connection, or possibly your starter. Hell, it could be a hundred things.” He took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his hands on it. “Tell you what, I’m heading back to the ranch now, anyway. Why don’t you ride home with me? You can call the garage in the morning.”
Juliet, worried about her beloved car, shook her head. “Do you think it’s anything serious?”
“That it won’t start…? Probably not. But these gaskets look shot, and the seals don’t seem to be holding.”
“What does that mean?”
He gave her a look with way too much patience in it to be reassuring. Then he asked, “Where’d you buy this car, Julie?”
“Don’s Hot Deals, outside of Auburn.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
She told him.
He looked pained. “I’ve always thought of you as practical, before this.”
“I know.” She giggled, forgetting altogether that she was not a giggling kind of person. She added, downright pertly, “There are a lot of things about me that aren’t the way they used to be.”
“I noticed.”
He looked at her some more, and she looked back. It was kind of fun, Juliet thought, these long pauses where they just looked at each other. At least, it was fun for her. Looking at Cody McIntyre was a purely pleasurable pastime.
“How much do you owe on it?” he asked eventually.
“The car?”
“Yeah.”
“Not a cent. I paid cash.”
“Hell, Julie.”
Juliet smiled and shrugged. “I wanted it. So I bought it.”
“You still have that little brown car?”
“Nope. I never want to see a brown car again.”
Cody shook his head. “Come on. Let’s not stand here all night. Get your things and let’s go home.”
Juliet got her jacket and the big manila folder and followed Cody to his shiny black pickup in the lot behind McIntyre’s.
They were quiet as Cody pulled out of the lot and headed for the edge of town. But once they’d left the lights of Emerald Gap behind and begun the twenty-minute ride to the McIntyre ranch, Cody had a suggestion. “You can use my spare pickup, if you want, until you get that car fixed.”
She looked over at him, smiling. “You’re so good to me, Cody. You always have been. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
He looked a little embarrassed at that, and spent a few moments paying great attention to the road. Then he said gruffly, “I’ve got to be honest, Julie. I think you bought yourself a world of headaches with that car.”
Juliet sighed. “I love it, anyway. I’ll get it fixed, that’s all.” She was a little worried about the car. But tonight, even the possibility that she’d spent several thousand dollars on a bona fide lemon didn’t daunt her. Nothing could faze her tonight.
Because she, Juliet Huddleston, who’d spent her whole life in the background taking orders rather than giving them, was going to run Midsummer Madness this year! The prospect was terrifying, but exhilarating, as well.
She rolled down the window and let the warm wind blow back her hair. Then she turned to Cody, ready to tease him a little as she’d imagined doing a while before.
“You didn’t stick around to congratulate me.”
He chuckled. “After the meeting, you were occupied in the lobby. I figured I’d see you soon enough, and you could give me a hard time about my lack of faith in you.”
“Why, Cody McIntyre. When in our lives have I ever given you a hard time?”
He threw her a glance. “When have you ever led a festival? Or owned a red car? Or rented your big house in town, to move out in the sticks?”
“It is not the sticks,” she reproved him. “It is the McIntyre ranch, where I have longed to live ever since first grade when your mom gave that pool party the last day of school. And now I do live there.”
He didn’t laugh this time, but there was humor in his voice when he said, “I get it. Living in my guesthouse is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream.”
“Not exactly. Not quite so permanent as a dream. More temporary. Like a fantasy.”
He grunted. “As your landlord, I’m bound to ask, exactly how temporary do you mean?”
“Oh, Cody. Don’t worry. I’ll give a month’s notice before I leave. And it won’t be for a year or two, at least. What I mean is, it’s just something I always wanted to do, not something that lasts a lifetime. That’s all.”
He was quiet for a time, digesting this. Then he said, “So what gives, Julie?”
His serious tone surprised her. She answered in her old way, with that little frightened catch. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“You’re different. You’ve changed. I didn’t really notice it until today, when you suddenly insisted I let you take on the pageant. But it’s been happening for a while, a few months at least. I can see that now, looking back on things.”
She turned in her seat to face him. He gave her a quick, encouraging smile. Then he looked back at the road, which was climbing now, up into the pines, as they grew nearer the ranch. “I’d really like to know, Julie,” he said, this time not glancing over.
“Y-you would?”
He nodded.
She realized she wanted to tell him. Maybe it was that he’d actually asked; no one had asked before. Or maybe her confidence was finally high enough, that after tonight, she wouldn’t need to keep her resolution secret anymore.
But she supposed it didn’t really matter why. What mattered was he’d asked.
As he drove the twisting road to the ranch, she told him everything. About her vow that her next thirty years were going to amount to more than the past thirty had—and about all the steps she’d taken to make that vow come true.
He listened and nodded, and laughed a little when she told about that first time up in front of the group at Toastmasters International, when she’d been so nervous that she’d gestured wildly, knocking over her water glass into her shoes, which then made embarrassing squishing sounds every time she shifted her weight through the rest of her speech.
The miles flew by. She was just telling him how terrified she’d been for those first seconds up on the stage this evening, when the front entrance to the ranch came into sight. It was a high stone wall broken by two widely spaced stone pillars, with an iron M on a rocker in a cast-iron arch across the top.
Beyond the arch, Juliet saw the sloping lawn of the house
