Once and Always (Women of Character) (10 page)

Tyler took another turn
around the barn and looked again at his watch. Twelve-twenty. Where was Annie?
Was she still catching up with her friend Sara? He wanted to get started. Maybe
she was upset over that kiss and wouldn't show up.

It had started out innocently, but
having her close had been like old times, and he'd given in to the desire
riding him. It had felt so good to hold her. The quickening of her breath, the
softness of her body against his. . . he realized how much he'd missed that. They'd
never had the chance to say goodbye. One minute they'd been falling in love,
and the next moment scandal had ripped them apart.

Tyler looked out over the pasture.
Was he looking disaster in the teeth, thinking about Annie this way? She'd done
him in once, dammit, he couldn't open himself to caring about her again. Martin
had all but ruined them―both of them. He pushed his fist against the
wall. Annie had suffered too. She'd learned to stand on her own two feet, but
at what cost. They'd both moved too far apart. A sick ache in his gut told him
things could never go back to what they were.

Tyler looked around the barn,
struck by feeling very much at home. Could it work? He had very definite plans
about the changes he wanted to implement, but he also wanted Annie's feedback.
He'd been measuring and planning all morning, keeping him moving from the barn
to the outbuildings and back to the barn. The house would be next, but right
now he envisioned all kinds of improvements without essentially changing the barn
layout already in place. He thought Annie would probably go along with what he
wanted since he wasn't making drastic changes.

The rustic contours could be
stained a light gray, giving the entire place a facelift. He stared with
satisfaction at his animals grazing in the pasture. They were an athletic crop
of horses and he was interested in hearing Annie's opinion on the bunch.

He'd even received a call from
Gill Dakins to let him know he was sending him a potential client, possibly
two. The client wasn't from the immediate area, but as Annie had predicted,
Gill was a businessman and didn't share his wife Tara's antipathy for the
Stanton name. Even so, Tyler was cautious about anticipating too much too soon.

He walked from the barn to the
house, noticing the swing between two sturdy wooden poles alongside the path.
He saw himself pushing Annie on that swing, her laughter loud with delight.
He'd grabbed her mid swing and held her against him, teasingly rubbing his
whisker rough cheek against her softly curved one.

Tyler strode toward the swing, the
chain cold and hard as he gripped it. He pulled it toward him, trying to recall
the last time he'd sat on a swing just out of pure joy. Memory eluded him. He'd
worked like a dog in the last six years, he hadn't given himself time to sit on
swings or much time to relax.  All that had stopped when he'd left here.

"That's Miz Anna's
swing."

Tyler shoved the swing away,
watching it careen into the wooden post. He pivoted on his heel to face Danny.
The other man had always had a knack for quietly appearing. "I remember
pushing her on this swing."

The other man looked off toward
the mountains, his brow furrowed. "She doesn't sit on it no more." He
fell silent a moment. "She rides and rides, all day and sometimes into the
night, but that swing, no, she don't sit on that."

"Do you recall the good
times, Danny, before I left?"

Danny gave a short nod. "Sure
do, but that was a long time. It's been bad times now for Miz Anna,
Tyler."

"But now it'll get better. I
plan to fix this place up. There'll be people here again."

Danny shook his head. "I
don't know. This is her place and now maybe it's not. She doesn't want people
all over."

"The ranch can be great
again, if we work at it. That's my goal, you know, to make it a big name like before.
Maybe bigger. She'll be happy with it in time."

"And then you go away,"
Danny said flatly. "What happens when you go away?"

Tyler narrowed his eyes, but the
other man's face looked guileless. "It doesn't have to be like that. There
wasn't a choice back then."

Danny stared at his boots and
scuffed them in the dirt, but his voice came out very definitely. "Mama
says there's always choices."

Remembering he'd said something
similar to Annie, Tyler nodded. "You're right, Danny." He wondered if
there was something different he could have done six years ago. "Sometimes
people just get so angry you forget everything else." Tyler looked at
Danny searchingly. "How has Annie gotten along these last years? Do you
help her with the training?"

"No, she does the training
all by herself. I take care of the barn and horses." He started to back
away. "I gotta see if Miz Anna needs me. I'm leaving soon."

"If you like, I can tell her
you're leaving. I'm going to see her."

Danny looked toward the house.
"I don't know. If Miz Anna don't see me, she'll worry."

"Do you check in with her
every time you leave?"

Danny's sudden, furtive glance
raised Tyler's curiosity. "She always says she's okay, but I make sure,
ever since that time she got sick. I got her to the hospital."

"You're talking about the
fire?"

"No! Talking about the fire
hurts Miz Anna so I never, ever talk about it."

Tyler took a deep breath.
"Okay, you don't want to hurt her. Why don't you go home, I'll let Annie
know you've left."

Danny frowned a little, and Tyler
wondered if he trusted him to tell her. Then, with a quick nod, Danny loped
down the path toward the barn, but had only gone ten feet when he spun around
and looked back at Tyler. "Tell Miz Anna I checked the Iris patch. Those
flowers down there have lots of buds this year." His grin was huge.
"I'm going to pick her a big bunch when they open. She likes them. You
promise to tell her?"

Tyler nodded. "I'll make sure
to tell her." Tyler moved in the opposite direction toward the house while
Danny set off once again at a lope. Danny's mind had twists and turns he'd
never been able to fully understand and this time was no exception. Tyler began
to wonder what Danny knew about the scandal six years ago.

As the trees gave way the house
came in sight and an uncanny sense of belonging filled Tyler, stopping him in
his tracks. In all the years he'd worked here and lived various places out
west, he'd never felt a connection with any one place. It stymied him. The
ranch house with the mountains as a backdrop was beautiful, but he'd seen other
similarly eye-catching places. Nothing compared to the mountains and vistas out
west, but right here and now, they faded just a bit in his memory. He did like
the way the great maples and oak trees grew behind the house and sheltered it
from the fierce northeasterly wind in the winter. The verandah ran the length
of the house, the wooden rockers and chairs placed here and there. It's like he
expected to see laughing kids erupt from around the corner of the house any
moment. It would be a great place to raise a family. Annie's children.

Tyler blinked hard. Ridiculous. It
was a house. He made himself notice, not for the first time, how the paint had
faded and most of the windows needed caulking and the trim had split. This
place was going to take a lot of work to bring it back.

The Double B represented a
challenge. Maybe working on it would lessen the hard ache inside that had never
quite left him alone. But Tyler had also been aware of a gradual shift in his
thinking all week. Maybe it had something to do with seeing the town and the
people through the passage of time. He wanted to erase any memory in this town
that the Stanton name meant trouble, but he hadn't counted on people like old
Jake Oakley, whose kindness he'd let slip away from him through the years.

Tyler walked up the front path to
the house and stepped onto the verandah. The latch stuck as he opened the door,
catching on the wood casing. Mentally, he added that to his repair list as he
walked through the quiet house. Going to the side window in the kitchen, he
spotted Annie's truck parked beside the guesthouse.

Tyler walked back outside, across
the side lawn and toward the smaller structure. It was actually in better shape
than he'd first expected. Partially sheltered by oaks and a smattering of apple
trees, the guesthouse wasn't as weathered as the main house, though he could
see it would still need some attention before the winter months. He knocked on
the front door, and receiving no response, walked around the back. Ducking his
head under a piece of loose trim that hung down, Tyler reached for the back
door handle and found the door slightly ajar. Pushing it open, he walked
inside. The kitchen was full of boxes and crates that spilled over into the
living room area. Tyler stepped around several unopened boxes and halted in his
tracks as a soft scrabbling noise caught his attention. Annie lay sprawled on
the floor, her face to the wall and her arm extended into the cavity of a
cabinet. He watched her a moment, transfixed. She was totally consumed in what
she was doing, her forehead furrowed as she peered into the hole where the
cabinet drawers used to be. She lay on her side, jeans molded to her long legs,
moving her feet every now and then as if for balance as she moved her arm in
and out of the cabinet hole. He stepped into the room, leaving the door open. A
swish of air followed him inside, and something crackled under his boots. Tyler
looked down and saw several dry oak leaves had spilled onto the floor.

Annie twisted around quickly, her
sweatshirt riding up over her ribs, affording him a glimpse of smooth skin.
Tyler clenched his hands into fists, then deliberately opened them again and
rubbed his palms along the side of his jeans.

"Tyler, you startled
me!" She was breathless as she pulled ineffectively at the edge of her
shirt. He could still see her flat stomach and the curve of her ribs.

"What are you doing under
there?" he asked gruffly, skimming over her bare feet and slender ankles.
There was something intimate about Annie's bare feet. Out of nowhere, he
suddenly remembered how ticklish she was.

"The kitchen sink is backed
up. I think I'm finally making some headway, though. Turn the water on, will
you?" Her voice still carried that breathless quality that fascinated him.
If he closed his eyes he could imagine her whispering in his ear. "It's
right behind you," she added, slightly impatient when he didn't move.

Heat touched his face. He twisted
back toward the faucet and turned the water on full bore. "Why didn't you
tell me there was a problem?" he asked curtly, staring at the tight pull
of her jeans across her legs. She shrugged and retrieved the metal plumbing
snake, using a rag to wipe it before she coiled it.

"It seems to be going down
okay now. I went under the house to look at the layout of the pipes."

"Geez Annie." He knew
there was just enough room to squirm into the crawl space. Tyler shuddered.
Apparently she had no fear of spiders and snakes. He'd seen plenty of both when
he'd inspected this house and the main house. "Why didn't you tell me
there was a problem? I would have taken care of it."

She looked nonplussed, as if not
understanding his irritation. "I guess I'm just used to dealing with this
type of situation so I tackled it. Anyway, I'm responsible for this place. It's
not in your contract."

Tyler narrowed his eyes, but could
see she had a point. He still felt as if he should have helped her out. He
stepped forward. "I wouldn't mind helping you out. Let me take a
look."

Pushing her tools aside, she placed
the snake on the floor. "It's running freely now," she said
defensively. "I worked the snake past the elbows and used up almost the
entire fifty feet before the clog broke."

Tyler bent on one knee and looked
into the hole. Sure enough, where the cap was off he could see the water going
through just fine.

"See? All clear."

He reached in and screwed the
plastic cap back on the pipe, then used the wrench to tighten it. He sat up and
leaned back against the wall, side-by-side with Annie. This close, he could see
the slight dusting of freckles across her nose, but only on the unblemished
side of her face. He studied those freckles with great interest. His glance
shifted from her perfectly nice nose to her eyes, then her face. She was
waiting for him to applaud her efforts, but he felt annoyed that she'd fixed
the problem without telling him.

"You could have come to me,
but I guess you did handle it on your own." Tyler looked away from her,
struggling with the urge to pull her forward and drop a kiss on her mouth. He
rubbed his hands on his jeans. "Next time tell me."

"Are you sorry you missed
crawling into that space with the two-inch spiders?" she asked dryly,
amusement curving her lips. "Do you still have a thing for spiders?"

A creep of sensation jumped across
his back. "I can't say I missed that, but I still think I'm responsible
for any general repairs and upkeep while the lease is in effect."

She narrowed her eyes and her
hands clenched at her sides. She pushed herself up along the wall. "Maybe
next time I'll take you up on it and save the big, bad parts for you."

Tyler looked at the dirty smudges
on her hands and arms, the long dark streak across her forehead. "It's a
new experience to see you like this," he murmured, "not one I'd have
missed, but I'd have called in a plumber."

Annie balled up the dirty rag in
her hand and tossed it at him. "If you call in a plumber, it's seventy
bucks for the call. After he cuts the line, snakes it and puts it all back
together, you're talking a couple hundred or maybe even two-fifty. That's a lot
of money to blow when it's something you can fix yourself."

"I guess we'll agree to
disagree," he said, lifting a cabinet drawer and sliding it back in place.