The Ranch She Left Behind. Kathleen O'Brien

the page trying to capture was something less easily defined. Something in the curve of his neck, or maybe it was the elegant slide of light across his cheek, twinkling like a hint of magic in those tiny, unshaven shadows.

      She bit her lower lip, frustrated. The pen wasn’t subtle enough; she needed charcoals, or watercolor. Or was watercolor too insipid? Pen and ink, maybe, would find the tightrope balance between sweetness and strength.

      Suddenly, the sweetness took the upper hand. Oh, he was smiling, and that changed everything! A hint of rascal in the slight overbite, but a rush of kindness and harmony in the open lips, a torrent of sensuality in the wide expanse of...

      Her pen froze. He wasn’t just smiling. He was smiling at her.

      He was watching her watch him.

      Which, she realized as she stared at her pad, she must have been doing for quite a while. The drawing was taking shape, filling in with detail. It wouldn’t be mistaken for anyone or anything but him.

      Her cheeks burned as she realized his daughter was watching her, too. How long had she been in her trance, drawing while the rest of the world disappeared? Father and daughter had already ordered, and the little girl was even now sucking absently on the straw of an ice-cream float while she stared at Penny.

      Nervously, Penny set down the pad and pulled the top pages over to cover her sketch. She tried to make the movement look natural, but she knew it was hopeless.

      â€œWhy were you drawing my dad?” The girl frowned, pointing her float toward the notebook, as if to prevent Penny from denying it.

      â€œEllen. Don’t be rude,” the man said, still smiling. He reached out to pull back his daughter’s outthrust glass, but she made a petulant sound and lurched clear of him in one willful, rebellious motion.

      Her father’s grip had obviously been gentle, so the force was twice what she needed to break free. The results were disastrous. Ice cream and root beer and whipped cream flew everywhere.

      Everywhere. Across the girl’s hand, onto the floor, onto her shoes—and even onto her dad’s crisp white shirt and golden suede jacket.

      Her cheeks flamed red. “Now look what you did,” the girl said, obviously covering her embarrassment with aggression.

      Oh, no, don’t make him look a fool—especially not with strangers to witness the disrespect! Penny’s chest tightened, and her stomach did a dizzy swooping thing. She didn’t dare look at the father. Though the girl was bratty, Penny’s heart ached for her, and she wished she could prevent what must be coming.

      But several seconds passed, and she heard nothing. No yelling, no curses, not even a cold, scathing reprimand. Penny glanced up. To her surprise the child was disappearing into the ladies’ room, and the father calmly tugged napkins out of the dispenser.

      â€œAh, man, I’m sorry,” Danny said, running a dishrag under some water. “I’ll make her another one. No charge.”

      Yeah, right. Penny tightened again, thinking how unlikely it was that the father would reward such rudeness with a second chance at ice cream.

      â€œDon’t be silly,” the man said in a pleasant tone, surprising Penny so completely she felt her lower jaw sag. “Of course we’ll pay for it. But make it a double, okay? And what the heck. I’ll have one, too.”

      And just like that, Penny’s tension drained away, as if someone had pulled the stopper out. She felt a wave of irrational happiness wash in after it. The happiness was irrational because logically, just one nice man, one patient father—that didn’t change anything, not for her. She had grown up with a terrifying father, and she still had the emotional scars to prove it.

      This man was no one to her—she didn’t even know his name. But he was...well, right now he felt like hope personified. He was the rainbow after the storm, the unicorn emerging from the forest, the olive branch that proved land still existed, land that an exhausted sailor might someday reach.

      Right now, she absolutely loved this beautiful, beautiful man.

      Impulsively, she stood. He’d run out of napkins, and he still had whipped cream flecked across his neck and under his chin. He probably didn’t even realize it. She extracted a dozen napkins from the dispenser on her table and moved toward him.

      Danny was absorbed in making the new floats.

      â€œHere,” she said as she reached the counter. “Let me help with that. You’ve still got a spot, here—” She stood on tiptoe. He was tall. “And here.”

      She leaned in.

      Number Ten. Kiss a total stranger.

      This was perfect. Not an artificial check mark on an arbitrary list. She wanted to kiss him. For daughters everywhere, including the angry kid in the bathroom, and the terrified little girl she herself once had been, Penny wanted to give him a heartfelt thank-you kiss.

      On the cheek, of course. She shut her eyes. Her lips tingled, anticipating the soft bristles of his stubble. He smelled sweet, as if he’d been traveling in a perfume-filled car. But not a grown woman’s perfume. A pink-cotton-candy perfume—the kind a ten-year-old would wear.

      Cotton candy and honey bristles... Something fluttered in her belly. How could such a combination be sensual?

      But as she moved in, he must have shifted his face toward her, because her impetuous kiss landed not on soft bristles, but on the warm, ridged flesh of his lips.

      She inhaled sharply, opening her eyes—and found herself staring into the deep pools of his. She had connected with the edge of his mouth, not the center, where the sharply drawn bow formed. But still...she felt the warmth of the stiff rim around the velvet flesh. She felt the minty heat of his surprised breath.

      For a minute, she couldn’t pull away.

      He didn’t, either. For a second, a few seconds—it was hard to tell, because time seemed as sticky and easily stretched as the caramel on her sundae—they stood there, joined by shocked eyes and warm, half-open mouths.

      He made a low sound, a primitive sound that could be identified in any country, on any planet, as pleasure. But he didn’t dive in, snatching the opportunity lewdly, as some men might have done. Instead, he slowly, almost imperceptibly, tilted his head to the right...then delicately drew it back again to the left.

      The subtle movement caused his lips to brush hers with an excruciating tingle. All through her body, nerve endings reacted, as if he’d put a match to her mouth. Her cheeks flamed. Her chest radiated heat like a sunburst. Her heart couldn’t remember exactly what to do, and thumped around in her chest, confused.

      Surely the whole thing didn’t last more than two or three seconds. Danny hadn’t even finished churning ice cream into the floats. Two or three seconds, and then—it might have been prearranged—they both pulled back at the same moment. She had to work hard to steady her breathing, as if she’d been jogging, and she felt the strangest urge to adjust her untouched clothes and smooth her unruffled hair.

      In contrast, he looked surprised but utterly calm. His caramel eyes were smiling. The outside corners tilted up, managing to look quizzical and delighted at the same time.

      â€œI’m not sure what I did to deserve that,” he said in low, pleasant tones. “But I hope you’ll tell me...so that I can do it again.”

      â€œIt isn’t what you did,” she said awkwardly, backing up a step. “It’s what you didn’t do.”

      â€œWhat I didn’t do?”

      She tried to laugh, tried to match his composure, though she suddenly felt utterly ridiculous. He’d never understand. He probably had no idea what some fathers were capable of doing