Cattleman's Courtship (17 page)

That was because she didn’t think there was anything left to say.

“Okay. Where should we meet?” she asked.

His eyes looked dark, and as Cara held his gaze awareness arced between them. “Would you be willing to come here?”

She nodded, then drifted toward him and a sudden tap on her shoulder pulled her back to reality. She blinked, then turned.

“I’ve come to collect my dance.” Tod stood in front of her, grinning as he held his hand out.

Cara looked back at Nicholas, almost hoping he would rescue her. But he stepped aside and gestured for Tod to take over.

Tod took her in his arms. “I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said. “Hoping maybe we could pick up where we left off.”

My, wasn’t she the popular ex-girlfriend tonight, she thought, with a touch of cynicism as Tod twirled her around the dance floor.

She only listened with half an ear to Tod, gave him an occasional distracted smile. Tod was better looking but as she danced with him, her eyes continually sought and found Nicholas. And each time she saw him, he was watching her with an enigmatic expression on his face.

When the dance was over, she begged off and went to get a drink from the lemonade fountain. She looked for Nicholas and saw him standing to one side of the party, talking to someone she didn’t recognize. He laughed, patted the man on the shoulder and moved on, mixing with the people. People he knew and had known since he was a child.

He belongs here.
The thought settled with certainty.
This is his home and his community.

She sat a few dances out, chatted with a few people, but her eyes kept finding his.

Each time their eyes met, she knew she hadn’t imagined that surreal moment on the dance floor.

And anticipation over what would happen on Tuesday seemed to rise with each shared look across the room, each light brush of his hand as he passed her.

What would he talk about?

And would it change her plans?

Chapter Thirteen

C
ara’s eyes flicked over the church bulletin but she wasn’t reading anything she saw.

Every time a man walked down the aisle of the church her heart started up. But so far Nicholas hadn’t shown up.

This morning, when she got up in time to go to church with her aunt and uncle, Aunt Lori barely managed to hide her surprise.

Though she’d crawled into bed at three-thirty after helping the families clean up, exchanging glances with Nicholas the entire time, she couldn’t sleep.

Too many thoughts were clamoring for attention. Between the sermon from the pastor at the wedding and Nicholas’s sudden confession, she didn’t know which way to turn.

On the one hand God promised that He’d never leave her alone. And on the other, she ran the risk of letting that promise be taken over by what Nicholas might want to talk to her about.

Did the two need to be mutually exclusive? Was she looking for signs where she should simply be looking to renew her relationship with God and let everything else fall where it may?

So she came to church, hoping to find nourishment for a soul that had kept itself far from God too long.

And hoping Nicholas would show.

The worship team came to the front and started playing a song Cara remembered from her earlier years. By the third verse, Cara had let the words of the song soothe her anticipation and put it where it should be.

The peace promised her in the song stole over her.

“Hey there.”

The deep voice shivered through her, shaking her newfound serenity.

She turned to Nicholas. “Hey yourself.”

He sat down beside her and, ignoring her aunt’s raised eyebrows and her uncle’s puzzled frown, she gave him a careful smile.

“You got up early for being out so late last night,” he said quietly, leaning close to her.

“So did you,” she whispered back. “Did everyone leave after I did?” “Pretty much.”

And suddenly there was nothing more to say. Either they moved directly into what Nicholas wanted to talk about or they bided their time until they could do it properly.

One step at a time, Cara told herself. She wasn’t sure what lay ahead. Her plans were still in place and she had no solid reason to change them.

So why did she feel another possibility glimmering over the horizon?

Keep your focus on the pastor,
she reminded herself, drawing comfort and encouragement from what he said.

Her soul drank it all in, yearning for more.

As they rose to sing the final song, a sense of contentment overrode her other feelings. She didn’t know what lay ahead, but she knew God held her life in His hands.

As the notes from the final song faded away, Nicholas turned to her. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Make arrangements for Tuesday, okay?”

She held his gaze and nodded as expectation quivered between them.

“Those bales are heavy,” Dale said, leaning back against the bale wagon piled high with sweet-smelling hay bales. “Hay is looking good.”

Nicholas took a long sip of the iced tea his father had brought out, his eyes wandering over the tight, round bales still dotting the field. The summer smell of warm hay permeated the air, creating a feeling of well-being.

“Did you check the heifers before you came here?” Nicholas asked.

His father nodded. “Crackerjack bunch of animals. That guy in Montana will be thrilled.” His father pushed his hat back on his head and took another sip of lemonade. “Is that Morrison girl going to do the test?”

“Not sure, Dad.” Nicholas sighed, then glanced up at his father. “Why do you talk that way about her?”

His father blew out his breath and took another sip of iced tea. “You’re not getting involved with her again, are you?”

Nicholas’s mind ticked back the wedding—the moment of closeness with Cara. Was he getting involved with her? But he didn’t answer his father.

“You still never told me much about that day you two came riding back on Two Bits,” his father said.

“Like I told you, my horse spooked, she got dumped and I was worried about her.” Nicholas conveniently glossed over the kiss they had shared. The kiss that had rocked his world.

“And the wedding? You’ve been walking around in some kind of daze since then.”

And it was a good thing his father had gone to that rodeo at Sundre the day of the wedding. Nicholas said he wanted his dad’s help but now Nicholas realized his absence was for the best. His father had missed his dance with Cara.

He didn’t need his father ragging on him about Cara. Not when he wasn’t sure himself where things were going and what was happening. For now, he was taking things one day at a time.

“Is she starting to get to you?” Dale pressed.

“I’ve got things under control,” was all Nicholas said, squinting at the sun as his narrowed eyes followed the contours of the land. He knew every hummock, had ridden through every valley and moved cows over every hill.

And he hoped one day he could show his own son or daughter the land that had been in the Chapman family for so many generations. He wondered what that child would look like.

Wondered who would be standing beside him.

“She’s a distraction,” his father continued. He just wouldn’t give up.

“What do you mean?” Nicholas pulled his attention back to his dad.

“You said yourself after she left that she doesn’t get your commitment to the ranch. Doesn’t understand how it’s in your blood and in your soul.”

Nicholas had thought that at one time. But after that aborted ride into the hills with Trista and Lorne, he wasn’t so sure. As he and Cara rode and talked, he sensed she understood his attraction to the land and history that permeated his life.

“Cara left you once before, Nicholas. Not only left you, ran out on you without a word. Don’t fall for her again. I can see how she looks at you. She still feels something for you. You’ve got to keep your eye on the prize,” Dale continued. “A few more years and the ranch will be where it should be. That’s a sacrifice worth making.”

Nicholas thought of what Cara had said on the ride back to the ranch. How she wondered why he worked a job he didn’t like when his heart was so obviously here.

He thought of how interested she seemed when he told her his family’s history. How she seemed to appreciate the roots that held him firmly to this place.

And his mind cast back to Sunday morning in church when he sat beside her and how he felt, for the first time in his life, willing to step into an unknown. To stop doing the never-ending work bringing in money that was never enough.

Because each time they paid off one loan, it seemed to open the way to previously unavailable possibilities.

“I sometimes wonder if I have that in me anymore, Dad,” Nicholas said finally.

His father frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You weren’t in church on Sunday,” Nicholas said, folding his arms over his chest. “But the pastor read a piece from Philippians that I’ve been thinking about the past day or two. ‘I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want.’ And I got to thinking. I’m not content. Not content at work and I’m not content when I’m on the ranch. There is always one more thing to buy, one more piece of machinery to fix, one more loan to pay down. Money is flowing in, but it’s not making me content.”

“If you keep working that’ll change.”

The note of desperation in his father’s voice caught Nicholas’s attention.

“We have a plan,” his father continued. “We sell the heifers, get a steady market for our breeding stock. Then we’ll be in better shape. But we need to stick to the plan. Don’t let that Morrison girl distract you.”

Nicholas was tired of his father talking about Cara, but he knew if he defended her, his father wouldn’t quit. Besides, he wasn’t sure what was happening between them, but he knew that some spark of what they had before still lingered. Maybe he was wrong about Cara, maybe he was a fool, but he sensed she felt the same.

“I better get back to work.” He pushed himself away from the tractor. “I want to have the hay off the field by tomorrow.”

When he and Cara would be seeing each other.

After that he had to get the heifers—their ticket to the next step up in the ranch’s economic fortunes—tested and ready to ship.

And after that?

He had a job waiting and yet…

For the first time in years he was willing to put a question mark on his future.

Could he do it? Could he make the sacrifice Cara asked him to make all those years ago?

Would Cara change her mind about him if he did?

Chapter Fourteen

P
ink shirt? Blue shirt?

Cara held one in front of her, then another. Nicholas was coming in ten minutes. She’d barely had time to wash the dust out of her hair from her last job and now she had to figure out what to wear.

She would have called Trista, but her friend was on her honeymoon and Cara didn’t think she’d appreciate a phone call asking for fashion advice.

Cara wrinkled her nose, tossed aside the pink shirt and slipped on the blue one. Done. Now she had to figure out what to do with her still-damp hair. Ponytail? Let it hang loose?

Nicholas had called yesterday and asked if she’d be willing to go riding again. She had reluctantly agreed, knowing she had to for her sake. And Nicholas.

Nicholas wouldn’t put her in danger, she thought. She knew that as surely as she knew the color of her own eyes.

She let go of her hair and decided to let it hang loose. Nicholas had said once that he liked it down. Besides, when she was working she always pulled it back in a serviceable ponytail. And she wasn’t working tonight. Bill was covering the calls.

A bit of makeup, a quick fluff of her bangs and she was done.

Aunt Lori stood by the kitchen table, a tea towel slung over her shoulder, paging through a magazine. Behind her the kitchen counter was still stacked with the dinner dishes that Cara had offered to do half an hour ago.

Obviously her aunt had gotten distracted again.

She looked up when Cara came into the room. “You look nice.”

“Where’s Uncle Alan? I thought he said he was going to help you with the dishes.” Cara slipped her denim jacket on over her shirt and pulled her hair free.

“He went to the clinic.” Aunt Lori turned another page in the magazine and then put it on the table, folding a corner of the page down. “I was looking for this recipe.”

“Why don’t I help do the dishes a minute?” Cara said, glancing at the clock. She wasn’t early enough to finish the job, but if she could get her aunt started, hopefully they would get done.

But Aunt Lori waved her off. “Your uncle said he wouldn’t be at the clinic long. He’ll help me when he comes back.”