Forever A Hero

“Same as usual,” Mace replied easily. “You?”

“I landed that full-ride scholarship I was after,” Cindy answered proudly, looking over one shoulder as she led the way to a window-side table. “I’m majoring in agriculture.” A pause. “Maybe you’ll give me a job at Mountain Winery after I graduate?”

Mace chuckled. “Maybe,” he said. “Depends on your grades.”

Kelly, he noted, was taking in the exchange with amused interest as she walked beside him, though she said nothing.

“My grades?” Cindy asked. “Mace Carson, you know darn well I’ve had a 4.0 average for the last four years.”

“That was high school,” Mace teased. “College is harder.”

Cindy was cheerfully scornful. “I can handle college,” she said, keeping her voice down as they wove between tables, each one occupied by locals or resort guests or some combination of the two. “And I’m serious about working at the winery after I get my degree.”

“Fine and dandy,” Mace said. “But graduation is a ways off, isn’t it? A lot of things could happen between now and then. You might decide working at a winery isn’t for you, once you’ve seen how many other options there are. And you’ll meet plenty of guys, too—a lot more than you have here in the old hometown. Suppose you run into Mr. Right, and he has plans that don’t mesh with yours?”

“No way that’s going to happen,” Cindy said with the unshakable optimism of a sheltered kid raised in a small town. “I’m coming back here after college and marrying Jimmy Trent.”

Jimmy Trent was Cindy’s high-school boyfriend; he was a couple of years older than she was, and he’d joined the air force on his eighteenth birthday. Last Mace had heard, he was in flight school. Once his enlistment was up, he hoped to work for one of the major airlines and, after he’d racked up enough hours, open a small charter operation.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mace saw Kelly smile again, although she still kept whatever she was thinking to herself. She didn’t know Jimmy was in the service and might be deployed to a war zone as soon as he finished his training.

“All I’m saying,” Mace persisted mildly, “is that things can change.”

Not surprisingly, Cindy wasn’t convinced. “Not for Jimmy and me,” she said. “We have goals and we know how to reach them. Plus, we’re meant to be.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mace said. And he meant it.

He should’ve realized his friend’s kid sister thought she and Jimmy had their future locked in; she was too young and, after her solid upbringing, too innocent to understand how tricky life could be.

Cindy rolled her eyes, smiling that sweet smile of hers. “You sound just like Mom and Dad and Mike,” she said. Mike was her brother, more than a dozen years her senior. Mike worked for Fish and Wildlife, and he and Mace went way back.

“Yes,” Mace agreed, sitting down. “And maybe you ought to listen to our advice.”

Fat chance. He’d been Cindy’s age once and, back then, he’d known everything there was to know, and then some.

Cindy handed Kelly a menu and gave one to Mace. “Next, you’re going to say Jimmy and I ought to let things unfold,” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm, “instead of mapping out our whole lives in advance, because we’re both going to have a lot of new experiences and meet a lot of new people.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Mace said with a grin and a shake of his head. Might as well change the subject, since he was getting nowhere with this kid. “What’s the special today?”

“Mushroom risotto with baked chicken breast,” Cindy answered, waiting. “Aren’t you going to warn me about fast-talking college boys with only one thing on their minds?”

Kelly’s eyes sparkled as she watched him over the top of her menu, and he could see she was trying not to laugh.

“Would it do any good?”

“It would be a waste of breath,” Cindy responded briskly. “I’m not interested in any guy but Jimmy.”

“Right,” Mace said with, he hoped, the appropriate note of cheerful skepticism.

Cindy’s smile didn’t falter, but then it rarely did. “You dated the same person all through college,” she said. “Her name was Sarah, wasn’t it? She came back to Mustang Creek with you a couple of times, during Christmas break.”

Mace stole a glance at Kelly and saw that she was leaning forward slightly, a tiny smile curving her mouth, one eyebrow raised.

“And look how well that turned out,” he said.

“Oh.” For once, Cindy was taken aback.

“Yes,” Mace said matter-of-factly. “Oh. Any chance of getting something to eat in the near future?”

Cindy had the grace to look embarrassed, but although her smile wobbled a little, it held. “Would you like a drink while you’re looking at the menu?” she asked, finally remembering, evidently, that she had a job to do.

Mace met Kelly’s gaze and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“We’ll definitely want wine,” Kelly said, speaking for the first time since they’d stepped up to the podium at the restaurant’s entrance. “Something with the Mountain Winery label, of course. In the meantime, I’ll have a glass of unsweetened iced tea, please, with lemon and lots of ice. Later, when we know what we’re having to eat, we’ll decide on the wine.”

“Coffee for me, thanks,” Mace added, relieved at the change of subject.

Cindy bustled away.

“What’s good here?” Kelly asked, studying the menu. “I love risotto, but I’m not in the mood.”

Mace grinned. “Everything is good,” he replied.

Kelly smiled. “That really narrows it down,” she said, meeting his eyes and then revisiting the choices listed. “The lobster salad sounds tasty.” A slight frown creased her otherwise smooth forehead. “Of course, we’re a long way from the ocean, so seafood might be risky.”

“Not here,” Mace said. “Stefano has his lobsters flown in from Maine, alive and kicking—so to speak.”

Kelly winced briefly, probably imagining the cooking process. “There really is a Stefano?” she asked. “It’s not just the name of the restaurant?”

“There is most definitely a Stefano. He’s a master chef and he happens to own this place.” He paused. “The restaurant, which is a five-star establishment, by the way. Not the resort.”

“And he wound up in Mustang Creek, Wyoming?” Kelly asked with a teasing note in her voice.

Mace leaned closer. “Yep,” he drawled, smiling. “Strange as it might appear, he prefers snowcapped mountains and wide-open spaces to concrete and skyscrapers.”

“I’m going with the lobster salad, then,” Kelly said. “What about you?”

“I’m a sucker for Stefano’s prime rib. It’s excellent.”

“Then we’ll order red wine and white,” she said. “You choose, since you’re the expert.”

Cindy returned with the iced tea and coffee. “I’ll bring over a basket of rolls in a minute or two,” she said, her smile as bright and genuine as ever. “One of the guys in the kitchen is taking a fresh batch out of the oven.”

“Yum,” Kelly said, the tip of her tongue slipping out to moisten her lips.

Mace shifted in his chair, cleared his throat. Just like that, he’d gone as hard as a railroad spike.

“Do you need more time?” Cindy asked. “Or shall I take your orders now?”

“May I?” Mace asked Kelly, glad the lower half of his body was hidden by the tabletop and its pristine white cloth.

Kelly nodded, almost shyly. “Please,” she said.

He ordered the lobster salad for Kelly, prime rib with all the trimmings for himself, along with glasses of his best cabernet and the award-winning pinot grigio he was so proud of. At his recommendation, both were among a group of popular house wines available by the glass as well as the bottle.

“Now,” he said, when Cindy had moved away, “let’s hear your proposal.”

Kelly looked alarmed for a moment, a reaction Mace enjoyed while it lasted. “Oh,” she said. “Yes.”

“Or,” Mace went on smoothly, before she had a chance to launch into whatever pitch she planned to make, “we could enjoy our lunch, get to know each other a little and talk business later. I’d like to show you the winery this afternoon, if you’re up to it. That way, you can experience the place firsthand.”

Kelly glanced down at her expensive, take-no-prisoners outfit with uncertainty. It was perfect for a boardroom, no argument there, but a working winery and acres of dusty vineyards? Not exactly.

“You’ll want to check out the grapes,” he added when she said nothing.

The hesitation was over. “I’d like that,” she said quietly.

Mace smiled, as pleased as if she’d agreed to go skinny-dipping in a sun-dappled creek. He let his gaze rest on the lace peeking from beneath her jacket, then looked quickly away. “You ought to swap out those clothes first, though. We’re talking behind the scenes here, not just the tasting room. Comfortable shoes will save you a few blisters, too.”

He fell silent. For a long interval, they simply stared at each other, something invisible and yet entirely real arcing between them.

Mace couldn’t have said what was going through Kelly’s mind, but he was picturing her upstairs in her room, with the shades drawn, slipping out of that perfectly fitted pantsuit, taking off the slacks, the jacket, the lace-trimmed top, slowly revealing her shapely legs and arms. He put the image in freeze-frame before she got to her bra and panties, which were probably skimpy enough to be sexy as hell, because his groin, already giving him trouble, had turned to granite.

At this rate, they’d be at their table for the rest of the day, just so he wouldn’t have to stand up and let Kelly see how much he wanted her. If it came to that, he decided, he’d “accidentally” spill a glass of ice water into his lap, or maybe a whole pitcherful.

He drew a series of deep breaths.

Kelly, still looking directly into his face, fiddled with her napkin.

Cindy broke the spell by delivering the promised bread basket and, soon after that, two glasses of wine.

Kelly’s hand trembled almost imperceptibly as she helped herself to a roll. “Still warm,” she said, somehow combining a sigh and a croon as she spoke. She split the bun between her fingers, and steam escaped, along with the familiar yeasty aroma. Then she reached for a butter knife.

It was such an ordinary, everyday thing to do, buttering a dinner roll, and yet there was an erotic element to her movements that struck Mace like a body blow, forcing him to look away. Again. Just as he recovered his equilibrium and turned to face her again, she took a bite.

“Mmm,” Kelly murmured, eyes closed. “Delicious.”

Barely suppressing a groan, Mace shut his eyes, too. Get a grip, Carson, he told himself.

“Is something wrong?” Kelly asked after a second or two, with a note of genuine concern. Clearly, she was unaware of the effect she was having on her potential business partner.

“I’m fine,” Mace said. The lie came out sounding hoarse, but if Kelly noticed, she didn’t let on.

“I love fresh bread,” she added with a blissful sigh.

Cindy returned, bringing Kelly’s lobster salad and his prime rib. Mace was relieved by the interruption, and although he’d lost his appetite somewhere along the line, he picked up his knife and fork.

Kelly smiled with a hint of sadness as she watched the girl walk away, resuming her duties. “I was like that once,” she said softly. An instant later, her expression made it obvious that she regretted the remark.

Mace forgot his own concerns as he studied Kelly’s face. “You were like what once?” he asked, reaching for his cabernet.

She lowered her eyes for a moment, raised them again. Their gazes connected.

The charge reminded him of the business end of a cattle prod.

Kelly’s spine was straight as she raised her shoulders on an indrawn breath and then looked down again. “Full of plans, I guess,” she answered reluctantly. “You know. Convinced that things would turn out the way I expected.”

Mace gave a slight, rueful smile. “I can relate,” he said.

She paused, a forkful of lobster salad halfway to her mouth. “You can?” She seemed surprised. “Are you telling me you’re disappointed in your life?”

Mace shook his head. “It’s not that. I love what I do. Love living on the ranch—it might sound corny, but the place is literally in my blood.” He paused, then went on. “There isn’t much I would change.”

“But there is...something?”

He sighed. He’d opened himself up to that question, he supposed. “I always figured I’d have a wife and kids by now,” he admitted.

She took that in, quietly chewing the food she’d just put in her mouth.

“What about you?” he asked. What dimmed your light, Kelly? Was it the attack, that night on campus? Or something that happened afterward? “You said you were ‘full of plans’ once.”

Kelly looked uncomfortable as she swallowed the bite of food, then took a sip from her wineglass. She smiled with an effort, a kind of fragility that tugged at Mace’s insides. “The usual things. Life in general, I guess.”

“Can you be more specific?” he asked.

She dodged his words neatly. “You wanted to be married, start a family?”

Mace smiled. “Nice try,” he said. “But the conversational ball is still in your court, isn’t it?”

Kelly sighed, put down her knife and fork. Pondered her reply. “I guess so,” she said, speaking so softly that Mace had to strain to hear. She went on, after more consideration. “Like I told you, I was married for a little while. My husband was a decent guy—he never cheated or anything like that. It was just that we wanted...different things, Alan and I.”

“Such as?”

“I wanted a few more years to build my career. Alan wanted children right away.”

“You didn’t want kids?”

“I did,” Kelly said. “But we were so young, just getting started. I thought we should wait until we were on solid financial ground, with a house and a bank account and everything.” She fixed her gaze on something beyond the window beside their table. “That was the agreement from the beginning,” she added. “I wasn’t asking Alan to wait forever, just until we were ready.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Mace told her.

Kelly nodded. Her eyes were somber, even a little misty. “I thought so,” she agreed, dropping her gaze to her salad. Picking up her knife and fork once more. When she looked at Mace again, she’d rustled up a flimsy smile. “Your turn.”

Mace ached for her, but he returned her smile. “Fair enough,” he said. “But there isn’t a whole lot to tell.”

“Sarah,” Kelly prompted gently. Thanks to Cindy, that much of his personal history was out in the open, anyway.

“Sarah,” he confirmed. “We dated in college.”

Kelly waited, saying nothing.

Mace had always kept his own counsel, especially where his love life was concerned, but for some reason, with this woman he hardly knew, he found himself talking.

“We were in some of the same classes, freshman year, and we just sort of gravitated toward each other as time went by. Maybe it was because we had some things in common—Sarah grew up on a farm, I was raised on a ranch—and I think we both felt a little out of our element at the beginning, a couple of country kids on a crowded campus in a major city, a long way from home.”

“Did you love her?”

Mace weighed his answer. “I thought so at the time,” he told her. “I was pretty torn up when she called it off, but looking back, I know she was right. I have two older brothers, and they’re both married to incredible women. Seeing Slater with Grace and Drake with Luce—short for Lucinda—completely happy, sharing everything and starting families... Well, that got me wondering if I’d ever actually known what real love was like.”

Kelly smiled a soft, sad smile. “My parents are crazy about each other,” she said. “I used to think every marriage was like theirs.”

Mace wanted to take Kelly’s hand, but something stopped him. “Mine were pretty tight, too, as I recall,” he told her. “But our dad died when my brothers and I were young, and our mother never remarried. She’s a great mom, and she certainly taught us to admire and respect women, but when it came to love between a man and a woman, we didn’t have a whole lot to go on.”

Kelly nodded and her eyes misted over, although she was quick to blink the moisture away. “Sorry,” she said.

Mace knew she’d run into some kind of emotional roadblock, and he wasn’t going to push her past it. After all, this was supposed to be a business meeting, if an informal one.

True, Kelly had been the one to get the conversational ball rolling, but she probably hadn’t expected things to get so heavy, so soon. It was time to lighten up, get outside, soak up some sunshine and breathe some fresh air.

He pushed his plate away. “I’m about finished here,” he said. “How about you?”

Kelly surveyed her half-eaten salad with a combination of relief and regret. “I’m definitely full.”

“In that case, why don’t you head on upstairs and change your clothes? I’ll sign the check and meet you in the lobby in a few minutes.”

Kelly’s eyes, tearful a minute before, glinted with a sort of mischievous triumph. “I’ve already taken care of it,” she said.

Mace laughed and spread his hands in good-natured surrender. “So much for my reputation as a macho cowboy,” he said. “By nightfall, everybody in Mustang Creek will know I let a woman pick up the lunch check. For all practical intents and purposes, I’m ruined.”

Kelly made a face, retrieving her handbag from the floor beside her chair. “Oh, well,” she teased. “I’m sure you’ll reestablish your alpha-male status in no time.”

Exactly what, Mace wondered, as he rose to pull back her chair, did that mean?

Had it been a gibe—or an invitation?

Most likely neither, he decided. He was doing that nuance thing again.

As he and Kelly walked toward the exit, and the lobby beyond, Cindy hurried to catch up.

“Was something wrong with the food?” she asked in an anxious whisper.

Mace waited for the ever-present smile to slip from Cindy’s face, but it didn’t.

“Everything was great,” Kelly said, quick to reassure her. “Really. I guess we just got too caught up in...talking business.”

Cindy seemed pleased. And reassured. Stefano, the chef‒restaurant owner, was notoriously sensitive about his creations, and when plates came back to his kitchen with leftovers on them, he tended to fret. In fact, he’d been known to confront retreating diners in the lobby or even the parking lot, offering free meals, wanting explanations.

Mace waited until they’d reached the lobby to call Kelly on the fib. “That was ‘talking business’?” he asked with a grin.

Kelly didn’t miss a beat. “No,” she admitted brightly. “But I did enjoy the wine.”

With that, she turned and made for the elevators.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MOMENT THE elevator doors closed, Kelly sighed, thankful to be the only passenger, and punched the button for her floor with a little more force than strictly necessary. Then she leaned back against the wall, her cheeks flaming, her heart beating too fast.

What or who had possessed her, back there in the restaurant?

She certainly hadn’t been herself, Kelly Wright, the ultimate professional, a top executive with one of the most innovative corporations in the country, if not the world, and on the fast track to a vice presidency.

She’d planned to get things back on course, dispel any impression Mace might have, after the accident, that she was weak, needy, perhaps even desperate for a big, strong man to protect little ol’ helpless Kelly from a dangerous world.

Instead, she’d behaved like a ninny, asking personal questions about girlfriends and parents, revealing the fault lines in her brief marriage and the resulting disappointment she’d hardly admitted to herself, let alone the owner of a winery meant for great things. If she’d blown this deal, Dina would kill her when she got back to LA, and she could flat out forget the promotion to VP of Sales.

Goodbye profit sharing. Farewell, stock options and private jets.

The doors opened, and Kelly stepped out of the elevator, rummaging in her purse for her key card, still mentally kicking herself. She’d hosted dozens of semicasual lunches in the course of her career, and she knew the drill—stay in charge of the situation, but smile a lot and encourage the standard harmless small talk. Listen to stories about golf tournaments, fishing trips, that recent vacation. Scroll through endless snapshots and videos on the other person’s smartphone. Remember every name mentioned—not only those of the significant other and any children they might have, but those of dogs, cats and parakeets, as well.

Today, she’d broken all her own rules. Or most of them, anyway.

How was she going to get this project back on track?

She had no idea.

Maybe Dina had a point, Kelly thought, when she’d suggested postponing the pitch until some later date. She could go back to LA, regroup, return to Mustang Creek in a few weeks or a month, and try again.

But whether her boss was right or wrong, Kelly knew it wasn’t in her to chicken out that way; she’d lose respect for herself if she waved the white flag, made excuses and beat a hasty retreat—and Mace would know exactly why she was running away.

She stopped in front of the door to her room, shoved the key card in the slot at a crooked angle, got the blinking red light that meant the lock was still engaged and withdrew the card in frustrated disgust.

After drawing a deep breath, holding it for a count of six, and letting it out slowly, she tried again. This time, the lock clicked, and she pushed open the door.

Inside, she kicked off her shoes, not caring where they landed.

“This is ridiculous,” she said aloud. “Get it together, Kelly. Now.”

Maybe she got it together and maybe she didn’t, but she found a pair of jeans and a pretty T-shirt, pink with white stripes, and laid them on the bed while she let her hair down and shook it out. Moving purposefully, she took off the pantsuit, hanging the jacket and slacks neatly in the closet, pulled on the jeans and T-shirt, then her socks and sneakers.

She was still nervous, which was not only unprofessional but silly...and yet she was excited, too. Not just because she was spending the afternoon with Mace, either. Her interest in the winemaking process, from growing and tending to the grapes to bottling, labeling and marketing the finished product, was genuine.

No matter how many vineyards she visited—and she’d visited plenty of them, from the sunny slopes of France and Italy to California, Arizona and central Washington State—she learned something new every time.

After giving her hair a quick brushing in front of the bathroom mirror and reapplying her lip gloss, Kelly placed a call to the valet desk and asked to have her rental car brought around to the front of the hotel.

And then she waited five minutes, so she wouldn’t seem too eager to meet up with Mace in the lobby.

It was sweet agony, that little sliver of time. Part of her wanted to crawl under the bed and refuse to come out until Mace gave up and left, while another part urged her to get back to him as fast as she could, taking the stairways between floors rather than waiting for an elevator.

Instead, she watched the minutes blink by on the bedside clock, but it wasn’t easy.

It was a huge relief to pick up her handbag, make sure her key card was inside, and leave her room. She walked sedately along the hallway toward the elevator, pushed the button and waited, glad there was no one around to see how hard she was working to stay calm.

Moments later the elevator arrived. There was a family inside, a husband, a wife, a girl of five or six and a boy no older than four. They were wearing swimsuits, the woman sporting a striped cover-up, as well, all clutching beach towels and smiling with anticipation.

“We’re going to the pool!” the little boy informed Kelly, practically jumping up and down in excitement. “I’m gonna swim!”