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“Don’t invite him for tea, Etta. I’ll take care of this, but he doesn’t need to hang out here.”
“Nonsense.” And Etta stormed off, like a wise grandmother who had dealt with her share of lovesick kids. Andie shook her head and unhooked the gate. She wasn’t lovesick.
She was mad at herself. And mad at Ryder.
“Off you go, Dusty. Eat some green grass and I’ll be back later.”
She watched, smiling as her horse made a dash around the field, bucked a few times and then found a place to roll on his back. And then she couldn’t put it off any longer. She turned, and there he was, walking toward her, his hat low over his eyes. She didn’t need to see those eyes. Brown, long dark lashes. He had a dimple in his chin and a mouth that flashed white teeth when he smiled. He had rough hands that could hold a woman tight and a voice that sounded raspy and smooth, all at the same time.
Those were things she had just learned about him, eight weeks ago. Before that he’d had a voice that teased and hands that held hers tight when they climbed fences or arm wrestled. He had been the person she told her secrets to and shared her fears with.
More than anything she was mad that he couldn’t be that person right now. Instead, he was the person she needed to talk about.
He was tall, a cowboy who wore faded jeans, ripped at the knees, and button-down shirts, plaid with pearl buttons. He was her best friend. They’d been friends for twenty-five years, since his family moved to Dawson from Tulsa. His dad had done something right with the stock market. His mom had inherited a chunk of cash. It hadn’t been a perfect life though, and a little over five years ago his parents had died in a car accident.
She’d been there for him.
He’d buried his face into her shoulder and she remembered her fingers on soft, brown hair.
She remembered waking up weeks ago, knowing her life would never be the same. One night, one mistake, and her world had come unraveled.
And then God had hemmed it up again. She’d been running from God longer than she’d been running from Ryder. God had caught her first.
Ryder watched the changing expressions on Andie’s face and he wondered what kind of storm he was about to face. Would it be the summer kind that passes over with little damage, or the other kind, the kind that happens when hot air meets cold?
He had a feeling that it was the hot-meets-cold kind. She had gone from something that looked like sad, to pretty close to furious, and now she was smiling. But the coldness in her eyes was still there. She had latched the gate and she was strong again.
She stood next to the barn, looking a lot like she had the last time he’d seen her. She was a country girl, born and raised in Dawson. Her idea of dressing up was changing into a new pair of jeans and boots that weren’t scuffed. She was tall, slim, with short blond hair and brilliant blue eyes.
And she had every right to be angry.
He slowed a little, because maybe this wasn’t a hornet’s nest he wanted to walk into. It was going to get worse when she found out who was in the house waiting for her. She leaned back against the barn, the wind lifting her hair, blowing it around her face.
“Did you forget how to use a phone?” Yep, she was mad. Her voice was a little softer, a little huskier than normal.
“Nope. I just thought I’d give you a few weeks to get over being mad at me,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have been mad if you had left a note, called, maybe met up with me somewhere.”
“I know.” He cracked his knuckles and she glared. He took that to mean she wanted more than an easy answer. “I’m not good at relationships.”
Understatement. And it was an explanation she didn’t need from him. His parents had spent his childhood fighting, drinking and socializing. The ranch here in Dawson had saved him. At least he’d had horses to keep him busy and out from under their feet.
Away from his parents had usually been the best, safest bet for a kid.
He’d had Andie to run with and Etta’s house as a safe haven. Right at that moment Andie looked anything but safe. Standing there with her arms wrapped around herself, hugging her middle tight, she looked angry, sad, and about a dozen other female emotions he didn’t want to put a name on.
“Relationship? This isn’t a relationship, Ryder. This is us. We were friends.”
“Oh, come on, we’re still friends.” He slipped an arm around her shoulder and she slid out of the embrace. “We’ll go out tomorrow, maybe drive into Tulsa. It’ll be like old times.”
“Nope.” She walked quickly toward the house. He kept up.
So, the rumors were true. “This is about church, isn’t it?”
She stopped abruptly and turned. “No, it isn’t about church. You think that going to church would make me mad at you? Don’t be an idiot.”
“Well isn’t that what people do when they feel guilty?” He winked. “They get right with God?”
“Shut up, Ryder.”
She took off again, arms swinging, boots stomping on the dry grass.
“We’ve been friends forever.”
“Right.” She stopped and when she glanced up, before she could shake the look, he thought she looked hurt.
The way she’d looked hurt when he’d turned eleven and she’d been about ten, but not quite. He’d had a bunch of boys over and she hadn’t been invited. He’d told her it was a guys-only party and she’d wanted to be one of the guys, because she was his best friend.
Now he realized that best friends shouldn’t be easy to hold or feel soft in a guy’s arms. Or at least he thought that was the case. He didn’t want to lose someone who had always been there for him. He didn’t want to turn her into his mom.
He sure didn’t want to be his dad.
He wanted them to stay the way they were, having fun and hanging out. Not growing up, growing angry, growing apart. He didn’t want to think about how selfish that sounded, keeping her in his life that way.
“Andie, I didn’t plan for this to mess up our friendship.”
“Neither of us planned for that. And this isn’t about…” She looked away. “This is about you not calling me back.”
“Because I didn’t know what to say.”
“Ryder, you’re almost thirty and I’ve heard you talk to women. You always know what to say.” She looked down, shuffling her feet in the dusty driveway. “But you didn’t know what to say to me?”
“I’m sorry.” He hadn’t known what to say and he still didn’t. With other women, he just said what felt right at the moment. And man, he’d had a lot of nasty messages on his answering machine over the years, because he’d said what felt right, not what mattered.
“You don’t have to apologize. We’re both responsible.”
“I know, but we made a promise. I made a promise.” A promise to keep boundaries between them. “I don’t know what else to say, except I’m sorry.”
“You should have called.” She had shoved her hands in her front pockets and she stared up at him, forcing his thoughts back to that. That night in Phoenix he’d found her standing behind her trailer, crying because she’d been rejected by her mother. He’d never seen her like that, hurt that way.
He shook his head, chasing off memories that were more than likely going to get him in trouble again.
“Come on, Andie, give me a break. You know me better than anyone. You know that I’m not good at this. You know that we were both there. We both…”
“Stop. I don’t want to talk about what we both did. I want to talk to you about us.”
Heat crawled up his neck, into his face. “Andie, you sound like a woman.”
“I am a woman.”
“No.” He took off his hat and swiped a hand through his hair. “No, you’re not. You’re my best friend. You’re my roping buddy. You’re not like other women. You’ve never been like other women, getting all caught up in the dating thing and romance.”
“I’m still not caught up in those things.”
“No, now you’re caught up in religion.”
“I’m not caught up in anything. This is about faith. And to be honest, I really needed some.” She looked away.
“Whatever. I’m just saying, this isn’t you.”
“It’s me. But for a lot of years, I’ve been trying to be who you wanted me to be. I’ve done a lot of things to make you feel better about being angry.” Her voice was soft and sweet, reminding him of how easy it had been to kiss her. Maybe things had changed—more than he’d realized. Being on the road he’d been able to fool himself into believing that they could go right back to being who they’d always been.
“Go to supper with me at the Mad Cow. I’ll buy you a piece of pecan pie.” He nudged her shoulder and she nodded. He thought she might say yes.
But then she shook her head. “I’m tired. It was a long trip.”
“Yeah, I guess it was. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“And you’re going to church?”
“Yeah, Ryder, I’m going to church.”
“Fine, I’ve got to get home and get things cleaned up before Wyatt gets here.”
“Wyatt’s coming?”
Ryder pulled his keys out of his pocket. This was something she would have known, before. He would have called her to talk it over with her, to get her opinion. He guessed that was a pretty good clue that he’d been avoiding her, and telling himself a whole pack of lies.
Number one being that nothing had changed.
“Yeah, he’s coming home.”
And Ryder didn’t know how it would work, with him, Wyatt and two little girls all in one big, messy house. The girls needed to be here, though. Ryder knew that. He knew his brother was falling apart without Wendy. Wyatt was caving under the guilt of his wife’s death. A year, and he was still falling apart.
“If you need anything.” Andie’s voice was gentle, so was her hand on his arm.
“Yeah, I know you’re here.” He smiled down at her, winking, because he needed to find firm footing. “Gotta run. Let me know if you change your mind about, well, about anything.”
About being this new person, this woman that he just didn’t get.
“Right, I’ll let you know.”
The back door opened. He waved at Etta and tried to escape, but she left the back stoop and headed in their direction. And then he remembered why he’d driven down here. Because mad or not, Andie was about to need a friend.
“Don’t you want to come in for tea?” Etta had been filling him with tea for years. Tea for colds, tea for his aches and pains, tea to help him sleep when his parents died. He’d turned to something a little stronger for a few years, until he realized that it was doing more than helping him sleep. It had been turning him into his dad.
He glanced at Andie, and she was still clueless. “I can come in for a minute. I have to get my house clean before Wyatt shows up.”
Why’d he have to feel so old all of a sudden? Last week he’d still felt young, like he had it all, except responsibility. He had liked it that way.
“When’s he going to be here?” Etta stepped a little closer.
“Tomorrow or Monday. I guess I’ll have to call Ruby to get my house really clean.”
“You’ll be fine, Ryder.” Etta’s eyes were soft, a little damp.
“Yeah, I’m more worried about Wyatt.” Ryder didn’t want to think about the house and the girls, not all in the same thought.
And then the back door opened again.
Chapter Two
Andie had forgotten about that car in the drive. She shouldn’t have forgotten. It was Ryder’s fault and it would have felt good to tell him that. But she didn’t have time because the woman standing on the back porch was now walking down the steps. She was nearing fifty and stunningly beautiful. And she was smiling. Andie hadn’t expected the smile. She wanted this woman to be cold, to live up to Andie’s expectations of her.
A woman that ditched a child couldn’t be warm. She couldn’t be loving. Andie replayed her list of words she used to describe her mother: cold, unfeeling, hard, selfish.
The list used to be more graphic, but Andie was working hard on forgiving. She’d started with the easy “need to forgive” list. She would forgive Margie Watkins for spreading a rumor about her. She could forgive Blaine for gum in her notebook back in the fifth grade. She’d kept her mother on a list by herself, a final project. Saving the most difficult for last.
So now Andie knew that it was true—God had his own timing, reminding her that He was really the one in charge. She had really thought she’d wait a few months to contact Caroline.
“You okay?” Ryder stepped next to her. “I thought I ought to be here for you.”
Cowgirls do too cry. They cry when the man they are the angriest with shows up and says something like that. They can cry when they see their mother for the first time in twenty-five years. She nodded in answer to his question and blinked away the tears, because she’d never cried this much in her life and she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like that her edge was gone.
Was this really the plan, really what God wanted? For her to forgive the person who had hurt her more than anyone else, even more than Ryder when he ignored her phone calls?
If so, it was going to take some time.
“Caroline wanted to see you.” Etta’s tone was noncommittal and Andie wondered if her mother had been invited or just showed up.
Oh, the wedding. Alyson’s wedding.
“Did she?” Andie managed to stand tall. “Or is she here to see Alyson? To help plan the wedding.”
It made sense that her mother would show up to help plan Alyson’s wedding. She had never shown up for anything that had to do with Andie.
“I’m here to see you.” Caroline was close enough to hear, to respond. And she had the nerve to smile like she meant it.
But really? Did she?
“That’s good.” Andie managed words that she didn’t feel. Standing there in the yard, the sun sinking into the western horizon, red and glowing, the sky lavender. The sky matched Etta’s hair. At least that lightened the mood.
“I know I should have come sooner.” Caroline glanced away, like she, too, had noticed the setting sun. She stared toward the west. “I don’t have excuses. I’m just here to say that I’m sorry.”
