Lone Rider

by Lindsay McKenna

  She tried to tamp down her expectations surrounding Harper. Yet she was eager to be on the dance floor with him. Not all the dances were rousing square dances. There was a slow dance spliced into the evening, too, giving couples a chance for closeness.

  The Dvorak barn was huge, a hundred years old, built by the first German family member who had come from that country to set up ranching in Wyoming. Doug Dvorak, this generation’s owner, had painted his barn last summer. The bright red sides gleamed in the setting sun. As Harper drove his truck onto the muddy, sloppy ranch road, Tara could see at least thirty trucks, SUVs and other vehicles parked to one side of the barn.

  “Wow, looks like the whole valley is here!” she said, excited as she traded a glance with Harper. He was dressed in a pair of black chinos, a neatly pressed white cowboy shirt that was open at his throat, revealing the strong column of his neck. His dark brown hair had recently been washed and was military short.

  “I see Maud and Steve’s red double-axle pickup truck,” he said, making a motion with his hand toward the windshield.

  “Those are the same trucks you see at the feed store,” Tara said with a grin. “I like that everyone’s been able to come. It’s a nice time to get to find out how the other ranch families are doing, and hear what’s happening in their lives.”

  Nodding, he parked the truck in the next slot available. Turning off the ignition, he said, “We’re here. Excited?”

  Laughing, she looked down at her peach-colored linen pantsuit. Tara wore a bright orange silk tee beneath it, her blond hair up on her head held by two bright green plastic combs. “Yes, very.”

  “You look beautiful,” he told her, his voice thickening a bit.

  “Thanks,” and she nervously smoothed the linen fabric down her thigh. “I refreshed myself on square dancing,” she admitted. “It’s been a long time since I did any.”

  Chuckling, Harper climbed out. “Me too.”

  Tara waited for Harper to come around the truck and open her door. She knew he had courtly manners and enjoyed them. When he held out his hand to her, she took it, feeling the strength and roughness of his fingers closing around hers. She scooted out, absorbing his closeness as she took her white leather purse off the seat. It felt as if he was reluctant to release her hand, but he did. There was a swirl of emotion in his gray eyes she couldn’t interpret. But her feelings were certainly clamoring for the possibility of being very close to Harper, touching him and rubbing against him as they were locked in a slow dance with each other. She’d barely slept last night, lost in fevered dreams of possibilities with this quiet, unassuming cowboy.

  “Ready?” he asked, locking the truck and cupping her elbow.

  “Oh, yes. My mom and dad’s car is here, too, I see. They said they’d hold a table for us. We’ll sit with them, if that’s okay with you?” and she angled her gaze, catching his expression.

  “Sure. I’ve already met them a number of times. Your mom is a wiz at anything mechanical.”

  Laughing, Tara said, “Yep, Mom is definitely that way. She loves running our hardware store, but I think even more, she truly enjoys teaching others how to fix things and what the right tools and stuff they need to do just that.”

  Walking at her side along the graveled path leading to the open barn door, Harper said, “Do you think your mechanical ability translated into becoming a photographer? There’s a lot of technical expertise needed to work with a camera, much less take a decent photo.”

  “I had lunch with Mom the other day and she was saying the same thing. I mean, I’m mechanical, but I dearly love getting just the right aperture, the right light, on whatever it is I’m going to photograph.”

  Harper halted at the door, allowing her to enter first. There was fiddle music, along with accordion music, plus a snare drum, filling the barn. In the background was a caller, and a square dance was in full swing. The music was merry and upbeat. Along the sides of the cavernous barn were tables of varying sizes and shapes. Lights had been strung across the high beams. He kept his hand on Tara’s elbow as she spotted her parents at a small, round table covered with a plastic red-and-white-checked cloth.

  Tara went over and hugged her mother, Joanna, who was dressed in a square dance blouse and skirt. She then went and hugged her father, Scott, who was dressed casually in a white western cowboy shirt, jeans and boots. She loved them so much and was glad they’d understood her moving to the Bar C. Turning, she introduced Harper to them, although they had both met him at different times in the past.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Harper asked, pulling out a chair for Tara after shaking her father’s hand. Joanna and Scott had drinks already.

  Sitting, she said, “Well, you know I don’t do well with champagne, so how about some hot chocolate? Jenny Dvorak is well known in the valley for her secret recipe. Everyone loves coming here because her chocolate is so rich and spicy tasting.”

  Taking off his cowboy hat, Harper set it next to where Tara was sitting. “I didn’t know that. Then I’ll get two cups.” He looked over at Scott and Joanna Dalton, asking if they’d like some, despite their other drinks. Both said no but thanked him.

  Tara looked around at the noisy place filled with music and laughter. She sat next to her mother. “Have you danced yet?”

  “Oh, yes, we have. Your dad and I are just taking a break.”

  Tara smiled at her father. She knew it was tough for him to get out much because of his large caseload. “How does it feel to dance a little, Dad?”

  Scott Dalton smiled. “Feels good to get my dead butt out of a chair and move around, to tell you the truth.”

  “It’s a good thing we have these fifteen barn dances every year,” Joanna said. “I so look forward to them! Did you know? Jenny made apple tarts! You know how wonderful they are. She makes them with caramel drizzled over them and adds pecans to the apples inside.”

  “Oh, goody!” Tara said. “Gosh, I’ve missed the good food everyone makes for these dances.”

  Scott chuckled. “I’ll bet your young man will spot them in a heartbeat and be bringing you back a plate of them.”

  Twisting in her chair, looking across the busy barn floor, she saw Harper at the food table with a lot of other people. “Yes, he’s not one to miss much.”

  Turning back, she saw how relaxed her father was. Tara knew he carried a lot of responsibility as a judge. He cared deeply for the people of Lincoln County. Often, if a person had a choice of going to jail or getting help, he would talk them into getting the help. A fierce love for her father rose in her, for his understanding, for his empathy. She had the same view of the world: that people were not intrinsically bad or evil. The only time her outlook had failed was with Cree Elson or someone who’d murdered another person. She’d tried to think through the shock of being captured by him, trying to persuade him to let her go, that it wasn’t right that he’d kidnapped her and made her a prisoner. But it hadn’t worked. Still, Tara knew Cree came from a horribly dysfunctional family situation, and that he’d been regularly abused by his alcoholic father, like all his brothers had been.

  “Uh-oh,” Joanna said, “look, Tara. Harper has a tray and look what’s on it! Two cups of hot chocolate and four of Jenny’s world-famous apple tarts!” and she burst into laughter, trading a warm glance with her husband. “What a lovely young man he is, Tara!”

  Tara nodded, a lump in her throat, emotions sweeping through her at his thoughtfulness toward her parents. She could see the merriment on Harper’s face. He was so darned handsome and her heart thudded to underscore it as he set the tray down in front of her family.

  “Everyone, including Doug Dvorak, who was at the food station, told me I’d better steal four of his wife’s apple tarts or I’d be sorry because they’d just come out of the oven and wouldn’t last long,” he said, grinning as he sat down. “I added whipped cream to them, Tara. I know how much you like the stuff.” He looked at Joanna and Scott. “I got you two some, just in case,” and h
is smile increased as he handed them each a tart on a paper plate. He then gave Tara a tall mug of hot chocolate and placed his next to the steaming apple tart.

  “You’re a good man,” Scott said, taking the paper plates and passing one to his wife. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Scott shook his head. “No, don’t sir me, Harper. I was never in the military like you were. Just call me Scott if I’m not sitting on the bench, okay?”

  Harper nodded. “Sure will, Scott.”

  Touched by his unselfishness and ability to think of others, Tara smiled and picked up the other two paper plates from the tray. “You did good, Sutton.”

  “Harper? We bet you’d return with only two of those tarts,” Scott told him.

  “I didn’t know about them until Doug Dvorak came over and introduced himself to me and Jenny, who had just brought out a sheet of them straight from the oven. He led me down to the dessert section. Said that Jenny’s apple tarts are world class and that they’d disappear in another few minutes after word got out that they were available. So, I grabbed enough for all of us.”

  “Glad you did,” Tara congratulated him, cutting into the huge tart with her plastic knife and fork. The warm caramel was thick and had slipped into the tart itself. “Thank you. I’d completely forgotten about Jenny’s tarts. I’ve been gone too long.”

  “Well, it isn’t like you’ve been home forever,” Harper noted, eating his tart, relishing the sweetness and the butterscotch caramel drizzled over it.

  Tara saw the Bar C tables about halfway down the south wall of the barn. She spotted Kira, Garret, Shay, Reese, Dair and Noah. Soon enough, they’d go over and say hello. The girls were decked out in square dance outfits and the guys were in jeans, cowboy shirts and boots. She felt a little odd in her pantsuit, then shrugged it off. Harper seemed smitten by how she looked, saying how beautiful the peach color was on her. It made her feel good.

  Hating herself for doing it, Tara swept the area, over a hundred or so people within the barn, wondering if Cree was hidden somewhere among them. Her mind said no, that he was very much a loner, never showed up at the barn dances with his parents when she was younger. Could he be skulking outside? Waiting for her? She wished she could just block him out of her mind, but she couldn’t.

  Harper glanced in her direction and Tara had the distinct feeling he was sensing her worry. The look in his eyes was one of concern, although he said nothing. There was this unvoiced communication between them, and she was grateful for his expression, as if he was silently telling her everything was all right. That she was safe here with him. Harper wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, wadded it up and put it on the empty plate where the tart had been minutes before.

  “Want to do this slow dance?” he asked.

  Tara had to shake herself. She was so caught up in the snare of her past with Cree that she hadn’t realized the fiddlers were now playing a slow dance for the winded square dance crowd. “Sure.”

  “You two enjoy yourselves,” Joanna called. “Your dad and I are older; we’re just going to sit this one out and enjoy these delicious tarts.”

  *

  Harper bit back a groan as Tara came into his arms on the crowded dance floor. There wasn’t a whole lot of room and he was glad because he could pull Tara close. Her breasts, hidden beneath the blazer, barely brushed against his chest. That sent keen longing through him as she lifted her chin, looking deeply into his eyes, her hand held gently in his. He liked that her other hand rested on his chest, the skin tightening beneath her palm. The gentle sway of her hips enticed him and he swallowed, trying to stop the burgeoning erection beginning to swell against his zipper.

  “This is nice,” Tara said. “And you’re a good dancer, Harper.”

  He laughed a little nervously. “What? I’ll bet you thought I was a clodhopper with two left feet.”

  Her lips curved. “No, you’ve never been clumsy. That’s not who you are. And if the truth be known? I love walking behind you.”

  “Why?” Harper saw merriment in her eyes. He had no idea what she meant by that comment.

  “I love the way you walk. You’re in such great, athletic condition that you appear boneless when you move. Graceful, in a male kind of way.”

  “Oh,” was all he could manage. Heat flooded his lower body over that huskily whispered compliment. Harper saw something new in her eyes. Something he didn’t dare believe could be true. Automatically, his hand tightened a little more around hers. There was such powerful intimacy building between them.

  “Men are beautiful, too, you know,” Tara teased him.

  Heat stung his cheeks. He liked her spunk, her boldness and honesty. He had from the beginning. “Okay,” he managed, “I guess I just never thought of men as beautiful, is all.”

  “Oh, it’s a feminine word only?”

  Now she was teasing him big-time and his mouth curved faintly. “Fair enough. You’re beautiful to me, Tara Dalton. In fact, I can’t see one thing wrong with you in any way. I like the way your blond hair is up on your head, like the way the lights above shows how it glistens. And the trousers and blazer you’re wearing; the color brings out the beauty of your skin.” Fair was fair, and he gloated a little, watching surprise and then pleasure come to her expression. And without a word, she took a half step forward, her body fully pressed lightly against his. He moved his splayed hand against the small of her back, not any lower, however. It was enough to let her know that what she’d done was appreciated and mutual. There was something about a slow dance, the way the partners gravitated like planets orbiting one another that made Harper’s heart surge with hope.

  He kept telling himself he wasn’t good enough for Tara because he’d already blown through a previous marriage. He’d loved Olivia. But he’d lacked the tools, the maturity, to save their marriage, and he blamed it entirely on himself.

  Now, because he cared so much for Tara, he was stuck with a dilemma. He wanted her. All of her. Yet Harper knew he’d hurt her because of his lack of relationship skills sooner or later. And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt this woman.

  Finally, he leaned down, his lips barely touching the gold strands of her hair. “Tara? I need to tell you something important. And you have a decision to make afterward. Okay?” Harper wasn’t going to use her. He was going to tell her the truth and let his past fall where it may. It was Tara’s decision to make, not his. He saw her eyes grow darker.

  “What? Is something wrong?”

  He shrugged, trying to think above the sensations of her body lightly against his own. “Well, I owe you a story from my past because it could change how you see me … us… .”

  Her brows dipped. “Okay,” she murmured, “tell me.”

  Harper didn’t waste any words about him falling in love with Olivia and then their marriage falling apart under his watch. He finished the story with, “It was completely my fault, Tara. I take full responsibility for the marriage ending. I just didn’t have what it took to keep it together.”

  Tara looked away for a moment as he slowly turned her on the dance floor. Lifting her chin, she studied him. “I’m sorry you got divorced, Harper. It had to be hard on both of you.”

  “It was.”

  “You know, my parents have been married since they were eighteen. They’ve gone through thick and thin together. I watched them dealing with stuff, with each other, while I was growing up. And every marriage has hard, challenging times, there’s no question. And as I grew up, matured, was in the military, I saw a lot of young men and women getting married. I saw a lot of those marriages die on the vine. There’s a lot of stress on the veteran, Harper. In this case, it was you. Olivia didn’t have a clue what you’d gone through, what you’d survived or what you saw. She couldn’t. But you can’t off-load what happened to you either. You have to slowly work through it over time.”

  “Yeah, but my PTSD broke us apart,” he said.

  “And I’m not making light of the fact
that PTSD hasn’t broken up a lot of marriages, because it has. I have it myself, and I know on some days, no one, not even Max, Shay and Reese’s golden retriever, should be around me.”

  Harper gave her a slight grin. “Yeah, that about sums it all up for me, too. There were days when Olivia shouldn’t have been around me at all.”

  “But I’ve also seen some of my friends, who were married, the guy or gal having PTSD and coming home. Those marriages went through a lot of stress, but they hung together.”

  “Mine didn’t.”

  “No, but it was a casualty of war, Harper. That’s the bottom line. I’ve come to realize where marriages turned toxic because the PTSD monster wanted to tear it apart. Neither party could help what had happened to them. Some marriages hung together. Many didn’t.” She searched his eyes. “So, why are you telling me this?”

  Clearing his throat, he said, “Tara, ever since I met you, my heart started opening up to you. I never expected it. But you mean a lot to me in every way. And I needed to tell you about my failed marriage because I don’t want to hurt you.” Fear ratcheted through him, and Harper wondered if he’d said too much, judging by her eyes widening briefly over his explanation.

  “Oh,” she managed, “well … I didn’t realize … I mean …” and she stared at him, speechless.

  Harper slowed, and they stood between the couples, staring at each other. He wanted to kiss Tara. She looked surprised, and then pleased, and then he saw uncertainty in her eyes. Over what? Him? “Talk to me,” he urged. “What are you thinking? Feeling?”

  One corner of her mouth quirked upward for a moment. “I guess … I guess I thought it was one-sided, Harper.”

  “What was one-sided?” He saw bright red color flush her cheeks. With her fair skin, she blushed easily.