environment to fit your personality, this would be it.”
“Predictable, then?”
She laughed. “No, I don’t see that.” Their first dinner, the picnic at the gorge, certainly wasn’t predictable. His bringing her, and Kelly, here to meet his mother this early in the relationship—that wasn’t predictable either. She had a feeling there were a whole lot more surprises she could learn about Beau Cardwell. Including use of the occasional swear words.
“Damn! The steaks!” He dashed down the stairs and she heard the kitchen door swing back and forth on its hinges.
She followed, noting that Kelly and Iris now had their heads together over a photo album. In the kitchen, she tossed the salad and noticed that he’d put ears of fresh corn into a steamer, so she pulled them out and located a serving bowl.
“We’re safe!” Beau announced, carrying in a platter of slightly charred steaks. “Luckily, Mama likes hers pretty well done. The others are mostly medium.” He looked a little chagrined. “I keep forgetting where the hot spots are on that grill.”
Iris kept them entertained with stories of Beau as a young boy, revealing that he’d fallen off his first horse at the age of two but luckily his father was standing by and caught him. Life was good until their ranch on the eastern plains of New Mexico was hit hard by an eight-year stretch of drought that forced the family to move to Albuquerque where Beau’s father took a job he hated with the city water department. He died from a heart attack four years later.
Iris’s face took on a wistful look as she spoke of her late husband. Beau seemed stoic. It was clear that family support fell to him at a pretty young age, barely out of high school.
Later, with glasses of wine on the back deck, staring into an onyx sky filled with pinpoints of diamond stars, Sam asked him about it. The dogs—he’d given their names as Ranger and Nellie—lay contentedly on their sides nearby.
“I can’t be sad. I learned so many great things from my dad. Everything I know about owning and keeping this land, I learned from him. Most of what I know about how to treat a woman—even though my ex-wife has her own opinions on that. I learned what I wanted in a relationship by watching my parents. It’s just that Dierdre wanted different things, like city life, society contacts, a corporate career. Nothing meshed with my style and she just couldn’t citify me.”
“Was it very long ago? The marriage.”
“She left me more than fifteen years ago.” He shrugged in his leather jacket. “It quit hurting about fifteen minutes after her car rounded the bend. Sorry, I don’t mean to be flippant about it. It’s just that during the whole five years of our marriage there was rarely a time that wasn’t stressful. When we first met I took the stress as attraction. I learned pretty quickly that it wasn’t so.”
“I never married,” Sam told him. She gave the quick rundown of her growing up years in Texas and the subsequent adventure in Alaska. “Call it selfish, but as long as I was raising Kelly I didn’t want to share her with anyone. We had a lot of fun, just the two of us. I met men. I enjoyed some of them. I stayed as discreet as possible, never let anyone move in. But never wanted the white dress and the ring and the cake—ha! Me, who can bake a wedding cake for anyone.”
“Was it a struggle?”
“Huh, you can’t imagine. Well, maybe you can. I’d have to say that a sense of humor and some hard-learned street smarts have gotten me through. My dad once advised me to save as much of the money from that pipeline job as I could, and I did. I’ve still got a little of it, stashed away. Luckily, cause I’ve had to bail Kelly out of more things than I’d like to admit.”
He glanced toward the closed glass door. A slight reaction. Kelly stepped out.
“Beau, Iris says she’s getting tired. Is it okay if I help her get ready for bed?”
“Sure, hon, that would be nice. She can handle most of it herself, changing clothes and brushing her teeth. Just stay nearby in case she gets shaky on her feet.”
Once the door closed again, Sam found herself telling him about her dream for Sweet’s Sweets and how she was always just a little short on money for it. She could spend every penny of her savings and do a half-assed setup for the business, or she could save a little more and really do it right—find a prime location, get good equipment, hire some help.
“I’d go that way, if I were you,” he said. “One of the things Mama didn’t tell you about my dad was that he tried to keep the ranch going, longer than he should have. Spent every penny of savings, hoped each year would get better. By the time we moved to Albuquerque, it was with our last tank of gas and enough cash for four nights in the cheapest motel on east Central. We lived on peanut butter sandwiches until his first paycheck came through. And it didn’t get better for a long time after that. The lesson I learned was to always keep a little buffer.”
“Sounds like you and my dad would get along,” she said, taking his hand.
Chapter 21
One glass of wine, the chill night air, and the long day began to catch up with Sam. When Beau caught her yawning he suggested that they go back inside. She peeked into Iris’s bedroom where Kelly was sitting in a chair beside the bed, looking through a book.
“We should get going,” Sam said. “Iris, good night. Thanks for having us in your home.”
While Kelly looked for her purse, Sam walked out to the front porch with Beau. “It’s a beautiful night,” she said, enjoying the warmth of his arm around her shoulders.
“Weather’s about to change. About to get some frost.” He gave her a light kiss on the top of her head. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
A discreet cough behind them and Kelly walked outside. Sam started the truck and negotiated the turn- around.
“I really liked Beau and his mother,” Kelly said as they drove out through the gate. “Her stories about him as a little boy are a hoot.”
“Well, she sure took to you like a ladybug to a daisy.”
“Mom, where do you come up with those sayings?” She laughed as she said it.
“Grampa, I suppose. He used to say stuff like that all the time. I guess spending time with Beau and Iris brought back a lot of Texas childhood memories. You remember Grampa’s farm, all those miles of cotton fields? I think of high school football games and fried chicken Sunday dinners . . .. I get around ranchers and it all comes back.”
“I like him, Mom. I think he’s good for you.”
“Thanks, Kell.”
So, what did this mean? Despite all her reservations about involvement, with her daughter’s approval, Sam wondered if she was on the right track this time. She’d not had the best success at choosing men, leaning toward the ones that were good looking but too shallow to be dependable. Recognizing that, somehow, before she let them become permanent. Spending her whole life without a partner as a result.
Sam fell asleep with that train of thought and ended up having a nightmare about how her life turned out because she’d married Billy Roy Farmer and stayed in Cottonville, Texas. When she woke up to a brilliant blue New Mexico sky, with a frosty chill in the air, she felt a rush of elation. Life usually did turn out the way it was supposed to.
Yesterday’s summery outfit wasn’t going to cut it, she realized when she looked out to see thick frost on the neighbor’s metal roof. Beau had been right about the change in the weather. She left the light blouse and pants draped over a chair and opted for socks and boots with her heavy jeans and sweatshirt.
Coffee really hit the spot. Sam stared out toward the driveway for a few minutes, thinking again of her resolve to get Sweet’s Sweets underway. The larger orders were bringing in some good money, but now she was running into the problems of working in a tiny kitchen and making cake deliveries with her pickup truck. The
