A Love to Call Her Own (14 page)

“Then you'll fit in perfectly here,” Angela replied with a laugh. “I hate to chase you off, but I've got an appointment in town. Can I give you a ride?”

“Thanks, no. Exercise, you know.” Like she did it every day. Saying good-bye while Angela locked up, Jessy stopped at the fence, finding the same dog in the same spot, and said good-bye to him, lighthearted enough to give him a grin, too. Leaning forward, she conspiratorially whispered, “Next time I'll bring treats.”

Showered, shaved, and dressed in clean clothes, Dalton made it as far as the front door before Oz leaped from the recliner and trotted over, nosing the door as he waited impatiently.

“Not tonight, Oz. I already told you.”

The shepherd head-butted the door and whined.

“I know you had to stay home alone last night—like that was any big deal. When I came home, you were asleep in the same place as when I'd left.”

Oz looked up at him, unblinking. The mutt actually succeeded in making Dalton feel a little…Not guilty. Manipulated. “No. Last time. Back off.” Then he rolled his eyes. “Crap, I'm explaining myself to a dog. What the hell?”

He nudged the dog aside, ordered him to stay, then went out the door. Oz followed his progress from one window to the next, whining, barking little squeaks of displeasure. “By the time I back out, he'll be curled up on his chair,” Dalton muttered, then rolled his eyes again. “Talking to myself now. Is that one step up from the dog or down?”

Down, he was pretty sure. Maybe more than one step.

He hadn't planned to leave the ranch today, until the phone call around lunchtime. It was Dane Clark, inviting him to dinner to meet his fiancée, Carly. His first impulse had been to make an excuse, but he'd been following bad impulses for a long time and they hadn't made anything better.

No more.

So here he was, headed into Tallgrass early on a Thursday evening. Hell, he'd done it enough times this week that his truck could make the trip on autopilot. He was going to Dane's house, and he was going to do his best to be the polite, sociable person his mother had raised him to be. He was out of practice—not so much now, thanks to Jessy, as he'd been a week ago—but he could do it. He needed to do it. Starting that day back in March, she'd made him want more from life.

When the dirt road bisected the highway, he sat for a moment at the stop sign, recalling the sight of Jessy perched on the board fence or crouched at the edge of the ditch, so intent on what she saw through her camera that she hardly noticed anything else.

He had no talent with a camera. Even with the small digital he owned, things came out blurry, heads cut off, or just plain boring. When he needed photos of his stock, he hired someone to come in and take them.

Though he'd never seen her work, it was a fair bet that it was top-notch. The intensity in her expression, the comfort she felt with the equipment, her fingers moving fast and sure over the various adjustments…It was the way he worked, repeating actions he'd made ten thousand times over the years.

The miles into town passed quickly. His truck bumped over the railroad tracks that were a rough marker of city limits, and then he was passing the flower shop where he bought bouquets for Sandra's grave. A block south of that, a figure on the east side of the street caught his attention. It was hard to miss such fiery red hair anytime, especially when the woman was the only one on the sidewalk for blocks in either direction. Especially when, from the back, she looked just like Jessy.

She wore blue shorts with lots of pockets and a white T-shirt that played up the gold of her skin. Her shoes were gray and pink, walking shoes like most women wore, but they seemed out of place, because Jessy preferred much more delicate shoes.

His hands gripped the steering wheel, his foot automatically shifting from the gas pedal to the brake, before he turned onto the next street. It
was
Jessy, looking girl-next-door, active, walking as if it were a breezy eighty degrees instead of a humid ninety-four. Jessy, her face red, her skin glistening with sweat, lost somewhere inside her head as she tapped an empty water bottle against her palm.

He stopped as soon as he made the turn, and she stopped as soon as she became aware of him. After a moment, she swiped one hand through her hair, slicking it back, then came toward him.

He'd never seen her looking quite so wholesome and sexy and sweet. Any makeup she'd put on had long since sweated away, and the pink tinge to the skin exposed by the rounded neck of her shirt suggested she'd been out longer than she was accustomed to. She wasn't carrying a purse, though she could have hidden all its contents, including her camera, in those shorts pockets, and those shoes…

“What are you doing?” he asked when she was close enough.

“It's called walking. It's the oldest method of getting from here to there known to man. It tones your muscles, burns calories, and revs up your metabolism.”

“You're
exercising
?” He appreciated her body—had appreciated it one day for a couple hours. Naked. But he just figured she had great genes, like she'd said. He couldn't picture her working out. That was like Scarlett O'Hara in spandex and sweatband training for a 5K.

“Dear God, no. I'm taking a walk. You know, strolling aimlessly taking in the beauty around me?”

“You picked the wrong part of town. There's not much beauty here.”

She didn't bother to glance around, as if she was all too aware that these few blocks weren't one of Tallgrass's selling points. “Of course there is. There's the sky. The clouds. The trees.” She gestured with both hands, then pointed to the ground. “Look at that flower. It's beautiful.”

“It's a dandelion.”

“A beautiful dandelion. I bet I could take a picture of it, print it, frame it, and it would be so incredible that even you wouldn't mind hanging it on your wall.”

He leaned back against the truck, the heat absorbing through his shirt into his skin. “Let's say I agree so you don't actually have to take the picture.”

Her snort reminded him of his most spoiled mare. “You mean, so you don't have to actually hang it on your wall.”

His only response to that was a shrug before he gestured to her water bottle. “You went for a walk in this heat with only one small bottle of water?”

She studied the bottle before dropping it to her side. “Nope. I didn't think to take any. The woman who runs the animal shelter gave it to me. Hey, it's my first walk. Give me a break. Besides…” She ran her hand through her hair again, deep coppery red where it was wet. “I wasn't exactly planning on walking so far. I learned the first lesson of going for a stroll today: However far you walk, that's how far back you've gotta go.”

“Unless someone takes pity and offers you a ride.”

“Yeah.” She squinted at him. “Are you taking pity?”

He replied with a nod of his head toward the passenger door. She may have been hot and tired, but she hustled around the truck and climbed in in less time than it took Dalton to turn, open the door, and do the same.

Jessy turned the passenger's air-conditioning vents directly on her, one on her face, the other on her body, then gave a low groan. “I love heat, I do, but damn, that cold feels good.”

He glanced at her, saw the tiny goose bumps rising on her arms, damp red hair fluttering back from her face, her nipples hardening under the thin fabric of her top. With a knot in his throat, he deliberately looked forward again while listening to the sounds of her seat belt fastening, and slowly pulled away from the curb. “So you walked all the way to the animal shelter, where they took pity on you and gave you water.”

She kicked off one shoe, then the other, and propped both feet on the dash. “Yeah, the dogs wouldn't share theirs. Damn, do you know how hot these shoes are?”

Her legs were damp, too, and her socks were soaked. They were white, with black skulls centered in red hearts. They didn't even reach her ankle bone, and from there up it was all smooth tanned skin, right up to where the shorts hugged her thighs.

This was some kind of payback for trying to be sociable—everything about her, sweat and all, looking damn good.

“I wear leather boots all day,” he said, his voice huskier than he wanted. “You won't get any sympathy from me on a pair of lightweight nylon walking shoes.”

She made that dismissive sound again before saying, “I didn't realize ranchers spent so much time in town.”

He wasn't that far out—six, seven miles—but he'd always preferred to keep his town visits to a minimum except for the times he'd been dating someone. Those seemed a lifetime ago. “I usually don't. I'm having dinner with a guy I know.” He didn't mention it was Dane Clark or that he was going to meet her good friend Carly for the first time. He wasn't sure why.

He turned at the next street, and within moments, he was parking in front of Jessy's building. Her feet hit the floorboard with a dull thud, then she bent to scoop up her shoes. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You're not putting those on?”

She gazed at the shoes, then the expanse of sidewalk separating them from her door. “I may never put them on again. When I torture my feet, I prefer to do it with something not so functional.” She slid out onto the running board, giving him a nice view of legs, butt, and lower back, before ducking down to see him. “If you find yourself back this way after dinner and can spare the time…”

Before he could answer either way, she hopped down and hotfooted it in her socks to the apartment door. The last thing he saw was a flash of honey-colored legs before the door blocked her from sight.

Come over and see her again. The idea held a lot of appeal, given how rocky their start had been. But things changed, and not always for the worse, as he'd come to believe. Once a man reached flat bottom, there was nowhere to go but up. If he needed a helping hand on that climb back up, well, Jessy's delicate little hand was stronger than it looked.

The house Dane shared with his fiancée was easy to find. The house was small, painted white, the grass lush and green and flowers softening all the straight lines. Dalton's house could use a few flowers, and probably a new coat of paint to boot. But the only thing he was interested in growing was livestock, and the next paint job on his list was the barn. It wasn't like there was a woman living there who cared about flowers or paint. His mother had, but Sandra hadn't, and Jessy…He squinted into the evening sun, remembering her pleasure with the wildflowers but failing to picture her as a gardener.

Though there was still a hell of a lot about her that he didn't know.

The front door opened as he climbed the steps, and a woman greeted him with a smile. Dalton had seen her a few times at Three Amigos. He'd been there the night Dane had proposed to her, though no one knew. He'd gone with the intent of approaching the margarita club, but then he'd seen Jessy, so he'd drunk alone at the bar instead.

“You must be Dalton.”

“I haven't been offered any other options today, so I must be.” He took the hand she extended for a quick shake.

She rolled her eyes. “It's kind of a pointless question, isn't it? I'm Carly Lowry. Dane's out back watching the grill. Come on in.”

She ushered him inside, where he got a quick glimpse of rooms on the way to the back door: burnt orange living room, gray dining room, light yellow hallway, white-and-blue kitchen. He corrected his earlier thought. His house couldn't just use a coat of paint. Compared to this place, it
needed
it.

“Dalton's here, babe,” Carly said from the doorway. “You need anything?”

“No, I've got it. Thanks. Hey, Dalton, have a seat.”

Dane
was
watching the grill, from the comfort of a lawn chair, the wood stained dark, the cushion fat and the color of rust. Wearing shorts, he rested his prosthetic leg on a matching footstool, propped his good leg next to it, and cradled a bottle of beer in both hands.

“Dane.” Dalton chose another chair, red and white flowers on the same rusty background, and stretched out his legs. A light breeze tinkled the chimes hanging from a catalpa tree and carried the thin aroma of charring food from the grill. Nearby a table was set for three, across the patio from a fountain that sounded like his favorite stretch of creek at home.

“There's drinks in the cooler there.” Dane pointed to the small chest between their chairs. “Carly and I made a deal that I'd take care of the grill if she'd do the rest. I'm not sure she realized my part's a lot easier. Drink beer, flip things once in a while, then take 'em off.”

“Or she gave you the easy job on purpose.” Dalton scanned the contents of the cooler—bottled water, pop, and beer—and pulled a long-necked bottle from the ice.

“That may be. I'm not much good in the kitchen, but I
can
grill. How's the ranch business?”

“Hard as hell and don't pay worth a damn.” His dad used to say that, picking it up from his own father. Dalton hadn't thought of it for a long time.

“Sounds like the Army, son.”

“Yeah, well, at least the cattle and horses don't try to kill me. They're satisfied with just kicking me into next week from time to time.”

Dane laughed. He'd changed in the past couple months. When Dalton had met him back in March, the soldier had been going through a tough time, back from the desert alive but not yet in a place where he truly appreciated it. It had taken time—and Carly—for him to get to that place.

If Sandra had given herself time, could she have learned to be thankful for what she had?

Could Dalton learn to be thankful for what
he
had? For what he
could
have?

“I'm done with being a target,” Dane said. “Carly and I finally decided. I'm transitioning out, going back to school, and finishing my degree. I'm probably going to end up teaching school.”