The Ranch She Left Behind (29 page)

“Shut up!” Her chest felt hot, and she stopped in her tracks, stamping her feet. “What are you trying to say? Are you trying to say I’m changing? Are you trying to say I’m turning into some kind of cowpoke who
belongs
out here in the sticks?”

Alec’s mouth fell open. If she’d morphed into a fire-breathing dragon right in front of his eyes, he couldn’t have looked more shocked.

“Is that what you’re saying, Alec Garwood? Because if it is, you’re dumber than I thought. And you don’t know me at all!”

But there was a reason Alec was one of the most popular kids in Silverdell. He was like the ultimate of cool. He didn’t get rattled, and he didn’t get mad. He just raised one blond eyebrow, which made him look a lot like his father, who was obviously a superhandsome man.

“I guess you’re right. I must not know you very well. I
was
thinking you might be cool enough to belong here
someday.
I was thinking maybe you had some spunk, under that city-girl sissyness.”

Heat was rising from under her shirt. She’d been walking too long, and she’d started to sweat. She was breathing heavily, and she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to punch him, or sit right down on this path of pine needles and cry.

“That’s what I
was
thinking.” Alec shrugged one bony shoulder, then tossed away the leaves he’d been shredding. “But hey, if you’d rather go back to Chicago and try on lipsticks at the mall all day, feel free. I don’t see anybody trying to stop you.”

* * *

G
RAY
HAD
BEEN
showing Max and Penny the stables, and they’d finally reached the new mare and her foal. She felt awkward, but she couldn’t help smiling at Gray. He looked as proud as if the whole idea of horses had been his invention in the first place.

“We don’t always turn out on the first day, but Young Jolyon here is a strapping thing. Great balance, really steady on his feet already.”

Gray leaned against the stable door, his arms crossed, outwardly all calm, casual elegance, but Penny had come to understand him pretty well during these weeks she’d been back, and she knew he was as thrilled as a kid on Christmas. The foal, Young Jolyon, was the crown jewel in his breeding program, and hopes ran high for this particular bloodline.

“The weather’s perfect, too, which is amazing after last night’s storm and this morning’s relentless heat. So we thought we might give them both an hour or so in the private paddock this afternoon.”

Gray glanced out of the front doors. “In fact, it’s probably a good time now, while we’ve got some cloud cover again. Their eyes are sensitive, you know. This morning was way too bright—and of course it was too soon.”

Gray yawned, the only giveaway that he’d been up all night supervising the foaling, then consulted his watch. “Do you mind if I check with the wranglers, to make sure someone’s free to spruce up the stall while we turn out?”

“No, of course not,” Max said politely. He glanced toward the adorable foal, who was walking around like a kid just learning how to use stilts, and smiled. “We’re enjoying the show.”

Penny’s heart sped up a little as Gray moved away, already calling to the wranglers, who were in other parts of the large stable, tending to other horses. Gray was so caught up with his new pride and joy that he had barely noticed Penny and Max the whole time, but at least he’d provided a buffer.

When she came to Bell River after Margaret Browning’s art lesson, she hadn’t expected to see Max. The camp-in had technically been over for hours, and she assumed he would have picked up Ellen and taken her out for the day, if only to put distance between himself and Penny.

But here he was. And Ellen, too. It had been awkward, trying to remember exactly how people acted who weren’t burning up with memories of naked skin against naked skin, damp with sweat and steaming with passion….

What did ordinary folk say? How long did they maintain eye contact? Did they hug casually, or did they not dare?

As soon as Gray was gone, Max turned to Penny.

“I’m going crazy,” he said quietly. “I can’t stop thinking about last night.”

All the simmering memories shot to the surface of her skin, and she knew she was as pink as a candied apple. “Yes,” she said. “Me, too.”

For a moment, Penny thought Max might be going to kiss her. His eyes darkened. His head dipped slightly.

Then out of the corner of her eye, she caught a new movement. Glancing over, she saw the curious foal toddling toward them. His spindly legs and liquid brown eyes made him look a little like Bambi. Even in all the years here at Bell River as a child, Penny had never seen such long legs on a foal. This one might well be a champion.

He almost ran into his mother as he moved toward the stall door—he didn’t have great driving skills with those stilts just yet, but he was remarkably steady for a foal only about fourteen hours old.

Both Penny and Max turned to watch—it was hard to resist, and it provided a way to break the frighteningly powerful current that was arcing between them.

But the current only grew less electric—it didn’t disappear. Max stood so close to Penny that their shoulders touched, and an unseen heat pulsed in waves between them.

“They’re so helpless when they’re newborns,” Max said. “It was that way with Ellen. I couldn’t have dreamed, then, of ever doing anything to hurt her. I couldn’t have dreamed I could ever wish I could be alone…away from her…”

“I can imagine,” was all she could say.

“And yet, this morning all I could think was—when will we be alone again? When will we get another chance?” He closed his eyes. “Does that make me a horrible father?”

“No,” she said. But that seemed too glib. “I don’t know. I don’t really know what to think about anything, anymore.”

He stared ahead, his face stony, and yet, to her, still the most beautiful male face she’d ever seen.

The inner conflict was tearing him apart, and now, just as last night, her instinct was to try to make it hurt less. “You love her, Max—anyone can see that. Even she can see it, though she may not always want to admit it. Her happiness will always come first for you. It’s just that…you’re a man, too. And sometimes…sometimes you need a kind of comfort that only another grown-up can give.”

He turned his head toward her. “How can you be so…so damn
good?
Why don’t you encourage me to ditch her, farm her out somewhere, spend more time doing whatever I want to do?”

Penny hesitated.

Because I love her, too.

That was what she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. He would probably think she was lying anyhow. It sounded too fake, more like a subtle version of luring him away from his responsibilities than a truth.

She wasn’t even sure she could believe it herself. And yet, something in the word felt right. She cared about Ellen, not just because she was an extension of Max, but because she was talented and brave and tremendously loyal. Because of all that, and because of…nothing. Just something intrinsically wonderful that was her own unique self.

“I suppose it’s because I don’t believe that’s the way to happiness. I saw too much of parents doing whatever they wanted and letting the children take care of themselves while I was growing up. I know what it leads to—and it’s not happiness, not for the children, and not for the adults, either.”

He shook his head slightly. He looked once toward the stable door, through which Alec and Ellen had romped off five minutes ago, in search of newborn kittens. The doorway was empty. The children were nowhere in sight.

He turned back to Penny. “What is happiness? I’m not even sure I believe in it anymore. Except…last night…”

His eyes fell toward her lips. They tingled under the scrutiny.

“Last night….” He repeated the words as if they were a kind of music.

And then he kissed her.

It was only a fraction of the passion he’d poured into her last night, but she felt her lips start to bloom in bright colors anyhow, like watercolor-pencil marks, which intensify and spread when you touch them with the tip of a fine, wet brush. He took her face into his hands, holding her near, and moved across her as if he were painting a picture across her lips. And the picture was so…

They pulled apart as Gray and Bree and a couple of wranglers came ambling in, chatting. The wranglers carried a metal pitchfork, a shovel, a broom and a couple of implements so sophisticated even Penny didn’t recognize them.

“Sorry, guys,” Gray said. “They’re going to be working on the stall, but if you want to watch, we can go out by the paddock. It’s pretty cute when the little guy gets turf beneath him for the first time.”

“We were just about to leave,” Max said with a smile. He had recovered faster than Penny, who still felt a little starstruck and dazed. She touched her lips, as if they might still be gleaming in pinks and roses and gold.

She glanced at Bree, to see whether her sister had noticed anything amiss, but even Bree was too enchanted with the foal to care what was going on with Penny and Max.

“Maybe we should go see if we can turn up those little rascals,” Max said pleasantly, smiling down at Penny.

“Alec and Ellen?” Gray was distracted, patting the mare to assure her that he meant the colt no harm by coming into the stall. But he was still trying to be polite to his guests. “I saw them in the office just a few minutes ago. They were playing with the closed circuit cameras. I told Alec I’d kill him if he broke it. Mrs. Soames here has done her work, but I’ve got three more late-term mares we’re watching twenty-four hours a day, and—”

“I hate you!”

Everyone turned. Ellen stood in the stable doorway, her hands on her hips, and fury on her face. Alec stood beside her, looking miserable, but not trying to stop her from whatever she intended to do.

“I hate you!” She moved toward her father, and when she reached him, she pushed the heels of her hands against his chest. “I knew you didn’t care about Mom. I
knew
it! She hasn’t even been dead a
year
.”

“Ellen,” Penny interjected. “Ellen, your dad is just—”

“I hate you, too!” Ellen whipped around to face Penny, though she kept her fists on her father’s torso. Her features were blurred with tears, twisted with anger and pain. “You never cared about teaching me to draw, did you? You just
used
me so that you could hang around my dad.”

Shocked, Penny discovered she couldn’t respond.

Ellen wasn’t listening, anyhow. She had turned back to her father, lifting her tearstained face to his.

“Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the day Mom died—did you even remember that? Did you even remember that when you were
kissing
somebody else?”

* * *

“
W
ELL,
IT
IS
a spy camera,” Alec said an hour later, as Rowena wound down from her furious lecture.

He kicked the side of the porch steps with his heels, clearly tired of the grilling he’d been getting by the three women who were his surrogate mothers. “So if people end up using it to spy on other people, I guess you shouldn’t be all that surprised.”

“Ro, Alec is right.” Penny, who sat on Bell River’s back porch swing, leaned her head on her hand. “It wasn’t the kids’ fault. They had no idea what they were going to end up seeing.”

“We sure
didn’t,
” Alec agreed fervently. Trouble, his dog, lay staunchly next to him, thumping his tail every time Alec got emphatic. “Nobody would deliberately watch grown-ups kissing and hugging and being completely gross on TV.”

Ro, Bree and Penny all exchanged a look, but to their credit no one even smiled.

“Seriously, though, Rowena.” Penny continued to plead for leniency with Alec. “I should have remembered the closed circuit system was on. Max didn’t even know it was there, but I did. I should have remembered that nothing on a ranch is really private.”

“Now you know how
I
feel,” Alec grumbled irritably. “I can’t do
anything
without getting caught. Stinks, huh?”

Penny sighed. “Yeah. Stinks big-time.”

“Okay, go on, then,” Rowena said, relenting. “Go help them with dinner. And you’d better hurry, before I change my mind.”

He looked cautious, so she motioned pointedly to the back door. “Go. You’re off the hook, thanks to Penny. But you and trouble better not even find yourselves in the same county—do you understand?” She patted the dog’s head. “Not you. The other kind of trouble.”

Alec wrinkled his nose. “For how long? I mean, I’ll try, but you know how hard it is for me—”

“Forever.” Rowena shook her head. “Or at least until I forget about this one.”

Alec grinned. “Okay.” He stood, climbed back onto the porch and started toward the door.

As he passed Penny, he paused. “I’m sorry you got in trouble. It’s so ironic, isn’t it? I used to try to make Dad kiss women all the time, starting with my math teacher. But he never would. Not even Rowena. Ellen doesn’t want her dad to hook up with anyone, and she can’t keep him away from the ladies.”

“Alec.” Rowena’s voice was stern, but Penny could hear the laughter she was holding back. “Shut up.”

He wrinkled his nose. “What? I’m just saying it’s ironic. And I looked ironic up, too, so I know what it means.”

Rowena shut her eyes. “Goodbye, Alec.”

When he finally was gone, the three sisters sat quietly, watching the late-afternoon ranch activities bustling around them. Even a month ago, neither Rowena nor Bree would have had the luxury of a few free minutes this close to dinner. But Gray’s investment in the breeding program, and Penny’s infusion of cash from the town house sale, had eased the cash crunch.

And as soon as they learned Rowena was pregnant, everyone insisted they hire extra help.

Right now, though, Penny wished her sisters had urgent appointments somewhere else. She sat sideways in the swing, so that she could enjoy the view of the sunset dropping golden paint on the western slopes. She kept one toe on the floor and used it to sway the swing gently, so that its creaking filled the silence.