Chapter 1
“They did what?”
Ellie Webster and the big, gruff rancher seated beside her spoke in unison. She spared a glance at Matt Harte and saw he looked like he’d just been smacked upside the head with a two-by-four.
“Oh, dear. I was afraid of this.” Sarah McKenzie gave a tiny, apologetic smile to both of them.
With her long blond hair and soft, wary brown eyes, her daughter’s teacher always made Ellie think of a skittish palomino colt, ready to lunge away at the first provocation. Now, though, she was effectively hobbled into place behind her big wooden schoolteacher’s desk. “You’re telling me you both didn’t agree to serve on the committee for the Valentine’s Day carnival?”
“Hell no.” Matt Harte looked completely horrified by the very idea of volunteering for a Valentine’s Day carnival committee—as astonished as Ellie imagined he’d be if Ms. McKenzie had just asked him to stick one of her perfectly sharpened number-two pencils in his eye.
“I’ve never even heard of the Valentine’s Day carnival until just now,” Ellie offered.
“Well, this does present a problem.” Ms. McKenzie folded her hands together on top of what looked like a grade book, slim and black and ominous.
Ellie had always hated those grade books.
Despite the fact that she couldn’t imagine any two people being more different, Ellie had a brief, unpleasant image of her own fourth-grade teacher. Prissy mouth, hair scraped back into a tight bun. Complete intolerance for a scared little girl who hid her bewildered loneliness behind defiant anger.
She pushed the unwelcome image aside.
“The girls told me you both would cochair the committee,” the teacher said. “They were most insistent that you wanted to do it.”
“You’ve got to be joking. They said we wanted to do it? I don’t know where the he—heck Lucy could have come up with such a harebrained idea.” Matt Harte sent one brief, disparaging glare in Ellie’s direction, and she stiffened. She could just imagine what he was thinking. If my perfect little Lucy has a harebrained idea in her perfect little head, it must have come from you and your flighty daughter, with your wacky California ways.
He had made it perfectly clear he couldn’t understand the instant bond their two daughters had formed when she and Dylan moved here at the beginning of the school year three months earlier. He had also made no secret of the fact that he didn’t trust her or her veterinary methods anywhere near his stock.
The really depressing thing was, Harte’s attitude seemed to be the rule, not the exception, among the local ranching community. After three months, she was no closer to breaking into their tight circle than she’d been that very first day.
“It does seem odd,” Ms. McKenzie said, and Ellie chided herself for letting her mind wander.
Right now she needed to concentrate on Dylan and this latest scrape her daughter had found herself in. Not on the past or on the big, ugly pile of bills that needed to be paid, regardless of whether or not she had any patients.
“I thought it was rather out of character for both of you,” the quiet, pretty teacher went on. “That’s why I called you both and asked you to come in this evening, so we all could try to get to the bottom of this.”
“Why would they lie about it?” Ellie asked. “I don’t understand why on earth the girls would say we volunteered for something I’ve never even heard of before now.”
The teacher shifted toward her and shrugged her shoulders inside her lacy white blouse. She made the motion look so delicate and airy that Ellie felt about as feminine as a teamster in her work jeans and flannel shirt.
“I have no idea,” she said. “I was hoping you could shed some light on it.”
“You sure it was our girls who signed up?”
Ms. McKenzie turned to the rancher with a small smile. “Absolutely positive. I don’t think I could possibly mix that pair up with any of my other students.”
“Well, there’s obviously been a mistake,” Matt said gruffly.
Ms. McKenzie was silent for a few moments, then she sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you would say. Still, the fact remains that I need two parents to cochair the committee, and your daughters obviously want you to do it. Would the two of you at least consider it?”
The rancher snorted. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I don’t think so,” the teacher answered gently, as if chiding a wayward student, and Ellie wondered how she could appear to be so completely immune to the potent impact of Matt Harte.
Even with that aggravated frown over this latest scheme their daughters had cooked up, he radiated raw male appeal, with rugged, hard-hewn features, piercing blue eyes and broad shoulders. Ellie couldn’t even sit next to him without feeling the power in those leashed muscles.
But Sarah McKenzie appeared oblivious to it. She treated him with the same patience and kindness she showed the fourth graders in her class.
“I think you’d both do a wonderful job,” the teacher continued. “Since this is my first year at the school, I haven’t been to the carnival myself but I understand attendance has substantially dropped off the last two years. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what a problem this is.”
“No,” the rancher said solemnly, and Ellie fought the urge to raise her hand and ask somebody to explain the gravity of the situation to her. It certainly didn’t seem like a big deal to her that some of the good people of Salt River decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day somewhere other than the elementary school gymnasium. Come to think of it, so far most of the people she’d met in Salt River didn’t seem the types to celebrate Valentine’s Day at all.
“This is a really important fund-raiser,” Ms. McKenzie said. “All the money goes to the school library, which is desperately in need of new books. We need to do something to generate more interest in the carnival, infuse it with fresh ideas. New blood, if you will. I think the two of you are just the ones to do that.”
There was silence for a moment, then the rancher sat forward, that frown still marring his handsome features. “I’m sorry, Miz McKenzie. I’d like to help you out, honest. I’m all in favor of getting more books for the library and I’d be happy to give you a sizable donation if that will help at all. But I’m way out of my league here. I wouldn’t know the first thing about putting together something like that.”
“I’m afraid this sort of thing isn’t exactly my strong point, either,” Ellie admitted, which was a bit like saying the nearby Teton Mountain Range had a couple of pretty little hills.
“Whatever their reasons, it seemed very important to your daughters that you help.” She shifted toward Matt again. “Mr. Harte, has Lucy ever asked you to volunteer for anything in school before? Reading time, lunch duty, anything?”
The rancher’s frown deepened. “No,” he finally answered the teacher. “Not that I can think of.”
“All of her previous teachers describe Lucy as a shy mouse of a girl who spoke in whispers and broke into tears if they called on her. I have to tell you, that is not the same girl I’ve come to know this year.”
“No?”
“Since Dylan’s arrival, Lucy participates much more in class. She is a sweet little girl with a wonderfully creative mind.”
“That’s good, right?”
“Very good. But despite the improvements, Lucy still seems to prefer staying in the background. She rarely ventures an opinion of her own. I think it would be wonderful for her to help plan the carnival under your supervision.