less self-conscious in Keira’s presence. He’d struggled for the past six years to forget her. To forget how she had chosen to walk away from him without a word, without a response to his request to reconcile their broken engagement. An engagement she had called off. It had been a long, hard-won victory over his emotions and his past, and even in spite of losing David, he felt as if he had come to a better place in his life. A place where he could look ahead instead of always thinking about the “could-have-beens.”
Coming back here was a test for him. Keira’s continued hold on his heart had been preventing him from building new relationships.
He had hoped that by seeing Keira again he might finally be able to put her place in his life in perspective. Maybe even rid himself of her ever-present shadow.
Trouble was, now that he saw her again, he wasn’t sure if that was even possible.
* * *
Keira wished she could keep her hands from trembling as she handled the saddle under Tanner’s watchful gaze. What was wrong with her? She was prepared for Tanner’s arrival. Alice, Tanner’s stepmother, had mentioned it a couple of days ago. Had even given a date.
Yet, seeing him now, his brown eyes edged with sooty lashes and framed by the slash of dark brows, the hard planes of his face emphasized by the stubble shadowing his jaw and cheeks, brought back painful memories Keira thought she had put aside.
He looked the same and yet different. Harder. Leaner. He wore his sandy brown hair longer; brushing the collar of his shirt, giving him a reckless look at odds with the Tanner she had once known.
And loved.
She sucked in a rapid breath as she turned over the saddle, the wooden stirrups thumping dully on the table. Tanner seemed to fill the cramped shop, and Keira sensed his every movement.
Keep your focus on your work, she reminded herself, pulling her attention back to the broken saddle she was examining.
“So? What’s the verdict, Latigo Kid?” Tanner asked.
His casual use of the old nickname he always used for her caught her off guard. And when her startled gaze caught his surprised one, she guessed the name had fallen out unintentionally.
She dragged her attention back to the saddle. “I don’t know if it’s worth fixing this,” she said quietly, examining the bottom, then the stirrup leathers. “Back billet is broken. The swell cover is ripped and it looks pretty rough. You’ve worked it over pretty good with that wire brush.”
“Resin stays on better that way.”
Keira acknowledged his comment with a quick nod. Saddle bronc riders often sprinkled resin on their saddles to help them stay seated. The wire brush roughed up the leather so the resin stuck better.
“The stirrup leathers should be replaced,” she said, continuing her litany of repairs. “You’ll need new latigos, and the D rings need to be reattached if not replaced. It’ll be a lot of work.”
Tanner sighed as he tugged his gloves off and shoved them in the pocket of his worn plaid jacket. “But can you fix it?”
“I’d need to take it apart to see. It might need a whole new tree. If that’s the case, two weeks?” She was pleased at how even her voice sounded. At how businesslike she could be. As if he was simply another customer.
“That’s cutting it close,” Tanner said, scratching his cheek with his index finger. “I know you’ve got other projects going on, but is it possible to get it done quicker?”
Keira would have preferred not to work on it at all. It would mean that, instead of him dropping in to say hello to his mother and then leaving, Tanner would be around more often so she could fit the saddle and make the necessary adjustments.
So far she was doing okay with seeing him. It had taken her years to relegate Tanner to the shadowy recesses of her mind. She didn’t know if she could maintain any semblance of the hard-won peace she now experienced if she had to see him more often. Tanner was too ingrained in her past and too connected to memories she had spent hours in prayer trying to bury.
“I’m gonna need it for the National Finals in Vegas in a couple of weeks,” Tanner continued. “I was hoping to practice on it before that.”
“Your mother said you had qualified. That’s quite a feat.” Keira knew this from terse comments Alice dropped here and there, but overall Alice kept most news of Tanner to herself, and Keira didn’t press for more. She knew she had no right to know what was going on in Tanner’s life. Not after she’d left him the way she had.
“I placed third overall in the regular season,” Tanner said. “Missed a few rodeos cause of injuries, so I’m hoping to do better in Vegas.”
Tanner and his brother, David, had ridden the rodeo together since they first qualified as novices. They had both rode saddle broncs and competed in the same rodeos, often working their way up the ranks together.
In fact, it was Tanner’s involvement in rodeo that had been one of the points of contention between them when she and Tanner were dating. She hated watching him risk his life each time he mounted a saddle bronc. She also hated the fact that after his father died, instead of working on the Circle C Ranch, he had taken a job working as a mechanic’s apprentice. Between his work and rodeoing, they’d hardly seen each other. She had always thought he would take over his father’s ranch. He’d been working on it since he was a boy, but after Cyrus Fortier died, Tanner went to work full-time as a mechanic. He couldn’t get work in Saddlebank or Bozeman, and ended up working for a mechanic in Sheridan, Wyoming, a five-hour drive from the ranch. They had fought bitterly about that, and Tanner wouldn’t tell her why he had taken on the work. She’d finally found out after their worst fight, when she’d ended their engagement, that Tanner’s stepmother had inherited the ranch and all the holdings. But by the time she’d found out, it was too late to talk about it. She had already given him his ring back and had moved on.
“I heard you’re still doing mechanic work, as well?”
“Still pulling wrenches except last year I bought out the owner. Now I’m the boss, which means I can take off when I want. I took over the shop in Sheridan after a good rodeo run. The same one I started working on before—” He cut himself off there, but didn’t need to finish. Keira knew exactly what he meant.
Before that summer when she left Tanner and Saddlebank, without allowing him the second chance he so desperately wanted. Before that summer when everything changed.
A heavy silence dropped between them as solid as a wall. Keira turned away, pushing the memories down again. Burying them deep where they couldn’t taunt her.
But Tanner’s very presence teased them to the surface.
Dear Lord, help me through this situation. I don’t have enough strength on my own.
She looked up at him to tell him she couldn’t work on the saddle, but as she did she felt a jolt of awareness. In his eyes she saw puzzlement and hurt. She tried to tear her gaze away but it was as if the old bond that had once connected them still bound them to each other.
Her resolve weakened and against her better judgment she took another look at the saddle, weighing, judging. “I don’t know....” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything more to
