At least for now, Elena amended.
* * *
The three of them got back to the stable all too soon in Daniel’s opinion. Reflecting on it, it seemed rather incredible to him that they covered the same amount of distance coming and going and yet it felt as if going had taken far longer than getting back to their starting point.
They caught the stable owner just in time. Jake looked as if he was about to go to the diner to get an early lunch and appeared a little disgruntled that he had to put it off now until he had settled up with the returning customers.
“I see you found each other,” he commented, his squinty eyes moving over each of them.
“We did,” Shania replied pleasantly. Then, picking up on the man’s impatient body language, she got straight to business. “How much do I owe you, Mr. McReedy?”
“Got your bills right here,” he told her, nodding at the bulletin board on the far wall.
There were three separate receipts pinned on it and he took off one of them to hand to her.
Daniel was slightly confused. “I thought you wanted to wait until we got back before you did the calculations.”
“If you stay out for more than two hours, there’s a flat rate,” Jake answered. “It encourages return business.”
She thought it spoke in the man’s favor to offer deals, but it really wasn’t that necessary, either. “It’s not like you’ve got a lot of competition,” Shania pointed out.
Jake flushed a little, as if he hadn’t really thought the matter out that far. The stable owner shrugged awkwardly. “Still no reason to gouge folks. Miss Joan taught me that.”
“Miss Joan’s been in business longer than you?” Elena asked him in surprise.
Jake laughed, some of his awkwardness abating. “That woman’s been in business just a little less longer than God.”
“Better not let her hear you say that, Jake,” Daniel warned the older man seriously, “or your days’ll be numbered—and there’s nothing I can do to help you.”
“That old woman’s not above the law,” Jake reminded him nervously.
But the expression on Daniel’s face said otherwise, which just made Jake that much more nervous.
“Oh, she’s above a lot of things,” Daniel told the stable owner. He didn’t particularly care to hear any disrespectful remarks aimed at Miss Joan.
Daniel glanced over toward Shania and then reached for the receipt she had in her hand. “Why don’t I just take care of that?” he suggested, then looked at Jake. “Is there a discount for three receipts?”
Jake’s small dark eyes looked like marbles as they rolled back and forth between Daniel and the high school teacher.
“You two aren’t related, now, are you?” Jake asked them.
This time Daniel didn’t bother putting the man on. Instead he gave Jake a very firm “No.”
“Then no, there’s no discount for three receipts,” Jake answered.
Shania reached to take back the receipt that the deputy had managed to slip out of her hand.
“I can pay my own way, Deputy Tallchief,” she told him.
But Daniel retained possession of the receipt, holding it above his head. Shania wasn’t able to reach for it.
“Nobody said you couldn’t,” he replied. “You shared your lunch with us, the least I can do is pay for your riding time.”
It was obvious that Jake clearly didn’t care who won the debate as long as he was paid by somebody. As he listened to the debate, his stomach started to rumble in protest.
Jake sighed impatiently. “This going to take much longer?”
Multiplying Shania’s receipt by three, Daniel handed the stable owner the amount owed for all three rides. “Nope, not long at all, Jake,” he answered the man.
Money in hand, Jake counted it quickly. He smiled in satisfaction, his grin showing the space between two of his lower teeth before he suddenly remembered it was there. His lips quickly closed over it like a curtain coming down on an unplanned performance.
“Nice doing business with you folks,” Jake said, nodding at them. “Come again,” he called after the three people as they were leaving his stable.
“See you tomorrow, Ms. Stewart,” Elena said, raising her voice as they walked out. They were heading in two different directions.
Shania paused just long enough to look at the girl. Her eyes smiled at Elena as she said, “I look forward to it.”
And then she hurried over toward where she had parked her vehicle.
Watching the woman get into her car, Daniel forced himself to start moving. He opened the door on the driver’s side of his vehicle, aware that Elena had already opened hers.
“So things are going well between you and Ms. Stewart.” It wasn’t a question on Daniel’s part, but an assumption.
Daniel avoided his sister’s eyes as he got into the car. Elena had already climbed in on her side.
He could feel Elena’s eyes on him, as if she was debating whether or not to answer his question or just ignore it.
She went with the former, asking a question of her own. “Yeah, why?”
Daniel played along, even though they both knew why he’d ask her the question. “Well, a few weeks ago, you looked like you were ready to spit nails at the woman because she was giving you too much homework and trying to make you dig deep into yourself.”
Elena waved dismissively at her brother’s explanation. “That’s just your imagination.”
“Pretty sure it was more than that,” he said. “I was just wondering what changed between the two of you.”
“Nothing.” He heard a defensive note reentering his sister’s voice. “I just decided that it’s smart to be smart. Anything wrong with that?”
Daniel allowed himself a small smile. He decided that Shania Stewart was nothing short of a miracle worker.
“Not a thing in the world,” he replied. He glanced at her, then looked back at the near empty road. “Would I be ruining something in your opinion if I told you that I was proud of you?”
Elena shrugged, doing her best to look indifferent to his words of praise. “You don’t have to say you’re proud of me.”
“I know I don’t have to,” Daniel answered. “I want to,” he said, stressing the middle word. “You know me well enough to know I don’t do or say things because I ‘have’ to.”
If anything, Elena seemed to grow a little stiffer. The look his sister slanted at him was one he couldn’t quite fathom.
And then she finally said by way of a rebuttal to her brother’s argument, “I don’t know about that. You’re taking care of me.”
What was at the bottom of all this? he couldn’t help wondering. “Again, it’s because I want to,” Daniel told her.
Elena sighed. “Uh-huh.”
It was obvious that she was in the mood to discount what he’d just said.
Daniel decided to drop the subject for now and turned to another one. He glanced at her, then said, “Thanks for going riding with me.”
Surprised, Elena looked at him. And then the teen suddenly laughed. “I figured if I didn’t, you’d probably tie me up and make me come with you.”
“Well, as it turned out, luckily, that wasn’t necessary,” he said. “And I think you’ll agree that it all turned out for the best—like you getting along better with Ms. Stewart,” he couldn’t help throwing in again, hoping this time to get his sister to respond the way he hoped she would.
“Yeah, she’s all right,” Elena answered, adopting a lofty tone. And then she suddenly turned the tables on her brother by telling him, “You sure seemed like you liked her.”
Caught off guard, it took Daniel a second to pull his thoughts together. The one thing he knew was that he wasn’t about to get pulled into that discussion.
Instead, he said, “I like most people.”
/> He didn’t expect his sister to hoot at the response. “Yeah, right. What’s that fairy tale about that puppet whose nose grew whenever he told a lie?” she asked him innocently.
“Why are you asking me about that?”
She pressed her lips together before she answered his question. “’Cause yours is about to break your truck’s windshield.”
Unable to maintain a serious expression any longer, Elena grinned from ear to ear, tickled by the image she’d just painted.
She fully expected her brother to vehemently deny her observation. When she heard him laugh instead, she was at first surprised—and then she had to admit that his reaction pleased her a great deal.
They laughed together, something that was thankfully becoming a more common occurrence.
* * *
Shania walked into her house and was immediately greeted by an extremely energetic Belle. In her enthusiasm, the German shepherd came perilously close to knocking her down.
“I wasn’t gone that long, girl,” Shania protested, laughing.
But the amount of energy the dog was incorporating into her welcome told Shania that perhaps she’d misjudged the time element—at least as far as Belle was concerned.
“I forgot, you can’t tell time very well, can you?” Shania laughed as she rubbed the dog’s head. Wynona had once told her that an hour seemed like a day and a day was like an eternity to the dog.
“You know, maybe next time, I’ll take you along with me. But you’re going to have to do a lot of running to keep up,” she warned the dog. Belle barked. “Maybe that’ll do you some good,” Shania decided. “I know you would have liked who I ran into. Elena, one of my students,” she told the dog, then added, “And her brother.” She cast a side glance at her pet as she went to refill Belle’s water dish and get the dog something to eat.
“You’ve already met him. It’s that deputy you gave a bath to with that big, sloppy tongue of yours,” she told Belle.
There was no way in the world the dog could have understood her, Shania reasoned. But Belle seemed to get really enthusiastic when she “heard” Daniel’s description.
“You know, Belle, anyone would think that you have a crush on that man,” she said with a laugh. “Well, he’s all yours, girl.”
Belle circled her several times, then plopped down on her back right in front of her.
Shania sank down beside the animal and began petting her. “Rehearsing for when you run into him next time?”
Belle barked.
“I thought so,” Shania answered.
Chapter Eleven
In Shania’s opinion, as she replayed it, it seemed like an unusual request. But then Miss Joan was an unusual woman by everyone’s standards. Still, the owner of the diner had never sent one of her waitresses to ask her to come to the diner after school had let out for the day before.
Until today.
Even so, Shania had demurred at first, citing the fact that she was holding a PSAT class at the high school after hours.
Surprisingly, Violet the waitress seemed prepared for that. She had obviously been coached by Miss Joan for exactly this eventuality. Violet told Shania that Miss Joan wanted her to come whenever she was finished with the class.
Cornered, Shania didn’t feel she could really beg off after that. However, she didn’t rush through her class, either. Instead, she fielded all the questions that the small group of students in the after-hours class wanted to ask.
Once the last student had left the room, only then did she make her way to the diner. It was a few minutes after five before she was able to show up. The diner was about half full. The dinner crowd hadn’t begun to show up in earnest yet.
The minute she walked in, Shania made her way straight to the counter. Now that her class was over, her curiosity finally got the better of her. Why did the woman want to see her?
Try as she might, she couldn’t come up with a single reason.
Standing behind the counter, Miss Joan was just pouring some fresh coffee into a cup when Shania reached her.
Miss Joan certainly didn’t act as if anything was wrong, she thought. But then, Miss Joan was known to play poker regularly.
“You wanted to see me?” Shania asked the woman. In her opinion this wasn’t the time for small talk and she didn’t bother with any.
“I wouldn’t have sent Violet to fetch you if I didn’t,” Miss Joan replied, smoothly moving the cup and saucer closer to her.
“About?” Shania asked, curbing her impatience.
What was going on here? When Violet had sought her out, giving her Miss Joan’s message, the waitress had made it sound urgent. Yet Miss Joan looked and acted as if she had all the time in the world.
Instead of answering her question, Miss Joan nodded at the empty stool Shania was standing next to.
“Sit,” the older woman told her. “Take a load off. Have some coffee.”
Since it was obvious that she wasn’t about to get the answer to her question until she complied with Miss Joan’s instructions, Shania did as the woman said.
She sat down, loosened her coat and had a sip of coffee. Once she did, Shania looked into the woman’s eyes and asked, “Now will you tell me what I’m doing here?”
“Sitting and having a cup of coffee,” Miss Joan answered as if that should have been very obvious to her.
This was a game to the woman, Shania decided. She had no recourse but to go along with whatever this was until it played out. “Violet made it sound urgent,” Shania stressed.
“Violet has a tendency to be overly dramatic,” Miss Joan answered, waving a thin hand at the idea that this was an urgent meeting.
And then the woman gave her one of her famous long, penetrating looks. The kind Harry, her husband, swore could get a hardened criminal to make a full confession even if he was about to get away with the crime.
It seemed like an eternity later before Miss Joan finally spoke. When she did, she didn’t say anything that Shania had been expecting.
“I haven’t seen you in a while.” The hazel eyes looked at her intently. “Not since Wynona’s wedding.”
Shania couldn’t help thinking that something was definitely up. Miss Joan had never expressed a desire to have her come by before.
At a loss, she made something up. “I’ve been meaning to drop by the diner, but there never seems to be enough time. I’ve been kind of busy, what with teaching and holding those extra study classes after hours.”
Although everything she was saying was true, Shania couldn’t help feeling as if she was coming up with excuses. Excuses that Miss Joan saw right through.
“Uh-huh,” the older woman murmured. Probing hazel eyes swept over her again. “How are you holding up?” Miss Joan asked without warning.
“Holding up?” Shania repeated. She had no idea what Miss Joan was really asking her. “Holding up” sounded as if she was referring to some sort of a crisis and there wasn’t any.
“Well, Wynona’s moved out of the house and she’s busy starting a new life while you’re going on with your old one,” Miss Joan said.
“I’m all right,” Shania replied haltingly, her voice sounding rather tinny to her own ear.
“How about the baby?” Miss Joan asked, the woman’s eyes still pinning her down. “You must be excited about the little one coming.”
For a second, Shania could only stare at the woman. She knew that Wynona had wanted to keep the news under wraps for a few more weeks, which meant that she hadn’t told anyone else. That included Miss Joan.
Yet the woman knew.
Shania suppressed a sigh. She wasn’t about to waste time asking Miss Joan how she’d found out about Wynona’s pregnancy. It was almost a given that Miss Joan always knew everything before anyone else did.
In this case, probably before Wynona knew.
&
nbsp; She was about to give the woman a vague response when she saw Miss Joan looking around her shoulder toward the door.
It was too much to hope for that someone had come in to divert the woman’s attention away from her, Shania thought.
But, even so, Miss Joan definitely looked as if someone had caught her interest.
If whoever had just walked in came over to engage the woman in a conversation, she might even be able to make good her escape. Shania crossed her fingers.
But before she could even attempt to slide off her stool, she heard the person Miss Joan was looking at ask almost the same question she just had when she’d walked in.
“The sheriff said you wanted to see me, Miss Joan. Here I am. What’s the problem?” Daniel asked the woman before he realized that he was standing one empty stool over from Shania.
Shania turned and their eyes met. Somewhere, she could have sworn she heard electricity crackle.
“I didn’t say there was a problem,” Miss Joan informed the deputy matter-of-factly. She shook her head. “You’d think that someone like the sheriff would relay messages correctly.”
“What message should he have relayed?” Daniel asked her, playing along.
Miss Joan lifted her thin shoulders and let them drop in a careless shrug.
“Doesn’t matter,” she informed him crisply. “The problem’s been resolved.” She filled another cup with coffee and moved that cup and saucer toward the empty stool. The one that was right next to Shania’s. “Why don’t you have this cup of coffee on the house as payment for your time, Deputy?” Miss Joan suggested.
Daniel looked down at the cup, appearing just the slightest bit amused. “You know I can’t accept any kind of a payment for services rendered, Miss Joan.”
“But you didn’t render any services,” Miss Joan pointed out.
He tried again. “Even so—”
“Just sit down and drink the damn coffee, Tallchief,” Miss Joan ordered. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to argue with your elders? Take a page out of her book,” she said, jerking a thumb at Shania. Then, because the deputy still continued standing there, she asked Daniel, “You do know how to sit, don’t you, Deputy? Just bend your knees and let gravity do the rest.” Seemingly satisfied that he would do as he was told, Miss Joan was already moving away. “I’ll be back in a few minutes to see if either of you needs a refill.”
The Lawman's Romance Lesson (Forever, Tx. Series Book 20) Page 10