“How should I know?”
“I thought you said he apologized the other day.”
“Not in detail.” Krista held up a hand before Shelby could press her on it. “And, no, I’m not going to ask him. Don’t care, don’t want to know. I’m just hiring him to keep the guests safe and help me finish the season with a bang at the mustang ride-off. Neither of us is interested in reconnecting.”
Jenny made a humming noise and moved around the granite-topped bar to break the corner off a brownie. Nibbling thoughtfully, she said, “I wouldn’t be so sure about the
neither of us is interested
thing. Did you see how he was looking at you the other day?”
“Like he was afraid I was going to turn into a human hand grenade and blow up all over him?”
“Not from where I was standing. To me, it looked more like he wanted to lean in and take a bite.”
Hot and cold washed over Krista like a breeze had just blown past. “You’re imagining things.”
“What if I’m not? What if he’s interested in starting back up with you? Or starting something new?”
“Then he’s going to be disappointed.”
No way, no how, not going there
.
“It could make things awkward.”
“It’s just a couple of months,” Krista said staunchly. “I can handle anything for a couple of months. Even Wyatt.”
F
rom the moment Wyatt drove Old Blue through a battered wrought-iron archway, where welded horseshoes spelled out
ELCOME
TO
M
USTAN
R
IDGE
with gaps where the missing letters should have been, he felt like he and Klepto were traveling back in time. Not just because the high country was ageless or because the rough-hewn log structures nestled in the valley looked like they could have been a pioneer homestead on steroids, though both of those things were true. It was more that once upon a time, he had pictured himself making this drive under very different circumstances—the kind that involved promises, permanence, and people depending on him.
Ignoring the sudden ache in his molars, he rolled down the winding driveway between two lines of tensile fence, taking in the main ranch building with its two big barns, the horse-and cattle-filled holding pens, and the scatter of log cabins down by a pretty lake. With the grassy valley sweeping up to the ridgeline,
and beyond that the gray-blue mountains and dawn-pinked sky, it was a hell of a view.
For a second, he almost wanted a pencil.
He parked beside the dually Krista and her sister had been driving the other day, its gleaming white paint and professionally done ranch logo making Old Blue look shabby and faded in comparison. “Come on, Klepto. And remember what I said: Behave yourself, or I’ll have to shut you in a stall during the day. The way I hear it, I’m going to need to keep both of my eyes on the greenhorns.”
His phone conversation with Foster had been short and to the point—either the guy wasn’t the chatty sort, or he knew there was some history between him and Krista and didn’t want to get in the middle of it. Still, Wyatt had come away with a good idea of the setup, along with forewarning that some of the dudettes could get pretty aggressive in their efforts to bag a cowboy. Which wouldn’t be a problem for him—he had zero interest in being bagged; he was there just as a sop to his anemic excuse for a conscience.
He followed the signs pointing him to the dining hall, figuring Krista would be setting up for breakfast. When he pushed through the swinging, saloon-style doors, though, he found himself alone in the big, sweet-smelling space, which had lots of exposed wood and a double row of picnic tables set with cheerful red-and-white checkerboard linens.
“We’ll take ours to go,” Wyatt told Klepto, and
headed for an arched doorway, where the scents of homemade bread and bacon-in-progress got stronger, and voices carried along a wood-paneled hallway. His attention was snagged, though, by an old-timey picture that was set into a shadow box beside the doorway and lit from above, bringing the washed-out sepia tones back to life. In it, a man and a woman stood together in a dusty-looking bit of backcountry. He wore a vest and leaned on a long rifle, while she cradled a swaddled baby and had chickens pecking around the hem of her long skirt. There were log buildings in the background, along with an uncovered wagon, its metal hoops exposed to the wind and weather.
Which was cool and all . . . but what was even cooler was that he could see the same mountains through a nearby window, from what looked like the same angle. The cabins and wagon were gone, but the scooping bowl of the valley was there, as was the ridgeline beyond. As far as he could tell, the dining hall had been built right where the photographer had been standing.
Talk about some family history.
“Amazing, isn’t it?”
Wyatt turned toward the voice, saw soft white hair and a welcoming smile. And then did a double take at the sight of Krista’s smile in the face of an older woman in jeans and a ruffled yellow apron painted with a cartoon cow.
Putting his eyes back on the photo, he cleared his throat. “Who are they?”
“We’re not sure. The clothing dates it to after the
1880s, but they look too young to be Jonah and Mary Skye, who built the original homestead, and too old to be the next generation. Employees, maybe, or extended family.” She sighed. “It’s a shame, isn’t it, to lose the stories?”
“When you’ve got a history like this it is.” He looked out the window, imagining the ghost of a covered wagon. “Impressive.”
She dimpled up at him. “We’re going through all the old photos now, trying to match faces and get their stories written down. It’s not easy, though. Some of the pictures have names but no dates, or first names without last. Some don’t have anything at all, like this one.” She tapped the museum-quality glass, expression softening. “Maybe one of these days we’ll figure out who they are. But”—her voice sharpened and her eyes gained a new glint—“enough about yesterday. You must be the new wrangler! Welcome!” She held out her hand. “You’ll call me Gran. Everyone does.”
Which answered one question: She had no idea who he was.
Wyatt shook, getting a surprisingly strong grip in return. “Thank you, ma’am. Is Krista around?”
“She should be out behind the main barn with Jupiter. You’ll bring her a cup of coffee. That’ll get things started off right.” She patted his arm. “We’re happy to have you.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you don’t know me.”
“No, but the guest ranch is Krista’s baby. If she
thinks you’re good enough for it, then that’s enough for us.”
Squelching the urge to tell her that maybe it shouldn’t be, he said, “Coffee would be great.”
A few minutes later, loaded down with two steaming mugs and a couple of fluffy corn muffins that smelled like heaven, plus a day-old biscuit for Klepto, he rounded the back corner of the steel-span barn, where Dutch doors led from the stalls to a series of small individual paddocks. Beyond that, inside a fenced-in arena flanked on two sides by grandstands and a judges’ box, a round pen made of eight-foot-high pipe panels stood empty, save for a sparkling-clean water trough and a pile of fresh hay.
“We seem to be missing something,” he told Klepto, scanning the horizon. “Where do you think— Ah. There.”
On the spine of the ridgeline, a horse and rider stood beside a three-stone marker that looked like it had been there for generations. The scene could’ve come from a hundred years ago, two hundred, but he knew who it was even across the distance. Feeling her eyes on him, Wyatt raised a hand in greeting, and after a moment, the horse started down the slope.
Krista knew her stuff, that was for sure. It was evident in the horse she had picked, and even more so in what he was seeing now, as the pair loped down off the ridgeline, with the gray mare looking like she had been working under saddle for the past eight months rather than the past eight days. She carried her neck with a
natural arch and wore her ears to the front, looking relaxed and interested as Krista slowed her to a walk. A couple of whinnies came from the barn, and the mare answered right back with a happy rumble, as if to say,
Yeah, that’s right. I’m a rock star.
Krista grinned and leaned down to stroke the mare’s neck and whisper something in her ear. And damned if time didn’t suddenly collapse in on itself, turning her twenty again, him twenty-four and struck stupid by the sight of the beautiful blonde on a big gray horse, the two of them moving as one. His body tightened and his hands twitched away from his body, wanting to reach, to touch.
Reining in the urge, he swallowed hard, trying to wet a throat gone suddenly dry. And as Klepto looked up at him and whined, he said aloud, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” It didn’t seem to matter that she wasn’t the girl he used to know, because his body seemed to like the woman she had become just fine.
*
Don’t telegraph,
Krista told herself as Jupiter entered the arena.
Seat loose, body easy.
Because if there was one thing you didn’t want to do when riding a barely broke horse, it was clamp down. She hadn’t been braced to see Wyatt this early, though. Wasn’t sure she wanted to see him at all.
“I’m impressed,” he called. “You two look ready for the ride-off.”
“Thanks. So far, so good.”
Hello, understatement. She wasn’t quite ready to label Jupiter a wunderkind, but the mare had soaked up her ground training in a few sessions and had taken to the saddle and bridle like she had worn them before. Krista didn’t think the mare was an escaped riding horse, though—it was more that every now and then a mustang came down off the range ready to learn. They watched the other horses being handled and ridden, absorbing the information by equine osmosis, and offering the behavior back without the usual
people are scary
and
ooh, don’t touch me there
reflexes of the typical wild mustang. Knock on wood, Krista was starting to think she had one of those horses on her hands, making her think the possibility of winning the competition wasn’t that farfetched after all. But at the same time, she knew that those savant-stangs could be like pressure cookers, going along at a nice boil until a bad training move turned up the heat too far and
bam
! Meltdown.
It was up to her to make sure that didn’t happen, which was another reason she needed a top-notch horse trainer on her side. Foster would have been a perfect match for the mare. As for Wyatt . . . She patted the mare’s neck and murmured, “I hope you like him, girlfriend. Don’t get too attached, though. Odds are, he’s already looking for his pickup rider.” If he stayed the day, she’d be surprised. Eight weeks? No way. If he had really wanted to make things right, he would’ve done it before now.
Note to self,
she thought as she guided Jupiter into
the arena,
keep looking for a new cowboy.
She had to replace Ty anyway. But as she got closer to where Wyatt leaned against the arena fence, watching them from beneath his tipped-down hat, a quiver took root in her stomach and worked its way outward. Because dang, he looked good standing there, surrounded by all the things that were important to her. More, wearing his trademark brown hat, sturdy jeans, good boots, and a work shirt that had seen some miles, he was one hundred percent cowboy. And she’d been programmed from birth to want herself a cowboy.
Too bad this one came with an expiration date.
He touched the brim of his hat. “Morning.”
“You made it.”
Paging Dr. Obvious.
But what else was she supposed to say? It wasn’t like this was a big happy-happy reunion or some “welcome to Mustang Ridge” fanfare. It was business. Not to mention that she’d be darned if she thought about how she used to picture him making a grand entrance at Mustang Ridge, with them riding double on her favorite horse, complete with a brilliant sunset and the theme from
Chariots of Fire
playing in the background. Which was totally cheesy, sure, but she had been young and dumb.
And now she was totally thinking about it.
Drat, drat, drat!
Trying not to scowl, she shoved the memories away.
She could still see them in his eyes, though, hear them in his voice when he said, “This is a fine place you’ve got here, Krista. It’s everything you said it would be. Everything you wanted back then.”
“Not everything,” she said, the words coming out level despite the twinge of knowing that her five-year plan of a husband and kids had stretched to seven, then faded to “one of these days.” Dreams changed, though. Goals changed. And she wasn’t going to settle for anything less than what her parents and grandparents had found in their marriages. Not perfection, but longevity, family, teamwork, and the kind of love that helped two people tough it out through the not-so-perfect times. Which she had come to find was a tall order for someone like her. “But thanks. It’s good land, and business is booming. So I appreciate you being willing to consider the position. Did you talk to Foster?”
He nodded. “He gave me the basics on the guests and the competition. Sounded pretty keen on winning, said it would be good PR.”
“That, and he’s won a few buckles in his day.” Leaving it at that, she patted the mare’s neck. “This is Jupiter, and so far she’s on the fast track.”
“I’ll say. I figured you’d still be sacking her out, maybe ground driving.”
“She skipped a few grades. Granted, we may have to go back later and fill in the gaps.” She was tempted to keep the higher ground, but Jupiter was starting to fidget. Stepping down from the saddle, she added, “Right now I’m working on the basics—gas, brakes, and steering. Assuming you sign on, I’m going to need you to put some trick training on her.”
“What sort of tricks?”
“You should check out the online videos of other
mustang competitions. We’re not just talking about a pretty reining pattern or taking off the bridle halfway through anymore.” Talking about the makeover, she could almost ignore the fact that he dwarfed her, his broad shoulders darn near blocking out the sun. “Some of the winning teams have their horses towing cars into the arena, chasing radio-controlled gizmos around like they’re cutting cows, and even sitting
in
the car while the cowboy drives them out! We’re talking plots and production values here, with horses that only have a couple of months under saddle.” And she needed to deliver.
He eyed her. “Do you have a plan?”
“More or less. My dad is handling the props, and the script needs work.” At least it did now, because there was no way she was doing the original skit with him. “How about you start by teaching her ‘sit,’ and ‘shake,’ and we’ll go from there?”
A low “whuff” drew her attention to Wyatt’s feet, where a scruffy gray dog—medium-size, with a Brillo coat, a schnauzer’s face, and old-man eyebrows—sat holding up a paw.
Krista crouched down, lips shaping a reluctant curve as she found she could be charmed by the dog while wishing wholeheartedly that she didn’t need his master on her property. “Well, hello there. I guess you know
sit
and
shake
, don’t you?” She shook the proffered paw.
“Along with a few other things,” Wyatt said wryly. “This is Klepto.”
“Oh?”
“He has a habit of borrowing things. Don’t worry. I’ll keep him entertained enough—and tired enough—to behave.”
Great,
she thought, knowing the dog wouldn’t be nearly so cute if he was traipsing around with stolen Ray-Bans or a just-out-of-the-box Justin boot. Or, in the case of this week’s guests, dentures and pill bottles, along with the Ray-Bans and boots. But she needed the cowboy, and a good working dog could be a huge asset on the trail.