Thankful For You

“My sinuses are clear, that’s for darn sure.” Nick pinched his nose with his fingers and shook his head a bit.

Dallas had grabbed her towel and had spread it out so they could both sit down without burning their butts and the backs of their legs.

“Mmm, I feel so good right now.” Dallas tilted her head back to let the sun shine down on her face. “There’s nothin’ I like better than spending an afternoon swimming in Sweet William. This takes me back. It really does. Way back.”

“Sweet William? That’s the name of this lake?”

“Not the official name.” Dallas kept her eyes closed. “But it’s what me and Pop call it.”

She opened her eyes and pointed to the flowers growing wild along the bank of the lake. “See all those flowers? Those are Sweet Williams. They love to drink up the sun and bloom in the summer. I love me some good ol’ American wildflowers, don’t you?”

* * *

An American wildflower. That’s what Dallas was. Much like the wildflowers she loved so well, Nick had finally found a way to think about the cowgirl in a way that made sense to his brain. She was just as pretty and wild and hearty as those Sweet Williams growing on the side of a secret lake in Montana.

Sitting next to Dallas on that boulder, so close that he could smell the sweet scent of the soap on her browned skin, he couldn’t think of a time in his life when he wanted to touch a woman as badly as he wanted to touch her. He wanted to kiss away the little droplets of water on her neck and her shoulders. He wanted to slip her modest bathing suit straps off her shoulders, just enough to kiss the water from between her modest breasts.

The cowgirl had been difficult to read, but the giant “hands off” sign she wore like a badge of honor was easy enough to decipher. If he tried to kiss her, which had been a thought in his head for a couple of days, she would freeze him out. They were friendly acquaintances now; if he made any sort of move that she interpreted as sexual, he’d lose that precious ground and then some.

Why did he care so much about preserving his budding friendship and trust building with Dallas? He wasn’t entirely sure. Yes, he was attracted to her. But he didn’t have any illusion of starting a lasting relationship with a wild-child barrel racer. His life plan and hers were at serious odds. He had tried to imagine Dallas in Chicago and had failed. So it had to be the challenge that Dallas offered to his ego. He hadn’t always been the best-looking guy in the room, or the tallest, but he was decent looking, had blue eyes that women often gushed about, and he always had access to money and lots of it. Rejection wasn’t something he’d had to deal with too often in his life. With Dallas, it seemed like a 100 percent certainty.

* * *

“I’d like to make a quick run back to the ranch for supplies. I didn’t realize how bare our cupboards are,” Dallas said as she came out of her horse trailer dressing room wearing a clean, ribbed tank top and pair of faded blue jeans. Her hair was still damp and blowing in curly wisps around her face.

His uncle Hank and aunt Barb had let Dallas “shop” at Bent Tree every week to stock up on supplies so they didn’t have to make the trip to town. Would the supplies have flown so freely if he was the only one camped out at Lightning Rock? No. He was certain of that. His uncle had refused to talk to him about the sale of Lightning Rock; his uncle had refused to discuss easement rights that would allow the new owner to travel across Bent Tree land to reach Lightning Rock. So far, he’d been happy to avoid that “come to Jesus” moment he needed to have with his uncle. There was still so much cleanup left to do. But he couldn’t let his uncle put this off indefinitely. Uncle Hank, who was known in his community as being levelheaded and fair, lost all of that levelheadedness and reason when the topic of rightful ownership of Lightning Rock came up.

“You comin’ or stayin’?” Dallas put her cowgirl hat on, which signaled to him that she was officially ready to go.

Normally, he would steer clear of the farmhouse in order to avoid any possible confrontation with his uncle. Today, now halfway through the cleanup efforts, Nick realized that time for avoidance was running out.

“I’ll come with you.”

If Dallas was surprised by his choice, she didn’t show it on her face. She was a woman who kept her cards held tightly to her chest. Dallas had to know that she was smack-dab in the middle of a family feud, yet she never asked him one probing question. She kept herself focused on tying up the loose ends of her father’s life and let him handle his own family business.

Dallas climbed behind the wheel of her early-model Bronco and cranked the engine. Nick had been subjected to the cowgirl’s driving enough to grab the handle above the window and hold on tight. She preferred to be the one in the driver’s seat—so did he. If they were in Chicago he would be driving, but he was on her turf now, and she had won that battle. On the rare occasion that they had to go somewhere together, she drove.

“You missin’ your life back East?” Dallas asked him. This was about as personal as she had ever gotten with him.

“I do,” he admitted to her.

He hadn’t wanted to pressure her to go through her father’s stockpile of possessions on a timer—this was part of her grieving process and he was trying his best to be respectful. He saw his friends having a good time on social media, he thought of all the work waiting for him at his new gig at his father’s law firm and it made him miss life in Chicago. He missed fine dining and yachting and a comfortable bed. He missed his new Jaguar.

“Yeah.” Dallas had one arm resting on the open window, her left leg bent so her boot was resting on the driver’s seat. “I miss my life.”

He’d already known that about her, so this admission was just confirmation. She had this restlessness about her. There was always a distance in her eyes, as if only half of her was really with him in Montana. There wasn’t a boyfriend out there pulling her away—it was her life. It was the road. It was the competition.

“Do you have a place you call home?” Nick tightened his grip as they flew over a couple of bumps in the road. “Other than here, I mean.”

Dallas gunned the gas, steering the loud Bronco onto the paved highway. “Not really.”

Okay. Let me rephrase that question. “Do you have a place in mind to land once you stop barrel racing?”

Dallas laughed and glanced at him like he had asked a very odd question. “I ain’t never gonna quit barrel racing.”

The next question he asked came out of nowhere for him, and afterward he was left wondering what had possessed him to even bring the subject up. “Do you want to get married? Have kids?”

“I haven’t really spent too much time givin’ it much thought.”

The conversation stopped abruptly with that last question, and Nick discovered just how easy it was to step on a land mine with this woman. Most women weren’t offended by the question of marriage and children even if they planned on building their career instead of building a family. Not so with Dallas Dalton. His asking her about her future status as wife and mother had seemed to touch a raw nerve.

“That’s Clint’s truck right there.” Dallas nodded toward one of the trucks parked near the main house at Bent Tree.

Damn.

If Clint was at Bent Tree, there was a good chance his older sister, Taylor, was with him. He loved his sister—they’d always been close. But they were on opposing sides of the Lightning Rock issue and he didn’t want to get into yet another battle of words with Taylor. He had stopped by his sister’s house in Helena when he first arrived in Montana to meet his niece and catch up, but the minute the conversation had turned to Lightning Rock, they had gotten into an argument. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d argued with Taylor.

“And that’s Brock’s truck right there.” Dallas shifted into Park and shut off the engine. “It looks to me like you’re in for a bit of a family reunion.”

Nick nodded in response.

Both of his sisters, one older and one younger, had married Montana men and settled within one day’s driving distance to Bent Tree Ranch. He had opted to not stay at Bent Tree to avoid conflict with Hank and he had begged off staying with Taylor or his younger sister, Casey, for the same reason. He’d been in Montana for the first time in years, and he’d spent most of his time there avoiding his own family. Maybe it was time to stop avoiding and start facing them. Maybe it was long past time.

Chapter Four (#uaf8c1d78-9760-5724-92b3-140b87c16959)

His sisters greeted him in the only way they ever had: with open arms. Yes, they disagreed about how to handle Lightning Rock, but that couldn’t stop them from greeting each other with love. They had grown up in a home that was almost the exact opposite of the warm, welcoming feel of the farmhouse at Bent Tree Ranch.

Their house in the wealthy area of Hyde Park was a mansion; his mother insisted on keeping a full staff around the clock. Aunt Barbara, who had grown up in Chicago and run in the same social circles as his mother, prided herself on her cooking. His mother prided herself on having the ability to hire a personal chef. Hank and his father, Angus, were the closest brothers in age, but they couldn’t be further apart in temperament. Angus was austere and withdrawn from the family; the more his marriage to Vivian fractured, the more time he spent at the office. Nick couldn’t remember the last time he saw his parents show real affection toward each other. There was always tension crackling in the air when they were together—Nick often wished that they would just get a divorce already. So, very early on in their lives, it had been Taylor, Nick and Casey against the world.

“Nick.” His sister Taylor used one arm to hug him while she held her daughter, Penelope, with her other arm. “I didn’t know you would be here today.”

“We’re just in for supplies.” Nick tweaked his little niece on the nose while his eyes shifted from one person to another until they landed on his uncle seated at the head of the long table in the center of the kitchen.

Taylor switched with their little sister, Casey, who stepped into his arms and hugged him as if she hadn’t seen him in a long time even though they had seen each other when he first arrived in Montana.

“How are you feeling?” Nick asked his redheaded sister.

“I’m okay.” Casey smiled up at him. There was something in that smile that he didn’t believe. Casey had been diagnosed with uterine cancer and had undergone a partial hysterectomy. His younger sister had never made it a secret that she wanted to bear her own children; the cancer had taken that away from her and the family was watching her closely to see how she would handle it long-term.

One by one he made contact with everyone in the room. He had his hand clasped with the hand of his cousin Luke, a retired marine, when he saw Dallas come in to the kitchen. She walked directly to Clint, her best friend and Taylor’s bull-riding husband; the cowgirl hugged Clint and her eyes were full of trust and happiness when she looked at the bull rider. Nick felt a twinge of jealousy at the closeness between Clint and Dallas—it made him wonder how Taylor, who was looking at Dallas a little warily, could handle her husband having a woman as a best friend.

Aunt Barbara interrupted his train of thought. “This couldn’t have worked out any better if I planned it myself. Why don’t the two of you go get yourselves washed up? We were just about to sit down to eat.”

It felt a little bit as if the universe had conspired against him, but he was happy to see his sisters and his aunt’s kitchen smelled amazing. There was no sense passing up the delicious-smelling pot roast in the oven. He couldn’t cook worth a damn and neither could Dallas.

“Go on.” Aunt Barb tried to herd him toward the foyer so he’d hook a sharp left and wash his hands in the downstairs bathroom.

“Let me just say hello to Uncle Hank first.”