She’d ridden all of them, at one time or another. That day, she chose Skye, a dapple gray mare, sure-footed and agile, but gentle, too.
“Not today, old girl,” she told a watchful Pidge. “You get to sleep in until room service arrives.”
With that, she fetched the appropriate gear from the tack room, placed everything within easy reach, led Skye out of her stall, and saddled her in the dim breezeway. The familiar smells of horse and straw and even manure heartened Cassidy, just because they were so familiar and so ordinary.
When the mare was ready to ride, Cassidy led the animal outside and mounted up.
Annabelle’s car, an elderly station wagon, was parked over by the woodshed.
She smiled, reining Skye toward the open range.
When she looked back at the house a few moments later, the kitchen light was blazing, too. The sun was just beginning to stain the eastern sky, but on ranches, morning arrives early.
Cassidy imagined Duke and Annabelle brewing coffee, making breakfast, talking over their plans for the day. Annabelle usually opened the Gas & Grab by six, and today would be no exception.
There was considerably more daylight by the time Cassidy and Skye splashed across a narrow spot in the creek and started up the bank on the other side.
She was on G.W.’s land by then, since the creek marked the border between his place and Duke’s, but she wasn’t worried about running into him. He was probably up and around, but he’d be close to the house, either making breakfast for himself and Henry, or feeding his horses.
Like Duke, G.W. ran cattle, but, also like Duke, it was more about heritage and habit than paying the bills. It was hard to make a living, just by ranching, unless the operation was big enough to be called a corporation.
Breaking through a line of cottonwood trees, Cassidy saw G.W.’s low-slung log ranch house in the distance. Sure enough, lights glowed in a few of the windows, and the barn was lit up, too.
Cassidy drew back on the reins, sat still for a little while, taking in the scene. In winter, there would be acres of glittering snow draping the countryside, spilling from the roofs of the house and barn, lining the rough-hewn windowsills, cloaking the rural mailbox at the base of the gravel driveway. And it would be like stepping into a living Christmas card.
Cassidy felt her throat tighten even as something softened inside her.
She’d missed this place, and the people who lived here—not just Duke, not just Shelby and Annabelle and various other long-time friends, but everybody who called Busted Spur home.
She thought about what Shelby had said the day before, in her kitchen. You came home because you wanted to be home.
She had yearned for this place, there was no denying that. She liked Seattle, but everything moved so fast there; she always felt out of step with things, somehow. There was always that strange sense of urgency, even when she was sound asleep.
But coming back for a visit was one thing. Staying for good was a whole other matter.
How would she earn a living? There weren’t any TV stations in Busted Spur of course--jobs of any kind were scarce--and she didn’t have Shelby’s entrepreneurial talent.
Next question: where would she live?
She was an adult now. She couldn’t stay with her uncle indefinitely.
The ranch house would always be home, but she didn’t belong there anymore. Not on a long-term basis, anyhow.
She rode for another hour or so, turning things over in her head, allowing herself to be saturated by sunrise and quiet and miles of open country, and then she turned back.
***
Myrna showed up on G.W.’s doorstep as soon as breakfast was over, smiling broadly when G.W. let her in. She was nothing like Sandy, with her bubble of dyed blonde hair, her outdated makeup, her mood swings.
Today, she was cheerful.
“Is there coffee?” she asked.
G.W. smiled. “Sure,” he said, gesturing toward the table. “Have a seat and I’ll get you some.”
Myrna plunked her giant purse on the floor beside a chair and dropped into the seat, looking around. “Where’s that grandson of mine?” she asked.
“Probably hiding,” G.W. said dryly, setting a full mug of java in front of his mother-in-law. “He’ll turn up once he’s sure you aren’t planning a marathon of Dancing with the Stars or some show involving housewives.”
Myrna waved off the remark with a perky gesture of one manicured hand. All in all, she was a good sport. “Someday, when it’s time for Henry’s first prom, he’ll thank me for exposing him to the finer things in life.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” G.W. grinned, hauling back a chair and sitting down across from her. He’d always liked Myrna; as mothers-in-law went, she was all right. She’d been a single mom, way before it was fashionable, and she’d done a good job raising her only child, Sandy. She’d earned a decent living operating a hair salon out of her basement—still did, though she only worked part-time these days--and her love for her daughter, if a little rough around the edges, was plain to see.
Before Myrna could offer a comeback, Chip burst into the kitchen, closely followed by a reticent Henry. The kid was literally dragging his feet.
“Come over here and give this old woman a hug,” Myrna commanded, spreading her arms wide.
Henry crossed the room and allowed himself, reluctantly, to be hugged. “Hey, Gramma,” he said.
Myrna rubbed the top of his bristly head. “Ready for our shopping trip to Flagstaff?”
A blank expression crossed Henry’s small, freckled face, and then he gulped. “Shopping?” he croaked.
Myrna looked from Henry to G.W. and back again. “Don’t tell me you’ve both forgotten?” she cried cheerfully. “We’ve been planning this forever!”
G.W. remembered—belatedly. Last year, in the middle of summer, Myrna had stormed the malls, Henry in tow, outfitting him with new clothes for school. Socks and underwear. T-shirts and jeans. Shoes, snow boots, a jacket for fall, a warm coat for winter, the whole shebang.
She’d enjoyed the expedition so much that she’d declared it an annual event and, sure enough, the time for Round Two was upon them. According to Myrna, all the best sales were underway.
G.W. was no shopper, but he would have bitten the bullet and taken Henry on a buying-spree himself, if necessary. The thing was, the task seemed to mean a lot to Myrna; maybe it was a way to feel close to Sandy.
God knew, G.W. couldn’t begrudge her that.
He half-expected Henry to balk, and he was prepared to take the kid aside and talk him into going along with the plan, so Myrna wouldn’t be disappointed.
To his surprise, however, Henry tilted his head to one side, musing, and finally asked, “Can we go to lunch and a movie afterward, like we did last year?”
Myrna beamed. Maybe she’d been bracing for an argument herself. “You can pick the restaurant and the movie,” she replied.
Henry gave a celebratory yelp. Then he turned solemn, shifting his attention to G.W. “Will you pay lots of attention to Chip while I’m gone, Dad?” he asked. “He’s gonna miss me something awful.”
G.W. smiled, his heart swelling in his chest, fit to burst. “We’ll both miss you,” he said, “but we’ll be all right, so don’t go worrying about us. Concentrate on having fun with your grandmother. Got it?”
Henry grinned. “Got it,” he said, and bounded off to his room to swap out his super-hero pajamas for regular clothes.
As soon as he’d gone, Myrna picked up her coffee mug and took a sip. “I hear Cassidy McCullough’s back home for a while,” she said brightly. “She’s getting married soon, I’m told.”
G.W.’s gaze was level. “Yeah,” he said, wondering where this conversation was headed, exactly. And afraid he already knew.
“People are saying it’s a big mistake,” Myrna went on. “There are people who can’t be truly happy anywhere but here, and the general consensus is that Cassidy is one of them.”
G.W.
unclamped his back molars. “People say a lot of things,” he replied moderately.
“Not that it’s anybody’s business who Cassidy marries, God knows. Or where she chooses to live, for that matter. I’ve never put much store in gossip, myself.”
G.W., being nobody’s fool, didn’t comment. He just stood up, crossed to the coffee maker, grabbed the carafe, and offered to refill Myrna’s cup.
CHAPTER FOUR
“You can’t ignore the man’s texts forever,” Shelby said. It was Saturday, Cassidy had been back home for three and a half days, and she and her BFF still hadn’t gotten around to making wedding plans. True to her word, Shelby hadn’t mentioned Michael—until this morning. She’d picked Cassidy up at the ranch twenty minutes before, and they were waiting in the drive-through at Busted Spur’s only fast-food joint for sausage biscuits with egg, hash browns compressed into squares the size of a pack of playing cards, and coffee.
Cassidy, slumped in the passenger seat of Shelby’s Blazer, had just looked at the screen of her phone for about the hundredth time, and, frustrated, she’d tossed the thing into the depths of her purse and muttered, to no one in particular, “Why can’t I just answer him?”
Hence Shelby’s words of wisdom about ignoring texts.
“Don’t start,” Cassidy said, with a mock glare at her friend’s profile.
Shelby pretended to zip her mouth shut, but she was definitely smirking a little. Cassidy could tell, even with just a side view to go on.
The line moved, one pickup truck shorter now, and Shelby pulled forward a ways.
“This is ridiculous,” Cassidy said. Basically, she was talking to herself, since Shelby had zipped her lips, but at least she could serve as a sounding board. She leaned over, ferreted through her handbag for her phone, and scrolled through the long series of messages.
She touched ‘reply’ under Michael’s most recent text and thumbed in, “Everything is fine.”
Was that true?
Cassidy decided it wasn’t, and deleted the statement without hitting ‘send’.
She tried, “Relax,” and rejected that, too.
They moved up another car-length.
“Let’s hope we get to the window before they switch over from breakfast to lunch,” Shelby said. “It’s too early for a hamburger.” After dining in the parking lot, they’d be on their way to Flagstaff, where Cassidy intended to rent a car. She had access to Duke’s truck, when it was running, but shifting gears was a battle, she needed all her upper body strength to turn the steering wheel, and all her lower body strength to work the clutch and the brakes.
In essence, driving the thing was too damn much work. On the upside, it probably qualified as a complete workout.
Cassidy was rereading Michael’s texts.
They were terse. Impatient.
Not that she could blame him. In his place, she’d have been furious, too. And hurt.
Michael didn’t sound hurt, though. The messages were brief—three words, max—and Cassidy found herself wanting to duck them, the way she’d dodge like flying bullets.
She drew a very deep breath, let it out slowly. Glanced Shelby’s way. “I don’t know what to say to him,” she confessed miserably.
Shelby kept her gaze on the car ahead. “You’re not asking me for suggestions, I’m sure.”
“No,” Cassidy said pointedly. “I’m not.”
They rolled forward again. Two SUVs and a pickup truck, and they’d be at the window.
Shelby smiled, though she still didn’t look at Cassidy. Her hair was piled on top of her head, held loosely in place with a huge plastic squeeze-clip. “This is taking too long,” she said. “I should have cooked, but it seemed so drastic.”
“Hmmm,” Cassidy said. She was still staring at her phone, trying to figure out a diplomatic way to tell Michael she needed space.
“By the time our turn comes,” Shelby observed, the words accompanied by an audible stomach-rumble, “we’ll both be eligible for Medicare.”
Cassidy chuckled, though she might just as easily have cried instead. “I haven’t been very good company lately,” she said. “I’m sorry, Shelb.”
“Does that mean I can talk now?”
“I hadn’t noticed that you’d stopped,” Cassidy pointed out.
“Very funny,” Shelby responded.
“Go ahead, tell me what you think.”
“Gee, thanks. Don’t mind if I do.”
Cassidy glared at her phone again. Since she hadn’t been able to come up with anything better, she typed in, “Michael, I need space.”
Then, holding her breath, she sent the message hurtling through the ether.
The data must have had a clear shot to the appropriate satellite and zipped from there to its target, because Michael responded in about ten seconds.
“’Space’? Are you kidding me? We have to talk, Cassidy. Now. I’m punching in your number, and don’t even think about letting my call go to voice mail.”
Their turn had come at last; Shelby had reached the drive-thru window.
She placed the order she and Cassidy had already agreed upon.
The cell rang in Cassidy’s hands at the same moment.
She considered hitting the ‘decline’ button, but that seemed cowardly. While Shelby chatted with the person in the window, Cassidy whispered into the phone, “Hello? Michael?”
“Who else?” Michael demanded. She could picture him shoving splayed fingers through his hair. “Cassidy, what the hell is going on with you? Is this about that stupid picture on the internet? Because, if it is---”
“Michael,” Cassidy said, trying to whisper while Shelby pretended not to be listening, “calm down, okay? It’s just—“
He didn’t let her finish. “Calm down? You fly off to Cowpattie, Arizona and leave me hanging—won’t even answer my texts, for God’s sake—and I’m supposed to ‘calm down’?“
“Michael,” Cassidy repeated, closing her eyes. “Stop. You’re blowing this whole thing way out of proportion—“
“Am I? Try to see this from my viewpoint, will you? Just for a nanosecond? You’re freezing me out, Cassidy, and, damn it, I want to know why.”
I wish I could tell you, Cassidy thought. Trouble is, I have no clue.
Shelby was handing money to the cashier, receiving change.
“I just need some space, time to think,” Cassidy said. The answer was a lame one, she knew, but it was all she could come up with.
“You want space?” Michael boomed. “You want time? Fine. You can have all the time you want. How does forever sound?”
Cassidy knew she should have seen that coming, but she hadn’t. She felt as though she’d been punched in the solar plexus. “Michael—“
“I’m done,” Michael said. “Done.”
And then he was gone.
Cassidy stared at her phone.
Shelby set their coffees in the cup-holder on the console and handed her a bulging paper bag, grease-dappled and smelling like heaven.
Cassidy couldn’t believe she still wanted to eat, considering the circumstances, but she did.
Shelby pulled ahead, parked the Blazer, and shut off the engine. “What just happened here?” she asked, her tone mild. She wasn’t smirking anymore.
“I’ve been dumped,” Cassidy said. She was shocked. Amazed. And, well, maybe she felt a little like a freshly-caught fish tossed back in the water.
“Seriously?” Shelby asked. She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned slightly, so she could look straight at Cassidy.
“Seriously,” Cassidy confirmed. She opened the bag, took out a wrapped breakfast sandwich and a hash-brown brick and handed them both to her friend before rummaging for her own.
“You seem remarkably calm,” Shelby said.
“I think I’m in shock,” Cassidy replied. She unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite. Chewed and swallowed.
“It doesn’t seem to be affecting your appetite,” Shelby remarked.
Cassidy laug
hed. Then she cried. Then she alternated between the two extremes for a couple of minutes.
And all the while, she was devouring the sandwich.
Shelby probably wanted to say about a million things, but she concentrated on her breakfast and waited out Cassidy’s emotional jag. She wasn’t the kind of friend who shoved tissue at a person when they lapsed into mild hysteria and told them cheer up, that everything would be fine, that they were making a big deal out of nothing.
Cassidy appreciated that quality, especially then.
When they’d finished their deliciously unhealthy meal, Shelby wadded up the bag and the wrappers and got out of the Blazer to deposit them in a trash bin.
By the time she returned, Cassidy had recovered a little. She was sipping coffee.
“Do you still want to go to Flagstaff?” Shelby asked.
“Yes.” Cassidy put her cell phone back in her purse, pulled out her sunglasses, put them on.
“Are you—okay?”
“I’m not sure,” Cassidy answered, in all honesty. “But I know one thing for certain: I don’t want to drive that stupid truck of Duke’s ever again, if I can avoid it. My own wheels are more than a thousand miles away at the moment, which means I need to find myself some interim transportation.”
Still, Shelby hesitated, clearly concerned. “Michael will probably apologize,” she ventured. “Send flowers—“
Cassidy said nothing.
Shelby faced forward, snapped her seatbelt back in place, reached to adjust the rearview mirror. “Let’s roll,” she said.
Five hours later, when Cassidy returned to the ranch, driving a spiffy little rental with a retractable roof, she found Duke, G.W. and Henry gathered around Duke’s truck. The hood was up.
Déjà vu all over again, Cassidy thought. All day, she’d been waiting for depression to set in—after all, she and her fiancé had officially broken up—but it hadn’t happened. She wasn’t sad, but she wasn’t happy, either.
She was just—numb.
It was probably a coping mechanism.
Spotting her, Henry raced over, Chip bounding alongside.
Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) Page 44