Chapter 29
twenty-nine
Chapelle McRae woke up with the same bad taste in her mouth she’d had since Friday night.
“Something has to change,” she whispered to herself, but she wasn’t sure what that should be.
She worked for the city of Coral Canyon as a soil engineer in their landscaping and agricultural department, and while it had been a good enough job out of college, she now found the Wyoming weather almost unbearable.
She’d only been in town for about four years, and her gypsy soul itched for a change.
Not only that, but she knew she needed to—
“No, what you need to do,” she told herself as she swung her legs over the side of her bed. “Is get rid of Bryson.”
She barely liked her boyfriend anymore, and thankfully he’d gone back to Jackson Hole last night.
Chapelle wouldn’t have to deal with him lounging around her apartment and bothering her roommates while she went to church.
And if Chapelle needed anything right now, it was divine assistance with where she should be and who she should be with.
She showered and, as she soaped and shaved, admitted to herself that she’d only started dating Bryson because he was her older brother’s best friend. “Such a cliché,” she said into the shower spray.
Because she’d gotten up early, she had plenty of time to blow-dry her hair until it was long and shiny and straight.
She lived with two other women, and they all had a private bedroom and bath in a farmhouse that sat in a suburb here in the small town of Coral Canyon.
It had grown a lot in recent years, but it still had the feel she loved—where neighbors knew one another’s names and would notice if they hadn’t seen someone for a few days.
Chapelle wasn’t much for cooking, so she ate out a lot, and she had her favorites where she knew the waitresses and managers.
Her mind automatically flowed to the dark-haired, dark-mannered cowboy she’d encountered on Friday at The Darling Dragon.
She hadn’t gotten his name, and he hadn’t offered it.
He’d said he was visiting his parents, and he’d dismissed her with all the coldness of a Wyoming winter before walking away.
The last thing Chapelle needed was an ill-tempered cowboy. The man she currently dated—a lawyer at a firm in Jackson Hole—couldn’t be further from that, and Chapelle didn’t like him either.
“Maybe you need new everything,” she said to her reflection as she finished buttoning her denim skirt and pulled her sweater vest down over the waistband.
She found her roommate Laurel in the dining room sharing breakfast with her boyfriend.
“I’m going to church,” she said.
Laurel jumped up. “Oh, Chapelle, could you stop by the animal clinic on the way back and pick up Rockford?”
“You didn’t get him last night?” Chapelle froze, her arm reaching for her purse. “Laurel, that’s going to be, like, a three-hundred-dollar charge.”
“We were just so late coming back from the concert,” Laurel said. “They were closed already.”
“I would have gone to get him,” Chapelle said.
“But you know Bailey McAllister, right?” Laurel asked. “Won’t you see her at church?”
“I don’t know,” Chapelle said, disliking this level of responsibility her roommate was laying on her. “She might be there, but it’s not like I keep track of her.”
“Well, if she is, can you grab her and both of you can swing by there and get Rockford? He’s there alone. She said there would be someone there, but not all the time.”
“Yeah. You probably caused her a problem, Laurel.”
A frown finally appeared on Laurel’s face. “Can you talk to her or not?”
“Will you text her first?”
“Yeah, I’ll text her.” Laurel turned and huffed and then stomped back to the table, as if Chapelle was the one doing something wrong.
Chapelle grabbed her purse, glared at her roommate’s back, and pulled open the hall closet to get out a coat.
She had to wade through no fewer than eight of Victoria’s coats to find one of hers, and she had no idea why someone needed so much outerwear.
Of course, Victoria had grown up in El Paso—right on the southern border of the United States—and she’d never seen snow until she came to Wyoming.
She worked in the luxury lodge business here in town, of which several more had been going in recently.
Chapelle stepped outside and made the quick drive to the little church where she’d been attending since she moved to Coral Canyon.
They often had a lot of visitors, as it sat at the mouth of the canyon where one of the luxury lodges welcomed guests, as well as a gated community that the wealthy owned but didn’t live in. They rented those houses.
Chapelle had quickly realized that half the people in Coral Canyon in the summer were tourists. In February, though, she wouldn’t have to deal with that, and she hurried inside the little chapel, catching sight of an aisle spot in the middle section, about halfway down.
She slid into the seat there, realizing a beat too late that someone’s phone and Bible already sat on the pew. She glanced around and didn’t see anyone, and gently pushed the book and device further in. There was still plenty of room for someone to sit there.
A cowboy and his wife sat a little bit further down. They both looked at her and blinked, and Chapelle’s face filled with heat.
“Do you make it a habit of stealing people’s seats?” A man’s voice tickled her eardrums and his breath washed across the back of her earlobe.
Chapelle startled and turned, coming face-to-face with the gorgeous cowboy from Friday night.
“You weren’t here,” she said, taking in the length of the man’s eyelashes.
“I left my book and my phone,” he said, standing at the end of the bench. “So I could talk to my daddy’s neighbor for five seconds.”
He glared at her, and Chapelle’s first instinct was to glare right back. “There’s plenty of room,” she said. “Are those your parents down there?”
“Yes.” His mouth barely moved as he said the word.
Chapelle did what any reasonable person would do. She turned her knees to the side to give him room to step past her. When he didn’t immediately do so, she looked up at him and said, “Well, go on.”
He muttered something that sounded dangerously close to, “I wanted to sit on the end,” and did everything he could not to touch her as he brushed by, almost as if she was diseased and he would catch it if he got too close.
In the tiny space between the bench and the back of the pew in front of them, he leaned down to pick up his Bible and his phone. He glared at her as he sat down in their place. “Is your brother coming?” he asked. “Your boyfriend?”
Chapelle’s throat tightened, but she shook her head. “No. They don’t live here.”
“You’re dating someone who doesn’t live here?” His eyebrows went up in pure cowboy judgment.
Chapelle gave his grouchy attitude right back to him. “I don’t see how this is any of your business.”
“You took my dinner and my seat,” he said. “Seems like everything you do is becoming my business.”
“Hey, Deke,” a man said, and Chapelle’s eyes flew to him.
Deke got to his feet and looked uncertain, though it was clear he wanted to shake the man’s hand, and he wasn’t sitting or standing on the end of the aisle.
“Hey, Luke,” he said.
Luke moved to the bench in front of them, and he and Deke shared an awkward embrace over the back of the pew. “Did you get my message?”
“Yeah, I sure did,” Luke said, glancing at Chapelle. “You can come over any time. Should be fine.”
Of course Chapelle knew who Luke Young was.
The man was a legend from a legendary country music band.
And while Chapelle had grown up in Idaho and not Wyoming, she’d come here for a reason.
She adored small towns and a slower way of life.
She’d become a dirt scientist, for crying out loud—listening to country music was practically part of her job description.
“I’m thinking maybe tomorrow,” Deke said. “I’ve got a massage with your wife, and maybe we can meet after.”
“Sure. What time’s that?” Luke pulled out his phone.
“Ten-thirty.”
“Let’s do lunch, then,” Luke said, and they shook hands. Luke smiled as he left to go sit with his family while Deke sat back down and threw Chapelle a look out of the corner of his eye.
“Wish I hadn’t told you I have a massage tomorrow at ten-thirty. You’re probably going to try and steal that too.”
Chapelle’s mouth fell open, and then the choir began to sing, so she couldn’t even respond. She’d seen how quickly Deke changed from broody cowboy to “hey, it’s great to see you, Luke” and back again, and part of her really wanted him to turn his charms on her.
That would be a change, she thought as she got to her feet and started to clap along with the choir. Deke did not—which seemed to track for him—and Chapelle couldn’t help the wicked thoughts that ran through her mind.
I wonder how hard it would be to find out Luke Young’s wife’s name and what massage studio she works at, and call and insist on a ten-thirty appointment.
Chapelle wouldn’t really do it, of course, but it was fun to fantasize about. And with that, Chapelle knew for certain that she needed change in her life, as she was now resorting to torturing complete strangers for no reason whatsoever.
As the song ended and she sat back down, she closed her eyes and prayed, Guide my feet, Lord, and I will walk in thy way. Oh—and it would be really great if the path led somewhere warm.