A Little Bit Country: A Little Bit Country / Blackberry Summer

Then Clay walked to the driver’s side and hoisted himself in. He started the engine, which roared to life immediately, and shifted gears.

“I apologize for any inconvenience I’ve caused you,” Rorie said stiffly, after several moments of silence.

“It’s no problem,” Clay murmured, concentrating on his driving, doing just the speed limit and not a fraction more.

They’d been driving for about ten minutes when Clay turned off the road and through a huge log archway with ELK RUN lettered across the top. Lush green pastures flanked the private road, and several horses were grazing calmly in one of them. Rorie knew next to nothing about horse breeds, but whatever these were revealed a grace and beauty that was apparent even to her untrained eye.

The next thing Rorie noticed was the large two-story house with a wide wraparound veranda on which a white wicker swing swayed gently. Budding rosebushes lined the meandering brick walkway.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly. Rorie would have expected something like this in the bluegrass hills of Kentucky, not on the back roads of Oregon.

Clay made no comment.

He drove past the house and around the back toward the largest stable Rorie had ever seen. The sprawling wood structure must have had room for thirty or more horses.

“You raise horses?” she said.

A smile moved through his eyes like distant light. “That’s one way of putting it. Elk Run is a stud farm.”

“Quarter horses?”

That was the only breed that came to mind.

“No. American Saddlebreds.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them before.”

“Probably not,” Clay said, not unkindly.

He parked the truck, helped Rorie down and led her toward the back of the house.

“Mary,” he called, holding the screen door for Rorie to precede him into the large country kitchen. She was met with the smell of cinnamon and apples. The delectable aroma came from a freshly baked pie, cooling on the counter. A black Labrador retriever slept on a braided rug. He raised his head and thumped his tail gently when Clay stepped over to him and bent down to scratch the dog’s ears. “This is Blue.”

“Hi, Blue,” Rorie said, realizing the dog had probably been a childhood pet. He looked well advanced in years.

“Mary doesn’t seem to be around.”

“Mary’s your wife?”

“Housekeeper,” Clay informed her. “I’m not married.”

That small piece of information gladdened Rorie’s heart and she instantly felt foolish. Okay, so she was attracted to this man with eyes as gray as a San Francisco sky, but that didn’t change a thing. If her plans went according to schedule, she’d be in and out of his life within hours.

“Mary’s probably upstairs,” Clay said when the housekeeper didn’t answer. “There’s a phone on the wall.” He pointed to the other side of the kitchen.

While Rorie retrieved her AT&T card from her eelskin wallet, Clay crossed to the refrigerator and took out a brightly colored ceramic pitcher.

“Iced tea?” he asked.

“Please.” Her throat felt parched. She had to swallow several times before she could make her call.

As she spoke on the phone, Clay took two tall glasses from a cupboard and half filled them with ice cubes. He poured in the tea, then added thin slices of lemon.

Rorie finished her conversation and walked over to the table. Sitting opposite Clay, she reached for the drink he’d prepared. “That was my hotel in Seattle. They won’t be able to hold the room past six.”

“I’m sure there’ll be space in another,” he said confidently.

Rorie nodded, although she thought that was unlikely. She was on her way to a writers’ conference, one for which she’d paid a hefty fee, and she hated to miss one minute of it. Every hotel in the city was said to be filled.

“I’ll call the garage in Nightingale for you,” Clay offered.

“Is that close by?”

“About five miles down the road.”

Rorie was relieved. She’d never heard of Nightingale and was grateful to learn it had a garage. After all, the place was barely large enough to rate a mention on the road map.

“Old Joe’s been working on cars most of his life. He’ll do a good job for you.”

Rorie nodded again, not knowing how else to respond.

Clay quickly strode to the phone, punched out the number and talked for a few minutes. He was frowning when he replaced the receiver. Rorie wanted to question him, but before she could, he grabbed an impossibly thin phone book and dialed a second number. His frown was deeper by the time he’d completed the call.

“I’ve got more bad news for you.”

“Oh?” Rorie’s heart had planted itself somewhere between her chest and her throat. She didn’t like the way Clay was frowning, or the concern she heard in his voice. “What’s wrong now?”

“Old Joe’s gone fishing and isn’t expected back this month. The mechanic in Riversdale, which is about sixty miles south of here, says that if it is your pump it’ll take at least four days to ship a replacement.”

Two (#ulink_43865670-dfb3-5d44-b88f-fb6a718ec03f)

“Four days!” Rorie felt the color drain from her face. “But that’s impossible! I can’t possibly wait that long.”

“Seems to me,” Clay said in his smooth drawl, “you don’t have much choice. George tells me he could have the water pump within a day if you weren’t driving a foreign job.”

“Surely there’s someone else I could call.”

Clay seemed to mull that over; then he shrugged. “Go ahead and give it a try if you like, but it isn’t going to do you any good. If the shop in Riversdale can’t get the part until Saturday, what makes you think someone else can do it any faster?”

Clay’s calm acceptance of the situation infuriated Rorie. If she stayed here four days, in the middle of nowhere, she’d completely miss the writers’ conference, which she’d been planning to attend for months. She’d scheduled her entire vacation around it. She’d made arrangements to travel to Victoria on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island after the conference and on the way home take a leisurely trip down the coast.

Clay handed her the phone book, and feeling defeated Rorie thumbed through the brief yellow pages until she came to the section headed Automobile Repair. Only a handful were listed and none of them promised quick service, she noted.

“Yes, well,” she muttered, expelling her breath, “there doesn’t seem to be any other option.” Discouraged, she set the directory back on the counter. “You and your brother have been most helpful and I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done. Now if you could recommend a hotel in...what was the name of the town again?”

“Nightingale.”

“Right,” she said, with a wobbly smile, which was the best she could do at the moment. “Actually, anyplace that’s clean will be fine.”