Emily's Chance (v5)

by Sharon Gillenwater

  “How are you going to work up there?”

  “I’ll use one of my dad’s scaffolds. We’ve already gotten approval from the city council, the constable, and the fire department to use it. I’ve worked on a scaffold when I helped my dad paint houses – the regular kind of painting – so it won’t be hard.”

  “What kind of mural are you going to do?” He took a bite of cake and actually seemed interested in what she had to say. Amazing.

  “An 1880s wash day. The wife scrubbing some pants on a rubboard, a black cast-iron kettle over the wood fire, a couple of rinse pots, sheets on the clothesline, a kid and a dog running around. That kind of thing. Maisie has given her approval to the sketch I drew out.”

  He smiled and leaned his hip against the kitchen counter. “That sounds perfect for Maisie’s place. I hope you get to do more of them. They would make downtown a lot more interesting. Are you still working at the bank?”

  “Yes. Have to keep my real job. But I’m taking a couple of weeks vacation to work on the mural. If I’m not finished with it when it’s time to go back to work, my boss said I could go to part-time and only work a couple of days a week until it’s done. He wants to train someone to fill in during vacations this summer, so she could work on my days off.”

  Dalton nodded. “And he wouldn’t be out any more money. I bet he loves the idea.”

  “Maybe a little too much.” Lindsey picked up her plate and fork. “Sounds like the game has started. Shall we join the others?”

  “In a minute.” He set his dessert on the counter and straightened, stepping closer.

  Lindsey thought surely he could see how hard her heart was pounding. Weren’t law officers trained to notice such things? She couldn’t say a word. Just looked up at him, probably like a grown woman with a schoolgirl crush. But she couldn’t help it. The feelings she had for this good, noble man came from the depths of her heart.

  “I think our friends are trying to set us up.”

  A hot flush filled her cheeks, and she lowered her gaze to somewhere around the first button on his western shirt. Don’t cry. Not now. “I didn’t know they had this planned. No one told me you were going to be at Will’s.” Somehow she managed to look up at him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. And don’t be embarrassed.” His expression softened, and an intriguing light warmed his eyes. “Maybe they’ve done us a favor. Would you go to dinner with me tomorrow after church?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “Maybe drive over to Sweetwater?”

  “Sweetwater’s good. I haven’t been over there to eat in a while.”

  “It will keep the gossips from burning up the phone lines and email for an hour or two.” He grinned and turned to pick up his cake again. “I think they must have spies scattered all over three counties. Sometimes they know which bad guy I’m chasing before I do.”

  Lindsey laughed and started toward the living room. When she felt his hand rest on the small of her back, gently guiding her to take one of the two open places on the couch instead of the empty chair, she was afraid she really might cry.

  This time with happiness.

  14

  On Sunday afternoon, Emily sat in the rocker on the Callahans’ back porch, waiting for Chance to pick her up for their picnic. It was a gorgeous sunny day, around sixty-five with a light breeze. Wintertime in Texas was unpredictable. The high might be thirty-five one day and sixty or seventy the next. It tended to sometimes get colder at night in West Texas than in San Antonio or even Dallas, but days like this made up for having to bundle up.

  Dub had taken Sue out to dinner to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Ditto Nate and Jenna with Zach, and even Dalton and Lindsey. They’d all gone to various restaurants in Sweetwater or Abilene and weren’t back yet. Will was the only one left alone.

  She felt bad about that, but if it bothered him, he hid it well. He’d planned to pick up a bucket of fried chicken in town, relax in his recliner, and watch a suspense thriller he’d rented. When she’d quietly voiced her concern after church, he said Valentine’s Day was for sweethearts and that they needed him tagging along like a duck needed an umbrella.

  She’d wanted to point out that she and Chance weren’t sweethearts; this was their first real date. Being on Valentine’s Day made it seem more important than it was. Even to her. Dinner out in a restaurant would have been nice. Just the two of them going on a picnic was special.

  When she saw his pickup pull away from his house, she walked out to the road and playfully stuck out her thumb as if hitching a ride.

  He stopped in front of her and lowered the passenger side window. His smile held a hint of flirtation. “Need a lift, purty lady?”

  “Depends. Where ya goin’, cowboy?” She rested one hand on her hip and pretended to chew gum.

  Grinning, he motioned toward the southeast. “Thought I’d wander up into the hills for a spell. Thar’s some mighty fine scenery up thataway. Brung along dinner. I’ll share with ya.”

  She made a big show of deeply sniffing the unmistakable aroma of fried chicken. “Do I smell chicken?”

  “You do. Slaved for the past hour fryin’ it up.”

  Emily opened the truck door and climbed in. “Right. Are you sure you didn’t have Will pick some up for you when he stopped at the grocery store?”

  “Caught me. I did bake the cake, though.”

  “Really?” She leaned forward to see his face better as he put the truck in gear and drove around the house. He appeared sincere.

  “Yes, ma’am. Banana nut cake and from scratch too. It’s a family favorite. Mama got the recipe from Grandma so no tellin’ how long it’s been around. It’s easy to make.”

  “Jenna says you’re a good cook.”

  “Huh. I figured I did okay. At least she didn’t get sick after eating at my place. But I didn’t make anything fancy. Remind me to thank her.”

  “Simple things are as good as gourmet, especially when prepared with love. She said she hung out at your place a lot after she first moved home.”

  “She did. Sometimes I could get her to eat some steak or something else from the grill, but more often we had a box of macaroni and cheese, pinto beans, and corn bread, or scrambled egg sandwiches. Jen needed comfort food then. When she ate, which wasn’t nearly often enough. She was in rough shape when she moved back home.”

  “She’s happy now.”

  “That she is. Did you notice Dalton and Lindsey sat together in church this morning?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  She nodded. “Yep. I heard her tell Jenna that he’s taking her out to dinner in Sweetwater.”

  “Hot dog! Our little matchmakin’ scheme worked.”

  “At least they’re taking a step in the right direction.” She watched the scenery for a minute. When she glanced at him, she found him studying her. “What?”

  “Two things. Did I just hear you say yep?”

  “You did. I’ve been hanging out with the Callahans too long.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “No.” If her parents heard her talk that way, they’d be appalled and say she sounded like a hick. “It’s good. What’s the second thing?”

  “Are we taking a step in the right direction?”

  “I don’t know.” Looking out the window, she considered the question before turning back to him. “I like you a lot, Chance. But I have goals and dreams.”

  “Ever dream of me?” One side of his mouth lifted in an endearing, lopsided smile.

  “Yes.” The word spilled out before she had time to come up with a better answer. Though anything else would be lying. “I dreamed about you the other night, after you inspected Miss Sally’s house.”

  “Was it good?”

  “Depends on how you feel about being attacked by a giant cockroach.”

  He made a face and shook his head. “Definitely not good. Did I win?”

  “Don’t know. I woke up right after you jumped out of the crawl space and that six-foot bug stuck
his head out from under the house.”

  “You really do have a problem with dark, closed spaces, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Not fond of spiders and bugs, either.”

  “I noticed. Not even dead ones.”

  “Not if they’re about to hit me in the face.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Have you dreamed of me any other time?” The man was entirely too persistent.

  “I think about you occasionally.”

  “Daydream?” His expression practically brimmed with hope.

  “Not exactly. Okay, sometimes. Look, let’s don’t go there. I don’t have to tell you all my secrets any more than you’ve told me all of yours.”

  “Good point.” He turned left, crossing a cattle guard and going down another dirt road. The hills and a long flat-topped mesa were directly in front of them, about a mile away. “The land is pretty dreary now, but it will be filled with wildflow-ebook. ers in the spring if we get good rains. If the rains are sparse, the flowers will be too. Unless there’s a drought, we’ll have plenty of flowers to brighten it up.”

  As they neared the first of the hills, the reddish-brown dirt and sun-dried golden grass of the flat land gave way to a mix of brown and white earth. Small scruffy green cedar trees, leafless gray-brown mesquite trees, and green prickly pear cactus somewhat dulled by the winter’s chill were scattered across the swells and dips of the landscape. The shadowed gray of the mesa made an artistic backdrop for the subtle swaths of gold, gray, and green.

  “It’s pretty this way too, though it’s more subtle, almost like a sepia photograph. Springtime must be spectacular. Even without the wildflowers, the bright green of the mesquites and the yellow and orange blossoms on the prickly pear will bring it to life.”

  He smiled and sighed quietly. “There isn’t an inch of ground on this ranch that I don’t love. In good times or lean, this is still the best place on earth.” Steering with one hand, he reached for the water bottle in the console. He pulled open the pop-up top with his teeth and took a drink. “I suppose you think the city is better.” Pushing the top closed with his thumb, he set the bottle back in the console. He’d thoughtfully provided one for her too.

  “Better in some ways. I love the historic section of San Antonio, the restaurants and shops. My neighborhood is quiet, if you don’t mind kids playing in the street or the teenager down the block with his loud muffler. Home is a nice place to retreat from some of the hustle and bustle. But it’s not like here. I wonder what Aidan’s wife, Clara, thought of the silence. Did she find it comforting or did it cloak her in loneliness?”

  “I expect loneliness, particularly when Aidan was out working the herd or gone on business. We’re a ways from town, so it wasn’t easy for her to go visiting or attend the weekly meetings of the Ladies Aid Society. After the kids started to school, she only lived out here between terms. A lot of ranching families split their time between homes in town and homes on the ranch.”

  He slowed the pickup and shifted into four-wheel drive, bouncing along a narrow, winding road that led up and through the hills. The road turned at the base of the mesa, going up the side of it in a long sloping climb. At the top, he stopped so she could look back at the way they’d come.

  In the distance, the trees of the Callahan compound appeared like a small oasis in the desert. Farther away, the ranch camp house where Dalton lived was a tiny white blur. Chance drove a bit farther and stopped again. “Those two little dots in the distance are Buster’s and Ollie’s houses.”

  Turning, he guided the pickup toward the other side of the mesa. The land was relatively flat, but shallow ravines cut through their path now and then, making for a rough ride.

  “Sorry about bouncing you around like you’re on a buckin’ bronc. I wouldn’t put it past Will not to try to watch us with his telescope.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, would he?” Smiling, she shook her head. The brothers teased each other a lot, but she didn’t think either of them would infringe on the other’s privacy.

  “Probably not, but I want to show you the view from the other side. Jack’s Creek is down in the valley. Down there at night, you can’t see a single light except for the stars and moon.”

  “So it’s the way it was when Aidan and Jack first moved here.”

  “Exactly. If we wait until after dark to go back to the house, you’ll have a feeling for what it was like. Or we can come back again if you have things you need to do.”

  “I don’t have anything that can’t wait until tomorrow, but I didn’t bring a coat. When the temperature drops, it will be cold unless we sit in the pickup and run the engine. And that burns gas.”

  He chuckled and drove around a big rock. “For a rich lady, you sure are frugal. At least with other people’s money. I tossed a couple of quilts in the back. We can wrap up in them if we get cold and still look at the stars. If you don’t want to stay, just say the word when you’re ready to leave.”

  She moved around, leaning against the door, facing him. “Do you always plan ahead for all contingencies?”

  Slowing down for another bump, his gaze briefly shifted toward her. “I plan as best I can, taking the options into consideration, but you can never prepare for everything. Life is like herding cattle. You may think you have them under control, but it only takes a few seconds for something to go wrong. One spooked critter causes the whole herd to stampede.”

  “You’ve actually been in a stampede?” She glanced out the windshield when he stopped the truck but quickly returned her attention to him.

  “Several. The first one was when I was fifteen. We have big pastures, but if you don’t get the cattle under control quick enough, they’ll try to run right through the fence. They might even tear it down, but they’ll get cut up bad in the process.”

  “Do you stop them like in the movies? Race ahead and try to turn the lead cattle?”

  “Exactly. If you turn the leader, the rest will follow.” He shifted into park and turned off the ignition. “You get them going in a tight circle, back into the herd, and they’ll all slow down. Sometimes it takes a while to stop them from milling around, but they’re moving slow enough by then that they won’t get hurt.”

  “Is it as dangerous as it appears in the movies?”

  “People can get hurt. There’s always the risk of a horse stepping in a hole and you both going down. Or getting thrown for some other reason. The fall might break a bone, which can be bad if it’s your back or neck. Usually, it’s just an arm or leg.”

  “That’s bad enough.”

  “True, but that can happen tripping over an uneven sidewalk. The worst danger is being trampled by the cattle.”

  “So you actually could get killed.” She supposed she should have known that, but she’d thought it was some movie trick to make it look more perilous. A chill crept down her spine.

  “Plenty of jobs are dangerous. You were in danger when you were cleaning out the old museum. It could have collapsed on you.”

  “I didn’t know it. Well, not until you pointed it out to me.”

  “You still went back in there to finish up.”

  “Only once. There’s a difference between doing something I needed to despite my fear and trembling and being an adrenaline junkie.”

  Frowning, he took off his cap, tracing the tractor logo with his index finger. “An adrenaline junkie is a race car driver, a bull rider, or a skydiver. I don’t chase stampeding cows because I want a rush. I do it because they’ll get hurt or killed if I don’t.”

  “What about working on the front lines when y’all were fighting the wildfire? If the wind had suddenly switched, you and your bulldozer would have been toast.”

  He put the cap back on and reached for the door handle. “It was something I had to do despite my fear and trembling. Enough shoptalk for now. I’m ready to eat.”

  Emily thought she might have made him mad, though she couldn’t tell. Did he ever get really mad? Foot-stomping, shouting angry? No, guys didn�
�t stomp their feet. But they shouted a lot. At least her dad did. He was an expert at flying off the handle and letting everyone in the house know about it. She’d often wondered if he exploded at work too, or if he saved it all up and let loose at home.

  The only time she’d seen a hint of anger in Chance was at Miss Sally’s when he talked about her going back to the city and forgetting about him. There had definitely been a glint of anger in his eyes at that moment, though he had tamped it quickly.

  Emily climbed out of the truck and walked around the back to the driver’s side. Chance stood outside the back door and leaned inside. She stopped a few feet away where she had a view of his scowling face. He was taking too long to get whatever he was after and muttering under his breath. When he drew back out of the pickup and straightened with a patchwork quilt, he was still frowning.

  “Can I help?” She took a tiny step closer.

  “Can you handle this?” At least he didn’t snap at her.

  “Sure.”

  He thrust it into her open arms and ducked back inside the truck, pulling out a wicker picnic basket.

  Emily didn’t want to ruin their afternoon together. “Chance, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” His frown darkened again. “It scares me when I think about you doing something dangerous and possibly getting hurt. I spoke before I thought.”

  His frown faded, and some of the tension in his stance eased. “That must mean you care about me.”

  “Of course, I do, you big lug. You’re my friend.”

  One dark eyebrow arched. “Still just a friend, huh?”

  “That’s right. A good friend.” Who could become much more if she’d let him. And that would cause all sorts of problems.

  “Spread the quilt out over there. I’ll bring the food. We’ll see if the way to my woman’s heart is through her stomach.”

  Emily laughed, knowing he’d accepted her apology. She really should point out that she wasn’t his woman. But a quiet little voice – which sounded surprisingly like Grandma Rose – told her to shush and enjoy the afternoon.