Chapter Nineteen
“You’re sure you’ll be all right?”
Riley looked at her father, who was ensconced on the living room couch, with his leg elevated on a pillow on the coffee table. He was right beneath the painting done by the man whose family she would be seeing soon.
“I’m fine.”
He sounded a bit cranky, probably because she’d been fussing. But he had everything he should need for the next couple of hours, water, snacks, the remote for the TV, a throw to pull over himself if he got cold, and his phone on the table beside him, with orders to call her if necessary.
“Just go, will you? And tell Maggie I’m sorry I’m not mobile enough to be there. I’d like to see this note you told me about.”
“I’m sure you will, eventually. And I’ll let you know what it said when I get home. Maybe take a photo of it for you.”
“And I’ll just laze around in here like there’s nothing to be done out there,” he grumbled.
“I know vacation and relaxing are foreign words to you, but try and look at it that way. Oh, and the birthing stall monitor is up and running, so check on Goldie now and then. Her udder started producing day before yesterday.”
He nodded. “I know. And call you if she starts getting restless. You better thank young Cody for that while you’re there.”
The youngest Rafferty had rigged up the camera in the stall so they could check on the pregnant mare any time, day or night, from anywhere that had an internet connection. Her father griped about some of the new-tech stuff other ranchers took to, but he liked that one.
“I will. And,” she added, “thanks to the Baylor crew yesterday, we’re pretty much caught up.”
“I hear even that city boy did good,” her dad said, eyeing her rather carefully. It startled her, that look. Did he suspect…something? How could he? He’d barely met Miles, and they’d spent maybe ten minutes in the same space together. She wasn’t even sure they’d spoken directly.
She tried for a joke, saying lightly, “You mean Jackson? Yes, he did do well. Got a lot done.”
He gave her the James Garrett snort she deserved for that one. “Jackson’s no city boy anymore—he’s one of us. You know who I meant, that pretty boy in the boots he probably bought yesterday.”
She had, of course, noticed the black cowboy boots with a bit too much shine still on them. It was a style Yippee Ki Yay in town carried, and she suspected that’s where these had come from. She hadn’t noticed them when he’d been here in Last Stand for Jeremy’s birthday, and she would have.
Because you seem to notice everything about him?
No, she answered her recalcitrant inner voice firmly, because I notice fake cowboys. Not that he was trying to be one. Although judging by Stonewall he’d clearly done his homework.
“He worked hard,” she said. “And he never once complained or asked for a break.”
“Well, that’s something anyway. Maybe he’s not city-boy soft. You give Maggie a hug for me, all right?”
She smiled. “I’ll do that,” she said, bending down to give him a hug right now, hoping he’d be better soon, not for her sake, or even that of the ranch, but for his. Her father did not take well to being sidelined.
She glanced at her watch, decided she had time for one last in-person check on Goldie, who was due to drop any day now, and headed out that way.
The mare looked utterly placid, nudged her to check for a treat, took the apple slice she’d grabbed on her way out here, then went back to contentedly munching on her hay as if she wasn’t the size of a small submarine at the moment.
Riley smothered the ancient bit of sadness that wanted to rise in her, sadness that she would never be faced with that situation and worked up an expression she hoped looked normal when she heard tires on the packed earth driveway outside the barn.
In a perhaps twisted way, she should maybe be grateful for that moment of solemnity, because it had calmed—or smothered—the churning that wanted to start up inside her at the thought of an afternoon spent with Miles.
It would have been easier if Nic and Jackson were coming, too, but she knew that they had a new batch of devastated children coming in for their first session at Thorpe’s Therapy Horses, and they both needed to be there.
She walked out of the barn just as Miles was sliding out of the driver’s seat.
He was in Nic’s older pickup, the first vehicle her friend had ever bought and paid for herself.
Riley had felt honored when she’d stopped on the way home from the dealer to give Riley the first ever ride in the passenger seat.
She’d earned it, Nic had told her with a grin, since she’d been the one to tell her to go for a vehicle she loved and would use, rather than the flashier, trendy thing the saleswoman had tried to convince her she needed.
Riley, a forever in blue jeans ranch woman, would never have thought she’d like the kind of khaki pants she’d seen Miles wear a couple of times now, but she had to admit they were growing on her.
The light tan color almost matched his sandy-blond hair.
And she remembered smiling when he’d been giving Jeremy’s golden Maverick an enthusiastic tummy rub, thinking of the three shades of blond there.
She supposed that the dog had taken to him so quickly should be a sign, although Nic had laughed and said the dog loved everybody.
“So if he ever growls at someone, I should shoot them on sight?” Riley had teased.
“I would,” Nic had told her. “I mean, he only ignores Swiffer, and he’s one of the nastiest people I’ve ever met. I don’t know how Miles hasn’t decked him by now.”
“Actually,” Jackson had said as he’d come up beside them, “he has.”
They’d been distracted by Jeremy at that point, and she never had gotten the story. But she could now, she thought as she got back in the passenger seat of Nic’s truck.
“I should probably have you drive,” Miles said as she closed the door, “but I’m trying to learn my way around.”
He was? She couldn’t help wondering why. Was he really going to be here that long? Or be coming here more often, often enough to need to know?
“It’s easy enough to find. They’re right off the Hickory Creek Spur, just like we are, just in the other direction from town.”
He rolled his eyes, but his mouth had quirked in a rueful expression that was clearly self-directed. His next words proved it. “You’re talking to a guy who lives where there are street signs everywhere.”
“City necessity,” she said.
“You say that as if it were…”
“A sign of overpopulation? Something to be avoided at all costs? Symptoms of a disease?”
He was laughing now. “There are times,” he said, grinning, “when I would agree with any one of those.”
“Then there’s hope.”
She was laughing herself by now, but it faded when, as they slowed prior to the turn onto the spur, he looked at her and said, very neutrally, “Is there?”
It took her a moment to steady her voice. “There’s always hope. I hope.”
It sounded so silly she grimaced. But thankfully Miles didn’t see, as he turned his full attention to driving now that they were out on the road. And she went back to what Jackson had said.
“Did you really deck Swiffer once?”
He gave her a startled glance. “Let me guess. Jackson?”
“He mentioned it,” she admitted. “But that’s all he said. Was it for something specific, or just on general principle?”
His mouth quirked. “He didn’t give you the whole silly story, then?”
“No. Will you?”
She saw him take in a long breath, then let it out. “He kicked one of the dogs on set.”
She blinked. “He what?”
“We had this dog character on Stonewall, a border collie named—”
“Flip.”
He blinked in turn, gave her a quick glance. “You know him?”
“Hard to forget the way he’d do that three-sixty backflip,” she said with a smile.
“I didn’t realize you’d…watched that much. To know the dog, I mean.”
She gave him a sideways look and a crooked grin. “Unlike Nic, I was able to put the fact that it wasn’t really Texas out of my mind and focus on the story. For me, it was that, and the people who mattered.” She grimaced then. “And the animals. He really kicked that sweet dog? Why?”
“Fur on his pant leg.”
She stared at him. “Seriously?”
He nodded without looking at her, since there was a truck and horse trailer headed toward them. “I was right there. Heard him swear about it, turned around in time to see him kick Flip. That yelp…set me off. So I kicked him. In the ass.”
“Good for you,” she said, meaning it. “I hope he went down hard.”
She saw the corners of his mouth—it seemed she was always looking at that mouth—twitch. “He did. He whined about it for days.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t try to sue you or something.”
“He thought about it. But somebody—probably Jackson—explained to him how bad it would make him look if he had to admit in court he’d kicked an innocent dog who just happened to brush against him.
” He grinned then. “Besides, Flip was a really popular character. Fans would probably come after him if they found out.”
“Rightfully so,” she said, meaning it. “I’m glad you stood up for him.”
“He’s a great dog.” They’d gone at least a couple of miles before he spoke again. “Nic said the Rafferty ranch is one of the bigger ones around?”
“Yes. They always have been, but now they’re even bigger since Cody Rafferty, the youngest of the boys, married the girl next door.”
He glanced at her. “Seriously?”
Riley laughed. “Yes. Brittany Roth. The Roths’ place is smaller but borders the Rafferty ranch. When they got married, they built a house that crosses the property line, to cement the connection.”
“Wow. That’s something.”
“It is. Especially if you know that Cody and Britt hated each other practically from the day they were both born, in the same hospital, on the same day, at almost the same time.”
He laughed. “That sounds like the setup for a teen-oriented show.”
She laughed. “It does. But sometimes reality is even weirder.”
“So that’s the youngest, then there’s Chance, the one who helps the dogs and got Maverick for Jeremy, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “And Keller’s the oldest and runs the ranch.”
“And he’s married to the woman who built The World In a Gift, right?”
“Yep.” She gave him a sideways smile. “You’re learning.”
“Nic mentioned the other brother is an artist himself? The one whose wife is the photographer who did those great photos for Jackson?”
“He is, although it took him until Kaitlyn came along for him to admit it. He started out doing leatherwork, and thought that was all he could do.”
She instinctively ran a finger over the belt she wore, a custom Rylan Rafferty she’d ordered from him.
“He did your belt?” Miles asked, proving his peripheral vision was just fine.
“Yes.”
“It’s incredibly detailed.”
“It has everything I love about my home,” she said simply. “I told him what I cared most about, and he delivered.”
“Then I assume the horse racing around that barrel is King?”
“Yes.” He really had noticed. To distract herself from the idea of him studying her that closely, both mentally and physically since he’d only seen the belt when she was wearing it, she went on quickly, “He’s done a lot of saddles, too, for the governor, and—” it struck her belatedly “—a couple of your cohorts out in Hollywood. Big star types.”
“I’ll have to pry into that,” he said. “But he’s doing paintings now? Like his father?”
“Yes. Once Kaitlyn convinced him he could. Oh, and fair warning,” she added, “only since all her boys got settled has Maggie gotten back into Christmas. She’ll probably have the whole place done up by now.”
“Well, it is…what, December third?” he said, with a barely concealed grin. “I mean, back in L.A. the decorations have been up for a month already. The Thanksgiving turkeys barely had any room.”
She stuck her nose up in the air and said in a purposefully stilted tone, “In Last Stand we think both holidays deserve their rightful attention.”
He laughed and flashed another glance and grin at her. “How…traditional of you.”
There was no joking in her voice now. “We respect tradition. And the past.”
“How could a town named after a literal last stand not?” he said simply.
And Riley had the thought as they neared the Rafferty ranch that for an outsider, he really did get it.