Between Midnight and Morning

by Cindy Gerard

  “Could you be a little more decisive?” he continued and hefted the saddle high on her withers. “No? Well, guess I’ll just have to go with my gut on this then.”

  As he led Snowy out of the barn into the sunlight, his gut told him maybe a fight’s what he needed—a challenge with a reward at the end instead of merely relief for making it through another day. The doc was definitely a challenge—and a reward.

  He mounted the mare and headed for the summer pasture, looking forward to the long ride ahead of him. A ride long enough to come up with any number of ways to win the doc over to his way of thinking. If nothing else, it would keep his mind from wandering back to the black.

  Two

  “I don’t know.” Weary to the bone, Ali sat on the top tread of her front porch steps. She glanced at Peg Reno who sat beside her, then stared beyond the quiet street toward the wild mountain range rising west of town where an apricot orange sun was slowly sinking out of sight. “Sometimes this feels like the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Rather than meet Peg’s concerned gaze, Ali averted her attention to the sweating glass of iced tea she cupped between her hands. Even though theirs was a new friendship, the bond she and Peg had forged during the past month was solid. When Peg sighed, Ali heard understanding and support. Peg’s words punctuated both.

  “What you’re dealing with here is a sneaky case of buyer’s remorse. And I’m not talking about buying Doc Sebring’s vet practice.”

  “Don’t be too sure about that. Kitties and hamsters generally don’t leave bruises.” Ali gingerly touched the tender bruise on her chin—compliments of her new vet practice and the hit she’d taken from John Tyler’s calf earlier this afternoon.

  “Look,” Peg said, unfolding her long, slim legs. She rose, walked down the five steps, then stood at the bottom and met Ali eye for eye. “You’ve had a tough day. You’ve made one adjustment after another in the last month, what with moving out here, setting up the practice and getting used to an entirely different kind of clientele. But my guess is that it’s not the business giving you trouble. It’s the idea that you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy—and that’s what’s got you second-guessing yourself.”

  Ali glanced down one of barely four-dozen streets that made up Sundown, the tiny Montana town she now called home—except it sure didn’t feel like home. Peg was right. She wasn’t anywhere near Kansas or, more literally and in the local vernacular, she was a far piece from Kansas City, where she’d spent the last several years of her life after growing up in Chicago. She was a city girl down to the soles of her dusty size six work boots and Sundown, well, Sundown, was not a city.

  She dragged a hand through her hair and glanced up to meet Peg’s sympathetic look. With her waist-length curtain of straight chestnut hair, honey-brown eyes and unbelievably lush and long body packed in cut-off jeans and a flame-red tank top, Peg could have been a Victoria’s Secret model. Yet here she was. She’d grown up in Sundown. Lived and loved her hunky bronc rider hubby, Cutter Reno, in Sundown, was raising her family in Sundown and would likely end her days here in Sundown.

  “How do you do it?”

  “It? Now you’re getting personal,” Peg teased with a wicked waggle of her brows.

  Okay, Ali conceded with a grin. If she shared a bed with a man like Cutter Reno, her thoughts would be channeled in that direction, too. But she didn’t share a bed with anyone, hadn’t since David died four years ago, and regardless of John Tyler’s repeated and open invitation, she wasn’t going to.

  “You know what I mean, Mrs. Reno,” she said to her friend.

  “Yeah.” Grinning, too, Peg stuffed her fingers into the back pockets of her shorts. “I know what you mean.” She sobered, lifted a shoulder. “And I imagine I’d have just as hard of a time adjusting to the city as you’re having adjusting to life out here. Give it some time. It’ll grow on you. Yeah, it’s quiet. Yeah, it’s slow. But there’s something special about that, you know? Forces a person to make more out of less. Sometimes, that can be a good thing.

  “And speaking of good things,” Peg added as Ali thought about what she said, “heard you got called out to J.T.’s again today. What’s that—seven or eight times this month?”

  “Six…and how do you hear these things?”

  “Small-town grapevine. So…did he hit on you again?”

  Ali snorted before downing another swallow of tea. “Does a cow have hide?”

  Peg chuckled. “Is he making any headway?”

  “Peg. Don’t start on me about this again, okay? We already talked about it. I’m not interested in John Tyler. And even if I was—he’s a baby.”

  Not a chuckle this time, but a hoot of laughter.

  “Okay,” Ali conceded. “Not a baby.”

  “A very big boy, in fact,” Peg added with an ornery smile.

  “That may be. But he’s still too young for me.”

  “Meaning if he wasn’t, you might be tempted?”

  Exasperated, Ali groaned. “What part of no isn’t registering here? No. I would not be interested. I swear, you’re worse than he is when it comes to lost causes. And that’s what this is. A certified lost cause.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Oh, great. Now I’m getting attitude.”

  “Only because I think he might be good for you.”

  “Excuse me? What happened to ‘Watch out for that boy, Ali. He’s trouble.’”

  “Yeah, well, he is…but only if you’re looking for something he’s not willing to give.”

  Ali wrinkled her brow. “So you’re saying that as long as I’m aware he’s only good for a good time, it’s okay?” She shook her head. “Sorry. That’s not the way I’m wired.”

  Peg considered her thoughtfully, then sat back down beside her. “Okay, look. For the record, J.T.’s a great guy. I love him like a brother. Even considered something more with him before Cutter and I got together.

  “The thing is,” she continued, “I know him—well, at least I used to know him and what made him tick. But that was before he left Sundown for the West Coast a few years ago. Before he enlisted in the marines. He’s been different since then. He goes through women like…oh, I don’t know, like he’s trying to break a speed record or something, and believe me, he’s opted for quantity instead of quality.”

  She paused, shook her head as if she wished she understood what had happened to change him. “But I know that deep down he’s a good man. And even though I’ve only known you for a month or so, I think I know you, too. You two remind me of each other in some ways. Something’s missing for both of you. Something…I don’t know, something about both of you fairly shouts that you need more—if you’d let yourselves have it. I just keep thinking that maybe you could find it in each other.”

  “What I needed I found in David,” Ali said, accepting that her friend meant well. Peg was the only soul in Sundown who knew Ali was a widow and she’d sworn her to secrecy. One of the things she’d wanted to get away from when she moved from Kansas City was the widow stigma. She didn’t like labels. And she guarded her privacy like a hawk. Always had, which was why it surprised her she’d confided in Peg. “When he died, that need died, too. I can guarantee you I’m not going to find what I had with David in John Tyler. And whatever you think John’s missing, he’s not going to find it in me, either.”

  Peg reached out, squeezed her hand. “Okay. But, if you ever change your mind, at the very least, he’d be a real good time. We can all use a stress reliever from time to time, if you get my drift.”

  Ali could only laugh over Peg’s well-intentioned tenacity. “I live for stress. It’s what keeps me going.

  “Speaking of stress relievers—” She squinted up at Peg. “Go home to yours. I’ve got work to do. I’d like to get a coat of paint on the living room yet tonight and I don’t have time to entertain your X-rated fantasies as they might apply to my life.”

  “Okay, fine, but if you’d wait until Saturday I could help. Cutter’s
taking Shelby on a campout and Mom’s always looking for an excuse to get her hands on Dawson, so I’ll have some time on my hands.”

  Ali envied Peg her beautiful family. Shelby, her ten-year-old tomboy and little Dawson, the two-year old image of his daddy, were walking testimony to the love Peg and Cutter shared.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, pushing back the regrets that she and David had never gotten around to starting their own family. “If that’s how you want to spend your day off, I’ll still have plenty to keep you busy. The Realtor was a master of understatement when he told me this house was a fixer-upper.

  “Go,” she added shooing Peg toward her truck. “Give Shelby and Dawson hugs for me. You can hug Cutter for me, too,” Ali added just to show that she appreciated what Peg had waiting for her at home.

  “Happy to oblige on all counts.” Peg headed down the walk. “See you Saturday, if not before.”

  Ali painted for a couple of hours after Peg left. Satisfied that she’d put in enough hours for one day and feeling her muscles burn from her tussle with the calf and the paint roller, she took a hot shower, slipped on a sleep shirt then ate a light dinner. It was almost ten o’clock by the time she poured herself a glass of iced tea and headed outside to her back porch to wind down a bit before turning in.

  And as she stood there in her bare feet, comfortably aware of the silence of the night, she thought about what Peg had said. Sometimes making more out of less could be a good thing. She leaned a shoulder against a porch post badly in need of painting, and hoped that in time her less would become more.

  For now though, she wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure that her bright idea of living out David’s dream was the best way to keep in touch with the memory of the husband she had lost to cancer long before either one of them was ready for him to go. She so wished his dream could have happened for him—that together, they could have moved west, experienced the mountains and the slower pace, played at turning back time and, together, lived a way of life that was as much a part of American history as it was a part of the American present. At least it was in Sundown, Montana.

  He’d have loved it here, she realized, blinking back tears.

  And thinking about what could’ve been was ground she had no business treading this time of night. It was late and she was tired and it would be too easy to think herself into a major funk.

  On a deep breath, she looked around her and tapped back into some of the other reasons she’d signed on the dotted line—for both the business and this old rattletrap of a house.

  She’d needed a change. She’d grown stale and stagnant in Kansas City, mired in memories and the past. One morning two months ago she’d awakened, taken a good look at herself in the mirror and seen little more than the shell of the person she used to be. Talk about being hit by a truck. Right then and there, she’d decided she had to do something or she was going to shrivel up like a dried prune and finally blow away like dust. David wouldn’t have wanted that. He would have wanted her to move on with her life.

  It had taken her four years, but she’d finally moved on to Montana and a new adventure. And a very old house, she thought with a sigh. Actually, she loved the house…peeling paint, cracked plaster, banged-up hard-wood floors and all. In her mind’s eye, she tried to picture it as it had once been—a queenly painted Victorian lady, with her gingerbread trim refurbished in rainbow colors and the stained-glass window above the foyer door restored so the hummingbird that was its focal point could spread its wings again and fly.

  The mountains, of course, had been another draw and remained a wonder to her. And the air out here was like nothing she’d ever breathed before, pure and crisp and scented of pine and sometimes dust but always free of smog-choked city air. The night sky…the night sky was a stargazer’s dream.

  “Look at that moon,” she murmured aloud just to assure herself she was actually a part of all this wide-open and quiet beauty. It was a lover’s moon peeking down tonight. And because that thought made her a little misty for what she no longer had in her life, she decided it was time to turn in before she morphed a beautiful evening into a full-scale pity party.

  The phone rang just as she walked back into the kitchen.

  “Not tonight,” she groaned, anticipating an emergency vet call as the screen door creaked closed behind her. The vets in the county rotated through an on-call schedule and she was the designated doc for the night.

  As she picked up, she reached for a note pad and prepared herself mentally to dig deep for another charge to her inner battery. She’d need one heck of a jump-start to make another ranch call tonight.

  “Doctor Samuels.”

  “Hey, Doc. How’s it going?”

  John Tyler. She’d recognize that rust-and-honey voice anywhere.

  Her fingers tightened around her pen while her heart did a clumsy cartwheel. And what did that say, she wondered, about the effect he really had on her?

  It said that he annoyed her. That’s what it said. He just plain annoyed her. Period.

  Okay. So she was working it a little hard. It was easy to take that tack with Peg, but when it was just her and her conscience, the “annoys me” argument didn’t ring quite as true.

  She really didn’t understand. She truly wasn’t interested in getting involved with him—with anyone for that matter—yet every time he turned his latte-brown eyes and bad-boy grin her way, she felt an edgy awareness hum through her system, keeping pace with the denial. Now, it seemed, all she had to do was hear his voice and things started humming again.

  “You still there, Doc?”

  She could picture his cocky self on the other end of the line. He was rough and tough, brash and bold as only a true cowboy, one who’d grown up in the life, could be. Sure, there was no denying that he was also wildly gorgeous. He knew it, too, bone deep, like a baby knows one dimple-cheeked and drooling grin could turn the most stoic skeptic into a babbling idiot. Peg had described him as one of those men who oozed confidence and competence—and wore both in a way that made men respect him and women wonder what it would take to tame him.

  Well, some women at any rate. She just didn’t happen to be one of them. At least, she didn’t want to be.

  “Doc?”

  “Yes,” she snapped, then immediately regretted it. Irritated with herself for letting him rattle her, she settled herself. “I’m here.”

  “But I called too late, didn’t I?”

  His apologetic tone made her feel bad suddenly because she was being so huffy. It wasn’t his fault that she didn’t like how she reacted to him. Still, this needed to stop. For all his obvious charm, even more obvious were his motives. John Tyler was on the make. It was his M.O. Saw it as his calling, according to Peg, to fill the role of the county’s heartbreaker.

  “What did you want, John?”

  “Oh-oh. It’s worse than I thought. I can feel the chill all the way out here. Not only did I call too late, I woke you up, didn’t I?”

  She sighed, weary of dealing with the entire situation. “You didn’t wake me.”

  “Good. ’Cause the last thing I wanted to do was—”

  “John—”

  “J.T.” he interrupted. “I keep telling you, my friends call me J.T.”

  “J.T.” she repeated pointedly, “do you need a vet?”

  “Nope. No vet. Everything’s fine. I was just thinking about that shot you took on the chin today and wanted to check on you before I hit the sack…make sure you’re all right.”

  Okay. This she didn’t need—affirmation that Peg might be right. That he was a nice guy as well as a Casanova. “My chin is fine. Thanks for asking. So, if there’s nothing else you need…”

  She trailed off when she heard his low chuckle on the other end of the line, only then realizing what she’d said and done.

  If there’s nothing else you need…

  She’d just opened the door for one of his patented come-ons.

  Good going, Ali.

  He didn’t step t
hrough it, though. He didn’t have to. His sexy laugh said it all. He knew what she was thinking, just like he knew that she knew he knew and that was enough for him.

  She shook her head, drew herself out of her little mental trip back to junior high. “Good night, John—J.T.”

  “’Night, Doc. You sleep tight, now.”

  The smile in his voice felt warm and fuzzy with just enough huskiness thrown in to let her know that if she had trouble sleeping, he had the cure for her insomnia.

  “Unbelievable,” she muttered as she disconnected.

  Alone in her kitchen, with the fatigue of the day wearing away at her defenses and no one to run interference, she was forced to face some uncomfortable truths. She didn’t want to be, but she was a little too aware of that young cowboy. In person or over the phone line, he was one big testosterone-charged obstacle that kept reminding her he really was a man—not a boy—and that she was still a woman.

  Leaning a hip against her kitchen table, she forked her hair back from her face and wondered what in the world she was going to do about him. About this pretty young man who made no bones about what he wanted to happen between them and who, for the first time in four years, made her think about the fact that she’d once had a healthy sex life. That she’d had wants and needs and desires.

  And the really hard part? For the first time in four years, he made her think about the fact that even though David had been her soul mate, her one true love, she hadn’t died when he had.

  J.T. had been thinking—a surefire way to get himself in trouble. At least, that’s what his dad always said. The particular kind of trouble he had a mind to stir up this morning had gorgeous blue eyes and lips so sensual and sweet that just thinking about them had prompted him to take more than his fair share of cold showers lately. As distractions went, she was a major player.

  So, as he snagged his truck keys and headed out the door Saturday morning, what he was thinking was that it was about time he met Doc Dish on her turf instead of his where she always had her professional face on. And the fact was, he just plain wanted to see that whole pretty package again when she wasn’t frowning over a sick calf or a lame colt or a mare with the strangles.