Summer at Mustang Ridge (24 page)

“Shelby. And thanks.”
Sort of.

“You’re just in time. I was just about to show Krissie and Barbara how to make the most amazing Béchamel sauce, just like they do at the Cordon Bleu. That’s in France, you know. It’s a cooking school.”

Krista moved around the counter to touch Rose’s arm. “Mom, why don’t we—” A clatter from the hallway interrupted, and a big bear of a man in denim and plaid came through carrying two of the plastic bins. He had hair that was more salt than pepper, a goatee a couple of shades darker, and a pencil stub stuck behind one ear.

Peering around the bins, he navigated the counter without missing a beat. “Rosie, these are from the pasta class you took in Dubuque.”

Rose beamed. “Thank you, sweetie. Just put it wherever there’s room. We’ll get things organized around here later.”

“Dad—” Krista began.

He ducked his head to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Sorry, sweetheart. I already tried. If I had my way, we’d be touring the Hoover Dam right now.” With a wink at Shelby, he headed for the door.

“Oh, you. Such a tease.” Rose waved him out, calling after him, “I also need the green pans and the box with the hand mixers in it.”

“Mom—”

“Now, where were we? Hollandaise, right?”

“
Mom!
” Krista’s bellow cut through the kitchen and left a ringing silence behind. When she finally had Rose’s attention, she said firmly, “You can’t just come in here and take over. We have guests, and we’ve got a good system in place.”

Rose blinked. “I’m not taking over, sweetie. It’s just a demonstration. Then I was thinking we could make these darling little Napoleons I learned in pastry class.”

Shelby couldn’t tell if she was manipulative or oblivious, or some mix of the two, but the whole “give her the benefit of the doubt” theory had lasted less than five minutes. She was firmly in Camp Gran on this one. “With all due respect,” she said, “we need to get started soon on dinner service for the new guests.”

“Oh, Sherry, don’t be silly. There’s plenty of time. That’s the beauty of Barbara’s plain cooking.”

Gran exhaled a
poosh
under her breath, and pushed away from the counter. “I’ve got things that need doing. I’ll be back at four.” The side door slammed behind her.

Shelby winced and started to go after her, but Krista caught her arm. “Wait. Hang on a sec.” She hustled her into the hallway, stopping near the menu board, which didn’t say anything about hollandaise or Napoleons. “I need a favor.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Not Gran. I want you to stay here and keep Mom occupied. Let her teach you something if you can stand it, but keep her away from dinner. And for the love of God, don’t let her touch Herman.”

Darned if the thought didn’t bring a surge of dread. “Of course. You’ll make sure Gran is okay?”

“Yep. Then I’m going to track down my father and find out what’s really going on here.”

“You didn’t know they were coming?”

“Last I checked they were on their way to see the World’s Biggest Donut or something.” Krista shook her head. “No, there wasn’t a hint, and I don’t know if this is a three-day whirlwind visit, or something more. Don’t get me wrong, I love her. Of course I do—she’s my mom. It’s just . . .”

“It’s okay.” Shelby pulled her into a quick hug. “It’ll be okay. Go. Do what you need to do. I’ll take care of things here.”

Brave words, but she had a feeling that was going to be easier said than done. And, sure enough, when she came back into the kitchen, Rose narrowed her eyes. “Where’s Krista?”

“One of the guests needed her.” Shelby waved toward the cabins. “Something about a clogged toilet, a missing toy, and a minor tsunami. She’ll be back as soon as she can.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, though the clog in question had been a few weeks ago and the renegade rubber dinosaur had long since been rescued, sterilized, and returned to its owner.

“Oh.” Rose gave her an up-and-down, then shrugged. “Well, then, we’ll just have to put together something that will surprise the boots off her when she gets here, won’t we? Grab your apron, and let’s get started.”

“I, uh . . . sure. Right.” Remembering that she was fresh from the barn, she donned one of Gran’s aprons and headed to the sink to wash up, saying over her shoulder, “So, Chef. What’s the plan? I’m all yours.” At least until four, when dinner service needed to get cranking.

Come on, Krista. You can do it
. Hopefully she would be able to calm down Gran and get her father on board with some sort of a plan to contain her mom’s enthusiasm. From everything Shelby had heard about the rambling duo, Ed was mellow in the extreme, but pretty unstoppable once he’d made a decision.

Mollified, Rose dug into her plastic bins and started pulling out books and little jars of spices. “So, Shelly. I think I remember Krista telling me about you. You’re the one with the deaf daughter, right? Or not deaf . . . what was it? There was something wrong with her.”

Oh, this was going to be a couple of very long hours. Tamping down the knee-jerk mama bear “rwor!” she said, “It’s Shelby, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my daughter.” And she knew darn well Krista hadn’t put it that way.

“Didn’t she tell me you and Foster are dating? Or was that someone else?”

“Yes, Foster and I are dating.” She couldn’t really deny that one, and didn’t really want to. Even saying it to this stranger—and a strange stranger, at that, no matter who she was related to—gave her a buzz, especially on the heels of their family trail ride.

Okay, now she was calling it a family deal. Note to self: don’t let the boundaries blur.

Rose unplugged Gran’s commercial mixer and shoved it aside to plug in a Salad Shooter straight off the Home Shopping Channel, or maybe the “As seen on TV” aisle at Walmart. With a sidelong look at Shelby, she said, “I was surprised to hear about the two of you, actually. It always seemed to me like he just shut down that part of his life.” She smiled brightly. “I think it’s wonderful that you were able to get through to him. He’s such a dear man.”

She seemed genuine, suggesting that she wasn’t malicious so much as self-absorbed to the point of oblivious, so Shelby made herself return the smile, along with a noncommittal “That’s nice of you to say. And I agree, he’s a very good man.”

“But such a loner. I always thought that was a shame, though of course he has good reason not to trust women. You know, what with the divorce and all.”

Shelby, who had been about to change the subject before things got weird, froze with the water running in the sink and her hands sudsed up. Because things had suddenly gotten very weird. “Divorce?”

Busy measuring flour into a big bowl, Rose didn’t seem to notice the edge in her voice. “It’s only natural for him to be wary after the way her lawyers cleaned him out. Took the family farm, the stock, everything except his horse and his saddle.” She nodded to herself. “A thing like that is going to change a man.”

“I don’t . . .” Shelby couldn’t finish, couldn’t breathe.
I don’t want to hear this
. But maybe she should, because it put a whole new spin on things. And, clearly, it wasn’t something he’d been planning on telling her himself.

Five weeks. They had known each other for five weeks, almost six, and had been lovers for two of them. Yet he’d never mentioned being married, or that he’d lost the Double-Bar H in the divorce.

“How’s he doing with the negotiations, anyway?” Rose had her nose stuck in the refrigerator, rummaging through stores that were intended to get them through a week of guests. “Last I knew, he was saving every penny up so he could buy his old place back, regain the family honor, that sort of thing.”

“You’ll . . . you’ll have to ask him yourself.” The ache inside her was more bewilderment than anger, and a creeping sense of dread.
Don’t freak,
she told herself.
You both agreed this was just for fun, just a casual thing
.

But, oh, it hurt.

“You’re right, we shouldn’t gossip.” Rose glanced over at her, brows furrowing when she realized Shelby had been washing her hands for a good five minutes, maybe longer. “This isn’t surgery, you know. You ready to get to work? I’m thinking we’ll do this darling squash soup I know.”

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up
. She owed it to Krista to buy her the time she needed, owed it to Gran to protect Herman and their dinner fixings. She didn’t have the option of losing it, not now.

She so badly wanted to, though.
Divorced
. It didn’t compute with the man she knew, but why would Rose lie?
Maybe she’s confused
. That brought a spurt of hope, but it died quickly when it lined up too well—a loner with a horse and a saddle, who lived a stripped-down life because he was saving every penny he could to buy back the Double-Bar H. Oh, God. She wanted to press the back of her hand to her mouth and hold in a sob, wanted to block out the creeping dread that said she had badly misjudged him, and what was going on between them.

But her hands were clean, and she had a job to do.
You can do this
. More, she would
have
to do it. She owed Krista and Gran better than a meltdown right now.

She was shaking as she shut off the water, but she straightened and found a wobbly smile as she turned to Rose. “Where do you want me to start?”

•   •   •

Shelby made it through two hours of the Mustang Ridge version of
Hell’s Kitchen
,
nearly wept with relief when Krista and her father showed up at four to kidnap Rose for a welcome-home dinner in town, and did her best to make the dinner service as easy as she could on a very subdued Gran. All the while, though, she roller-coastered her way from “he should’ve told me” to “ohmigod, what now?” to “get a grip, he hasn’t really done anything wrong,” with too-frequent detours down “well, at least there’s chocolate.” Lots of chocolate. Enough chocolate that by the time Tipper and Topper headed out with dessert, she had a stomachache and the smell of sugar made her want to hurl.

So much for all that “I’ve got my head on straight, lots of therapy, self-aware, blah, blah” she’d been spouting the other day. Because by the time she pulled up in front of Foster’s place near sunset, she was a mess.

After killing the engine, she sat for a moment, staring at the bunkhouse. It didn’t look any different, with its rough-out exterior, zero landscaping, and trio of tired rockers on the porch. It was the first time she’d come on the spur of the moment, though, and the first time she hesitated before getting out of the car.

Maybe she should leave, drive around some, and come back when she was more settled, when she knew what she wanted to say.

But then the door opened, and there he was, looking so damn happy to see her that her heart hurt. He lifted a hand and called, “Shelby, hey. How’re things in Kitchen Land?”

“Momentarily quiet.” She walked toward him, but stalled on the top step. “I, um, know we didn’t have plans.”

“You don’t need an invitation.” He caught her hand and leaned in to kiss her, then hesitated and drew back. “Unless you do?” He searched her face. “What’s wrong?”

“I. Um . . .”

“Come in.” He drew her inside and shut the door. “Do you want something? Soda? Wine? Intravenous Nutter Butter drip?”

Stop being so sweet!
It made her feel worse. “Nothing, thanks.”

He pulled her into his arms and wrapped her in a warm embrace that didn’t make her feel nearly so safe as it had done earlier in the day. “Was Rose so awful?”

She tried not to snuggle in, but even just being there—being with him—smoothed out some of the rough edges she was feeling, made her wonder if she was overreacting. They hadn’t promised each other anything more than good times, really. Still, it hurt that he hadn’t confided in her. “She, um, said some things that bothered me.”

“About Lizzie?” His voice rumbled against her, warm and soothing.

“About you, actually.” She made herself push away, but couldn’t look at him. Instead, she went to the window and stared out at the sunset, which had turned the sky a delicate peach that bled down to red where it met the dark mountain silhouettes. “She said you were married.”

And, just like that, the vibe changed.

There was a long pause before he said, “Once upon a time, yeah. I was.” His voice was inflectionless, and when she looked back at him, she could’ve been looking at the man she’d met in the barn that first day, cool and closed-off.

The fading sunset was easier to watch. “She said you lost the Double-Bar H in the divorce, that your ex-wife cleaned you out down to Loco and your saddle.”

“I got the truck, too, and it was her father’s lawyers, not Jill herself. I think she would’ve been okay with less, but she’d always been daddy’s little girl, and old man Winslow couldn’t stand the thought of it being no-fault. Which meant it had to be my fault.” He paused, then said carefully, “What happened to not doing the high school gossip thing?”

“I didn’t mean to.” Her gut knotted. He wasn’t apologizing, wasn’t agreeing that yeah, he should’ve told her once things started getting more serious between them. She drew in a shuddering breath.
Don’t lose it. Just don’t
.

He crossed the room to stand right behind her, then touched her shoulder. “Shelby, look at me.”