More Than Neighbors (20 page)

He wondered what she’d do if he scooted over a little bit, enough to put his lips to that long, smooth throat. Nibble his way down her chest, or up to her jaw. Find her lips.

He forced himself to look away. He’d kissed her once and— Well, he still didn’t know if that had been a mistake or not. But he had no idea if she was ready for anything like that—or if he was.

Damn, he wanted her in bed, or on the kitchen counter or anywhere else. But he didn’t let his hormones rule him. Making love with her, there’d be consequences. Huge, life-altering ones.

His way was to think long and hard about any action that was outside his usual. Preferably when he
wasn’t
within touching distance of her.

“Guess I should say good-night,” he said, making rising motions.

She was flustered enough, he wondered what she’d been thinking about—or whether she’d forgotten he was there at all.

He’d walked up earlier, and now after she, too, said good-night, he crossed her lawn and ducked between the fence rails into the pasture, met by his horses, who seemed pleasantly surprised to have his companionship. What he knew was that Ciara stayed outside until he must have been long since swallowed by the darkness. He had to be halfway down the long slope before he heard the soft sound of her front door closing.

CHAPTER TEN

F
EELING LITTLE ZINGS
of panic, Ciara stood for a moment, her phone in her hand. The next moment, almost without thinking, she called Gabe. It alarmed her how readily she was doing that, but...they were friends. Right? It was so hard to believe she’d only known him for—what?—six or seven weeks?

He answered after a couple of rings, saying calmly, “Ciara.”

“I’m sorry. You’re probably working.”

“I am,” he agreed, but not sounding put out. “You must have had a reason for wanting to talk to me.”

She wanted to talk to him about everything. Not like she was going to say that.

“Leslie Weeks just called. Jennifer’s mother?”

“I know Leslie.”

“Jennifer wants Mark to go with them on a trail ride tomorrow. He’s not ready for anything like that!” she wailed. Oh, wonderful. Hysterical mommy. “Is he?” she asked, timidly.

He chuckled, a low rumble that soothed her as nothing else could. “Sure he is. The Weekses know he hasn’t been riding long. Chances are they’ll hardly break into a trot. Depends where they’re going.”

She told him, and he said, “That’s a good choice. Lots of meandering, some up and down, a few creeks to cross. They offer to put him up on one of their horses?”

“Yes.”

“I could let him take Aurora.” He sounded thoughtful. “She’s used to him. He’s familiar with her. He’ll want to start getting up on different horses eventually, but if you’d feel better about it now...”

“You mean that?” Her voice shook.

“Of course I do.” A smile was in his voice. “Jennifer will be good for Mark.”

“Do you think he’ll do okay?” she begged. Oh, boy. She hadn’t realized she was more nervous about how he’d do with the Weeks family than she was about him riding an enormous animal that could toss him in any momentary fit of pique then trample him into a bloody pulp. And her plea was an open admission to Gabe that she knew Mark was...different.

What’s normal?

“She’s a nice girl,” he said in that easy way he had. “Mark hung out with her for a good part of a day already.”

“Yes, but they were mostly watching what was going on in the arena. And there’s another family going, too. She said something about a boy, but I don’t know how old he is.”

“Remember, they’ll be mostly riding.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Shall I tell her they have to come by your place to pick up Aurora?”

“No, I’ll trailer her over and drop them both off. What time?” She told him, and he said, “I don’t hear Mark begging in the background. Doesn’t he know about the invitation?”

“No, I took the call, and I wanted to talk to you before I said a word to him.”

Another chuckle. “Have you been up to Colville yet? None of the restaurants there are real fancy, but we could keep going after we drop him and have lunch.”

Her heart added a few quick beats. Was he suggesting a date? “What,” she said, “are you afraid I’ll come home and wring my hands if you don’t distract me?”

He laughed.

“I’d love to have lunch. Thank you.”

“Good.” And there was that smile again. She could see it as if he was here in the kitchen with her. “See you in the morning.”

Leaving her phone on the counter, she went to the back door. She’d heard Mark go out with the dogs ten minutes or so ago. When she called his name, he appeared around the corner of the house.

When she told him that Jennifer wanted him to go riding with her and her family, Ciara saw something on his face that shook her: vulnerability and...hope?

Oh, God,
she thought, Gabe is right.
He does need friends his age. He needs more than I can give him.

But...why would kids here be any different than the ones in his last school?

Suddenly, she dreaded seeing his face tomorrow afternoon,
after
the outing.

* * *

T
ALKING TO
C
IARA
was easy. Too easy, Gabe had begun to think. There were times he felt like a tractor long abandoned in a field, buried in snow all winter, gears rusting until they locked, only now they were grinding into motion. He kept pulling up memories from so deep, he hadn’t known they were there. The only thing he hadn’t talked about yet was his wife and daughter. A couple of times he’d used Ginny’s name as part of a story, and Ciara obviously knew who he was talking about, but that’s as far as he’d gone.

He guessed she must wonder, but she hadn’t directly asked about them, for which he was grateful. He kept expecting she would, since she was willing to talk about her ex-husband, but then he noticed something: Ciara never talked about her childhood. When he asked about her parents, he got a terse answer.

Her dad was an investment counselor. Mom? No, she didn’t work. No mention of sisters or brothers, which led him to think she didn’t have any, but he couldn’t be sure. Pushing wasn’t his way, although he’d made an exception for Mark, for reasons Gabe still didn’t fully understand. The curiosity he felt about Ciara...well, he was afraid he did understand that. It might as well be a flashing red light.

Stop.

But he was beginning to think he wasn’t going to.

Over lunch in Colville, she invited him to dinner the following evening, and he said, “That’s nice of you, Ciara, but I’m thinking it’s time I have you two over to my place instead.”

She went very still, and her eyes widened. “You do so much,” she said finally. Carefully.

“Is having me to dinner strictly payback?” he asked.

“You know it isn’t.”

He nodded.

“You’re sure?”

She said that a lot. In this case, he knew she wasn’t asking the obvious:
Do you really want to cook for us when you’ve been working all day?
No, she was asking whether he really wanted to let them deeper into his life. Share a home where he never had guests.

“I’m neat,” he said, answering indirectly. “I won’t have to frantically hide the empty beer cans and pizza boxes.”

He loved the tiny dimple that formed in one cheek when she smiled widely. Along with the scattering of pale freckles over her nose, it gave her a puckish look.

“If you had pizza boxes, I’d want to know where they came from. If there’s one thing I regret about Goodwater, it’s the lack of pizza delivery.”

He chuckled. “Maybe we should open a pizza parlor in town. Make our fortune.”

Too late he heard himself.
We
.
Our
.

But she only laughed. “I think you need a slightly larger population than Goodwater has, if it’s a fortune you have in mind.” And then, smile slowly disappearing, she gazed into his eyes as if searching for something. He had no idea if she found it, but she nodded. “Mark and I would love to come to dinner. If you’d like me to bring a dessert—”

“I would love for you to bring a dessert,” he said fervently, making her laugh again.

He professed himself willing to kill the afternoon shopping. He didn’t admit that he most often worked seven days a week only because he didn’t have anything else to do. He could afford the day off, and many more like it, if he could spend them with her.

When he told her he wanted to buy a Western hat for Mark for his birthday, she helped him guess at size to pick one out at the farm and ranch supply store. They browsed appliances because she thought she was going to have to replace her washer, at least, and maybe dryer, too. Unlike the dishwasher, those Ephraim had used, and although they weren’t as ancient as he’d been, they weren’t any spring chickens, either.

She peeked at a fabric store but didn’t linger, to his relief. They had fun checking out antiques and secondhand stores and then stopped at a coffee shop. Before they finished their cups of coffee, her phone rang. It was Leslie Weeks, letting her know they were fifteen minutes or so out from the trailhead.

He couldn’t help noticing that Ciara was really quiet during the drive, her body tense. Gabe finally couldn’t help himself.

“Something wrong?”

“Wrong? What would be wrong? I’ve had a lovely day.”

He knew fake when he heard it, but didn’t say anything.

After a minute, her shoulders slumped. “I want so much for him to have had a good time. I can tell the minute I see him if somebody has snubbed him or said something mean.”

“I’ve never known Jennifer to be mean, and her parents wouldn’t allow it if she was.”

“There’s the other family.”

He knew them, too. “Haven’t seen the Saunders boy as much as I have Jennifer, but he’s only ten or eleven. He’ll probably be in awe of a kid Mark’s age.”

“You think?” she said doubtfully.

He did. It hadn’t occurred to him before, but Mark might do well spending time with kids who were a little younger. There wouldn’t be any of the boy/girl dynamics, for one thing.

“Having horses in common will be a big help. It’s not like at his old school, where his interests weren’t the same as the other boys’.”

“That’s true.” But the doubt was still there, and her hands were clasped tightly in her lap.

He laid a hand over hers. For a moment she froze, and he started to withdraw his hand, then she grabbed hold as if he were a lifeline. At least this way she wasn’t strangling the blood flow from her own hands, he thought philosophically.

And...he liked holding hands with her. Hers were so smooth and delicate compared to his. Not entirely free of scars—he’d noticed a few burns on her fingers, which she said were from being careless with the iron. And once the sewing machine needle had stabbed right through one of her fingers, missing the bone, fortunately. He had nodded his understanding. Whatever your tools, you couldn’t let your mind wander when you were using them.

He had to retrieve his hand to pull into the packed dirt parking area. “Looks like our timing is perfect,” he noted. A string of riders was heading down a long slope toward them, and he recognized the Weeks girl’s palomino before he could make out faces.

The kids were all in the middle of the group, he saw with approval, the adults, experienced riders all, sandwiching them in. The Saunderses were out in front, Leslie and John Weeks bringing up the rear. He and Ciara got out and walked past the Weekses’ pickup and trailer. As the riders came within earshot, Gabe’s hello was enthusiastically returned.

When he saw Mark grinning and waving, he relaxed a little himself.

“See?” he murmured to Ciara. “Who can be sour when they’re on horseback?”

Her own relief was in her laugh. “The Old West is better known for violence than it is for goodwill between all, and they were mostly on horseback, weren’t they?”

“Then a horse was just a form of transportation. Now...” He didn’t quite know how to articulate the pleasure he took in sitting astride one of his two quarter horses.

“You’re right.” She reached out suddenly and squeezed his arm. “Thank you, Gabe.”

He frowned. “Nothing to thank me for. You came for a new start. That’s what Mark’s grabbing on to.”

He felt her scrutinizing him but didn’t let himself meet her eyes. Gratitude wasn’t what he wanted from her.

Not that he knew what he
did
want. He might decide on nothing but a neighborly relationship, he told himself and then grimaced at the untruth.

As the group emerged from the trail, horses and riders milled around, raising dust.

The Saunders family rode past Gabe and Ciara, offering friendly greetings. Even the boy grinned. Over her shoulder, Wendy Saunders asked, “You going to make it to the quilt group?”

“You talking to me?” Gabe said with a grin.

They all laughed.

“Yes, I think so,” Ciara said. “It’ll be fun to meet everyone.”

“Quilt group?” he asked in an undertone.

“Oh, everyone shows off what they’re working on. They make crib quilts for babies in foster homes, too.”

“And they gossip.”

She smiled. “Best part.”

Mark beamed as he reined Aurora to a stop in front of them. “That was fun! I bet I’m going to be really sore tomorrow, huh? Aurora was awesome! She did everything I told her to do. We cantered and trotted and scrambled up and down steep places and—”

Sweat was drying on his mare’s strong brown neck and shoulders. They’d have walked the last distance to be sure the horses were cooled off before they had to stand in trailers for the trip home.

Gabe cut into Mark’s long, hyper recitation of everything they’d done. “You’re the rider,” he said. “What’re you going to do next?”

“Unsaddle her,” Mark said promptly.

Gabe nodded in satisfaction. “Good.”

Of course Mark kept talking while he unbuckled the girth and slid the heavy Western saddle off. For a minute Gabe thought the weight would bring him down, and he grabbed the horn to bear some of it, but Mark straightened.

“I can do it. My legs are just wobbly. I’ve never ridden anywhere near that long,” he marveled.