Fielder's Choice (27 page)

Freedom
.

Wasn’t that what she’d fought so hard over the past years to keep? Wasn’t that why she scorned any commitment that would hem her in?

Yet since meeting Matt and since spending time at the ranch, she’d become aware of an untethered quality to the life she’d led up till now. In her fight to remain free of commitments, of shunning restricting relationships and avoiding activities that required advance planning and settling down, she’d created a different sort of trap. Admitting that she was trapped in a snare of her own making was like waking up from a stupor, like wearing clothes that once fit but were now so tight they were suffocating.

She stared from her balcony and watched the ranch come alive in the glory of the day.

She’d grown to love the sounds of morning on the ranch. Doves cooed as they rummaged for their breakfast in the rich mulch of the garden, and hummingbirds bubbled in their squeaky warbles as they perched on the honeysuckle clinging to the arbor just below her bedroom window.

Staffers greeted one another like old friends meeting on a village green. Rafael waved at Peg as he rattled by in his tricked-out golf cart.

Alana smiled at the inventive way he’d found to strap every imaginable garden tool along the sides and across the back. Rafael was innovative and clever and considerate. The previous week he’d invited her to his cottage to have dinner with him and Isobel.

Nana had deeded the four-room cottage and an acre of land to them when she’d died. She’d even created a private access road leading up to it—in case something happened to the ranch, Alana surmised. In case someone bought it and turned it into a resort or a summer home, or subdivided it for development.

In case Alana sold it.

That evening as they’d shared a simple but delicious meal, neither Isobel nor Rafael had asked her intentions regarding the ranch. Still, she had felt the question hanging heavy over them, like a pendulum swinging above their heads.

Commotion in front of the frantoio pulled her attention back from her thoughts.

Down in the courtyard Peg was herding the last group of campers to the arts and crafts tent. Alana didn’t have to search their faces to know that Sophie wasn’t among them. She’d come to love the squeals of delight and laughter of the children, but today that sound drove a wave of melancholy deep into her soul.

She shut the doors to her balcony and walked to the polished burled bureau and pulled on what she now considered her ranch clothes—a long-sleeved white shirt and buff-colored jeans. She laced up her half boots and tied a scarf around her neck, finding that a scarf kept her warm until the morning lost its chill.

She spied the robe—balled up in a corner of her bureau drawer—that she’d worn on the last night she and Matt had made love.

She hadn’t had the nerve to wear it since.

She pulled out the robe and breathed in his scent. A chill pinged down her spine as it dawned on her that his was the scent she’d been dreading ever since she’d heard about it. She pulled the robe tighter against her.

She’d read the reports—experts said that a woman would know with her body when a man was right for her, when a man was a near perfect mate, and she’d know it by his scent. At the time the report had seemed both far-fetched and intriguing. Yet she knew the magic of scent; there was every reason to believe the academics or scientists or whatever they were, even if they hadn’t had years of research to back them up.

She shook out the robe and hung it in her armoire. Though she was tempted to burn it, to rid herself of yet another reminder of yet another mistake, she couldn’t. The silky piece of cloth was her only tangible keepsake of the love he’d awakened. She didn’t want to forget that she could feel like that, even if it hurt to remember.

As she reached for her sun hat, her gaze fell on Piers, the bear Matt had won at the fair. His plush body slumped on a chaise in the corner of her bedroom.

“What are
you
staring at?”

Even the stuffed bear seemed to be taking her measure. She plumped him up and turned him so he could look out the window.

And she cursed Matt for making her want more than the life she’d had before she’d met him. For making her see that she didn’t have what it took to fit in with him and Sophie.

She grabbed her hat and headed downstairs. Maybe a cup of tea and another slice of toast would settle the rumbling in her stomach.

“Peg brought the checks for you to sign,” Isobel said as Alana entered the sunny kitchen. “They’re on the sunroom table. And Rafael said to tell you that Iris is settled into the north-slope cottage. He put in a new electric line so she could run her distiller, but there’s no phone.”

“Distiller?” Alarmed, Alana pictured moonshine and contraband.

“For her essential oils. We had an old distiller down in the barn. I didn’t think you’d mind. But she says she needs to speak with you, if you have the time.”

In only two days the ranch had welcomed Iris as if she’d been sent from the heavens. Even Alana felt that the old lady belonged on the ranch. Alana didn’t believe in spirits coming back and taking on new bodies, but if she had, she’d say some part of Nana resided in Iris. It was both eerie and wonderful.

“I’m glad you put the distiller to good use,” Alana said as she took one of the scones from a tray Isobel had just pulled from the oven.

“Careful they’re—”

“Hot!” Alana dropped the scone to the counter.

They both laughed. Five years ago she’d stood in the kitchen with Isobel and done the very same thing. The only difference was that Nana had been sitting in the alcove signing the stack of checks for the ranch payroll and Alana had been a rangy teenager chomping at the bit to grow up and be free to roam the world as she pleased.

“Patience,” Nana had said to Alana that morning. “Some things are best when they’ve cooled down a bit. And I’m not talking about just scones.”

Alana regretted that she hadn’t heeded more of her grandmother’s well-tested advice.

Isobel handed Alana a plate and a potholder.

“The permit meeting’s been moved up,” Alana said as she placed the scone on her plate to cool. “I’m headed over to Mr. Hartman’s. Apparently he’s the only one who can help me get the other ranchers on board. We have three days.”

“Take him some scones,” Isobel said with a knowing wink. “He may be a tough old bird, but he has a weakness for my scones. Señora Tavonesi took him a plate once a week.”

When Alana arrived at Zav’s ranch, he teared up and turned away from Alana and the flowered plate she held out for him.

He took a mustering breath before turning back.

“Damned scones,” he said, taking the plate from her hands. “I must be allergic to them.”

Alana put her hands on her hips. If he was anything like most men, it was best not to make a fuss over his display of emotion.

“
Three days
, Zav, The county’s only giving us three days. We can appeal, of course, but—”

“I’ll handle it. It was Jo’s pet project, and nothing’s getting in the way of it going through.”

“But the other ranchers—”

“I know where every single skeleton is buried in these hills. And though I may not see them much these days, the people out here are my friends.”

“But the county—”

“Don’t you worry about the county. You just put on your duds and show up at the meeting.” He waved her to the table on his back patio, papered with the plans and spec sheets for the windmill. “By the way, I heard you organized a damned serious rescue a few days back.”

“I’d hoped it hadn’t made headlines.”

“Heard it from a deputy’s father; we’ve been buddies since grammar school. I don’t need to tell you how many years that’d be. He reported that you snapped to and handled everything.”

“If I’d been paying attention in the first place, it never would have happened.”

He laughed and shook a finger at her. “Don’t fool yourself; kids find a way around every rule. It’s their job.” He slid his reading glasses down his nose and peered at her over the top. “Jo was a very smart woman. Maybe she knew something in leaving you the ranch—otherwise you’d just be one of those girls who runs around buying things like there’s no tomorrow.”

Just one of those girls
. The resonance of the phrase made Alana suspect that Nana had not only plotted to bring her and Zav together, that they’d probably even talked about her over their weekly glass of wine. Her cheeks burned with the knowledge, but she couldn’t fault either of them. Nana had her number and apparently, so did Zav.

“What about that woman you hauled off my land? Can’t believe that. I hadn’t been out in that area for years. No excuse, though.”

“I’m letting her live in the old gardener’s cottage. She’s going to help me develop the body care scents.”

“Now
that’s
a project of your grandmother’s you won’t get me near. Scented bath bubbles and all that. Ridiculous.”

“People need soap.”

“Next thing you know we’ll be having gourmet salt.”

She didn’t bother to tell him that gourmet salt from seas all over the world was already on store shelves.

“She give you a name?”

“Iris.”

“She give you a last name?”

“Is this the inquisition? For God’s sake, Zav, the woman’s been through the mill. I haven’t had a chance to talk much with her. She’s nice. Odd, but nice. The people at the ranch have taken to her. I can imagine you’re not happy about her being on your land, but I don’t think she did any harm.”

“Man’s got a right to talk to someone squatting on his land.”

“Give her a few days. Then you can talk to her.”

He
harrumphed
and lifted one of the smooth rocks securing the spec sheets for the windmill.

“Where’s that ballplayer? My friend’s son, the deputy, said he was mooning over you. You get
him
to come to the hearing and they’ll stamp your permit right through. Especially after last night.”

“Last night?”

“The man hit another grand slam. Looked like he was channeling some kind of energy. I could use some energy like that. Maybe it’s love?” He chuckled and folded his hands behind his head.

“Not with me. Your friend’s son didn’t stick around for the not-so-happy ending with said ballplayer.”

She stopped, but then felt compelled to fill him in…

“I could
never
fit the mold of wife and stepmom,” she said, winding up her very abridged account. “A kid like Sophie deserves someone competent. Someone normal.”

Zav chuckled.

Heat rose in her cheeks. “You think this is funny?”

“You had a stepmom. Jo was very fond of your father’s second wife.”

“I’m not like her. I couldn’t do what my stepmother did, put up with what she put up with, handling me and Simon and Damien.
And
my dad. Not to mention the dramatics of my mother.”

She lifted the rocks on her side of the spec sheet. Upside down, the blue ink looked like an ancient map. If only it were. A map to everlasting happiness.

“Mom even tried to keep us kids away from Patrice in the beginning. We barely saw dad the first two years after the divorce. The whole thing was a disaster. My parents were never in love, even we kids could see that. And even after Mom remarried—her college sweetheart, no less—she was still jealous of my stepmother. I don’t want to
ever
get trapped in those sorts of dramas.”

She smoothed the paper and replaced the rocks securing the edges.

“There’s no mom to be jealous of you or cause trouble,” Zav said. “You just told me so.”

She threw up her hands. “And that’s worse—I’d be battling a ghost. I don’t want to go there. Not even close.”

Zav didn’t blink. But a slow smile spread across his face. Alana scowled at him, and he lowered his gaze to the table and tapped on the spec sheets.

“You can’t judge the present with the eyes of the past,” he said. “I’m thinking this is a whole lot less about the kid and a whole lot more about you and that ballplayer.”

“Don’t you go getting any ideas.” She wagged a finger at him. “The last time I saw Matt Darrington, he was wooing a fashion model so gorgeous, she’d make the gods of Olympus swoon.”

“Fashion model, you say?” Zav didn’t look up from the drawings. “I wouldn’t have pegged him to go for that type, not from what I’ve seen of him on the sports channels.” He shook his head. “Nope, sure wouldn’t have. And I’m usually right about these things.”

“Besides, Matt and I are complete opposites. He’s solid and I’m flighty, he’s found something to devote his life to and I haven’t a clue, he’s—”

“Did it ever occur to you that opposites temper and restore each other rather than overcome one another?”

Alana slapped a hand to her forehead and laughed. “I’m on a ranch with Dr. Phil.” She tried to make light of the emotions coursing through her.

Zav leaned forward and sketched a flowing motion in the air with one hand. “Love, my dear, is like water. It always finds its way. I’m a farmer. I
know
.”

“Who said anything about love?” Alana didn’t like the petulance in her voice. But Zav was yanking her chain and apparently enjoying it.