Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch (7 page)

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Authors: Victoria Pade

BOOK: Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch
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Abby didn't know how to answer that. Luckily the turnoff for the lake came into view, and she gave more directions instead of addressing his statement, not certain if she should be glad he wanted to spend more time with her or be troubled by it.
She pointed out the best place to park, deciding to keep the conversation light and impersonal.
“We used to have woodsies out here as kids—teenagers, really.”
“Woodsies?”
“That's what we called them. We'd build a big bonfire and stand around it drinking beer and soda. Not a lot of excitement in good old Clangton.”
“Guess we'll have to make some of our own, then,” he said suggestively as he stopped the engine and got out.
Was he teasing her with innuendos like that? Again? The way he had this morning? Or was he serious?
She wasn't sure.
But then everything about this man left her unsure. Off balance. On edge. He just wasn't the kind of guy she'd had any experience with, and she didn't know how to take him.
Or maybe it was just that she couldn't quite believe he was flirting with someone like her. Choke-collar blouse and all.
He rounded the Corvette to open her door once more, holding out his hand to help her from the low seat.
Should she take his hand or shouldn't she?
It wasn't as if she needed the help. But would she insult him if she refused? Or look even more prudish than she already did?
That thought made her decision for her. She might be shy, quiet and provincial, but she wasn't
that
much of a prude.
She slipped her hand into his much bigger one, feeling the smooth calluses there. But the minute she made the contact of her skin against his, she regretted it.
Not because there was anything wrong with it. But because there wasn't. In the extreme.
It was as if an electrical current sprang from that touch to dance up her arm. The man was like a live wire that set off exquisite sensations upon even small contact It made her want to curl her fingers around his hand and ease in close to his side so his elbow brushed her breast. So she could feel the heat of his body. So she could tuck her shoulder under his arm. Maybe lay her head against it...
As soon as she was out of the car, she pulled her hand out of his and cleared her throat in an attempt to regain some of the internal composure she'd lost with that sensation and those thoughts.
“That's the east side of the lake, over where that stand of fir trees is. If we sit in front of them, we'll be able to look out to the west and get a clear view of the sunset and see it reflected on the water, too. Sort of a double exposure.”
“Sounds perfect,” he said, going to the trunk of the car and taking a blanket and a picnic basket from it.
He hoisted the picnic basket and said, “Crackers, cheese, fruit, but no wine. Only some sparkling water and a thermos of coffee. I didn't think you'd be up to more booze after last night.”
“You were right.” And she was grateful for the consideration.
He tucked the blanket under the same arm carrying the wicker basket and closed the trunk with his free hand. “Lead the way,” he said then, and Abby didn't hesitate, half-afraid he might take her hand again if she waited to walk beside him.
And half-afraid he wouldn't.
They went about a third of the distance around the lake before they were positioned just right. Cal set the basket on the ground while he snapped open the blanket, then he set the basket on one corner and motioned for Abby to sit.
She did, hugging another corner as if the center of the blanket was too risqué.
It didn't matter. Cal still sat close by.
“So,” she said to break the silence that had followed them from the car. “Have you always been a big sunset watcher or was this just a come-on?”
“A come-on?” he repeated with a laugh. “That makes me sound so cold and calculating. No, I really am a big sunset watcher. And sunrise, too, if I haven't had too late a night before. Or if the night before is still goin' on about then. It's always been a way of puttin' some continuity into a life that didn't have any. Until just lately.”
He didn't seem eager to expand on that because he changed the subject to ask what she wanted to drink as he unloaded the food. He poured sparkling water into two wine goblets and set a plate laden with fruit, cheese and crackers on the closed basket lid within easy reach. Then he stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles, leaned back—braced on his elbows—and stared at the horizon.
“This is a great spot.”
Abby looked at him as he watched the sky, studying his sculpted profile and wondering—much the way her sisters had—who he really was, where he'd come from, what made him tick.
He glanced at her and nodded in the direction of mountains, which were only beginning to be outlined in butter-yellow, persimmon-pink and orange the color of a Creamsicle.
“You're missin' it,” he warned before turning back.
It wasn't easy to tear her gaze away from him, but she forced herself to. Although she could still see him from the corner of her eye, and in truth watching him as he seemed to lose himself in the view of the setting sun was as intriguing as nature's display itself.
There was something elemental about the man. Primitive and naturally sensual. It went along with his apparent lack of awareness of his own impact on her. It seemed to say that he took for granted his appeal and had no problem stepping outside himself to revel in something like a sunset. And maybe being with her to watch it.
“You know, some of the best colors come from the reflection of the sun's rays through layers of pollution,” he said. “I guess that's the good side of a bad thing. But I always wonder what it looked like back when there wasn't junk in the air. If it was spectacular on its own or just a fading glow that no one paid much mind to. Me, I always stop whatever I'm doin', wherever I am, to watch because you just never know what you might see.”
“My favorites are when the sun looks like a fireball,” Abby offered.
“Does that mean you're a card-carryin' sunset watcher, too?”
“No, I can't say that. I just notice an occasional, exceptional one.”
“Then you don't know what you're missin' because even the unexceptional ones have a way of bringin' a peace and calming to the end of the day. I'm not big on stoppin' to smell the flowers, but a sunset, now, that's somethin' else.”
They finished to watch in companionable silence, and although she'd never thought of it in his terms before, she came to agree with him. There was something very peaceful, very calming in the spectacle. It helped her relax about being with him.
And then, when the sun's rays disappeared completely and the sky held its last vestige of light before it gave over to the first stars and a nearly full moon, Cal let out a sigh of satisfaction and popped a grape into his mouth.
“Why didn't your life have continuity?” she asked to start conversation up again, referring to what he'd said earlier.
He shrugged a single broad shoulder, angled her way and sat up Indian fashion to face her. “My daddy couldn't grow roots no matter how hard he tried,” he said simply before sampling some of the cheese slices on the dish.
“What did he do for a living?”
“You name it, he did it. Trained horses, black-smithed, rodeoed, was a ranch hand, crop picker, crop duster, barn raiser, and a plain, all-round cowboy. Just never in one place for too long.”
“How come?”
“He said he had a restless spirit. Myself, I think it was a way to try outrunnin' responsibilities, but what do I know?”
“Did he outrun his responsibilities?”
“Not for the most part. No way he could draggin' seven kids along with him.”
“Seven kids? You have six brothers and sisters?”
“Five brothers and one sister.”
“Wow. I thought four kids was a big family.”
“Yours?”
“Mmm. There's me, Emily, Bree and our brother, Lucas.”
“Parents still livin'?”
“South of Denver. They got tired of small-town life. My dad is semiretired, doing some consulting work there and they travel a lot. What about your folks?”
“My mother died givin' birth to baby number seven—Kate. My dad passed on about three years ago—he was kicked in the head by a mule.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Me, too. He was a good ol' boy, that's for sure. Wanderin' ways and all.”
“So you didn't have a home base growing up?”
“No home base. No home. We lived in an old silver-bullet Airstream trailer we pulled behind the truck. Except when a job came with livin' quarters or on rare occasions when we'd stay in a motel or a huntin' camp or something like that. And we did a lot of campin' out.”
“Did you go to school?”
“Sure. More of 'em than I could count. Most years we didn't finish in the same one we'd started in. One year we changed schools five different times.”
“That must have been awful.”
He grinned at her. “Don't go feelin' sorry for me, Abby Abby Stanton. I'm not complainin', just answerin' your questions. With seven kids there was always a bunch of us in a particular school for company. And there wasn't a time when any one of us went without someone to play with or hang out with. Plus we did a lot of readin'—the old man was big on books. We did just fine. Every single one of us even went to college.”
“And sunsets and sunrises give you a sense of continuity.”
“No matter where we were, it was the same sun comin' up and goin' down. I liked the thought of that. It helped make it so it didn't matter that sometimes I wasn't sure where we were.”
“Didn't you get tired of traveling?”
“Not till just lately.”
“So you even lived that kind of life after you were on your own?”
“Yep. We all have, actually, shootin' off in every direction you can think of.”
“And what have you done for a living?”
“A lot of what my daddy did—cowboyin' in one form or another wherever the wind blew me.”
“Until now.”
“Until now.”
“What made you decide to change?”
“Oh, I was gettin' weary of it, thinkin' more and more about settlin' down. Then a year or so ago my sister and brothers and I were all in the same place, catchin' up with each other. There happened to be a big lottery I'd heard about at the time—called the Lucky Seven Lottery—and I just had a hunch about it. So we pooled our money, bought a bunch of tickets—”
“And won?” she guessed with a full measure of surprise in her voice.
“And won. We split it up—there was plenty to go around—and all of a sudden my share gave me a lot of choices. I had the chance to use the money to dig some real roots of my own. Started thinkin' about givin' myself—and maybe my sister and brothers—a home base, as you put it. A place where I could stay put and so could they if I could convince ‘em to. Maybe it comes from bein' the oldest, but somehow it seemed like I could make the home we all never had.”
“So here you are.”
“So here I am.”
“Rumor around town was that you won the place in a poker game,” Abby informed him.
He laughed at that. “Close, but not quite.”
Abby was dying to know exactly how much he'd won, but it seemed rude to ask. So instead she went back to what they'd been talking about just before.
“Have your brothers or sister come to see the place yet?”
“Not yet. But they're due. By the end of the week, last I heard from my brothers. I haven't been able to get hold of Kate yet to find out when she's comin'.”
“Do you think they'll stay when they do?”
“That's anybody's guess. They know they can. That I'd like it if they do. Like their help fixin' the house, startin' up the ranch. But we'll see.” He chuckled lightly, a deep rumble in the cooling night air. “If they do, we'll be Cal, Cody, Kit, Cabe, Cole, Cray and Kate Ketchum of Clangton, Colorado—how's that for alliteration?”
Abby laughed, suddenly studying him with new eyes. She would never have guessed he had strong family ties, a strong sense of responsibility or any desire to establish a home base for a whole passel of siblings. Somehow that seemed much more domestic than she would have ever pictured him.
He stood then and held out his hand to her once more. “Come on. Let's walk this lake and you can tell me tales of woodsies.”

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