Hearts Crossing Ranch Anthology

by Tanya Hanson

  “Good to see you here, Jason.” Pastor Hale’s warm voice filled the room as he took a overstuffed armchair that had been left empty for him. “I sure hope you’ll be sticking around after Nick returns.”

  Jason felt another rush of heat. Since yesterday, meeting Kelley, he kind of liked the idea. But there were always places to go and people to meet. That was his nature, his blood. His lips curved wryly. His genetics.

  His friend-with-burger-benefits, Bobbi Doering, a pretty but inconsequential blonde, sat in the circle across from him and kept looking Kelley up and down.

  “Awesome dress,” she said, then gave Jason a very significant glare, eyes all over him. Heart falling, he realized his growing fear that she’d considered him more than a friend had been correct, and bursts of shame flamed over him. Likely he’d made an enemy last night by breaking what he’d honestly considered a faux date. Carefully, he moved away from Kelley so not even their clothing touched.

  “Thanks, Bobbi,” Kelley replied almost as if she swallowed something. “You home visiting your folks for the weekend?”

  Bobbi turned her eyes to Kelley again and smoothed her slim black jeans from hip to knee. “Yes. I’ve been coming home weekends for the last three months or so.” Her eyelids flickered once at Jason, and he read that he was the reason.

  Kelley’s eyes clouded a bit when she continued. “So how is …pediatrics?”

  Jason felt a surge of admiration for Bobbi’s career as a pediatric oncology nurse. That had to be heartrending work to which a deformed dead calf couldn’t begin to compare.

  Bobbi hung her head, her giant earrings wobbling. “Too busy, unfortunately. Sometimes I just need to get back here and put my head on straight. You know.” She shot him a glare. “So how about you, Kelley? How’s that restaurant of yours?” Fluttering eyelashes and wide eyes, she seemed to hold her breath, waiting for Kelley to answer.

  Just as Kelley’s cheekbones purpled, Jason found words to step in. He had to help her out like that Bible verse said, and he all but laid his hand on her knee. “Vegeterra is quite the place. You haven’t tasted anything until her Sloppy Josephines. And graham flatbread.”

  Bobbi’s nose crinkled.

  “And I hear Saturday tea rocks.” Jason finished, so proud of his support that he freaked at Kelley’s angry expression. Her jaw clamped so tight he thought he’d hear teeth crack any second, and she pulled away from him as far as her chair would allow.

  What on earth had he done?

  “Sounds wonderful.” Bobbi nodded with what might have been a real smile if Jason hadn’t broken the date and hadn’t sat next to Kelley Martin. “I remember those Josephines of yours. I’ll try to get to your place one of these days.”

  A few others in the group nodded and mumbled about visiting Vegeterra someday, but Pastor Hale brought the assembly back to attention by distributing a handout. Kelley’s smile bore a tweak of sourness. Likely she knew none of the folks would make the effort either. Suddenly Jason felt a new round of heat for not tasting some of her fare yesterday since he’d just gone and yelped about how good it was.

  Feeling something burn his cheek where the butterfly kiss had been, Jason peeked up from his handout and saw Kelley’s gaze trying to drill a hole into his face. He smiled but she just shook her head ever so slightly, eyes closing as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Pastor Hale led a fine discussion after that on the “fragrance of beauty,” on digging deeper into relationships after the bloom of initial attraction had faded. However, Jason only took the pastor’s words to half-heart because Kelley mad at him was a bad thing. A very bad thing that was all that mattered to him right now. For sure he’d never meant to hurt her or set her off.

  By now, she sat so stiff, so bent away from him he reckoned her muscles hurt. Had there been any empty seats close by, Jason knew she’d have scooted into one faster than an angry hornet.

  The discussion droned around him, and from the lively banter, Jason regretted his distraction. These were good people and Pastor Hale a wise man. At least Jason tried to participate in the closing prayer this time with both head and heart, but at the last amen, Kelley was up and bounding out the door of the meeting room.

  Truth to tell, she was practically galloping across the parking lot and not heading for his truck, either.

  But he was faster, reached her side and took her hand. “Kelley, hold up. What on earth’s the cold shoulder for?”

  She opened her mouth but nothing but a sputter came out. “You. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, Jason.”

  “I thought you could use some support.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well, the pastor’s words. About encouraging one another and building up one another.”

  “What?” Astonishment blazed across her face. “Oh, I get it. You go to church to butter up my mother and that instantly makes you a do-good missionary.”

  “I just thought…”

  “Don’t think. You’ve known me one day. Those people in there, I grew up with them.”

  “I figured as such. So I wanted to help.”

  “Help?”

  “Well, what did you want?” His temper usually didn’t run away from him, but there was always a first time, and unfortunately it was today. “You want to tell everybody your business isn’t doing well? That your hopes and dreams might be crashing to dust?” He grimaced in instant, terrible regret. “Kelley, I’m sorry. Please, you know I am.”

  She shrugged, but her hot gaze was so unfriendly he ached. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.” Kelley’s jaw clenched as she hesitated. “But just so you know. From now on, I can take care of myself. And if you don’t mind, I think I’ll hitch a ride back to the ranch with Scott.”

  Of course. He deserved that and nodded, but a big lump of regret lodged in his stomach. “So I’ll just pass on Sunday dinner.”

  At that, she faced him, taller than ever, and for a ridiculous moment he thought she was offering a kiss. “No, you will not.” Anger tinged her words. “Unless it’s just easier to break this date, too.”

  Date? He shut his eyes. Somehow she’d picked up on him and Bobbi.

  “I for one,” Kelley fumed, “don’t go back on my word.”

  5

  Later that afternoon, chatting with her mule team in their corral, Kelley groaned as Jason caught up with her. He hadn’t moved a single muscle to go after her when she climbed into Scott’s truck at church, so she reckoned he didn’t care much after all.

  As for her, what did she care? Truth was, she cared a lot. Another groan grumbled in her throat. She’d almost let her anger get substituted for a longing for a kiss.

  “Hey,” he called, and her heart jumped.

  He had that quiet walk—even the animals paid him no never mind, so she hadn’t heard his approach. And, well, Jason’s intangible scent that was somehow pine, clouds, and rainwater combined drifted through the air. Without her wanting it too, her heart jumped into her throat and stayed there, throbbing. Most of her wanted to smack him, but some part of her wanted to hold him close.

  Make that, have him hold her close. She’d already realized that, even if she couldn’t accept it, she liked being around him. It had been a long time since a man had wanted to support her. Other than those related to her, of course, who had no choice.

  But she had to make it clear. She could be a big girl all by herself despite those starlight sparkles that could flicker whenever she let them. So she didn’t let them, especially for a man who made no bones about moving on.

  “Kelley…” He started, but she held up her hand, snug in her perch between the fence rails. For some reason, her bucket, empty now of carrots, caught her interest. It was either that or drown in his magazine looks and endless hazelnut eyes where she’d already seen herself mirrored once or twice.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Jason. I know you did what you had to do. And maybe someday I’ll think it was kind of sweet.” She didn’t even know quite what sh
e was criticizing, his cheerleading on her behalf at Bible Study, or his ill-treatment of Bobbi.

  “Kel…”

  She decided to go with Bobbi. “Jason, Bobbi is a nice woman. We’ve been friends since elementary school. You shouldn’t have broken your date with her.”

  “It’s not what you think.” Jason stood very tall, very proud, like he’d done no wrong. “I admit we’ve gone out, but it’s a friends-with-benefits kind of thing.”

  “Friends with benefits? You mean…” Heat flushed her cheeks and chest, and she stamped her foot in the dusty yard. “Well, I don’t believe you. Bobbi doesn’t go for casual, meaningless sex.”

  A deep purple, like dusk falling on the mountains, darkened Jason’s cheekbones. “Ah, heck. It isn’t what you think at all. Not that kind of benefits. Burger-benefits.”

  “Burger benefits?”

  “Yep.” His own boots rustled, restless. “If Bobbi and I don’t have plans of a Saturday night, we go out for burgers. Sometimes the Butterbean. Sometimes Mel’s Stand. Once in a while the Cattleman Club in Promise.”

  Kelley felt her brow furrow. The first two made sense, but the Cattleman Club was pricey and definitely romantic.

  “So how many other times have you had to cancel when something else came up?” Somehow wounded herself, she wanted to dig deeper into whatever might discomfit him.

  His face flushed a deeper burgundy even beneath his outrageously gorgeous tan. “Well, never.”

  “All right then.” She sighed and forced her gaze to her mules, the four sweethearts who had pulled her chuck wagon for five summers. At least Sunday dinner hadn’t been awkward, not with the entire family wearing their biggest appetites and her brothers almost spoiling for a food fight. She’d paid one hundred percent attention to Ella completely cattywampus of Jason, who nonetheless had jawed and guffawed through five courses with her brothers like he belonged there.

  Except he didn’t. And he’d made it perfectly clear. She ground her teeth, wishing for a stiff breeze to cool her face.

  Jason took off his Stetson and slapped it against his well-made thigh as he leaned against the fence. The sudden wind that refreshed her ruffled his wheat-gold hair, tossing the too-long edges against his shoulders. “I should have eaten at Vegeterra, I admit, before I flapped my lips about it.” He was trying his aw-shucks mode, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. “But I still can’t think what I said was a bad thing.”

  Kelley hopped off the fence and gathered the strength to look him face to face, to hold back the sparkles. To hold back a kick on the shins. To resist grabbing him close against her heart. Ma might have fallen for Pa at first glance and most of her brothers and their wives too, but as for her, she didn’t believe love at first sight was genetic, not at all.

  Although Jason pushed upward beyond six-foot-three and then some, she was tallish herself, tall enough at any rate not to back down, especially with him scrunched down a bit in his lean toward her.

  “And maybe I’ll see your point some day. But I have something else to say.” She cleared her throat because the stars had caught there again, and looked away to garner courage. Then she forced her gaze to meet his, despite the cost to her lungs and heart. “If I’m being forward, please forgive me. But I’m not so naïve I can’t read your signals. And I confess I’ve put something out there myself.” Heat raged again even in the cooling breeze. “But I’ve got to be cautious. OK?”

  Suddenly she could barely breathe as bad memories surfaced.

  “Why?”

  “I spent four years with a man who hurt me.”

  Jason shrugged. “I’m not like that man.”

  “Maybe you are. He had no interest in building a life with me. And I can’t deny that’s what I want at the end of my days. A man holding my hand after making memories with a houseful of kids.”

  Jason let out some sort of noncommittal sound that infuriated her all the more. “Despite the sparks, those butterfly kisses, well, you’ve said yourself you aren’t that kind of guy. I guess I’m just too tired and too dispirited to want a friend-with-burger-benefits. All right? So let’s just be plain friends. It’ll work out best for both of us that way. Especially on the wagon train.

  Taking a deep breath against the pain of her words, Kelley shifted gears quick. “Wanna say hi to my babies?” She was done and gestured to her faithful mules, barely able to hide her grief at the goodbye. It was of her own making, but definitely for the best.

  With rumbles of pleasure, two of the four ambled her way, and she couldn’t hold back her smile. “Sorry ladies. I’m out of carrots for now.” She grinned up at Jason. “The mollies are Mitzi and Cocoa, and the johnnies”—she pointed at the males—“are Cayenne and Pepper.” She didn’t explain further. Any geneticist knew mules had a male “jack” donkey father and a mare for a mother.

  “Good looking animals,” he said, rubbing a hand over Cocoa’s flank as she preened. “I love mules. Strong, smart. Not the skittishness of horses.”

  Kelley’s spirits soared in spite of her discontent with him. “Well, I love hearing that. I don’t like it when mules, or donkeys even, are disrespected and called stubborn. It’s their nature not to do stupid things. A horse will work until it drops, but mules and donkeys don’t. Their so–called stubborn streak is the way of telling humans something isn’t right or is dangerous.” She shook her head and stumbled off her soapbox. Of course Jason would know this too. “Not that I don’t love my Cheyenne. This year, though, the Percherons are going to pull my rig.”

  “Why?” He peered down at her, squinty from years in the sun, and no matter her words from before, her blood raced through her veins.

  It took a minute to catch her breath, so she petted Cocoa herself. “My brothers started a new venue this summer. Mule packing into the national forest. You know, real mountain man style.” That seemed a Jason-esque thing to do. Maybe he’d rather do that and leave her to her wagon train so she could forget him. Forget she’d invited him. Not have her blood pound whenever he got within fifty yards.

  He didn’t speak, so she pushed on, needing the safety of the familiar. “OK, then. Right now, I’m going to check out my rig. Wanna come along?”

  He nodded without a word which, for some reason, she reckoned was a rare thing for Jason Easterday. Following the fence, she led him to the wide yard where the wagons parked, two huge Conestogas with modern rubber tires, and her sturdy chuck wagon.

  Along with spices, foodstuffs, and well-loved cooking utensils, she pointed out medical supplies. “This bug spray is specially geared for our very own brand of bugs.” She laughed and meant it. Too difficult to keep her heart hard when she was about to embark on another of the ventures she loved so much. Thinking about tomorrow gladdened her from the crown of her straw cowboy hat to the tips of her well-worn boots. “Pike always comes along for any emergency, which fortunately is rare.”

  Jason’s brows rose with interest because, of course, Pike was a vet.

  “He’s a certified EMT. Here”—she pointed to a tank–”we carry all the fresh water for everybody, too. There’s a stream we follow, but there’s always the danger of giardia. And if I may be gross”—she crinkled her nose—”getting the runs out in the wilderness is just something to avoid. Folks can rinse off in the stream, but that’s it.”

  She held out a well-worn notebook entitled The Bible. “And I mean no disrespect to Scripture. But these recipes are practically sacred. Gleaned from much effort and over many years. Some of the Dutch oven ‘receipts’ came down from Old Joe’s wife herself. I’m reckoning somebody named Snowy September just might approve.”

  Jason stayed more silent than she was used to, even with their short association. Maybe he felt awkward at mention of his mother. Or because Kelley’d insisted they just be friends. Because after his compliments about the mules, he stood tall and quiet. Then she got it. She had enough brothers to recognize when a male ego had been tweaked.

  She rolled her eyes. What did he expect, t
hat she land in his arms like a ripe peach? With a grunt, she shut the side door of the chuck wagon and sought a reasonable goodbye. Jason on horseback would bring her down, that’s for sure. Well, if he was going to be such a big baby, she sure didn’t feel the need to spend the next three days around him.

  “The mountain men pack trip seems like something you’d like to try.”

  Jason shrugged. “Pike’s mentioned it. But this time around, I can’t think of anything better to do than three days with my new best friend.” The sudden brightness of his eyes warmed her all over and her feet moved restlessly in the gravel. “Because I’m not that guy, Kelley. The one who hurt you.”

  With a deep breath, she finally found her voice. It was best to get away from him. “I think I’ll head up to the house and get a nap in. There won’t be any rest for the weary during the trip.”

  “Wanna take a trail ride?”

  His invitation was so out there, such a reminder of yesterday that she didn’t know what to say. Other than the logical no, of course. She read too much eagerness in his eyes. Man-woman eagerness. Just what about friendship didn’t he get?

  Still, it was hard to say no. “I can’t, Jason. I really ought to get back to the house. I want a nap, and Ma will need help.” She hung the empty bucket over her arm. “Some of the tourists will arrive tonight and stay with us. Others get here in the morning by airport shuttles. There’s tons to do, and I need my beauty sleep.”

  “No, you don’t.” Jason’s eyelids dropped like they might as he drifted to sleep, then the shadow of his brim hid his expression as he tossed his Stetson back on his head. “And that’s a fact.”

  She bent down, petting her pup to hide her flaming face. “Come on, Bryce,” she said in a form of goodbye, holding her breath to see if the Golden stayed with traitor Jason or came along with her. Breathing came easier when Bryce started trotting at her side.

  Of course, Jason’s last statement had been a downright backward compliment, so heat flared, increasing exponentially as she walked the quarter mile back to the house. Mostly because she could feel his gaze never leaving her back and warming her on top of the hot afternoon sunshine.