Her Steeple Ridge Cowboys

Chapter 2-1

Missy worried her bottom lip between her teeth as she swept out the tack room in the main barn. What had she been thinking? Nudging Tucker like they were old pals? Teasing him like he was one of the cowboys she’d grown up with?

He decidedly wasn’t. He didn’t even own a cowboy hat, or cowboy boots, and the belt buckle on those khaki pants was much too small. A disgrace, really.

Her face heated as she remembered how she’d analyzed every line of his body, the way he filled out his shirt, the length in his legs, the shock of dark hair she wanted to touch.

She shook her head, finished her task in the main barn, and turned when someone called, “Missy!”

Wiping her hands on her jeans, Missy walked toward Jewel Murphy, who held a clipboard in her hand. “We’re done inside,” Jewel said. “I just need someone to walk through with me and sign off.” She smiled, and Missy was glad to see the friend she’d known since she’d moved to Island Park permanently. “Then we’ll be finished here.”

Tucker had left an hour ago, a fact Missy both liked and disliked. He’d bumbled around the farm while she showed him the office, talked about the summer camps, pulled out the folders of financial information. He hadn’t touched much, and he’d said even less. He was so far out of his league it wasn’t even funny, and a stab of longing to have Jamie back almost sent Missy to her knees.

“All right,” Missy said. “I guess I can do it.”

“Jamie said you could.” Jewel pulled open the back door and went inside the house, wisps of dark hair that had fallen out of her ponytail blowing around her face. “So, what do you think of the new owner?”

“He’s . . . fine.” The scent of antiseptic and lilac air freshener hit her full in the face as she entered the house. It didn’t smell anything the way it used to—like Jamie’s attempts at southwestern cooking—and Missy felt like her life was being erased, one piece at a time.

Jewel giggled, and Missy couldn’t help smiling too. “He sure is fine,” Jewel said, before pointing out what she and her crew had done in the kitchen, the front room, the bathroom, and the bedrooms on the main level.

With the inspection complete, Missy signed all the paperwork and handed it back to Jewel. “Thanks for coming,” she said.

Jewel drew her into a hug. “It was good to see you. You should come into town more often.”

Missy waved at the empty walls. “This place keeps me busy. And it’ll be insane for a while until Tucker figures out how to run the place.”

Jewel’s hazel eyes sparkled. “I heard you weren’t too busy to go out with Everett.”

Missy’s stomach flipped over. “That’s . . . we’re not going to do that again.”

Jewel c****d her head to the side. “No? Everett’s a good guy.”

Missy sighed. “Yeah, I know he is.” And he was. Hardworking. Faithful. Worked at an accounting firm in nearby Burlington, where Missy’s family lived. “We’re just not compatible.”

“You went out with him once.”

“Three times, actually,” Missy said, moving toward the front door. She couldn’t be contained behind these walls anymore. “I don’t know, Jewel. He’s just not my type.”

“Missy.” Jewel put her hand on Missy’s arm. “You are going to get married again, right?”

“I don’t know.” Missy’s insides swirled, and she cleared her throat. “What about you and Mitchell? Why haven’t you guys tied the knot yet?”

“Oh, I’m working on it.” Jewel laughed, the sound joyful and carefree, the way Jewel had always been. Missy envied her. Though they were several years apart in age, Jewel had ridden at Steeple Ridge in the first couple of years Missy had been an instructor. Jewel had attended Missy’s wedding to Kelton, been there when it ended, let her have her time to put things back together, and now was here pushing her to get dating again.

Missy had tried. Honest, she had. She’d gone out with half a dozen men over the past year, and none of them seemed like a good fit for her. She was beginning to wonder if she’d already used her chance at being a wife and mother.

“Going home after church this weekend?” Jewel asked.

“I always do,” Missy said.

“It’s supposed to snow all weekend.”

Missy frowned and then groaned. “I thought that was over.”

“Last big snowstorm of the season,” Jewel said. “That’s why I asked. You’ve been complaining about those tires on your truck for months.” Jewel hooked her arm through Missy’s as they walked toward Jewel’s car. “Come over to my place instead. I’ll make that wild rice soup you like, and we’ll talk about how you can get City Boy Jenkins to ask you out.”

A smile tugged at Missy’s mouth. “I’m not interested in him.” The little white lie slid easily from her lips, but warmth filled her as she remembered the way they’d stared at each other, the tether between them instant and charged. It had surprised her, and scared her, and she certainly wasn’t in a place to have her heart get stomped on again. “Besides, he’s my boss.”

“Boss with benefits.” Jewel’s eyebrows waggled, and she laughed. “But seriously, I worry about you driving up to Burlington in the snow.”

“I’ll check the weather. It’s still a few days away.”

Jewel got in her car. “Okay, see you at church then.”

Missy agreed and stuck her hands in her pockets as Jewel backed out onto the country lane that would lead her back to town. The farm sat five miles outside of Island Park, and Missy took a few last moments to enjoy the silence hanging in the air before she told Fritz to “load up,” got in her truck, and followed Jewel.

Just outside of town, Missy turned right and headed another half mile down the road. Her cottage was one of five on the outskirts of Island Park, and she loved the little community of neighbors here. She loved the wide open space. Loved her large yard, where Fritz could chase squirrels and rabbits. The way her backyard edged a wooded area that separated this row of homes from the ones facing the town.

She popped in a frozen pizza for dinner and took a few minutes to put together a green salad, her thoughts revolving through the past three years of her life. From the moment she’d decided to file for divorce from Kelton, everything had turned upside down.

“Not true,” she muttered as she cored a tomato. Her life had been shaken to its foundations the day she started dating Kelton Hamilton. She knew that now, though she didn’t until the day she’d married him.

After their honeymoon, Kelton had turned into a different person. Different than she’d known in high school. Different than the man who’d hung out on the farm with her, who’d rode through the woods with her, who’d doted on her throughout their courtship.

But after that, every hour she spent at the farm was one too many. Every time she didn’t have dinner waiting for him when he got home from work turned into a verbal attack that would take her weeks to erase from her mind. She began to adjust everything in her life, put things she liked on the back burner in favor of activities Kelton wanted to do. She’d started anticipating his mood before he got home, fixing everything she could to make him happy. But none of it seemed to help. Kelton was never happy, and eventually, Missy realized she could never make him happy.

She also realized she wasn’t happy, and she couldn’t imagine living the rest of her life with a man she didn’t even like anymore. So she’d filed for divorce, and if she hadn’t trained horses with one of Island Park’s police officers, she felt sure Kelton’s departure would’ve been much more violent.

He lived in Montpelier now, where his parents had moved, and Missy was glad she could go visit her family in Burlington without any chance of running into him. The restraining order against him was still in place, and she’d assumed all the debt he’d racked up in her name despite her efforts to talk to the credit card companies.

She’d gone to counseling in Burlington every week for a year before buying the cottage and making Island Park her permanent home. After she ate and with the TV on low, she fell asleep, happier than she’d ever been with Kelton, but still as lonely as ever.

The next morning, she used the public entrance to Steeple Ridge Farm and found Tucker’s hulking truck in the dirt parking lot. A flash of annoyance shot through her even as admiration drowned it. At least he was here, even if he had no idea what to do with himself, as evidenced by the fact that he was still sitting in his monstrous vehicle.

Missy got out and lifted her hand in a wave, surprised by how much she liked seeing him there. She’d been determined to dislike him, but she hadn’t counted on his rugged good looks or the charming smile he flashed as he leapt down from his truck.

“Morning.” He reached back into the cab of his truck and reappeared with two to-go mugs of coffee in his hands. “I didn’t know what you liked, but you looked like you’d at least like cream and sugar.” He extended one of the cups toward her before he realized she had one already.

She lifted it a couple of inches. “Caramel latte.” She grinned. “At least you went to The Bean. That’s the best place in town.”

“It’s the only place in town.” Tucker chuckled as he lifted his coffee to his lips.

“That’s not true. Harry makes coffee and so does the pancake house. And there’s the doughnut shop. They have coffee too.”

Tucker met her eyes, a gleam in his. “I like the simplicity of only one coffee shop.”

She squinted, trying to put the pieces of him together. Today, he wore a black leather jacket over a white collared shirt and charcoal slacks. His shoes were so shiny, the morning sun glinted off the toes.

“Where did you used to live?” she asked.

“New York City.”

She shouldn’t have felt surprise, but a vein of it still squirmed through her. “And you came to Island Park? Why?”

“I bought a horse farm here,” he said simply. “So.” He exhaled, the question-and-answer period obviously over. “What’s the first thing we do around here?” He scanned the farm before his gaze wandered back to hers.

“We feed the horses,” she said, stepping toward the front office. “We’ll have to do some paperwork after that, and this afternoon there are a couple of people coming for riding lessons. Then there are a few kids that take lessons after school.”

He blinked at her, his pale, city face seeming to get whiter by the moment. He coughed and took a large swig of coffee. “Can I shadow you?” he asked.

A sigh heaved through her, but she managed to keep it silent. “Sure. Which do you want to learn how to do first?”