Valerie. Travis frowned as he thought about her. She’d dumped him and their marriage for another man five years earlier. His lack of malice seemed to disappoint his friends. Frankly, he considered life too short to waste on ill will. He’d loved her, still did, but as she’d so eloquently put it, she’d fallen out of love with him.
She’d remarried as soon as the ink was dry on their divorce papers and seemed content. For that matter, he was, too, although it had taken him longer to achieve peace and he hadn’t become involved in another serious relationship. Also, to his friends’ surprise, he and Valerie had stayed in touch.
The waiter, a kid of maybe eighteen, delivered a plate heaped with rice and chicken and covered with a thin tomato sauce and melted cheese. “Could you give me directions to the closest motel?” Travis asked him.
“Brewster’s got a motel.”
“Great.” Travis reached for his fork. “How far away is that?”
“About a hundred miles.”
He laid his fork back down. “You mean to say a town the size of Promise doesn’t have a motel?”
“We’ve got a bed-and-breakfast.”
“Fine.” A bed was a bed, and at this point he wasn’t picky.
The waiter lingered. “You might have trouble getting a room, ’cause of the big festivities this weekend.”
“Festivities?”
“The rodeo’s coming, and then there’s the big chili cook-off. I thought that was why you were here.”
Apparently the town was small enough to recognize him as a stranger. “Where do the rodeo cowboys stay while they’re in town?”
The youth stared at him as if the answer should be obvious. “Motor homes.”
“All of them?”
“Unless they got family close by.”
“I see,” Travis murmured. He hadn’t considered that there wouldn’t be a motel—but then that was one of his problems, according to Valerie. He didn’t think ahead.
“If you’d like, I could write you out directions to the Pattersons’ B and B.”
“Please.” Famished, Travis dug into his meal, devouring it in minutes. He’d no sooner finished when the waiter returned with a hand-drawn map listing streets and landmarks. Apparently the one and only bed-and-breakfast was off the beaten path.
Thunder cracked in the sky, followed by flashes of lightning. No one seemed to pay much heed to the storm until the lights flickered. Everyone in the restaurant paused and waited, then sighed with relief when the lights stayed on.
The storm was bad, but he’d seen worse off the New England coastline five years before. Holed up in a rented cottage in order to meet a deadline, Travis had watched storms rage as he fought his own battles. It’d been shortly after the divorce.
He thought of that sassy ranch woman who’d spoken to him today and wondered what she’d say if she knew he’d stood on a rocky bluff overlooking the sea, with the wind and rain pounding against him, and openly defied nature.
Remembering the way she’d leaped out of her truck, eyes flashing with outrage, brought a rare smile to his lips.
She’d been an attractive woman. Practically as tall as he was and full-sized, not some pencil-thin model. A spitfire, too. Definitely one of a kind. Briefly he wondered if he’d get a chance to see her again and rather hoped he would, just so he could tell her he’d managed to survive the storm.
Following the directions given him by the waiter at the Mexican Lindo, Travis drove to Pattersons’ Bed-and-Breakfast, which turned out to be a large older home. He rang the doorbell.
Almost immediately a tall, gray-haired, lanky man opened the door and invited him inside. “Welcome to Promise.” The man extended his hand and introduced himself as Phil Patterson.
“Travis Grant. Do you have a room for a few nights?” he asked, getting directly to the point.
“Sorry,” Phil told him. “We’re booked solid.”
Travis had left New York early that morning and didn’t relish the thought of traveling another hundred miles through a storm to find a bed for the night. “I’m tired and not difficult to please. Isn’t there any place that could put me up for a few nights?”
Phil frowned. “The rodeo’s coming to town.”
“So I understand.”
“I doubt there’s a room available in Brewster, either.”
Travis muttered a curse under his breath.
“Phil.” A woman’s voice called out from the kitchen. “You might try Nell.”
“Nell?”
“Nell Bishop.”
Phil sighed. “I know who Nell is.”
“She’s opening her dude ranch in a couple of months, so she’s probably got rooms to rent.”
Phil’s face relaxed. “Of course, that’s a great idea.”
Travis’s spirits lifted.
“I’ll give her a call.” Phil reached for the phone, punched in the number and waited. After a minute or two he covered the receiver. “Nell’s busy, but her mother-in-law’s there and she said you’d be welcome to drive out, but she feels obliged to warn you there’s no electricity at the moment.”
“They have a bed and clean sheets?”
“Sure thing, and Ruth—that’s her name—said she’d throw in breakfast, as well.”
He named a price that sounded more than reasonable to Travis. “Sold.”
Phil relayed the information, drew him a map, and soon Travis was back on the road.
Patterson had told him that the ranch was a fair distance out of town; still, by the time Travis pulled off the highway and onto the gravel drive that led to Twin Canyons Ranch, he suspected he was closer to Brewster than Promise. Approaching the front door, he felt as though his butt was dragging as low to the ground as his suitcase.
A kid who looked to be about twelve answered his knock and stared blankly at him while Travis stood in the rain.
“Hello,” Travis finally said.
“Hello,” the boy answered. A girl two or three years younger joined him. Good-looking children, but apparently not all that bright.
“Most people come to the back door unless they’re selling something, and if you are, we’re not buying.”
Despite feeling tired and cranky, Travis grinned. “I’m here about a room.”
The two kids exchanged glances.
“Who is it?” He heard an older woman’s voice in the background; a moment later, she appeared at the door. “For the love of heaven, young man, come out of the rain.” She nudged the children aside and held open the door.
He stood in the hallway, which was all gloom and shadows except for the light flickering from a cluster of candles. Travis glanced around, but it was impossible to see much.
“Mom’s