Ever After at Sweetheart Ranch (17 page)

He leaned over to kiss her lightly, then said, “I'm not surprised.”

They gazed into each other's eyes. Then their smiles died, and he leaned even closer.

She put her fingers over his mouth. “If you don't ask me the question you just mentioned, we will totally forget about it.”

He sighed and glanced toward the Elk Mountains. “Maybe that's a better idea,” he murmured.

“Now I'm really curious.” She folded her hands behind her head. “Go on, ask away.”

“Kate's your best friend, right?”

She blinked at him. “And . . . Tony's one of your best friends. Of course, you have so many.”

“Yeah, I'm a popular guy.”

But his forehead was lined with worry, so she didn't tease him again, just waited.

“Though they're planning their wedding for July,” he began slowly, “Kate's not having second thoughts, is she?”

“She never got over my brother,” Lyndsay insisted, eyes wide. “They're so in love it's kind of sickening to be around them. You've said so yourself. What is it, Will? What's wrong?”

A grimace twisted his lips. “I was at their house yesterday, ready for video games and pizza with the guys. When it was just me in the living room, waiting for Tony, he told me to use his tablet. Then I saw . . . a story, a document someone had obviously typed.”

Lyndsay swallowed hard as all her fears bubbled to the surface. She'd tried so hard to keep her secret, knew he'd misinterpret everything—­wait a minute . . .

“So you saw a document on their tablet,” she said, relieved that her voice didn't squeak. “Why are you this spooked?”

“Because . . . it seemed about me.”

He eyed her expectantly, as if she'd laugh—­and she'd never felt less like laughing. “About you?”

“I know, I know, it sounds crazy. I only read a ­couple pages before feeling guilty, like I was doing something wrong even though Tony had told me to use the tablet. But it was a fictional story, and the guy was a cowboy who looked like me—­and I wouldn't have cared about that, except the scene was something that had sort of happened in my past, like Kate had copied it.”

Lyndsay knew Kate had promised to have Tony read that scene, to see what he thought. And they must have left it open on the tablet . . .

“It's just so unexpected,” he continued when she didn't speak. “Any suggestions about what I should do?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. He was obviously weirded out by the whole thing—­if she told him she'd written it, it might be even worse, since they were dating, and she hadn't told him what she'd done.

She hadn't done anything on purpose, including using a scene straight out of his life . . . but how do you tell a guy that? She felt tongue-­tied with her uncertainty. She remembered what Matt had once said about coming out, how it was freeing to be yourself, even if not everyone accepted the decision. But she was so worried about how Will would react. Maybe she needed to accept the fact that if she was this worried, their relationship was becoming more than casual dating to her. And that would be such a big mistake.

She sat up, unable to relax anymore.

Will did the same, then studied her. “I guess this must surprise you, too, since you're pretty speechless right now.”

“Yeah, I've been too confident in their relationship to even worry about them.”

“Then can I ask you a favor? Can you talk to Kate about this, find out what's going on? If I'm totally wrong, I don't want to embarrass her. And I can't go to Tony.”

“Yeah, I understand. Sure I'll talk to her.”

His smile broadened with relief. “Thanks. You're saving my ass. So let's put that aside. I've shown you some of the stuff I do during my day—­how was yours?”

She tried to relax, knowing she didn't have to make a decision to tell Will the truth about his ties to her book right now, but it was difficult. “Well, you remember Matias, right?”

“The shy kid who stood next to Ethan, right?”

“Right. He's the boy I've been helping with his science project. With some brainstorming, we came up with a food-­related topic, how one food tastes different when you're holding a different food to your nose. He picked some really fascinating samples—­tasting something sweet like candy, while smelling something sour, like a lemon. He brought some in to show me—­he's so excited making the chart and enlisting the help of his family and friends. It's really adorable. Oh, and he raved about you, too.”

“Me?” Surprise widened his eyes.

“He really enjoyed learning about horses. He says you inspired his summer 4-­H project. I won't be surprised if he works up the nerve to ask more questions.”

“I'd like that.”

“Your parents seemed pretty happy you were working with the kids,” she said.

Will shrugged and looked away across the hay field. “I was kind of surprised Mom remembered.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's been a little forgetful lately. Not a big deal.”

A Do Not Discuss sign might as well have been printed on his forehead in bold letters. She couldn't go against that, not when she herself had things she was trying to keep private.

And as he leaned over to kiss her, her last coherent thought was that she was caring too much about what he thought and felt, that maybe she was already aching for a real relationship with him, rather than just dating to put him behind her.

And that wasn't smart.

 

Chapter 15

O
n her way home from the ranch, Lyndsay pulled up in front of Kate and Tony's, desperate for some good advice about her dilemma. She knocked on the door, and when Ethan answered it, she gaped at him, clearly forgetting all about him. Nice aunt she was.

“Hey, Aunt Lyndsay, Mom didn't say you were coming,” he said, opening the screen door wide.

“Uh, guess I forgot to remind her. Is she here?”

“Sure, she's in the kitchen.”

Lyndsay followed Ethan through the living room and into the small kitchen, where Tony and Kate were standing shoulder to shoulder at the kitchen sink, leaning into each other, smiling goofily.

“Get a room,” Ethan said genially, as if he said that all the time.

Smiling, Kate glanced at her son, then her eyes widened when she saw their visitor. “Hey, Lyndsay. I—­”

“I bet you forgot the walk we planned for tonight,” Lyndsay interrupted, glancing at the oblivious Ethan, and then away.

Never slow on the uptake, Kate said, “Yep, I did. Let me change out of my work clothes. Give me five minutes?”

“Of course.”

Ethan sat down at the table, a textbook open before him. Tony eyed Lyndsay with that impassive brotherly stare that said he knew something was going on.

“That doesn't look like our math book.” Lyndsay peered over the boy's shoulder.

“And it shouldn't. We have an English test tomorrow, remember?”

“Totally forgot.”

“Which is why you assigned homework,” he grumbled.

She grinned. “Hey, my test is coming up soon. You have to be prepared. Equations don't solve themselves.”

“Ha ha. Like you haven't said that before.”

She rubbed Ethan's unruly hair, and he ducked away. She glanced at her brother, who was drying a dish, still watching her with barely veiled suspicion. She gave him a bright smile, grabbed Kate's abandoned towel, and started to dry.

“You have mud in your hair, Lynds,” Tony said.

Ethan gaped over his shoulder and guffawed.

“I was at the Sweetheart Ranch with Will, moving irrigation dams, if you must know.”

“Is that what passes for romance these days?”

“It does,” she answered with dignity.

Five minutes later, Kate was back, wearing yoga pants, a zipped lululemon jacket, and Nikes. “Let's go.”

Kate's patience lasted a block westward before she said, “What the heck is wrong?”

“Everything,” Lyndsay said melodramatically.

“You broke up with Will?”

“No, but this is about him. He was at your house last night and Tony told him to pass the time using your
tablet.
” She emphasized the last word meaningfully.

“So?” Kate's light brown eyebrows drew together. “I just use that for reading documents, checking the news and e-­mail, stuff like that.”

“What
else
have you been reading?”

“Your book? Oh, your
book
!” She gasped. “I'm so sorry! Will read it?”

“He read the scene you guys left open—­the one I took from his life. He recognized it right away.”

“Oh no, did he confront you about it?”

Lyndsay hesitated, then glanced sideways at her friend. “No, because it was on your tablet, and my name wasn't in the header, so he thought . . . you wrote it.”

Kate's mouth fell open for a brief moment, and then she started to laugh. “Oh, man, he thinks—­oh, wait until I tell Tony.”

“I'm glad you're not upset, but I don't think it's all that funny. Will's worried something's wrong with your relationship with Tony, since you've written down . . . fantasies . . . about him.”

Kate coughed as she tried to squelch her laughter. “Oh, okay, I guess that could look bad. He told you all this, did he?”

“Yeah. I didn't tell him the truth—­I was too shocked and didn't trust myself to make a rational decision. I didn't openly lie to him either. I didn't say much at all. Then he asked me to talk to you about it, and the safe response seemed to be to agree.”

“You don't think he'd be flattered?”

They reached First Street, and in the dusk, the single lights in each window of the Sweetheart Inn glowed warmly against the dark mountains. Will's family owned that building.

Lyndsay resolutely turned down First toward Main Street. “I don't know. The more I get to know Will, the more I have a strange feeling he's not going to be all that flattered. In some ways, he's a more private person than I thought. He's really good at putting on the appearance of the happy-­go-­lucky Will everyone expects. Kind of like a mask, you know?”

Kate studied her closely. “That's really interesting.”

“He was really freaked that someone wrote about him in a heroic, fantasy way.”

“No, let's clarify that statement—­he was freaked because he thought
I,
his good friend's fiancée, wrote about him. When he finds out it's you, the sexy woman he's lusting after? I think he'll be fine. Men love that sort of thing.”

Lyndsay sighed. “I don't know. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Then you don't want to tell him?”

“Oh, it's not a matter of wanting to—­I
need
to tell him, I know that. I just . . . need to find the right way, and I don't know what that is. Are you fine with his bewildered looks for a ­couple days?”

“Sure, if Tony's okay with it. If Will starts giving him sympathetic, sad looks . . .”

Lyndsay grimaced. “Would two guys really do that? Or would they just ignore something so weird?”

“You could be right. Regardless, you have a ­couple days. As long as he doesn't start talking about me to ­people.”

“He'd never do that. Like I said, he's worried about you guys.”

They turned down Main Street, where the old-­fashioned lampposts glowed in little patches of light as far as the eye could see.

“Speaking of hidden things about Will,” Kate began slowly, “Tony told me something I hadn't realized about Will's high school girlfriend, Brittany.”

Lyndsay frowned but remained silent.

“Did you know Will was supposed to meet her the night she died?”

“No, I'd never heard that.” She felt a lurch in her stomach for poor Will.

“He didn't show up because of a ranch emergency. He tried to reach her, but neither of them had cell phones back then—­not that there'd be great reception. So anyway, instead of waiting the storm out at wherever their ‘special place' was, when he didn't show, Brittany tried to go home.”

“Oh no,” Lyndsay said, coming to a halt in front of the stone columns of the Hotel Colorado, then slumping onto a bench. She stared unseeingly at the pavement. “And he blames himself for it all,” she whispered.

Kate sat next to her. “We don't know that.”

“Oh, yes we do. I saw him with her parents. It's very obvious he's been doing whatever he can for them for the last sixteen years. Sure, he could be doing that out of friendship, but by the way he reacts when her name comes up—­the sadness and dismay, the quick change of subject—­he's also doing it out of guilt. That poor man has been blaming himself all these years for her accident.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes as a car occasionally drove by and the sound of ­people chatting rose and fell.

“What are you going to do about it?” Kate asked.

“Nothing, I suppose. He obviously doesn't want to talk about her, and since this won't develop into some long relationship, he'll want to keep things light between us.”

“There you go again,” Kate said with exasperation, “putting a finite end on a relationship that's just begun.”

“That's always been the plan,” Lyndsay insisted, but inside she wasn't feeling all that certain anymore.

“I think you're afraid to hope for more, like there's a part of you that doesn't want to get hurt if the worst happens. I know you've been burned before, Lynds, but don't let that stop you from trying to have it all.”

“But this is
Will,
” Lyndsay said with exasperation. “I could fall in love with him too easily—­I think I'm halfway there. I didn't mean to open my heart like this. I had no idea the feelings I'd once had for him would resurrect themselves so strongly.” Her voice trailed off in bewilderment, then she sighed. “He doesn't want that from me, Kate. And now I see that he doesn't want that from anyone, and it's not just because he's a player who enjoys lots of women.”

“So you're content to know that the man you're almost in love with will never have a great love of his own because of a tragedy when he was a teenager, one he's never gotten over.”

Lyndsay turned her head and just blinked at her friend. “That's kind of harsh.”

“But it's the truth. Maybe you can help him see what he's doing to himself, how he's only living half a life if he won't let himself love again.”

Lyndsay blew out a breath. “I have no idea how to do that. It seems . . . impossible.”

“I think you can afford to be patient, to wait for the opportunities to point out the error of his ways. You can't lecture a man out of the grief and recrimination he can't let go of.”

“You have a lot of confidence in me,” Lyndsay said ruefully.

“I have confidence in love. How can I not, after having thrown away the great love of my life and then being lucky enough to find it again?”

Lyndsay gave a crooked smile. “It's still weird to hear my brother called the great love of your life.”

“Hey, maybe you can be the great love of Will's life.”

Lyndsay felt a pang of sadness and loss. “I believe he thinks he already had that, and isn't looking to replace her. I don't know if I can compete with her memory.”

“You don't have to be in competition. Just be yourself. Wow, that sounded hokey, even to me.”

Lyndsay chuckled. “Thanks for the advice. I'll let you know how it goes. And I hope Will doesn't cross the street when he sees you coming.”

“I should jump into his arms and
really
freak him out.”

“I never thought I'd say this, but he's way too sensitive for that kind of teasing.”

They smiled at each other.

Lyndsay's phone beeped, and she glanced at the text before raising wide eyes to Kate. “It's Will. Says he forgot to ask if I wanted to hunt for wild morel mushrooms first thing in the morning. We'll go by horseback.”

“Well, well. The dates are coming fast and furious for you two.” Kate's amusement faded. “You're going to go, right? Don't worry about the book thing. It'll sort itself out.”

Lyndsay sighed. “I hope so. Because I'm going to keep seeing him.”

She sent a text accepting, and asked what time she should arrive. When she looked up, Kate was shaking her head.

“Mushroom picking,” Kate said. “That Will, such a romantic.”

“But if anyone can make it romantic, Will can,” Lyndsay said with assurance.

D
amn, Lyndsay looked good on a horse, Will thought as he followed her away from the gravel road on Sweetheart Ranch property and toward the cottonwood stand that lined the creek near the foothills of the Elk Mountains. Puffy white clouds floated across the sky, and though the day was still in the fifties, it seemed to promise warmer temperatures. He was watching her hips sway and her long brown hair stir in the breeze. It was early, only eight on a Saturday morning, but there was no sleeping in on a ranch, and Lyndsay had jumped in wholeheartedly. She wore tight jeans tucked into her cowboy boots and a cropped black jacket over a purple V-­neck t-­shirt.

She could ride a horse with ease, and something inside him just . . . relaxed and mellowed as he watched her.

“Will?”

“Huh?” Startled, he realized she'd looked over her shoulder and said something, but he'd been too busy admiring her ass in the saddle.

Her smile slowly widened, and she might even have blushed. After their time in the hayloft, he didn't think he could make her blush anymore, but he was wrong.

“I asked if I was headed in the right direction.”

“Sorry, yeah, right for the cottonwoods and aspens. We'll walk through the trees to look for the morels.”

She slowed her mount until Will moved up beside her. She said, “I've never done this before.”

“Morel hunts? I grew up doing them with my mom. She knew all the best places.” He felt a twinge of worry and put it aside. “And of course, you never share the location with anyone, even your best friends. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Oh, I do,” she said solemnly. Then she glanced at the basket hanging from a strap on his saddle and said in a teasing voice, “And how lucky I am to be with a man and his Little Red Ridinghood basket.”

“Hey, you can't put mushrooms in a plastic bag—­the humidity would make them rot. I know all the tricks. I even brought you your own pocket knife. Now come on, let's see what we can find.”

He slid off Silver and was right beneath Lyndsay before she could swing a leg over the saddle.

She eyed him. “I've ridden before; I think I can get down.”

He lifted his hands. “Let me help you. This is a cowboy's greatest thrill, you know, helping a lady off a horse.”

She chuckled, then leaned toward him, bright and fearless against the brilliant blue sky. He caught her about the waist and deliberately let her slide down his body, enjoying all the soft parts.

“Such a cliché,” she said, but her voice was a little breathless.

So he kissed her, enjoying the softness of her lips and the boldness of her tongue. It was a long time before her gray quarter horse, Barney, bumped her from behind. She laughed against Will's mouth, and they separated.