The Ranch She Left Behind (19 page)

Also in his favor, Dallas held a wrench in his other hand. Not merely the sheriff, then. Not just the eye candy husband for an heiress wife. Dallas was a working partner in the family endeavor.

Max liked that. On his grandfather’s farm, everyone had pitched in on everything. He couldn’t remember ever seeing his grandfather without a hammer or a pair of pliers in his pocket.

“I’m glad to see you, Max.” Dallas’s handshake had been warm and sincere, almost like an apology. “I’ve been meaning to stop by and say I’m sorry about what a jerk Alec was.”

For a minute Max couldn’t remember what Dallas meant. He tilted his head quizzically. “Jerk?”

“Yeah. I hear he made quite the fool of himself at your place. Went after Ellen with a sewing needle, and then keeled over in your living room.” Dallas shook his head. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d skinned him alive on the spot.”

“I have to admit I thought about it.” Max smiled, thinking back on that crazy day. “Let’s just say Alec has a clever way of disarming his opposition.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.” Dallas chuckled. “One of these days, though, the little devil is going to meet someone he can’t charm, and then God help him. Anyhow, I’m sorry he made such a hash of everything. He’s mucked out about a hundred extra stalls as punishment, and he’s not done yet.”

“Might be time to let him off the hook,” Max suggested. “I don’t think he was to blame for that escapade. You remember how, in chemistry class, if you took the perfect two ingredients, and put them in the same beaker…”

Dallas laughed, tipping his hat back on his brow. “Oh, yeah. I’ve met Ellen.” He glanced toward the barn. “She’s got some serious spunk. Plus, she’s the first kid who’s ever introduced Alec to the concept of humility. I’m definitely a fan.”

Max felt himself mellowing, completely forgiving Dallas for their rocky start. There really was no better basis for a friendship between two fathers than this:
you like my kid, and I like yours.

“So. Are you here to pick Ellen up?” Dallas stuffed the wrench in his back pocket. “Or are you here to see Penny?”

Max raised his eyebrow, surprised that both options seemed acceptable to Mr.
Silverdell Sheriff
Garwood, who little more than three weeks ago apparently had stood ready to slap him in jail if he so much as looked funny at the youngest Wright sister.

“I’m here for Ellen,” he said. “Penny ordinarily brings her home, but I got free early, so I thought I’d pick her up myself.”

“I don’t think they’re back yet.” Dallas shaded his eyes and looked off toward the western slope. “Ro and some of the youth counselors took them out on a short ride. Nothing to worry about. The younger kids are on our slowest, laziest ponies, so they don’t always make it home on time.”

“That’s okay. I’ll wait in the car.”

“No, no. Come on in. Penny and Bree are inside. They’re working on the wedding plans, of course. All day every day.”

“Wedding plans?”

“Bree and Gray. It’s next weekend, so we’ve officially reached crazy time. Swatches everywhere, and if I have to eat another piece of sample cake or give my opinion on another bridesmaid dress, I’m moving out till it’s over.”

Dallas grinned again. “I’m not trying to scare you, Max. Just offering fair warning. This is seriously something borrowed-something blue stuff. If wedding plans give you hives…”

Max tilted his head and raised one brow. “Hives?”

“Well,” Dallas shrugged. “I mean, if you don’t give a hoot whether a petticoat is made of satin-edged tulle or tulle-edged satin, you can always come back later. I won’t even mention you were here.”

Max nodded, thoughtfully digesting the offer. Then he smiled.

“As you may have noticed, I’m not that easy to scare. Wedding planning is not a problem. I’m a tulle-edged satin man, actually. And I’m happy to tell anyone who asks.”

Dallas narrowed his eyes briefly, searching Max’s face, as if the two of them had just exchanged an important piece of information. Then, relaxing, he slapped Max lightly on the back.

“Well, good for you, Thorpe,” he said. “Good for you. Come on, then. I’ll show you where to find the fun.”

* * *

P
ENNY
KNELT
ON
the floor in Ro’s living room and put her elbows on the coffee table, so that she could get a better look at the pictures she’d spread out there.

The photos Bree had rejected had been tossed aside, into a stack on the far side of the table. The “like” pile was now fanned out so that Penny could study them more carefully, looking for a common thread. She rose onto her knees and stretched, rear end high in the air, so that she could check out the farthest ones.

She thought she spotted a pattern. Bree had picked out all the pictures that—

“Hi, there. You look busy.”

Max?
Oh, hell.
Penny almost tipped the chair over, trying to get back in a normal position. She cursed her clumsiness internally, but tried to smile on the outside. She had probably looked like someone’s pet monkey, baboon behind in the air….

“Max! I didn’t know you were coming to get Ellen.” She smoothed her shirt down. “You didn’t have to, you know. I was planning to bring her home, as usual.”

“I thought I’d surprise her,” he said. Then he stopped, just inside the doorway. “You cut your hair.”

“Yeah.” Self-consciously, she reached up to touch the long bob that now barely brushed her shoulders. Ruth had always told her she shouldn’t cut it. A woman’s crowning glory…men like it long…

“Does it look that bad?” She tucked one side behind her ear. “It’s so much more comfortable. So much easier to take care of…”

“It looks fantastic.”

Amazingly, he sounded absolutely sincere. And the look on his face was not disappointment. It was something more complicated. Something that made her insides warm slightly.

The hairdresser had assured her it was a much-sexier look. More approachable, more adult, than the long, straight fall that she usually scraped back in a ponytail. Hearing Ruth’s voice in her head, Penny had been skeptical—but in the end she shut the voice up and forged onward. The haircut was for her own aesthetic pleasure, and her own convenience. It wasn’t done to appeal to anyone but herself.

However, now she knew that the hairdresser had been right.

Seeing this admiring look on Max’s face…this was a fringe benefit she would gladly accept.

“Thanks,” she said, fighting down a blush. “It’s no big deal. Just another check on the list. Compared to something like the tattoo, or the white-water rafting, a haircut seemed like a cinch.”

“I bet.” Max came into the room and took one of the other chairs around the table. He leaned back comfortably. “So you must be burning up that list by now. How many is that?”

She smiled. “This makes five. I’ve got twelve, so I’m almost halfway through. Not exactly burning it up, but pretty good. Especially considering I’d expected to give it a whole year. If I keep this pace, I may have to make a second list—one that’s a little more daring.”

“Five.” He smiled. “Does that count juggling?”

Suddenly her mouth tingled, and without conscious thought she found herself staring at his.

“No.” She pulled her gaze free and pressed her lips together. “No, I don’t think I’m ready to cross that one off just yet. I tried it again yesterday. I’ve even bought the right kind of beanbags, and a video. But I’m hopeless.”

Like a fool, she found herself wanting to add something flirtatious, something obvious, like, “I probably need a few more lessons.”

But she didn’t. She wasn’t that foolish, thank goodness. Nothing had changed since their last talk. They’d agreed that night that neither of them could afford the distraction of a fling right now. They were both recovering from huge, life-altering events—and everyone knew you shouldn’t rush into anything at a time like that.

He’d made vows to Ellen. She’d made vows to herself.

Not that keeping those vows was going to be easy.

Sometimes, when she lay awake at night, listening to the silence and feeling so painfully alone, she tried to argue herself out of it.

Why shouldn’t they fudge on their promises, she asked herself? Just a little? They didn’t have to hurt anyone in the process. They could flirt…kiss…even be lovers—all without letting his daughter find out. People had secret affairs all the time.

And so what if she was trying to build a reputation in town as a woman you could send your children to for art lessons—while everyone around her was waiting to see if she had grown up to be crazy, like her dad, or slutty, like her mom? They could keep it a secret from the whole darn town, too.

It didn’t even matter that Max was going to be around for only nine months, so that any relationship could never be anything more serious than a fling. She was an adult—she could control her emotions. She could master these feelings, this strangely powerful attraction that came over her like a tidal wave whenever she got near him.

She could be sure he didn’t break her heart.

Except that she already knew she
couldn’t
be sure of that. Just sitting here beside him right now, she already could feel the temptation of his gentle kindness, his steady strength.

The sad truth was, it would be so easy to fall for him. To put off trying to stand on her own two feet, which was turning out to be so much lonelier than she’d ever bargained for.

Easy—but cowardly. And she refused to be that kind of coward. To those who said it was her destiny to lean on a man, any man, even a man who would hurt her, she could only say…
watch me.

“Yeah,” she repeated. “I’m definitely hopeless.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he said gently, as if he could hear her inner turmoil and wanted to assure her that he wasn’t a threat. As if he wanted to promise he wouldn’t take advantage of her ambivalence. “You’re tougher than you realize, Penny. If you decide to do something, you’ll do it.”

She smiled appreciatively, though she couldn’t quite meet his eyes—they seemed to see so far into her.

“Thank you,” she said. She bent her head over the pictures and began shuffling them around meaninglessly. It was time to change the subject.

“Has Ellen mentioned that Bree asked her to be in the wedding?”

Max hesitated, then laughed. “I didn’t know till five minutes ago there was going to be a wedding. Apparently the dad is always the last to know. Be in the wedding…how?”

“As a flower girl.” Penny wondered why Ellen hadn’t mentioned it to Max. Bree had asked her days ago—maybe the second day she was here—and she had reported that she’d been given permission.

Maybe Max would think it was inappropriate, given how new their friendship was. Penny wondered if he understood how quickly Ellen had been integrated into the Wright nucleus. Perhaps it was Ellen’s motherless, vulnerable aura, or maybe it was her friendship with Alec, but all three of the Wright sisters had taken to the girl instantly. She wasn’t the sweet, immediately adorable kind of kid—but then, they hadn’t been that kind, either.

They liked spunk, and grit, and a little fire in the belly. Those things, Ellen had times ten.

“It’s not a huge commitment,” Penny said, feeling the need to downplay it, for fear he wouldn’t allow her to participate. Ellen would be heartbroken if she was denied the chance. She’d already spent hours with Bree, picking out the perfect flower garland for her hair.

“Bree’s already bought Ellen’s dress. Bree used to be an event planner, so you can’t get her to delegate anything. We can even get someone to give Ellen a ride, if you don’t feel that you can make it, though of course we’re hoping you will. Did you get the invitation Bree sent home with Ellen?”

He shook his head, still smiling ruefully. “I guess that must have slipped her mind, too.”

“Oh, dear.” Penny sighed. “She’s probably afraid you might not approve. She does seem to think Alec has a reputation as the demon child.”

“
No!
Really?” His eyes twinkled, though.

“Really. And with good reason, I might add. Anyhow, the wedding isn’t a big extravaganza. Maybe fifty people, right here on the property, a week from Saturday. I hope you’ll say yes.”

He hesitated just a fraction of a second. Then he smiled. “Sure. It’ll be our pleasure.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. They hadn’t been alone together since the balloon ride, and their friendship seemed to have moved to a more personal level that day. Clearly, neither one was quite sure where they went from here.

She fiddled a little more with the photos.

“What are those?”

Either he, too, was looking for a neutral conversational topic, or he truly had just noticed the pictures for the first time. He leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees. “Not family pictures, surely. These are all different brides and grooms, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Gratefully, she held up a couple for him to look at. “In college, I used to freelance a little, shooting weddings. I brought some of the prints over today, so that Bree could see them. I’ll be doing her wedding pictures, and I wanted to see what kinds of shots she liked.”

He edged forward on his chair, considering them more closely. “And these are the ones she chose?” He picked up one or two. “They’re all so different. I’m not sure I see a theme.”

Penny touched one thoughtfully. “You’re right. I was just trying to see if I could spot a pattern. I think I might have figured it out. She’s not responding to the poses or the composition, or anything to do with the photography itself. Not primarily.”

He frowned. He picked up a photo of an older couple, mid-fifties, maybe, standing at the edge of a lake. Betty and Wally Mosen. Penny had shot them from the back, their heads tilted together, the sunset shining between them with a heart-shaped glow.

He glanced over at Penny. “Not the photography? So what is she responding to, then?”

“Well, I haven’t checked every one, but I think she’s picked out the
happy
couples.”

He laughed. “Aren’t they all happy couples? At least for that one day?”

“Of course not.” Once, she might have thought so, too. Even with her family history, she had started out thinking that marriages must slowly sour over the years, not start out that way. But the truth was far sadder than that.