They were in different places in their lives and he didn’t see how a relationship could work without major sacrifices.
Deke noticed his father was looking at them and smiling. It was interesting the way he’d arranged the deputy duty schedule, allowing his son to have time off in the afternoon for the Founders Day picnic. In the past few weeks, he’d frequently pointed out that the voting public preferred married candidates because it showed stability and maturity…and that Deke’s interest in Libby Cranston had been duly noted.
Back off, Deke had finally told him. He wanted to run for sheriff when his dad retired, but he wouldn’t get married just to increase his chance of winning an election.
* * *
GIDEON WAS CONTEMPLATING a lazy snooze under a shade tree when Libby came over with Deke.
“We’re challenging you and Alaina in the three-legged race,” she announced. “After so much food, we need to get up and move.”
Gideon groaned. “I get up and move all the time, kiddo. This is the one day each summer that I can be lazy. Besides, the height difference between me and Alaina is ridiculous. The same with you and Deke.”
“But Alaina will just spend the day taking pictures if we don’t encourage her to join in. If you won’t do it, I’ll find another race partner for her.”
He frowned. His baby sister understood enough about male psychology to guess he also didn’t want to see Alaina racing with someone else. “Fine. If you can talk her into it, then I’ll go along.”
“I’ll be right back.”
She dashed to where Alaina was photographing a horseshoe game.
“This wasn’t my idea,” Deke said to Gideon in an aside.
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
They watched Libby talk to Alaina, who first shook her head before finally shrugging her shoulders. She took her camera off and handed it to Grandma Claire, then they returned to the spot Gideon had picked out for his afternoon nap.
“I guess we’re racing,” Alaina said wryly. “I hear you left the final no up to me.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Uh-huh.”
Together they headed to where the various races were being conducted. They watched a hotly contested sack race being won by a lanky ranch hand. Then children in various age ranges competed in the three-legged races.
All of the adults competing in the three-legged race appeared to be married or courting couples and Gideon wished he’d been firmer with Libby. He no longer thought Alaina would get ideas, but his family was another matter. They’d never cared for Celeste, but they already seemed to think highly of Alaina.
“As usual, you get to tie yourselves together,” Nels Hewitt announced, handing out colorful two-inch wide ribbons.
Without a hint of hesitation, Alaina stood hip to hip with Gideon and fastened the ribbon around her right thigh and his left. “We should do our best to win,” she said, the light of competition in her eyes.
“Uh, sure.”
While she wasn’t quite as diminutive as he’d wanted to believe all summer, the top of her head still came barely to his shoulder. The size disparity was slightly less for Libby and Deke, but several couples in the race were close in stature.
“Let’s coordinate how we move by counting off, one, two, one, two, with one meaning we move our free leg forward together, two being for our tied legs,” Alaina suggested.
“Okay.” Gideon was painfully aware of her pressed against him from hip to ankle.
And it was going to get worse.
“We’re about to start,” Nels called. “Remember, you have to race as a three-legged pair—you aren’t allowed to lift a smaller partner and run two-legged.”
Alaina put her right arm around his waist. Gideon sucked in a breath before putting his left around her shoulders.
He was right—it had gotten worse.
Nels held up his hand. “Ready, set, go.”
The group lurched across the starting line, with several teams falling immediately.
“One, two, one, two,” Alaina said as they stepped forward.
Gideon was impressed. She more than held up her end of the race. Several times he took too long of a stride without thinking but she managed to hang on and step her free foot down to stay within the rules of the race. He would never have guessed she was such a fierce competitor.
It was only after they’d crossed the finish line that a misstep sent them tumbling to the ground. He twisted so Alaina landed on top of him rather than the other way around. The air whooshed from his lungs, mostly from the imprint of her soft curves; he got rougher knocks on the ranch every day. But it was the sound of her merry laughter that hit him the hardest. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard someone so joyously happy and he would have kissed her if he hadn’t been aware of everyone watching.
“Gideon Carmichael and Alaina Wright win first place,” Nels announced.
A round of cheering and clapping sounded. Gideon looked over and saw his grandparents and mother had come over to watch. Heat crept up his neck, though there was no reason to be self-conscious. He remembered a Founders Day, not so long ago, when Mom and Stewart had run the three-legged race. They hadn’t tried that hard to win, they’d just enjoyed being together.
Gideon smiled at the memory, his awkwardness forgotten. His stepdad really had been the best.
* * *
ALAINA INSTINCTIVELY TRIED to squirm away from Gideon, but her leg was still tied to his. They sorted out their tangled limbs and were sitting up when Nels came around with their first-place ribbon. And more importantly, he carried a pair of scissors.
Gideon cut the broad band confining their thighs and rolled to his feet. He put a hand out.
Alaina hesitated an instant.
Helping someone up was a common courtesy, but she hadn’t let him assist with grooming and saddling Nikko, and she had faithfully done her share of the work on their overnight tours. Plainly it frustrated him, but she still wanted to prove she wasn’t looking for someone to take care of her, even temporarily. Yet here, in the old-fashioned atmosphere of the park amid Bannister’s patriotic salute to tradition, the small courtesy didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
“Er, thanks.” Alaina took his fingers and was lifted to her feet with astonishing speed.
She was brushing herself off when a male figure in the distance caught her attention. She’d seen him several times today, looking between her and a sheaf of papers. Right now he was showing it to two other men. While he hadn’t pointed at her, the weight of his gaze sent prickles across her shoulders.
Alaina shook the sensation away.
It was the old guy she’d seen at the post office back in June and he might still be trying to decide why she was familiar. She’d met strangers who reminded her of someone from the past and knew it could hover at the back of your mind until you figured out who and where and what. He might be the type who couldn’t let anything go.
“Is something wrong?” Gideon asked, distracting her.
“No, of course not. I’m having fun.”
He handed her the blue ribbon that Nels had awarded them. “Keep this as a memento.”
“You don’t want it?”
“I don’t need a memento. I attend the parade and picnic every year, along with my mother and grandparents.” Further proof that Gideon wasn’t the loner rancher he pretended to be…and a reminder that he didn’t expect her to be around next year. It was depressing, though she’d always known that living on the Double Branch was a temporary arrangement.
“Thanks,” she said with a determined smile. “Winning a three-legged race is new for me.”
“Don’t they have a Founders Day in your hometown?”
“Port Coopersmith prefers Revolutionary War battle reenactments. They’re a big tourist draw, even though the food they se
rve is traditional to what the army would have eaten.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask what that might be.”
“It isn’t too bad. Basically it’s boiled meat and beans, with bread and butter.”
Gideon made a face.
“All right, it isn’t that great, either,” Alaina admitted. “But it’s considered very authentic and visitors with a sweet tooth can always stop at the Day-and-Night Donut Hut.”
He chuckled. “Your hometown has a donut shop that never closes?”
“Yup. It was the cool hangout when I was a kid. Probably still is. There aren’t many choices in Port Coopersmith. It’s just a tiny town on the Connecticut coast. No major landmarks, only a few revolutionary-era buildings.”
“It sounds like it was a good place to grow up.”
Alaina relaxed. She’d hoped participating in the race would get Gideon past any lingering discomfort over their kiss and it seemed to have worked. Now it was mostly her own heart she needed to worry about.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY afternoon was especially warm and Alaina fanned herself as they rode.
“Do you mind if we stop for a while?” Gideon asked. “The animals could use some shade. There’s a stream ahead. The water comes down from a glacier, so it would be a good place to cool off.”
“All right.”
The heat was less oppressive under the trees and Alaina dismounted with a feeling of relief. Gideon tied the horses where they could get a drink and graze, and removed Danger’s doggy backpack to give him water. Free of the orange vest, the German shepherd jumped into the current and rolled around happily. He was a water lover and rarely missed the chance to get wet when it was offered.
Alaina tucked her camera away and knelt upstream to splash her face. She yelped. “That’s liquid ice.”
Gideon grinned. “I told you it came off a glacier.”
She scooped her hand in the water and sent a spray in his direction. He returned the favor and soon they were engaged in a mock battle. When it ended, they were both wet and laughing.
Alaina sat on the grass and wiped a drip from her chin. “That was fun.”
“Yeah.” He plopped next to her. “I can’t remember the last time I did something so silly.”
“What about the three-legged race and when you accused Danger of stealing your funny bone?”
“Except for that.”
Alaina felt drunk with sunshine and pleasure as she put an arm around his neck. “Let’s be extra silly.”
Gideon didn’t need more encouragement. He pulled her into a kiss filled with heat and passion. It was only when his lips traveled to her throat that she gulped and scooted away.
“Um, is it okay to drink from the stream?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well that even high mountain water could have contaminants.
“Better not without filtering,” Gideon said, his chest heaving. “I’ll get our canteens.”
Alaina let out a breath. She should have controlled her impulsiveness. When he returned with the water, she gave him a contrite look. “I apologize.”
He sat down and handed her a canteen. “Don’t apologize. You made me feel like a teenager again. It was nice.”
She swallowed a few mouthfuls and capped the bottle. “Then you weren’t such a serious guy back in the day?”
“Nope, life of the party. But I grew up and got married to the wrong woman. It was a disaster from the beginning, except I was too proud to admit it. So when Grandpa Colby’s foreman retired and I came to run the ranch, I wanted to prove myself. The family plan was for Flynn to eventually get the Carmichael family ranch in Shelton, while I was supposed to inherit the Double Branch, the Westcott family legacy. But I didn’t want to take anything for granted.”
“That’s a whole bunch of history and responsibility to land on your shoulders all at once.”
“Yes and no. Grandpa never made me feel as if I had to earn the Double Branch, but ranching in the mountains is different than raising cows at lower elevations, so I needed to learn a good deal. I’m still learning.”
Alaina wiggled her toes in her boots. “Life would be boring if we ever stopped learning. But surely he didn’t mean for you to stop enjoying other things. You can love what you do, but still see there’s more to living than raising cattle.”
“Ranching doesn’t leave much for anything else,” Gideon said wryly. “People get romanticized ideas about it, but this is basically a 24/7 commitment. My having to work outside of a traditional eight-to-five time frame is one of the things my ex-wife resented the most.”
“Long work hours are why your marriage broke up?”
“That, along with her hating small towns and not wanting kids, something she kept me from knowing until after we were married. We’d barely said I do before she started pushing for us to move to Chicago. I’m a rancher with a degree in animal science. What was I going to do in the city? Anyhow, when it came time for me to run the Double Branch, she said goodbye and had her lawyer send divorce papers.”
“She was a fool.”
“I should have known better. But when we were dating, I talked about wanting a family and that I’d be moving to Bannister County someday, so I didn’t hide anything from her. She even said things like, that sounds nice and asked me to tell her about the Double Branch as if she were really interested.”
Alaina watched the dappled sunlight on the stream for a long minute. It was inevitable that you discovered things about your partner after getting married, but it shouldn’t be something huge, or that they deliberately didn’t reveal. She’d always known that Mason’s career would continue taking him to wherever wolves were found. Together they’d traveled through North America to Mexico, and Europe to Asia. If she’d gotten him to change, he wouldn’t have been the man she’d fallen in love with.
“How about you and children?” Gideon asked at length.
“We wanted a family, but kept putting it off, thinking we had time. Now I don’t like putting anything off.”
He tucked a damp strand of hair behind her ear. “Such as photographing wolves or having a water fight?”
“Absolutely. When you’re old and gray, you’re going to remember today and smile.”
“I’m going to remember it next week and smile. I suppose after everything—the divorce, then losing-Grandpa Colby and my stepfather—I have gotten too grim. Our outings have been a tonic.”
Alaina regarded the wet splotches on her jeans from their mock battle. “I’m glad. I’ve worried the time away would impact the Double Branch too much. I even wanted to volunteer with the haying, but figured it would take more effort for you to teach me what to do than to just leave you alone.”
“I noticed you took pictures.”
“Hundreds. I don’t know if the world needs another book on ranching, but I may give it a shot.”
“In addition to your wildlife subjects.”
“Naturally. So, how is the Double Branch managing without your constant attention?”
“Not badly. I’m letting Nate handle more, which he likes, and I’m able to keep an eye on the herds and check fences while we’re out. It would be different if my cows were dropping their calves. I wouldn’t dare go anywhere then.”
Alaina nodded. Helene and Libby both had described calving season—a backbreaking, unrelenting effort to save lives and keep losses to a minimum. Listening to them made her wonder how anyone managed to make a living at ranching.
“Should we go on?” Gideon asked. “The horses have cooled down by now.”
Alaina got up. “Sure.”
* * *
THAT NIGHT GIDEON lay in his bedroll, arm under his head as he gazed at the sky, trying not to think about the taste and feel of Alaina’s lips against his own.
Kissing her again had been the last thing he’d expected. The
laughter had been almost as sweet.
The Milky Way was as clear and brilliant as he’d ever seen it, with shooting stars streaking across the darkness every few seconds, some bright, some barely a flicker. He glanced over at Alaina, unsure if she was awake or asleep, and then returned his attention to the celestial display. Normally he didn’t have trouble sleeping, but what was normal these days?
The summer was racing by. In some ways, Founders Day always felt like the beginning of the end, so it wasn’t unusual to feel that way—winter was their longest season—but Alaina’s presence on the Double Branch had complicated everything. She was too appealing for comfort. The image of cuddling with her in front of a winter fire kept intruding into his mind, but while she might appreciate the wild reaches of his world, she wasn’t staying. This was her year of adventure and when it was over, she’d find another adventure.
Sensing his wakefulness, Danger rose and padded over to settle down and rest his muzzle on Gideon’s chest. It had been good to see him adapting well to the presence of two more dogs on the ranch, treating them as subordinate members of the pack. Clearly he expected to be in charge and the new border collies, Jax and Ollie, had accepted him as their alpha without question.
Subordinates?
Alpha?
Gideon smiled to himself. Alaina’s language about wolves and other wildlife was laced with a mix of poetic and scientific terms, and both were creeping into his own thoughts.
An odd contentment filled him as he rubbed behind Danger’s ears. He didn’t do this sort of thing often—sleeping under the stars felt too much like playing hooky from his duty to the ranch and the Westcott tradition. As a teen he’d roamed all over the mountains alone, staying out for days with little more than food and a blanket—something he had no intention of telling Alaina.
She was an interesting woman, full of contradictions.
Grandpa Colby had once said that life could make you hard, while women made you strong. At the time Gideon had been reeling from his divorce and he’d taken it to mean that women taught men the harshest lessons. But that couldn’t be what his great-grandfather had intended to say.
Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Page 84