“You should come with us,” she said and for some reason, her voice shook.
“What?” His fingers tightened gently against the taut but feminine muscles of her upper arm. “You mean it?”
“Well, of course. Why haven’t you asked Hooper?” Casually she rested her hands against his chest, and his breath hitched. She shrugged, jiggling her fingers. “He’s ranch foreman and wagon master, so he’s got the last word, but hey. We can always use wranglers who know horses. I know you’d be welcome.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure!” She nodded, her hat bobbling, and he let go of her. Even though he wanted to stay close, he stepped back.
“I guess I didn’t want to put Hoop on the spot,” Jason said. “The wagon trains aren’t exactly part of my job description.”
“Well, I can’t imagine him minding, if you’re caught up with everything else. Nick’s been known to come along from time to time.”
“Ah, shucks.” He peered down at the toes of his boots and put on a western accent. “I kind of feel like a kid on Christmas. I’d love to go.”
Kelley grinned. “You talk so down home sometimes. Not much like a world traveler with a dad who probably taught him a million languages.”
He felt the heat of a flush. “I adapt easily. I love the West, but I do think I’d like to take in some Farsi in Uzbekistan. Just for a little while, you know.”
Her face changed. Her jaw tightened, and he read disappointment. But a second later she parted her lips with the smile that weakened his knees. “Well, then, you must do this before Uzbekistan. It’s hard work, even for the guests. Everybody pitches in.”
“Sounds like a deal, then.”
“You’re on. Now come on.”
“And Kelley? I’m not going to Uzbekistan any time soon.” Her smile thrilled him, and he read relief in it. As they headed up the hill, the path widened, and she paused to let him reach her side. Whether it was an invitation or not, he grabbed her hand and her fingers closed over his. And when she stumbled on a rock and landed against him, he steadied her and kept his right arm at her waist after she righted herself. She didn’t seem at all eager to leave his side, and his heart hammered against his rib cage.
“So where’s this spectacular view?” His voice came out breathless, and he realized Kelley, not the upward path, caused it. The warmth he was feeling was nature and sweat and sunshine, but mostly that beautiful mantle portrait come to life. “Although I think it’s right in front of me now.” He couldn’t help the sappy remark as she looked at him.
“Aw shucks, cowboy. You getting flirty again?” Her voice had husked up, too. “Come on.” She grabbed his hand and started running, boots crunching against packed earth and rocks big as eggs and pebbles small as sand. Bordered by golden columbine, the trail narrowed as it snaked into a stand of alder, and she dropped his hand. Disappointment flooded him, and rather than stop for breath, she hustled through the trees to the crest of the hill.
Well, he thought he’d seen it all, from Victoria Falls to Lake Baikal, the Eiger, and K-2, but there at his feet, Hearts Crossing Ranch, mixed with national forest and the spine of the Rockies, held his breath deep in his lungs. He lunged for air as he ground his boots to a halt.
“Told ya.” Kelley’s smile was real, her tone triumphant.
“You’re right. It’s something.” The word was woefully inadequate, but nature had its own way of speaking.
“I never get tired of this place. I guess….” Her voice turned soft, and the wind muffled it. He bent closer, but she turned her face away as if talking to herself. He heard her anyway. “Maybe it is time for me to come back home,” she said. Then she pointed to woodland miles off to the east nestled in a sanctuary of hills. “Elk Grove. There…” Her finger bent toward a splash of sparkle. “Old Joe’s Hole. A nice little stream-fed lake.”
“Awesome. Is Joe a real guy?”
She nodded. “A long-ago ancestor. First Martin to homestead around here. We make camp there. You’ll definitely want to take a dip after a long, hard day.”
“Fishing?” he asked.
Little lines pulled together at the bridge of her nose. “Catch and release, I hope you mean.”
“Nothing less.” He grinned.
“Row boating, a rope swing. The works. You ought to see the city slickers come to life after hours on the dusty trail.”
Suddenly her breathlessness caught up with her and she sank down on a fallen log. He followed, close as he dared without being forward. “And that…” she pointed vaguely. “You can’t really see it from here, but north end of the lake is Posy’s Grove. For just ever it was called Posy’s Grave.”
“Uh-oh.”
She laughed. “Supposedly Old Joe buried his faithful mule Posy there. But now it’s become the grotto for Hearts Crossing Destination Weddings.”
Jason didn’t know her well, but he knew women well, as a whole, and he knew she wasn’t putting any sort of move on him or tossing some big hint. She was just imparting family history. In a devout, traditional family like hers, men married their women in front of God and everybody they knew. They sure didn’t make up crazy new names for each other. Like his mother and father who called themselves Snowy and September, respectively
He drank in the beautiful vista before him, feeling quite the outsider. Here, names and lore, home and hearth went back a hundred and fifty years. He’d never had a real place to call home, and his surname was something his mom had thought sounded pretty.
He shook his head. At least, he’d been given a normal first name.
Yet somehow he and Kelley had a connection. He didn’t know quite what it was, and until he did, he’d keep his unusual upbringing a secret. Especially when she looked at him, her eyes reflecting her homeland, and took his hand. “Why don’t you join us for supper, Jason? I’m making Sloppy Josephines. Ma loves ‘em, but there will be other food, too.”
He was thrilled beyond measure, getting asked to eat at the big house instead of the simpler fare served at the bunkhouse. The hands and Jason took turns cooking. Thankfully his mother had taught him well.
But Kelley’s voice turned practical. “You can talk to Hooper then. About coming along on Monday.” Then she stopped, face lined with doubt. “Oh, I forgot. Your date tonight.”
“No, it’s all right. I accept. I can change my plans. She’ll understand. We’re just friends. We have a standing Saturday night burger date if nothing else comes up. And tonight, something has.”
“OK then.”
She sighed as if saying goodbye to the view ahead of them. “We better get going.” The June afternoon would laze long into dusk, but the temperature had cooled. As they hiked back to the horses, it didn’t take much for Jason to rest his arm across her shoulders with a squeeze once in a while when a breeze whirred by.
And it didn’t take anything at all for him to lean close, back in the corral, after she dismounted her horse.
Removing his hat to give himself room, he held her face in his hands and brushed his eyelashes against her cheek several times.
“Butterfly kisses,” he said softly before he tossed on his hat and led Bridge and Zee inside to be unsaddled and brushed.
3
Kelley attacked stalks of celery with a bench knife in Ma’s big kitchen. Another man on the run. And she’d gone and invited him to supper. Jason Easterday. Why? Because he took her breath away? Kelley Martin wasn’t on the prowl for a mate, and Vegeterra took all her time and emotion right now, so what was the deal?
And what on earth was a butterfly kiss? For a second, she stopped chopping and touched her cheek where his eyelashes had flickered. The innocent childish gesture, and the memory of it now, had somehow been blazingly sensual, and his outdoor scent of pine and leather swathed her, even over the scents of cumin and cayenne pepper.
With a vengeance, the knife came to life in her hands once more. Snap, crackle.
Slash
. She’d also invited Jason to come along on the wagon train. Three solid days of him close by had her blood racing through her veins. What on earth was going on?
As Ma trundled into the kitchen then, bearing enormous jars of the raspberry jam they’d put up last year, Kelley couldn’t stave off a groan. Some of her bone weariness came from the ride, some from the roiling emotions about Jason and Vegeterra, but in her case there was no rest for the weary.
“Here’s the jam for your raspberry butter,” Ma announced although, of course, Kelley already knew. “I can help you dish it out into the individual containers if you want.”
“Thanks, Ma. That would be a big help.” She dumped the chopped celery into a big skillet of hot olive oil. Her raspberry butter and homemade bread were favorites of the city slickers, but truth was, she loved the fare herself. “I’ve still got the graham flatbread to make. Oh, and my blueberry compote.”
“If you don’t mind…” Ma set down the jars and shuffled over to a tall baker’s rack where she’d shelved her cookbooks. Most times she and Kelley could whip up a dish solely on description or imagination, but cookbooks were highly respected literature in the Martin kitchen. “I was peeking around these old books, and I found a blueberry recipe you just might like to try. Cuts out a few steps if you’re rushed. Tapioca, no sugar, and you add a hint of basil…”
She paged through the book before she sat it down on the butcher block island.
“Can’t believe anybody’d call themselves Snowy September,” Ma harrumphed, rolling her eyes at the author’s name.
Kelley almost hooted out loud as she pondered the the silly, somehow familiar names. Ma had Jason’s mother’s cookbook? She’d have to tell him about the coincidence.
“...but she’s got some good stuff in here. All organic and herbal. Got this book from my Aunt Grace.” Ma hooted joyously. “You should have seen your pa, first time I cooked out of this thing. Too California, he called it. You know him. A cattleman who loved his side dishes of beans, fried potatoes, and once in a while, a green salad. Green salad meaning green Jello with bananas.”
“Don’t forget the celery.” Kelley barked out a laugh as she stirred the skillet. “Pa’s version of a green vegetable.”
“Well, you sure changed his mind on that.” Ma howled back. “Never thought I’d see that man of mine eat asparagus and spinach. Quiche yet.”
Kelley shared her humor as she drained the sautéed celery-onion mixture and dumped it into a big pot of sauce. Her parents’ long, happy marriage was still a thing of beauty, even years after Pa’s death. Someday, she wanted the same for herself, a full-time partner in love and life, facing together all the warts and all the honeysuckle marriage brings. And even though Ma had preached against marriage too-early, wanting all her girls set in with a skill and a career, Kelley couldn’t help regretting the long years she’d spent with Ned, hoping somehow he’d change his mind and want to spend his life at her side. Where was he now anyway? Her brother Kenn had sent a wedding invitation last October that had been ignored.
Was her attraction to Jason just hormones? Were those sparkles just reaction to the first man paying her attention since last year’s breakup? Vegeterra and the wagon trains had kept her too busy to regret the split…or too busy to date anybody else.
Ma firmly believed in initial sparkles meaning something special, something important, something real. What if something like that was actually DNA? Kelley laughed out loud. She’d have to get Jason to develop a test.
Back to the present, she examined the compote recipe, and nodded. “I’ve got everything on hand. If I have time, I’ll give it a try.”
“I tell you, it’s a timesaver,” Ma insisted.
“I said I’ll try.” Suddenly she had run out of patience. If Ma kept up, Kelley would be spilling beans about Vegeterra and now wasn’t the time or place. Ma was never one for “I Told You So’s” but taking her daughter into her arms like a baby would have Kelley losing it, and she didn’t want that…she didn’t have the strength or the time.
“What’s got you in a snit?” Ma asked shrewdly.
Oh, no. It was just a matter of seconds before Ma knew everything. A diversion was in order.
“It was good of Jason to pick me up today,” Kelley tried to sound casual but just saying the name had her heart in a mess.
Ma shrugged. “Seems a good guy. The menfolk were all busy getting the wagons ready to roll. And I had custodial care at church. You’re going tomorrow, right? Pastor Hale is doing great healing up from his heart attack.”
Praising God and feeling His spirit was no doubt what Kelley needed, but right now, she simply wasn’t in the mood. He kept on letting her down, and down some more, despite her pleas. That flash of a home fire burning she’d felt on the ridge with Jason had been weakness, no more. She was a full-grown woman with goals and talent who should be able to regroup and get Vegeterra up to snuff. She didn’t need anybody, much less a God who kept on ignoring her prayers. She’d figure out what to do all by herself.
“That’s good about Pastor Hale,” She waffled although she meant the words sincerely. Their pastor was a wonderful man, and she’d been on hand to help bring in emergency help and transportation that Sunday service last December when he’d collapsed. “But I guess it all depends if I get my baking done. We’ve got a horde of tourists expecting my best.”
Ma’s stare sent Kelley shriveling inside her big apron. Even her jeans felt too loose around her waist. One thing you never did, Ma’s main tenet for life, you just never blew off God. Shame swamped her.
“Now, girl.” Ma’s smile was grim. “I sure hope you kept up your worship habits in Sunset Hills.”
“I did.” Kelly assured her. That was most certainly true. Guilt, habit…and her efforts had brought naught. She held off a grumble even as she marveled at Ma’s faith that never wavered.
Under raised eyebrows, Ma glared now, but in her special way that wasn’t unsympathetic. “Just so you know. The young adults have been meeting in the Fireside Room after services for Bible study. It would be nice for you to catch up with old friends.”
Kelley’s heart sank. Catching up with old friends was one thing she had hoped to avoid. Faking success or telling the truth was a miserable choice all around. And since when had Bible study been held on Sunday mornings?