The Bride Wore Denim (19 page)

“Cool!” Skylar grinned.

“No.” Melanie repeated.

“All right,” Harper said, straightening as if coming out of a trance. “Leave the entry categories blank for now. It’s Wednesday. You have until Friday to decide. And this is one instance where you should decide with your heart, not your head.”

“Okay, Skylar.” Melanie stood. “We need to go home. I haven’t been there since this morning, and it’s nearly dinner time. Aiden’s been with your dad for the past two hours—we’d better get them out of the barn.”

For the first time Skylar scowled. “I had him all day. Can’t I go ride before dinner?”

“I suppose. But you have an hour, that’s it. Afterward you can entertain your brother or you can make dinner, your choice.”

The teen shot a helpless look around the table. When she settled on Cole, she stuck out her lower lip. “Probably a choice between fried liver and boiled tongue. Oh boy.”

He sputtered. “You’re funny, kid. Go with the liver. I hate food that can taste me back.”

“That’s so old the last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur,” she said and grinned.

“And the Dead Sea was only sick.” Cole wrinkled his nose, indicating he knew the joke stank.

“And God was just a kid.”

“Skylar,” her mother warned. “Don’t cross the line.”

The teen rolled her eyes, and Cole bit his lip to keep from saying something irreverent to Melanie. Skylar stood, gave a quiet wave good-bye and followed Melanie toward the door.

“Let me know if you need me at the hospital,” Melanie said. “I’m happy to take a shift, anytime.”

“Thank you,” Harper replied. “You’ve been a Godsend. I’ll call.”

Once the Thorsons were gone, Cole sat in Skylar’s vacated chair and couldn’t resist any longer. “I didn’t realize God doesn’t have a sense of humor in Melanie’s world.”

“You don’t know that by now?” Harper smiled. “Mel’s wonderful. And if you approach her the right way, she’s pretty open to things. This contest is proof. But, nope, if you use the name of God, it had better be in a reverent manner.”

“Oh, man, I’m in big trouble then—with him, not Melanie.”

“He’s beyond laughing at me.” Harper propped her elbow on the table top and plopped her chin into her palm. “He just pats me on the head and says, ‘Oh well.’ ”

“You, the sweet and thoughtful Crockett sister?” Kelly stood and patted Harper’s head. “I thought God used you as a model for his angels. Anyone need more coffee?”

“I’ll have some,” Cole said over Harper’s laughter.

Harper sputtered. “Angels? Yeah. The fallen ones.”

“My turn to laugh,” Kelly said.

“You clearly missed my formative years.”

“Sure. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a little crazy artist thrown in. Okay, whatever.” Kelly brought Cole a steaming mug of coffee.

Harper smiled, but the uptick in her lips was a hair sluggish. “Enough about me. I want to talk about Skylar.”

“What about her?” Kelly asked. “She’s excited about this. You did a great thing talking Melanie into letting her enter.”

“That was easy,” she said. “And that should be the end of it, I know. But all that talk about my old retreats gave me an idea. Assuming everything stays the same or improves with Mom and Joely, what if I took her and maybe her two friends from the homeschool co-op on a retreat? Maybe they can all talk about what they want to enter and what it means to enter, and maybe I can turn it into part art history lesson and part practical lab—let them find secluded places to work.”

“Where would you take them?” Cole asked.

She looked straight at him.

“I hoped maybe you’d let us use your house. None of them has been there—maybe Skylar, I don’t know. There are so many beautiful views to paint. We could ride over on Friday morning and come back Sunday.”

“There’s not much in the house,” Cole said. “But there are places to bunk if they bring their sleeping bags. You’d have to consider food.”

“Yeah, lots of logistical issues,” she agreed.

“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. I certainly don’t care if you want to use it. I was thinking this afternoon I ought to check on the place one of these days.”

“Speaking of this afternoon,” she finally gave him a genuine smile. “Where were you?”

He stood and lifted his coffee mug, wimping out on the whole conversation for now. “I’ll tell you after supper.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re in a good mood now. Why spoil it? Think about it, and let me know if you need me to do anything over at the house to get it ready. I’ll bring the mug back after I check in with Leif.”

He escaped with a little guilt but everyone’s mood intact. Plus, he did want Sadie and Mia there when he told everyone what Pearce and Baumgartner had reported. He definitely only wanted to go through that conversation once.

A
DULL ROAR
. That’s what their mother had always said life was “down to” if there were no disasters in the hour before dinner. Harper took on cooking duties around four o’clock; Mia took Grandma Sadie to visit Joely and their mother; Kelly prepared for her stint at the night watch and popped in and out of the kitchen to play sous chef. Cole disappeared completely.

A dull roar. Outside and inside Harper’s head. Now that the adrenaline rush from getting Skylar involved in the art show had ebbed, Harper rethought the wisdom of her rash suggestion to organize a retreat. She’d have dropped the whole insane idea except that, while still under the influence of impulsiveness, she’d contacted the other two students’ parents, who’d already filled out their application forms, and sounded them out on the idea. Both kids and their parents loved the idea. She was stuck hoping Melanie would be equally excited.

She was an impetuous idiot. Three teenagers: Skylar at fourteen, Lily Brandeis who was fifteen, and Nate Swanson, the oldest at sixteen. The worst possible combination of hormones.

Teenager worries, however, only shared space with anxiety over her sister. It looked, thank God, like her mother was going to be all right, but the only positive for Joely was that her seizures seemed to have stopped.

Then there was Cole.

She wanted him to wait for her brain to catch up with her heart—and her body. But he flirted shamelessly. It helped nothing that her own brain was insubordinate.

Deep down, she didn’t want Cole to stop pursuing her. The sight of him sent her thoughts into a tailspin and her body into mutinous shivers, and the more she told herself he was forbidden, the more she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. The more she admonished herself to talk to Mia, the more she wanted to ignore the whole sisterhood code.

On the other hand, he wouldn’t tell her where he’d been that morning, and the only thing he wouldn’t talk to her about was the subject of gas and oil. As much as she wanted to feel his arms around her, she wanted to slug him to the moon for hiding information from her—again. So what if she got upset over the idea of oil wells? Couldn’t he simply get mad, too, and duke it out without treating her like the crazy girl-bomb nobody wanted to set off?

And why was she obsessed with stopping the oil company anyway? She didn’t live here. The majority should rule and she should let it go.

“How’s the spaghetti coming?”

Kelly bounced into the kitchen, lifting Harper’s spirits in half a step. She truly loved having Kelly home again. She was a perpetual sunny spot in a dark week.

“Tell me.” Harper offered her a spoon.

Kelly smacked her lips after tasting the tomato sauce. “It’s pretty good. I’d maybe throw in a couple pinches more salt and then add some basil. Fresh if we have it.”

“We do. I knew you’d know how to fix it.”

They laughed and talked their way through the meal preparation. By the time the family began filtering in for dinner, the spaghetti was cooked al dente, the sauce perfected, broccoli steamed, and a salad and breadsticks were ready to share.

Everyone showed up. Mia, Grandma Sadie—and Cole, who staked out his spot, right next to Harper. Close enough for her to catch the delicious scent of his aftershave, splashed on, she surmised, to cover the effects of an afternoon in the barn. It had worked.

“Mom did great this afternoon,” Mia said. “They had her sitting up in bed. Tomorrow it’s on to the chair.”

“What about Joely?” Harper turned directly to Mia. “Do you know anything more?”

“I wish I had the magic answer,” Mia replied. “Brain injuries are difficult because no two are really alike. She could still come through fine. You’d like to see some improvement within twenty-four hours of the accident, but for serious brain contusions like Joely has, this isn’t unusual.”

“When are they going to move her? Doesn’t she have to go to Jackson?”

“Funny thing.” Amelia half scowled at the spaghetti twirled on her fork. “I had a chat with the irritating and mostly unhelpful former lieutenant, otherwise known as the pain in the ass Gabriel P. Harrison.”

Harper laughed. “I don’t know why you hate him so much.”

“Yes,” Kelly agreed. “I met him this morning. He’s super good-looking. Why would you not want to be nice to him just in case he, oh, looked at you?”

“Because in his case, beauty is only skin deep.”

“He’s been perfectly pleasant to me. But I haven’t talked to him much,” Harper said.

“Yeah, well, I’ll spare you the details. The bottom line is, I went over Lt. Harrison’s head, again, spoke to the director of the advocates program about Harrison’s obstructionist attitude, and lo and behold if I didn’t get some answers about Joely and Tim.

“What’s to know about Tim?”

“Joely glossed over the particulars of their separation, although it turns out Mom knows since she was just in California with her. The divorce isn’t final. Tim is fighting her on separation of assets. I don’t know the financial details—we can’t unless something happens to . . . ” She looked at her plate and composed herself for a moment. “Anyway, the good news is that, since Tim was in Iraq, got a purple heart, and is eligible for full benefits, Joely is covered. She doesn’t have any other insurance of her own yet, so were she to go to a civilian hospital, she’d be in deep financial trouble. Looks like Tim’s selfishness is going to bite him in the ass—he gets to pay his wife’s medical bills.”

“Well, praise the Lord and pass the parmesan.” Grandma Sadie lifted the last of a glass of Shiraz. “One should never wish evil on another human being, but exacting a pound of flesh from one who hurt my granddaughter? I’m not too old to find that satisfying.”

That broke the tension around the table.

“We definitely all want to be like you when we grow up, Grandma,” Harper said.

“What?” she asked. “Old?”

“And irreverent,” Harper added.

“Speaking of irreverent.” Cole caught everyone’s attention. “I have something to confess to you, Harpo. And to report to the rest of you. Since we’re talking about Joely, you should know I followed up on her decision from a few weeks ago to get more information about letting Mountain Pacific drill on Paradise land. Today I met with the technology analyst and her assistant. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you first, Harper. We wanted to know if they said anything remotely worthwhile before making a big deal out of it.”

So, she’d been right about where he’d gone. Harper’s resentment started to rise, but she tamped it down and faced the knowledge with an unexpected calm. He’d told her what he’d done without prompting, he was info-gathering only, and he was cute in his apologetic tizzy it was impossible to stay angry with him. Plus, she’d downed two glasses of wine. Who could hold a grudge?

“Okay,” she said, as pleasantly as she could. “
Was
there anything worthwhile?”

Cole looked like he might fall off his chair.

“Uh . . . there was plenty that was interesting, definitely. Who are you and what have you done with Harper Crockett?”

She was a little pleased at his reaction. She had him off-guard. “Don’t push your luck, Cole. Just tell us what they said.”

“Okay.” He grinned at her, and the wine went to work even harder on her humor, and maybe her libido. “They told me you all could make a whole lot of money in land leases and mineral rights should the wells pan out.”

“Did they actually find oil?” Grandma Sadie asked.

“They found geological markers that strongly suggest the presence of oil. They would need to drill three test wells in order to be certain.”

“And that means construction of access roads and heavy equipment,” said Harper.

“Temporarily, yes.”

“How much money?” Mia asked.

“There’s no set amount yet, of course,” Cole said, his voice rising slightly in the first stages of excitement. Harper took a deep breath and made herself listen. “There’d be a land lease to negotiate, and that could be up to five thousand dollars an acre or more. If the well produced, you’d get royalties based on a percentage of how much was extracted. That’s just the start—it’s complicated. But you could be looking at several hundred thousand dollars over time.”

“Holy crap!” said Kelly.

“That’s a lot of money,” Mia agreed.

“It’s not all at once, remember,” Cole warned. “It will take time. But, yes, in the long run, it could certainly solve a lot of financial problems.”

“I don’t suppose they talked much about the down sides to this.” Harper asked as mildly as she could.

“They didn’t, but I can give you a list. Each well would require the clearing of up to two acres of land; there’d need to be areas for high-volume liquid storage for hydraulic fracturing; there’s no way of knowing what any long-term surface damage might be; the month-long drilling process is dirty and noisy; and it does disrupt the view and any grazing or other land use around the wells. And you’d have to make sure any drilling didn’t affect your fresh water wells.”

“Not to mention the chances of a disaster,” Harper said. “Spills, wells breaking, or malfunctioning.”

“There are a lot of safeguards nowadays, but yeah.”

“Well,” she said, looking around the table. “It is very interesting. And the money sounds like it would be significant. I still vote no.”

“You don’t even know where they’re talking about drilling,” Amelia said.

“It doesn’t matter to me, Mia. But here’s the thing. I don’t live here. Joely is the one who’ll ultimately make the decision.”

“We don’t know that,” Mia replied softly.

“I’m choosing to know it.” For the first time, anger took hold of her words, but more on behalf of Joely than about the oil, although the thought of sucking ancient finite resources out of the earth beneath Paradise wounded her soul.

“Most people with land pray to find oil on it,” Mia said. “And here we are with the company courting us. It seems like it would be a rare person who’d turn down such money.”

“I know. This is why we have no choice but to drive gas-engine cars, for the most part, still wear shoes and clothing made from petroleum products, still heat with coal and gas, and emit crap into the air. People don’t want to change. It’s about the money. I get it. I get that I’m a weirdo.”

“You’re not a weirdo,” Kelly said. “You care.”

“But what’s the smart thing for the family?” asked Mia.

“What’s best is however we end up voting.” Harper released a long sigh, straightened, and stood. “Let’s see what happens with Joely in the next few days. If nothing changes, we’ll come back to this in a week, and we’ll vote on the next step. Fair enough? Meanwhile, who wants ice cream for dessert?”

“H
EY
.” A
N HOUR
after dinner, Cole found Harper in the barn, saddling Chevy. “Where are you heading at seven o’clock in the dark?”

She glared at him, and he laughed. “I’m going to talk to Melanie. I’ve gotten a thumbs-up from the other two kids’ parents for a retreat. I’m not sure how Mel will react.”

“Would you let me ride with you? There are still dangers in the dark. Two of us will make more noise.”

She assessed him, as if searching for an ulterior motive. “I’ll be perfectly safe, you know. It’s only a mile, and the road hasn’t changed in twenty-five years. But if you behave yourself, I’m fine with good company.”

“Let me grab Paco out of the pasture. It’ll only take a minute.”

“No hurry. She’s expecting me before eight. Lots of time.”

It only took him ten minutes to grab the big quarter horse out of the paddock, give him a quick brushing, and throw his own big stock saddle on the broad back.

“I forget how much fun it is to watch a cowboy work with his horse,” Harper said as they headed out of the yard and toward the dark road leading to the ranch houses.

A half-moon shone down, bright enough to give a few shadows some definition. A cool, fall-like breeze made him glad for his hat and lined denim jacket. He was well aware that he wasn’t supposed to flirt with her right now, so he tried to obey. Although it was hard to resist teasing her.

“I’ve been thinking I’d like to find me another good horse,” he said. “Remember Barney?”

“Gorgeous and brilliant.”

“Owned that horse almost fifteen years, all told,” he said. “Nearly half my life. Had some serious cow sense and loved bad weather.”

She laughed—a genuine, happy sound, not one filled with the standoffishness of that morning or the tight control of their dinner conversation. The civility of which still astounded him. “He was one of a kind,” she said. “He and my mare, Sheba—best buds, too.”

“I haven’t thought about Sheba for a long time. You did have a thing for mares.”

“I like mares,” she said. “Joely likes mares. The other girls hated them. Mia claims she can’t get along with them to save herself. Kelly and Grace liked the steadiness of geldings for showing.” She hesitated. “Oddly enough, my dad liked mares, too.”

“He did.”

A shadow crossed Harper’s face. “When Joely wakes up, we’ll have to deal with the death of her horse.”

“We’ll all be there for her,” he said simply, and she nodded.

In the somber silence, he watched her sway in the saddle like he had the day after Sam’s funeral. She’d complimented him on his cowboy skills with a horse, but she’d been born and bred a cowgirl. She might think of herself as a city girl now, but she hadn’t forgotten a single thing, and she was a far sexier rider than he’d ever be. He loved the way her curves eased into the dips and swells of the saddle. Harper had never been fat, but she’d been gifted with her grandmother’s feminine curves, whereas all the other girls had received their father’s long, slim build. Those curves had fit so well into his arms last night . . . He tore his eyes from her as his thoughts moved into dangerous territory.

“You were pretty understanding tonight about my meeting with the oil people.”

She shrugged. “I figured out that’s where you’d gone. There isn’t any other topic you’d hide from me. But in the end you told me, and I’ve known all along you were going to gather the information. I can’t be mad about that. But I don’t want to talk about it now. It’s too nice out to argue about anything.”