Ever After at Sweetheart Ranch (18 page)

Will sighed. “Guess we should get started. My brothers are expecting me in a ­couple hours. We've got to move cattle up in the mountains this afternoon.”

“Then lead the way, oh fearless mushroom hunter.”

He hobbled the horses to let them graze, then grabbed his basket and took Lyndsay by the hand. They walked slowly into the woods and began to look for mushrooms at the base of the trees.

“Now, if we were on the south side of the Elks, we'd find tons of morels, but they're harder to find here.”

Using a stick, he brushed aside undergrowth around the base of the trees and fallen logs.

“What do they look like?” she asked.

“Frankly, they look like pinecones, very hard to spot. But the head really looks like a sponge.”

“Right, I've seen those in the grocery store.” Then she pointed. “Is that one?”

And scattered around a cottonwood, near the bank of a stream, were lots of little morels, ripe for the picking. He showed her how to cut them at the base, mentioned how they were different from the more poisonous false morels, which looked more like the folds of a brain rather than ridges and pits, and whose stem wasn't hollow, like true morels. They wandered around for an hour, picking the occasional mushroom and leaving the small ones.

“So what does your mom cook with them?”

“If you have enough of them, you can do a duxelles, where you sauté them in butter and shallots and herbs, reduce it to paste, and put it over steak.”

“You sure sound like you know what you're doing in the kitchen.”

He shrugged and attempted a humble attitude. “I experiment a bit.”

She gave his shoulder a push. “Does your mom have something special planned for them?”

He let out a deep breath and scanned between the trees, checking on Silver and Barney rather than meet her eyes. “I don't know. She mentioned a ­couple weeks ago at a party we held for Em and Nate that she wished she'd had them for a special dish.”

“Birthday party? Anniversary?”

“An adoption party. They're in the middle of pursuing a private adoption, and we were celebrating their appearance on the adoption agency's website.”

Her expression went all soft and sweet. “That is adorably nice of you all. Em's such a part of your family now, it's hard to believe we didn't even know she existed a few years ago.” She hesitated. “That had to be tough on your family, finding out you had an adult sister.”

“Tough on my dad. When he discovered Em's mom had lied to him, that he'd missed out on her entire life . . . he was pretty wrecked for a while. And her mom hadn't treated her that well, which made us all kind of sick, considering how lucky our family has been. But Em—­she's great. How could we not love having her as our sister? And the change she's brought about in Steph—­”

“Now, come on, I know kids. Steph was at the most immature stage when she learned she had a sister.”

“You mean when she learned the horror of not being the only girl in the family?”

Lyndsay smiled. “Well, okay, it's a self-­centered time in a kid's life. But maturity helps, and I'm sure she would have grown out of it all on her own. But I get it, Em has brought out the best in her.”

“It was a slow process, I admit. At first, Em was as wary with us as Silver was when he had a tendon injury that kept him in his stall for days on end.”

“You're comparing your sister to a horse?” she asked, nose wrinkled in amusement.

“She wouldn't mind the comparison, since Silver is an excellent horse. But we hadn't had Silver long when he was hurt, and he just didn't trust me. It was a slow process of getting him used to me. Trust isn't something you develop in a day, right?”

He saw a fleeting expression of concern cross her face, but it disappeared so quickly that he wondered if he'd imagined it.

And then he had a ridiculous thought—­maybe
he
was sort of like a wary horse with Lyndsay. Being with her made him want a closeness that guilt hadn't let him feel in years. Something had broken inside him long ago, leaving him no heart left to give. He didn't deserve a woman like her.

But with Lyndsay, he felt . . . alive in a way he hadn't experienced with anyone since . . . maybe since Brittany. Something feeble but growing seemed to tighten and warm his chest whenever he was with Lyndsay. It was a tenderness that had to be fought, he knew, because he couldn't hurt her—­wouldn't risk it. He wasn't a man who normally felt afraid, but he was afraid to cause her pain.

But he couldn't make himself stop seeing her, even though he knew he probably should.

“Look, more morels!” she called, moving ahead of him toward the base of a giant cottonwood tree.

Relieved at the distraction from his thoughts, he squatted down with his pocket knife and sliced through the stem.

“It really does look like a sponge,” Lyndsay said, shaking her head.

She laughed up into his face, and it was all he could do not to kiss her again with urgency and desperation—­all of which were far too revealing.

E
arly that same afternoon, Will and his brothers were leading their horses into a trailer, getting ready to head to their summer grazing allotment in order to move the cattle from one pasture to the next, when he received an unexpected visitor. A dark-­haired boy hopped off his bike.

Chris and Daniel both glanced at Will with curiosity.

“He's in my 4-­H group,” Will said quietly. “Give me a sec.” He handed Silver's halter to Daniel and approached Matias, who waited by his bike shyly.

“Hi, Mr. Sweet,” the boy said with hesitation, not quite meeting his eyes.

“Hi, Matias. You can call me Will, you know.”

His eyes widened. “Thanks, Will.”

“So . . . what are you doing here today? You know our next meeting isn't until Wednesday, right?”

“Yeah, but . . . you said we could ask you any questions, and I thought of one.”

Will smiled, but he held back a laugh. “Okay, shoot.”

“So we have to do a project for the 4-­H horse unit. I know I could draw or do posters or something, but I'd like to work with real, live animals, you know?” He took a deep breath, then spoke in a rush. “Could I maybe ‘borrow' one of yours? Not take it away or anything, but come here to work on it, like maybe . . . learning-­to-­ride-­a-­horse?”

The last part was spoken so fast that Will could hardly understand it. He put a hand on the teenager's shoulder. “Slow down, buddy. Why don't you tell me what you have in mind?”

“Well . . . I don't want to distract you from your work. If it wouldn't bother you too much, I could ride over twice a week to learn, just like for an hour. It would only be for a ­couple weeks. We're going to exhibit our projects at the Silver Creek Rodeo in June. Since I don't have a horse of my own, or an animal to raise—­and you said your calves are up in the mountains—­I thought learning to ride would be something I could do.”

“You've given this a lot of thought, which I like,” Will said. “How can I say no?”

Matias grinned, his dark eyes sparkling with happiness. “I'd be like your student, you know. I could pay you for the lessons.”

“That's okay, I don't need it. I'm always happy to introduce ­people to the love of a good horse.” He glanced at his brothers, who were leading all three horses inside the trailer. “I can't do it now, though. But I understand you might be in a hurry to get started. Do you have a cell phone?”

Nodding, Matias pulled it out of one of the pockets of his cargo shorts.

Will pulled his own out. “Give me your number and I'll text you when we get back late this afternoon. I'll have to talk to your parents first, of course.”

“Sure.” Matias rattled off his number.

“Mind coming back out then?”

“Mind? I don't mind at all. Thanks, Will! See ya.”

Will stood for a moment, knowing he was smiling as he watched the boy bike back down the road. Then he finished helping his brothers load the trailer, and it wasn't until all three were sitting in the cab of the pickup, with Will driving, that Chris asked about Matias and Will explained.

“I don't know,” Daniel said from the back bench, “being with Lyndsay is making you do different things.”

“I don't know what seeing Lyndsay has to do with it. I volunteered to help the 4-­H before we even got together.”

Chris eyed him. “Yeah, but I think you agreed because you knew she was the advisor.”

Will shrugged. “Maybe that was part of it.”

“Well, you don't normally do much with kids, do you?”

That was uncomfortably true. “Chris will take care of that when he gets married. Look, I have something else I want to talk to you guys about. Have you noticed anything . . . strange with Mom?”

“Strange?” Daniel repeated. “Strange how?”

“Sleeping in when she's supposed to get things done, being forgetful. One of us tends to fill in for her, but it's happening more and more.”

“What are you trying to say?” Chris asked, frowning.

Will hesitated, the pickup angling upward as he took the road into the mountains. “There are a lot of wine bottles in the recycling, and Dad and we don't drink much wine.”

“You're kidding,” Daniel said forcefully. “Mom's not an alcoholic.”

“I didn't say she was,” Will answered quickly. “I've never seen her falling down drunk or anything, but . . . she's drinking more than she used to. I finally talked to her about it.”

From the backseat, he heard Daniel mumble, “Bullshit.”

Chris grimaced. “Bet she was offended.”

“She was. She totally denied it. She wasn't angry or anything. She said she understands I love her and was just worried. She promised she'd be more attentive and not let her involvement in the Mystic Connection distract her from the ranch.”

“So she had an answer for everything,” Chris said.

“She gave you the truth,” Daniel said stiffly. “I think you're wrong, and I hope you didn't really hurt her feelings.”

Will let out a deep breath. “It's not like I'm going to Dad or anything. I said my piece to Mom. We'll see what happens next.”

 

Chapter 16

L
yndsay went to the softball game Monday night feeling uneasy for a lot of reasons. For one thing, she didn't know if the election animosity had risen to a new level. There were still posters around town, but the two presidential candidates themselves had been strangely quiet. In anticipation of tonight? Hard to tell. There'd been no new flyer promoting an anonymous author, thankfully.

But mostly, Lyndsay was feeling bad about Will. She hadn't seen him since Saturday, though they'd had a ­couple sweet phone conversations. She'd claimed she had work to do, and she had, but it hadn't been so much end-­of-­school-­year stuff as it had been her second book. And thinking about her second book made her think about her dilemma over the first one. Will hadn't asked her if she'd talked to Kate about being the author. Lyndsay figured he was giving her time.

Oh, he was giving her time all right, she thought, dropping her blanket on the grass. It was she who was taking cowardly advantage of his generosity.

Will was warming up with the Tony's Tavern team, and when he saw her, he gave the biggest wave and an intimate smile. To be the one he looked at like that forever—­she felt her throat close up and her eyes sting. After giving her own wave, she had to glance away, blinking. She'd begun to know him well enough to sense that when she told him the truth, he'd be spooked. That was the cause of her procrastination, her absolute fear that she'd lose him.

She really had made the stupid mistake of falling in love with Will Sweet, Valentine Valley good-­time guy and confirmed bachelor.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to focus on laying out her blanket. She smiled at Jessica, who came toward her wearing a big grin.

“Hey, Lynds, come see what the historical society election has come to. I'm already writing a piece about it—­it's a lot more fun than the real news!”

Mrs. Sweet was standing inside a booth, the kind used at carnivals, with a banner across the top sporting her hat logo. She was dressed in her usual daily finery, and in front of her were individual bottles of beer. As Lyndsay approached, she could see the hat logo on the beer label, too.

“It's her own craft beer,” Jessica whispered, “which she had the microbrewery create for her. I think she thought she would do Mrs. Thalberg one better, but I don't know. It makes her seem like she doesn't have her own original idea.”

Lyndsay smiled at Will's grandma. “Hi, Mrs. Sweet. Love your hat.”

It was a blue woven cowboy hat, with a gauzy scarf tied around it, befitting the elderly matriarch of a ranching family.

“Thank you, dear. You're welcome to try the beer, of course. I'm not usually a fan, but this one is rather tasty.” Mrs. Sweet actually opened the bottle herself before handing Lyndsay the beer. “How are things with William?”

“Just fine, ma'am, thanks. He had me out to the ranch a ­couple days ago, showing me all about irrigating hay fields.”

Mrs. Sweet's eyes narrowed. “Not very romantic of him.”

Lyndsay laughed. “His brothers said the same thing, but I like seeing what he does on the ranch.”

“I think the two of you should come to the inn and have dinner with me one of these days.”

“I'd like that, thank you.”

“I'll speak to William.” Mrs. Sweet offered Jessica a beer, then turned to her next customer.

Just a few yards away, Mrs. Thalberg had set up her own booth, complete with brochures and a clipboard for signatures, just like Mrs. Sweet, but this one also had—­brooms. Sean Lighton was standing in front, holding a broom and listening to Mrs. Thalberg's stump speech.

“Are those what I think they are?” whispered Jessica, her expression full of confusion.

“Hi, girls!” Mrs. Thalberg called.

Sean looked up and smiled at Lyndsay. He glanced around, and somehow she knew he was looking for Will.

Lyndsay debated putting the beer behind her back, as if it somehow made her a traitor, but instead, she just held it low at her side. “Hi, Sean, Mrs. Thalberg. We just had to come over and see what's going on.”

The woman grinned. “Works every time. Here, you can each have one.”

She handed over a simple, old-­fashioned straw broom, and then they saw the writing down the handle.

“For a clean sweep,” Lyndsay read, “vote Thalberg.”

Mrs. Thalberg beamed. “Catchy, huh?” Then she leaned forward and whispered, “Any implication that Eileen is a witch is simply not true!”

Lyndsay bit her lip, trying not to laugh. Jessica's snort erupted, and she covered her mouth.

Sean chuckled. “Now, Mrs. Thalberg, I can't believe you said that.”

“You all go watch the game,” Mrs. Thalberg said. “Take your brooms with you! When enough ­people have brooms, we can play Quidditch!”

“You read
Harry Potter
?” Lyndsay asked.

“Of course. Makes me feel young again.”

Lyndsay and Jessica waved before walking away.

Lyndsay thought Sean was about to follow them, but he only called, “Good night, ladies. My game's over, and I've got work to do at home. You both understand—­our jobs aren't over at five o'clock.”

“I hear you,” Lyndsay said. “Good night.”

Jessica eyed her after he left. “Someone has a crush.”

“I know. I keep running into him, and I kind of feel like he's biding his time, waiting for me to be free.”

“Do you want to be free?”

Lyndsay shrugged, melancholy settling over her again. “No, but it's not all up to me, is it?”

Jessica gave her a sympathetic smile before looking at the broom in her hand. “Guess I should run this back to the car . . .”

“Throw it on my blanket and come back for it later.”

They watched the softball game, and this time, Tony's Tavern lost a close one to Vista Gallery of Art.

As Lyndsay approached the team, she heard Brooke grumble, “We lost to a bunch of artists.” When Brooke saw Lyndsay, she said, “Nope, no dating, no distractions. The players are going to the tavern. We need to bond as a team and figure out what went wrong.”

“Your husband is on the team.” Lyndsay pointed to Adam, who tried to appear clueless as he took off his baseball cap and raked a hand through his damp, light brown hair. “In a sense, you'll be on a date.”

“Technicalities. When we play, he's a teammate, nothing more.”

There were several good-­natured groans.

Lyndsay smiled at Will as he approached. “You go ahead. I have stuff to do at home anyway.”

“Are you sure?” He slid his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple. “I haven't seen you since Saturday morning, a whole two days. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

“That would be great. Your grandma says we should come to the inn and eat with her.”

His eyes narrowed. “I'm not sure I want my first dinner date with you to be with my grandma.”

She grinned. “Whatever you decide.” Putting a hand on his chest, she leaned up for a quick kiss. “Have a good night.”

As she walked away, she glanced over her shoulder, and she felt a surge of pleasure that Will was still watching, not bothering to hide his disappointment.

And then she hated that her pleasure was followed by a faint feeling of relief. Until she told him the truth, it was going to be a wall between them, even if he didn't know it.

W
ill didn't stay long at Tony's. Partially it was his worry about his mom, but also, the tavern just wasn't the same without Lyndsay—­he never would have believed that to be true, but it was. He slipped out after his second beer and decided to walk to her house. When he got there just after ten, the lights were on, and it looked so cozy and welcoming. When he heard a trumpet playing, he remembered a ­couple years ago that Lyndsay's jazz band had had a gig at Tony's.

He stood outside in the shadows by her front door, just listening. She was playing a song he didn't recognize, but her talent at manipulating the valves just couldn't be denied. She was partway through the second song before it dawned on him that he probably seemed suspicious hanging out in her front yard. He rang the bell.

The trumpet playing stopped immediately, and he sensed her presence on the other side of the door. When he waved at the peephole, she opened the door, still wearing the sundress she'd had on earlier, narrow straps at her shoulders, narrow, multicolored horizontal stripes all the way down.

“Will!” Her smile was wide and pleased.

“I hope you don't mind me dropping over. Tony's . . . just wasn't Tony's without you.”

Her eyes were soft and tender, and part of him wanted to deny that tenderness. But tonight . . . tonight he just let it go.

She stepped back, opening the door wider. “Come on in.”

“I heard you playing,” he said as he went past her. “I'd forgotten how good you are.”

“You're just saying that because you used to make fun of us band geeks in high school.”

He winced. “Did I? That's terrible.”

“Well, you weren't being mean,” she said, closing the door. “You were teasing, but I was pretty sensitive then. All teenage girls are sensitive.”

“Good thing you said that rather than me.”

She laughed.

“I'd really love to hear your band play. Do you have any upcoming dates?”

“We take the summer off—­which doesn't make sense for a teacher, but it does for the rest of the band. I'll let you know if something comes up. Go on and have a seat on the couch. Can I get you something? I have beer.”

“That sounds great, thanks.”

He wandered farther into the living room, which looked well lived in, but not dirty. Just cluttered and homey. There were books everywhere, stacked underneath the coffee table, and on a shelf in the corner. He studied the titles, lots of romances, but other stuff, too, the Clancy they'd talked about, some photography books about Montana—­Montana?—­some suspenseful thriller stuff.

Lyndsay came back in, carrying two beers by the necks in one hand and a bowl of pretzels in the other. “Sorry, I don't have a lot to eat in the house.”

“I don't believe it. You love to eat.”

“But one has to grocery shop to eat, and I just ran out of time this weekend.”

They both sank down on the couch, and she tucked her legs up under her, the pretzel bowl between them.

“You didn't last long at the tavern,” she said. “Brooke's motivational speech went short?”

“Naw, I just wasn't enjoying myself all that much.” He almost told her he missed her, but he held back. If he told her too many romantic things, it would hurt her more in the end when they broke up. But he was starting to wonder if he'd hurt just as much.

“I like your grandmother's beer,” she said, smiling at him as she took a pretzel.

“It was okay. Isn't it almost time to vote? I'm starting to dread my own softball games, wondering what she'll be up to next.”

Lyndsay chuckled. “It's next week. I thought she was pretty tame tonight. Mrs. Thalberg, on the other hand . . .”

“Brooms? Okay, the slogan was catchy, but it all seems kind of silly.”

“She does have brochures about the changes she wants to make, stuff like that. The brooms are just a gimmick to get ­people to come talk to her.”

“Well, it must work, because every time I came to the dugout, I glanced over and both ladies were chatting away with the voters.” He took a swig of beer, then eyed her. “Speaking of chatting . . . were you able to talk to Kate?” He was surprised to notice a blush steal up from her neck and across her cheeks. “It's all right if you couldn't talk to her yet. I understand it might be difficult to bring up.”

“Especially when Tony's around,” she added.

“Oh, right, you can't talk about it in front of him. There's no rush.”

She looked so pretty with pink cheeks, her lips damp from the beer. He took the pretzel bowl and put it on the coffee table, then took her beer and his away.

She eyed him, her smile faint and seductive, then leaned toward him, resting her hands on his thighs. Her top gaped a bit, and he saw the swell of her breasts, a hint of peach-­colored lace. And then she kissed him, still moving forward now across his body as he sank back into the pillows against the arm of the couch. She practically crawled on top of him on all fours, hands moving across his chest, knees coming up on either side of his hips, one knee sinking down the back of the couch, bringing her hips down on his.

She rose above him, her smile now sultry and knowing, then dipped her head, her mouth above his but not quite touching as she whispered, “I'm not wearing panties under this dress.”

His slow arousal turned into an immediate hard-­on, and he slid his palms around her ribs and down over her ass. She grinned at him when he found the hem of her dress and began to pull it upward, letting his fingers skim the backs of her thighs. She was breathing heavily now, eyes half closed. She started giving him tiny little kisses, on his lips, his forehead, his cheeks, even the tip of his chin, where she dipped her tongue into the cleft.

“I've been wanting to do that forever,” she said huskily.

“It's only been a ­couple of weeks,” he answered, chuckling.

She tilted her head to take his open mouth with hers. He palmed her ass then, absorbed her gasp and moan with his mouth, feeling her shiver as he massaged and caressed, then dipped his fingers between her thighs. She cried out, and he loved the uncontrolled sound of her passion. He slid one hand around to the front and cupped the heat of her, penetrating her moistness.

“Can you lower the top of that dress?” he asked hoarsely.

“Only if you can unzip your baseball pants. Sexy, by the way.”

They laughed against each other's lips. He unzipped and released his erection, and then she lowered her hips to rub her hot wetness along the length of him. His head fell back as he descended into a haze of such pleasure he never wanted to surface again.