Life After Wife (23 page)

Hayden finger-combed his dark hair and set his square jaw seriously. “That’s tough. What makes you think we’ve got three magic words anyway?”

“Everyone has them and, until they figure them out, they don’t have any business thinking about settling down,” Sophie said.

“I’ll have to think about it and get back to you,” Tanner said. “Guess I’m not ready to settle down because I thought ‘I love you’ was the magic. Guess it’s just the cupcake. The icing is the magic words.”

“That’s right,” Sophie said. “What about you, Elijah?”

“I’ll be faithful,” he spit out without hesitation.

“Reason behind it?” she asked.

“He was engaged when he went to the desert the second time. He wasn’t gone a week when his woman was flirtin’
around in a bar with another man. A month later she sent him a breakup note,” Hayden said.

“She broke up with him on Facebook!” Tanner said. “Put it right out there for everyone to see and mailed the ring to Momma rather than coming around and facing my folks.”

Sophie’s interest was piqued, but Elijah looked like he was about to crawl under the table or else set the whole kitchen on fire with his red face.

“You deserve better, Elijah,” she said and abruptly changed the subject. “What’s on everyone’s agenda today? Tomorrow we really get down to business now that the new equipment is here, but what are y’all doin’ today?”

Hayden refilled his cup. “I’m watchin’ a football game while my laundry runs, and maybe getting my sleeping quarters put into shape. I think my laptop got put out in storage, so I may spend some time out there searching for it. I’m addicted to e-mail.”

Tanner shrugged. “Same thing, I guess. I might take that new tractor out around the fence line just to get the feel of how it drives.”

“Elijah and I are going over to Theron and Fancy’s place this afternoon. He wants to look at some cattle, and the girls and I have our gossip fest on Sunday if everyone can make it,” Sophie said.

Hayden stood up and stretched the kinks from his back and neck. He was almost as tall as Elijah and maybe ten pounds heavier. Still handsome enough to make women take a second or third look with his dark looks and thick lashes over dark brown eyes. Tanner did the same. He was plainly Hayden’s twin, but his face was slightly thinner, his eyes a lighter brown, and his hair had a bit of wave in it.

It hadn’t taken Sophie long to figure out their differences, and now she had no trouble telling them apart. Besides Tanner’s lighter eyes, he was the one who spoke up the fastest while Hayden was the deeper thinker.

“Hungry?” Elijah asked Sophie when they were gone.

“Are there leftovers?”

“No, but there’s still pancake batter in the bowl and the griddle is on the stove,” he answered.

She pushed back her chair and headed to the kitchen. “Pancakes sound good. How do you take them?”

“I’ve already eaten. Me and the boys had breakfast together.”

She smiled.

His heart did one of those crazy flip-flops that constricted his chest muscles.

She went on, “I figured that much. I like mine with butter, applesauce, and then a little syrup drizzled over the top. I was asking you how you like yours.”

“Melted butter and lots of maple syrup,” he answered.

She filed that away for the next Sunday when she planned to do the cooking. Maybe she’d treat them to her pumpkin pancakes or the new recipe she and Maud discovered using ground pecans. Both went exceptionally well with maple syrup.

She was still thinking about cooking when the fine hair on her neck prickled and she turned quickly to find herself in Elijah’s arms. He’d taken the coffeepot to the cabinet and was peering over her shoulder, watching her flip pancakes and then his arms were around her. She turned slowly without making him loosen his hold. Their gazes locked. Her gray eyes searched deeply into his blue ones, and then their lips connected in a passionate kiss that left her knees weak and
her heart about to jump plumb out of her chest and do a jig on the floor.

“I was about to make another pot of coffee. I expect you’ll need some after all that sweet syrup,” he whispered hoarsely.

She cocked her head to one side and shimmied out of his arms. How in the great green earth could he kiss her like that and then talk about coffee? If her kisses affected him the way his did her, he wouldn’t be able to utter a sane word, much less talk about coffee! She could have strangled the man until he turned blue and then slapped him for changing colors.

Life was not fair! She should have listened to common sense the first time she saw him on that motorcycle at Maud’s funeral. It said to shoot the man. Now she’d let him inch his way into her heart and had no idea how to get him out.

Elijah had just about lost his socks when he kissed Sophie. It happened every time their lips touched. He hadn’t come to Baird looking for anything but a quiet, busy life of ranching. He certainly hadn’t planned on falling for the sassy redhead determined to send him packing off to another ranch. But he had and now he didn’t have any idea what to do about it.

If he started a relationship with her, she’d always wonder if it was because he really wanted her half of the ranch. He didn’t have a doubt that he could trust her and that she would be faithful. After the way she’d been treated in the past, she would never enter into a relationship without being totally sure that it was the right thing and that it was eternal.

Eternal, Elijah thought as he busied himself at the kitchen sink, rinsing the coffeepot. Mercy, was he really thinking of
something long-term with Sophie McSwain? Could he even think the
M word
without getting hives?

After he’d gotten the message from his ex-fiancé, he’d vowed he’d never trust another woman. And yet, there he was, thinking Sophie and marriage in the same sentence and there wasn’t a single itchy splotch on him. When and where had he fallen for the woman?

It sure hadn’t been love at first sight. He’d been sure she would take his money and take off for the nearest shopping mall, but he’d been wrong. He frowned as he tried to remember the first time they’d even been civil to each other.

It had only been five weeks, but he felt as if he’d known her his whole life, and it had happened slowly over the hours and days of working side by side. Now what in the devil was he supposed to do with it?

Could he offer her the life after wife that she wanted? She deserved it and more. She was the hardest working woman he knew, maybe even more so than his mother had been. Sophie would crawl up on a tractor, get her hands dirty changing oil or transmission fluid, and bale hay with the best of the hired hands. And then she could dress up in her Western boots and fancy clothes and fit into his arms like they were made for dancing together.

“Whatever are you thinking about?” she asked, breaking into his inner thoughts.

He jumped. “Fishin’.”

“Well, you’ve washed that pot three times. I reckon it’s clean.” She piled the last pancake on a plate and carried it to the table.

He chuckled. “Guess I was doin’ some powerful woolgathering.”

“Evidently. I’ve made too many pancakes. Get a fork and come help me eat them.”

“Couldn’t possibly put another bite in my overloaded stomach. I’m going out to the tack room to gather up all our fishin’ gear. We’ll take the new truck.”

“We usually meet about one at Fancy’s place. I’d planned on doing laundry and some housework until twelve thirty or so. That fit with your plans?”

“Just fine.” He put on a pot of coffee and disappeared out the back door. Maybe there would be answers out in the tack room for all the questions that kiss had raised up in his soul.

Kate and Hart were already at Fancy and Theron’s ranch when Elijah and Sophie arrived. Hart and Theron were leaning on a corral fence and motioned Elijah over that way when he and Sophie were out of the truck.

She hurried into the house and was greeted by Kate rocking Glory Emma-Gwen in the corner of the kitchen, Fancy pulling fresh chocolate chip cookies from the oven, and Tina dancing around like she had ants in her pants asking when the cookies would be cool enough to eat.

Normality, and she loved it. After Elijah’s kiss that morning she was almost too antsy to even eat pancakes, and now she was starving again because she hadn’t bothered with lunch. She took three glasses from the cabinet, filled them with ice from the freezer, and poured some sweet tea.

“I expect you’re going to fuss about it being your turn to hold the baby,” Kate said.

“You expect right,” Sophie said.

Tina hopped on one foot. “Well, I want the cookies to hurry up so I can take some to Daddy. Momma said I could take them all by myself when they got unhot.”

“It’s not fair,” Kate said. “You got two daughters, and I don’t even have one.”

Fancy pushed back a strand of blonde hair and smiled. “You know what to do about that, girlfriend.”

“I’m waiting on Sophie,” Kate said.

Sophie almost dropped the two glasses of tea she was carrying to the table. “Well, darlin’, you might die childless if you are waiting on me.”

“Hmmph,” Kate snorted.

Tina bounced around from Kate, where she peeked at her new baby sister; to Sophie, where she begged to carry the last glass to the kitchen table; to Fancy, where she wanted to put ice on the cookies to cool them.

“OK, antsy britches, I reckon I can put a few on a paper plate and you can take them out to the horse corral. Your daddy said he’d even saddle up your pony and let you ride around the corral this afternoon,” Fancy said.

Tina jumped up and down like a windup toy in excitement. “Someday when I get bigger, Daddy says I can go out of the corral on my pony, and then I’m going to ride all the way to see y’all.”

“That’s a long way,” Sophie said.

Tina settled down and looked up at Sophie, her big brown eyes serious. “My pony can ride a long time without getting tired.”

“Then I’ll be glad to see you comin’ down the lane,” Sophie said and winked at Fancy.

Tina carried the cookies out the door very carefully. Kate stood up and handed the baby to Sophie, who immediately claimed the rocking chair.

The way that the baby fit into her arms sent her biological clock ticking so loud that it almost deafened her. She’d always wanted a big family, maybe even five or six children instead of the usual two or three, but her husband had wanted to make
sure his career was solid before they started down that path. At least that was the story she got. But she wasn’t going to think about that; she was going to smell fresh baby powder and relish the moments she could hold a sweet little girl.

“And now it is confessional time,” Kate said. “We want to hear every single detail of the date. And remember we are all BFFs, and if you leave out a single little thing, we’ll know, and we will fix you up this coming Friday night.”

“It didn’t really start out as a date. We’ve decided to pool our money and buy the two ranches just south of the Double Bar M. They got burned pretty bad, and the owners are wanting to sell. So Elijah asked me if I’d like to ride down to the Dairy Queen for ice cream to celebrate our decision,” she said.

Fancy sat down at the table and wolfed down two cookies. “Don’t sound like a date to me. There’s a new youth minister at our church. He’s got pretty green eyes and he’s about our age. I’m calling him tomorrow.”

“No, it was a date. I promise,” Sophie said quickly.

Kate downed her third cookie. “Tell us more and we’ll decide.”

“We had ice cream and wound up sharing the last scoop of my banana split,” Sophie said.

“Still not sure if it’s a full-fledged date,” Fancy said.

“Let me finish. I loved the motorcycle. Even thought about buying one after I’d ridden on his, with my arms around his waist, I might add. Is it getting closer to a date?”

Fancy twisted her full mouth off to one side.

Kate drew her black eyebrows down.

“So since I loved the ride so much, we went up to Fort Griffin,” and she went on to tell them every single detail she could think of—up to and including the kiss.

“Any more kisses since then?” Kate asked.

Sophie held up two fingers.