Lasso Her Heart

“It’s pretty special,” Honey agreed. “Erika’s room is there.” She motioned down a short hall off the kitchen as she moved about the spacious cottage, igniting the gas fireplace, pulling drapes closed and checking the refrigerator to be sure it was stocked with beverages and fruit.

“Your room is here,” she said and led the way to a large bedroom where she opened the closet to reveal all of Bethany’s clothes. “Good,” she murmured as she turned back the duvet on the large cypress-framed bed.

“Good? It’s incredible,” Bethany said. “Who did all this work?”

“I sent my daughter, Reba, over to check on the luggage while you were eating. She must have put everything away.” Honey smiled the smile of a proud mother and continued the tour.

“Bathroom is here,” Honey indicated as she flicked on the light and visually checked to be sure everything was in place, “and in the morning you can breakfast on the porch off the living room. Best view on the ranch.”

“It’s all wonderful. Thank you so much, Honey. And please thank your daughter for me.”

Honey grinned. “Get some rest. Erika has been on pins and needles waiting for you to arrive so the two of you can start planning parties. To hear her tell it, you are a master at this and frankly, we’re all excited to see what surprises you come up with for Ian and his lady.”

“I’ll do my best,” Bethany promised as she walked Honey back to the door and waved good-night.

Alone after a day of crowds and unexpected schedule changes, she let out a breath of utter exhaustion. The fire flickered and the oversize bed beckoned. Who would have thought a ranch could be so luxurious? She couldn’t wait to call Grace and tell her that maybe things were going to work out after all.

“After all, it’s a few days and then back to Chicago. I can handle that,” she announced as she showered and changed into the nightgown Honey’s daughter had left out for her. “I can handle anything for a few days.” And for the first time in months, Bethany fell asleep looking forward to what a new day might bring.

Chapter Three

Unfortunately, the new day brought with it more than one unexpected problem. The first being the “best view on the ranch.”

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” Erika sang out gaily as she pulled open the drapes on the bedroom window, filling the room and Bethany’s bleary eyes with sunlight brighter than she had ever before experienced.

But it wasn’t the sunlight and Erika’s cheery greeting that brought Bethany crashing back to the reality of why she had dreaded the change in plans that brought her to Arizona. It was the sight outside the window.

A cloudless blue sky and bright sunlight undiffused by smog and pollution brought every detail of the view into sharp distinction. But the focus of that view was none other than a range of immense and—to Bethany’s eye—almost sinister mountains. They were closer than she might have imagined, had she considered it at all. She could actually see details—jagged cliffs and shadowy hollows that seemed to lead into nameless voids. Voids like the one just miles north of here where Nick had fallen and died. She stood staring out at the scene for a long moment, then ripped the drapes closed again.

“Too bright. Too early,” she explained when she turned and saw Erika’s puzzled look.

“Coffee,” Erika said. “That’s what you need.” She headed off to the kitchen and continued the conversation while Bethany dressed and made the bed.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Fine,” Bethany called as she mentally rehearsed the speech she knew she must deliver before this thing went any further. She dressed in jeans and a white cotton T-shirt enhanced with the turquoise necklace Erika had sent for her birthday.

“Out here, Bethie,” Erika called when Bethany headed for the kitchen. She followed the sound of her aunt’s voice out to a small screened porch.

The bistro table was set with woven placemats, contemporary free form plates and tall red-and-black mugs that coordinated with the placemats and the striped black-and-red cloth napkins. Erika looked up, a pitcher of what could only be fresh-squeezed orange juice in hand.

“You look wonderful, dear. I knew the necklace would be perfect.”

Bethany fingered the stones and smiled.

“Sit, sit,” Erika invited as she filled the mugs and then set a basket of pastries and a bowl of fruit on the table. “Not there. Here—where you can see the view.”

Bethany had deliberately taken the chair with its back to the mountains. “No, this is fine. I’m not used to the brightness. Too used to things being filtered through smog,” she added.

Erika’s expression sobered and she seemed to consider saying something and then rejected that idea. Instead she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and released it. “It is so wonderful to breathe truly fresh air, don’t you think? I mean you can practically feel yourself getting healthier, stronger.”

Actually, Bethany was thinking that absorbing the first cup of coffee intravenously might help clear her head. She was still fighting the unexpected twists of her journey and had not slept well, haunted by the usual dreams of Nick. She was going to need to be at her sharpest if she was going to find a kind way to tell her aunt that there was no way she could stay here.

“Auntie Erika,” she began as Erika filled their mugs. She ignored the food in favor of breathing in the aroma of the coffee.

“Uh-oh,” Erika said, helping herself to a sweet roll and a banana. “You never call me Auntie unless you want something.”

This was going to be a lot harder than Bethany had imagined. How self-centered was she that she couldn’t even let the woman have breakfast? She took a long swallow of the coffee and then smiled.

“I want you to tell me about this idea you have for not one but two engagement parties,” she said and reached for a cherry-filled muffin.

Three small muffins, a substantial bunch of grapes and two more cups of coffee later, Erika was still dictating a verbal list of events and details that would need Bethany’s expertise.

“Are you sure we can do all this in a few short months?”

“If anyone can, it’s you.” Erika glanced at her watch. “Speaking of which, the morning is speeding by. It happens here—you’ll see. Now that I’ve given you plenty to think about regarding the party in Chicago, how about driving into town with me? I have a hair appointment and some shopping to do. Cody can show you the sights, or perhaps that ought to be s-i-t-e-s, since you’ll need to familiarize yourself with venues for the party here in Arizona. Cody can fill you in on the best caterers and florists and such. He knows absolutely everyone in the area and, of course, they adore him. Cody is the nicest man—well, next to his father, of course.” Erika reached across the round table and took the last bit of muffin from Bethany’s plate and popped it into her mouth.

A car horn tooted in the background. “That’ll be Cody. Go tell him I said to keep his boots on. We’ll be there in a minute.”

Bethany saw no way to refuse this request. When the horn sounded again, Erika laughed. “Never keep a cowboy waiting,” she advised. “Especially not those named Dillard.” She shooed Bethany toward the front door as she busied herself clearing the table.

The man was even better looking in broad daylight than he’d been the night before. He was standing next to an oversize pickup truck and was just reaching inside the cab to give another blast of the horn when Bethany opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. “She’s coming.”

Cody grinned. He folded his arms across his chest and tapped one booted toe. He was wearing jeans and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled back, revealing tanned and definitely sinewy forearms.

“Not good enough,” he said. “I was promised the pleasure of squiring two good-looking women today.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Bethany replied and prepared to return to the house.

“Hey, Taft,” he called.

She glanced back at him.

“I brought you something.” He reached inside the cab and brought out a narrow-brimmed Stetson. He tossed it her way like a Frisbee with a flick of his wrist. The hat made a soft landing at her feet. “The desert sun can be brutal, and sunglasses aren’t always enough.”

Bethany bent and picked up the hat, surprised at its softness. “Thanks,” she said.

“Try it on,” he suggested, pushing himself away from the truck and making the short journey to the porch in less than half a dozen long strides.

She quickly perched the hat on her head. She had the oddest sensation that he might actually touch her and for reasons she could not fathom that was most unsettling. “It’s great. Thanks. I’ll get Erika,” she babbled.

He reached toward her and adjusted the hat to an angle. “There,” he said as he took half a step back to admire his handiwork. “Much better. I thought Erika said you knew something about fashion.” The grin mitigated any insult she might have heard.

“I do,” she replied with a sassy smile she hadn’t used in months. “For example, you might want to…how did you put it…rethink those boots.”

“Do you have any idea how long it takes to break in a decent pair of boots? These are just getting to the point of being ripe.”

“I’ll bet,” Bethany said, unable to stop herself from laughing at the potential for double meaning in terms of ripe.

“Erika!” he called. “Your niece is picking on me.”

Bethany could hear the rattle of china and a rush of water. Erika was just finishing the dishes.

“Some help I am,” Bethany said, rushing to dry the last plate.

“Nonsense,” Erika replied. “You’re our guest, isn’t she, Cody?”

Bethany wasn’t even aware that Cody had followed her inside.

“Yeah, we pretty much give you a free pass for the first day. Tomorrow now, you’ll be expected to be up at dawn and help with the chores.” This last was delivered in the same Western twang Ian had fallen into the night before.

No wonder Erika loves him, Bethany thought. Ian, she mentally corrected herself. “I’ll just get my sunglasses,” she said and hurried off to the bedroom.

Cody dropped Erika at the beauty salon and promised to return in two hours. “Two hours? It only takes me twenty minutes to get my hair done,” he teased.

“There’s more involved than hair,” Erika retorted and laughed when Cody held up his hands in surrender.

“I don’t want to know,” he said. “See you in two hours.”

On the ride into town Erika had insisted that Bethany sit in the middle. Erika wasn’t exactly being subtle in her attempts at matchmaking. Bethany couldn’t help but wonder if Cody had noticed. When Bethany had suggested that perhaps she should go to the salon with her aunt, Erika had declined.

“For what? You look as if you just stepped out of the pages of Vanity Fair.”

“We could talk some more about the wedding plans,” Bethany said and hoped the hint of hysteria that she heard in her voice wasn’t noticeable to Erika or Cody.

“Nope. Salon time is my time. You’re stuck with Cody, poor girl.”

After waving goodbye to Erika, Cody pulled back into the slow traffic. “Looks like you are indeed stuck with me,” he said, “but I applaud the effort you made to avoid that.”

“Not at all,” Bethany protested.

Cody glanced her way and lifted one eyebrow.

The man had a way of making her feel flustered and her response these days was to become more than a little defensive. “Well, don’t pretend like you were looking forward to spending your morning shepherding me around,” she said.

“No need to get snippy.”

“I am not getting ‘snippy’—I don’t even know what that means.”

Cody drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Look, the way I see it we have arrived at a point of having to figure out how to best fill two hours without annoying each other—something we seem to be getting good at doing. Then in two hours we need to be back here to meet Erika. It would be nice if we weren’t snapping at each other like a couple of ornery junkyard dogs.”

Bethany considered and rejected several retorts. The man had a point even if his choice for illustrating that point might have been more flattering. “Look, I expect you see as well as I do what Erika is trying to do,” she said.

“Erika is fabulous but subtlety is not her strong suit. She’s harmless, though, and you have to admit that romance is something near and dear to her heart right now.”

“Nevertheless, if you could just drop me at the nearest library or museum—whichever is closest—I can do some research.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to do?” he asked as he pulled into traffic.

“That is entirely up to you. I’m sure you have better things to do than chauffeur me around. Besides, I’d really rather not feed into Erika’s fantasy any further.”

Cody observed her for a long moment—long enough for her to feel uncomfortable—and then he asked, “Have you always been this uptight, or are you just nervous about taking on this wedding thing?”

It wasn’t a reprimand or sarcasm. It was more like idle curiosity. But what really set her off was the way he seemed to assume that she had always been uptight. If she cared about his opinion for one second, she would have him know that never in her life had she been described as uptight.

“Have you always been this rude?” she shot back and forestalled the answer he started to give. “It’s a rhetorical question. And fascinating as this little point-counterpoint discussion may be I have work to do so please—”

Bethany grabbed for the dashboard to brace herself in spite of the fact she was wearing her seat belt as he pulled across three lanes of traffic and up to a curb. He reached across her and pushed open the passenger door. “Museum—right up those steps,” he said. “I’ll be back for you in ninety minutes. I’d appreciate it if you’d be out front here.”

As soon as she was out of the truck, Cody pulled away.

“Of all the insufferable, arrogant, obnoxious, over-bearing—” She was going to run out of adjectives before she reached the top of the steps so she started over.

Dinner was a stilted affair consisting of Honey’s usual delicious fare interspersed with nervous chatter initiated by Erika to fill the silences that Ian seemed not to notice. Cody refused dessert and excused himself, citing the need to attend to some evening chores. That was only partially true. The thing he didn’t say was that being around Bethany was—well, unsettling was the only word that came to mind.

After their first meeting at the airport and the flight back to the ranch, he had been certain that he had her number. In spite of Erika’s tales of a girl who kept the family laughing and a little off balance, the woman was pretty stereotypical for her age group and background. Pressed to describe her the evening before, he would have said she was into the latest trends and fashions, no doubt a slave to shopping, and a woman who hid any insecurities behind either her cell phone or a carefully maintained pose of superiority. In fact there were times when she reminded him far too much of his ex-girlfriend, Cynthia.

The truth was he hadn’t liked Bethany very much on that first meeting. No, the truth was that he’d been disappointed—not selfishly, but for Erika and her fantasy of who her beloved niece was as an adult. Still, after gratefully turning her over to Erika, he had had second thoughts. He kept going back to that look in her eyes. He’d noticed it again earlier on the drive back to the ranch. Her eyes revealed a mind racing along at warp speed, constantly aware of all around her. It was almost as if she expected something unpleasant, and did not trust finding out that there was nothing to worry about.

Curiosity and his innate empathy for the pain of others—even when he really couldn’t define that pain—made him reassess his initial reaction to Bethany. Early that morning after bringing her to the ranch, he’d been eating breakfast in the kitchen, keeping Honey company as was his habit, when he’d decided that perhaps Bethany deserved a second chance.

“What are you looking for?” Honey asked as he rummaged through the catchall closet near the back door.

“Nothing,” he replied at the same moment he spotted exactly the item he’d remembered being there.

“That was your mother’s,” Honey commented when he emerged with a lady’s straw Stetson. She said nothing more, but her eyes locked on his as she continued to knead bread.

“I know. I just thought that maybe—I mean Erika’s niece didn’t know she was coming here—I mean she probably didn’t think about—”

“She’ll need a hat,” Honey said as she snapped open a damp tea towel and spread it over the bowl of dough.

“You think it’s okay then? I mean, I could pick one up when we go to town.”

“It’s already over eighty degrees out there,” Honey observed. “By the time you get to town…” She finished that observation with a shrug.

“Right,” Cody said more to himself than to Honey.

So the hat had been a peace offering, a way of starting over for both of them without stating the obvious, that they’d gotten off on the wrong foot. And it had worked—better than he might have imagined. Maybe Bethany had had some second thoughts, as well.

Either way, the trip into town had started off well. Wedding chatter between the two women, with Cody occasionally managing to get in a word or two, made it easy. But once they’d dropped Erika at the salon, things changed dramatically. The thing that annoyed him most was the way Bethany needed to control everything. To Cody that was a clear indication of someone seriously lacking in confidence.

So how was someone like that going to handle several major social events plus a high society wedding? How was she going to bring to the table all the tact and diplomacy that would be required? His dad didn’t need any hassles, and Erika deserved the wedding she’d been dreaming of all her life. In his eyes, Bethany Taft was not the person to carry that off.

After they’d picked Erika up from the salon and headed back to the ranch, Bethany had become subdued, even withdrawn. Her conversation had consisted of polite responses to Erika’s comments. As they got closer to the ranch, she fell completely silent, staring out the window. He’d also noticed the way she fingered the turquoise beads on her necklace, almost as if they were some sort of worry beads or rosary. She’d had that same tension the night before as he’d maneuvered to land the plane.

“You okay?” he’d asked when they reached the outlying gate proclaiming the entrance to Daybreak Ranch and Erika had gone to open it.

The smile had been as phony as it was the evening before. “Fine.”

At dinner, she seemed to be working overtime at playing the fascinated guest. She was quick. Cody would grant her that. She had apparently realized that the house was Ian’s pet subject and soon had him giving her the entire story behind Frank Lloyd Wright’s deconstruction-of-the-box approach to architecture.

“See,” Ian said with a sweep of his arm to include the sloped ceiling of the dining room that led the observer’s eye straight to the low glass walls surrounding them. “There are no corners—mitered glass makes corners disappear and the low placement of the windows brings the courtyard in. The outside becomes part of the space and the stone cantilevers not only form the mantel for the fireplace but give the building support without being obvious.”

“Brilliant,” Bethany agreed, then looked slightly panicked as she realized that the topic of the design of the house had probably gone as far as she could take it.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Cody had interjected, “I have some unfinished chores.”

His father frowned but said nothing. Erika was clearly surprised but, as usual, found a way to make it all seem like just what she had planned. “Of course, Cody. I’m sure Ian has calls to make and Bethany and I still have tons to discuss and plan.”

Bethany said nothing.

Outside Cody sought the refuge of the barn where the prized Thoroughbred racehorses the ranch was known for breeding were housed. He picked up a grooming brush from the pristine storage area beneath the display of trophies and ribbons and moved down the row of stalls. He stopped at the next to last stall and patted the high solid rump of Blackhawk, a black Arabian stallion.

Blackhawk snorted a greeting and stamped one back hoof. He stepped to one side as if making room for Cody in the narrow stall. Cody began the rhythmic grooming routine, ignoring the fact that not a hair was out of place on the massive animal. Blackhawk let out a breath that warmed the cramped space, then shifted restlessly.

“Easy, big guy,” Cody murmured, stroking the horse’s neck. “Just stopped by for a little company. We’ll ride tomorrow.”

He considered his father’s suggestion that he take Bethany for a tour of the ranch. Ian rarely asked him for anything. Ever since Ty and their mother had died, it was as if Ian was constantly afraid that he might lose Cody, too. In the old days he and Ian had enjoyed debating each other on controversial topics such as religion and politics. No more. These days Ian would occasionally let slip a look of disapproval as he had at the dinner table when Cody rose to leave, but he would say nothing.

Sometimes Cody wanted to shout at his father. “I don’t have cancer and Ty didn’t die of a heart attack or because you said the wrong thing to him. He died because he got buried in snow and couldn’t dig his way out. He died because I wasn’t there to dig him out.”

But this last was never uttered—not to his father, not to anyone he knew, not even to God. It was just there, deep inside, the drumbeat that accompanied him everywhere he went.

He forced his thoughts back to Bethany. If he did take her out to show her the ranch, then maybe the best idea would be using one of the ranch’s off-road vehicles.

“I can’t imagine she rides,” he mumbled.

Blackhawk snorted.

Cody stroked the horse’s mane. “There’s something about the ranch that seems to set her off.”

Having said it, Cody realized it was true. For somebody like her, all city sophistication and highbrow clothes, maybe the setting was just a little too rustic. Some women were like that. Cynthia had only pretended she loved everything that he did about the place. The majesty of the setting. The peace and quiet. The distance from the woes and tribulations of life in the city. The sense of being a part of God’s world rather than trying to fit God into the human world.

No, Bethany didn’t strike him as a nature lover. She’d thought she was packing for Chicago with all its theaters, art galleries and shops. Now that he thought about it, she had really seemed to come alive the closer they got to Phoenix. It was on the way back that she’d gone silent with every mile they traveled across the desert and into the foothills, leaving civilization in the dust.

Blackhawk shifted and gave an indignant whinny as if reading his thoughts.

“You think maybe we could change her mind, Hawk?”

The horse flung his massive head from side to side. Cody laughed. “Yeah, go ahead and pretend you understand what I’m thinking. I’m not buying it.”

“Do you always talk to the horses?”

Cody dropped the brush as Blackhawk repositioned himself for a view of the intruder. Bethany took an involuntary step back.

“I didn’t hear you come in,” Cody said, retrieving the brush and moving out of the stall to stand next to her.

She pointed to Blackhawk. “Is that your horse?”

Cody nodded, trying to gauge her mood. “Do you ride?”

She smiled. “I have ridden—as a little girl. My uncle had a farm in Virginia. But it was a pony. Nothing like this guy.”

“Horses come in other sizes,” Cody said. “In fact,” he continued, “I was thinking we might go for a ride tomorrow.” No, you were thinking about NOT going for a ride.

“Really?” In the shadows cast by the low work lighting it was hard to read her expression, but her voice registered doubt.