The Cowboy's Autumn Fall

by Shanna Hatfield

  Bailey managed to keep from moaning out loud.

  “Something you wanted to discuss, Ms. Bishop?” Brice asked, his voice husky as he kissed her ear and nibbled on the lobe until Bailey was certain she was going to be incapable of walking again. Her legs felt languid, her knees weakened and she wasn’t sure her feet were still attached or if they’d melted off at the ankle.

  “No,” Bailey managed to whisper before Brice placed his lips to hers.

  The touch was light and soft, gentle and restrained. When she slid her arms up around his neck and leaned into his chest, Brice deepened the kiss and pulled her even closer. Until she met Brice, Bailey had no idea that kisses could be so driven, demanding, and exciting.

  Finally coming up for air, they sat staring at each other, entangled in the passion and attraction that passed between them.

  “That’s what I meant by three kisses,” Brice said between ragged breaths.

  “I’ll remember that,” Bailey whispered, getting to her feet. She could hear Cady asking where she was and by the darkness that had settled outside, she knew it was time to leave.

  Brice walked her down the stairs and out to the pickup where everyone was gathered. Thank goodness it was dark so no one could see the blush on her face or the fact that she had just been thoroughly kissed.

  Helping Bailey into the back seat of Trey’s pickup next to Cass, Brice kissed her cheek. She clasped his hand in hers for a moment, slipping something into his before he shut the door.

  Travis gave Tess one more kiss, then turned to slide onto the front seat. Wiggling an eyebrow at Brice, he smiled. “Won your bet, didn’t you?”

  “Darn right, I did,” Brice said, grinning like an idiot. He couldn’t help it. Being around Bailey seemed to do that to him.

  “What bet?” Tess asked, as Travis shut the pickup door and waved.

  “One I made with Bailey,” Brice said, looping his arm around Tess’ shoulders as they walked back to the house. He opened his other hand to see the lip balm he’d given Bailey earlier. His grin widened. She definitely tasted like berries and some sort of nectar. Her kisses were the most delicious, sweetest thing he’d ever tasted and left him wanting more.

  “And I take it by that look on your face, you won and she had to pay with kisses?” Tess teased.

  “How’d you know that?” Brice asked, surprised his sister could deduce what had happened so easily.

  “You’ve got lipstick on your cheek, BB. Shame on you for cornering her in the barn,” Tess said as she sauntered up the porch steps, turning to grin over her shoulder. “You better wipe that off before Ben sees it or you’ll be sorry, mister kissy-face. ”

  “You’re the one who’s going to be sorry, Tessie,” Brice said, chasing her into the house.

  Chapter Six

  “You don't sit down and write a wish list about

  the person you are going to fall violently in love with.

  It just doesn't work like that.”

  Stephen Fry

  “Bailey, do you want to go with us?” Cady asked as Bailey sat at the dining room table.

  Papers were strewn about her and she had her laptop open, jotting down notes for a blog post she was planning to write about her new location.

  “Where are you going?” Bailey asked, only half taking her eye off the computer screen.

  “Over to the Drexel house. Tess wants us to come look through some things she found. Travis isn’t particularly interested in boxes of old stuff, so he’s working on some projects outside, but she thought it might be fun if we joined her.”

  “Sure,” Bailey said, not really wanting to go, but trying to be a bit more social than she was normally inclined. After all, her cousins were offering her room and board for as long as she wanted and had welcomed her with genuine warmth and kindness. The least she could do was spend some time helping sort through boxes of someone else’s memories.

  “Great,” Cady said, looping her arm through Bailey’s as they walked out the door. Cady drove her car to the end of Trent and Lindsay’s driveway where Lindsay was waiting. She jumped in and the three of them went on to Tess and Travis’ house.

  “Where’s Cass?” Lindsay asked as they parked in front of the big farmhouse.

  “With her dad,” Cady said with a relieved sigh. “She’s been wound up all day so Trey decided to work off some of her energy having her help in the barn this afternoon. She’s supposed to be cleaning out stalls, but with those two, she’s no doubt playing a lot more than she’s working.”

  “Probably,” Lindsay agreed, knowing Trey was a complete pushover when it came to Cass, not that Trent or Travis were any better. All three men were firmly wrapped around the child’s finger.

  Tess waved from the porch as the three of them walked across the yard and up the steps.

  “You won’t believe all the stuff I found,” Tess said, pulling Cady into the house with Lindsay and Bailey trailing along behind.

  “I will if you tell me,” Cady said with a teasing grin.

  “Come upstairs and see,” Tess said, hurrying up the staircase to the second floor and down the hall to one of the bedrooms. The room had the most beautiful rose patterned wallpaper and the girls wondered if it was original. A white cast-iron bed frame sat against one wall and a walnut dresser looked to be in excellent shape.

  “When I found this old trunk, I immediately thought of Denni,” Tess said, opening the lid to reveal it was packed full of vintage fabrics.

  “Oh, gracious, Tess,” Cady said, carefully touching the old fabric. “What a treasure. Denni will definitely want to see these.”

  Denni Thompson was an accomplished seamstress who managed a quilt store in The Dalles. Her daughters-in-law knew she’d love all the fabric pieces. Cady also liked to sew, but not to the extent that Denni did.

  “What else did you find?” Lindsay asked, seeing newspaper clippings on top of the dresser.

  Tess carefully picked up a handful of the yellowed printed pages. She found an entire drawer full of old advertisements and thought some of them were hysterical.

  “Did you see this one?” Lindsay asked, giggling as she held out the old paper.

  “What’s it say?” Bailey asked, leaning over trying to read the Ivory Soap ad.

  “I’ve got a He-Man Husband…He’s husky as an ox, but has to be babied when’s he’s tired or catches a cold…” Lindsay read the rest of ad, which made all four of the girls erupt in laughter.

  “I think that applies to all three of you,” Bailey said, wiping the tears from her eyes. It felt good to laugh with these women and she was glad she agreed to come with Cady. If she was willing to admit it, this was a lot more fun than typing a blog about her latest fossil site. “Those cousins of mine are all pretty He-Man.”

  “I was thinking it would be fun to frame some of these and hang them in a grouping. What do you girls think?” Tess asked, sorting through the pile and picking out five that she especially liked.

  “That’s a great idea,” Cady said, looking at Tess’ choices and nodding her approval. You could mat them with some of the vintage fabric and then use matching frames to pull it all together.”

  “I love that idea,” Tess said, looking at the ads again, confirming her choices. “Would you help me?”

  “Sure, bring the stuff to the house. I’ve got all the supplies we’ll need. You’ll just need to pick out some frames.”

  The girls looked through more drawers, closets, and cupboards, finding a variety of old treasures. They cleaned as they went, throwing away what was truly garbage and setting aside anything they thought might be redeemable or of keepsake quality.

  Bailey found a wedding photo at the back of a high shelf in a hall cupboard. Still in a frame, the photo appeared to be in good shape. Judging from the attire of the couple, the photo must have been taken in the late forties.

  “Is this Mr. Drexel?” Bailey asked, handing the photo to Lindsay, who had rented her house from the man for three years.

&n
bsp; “Yes, I believe it is,” Lindsay said, studying the photo. “I wonder why he left it behind. I’m sure this is something he’d want to have.”

  “It was in the back of the hall cupboard. He probably missed it when he was packing,” Bailey said, fascinated by the story behind this couple and the man who left so many memories behind when he moved to The Dalles and sold his ranch to the Thompsons.

  “I’ll take it to him,” Tess said, setting the photo with a pile of things she was going to take with her when they finished up for the afternoon. “I want to thank him in person for all the wonderful things he left behind. I wonder why he didn’t take more with him?”

  “I think, like Denni, he wanted to leave the reminders of his wife behind,” Cady said with an insight gained only from being married and deeply in love with her husband. If something happened to Trey, she didn’t think she could bear to be at the ranch. She understood why Denni packed up and left when her husband died so suddenly. It hurt her too much to be surrounded by the constant reminders of their life together.

  “I don’t understand how someone could just walk away from everything they spent their life building. It seems so frivolous,” Bailey said, voicing her thoughts as she sorted through a drawer of old gloves.

  “Maybe you’ll feel differently someday,” Lindsay said with a knowing smile. “Love tends to change the way we think and act.”

  “It most certainly does,” Cady said, nodding her head. “And the Thompson men seem to be particularly talented at getting under the skin of the women they love.”

  “I’ve never seen such stubborn, mule-headed, over-protective, cocky men as those three. They could try the patience of a saint,” Lindsay said, waiting for Tess or Cady to argue. When they grinned in agreement, she continued her assessment. “They are also the most generous, caring, loving, honest, and loyal men I’ve ever met.”

  “Until I moved to Grass Valley, I’d never seen three men, let alone three brothers, with such broad shoulders, strong arms, devilish smiles, and enticing charm,” Cady said, fanning her face with an old magazine they’d found.

  Tess and Lindsay laughed.

  “You forgot the Wranglers, Cady. Don’t forget how good they make the Wranglers look,” Tess added, placing her hand to her forehead, acting as though she might swoon. “I’d do just about anything Travis wants when he’s wearing his Wranglers, boots and Stetson, but don’t tell him that.”

  Bailey rolled her lips together and shook her head, thinking the other girls were completely daft. “How can you let them change your lives like they have?”

  “It’s all changes for the better,” Tess said, her face softening as she thought of Travis. “They haven’t changed who we are. They make us feel complete.”

  “But if they infuriate you so, how did you ever fall in love with them?” Bailey wondered, realizing that Brice both infuriated and fascinated her.

  “You don’t choose who your heart’s going to love,” Lindsay said, wiping out a drawer as they talked. “It’s not like we made a wish list and decided we’d fall in love with whoever met the criteria. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even sure I liked Trent until he romanced his way into my good graces.”

  “He did do a good job of it,” Cady said, recalling all of Trent’s efforts at wooing Lindsay. His hard work paid off since she was now his bride.

  “Yes, he did,” Lindsay said, smiling wistfully as she thought of their romantic courtship. “But my point, Bailey, is that you don’t go looking for the perfect person to love. The perfect love for you will just fall into your life one day when you aren’t expecting it.”

  Bailey thought about what Lindsay said as they continued sorting and cleaning. When Tess found a box full of rocks, she asked Bailey if she wanted to go through them. Some of them looked interesting, so Bailey took the box out to Cady’s car. On her way back to the house, Travis walked over from where he was doing some work on the back side of the house putting new weather stripping around the outside doors.

  “I could hear you girls laughing in there. I can only assume they are telling tales about the men in this family,” Travis said as he joined Bailey at the door.

  “I’m not at liberty to laugh and say,” Bailey said with a grin.

  “You know, you’re fitting in with the rest of the females here just fine Miss Bailey,” Travis said, patting her on the back as they walked in the house.

  Bailey smiled at him, suddenly liking the thought of fitting in with the fun-loving group.

  “Isn’t it time for this hen party to break up?” Travis asked as he walked into the kitchen where the women were gathering up their things.

  “Who are you calling hens, Tee?” Tess asked, kissing Travis’ cheek.

  “The loveliest birds any man has ever seen,” Travis said, with a teasing smile.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” Tess said as she followed the other three women out the door. Bailey turned back to see Travis kiss Tess before walking her to her car.

  “Thanks for coming over,” Tess called as Cady, Lindsay and Bailey got in Cady’s car. “I’d love for you to help me sort through the rest of the stuff.”

  “We’d be happy to, Tess,” Cady said, “I’ll ask Denni next time.” Turning to her brother-in-law, Cady grinned, “See you later, Trav. Behave yourself.”

  “Don’t I always?” Travis asked, trying to sound wounded.

  “No,” chorused four female voices, making them all laugh.

  Dropping Lindsay off at her house, Cady and Bailey chatted on the short drive back to the ranch.

  “I hope we didn’t lead you to believe we aren’t madly in love with our husbands,” Cady said, looking over at Bailey as she parked her car.

  “Not at all,” Bailey said, knowing anyone who spent even five minutes in the company of the couples could see their love and devotion to each other. “I think it’s a very wise thing for you to see them clearly but love them anyway.”

  “I think that’s what true love is all about,” Cady said, retrieving a stack of fabric from the back seat of her car. “It’s loving someone without the rose-colored glasses on, wanting them faults and all.”

  Faults and all.

  That was something for Bailey to consider, should she ever decide a relationship was more important than her career.

  Chapter Seven

  “The hardest tumble a man can make

  is to fall over his own bluff.”

  Ambrose Bierce

  Feeling like he’d been given a rare gift of time, Brice fueled up his pickup at the gas station in Grass Valley and grabbed a bottle of cold pop, another package of breath strips and a bag of corn nuts.

  When a load of supplies supposed to be delivered at the construction site that morning failed to appear, the boss told everyone to take the afternoon off and plan to be at work bright and early the next morning.

  Seizing the opportunity to spend time with Bailey, Brice turned up the radio as he headed south to Antelope. Passing through the small town, he drove southeast in the direction he thought Bailey was working this week.

  She’d been on the job for a couple of weeks and Brice had hardly seen her. By the time she got home at night, it was too late for him to be hanging around. Leaving extremely early in the mornings, there wasn’t time to catch her before work and his sister seemed to monopolize what little free time she had between wedding plans and getting the house ready.

  Grateful Tess and Bailey were developing a friendship through their shared love of all things vintage and retro, Brice hoped Tess’ sweet and sassy personality would allow Bailey to relax a little.

  If he really wanted to see Bailey, one of the few places he could track her down was at the Drexel house as she helped Tess sort through boxes and trunks. Inevitably, Travis would put him to work outside far from the girl who had him completely beguiled.

  At first, Brice thought Bailey was playing hard to get. After getting to know her a little better, he realized she really was lacking in relationship skil
ls and just didn’t know how to be part of a couple. He was pretty sure she enjoyed his company, despite her cool demeanor and half-hearted protests.

  Brice smiled when he thought about the last few texts Bailey sent him. They were much more casual and friendly in tone than her previous messages. She also was replying in a timelier manner. If he sent her a text, he could expect a reply within an hour or two, rather than waiting for what seemed like days on end.

  Trying to remember where, exactly, she said she was working this week, Brice took a dirt road and hoped for the best. He could have called and asked her, but Brice didn’t want her to tell him he shouldn’t come. Imagining her protests when he showed up unannounced, he grinned. It did her good to have her cage rattled once in a while, which is what he was sure his presence would do to her this afternoon.

  Bouncing down the trail that passed as a road, Brice felt pretty pleased when he saw Bailey’s Jeep and a pickup parked ahead. Pulling over to the side of the road, he parked behind Bailey’s rig and got out. He didn’t see her anywhere, so he stood listening for a moment.

  Not hearing any voices, he looked around and followed footprints along a dusty path between sage brush, scraggly juniper, and clumps of dry grass.

  He walked over the rise of a small hill and saw two figures working in the distance. Brice advanced toward the one wearing an ugly canvas hat. He recognized it well from the photo he spent a month studying of Bailey online. He was going to have to charm her into giving him a real photo one of these days.

  Walking softly behind her, Brice watched her carefully digging away at a large rock. Beside Bailey was a length of canvas holding a variety of interesting tools like picks, chisels, brushes and something that looked like a miniature pickax.

  “What’s that?” he finally asked, unable to keep his curiosity from getting the best of him.

  Bailey gasped and dropped the tool in her hand. Standing, she spun around and glared at Brice.

  “What do you think you are doing?” she demanded, angry sparks shooting from her eyes.