A Cowboy To Kiss

But Kenzie wasn’t listening. She’d stopped walking, pulled her deep brown cowgirl hat down low to shield her eyes from the sun and stared at the white three-quarter-ton pickup. The truck was pulling the exact seventeen-foot horse trailer that Kenzie had lusted over just last month when she was in the market for a new one. The price tag had been a little too rich for her, so she’d had to settle for one that was used and half the price.

The thought flitted through her head that perhaps her dad had decided to splurge and had secretly bought it, but that thought was quickly dashed. She knew her dad would never undermine her financial plan for the ranch. He respected her decisions too much.

Still...

“Do you know what this is all about?” Coco asked, nodding toward the fancy rig heading for them.

“No, but maybe Mom does. Now that their anniversary is less than two weeks away we’ve been getting all sorts of weird things delivered to the ranch. Mom is getting more and more giddy over the ceremony. I’m so glad we were able to convince them to celebrate forty-five years with a real wedding celebration. Who knew they’d never had one?”

“I don’t think Dad’s excited about all the fuss, but this means so much to Mom that he’s coming around. He’ll do anything for Mom, we all know that,” Coco said. “Her whole face lights up whenever she talks about any of the details. I’ve had so much fun helping her plan.”

“We all have. Just yesterday an older man arrived with four white doves. Mom wants them released during the ceremony. Did you know, they’re actually homing pigeons? Anyway, we did a practice run, and the birds squawked the entire time. It wasn’t pretty. Or rather, it didn’t sound pretty. You can imagine her reaction.”

Coco nodded. “She must have been annoyed.”

“She was. The man apologized and assured her it had never happened before and would never happen again, but Mom thought it was a bad omen. It took all day for Dad and me to convince her that their wedding ceremony isn’t doomed. You know how she’s always felt about elaborate weddings. Nervous that something major will go wrong. Where she got that idea she won’t say other than it’s just a feeling. Of course, it didn’t help that Kayla’s first and second weddings were disasters. And Carson’s wedding was strange, at best.”

Their mom and dad had gotten married at the courthouse in a simple ceremony with no guests. She had insisted it be held that way and had always associated a big wedding with a catastrophe.

“Exactly, and with the Grant track record, who can blame her?”

Their sister Kayla had left not one but two separate grooms standing at the altar, and their brother, Carson, had planned a fancy church wedding with a woman who had already dumped him.

“Callie and Joel’s wedding turned out okay,” Coco reminded her.

“Except for Great-Uncle Peter streaking through the back of the church in his birthday suit during the vows, everything else went off beautifully.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about Great-Uncle Peter. Will he be coming?”

“Yes, and Great-Aunt Beverly promised to keep a tight rein on him this time.”

“Isn’t she the one who tried to do a pole dance during the reception, and I had to treat her when she slid too fast, fell over and bonked her head?”

“Yes,” Kenzie answered, remembering Great-Aunt Beverly circling the pole with her undies showing, singing “I’m an Old Cowhand.” “Mom might be right.”

“So, I wonder what this is? Maybe Mom and Dad want to ride in on special horses? White Arabian horses to go with the white doves, maybe?”

Kenzie snickered and shrugged. “Who knows? She’s been springing these changes on us for the last couple of weeks. She’s also thinking of handing out white helium balloons to everyone to be set free once Mom and Dad say ‘I do.’ For someone who doesn’t believe in elaborate weddings, she’s really all in for this one. I’ve stopped trying to second-guess what she’s thinking up next. I just go along with everything. It’s simpler.”

As the rig came closer, Kenzie’s stomach began to feel queasy, like the bacon and eggs she’d downed in a hurry that morning weren’t sitting well. Or perhaps it was the instant coffee she’d made in the microwave before her mom put on a pot?

It didn’t help that the dogs seemed skeptical of the intruder as well, their tails still as they sniffed the air for any strange scents.

“That’s a Montana plate on the front of the truck. I can’t believe she had to go all the way to Montana to find a horse. Something else must be going on,” Kenzie offered.

“I know the Scotts are driving in for the wedding. Maybe Jan and Fred decided to show up early?”

Henry Grant, their dad, and Fred Scott had served in Vietnam together, and had a long-standing friendship. The two men would do anything for each other, and over the years, the Grant family and the Scott family had spent time on each other’s ranches. For the most part, those visits had been fun, but there was one member of the Scott family Kenzie never wanted to see again. One cowboy she hoped would stay home on the family ranch where he belonged.

The screen door behind them squeaked open, then banged shut. “Right on time,” Kenzie’s father, Henry, said.

“Dad knew about their early arrival and didn’t tell us?” Coco asked her sister. “I would have changed some of my commitments around. As it is, I can’t stay. I’m already late for my next appointment.”

“I think there’s something more to this than just an extended visit from Jan and Fred. When have they ever stayed longer than a few days? And why would they bring along some horses? No. Something’s up, and I’m getting a bad feeling about it.”

Kenzie glanced back at her mom who’d stepped out on the porch to join their dad. “I better make up another batch of bacon, and throw on some more flapjacks. Prob’ly drove all night and they’ll all be as hungry as a bear.”

“Why are the Scotts here so early, Dad?” Kenzie shouted back to her dad.

She couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t told her, especially since it now appeared as if they’d be staying on the ranch. The guesthouse hadn’t even been cleaned out yet. Kenzie had planned to have it done by the end of the week. It was on the top of her priority list, along with several other critical items. She’d been storing some combustible supplies in the guesthouse to keep them away from the livestock. She intended to move them to one of the sheds. Plus Carson had been promising to move all his equipment to his own shed at his rented house for weeks now. The timing of their arrival couldn’t be worse.

“Ain’t the Scotts, at least not all of them. Just one,” her dad finally said in that raspy morning voice of his.

Coco raised an eyebrow and caught the look of concern on Kenzie’s face. “What’s wrong? You look sick.”

Kenzie pressed a hand to her stomach and ignored her sister’s question.

Instead, she asked her dad, “Which one? I mean, which Scott?”

The words jumped from her mouth in a rush of adrenalin. There was only one member of the Scott family who got under her skin, one Scott who annoyed her to distraction and caused her blood to boil. Over the years, their rivalry had grown into a full-blown war. The last time they met up Kenzie was sixteen, and somehow that conniving, underhanded Jake Scott had managed to get her to kiss him. She hadn’t kissed a boy before that, and Jake knew it as soon as their lips met.

He’d laughed.

Right there in the middle of the kiss, he’d up and laughed.

It was possibly the most embarrassing moment of her life, and because of it, she’d stopped visiting the Scotts. And Jake, thank you very much, never showed up on the Grant Ranch after that. So it couldn’t be Jake Scott inside that pickup. It just couldn’t. She’d made it as clear as sunshine that she never, ever wanted to see or talk to him again as long as she lived.

“I’m not exactly sure,” he told her with that fatherly tone he took on whenever he didn’t want to be questioned further.

“I’ve got to run,” Coco said after she glanced at her watch. “Call me with the details. Sounds like our dad has something up his sleeve... Who knows? Maybe it’s a surprise for Mom for their anniversary. Think positive.”

Then she dashed off to her red SUV parked near the horse barn, started it up and drove past the Scott rig on her way off the property, sticking an arm out and waving at the driver.

Kenzie watched as the Scott truck and trailer came to a stop a few feet away from her. She waited, telling herself that Jake wouldn’t dare show up on the Grant ranch with so much time before her parents’ anniversary wedding, not after he hadn’t shown up for her sister Kayla’s three weddings or Carson or Callie’s weddings. He could have at least shown up for one of them. His parents and his brothers, Curt and Lucas, had been there for all of them.

Though Kenzie had never married, she’d heard that Jake was married in a private civil ceremony, but no sooner had that news come through that it was known he’d gotten a divorce. It seemed only fitting. No woman in her right mind could live with the likes of Jake Scott, who was no doubt a scoundrel.

She took a deep breath, and headed for the rig, just as the driver’s door swung wide open, and a pair of muddy Western boots hit the gravel. The man who wore those boots also wore an open crumpled long-sleeved black-checked shirt, with the sleeves rolled up; a tight black T-shirt that caressed a chiseled chest and a flat stomach; faded jeans, and a cream-colored Western hat that he slipped on his head. A big grin spread across a scruffy chin, and eyes the color of emeralds peeked out from under the wide brim of his low-slung hat.

Dora and Dolly ran to greet him, now excited about this new visitor. The cowboy bent over and gave them both a warm welcome.

Her darn knees went weak just looking at him, and for a brief moment, she felt swept up in the vision of pure cowboy walking toward her.

“Is that little Kenzie Grant?” the man asked, his deep voice searing her senses.

All she could do was nod.

“Darn, girl!” he said, “C’mon, bring it in closer.”