A Taste of Dixie
Page 7
Harlowe? Harlowe called him?
“He called me from the Atlanta airport.”
She started. Harlowe was here?
“He wanted directions to your house. I’d give him a couple hours to show up.”
Tears formed in her lashes. He’d come for her? That was ... romantic and sweet ... or maybe not either one.
She gulped, doubt inserting itself.
She’d seen firsthand how crazy someone could get. Look at all the phone calls she’d missed. She couldn’t compare the two men. Harlowe was a good person, but maybe he wanted to break things off. He’d never say such things over the phone. He’d want to face her.
Still—
Nervousness skated through her over the pending confrontation, the feeling building as the hours passed, so much so that when she heard a car pull up out front she thought she might vomit.
Her mom peered out the front window, then glanced behind. “Sweetheart ...”
Lottie gulped. “I can’t answer it,” she mumbled.
The doorbell chimed.
“Please ... you ... you do it.”
Her mom sighed. She patted her shoulder and walked out of view. The deadbolt clicked; the front door gave a familiar pop; and Harlowe’s voice whisked inside.
“Afternoon,” he said. “Harlowe Chapman, I was hoping to talk to Lottie.”
“Chapman? Jack Chapman’s son?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Her mom’s voice brightened. “Won’t you come in?”
Harlowe’s boots clomped on the porcelain tiles atop the softer sound of her mom’s feet.
“Lottie?” she called out. “You have a visitor.”
Lottie swallowed the ball curled in her throat. Gripping a fold of her dress, she forced herself forward, rounding the corner from the hallway.
She lost her breath at the sight of him.
He looked great — like a Montana cowboy. The corners of his eyes crinkled from staring into the sun, his palms callused after years of hard work. His blue jeans and old boots showed age and wear and hard work. But it was his smile that said everything.
Her mom retreated, and Harlowe closed the distance between them. He took her hand, curling her fingers in his palm.
“I want you to make me a promise,” he said. “You have a habit of running off without speaking first, and I’ll have no more of that. If I’m giving you my heart, then from now on, we will tell each other the truth.”
Hope expanded in her chest. “Your heart?”
He raised his empty hand to cup her chin. “One thing I learned from my dad was how much he loved my mom. I forgot that, in the turmoil of the last few days, but on the flight south, I realized something far more important. My perception of my dad wasn’t wrong. He was as great as I’ve always believed. How I saw others was flawed. I have to forgive and forget everyone involved, or I’m not the man I’ve tried to be ... the man he wanted me to be ... and that man is nothing without the woman in front of him.”
Her eyes dampened.
“I don’t care what you’ve done. Montana’s not the same without you in it.”
Lottie tossed herself against him. “My dad said that to my mom once.”
Harlowe pulled her tighter against him, his heartbeat thumping evenly in her ears.
“Your dad was right,” he said. “Come home, Lottie.”
Home, to Montana, God’s country, filled with rugged mountains, broad valleys, and now, most of all, love.
Snowflakes danced from the sky, settling on their shoulders and the backs of the cattle crowded along the fence. His arms around a yearling’s neck, Harlowe wrestled the animal away from the others, running one gloved hand down its front leg.
“You haven’t kissed her yet?”
At the question, he glanced up, seeing Kees’s face at a weird tilt, from the position he was in. “No, I haven’t kissed her. There are ... circumstances.”
He returned his attention to the calf. Satisfied the leg in question was sound, he released it and straightened. The youngster released a bellow and dashed toward the herd. Conscious of Kees’s continued attention, he held in place, not looking in his direction for a while.
“What circumstances? You like her; she likes you, so kiss her.”
For some reason, Kees’s persistence brought a laugh upwards. He muted it, unsure if it was the idea of taking advice from him or sheer nervousness.
Things had changed a lot since he’d returned. He’d gotten back from Georgia and found the lanky cowboy in perfect control of the animals. Kees’s response had been that his dad had more than enough workers and, frankly, he was tired of being under his thumb. His mom had pointed out how good he was at ranching, which had spurned him to hire him ... an action he wondered if he’d regret.
He was inclined, now, to think it was the best choice he could have made. Granted, Kees could be annoying, and he was still too fond of women, but put him to work, and he had a dogged determination and a lot of knowledge about these mountains.
“Let’s talk about you and Brenna instead.”
Taking a rare break, Harlowe wandered over to the fence, leaning on the top rail across from Kees.
“There is nothing to talk about. I am not interested in Brenna.”
“She’s interested in you, and, I suspect, will come home, unwilling to be farmed off in a college out of state.”
“It won’t matter if she does,” Kees replied. “I’m still not interested.”
Harlowe thumped the younger cowboy upside the head, and Kees swatted at him. “That’s so you’ll wake up. She’s a lovely girl with a good knowledge of ranching, and I don’t see you moving away.”
“I’m not moving away. I’m living here for now. I like the room in the loft.”
They’d converted an upstairs storage area into a bedroom for him, including a woodstove and a selection of odds-and-ends furniture. Kees was self-sufficient. Though his mom insisted on seeing he share their food, he’d frequently already eaten, being an avid hunter.
“Point is, she’ll be here in the spring, and you’re going to bump elbows again,” Harlowe said. “Malcolm’s worried you’ll drag her into some love triangle.”
“With who?” Kees snorted. “Now, who’s avoiding the subject? Have you even kissed a woman before?”
“You’re going to give me pointers?”
At this, Kees laughed. In his next breath, he sobered, and his gaze sharpened. He nodded toward the trees. “We need to get Marty’s dogs.”
A speck on the top of the hillside moved stealthily across the rocky terrain. Mountain lions were fairly common and a bad thing when you worked with cattle.
“You call him then, and while you’re running around in the snow chasing the cat, I think Lottie and I will go for a ride.”
“Go into the valley,” Kees said. “The river’s frozen good there and you can cross, see a great view of Montana ... great for kissing.”
He would know.
Harlowe turned aside. But his footsteps taking him toward the house, he couldn’t get the idea out of his head. She’d been here six weeks, and he’d yet to get up his nerve. The snow had finally come, though more like a lamb than a lion. The valley would be beautiful and set the perfect mood.
He glanced upward. They had enough daylight.
His mind made up, he saddled his horse and rode up to the house. He dismounted and poked his head inside. “Lottie?”
She came dancing out of the living room, her hair fluttering around her cheeks, her eyes catching the light. His chest compressed, as it did every time he looked at her.
“Get your coat. We’re going for a ride.”
“A ride?”
“Hurry up, princess.”
She laughed at his affectionate name for her and disappeared down the hallway. She returned buried somewhere beneath a stack of winter clothing.
“Snow princess,” he amended.
This made her laugh again.
Once on the back of his horse, he aime
d toward the valley, warmed by her weight. She tucked her hands in his coat pockets, her cheek pressed tight on his spine.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice muffled.
“You’ll see, but first ... riding lessons start tomorrow.”
“Yay!”
This time he laughed. She’d been pestering him since almost the moment they returned. Malcolm had told him to fetch Brenna’s horse, his animals being under a hired man’s care. He’d done so two days ago, but not had time to teach her anything yet.
“You’re going to teach me to herd,” she said. “I’m bored sitting around.”
She’d complained about that before, too. Harlowe merely nodded. He’d teach her. It was important she knew how to survive out here, but the thought of her covered in cow manure and trekking across the landscape wouldn’t sit well with him.
He liked her dolled up. She’d packed all the wrong things to move here, party dresses, fancy shoes. She wouldn’t need all that, but he loved seeing her in them, feeling his heart beat faster, his palms sweat, and thinking about the future when, one day, she wouldn’t sleep in the spare room anymore. He was sure of that, but not in a rush to get there. They had time. And it’d be sweeter when it happened for their taking so much of it.
An hour into their ride, they came to the river. Harlowe dismounted and, taking her hand, led her and the horse across the icy expanse. They rode a little further from there, exiting the surrounding trees into the plain. On her feet again, Lottie gasped, her head cast back, her eyes reflecting the sun.
“This is even better,” she whispered. “I mean I liked the view up there, but ...”
“Yeah, it is.” Though he didn’t mean it the same as her.
Dropping the reins to dangle on the ground, he approached and she turned. As beautiful as the valley was, she was that much lovelier. She was a taste of Dixie planted in a Montana cowboy’s life, a dollop of sweet cream melting on warm apple pie. And he was a better man for having her here. He’d learned that from his father, who’d taught him integrity, strength and grit were best balanced with the delicateness only a woman could give.
“I love you,” he said. He tugged off his gloves and cradled her face in his hands. “More than words.”
“So don’t talk,” she replied.
He chuckled and leaned in. “I have nothing else to say anyway.”
Tilting her mouth toward his, he pressed their lips together, the softness of her tongue and cheek, the heat of her breath steaming in curled wisps toward a cobalt blue sky.
THE END
FROM THE AUTHOR
I love cowboy stories, and 2017 is the year of the cowboy. There are two more books in this series and another series of five. I hope you’ll saddle up and ride along with me.
God bless,
Suzanne D. Williams
www.feelgoodromance.com
If you enjoyed this story, look for Book 2.
The silence of his exit soured the food. Brenna lay down and stared toward the ceiling, yet past it toward the moment Kees had fired his rifle and shot the grizzly. He didn’t see what she did – skill and knowledge earned through hard work, and some God-given sense no one else seemed to have. He wanted her to let go, but like her love for Montana, he’d grown in her, as fixed as the mountains that made this land what it was. And no amount of man’s efforts could remove either one.
——-
After yet another argument with her dad, Brenna Stratton fled into the rain, riding her horse deep into the Montana countryside. An expert horsewoman, she has no fear of survival, until a mudslide traps her on the backside of a mountain face-to-face with a male grizzly.
The irony of being asked to locate the one girl he can’t stand struck Kees Butler from the start. Brenna has tailed after him for years with stars in her eyes. But in this wet weather, he’s the best tracker in the area and probably the only man who can find her and come out alive.
A stare down with an angry bear is only the beginning of the trouble, though. Forced to shelter for days in an abandoned cabin, far off the trail, the volatile mix that is him and her erupts once more, lighting a spark that refuses to go out. She is poetry he needs in his life. Poetry, her worsening health and her dad’s hatred for him threaten to leave unwritten.
Book 2 of 3 in the GRACE & COWBOYS series by author, SUZANNE D. WILLIAMS.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Best-selling author, Suzanne D. Williams, is a native Floridian, wife, mother, and photographer. She is the author of both nonfiction and fiction books. She writes devotionals and instructional articles for various blogs. She also does graphic design for self-publishing authors. She is co-founder of THE EDGE.
To learn more about what she’s doing and check out her extensive catalog of stories, visit www.feelgoodromance.com or link with her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/suzannedwilliamsauthor or on Twitter at twitter.com/SDWAuthor.
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