The Ranch She Left Behind (18 page)

Max met Penny’s eyes over his daughter’s head, and they both smiled. Though their temporary intimacy was over, this was good, too. For a minute, it was like being parents together, sharing a milestone in their daughter’s life.

Parents together? Oh, dear heaven. What was she thinking? Horrified at her own foolishness, and hoping to God he couldn’t read her thoughts, she looked away, pretending to search for the SUV Ellen was pointing to.

None of this really meant anything, especially not to him. She had been through a catharsis, like some kind of regression therapy in which she’d relived a traumatic childhood moment.

He had simply been having a conversation that got out of hand—and he didn’t even understand how. This was an artificial intimacy, up here in this small box together, defying the laws of nature.

And he was just…he just had that kind of smile, the kind that made you feel warm, included, important.

He was socially graceful, she’d hand him that. Though he obviously had been as surprised as Penny to realize they’d be sharing a balloon ride this morning, he had handled it smoothly.

As he handled everything. Even their kiss.

Kisses,
she corrected herself. Two kisses.

She’d be willing to bet he didn’t lie awake, thinking about those kisses. But she did. In fact, that was why she’d accelerated her plan for the balloon ride. She needed to get her mind off her sexy tenant, and back on to her own mission. How better than to tackle one of the really tough risks?

And now mission and tenant had come together, quite by serendipity. How was that for fate? She hadn’t invited anyone to go with her, not even Bree or Ro, determined not to clutch at any form of safety net.

But if fate sent her the best of all safety nets, completely unrequested…

Max, who radiated security. Calm. Competence.

Max, who had helped her bury an old memory forever.

Who was she to criticize fate? To heck with the “plan.” She looked at him again and returned the smile, deciding to surrender to destiny and enjoy the good luck. And when she did, something in her stomach went
thump.

It wasn’t just security he added to the experience. It was excitement. Glamor.

Sex.

Being up here with him, in this quiet, enchanted otherworld, gave the ride a sense of romance she couldn’t have imagined possible, not after the trauma of her first experience. Yet, there it was. She closed her hand over her stomach, as if she could quiet the suddenly fluttering wings that beat there.

Luckily, Ellen didn’t seem to register the subtle shift in mood. The little girl shuffled even closer to the edge of the basket, and everyone else adjusted to give her space. Penny and Max ended up shoulder to shoulder, and she shivered as his warmth made its way into her veins.

“Are you cold?” He touched the collar of his gold suede coat, ready to shrug it off. “Want to borrow my jacket?”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just a little excited, I think. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful.” He wasn’t looking at the landscape stretching out below them, though. He was looking at her. She felt her heart speed up, and the familiar flush—which seemed ever-present when she was with this man—starting to creep up her neck.

His gaze dropped momentarily, as if registering the flush, then returned to hers. “I take it this is all about checking another item off your Risk-it List?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so.” He glanced once wryly toward Ellen, who had begun asking Eagle Ed another endless stream of questions, which luckily he seemed quite happy to answer. “Any chance that list is…well,
made public
anywhere?”

Penny thought a minute, then finally she understood. Of course.

“On my refrigerator,” she said, lowering her voice. Ellen was still chattering, but it was a very small basket. “I’m pretty sure I even wrote the date and time next to this one.”

He nodded, smiling. “And the mystery is solved.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling ridiculous for not having figured it out sooner. Lucky coincidence?
Sure.
“Obviously you got dragged out on a ruse, and—”

“I don’t mind. I’m just sorry we intruded. I know you were eager to do everything alone.” He raised one eyebrow. “No sisters, no family, no men…”

She laughed softly. “It’s okay this once. Since I had no idea you were coming, I don’t think I can be accused of reaching for a crutch.”

And now that she was sharing the experience with him, she couldn’t imagine how lonely and uninspired it would have felt if she had been alone. Her stomach pinched, thinking of that. Maybe this was the real danger of using a crutch. Walking alone seemed so much harder when the crutch was finally gone.

Overhead, the burner whooshed, emitting a blast of heat. On Penny’s childhood trip, that sound had gone through her like an electric current of fear. She’d been certain they were all going to die a fiery death, falling out of the sky like Icarus.

But today the blast was just another piece of the magic. The balloon continued its upward climb. The cars below diminished to ants, and the bends and curves of the river looked like cursive letters—as if someone had written across the hills with a silver-glitter pen.

But the words were in some mysterious language she didn’t know. She couldn’t tell what their message was supposed to be.

“Are those all propane tanks? Why do we have so many?” Ellen widened her eyes as a new idea struck her, and tapped Ed’s arm. “Hey, are there any girl pilots?”

Max grinned at his daughter, who obviously had lost her last shred of anxiety and planned to turn this into a flying lesson. Putting her own irrational mood swings aside, Penny concentrated on the pleasure of seeing Ellen so uninhibited.

Sometimes the girl looked too self-conscious, as if she worried more about the impression she was making than anything else. She smoothed her hair a lot and pulled at her clothes, which were always a little too tight.

Not today, though. Today Ellen’s jeans were loose, her sweatshirt well-worn, her hair a windblown mess, and she didn’t even seem to notice it. She was too absorbed in learning the ropes.

Eagle Ed was clearly getting a kick out of all the questions. Ellen would probably be ready to take her pilot’s test by the time they touched down.

“Penny, look.” Ellen tugged at Penny’s sleeve suddenly, trying to direct her attention to something she’d spotted outside. “How would you paint that?”

Penny followed the little girl’s pointing finger. “You mean our shadow?”

Ellen nodded, raptly focused on watching the outline of their balloon float on the ground below them. It was oddly beautiful, proof that they really were floating up here, defying gravity.

“It’s so amazing,” Ellen breathed. “But I don’t even know what color you’d use.”

“Well, let’s see.” Penny moved a few inches forward and bent down, so that the two of them were looking at it from the same angle. “It isn’t really a color, is it? I mean, it’s more like a lack of light on the places it covers.”

They talked about it for a few minutes, and once again Penny was struck with how easily the child seemed to grasp ideas. She’d never seen anything Ellen drew, so she had no idea whether she had any talent. But she never saw the little girl as happy, or as unaffected, as she was when she talked about art.

When Ellen again began grilling Ed, Penny turned impulsively to Max. Without even realizing it, he’d helped her so much today. She wanted to offer something—anything—that would make his life easier, too.

“I’m going to be working at Bell River next week, giving some art lessons. If Ellen would like to come, I’m sure there’s room.”

She’d thought Ellen wasn’t listening, but apparently she’d been naive. Ellen undoubtedly kept her ears tuned to her father’s conversations every second, whatever else she might appear to be doing.

At Penny’s words, Ellen made a squealing sound that she swallowed back almost instantly. She didn’t say a word, but she turned imploring eyes toward her father, and her hands were clenched tightly in fists against her midriff.

“It’s just a couple of hours each day,” Penny added. “We’ll be taking some nature hikes, drawing some of the things we see. There will be lots of supervision.”

Max seemed to hesitate. Penny wondered what the hitch was.

“Dad.” Ellen’s voice rippled with longing. “Dad, can I? Please?”

“It’s a transportation problem, more than anything,” Max said finally. “You’ll be at Mrs. Starling’s camp the first part of the day, and—”

“I’d be glad to pick her up,” Penny interjected. “Or, even better, if she’d like she could spend this week doing the Bell River children’s activities. We have programs scheduled all day long, so that the parents staying there can do adult things. Rowena and Bree have really put together some fantastic classes.”

He was still frowning. “I’m sure it’s great, but—”

“Dad, please.
Please.
” Ellen’s intensity was radiating out in waves of desperation. “I hate Mrs. Starling’s camp. The kids there are mean, and there’s hardly any art stuff at all. Everything is so boring. It’s like nursery school.”

He looked at his daughter for a long moment, then turned to Penny. “Are you sure it wouldn’t be an inconvenience?”

“Not at all. I really think she’d like it, and I’d love having her there. So would Alec.”

Max smiled, finally. “Okay. Check with the others first, though, to be sure they have room for an extra kid.”

“I will,” Penny started to say, but Ellen was squealing so loudly she couldn’t hear her own words. The little girl grabbed her father’s waist with one hand, and Penny’s with the other, and wrapped them both in a joint bear hug.

The force of her embrace tilted Penny toward Max, and, as she corrected her feet to find her balance, she ended up practically face-to-face with him. Their eyes were just inches apart, with only the ecstatic little girl between them, her face buried in her father’s rib cage.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Ellen said, her voice muffled by Max’s jacket.

It was the first time Penny had seen Ellen voluntarily embrace her father since they arrived. She looked up at Max, and saw the surprise—and the deep, wordless relief—in his honey-brown eyes.

“Thank you,” he said softly to Penny, his lips moving the words more than speaking them.

“My pleasure,” she answered, also in a whisper. And she was shocked to realize how true that was. His joy seemed to ignite a similar sense of satisfaction in her own heart.

Somehow, in just these past few days, this little family’s happiness had become very important to her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
HE
NEXT
M
ONDAY
, the first day Ellen spent at Bell River, Max nearly quit the Silverdell Hills project about a hundred times. Acton Adams unexpectedly showed up at the headquarters again, with his girlfriend in tow, and Max spent the entire endless day finding ways to talk the two rich idiots out of making design changes that would turn the golf resort into a Vegas-style monstrosity.

He got home so tired he just barely could stay awake to hear about his daughter’s day. He fought to keep his eyes open while Ellen showed off her watercolors of fall foliage and quizzed him with flash cards identifying the native birds of Colorado.

He hoped she didn’t sense his exhaustion, which she’d undoubtedly read as indifference. He did his best, registering even with his foggy mind that day camp at Bell River was a darn sight more educational—and apparently more fun—than Mrs. Starling’s camp had ever been. And he must have done well enough, because for the first time in a long time, Ellen hugged him good-night.

That night, he slept like a stone. Though Acton drove him nuts, peaceful sleep was one fringe benefit—Max was so exhausted he didn’t wake up even once with the Mexico dream. And he didn’t have to lie there afterward, thinking about Penny and wondering whether she ever dreamed of him.

But by Thursday, fringe benefits or not, Max had endured all the Acton he could take. In frustration, he directed Olivia to nix the girlfriend’s new brainstorm—lobby columns shaped like golf clubs, and a glass ceiling filled with thousands of golf balls, which she thought would be “classy, like Chihuly or something.”

“Talk her out of it. Or hell,
don’t
talk her out of it. I honestly don’t care. Just make sure they understand that either this new lobby goes, or I do.”

And then, with Olivia staring wide-eyed at his back, he left. He couldn’t handle another minute of this place. If he hurried, he could get to Bell River before Ellen’s camp activities were over for the afternoon.

He wanted to see the dude ranch for himself. Ellen had been practically an angel all week, yes-sir-ing and no-sir-ing Max till he wondered whether the Wrights were putting something funny in the water over there.

He’d driven by Bell River before, of course, first out of curiosity, and then, when he agreed to let Ellen attend the camp, with a more discriminating eye. It was a pretty place, great location just east of town, old enough to look established, but fresh and updated. Obviously well loved and well run.

Now he wanted to get up close and personal.

He knew to drive around back to find the car park. When he got out, though, he hesitated a minute, trying to decide whether to head toward the barn or toward the main house. Ellen had explained that mornings were spent outdoors, hiking, horseback riding and playing sports, but afternoons were mostly in the barn, painting, or listening to guests talk about nature and wildlife and local lore.

“Thorpe?”

Max glanced over to the west, toward a building that looked as if it must be the stables. Dallas Garwood was walking toward him, hand outstretched and smile in place, offering the welcome that had been so conspicuously lacking the last time they met.

But what the heck. Max wasn’t the type to hold a grudge.

“Garwood.” He accepted the other man’s handshake, noticing that the man looked warmer, more down-to-earth here in this setting, with his jeans and flannel shirt and cowboy hat instead of a suit.