His entire body went still, her words a punch dead center in his chest. He tried not to gulp for air, but really, he couldn’t breathe. Just stared at her.
No, don’t do that. He tore his gaze away, his throat tightening.
She drew her sleeves down over her hands. “A jogger’s dog found me.”
He moaned. “Oh, Kelsey. I’m so sorry.” His voice came out soft, and it took everything inside him not to crouch before her and pull her into his arms, mostly for himself.
Because the crazy, inane urge to do something charged through him, turned him edgy and hot.
She looked up at him. “I’m okay. But that’s why sometimes I get freaked out. And why I wanted to just put everything behind me. Like the explosion.”
Right.
Because he didn’t know how he would live with the emotions, the rage, the frustration simmering inside him but to walk away.
“And that included me,” he said gently. “I really did get it, you know. The need to walk away.”
She studied him for a moment. “Who are you, Knox Marshall, that you’re so nice to me?”
He blinked at her, not understanding, really, the question. “I’m not…I just…” He wasn’t kind. He was just…well, of course, and why not? The easy answer was because he wanted to. But that sounded lame and even a little desperate.
And even worse was…because he liked to see her smile. Oh brother.
But as if she might be confirming his unspoken answer, she turned to him, her eyes soft, a slight smile tipping her lips. “Okay. You don’t have to answer. But…thanks for being so nice.”
Nice.
Old. Safe. And now Nice.
He didn’t have anything of nice in him at the moment as he thought of her—fourteen years old—beaten…yeah, he needed to get outside and hit something.
She turned to the television screen, draping her legs over the padded arm of the recliner.
They watched the rest of the game in silence, not one moment of his attention on the game.
One minute before the buzzer, the Blue Ox scored. It barely registered, but he tried to cover it up, turning to her for a high-five.
Her eyes were closed, her body rising and falling in the rhythm of deep slumber.
He watched for a moment, a little forbidden pleasure of seeing her pretty lashes on her face, the slightest smattering of freckles on her nose. The pretty mouth. He got up and grabbed the gold knitted afghan from the end of the sofa and draped it over her.
Old. Safe. Nice.
Whatever. He sighed. Then he pumped down the volume, turned off the light, and slowly crept from the room.
But for the first time in a decade, Knox decided that Tate the troublemaker had done something right.
7
Apparently, Kelsey could be healed with a glass of fresh milk, homemade cookies, late-night hockey, and the endless landscape of western Montana. By days filled with nothing but wide-open spaces redolent with the smell of lavender, fescue and even cattle. Massive beasts that looked at her under heavy-lashed eyes.
Who knew? She could have saved thousands in counseling.
Over the past three days, she’d spent more than a little time in the barn, watching Knox bottle-feed the bull calf.
No, watching Knox.
He talked about the ranch and his brothers, his sisters, one actually a foster sister from Russia, named Coco. Introduced her to Gordo, Hot Pete’s sire.
Told her the sad news about Hot Pete.
At night, after the house became quiet, she wandered downstairs to join him for late-night television. Usually hockey, but after last night’s game, he flipped to the Cowboy Channel.
Wouldn’t you know it, Hoss, Little Joe, and Adam walked onto the screen like they’d been expecting her. She fell asleep to Ben Cartwright’s wise voice.
And Knox’s steady presence. He tiptoed out every night, sometime after he covered her with the gold afghan, left the television light on, the sound muted, as if he knew she might be afraid of the dark.
She had never slept so hard as she did in the recliner. After the first night, she tilted it back, found it to be worn in all the right places, the velour cozy and soft and…oh, who was she kidding?
Knox was the reason she dropped off to oblivion without a whimper.
Safe. Nice. Knox.
Although why she’d called him old, she didn’t know. It had stuck out in her mind, despite being a casual remark. Maybe she’d meant…safe. Or responsible. Because he wasn’t old—only four years older than herself, something she discovered when she asked Glo how old Tate was and did the math. According to her calculations, Knox was barely 30 to Tate’s 28.
Which meant he wasn’t old at all, a fact confirmed when she saw him yesterday wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt as he tagged and vaccinated new calves in the yard behind the house.
His muscled chest stretched out his shirt, and he was strong and agile when he chased calves down, separated them from the cows, and pushed the mamas out of the way when they bellowed.
She liked how he knew his way around animals without hurting them.
She’d add noble to her list, probably.
She sat on the rail while he talked about the different aspects of their ranch, from the cow-calf business, to the beef business, to the bucking business. Clearly, he possessed the mind of a man who had breathed ranching his entire life.
But definitely not old.
And he smelled good—husky and clean—when he’d arrived at the dinner table.
She’d found herself in the kitchen, helping Gerri with dinner, the kind her mother used to serve. Baked potatoes, pot roast, chili, homemade cornbread, pie.
She had probably gained ten pounds in three days. And didn’t care.
Now, she sat on the back porch, the view silencing her. Jagged, gray, white-capped mountains framed the horizon to the northwest, and down inside a bowl surrounded by rolling green hills sat the tiny town Knox said was named after his great-grandmother. Geraldine.
Romantic, if you asked her. For a man to name an entire town after the woman he loved. She’d seen a picture of Jacob Marshall, the patriarch from the early 1900s, and decided Knox looked a little like him. Bold cheekbones, a square jaw, pensive, but kind, eyes. And a rare smile that could fill her entire body with heat and light and…
No. She could not fall in love with him.
She was just here short term. To breathe and heal and rest.
And eat cookies, apparently, because the door opened and Gerri walked out, a tempting plate of browned goodies in hand. “You have to try these,” she said as she sat down in the rocking chair next to Kelsey. “They’re my grandmother’s peanut butter recipe, but I added molasses to it, and…what do you think?”
Kelsey took a proffered cookie still radiating warmth from its recent escape from the oven.
It practically dissolved in her mouth, and she let out a groan.
“Oh good,” Gerri said. “I’m going to serve them for the birthday party.”
Kelsey took another bite of the cookie. “Knox says it’s a big one.”
“The big six-oh.” Gerri set the plate down and looked over at her. She wore a floral-patterned scarf in her hair, an oversized sweatshirt, and leggings, her feet bare. “You want to know a secret?”
Kelsey glanced over.
“I could care less about turning sixty. It’s just a number. I’m hoping to give my kiddos an excuse to show up. They haven’t all seen each other since…well, for a few years. I managed to get them all home one Labor Day a few years ago, right before Ford left for basic. Knox is beating himself up one side and down the other for not keeping the family together, and I wanted to show them that we can be together and still be off on our own journeys.”
She grabbed a peanut butter cookie, tore off an edge. “Might help him let me go a little.”
Kelsey frowned.
“I met a man.” She smiled, wagged her eyebrows. “He has a motorcycle.”
Kelse
y couldn’t help but smile at the twinkle in Gerri’s eyes. “Is that bad?”
“Not in the least,” Gerri said. “In fact, Hardwin reminds me, in a way, of Orrin. Safe, sturdy, smart. But under all that is a man who might as well be seventeen, ready for adventure.”
She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong. I loved Knox’s father with everything inside me. I still ache with missing him—he’s everywhere here. He proposed to me right there—” She pointed to a knoll at the far edge of the property.
She dropped off into silence, as if remembering. “After he died, I’d go out there sometimes. Sit and listen.”
“To…what?”
Gerri glanced at her. “To the Lord. His voice, in the wind. In my heart. I’d pour out my grief. ‘From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge.’ And He was my safe place, every day. He gave me just enough grace for that day to keep going on with my life.”
She sighed. “Of course, I don’t know what I would have done without Knox. Poor man. He had dreams of making it big in the PBR, but I couldn’t run this ranch alone, and he knew it. Came out without a word and went to work. I handed him the reins and he took a chance on the bulls and it’s paid off. He’s got his father’s head for business, my creativity, and his own brand of get ’er done.”
“I’ll never forget the way he caught me in the arena, when I was falling,” Kelsey said quietly. “He’s amazingly strong.”
Gerri glanced at her. “He didn’t mention that.”
“Hmm. Let’s just say he refused to let me fall.”
Gerri nodded. “He refuses to let any of us fall. I just worry about what it costs him.”
“What it costs him?”
“He’s so hard on himself. Driven. Focused. But I think he spends so much time working he never gets a chance to breathe. He’s told himself that he must be as good, if not better, than his father and doesn’t see that it’s strangling him. Not that he could with his head down, always driving forward. I don’t think he’s ever even let himself cry for his father.”
Kelsey looked out. “Maybe it’s the only way he can hold himself together.”
“That’s the problem. He doesn’t need to. Not all the time. There’s a time to just let Jesus take the wheel, as Carrie Underwood would say. Hey, do you know her?”
Kelsey laughed, shook her head. “But Benjamin King sang a few nights ago with the Yankee Belles.”
“Benjamin King. Wow. My son Reuben has a friend, Pete, who knows him.”
“He’s a nice guy.”
Gerri stood up. “I’ll leave the cookies with you.”
“Not if you love me.”
The words just tumbled out, easy, as if—
“I do love you, sweetie. That’s why the cookies are staying.”
Gerri winked at her, her smile sweet, as if she didn’t even notice that Kelsey’s heart was suddenly hanging on the outside of her body.
She opened the door but paused in the threshold. “There’s a path to the high place, if you’re interested.” She pointed to a thin, worn trail. “A little change in perspective always helps.”
The door closed behind her.
Kelsey listened to the wind whispering, then got up. Grabbed a couple cookies and headed off the porch, through the grasses up to the ridge, climbing a hidden trail cut out of the rocks like stepping stones.
Scrub pine and cluster grasses cluttered the top of the ridge, but she followed the trail farther through the maze and found at the end a small wooden bench. She slid onto it, her breath catching.
The ridge overlooked a winding river, the same one that led down to Geraldine, but here, she could make out a breathtaking waterfall that fell from a high mountain ledge into the pine-edged lake below, frothy white, a mist rising from the cascade like a veil.
It dropped into a moraine lake, then down into the valley in a river that widened as it hit the valley floor, meandering around granite cliffs and steep, green mountainside until it emerged into the flat land, spent.
“My father proposed to my mother up here.”
“I know.” Kelsey turned and shielded her eyes to find Knox standing behind her. A pretty quarter horse grazed with dropped reins not far away. “She sent me up here.”
He took off his hat and settled it on her head. “Can I join you?”
She adjusted the hat and patted the seat, feeling a little like she was in high school. Although she’d never once had a handsome cowboy—or any guy, really—pay attention to her in high school. Or if they did, she—or more aptly, Glo—ran him off.
Knox sat far enough away for her not to run. But close enough for her to see a day’s whisker growth in his beard, which glinted copper in the sunlight. He wore a denim work shirt, the cuffs rolled up around his forearms, a pair of canvas work pants, and his scuffed cowboy boots. A pair of gloves hung on his belt.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “And you’d never know the waterfall was here unless you went looking.”
“I love this place,” Kelsey said, the words just spilling out of her.
He gave a low chuckle, and she could feast on it every day of her life. “Yeah. It sort of gets into your bones. But don’t be fooled—ranch life is dangerous, hard work.”
She had no doubt, but something… “I know it’s none of my business, but…would you tell me how your dad died?”
He went silent for a moment. “Are those my mom’s cookies?”
“She’s tweaking an old recipe.”
“Sure she is,” he said as she held out the napkin. He took a cookie. “She thinks cookies are life’s answer to every problem.” He took a bite, made a humming sound. “Maybe.”
She laughed and sort of hated that she’d asked—
“He had a heart attack. In one of the back fields. He was riding fence all alone and he couldn’t get to the radio in time. Ma got worried when he didn’t come back before dark and sent out the hired man and a few other guys we had working for us at the time. They found him about four hours later.”
He finished the cookie, brushed off his hands. “I should have been there. I was off competing in a rodeo that weekend. I won, but…we always rode fence together and if I’d been home…”
She longed to reach out, to touch his arm, tell him exactly what his mother had said. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
Oh. Whoops, she hadn’t exactly meant for it to slide out, but he looked at her. Frowned.
“Sorry. I just think…well, I know what it feels like to be driven by the need to do something, anything, to get your head out of the grief. To see your past in your rearview mirror and your destination in front of you and never feel like you really move forward. It’s exhausting.”
He was simply staring at her. Then, slowly he nodded. “Yes, it is.”
She smiled, and he smiled back, his beautiful eyes in hers, holding her—willingly—a little hostage. Her heart gave another tug, something powerful, as if adjusting for room inside.
“Would you…would you like to have some…fun?” He made a smile, almost a grimace, as if it might be a terrible idea.
And she didn’t help with her surprised, “Fun?”
“With me?”
“With you?” What was wrong with her? She’d suddenly lost her ability to comprehend, apparently.
“What? Is that such a crazy idea, to go out with an old, safe, nice guy and expect some fun?”
Now she really had no idea what he was talking about. “Uh…no. Yes, I mean—” She made a face, tipped his hat down over her eyes. “I’d love some fun, cowboy.”
He grinned then, his eyes twinkling, something almost…mischievous? in them. And she had the first sense that maybe Knox Marshall wasn’t quite as safe as she thought.
At least not to her heart.
Would you like to have some…fun? Knox’s own stupid words rang in his ears as he sat in the Bulldog Saloon, wishing he could slink out and floor it back to the
Triple M. What on earth had he been thinking?
Kelsey didn’t like crowds. So what did he do? Bring Kelsey to the only packed hot spot in all of Geraldine. Dancers jammed the wooden floor in front of the stage, swinging and two-stepping to a cover of a Brad Paisley song. The entire place was alive, buzzing with shouts from the guys playing pool behind him, people cheering the hockey game playing on the flat-screen televisions over the bar.
And in the middle of the chaos, Kelsey sat beside him and nursed a lemonade, her expression suggesting she was parked a million miles from Geraldine, Montana.
Worse, he wasn’t helping. Because apparently, he had forgotten how to have fun. Knox sat on the winged bar chair like he’d suddenly entered a foreign world, never smelled the tangy craft beers, the sizzling steaks, never heard country music in his life. Forgotten how to talk around a pretty woman.
Although in his defense, Kelsey had pretty much swept his breath from his chest tonight when she showed up wearing a short black V-necked dress, her turquoise boots, her hair down and tousled, shiny and smelling like something floral. It was all he could do to keep his eyes on the road as he drove them into town, Tate and Glo in the back seat.
Frankly, his neck was so stiff it would probably shatter if the crooner on stage hit a high note.
C’mon, Knox, loosen up.
He’d thought the old watering hole in town might be the perfect place for them to relax, sink into the music, comforting eats, and anonymity of a small-town crowd.
Except he forgot Kelsey was a country music star—or on her way. She probably thought this was small town and provincial compared to the raucous stadiums where she played.
And all that pressure had glued him to the bar seat at the table. Which only confirmed that he was not only Safe and Nice but Small Town, and if he summed it all up…Boring, with a capital B, all exclamation points.
I’d love some fun, cowboy.
Knox would give about anything to have Tate’s easygoing, nothing-hit-him demeanor. His brother sat across the table, his chair turned backward, leaning on the back, nursing a long-necked beer.
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