“I like the rooster best,” Maddie said with great importance. The Wander Carousel was famous for sporting a full collection of unusual animals—fish, grasshoppers, lambs, birds, mice—but not a single pony among them. Every Wander child had a favorite, and they got to ride for free on their birthday. Marilyn’s twins, who’d been coming here to visit since they were toddlers, were no exception. It wasn’t their birthday, thank goodness, but the disappointment still stung.
The carousel mechanic’s sky-blue eyes looked an amused sort of pained, if that made any sense. “Well, what do you know. I’m usually good with picking people’s favorites.” Looking at Margie, he scrunched up his face in mock thought. “Am I wrong about you, too?”
“The zebra’s okay,” Margie said, always eager to please. “But I like the seahorse best.”
He sat back on his haunches. “Wrong about both,” the man said. “Seems I’m off my game.”
“Guess Mom’s!” Maddie said, somehow thinking this guessing game would rectify things.
“Maybe I should.” The man straightened up slowly, scratching his chin in dramatic consideration as he rose. Marilyn felt as if he was giving every inch of her a once-over.
Which was how she recognized him. Just as he reached his full height—almost a head above her—she knew he was Wyatt Walker.
Wyatt had been a year or two ahead of her in high school. Too handsome and nowhere near enough well behaved, he’d been one of those boys mothers warned their daughters against. Charm and trouble wrapped up in a package that too many girls found irresistible. Not that she’d ever been one of them. They didn’t travel in anywhere near the same social circles, and Marilyn doubted they’d said three words to each other in high school. But she knew who he was, because everyone knew who Wyatt Walker was.
If she recognized him, he didn’t seem to recognize her. “Hmm,” he said, still staring at her. Those mesmerizing eyes were a Wander High legend. “I’m going with...the owl.”
She was relieved he’d guessed wrong. The gleam in his eyes told her he’d read too much into being right. “Actually, I’ve always been partial to the ostrich.”
The moment she said it, the fact struck her as telling. An ostrich. The perfect choice for a woman who’d had her head in the sand for the last year and a half. Ouch.
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Wrong on all counts? I don’t know quite what to do about that. Except maybe introduce myself. I’m Wyatt Walker.” He pulled a bandanna from the back pocket of his jeans and wiped his hand before extending it for a shake.
Marilyn wanted to say, “I know,” but instead shook his hand and said “Marilyn Sofitel. These are my daughters.” She touched each of their shoulders as she named them. “Margie and Maddie.”
“Hi,” said Maddie, holding up her hand for a shake. Landon had always said his daughter would grow up to be president of something, given her outgoing nature.
“Hello, Miss Maddie. Nice to meet you.” He gave Maddie’s hand a formal shake, then held out his hand to Margie. “That makes you Miss Margie, does it?”
Margie, a bit of a tomboy, wrinkled her nose at the title. “Just Margie.” Landon had touted this daughter as the one who would invent something amazing.
“Well, just Margie, my name is Wyatt. Nice to meet you. Sorry about the carousel. Are you staying for the summer? Will you be here long enough to come back when it’s fixed?”
“We live here now,” Maddie said. “At Gram and Gramps’s house.”
“Till we get settled on our own,” said Margie. Marilyn gulped at how her daughter parroted the words of a recent conversation. A conversation Marilyn had had with her parents the other night when the girls were supposed to be in bed. She raised an eyebrow at Margie, who responded with a too-innocent who me? shrug.
Wyatt considered her again, thoughtfully this time. “Sofitel. Do I...know you?”
Marilyn wasn’t quite sure if she should be glad or annoyed that she’d changed so much since high school. Those days felt a world away, and she certainly felt like a different woman from the cheerleader who had steered well clear of a boy like Wyatt. “Actually, we went to the same high school. I was Mari Ralton back then.”
“Mari Ralton.” She watched recognition light his eyes. Those bright blue eyes and sandy blond hair—rebel long back then but cut shorter now—had been his hallmark back in the day. He still was an attractive man, if one went in for the “misunderstood” type. “I think I remember you.” He squinted his eyes in thought. “Cheerleader. Debate club, maybe? Not my class, though. One year behind?”
“Two, actually. I moved to Denver when I got married.” She tried not to sigh. “And now we’re back.” She gave Wyatt a pointed look that she hoped told him she didn’t want to get into why she was back.
He caught her meaning—sort of. “Well, then,” he said to Margie, “bring your dad with you when you come back and I’ll say hello to him, too. Maybe I can get his animal right.”
Marilyn felt her chest tighten just as Margie’s chin tilted down and she said, “You can’t.”
Wyatt offered her a questioning look, as if to say, care to respond to that?
“My husband passed away last September.” She was still waiting for the world to stop turning for a handful of seconds every time she had to tell someone that.
It was to Wyatt’s credit that he addressed his response to her daughters. “I’m mighty sorry to hear that. It’s a very sad thing to lose your daddy.” He raised his eyes to Marilyn. “I’m sorry for your loss. Glad your folks are here to help. Ralton—Ed and Katie, isn’t it? Down on the south side of the canyon?”
That was Wander. Everyone knew everyone else. “Yes, that’s them.” The small-town friendliness was a good thing, mostly, only in her situation it made Marilyn feel a bit trapped. She hadn’t counted on the closeness rubbing so raw here. People had been nice, but she still felt too exposed. It was an uncomfortably tight squeeze to poke back into town salvaging the pieces of a once-pretty life. The promising girl who married well and moved away only to have to crawl back home.
Stuck and broken. A bit too much like the pretty carousel that sat immobile behind those big doors.
Nice one, Wyatt. Bad enough you haven’t fixed the carousel yet, now you bring up two poor little girls’ dead father? Today was proving a nonstop tour of coming up short on things. Not quite sure what else to do, Wyatt offered Mari—Marilyn—as much of an “I’m so sorry” look as he could manage with the little girls staring straight at him.
“You still on the ranch?” Marilyn’s question held a “let’s please change the subject” tone. He couldn’t really blame her, given the sad subject he’d raised.
Oh, if she only knew her deflecting question raised an awkward topic of its own. “Um...no.”
She, of course, looked surprised. “Really?”
Wyatt shifted his weight to buy himself a scrap of time. By now he’d hoped to be done explaining why he’d moved off the family land and into the apartment above Manny’s Garage. Not many people—make that almost no one—in Wander could understand why a Walker would step away from Wander Canyon Ranch like he had. Most people scowled at him as if it was a genetic fluke—or at least a phenomenal disappointment—to bear that last name and not have ranching in his blood. Reaching for what you want in life shouldn’t have to feel like letting everyone else down. He tried to keep his tone conversational rather than irritated. “Chaz runs the ranch now. Or most of it, now that