Stick in the Mud Meets Spontaneity (Meet Your Match, book 3)

by Rachael Anderson

  She made a good point—one that everyone else would probably deduce as well.

  “Kevin is a good man,” said Colton.

  “Yeah, he is. He sort of reminds me of another good man I know.”

  Colton smiled. “Thanks, but I could never have bought Maj for Kajsa.”

  “Did I say it was you?” she teased.

  “Who else?”

  “Dusty.”

  “Dusty’s not a man yet.”

  “And you are?”

  “Of course.”

  “Great. Then you’re man enough to come visit me.”

  Colton stiffened, not sure how to take that comment. Had she meant it as a joke, or had he detected a hint of a challenge in her voice?

  A sigh sounded on the other end of the phone. “I’m sorry. I meant that as a joke, but it didn’t sound that way. I just really miss you. This weekend has been tough, and I hate that I can’t hop on a plane and come home.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Hey, listen. I’ve got to go. But give Kajsa and Adi a hug and a kiss from their sister, and tell Kajsa that I fully expect her to get that horse to let me ride her someday.”

  “Will do.”

  A slight pause and then, “I love you, cowboy.”

  It wasn’t the first time Colton had heard those words, but this time it was different. Instead of the warmth and longing that usually accompanied them, it sounded more like a painful letting go. Colton didn’t like it.

  “Love you too,” he said, because what else could he say? For the first time since Samantha had kissed him goodbye in the Denver airport, Colton wondered if the two year countdown would ever really come to an end.

  Colton drove his shovel into the hard earth over and over again, tossing the loosened dirt to the side. It had been three days since his truck had ambled down the pot-marked dirt road leading to the McCoy ranch. Three days since his father had come out and greeted them with his hands on his hips.

  “I had a feeling we wouldn’t get rid of that horse so easily. How do you propose we keep feeding that animal?”

  Kajsa gave his arm a pat on her way to get Maj out of the trailer. “Don’t worry, Uncle Mike. I’ll start teaching riding lessons to help pay for him.”

  That had been news to both Colton and his father. Good news. Kajsa’s enthusiasm was back, and it was a beautiful thing.

  Three days later, Colton went looking for his enthusiasm in the large, circular hole that his mother had asked him to excavate. She’d decided she wanted a fire pit, and Colton had volunteered to make it happen. Now that the competition was over, life had dulled, and driving a shovel into the ground gave him an outlet for his increasing frustration.

  About lunchtime, his father showed up carrying a tall glass of ice water. He handed it to Colton who drank it down in several greedy swallows.

  “How big did your mother say she wanted this?” asked his dad, surveying the hole, which, admittedly, had gotten a little out of control. Okay a lot out of control. It looked more like the makings of an in-ground hot tub rather than a small-scale fire pit.

  “We need extra room for the gravel and retaining wall,” Colton said.

  His father raised an eyebrow. “You need two feet of gravel? How big are the bricks?”

  “Oh, well… you know.” Colton held his hands about two feet apart, exaggerating the measurements. “That big or so.”

  “No they’re not. They’re that big.” His father pointed at a pile of smaller bricks by the corner of the house.

  Colton shrugged. “Bigger is always better, right?”

  “Not when it comes to forest fires.”

  Without saying anything more, Colton began shoveling dirt back into the hole. One shovel full, two, three…

  “Somethin’ on your mind, son?” his father asked, as though he had nowhere better to be than standing around, watching his son shovel dirt.

  “Nope.” Four, five, six.

  “Keep that up, and you’ll have to start excavating again soon.”

  With a sigh, Colton rammed the shovel into the ground and jumped into the hole to began compacting the dirt with the heel of his boot.

  “You’re actin’ like you’ve got woman problems.”

  “Since when are women not problematic?” Colton muttered.

  His father barked out a one-syllable laugh. “Isn’t that the truth.”

  Pound, pound, kick, pound.

  His father shoved his hands in the pockets of his baggy jeans and swayed forward and back. “When it comes to women, I only have one piece of advice.”

  Colton wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. “What’s that?”

  “Simple. If it doesn’t seem like she’s worth the effort, she probably isn’t.”

  The pounding stopped, and Colton squinted up at his father. What the heck was that supposed to mean? “And if she is worth the effort?”

  His father made a sound that resembled a snort. “Then she is. And maybe you should do something about it.” He ambled toward the house and swung open the screen door. It slammed shut behind him, leaving Colton with something entirely new to think about.

  “Sam, you busy tonight?” a deep voice intruded on her thoughts.

  “Why? What’s up?” Sam frowned at the event postcard she was tweaking for a small engineering company in California. They were having a fall social and had contracted with Brecken Design to come up with the invitations, banners, custom napkin designs, labels for the food, etc. The job was low-profile, but it was the first project that had been given to her and her alone. Sam wanted it to be perfect. But there was something not quite right about the postcard. What? The font? The centered layout? The colors?

  “Hello? Up here,” said Derek, reminding her of his presence.

  Sam pushed away from her computer and spun around to face him. No matter how late in the day it was, the man always looked perfect. Tall and clean shaven, with that sexy, laid-back vibe going on, Derek draped an arm over the top of her cubical. The slight wave of his dirty blond hair, the crispness of his fitted, button down shirts, the clear blue of his eyes—perfect. Too perfect. It made her wonder what he was hiding.

  “Sorry. All yours now.” Sam hoped he’d get to the point soon so she could finish the invitation and get out of here. Her parents would be arriving tomorrow night, and her apartment was in a chaotic state of… untidiness. The past week had been a lot of late nights and early mornings for work, and cleaning and laundry had dropped to the bottom of her to-do list.

  “I was just thinking that we could grab a bite after work. Maybe take in a show?”

  Was he asking her out? Had she done anything to hint that she wanted him to ask her out? Nothing came to mind. Then again, Derek was the sort of man who didn’t need hints. One glance from him and most women went weak in the knees. But not her. She preferred Stetsons, Wranglers, and muscles that were earned the natural way—outside of a gym.

  “Um…” Sam stopped herself from saying “I really wish I could, but…” because it was a lie, and instead said, “Sorry, I can’t. My parents are coming tomorrow, and I’ve got a week’s worth of cleaning to do if I don’t want my mother to spend the entire weekend scrubbing my floors and washing dishes and telling me that I’m working too hard if I don’t have time to tidy up a small apartment.”

  “Which is why you should come out with me tonight. Just a quick bite and then you might be able to twist my arm to help you clean.”

  Help her clean? As if. There was no way Sam would be letting Derek Lindstrom inside her apartment anytime soon. Maybe he really was as nice a guy on the inside as he looked on the outside, but Sam didn’t trust perfect. Nor did she want to give him the wrong idea.

  “Listen, I really appreciate the offer, but I’m going to have to say no. You should know I’m in a relationship right now.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard the office gossip. I’m not asking you to be my girlfriend, only for the chance to get to know you better over dinner.” He lifted his hands. “No
hidden agenda here.”

  “Maybe another time.” Oh, geez. Why had she said that? Liar, liar, liar, she told herself.

  “That’s your way of saying ‘not gonna happen’ isn’t it?”

  Oh good, he figured it out. Sam offered a sympathetic smile. “I’m already taken.”

  “I see.” He didn’t look overly happy at being rejected. “Well, when’s this lucky guy coming to town? I’m sure we’d all like to meet him sometime.”

  He’s not coming, Sam answered in her mind, trying to brush aside the stab of hurt that accompanied it. Every time she tried to remind herself that Colton had a very good reason for not boarding a plane to see her, a downer of a voice at the back of her mind would say, “If he really loved you, he’d come.”

  Was Colton thinking the same thing about her? Or did he understand the only reason she wasn’t on a plane right now was because she had more work than she ever thought possible. That, and flights from New York to Denver cost about the same as the amount sitting in her bank account at the moment, and with rent due in three weeks there was no way she could afford a plane ticket.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘you’re not sure,’” Derek said. He withdrew his arm from the top of the cubical and pressed his lips together as though he had something else to say but wasn’t sure he should say it. Then he cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “You’re still young and single, Sam. And people change. Remember that.”

  Sam watched him walk away—the upright posture, the swagger, the confident way he’d looked back and gave her a nod, as though he’d known she’d still be watching.

  She spun around and glared at her monitor, not happy with the seeds of doubt Derek had so easily planted in her mind. Colton wouldn’t change. She wouldn’t change. And this whole long distance thing wasn’t going to change them. The reason calls between them had become a little more distant were because she and Colton were both busy, not because things were changing.

  She frowned at her computer yet again, determined to get the invitation right—to do something that would make the not-right feeling in her gut go away.

  Colton’s booted feet came to an abrupt stop before the gap of open air between the jet bridge and the airplane. His heart pounded, his breathing grew erratic, and every instinct in his body told him to turn around and go back to the safety of the terminal. His fingers tightened around his wallet that held a picture of Samantha, and he tried to remind himself why he was here.

  Someone from behind lightly touched his arm. “Are you okay, dearie?” came a kindly, aged, female voice.

  Colton looked over his shoulder to see a tiny, wrinkled couple behind him. He couldn’t tell who was holding who up, only that the woman had reached out to him.

  “I’m just… a little nervous about flying, that’s all,” he said. “Forty-five thousand feet above the ground is kind of high.” Why Colton had googled average cruising altitudes for commercial planes, he had no idea. All it had done was sear the number into his brain like a silent alarm.

  “Feel free to go ahead of me.” Colton stepped aside, wondering where the couple had come from. He’d waited for everyone else to board ahead of him, and shouldn’t they have been in the pre-board line?

  As if reading his thoughts, the bald and age-spotted husband spoke up. “Pre-boarding is for the ancient, crippled, or young ‘uns. Not us. It just takes us a bit longer to get down the ramp, is all. That’s why we wait for the springier chickens to board first.”

  His wife leaned toward Colton and whispered, “I know we’re old, but I don’t want him to know that he’s delusional, so I humor him.” Her eyes crinkled even more when she smiled.

  Colton liked them instantly. Someday he hoped that would be him and Samantha, only not at an airport about to step on a plane.

  “We should go.” The husband began to move past, but his wife resisted, holding him back.

  “Is this the first time you’ve ever flown?” She peered up at Colton through thick-framed eye glasses, her short white hair framing her face in soft, thinning curls.

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s your seat assignment?”

  Colton glanced at his ticket. “Um… 14C.” An aisle seat. As far from the window as possible.

  She continued to study him. “Why are you going to New York?”

  Her candor charmed him, and Colton found himself answering. “To see my girlfriend.”

  “Is she worth it?”

  Colton didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Yes, she is.”

  Her smile widened, deepening the lines around her lips. She let go of her husband’s arm and latched on to Colton’s. “Well then. Let’s get you to your gal, shall we? C’mon, Vern. We have a new mission.” She dropped her voice again. “He likes missions. He thinks he’s Tom Cruise.”

  “And she thinks she’s as funny as Lucille Ball,” came the man’s ragged voice.

  “I am Lucille,” she quipped and she led Colton onto the plane. “Lucille Anne Monteray Dungworth. You only marry a man with that last name if it’s true love.”

  Even though Colton’s heart still raced and his forehead continued to perspire, he allowed the tiny woman to lead him on the plane and reconfigure a few seating arrangements so that he ended up in the middle of her and her husband. Without asking, Vern quietly lowered the window shade. They acted as though they often came across troubled, first-time fliers and knew exactly what to do.

  Lucille took Colton’s roughened hand in hers and gave it a pat. “I want to tell you a very interesting story about how I wooed Vern without him knowing it. Because back then, you see, us girls weren’t supposed to do the wooing. I had to be sneaky about it, and I was. Vern didn’t know what hit him until it was too late. Believe it or not, he really did used to look like Tom Cruise. Or I should say that Tom Cruise looked like him because Vern came first, though he won’t admit it.”

  She continued to talk as the plane pulled away from the terminal. For the few, panic-attack inducing minutes of takeoff, her voice faded away, and Colton squeezed her hand as hard as he dared and tried not to think about the forty-five thousand feet of air that would soon be between him and the ground. But as the plane leveled out and the seatbelts-fastened light went off, his breathing evened a little, and Lucille’s voice was there again, calming him down. Vern joined the conversation here and there, correcting his wife or adding something she’d forgotten, but mostly it was sweet little Lucille who got him to New York City.

  As the plane coasted through the maze of LaGuardia and Colton’s heart rate returned to normal, Lucille asked, “When do you fly back to Denver?”

  “Tuesday morning. The 10AM flight.”

  She smiled and craned her neck to see her husband. “Hear that, Vern? He’ll be on our return flight too.”

  Vern opened his mouth in what appeared to be the beginning of an argument then clamped it shut and grunted, looking resigned. Colton got the feeling they’d either be extending their stay or ending it early on account of him.

  If it were anyone else, Colton would have tried to talk her out of it, but after listening to Lucille chat for a little over four hours, he knew that arguing with her wouldn’t get him anywhere. If she wanted to be on his plane at ten o’clock Tuesday morning, she would be on the plane. And Vern would be with her because he loved his wife.

  Outside the door of her apartment, Sam rifled through her too-large purse for the keys. But when all she could find was lip gloss, Tic Tacs, several receipts, a water bottle, and granola bar wrappers, she gave the bag a shake. A muffled jingle came from inside, and she went fishing again. “I know you’re in there,” she muttered. “I can hear you.”

  “You know that keys can’t really hide, right?” said a voice that made Sam’s knees feel like jelly and her heart skip several beats. Her fingers froze in her purse, and her feet slowly turned her around.

  Four feet away, leaning casually against the wall in the narrow hallway, with his black Stetson, washed-out jeans, dark boots, and that almost-smile that
made her insides turn to mush, stood the most handsome sight she’d seen since August twenty-fourth.

  She squealed, dropped her purse, and plowed into him, wrapping her arms around his waist.

  “You’re here.”

  “I am.”

  “How?”

  “How else?” He grinned. “Pony Express.”

  “Did the pony have wings and look like an airplane?”

  He nodded. “I almost didn’t make it but a really sweet, elderly couple talked me down from the ledge. They’ll be on my flight home, too, if you can believe it.”

  “I can’t believe any of it.” Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes, and her head continued to shake as she digested what it all meant—what he meant to her. He was here. In Manhattan. Here.

  His palms framed her face, and his thumbs wiped away her tears. “Two years is too long to wait, and New York is too far,” he said.

  “I know.” It was too long and way too far, and holy moly, he was here. For how long? Why hadn’t he told her? She would have left work earlier. She would have cleaned. She would have—

  “I came for two reasons,” he said. “To see you and meet with a manager at NYEC.”

  “NYEC?” Sam was having a hard time processing everything.

  “New York Equestrian Center. They just opened an extension in Afton and need to fill some new positions. I happen to be a good fit for a few of them so they want to talk. We’ll meet tomorrow, and if things go well, again on Monday. If they offer me a job, I’ll spend the warmer months up in Afton and the winter months at their West Hempstead location.”

  Whoa, what? Colton was considering moving to New York? Since when? Why? How? Overload, overload, overload, screamed her senses. She took a step back and searched his eyes. “Afton?”

  “A city about two hundred miles north of here. In pictures it looks a lot like Colorado. It’s close enough we can see each other on weekends, and when I’m at West Hempstead we can see each other every day.” He paused. “If you want.”

  “I…” Of course she wanted. She more than wanted. But he’d be giving up too much. It wasn’t fair. “I can’t let you do that.”