Gran beamed. “Why, yes! Would you like to try him?”
Maizey blinked. “Him? Who?”
More voices than Krista could count chorused in unison, “Herman!” and then dissolved to laughter.
Grinning, Krista rescued Maizey from the microphone, and said, “To my grandparents. Happy anniversary!”
There was a general shout of, “Hear, hear!” and lots of clinking glasses, and the guests moved in to admire the plaque. From the throng, Big Skye reached out a hand to Krista. “Come here, you.” Pulling her into his arms, he hugged her long and hard, like she was eight years old again, whispering in her ear, “Thank you. For everything.”
And she had a feeling that if Bueno had been in the tent with them, he would’ve put her up on the saddle in front of him, and called her his little cowgirl.
Eyes stinging with happy tears, she hugged him back fiercely. “I love you, Gramps. So much.”
He patted her shoulder. “You’re a good girl, Krissy. The best.”
Gran was next, hugging her so tight she couldn’t breathe, then setting her away to mock-scold, “I know you told him about lunch in Paris.”
Krista blinked innocently. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Then she grinned. “But wasn’t it breakfast in Paris and lunch somewhere else?”
“Who cares? I’m going to Paris!” Gran threw her hands up in the air and did a twirl that flared her skirt around her legs and got Big Skye’s attention as the DJ took his cue and spun the next tune—something jazzy and fun that immediately got toes tapping.
When the dancing started up again, Krista walked into Wyatt’s arms. He swung her in a circle, then pulled her close and enfolded her, swaying to the music. “Happy?” he said against her temple.
“Blissful. That was perfect.”
“Yeah. It really was.” His voice was a low rumble, his hands hypnotic on her body as they danced. When the song wound down and another geared up, he said, “You thirsty?”
“Parched, actually, and I wouldn’t mind sitting for a minute. And, you know, enjoying the glow of a party well executed.”
“Well executed, indeed. But I’ve got something else in mind.” Twining their fingers together, he led her from the tent, snagging their coats on the way out and draping hers across her shoulders. “Come on.”
Little bubbles of pleasure fizzed in her bloodstream. “Where are we going?” she asked, though it didn’t really matter, as long as she was with him. It had taken her a while to figure that out. But she got it now. She did.
“You’ll see.”
He took her to the barn, ushering her into the warm, sweet-smelling interior.
A laugh bubbled up. “You didn’t buy a pony, did you?” He had been talking about it, though she had
assured him that Marshmallow would love having a little girl of his own.
“Nope. This is all for you.” He swung open the door to the tack room, where the heat was on and a blanket was spread on the floor, topped with a bottle of sparkling cider and two glasses.
She lifted a hand to her throat as it closed on a swell of emotion. “Oh, Wyatt. It’s perfect. I’m so ready for a few minutes of peace and quiet, with just the two of us.” More even than she had realized until just this moment.
“Your wish is my command.” He took her hand and lowered her to the blanket, then poured the cider as she fluffed out her skirt and let the party din recede from her brain. For a short while, at least.
Stretching her arms wide, she breathed deeply. “I really don’t think we could have found a better way to celebrate. Fifty years. Can you imagine it?”
“Yeah, actually, I can.” And something in his voice said it wasn’t an offhand comment.
Happy sparks lit in her belly and she leaned into him for a kiss. “Me, too.” They had talked about marriage, of course, and agreed it would happen when the time was right. Next fall, maybe, or the spring after. It would happen, though, she knew. She had faith.
More, she had love.
“In fact . . .” Wyatt looked around them, then gave a low whistle. When that didn’t produce any results, he whistled again and said, “Yo, Klepto. That’s your cue!”
Krista gaped when the scrubby gray dog came bounding through the door, with his tail wagging and his cheeks bulging. “Oh, jeez,” she exclaimed. “What have you got there? Tell me it’s not expensive.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. “Actually, it is.”
The dog stopped at the edge of the blanket and sat down like he was actually trained to sit-stay, and looked at Wyatt for his next cue.
Something suddenly made her think that this was about more than a glass of sparkling cider and a moment for them to be alone.
Wyatt sat beside her, lifted his glass, and said, “To us.”
“To us,” she responded weakly. “What’s going on here?”
One corner of his mouth kicked up. “You’ll see. Honestly, I thought about doing this after the presents, in front of everyone, and your parents and grandparents were fine with it. But then I figured we didn’t need an audience for this. Just each other.”
“My . . .” Her parents knew? And Gran and Big Skye? She lifted a hand to her rapidly tightening throat. “An audience for what, exactly?”
“This.” He held out a hand to Klepto. “Drop it.”
The dog opened his mouth and spit a cardboard jewelry box into his hand.
Wyatt winced. “You weren’t supposed to slobber on it, you fool. Glad I swapped out the original box for something you couldn’t swallow.”
Krista barely heard him. She was staring at the box. “Is that . . . ?”
“Your Great-grandma Abby’s ring?” He opened the box to reveal a yellow-gold ring set with a deep red garnet and crusted with diamonds. “Yeah. It is. And it’s my promise to you.”
Her breath exited in a rush as the world threatened to spin. This was happening. It was really happening. “What kind of a promise?”
“All of them,” he said simply, and held out the ring. “Will you wear this, Krista Skye, as a symbol of my promise to love you, adore you, care for you, and be your partner? Will you travel with me, ride with me, and be my anchor and my wings? And, most of all, Krista Skye, will you marry me?”
“I will,” she said softly, feeling like her heart was suddenly too big for her chest, too big for her entire body. “I love you, Wyatt. So much. I’m so lucky you came back into my life.”
She held out her hand and he slipped the ring—the one she had loved since she was a little girl—onto her ring finger where it fit, snug and perfect, like it had been intended for her all along.
“I’m the lucky one,” he said, cupping the back of her neck and drawing her toward him. “You gave me a second chance,” he said against her lips. “And thank God for that.”
He kissed her then, in a perfect moment that went on and on, lighting sparks in her body that could easily
expand to more. She moved closer, slipped her hand inside his shirt, and—
“Hey, you two,” Nick called from the far end of the barn. “If you’re about done in there, Big Skye is yelling for you. Jenny’s setting up for a family picture, and he wants both of you in
it!”
Read on for a special preview of the next book in the series,
FIRELIGHT AT
MUSTANG RIDGE
Available from Signet Eclipse
in February 2015!
D
anny Traveler didn’t put much stock in luck or fortune-cookie sayings, but as the shuttle bus rolled beneath an archway that spelled out
WELCOME
TO
MUSTANG
RIDGE
in horseshoes, she was starting to think that the whole “if you’re going through hell, keep on going” thing might have some merit. The last year or so had sucked eggs, but now, finally, she thought she might be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Or, rather, the rainbow at the end of the tunnel. Because as the luxury bus followed the winding drive between two grassy fields—horses on one side, cattle on the other—they were headed straight for a perfect rainbow that arched over the valley beyond.
“Would you look at that?” Danny’s seatmate plastered her face to the window. “It’s a sign!”
Danny made a polite noise of agreement. Kiki-From-Cambridge had been talking in exclamation points the entire three-hour ride, to the point that the heavily made-up—and generously endowed—brunette had seemed to be in danger of popping the snaps of her
fringed Western shirt as she babbled on about everything from the gum-smacking guy who had sat next to her on the plane to the fact that she hadn’t been on a horse since she got bucked off a lead-line pony at the age of six. That made Danny wonder why she had decided on a dude ranch for her summer vacation, but she kept the question to herself and gave Kiki props for facing her fears.
Too bad she was doing it at top volume a couple of feet away.
Most of the others on the bus had tuned Kiki out by the thirty-minute mark, leaving Danny wishing she had taken the singleton seat in the far back.
“Can you believe we’re finally here?!” Kiki gave a happy sigh. “It feels like I’ve been waiting for this forever. What color horse do you hope you get? I want a yellow one! Pimiento, they call it.”
Danny couldn’t help herself. “I think it’s palomino.”
“No, I’m pretty sure it’s pimiento. And did you see the cowboys on the Web site?” Kiki made a
yum-yum
noise. “I’d like to take a ride on one of them!”
Trying not to picture a horse made of pimiento loaf, a deli product called palomino loaf, or Kiki riding anything two-legged, Danny pointed out the window. “Oh, look! There’s the ranch! Isn’t it pretty?” Kiki made a happy noise and flattened her nose to the glass once more, making Danny wonder what she looked like from the other side, and then gave herself a mental kick for being bitchy. It wasn’t Kiki’s fault that Danny was winding down just when everyone else on the bus was
gearing up. Hoping her internal eye rolls hadn’t made it to the outside, Danny asked, “Do you see any of those cowboys?”
“Not yet,” Kiki said, staring raptly as the valley unfolded in front of them. “But I see more horses, and you’re right. It’s sooo beautiful down there!!”
And, yeah, if Danny hadn’t given up the window seat the second time Kiki leaned across her to
ooh-ahh
before they even left the airport loop road, she would have been making a face-print of her own on the glass.
Tucked into a perfect V of sun-toasted valley, the ranch was a mix of old and new, from the log-style main house and matching guest cabins scattered near an almost perfectly circular lake to the big steel-span barn that bumped up against an older wooden structure. Fence lines spidered out from the barns and bordered a dirt track that led through a perimeter fence and up a shallow slope to a ridge. Beyond that somewhere was Blessing Valley. Her valley.
Danny let out a soft sigh. It looked peaceful. Wonderful. And like it was exactly what the doctors had ordered.
“Wow is right!” Kiki said, suggesting that Danny had said the word aloud. “Aren’t those just the cutest cabins you’ve ever seen?”
The noise level increased as the other passengers roused from their travel fugue with exclamations of “There’s the pavilion where they have dancing!” and “Do you think we can fish in the lake?” along with lots of “Ohh, look at the horses!”
The rising chatter bounced around Danny as the young cowboy in the driver’s seat pulled the shuttle up in front of the barn and killed the engine. Getting on the intercom to project over the noise of two dozen vacationers readying to make a break for it, he said, “Welcome to Mustang Ridge, folks! I’d like to invite you to hop on down, fill your lungs with some fresh Wyoming air, and connect with Krista, Rose, or Gran—they’re the ones wearing the green polo shirts and carrying clipboards. They’ll get you set up with your cabins and tell you all the cool stuff that comes next.” He gave a dramatic pause, then deepened his voice. “So . . . are you ready to take your first step onto the soil that’s been walked by cowboys of the Skye family for more than ten generations?”
As a ragged group shout rose, made up of lots of
Yeah
and
Woo
noises, Kiki scrambled over Danny and leaped into the aisle, where she did a shimmy-shake that set a whole lot of stuff shimmying and shaking, and hollered, “Let’s ride ’em, cowboys!”
The driver’s eyes went deer-in-headlights wide in the rearview mirror, and, instead of doing the “I can’t hear you” thing that was probably next in the script, he popped open the doors. “Watch your step, folks! And welcome to Rustlers Week!”
Danny stayed put while the first wave of guests stampeded off. Then she and the stragglers filed out into a whole lot of sunshine. The minute her hiking boots touched down, she got a quiver in her belly that said,
You’re here. You made it. Welcome to the next chapter
of your life.
Which was totally the power of suggestion, thanks to the bus driver’s rah-rah routine, but still. Moving away from the bus, she filled her lungs with dry, sweet-smelling air that carried the scents of horses and sunbaked grasslands.
“You must be Danielle,” a voice said from behind her.
She turned, doing a double take at the sight of a pretty, perky blonde who wore a green polo and a baby sling, and was entirely familiar, yet not. “Krista. Hi! Yes, it’s me. But, please, call me Danny.” She peeked inside the sling and saw the curve of an infant’s head, blond baby-fine hair, and a fat pink bow. “And this must be Abigail Rose.”
Krista’s lips curved. “Abby to her friends, which includes you. Any friend of Jenny’s is a friend of ours.”
“Jenny and I really only worked together for a month or so.” In a faraway rainforest, where Krista’s twin had been filming a reality dating show and Danny had been in charge of the zip-lining, bungee jumping and canyoneering dates.
It felt like another lifetime.
“If she says you’re cool, then you’re cool,” Krista said firmly. Then, to the baby, she said liltingly, “Isn’t that right, Abby-gabby? Your Aunt Jenny knows her stuff. And, thanks to her, Danny here is going to hang out with Jupiter’s herd up in Blessing Valley for a while. Won’t that be fun?”
Throat tightening, Danny managed, “I’m grateful. Really. I don’t know how to tell you what this means to me.”
Krista patted her shoulder. “Don’t stress it—we’re happy to help. I get it, though. You’re way more used to doing favors than needing them.”
Danny eyed her. “Jenny told you that?”
“Nope, but like recognizes like.” Krista adjusted the sling as the sleeping baby shifted against her, curving into her body like a small, sleepy shrimp. “Up until a year ago, I had to be in charge of things, no matter what. The ranch, the business, life in general . . . I might have asked for help now and then but always on my terms.”
“And then she came along?” Danny nodded to the baby.
“Well, first her father came along.” Krista’s brilliant blue eyes gained a glint. “Wyatt. We were college sweethearts who crossed paths again at a time when I needed a cowboy, he needed some saddle time, and neither of us was thinking about romance. At least that was what we keep telling ourselves.”
“And you’re getting married soon.” Jenny had passed along that detail while Danny had still been trying to catch up with the idea that her freewheeling, country-hopping photographer friend was married to a veterinarian and living in Wyoming when she used to swear she’d never return home for more than a quick visit.
A pleased flush touched Krista’s cheeks. “We’ve got nine weeks until the wedding. Long enough to feel like I should change everything but not long enough that it’s an option, so we’re going with the plan we’ve got—
family and friends under the pavilion.” Her expression brightened. “You’re invited, of course. Please say you’ll come!”
Danny had to stop herself from backpedaling, which was silly. Maybe for a while she had hoped the next wedding she went to would be her own, but it was past time for her to stop flinching over that. “I’d be honored,” she said. “Thanks for inviting me.”
“Brilliant! Don’t stress about dressing up, but if you want to shop, Jenny and I are always up for a girls’ night, or afternoon or whatever. And our friend Shelby—she always manages to make the stuff she finds in town look like it came out of a fashion magazine.”
“That sounds fun.” She couldn’t spend the whole summer alone, after all. Besides, she wanted to thank Jenny in person for e-mailing out of the blue to catch up, and then, when Danny gave her the short version of the past couple of years, responding with:
Come to Mustang Ridge. It’s the perfect place to get your head screwed back on straight
.
“Sweetie?” a voice called from the other side of the bus. Moments later, a petite, white-haired woman came around the front of the shuttle, eyes lighting when she caught sight of Krista. “There you are! I’m going to fix a few folks up with snacks while your mom and Junior show everyone else to their cabins. Do you need anything?”
“Nope, I’m good for right now, and Miss Abby is conked out.” Krista patted the heavy curve of the sling. “Bless her for being a good sleeper, and pretty much
the best baby ever—not that I’m biased or anything. But before you go, Gran, I want to introduce you to Danny Traveler.”
“Hello, dear! It’s so lovely that you’re here. How was your flight?”
“It was fine.” She had picked a plane that had a single row of seats on one side, then strapped herself in, chased an Ambien with a screw-top micro-bottle of white wine, and practiced her deep breathing exercises. It hadn’t been fun, but she had made it through.
Gran’s eyes went sympathetic, like she had said the rest of it out loud. “I stocked your camp with supplies, but come see me before you and Krista head out there. I have a little basket put together for you.”
“And by
little
she means approximately the size and mass of the average blanket chest,” Krista put in.
Danny cleared her throat, suddenly overwhelmed—by the warm welcome, the chaos, all the people around her. To Krista, she said, “Do you need to help show people to their cabins? I don’t want to keep you from your guests.”
“You’re a guest, too.”
“I’m not paying nearly what they are.” Which was yet another reason to be grateful.
“No, but you’re staying far longer, and you’re not going to require nearly as much hands-on time. Though for the record, you’re welcome to participate in any of the activities you’d like. We’ve always got a spare horse or three, and there’s something incredibly relaxing about a long ride in the great, big wide-open.”
“We’ll see. I’m planning on spending most of my time in the valley.”
“Of course. But please consider it an open invitation.” Krista touched her arm—like she wanted to do more but could tell Danny wasn’t a hugger. “Come on. Let me hand off Abby to her nana, and then I’ll show you to your valley.” She laughed. “Now
that’s
not something I get to say every day! See? I knew I was going to like having you around.” She danced off, humming a happy tune and exchanging a few words with each of the guests she passed, introducing herself and the baby, and welcoming the newcomers to her family’s world.
Danny watched her, thinking,
That.
That was what she wanted—not all the people and the hustle-bustle of running a dude ranch, but that sense of loving life and doing exactly what she wanted to do. Too bad she didn’t know what, exactly, that was.
Yet.