Did she have the whole town’s schedule memorized, or was it just Louise? Louise opened her mouth to say something, not sure what, as they’d been around the world and back since she’d picked up the phone, but Miss Harriet was faster than her.
“The whole town is looking forward to Harvest Fest, and it’s perfect every year, so not to put pressure on you, but you want to get started right away and make sure people are doing their jobs.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Louise felt like she won a major victory just getting some words inputted into the conversation.
“Huh? That’s easy, honey. You just get that great big lug-of-muscle that’s co-chairing with you to point those dimples at the ladies, and they’ll perk right up. As for the guys, I’m sure the jock can intimidate them, but usually it’s the wives who are in charge, so just focus on getting their approval, and they’ll whip their husbands right up into shape, so they will.”
“I don’t want to be the co-chair.”
“Of course you don’t, honey. We don’t do things because we want to, we do them because it’s right. Now, make sure you stop in and get my lists. I’ll be leaving tomorrow early. Thanks for the chat.”
Miss Harriet hung up.
Louise stood in the kitchen holding the phone, staring at it like Miss Harriet might pick up again if she only waited long enough.
Not gonna happen. She slapped the phone down on the counter. Frustrated. She actually would love to chair the committee on Harvest Fest. She loved her town and loved serving. Loved planning things that made other people smile. But she didn’t want to...couldn’t...do it with Ty Hanson. She just couldn’t.
Gram had already gone out to the garden, so Louise shoved those thoughts aside and grabbed her gardening gloves. She stepped out the back door and into the beautiful North Dakota morning. Mist rose from the ground, and as far as she could see, brown and green and blue stretched out until they met on the far horizon.
Gram sat over by the beans, on one of the benches Palmer had made. It was dry enough to pick them, and Gram was pulling long purple pods off the bushes and putting them into a bucket. Louise went over to the potatoes first, pulling out some weeds and reaching her fingers in to grab a few tubers to have with the beans at lunch. She had a ham bone in the fridge that would provide meat and flavor.
Mentally she calculated how many jars she had washed in the pantry. Probably enough to can a few quarts of beans, because there should be way more than they could eat today.
When Tella came running happily outside, thankfully completely recovered from her fever, Louise gave her the potatoes to take in and set on the table. “Bring me a clean bucket from the porch, too, please. And I’ll help Gram pick.”
Louise walked over to the bean row and bent over. She loved this variety. They tasted okay, but the deep purple bean against the dark green leaves was as pleasing to the eye as anything could be and made them fun to pick.
“Wow, you already have a ton in your bucket,” she said to Gram, calculating in her head if she’d be done with the canning before having to go to work. “I’m at the diner from one to nine today.”
“Ames said she’d help,” Gram said easily. Gram had always been like a workhorse. Plodding along at the same pace, never rushing, just getting the work done. Louise knew she had more of a tendency to sprint then get tired.
“That will work out, then,” Louise said, hoping she didn’t sound discouraged. This really should be Ames’s house now.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Gram’s hands never stopped moving, but her head turned to give Louise an assessing glance. Gram had been concerned about Pap after his stroke, but normally she didn’t miss much.
Could she share her concerns about Ames needing to be mistress of her own house with her gram? Gram would encourage her to stay, of course. Although Gram was always honest. To a fault, maybe.
She checked out the house to make sure Ames wasn’t lingering at the door. “I was thinking, with Ames coming here to live, maybe I need to move on.”
“Because you feel like it’s Ames’s house now?”
“Yes.” She threw a handful of beans into Gram’s bucket. “In my heart, it’s still yours.”
“But you and Palmer do most of the work to keep things moving,” Gram pointed out, her hands never slowing.
“I know. I want Ames to feel welcome and like she has a home.”
“I know what you mean, dear.” Gram’s beans hit the bucket with a satisfying plop. “So, where would you move on to?”
Louise shrugged. “In town maybe.” Gram didn’t know about the money, and Louise wasn’t going to mention it, although she might suspect about Paul.
“Is that the best for Tella?”
“Tella still could come out here as much as she wanted. And it would actually be easier for her to get to school. It would be a much shorter bus ride.”
“True.”
“Plus, there would be some kids to play with in town.”
“You think Tella needs that?”
“I think so.” Did she? Tella was serious and quiet for her age. There was nothing wrong with that. But eventually, Louise’d be buying her own spread.
“Sometimes kids get into more trouble with others their age. She’s not lacking companionship and attention. This way, she’ll work well with people who aren’t her age. I’m not sure it’s necessary.”
Gram had said what was in Louise’s heart.
“If you’re thinking you need to marry Paul to get out of here, I say no. But if you’re thinking you want to give Ames some space, I say that’s thoughtful of you.”
“Maybe Ames doesn’t need space.” Ames walked around the corner of the garden. “I feel awful that you think you need to leave now that I’m here.”
Louise looked up for a second to smile at Ames before continuing to pick beans. “It’s not that I feel like I do, it’s that I think it might be better for everyone for you to get established here. This is your home. Surely you want a little privacy.”
“Maybe Pap and I need to go,” Gram said in the same no-nonsense tone.
“No.”
“No.”
Ames and Louise spoke together.
Louise gave Ames a pleading look, hoping she’d understand and not get offended. “I just want to give you the room to make this place your own home. Not mine. And not with an eight-year-old underfoot.”
Ames glanced over to where Tella skipped around the garden, swinging a rope and obviously wrapped up in some kind of pretend play. “She’s not a problem. Neither are you.”
Louise didn’t say anything. She figured both Gram and Ames would say what they were thinking, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to move out of the way. At least for a little bit. And she couldn’t discount the fact that if she got married, she’d have the money to buy her own ranch, with enough left over to hire help.
“I haven’t made any decisions.”
“You’ll talk to us first?” Ames asked. “Palmer would be heartbroken if he thought you were moving out because we’re here.”
“I won’t do anything without talking to you and Palmer,” Louise agreed. She didn’t say how soon she’d talk to them.
And she still hadn’t solved her other, bigger problem about Ty. But maybe she just needed to man up and face him. She’d been thinking of ways to run. Maybe she just needed to lift her head and take it on the chin.
Chapter 3
Ty walked up the street to the gym. In his condo in Pittsburgh, he slept until noon and was up until after midnight. Here in North Dakota, everything shut down by eight p.m. His mother was busy making crafts for her online business. She and a friend were taking a vanload of things to a craft fair in the Cities and would be gone all week. She’d felt bad about leaving when he just arrived, but it was the way she earned her living. Renting the ranch ground brought in some but not enough, which was part of the reason she was selling.
He couldn’t stand to think of her sell
ing the ranch, but looking at it from her perspective, it made sense. She said she had someone interested, but Ty was tossing around the idea of buying it himself. The memories of his dad had faded with time, and he’d actually gotten to the point where he wouldn’t mind walking in his dad’s shoes.
He’d been a hockey player for so long. Could he become a cowboy again?
He assured his mom that he’d be fine while she was gone. She’d left food in the fridge, and he intended to hit up Patty’s Diner for his evening meal.
As he walked down the cracked sidewalk, looking around, the town hadn’t changed all that much. A few businesses gone. It looked older, weathered.
The parking spaces in front of the diner and the gym were all taken, so he’d had to park up the street. He didn’t remember the diner being that busy years ago.
He reached the solid glass door of the gym and pulled it open. He hadn’t expected it to be busy, either. He remembered Sweet Water as small and sleepy. Not many kids stayed after graduation. But it was a nice town to have a family in. Safe. Friendly. Everyone knew everyone else.
As he walked to the counter, which was located at the back, he nodded at a couple of people who were looking at him like they knew him. From his picture on TV, apparently, because he looked nothing like the boy he’d been when he left.
Wonder what Louise would think of him now?
He shoved that thought aside as he rented a locker and bought a one-month membership. She hated him, of course. Guys didn’t do what he did and get away with it. Funny that Louise never called him out or tracked him down. The whole way through college, he half-expected her to show up. Or maybe he just wanted her to.
He shrugged that off too and made a quick call to his therapist before he started his workout with his PT on a facetime call.
Two hours later, he clicked his locker shut and slung his bag over his shoulder. It was the last year on his contract, and he wasn’t going to get lax. Just because he was widely considered to be the best forward in the NHL didn’t mean he would get a great offer. Sometimes his hometown seemed quaint and rural, but it had definitely taught him the value of hard work.
He chugged another drink from the water bottle he carried before pushing the door open and stepping out. His stomach rumbled. The diner had cleared out some, judging by the fact that there were several spaces available in front of it now. Eating alone had never been his thing, but maybe he could chat up the waitress. It would make a lonely meal bearable if he at least had a conversation going.
He stepped in, the little bell on the door ringing in a friendly way. He didn’t remember it being this small.
The sign said “Seat Yourself,” but there weren’t that many choices. Two tables were empty but not cleaned. A waitress, with golden blond hair pushed through the hole in the back of her hat and falling to the middle of her back, stood with her back to him as she wrote down the order of an older couple sitting in a booth along the window.
She was slim and seemed friendly as the older couple laughed. The older lady patted the waitress’s arm. Yeah, she’d do.
He nodded at a man and a boy who stared at him. Several other tables looked around at his arrival with the nosy interest of a small town. A couple of people didn’t even move. Out-of-towners, probably. Or maybe, like him, they’d left and realized the rest of the world didn’t stick their noses into every other citizen’s business.
He took a table in the corner with his back to the wall so he could look over the room. His eyes were drawn again to the waitress as she took the order to the cook and came back to deliver drinks then clear the tables. Maybe she didn’t see him come in. Or maybe she was friends with Louise, and Louise had told her what he’d done.
Doubtful. Louise wasn’t a tattletale. Smart and serious, she’d made her words count. She’d probably gone and become a doctor or professor or researcher. She’d probably just come in for her brother’s wedding and was long gone back wherever she lived, with her family and her life. He could stop thinking he saw her in every woman he passed.
He probably ought to be asking who the pianist at the church was. He’d forgotten to ask his mother before she left. He’d text her later when he was sure she wasn’t driving anymore.
The waitress turned and carried a heavy load of dirty dishes back to the kitchen. Ty pulled out his phone. It wasn’t like there were a multitude of places to eat. If this diner had rotten service, he was stuck, unless he wanted to drive forty-five minutes to the next town over, which he was going to do to see Ford and Georgia. But not tonight.
LOUISE SET THE DIRTY plates down and struggled to breathe. He was out there, and she had to wait on him. Jackson and Rebel were in the kitchen, sharing cooking duties and cleaning dirties, but she was alone out front. Normally it was tough over the dinner hour but slow the rest of the time and she could work on her editing jobs. She eyed her laptop where it sat over on the shelf in front of the big window that connected the dining area with the kitchen. Not today. She’d be lucky if she got through this without expelling her late lunch. She’d need help stringing sentences together to talk. No way she’d be able to edit a document, no matter how simple.
She had to face him. Now was as good a time as any. Setting the soda refills on her tray, she forced a smile on a face that felt like it had waxed paper pressed over it and tried to get her scattering heart to beat properly. Her shaking fingers wouldn’t hold a pencil, so she decided she’d just listen to his order, using the memory tricks she’d taught herself to keep it in her head. Shouldn’t be hard.
Her feet felt heavy and slow like she was heading to the electric chair as she approached his table. Wearing a t-shirt that was at least three sizes too small and jeans that hugged his lean hips, he might be good-looking to other girls. But that muscular physique had never done anything for her. It was when he started talking to her that she’d realized he was different than his clique at school would lead her to believe. Turned out he just had a silver tongue to go along with the jock’s body.
A body that was much more filled out now than it had been in high school.
She took the last few steps to his table. His head was bent over the phone, but his nose was strong in profile, if slightly crooked. That was new.
Tella was a huge hockey fan, and maybe it had been subconscious, but Tella had always liked Ty’s team and Ty himself. Of course, anyone who was even a casual fan of the game knew Ty Hanson.
His scent drifted up. Same undertones, bringing back those old memories, but a new and totally different overlying scent. Hard. It reminded her of heated nights and strong arms.
She shook her head. She needed to concentrate. His scent, and everything it brought to her mind, was not a part of that.
She didn’t bother with her opening spiel that she might have given to a different stranger. “Menu’s on your placemat. What do you want to drink?”
“Water,” he said without looking up, his thumbs going a hundred miles an hour on his phone. She turned, checking on her other customers, bringing out orders that were ready, getting checks for two.
Finally, she’d kept him waiting long enough, and with a glass of ice water and a dish with two lemon slices in it, she headed back to his table. His phone was still in his hand, but he was staring so intently out the window that she actually semi-forgot her dread and looked out too, wondering what he was studying so avidly.
All she saw in the falling darkness was a slim girl, maybe in her late teens, with light blond hair, holding an armful of books and walking down the sidewalk. A boy about the same age or a little older walked beside her. The girl had her head down and reminded Louise of herself at that age, always thinking about something. Her gram said she walked around with her head in the clouds.
Ty rubbed a hand over his face and shook it like he was trying to get some thought out of his head. He braced both elbows on the table and held his head in his hands.
She set the glass down with a clank, followed by the dish of lemon wedges. “Know wh
at you want?” she asked, as short as she could and still be polite.
He took a breath, his shoulders going up, stretching his poor t-shirt. Or lucky t-shirt, if one’s mind worked that way, which hers didn’t, Louise assured herself.
“Yeah.” He looked up. “I’ll take a...”
Their eyes met. Lights flashed, and Louise felt as though she’d been shoved, from behind, from in front, she wasn’t sure, just knew that she was off-balance, off-center, and disoriented. Except for her eyes which were solidly connected to his, deep and fathomless blue. They widened. His jaw muscles flexed. His mouth went up and down, but no sound come out.
Her heart tried to dive out of her chest then bounced back, hitting the bottom of her stomach before jerking back into place, beating maniacally. Her hand rose to her chest, and her lungs sagged. But the stoic Norwegian blood that flowed through her veins helped her keep her face impassive.
“Louise,” he breathed, barely audible.
She wanted to hate him. She wanted to be immune to his silver tongue and many charms. She wasn’t so far out in the universe that she hadn’t heard about the things he’d done and the supermodels he’d dated. She knew. And every time she heard, she told herself it didn’t matter. He was history.
But her heart beat in her chest in a patchy rhythm, and feelings stirred in her chest that no one else came close to stirring. She could fall for him again. She knew she could.
“It’s you.” His eyes swept over her, and for a second, she was embarrassed at her jeans and t-shirt, her sloppy hairdo, no makeup, and worn, comfortable shoes. She wanted to touch her hair and fix her shirt, but then her rational mind took over. He’d been out with supermodels. She could spend all day on her hair and clothes and makeup, and she would never look like a supermodel.
Cowboys Don't Have a Secret Baby Page 3