A Longtime (and at one point Illegal) Crush (6 page)

They’d
reached the house. It was a sprawling red-brick home with pine trees planted at each corner, framing it in a continual Christmas evergreen sort of way. Elsie dismounted, then waited for Kye. He swung his leg around the horse in one swift, well-practiced motion. His legs were still lean and muscular, perfection in faded blue jeans.

“Go on inside,” he told her. “I’ll be in as soon as I put
my horse in the stables.”

“Okay,” she said
and headed up the walkway. She felt the awkwardness of every step she took to the door. She had seen Kye’s house before. When Carson had been younger, sometimes their parents had dropped him off here. Elsie had never been inside, though. Was she supposed to ring the doorbell? Was anybody else home? Probably not, or Kye wouldn’t have sent her in without any sort of preamble.

She opened the door, said a tentative “hello?”
then stepped inside.

No one answered.
Elsie relaxed and shut the door behind her.

Kye’s house was decorated in shades of
testosterone tans and browns. The couch and loveseat in the living room looked comfortable and well worn. A stone fireplace stood against one wall. A large bookcase flanked the other, complete with dog-eared books. Some work boots sat on the tile by the front door. Only the flourish of silk flowers and the gilded family photos placed around the room let Elsie know that Kye’s mother had any part in the decorating.

Kye would
probably be gone for awhile. After all, it took time to unsaddle a horse, brush it down, that sort of stuff. He undoubtedly wasn’t any more eager than she was to sit around and make small talk. She would most likely be here by herself for a half an hour. By that time, Kye would report that Frank was done feeding the cattle, and he would offer to drive her back to her car.

The worst was over.

Elsie texted her dad to let him know she’d been delayed, then wandered over to the bookcase to look at the titles. Most of them were nonfiction. Books about history. Biographies. Ranching. A few novels were scattered in with the rest.
Lord of the Rings
. Tom Clancy. They might have been Kye’s parents’ books. It was their house after all, but she knew Kye well enough to know most of the books were his. His parents weren’t the type to read biographies about Newton, Tesla, or Einstein. Kye had told the class about those men, though, used them as examples of the way math changed the world.

She saw the book
Endurance
, the story about Shackleton’s expedition to the Antarctic. Without thinking, she ran her hand along the spine. She had recommended that book to Kye. It surprised her to see it on his shelf. Next to it sat
The Book Thief
. She had told him that novel was one of her favorites. She dropped her hand away. She shouldn’t be surprised, really. Kye had rejected her, not her reading list.

“Good heavens! Who are you?”

Elsie spun around to see Mrs. McBride standing at the edge of the living room, hand pressed against her chest in alarm.

“Oh, sorry,” Elsie stuttered. “I didn’t know anyone was here. Kye told me to go inside. He’s
putting his horse in his stable.” Her words fell from her mouth in an embarrassed jumble. She gestured toward the stables as though this would help her explanation make more sense.

Mrs.
McBride dropped her hand from her chest. “Oh. Sorry to snap at you like that. You startled me, that’s all.” She smiled politely at Elsie now. “You’re Kye’s friend?”

Friend wasn’t the word Elsie would have used.
Carson was Kye’s friend. Elsie was a bad memory. She wondered if Kye had told his parents about what happened between them. He probably had. Mrs. McBride had most likely shaken her head in a sad, understanding way about Elsie’s schoolgirl crush. Or worse, Mrs. McBride had become indignant that a trollop of a girl had tried to seduce her son.

Elsie forced a smile. “I’m
Elsie Clark.” She tried to say her name as though she had nothing to hide. It still came out hesitant, unsure.

“You’ve come for the wedding?” Mrs.
McBride said pleasantly. No flicker of pity or indignation went through her eyes. Maybe Kye hadn’t told his parents after all.

“Yes,”
Elsie said, “I’m just here for a fast trip.”

The sound of a walker clunking into the room announced Mr.
McBride’s arrival. “Who’s come for the wedding?” he asked. He was a big man with bright blue eyes that peered from a sun-worn face. His hands, gripping the walker, were scarred from years of ranch work.

“This is
Elsie,” Mrs. McBride said. “She’s Kye’s friend.”

The word
friend
hit Elsie’s ears with the same tinny discordance it had the first time. Still, there was nothing to do but smile politely at Mr. McBride.

“Well,” he said, “you’re a good deal prettier than most of
Kye’s friends. His taste must be improving.” He laughed at his joke, and it was a booming, friendly sound. His gaze swept around the room. “Where is Kye?”

“Out in the
stables,” Elsie said. “He’ll be here soon.” She didn’t want to say why she was here and wondered how much explanation was required.
You see, your cattle trapped me in a standing stampede . . .

“So what do you do?” Mrs.
McBride asked, still smiling politely at Elsie.

“I’m a student at
UM. I’m studying business.” For the first time Elsie wondered if Kye’s parents recognized her. Certainly they knew who she was. She had told them her name. They’d sat in the same church every Sunday for years. They had dropped Kye off at her house and Carson had been over to theirs countless times. They were asking about her schooling to be gracious.

Mrs.
McBride nodded at Elsie. “Are you staying for dinner? It’s nothing fancy. Just some soup, potato salad, and ham sandwiches.”

Elsie
shook her head. “No, I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

Elsie
hadn’t realized Kye had come inside until she heard his voice behind her. “It’s no trouble. We eat dinner every night.”

Elsie
turned to him, her mouth opened to protest.

“I insist,” he added in the tone he had used to tell the class to settle down and get to work.

What else could she do? Sit there and watch them eat? Stay in the living room and pr
etend they were all strangers? So she smiled, waited for Kye to put his coat in the closet, and then went with him into the kitchen.

It was
ironic, Elsie thought as Mrs. McBride put a sandwich on her plate and poured her a bowl of tomato soup. When Elsie had been growing up, she’d glanced at the McBrides sitting in their pew and imagined this moment a dozen times: being invited over to dinner, Kye’s parents chatting happily to her as though she mattered. It was proof prayers were answered. Unfortunately, they weren’t answered promptly. Elsie had taken this dinner off her wish list three years ago.

After a few minutes of conversation, Mrs.
McBride glanced between Kye and Elsie. “Tell me again—where did the two of you meet?”

Elsie stiffened, mid bite.
So it was every bit as bad as she’d feared. Kye’s parents didn’t recognize her. They thought she was dating Kye, that she was his equal, and now Elsie would be forced to listen while he set the record straight. This meal was about to take an awkward turn.

Kye
stared blankly at his mother, and then seemed to understand her confusion. “This is Elsie Clark,” he said. “I’ve known her all my life.” He turned to Elsie. “Didn’t you tell them who you were?”

“Yes, of course I did.” The words came out more d
efensively than she’d intended. She didn’t want Kye to think she’d pretended there was something between them.

Mrs.
McBride stared at Elsie in amazement. “Clark? I thought you said Parker. Good heavens.” The wrinkles at her eyes deepened as she laughed at her own mistake. “You’re little Eloise Clark? It can’t be.” She shook her head. “When I saw you there in the living room, I assumed you were Kye’s date for the wedding.”

“An easy mistake,” Kye said evenly, “except I told you my date’s name was Lisa and she doesn’t
get to Lark Field until tomorrow night.”

Mrs.
McBride ignored her son. “Look at you,” she went on cooing at Elsie. “You’ve grown up into such a pretty girl.”

“She h
as always been a pretty girl,” Kye said, stirring his soup in a matter of fact way. “You just never noticed before.”

Well, that made i
t a family trait they shared, since Kye had never looked twice at her either. Elsie wondered what Lisa looked like and how serious they were.

Elsie stirred her own soup
, her gaze locked on Kye’s for the first time since she’d sat down at the table. “You don’t remember how we met, do you?” She asked the question to prove what she already knew—that despite Kye’s polite attention now, things weren’t any different between the two of them.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, since we’ve both lived in
Lark Field all our lives, I assume we met when you were a baby and I was six years old. My mother probably stopped yours in the hallway at church to congratulate her on your arrival.”

“That sort of meeting doesn’t count,” Elsie said.

“Then no, I don’t remember.”

Proof positive, and a reminder to Elsie that her crush had always been
one-sided and she didn’t need to rekindle it now.

“Well,”
Kye said, prodding her. “How did we meet?”

Elsie
took a sip of her soup. It was thick and spicy, warm with cheese and comfort—which were sometimes indistinguishable from one another. “As long as you don’t remember, I can say anything, can’t I? I saved you from a burning building, and it’s quite ungracious of you to forget about it.”

Kye’s
lips quirked in a familiar way. “No, I’m sure I would remember that.”

“
Think harder . . . the smoke, the heat, the flames licking around you.”

He took a casual sip of his water. “I believe what you’re actually describing is He
ll. I’ve been there several times but don’t recall ever seeing you there.”

“Oh, I’ve been there many times,” Elsie said. “It’s always a lovely reprieve from
the Montana winters.”

Both of Kye’s parents laughed
at that. “True enough,” Mr. McBride said.

Kye’s gaze was steady on Elsie. “So where did we actually meet?”

She had to tell him then, even though she didn’t want to. “When I was eight you came over to tutor Carson. After a while you went to play basketball, and I wanted to play too. Carson told me to go away, but you said I could be on your team. You put me on your shoulders.”

Mrs. McBride let out an appreciative sigh. “That’s so sweet.” She patted Kye’s arm. “It’s nice to know you were kind to someone’s sister, since you were rarely kind to your own.”

“I was frequently kind to Celeste,” Kye said.

Mrs. McBride kept patting his arm. “
Oh, I’m just teasing.” She turned to Elsie confidently. “He was
usually
kind to his sister. I always told my boys you could tell how a man would treat his wife by the way he treated his sister.”

“
Poor Olivia,” Elsie said, referring to Carson’s fiancé. “Maybe I should warn her about that deer head Carson kept hiding in my bedroom.” One Christmas Elsie’s parents had been given a mounted deer head from some relative of theirs. Elsie had thought it was horrible and had said they shouldn’t keep it, which had apparently been an invitation for her brothers in to hide it in places she would find it—her bed, her shower, her closet, the back of their car.

Kye raised a finger of recognition. “I do remember the deer head. I
probably should confess that it was my idea to put it in your fridge. Took Carson and me a good half an hour to clear out the space for it.”

“Really?”
Elsie asked with a smile of her own. “Well, I absolve you for it. My mother was the one who found it that time. I think that’s what finally convinced her to get rid of the thing.”

Mrs. McBride shook her head at her son.
“A deer head in the fridge? Someone should be warning Lisa about you.”

Kye went back to his dinner.
“Totally unnecessary. Besides, I don’t think you can
really
judge a man by how he treats his sisters.”

Mr
s. McBride finished off a bite of her sandwich. “Then how should you judge him?”

“By the way he treats
his students,” Elsie supplied. She shouldn’t have said it. It was too close to admitting that the memory of Kye rejecting her still stung.

“In that case,” Kye said,
“I have nothing to worry about. I’ve always treated my students well.”

Is that the way he saw it?
Granted, maybe by law he’d had to reject her, but he hadn’t needed to do it so heartlessly—accusing her of trying to get him fired and emphasizing it had always been one-sided between them. Hadn’t he ever heard of the phrase “I’m flattered, but I just want to be friends”?