What a Bride Wants (7 page)

“
Have you spoken to your mother about her?”

“
No.”

“
She might be able to gauge things. She might be able to help.”

“
Did she help you?”

Zoe
y’s silence was telling. “Your mother was blindsided,” said Zoey eventually. “As were we all. Don’t discount her as an ally though, Cameron. She was very kind to me. And very fond of you.”

“
Yet she supported Richard’s behavior.”

“
I don’t believe she did. Your mother was silenced, like the rest of us. There’s a difference.”

“
I’ve had a couple of dates with her. Three.” Four, if he counted the night they’d first met – which couldn’t be counted as a date at all given that he’d been working. “Already I’m trying to figure out how I can make this work.”

“
I like her already.”

“
She breeds cows.”

“
So does Manuel. Bring her to Spain, I want to meet her. She’ll be safe here with us, you know that. Richard’s reach does not extend here.”

“
You don’t know that for sure.” One of the main reasons Zoey was safe now was because Sawyer was no longer in her life. A phone call once a year was one thing. Going to visit her and Manuel was a different level of involvement altogether and one he would never attempt.

“
Are you still restructuring the soft drink industry up in Alaska?”

“
No, I finished with that six months ago. I’m a bartender in Montana now.”

“
Cameron,” she scolded again. “Bartending? But why?”

“
Why not? I like the people. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Did I mention that I bought a house on the Washington coast just south of Seattle? The aim is to live in it more than three weeks a year.”

“
I like that aim. Maybe you should fill your house with a woman to love and a family to raise. Does she know? Does this woman know who you are?”

“
No.”

“
My friend, that is not a good start.”

“
I know.”

“
Your family will always be your family, Cameron, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not.”

“
I’d rather not.”

“
I know that. And yet…”

How do I
do it, Zoey? How do I keep her off his radar?”

“
You don’t. You stand your ground and you be prepared for whatever comes your way – both of you. You can’t do that if she remains unaware. Tell her who you are. Tell her what you fear. It’s her best protection.”

But Sawyer
didn’t want to tell Ella who he was, didn’t want to lay that filth before her. His silence said it for him.

“
You said she was fearless. Let her be that for you.” Zoey’s voice had thickened, her accent had become more pronounced. “I wish I could have been that for you.
Te deseo amor
, Cameron. I wish you love. Always.”

He closed his eyes. Wished her all the love in the world right back.
Just not his. “You too, Zoey. You too.”

Sawyer called Ella from the chocolate shop the following lunch time. He’d been driving himself crazy with indecision all morning. A little more of her wouldn’t hurt anyone, he’d think with one breath. Don’t be a player, he’d scold himself with the next. And with his third breath he tossed around the notion of telling Ella who he was and the challenges he faced and letting her make her own decision.

She seemed like a woman who might appreciate not having decisions made for her.

“I need a chocolate recommendation,” he began. “I ate them out of salted toffee and dark chocolate swirls.”

“
You want the dark-chocolate-coated ginger strips.” It was noisy at her end. Windy. “Trust me, your life will never be the same again.”

“
What are you doing?”

“
Shifting early-calving cows to a more weather-protected part of the ranch. There’s more snow forecast.”

“
Talking to you can be very daunting.”

“
Does that mean you don’t want to come out and see for yourself what goes on around here? Because that was my next move. I was giving you one more day to make
your
next move.”

“
Good of you.”

“
I
know
. Have I mentioned that cows with frosted eyelashes are the cutest things ever?”

“
You really are a cowgirl, aren’t you?”

“
Born and bred. Am I tempting you?”

“
Are you dusty, dirty and wearing cowboy boots and a plaid shirt?”

“
I am neither dusty nor dirty. You’re thinking of summer clothes or possibly Australia. Right now my hands are half frozen inside my gloves, my jeans and boots are cold and damp and my waterproof jacket isn’t quite living up to its name.”

“
Are you at least wearing a cowboy hat and sitting astride a horse?”

“
I’m sitting astride a snowmobile, greenhorn. But I do have the hat.”

Sawyer took a moment to picture her as described
. Then he pictured her coming apart in his arms. No telling how many times he’d pictured
that
in the past twenty-four hours. “How’d your father go with our public display of affection in the park?”

“
He hasn’t mentioned it. But everyone else thinks you’re a dreadfully bad influence, so I’m calling it a win. If you head out here mid-afternoon we should be done with the cows, I can make an effort to be more presentable than I am now, and I can take you up into the ranges and we can get stranded in the mountain lodge overnight. Bring the ginger strips.”

“
And here I was going to suggest dinner and a movie.”

“
It’s a very nice lodge. Open fireplace. Hearth rug. Food in the pantry.”

“
Here’s the thing.” He stood in the chocolate shop. Looked up and saw just how many people were listening in and decided to take this conversation outside. “The kind of privacy you’re talking about isn’t going to make resistance easy. We get up there and get cozy, and you
know
what’s likely to happen between us. Yesterday should have made that very clear.”

“
It did. Am I being too forward?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “I am, aren’t I? I blame the lust. Come on out to the ranch, Sawyer, and take a look around. I’ll take the lodge off the menu. You can put dinner on the menu. I would love to have dinner with you. Very respectable pastime.”

“
Do you always backtrack quite this rapidly?”

“
I’m impulsive, in case you hadn’t noticed. Backtracking is part of the deal. It happens every time common sense takes hold.” Ella sighed heavily. “I’ve been sitting here waiting for a cow to get up but I don’t think she can. I may have to shift the others and come back to her. What time did I say I was getting in this afternoon?”

“
Mid afternoon.”

“
Better make it later.”

“
You want a hand?”

“
You can tell a lot about people by the way they handle cattle,” she mused. “It’ll show you the man. Or the woman, as the case may be. I really hope I don’t disappoint you. How soon can you get here?”

“
Depends where you are.”

“
I keep forgetting you’re not from around here. That was a compliment, by the way.” She gave him directions. “Takes about fifteen – twenty minutes to get here from Marietta. Dress warm and bring a change of clothes.”

Twenty
minutes later, Sawyer was driving his pickup through one of the prettiest valleys he’d ever seen. Bad weather was indeed closing in on them, the sky confirmed it, but it hadn’t yet arrived and the landscape sat bathed in that weirdly intense glow that photographers loved.

Ella and her father
ran a beautiful operation. One where the fences glowed white, the barns were full of hay, and the ranch house itself sprawled low and loose in the foothills of a vast mountain range. Grazing cows shone glossy black and strongly muscled against the snow and every vehicle on the place was at most only a couple of years old.

Plenty of fat in Emerson
’s bottom line, from what Sawyer could see.

Plenty of time to figure Ella for a chip off the old block when she came into view around the side of the
main barn, for she was dressed for work and her pace was brisk as she pointed to a place to park, up beside a snowmobile that had an accompanying sled loaded with hay.

He got out
and reached back across the seat for his gloves and a woolly hat. “Hey.”

“
Just this minute loaded,” she told him with a cheerful grin. “I’m aiming to get out to the cow and back before this weather hits. She’s calving, which is much better news for us than her being down for reasons unknown. She’s also one of our maiden heifers and she’s about three weeks early… that, or she got put in the wrong group… which is why we need to take another look.” Ella handed him some goggles and reached for the pair slung over the seat of the snowmobile. “You ever driven one of these things?”

“
Yeah. We used them all the time in Alaska.”

“
What were you doing up there?”

“
Restructuring a soft drink company.”

Ella turned to look at him.
“Who
are
you?”

“
Ginger strip?” He was going to tell her. He would. He just needed to find the right time.

He pulled one out of the bag in his pocket and dangled it in front of her
, and she took it and thanked him and bit into it with one hand while she straddled the snowmobile and motioned him to get on behind her. She slipped her goggles on and moments later set the machine to moving.

Ella
drove with a confidence that came of long experience and a preference for speed that Sawyer enjoyed. She sped them across flat snowy grazing land and then began to climb the foothills. Not once did she let up on the gas.

Sawyer tucked his hat more fir
mly over his ears. Cold wind peeled across the bare sections of his face. Ella was bearing the brunt of the biting wind and she didn’t complain. They crested a ridge and she slowed to a halt and pushed her goggles up but she didn’t get off the snowmobile so neither did he. He pushed his goggles up too and stared out over the valley below them.

“
The creek forms part of our border,” she said and pointed to the thin, snaky line cutting through the valley floor. We’re also bordered by the road and the ranges.” More pointing ensued. And then she pointed uphill, toward a rough track that climbed steeply. “They run a big snowmobile race across the range every year. It starts here. Occasionally I win it. People say it’s because I have the home advantage across some of the course. I prefer to think that I really am just that good.”

“
I guess that’s why you don’t seem to mind when the front end of this thing lifts four feet in the air.”

“
That’s just because we’re back-heavy at the moment.”

It wasn
’t
just
because of that. “What are you like in powder, and without the sled on the back.”

“
Sawyer, I am goddamn poetry in motion.”

Sawyer
grinned at her total lack of modesty. “Please tell me you wear a helmet.”

El
la turned and flashed him a killer smile. “I do. We just haven’t put them on this time because we’re going so
slow
.”

Yeah, not that slow.

“What does your father think about your relationship with speed?”

“
He prefers to call it my reckless disregard for safety. That answer your question?”

“
Yup.”

“
My father had me take lessons from a national race champ a few years back – in the interests of improved safety. The extra speed was just one of those happy coincidences. The champ even offered me a place on his race team. Alas, that wasn’t all he wanted and unfortunately there was no spark. I’m a little particular about that. Ask anyone.”

“
How ‘bout I take your word for it?”

“
Or you could do that.” She shifted her goggles back over her eyes and got them moving again, and then turned back toward him. Sawyer immediately wanted her to turn back and watch where she was going. He pointed dead ahead, his arm bracketing hers. “What’s that? Halfway up the mountain?”

“
That’s the lodge. You’re really rather big and all-encompassing when you set your mind to it, aren’t you?”

“
You need more room?”

“
No. Warmest I’ve been all day.” She leaned back against him and he tucked his arm beneath hers and wrapped it around her waist. Even with all her layers of winter clothing he could still gather her close with ease.

Long time since he
’d offered a woman that kind of closeness and protection.

Long time since he
’d done anything but pull away. “I like your ranch,” he rumbled over the whistle of the wind and the noise of the snowmobile. “It’s big. It’s wildly beautiful. It’s well maintained.”

“
My father’s pride and joy,” she yelled back.