Before We Kiss (Fool's Gold #14)

They walked to the main house. Once inside he saw the kitchen had already been remodeled. It was big and open, with lots of counter space and an eat-in area. Heidi got them iced tea, then joined them at the table. She passed out several sheets of paper.

“We have options,” she said. “Given the range of ages, I thought that was important. Shane can be available for a basic roping lesson.” She smiled. “It’s pretty fun. We set up a sawhorse with a little toy cow head on one end and a fake tail on the other. We’ll also have several gentle horses available for riding. Shane teaches kids how to ride all the time. He’s really patient.”

Sam studied the list. “Cheese and soapmaking?”

Heidi nodded. “I can do a demo only or we can get the kids involved. The problem is that soap has to cure or dry for several days. So while they could work on it, they can’t take that batch home with them.”

Dellina was busy making notes. She glanced up long enough to ask, “Cheese making is going to be the same, right? They can’t take home what they start.”

“Right.”

“We’ll talk about it and get back to you,” Dellina said.

They went over the lunch menu next. Sam thought the choices were fine. Dellina asked a lot of questions and had some suggestions, which was why he’d hired her.

He liked her quiet efficiency and how she thought through the details. Now that he’d been spending time with her, he couldn’t figure out why he’d gotten so spooked that night. No normal woman kept that many wedding dresses in her house without a good reason. Even the crazy ones would only have a couple.

He should have stayed to ask, he thought. He should have taken a breath and figured out what was happening. Because then he wouldn’t have disappeared into the night and he and Dellina would have...

Would have what? he asked himself. Kept seeing each other? To what end? Hadn’t he been down that road enough?

* * *

“THIS IS GOING to be the best part of the party,” Dellina said as she and Sam headed back to town. “The kids are going to love the ranch. It will be a great time for them and their parents are going to appreciate that they not only had fun but are nice and tired.”

“Is that the voice of experience?” he asked, his voice teasing. “Your sisters were teenagers when you had to take care of them. Hardly an age where you want them tired.”

She laughed. “Okay, that’s true, although I’ll admit it was nice when they came home exhausted and simply went to bed. There was less worry.” She shook her head. “That’s not fair. Both Ana Raquel and Fayrene worked really hard to be responsible and not give me reason to worry. We’d all suffered a horrible loss and we pulled together.”

He lightly touched the back of her hand with his fingers. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“You didn’t.”

She leaned back in the comfortable leather seat. Sam’s Mercedes sure was nice, she thought idly. It was like him. Steady and dependable. There might be those who were more interested in something like a Ferrari, but she thought he and his car were just right.

“It’s not just my sisters,” she said. “It’s how the town pulled together for us. Like with Heidi. She grew up in the carnival.”

Sam glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the road. “Traveling around the country with a carnival?”

“That’s her. She said she always dreamed of a house that was attached to city plumbing and couldn’t be moved. She bought Castle Ranch and moved here with her grandfather. He fell in love, she fell in love, her husband’s brothers and sister fell in love. Now they all live here. It’s the town. Something happens when people settle here.”

She started to say more, then caught sight of Sam’s pinched expression. She chuckled.

“Go ahead,” she told him. “Resist. I can see you want to. But it won’t help.”

“We’ll see.”

“You’re saying it’s a little too perfect?”

“I’m saying you’ve idealized reality.”

“A cynic. We like that. It makes convincing you all the more satisfying.” She glanced down at her ever-present list. They were getting closer and closer to the event and she was starting to feel the pressure. In the next couple of days, she was going to have to start finalizing everything.

“We have to discuss goodie bags,” she told him. “I have samples at my place and I have to make the final orders. As it is, everything will be shipping overnight.”

“Say when and I’ll be there.”

Now that sounded nice, she thought, knowing what he meant and how she would like him to mean it. She was debating pushing at the limits of their business relationship just a little when her cell rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. “Fayrene,” she told Sam before pushing the talk button. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“There’s a fire at the storage center.” Fayrene’s voice was frantic. “It’s the rabbits.”

Dellina went cold. “No,” she breathed. “Where are you?”