Casey didn’t miss much, and her green eyes twinkled as she took in Brylee’s outfit and upswept hair. “Going somewhere?” she all but trilled. A singer by profession, Casey often put ordinary sentences to music. “If you’re on the way out, I can come back later—”
“Stay,” Brylee said, motioning for Casey to follow her into the kitchen. A glance at the digital clock on the microwave told her she had nearly an hour. “I’ll make tea.”
On most ranches, the kitchen table was the heart of the home, and Brylee’s apartment was no exception to the rule.
Casey sat. “Okay,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want to make you late or anything.”
Brylee blew out a breath as she strained to reach the bone china cups and saucers she kept on a high cupboard shelf. “Please,” she said. “I’m going horseback riding with a neighbor, that’s all. It’s no big deal.”
“Hmm,” Casey responded, with lilting sweetness. “And which neighbor would that be? As if I couldn’t guess without the slightest flutter of brain cells.”
The cups and saucers rattled slightly as Brylee set them on the counter, and she was glad her back was turned to Casey, because she could feel a blush pounding in her cheeks. “It’s no big deal,” she hastened to repeat, busying herself with rinsing off the china and filling the electric kettle. “Zane Sutton isn’t my type.”
Casey chuckled. “Honey,” she drawled, “Zane Sutton is every woman’s type.”
“He’s new here,” Brylee insisted, fitful. “I’m showing him around a little, that’s all.”
“Whatever you say, darlin’,” Casey crooned.
Brylee tossed her sister-in-law a look over one shoulder, fumbling with the canister full of tea bags she kept near the kettle. “Can we talk about something else, please?” she asked pointedly.
“Sure,” Casey agreed, smiling that knock-’em-dead smile of hers. “I came here to ask for your help. I got lassoed into heading up this year’s rodeo-royalty committee, and I need some judges. Since you’re a former rodeo queen yourself and know the ropes, so to speak, I figured you’d be a logical choice.”
Brylee made a face. “That was a long time ago,” she said, dropping a tea bag into each of their cups. “A very long time ago. Besides, I’ve already signed Décor Galore up as a sponsor, like I do every year. Why don’t you ask Opal Beaumont—or maybe Joslyn Barlow? Or Tara Taylor? Kendra Carmody, perhaps?”
“I need three women and three men,” Casey said matter-of-factly. “Slade, Hutch and Boone all volunteered, and their wives can’t be on the panel, too, now can they? That would be nepotism or something. Opal’s agreed to participate, along with Essie, from over at the Butter Biscuit Café, in Parable. That leaves one Brylee-shaped place to fill.”
More responsibility. Just what she didn’t need. “But—”
“Please?” Casey wheedled.
Brylee sighed heavily, splashed hot water into the cups and carried them over to the table, setting one down in front of Casey and the other at her usual place. She got out the sugar and milk, along with a pair of teaspoons, and finally sat down.
“You know I can’t say no to you,” she said, with a flimsy smile.
“I was counting on that,” Casey agreed, adding milk and half a teaspoon of sugar to her tea. The delicate china tinkled, bell-like, as she stirred the concoction. “Come on, Brylee. You know how important this contest is to these girls—most of them have probably been dreaming about reigning as rodeo queen since they were knee-high to a Shetland pony.”
Having been there, Brylee was well aware of what a big deal this was—there were scholarships, hefty ones, and a number of other desirable prizes, like new saddles and fancy boots and pink hats with sequined bands. Except for graduation, being queen of the rodeo had been the high point of her senior year in high school.
She bit her lower lip, remembering. “Somebody has to lose, though,” she lamented quietly. She hadn’t forgotten what a brave front the other girls had put on, back in the day, until they were out of the spotlight, that is. One or two of them had cried, they were so disappointed, and Cindy Johnson’s mom had gone so far as to scold Cindy for not holding her stomach in. Another girl had refused to speak to Brylee all that summer.
Casey reached out, closed her hand over Brylee’s and squeezed gently. “I know,” she said, “but everybody loses sometimes, sugar, and that’s good practice for life in the real world, don’t you think?”
“True,” Brylee conceded. She certainly hadn’t come up a winner every time she went after some goal, no one did. And, looking back, she’d become convinced that her losses, painful as they were, had taught her far more than her victories. When Hutch suddenly torpedoed their wedding, for instance, in front of God and much of Parable County, she’d been devastated. Now that some time had passed, though, she could see what a mistake the marriage would have been.
Hutch had been right. Damn it.
“You’ll do it?” Casey prodded.
Brylee sighed again. “I’ll do it,” she said, without a trace of enthusiasm.
“Good,” Casey chirped, beaming again. “You’re perfect for the job.”
The job entailed one-on-one interviews with each of the contestants, sitting through a talent show that might well be excruciating and watching the girls ride, as well. Points would be awarded not just on the basis of looks, but personality, goals for the future, grade averages and extracurricular activities. The chosen one would compete in the state pageant and, if she won that, go on to the national event.
“You owe me for this, Casey Parrish,” Brylee said.
Casey grinned and took a sip of her tea. “It’ll be fun,” she insisted. Casey thought just about everything was fun; she was one of those in-the-moment people who savored ordinary joys.
Fidgety, Brylee glanced at the clock again, unable to resist the urge.
Casey must have noticed, because she immediately got to her feet. She picked up her cup and saucer and carried them to the sink. “My work here is done,” she said, going all twinkly with mischievous delight. “For now, anyway, I’m history.”
She hummed one of her own hit songs, all about country lovin’, as she hurried out. Just because she and Walker were crazy-nuts about each other, Casey probably thought that kind of special connection was possible, if not inevitable, for her famously jilted sister-in-law, as well.
Half an hour later, Brylee was outside, with good old Toby saddled up and ready to go, when Zane rode up on Blackjack. The man looked way better than just good, even in ordinary jeans, well-scuffed boots and a cotton shirt, and the horse wasn’t hard on the eyes, either.
Brylee hoped her internal tizzy didn’t show on the outside.
Zane ran his gaze over her, a swift and confident assessment, grinned with apparent appreciation as she stuck a foot into a stirrup and swung up onto Toby’s back.
Next to Blackjack, poor, sweet Toby looked like an overgrown pony.
“Ready?” she asked, gathering her dignity around her like a cloak.
“Oh, yeah,” Zane replied in an easy drawl. “Fact is, I think I’ve been ready for a good long while.”
Brylee felt her pulse thumping in both cheeks. She had to bite down hard on her lower lip to keep from blurting out the obvious question—ready for what?—because she knew this yahoo was talking about more than an innocent horseback ride with a neighbor. He was teasing her, maybe even trying to throw her off a little, and she wasn’t about to let that happen, though she was a beat or two late deciding that.
“Good,” she said briskly, and led the way between the fences surrounding various pastures and corrals and forming a sort of maze behind the barn, skirting the river for the open range.
Zane rode beside her, both horses traveling at a relatively sedate pace. Blackjack, Brylee could see, wanted to move into the lead, but Zane restrained him with the kind of nonchalance that comes from years of skill-building.
With some difficulty, Brylee slid the cardboard movie-cowboy image she�
��d had of Zane Sutton off the main stage of her mind and fretted in silence, searching her brain for something to say. What had she and Hutch talked about, at times like this?
Not that there was any connection.
Zane sized up the bulls in their pens. “They look good and mean,” he commented. Only in rodeo parlance, Brylee supposed, could these tornadoes on four legs be described in such contradictory terms.
“My brother, Walker, raises some of the best rodeo stock in the Western states,” she replied, with a note of pride. Then, for reasons she couldn’t have explained, she added, “This is his place, really. Timber Creek, I mean. My name is on the deed, of course, but Walker practically runs the whole show.”
Zane, standing briefly in the stirrups to stretch his legs, gave her a sidelong glance. “Does that bother you?” he asked.
It was a quiet question, direct and yet somehow nonintrusive.
Brylee relaxed a little, smiled and shook her head. “Nope. This ranch is home, and it always will be, but I’m content to share in the profits and do my own thing the rest of the time.”
“And your thing is?”
Up ahead, the creek that joined the river sparkled in the golden glow of a summer day, and cattle, mostly Herefords, grazed contentedly in the wind-rippled grass.
Brylee took a moment to consider her reply. “Keeping my company in the black, I suppose,” she finally answered. A vague sense of disquiet swept through her then, soft as an imagined breeze, and she stiffened her spine against it, jutted out her chin a little way.
Zane flashed a grin at her, and its impact was so palpable that, for the briefest moment, she thought it might actually jolt her out of the saddle.
No holograms here, she thought. This was pure reality.
One man, one woman.
Red alert.
“Confession time,” Zane said, with another grin. “I read up on you—online, I mean. Décor Galore is something of a modern legend, it seems—the little start-up that could.”
Brylee let Toby have his head then, and he went straight to the creek side, waded in ankle-deep and drank noisily. “I did a little research on you, too, as it happens,” she replied, as Blackjack bent his gleaming neck to drink alongside Brylee’s gelding. “The accidental movie star, thrust from the rodeo circuit to the big screen in no time at all.”
That was glib, Brylee thought, with regret, a moment after the words were out of her mouth, and she saw by the brief tightening around Zane’s mouth that she’d struck a nerve. She didn’t know much about acting, but she’d certainly seen how hard Casey worked when she was recording, performing or making a video, and she guessed starring in films was at least that difficult, if not more so.
“There was a little more to it,” Zane said mildly, and at the tag end of a rather uncomfortable silence. “But, yeah, I guess you could call it accidental. I sure didn’t plan on any of it.”
Brylee drew a deep breath, let it out slowly and forced herself to look Zane’s way, to meet his gaze directly. His eyes had turned to a hot shade of blue, reminiscent of St. Elmo’s fire, though his mouth had softened a bit.
“I didn’t mean to minimize your accomplishments,” she began lamely, and then, losing all momentum, fell miserably mute. The horses were restless, ready to move on, so, by tacit agreement, Brylee and Zane rode together up the gently sloping bank.
“Have you ever seen any of my movies?” Zane asked.
Inwardly, Brylee groaned. Outwardly, she smiled, albeit with rigid effort. “No,” she admitted, wishing she could lie. “I mean—I don’t go to the movies much....”
His grin practically blinded her. “That’s okay, Brylee,” he said, and he certainly looked and sounded sincere.
Then again, he was an actor. There was no telling what was really going on in that handsome head of his.
“I was just curious, that’s all,” he went on, now scanning the horizon. He was quiet for a while. “This is a beautiful place,” he added presently, his tone almost reverent. “No wonder they call it God’s country.”
Brylee felt a strange sort of chagrin. She didn’t pander to people, but she wasn’t given to rudeness, either. And she hadn’t given Zane Sutton a fair chance, not from the very first.
“I’d like to,” she blurted, almost shyly, then, blushing again, hastened to clarify the statement. “See one of your movies sometime, I mean.”
His smile was slow and way too understanding. “That could be arranged,” he answered easily. “Join us for supper tonight and we’ll watch the latest one online.”
Brylee truly did want to see one of Zane’s films, but she’d expected to have a little time to prepare herself. “You just moved in,” she hedged. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Zane cocked his head a little to one side and regarded her from under the brim of his hat. “Are you this ambivalent about life in general,” he queried moderately, “or just about me?”
Zap. The man had a gift for getting under her skin. Brylee felt her face heat up again, ever so slightly, but this time she was annoyed, not embarrassed. “Just about you,” she answered, when she was darn good and ready.
That made him laugh, right out loud, a masculine sound, raspy and rich and wholly unselfconscious. “At least you’re honest,” he said, when the shout of amusement had waned to a grin. “That’s a rare enough commodity these days, in my opinion.”
They’d covered considerable distance by then and, unsettled as she was, Brylee didn’t even think about turning back, calling it a day. “I’m definitely honest,” she said, softening, and still dizzy with confusion, which wasn’t the least bit like her. “To a fault, some people would say.”
Zane adjusted his hat. He looked at home in the saddle, broad in the shoulders and lean through the waist and hips. The vibes he gave off were disturbingly fascinating, a sort of quiet, unshakable competence and an innate strength that had as much to do with character as muscle tone.
“Just what is it about me that scares you?” he asked.
There it was again, that no-holds-barred directness that always seemed to catch her off balance.
Brylee opened her mouth, closed it again. “Who says I’m scared of you?” she challenged, when she found her voice.
“I do,” Zane said, in a low, matter-of-fact tone. “You take offense at about every other word that comes out of my mouth, for one thing. And this might just be my take on the situation, but I don’t believe you’re always so prickly. If you were, you couldn’t have built an essentially people-based business from the ground up and turned it into a mega concern.”
Just when she was prepared to be totally and irrevocably irritated, he complimented her, albeit in a backhanded way. She was proud of Décor Galore, justifiably so, and he was right about something else, too. She was, in general, a very nice person. “You think I’m prickly?”
Truth be told, she was a little hurt.
“Yeah,” Zane answered, with another lethal grin. “I do think you’re prickly—when you’re around me, anyway. It’s like you’re expecting me to give you trouble, so you shoot quills like a cornered porcupine, as a preemptive strike of some kind. Why is that?”
Since she couldn’t rightfully deny the porcupine theory, Brylee turned pensive, rolling the matter around in her mind for a few moments, trying to get a handle on the crux of it all. Normally, she knew her own mind, wasn’t given to bouncing back and forth between thoughts like a pinball in an arcade machine. Did those even exist anymore, or were they obsolete? “I guess I’m wary of celebrities,” she finally said. It wasn’t much, but that was all the mental search produced.
“Including your very famous sister-in-law?” Zane asked.
“Casey’s different.”
“Maybe I am, too,” he suggested.
“And maybe you’re not,” Brylee argued, though not with much spirit. “It probably isn’t necessary to remind you that we get more than our share of movie stars out here, following some fantasy they picked up doing a guest spot
on Little House on the Prairie, looking for peace and quiet and who knows what else.”
Zane studied her, arching one eyebrow just slightly. “You object to the big houses, the landing strips—what?” He spoke reasonably. “I would imagine the Hollywood crowd pumps a respectable amount of money into the local economy.”
A little of the wind went out of Brylee’s sails. She sighed. “There’s work for a while—carpentry and plumbing and that kind of thing,” she conceded. “They move in and everything’s great—until it isn’t. Some of them even try to become part of the community.”
“And then?” Zane prompted.
“And then they get bored and leave,” Brylee said. “The party’s over. The big house stands empty and forlorn, sometimes for years, and then another hotshot moves into the place, if they haven’t decided to put up a brand-new monstrosity of their very own, and the whole process repeats itself.”
“Ah,” Zane said. That was all—just “ah.” It was as though all the pieces of the puzzle that was Brylee had just fallen into place in his mind, and he’d come to some profound understanding of her deepest and most secret self.
Brylee was terribly afraid he was right.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HAD HE JUST stuck his damn fool neck right out, or what? Zane asked himself, shifting in the saddle, a place where he was seldom uneasy, and readjusting his hat for the umpteenth time as he awaited Brylee’s response to the impromptu supper/movie invitation.
Now that it was too late, he could think of all kinds of good reasons why he should have kept his mouth shut.
To start with, it was too soon for even an innocent get-together like the one he’d suggested, and practiced instincts warned that he was moving too fast where Brylee was concerned. Practical, independent and in no way needy, she was nothing like Tiffany, or any of the other women he’d ever gotten tangled up with for that matter, and getting to know her, not just superficially but down deep, would be a slow process, requiring finesse, patience—and just about every other virtue he could think of.
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