As he dried off his peach-fuzz head, Hooper Martin caught sight of his brothers down below at the corral and clenched his teeth. He should be outside helping them mount up the visitors who wanted a trail ride. The last few months he’d missed out on so much. Hearts Crossing’s city-slicker wagon train rides. Bringing the herd in from summer pasture. The October market. Well, just about every aspect of everyday life including his little girl’s first day of school.
Jaw tight, he leaned on the sill of the window of the workout room that had once been his childhood bedroom. A gander at the mountains and hills wrapping around Hearts Crossing Ranch soothed him, and like a swooping hawk, his favorite psalm flew into his mind. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. In spite of everything, he had so much to be thankful for. His Wranglers hung better on his bones than just last week, and his hair had grown out just enough to look cool. He had to grin, but another unhappy thought swamped him. What woman would want him now?
Determined not to be a grump, he wiped off the exercise bike, pulled on his boots, and clomped downstairs to the large dining room and its tantalizing buffet. Ma was changing out late breakfast dishes for barbeque. This way guests could eat lunch and go as they pleased. Sit-down meals were rare at Hearts Crossing.
Delicious aromas started his mouth watering. Something he was getting used to after those weeks of raw throat and tongue. Chemo didn’t differentiate between healthy and malignant when it set out to kill quick-growing cancer cells. Those days of feeling as though he’d swallowed razor blades still had the power to take his breath away. For a second, those memories killed his appetite. He tried to shake them off as Ma looked up from pouring sweet tea into Mason jars.
“Morning, son. Workout go OK?”
He’d finished forty-five minutes on the bike, but flatland only, level four. Not the level ten hills-and-valleys setting he used to be able to tackle. At least the cycle was kind to feet racked with peripheral neuropathy. He blew out a harsh breath, not accustomed to the hills and valleys of his mood since his diagnosis. “Yep.” He bent to smooch her cheek. “Getting better every day. Might just be time to saddle up Alamo. I can get a ride in before I get Ella at kindergarten.”
As she stiffened, he held up a warning hand. No need to let her start nagging that he wasn’t ready to ride yet. “I got to at least try, Ma.”
“All righty. I suppose you must.” She frowned as though he was going against her sound advice. “Thanks for getting that lug of potatoes this morning.”
He shrugged. “No problem. Had to get Ella to school anyway.”
“Well, you have to eat.” His mother stood firm. “Right now you got a choice of breakfast or dinner.”
“Ummmm. Breakfast.” He gave her an enthusiastic grin.
Like he was a helpless child, she dished up two plates, one for each of them and shoved at his shoulder until he sat down. After dumping on a half-cup of salsa, she lifted up a forkful for herself.
“We’ll have a full house tonight,” she said with a change of subject. Some thirty or more folks had settled in at Hearts Crossing for his brother Kenn’s wedding. “Rehearsal dinner tonight’s almost as many guests as the wedding. Did I tell you? The guest bunkhouse is full. The Ricochet Motel in town is sold out, as is the Gingham Grove Bed and Breakfast Inn. Wedding guests all. Mountain Cove hasn’t had this much business in years.” She raised her eyebrows. “Bet they wish all my sons were getting married.”
Heat rising, he ignored her. After all, he’d done it once. Lynn hadn’t wanted to stick around when he was a healthy man. And she’d never been there for Ella. A pain he didn’t like to feel rumbled through him. What would happen to his little girl if the chemo didn’t take?
“Bragg and Scott are moving into the bunkhouse with the hands for a few days,” Ma shoved away worries about the future, “so our west wing is free.”
Sounded so presidential Hoop’s mood lifted, and he burst out laughing. “The Prez and First Lady?” he asked.
At first, her face crumpled. Then she caught his joke. “No. I’ve got a Mr. and Mrs. Cameron in the Belle’s Starry Night Suite. Brian and Malia. Two of Christy’s sorority sisters have the Huckleberry Holliday room.”
“Otherwise known as Pike’s room.” Hoop snorted. Pike had recently set up his own house on twenty acres Pa had left him. With him and Daisy getting ready to marry in December, Ma—and the local innkeepers—must be mighty glad about the next batch of guests and plans. Hooper felt a little twist of envy, but Ma smiled so bright he couldn’t help a warm swoosh of affection. Her recent redecorating project had helped him get through a particularly noxious bout of chemo when she’d made him brainstorm names for rooms with her, even pick paint swatches. He grinned back.
However, Belle’s Starry Night wasn’t exactly a suite. His shoulders shook now. Pa had plumbed a toilet and miniature sink inside a coffin-sized closet for his sister Rachel when she turned thirteen to give her five brothers a break and Rachel her own privacy. No grown man could even shut the door of the fool thing over his knees if he was, well, sitting down.
Ma’s voice turned serious, too serious. “Sorority sisters just stopped by for lunch before their ride. Those bridesmaids’ gowns I made ’em fit like dreams. Awful pretty girls.”
Sensing matchmaking was afoot, Hooper ground his teeth. Even his brothers had yapped about beautiful bridesmaids. But when Ma put her large, warm hand on his arm, his heart melted. She’d been his rock many times, and in spite of her meddling, he knew she meant well. Still…
“Ma, this is Kenn and Christy’s wedding,” he warned. “Not some romance movie.”
“Hooper, you said it yourself, before you got sick. Lynn’s out of the picture. You’re ready to date again.”
Heat scorched his cheeks. He might have mentioned such to his sisters and brothers, but he’d never gossiped about it to his ma. Which of those turncoats had ratted him out? He wrapped his fingers tight around a cup of coffee. Deadened finger tips could hardly feel the warmth. Maybe someday the numbness would wear off. Maybe not. “That was before.”
“Before what?” For a second, her plump face wrinkled like a dried apple.
He huffed. “Ma, don’t you get it? No girl would want me now.”
“What are you saying?” Her fork stopped in mid-air. “You’re handsome as ever.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
She stared at him. “Aha. I see. You lost one testicle, but the other one is fine. Lance Armstrong and Scott Hamilton, why, they’re healthy and fathers. The doctor says…”
“He doesn’t know for certain,” Hooper hissed, hating the sound. “What if things don’t work right?” His heart panged. Most of the guys on his online support group didn’t seem to have problems, but Hoop wouldn’t know for sure until his wedding night. And that wasn’t the kind of worry a guy confessed to his mother. “I just don’t think I could let a girl I care about take a chance with me.”
Ma nodded, firm. “If she loves you, it won’t matter.”
“Well, it matters to me.” He ground out the words.
“You need to put all this in the Lord’s hands.”
“That’s always your answer, Ma.”
“As it should be.”
Hooper sniffed. Of course it should. He was a man of faith himself, and a real good father, but wouldn’t the Lord rather Ella have a mother in her life? Especially if, well, if she did end up losing her daddy? Because she might. For years yet, he’d require regularly-scheduled CT scans and blood work. So why make marriage impossible?
Which it was, in his mind, after a diagnosis of testicular cancer. What woman would take a chance on things that might not work right? On the possibility of caretaking an invalid down the road? No matter he’d gotten a hopeful prognosis and potential cure. Once the ugly thing comes to live with you, cancer never truly ever leaves your head.
“Ella’s a beautiful little girl, Hooper. Any woman would be proud to be her mother.”
“I don’t doubt you for a second, Ma. It’s just that women don’t marry little girls.” He heard the darkness in his own voice and rushed on, so Ma couldn’t stick her nose in further. It was time to rally up some faith. Fresh air always helped. “Now, this all tastes mighty fine, but I need time to get a ride in before I pick up Ella at school.”
He didn’t know how well he’d do in the saddle yet. It wasn’t so much leftover surgical discomfort, but the weakness that still hung on and on. Still, the feel of Alamo under him always had helped things along before he’d gotten sick. He waited for Ma to chide him for being reckless. Instead, she just pulled a list from her pocket and began checking it twice. He couldn’t help smiling at her. What was it with women and weddings? Planning the wedding along with Christy’s mother had formed a strong friendship between the two women and had given Ma both something to look forward to as well as another shoulder to lean on during her role as Hoop’s caretaker.
All this…his heart ached for a sec…after her being Pa’s rock during the pancreatic cancer some years back that had taken his earthly life.
After a loud sigh, he chugged the coffee, kissed Ma’s cheek, and headed out, reminding himself of the chant that had gotten him through. Each day is a gift from God.
“That’s why they call it the ‘present.’” He said out loud and then hurried out of the room so Ma didn’t think he was starting up a new conversation, grabbing his gray beanie and gloves on the way. ’Course he’d rather wear his Stetson, but the temperature had been chilly of late, and wool felt better against that peachy-keen head of his when breezes blew off the mountains. As he heaved himself out the big front door, Hooper stumbled against a suitcase on the porch and smacked forward into the arms of a female so tall his chin brushed her nose. He was tall himself, so that didn’t happen too often. Besides, she was holding him up.
“So sorry, ma’am,” he muttered, heat rising. “Please excuse me.”
“It’s all right. I like a man with a mission.”
Righting himself, he looked at her, breath tightening in his throat. Beautiful was the only word he needed. Short blond curls tight against her skull, raspberry lipstick he had a sudden ache to taste, dark blue eyes bright with life. For a second, he couldn’t talk. A citrusy scent tickled his nose.
Still holding him, she leaned back and peered as if she saw something he didn’t know about. “Hooper?”
The fact this gorgeous woman remembered him from somewhere couldn’t help but flatter him. His belly fluttered. “Yep. How, who?”
“I’d know you anywhere.”
He narrowed his eyes which only brought her into clearer focus as she continued. “A bit of a haunted look. Like your eyes are too bright, too hot. Tight somehow.”
“What do you mean?” Without any effort at all, he found himself visualizing her words as she stepped back. He saw it every time he looked in the mirror.
“What do you mean?” He repeated, a funny trill skimming his spine.
“Kenn told me. You’re a survivor.”
Shock all but swamped him. “Kenn?” He ground out the name while doing his best to hold on to his manners. His brother had betrayed him? Eyes troubled, the woman extended her hand as if she wanted to shake his, and out of habit, he clasped her fingers to be polite. But anger pounded through his veins, and he pulled away quick. What on earth was Kenn doing, babbling his condition to, well, to anybody?
Worse, this woman didn’t know him at all. They hadn’t met before. He hadn’t left an impression. As for her eyes, well, he’d seen that look before. She felt sorry for him. That was all. Nothing but sympathy from this beautiful, perfect stranger, for a guy who’d lost half of the family jewels. Without another word, he lifted her bag and nodded at the big front door. After he handed her over to his ma, he’d take off to find his brother and have it out. Today Kenn would be happily looking forward to his wedding day, his beautiful bride, and a future full of kids and marital love. Likely a bit of jealousy mixed in with Hoop’s anger, but whatever it was, Kenn had no right to spill Hooper’s personal beans.
****
As Hooper Martin’s face tensed, and his eyebrows raised, Mallie Cameron all but bit off her tongue. She’d done it again, flapped her lips without thinking. Despite the morning chill, heat glazed her skin, both from her abashment and also his devastating good looks. David Beckham handsome with his shorn hair, he was still lean from his ordeal, his eyes shadowed, but in her mind, he was definitely no invalid, tall and broad shouldered enough to stir up her heart. Jeans that fit all the right places just right, boots that shouted out cowboy. All he needed was a Stetson, but no, he didn’t. Her pulse jumped. He was perfect the way he was.
Moving back from him a little, she planted her boots firmly on the sturdy wooden porch, and tried to settle herself. The brand-spanking new pink-spattered brown Ariats weren’t broken in yet and pinched her feet a tad, but no way would she come to Colorado without boots.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so…abrupt.” She held back the powerful urge to bend down, to fuss with the luggage rather than face him, but she forced herself to look straight and deep into his auburn-brown eyes. Her brother Brian’s college roommate, Kenn Martin, had told her of his brother’s cancer struggle last summer, but certainly it wasn’t something Hooper would broadcast to strangers.
“It’s all right.” He opened the big front door of the ranch house. “Come on in. My mother will show you to your room.”
His body language screamed loud and clear. He wanted to get away from her.
Fast.
Her heart sank. What a first impression she’d made! For sixteen months, she’d promised not to allow herself to fall for anybody, ever. Certainly not a tall, broad-shouldered cowboy. However, there wasn’t any reason she couldn’t have had a casual wedding flirtation with a good-looking man. Except she’d blown that possibility from the get-go.
Or had she? As soon as an imposing but attractive older woman swooped upon them, Hooper muttered, “I’ll get the bag later, Ma,” and dashed out the door. Then and there Mallie decided to follow him.
“I’m Elaine Martin.” Her big hand landed on Mallie’s shoulder. “Welcome. Now let’s…”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Martin, but I have something else to say to…your son. Could I catch you in a few minutes?”
Elaine Martin’s eyes brightened, and in a better mood, Mallie might have smiled at the glint of matchmaking she saw. If Mrs. Martin only knew.
“All righty then. Better hurry. Hoop’ll be saddling up for a trail ride in a heartbeat.”
Outside, the fresh, cold air eased the heat of her embarrassment. Somehow she had to find Hooper and make things right. Kenn wasn’t a tattle-tale if that’s what Hooper was thinking. The remark had slipped out when, well, when her brother had mentioned her own struggle upon introducing her. Shaking her head, Mallie remembered she wasn’t even supposed to be here. She’d come as her brother’s plus one after his girlfriend dumped him.
Could that mean….hmmm. That meeting Hooper Martin was meant to be? Two survivors. Her spirits lightened. Or not. She remembered her promise to herself. Then again, a little temporary flirting with a handsome guy never hurt a girl’s ego. She knew he was single, too. When she caught sight of Hooper hustling toward the barn, she stepped up her pace, but the hammering of her heart had nothing to do with the speed of her boots on the hard-packed ground.
And had everything to do with Hooper Martin.
“Hooper!” Ahead under the gate, she caught sight of her brother laughing and gesturing wildly as he and Kenn rode off on two good-looking horses. Because the college roommates hadn’t seen each other in years and Brian wasn’t much for texting or Facebook, she figured they had a lot of catch-up to do. But she needed to waylay Hooper before he rode off to take his brother to task.
“Hooper?”
When he turned, her pulse raced. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. I need to tell you something.” At least he met her halfway at a hitching post, his strikingly shadowed face now set with interest rather than anger. “I didn’t mean to…I mean, Kenn wasn’t gossiping about you. If that’s what you’re thinking. And...” She peeked up at him through her lashes. “And if that’s where you’re going.”
His cheekbones turned a dark red. “Well, I don’t much like him letting loose stuff he has no business letting loose.”
“I completely understand. Brian’s the same.”
“Brian? Sorry, but who are you?”
“Oh, Malia Cameron. Call me Mallie.”
Something like unhappiness rolled across his face. Manners dictated a real handshake about now, but his expression confused her, so she kept her fingers firmly in her pocket. She rushed on. “Brian thought Kenn needed to know. The only reason Kenn told him about you was, well, because of me.”
“Because of you? I sure don’t understand. And I don’t see how that lets my brother off the hook.” His color deepened, and she figured she understood that a little. Lance Armstrong had made testicular cancer a household term, but it was rather a personal part of the anatomy, and cancer itself was nothing patients shouted from the rooftops. She had to led Hooper know they were kindred spirits, and that’s why their brothers had shared.
“I’m a cancer survivor, too.” Saying the words usually winded her, but not today. Maybe because Hooper finally held out a hand as he sagged against the post, shock widening his eyes. She grasped his fingers and for a flash, held tight, drawing strength and tingles both before he took his hand back.
“Whoa. Didn’t see that coming.” He breathed out the words, his eyes never leaving hers.
Unflinching, she gazed back and moved to lean against the post next to him. “Yeah. About sixteen months ago, I had a seizure at work and voila, they discovered something called GBM. Short for glioblastoma multiform. Brain tumor.”
They were close enough that she could feel Hooper tense and watch him grimace. As for her, saying the words no longer emptied her lungs. It had become life as she now lived it day to day.
“Of course,” she rushed on, “Of course Brian was with me the whole way, but he’s a pretty private person. He doesn’t like talking about it.”
“Must be nice.” Hooper seemed to relax a tad and tossed her a half-grin. “Around here, with Kenn and six other brothers and sisters and, well, my ma. Try to imagine.”
Although Mallie had known Elaine Martin about fifteen seconds, she did imagine and burst out laughing.
Hooper turned serious right away, but his eyes moved up and down in a most polite way, and she read approval in his expression. “You, well, you look great. How are you doing now?”
“After surgery, chemo, radiation and seizure meds, I am stable and loving it. I can roll my own suitcase and everything.” This was not the time or place to let him know statistics had proven she’d almost certainly be going through it all again sometime down the road. And that there was no cure. In fact, Hearts Crossing would never be the time or place. This was a weekend flirtation is all, nothing major. Nothing long term. No soul-baring secrets.
“And how’s your husband doing?”
“My husband? What do you mean?” The absurd question all but stopped the wind dashing across her face.
“I mean, it’s a tough thing for loved ones to go through, too.”
“I know, but… I don’t have a husband.”
Hoop’s eyes widened again. “Ma’s got the Belle’s Starry Night suite readied up for ‘Mr. and Mrs. Brian and Malia Cameron.’”
“Eeeeeeeew.” Laughter burbled up from deep down inside. “Somebody sure got that reservation wrong. Brian’s my brother!” As she shook her head, hope churned. Had his thinking she was married been the reason for his disappointed look a minute ago? “I am completely unattached!”
There. Out in the open. As Hooper expelled what she heard as a sigh of relief, her dreams went wild.
“Ma’s gonna freak.” He shook his head, grinning to show a set of fine, white teeth. “But then, she has been some kind of wiggy with all the planning.
“You must know my brother. He’s a groomsman. Kenn’s college roommate?”
Hoop’s forehead crisscrossed like a roadmap. “Brash? Never met the dude, but I sure heard about their shenanigans.”
“I for one have never wanted to know how he came across that moniker,” She wrinkled her nose with a shudder. “Or about any of their shenanigans. He totally goes by Brian now and is completely respectable.” Against the post, their shoulders joggled together in a shared laugh that felt good and real. “I’m actually here as his plus-one.”
That delicious scrunched forehead again. “Plus what?”
“Plus one. You know. His date. His girlfriend dumped him not long ago.” She let go her best cowgirl drawl. “Can’t say I blame her. He got real good at stringing her along. So when he asked me to be his plus-one at the weddin’, I jumped at the chance. Felt a tad sorry for the dude, but mostly,” she returned to her normal tone and cadence. “Mostly I haven’t been in this neck of the woods for quite some time.”
“Quite some time? You been to Mountain Cove before? I think Brash was, but I was off at grad school.”
“No. Not here.” The hitching post hard against her bones, she stretched, sliding her Ariats in the dust to disguise their brand-spankin’ newness. “Our great-aunt and uncle had a little place outside Rustic Canyon. Brian and I spent a ton of summers at the Last Chance when we were kids. That’s how Brian got the burr under his saddle to go to university in Boulder.” Suddenly the warmth of those memories and the energy of busy days cuddled her. Ah, to be a carefree child again. After the wedding, she’d be going to check on the elderly couple and spend a few days.
“So you’ve got a bit of ranchin’ in your blood.” Hoop spoke slow in his own sort of drawl, and his lips forming each word sent delectable tingles climbing up and down her spine.
“Yep. I might be an L.A. girl, but there’s nothing about the cowboy life I don’t like.”
Then he looked at her straight on again. “You know how to ride?”
“There’s no keeping me off a horse while I’m here.”
His face brightened as he stood up from the hitching post. “Wanna go then? Now?”
Mallie’s spirits soared. “I thought you’d never ask, cowboy.”
“All righty. I got horse with your name on it. Great little gal called Crazy Horse.”
“Uh, she sounds swell,” Mallie tried to inject irony into her voice.
“Aw, her name?” Hoop’s face turned shy and adorable. “Kenn teaches American Lit, does a unit on the great chiefs. He named her. And you’re gonna love her.” The smile Hooper bestowed on her now had her heart pittering like a keyboard full of fingers. “Unless you’re hungry. Ma’s got barbeque and breakfast fixin’s set up in the dining room.”
While her stomach rumbled at the possibility, Hooper’s smile was too inviting to make time for food. She shook her head. “No. I’m OK. I’d like nothing more than to saddle up.”
“Should the need arise, there’s food out at any given moment. We’ll all probably gain ten pounds.”
“Oh, goody.”
“My sister Kelley’s a chef, too, but Ma’s really in her element these days.”
“Brian’s told me some tales. I can’t wait to get to know her.”
Hooper guffawed. “Ma? Yeah, you can.” He checked his watch. “We got time for a short one. How long since you rode?”
“Years. I’m a city girl.” She sighed. “Uncle Teddy and Aunt Jeanette retired some time ago and sold the Last Chance. Now they run a flower shop in Promise. That’s around here, right?” Hoop nodded. “They wanted to use the same name, but we reckoned it was too funereal.”
The last word slipped out, unintended. Or maybe a subtle reminder to caution herself against giving her heart. Well, she wasn’t going to do that. It was just a weekend. Anyway, Hooper didn’t flinch or anything.
“I’ve seen their little shop, truth is.” He moved forward. “Well, let’s get going. We can get a nice tenderfoot trail ride in before I pick up Ella.”
Ella? Brian hadn’t mentioned this name.
“Ella?”
“My daughter,” Hooper said both shy and proud. “Doing magna cum laude work in kindergarten.”
A daughter? Her face must have shown something because he shot in quickly, “Uh, her mom and I aren’t together anymore.”
“You have a picture handy?” She managed to stifle the shakes in her voice. Sometimes the reality she’d never be a mother derailed her.
“Always.” Hooper flashed another shy grin as he dug in a pocket for his wallet.
As she gazed at the little photo framing the face of a precious brown-haired girl, she melted. “She’s absolutely gorgeous,” Mallie said, meaning every word.