“It sounds gorgeous,” she said, and felt a little pang knowing that she wouldn’t be here come autumn.
“So is this, in a different way.” He looked at her for a long moment, letting her know he liked what he saw. Then, grinning, he flipped open one of the saddlebags and rummaged inside, and held out a couple of Twizzlers. “I believe I promised you dessert?”
“Oh, baby, come to Mama.” She took one and held it for a moment, absorbing the sweet, rubbery smell.
He chuckled. “Wouldn’t have pegged you for a junk foodie.”
“I’ve got a stash of Cheetos and Swedish fish in my cabin. I snuck them in from town and hid them in my dresser.”
“A woman after my own heart.”
The darkness hid her flush. “The way I see it, what Gran doesn’t know won’t hurt her . . . and when you’ve lived on preservatives for as long as I have, it’s not easy going cold turkey.”
“Understood.” He held out his own Twizzler. “To moonlight rides, waterfalls, and processed sugar.”
Amused to have two food toasts in one day—first biscuits in the chuck truck, and now this—she Twizz-clinked. “To first dates, roundups, and new adventures.”
“Amen.”
She took a ceremonial bite when he did, and gave a big “Mmmm.” But then she warned, “Don’t tell Gran about this, or I’ll take you down with me for Twizzler pimping.”
He chuckled. “Twizzler pimp. I like that. Might have to put it on my card.”
“You don’t have a card. Or if you do, it’s with your phone, lost somewhere in your . . . what? Apartment? House? Trailer?”
“I live in a bunkhouse.”
“Of course. Silly me.”
“When Mustang Ridge went dude, the Skyes decided the bunkhouse was too far away from the main ranch to work for the guests, so they renovated it and made housing part of the head wrangler’s pay. When I took the job, Ed—that’s Krista’s dad—helped me set it up with solar panels and a cistern, and I’ve upgraded the gadgets along the way, tightening things up so I’m pretty self-sufficient without being nutso about it.”
“An ecofriendly bunkhouse. I like it.” It was another layer, one that fit with the astronomer. How many more did he have? How long would it take to get to know all of him?
Longer than she had, she knew, and stifled the pang.
“It suits me for now.” He paused. “Anyone back at the ranch would’ve told you that, if you’d asked.”
Pulling her brain back where it belonged—enjoying the moment rather than worrying about the future—she shrugged. “I didn’t ask. I’ve made a point not to gossip, with a couple of slips here and there. It seemed too high school, I guess, pumping the other kids for info on you, and whether they thought you liked me, or like-liked me.”
That got a grin. “I’d say it’s not just high school. That sort of stuff translates worldwide, possibly even to other planets.”
She shifted as a pointy rock dug into the base of her spine. “I can see it now, the jock gray aliens passing notes in the back of class, while the little green ones—their version of band geeks, don’t you know—travel in packs, even on dates.”
“Something like that. Here.” He put his arm around her and drew her against his side. “I make a better pillow than that rock.”
Yes, you do. His body was warm beneath the tough cotton of his shirt, and musky with trail dust and sweat. She leaned into him, suffused with the strangeness of letting herself lean on a man, even as parts of her remembered exactly how this was supposed to go, how it was supposed to feel.
Like riding a bike, she thought, and felt a wash of heat.
“Anyway, no, I didn’t ask Krista and the others about you. I figured that this—whatever it is, whatever it becomes—should stay more or less between the two of us. Not a secret, but not a village affair, either.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Well, then . . .” He tightened his arm around her. “I guess the next question is, what do you want to know about me? Because it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure that a first date should include some form of twenty questions, maybe more.”
The questions swam in her head, but she also wanted to keep in mind that this wasn’t a first date between two strangers, trying to get a sense of each other or figure out how they synched up—or not—in relationship terms. So she said, “Whatever you feel like telling me, I’d enjoy hearing. Or you can ask me something. Or we can just sit here and cuddle. No twenty questions, no scoring, just the two of us together because we want to be.”
She felt him look down at her. “You’re not much like other women, are you?”
“I guess that depends on the other women. And no, I’m not asking about them. We’re here and now, just enjoying each other’s company.”
“No,” he said softly.
“No?” She looked up at him in surprise. “We don’t enjoy each other’s company?”
“No, you’re not like other women at all. Period. And I enjoy the heck out of your company. What’s more, it seems I’m going to kiss you now.”
If she’d thought before that her pulse was racing, now she realized that had just been a prelude to the real thing. “It seems I’m going to let you kiss me. I might even kiss you back.”
“Oh, yeah.” His smile was slow and devastating as he bent toward her, urging her up with his arms. “You sure will.”
Their lips met and clung, fanning the banked heat to a strong, sure glow. He took it soft and slow, sweeping his tongue between her lips, first a taste, then a caress. She softened against him and reached up to touch his neck, his jaw, and rub her thumb along the unfamiliar beard-bristle that said he’d been away from a razor for some time.
To her surprise, she liked the raspy feel of it, just as she liked knowing that he’d come straight from the gather, riding hard because he’d wanted to see her.
She broke the soft, drugging kisses to whisper against his lips. “I heard it’s in the Cowboy Code that you’re not supposed to touch a man’s hat.”
He chuckled. “If you’re another man, then yeah, it’s liable to get you in a fight. But if you’re a woman, it falls somewhere between skinny-dipping and borrowing his horse.” He reached up, removed his hat, and set it on her head, tipped back so he could catch her neck and draw her close once more.
His hat was warm and musky, his lips insistent, his body a contrast of hard and soft against hers. Ah, she thought, this. This was what she had given up, walked away from, deprioritized. This was what she sometimes missed at night, the ache that never quite went away. The kisses, and the feeling of a man’s body against hers, inside hers.
Yes, this.
But as their kisses grew deeper and darker, it stopped being familiar, and started growing new, strange, and urgent. She moved restlessly against him, caught his groan in her mouth, and slipped a hand into the open throat of his shirt to touch the wiry hair and warm skin beneath. They kissed, caught, held, shuddered, and slid a little lower on the stone, until they weren’t so much sitting anymore as lying together, wrapped up in each other. And even as the heat and hormones were all for sliding lower, part of her was thinking that it was too much, too fast.
She murmured and flattened her hand against him, and he eased back with a muttered oath, one that was more wondering than unhappy.
Keeping his arms around her, he pulled them back up to where they started, leaning back against the rock in a safer, more upright position. His ribs were heaving and his voice wasn’t quite steady as he said, “Whoa, there. Slowing it down now, before we skip a few steps and wish we hadn’t.”
“Okay,” she said, trying to slow her breathing. “Yeah, okay. That’d probably be best.”
He gathered her close and kissed her brow, her cheek. “I’m not saying I’d regret anything we might do together. But I want us both to enjoy the ride.”
“Walk the first mile out and the last one in?”
“Something like that.” But his eyes were intense on hers. “Okay?”
“Okay.” She blew out a pent-up breath. “Yeah, more than okay.”
“Want another Twizzler?”
“Is that a metaphor?”
“Nope, it’s a Twizzler.”
She laughed, accepted the faux licorice, and settled in against him, enjoying the feel of his too-big hat tipping down over her brow and the sound of his heartbeat, sure and strong, and still quick from their kisses. They ate the Twizzlers, opened another pack, shared a quick, sticky kiss, and watched the waterfall.
After a while, she said, “How about you tell me Loco’s story? A horse like that, there’s got to be a story.”
“Ah.”
She could hear his smile.
“Yes, indeed. There’s always a story when it comes to a horse like Loco.” He eased a little lower on the rock and urged her closer to his chest, so his voice rumbled beneath her cheek as he said, “I grew up on a ranch that was a lot like Mustang Ridge would’ve been, before it went dude. It was smaller, though, strictly a family operation. The Double-Bar H. My ma and pa did most of the work, though my grandpa ran the place, at least in name. He’d lost my gramma to cancer, and never really got past it, but he was good with me and my sister, Tish. And he had a way with horses like nobody else I’ve ever met.”
When he paused, she wasn’t sure what to say. She’d asked about the horse and got the story of the man, in a way she probably wouldn’t have if she’d asked about his family or childhood.
Maybe she was starting to figure out this cowboy thing. Sort of.
Nestling in closer, she said, “I guess you take after him.”
“I’d like to think so, and that’s where Loco comes in. Growing up on the Double-Bar H, Tish and I were riding pretty much as soon as we could walk, and we helped bring on the young stock all along, doing different parts of the training as we grew up. It was family tradition, though, that on our sixteenth birthdays, we got to pick a foal or yearling for our own, and do all the training from the ground up. Tish—she’s a year older than me—picked a spitfire of a mare that she named Beauty, because she was. And the next year, I picked out Loco.”
“Why the name? Was he crazy?”
“Actually, I named him Luke. The Loco part came later, when it came time to start him under saddle.”
She felt him shrug.
“We worked it out over the years, and nowadays there isn’t anyone else, man or beast, that I trust more.”
Shelby laughed softly. “Gran was saying to me earlier how it’s harder being a parent than a horse trainer, because a parent has to get it right the first time.”
“I won’t argue with that.”
“But you got it right.”
“I got lucky. He’s a hell of a horse.”
And you’re a hell of a man, she thought, but didn’t say. So instead, she said, “So, he’s what, twenty now?”
“Twenty-two and still going strong, though he’ll show his age now and then in the winter.”
“Don’t we all?”
He laughed and hugged her close. “Don’t you believe it, Mama Bear. You and Stace could be sisters.”
“Hardly. I’m thirty-three.” Which made him five years older, yet it sort of felt like those numbers should be reversed. She was the one with the nine-year-old and the mortgage, while he had a horse, a saddle, and a beat-up old truck. That was the nice thing about what they were doing, though. All that mattered was today, tomorrow, maybe the next day. So she would take it one day at a time and enjoy the ride.
“I’m liking thirty-something,” he said. “It’s old enough to have learned a few things about impulse control and patience, but still young enough that I can tell myself I’ve got time yet to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”
“Ah, yes, that one. I’m familiar with the concept.”
“Not sure you want to stay in advertising?”
“Not sure I want to work for someone else for the rest of my life doing it.”
“And here I first thought we didn’t have much in common.” He paused. “Don’t get me wrong, Krista is the best. But it’s not my own place, you know?”
She held up her Twizzler. “To being your own boss.”
He clinked. “Amen.”
He chuckled and held her close, and they stayed like that in comfortable silence for a bit, watching the water fall and the mist rise, and the patterns they made in the moonlight. Before long, though, he squeezed her tight and said into her hair, “We should be heading back. If we stay out much longer, they’re liable to send the dogs out after us.”
“I know.” And the last thing she wanted to do was worry Lizzie or any of the others. “Speaking of dogs, where’s Vader?”
“He was tired from the long run earlier, so I asked Lizzie to watch him for me.”
Her heart took a slow roll in her chest. “Oh. I didn’t see him when I talked to her.”
“He’s learned his lesson about getting too close to fire pits. But he’s there, keeping an eye on her, and vice versa.”
“Thank you.”
“No biggie.”
She caught his hand and squeezed it. “It’s a biggie to me, and to Lizzie. She hasn’t had much in the way of positive male attention in the last few years, and I think . . .” She hesitated, hating to put it into words, but unable to call it a coincidence. “Please don’t think I’m trying to put you in the daddy role, because I’m really not. But at the same time, I’m not sure she would have gotten as far as she has without you. Not just because you’re a man, but because of everything you’ve done for her. For us.”
“She would’ve gotten there.” When she started to shake her head, he caught her face in his hands. “Hey. She would have. Maybe not this fast, or this same way, but she would’ve gotten there, thanks to you.”
Shelby closed her eyes. “You’re good for me, Foster. I wish I could give you back some of what you’ve given me.”
“No keeping score, remember?” He kissed her lightly on the lips. “When can I see you again?”
She laughed, because they’d be camping within yards of each other, she with Lizzie, while he doubled up with Ty. Who, Gran had warned, snored like a jackhammer. But she knew what he meant, and the question gave her a glow. “I’d give you my number, but rumor has it you don’t have your phone glued to you twenty-four-seven.”
“Not so much.” He kissed her nose. “So let’s make our date right now. Tomorrow night, after things die down. Meet me by the horses, like you did tonight. I’ll bring the junk food and show you something special.”
“Skinny-dipping?”
His grin went lopsided. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
12
The next few days were a blur to Shelby, but in a very good way. The roundup was an unqualified success, with a ten percent increase in the number of calves that were microchipped, immunized, and—in the case of the young males—snipped, and a fat two hundred being brought down to the ranch to be sold, ensuring that the herd didn’t get too big. The days hadn’t been blazing hot, there weren’t any real accidents or injuries, and the horses and riders were holding up great under the work. The chuck truck was chugging along, rolling along easier now that it was lighter by five days’ worth of provisions, and Shelby and Gran had been roundly praised each night for the camp meals. But if the days blurred, the nights stood still.
Shelby and Foster didn’t go skinny-dipping after all, as the water was even colder up closer to the mountains. Instead, on the second night—it was Sunday, though not like any Sunday she’d ever had before—they rode out to a cliff where, sheltered in a shallow cave high up above ground level, some long-ago artist had chiseled a pattern of spirals and stars, and barrel-chested stick figures hunting with arrows and spears.
With the hobbled horses picking at grass down below, snorting now and then, Shelby leaned into Foster and dangled her legs over the edge, enjoying the flutter that came with the height . . . and the man. She let out a sigh. “It’s a fabulous night.”
&nbs
p; “We get lots of great nights out here.” He stretched an arm around her and drew her closer. “But the company makes this one perfect.”
She grinned up at his strong profile, silhouetted against the blush of sunset. “Your sweet talk is getting better. You been practicing?”
“Brutus gets a kick out of it.” He reached into the saddlebag he’d brought up with him, and held out a bottle. “Drink?”
“Orange soda?”
A chuckle rumbled in his chest. “Gran always says my palate stopped developing at age twelve. Besides, I wasn’t sure what went with Nutter Butters.”
“What doesn’t go with Nutter Butters? Gimme.”
He proffered the packaged cookies with a flourish. “Asparagus?”
“Excuse me?
“Asparagus doesn’t go with Nutter Butters.”
She bit in, considered. “I could make it work. Maybe tie them together with a white sauce, or some Brie.” Though that might be stretching it.
He faked a shudder. “Real cowboys don’t eat funky cheese.”
“Is that part of the code?”
“If it’s not, it should be.”
“Okay, then, no asparagus with our Nutter Butters.”
“Or brussels sprouts, broccoli, or lima beans.”
“You got something against vegetables?”
“Not if it’s lettuce or carrots. Peas are okay in limited doses.”
“Ah.” She nodded knowingly. “You’re a bag-o’-salad guy.”
“A what?”
“Tell me there hasn’t been a bag o’ salad in your fridge recently.” At his expression, she grinned. “Typical bachelor fare.”
“Oh? And you’ve never succumbed to the temptation of American blend or spring mix?”
“I didn’t say that. Hey, it’s an accepted single mom shortcut. I figure I get points because Lizzie eats her veggies . . . as long as I don’t try to feed her asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, or lima beans.”
“Just one more reason for me to like your kid.”
The offhand comment tightened her throat, made her want to reach out to him. He doesn’t mean it that way, she reminded herself. We’re just having fun here. And they did, eating their cookies under the stars and sharing peanut-flavored kisses that teetered on the edge of more.
Summer at Mustang Ridge Page 16