Authors: Kay Springsteen
Standing behind Walt Blackstone and Leo
Pickens, she heard more gossip of the day.
"He just drove on into the garage with a
mangled tire. Said there was an extra hundred in it if he got a new
one by tomorrow," said Walt, owner of Blackstone's Auto Repair. "I
had to send young Wendell up to Jackson to get one, darned fancy
things."
"Came by my place, too," Leo announced.
"Picked out some high-end tack. Ask me, the way he's taking charge,
I think he's back to stay."
Walt shook his head as he walked up to the
next teller, grumbling, "Never thought that day'd come. Now I
s'pose there'll be the devil to pay."
By the time Sandy got to Valentine's Bar,
she'd already learned a lot about the hometown prodigal son named
Ryan, back after a long absence, and by all reports walking the
streets like he owned them. Apparently, no one knew exactly why
he'd left home fifteen or sixteen years back, though there was
speculation it had to do with his father and the MacKay family. On
two points, however, the entire town seemed to agree: No one had
expected him to ever return to Orson's Folly, Wyoming; and now he
was back, trouble had likely come with him.
Sandy was fairly certain she'd already had a
taste of the man's particular brand of trouble the evening before.
And she was beginning to wonder if that one taste might have only
primed her appetite for more.
The snatches of conversation she'd overheard
had been tantalizing but she suspected they were the tip of the
iceberg. Maybe it was time to delve just a bit below the surface of
that berg.
"So what's the story on this gentleman,
Ryan?" Sandy asked Mel as they prepped the bar for the Friday
evening crowd.
Mel shoved a stack of napkins into a holder
and looked up with a cynical snicker. Her short cap of pale blonde
hair flashed almost white in the glow of the neon bar sign. "I
don't think anyone here's ever called Ry a gentleman before."
"So what's his story?" Sandy toyed with a
bottle of mixer. "Lots of talk going around town."
Mel snorted. "Talk's overrated." She shook
her head. "I really hate gossip."
Sandy smiled. "Give me a break. I'm not on
the main grapevine. So either I have to skulk around the
supermarket or get it from you."
Mel's giggle echoed through the bar. "You
wouldn’t have to skulk if you gave a little information back once
in a while."
Sandy opened the mini-fridge and grabbed a
bottle of water. "I never have anything to say."
Mel stopped fussing with the napkins to
glance at Sandy, one eyebrow raised. "Honey, you're the bartender.
Trust me, everyone knows you hear the really good stuff."
Sandy twisted the bottle cap off and took a
drink before she answered. "Some of that's personal."
Mel picked up another stack of napkins.
"Exactly. The good stuff."
"What do I have to do to stop being the
outsider here?" Sandy took another drink and stared across the
bar.
Heaving a sigh, Mel fiddled with the edge of
a napkin, trying too hard to be nonchalant. "Look, there's really
not much to tell. Ry was kind of the town bad boy. Got in a fair
share of fights but it wasn’t usually him starting them. He just
never seemed to be able to walk away. He had girlfriends but he
wasn't the marrying type, you know?"
Mel's tone alerted Sandy to something
beneath the surface, something she wasn't saying.
"Mel, you and he weren't—were you?"
Mel's short burst of laughter dispelled the
thought. "Me? Oh, goodness no! I was just a baby when he left.
Well, I was twelve. I guess I had kind of a crush, him being so
handsome and bodacious. But I don't think he ever noticed me."
If he was male and breathing, he was
certainly going to notice the pretty bartender now. Wouldn't that
complicate the excruciatingly slow burn between Mel and Sean?
Sandy pulled the nearly empty bottle of
Kentucky blend from the shelf, replacing it with a full one from
beneath the bar. "Everyone seems surprised he's come back
here."
"Truth is, no one really knows why he left,"
Mel admitted. "Lots of speculation but his family kept quiet,
wouldn't talk about it. Wouldn't talk about him. Then, when he
didn't come home, folks started thinking he wasn't going to."
Sandy smiled and shook her head. Got to love
those small town mysteries. Everyone had a theory and everyone
absolutely knew his or her particular theory was the one and only
truth. She opened the dishwasher, leaned back while the steam
spilled out, then unloaded the beer mugs and expertly stacked them
behind the bar.
"You know. . ." Mel pulled
a stack of menus from beneath the bar and began sorting through
them. "He's probably still real easy on the eyes." She turned one
of the menus to match the rest, then swept her glance upward to
meet Sandy's. "And he
is
rumored to be unattached."
"Whoa!" Sandy took a step back, holding up
her hand. "I'm not looking for anything like that."
Mel tipped her head and shrugged. Her light
blue eyes seemed to dance. "Maybe you should. Go for a little human
companionship instead of always hanging out with that wild horse of
yours." She winked. "Get a little—you know—companionship of the
right kind."
Sandy's face burned. Any
minute she was certain her head would erupt like a volcano.
"Domingo and I do just fine," she muttered. She thought about
bringing up the man on the mountain road. What if he
had
been this man, Ry?
Her heart began to beat a little faster whenever she thought about
their sunset encounter. Time to change the focus of conversation.
"And speaking of my horse, I need to run out to the Cross MC to pay
for Domingo's board. Unless you want to run it out for me?" Sandy
wiggled her eyebrows suggestively and finished in a sing-song
voice. "You could say hey to Sean."
"I'm just fine right here setting up," Mel
murmured, her neck and cheeks stained a faint rose.
"I thought you liked Sean."
"I do," Mel answered steadily, without
looking up. "And I want him to like me. Which is why I'll just wait
for him to come in and see me tonight instead of me going looking
for him." When Mel finally glanced up, her pale blue eyes twinkled.
"I like to give him little opportunities to figure out he misses
me."
With a good-natured chuckle, Sandy grabbed
her purse from under the bar. "Okay then. I won't be long."
****
The gas gauge on her truck dictated that
Sandy would take a little longer on her errand than she planned.
She swung into the gas station and swallowed over the knot of
unease in her throat.
The huge white pickup parked at the inside
island took up two spaces. The pump nozzle was jammed into the open
gas tank door. The truck's hood was up, but the owner was nowhere
in sight. Sandy eased her pickup to the other side of the island,
casting a wary eye for Brody MacKay. Finally, she spotted him under
the hood, the oil dipstick in his hand. He lifted his head from his
task, and met her look with a dark stare. Quickly, she averted her
eyes, pretending she hadn't noticed him. She let the icy chill roll
through her, accepting it for what it apparently was; an
inexplicable sense of nervousness she always felt in Brody MacKay's
presence.
Calling herself a coward for avoiding the
man, she trekked behind his truck and across the parking lot to the
mini-mart. For the first time, she was actually grateful that Stan
Ocheski had never installed credit card readers on his pumps, like
the gas stations in most twenty-first century civilizations. Who
would have thought she'd one day appreciate Stan's tendency toward
being old-school?
The same heavy metal and tempered glass door
had probably hung at the entrance since the original service
station had been replaced with a newfangled building in the late
nineteen-sixties. According to the town's history, that had only
happened because the state had re-routed the highway directly
through the original service station Stan's grandfather had opened
in the nineteen-thirties. Sandy pulled the heavy door and stepped
into the stuffy building. A thin layer of dust coated the bags of
unsalted peanuts next to the register, prompting the outrageous
thought that perhaps they had also been hanging since the
nineteen-sixties.
Sliding a twenty across the counter, she
thought about the bottle of water she'd left sitting on the bar.
"Hang on a sec, Stan. I need something to drink."
Sandy stepped around the end of the aisle,
heading for the cooler at the rear of the store. She nearly
barreled into Gloria Pratt, the sheriff's secretary, and—oh, just
great. Alice MacKay stood next to Gloria, a scowl marring her face.
Both women abruptly stopped talking.
"Sandy," greeted Alice in her well-modulated
voice. "Are you in a hurry to get someplace?"
Sandy laughed, hoping she masked her unease.
Why did she feel like she was interrupting some covert spy
operation? "Oh, you know me. I hurry everywhere. I'm just on my way
to pay Sean McGee for Domingo's board before my shift at the bar
starts."
Was she imaging things or did Alice's mouth
tense just before she smiled?
"Well then, we'll just let you pass so you
can get going."
Sandy grabbed the first soda she laid her
hands on, hoping it was something she could stomach. Then she
forced herself to take more sedate steps back to the register,
wondering how Alice managed to look and sound so pleasant and so
disapproving at the same time.
****
If there was anything Ryan missed least
about the ranch, it was mucking the stalls. And yet here he was
using the rake to spread fresh bedding into the stall he'd just
finished cleaning.
His early morning trip to town had been both
productive and informative. It seemed some people, at least, were
in a forgiving mood. Others apparently weren't, if the four-foot
long keying the driver's side of his car had taken while he was in
the vet's office was anything to go by. As if it wasn’t enough the
veterinarian wanted nothing to do with the Cross MC, now Ryan would
have an expensive insurance claim. The gouge was so deep in places,
the fiberglass would need patching before the paint could be
retouched. No need to wonder who had been at the heart of that,
even if not directly involved.
He'd been back less than twenty-four hours
and already he had more disturbing questions than anyone seemed
inclined to answer. Maybe coming back had been a mistake after all.
He saw no emergency here to warrant bringing him home. Of course
that didn’t mean there was none. Sean was just like their father
when it came to talking. They both got around to it in their own
time and pushing only made them close down. Heck, with as slow to
broach the subject as his family was being, he'd probably figure it
out on his own first.
With a resigned sigh, Ryan turned his
attention back to the stable. The ranch was a little more rundown
than he'd expected. It appeared the major necessities were being
handled but the small stuff seemed to be waiting. Some of the
simplest projects were sitting so far on the back burner they were
in danger of falling off the stove completely.
It felt to Ryan a bit like living from
crisis to crisis, with no time or cash flow for anything but the
next problem. As far as any extras went, there didn't seem to be
any, not even the luxury of casual labor to help with menial
chores. When had things gotten so bad for the ranch that Sean
couldn't afford a couple of minimum-wage high school kids to help
out part-time?
Snuffling sounds from the next stall told
Ryan he would have to turn the occupant into the paddock. He
grabbed a lead rein from the hook outside the stall. The last thing
he planned to do was spend the rest of the day chasing an ornery
horse. No sooner had he touched the door when hooves clattered
against wood.
"I don't intimidate so easily, pal," Ryan
said in a calming voice. He flipped up the latch and tugged.
"Geez!" He leapt backward to avoid the
snapping teeth, slamming the door shut a bare second before one
angry hoof connected.
What was that demon of a red roan colt doing
here? As Ryan sucked in air trying to catch his breath, he
considered the most obvious implication of finding the horse. His
brother knew the woman behind the chicory-colored eyes. That his
brother might have any sort of attachment to those eyes, Ryan
refused to consider. Fate owed him one.
"Lost your touch with horses there, big
brother?"
Ryan spun around. Sean leaned indolently in
the doorway.
"Horses? No." Ry shook his
head. "I can still handle a horse.
That
?" He jerked a thumb at the
stall behind him. "Is not a horse.
That
is a demonic replica of a
horse."
Sean pushed off the doorjamb and sauntered
toward his brother. Inside the stall, the agitated snorts of the
big roan continued but the kicking had stopped.
"Domingo? This guy's a sweetheart. You just
gotta speak his language." He held up an apple.
"You mean you have to bribe him," Ryan said
flatly.
Sean smiled and held out his free hand for
the lead rein.
Ryan stood well back when Sean eased open
the stall door and stepped inside, apple first. When the horse took
the apple, Sean clipped the lead to the halter.
"Sucker," Ryan mocked the big horse.
"Trading your freedom for an apple. You should've held out for
two."
Domingo's eyes rolled suspiciously as he
passed, but the spirited colt nonetheless went easily with
Sean.
Ryan followed, watched Sean turn the colt
into the paddock. Leaning both arms on the top rail of the fence,
he parked one booted foot on the bottom rail. Sean came to stand
next to him and together they watched the horse careen around the
enclosure.