7. Giving Notice
Giving Notice
Colt
Silver wouldn’t let a case of smoke inhalation keep him down.
He followed me around the smaller paddock while I cleaned it and added fresh water, moving with more purpose each day as he let his guard down.
The other horses watched from the larger paddock and the pastures, curious and assessing from a distance.
Especially Tank. Eighteen hands of shiny black coat and quiet authority—our resident alpha, who was privately a softy for Pearl and Juniper and June Bug, but didn’t advertise it.
With Silver’s arrival, another alpha and a proven hero, things could get interesting between them eventually.
For now, we quarantined Silver while he healed.
“Okay, okay.” He nuzzled the back of my neck while I scrubbed the water trough.
I half grumbled, half laughed. Dusty had adjusted the anti-inflammatories twice since Silver arrived, and the respiratory issues were improving.
The horse had decided I was his person above all the other guys on the ranch, which I was trying not to read too deeply into.
I ran my hand down his neck in the gentle way I’d learned he liked. He leaned into it.
“I might miss you when I leave.” He leaned harder. “I know. Let’s not think about what’s down the road.”
I led him back into his stall. He surprised me by curling his head around my back — not quite a hug, but close enough to one. My gut wrenched in a way I didn’t examine too carefully.
“We shouldn’t get too attached,” I told him. Almost a warning for both of us. Too late.
“Attached to what?”
I turned around. Ivy Wylde hung over the stall door, golden ponytail tossed over one shoulder, grinning at me like she’d been there long enough to enjoy catching me in the middle of a heart-to-heart with a horse. The morning had been overcast and grey. She walked in and it wasn’t anymore.
Silver’s ears swiveled toward her. Then he shot me a look — or whatever the horse version of that was — and went back to watching Ivy like I hadn’t been the one feeding him twice a day. Traitor.
“Just a conversation between us guys,” I said, and cleared my throat.
“He’s a handsome fellow,” she exclaimed.
“He is. A little standoffish to anyone but me—”
She held out her hand with something inside it, and he passed right by me up to her, breathing her in, checking her out.
“You brought treats.” I shook my head.
“Daisy says it works for her when meeting new horses.” Silver let her pet his nose while munching the treat. “Hi, boy. I’m Ivy. I heard you’re something special. So here’s a homemade treat for you.”
He nodded in response. What a ham.
“He seems to like you, too,” I observed.
“What’s not to like about me? I have excellent taste in boots, can balance a business, town activities, and my life, and not make it all seem too crazy.
And, bonus, I make the county’s best horse treats.
Won the blue ribbon at the state fair with these when I was ten. Same year I won Little Miss Rancher.”
“Whoa. Didn’t realize I was among royalty.” I winked. She held up the container, lid off. Peppermint and apple and other things wafted up. “What’s the recipe?”
“Oh no, Calhoun. I don’t divulge my secret winning recipe to just anyone. You’ll have to earn the right to know it.”
Gladly… I’d probably do just about anything for her.
Grins smoldered between us. Something natural had developed between her and me from the very first week I landed at the ranch.
If this was back in Holly Creek, on my home turf, I’d have probably gotten her into bed with me long before now.
But this was her hometown, and my temporary location.
Only temporary…
“He definitely looks very majestic with his gray coat and dark mane.” She continued to admire him. Silver’s ears swiveled forward, studying her.
“He’s a bona fide hero.” Noise filtered in from truck tires on the gravel driveway.
“I heard what he did. He’ll fit in well here, with all of you military heroes around.”
I tore my gaze away from her. Me? Hero? Hardly. The sharp reminder of the accident on the ship flicked past.
“Ivy! You’re here.” Ro came bursting into the stable with Eli and Dusty right behind her. The vet had picked them both up from school today.
Willow’s daughter had bragged to everyone on the ranch how Ivy would take her riding after school.
“How’s Silver doing?” Dusty asked, moving into the stall. I gave him the update since his last visit.
“Dad, ask her, please?” Eli begged at the door.
“Ivy, would you mind if Eli tagged along on the ride? I’ll be checking the horses for a while,” Dusty asked and reached into his bag for his stethoscope.
Ro added to the request, jumping up and chanting ‘please’ in a drawn-out way, her hands laced together in prayer under her chin.
“Of course. We’d love to have him, right Ro?”
“Can Colt come, too?”
“Oh. I mean, he can, if he’s not busy. Which he probably is.” Ivy quirked a brow and reopened the container. Ro and Dusty each dug one out to give their horses — after sneaking a bite themselves.
“Go on. Silver will be in good hands while I’m here.” Dusty encouraged me.
“Okay then. I wouldn’t mind a ride on this fall day. See you soon, hero.” I waved at Silver, and he whinnied in protest at my leaving.
Twenty minutes later, we had saddled two ponies and two horses and took off.
The trail to the pond cut west through the lower pasture, making for about a half-hour ride.
The pines started coming in thick for the last half, the scent of cold sap and fallen needles sharp in the back of the throat — the smell of upstate New York autumns, close enough to this that it made my chest do something complicated.
Ro and Eli rode ahead. Marshmallow behaved for Ro the way it always did — putting in just enough effort to be respectable, not one step more. Eli was on Loki, one of the gentler ponies, the fishing pole strapped across his back at an angle.
I rode Reece at an easy pace, a gelding who needed more exercise than the others. Ivy rode beside me on Juniper, her ponytail catching the light through the pines. For a stretch, neither of us said anything. The kids were far enough ahead to be out of earshot.
“So,” I started. “Give any thought to those rules.”
She glanced at me sideways. “You want to discuss this now?”
“When else?” I adjusted my grip on the reins. “Don’t break my heart and tell me you haven’t given any thought to our fake relationship since I left your shop two days ago.”
She shifted in her seat and tipped her chin up, like she wasn’t going to admit it’d been on her mind. “When Seth is around, we show—”
“That won’t work. Our friends or your sisters are bound to be around too, and if they see us kissing only when Seth appears, or only on Cowboy Nights, that’ll look suspicious. And you know how people love to talk. Could get back to Seth that this is an act.”
She sighed like she hated to admit how right I was.
“I think we’ll have to make a show of it to everyone so they think we’re really together. Shouldn’t be difficult. We’ve been friends for some time, so we just say we’re taking things to the next level.”
“Oh, Calhoun, next level? How romantic.” She rolled her eyes with a snicker.
“Look, Wylde, when I’m with a girl, I like to, you know, touch her. I like to show affection. You okay with that?”
After another sidelong glance, she said, “No surprise moves in public without warning first. If you’re going to put your arm around me, or—whatever. A heads-up, please.”
“At the wedding, you grabbed my face and kissed me in front of half the town without a heads-up.”
“That was an emergency. Seth walked in. I panicked.”
“You seemed very decisive to me. Any of the guys would have taken that kiss from you.”
She gave me a look that said she knew I wasn’t wrong and maybe resented it. “The rule stands. I need a warning first.”
“Fine. Here’s my rule — if Seth’s involved, I don’t need to give a warning. I’m going to do what the situation calls for. Because you wanted me to keep him away, so I’ll do what it takes.”
“Understood,” she said.
I kept my eyes on the trail. “Nobody can find out it’s fake. Not your sisters or anyone at the ranch. This can only work if it’s between us. Loose lips sink ships.”
“Thanks for the Navy analogy, but I hate keeping things from Daisy at least. She’ll figure it out and she’ll be mad.”
“Not if we’re convincing. We need a public claiming—like tomorrow night, making a show of it. Holding hands, kissing, dancing. Those other cowboys need to know you’re claimed. Everyone needs to see you’re mine. Hell, I may even throw you over my shoulder and carry you out at the end of the night.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Yeah, I would. I’ve seen other men claim a woman like that walking out of the Sapphire. Definitely gives a warning that she’s off-limits unless you want to tangle with the man. So, we put on a big act, okay?”
“Sure. Later, when it ends, we break up in public. Another act. No complications.”
“No feelings.”
“Right. Back to being friends.” I let that sit for a moment.
The pines thinned out ahead where the pond came into view, flat and grey-blue under the cloud cover, the pier extending out over the water. Two of our guys had rebuilt it earlier this summer, so it was safe. Eli and Ro steered their ponies to a clearing to graze by the bank alongside ours.
Before we got down to the pier, we all picked wild rose hip berries to surprise Eldon. He loved making jams and jellies, and of course, his strawberry wine. He’d be happy to see these. Satisfied with a few buckets full, Eli had his pole assembled, ready to fish.
The two of them were already making their way out to the end of the pier. Ro had picked up some flat rocks, wearing a serious expression of someone trying to perfect her rock skipping.
I settled on a flat rock at the bank where I could see the full perimeter. Force of habit. I couldn’t sit with my back to open water if I could help it.
Ivy sat down beside me. She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and watched the kids. For a while, neither of us said anything. It was a comfortable silence, which was its own kind of problem.
Everything with Ivy came naturally.
Out on the pier, Ro skipped rocks to one side after Eli complained she was scaring the fish away.
The ripples went wide and overlapping, and even from the bank I could see her tongue sticking out in concentration, the small satisfied nod when a good one skipped several feet across the water. Eli cast his line on the opposite side.
“She doesn’t actually like fishing,” Ivy observed.
“She likes Eli, though.”
“She’s an only child who likes having someone to play with.
I had sisters growing up; we were inseparable.
” Ivy gazed out on the water and paused as if she could see way back.
“Daisy and I used to play by a pond on our family ranch when we were that age. We’d talk and laugh so much.
When we were teens, we’d sun on the pier with our tops off. ”
My mind got stuck on an image of them doing that — bare-breasted, skin glowing in the sun. Until she elbowed me. I realized I’d been staring at her instead of the water. I didn’t look away.
“Still sun like that anywhere on the ranch these days, Wylde?”
“I’ll never tell, Calhoun.” Amusement flashed through her flirty eyes and landed somewhere I didn’t have a word for yet.
“Rule one,” I blurted.
“What?”
“I’m invoking rule one. I’m going to kiss you.”
She blinked. “There’s no one even watching, except for the kids.”
“Exactly. You know Ro likes to talk. Let her blab around the ranch and school about us. That’ll be a great way to ease into this.”
She held still for half a second. Then something in her expression shifted. She didn’t move away.
Time slowed, except for my pulse. My hand came up and cupped her cheek. She tilted toward me slightly, the soft exhale before I covered her lips with mine sending my heart jumping out of my chest.
Her honeysuckle fragrance pulled me into her so fiercely that I had to remind myself this was staged. My hand remained where it was longer than necessary. She didn’t move away. That was the problem—she stayed, taking equal part in kissing me back.
The slope of her shoulder leaned into me. A whimper from her throat could undo me.
“Oh my gosh. Ivy and Colt are kissing,” Ro squealed. We pulled back and sure enough, she was pointing at us while Eli gawked from the pier. Their giggles reached us across the water, and Ivy and I blushed like we were embarrassed to be caught. Far from it. This was the plan.
I cleared my throat, forcing myself to remember that this was all temporary. “That did the trick. Should make tomorrow night easier,” I said, lying back on the rock, trying to remain nonchalant about things.
Ivy lay back next to me and kept her shoulder against mine.
We stayed in the comfort of the outdoors in silence, sharing this time together a little while longer.
Everything was easy and quiet on the surface.
But like that pond out there, the murky water hid anything resembling catching feelings for Ivy far below.