A Summer to Remember (8 page)

“Hm. Job or woman?”

“You think that's all I'm interested in?”

“A job makes living possible. A woman makes it worthwhile.” The teasing faded from her voice, caution replacing it. “Can I send you some money?”

“Nope.” Every couple months, she and their parents offered him money, and he always gave them the same answer. He didn't have a regular job. A lot of people didn't. He picked up day jobs when he could, worked part-time gigs when necessary, and when he did have a job, he budgeted his money carefully. No splurges, except for Mouse's vet bill, and that hadn't been an option.

“Bill and I can afford it, El. Consider it an early birthday present.”

“No, thanks. I'm fine, Em.” He really was. The day he had to choose between food for Mouse and gas for the truck, he'd point the pickup west and spend some time with his family. He wasn't too proud to accept help. He just wouldn't do it until he needed it.

“Tell me about the town.”

He gave her the rundown and noticed the change in tone of her
hm
s as he talked. He didn't have to wait long for her to explain them.

“You spent five months in Jackson, Tennessee, and never sounded like this about it. And four months in Tampa. And three months in Austin. And yet after only a few days in Tallgrass, you're sounding…”

“Like I'm home?”

“Yeah.” She sighed wistfully. “I wish home could have stayed home for all of us.”

He did, too. But when a town just up and died, one business after another closing down, and everyone who depended on those businesses having to move away, it had made keeping the ranch going that much harder. He was glad he hadn't been there, like Emily, when their parents had been forced into the decision to give up. His family spread across different states wasn't what he had expected for the wife and kids he planned to have someday.

“Now tell me about the woman.” Emily's tone was cheerful again, and he could tell even with nearly seven hundred miles between them that she was grinning from ear to ear. “Come on, bubba, don't deny it. There's always a woman.”

Mouse brought him a stick, dropped it on his boot, and waited impassively. Bending to pick it up, Elliot threw it across the clearing, expecting the dog to chase after it. Instead, she crawled into the shade of the truck and curled up. Nudging her gently with his boot, he shook his head.

“Her name is Fia. I met her about two minutes after I got to town. She's…”

When he didn't go on, Emily laughed. “Man, when you're at a loss for words, things get interesting. What does she do?”

“She used to be a personal trainer. Now…” A knot formed in his throat, part sympathy, part dread about what he was up against. “She's a widow. Her husband died in Afghanistan.”

“Oh.” The word came out on a soft rush of sympathy. “That sucks. You won't break her heart, will you?”

“I don't break hearts, Em.” At least, he didn't like to think so. Most of the women attracted to him just seemed to understand the temporary nature of their relationships. They had fun and good times and sometimes considered more, but it usually ended on a pretty even keel for both of them.

“No, you're right. You either stay friends with 'em or piss 'em off eternally. Remember that girl you dated when you were home on leave? The one who took a tire iron to the windows of that old pickup truck you borrowed from Aunt Amy?”

Oh, he remembered. Beautiful and sweet as an angel until things didn't go her way. Then she turned flat scary. “She tried to take that tire iron to me, too,” he reminded her with a wince, recalling how the wooden fence post blocking him had shuddered from the blow.

“Lucky for you, I was there before she did any significant damage, little brother.”

“I was.” Not just that time, when she'd snatched the tire iron away from the crazy woman, gripped it like a baseball bat, and warned,
He won't hit you because that's the way he was raised, but if you don't get in your car and drive away,
I'm
gonna beat the crap out of you.
He was lucky for
all
the times Emily had been there, usually at his side, behind him when he needed it, in front of him when he needed that. Looking out for him, she'd claimed, had been practice for when she had kids of her own.

“Listen, El, I've got to get the kids together for the late service at church. If I talk to Mom and Dad before you do, I'll tell them where you are. Good luck with the whole job-home-Fia stuff.” Deviltry returning to her voice, she offered their childhood good-bye. “I hate you.”

“Hate you more.” He ended the call, his grin slowly fading. He was with her a hundred percent in her wish that home could have stayed home for the family. He'd never imagined anything other than the Army that could pull him away and had never imagined
any
thing that could drag Mom and Dad away. They'd lived their whole lives within twenty-five miles of where they were born. West Texas ranching had been in the blood pumping through their veins and the oxygen keeping them alive.

Until it wasn't.

The whole experience had taught him the truth of the wooden plaque that had hung over Grandma's front door:
Home is where the heart is.
He'd learned for a fact that it wasn't a place, roots dug deep in the soil, but a feeling. A satisfaction. A spiritual connection.

And thank God his cell phone rang again before he got any farther down that sappy road.

A glance at caller ID made his grin return, and he settled comfortably on his back in the truck bed, hat tilted over his eyes, as he answered. “You've reached Elliot.”

Fia laughed. “And his lovely dog, Mouse?”

“Lazy is more like it. We're surrounded by birds to bark at and fields to run through and water to swim in, and she's asleep under the truck.”

“Sometimes lazy is the best way to be.”

Lazy and comfortable and feeling everything was right in his world. Exactly the way
he
was feeling. “Aw, I bet you've never been lazy a day in your life. I bet you run and go biking and hiking and even ride a motorcycle from time to time.”

“How'd you guess that?”

He considered teasing her a moment longer, then admitted, “When I got the trash bag out of the laundry room last night, I saw running shoes, hiking boots, and helmets.”

“You get points for being observant.”

“How many points? And what can I redeem them for?” he asked, but he was thinking that he
was
observant, and something was off in her voice. It wasn't distress or regret or about-to-give-the-brush-off, just a little something: unsteadiness, weariness.

“However many points you want.”

“Can I redeem them for any
thing
I want?”

She laughed again. Did she know how incredibly sexy she was when she laughed? And when she smiled. When she was serious. “We'll have to talk about that.”

“Oh, honey, talking is not
at all
what I'm after.” From beneath the truck, Mouse rose and stretched, then with one graceful leap, landed on Elliot's stomach, making him grunt. “I swear, that pup is doubling her weight every day. Next time she jumps on me, it'll probably crush me.”

“Big man complaining about such a delicate baby.”

He switched the phone to his other hand so he could rub Mouse's belly, finding the spot that made her leg twitch. “Any chance you're going to join us out here at the lake?”

Fia's sigh was soft and wistful and echoed deep inside him. “Not today, I'm afraid. I've got this thing…”

What thing?
he wanted to ask, but it was none of his business. He'd known her less than forty-eight hours. Her Sunday plans could have been made weeks ago. He should consider himself lucky that she'd spared time for him Friday and Saturday evenings, and he did. But disappointment still twinged in his gut.

“Not a problem,” he said, adding extra cheeriness to cover the letdown. “Maybe tomorrow night? We could make a real picnic of it. You bring a blanket, and I'll bring fried chicken, potato salad, and brownies.”

The silence on the line grew heavier as it stretched out. Finally it was broken by another sigh. “I really can't say for sure. Could I call you tomorrow afternoon and let you know?”

You won't break her heart, will you?
Emily had asked.

His disappointment was childish in its proportions, and his smile was phony to keep it from creeping into his voice. “Yeah, that would be great.”

His sister should worry about Fia breaking
his
heart. It had never happened before, but one lesson he'd learned damn well…

There was a first time for everything.

It had been a long time since Dillon had felt comfortable around people. Being in prison, never alone twenty-four hours a day for five hundred sixty-seven days, had a way of making a man value his privacy. But when Jessy Smith said,
You're going
, a wise man shut his mouth and went. So here he was, in the backyard of a nice middle-class house surrounded by nice middle-class people, a cold bottle of water in hand, smoke from a couple of grills perfuming the air, and a niggling feeling working up his spine that he couldn't shake. Though he'd met everyone there, he felt alone in a bunch of strangers.

Damn, he'd always been the center of attention at any party, not the odd one out. Now he was so odd, he didn't want to even be there.

“Are you new here, too?”

The question came from his right, from a girl who'd sidled into the shade of the patio, standing very still as if doing so would keep anyone from noticing her. He wasn't good at guessing kids' ages, and once they hit about twelve, all bets were off, but she seemed very young. Very alone.

“Not exactly. I came with my brother and his wife. They're over there.” He gestured in Dalton and Jessy's general direction, and the girl looked at them, then back at him. Her mouth quirked a little, but she didn't state the obvious:
Oh, you're twins.
Like he and Dalton hadn't known that their whole lives.

“I'm with my aunt Marti. She's the dark-haired one in the white dress.”

She pointed, too, and he looked, though he didn't need to. He knew Marti Levin by sight—tall, cool, always in control. Too pretty, too elegant, too sophisticated for a man like him, if he was looking.

He wasn't sure he would ever look again.

“I'm Cadence. I'm staying with Aunt Marti for a year while my dad's working in Dubai. I just got here Friday.” The girl extended her hand, as composed and elegant as her aunt.

“Dillon Smith.” He tried to remember the last time he'd shaken hands with a kid. It wasn't coming to mind. Her hand was delicate in his, her palm damp, her handshake less than steady. Underneath all that composure, she was feeling out of place much like him. Poor kid was at a bad age for being uprooted and sent off to live with strangers, though he wasn't sure what was a good age for that. At least leaving Tallgrass and his family had been his own choice.

“These the first people you've met here?”

She nodded. “They're Aunt Marti's best friends. Jacob”—she pointed out their hosts' son—“is nice. Into sports and all. Abby, his sister, is my age. She went inside to recharge her cell. She's nice, too. We'll have classes together at school.” Her smile quavered. “Tomorrow's my first day.”

Dillon thought of all the things a responsible adult would say:
You'll be fine. The kids will like you. It'll be fun.
He shrugged instead, and said, “That sucks, doesn't it?”

Apparently, she'd heard enough bland reassurances that she'd expected another from him, so his response earned a choked laugh. “Well, it's better—by
this
much—than being the new kid at boarding school at the end of the school year. That was Mom and Dad's option if Aunt Marti said no.”

He wondered why Mom didn't stay home with her daughter rather than ship her off to an aunt or to school. If Dad was old enough to take a job in Dubai, he was old enough to go by himself. But it wasn't really Dillon's business, was it? “How old are you?”

“Fourteen.” She shrugged thin shoulders. “I'm an only child. I've spent my entire life in private schools or with grown-ups. Are you a cowboy?”

He glanced at his clothes—faded jeans, blue button-down, scuffed boots, and leather belt. “What gave it away?”

“I'm from Connecticut. I don't see many cowboys there. Where's your Stetson?”

“In the truck. And it's an O'Farrell.”

She smiled, and the faint scared look disappeared. “What kind of horse do you have?”

“My brother raises palominos.” He added, “I work for him.”
For
him. If he hadn't run off when he was a kid, he'd be part owner of the ranch now. He'd been raised to do that. Hell, he'd been
named
to do it. The Double D Ranch had always been run by Smiths whose first names started with D. “Do you ride?”

“Since I was seven. I rode dressage for a while, but it was more work than fun. Is riding a horse on the ranch fun?”

“Yeah, it is.” Even when it seemed like his butt had gone stone-cold numb from too many hours in the saddle, he'd never been on a horse, even the ones that had tried to kill him, that he hadn't found peace somewhere deep inside.

Cadence started to speak, then stopped herself. After a moment, knowing what he would want if he were fourteen and in her situation, he asked, “If your aunt says it's okay, you want to come out and ride sometime?”

Her expression brightened, then dimmed again just as quickly. “I'd love to see the horses, if that's okay.”

Before he could respond, the door behind them opened, and a pretty little blonde burst out, followed by a pint-size version. “Sorry it took so long. I got a text from Monroe. He's, like, the cutest boy in the whole school. You'll meet him tomorrow. Come on.” She grabbed Cadence's left arm, and the little girl took her right. “I've got pictures to show you.”