But then the door opened, and there he was, looking so damn happy to see her that her heart hurt. He lifted a hand and called, “Shelby, hey. How’re things in Kitchen Land?”
“Momentarily quiet.” She walked toward him, but stalled on the top step. “I, um, know we didn’t have plans.”
“You don’t need an invitation.” He caught her hand and leaned in to kiss her, then hesitated and drew back. “Unless you do?” He searched her face. “What’s wrong?”
“I. Um . . .”
“Come in.” He drew her inside and shut the door. “Do you want something? Soda? Wine? Intravenous Nutter Butter drip?”
Stop being so sweet! It made her feel worse. “Nothing, thanks.”
He pulled her into his arms and wrapped her in a warm embrace that didn’t make her feel nearly so safe as it had done earlier in the day. “Was Rose so awful?”
She tried not to snuggle in, but even just being there—being with him—smoothed out some of the rough edges she was feeling, made her wonder if she was overreacting. They hadn’t promised each other anything more than good times, really. Still, it hurt that he hadn’t confided in her. “She, um, said some things that bothered me.”
“About Lizzie?” His voice rumbled against her, warm and soothing.
“About you, actually.” She made herself push away, but couldn’t look at him. Instead, she went to the window and stared out at the sunset, which had turned the sky a delicate peach that bled down to red where it met the dark mountain silhouettes. “She said you were married.”
And, just like that, the vibe changed.
There was a long pause before he said, “Once upon a time, yeah. I was.” His voice was inflectionless, and when she looked back at him, she could’ve been looking at the man she’d met in the barn that first day, cool and closed-off.
The fading sunset was easier to watch. “She said you lost the Double-Bar H in the divorce, that your ex-wife cleaned you out down to Loco and your saddle.”
“I got the truck, too, and it was her father’s lawyers, not Jill herself. I think she would’ve been okay with less, but she’d always been daddy’s little girl, and old man Winslow couldn’t stand the thought of it being no-fault. Which meant it had to be my fault.” He paused, then said carefully, “What happened to not doing the high school gossip thing?”
“I didn’t mean to.” Her gut knotted. He wasn’t apologizing, wasn’t agreeing that yeah, he should’ve told her once things started getting more serious between them. She drew in a shuddering breath. Don’t lose it. Just don’t.
He crossed the room to stand right behind her, then touched her shoulder. “Shelby, look at me.”
She turned around and leaned back against the windowsill, hating that he’d gone back to looking quiet and withdrawn. But at the same time, while she might hide her emotions for Lizzie’s sake, she knew better than to ignore them when it came to a man. Been there, done that, had the wool pulled over her eyes. “I know this isn’t fair. I know we said—I said—that we’re just having a good time, carpe diem and all that.”
“What happened between me and Jill is ancient history.”
“It just . . . it seems like the sort of thing you mention to a lover.”
“Not if it doesn’t have any impact on today. A good horseman takes the lessons and leaves the bad memories behind.”
“You told me once that a key to training greenies is making sure that the lesson they’re learning is the one you’re trying to teach.”
“What I did at twenty-two and regretted like hell at twenty-six doesn’t have much bearing on the guy I am now. And, by the way, you’ve been getting along with that guy just fine up to now.” He paused, voice roughening. “What changed, Shelby? Why is this suddenly a big deal?”
They were the same questions she’d been asking herself most of the afternoon. “You know about Patrick.”
“Because you told me. And if you wanted to know more about me, you could’ve asked.”
“Would you have answered?”
“We’ll never know, will we?” The words carried a bite, but then he muttered a curse, scrubbed a hand over his face, and dropped down to the couch. “I don’t want to fight about this.”
“Me, neither. But it hurts knowing you didn’t trust me enough to tell me.”
“It wasn’t . . .” He scrubbed both hands over his face. “Hell. I hate that I lost the Double-Bar H, hate knowing how disappointed Grandpa would’ve been. I don’t like talking about it, even thinking about it.”
“How close are you to buying it back?” At least he’d told her that much, although he’d made it sound like a pipe dream, where Rose seemed to think he was closer than that.
Exhaling, he met her eyes and said, “I made a new offer right before I left for the roundup. Old Winslow always has six different projects going at any one time, and one of these days, he’s going to need the money more than the revenge.”
“A few days ago . . . and you didn’t tell me.” That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.
“Honestly? I thought about it, but I just figured that’s not what we’re about. It’s not like you want to stay out here in the middle of nowhere, and I’m sure as heck not moving to the city. So why throw that into the mix when we’re having a good time?” He paused, expression shifting to regret. “Look, I’m sorry you found out about all this from Rose, and I’m sorry it upset you. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
No, the last thing you want to do is get involved for real with me and Lizzie.
And there it was, crashing down on her like a piano dropped from high above, making so much noise and mess that it took her a second to figure out what had really happened, what it meant. She actually backpedaled a couple of steps and stared at him in such horror that he stood and came toward her, hands outstretched.
“I’m serious,” he said. “What do we need to do to get past this? Do you want me to tell you all the gory details about me and Jill and the Double-Bar H? I will, if that’s what you want.”
“No, no. It’s not that.” Not anymore. It was far, far worse.
“Then what?”
“I . . . I should go. I’m sorry. I need to go.” She darted across the room and fumbled with the doorknob.
He was right on her heels, and slapped a hand on the door to keep her from opening it. His voice gained an edge. “Shelby, come on. What’s wrong?”
“It’s not your problem. It’s mine.” Mine, mine, all mine. Just as she had thought when she watched him and Lizzie together, seeing them as a unit. A family.
“So tell me. Maybe I can help.”
“Don’t push me, Foster.”
He caught her arm. “Damn it, Shelby, talk to me!”
“Fine!” She yanked away, but then spun on him, full of miserable fury. “You want to know what’s going on? I screwed up, that’s what!”
“Screwed up how?”
“By falling for you.” It hurt to say it, hurt even more to see his face go utterly blank.
“Falling . . . in love?”
“Not love. Not yet, I don’t think.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s close, I think.” The awful roller coaster feeling in her stomach wasn’t anything she’d ever experienced before. It wasn’t the buzzing flush of a high school crush or the happy confidence she’d had going into her wedding, convinced she was doing the right thing with the right guy, only to have it go very wrong. Now it was even worse, because she wasn’t confident, wasn’t convinced of anything.
He had gone pale. “I didn’t want . . .”
“I know,” she said quickly. “And I don’t blame you.” At least she was trying not to. “We had an agreement. I just . . .” Her throat locked tight, and she had to force the words. “I didn’t even realize it was happening. But now . . . I’m sorry. I . . .” As hard as she fought them, sudden tears broke free, trailing down her cheeks in wet trickles that made her even sadder.
“Shelby, don’
t. Please.” He reached for her, but didn’t make contact. “Tell me what you want.”
“I don’t know.” But she did, really. “I want more times like this morning, with you, me, and Lizzie out together. And I want . . . I want this to be real. Not just a summer fling, but a relationship. Something we’re working on, trying to see if there’s a future.”
“How can there be?” His eyes darkened. “My life is here. Yours and Lizzie’s are in Boston.” He paused. “Unless you were thinking of staying.”
“Of course not, no. I haven’t . . . Of course not.” She wished he had let her escape, wished she could’ve had some time to work this out in her head. But maybe it was better this way. She didn’t have time to talk herself out of anything, just had to go with her gut. “We could do something long distance. I could visit . . .”
He was already shaking his head. “I think we both know that wouldn’t work. We’re just, I don’t know, wired differently. When two people are this far apart, trying to find a compromise is impossible, and it’d just drive us both crazy. In the end, things would get ugly. I don’t want that.”
A flicker in his eyes—desperation, maybe, or guilt—spurred her to ask, “Are you talking about you and me, or you and your ex?”
“Okay, point to you.”
The pressure in her chest turned to pain. “I’m not keeping score.”
“I know, and it pisses me off that suddenly I am.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “I wish I could say what the heck, let’s give it a try.”
“But you can’t.” She said it dully, already seeing the answer in his eyes.
“I’ve got a life here, plans here. My family took a big hit when I lost the Double-Bar H.”
“And when you get it back?” She hated that she sounded desperate, felt desperate.
His eyes went very sad. “Even then, I don’t think I’m the guy you’re looking for, Shelby. Maybe you’re right. Maybe things with Jill changed me more than I want to admit. I guess when things fell apart with her, I lost the fire. I just want to be a cowboy, not a father or a husband.”
He hadn’t ever pretended any different.
She nodded, swiped at her face, and swallowed back the tears she didn’t want to shed in front of him. This wasn’t his fault, wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just wasn’t meant to be.
And if she kept telling herself that, she might believe it one of these days. A month or two from now, maybe longer. Much longer.
Taking a deep breath, she said the death-blow words that, a few hours ago when they’d been picnicking by the watering hole and watching hawks soar high above, she never would’ve expected to be saying. “I can’t do this if we’re not headed in the same direction. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
She braced herself for anger. Instead, he caught her close, and wrapped her in a warm, tight embrace. “I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. “I’m so sorry.”
The feel of his arms around her and the pained rasp in his voice said this was real, it was really happening. Choking back a sob, she hugged him back. “Not your fault. But I need to go. I’ll . . .” She swallowed and forced a smile. “I’ll see you around, cowboy.”
And then she bolted out the door.
He didn’t try to stop her. Maybe he said her name just as the door closed. But the word was full of grief and regret, and it wasn’t loud enough to call her back.
Out in the Subaru, she sat for a few seconds with her forehead pressed to the steering wheel and her heart pounding a sick, shuddering rhythm in her chest. He didn’t come after her, and she didn’t blame him. Because she hadn’t just broken Rule Twelve, she had also shattered the unstated corollary, good old not-so-lucky number thirteen: if you have a summer fling with a cowboy, for God’s sake, don’t fall for him.
17
This isn’t just any old heartburn. It’s a MegaFizz heartburn!
Foster watched her brake lights disappear while he tried like heck to catch his breath and put his head back on straight. Which wasn’t easy when all the oxygen had gotten vacu-sucked out of the room, like he was standing in an air lock that’d just been vented, and any minute the outer doors would open up and whoosh, out he’d go, into outer space with all the other garbage.
Okay, maybe not. But that was about how it felt, or as if his insides had been removed, leaving his chest aching and hollow.
“It was the right thing to do,” he told Vader. “Better to end things now than let it go on and blow up later.”
The dog didn’t give him a “whuff” or a tail wag, just looked at him with a doggy expression that was either accusation or mild indigestion.
Restless, Foster prowled the downstairs, moving things that didn’t need to be moved, like the broken headstall hanging over the back of a chair and his white straw hat, which had found its way to the table next to the door, though not yet onto his head. It wasn’t until he had shuffled through a couple of catalogs that had come in since the Great Purge and rearranged the afghan twice that he admitted he was looking for his phone, that he needed to talk to the one person he trusted to make absolute sense, except sometimes when it came to her kids.
Ten minutes, three dust bunnies, and the can of whipped cream he and Shelby had emptied a couple of nights ago later, he found the phone under his nightstand.
He powered it up, mildly surprised that the battery still had a charge, and took a minute to remember how the menus worked.
Tish answered on the third ring, with a cheery “Hey, little brother. What’s cooking?”
“Ah . . .” He hesitated, suddenly not sure he was ready to talk about it, even with her. “Nothing much. What’s up with you guys?”
“Oh, you know. Summer leagues, barbecues, pool parties, episode number four hundred and two in the ongoing saga of ‘no, you can’t have your own phones at the ages of seven, six, and four’ . . . In other words, business as usual.” She laughed. “Which probably makes the single thing sound pretty good right about now, huh?”
Before, that would’ve gotten a “You know it.” Now, though, it brought a pang. “I guess.”
Her voice shifted. “Are you okay?”
No, he wasn’t okay. He was torn up over losing what had seemed like the perfect relationship, and hated knowing that Shelby was hurting, too. And worse, that he’d been the one who’d done the hurting. Part of him wished that he could’ve felt elation rather than panic when she dropped the “I’m falling for you” bomb. He wasn’t that guy, though, couldn’t be that guy.
Problem was, if he told Tish the whole story, she would march up one side of him and down the other, and demand that he make it up to Shelby and ask her to give him another chance. So instead, he said, “I’m fine. Just wanted to say hi, check in on the spawn, that sort of thing.”
She wasn’t buying it. “Seriously, Foster. What’s wrong?”
“I sent Old Winslow another offer the other day, and for a change he didn’t tell me to go pound sand right off the bat. Told me to give him a week or two to think about it, and he’d get back to me.”
“That’s great news! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
“Keep ’em crossed for all of us, not just me. This is a family thing. It’s going to need a little work, of course.” Okay, lots of work, but he was up for it. “You and the kids could come out, and Mom and Dad. It’ll be like old times. All of us back where we belong.”
“Whoa there, Sparky. No offense, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again . . . You need to be doing this for you, not the rest of us.”
“I know, but—”
“But nothing. Like it or not, you’re the only cowboy in the family. Mom and Dad are happy being condo dwellers, and I’ve got myself a white picket fence here in the burbs. Don’t get me wrong—I respect what you’re doing, but please tell me you’re doing it because you want the Double-Bar H for yourself, not because you’re trying to make something up to the rest of us, or Grandpa’s memory or something.”
; Had the air suddenly gotten thinner all of a sudden? “It’s the right thing to do. I’m the one who lost the family’s ranch, so I’m the one who needs to get it back.”
“Family isn’t a piece of land. It’s family.”
“I know that, but the Double-Bar H is important, too. I don’t want us to lose those memories.”
“They’re memories. They stick with us wherever we go.”
“Ugh. Have you always been this annoying?” He kept his tone light, but something had gone shaky inside him.
“You only call me annoying when I’m telling you stuff you don’t want to hear.”
“Which is often. Admit it, you dig playing devil’s advocate.”
“Maybe, but only because I want what’s best for you.” Her tone went serious. “It’s because I love you, Foster, and I want you to be happy.”
“I . . .” He stalled out, not because he didn’t usually say it back, or because he was mad at her, but because the idea had suddenly gotten complicated. “Thanks, Tish, and right back at you. For now, though, I think I’m going to beat a retreat from this conversation. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Sure thing. Better yet, come visit.” She paused. “And, Foster?”
“Yeah?”
“Call me when you’re ready to talk about what’s really bothering you, okay?”
His chuckle felt rusty. “I will.” But after he disconnected, he stared at the phone for a long time, replaying the conversation, aware that while she had told him before not to buy back the Double-Bar H just because he thought he owed it to the family, this was the first time it had resonated a little.
But if he didn’t buy the ranch, what else would he do with himself?
He scowled around the bunkhouse, which was nice enough but hadn’t ever been intended as his final stop, and then out to his truck, which sat in the drive with its nose pointed down the road, as if saying let’s go.
“Heck with it.” He told Vader to stay put and headed for the truck, but not because he was hitting the road. No, he was headed for the barn. Horses made sense, even when nothing else did.
Summer at Mustang Ridge Page 24