And Luke. Her thoughts skidded to a standstill when they reached him. Ridiculous, but her heart had leaped when he’d shared his good news about his progress, as if she had a vital stake in his future.
Luke set down his mug with a thump. “I hate to do it, but I’m chasing you out of here. You need to shop for a better pair of work shoes before you jump in. Brown’s right up the street from the Queen should have what you need.”
Katie put her mug down more slowly. “What your dad said about my coming back to the ranch...you think he meant that? Or was he just being polite?”
“Yeah, he meant it, and so do I. Come anytime—we’ll always be glad to see you, and put you to work, too.”
“You’ll keep me posted about your progress?” She found a scrap of paper by the phone and wrote. “Here’s my email address, and you’ve already got my phone number.”
“Shucks, girl—you’ll probably see me come walking into the Queen before you know it. I’m no hero, but I’ve never been a quitter, either.”
She offered her hand in farewell. Luke grasped it and pulled her into an awkward embrace that almost toppled her into his lap. They both laughed as she straightened.
“Well, that was smooth,” he said. “Guess I’ve lost my touch.”
“No complaints here,” she said and brushed a light kiss on his cheek. “I’ll call when I get settled in.”
She replayed the leave-taking in her mind as she drove. Why had she kissed Luke—a friendly gesture, like his clumsy hug? Because she had wanted to, pure and simple. She still felt the warmth of his grasp and the slight rasp of his beard under her lips.
The very thought of her husband’s touch nauseated her, but she missed sleeping with him, the comforting warmth in the night, the delight and release of great sex. No question, Brad was good in bed, probably because he’d had so much practice. Maybe he had found her boring, a simple faithful wife who lacked his wider experience.
And hadn’t Luke taken dozens of women to bed? Of course he had, a handsome cowboy traveling for years to a new city every weekend. But he hadn’t been cheating on an unsuspecting wife.
She wondered about the extent of his disability but suspected he would be a tender and ardent lover regardless. Better an honest man than one who would betray her with such cold calculation.
Definitely time to leave the ranch—she wasn’t ready to chance another mistake like Brad, the picture-perfect husband with rot at his core.
She had put her speculations aside by the time she reached Durango. She had a job and a place to live, a ledge on which to perch while she recovered her wits and took a good look around.
She parked in the space Lucy had shown her behind the Queen and then bought a sturdy pair of black leather sneakers at Brown’s Shoe Fit before reporting for duty. A few customers sat at tables or at the long bar with mugs and small plates in front of them—obviously the coffee-break crowd.
A thirty-something woman with honey-colored hair in a long braid greeted her and asked if she preferred a table or a booth. Lucy emerged from the kitchen before Katie could answer.
“Katie, you did come. I was half afraid you’d change your mind. Sue Cabot serves at lunchtime weekdays. Sue, Katie’s going to help us save the Queen.”
Lucy hustled Katie to the kitchen and handed her an apron. “With Sue minding the front, I can get you oriented better to this part of the operation, although you did great yesterday.”
She gave Katie a whirlwind tour of the walk-in pantry, the commercial freezer-refrigerator, and the dungeon-like cellar with canned and dry ingredients on shelves built against a natural rock wall.
Lucy glanced at her watch. “We’d better get upstairs and start grabbing orders off the carousel.”
The rest of the day went smoothly, with Sue handling most of the waitressing while Lucy and Katie cooked and Roger kept the tables cleared. Sue turned the sign on the door to Closed at three and hung up her apron.
“Gotta get home before the brats take the house apart,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”
“Her kids are angels,” Lucy said as the door closed behind Sue, “and she adores them. Her daughter is only twelve, but she’s already a talented painter. Sue’s earnings here pay for Becky’s lessons with a local artist.”
“Could we sit down with the menu?” Katie said. “I haven’t had a chance to look at it.”
Lucy made them both chicken-salad sandwiches and joined Katie at one of the tables. “I’ve tried to keep it simple,” she said. “I’ve brought a few items from the dinner menu over to lunch as specials so people can still order their favorites.”
Katie studied the menu. She already had a good idea of what it offered from filling orders—standard diner fare, with regional twists like the green chili, bison burgers and Marge’s famous dried-peach pie.
“Marge baked up a couple dozen pies before her surgery,” Lucy said. “It’s the one thing people expect here. We’re down to six in the freezer.”
She gave Katie a hopeful look. “I don’t suppose you’re a baker.”
“Not fancy baking, but I can make piecrusts in my sleep.”
Lucy rolled her eyes heavenward and fluttered both hands in the air. “Hallelujah, we’re saved. I know how to make the filling, but I couldn’t make a piecrust if you put a gun to my head.”
Katie laughed. “I guess we won’t have to go to that extreme. Speaking of pies, how do you feel about chicken pot pie?”
“I remember my mom making that—it was wonderful.”
“Of course it was—my mom sent her the recipe. And pork pie—that’s breakfast food in northern New England, along with baked beans, but you could serve it for lunch, too.”
Lucy stood and hugged her. “I’ll almost hate to leave—this is going to be fun.” She pushed her chair in. “Let’s get you moved in so you can relax before we get up at dawn for the breakfast crowd.”
Lucy stopped to thank Roger, still cleaning up the kitchen.
“You gals go on upstairs,” he said. “I’ll lock up when I finish.”
Lucy led Katie up a steep flight of stairs behind a door opening onto the street to a three-room apartment. Sunlight shone at an oblique angle through a north-facing window; a cool breeze scented with pine and snow puffed café curtains with a red pom-pom fringe. An enameled steel-top table sat in the tiny dining nook opposite a green, four-burner gas stove on curved legs. Furniture and accessories in the open sitting room matched the vintage kitchen; the whole setting harked back to the 1930s.
“All this was here when Marge bought the building,” Lucy said. “She lived here at first because she couldn’t afford any place else. I don’t think she changed a thing. She bought a little house a few years later a couple blocks from here so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs. Now this is kind of a guest suite.”
“I’m glad she didn’t redecorate—this is like being in my grandmother’s house.” Katie ran her hand over the red-and-white tabletop. “Vintage pieces like this are worth big money now.”
Lucy showed her the tiny bathroom with its pedestal sink and claw-foot tub and a bedroom with a brass double bed and painted bureau. “No closet, but there’s a rod to hang your clothes behind that curtain,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re used to, but this is clean and quiet—no noisy neighbors like bars next door or auto-body shops across the alley.”
Katie loved it, although the whole apartment would fit into her kitchen in Connecticut with space left over. “It looks wonderful to me—I don’t need fancy.”
Lucy sighed in relief. “I was afraid you’d take one look and head back East. I’ll help you carry your gear up, then my fiancé is taking us out to dinner.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Don’t worry. We’ll take off afterward and find someplace to make out.”
“L
ook, I’ll go to a movie—”
“I’m kidding—Mike has an office here in town where we can have some privacy. You can unpack while I’m gone. Hope you don’t mind sharing the bed for a couple nights. I don’t snore.”
* * *
“MY TREAT,” MIKE told Katie when the check arrived after their dinner at a restaurant across the street from the Queen. “A thank-you for coming to Lucy’s rescue.”
“I wouldn’t have eaten like a pig if I’d known you were picking up the tab,” Katie said after polishing off a plate of chiles rellenos with refried beans and rice, followed by flan. “I’ve eaten at Mexican restaurants in Connecticut, but nothing as good as this.”
“Let’s walk dinner off,” Lucy said. “I’ll show you the downtown while there’s still daylight.”
They ambled along Main Avenue with its cafés and craft shops, coffee houses and boutiques, shoe and hardware stores, to the Strater Hotel at the head of the street.
“You should check out their historical exhibits,” Mike said. “A lot of famous guests stayed here, all the way back to 1887.”
“And you have to ride the narrow gauge railroad up to Silverton,” Lucy said as they paused at the Victorian train station with its antique steam locomotive. “It goes through the high country you can’t see any other way.”
“I doubt I’ll have time for sightseeing,” Katie said. “At least until Marge comes back to work.”
They parted at the Queen, and Katie watched Lucy and Mike walk away hand in hand through the soft spring twilight. She and Brad had walked like that during their college days, inseparable and confident of happily-ever-after. She tried to recall just when the magic had faded and died—about the time his construction business had shifted into high gear, she thought. He had put her aside for the job; she had become a habit and a convenience, maybe even a nuisance.
Some shift had occurred between her impulsive dash to Colorado and this moment, beginning with the touch of Luke’s hand over hers on the reins. She wasn’t willing to spend the rest of her life only half-alive, waiting on the sidelines at Brad’s convenience when he had time for her between meetings and affairs.
She squared her shoulders and climbed the stairs to her new home.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUKE PUSHED BACK from the table and rubbed his eyes. He’d have to get reading glasses if he wanted to go on with this kind of work—that would really add to his macho image. Still, he had spent several satisfying hours bringing order to the receipts and notes Mike left. Now he was ready to sort them into yes, no and maybe piles so Mike could calculate the deductions.
The house was quiet except for the shushing of the breeze in the cottonwoods and an occasional distant lowing of the cows along the creek. He checked his watch—well past noon, so his dad and Shelby must have carried their lunches with them. They’d be moving the yearlings to a loading ramp close to the main road. He should ride out and help—Dude was a pretty good cow pony.
He ate a quick sandwich of roast beef from last night’s supper and wheeled out the back door. The first thing that struck him was the absence of Katie’s vehicle. She was gone, with no good reason to return.
He could wangle a ride to the Queen after his next PT session, but she’d be too busy to give him more than a smile and an order of pie. And there was no way he could get up to her apartment, even if she invited him. Hell, why should she? Reeling from one bad relationship, why would she consider getting involved before the previous one was resolved?
Why was he obsessing about Katie? Okay, at first she had summoned up his teenage passion for a pretty teacher, and then she had greeted him as if she just saw a man, not a man in a wheelchair. She didn’t ignore his disability but she didn’t hover, either, accepting its reality as part of who he was.
Why did she have to be married? He had never gotten involved with married women, not wanting to be used as a weapon in a private war with messy rules of engagement. After the rawness of her hurt wore off, Katie would probably go back to her husband. More than likely, the Jerk would trace her whereabouts and show up filled with remorse and flashing a fancy piece of jewelry by way of apology.
Luke slammed his hand down on the wheel of his chair. He needed to get a horse between his knees, do a man’s work for the day, try and get back to normal.
He whistled for Dude and saddled in lightning time, letting the horse stretch out for a short while in a full gallop that blew the demons out of his mind. Soon he heard the bawling of cattle and his father’s voice shouting instructions—the trucks must have arrived to pick up the yearlings.
He rode over a rise just as the last animal clattered up the ramp into the double-deck cattle hauler. Two men slammed the wide door shut. The driver handed Jake a clipboard for his signature and climbed into the cab. The smaller herd of yearling heifers left behind answered the mournful voices of their buddies as the massive truck lurched into gear and pulled away.
“Just in time,” his father said as Luke rode up. “You and Shelby can push this bunch into the upper pasture—I’ll ride ahead and open the gate.” He reined Blackjack in a tight circle and set off at a lope.
“Where are the yearlings headed?” Luke asked.
“They’ll summer on grass in Wyoming before going to a feedlot,” Shelby said. “This means a nice check in the bank for us and less stress on our summer pasture—we didn’t have a lot of snow this spring.” She followed her husband with her eyes until he disappeared over a rise.
“You still worry about Dad, don’t you?”
“Every minute he’s out of my sight.” She sighed. “I know I’m being foolish—he’s gotten nothing but good reports from his doctor, but I’ll never forget finding him face down in the snow. If he’d been dead, I might have laid down and died with him, just let the storm take us together.”
She laughed. “How melodramatic is that? But I say a thank-you prayer every morning we wake up together.”
She lifted her reins. “We’d better get these cows moving or your dad will think they’ve scattered on us.”
They rode at a walk toward the dozen or so yearlings and got them moving in the right direction without inciting them to rebellion. Too great a distance separated Luke from Shelby to allow conversation, but he resolved to speak privately with her before the day was over. The heartbreak she had suffered early in her life hadn’t hardened her. Instead, she had developed a deep compassion for others, making her the perfect listener and counselor.
Jake met them before they reached the gate, and the three of them walked the yearlings into their new pasture with none making a break for distant corners of the ranch. He climbed down to refasten the wire gate and looked at Luke.
“Something on your mind, son?”
Luke shrugged. “It’ll keep.”
Jake slapped his knee. “Okay, I’ll take a shortcut back. I want to get that check from Art in the bank today.” He turned to Shelby. “Anything I can bring you from town?”
She bent down and touched his check. “Just your own sweet self.”
“You got it, darlin’.” He held her hand against his face for a moment before mounting in a fluid motion to jog down the wagon track they had just taken.
Luke and Shelby followed at a walk, letting their horses pick their way homeward without guidance. The sun hung halfway down in the western sky, gilding the spring grass with a golden glow. They rode in silence while Luke tried to frame his questions for Shelby.
“What did you want to talk about, Luke?”
“You always know, don’t you?”
“You’re pretty easy to read even if you try to cover up your feelings with jokes.”
“I want what you and Dad have,” he said. “Tom and Jo, too.”
“Anyone special in mind?”
He whipped off his hat and ran his hand through his
hair, letting the wind cool his face. “No. Maybe. But what do I have to offer any woman?”
Shelby didn’t answer at once—she never did. They rode maybe a quarter of a mile before she looped her reins around her saddle horn and ticked off points on her fingers.
“You’re strong and good-looking. You’ve got a sharp mind and caring heart, and you’re funny as hell. You’re carrying more work here every day, and you might move into a new career that will put more money in your pocket than ranching ever will. Plus you’ll never lack a place to live.”
“And I’m stuck in a wheelchair, maybe for the rest of my life.” He looked away. “I don’t even know if I’ll be able to...” He cleared his throat. “To satisfy a woman.”
Shelby reined in her horse. “Luke, look at me.”
He signaled Dude to halt and turned to face her.
“In the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you be even remotely underhanded or mean-spirited. For the right woman, honesty and devotion will carry a lot more weight than how athletic a man might be in bed. And you’ve been around enough to know lots of ways to give pleasure.”
He stared at her for a long moment, wanting to believe, afraid to hope. He shrugged. “If you say so.”
She picked up her reins. “Come on. I’ll make dirty rice for supper if you’ll chop the onions and peppers.”
* * *
AFTER SUPPER LUKE loaded the dishwasher while his father put away the leftovers and Shelby visited the horses. He almost dropped a heavy casserole dish when his phone played a few bars of “Friends in Low Places.” Katie had said she would call, but he hadn’t hoped to hear from her this soon.
“Hey,” he said, his heart lifting.
“Hey, yourself. How’s the tax prep going?”
They chatted for a few minutes about how they’d spent their day, and then she asked, “Did you really like the chicken pie as much as you said? I thought I might try it on the menu here.”
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