Homecoming Ranch (23 page)

Luke suddenly lowered his head, his mouth next to her temple, and blood began to rush in her ears. “Here’s what we do. You create a diversion and I’ll rush it from behind—”

“Are you
crazy
!” she cried, and struggled against him. All thoughts of kissing him were out of her head now, and survival her only instinct.

But Luke held her tight. His mouth began to quiver; the squint of his eyes began to glint with amusement. Madeline twisted around—

A cow was meandering down the path, another one behind that.

The laugh Luke had been holding back exploded out of him. Madeline shoved hard against his chest and he took a step back, doubled over with laughter. “It’s a
cow,
” he said through gasps of laughter.

“I can see that!” Madeline shouted. “I thought it was a bear!” She doubled over, her hands on her knees, sucking in her breath, trying to ease her racing heart, to erase the tingly feeling in her skin. “This is
not
funny,” she said. But it was—she was trying to contain her smile.

Luke was overcome with laughter. “You should have seen yourself, flying down the trail. I’ve never seen anyone run that fast!”

“But the
cows
are way up
there
!” she cried, pointing up the mountain.

“They were. But sometimes, they get on a familiar path and come down.” He was still grinning as he held out his hand to her. “Come on,” he said, and grabbed her hand, tugging on her. “You gotta move, Maddie. The cows are headed for the trough.” He tugged her just off the path, pulling her back into his body to let the two cows pass.

Every inch of Madeline was aware of every inch of him. She was lit up, raw, a big fat neon sign pulsing with adrenaline, and a gravity pulling her into the man at her back.

Luke put his hands on her shoulders as the cows wandered by. “Take another breath and remember, that one day, you will think it was hilarious you thought a cow was a bear.”

“That assumes I don’t kill myself trying to run from cows in the meantime,” she muttered breathlessly.

“I have to admit, it’s sexy,” he said. “Unpredictable woman afraid of mice and cows.”

The word
sexy
sluiced through Madeline like warm butter. “I am not afraid of
cows
,” she corrected him. “Let’s just say I am unfamiliar.”

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.” He patted her on the shoulder and stepped around her, starting down behind the cows.

Madeline hurried after him in case another unfamiliar beast should make an appearance. “Wait!” She hurried to catch up. “Where are you going?”

“To build some temporary showers. Wanna help?” he asked, then bellowed at one of the cows to move, hitting it on the rump. The cow galloped around the one in front, and the two of them trotted to the barn.

“I do! I had some thoughts on how to proceed,” she said.

“With what?”

“All the work that must be done.”

They had reached an old pickup that had stacks of plywood and assorted lumber in its bed.

“I thought about dividing the work into quadrants.”

Luke paused and gave her a puzzled look. “Into what?”

“Quadrants. It’s my organization technique. I am going to work on the contracts and research,” she said, holding up a finger. “Libby is cleaning. You will do construction.” She held up a forth finger. “We can decide later who will handle the Johnsons. I was thinking maybe a bulletin board by the fence around the front yard, you know, for notes and Lost and Found—” She gave herself a quick shake of the head. “I am getting ahead of myself. The point is, someone needs to deal with the Johnsons.”

Luke regarded her with a curious smile. “Quadrants, huh?”

“Trust me. It works.”

“Are you always so organized?”

“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “Always.”

“Why?”

“
Why?
”

“I’m just wondering if someone can really live a life in quadrants.” He handed her a hammer.

“I don’t live in
quadrants
,” she said, as if that were ridiculous. “But organization is what makes the world go around. What’s this?”

“A hammer.”

She smiled. “I
know
it’s a hammer. But why are you giving it to me?”

“Because we need to start building showers. And organization does not make the world go round, people do. Flawed, unorganized people. Do you ever just go with the flow?”

“No,” she said, watching him strap on a tool belt that hung low on his hips.

“Well
that
was definitive. Why not?”

“In my experience,” she said with a small incline of her head, “in the absence of organization and planning, there is only chaos.”

“I would argue—” he paused with a slight grunt to hoist lumber onto his shoulder from the bed of the truck “—that in chaos, there is often the joy of discovery.”

“Oh no,” Madeline said with a laugh. She knew chaos, and she had never known there to be any joy in it. Madeline had only to think back on her life, at the many times her mother’s lack of organization had left them living in a car—

“What about yesterday?” He winked at her and started toward the bunkhouse.

Madeline blushed deeply at the reminder. “I’m just trying to avoid a big chaotic disaster here!” she called after him, and heard him laugh.

“You can’t control everything, you know. Up here it’s okay to go with the flow. The mountains have their own energy. You’ll see what I mean. But for right now, Blue Eyes, we need to organize some showers.”

He had a point. Madeline followed him down to the bunkhouse. There were three men there, two of them digging a trough. Madeline cringed a little at the sight of the man with long damp hair.

Luke surprised her, speaking to the men in Spanish. The four of them began to work, building a platform from slatted wood. Luke made Madeline help, standing behind her, showing her how to hold the hammer and set a nail when the four men hoisted a sheet of plywood.

It was hard work, she quickly realized, but exhilarating. They managed to erect the back of what would become three temporary showers. But when her arm began to burn with the exertion, and the hammer grew heavier, Luke took it from her. “You’re fired,” he teased her, and made quick work of the two nails she’d been assigned to hammer. “We’ll finish up here.”

She wouldn’t argue and stepped back. “I’ll go… organize something else,” she said.

“Still need the ride tomorrow?” Luke asked as she began to back away.

“Still offering?”

“Of course. I could use a passenger who carries a map and a highlighter. I’ll pick you up at the airport rental at five?”

Madeline could feel that ridiculously broad smile appear on her face again. “See you then,” she said, and turned around, striding away before she turned to goo.

She looked back only once. Luke was still watching her. She smiled and turned around again.

Yep, she was right. That man looked awfully good in a pair of jeans. Madeline walked back to the house, feeling the pull of the mountains—or something—through her. She felt good. Airy. As if wind chimes were tinkling deep inside her.

Libby walked out onto the porch with a basket of laundry as Madeline stepped into the yard. She wasn’t even perturbed with Libby anymore. “Need some help?” she offered.

“Hanging laundry?” Libby asked.

“I happen to be an expert laundry hanger,” Madeline said.

“Okay,” Libby said. “Come on.”

Madeline followed Libby into the trees and a clearing she had not seen until now. There was a deck here, a couple of old Adirondack chairs among pots that had obviously been full at one point, judging by the dead leaves and stems. And a table made from the stump of an old tree. A pair of mushrooms was growing from a crack in the middle of it. A frayed hammock swung between two trees, next to the clothesline.

“This is pretty,” Madeline said.

“I think it was Mrs. Kendrick’s garden,” Libby said, and planted the basket at her feet. She picked three clothespins from the line and pulled a floral chiffon blouse from the basket.

“That’s lovely,” Madeline said, and picked up a towel.

“Thanks. I bought it for a wedding.”

“Whose?” Madeline asked idly as she pinned the towel.

Libby gave her a funny look. “Dad’s,” she said after a moment. “His last one. What was it, five? Six? I lost count.”

“Wow,” Madeline said.

“Yeah… I guess he got around.”

Madeline wondered how Grant managed to attract so many women. Was he handsome? Sophisticated? She surprised herself by asking, “What sort of dad was he?”

“He was okay,” Libby said, and shrugged. “He was decent to me.”

Decent was an odd way to describe a father.

“You really don’t know anything about him?” Libby asked as she picked up a sheet. “I mean, surely your mom must have said something about him, right?”

Madeline snorted. “My mom hardly remembers him. I don’t think they were together very long. What about your mom?”

“They were together a few years after he split up from Emma’s mom. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think maybe something was going on
between them before he ever left Emma’s mom. My mom calls him her brain drain.” She laughed at that.

So did Madeline. “Did he do things with you? I mean, like father-daughter dances, or softball, something like that?”

Libby tossed her head back and laughed. “God no,” she said, smiling with amusement. “He wasn’t that kind of dad. He was the kind of dad who sometimes gave me money and every once in a while would take me to dinner and ask how I was doing. And then I wouldn’t hear from him for months.” She paused, looking off for a moment. “He took Emma and me to Disney once. But even then, I remember he stayed in the hotel watching sports while Emma’s mother took us to the park.”

As a child, Madeline had been dragged to Disney World with her mother and her friends, usually left to fend for herself, loosely chaperoned by some teen, while her mother and her friends stayed behind in a seedy hotel and drank. Madeline hated Disney because of that.

“How did you end up in California with Emma, if he was married to your mom later?” Madeline asked.

Libby sighed. “Oh, the drama.” She paused to pin a pillowcase. “We lived in Colorado Springs. When I was about eight, he and my mom broke up, and he went back to Emma’s mom in California. It was like a soap opera. Anyway, Mom and Dad had this big, ugly custody fight and she lost the first go-round. Dad didn’t want to pay child support.” She smiled sheepishly at Madeline. “I guess that’s no surprise.”

Madeline smiled back. “Unfortunately, no.”

“I was there a year or so with Emma and her mom, then Dad thought I’d be better off with my mom and shipped me home. My mom had met her second husband by then.”

“Do you keep in touch with Emma?” Madeline asked.

Libby clipped a sheet on the line. “Not really. Emma’s different. She’s always out in the world doing things. And she’s not very sentimental. Me, I’m more of a homebody. What about you?”

“It’s just me and my mom,” Madeline said. “She never married. And she wasn’t very good at holding down a job, so we bounced around a lot.”

“Looks like we have a few things in common after all, Madeline,” Libby said.

Madeline wasn’t sure why Libby said it precisely that way, as if she had already determined that they had nothing in common. Generally, Madeline would agree. But Madeline was beginning to warm to Libby. There was something about her that Madeline could relate to. As much as she hated to admit it, it was something sad.

“I’m going to Denver tomorrow,” Madeline announced, turning back to business and the safety she felt in the midst of rules and tasks that needed completion, “I have to return my car to Denver. I’m going to catch a ride back with Luke. So I don’t know how late I will be.”

“Luke, huh?” Libby asked slyly.

“It’s not like that,” Madeline said. “He’s just doing me a favor.”

Libby looked as if she didn’t believe Madeline for even a moment. “You have to admit that he’s not too hard on the eyes.”

“He’s okay,” Madeline said, but she could feel the telltale heat creeping into her cheeks and smiled self-consciously.

“Okay?” Libby snorted. “Most women I know would kill to have a shot with a guy like Luke Kendrick. But then, I hear he is still in love with Julie Daugherty.”

Madeline’s heart fluttered. “Who?” she asked coyly, knowing very well who. A pretty blonde woman with an adorable baby girl, that was who.

“Julie Daugherty. They were together for a few years. They were supposed to get married a while back, but then she broke it off.”

That certainly had Madeline’s attention. “Really? What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Libby said. “I just heard it through the grapevine.”

This is what happened when attachments formed, Madeline thought. Disappointment. Deep rivers of disappointment. Perhaps this was a good thing. Madeline didn’t want any attachment, so the rumor served as a reminder that she was experiencing nothing more than a little mountain flirtation that Trudi would congratulate her for.
Nothing more
.

As Libby chattered about something Julie did in high school, Madeline reminded herself that her life was in Orlando and she needed to concentrate on doing what she needed to do so she could go home. She really couldn’t afford to be wandering around the mountains
thinking silly thoughts about a man she would not know more than this week. Nor did she want to be on hand when the Johnsons began to show up.

In fact, when she left here today, she would drive to town and call Stephen, get the name of that realtor. No use putting that off, was there?

Yep, hearing about Luke and Julie was a good thing. It gave her perspective again. And Madeline would ignore that hearing it felt a little like being punched.

So Dad and I are off to Durango today so they can stick more needles in me. I wanted Luke to come, but he said, “No, man, I have to go to Denver and check on work,” which I thought was perfectly reasonable, seeing as how he has a business there and didn’t count on all this stuff with Homecoming Ranch. But I was hoping he would come because Make-A-Wish-Foundation is all over that hospital, and I’ve got a deal with this kid, Dante.