*Pepper was in her cabin, packing her suitcase for her upcoming camping ordeal.
“You’re doing a lot of throwing,” Marie observed. “Good job your jeans won’t crease.”
“I’m in a throwing mood.”
She’d insisted Jack drop her off at the cabin because she needed to be in town to sort out her cooking equipment for early tomorrow morning. He’d agreed, but had called in Marie to babysit!
“Something must have brought on the bad mood,” Marie said, folding a blouse with meticulous care.
“Apart from the tent? Nothing.” She slammed another tee into the suitcase followed by a cowgirl hat. Difficult to be in love with—how would he know!
“How long will he be at the ranch?” Marie asked. “I’ve a heap of things to do, and I need to check in with Aurora.”
“As long as it takes him to pick up the tent, and hopefully some decent humor.”
“A tent,” Marie said. “With Jack. Many women would scratch your eyes out for the chance.”
Pepper scowled. Truth was, she felt like she’d done something wrong and that was why he’d been so upset with her. It was like the sun had stopped throwing down warmth or the clouds were holding onto the rain instead of letting it go, creating soggy bags of despondency over her head. “He’s having a bad time. He’s practically lost his job. That cousin you mentioned has walked in and taken over while Jack’s back was turned.”
“How extraordinary that should happen so soon after we talked about him. You should pack something feminine,” Marie said, picking up a flimsy halter top.
“What for?”
“For yourself.”
“I’m going to be living in a tent!”
“With the swoon machine,” Marie said with an exasperated look in her eye. “I thought Aurora told you to be nice to him. If you’re not kind and considerate, you’ll never discover his secret desire.”
Pepper straightened. “How do you know it’s a desire?”
“Didn’t you tell me?”
“I only just discovered it for myself.”
Marie shrugged. “Well, I hope this little setback in your relationship doesn’t mean he won’t be accompanying you to my gala evening.”
“He will. He’ll stick to me like glue because Aurora said he had to—or he’ll call in reinforcements. He’ll be back any minute, waiting out there on the street, ready to strap me to his pickup on top of the tent.”
“I wonder if he’s in a throwing mood too.”
A tent! She hadn’t expected to have to actually live in one.
She grabbed more tees and flung them into her suitcase.
“Think of every problem as an opportunity,” Marie said, taking the tees out of the case and folding each one neatly. “You could practice being a wife. Offer to wash his socks—and don’t let him do all the cooking on the campfire.”
“Wash his socks?”
“Bake him some of those delicious gooey treats you enjoy making. The Shepperd men have a sweet tooth. How they’ve retained all that manly strength and muscle tone is beyond me. Must be their metabolisms.”
“Why are you dishing out wifely advice suddenly? You’ve never washed a man’s socks in your life, and neither would you. You’d make sure any man you were with could wash his own socks.” She paused. “How many men have you been with?”
“Thousands.”
“I don’t mean men you’ve flirted with and smiled at as you passed them on the street. I mean boyfriend types.”
“Oh, one or two, when I was younger.”
“Do you know who my father was?”
Marie dropped the T-shirts. “Good heavens, child, what’s come over you?”
“Jack asked me about him.”
“Why?”
It almost felt like a sin to have broken the unspoken pact about not mentioning their fathers but the discussion had stuck in her head. “He started the conversation the other night after we had dinner with Ralph. I’m wondering if it’s got something to do with his secret desire.”
Marie kept her shocked expression concentrated on Pepper, then smiled suddenly. It seemed to blossom from her. “Well, well. I wondered if I was right.”
“About what?”
“Let me have a little word in Ralph’s ear.”
“About what he really wants in his life? Would you?”
“I’d be delighted.”
“Jack and I think he’s seeing a woman.”
“What does Ralph say?”
“Nothing! He’s closemouthed about the whole thing. Do you think it could be one of Donaldson’s representatives, sneaking around and trying to force him into selling the ranch?”
“No.”
Well, that was decisive.
Marie went back to sorting clothes but the whole dilemma was still on Pepper’s mind.
“There’s got to be something connecting Ralph and the situation going on with Jack,” she continued, stuffing her underwear into a drawstring bag. “For a start, Ralph never married. He’s never been with anyone, as far as I know, so Jack might have picked up on the wrong signals regarding love and relationships. Which would make his desire all the more unobtainable, as far as he’s concerned. I get the feeling he’s not even making any moves to get to the bottom of things. I’m sure he could find what he wants, if he took that first step.”
“I think you’re right,” Marie said, sounding a little pleased with herself. “So, you definitely think his desire is to fall in love, get married, and start a family.”
Pepper hitched up her jeans. Once again, Marie had knowledgeable familiarity with something she shouldn’t know anything about. First of all, a secret desire and not a secret problem. Now his yearning to settle down with a family of his own.
“Have you got the gift?” she asked, the idea seeding itself instantly.
Marie’s laughter was a mix of tinkling joy and vivacious amusement. “Let’s get back to you and the tent situation,” she said. “I think you should take these silky boxer shorts and this delicious little tank. How about your pretty pink skirt?”
*
When they eventually got back to Daybreak Lodge, Jack had already pitched the tent and set up their homey outdoor living area. Two camp chairs. Flashlights and lanterns. Bottled water. Cooking pots and utensils. He’d built a fire pit for cooking and had logs to feed the fire.
“No wonder you took so long to come pick me up from town.” It must have taken him ages to get this organized.
He was hunched down, fiddling with his fire.
“It looks great.”
No answer.
“Okay, I’m sorry!” She put her hand on her heart. “Winona has excellent taste in men.”
A rare smile crossed his features as he poked and prodded at the flames in the fire pit.
She watched him for a while. Something about Jack’s problem was so much like an impending blowout on an oil well she was practically saturated with the near flammable content.
She dragged her suitcase into the tent. They hadn’t spoken on the drive from town or when they were unloading the pickup and she’d done a lot of thinking. If she kept imagining him unemployed, lonely, and growing old alone she could be nice to him. What did it matter what he thought about her being a difficult woman to be in love with? She hoped she was; it would put the prospective husband off. Not that the man had turned up, and she suspected he never would. The whole thing was total hogwash. Aurora was simply pushing Pepper’s buttons.
There were two bedrolls piled in the center of the reasonably spacious tent. She could stand up in it and there was enough space for Jack’s bed on one side, and hers on the other.
First, she got the beds in place, making them up with the sheets he’d brought. Next, she placed her suitcase in an upright position in the center of the space so it acted like a small dividing wall. Then she stacked the boxes with all her other belongings she and Jack had taken from the cabin until she’d built a partition.
“I hope you don’t snore,” she said as she came out of the tent twenty minutes later.
“Likewise.” He thrust a plate at her. “Steak. Sorry that’s all there is. I’ll get more supplies tomorrow.”
She produced the container she’d been holding behind her back. “Breakfast sticks and a mixed salad.” She’d made the sticks earlier so Mrs. Kenney would have something to eat tomorrow morning, but she’d packed a few for her and Jack. They were easy to whip up, just eggs, sausage, corn, some chopped tomato and herbs, baked in muffin cups. They were tasty hot or cold and kept well for a day.
“You cooked me dinner?” he asked, taking the lid off the container and staring at the contents as though he’d been presented with a bar of gold before lifting a stick out and biting off half of it. “Delicious,” he said after swallowing. “Thank you.”
“Don’t expect me to wash your socks.” She handed him a knife and fork, he passed the salt.
When she woke at four a.m. the next morning, she slapped off the alarm clock, sat up and shook her head to clear the sleepy fog.
It didn’t take long. She was used to rising before dawn after working at various bakeries or fancy cafés that catered to the corporate workers out for a jog before they donned their suits, grabbing breakfast on the go.
Funnily enough, she’d slept like a log. Probably mentally drained from all the organizing.
“Coffee’s on,” Jack said from outside.
He’d been particularly grouchy at lights out last night but he’d let her go into the tent first so she could get changed then asked permission to come in. By that point she was in bed, her back to him, eyes scrunched closed, muscles taut as she aimed for sleep instead of speculating how she, of all women, could end up in a tent with Jack Shepperd. Of all men.
She glanced at his bedroll. It was neatly made up. There were no socks or dirty jeans dropped on the floor either. But he was used to living out of a tent or snuggling up to a saddle, so she should have expected him to have his living arrangements ordered.
By four fifteen a.m. she was heading for Jack’s pickup, geared up for the long day ahead. It wasn’t until she was halfway there she realized Jack wasn’t following.
“What’s up?”
“I was thinking overnight.”
“Couldn’t you sleep?” For a second she had a horrendous thought she might snore after all.
“I’m going to buy Ralph out. That way, the ranch is safe.”
That put everything out of her mind, even the morning ahead, full of cooking and baking.
“He can stay on if he wants or leave if that’s his preference.”
“What’s your preference?” she asked.
“I don’t know. But I can’t let the ranch go. I guess I’ll have to lease it after all if Ralph does leave, but I don’t want to burden you with more than you already have. So if you want it, and if you think you can manage it all on your own, it’s yours.”
If he gave up the Shepperd ranch completely, whatever he was supposed to do in his life wasn’t going to happen, because she had the feeling if he left, he’d never come back and for some reason, she didn’t want that. She really must have gotten used to him being around.
“If you lease it, it’ll be gone for however long. Maybe years. It won’t be yours anymore, even if you leased it to me.”
“I know that, but what choice do I have?”
“Why don’t you lend it to me?”
That got his attention. “Lend?”
She walked over to him. “I know you want to leave the valley—”
“It’s not that I want to.”
So what was driving him away?
“If you lend it to me it means your home won’t change. It would still be yours. I’ll do whatever I can to get something up and running without changing a thing in the house. Not too much, anyway. And I’ll share the profits with you. Although it will have to be a bit dude ranch. But Ralph can stay on if that’s what he wants.”
“And I thought I’d been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Your mom’s memories are in that house, Jack. She doesn’t want you to leave.”
“How do you know that?”
“It came to me two seconds ago.” And she wasn’t about to dismiss it as a superfluous thought. If she was channeling Jack’s mom she’d allow it. This was her friend. By tolerating any dormant stuff that turned up for a few minutes, she might stop him from leaving altogether before things got better for him. Because something had to get better before he could move forward.
“Mom didn’t have a happy time in that house,” he said. “Not with my father.”
“She had you. You were her happy time. Her world. Don’t change it all. Keep it so you can look up all those memories again one day. If you ever feel the need to.”
“I had been thinking about my mom these last few days.”
“See? It’s like a call from beyond. I really am an ominous person to be around.”
He let out a reluctant laugh. “I’ll give it some thought.”
“Promise?”
He nodded. “Come on, we’d better get you into town before you predict hiring me for dude-style roping tricks.”
“Can you actually do those?” she asked, as visions of Jack in chaps and his Stetson came to the fore, in a dusty arena spinning a lasso above his head, whipping an audience of adoring women into a frenzy.
He didn’t answer, but she’d bet he could.
The town was dark and still with only a few night-lights on in some of the houses.
Pepper unlocked her cabin door and switched on the overhead light.
“This is me for the next four or five hours,” she said to Jack as he brought up the rear. “I won’t be going anywhere so you can relax on the protection.”
“What are you going to make with all this food?” Jack asked, opening a second fridge in the living area. She’d borrowed it from Walter, who’d had it sitting in his spare office for five years so it had needed a scrub down, but it worked, and she’d checked the temperature with a digital thermometer before putting her fresh foodstuffs into it.
“Thought I’d make everyday simple foods,” she told him. “Don’t want to frighten the inmates with too many fancified French-sounding dishes.” She paused, looking at all the bowls and utensils she’d set out yesterday, in exact order of need. “Bite-sized fried chicken pies with honey mustard or blue cheese dressing, warm tortillas with pulled pork and spring salsa, a fresh, minty, summer rice salad, and a cucumber and sugar snap salad. Plus breads and cheeses.” Sadly, she’d had to buy the bread as there wasn’t time to make it. They were being delivered from Amarillo. “And for desserts—fruit, cheese and herb skewers, ginger and lime marinated melon, and two hundred Rice Krispies bites.” She looked up. “I won’t have time to make my handmade chocolates.”
“Want any help?” He looked reluctant about asking but brave enough to do so.
“Want to whip up the spring salsa?”
He pushed out a laugh. “I wouldn’t know where to start, so I don’t think anyone would want to put my salsa on their burgers.”
“Oh! I forgot the patties. The Pepper Mackillop mini gourmet patty. I don’t make plain old burgers.”
He nodded, perhaps perplexed about whether she was joking.
She suppressed a smile. His humor didn’t kick in as early in the day as hers did. Or maybe he was feeling flummoxed due to having to make a decision about whether to lend her the ranch.
He glanced out the door. “There’s a light on at the Tack & Feed. I’ll go help Walter.”
“Good idea.”
She pulled off her jacket and rolled up her sleeves.
Time to get cooking.