Unlucky in Love (4 page)

Or anybody,
she heard loud and clear.

“What was your favorite place, besides Montana?”

He was silent for a long time, and she imagined him tossing his various homes through his mind, sorting the cities and towns, slotting the memories into invisible albums.

Finally, he shook his head. “Nothing really compared to here, I guess.”

“That's because you never got to Maine, obviously.”

“Obviously.” He smiled, and this time it hit his eyes.

“So where's your family now?”

She saw his jaw tighten before he shook his head imperceptibly.

“Still on the move. Yours?”

She took in his short answers and clipped tone and bit her lip. Okay, no more family questions. Maybe it was a sore spot. She'd talk about hers, instead.

“My family's in Maine. All of them. I guess it's another one of those places that's hard to leave.”

“And yet here you are, doing just that.”

“Just temporarily.” Lexi shrugged slowly. “I'll be back there by late August.”

“Have you traveled much before?”

“Oh, sure. Yeah.”
No. Never.

“What's the best place you've ever been to?”

“Arizona. Sedona, actually.”

She swallowed. She'd spit out the lie like it was the truth, and she wasn't sure she liked how easily she'd done it. Now she just prayed he wouldn't ask any questions
about
the phantom trip.

“Wow.” His eyebrows went upward as he nodded appreciatively, and Lexi smiled tentatively. Yay—ten points for Lexi 2.0, the interesting traveler chick. “Did you go on one of those Pink Jeep tours?”

Crap.
He knew Sedona. Her smile fell right off.

“Um, no. We were moving through kind of fast. No time for tours.”

“Really?” He shook his head. “I always felt like Sedona was the kind of place you savor. I don't think I'd be able to rush through it.”

Of course he wouldn't.

“Well, it was beautiful. Those red rocks!”

Hey, she'd seen pictures.

“Please tell me you didn't skip the Oak Creek Canyon hike. That's grounds for revoking your tourist card.”

Lexi wracked her brain, but came up empty. She had no idea whether Katie had ever hiked the canyon, and if she lied and said she herself had, he was definitely going to ask an even more detailed question she'd be unable to answer.

“Sorry.” She cringed. “We were on our way to the Grand Canyon. One of my sorority sisters was our tour guide, and she was one of those stand-by-the-bus-with-the-stopwatch-and-clipboard types, you know?”

Now she had sorority sisters? She groaned internally.

He shook his head. “You should have fired her. Sedona's far more interesting than the Grand Canyon, in my opinion. Did you at least take the roundabout route to the canyon so you could see the volcano and ruins?”

“Volcano? In Arizona?” Lexi sputtered the question before she could reel it back in. This lying thing
really
wasn't her forte.

“I guess that would be a no.” He laughed. “You definitely need a new tour guide for your next adventure.”

“Agreed.”

A little while later, they passed the sign that said they were ten miles from Carefree, and Lexi realized she had no idea where the time had gone. When he'd told her the trip would take a couple of hours, she'd groaned internally, sure there was no way she'd be able to make small talk for that long, especially with this drop-dead gorgeous stranger. But the minutes had flown by as they'd talked, and except for some brief Lexi 2.0 brain cramps, she'd survived.

Gunnar glanced at her as he pushed a button on the phone that sat in the cup holder between them. “Have to make a quick call. Sorry.”

A perky female voice answered, “Hey, Gunnar. You almost home?”

Oh. Drop-dead gorgeous had a girlfriend.

“Just passed the ten-mile marker and picking up speed.”

Gunnar looked over at Lexi as he pressed the button to hang up, and she was surprised to feel a stab of jealousy. But really? He was sexy as all hell, and worked at a ranch that probably attracted a hundred single women every summer. How would he
not
have a girlfriend?

“That was Jenny,” he said. “She owns Heaven Scent, the bakery in downtown Carefree. If you have a weakness for anything sweet, she's your girl.”

Lexi worked up a smile. “Thank you. I'll keep that in mind.”

“Her dad's a retired state trooper—the kind of guy who swore he'd die with his badge on, still defending the good citizens of Montana at age one hundred and six.” He shook his head. “But he's got Alzheimer's now, and Jenny had to take his keys awhile back. I think it killed her more than him.”

“Wow. I'm so sorry.”

“Thanks.” He pressed a little harder on the gas pedal. “Traffic's almost nil on Sunday afternoons out here, so when we can, we try to give him a little adrenaline rush…let him have a taste of the chase again.”

“What are you going to do?” Lexi felt her stomach clench. How exactly did you playact with a retired state trooper who was losing his mind? “And is he still armed? Just asking?”

Gunnar smiled. “Not unless he's got a squirt gun.”

“Is this one of those excursion things you add to the ranch packages? Fake cops-and-robbers water pistol shoot-out?”

“Hey.” He tipped his head. “That's not a bad idea. I should run it by Ma.” Then he grinned as he put both hands on the wheel. “Ready?”

“Said Clyde to Bonnie?”

“I'm just going for a speeding ticket. No shoot-out this week.”

“Comforting.”

Gunnar punched the gas pedal, making Lexi grab for the bar above her head.

“How
much
of a speeding ticket are you after, anyway?” Lexi spoke through gritted teeth as the speedometer inched toward eighty.
Fantastic.
She'd survived the bounciest flight in recorded aviation history, and now she was about to go splat on a Montana highway.

The part that irked her most about that was picturing Mom at her funeral, shaking her head, saying, “I told her this trip was a bad idea.”

“Watch on the right. Coming up in three…two…one…”

Gunnar let out a whoop as they went flying by an old Chevy parked in a pull-off. Lexi watched her rearview mirror, and two seconds later, the Chevy fishtailed onto the road in hot pursuit, blue light flashing on the dashboard.

“How long do you let them chase you?” Lexi felt her eyes widen as the speedometer ticked higher. “And who taught Jenny how to drive like that?”

Gunnar looked over, smiling. “Her father, and don't worry—I haven't crashed a car in weeks.”

“Not worried at all,” she ground out. “But if we can go back about three miles and get my stomach after this is over, that'd be great.”

He laughed, then slowed as Lexi saw another pull-off up ahead. He hit the brakes harder and turned the wheel, landing them neatly on the side of the road as the cruiser roared up behind them. Lexi puffed out a few panicked breaths before she realized her hand still had a death grip on the bar, so she loosened her fingers and tried to subtly let her hand sink to her side.

As she felt her heartbeat try to come down from its hummingbird pace, she frowned. It had been a whole two minutes of what others might consider mindless, fast fun, but instead of enjoying it, she'd sat there picturing her funeral.

Katie would have whooped right along with Gunnar, sticking her arm out the window and laughing that contagious laugh you couldn't ignore. Lexi, on the other hand, had checked to be sure her seatbelt was fastened low and tight against her hips.

She sighed, and Gunnar looked over, concern in his eyes. “You okay?”

“Yup! Sure. Fine. Good.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Speed isn't really your thing, huh?”

“You didn't—scare me.” Lexi looked out her window, desperate to hide the pulse hammering in her throat. Was this what it was going to be like, trying to pretend to be a different person all summer?

“You're white as a sheet.” Gunnar grimaced as he punched a button on his phone again. This time, Jenny answered with a laugh.

“That was awesome, Gunnar! Wanna back up and do it again?”

Of course his girlfriend had loved it. She'd even done the driving, while Lexi'd been holding on for dear life.

“Can't, Jen. I just scared the new Whisper Creek nurse half to death. I've gotta get her out to the ranch, but I'll stop in later if I can.”

“I made your favorite cookies. Just saying.” Jenny's voice was flirtatious, and it made Lexi feel even worse.

“Then I'll definitely stop in later.” Gunnar smiled as he hung up, then he looked Lexi's way. “I was going to offer you a quick tour of town before we head out to the ranch, but I'm thinking the only thing you want to do right now is get out of this truck, so let's just head straight out to Whisper Creek.”

“Okay,” she murmured, wishing for the thousandth time that she could just let go and embrace her wild side…wishing
she
could be the one to come screaming out of a pull-off on two wheels and chase her boyfriend down a deserted highway…wishing
she
could bake cookies and offer them up as a transparent, flirtatious dessert for whatever else she had planned for Gunnar tonight.

Wishing that she even believed Lexi 2.0
had
a wild side, dammit.

“So this is your cabin.” Two hours later, Kyla Driscoll pointed at a darling little log cabin that sat between the main lodge and the spa, and Lexi sighed in contentment. She'd been following Kyla around the ranch for a little more than an hour, visiting stables, the main lodge, and the spa where her new office would be. Already, she was pretty sure she'd never want to leave. Whisper Creek was all that the website promised, but seeing it up close, smelling the hay and horses and wildflowers, hearing the sounds of the birds and the breeze through early summer leaves, made Lexi wonder why she'd ever been nervous about coming. It was simply stunning here.

And now she was finding out she was going to spend the next three months living in a little cabin that could feature in an outdoor magazine. With a covered front porch and a double swing, she wasn't even sure she'd ever want to go inside.

“This is the most adorable place I've ever seen.” She smiled as she followed Kyla up the steps to the front door. As far as Lexi could tell, Kyla was the brains of the Whisper Creek operation, moving at about ninety miles per hour around the place, but always with a smile for everyone.

“It's a common problem here. It's just too beautiful for its own good. I came out here from Boston with my two best friends a few years ago, with no intention of staying beyond our two-week vacation, and then I met Decker.” She winked. “The rest is history. I never wanted to leave again.”

“I'm beginning to see why.” Lexi looked down the hill from the cabin porch, taking in a breathtaking view of the valley sweeping downward toward Whisper Creek in the distance.

“Decker thinks there's something in the water, so be careful not to drink too much, if you really do have intentions of heading back east.” Kyla winked. “But personally, I think it's the men.”

“You do have some…nice men out here.”

Kyla laughed. “Nice? I send Mister July to pick you up, and you go with nice?”

“Be still my heart. Don't tell me there's a Whisper Creek
calendar
?”

“Yup! It's a huge seller.” She winked. “The June and August guys give him a run for his money, but he's the sweetest of all of them, so I gave him prime booking.”

Lexi smiled. “I might have to get my hands on one of those calendars before I leave.” She paused. “For my sister.”

“I'll get you a copy. Or two, in case you want to keep one.” Kyla rolled her eyes. “January and February are off-limits, though, just so you know. Oh, and December.”

“Gotcha. Who are they?”

“January's my husband, Decker, and his brother Cole is Mr. February. That's Jess's sweetie. And Hayley's married to Mr. December. Daniel.” She raised her eyebrows playfully. “The three of us started out in Boston. We fully intended to stay there. But then we came here, met them, and…
kaboom
. Here we are.”

Lexi had heard those names during the tour, and now she tried to glue the couples together in her head, but after the endless day she'd had, she was afraid she'd never remember who went with whom.

Kyla patted her arm. “No quiz on the names till at least Tuesday. Just remember that Ma's in charge here. I'm her minion, Jess is our spa guru, and Hayley's our vet. The men will sort themselves out eventually. Stick with us. We know what it's like to be a transplant from back East.”

“Sounds good.” Lexi peeked in the window on the cabin door. “I can't believe all three of you ended up coming out here to live.”

“Thus Decker's comment about the water, yes.” Kyla put a key in the doorknob. “But I do take a lot of credit for convincing Hayley and Jess to move out here, though their men would say
they
did it.”

Lexi laughed. “Noted. So I need to watch out for the water…and you.”

“Exactly.” Kyla turned the key in the lock and opened the door, revealing a sunny, open room with a kitchenette to one side and a cozy living area on the other. A stone fireplace sat on the side wall, and Lexi found herself hoping it was really chilly here in the mountains so she'd have an excuse to light a fire every night.

She stepped in, unable to believe this was really going to be her home for the summer. She'd expected a sparse little apartment, or just a bedroom in the main lodge, maybe. All she'd hoped was that she'd at least have her own bathroom, but she hadn't even been sure that would be the case.

“Kyla, this is way more than I expected. Are you sure you have the space to put me up in my own cabin?”

Kyla looked at her with an amused expression. “Did you think we were going to put you in a bunkhouse with stable hands or something?”

“I guess—I don't know. I wasn't sure.” Lexi shrugged. “This is my first placement. I don't know how these things usually work.”

“Well, I don't either, but when you join the Whisper Creek family, you get a cabin.” Kyla smiled as she looked at her watch. “Uh-oh. I'll have to let you explore later. Dinner's at six, and if we're late, the guys won't leave anything for us to eat.” As if in answer, Lexi's stomach growled, making Kyla laugh. “And I guess we're right on time.”

She headed down the steps, motioning for Lexi to follow, and Lexi struggled to keep up with both her pace and her stream of words.

“Once the guests get here on Sunday, the schedule gets rolling, but this weekend we're a little more relaxed. Starting Monday, breakfast is at seven o'clock for family, and eight o'clock for guests. Lunch is sort of catch-as-catch-can depending on people's schedules, and everybody eats dinner together—staff
and
guests. Ma keeps a KP schedule in the kitchen. It's a little nutty, but it's one of the things guests love.”

“I can imagine.”

“It makes more work for her, but Ma insists that it be that way. She says Whisper Creek's always been a family ranch, and it always will be. Our family just keeps getting bigger.” Lexi heard the affection in Kyla's tone and couldn't wait to meet her mother-in-law.

Just as they reached the steps that led up to the wide front porch of the main lodge, Kyla leaned toward Lexi to whisper in her ear.

“Quick clue to get you off on the right foot—if you want to compliment Ma's cooking, focus on the meat and vegetables. That's the part she makes. The business has kind of outgrown her kitchen, so Jenny—you'll meet her—does all of the baking now from her bakery downtown.” She opened the screen door and waved Lexi inside. “Come on in. Everyone's excited to meet you.”

Lexi took a deep breath, calling up her widest smile, the one that looked like Katie's if she tried hard enough. She could do this. She could be the outgoing, friendly one. Nobody here knew she was a certifiable introvert who'd rather read a book than go to a party. Nobody here knew that small talk gave her virtual hives. Nobody here knew she'd been dumped two weeks before her own wedding.

Nobody here knew how pathetic her life back home really was.

And nobody would, dammit.

She took another deep breath, trying to keep the smile from faltering as she nodded at Kyla and ducked through the door, stopping fast when she saw the crowd of people already gathered at a huge wooden table.

Time to put on the sparkle.

Two hours later, Lexi collapsed on the porch swing of her cabin, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet up under her. She'd expected it to be dusk by now, but apparently sunset came later in Montana than in Maine. There was just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes at bay, and she could hear peepers and frogs warming up for evening, as well as the muted thumps and soft whinnies of horses settling down for the night in the stables just down the hill from her.

“Hey, Lexi,” a deep voice came from her left, startling her.
Gunnar
. Who she had
not
been daydreaming about just now, thank you. Not at all. He stopped at the bottom of her porch steps. “You look exhausted. Whisper Creek overload?”

Dammit, she wasn't supposed to look exhausted. She'd been going for
life of the party
here. But she'd been up since before dawn, fighting early-morning Boston commuter traffic before she was fully caffeinated, and on planes for six hours. Anybody'd be exhausted, right?

“Just a long day.” She smiled but could tell it probably wasn't very convincing. “I'll be good as new in the morning.”

“Well, the first dinner with the Driscoll clan can be enough to do anybody in, even without all of the in-laws. You held your own just fine. You'll get everybody straight soon enough.”

“Thank you.” She looked down the hill toward the line of cabins dotting the pathway, wondering which one might be his…wondering if he shared it with anyone, like adorable-sounding sugar-pusher Jenny, for instance. “So is your day actually over now, too? Or do you guys still have evening chores to do?”

He smiled. “Day's never over on a ranch. But there are finally enough of us to cover things so we're not all doing fifteen-hour shifts like last summer. I'll do a last pass through the stables on my way back to my cabin, but a couple of the other guys are in charge down there for the evening.”

“I…can't wait to see the horses tomorrow.”

That was the right thing to say, right? No need to admit quite this early that she was terrified of the beasts.

“Kyla didn't take you through the stables when she did the tour?”

“She did, but they were empty at the time. I just saw the stalls.” Lexi raised her eyebrows. “Your stables are ridiculously pristine, by the way.”

He laughed quietly as he pointed to the barn closest to the lodge. “Well, according to Decker and Cole, that one was pretty run-down just a few years back. They slaved one whole summer to spruce this place up, and then it started doing well enough to build a new stable and add horses. When you've got that much sweat equity in a place, you don't let it fall to pieces very easily.”

“How long have they been running Whisper Creek as a guest ranch?”

“Actually, just four or five years now. They started out small.” Gunnar tipped up his Stetson. “Between you and me and a fence post, their father just about ran this place into the ground before he died. They worked their butts off to save it. Kyla actually had a pretty big hand in getting the guest piece of it to where it is today. They were just dabbling in that end of things when she and her friends came out the first time.”

Lexi nodded. “She seems like the kind of woman who could make men, women,
and
horses take direction. But in a really nice way.”

“Yep. That'd be Kyla. Heart of gold, spine of steel. She's the only kind of person Ma would ever have given
any
reins to, let alone as many as she's handed over.”

“Where do she and Decker live?”

Gunnar pointed west. “They built a house over the hill there. Looks down on a great little valley with a duck pond at the bottom.”

“Do Cole and Jess live here, too?”

“Yep. Up over the spa with their little girl, Layla. Hayley and Daniel have a house closer to town. If you see blond twins running around, that's who they belong to.”

Lexi nodded slowly, trying to catalog the names in her head again. For some reason, she could memorize a couple hundred kids' names in no time flat, but adults were another story. She'd tried every trick in the book, but no matter how hard she tried, she constantly came up blank.

“Don't worry.” Gunnar smiled. “You'll get everybody straight, because hardly anybody ever leaves. You won't be able to help it.”

“That's reassuring, thanks.”

“Well, you look completely done in.” He tapped her porch railing. “Oughta head inside before somebody else comes along to bother you. Pretty girl on a porch swing invites conversation. It's a rule out here.”

Lexi laughed, at the same time feeling warmed by his compliment, no matter how casually it had been delivered.

“You're hardly bothering me. And thank you.”

He shrugged. “I'm headed home myself. Things get rolling before the crack of dawn around here.”

“Where's home?”

He pointed past the cabins and stables, where pasture gave way to a grove of trees. “Staff cabins are in the woods back there. Ma likes the family ranch thing, but she prefers that her cowboys stay separate from her guests at night. Some of our guests would prefer that not to be the case.”

Lexi coughed. “So not everybody comes here for the…horses?” She could hardly be surprised. She'd seen the website, after all.

“I wish they did. Would make our lives a lot easier.” He shook his head, raising his eyebrows. “Speaking of horses, any chance you want to take a ride tomorrow morning before things get rolling for guests? I could show you around a little.”

Lexi shivered, pulling her legs in close. Horses were beautiful, but damn, they were big. No, she definitely didn't want to take a ride. Not yet, anyway.

She closed her eyes. What would Katie do? What would cheerleaders one and two do?

Dammit.

“I'd love to.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she couldn't pull them back in, and for a moment, she was ready to flush the whole Lexi 2.0 thing right down the proverbial drain.

Then Gunnar smiled, and in the golden evening light, with his five-o'clock shadow giving depth to his face, she melted just a little bit.

“Okay, Lexi. Sleep well. See you at breakfast.” He started to head for the stables, then turned around. “Welcome to Whisper Creek.”

Ten minutes later, Lexi headed inside, intent on finding her toothbrush, then going straight to bed. Someone had delivered her suitcases to her porch while she'd been at dinner, and she couldn't wait to see if the bedroom was as cozy as the rest of the cabin.

Just as she reached for the handle of one suitcase, her phone erupted with a song Katie had chosen long ago as her personal ringtone, and Lexi realized she'd forgotten to call home to report that she'd arrived in Montana in one piece.