man she’d known seven years earlier had wanted nothing more than to be a rodeo cowboy and would let nothing get in the way of his goal.
Of course, seven years was a long time and people did change. And what did she know about his life now?
Less than nothing.
Because although she’d kept in touch with his sister after Brielle moved to New York City, Kenzie wasn’t pathetic enough to pump her long-distance friend for information about a brother she rarely saw.
When she met Megan Carmichael—another friend from high school—at Diggers’ for lunch on Wednesday, Kenzie was presented with yet another possible scenario.
“Did you hear the news?” Megan asked after Deanna, their usual waitress, had delivered their food.
“If you’re referring to Spencer Channing’s return, then yes—it seems to be all anyone is talking about this week,” Kenzie noted.
“I mean why he’s back,” her friend clarified.
“Either he’s home for Jason and Alyssa’s wedding or he’s been suspended from the circuit.”
Megan nibbled on a french fry. “He wasn’t suspended—he was injured.”
Injured?
Kenzie’s hand trembled as she lifted her glass of iced tea to her lips.
She knew that bull riding—Spencer’s specialty—was both a physically demanding and dangerous sport, but she hadn’t let herself think about the possibility that he might get hurt. Other cowboys, sure, but not Spencer, who’d always been so strong and fearless, seemingly invincible.
Of course he wasn’t invincible, and the knowledge that he’d been hurt tied her stomach in painful knots.
Not that she should care. And she didn’t really. Except that Spencer was her best friend’s brother, and Brielle would be distressed to learn of any injury. Her own angst wasn’t so easy to explain—or even acknowledge.
But maybe Megan was wrong. Maybe this was just another story generated by someone wanting to appear to be in the know about what was happening in town.
She sipped her soda, then managed to ask, “Where’d you hear about the injury?”
“Becky told Suzannah who told me,” Megan said.
And since Becky worked in Margaret Channing’s office at Blake Mining, Kenzie knew this rumor was most likely the right one. “What happened?”
“A bull named Desert Storm at a rodeo in Justice Creek,” Megan responded.
Kenzie swallowed. “How bad is it?”
Her friend shrugged. “I figure it has to be pretty bad to get him to come home. Unless he’s only coming home to reassure his mother that it’s not too bad.” Then she immediately shook her head. “No, the most convincing evidence of that would be to get back on the horse again—or bull, in this case.” Megan smiled at her own joke.
Kenzie couldn’t make her lips curve.
Instead, she picked up her buffalo chicken wrap and nibbled on a corner. She’d been starving when she sat down, but now, thinking about Spencer being tossed like salad by a vicious animal, she felt as if her appetite had been trampled to bits by angry hooves.
Because as much as she tried not to care, she couldn’t deny that she did. Because when Spencer had left Haven seven years earlier, he’d taken a piece of her heart. No matter that he didn’t want it, she’d given it to him and lost it forever.
“But I guess we’ll have to wait and see to know for sure,” Megan continued. “In the meantime—” she winked suggestively “—a girl can only hope he isn’t completely out of commission.”
“I thought you were dating Brett Tanner,” Kenzie remarked.
“I am,” her friend confirmed. “But until there’s a ring on my finger, I’m keeping my options open...unless I’d be stepping on your toes.”
“What? No!”
“Are you sure?” Megan asked. “I know you had a major crush on him in high school.”
Kenzie could hardly deny it. Instead, she only said, “I got over that—and him—a lot of years ago.”
“I had a crush on him, too,” Megan confessed.
It was hardly a revelation. Most of the female contingent at Westmount High School had sighed when Spencer Channing walked through the halls, his hands tucked in the pockets of his Wranglers.
“Of course, he never gave me the time of day,” her friend continued.
“He was already a junior when we were freshmen—plus we were friends with his little sister,” Kenzie reminded her.
“Which meant that we were never likely to get anything more than a brotherly nod of recognition,” Megan noted.
It was true.
Mostly.
There had been the one time, the night before he was scheduled to leave town, that Spencer had looked at Kenzie as if he really saw her.
As if he really wanted her.
And maybe Kenzie had occasionally wondered if her life might have taken a different course if that night had ended differently. But she never dwelled on the what-ifs for too long. Because Spencer had been larger than life, with big dreams for his future, while she’d had much more modest plans.
In the end, they’d both got what they wanted.
Now he was a big-name rodeo star and she was a small-town massage therapist and, as decreed in the poem, “never the twain shall meet”—except maybe in her dreams.
And yeah, there were still times when she dreamed about him, because she had no control over the direction of her subconscious mind. And apparently her subconscious mind believed that sex with Spencer Channing would somehow be different—and better—than sex with any other guy she’d been intimate with.
“But I’m not just a friend of his little sister anymore,” Megan continued, oblivious to Kenzie’s meandering thoughts. “And he’s going to want a date for his brother’s wedding.”
“The wedding’s in Irvine,” Kenzie reminded her friend.
“And I’d love to go to SoCal in December. Going with Spencer Channing would just be delectable icing on the cake.”
“Have you considered the possibility that he might not be all that anymore?” Kenzie wondered aloud.
“Have you not seen the June cover of ProRider magazine?” Megan countered.
“I saw it,” she admitted.
Of course, she’d seen it. Because Spencer Channing was the closest thing to a celebrity to ever come out of Haven, Nevada,
