Cattleman's Courtship (12 page)

Cara caught the angry look on Dale’s face when he saw the two of them astride Two Bits. What would he have thought of the kiss she and Nicholas had shared?

What was she to think of it?

Chapter Eight

N
icholas helped Cara off the horse, and tried not to let his hands linger on her waist as she got her feet under her.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I feel like we should take you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“So, what’s Bud doing, hanging around the corrals with the saddle still on?” Dale asked as he walked toward them. His narrowed eyes flicked from Cara to Nicholas as if looking for any hint of indiscretion.

Nicholas felt like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar, then he dismissed the feeling. He was an adult. He’d held the woman he was once supposed to marry in his arms.

That he kissed her was simply a throwback to old, unresolved emotions.

Yeah, he could tell himself that but deep down he knew better. He knew something had dramatically altered after that kiss. At least it had for him.

“Had a little spill up on the hills,” Nicholas said, fighting down a beat of frustration at his father’s unexpected arrival.

Usually his dad spent at least ten hours at the auction mart. He had counted on that when he and Cara went on their ride.

“The two of you went riding?” Dale asked.

“We were going with Lorne and Trista to check out a place to take pictures,” Nicholas said. He turned to Cara. “I’m driving you home.”

“I’m fine. Really,” she protested. “No headache, no dizziness.”

“But that bruise—”

Cara put her hand on his arm to stop him. “I’ll get my aunt to bring me to the hospital if necessary. You should go get Lorne and Trista sorted out.”

He saw the necessity of that. “You’ll let me know if anything changes?”

“I will.” She didn’t look at him as she walked to her car and got in. Was she regretting their kiss?

Should he?

“You going to unsaddle Bud?” his father said.

Nicholas pulled his attention away from Cara. “Why don’t you do that?” he said. “I’ve got to take Two Bits back to find Lorne and Trista.”

And before his father could ask him anything more about Cara, Nicholas was on his horse and gone. He had too much to think about. Too much to process.

And he wasn’t about to do that in front of his father.

Fifteen minutes later he found Lorne and Trista heading back down the trail.

“Where’s Cara?” Trista asked, as soon as she saw him.

“She had a spill and went home.”

“You let her go on her own? You didn’t bring her? What if she has a concussion?” Trista’s questions hammered at him as they rode back to the ranch.

“She said she felt fine. She insisted on going on her own. What else could I do?” Nicholas said, his guilt making him testy. “You know how stubborn Cara can be.”

“I suppose,” Trista said with a sigh. “Did she talk to you about picking up plants from the nursery Tuesday?”

Nicholas glanced back at her. “No. What plants?”

“For the wedding. The nursery is having a closing-out sale, but she didn’t think she would have enough room in her car to get them,” Trista said. “I told her to ask you for help.”

They’d had other things on their minds obviously.

“I don’t know. I’ve got hay to bale and I have to move my cows to another pasture. The tractor needs an oil change and I’ve got to work on the corrals.”

“I’ll do the oil change tomorrow night,” Lorne said. “And help you with the corrals. Your hay won’t be ready to bale until Wednesday, which means you’ll have time to help Cara with the plants.”

“Why are you so eager to help?” He’d been getting a weird vibe from Lorne and Trista and harbored a faint suspicion they were playing matchmaker.

“Hello? Wedding? Here?” Lorne spread his hands out in an innocent gesture. “The more I can help you with, the more you can do.”

So why didn’t he go and get the plants? But he knew if he asked, he wouldn’t get a straight answer.

“Okay, find out when she’s going and I’ll meet her there,” he said.

Trista’s grin gave him pause but he didn’t want to speculate on what caused it. He had a faint suspicion that he knew what Trista was up to.

And the trouble was, he didn’t mind.

“So as a friend, I need to ask. You absolutely certain Trista’s the one for you?” Nicholas picked up the two-by-six, glancing across the pile of wood to his friend. He had been mulling over the questions he and Cara had discussed yesterday and knew he had to talk to his friend.

Lorne moved the piece of straw he’d been chewing on to the other side of his mouth and picked up the other end of the board. “Yeah. I am.”

“And you two are happy together?” Nicholas set the board in place and braced it with his hip as he pulled his hammer out of the loop on his pouch.

“A lot happier than I was with Mandy and about as happy as you were with Cara.”

Nicholas chose to ignore that last comment. Ever since the aborted ride yesterday, Lorne had been dropping hints about Cara as heavy as the board they were maneuvering into place.

“Just make sure you protect yourself,” Nicholas muttered, pulling a handful of nails out of the pocket of his carpenter pouch. “You’re starting a new business. If this marriage doesn’t work—”

“I’m not going to lie, I have my concerns, as well, but Trista and I really love each other and we want to get married. And sometimes you just have to dive in. Take a chance. Love is a risk, but I think it’s a risk worth taking.”

“I took a chance with Cara. Getting engaged after seven months. Look where that got me.” He easily pounded the nails in and Lorne followed suit.

“But you never set a wedding date, man.”

Nicholas shrugged Lorne’s comment aside. “That was only part of the problem.”

Trouble was even though he had loved Cara, he had his own embers of misgivings. Misgivings fanned into flame by his father’s concerns.

It wasn’t part of the plan, his father had advised. Things needed to get done on the ranch first.

“Taking a chance can have serious repercussions,” Nicholas said, walking back to get another board. “You’re starting a business and you’re not set up yet. Don’t you think you should wait?”

“No. What Trista and I did was wrong and I want this baby born into a marriage.”

“But you don’t seem committed. You’re letting Trista and Cara do most of the work.”

“Hey, I’m committed to the marriage—the wedding is just what I have to do to get there. It’s just a tradition.”

“But it’s a good one,” Nicholas said as they carried the board back to the corrals.

“Says the guy who knows all about it,” Lorne said as he grinned.

Nicholas ignored him. “If I was getting married I’d want things done proper and in order. Things need to be ready. In place.”

“And that’s why in a few days I’m getting married and you’re still single.”

“What do you mean?”

“You wanted everything just so before you and Cara got married. Bills paid, bank account solid, debt paid down. Corrals fixed, barn painted, all that jazz. But things get in the way and things happen and it can all be gone in a flash.” Lorne snapped his fingers to underline his statement. “So maybe I’m taking a chance, but if you never take a chance, you never get to experience the thrill of jumping off into the void without a net.” Lorne’s voice held a touch of amusement.

“You, my friend, have been reading too many motivational books. Next thing I know you’re going to tell me I need to release myself from the bonds of earth and fly free.”

Lorne grew quiet and for a moment Nicholas thought he might have hit a nerve.

Nicholas glanced up in time to see his friend looking at him with a steady gaze, his hammer hanging at his side.

“What?” Nicholas asked.

“You go to church, dude. You know that God wants us to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with Him—at least that’s how I remember it. I’m taking care of my responsibilities so I’m doin’ that. I know you don’t wanna talk about Cara, but you made a megamistake with her. And I figure you got a second chance, now that she’s back.”

“She’s got her own plans, Lorne. And they don’t include me.”

Lorne gave no reply and for a while the only noise that broke the quiet was the ringing of hammers and the occasional bellow from the herd of heifers close to the barn.

But as they worked Lorne’s words as well as his confidence in what he was doing spun around Nicholas’s mind.

“Oh, brother. What’s this doing on here?” Lorne brushed some sparrow droppings off the boards. “Those birds are getting to be a pest. You really need to do something about ’em.”

“And a million other things,” Nicholas said. “I can’t keep up.”

“Have you ever thought of quitting your job?”

“You sound like Cara used to,” Nicholas muttered.

“So what happened with you and Cara?” Lorne asked.

Nicholas missed the nail he was hammering and bent it over. “Nothing. We just had a spill. She fell and then Bud took off. So I thought I should bring her back. So, nothing happened.”

Lorne snickered and Nicholas straightened the nail. “I was talking about how you two broke up, dude.”

“I…I told you,” he said, wishing he didn’t sound so flustered. “We had a fight about my job.”

“So I’m guessing something else happened between you and Cara on Sunday,” Lorne asked, his voice full of innuendo.

Nicholas pounded the nail home in three swipes. He had never been a kiss-and-tell kind of guy and wasn’t spilling his guts to a friend in wedding mode. “She had a spill. Nothing else happened.”

“Else?”

He clamped his lips together. Best not to say anything more.

But as he fitted another nail in the board, his mind slipped back to that fateful kiss. He wished he could rewind that moment. He should never, never have done that. It was a mistake and he had to make sure he got through this wedding with his heart whole.

Chapter Nine

“A
nd I’ll take two dozen of these gerberas,” Cara said to the greenhouse attendant, leaning over the wooden table to point out the one she wanted.

The swish of the sprinklers, the abundant greenery and the humid warmth of the greenhouse created a sense of wonder and expectation in Cara.

She wished she had her own place, a garden and flower beds. She let her mind wander to Nicholas’s house, imagining plants nestled against the wooden step leading up to the house and flowers hanging from the porch. The place looked immaculate, but it needed a woman’s touch. Some flowers, some shrubs. A kitchen garden—

“And you wanted a dozen of the prepotted arrangements?” the clerk asked, his question breaking into her runaway and foolish thoughts.

She tapped her finger on her chin, considering. “Actually, make that fifteen.”

She did some mental calculations, figuring what plants she would need where, and then her phone rang. She glanced at the call display. Trista.

“Hey, Cara, are you at the nursery already?” she demanded.

“I got off work early.”

“Okay. Okay, that should work. Let me think.”

Cara frowned as she pinched a dead flower off one of the plants. “What should work?”

“I got Nicholas to meet you at the nursery. I thought we should bring the plants to the ranch right away. That way they don’t have to get moved twice.”

Cara swallowed against the anticipation that filled her at the sound of Nicholas’s name. She didn’t want to see him so soon. Not after Sunday.

Of its own accord her hand drifted up to her mouth. It was as if his kiss still lingered on her lips. His touch still warmed her.

“That won’t work,” she protested. “Who is going to water them?”

“Nicholas said he didn’t mind.”

A picture of Nicholas wielding a watering can flashed into Cara’s mind. “He doesn’t have time. Any day now he’s baling his hay.”

“And you know that…how?”

Cara chose to ignore the innuendo in Trista’s voice. “When is Nicholas coming?”

“He should be there in about five minutes. He’s taking his flatbed truck so you should be able to put all the plants on it. I gotta run. Thanks a ton for doing this.” And then Trista broke the connection.

Cara put her phone away, disappointed to see her hands trembling. Nicholas was coming.

She had hoped to avoid him for a few more days. At least until her heart didn’t do that silly pounding thing every time she thought of him. At least until her emotions could settle down.

She’d just have to speed up the process.

She was paying for the plants when, in the edge of her vision, she caught a shadow in the doorway of the nursery. The fine hairs on her arm rose up, her neck grew warm and she knew, without looking up, that Nicholas stood there.