to worry about hurt feelings. I get it. Sure.”

  He blinked. “Don’t you want to know what you’ll get out of it first?”

  That would’ve been the obvious thing to ask. Instead she’d come off sounding no better than a buckle bunny. She set aside his freshly massaged foot. “You as my A-list client?” she joked.

  He smiled, not a suppressed giggly kind, but a wide, open one for her and her alone. “Even better. How about five days of you schmoozing with the entire rodeo crowd from central Alberta, exposure to hundreds. Even if you picked up a half-dozen clients, wouldn’t that be worth it?”

  It would be. Every month was still touch-and-go. She couldn’t fail. Not when she was finally where she was meant to be and doing what she was meant to do. “When’s the rodeo?”

  “Second weekend in June.”

  About six weeks away. “That’ll work.”

  “We have a deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Will leaned back and closed his eyes. Technically, she’d finished her massage but for the first time since entering, he appeared entirely relaxed. She wheeled her stool gently away. A few minutes more of making her latest client happy couldn’t hurt.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “YOU?” BRIDGET SAID. “Will Claverley’s fake girlfriend?”

  “Didn’t I just finish saying that?” Krista tapped her sister’s empty wineglass. “How about I drive you home now?”

  “No way. Girls’ night out. The one night of the week I drink, even if it’s a Thursday.”

  “Pick-on-Krista-night more like.”

  “You have to admit,” said Mara, ever the diplomat, “that you have introduced a remarkable element into the evening.”

  The sisters were out on the deck, taking in the last rays of the setting sun from the upper balcony of the townhouse Krista and Mara rented. It was usually one of Krista’s favorite times of the week, but not when she was in the hot seat. She had reasoned that by waiting a few days to casually inform her sisters of her deal with Will, she could pass it off as an incidental tidbit.

  Instead, they were turning it into a full meal. “It’s not at all remarkable. We’re together four, five days off and on.”

  Bridget filled her wineglass to the brim. “What’s ‘off and on’? How exactly does this arrangement work? Do you pretend to kiss but then don’t?”

  Krista wondered herself. She cut herself another slice of lemon meringue pie. Not only was Thursday her weekly dose of sisterhood but also of dessert. “I guess we’ll figure it out when the time comes. He and Dana must’ve come up with a system. I’ll do the same thing. Except I’ll come with business cards.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve you and horses. You’re terrified of them.”

  “Will is well aware I’m not a horsey or ranch-y kind of person. That’s the point.”

  Mara perked up. “The point? Wouldn’t the point be to have a fake girlfriend that could—well, fake it? Not somebody so obviously unsuited.”

  “No.” Krista wrapped her mouth around her forkful of pie and pulled it slowly off. Heaven. “This way, there is zero danger we’ll become a couple for real and complicate things.”

  Mara opened her mouth to speak but Bridget interrupted. “The Claverley Rodeo is a huge deal in this town. Jack and I have upped the restaurant’s food orders and plan on three full breakfast sittings from Thursday to Sunday, and we’re opening for dinner service, too. Every year the rodeo gets bigger. People come from Saskatchewan, Montana, you name it. And—” she pointed her finger at Krista “—the media gets bigger, too.”

  “But the focus is on the cowboys and the ranch and...those kinds of things. Not me.”

  “And did that matter when it came to Phillip?”

  The tang of the pie soured in her mouth. The pain of her breakup with her Toronto boyfriend still chafed. In November, she’d flown back to Spirit Lake for her aunt’s funeral, but she’d stayed longer than intended. Phillip had given her an ultimatum: come back to him now or stay put. When her Auntie Penny’s will bequeathed her a commercial unit to launch any business her heart desired, her answer was clear. She’d called him to break things off. He’d barely uttered a dozen
words during that conversation, apparently saving up all his fury for the days and weeks ahead.

  It started with a post on Instagram showing a picture of her clothes inside a dumpster with the attached lines, “This is what happens when my ex doesn’t heed the move-out date.” His followers and even some of hers whom she’d counted as friends joined in with their own hyena-like nasty comments.

  Except it hadn’t stopped there. Next he posted photos of his new girlfriend with innuendoes about how she could be trusted—unlike some. Krista posted a pic of Krista’s Place with its boarded-up windows and crumbling steps before the renovations. She’d wanted to share her own excitement and, yeah, maybe let everyone out there know she was about more than appearances, that she was willing to put in the hard work. She’d prettied up the image with the lettering “The heart wants what the heart wants.”

  Her one-time friends had a field day with backhanded comments. “Congratulations! Hope you get everything you deserve.” “This a picture of your heart?” “No, the guy’s after she’s done.” After a few attempts at lighthearted replies which only spurred more snarkiness, she stopped responding altogether.

  Meanwhile Phillip and his pack tagged her in photos with the hashtag #becausekristawants. Next a picture of a freakish blonde plucking hundred-dollar bills from a guy’s back pocket. The same blonde stabbing a heart, and then an image of her roundhouse kicking a guy.

  Phillip had been able to stage the photos because he freelanced as a set photographer. The hashtag trended for an incredible three weeks. Krista became an Instagram meme for any chick who crushes hearts in pursuit of shallow dreams.

  Krista had closed her Instagram account with her seven thousand followers and, because Instagram was connected to Facebook, she’d shut off her four thousand followers there, too. She didn’t have a profile on Twitter and didn’t dare open one, dead certain she’d be hunted down and trolled. She had retained her website which she could control and had deleted one nasty comment after another from her contact page.

  “All that stuff with Phillip has died down,” she said. “I haven’t had any action for the past two weeks or so.”