Her mother’s roast beef, mashed potatoes, and sweet corn from her garden were some of the most delicious food she’d eaten in months, maybe years. She enjoyed the fun welcoming warmth of her family, the nonstop questions of her baby brother, and she ate more than she should have. Afterward, Emily started gathering dishes, but her mother stopped her when she said, “There is someone who I think would love to see you.”
Emily frowned, who on the ranch would want to see her? Maybe the ranch’s two foremen, Tucker and Vince Cowley, cared enough about her to visit. The Cowleys had lived and worked on the Double K since their father had been her grandfather’s foreman. Despite knowing the family since she was little, she’d never been close to any of them. Unless she counted her relationship with the clan’s youngest member. At the thought of EJ Cowley, a thrill slithered through her and settled deep in her belly. Could he have come over to see her as the friend he’d been when they were kids and not as the pain-in-the-ass, ticket-happy sheriff?
“Who?” she asked and shook away the unwanted wish.
Her father took a rinsed plate from Momma and set in the dishwasher rack. “I can’t believe you didn’t want to see her as soon as you got here. There was a time I swore you loved that horse more than people.”
At the reference to a horse, she knew instantly who she needed to visit. “Tinkerbell!” She huffed and shook her head. “God, how could I be this dense?”
Because you were thinking of a certain hot sheriff instead of one of the best friends you’ve ever had.
With the berating running through her mind, she grabbed a bag of baby carrots from the fridge and an apple from the bowl on the counter. Her father’s voice behind her told her where to find the horse she’d had since she was six years old. With the screen door banging closed behind her, she jogged across the driveway to the corral next the barn.
She opened the gate and slipped inside. The ten horses lifted their heads from the grass they were munching to look at her. A pinto mare and bay gelding belonging to her mother before her marriage to Seth were the first to recognize her and walk over. Both horses had gray in their muzzles, and the bay had a slight limp, likely from arthritis. Despite being too old to ride anymore, they seemed to be enjoying their retirement. A third horse watched the older horses. She wasn’t as old as the others in the pasture, but she was almost twenty. The mare whinnied and flicked her ears forward to listen to Emily’s voice as she murmured to the horses eating baby carrots from her palm.
Mike Ritter had given the sorrel to her as a sixth birthday gift and she named the mare Tinkerbell, after her favorite Disney character. She must have been jealous of the attention Emily was giving Jack and Lacy because she pushed the pinto and trotted over to her.
“Hey… You never were this rude?” Emily smiled at Tinkerbell. She and the horse had been inseparable growing up.
Lacy ate the last of the carrots, then she and Jack moved aside to let Tinkerbell get closer to her mistress. The thoroughbred had been trained to barrel race, and Emily had taken to the sport not long after Mike had given the mare to her. After his trial for shooting Seth, attempted kidnapping of her, and the rest of his grocery list of crimes, she’d wondered if he’d given her the horse to distract her from her dream of becoming a singer. He’d been paranoid someone would recognize either her as Seth’s daughter due to her talent, or by her resemblance to him, which singing made more pronounced.
Tinkerbell whinnied bringing her back to the present. “Okay, I brought you a snack, too. Hold your horses.” She grinned at the old phrasing she’d used as a kid and tucked the empty plastic bag into her pocket, then held out the apple she’d snagged.
The mare nickered and sniffed at the offering before taking a bite. Emily stepped in beside the horse and stroked her sleek neck. “God, I’ve missed you, Tink. Life was much simpler back then.”
Tinkerbell finished her snack and nodded her head as if she agreed with Emily, and she laughed as she hugged the mare. “You’re in here with the old folks, eh? When was the last time anyone rode you?”
Emily considered saddling her up and taking her out, but almost as soon as the thought entered her mind she rejected it. She hadn’t been on a horse for over three years. Not that she’d forgotten how to ride, nor did she distrust Tinkerbell, but she didn’t have any riding clothes or boots. She stepped in front of the horse and stroked over the long white blaze down Tink’s face.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t ride you right now.” She kissed the horse above her nose, and Tink nuzzled her cheek. “We’ll go out tomorrow. How about that?”
“I remember when you rode that horse everywhere you went.”
Startled by the deep voice, she turned. EJ Cowley leaned on the top rail of the fence, and from the look of it, he’d been there for a while. He’d changed out of the brown uniform of the McAllister County sheriff’s department. She couldn’t help looking him over. Dressed in worn boots, faded jeans, a blue western shirt, and a brown Stetson, he epitomized every sexy cliché existing about how a cowboy should look.
Her heart sped up at the way those clothes fit him. Which irritated the hell out of her. She turned back to her horse and stroked her long face. “What are you doing here?”
“My sister-in-law watches my son while I’m at work.”
She stilled. Had she been quasi-lusting after a married man? Hadn’t he married Raquel Marshall? She glanced over her shoulder at his left hand. No ring. But then a lot of cowboys didn’t wear their wedding bands when they were working. The risk of getting it caught on something was too great.
Despite his clothes, he must have come off duty as the county’s ticket-happy sheriff not too long ago. She patted Tink’s shoulder. “See you in the morning, girl.” As she headed toward the man, who was not hiding the fact he appreciated what he saw, she guessed he wasn’t still married, but she’d been around the world a few times and knew not to take a man’s blatant interest as proof of anything. “You have a son. How is Raquel these days?”
She was close enough to notice his gray eyes had turned as haunted as a gravestone when she asked about his wife. He looked to the left, toward his brother’s house, and from the way a muscle twitched in his jaw, he must have gritted his teeth. “She committed suicide two years ago today.”
“Oh… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” She stammered. What else had happened to the people she’d once considered friends she was unaware of? “How old is your little boy?”
He took a deep breath and met her gaze again. She studied his eyes as they moved over her face. God, he had the most fascinating eyes. They weren’t truly blue, but the gray was an odd shade. Too light to be slate, but too dark to be silver. They reminded her of her great-grandmother’s pewter candleholders.
“Two.”
As silence engulfed them, she turned to head for the gate. She had no idea what was up with the sheriff, and she didn’t like her desire to ask. EJ Cowley may have filled her schoolgirl fantasies, but she wasn’t the wide-eyed kid who crushed after the local cowboy-turned-soldier.
“Emwee?”
At the sound of her name, she glanced past EJ to the porch. Johnny stood there with his toy lightsaber and x-wing. She promised to play a video game with her brother. “Well, it was good seeing you again, EJ.”
She was halfway across the drive when his voice stopped her. “By the way”--He cleared his throat--“I lost your ticket...”
Stopping in the middle of the driveway, she looked over her shoulder at him. His face puckered as if he’d eaten a lemon soaked in vinegar. He took his hat off and ran a hand through his short hair. The setting sun turned the tresses a gleaming gold.
“You lost it?” Damned if she’d make it easy on him. “After going through all the trouble of stopping me a mile away from home?”
Setting his hat back