A Town Called Valentine: A Valentine Valley Novel (9 page)

She slapped her hands on her thighs as she rose to her feet. “I think it’s time for you to go, cowboy. I have work to do, and I suspect those cows need you, too.”

He followed her back inside the restaurant and through the kitchen. He saw again the holes in the walls. “You going to hire someone to repair all this?”

At the back door, she turned and put her hands on her hips. “Why does everyone ask that? I’m a hard worker.”

“No offense, but there’s some skill involved.”

“What I don’t know, I’ll learn, so thanks for your concern.”

He passed her to go out into the rear hall. Without even touching her, he could feel the warmth of her body, smell the faint hint of floral perfume beneath the odor of Spic and Span. Whatever he told his brain, his body was paying attention to other signals.

“Tell Scout I missed seeing him,” Emily said, holding open the door to the alley.

She was a dog lover, too. Nate took the steps down to his truck before he could linger, but Emily had already shut the door.

E
mily locked the alley door behind Nate and locked away any more thoughts of him. She was glad the awkwardness was finished. Well, most of it. She returned to the front of the restaurant and stood near the door’s glass window. Though she still kept the shutters drawn because of the mess, she could see out enough to admire how the town had made the best of its location and history. The perfect example was the Hotel Colorado just across the street, where a steady stream of cars loaded and unloaded near its front door. She imagined that the preservation-fund committee might have had an active part in that, too. Except for her own building, she hadn’t seen a business on Main Street that looked in need of repair; but then again, she hadn’t walked the side streets, something she’d have to rectify. It was hard to make the time when she needed to finish the building before she could get on with her life.

She idly wondered about the donors to the preservation fund and their opponents, the people against bringing in tourism. Which side did Nate really come down on? His family was well entrenched, and it would be easy to imagine that they didn’t want things to change.

Thoughts of Mrs. Ludlow’s fund made her remember the lady’s granddaughter. Seeing the little girl with her curly pigtails had made Emily’s heart just about tighten up in her chest. It used to hurt every time she walked past a stroller or a school bus or a ball field. But she couldn’t keep living in that constant state of depression, or she might never come out of it. She had a future, a good one. She was doing something about her wish for a family, beginning with the repairs on the building. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but she could be patient, waiting for the day she had enough money to adopt. She’d spent too many weeks and months of her life wallowing in the wreck of her marriage and dreams, as if she didn’t have the power to change things.

Just looking around at the restaurant made her realize she’d already made a dent in the chaos. And she was doing her Internet research each night on putting up drywall and ripping up damaged flooring. It didn’t look too hard, she told herself. Nate might be unconvinced, but she would show him what she was capable of.

No, he wasn’t her motivation. She would show
herself.

O
ver the next few days, Emily spent most of her waking hours focused on the building. Occasionally, the widows dropped food off to her at midday, as if they didn’t trust her to remember to feed herself—or if they thought she wasn’t spending her money on that.

And they were right. The longer Emily remained in Valentine, the more she realized she was going to have to look for part-time work soon. Yet she took the time to put flowers in the planters out front, so that her bare building wouldn’t hurt any of the other businesses nearby.

She’d become acclimated to the altitude at last, and found some wonderful hiking trails up behind the town hall. Running brought her such peace in this beautiful mountain country, leaving her feeling stronger than she had in a long time.

She didn’t see Nate at all, and told herself that was a good thing. Brooke occasionally mentioned how busy they were at the ranch, with the stress of haying season coming up in June. If they didn’t harvest a good crop, they’d have to purchase hay at the end of winter to feed the cattle, cutting into their profit.

Monica and Brooke were proving to be a welcome distraction, occasionally insisting she accompany them to a movie or out to eat. Brooke dragged them to Outlaws, the local honky-tonk bar, where Brooke fit right in with her cowboy boots and hat. She did a mean line dance, but Emily felt like she had two left feet though she gave it a try. Her ex didn’t like to dance, so they didn’t. Why had she been so stupid as to let that stop her? Because she’d let go of her high-school and college girlfriends, that was why. She’d been a fool.

At Outlaws, they were each drinking beer, turning down requests to dance until they could get their breath back. A Kenny Chesney song was blaring in the background. Even though Emily was only wearing jeans and a shirt over a camisole, she noticed more than one admiring glance, and as the evening went on, her spirits lifted. She watched the crowd, a mixture of young and old, and found herself focusing on the older men, gathered in a booth near the back, playing cards.

Could one of them be her father?

Angry with herself, she took another swig of beer and glanced at Monica, who was picking the label off her bottle absently.

“Is something wrong?” Emily asked.

Monica glanced up with a jerk. “Sorry. Guess I got distracted.”

Brooke studied her. “With what? Everything okay at the store?”

“Busy, and Mrs. Wilcox was sick again today, so I was alone.”

“Poor old lady,” Brooke murmured. “What about Karista?”

“She’s still in high school, remember? She’s only evenings and weekends. But that’s not the real problem.” Monica heaved a sigh. “My sister’s coming to visit.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Emily asked.

Her friend shrugged. “It should be. But sadly, Missy always manages to make sure I know she thinks I’m wasting my life.”

“She
says
that?” Emily was aghast.

“No, not in so many words. But I know. She thinks you can only feel ‘fulfilled’—her word—with an important job in a city.”

Brooke smiled without amusement. “You can only imagine what she thinks about me.”

“No, she really doesn’t think that way about other people,” Monica insisted. “It’s just me. I’m her sister—her twin. Somehow, she thinks we’re supposed to want the same things.”

Mention of Melissa had brought down the mood of the evening. Emily had always wanted a sister or brother, and it made her sad to see sisters not getting along.

“When is she coming?” Brooke asked.

“I don’t know the exact date. She’s in the Middle East right now. When it quiets down a bit, they’ll give her some free time.”

“It sounds like an exciting job,” Emily said, then realized she sounded too wistful when Brooke gave her a warning frown. “I mean—”

“Emily,” Monica interrupted with a smile. “I’m not
that
sensitive, whatever Brooke thinks. Of course Missy’s job is exciting. But it’s not exactly glamorous most of the time, especially when she’s covering earthquakes and tsunamis, and people are dying right in front of her. Sometimes she can’t get a lot of food because it might make her a target for starving, desperate people. But if it sounds interesting to you, then you should talk to her about it. She’d
love
that,” she added dryly.

“That’s the problem—I don’t know what sounds interesting to me.” Emily clenched her beer bottle in frustration. “I know going back to college is the right thing to do, but I didn’t enjoy it the first time, and I have no clue what to study. Although I think I’ll rule out international journalism.” She grinned at Monica. “Too much travel.”

“You don’t like to travel?” Brooke asked in surprise.

“I do, but I want to have a family, and that would be difficult.” She smiled shyly. “I’m going to adopt.”

“That’s a great plan,” Monica said. “You’re not waiting for a husband to share it with?”

“I tried that, and it didn’t work. I’m getting too old to wait around for the right man, especially since I’ll have to save up adoption money.”

“You might not know what you want to do for a job,” Brooke said, “but you’ve got a plan, and that’s important.”

“You must have been a cheerleader in high school,” Emily said.

“Bite your tongue. I was a barrel racer, and the high-school girls’ champion of Colorado.”

“I’m impressed, and I don’t even know what it means,” Emily continued. “You ride horses around barrels?”

“Something like that. I’ll show you sometime.”

“Speaking of plans,” Monica said cheerfully, “Emily, you mentioned needing some furniture in your apartment. What do you have?”

“I don’t need much since I won’t be here long. There’s a bed frame, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable using the mattress.”

Brooke visibly shuddered, and they all laughed.

“What size bed?” Monica asked.

“Looks like a double, since the bedroom is pretty small.”

“Let me see what my parents have.”

Emily frowned. “What do you mean? I certainly can’t take your family’s furniture.”

“They’ve been talking about remodeling the guest bedroom for the longest time. Now that Missy’s coming home, I’m sure my mom will jump right in.”

“I detect sarcasm,” Brooke murmured.

Monica briefly stuck out her tongue.

“I don’t know if I feel right about this . . .” Emily began.

“Quiet. What else do you need?” Brooke asked.

“There’s already a table and two chairs. With those and a mattress, I’ll have eating and sleeping covered. That’s all I need.”

The two women looked at each other doubtfully, and Emily prepared herself to insist, but nothing more was said about furniture.

Brooke set her empty beer bottle down with a thump. “Guess it’s time to go. I need to be up before dawn.”

Monica shuddered. “You work long hours. I don’t know how you do it.”

Brooke shrugged. “It has to be done. Emily, can I drop you off on my way home?”

Emily gladly accepted, no longer feeling guilty about it, since the boardinghouse really was on the way to the ranch. After letting herself in the back door, she came up short when she found Mrs. Thalberg, dressed in a housecoat and slippers, sitting at the kitchen table with papers spread out before her.

Mrs. Thalberg lifted her head and smiled. “Did you have a nice evening, Emily?”

She grinned. “I did. Brooke taught me a line dance, and I wasn’t too terrible. But why are you still up at midnight?”

“I just wanted to prepare our new applications for the committee meeting tomorrow. Now that I don’t have to get up before dawn, I do some of my best thinking at night.”

Emily found herself picturing the redheaded grandmother chained to a brothel, and barely held in a laugh.

“When it’s not so late, I’d love to hear all about your work. It sounds really challenging.” Emily suddenly noticed a man’s jacket on the hook by the back door. “Uh-oh, someone might be cold tonight since he left that behind.”

“That would be Nate’s. He dropped by to see you.”

Emily stiffened in surprise.

“He fell asleep on the couch,” Mrs. Thalberg continued, shaking her head. “That poor boy works too hard. I think you should go wake him since he brought a box he says is for you.”

Two beers must have been too much, for Emily felt a pleasant little zing of warmth traveling through her veins.

Chapter Eight

E
mily walked slowly through the dark dining room, wishing Mrs. Thalberg would’ve come with her. But the old woman had mentioned Nate, then disappeared up the back staircase, wiggling her fingers good-bye. Emily saw a box on the dining table, and much as she wanted to open it, she kept on going. The living room—or the parlor, as the widows enjoyed calling it—was decorated in country-printed fabrics and seemed to be the focus of whatever crafting talents the women possessed. There were crocheted pillows and afghans, needlepoint scenes on the walls, even a pile of rocks glued together—surely the talents of someone’s grandchild. But beneath the country charm, she could see modern touches: brand-new windows, newly stained floorboards, and elegant trim.

It was homey and feminine, which was why the sight of Nate sprawled across the too-small couch seemed out of place. His legs dangled over one armrest, and his hand rested on the floor. The ever-present cowboy hat was perched on his chest, rising and falling with his even breathing.

Emily tiptoed closer and stared down at him. Without her being able to see the knowing look he often wore, he seemed younger, more relaxed. The lines fanning out from his eyes were less evident. She found herself wanting to touch his unruly hair, straighten it.

And then he opened his eyes, and she jumped back with a gasp.

“God, you scared me!” she said in a loud whisper.

“I could say the same thing.” He swung his feet to the floor and sat up, setting his hat beside him and running his hands through his hair.

“It’s still sticking up,” Emily said, unable to help herself.

He rolled his eyes even as he absently fingered it again. Glancing at the grandfather clock standing guard in the corner, he said, “It’s past midnight.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Your point?”

“My sister’s cranky when she doesn’t get enough sleep.”

“She’s a big girl.”

He rose to his feet, six-plus feet of him, taking her breath away with his lean, rangy height and all that masculinity.

“You smell like beer,” he said.

And suddenly she remembered what had happened the last time she had a beer with him. The bar had had the same dark shadows as now enfolded them in the parlor, making her feel like they were alone in the world.

“I was much more careful this time,” she said.

The corners of his lips turned up with a touch of bad-boy humor.

“Do you dance as well as your sister?” she asked.

“Is that an invitation?”

The awkwardness she’d been hoping to avoid returned with a vengeance. “Sorry, I was only teasing.”

He ran a hand down his face. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be flirting. It’s a habit with me and the female of the species. You’ll have to break me of it.”

She laughed. “You’re probably not thinking straight, having just woken up. I guess I should’ve called your grandmother to let her know how late I’d be.”

“No curfew at the Widows’ Boardinghouse. That Mrs. Ludlow likes to party all night long.”

Emily covered her mouth although a snort of laughter escaped.

“I decided to hang around,” Nate continued, grinning. “There’s always something that needs fixing.”

“Really?” She wandered away from him, toward the front hall and the beautifully carved woodwork of the staircase banister. “From the way your grandmother talks—and from what I’ve seen myself—you did a superb job the first time you worked on this house. You really did it all yourself?”

He shrugged. “I grew up helping my dad in his woodworking shop.”

“There must be a lot of things to fix on a ranch.”

“I like making things work.”

She leaned against the banister even as Nate came closer, standing beneath the arched entrance of the parlor. “What did you work on tonight?”

He pointed to the banister behind her head, and she jumped away with a wince.

He laughed softly. “No, I was just teasing. That’s solid and well over a hundred years old. I sanded and stained it a couple years ago, but that’s all. The kitchen faucet had a leak. You didn’t notice this morning?”

She frowned and shook her head. “I was baking, too, so I think I would have . . .” She trailed off in realization.

“Yep. I think Grandma does it deliberately to get me over here. Makes me feel like a bad grandson,” he said with bemusement, “that she thinks I need to be coerced to be here.”

“No, don’t think that,” she said, laying a hand on his arm.

They both went still, and he looked down at her hand before meeting her eyes.

She patted him briefly and let go, glad of her outward calm even though her heart had picked up speed. “She’s very proud that you and Brooke and Josh call her on her cell phone. She knows you pay attention. Maybe she just likes seeing you.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and when Emily felt like she could get lost in his green eyes, she cleared her throat, and said, “Your grandma tells me you brought me something?”

“Oh, yeah, follow me.” He led her into the dining room, turned on the old-fashioned chandelier—that gleamed with newness despite its design—and gestured to the box. “You know how this house used to be your grandma Riley’s? When I remodeled, I found mostly junk in the attic, but I collected a few things that I thought someone might come looking for someday.”

She looked up at him in surprise. “Why, Nate, how sensitive of you.”

“Just too lazy to throw anything more away.” He folded his arms across his chest and frowned. “I think it was Grandma’s idea.”

Though she doubted that, she didn’t dispute him, seeing how uncomfortable he was. It was hard to hide a smile, but she made the effort. “What’s inside?”

“Go ahead and look.”

She slowly unfolded each tab of the box, reminding herself that she wasn’t worried about the past, that her grandmother was just too sensitive where Delilah was concerned. But would she find something here that would change how she thought about everything? And did she want to discover it in front of Nate?

But the box was open, and she let herself explore like it was Christmas morning. There was a jewelry box with several pieces of costume jewelry that might make a cool vintage statement in San Francisco. Her feelings of Christmas became even stronger as she found some homemade tree ornaments that made her gasp with delight. An empty carved wooden box must have meant the craftsman had been close to her grandmother.

And then she found more modern items, childhood toys from the sixties, several of which had images of the moon, which she knew had always captivated her mother. Even when in a hurry, if they stepped outside under a full moon, Delilah would raise her face to it for a moment’s peace. She never preached to Emily about the things she believed in, another private part of herself that she kept distant. Emily never knew if Delilah didn’t want to be ridiculed or didn’t care enough to teach her daughter.

She shook off her memories and went back to the box, finding high-school yearbooks from the early eighties, and even the fifties, a legacy of her grandparents to add to the few other mementoes she had of theirs. Lastly, there were clothbound books that might be diaries. Her mother’s diaries? she wondered, feeling both intrigued and dismayed. Did she want to be sucked into her mother’s life again, to learn secrets that might hurt her even more? Although what could hurt her more than hearing that her father had been a lie? Had the poor man even known?

“You don’t look happy,” Nate said quietly.

Startled, she glanced up, having almost forgotten he was there. He was watching her too closely, as if he could read her thoughts.

She forced a smile. “I was just remembering my mother. We didn’t get along well.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

She cocked her head as she watched him. “I hope you don’t understand what that’s like.”

“I don’t,” he answered simply. “My mother helped my father raise us even when she suffered her worst attacks of MS.”

“She sounds wonderful and brave. I’ll have to meet her sometime.”

To her surprise, he didn’t respond, even out of politeness. Protective, was he?

He gestured to the box. “Well, good night then. Hope you find something in there you’re looking for.”

She wished him the same and briefly watched him walk into the kitchen. She was staring at the box again when the back door opened and closed. The box couldn’t contain anything she was looking for because she wanted the future, not the past. She folded it shut.

T
he next morning at dawn, Nate was working side by side with Josh in the horse barn, raking dirty straw and loading it in the back of a flatbed. The barn was still cold before the spring day could warm it, and the horses occasionally neighed to one another, or butted Nate’s arm when he passed. Scout moved in and out of the stalls, yipping at the horses as if greeting old friends.

“So have you been to Outlaws recently?” Nate asked. “It’s been a long time since you offered to be my wingman.”

Josh laughed, for neither brother ever needed help approaching a woman. Nate tended to be more open and sociable, filling time with words instead of having to answer questions, while Josh let the soulful-cowboy thing work for him.

Josh stepped out of an empty stall and regarded him with interest. “Funny you should mention that. I was at Outlaws, and saw Brooke and Monica with that new woman everyone’s talkin’ about.”

Pretending nonchalance, Nate looked at the time on his phone, then put in his earpiece. The calls would begin soon. He realized Josh was still watching him. “Brooke didn’t mention seeing you.”

“I didn’t want to be noticed by my sister,” Josh said dryly.

Nate chuckled.

He leaned on the end of his rake. “Nice dodge, big brother.”

Nate shoveled a pile of straw into the wheelbarrow. “Dodge?” He didn’t want to talk about Emily. But now she was there in his mind, her expression full of hesitation and hope and even wariness in the shadowy dining room looking at the box from her past.

And then his phone rang on his belt and relief washed over him. He tipped it toward him to read the ID. “Give me a sec. It’s about the grandstands for the rodeo.” He kept the conversation brief, then tapped his earpiece to hang up. “So what happened at Outlaws?”

“It’s amazing how you go from one thing to another without missing a beat.” Josh smiled, shaking his head, and took his towering wheelbarrow outside to shove onto the flatbed.

Nate piled his own wheelbarrow a bit higher than his brother’s had been.

“You have an amazing mind,” Josh continued, returning to lean against the empty stall, “able to do so many things at once—too many things. You can’t possibly keep functioning this way, doing everything, being everything to everybody.”

“Josh, you sound like I’m an old man who needs to slow down. I’m in my prime, boy!” he said, keeping his voice light, even though Josh was irritating the hell out of him.

“I’m glad about your new girl, really I am.”

Nate kept his face impassive. “She’s not my girl.”

“Tony De Luca said you met her the first night she was in town. That’s good. She might help you remember there’s more to life than work.”

Nate turned his back. “I played some pool that night, and that was all.”

“Really? Besides Tony, there were others doing some talking.”

Nate rubbed his forearm across his perspiring face. “Let me guess—Ned and Ted.”

As Josh gave a knowing grin, Nate’s phone rang again. The strangest expression came over Josh’s face. Nate let the phone ring.

“Get that,” Josh said seriously. “It’s important to you.”

“Everything’s important to me. And I treat it all that way.”

Nate answered, continuing to rake while he talked to Joe Sweet about Valentine’s organic farms co-op. Joe was a fellow rancher whose family also owned the Sweetheart Inn. As if Joe didn’t have enough to do, he’d gotten involved in coordinating the distribution of organic produce to restaurants in Aspen and the rest of the Roaring Fork Valley.

When he hung up, Josh was coming back in with the empty wheelbarrow. The phone rang again, and Nate silenced it without looking.

Josh sighed. “I know you. You’ll regret not taking that. You try to be there for every fence post we put in a hole, every horse that needs to be shoed—and every report about the winery or the farm. You can’t keep this pace up. Maybe this woman will help you see that you have to make
choices,
Nate.”

“That’s enough,” Nate said shortly.

“For now,” Josh shot back, and stalked out of the barn.

E
mily slept a bit too late for a long run, so she decided to walk through Valentine Valley for her exercise. On leaving her room, she glanced at her mother’s box, then away again. It seemed to stare at her as she left. She was being an idiot. Remembering the lunch she’d packed the night before, she realized she would have to do another grocery run soon, further depleting her savings.

Rain had fallen through the night, making everything glisten with the morning sun, like the world had been sprayed with glitter. The Silver Creek was running even higher as she crossed the bridge, flecks of foam spraying into the air. She walked the streets parallel to Main, enjoying that they were all named after women: Nellie Street, Clara Street, Grace, Mabel, and Bessie, names that must have been popular in the late nineteenth century when the town was new. Past the town hall, an inn gleamed with old-fashioned elegance, perched on the slope of the Elk Mountains. She’d heard more than once that she should try the restaurant there, the finest dining in town, but that would be too big a strain on her wallet.