A Cold Creek Reunion (11 page)

“You made it back safely.”

“Yes.”

Laura’s voice came out husky, thready. She cleared it. Her cheeks were rosy and she refused to meet his gaze. “Yes. Safe but not quite dry. On our way down, we were caught in the first few minutes of the rainstorm. Taft loaned me some of your clothes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, of course! You can keep them, for heaven’s sake. What about the kids? Are they okay?”

“More than okay.” Her smile seemed strained, but he wasn’t sure anyone but him could tell. “This was the most exciting thing that has happened to them since we’ve been back in Pine Gulch—and that’s saying something, considering Alex started a fire that had four ladder trucks responding. They were so thrilled by the whole day that they were both exhausted and fell asleep watching cartoons while we have been waiting for our clothes to run through the dryer—which is silly, by the way. We could have been home in fifteen minutes, but Taft wouldn’t let us leave in our wet gear.”

“Wise man.” Ridge spoke up for the first time. His brother gave him a searching look very much like Caidy’s before turning back to her. “Great to see you again, Laura.”

Ridge stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, and she responded with a warm smile she still hadn’t given
Taft
.

“Welcome back to Pine Gulch. How are you settling in?”

“Good. Being home again is…an adventure.”

“How’s the dog?” Taft asked.

“Lucky. Looks like only a broken leg,” Caidy said. “Doc Harris hurried back from a meeting in Pocatello so he could set it. He’s keeping him overnight for observation.”

“Good man, that Doc Harris.”

“I know. I don’t know what we’re all going to do when he finally retires.”

“You’ll have to find another vet to keep on speed dial,” Taft teased.

Caidy made a face at him, then turned back to Laura. “You and the kids will stay for dinner, won’t you? I can throw soup and biscuits on and have it ready in half an hour.”

As much as he wanted her to agree, he knew—even before she said the words—exactly how she would answer.

“Thank you for the invitation, but I’m afraid I’m covering the front-desk shift this evening. I’m sorry. In fact, I should really be going. I’m sure our clothes are dry by now. Perhaps another time?”

“Yes, definitely. Let me go check on your clothes.”

“I can do it,” Laura protested, but Caidy was faster, probably because she had grown up in a family of boys where you had to move quick if you wanted the last piece of pie or a second helping of potato salad.

Ridge and Laura talked about the inn and her plans for renovating it for the few moments it took for Caidy to return from the laundry room off the kitchen with her arms full of clothing.

“Here you go. Nice and dry.”

“Great. I’ll go wake up my kids and then we can get out of your way.”

“You’re not in our way. I promise. I’m so glad you could come out to the ranch. I’m only sorry I wasn’t here for the ride, since I was the one who invited you. I’m not usually so rude.”

“It wasn’t rude,” Laura protested. “You were helping a wounded dog. That’s more important than a little ride we could have done anytime.”

Caidy opened the door to the media room. Laura gave him one more emotion-charged look before following his sister, leaving Taft alone with Ridge.

His brother studied him for a long moment, reminding Taft uncomfortably of their father when he and Trace found themselves in some scrape or other.

“Be careful there, brother,” Ridge finally said.

He was thirty-four years old and wasn’t at all in the mood for a lecture from an older brother who tended to think he was the boss of the world. “About?”

“I’ve got eyes. I can tell when a woman’s just been kissed.”

He was
really
not in the mood to talk about Laura with Ridge. As much as he respected his brother for stepping up and taking care of both Caidy and the ranch after their parents died, Ridge was
not
their father and he didn’t have to answer to the man.

“What’s your point?” he asked, more belligerently than he probably should have.

Ridge frowned. “You sure you know what you’re doing, dredging everything up again with Laura?”

If I figure that out, I’ll be sure to let you know.
“All I did was take her and her kids for a horseback ride.”

Ridge was silent for a long moment. “I don’t know what happened between the two of you all those years ago, why you didn’t end up walking down the aisle when everybody could tell the two of you were crazy in love.”

“Does it matter? It’s ancient history.”

“Not that ancient. Ten years. And take it from an expert, the choices we make in the past can haunt us for the rest of our lives.”

Ridge should definitely know that. He had married a woman completely unsuitable for ranch life who had ended up making everybody around her miserable, too.

“Given your track record with women in the years since,” Ridge went on, “I’m willing to bet you’re the one who ended things. You didn’t waste much time being heartbroken over the end of your engagement.”

That shows what you know,
he thought. “It was a mutual decision,” he lied for the umpteenth time.

“If I remember right, you picked up with that Turner woman just a week or two after Laura left town. And then Sonia Gallegos a few weeks after that.”

Yeah, he remembered those bleak days after she left, the gaping emptiness he had tried—and failed—to fill, when he had wanted nothing but to chase after her, drag her home and keep her where she belonged, with him.

“What’s your point, Ridge?”

“This goes without saying—”

“Yet you’re going to say it anyway.”

“Damn straight. Laura isn’t one of your Bandito bimbos. She’s a decent person with a couple of kids, including one with challenges. Keep in mind she lost her husband recently. The last thing she probably needs is you messing with her head and heart again when she’s trying to build a life here.”

Like his favorite fishing knife, his brother’s words seemed to slice right to the bone.

He wanted her fiercely—but just because he wanted something didn’t mean he automatically deserved it. He’d learned that lesson young when his mother used to make him and Trace take out the garbage or change out a load of laundry if they wanted an extra cookie before dinner.

If he wanted another chance with her after the way he had treated her—and damn it, he
did
—he was going to have to earn his way back. He didn’t know how yet. He only knew he planned to work like hell to become the kind of man he should have been
ten years ago.

Chapter Eight

L
aura was going to kill him. Severely.

Five days after going riding with her and her kids above River Bow, Taft set down the big bag of supplies his sister had given him onto the concrete, then shifted the bundle into his left arm so he could use his right arm to wield his key card, the only way after hours to enter the side door of the inn closest to his room.

“Almost there, buddy,” he said when the bundle whimpered.

He swiped the card, waiting for the little light to turn green, but it stayed stubbornly red. Too fast? Too slow? He hated these things. He tried it again, but the blasted light still didn’t budge off red.

Apparently either the key code wasn’t working anymore or his card had somehow become demagnetized.

Shoot. Of all the nights to have trouble, when he literally had his hands full.

“Sorry, buddy. Hang on a bit more and we’ll get you settled inside. I promise.”

The little brown-and-black corgi-beagle mix perked his ginormous ears at him and gave him a quizzical look.

He tried a couple more times in the vain hope that five or six times was the charm, then gave up, accepting the inevitable trip to the lobby. He glanced at his watch. Eleven thirty-five. The front desk closed at midnight. Barring an unforeseen catastrophe between here and the front door, he should be okay.

He shoved the dog food and mat away from the door in case somebody else had better luck with their key card and needed to get through, then carried the dog around the side of the darkened inn.

The night was cool, as spring nights tended to be in the mountains, and he tucked the little dog under his jacket. The air was sweet with the scent of the flowers Laura had planted and new growth on the trees that lined the Cold Creek here.

On the way, he passed the sign he had noticed before that said Pets Welcome.

Yeah. He really, really hoped they meant it.

The property was quiet, as he might have expected. Judging by the few cars behind him in the parking lot, only about half the rooms at the inn were occupied. He hadn’t seen any other guests for a couple of days in his wing of the hotel, which he could only consider a good thing, given the circumstances—though he doubted Laura would agree.

At least his room was close to the side door in case he had to make any emergency trips outside with the injured dog his sister had somehow conned him into babysitting. He had to consider that another thing to add to the win column.

Was Laura working the front desk? She did sometimes, probably after her children were asleep. In the few weeks he’d been living at the inn, most of the time one of the college students Mrs. Pendleton hired was working the front desk on the late shift, usually a flirtatious coed he tried really hard to discourage.

He wasn’t sure whether he hoped to find Laura working or would prefer to avoid her a little longer. Not that he’d been avoiding her on purpose. He had been working crazy hours the past few days and hadn’t been around the inn much.

He hadn’t seen her since the other afternoon, when she had melted in his arms, although she hadn’t been far from his mind. Discovering he wanted her back in his life had been more than a little unsettling.

The lobby of the inn had seen major changes in the few weeks since Laura arrived. Through the front windows he could see that the froufrou couches and chairs that used to form a conversation pit of sorts had been replaced by a half-dozen tables and chairs, probably for the breakfast service he’d been hearing about.

Fresh flower arrangements gave a bright, springlike feeling to the place—probably Laura’s doing, as well.

When he opened the front door, he immediately spotted a honey-blond head bent over a computer and warmth seeped through him. He had missed her. Silly, when it had been only four days, but there it was.

The dog in his arms whimpered a little. Deciding discretion was the better part of valor and all that, he wrapped his coat a little more snuggly around the dog. No sense riling her before she needed to be riled.

He wasn’t technically doing anything wrong—pets
were
welcome after all, at least according to the sign, but somehow he had a feeling normal inn rules didn’t apply to him.

He warily approached her and as she sensed him, she looked up from the computer with a ready smile. At the sight of him, her smile slid away and he felt a pang in his gut.

“Oh. Hi.”

He shifted Lucky Lou a little lower in his arm. “Uh, hi. Sorry to bug you, but either my key card isn’t working or the side door lock is having trouble. I tried to come in that way, but I couldn’t get the green light.”

“No problem. I can reprogram your card.”

Her voice was stiff, formal. Had that stunning kiss ruined even the friendship he had been trying to rekindle?

“I like the furniture,” he said.

“Thanks. It was just delivered today. I’m pleased with the colors. We should be ready to start serving breakfast by early next week.”

“That will be a nice touch for your guests.”

“I think so.”

He hated that they had reverted back to polite small talk. They used to share everything with each other and he missed it.

The bundle under his jacket squirmed a little and she eyed him with curiosity.

“Uh, here’s my key,” he said, handing it over.

She slid it across the little doohickey card reader and handed it back to him. “That should work now, but let me know if you have more trouble.”

“Okay. Thanks. Good night.”

“Same to you,” she answered. He started to turn and leave just as Lou gave a small, polite yip and peeked his head out of the jacket, his mega-size ears cocked with interest.

She blinked, clearly startled. “Is that…”

“Oh, this? Oh. Yeah. You probably need to add him to your list of guests. This is Lucky Lou.”

At his newly christened name, the dog peeked all the way out. With those big corgi ears, he looked like a cross between a lemur and some kind of alien creature.

“Oh, he’s adorable.”

He blinked. Okay, she wasn’t yelling. That was a good sign. “Yeah, pretty cute, I guess. Not exactly the most manly of dogs, but he’s okay.”

“Is this the dog that was hit by a car the other day?”

“This is the one.”

To his great surprise, she walked around the side of the lobby desk for a closer look. He obliged by unwrapping the blanket, revealing the cast on the dog’s leg.

“Oh, he’s darling,” she exclaimed and reached out to run a hand down the animal’s fur. The dog responded just as Taft wanted to do, by nudging his head closer to her hand. So far, so good. Maybe she wasn’t going to kill him after all.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Lucky. Hence the name.”

She laughed softly and the sound curled through him, sweet and appealing.

He cleared his throat. “Somehow he came through with just a broken leg. It should heal up in a few weeks, but he needs to be watched closely during that time to make sure he doesn’t reinjure himself. He especially can’t be around the other dogs at the ranch because they tend to play rough, which poses a bit of a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“It’s a crazy-busy time at the ranch, with spring planting and all, not to mention Trace’s wedding. Caidy was looking for somebody who could keep an eye on Lou here and I sort of got roped into it.”

He didn’t add that his sister basically blackmailed him to take on the responsibility, claiming he owed her this because she told him about the planned horseback ride with Laura and her children in the first place.

“I guess I should ask whether you mind if I keep him here at the inn with me. Most of the time he’ll be at the station house or in my truck with me, but he’ll be here on the nights I’m not working there.”

She cupped the dog’s face in her hand. “I would have to be the most hardhearted woman on the planet to say no to that face.”

Okay, now he owed his sister big-time. Who knew the way to reach Laura’s heart was through an injured mongrel?

As if she suddenly realized how close she was standing, Laura eased away from him. The dog whimpered a little and Taft wanted to join him.

“Our policy does allow for pets,” she said. “Usually we charge a hundred-dollar deposit in case of damages, but given the circumstances I’m sure we can waive that.”

“I’ll try to keep him quiet. He seems to be a well-behaved little guy. Makes me wonder what happened. How he ended up homeless.”

“Maybe he ran away.”

“Yeah, that’s the logical explanation, but he didn’t have a collar. Caidy checked with animal control and the vet and everybody else she could think of. Nobody in the county has reported a lost pet matching his description. I wonder if somebody just dropped him off and abandoned him.”

“What’s going to happen to him? Eventually, I mean, after he heals?” she asked.

“Caidy has a reputation for taking in strays. Her plan is to nurse him back to health and then look for a good placement somewhere for the little guy. Meantime I’m just the dogsitter for a few days.”

“And you can take him to the fire station with you?”

“I’m the fire chief, remember? Who’s going to tell me I can’t?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe the mayor or the city council.”

He laughed, trying to imagine any of the local politicians making a big deal about a dog at the fire station. “This is Pine Gulch,” he answered. “We’re pretty casual about things like that. Anyway, it’s only for a few days. We can always call him our unofficial mascot. Lucky Lou, Fire Dog.”

The dog’s big ears perked forward, as if eager to take on the new challenge.

“You like the sound of that, do you?” He scratched the dog’s ears and earned an adoring look from his new best friend. He looked up to find Laura watching him, an arrested look in her eyes. When his gaze collided with hers, she turned a delicate shade of pink and looked away from him.

“Like I said, he doesn’t seem to be much of a barker. I’ll try to keep him quiet when I’m here so he doesn’t disturb the other guests.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that. Not that you have that many guests around you to be disturbed.”

The discouragement in her voice made him want to hold her close, dog and all, and take away her worries. “Things will pick up come summer,” he assured her.

“I hope so. The inn hasn’t had the greatest reputation over the years. My mom did her best after my dad died, but I’m afraid things went downhill.”

He knew this to be an unfortunate fact. Most people in town steered their relatives and friends to other establishments. A couple new B and Bs had sprung up recently and there were some nice guest ranches in the canyon. None had the advantage of Cold Creek Inn’s location and beautiful setting, though, and with Laura spearheading changes, he didn’t doubt the inn would be back on track in no time.

“Give it time. You’ve been home only a few weeks.”

She sighed. “I know. But when I think about all the work it’s going to require to counteract that reputation, I just want to cry.”

He could certainly relate to that. He knew just how tough it was to convince people to look beyond the past. “If anybody can do it, you’re perfect for the job. A degree in hotel management, all those years of international hotel experience. This will be a snap for you.”

She gave him a rueful smile—but a smile nonetheless. He drew in a breath, wishing he could set the dog down and pull Laura into his arms instead. He might have considered it, but Lucky made a sound as if warning him against that particular course of action.

“What you need is a dog,” he said suddenly. “A
lucky
dog.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she exclaimed on a laugh. “Forget that right now, Taft Bowman. I’m too smart to let myself be swayed by an adorable face.”

“Mine or the dog’s?” he teased.

This smile looked definitely genuine, but she shook her head. “Go to bed, Taft. And take your lucky dog with you.”

I’d rather take you.

The words simmered between them, unsaid, but she blushed anyway, as if she sensed the thoughts in his head.

“Good night, then,” he said with great reluctance. “I really don’t mind paying the security deposit for the dog.”

“No need. Consider it my way of helping in Lucky Lou’s recovery.”

“Thanks, then. I’ll try to be sure you don’t regret it.”

He hitched the dog into a better position, picked up the key card from the counter and headed down
the hall.

He had enough regrets for the both of them.

* * *

Her children were in love.

“He’s the cutest dog
ever,
” Alex gushed, his dark eyes bright with excitement. “And so nice, too. I petted him and petted him and all he did was lick me.”

“Lou tickles,” Maya added, her face earnest and sweet.

“Lucky Lou. That’s his name, Chief Bowman says.”

Alex was perched on the counter, pulling items out of grocery bags, theoretically “helping” her put them away, but mostly just jumbling them up on the counter. Still, she wasn’t about to discourage any act of spontaneous help from her children.