up in that way Tricia couldn’t seem to get used to. “No problem,” he told her, his tone faintly gruff.
No problem.
Easy enough for him to say, she thought, just as Valentino and Sasha clomped down the stairs from her apartment. Conner Creed had probably been born in the saddle, growing up on a ranch the way he had. She, on the other hand, had never ridden anything more dangerous than a carousel.
“We’ll put you on one of the mares,” Conner went on, when she didn’t speak. “Sunflower would be a good choice—she’s three years older than dirt and you’d be more likely to get hurt riding a stick horse.”
Tricia was relieved and, at the same time, a little indignant. Before she could come up with a fitting response, however, Sasha and Valentino made their appearance.
Seeing Conner, Sasha beamed. “Hello, Mr. Creed,” she said.
He nodded to the child, smiled back. “It’s okay to call me Conner,” he told her.
Pleased, Sasha barely glanced at Tricia, stroking Valentino’s head as the two of them stood just inside the kitchen doorway. “I’m Sasha,” she announced.
“I remember,” Conner said easily. “My nephew, Matt, introduced us at the barbecue last weekend, didn’t he?”
Sasha nodded eagerly. “He’s pretty nice, for a little kid,” she said.
Conner chuckled and looked briefly in Tricia’s direction—just in time to catch her sneaking a step back. She felt magnetized, like a passing asteroid being pulled into the orbit of some enormous planet.
He smiled, dashing all hope that he hadn’t noticed.
Tricia’s cheeks flamed. She’d worked hard, ever since high school, to overcome her natural shyness, but when it came to this man, all that effort seemed to be for nothing. A look from him, a word, and every cell in her body suddenly leaped to electrified attention.
It was ridiculous.
“Do you think Natty’s all right?” he asked, his expression serious now. His face could change in an instant, it seemed, and that made him hard to read.
Tricia didn’t like it when people were hard to read.
“Why do you ask?” she inquired, a little jolt of alarm trembling in the pit of her stomach.
Conner wasn’t wearing a hat, being indoors, though she could tell that he’d had one on earlier. He ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair, watched with a smile in his eyes as Sasha excused herself and left the room, Valentino trotting alongside.
“I guess it bothers me a little that she’s staying on in Denver,” Conner sighed, when he and Tricia were alone in the big kitchen again. “It’s not like your great-grandmother to miss out on the big weekend, even if she has stepped down as head chili commando.”
Though quiet, his tone was so genuine that it touched something deep and private inside Tricia, stirred a soft but still-bruising sweetness where he shouldn’t have been able to reach. They were basically strangers, she and Conner—they certainly hadn’t been more than summer acquaintances growing up—and yet it was as if they’d known each other well, once upon a time and somewhere far, far away.
When she thought she could trust herself to speak, Tricia found another smile, and managed to hold on to it a little longer this time. In truth, she was worried, too. Should she mention that Natty was staying in Denver at the suggestion of her doctor?
No, she decided, in the next second. If Natty had wanted Conner to know why she’d postponed her return to Lonesome Bend, she would have told him herself.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” she said at last, though of course she wasn’t sure at all. Natty had said her heart had been racing.
Conner studied her for a few moments, looking like he wanted to say something but wouldn’t, and then he flashed that dazzling grin at her again. It was like stepping into the glare of a searchlight on a moonless night, and Tricia blinked once.
“You might want to keep it a little warmer in here,” he said, in another of those hairpin conversational turns of his. “Even wrapped, some of the pipes might freeze if you don’t turn on the heat.”
Tricia nodded, feeling stupid because no response came to mind.
Conner grinned, gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. “Sorry if I scared you a little while ago, banging on the plumbing with my wrench. I got here a little earlier than I expected and, though it seems ironic now, I was pretty sure you’d already gone out.”
Again she felt that sugary sting, inexplicably pleasant, but highly discomforting, too. “Natty asked you to come over,” she said, with a verbal shrug, “and I’m sure she appreciates your help.”
His grin was rueful now, but it tugged at her, nonetheless. “I’d do just about anything for Natty,” he said, moving to retrieve the duct tape and the wrench from the nearby counter and then stopping to look back over one shoulder. “Turn up the heat,” he added.
Tricia almost said, “I beg your pardon?” but she stopped herself in time. Nodded again.
“Sixty-eight degrees ought to do it,” Conner said. He took another long, slow look at her. “See you around,” he told her, heading for the back door.
See you around.
That was all he’d said. And it was a perfectly normal remark, too.
Just the same, Tricia stood as still as if her feet were glued to the floor until several seconds after he’d closed the door behind him.
The first thing she did, once she could move again, was turn the lock. The second was to find and adjust the downstairs thermostat.
Now, she thought, making the climb back up to her own space, if she could just turn down the heat inside herself.
Upstairs, she found Sasha eating cold cereal at the table, while Winston and Valentino enjoyed their separate bowls of dry food.
After pouring a cup of much-needed coffee, Tricia booted up her computer. The screen saver loomed up automatically, filling the monitor and taking Tricia a little aback, even though she’d seen that picture of herself and Hunter, in front of the ski lodge, at least a jillion times.
“Mom says you can do a lot better than Hunter,” Sasha remarked casually, no doubt prompted by the photograph.
A little of Tricia’s coffee splashed over the rim of her cup and burned her fingers, but beyond that, she showed no outward reaction. “Does she, now?” she asked, amused but mildly resentful toward Diana, too. Surely her very best friend in the world hadn’t meant to make such an observation within her daughter’s earshot.
“That’s what she told my dad,” Sasha said, and resumed her cereal crunching.
Tricia kept her back to the little girl, focusing on the computer’s keyboard instead, going online and clicking on the mailbox icon at the top of the screen.
Normally, she would have felt a little thrill to find no less than three messages from Hunter
