Chapter 15

“Try the crab cakes. They’re amazing.” Jasper pointed to Emma’s menu two hours later. He’d popped his head into her office twenty minutes ago to pick her up for their trek out to Whisper Creek but had suggested detouring downtown for a quick lunch at his favorite outdoor café before they headed out. She wasn’t sure there’d be room for food among the grasshoppers in her stomach, but she trusted her eating skills more than her horseback ones at this point, so she’d been happy for the delay.

She wrinkled her nose. “I think we’re a little too far inland for me to trust seafood.”

“You sound like Lexi. She lives out at Whisper Creek, but she grew up in Maine. Her husband flew in lobster one time when he was trying to convince her to stay out here, because she was too afraid to order it locally.”

“Smart girl. I think I like her already.” Emma smiled as she scanned the menu. “Also, I have to respect a man who’d go to those lengths for a woman.”

“Yeah, Gunnar pretty much killed the bar for everyone out here with that move.”

She tipped her head, remembering a sunset shot. September, maybe? “Is Gunnar on the calendar?”

“I have no idea. I don’t look at it.”

“Fine.” She laughed. “Are you jealous of the hot Whisper Creek cowboys?”

“Any lesser mortal would be.” He smiled. “But they’re good guys—every single one of them—so it’s hard to fault them for posing.”

“I have been ordered to take pictures.” She shrugged. “Just so you know. If I’m going all shutterbug, it’s for my friend. She’s seen the website, and she’s demanded proof that they’re real.”

Jasper laughed as he closed his menu. “Great. Here I was, thinking maybe I’d have your attention for the afternoon.”

He stopped suddenly, like he hadn’t meant to let those words out of his mouth, then picked up his menu again with a tight smile.

“So, no seafood for the gator-girl. What else looks good?”

“Feel like splitting one of these artisan pizzas?”

His eyebrows hiked up like he was surprised she’d want pizza. “Really?”

“Yes. Why? Is something wrong with them?”

“No, not at all. They’re delicious. I guess—never mind.”

She sat back. “Let me guess. You’re used to women ordering a small salad with dressing on the side, and a glass of club soda with lime?”

He laughed. “Maybe?”

“Well, let me tell you a little secret.” She hooked her finger and he leaned in closer. “Those women went home afterward and gorged on Ring Dings and Cheez Doodles because they were starving.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do say.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“Absolutely.” She closed her menu and set it on the table. “But I left salads behind in my twenties. I like to eat. I can’t help it.”

“I love it.” He smiled. “What do you like on your pizza?”

“Surprise me, but no slimy fish. And no black olives. Oh, and no peppers, please. Or pineapple. And no weird broccoli concoctions. Kind of goes against the point of pizza, right? But anything else is good.”

He laughed. “So, pepperoni?”

“Perfect.”

He signaled the waitress and ordered their pizza, then sat back in his chair, looking as relaxed as she was nervous. She sipped her water, watching people walk by on the sidewalk, and just like the other times she’d been downtown, she marveled at how the pace here just seemed…slower.

“Is this always what it’s like?” She pointed toward the sidewalk.

“It’s actually kind of busy for a Saturday, but the tourist season is wrapping up. I think everyone’s getting in their last visit before they fly out of town. We’ve got a couple of guest ranches besides Whisper Creek around, and Saturday tends to be the turnover day, when one week’s guests are gone but the next week’s haven’t arrived yet.”

“It’s so—I don’t know—calm. Like nobody’s rushing anywhere.”

“Nobody is.” He shrugged. “We’ve got a different clock out here. Moves slower. It’s part of what drew me here.”

“Huh.” She nodded, watching two teenagers walk along the diagonal path through the park in the center of the downtown block. She studied the girl the way she always studied them.

Brown hair. Dark. Too dark, probably, but would she know, really?

Too tall, probably, though. Yes, definitely too tall.

“You okay?”

Jasper’s voice snapped her back to the present, and she pulled out a quick, practiced smile.

“Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

“Looked like you were a million miles away.”

“Nope.” Only three thousand. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I asked when you were last on a horse.”

“Oh.” Safe topic. Thank goodness. “It’s been a lo-ong time. I rode when I was a teenager, but I fell off one too many times, and my father decided I wasn’t meant to be an equestrian, so that was the end of that.”

“Did you want to stop?”

“No.” She took a deep breath. “I loved it, actually. I just wasn’t especially good at it.”

“Nobody is, at first.”

“Well, Winthrops are.” She rolled her eyes. “My older sister was a natural.”

“Tough act to follow?”

“Pretty much always.”

Emma tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. It wasn’t Annabelle’s fault that she was so freaking good at everything. She just…was.

“Does she still ride?”

“No. She’s a little busy winning Nobel Prizes and things like that.”

He laughed. “Of course. Sorry.”

“I’m not even kidding. I mean, she didn’t win a Nobel Prize—yet—but she’s a neurosurgeon. Studies brains. Discovers really amazing stuff and publishes it in all of the really important journals, then travels around speaking to lesser doctors about it all.”

“Tough that there’s no talent in your family.”

“Right? It’s a problem.” She sighed. “She had to choose from scholarships at Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale. She’d taken Harvard off the list when she decided she didn’t like their dorms, but they probably would have begged her to go there, as well.”

“And I imagine this caused you absolutely no anxiety as a kid, trying to live up to all of that?”

“Not a bit.” Emma twitched her shoulder. “I’m fine with my measly master’s degree or three.”

He raised his eyebrows, his face almost serious. “Did your parents put a lot of pressure on the two of you?”

“Three of us, actually. I have a younger sister, too.”

“Let me guess—she’s the attorney?”

“Was. She’s home with her twenty-three kids now.” His eyebrows went so high that Emma laughed. “Not really. Just four. But call at bedtime, and it sounds like twenty-three.”

“Do your sisters live close to you?”

“No.” Emma shook her head. “Annabelle’s in New York City in some high-rise apartment building that looks out onto other buildings. It’s expensive and gorgeous and completely horrible. I could never live in a space I had to share with that many other humans. It’s utter insanity. Last time I went to visit, we went to Times Square, and there was some sort of movie premiere going on. There were so many people there that I actually feared for my life.”

“Sounds like L.A.” He shook his head, grimacing. “What about your other sister?”

“She’s in San Diego, where it’s seventy degrees and sunny all year long.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. Let me guess—you visit her more?”

Emma looked down at the table. “I haven’t been out in a while. Busy, you know?”

“How long’s it been since you’ve seen her?”

“Too long.”

Three years, but work was nuts, and anytime she’d tried to plan a trip out West, something came up and she ended up working instead. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to go visit Lauren. She just hadn’t been able to make it happen.

“Must be hard to watch her kids grow up online, hm?”

Emma’s eyes met his, and she couldn’t tell whether there was judgment in his words or just understanding.

She was guessing judgment.

“You know how it is. You have the best intentions, and then—it just doesn’t work out.”

He nodded, then picked up his water glass like he was doing it to avoid saying whatever he was thinking.

But maybe that was just her guilty conscience talking. Hard to know.

“What about you?” she asked. “Any NASA engineers or astrophysicists in your family tree?”

“Just coffee-guy me.” He shrugged. “But I make damn good coffee, so there’s that.”

“Is your mom—gone?”

“Cancer.” He nodded again, swallowing like the word was covered with cactus spikes. “Seven years ago.”

“Oh, no.” Before she even knew she was doing it, she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “I’m so sorry. Were you guys close?”

He closed his eyes and squeezed her hand back but didn’t let go. “Not as close as we should have been. And that’s on me. I was always too busy to go home and visit. Too busy to call.”

Emma swallowed hard, thinking about how little Lauren’s kids had been the last time she’d managed to visit them.

“And then it was too late.” He blew out a slow breath, letting go of her fingers. “And I can’t get that time back.”

“I’m so sorry. Which is a super-lame thing to say, but wow. I just—I am. Your heart must be in a hundred pieces. I don’t know how you do the whole happy-coffee-guy thing so well.”

“Well, I was the king of bad decisions, but somewhere along the way, I decided it was stupid to stay in that role. So here I am, living in Carefree, Montana, figuring out how to do it better the second time around.”

He paused while the waitress set a steaming hot pizza onto the table, then slid slices onto each of their plates. Emma couldn’t help but sigh happily as she tasted the first bite of perfectly cooked, just-enough-cheese pizza-nirvana.

After a few moments, she looked at him. “So are you? Figuring it out?”

“Yeah.” He nodded slowly. “I am.”

She looked down, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “So I imagine people like me? Ones who spend their weekends at work and their vacations at work and their evenings at work, all in pursuit of the elusive whatever? Not your favorite breed?”

“Actually, they’re completely my favorite breed, because I get them. And can maybe get to them before they become—well—me.”

Suddenly a smile hit Jasper’s face as he looked over Emma’s shoulder, and she turned to see what had lightened his mood.

Save for two elderly women at a nearby table and a squirrel in the flower barrel outside the café doors, she couldn’t spot anything.

“What are you smiling about?”

He hitched his chin toward the window that had Gina’s swirly logo painted on it. “I’m about to let you in on a locals-only secret.”

“Ooh.” She leaned in. “I’m all ears.”

“See that little neon circle on the door?”

Emma turned and looked over her shoulder again. Yep, there was a bright green piece of paper about the size of a dessert plate, just hanging on the door for no discernible reason.

“Okay, I see it. What does it mean?”

“It means there’s news.” He raised his eyebrows.

“What kind of news?”

“I don’t know. We have to ask.”

“Huh?”

“Tell you what—go inside and ask anybody who’s working. Just ask if there’s news.”

“Is this some sort of a test? And do I have to air-quote the word news like you just did?”

He smiled. “Maybe.”

“Fine.” She pushed her chair backward. “I’ll go find…news.”

She pushed through the door, heading for a tall counter in the back, where three women were scuttling around spooning up salads and slicing bread.

“Excuse me,” she asked. “Is there some—news?”

A middle-aged woman whose hair was escaping her ponytail one frazzled strand at a time scrunched her eyebrows together. “What kind of news?”

Shoot. She’d forgotten to air-quote.

“I’m not sure, really. Just—you know—news? I was told to ask.”

The woman looked behind her at the other two, who both shrugged. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

Emma pointed toward the door. “But—the green paper?”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” the woman pshawed. “Forgot to take it down.”

“Hey, Meredith.” Jasper’s voice startled Emma as he came up behind her, moving around her to go to the counter. “What’s the news?”

Meredith slanted a look toward Emma, then handed Jasper a piece of paper. He opened it, read whatever was inside, and then slid it back over the counter.

“Thank you.”

Meredith blushed. “You’re welcome.”

Emma followed Jasper out of the café and back to their table, feeling half annoyed and half amused.

“So what was that all about?”

“It’s a locals-versus-tourists thing.” He smiled. “When there’s something that businesses want locals to know about, but not tourists, they slap up a neon circle, and we know to ask.”

“And what would qualify as locals-only news?”

“Well, last week it was a fire up north of here. Locals needed to know, in case they have livestock up there, but tourists didn’t need to know that this pristine wilderness can go up in smoke, or they might be less inclined to dare to come back.”

“Okay, I can see that. What else?”

“Bear sightings, secret locals-only sales, menu specials, all sorts of things.”

Emma nodded slowly. It was kind of charming, this little ritual. Born of a town wanting to maintain its locals-only charm but still needing the tourist dollars to fill its coffers every summer. She liked it.

“So what was today’s news? That you have now proven I could not have access to because I am decidedly not a local?”

He smiled, then leaned close to her ear. “Shelby Quinn’s here.”

“What?” She looked around but didn’t see the pop-diva-turned-country-megastar. “No, she isn’t.”

“She is.” He stood up, reaching for her hand to help her out of her own chair. “Just rolled into town—quietly—and she and her fiancé are doing a little impromptu thing out at Whisper Creek tonight.”

“What kind of a thing? Like a concert?”

Emma knew her eyes were wider than a teenager’s, but come on. This was Shelby freaking Quinn. The woman was kind of a legend—a new one but still. She was on her way.

“Not sure.” He shrugged. “But if you can stand to be with me for longer than our trail ride, we could stick around at the ranch for dinner and whatever Shelby’s got planned.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“You don’t want to?”

“Oh, I want to. I definitely want to.” She clasped her hands together, giddy. “I can’t believe this! Shelby Quinn!”

“Shh.” He put a finger to his lips. “Locals-only secret. Jeez, you kind of suck at this.”

She laughed, covering her mouth. “Sorry.” Then she leaned closer and whispered, “Shelby freaking Quinn!”

“I never would have suspected country music was the way to your heart.”

“Because?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I would have guessed classical. Jazz, maybe.”

“I. Hate. Jazz.”

He laughed. “Okay. I get an F on that guess.”

“Not a huge fan of classical, either. And apparently I need to work on not looking like a buttoned-up sixty-year-old who would prefer those kinds of music.”

He laughed. “You just have—I don’t know—a cultured air. That’s what I meant.”

“I did play violin when I was ten. Maybe the aura stuck with me.”

“Did it go better than the horseback riding?”

“Nope.” She pointed at her head. “Tin ear. Pretty sure it was painful for the entire household.”

“But let me guess. Annabelle was a prodigy?”

“You know it. Cello. Played in the youth symphony at age eight. The darn instrument was bigger than her.”

“You know, I’ve gotta say, it sounds kind of exhausting to be Annabelle.”

Emma smiled. “I’m sure it is. But you’d never know it. If she’s tired, she hides it well.”

“Did you choose the violin?”

“Nope. Mom did.”

“What would you have chosen?”

“Drums. I always wanted to play the drums.”

He laughed. “I cannot picture that.”

Emma smiled, but inside she sobered. Why couldn’t he? Did she really come off as so uptight that he couldn’t even picture her pounding out a beat on a bass drum as a child?

“Well, it didn’t happen, obviously.”

“Never too late to learn.”

“Right.” She rolled her eyes. “Because every thirty-something should take drum lessons.”

“Why not?”

“Time? For starters?”

He shrugged. “You could make the time, if you really wanted to do it.”

“Maybe someday. Right now I’m a little busy figuring out how to run a nursing home.”

“Well, if you decide to give it a try, I know just the guy to teach you.” He crossed his arms. “And I totally think you should do it. Drums beat violins any day of the week.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She took a deep breath, just about ready to be finished analyzing her lack of priorities. “Should we think about heading out to Whisper Creek?”

He nodded. “Can you promise not to think about work for an entire afternoon?”

“Nope.”

“Can you try?”

“Yup.”

“Good enough.” He laughed as he put money on the table, then stood up. “But you wait till you get out there. You won’t even want to think about it.”