Spring at Saddle Run Read online

  Oh, that was so not the right thing to say.

  The temper came, rolling over him like that huge gasoline fire. “You’re too late,” Joe said, and he hoped he managed to look smug and arrogant instead of just pissed off. “Millie was over here just a couple of nights ago, and I can promise you, she wants to see me again.”

  Asher’s eyes widened, and instead of temper, there was a hefty dose of shock. And with the shock deepening, Asher turned, walking down the porch steps and heading to his truck.

  That’s when Joe had an “oh, shit” moment.

  What the hell had he just done?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MILLIE DREAMED. Of Joe.

  His mouth came to hers, and it was just as hot as the rest of him. His hands were on her, too. And his strong hard body was pressing against hers in all the right, warm places. Mercy, he was good at this.

  She shifted, adding even more of that delicious pressure while he flicked his tongue over her earlobe and murmured to her.

  “Did you know when you moan you sound just like a baby dinosaur in Jurassic Park?”

  That cooled the fire in her loins, and Millie jolted awake. She jackknifed to a sitting position and nearly toppled off the sofa when she saw the face looming over her. Definitely not Joe and his magic mouth.

  “It’s nearly dinnertime,” her great-aunt Freida said. “It’s a little late for you to be napping, dear.” She pressed the back of her hand to Millie’s forehead. “No fever, but you’re looking all rosy and flushed. Aren’t you feeling well?”

  Millie had been feeling a heck of a lot better when she’d been getting kissed and touched, but she’d keep that to herself. “I moved some of the displays around in the shop, and I was tired when I got home.”

  The woman looked at her with sympathy and love. Millie always appreciated the last part because it wasn’t a look that she got often, but Great-Aunt Freida was always willing to dole out some love.

  Freida wasn’t actually her aunt, great or otherwise, but rather her cousin. However, since Freida had been the one to take in Laurie Jean after her parents’ deaths forty years earlier, Millie didn’t mind calling Freida by the honorary title she’d given herself.

  “Well, at least you didn’t sleep at the shop,” Freida said. “I’m glad you stopped doing that.”

  Millie hadn’t stopped, but she didn’t mention that to Freida. There were six bedrooms on the second floor of Once Upon a Time, and while five were crammed with stock, Millie had kept one bedroom intact. Meaning, it had a real bed with an attached if not outdated bath. Actually, the entire suite was seriously outdated with its century-old wallpaper and scarred hardwood floor, but for reasons Millie had never wanted to explore, that room had felt more like home than this house. Still, she tried not to stay there too often since word of it usually made it to the gossip pool and therefore got back to Laurie Jean.

  “I knocked on your front door, but you must not have heard me so I used my key to let myself in. I also put the three-bean casserole and cucumber salad in your fridge,” Freida went on, sitting in the chair across from her while she tugged off her white gloves.

  Yes, gloves. It didn’t matter if it was hotter than Hades or an everyday Thursday afternoon, Freida wore gloves and tiny pillbox hats with netting that hung over her forehead.

  Millie blinked and shook her head when she processed what Freida had said. “What bean casserole and salad?”

  “The ones that were in a cooler on your porch.” The look she leveled at Millie now was sympathy. “The note on the outside of the cooler said it was from the Last Ride Society.”

  Millie nearly blurted out a word that would have gotten her a scolding, but she caught herself at the last second. “Lord, love a duck,” she muttered instead.

  It was what she’d dubbed “grieving grub.” The Last Ride Society had done that after Royce had died, and while Millie had appreciated the sentiment behind the meals, they’d only served as a reminder that people were pitying her. Each meal had also brought memories of Royce right straight to the surface. No way could she eat or even look at grieving grub and not remember why said grub had been made for her in the first place.

  She’d been thankful when the deliveries had finally stopped a couple of months after Royce’s death. Apparently, the society thought it was warranted again—though Millie couldn’t see beans or salad being much of an indulgent meal to ease grieving.

  Millie got up and stretched to get out the kinks from her nap, and then it occurred to her that Freida had de-gloved and was sitting there watching her. Obviously waiting. Which meant this hadn’t been just a checking-on-you/catch-up visit.

  “Would you like some tea or something?” Millie asked to get that out of the way.

  “No, thank you. I can’t stay long,” Freida said, and she waited some more.

  “Are you here to try to talk me out of doing the research on Ella McCann?” Millie came out and asked.

  “No. Though I’m sure it’s something your mother would have wanted me to bring up had she not been so upset about other things.” Freida paused, took in a long, slow breath through her mouth. “Your mother heard talk you were seeing Joe McCann, that you’d been to his house.”

  Millie picked through that and settled on one word. “Seeing?”

  “Diddling him,” Freida quickly provided in her prim voice. She idly ran her fingers on the bronze stained-glass lamp on the table next to her.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Millie groaned. “Who told her that?”

  “Apparently, it came from Joe himself.”

  Millie dismissed that with the wave of her hand. “Not a chance.”

  “From Joe himself,” Freida repeated. “He told your father just a couple of hours ago when Asher went out to talk to him about the research Laurie Jean doesn’t want you to do.”

  Millie groaned again. She didn’t want either of her parents involved in this and especially didn’t want them going to Joe and bugging him. “My father misunderstood what Joe said.”

  “Maybe,” Freida conceded, not sounding convinced of that at all. “Anyway, it’s upset your mother.”

  Millie was sure she’d hear all about that from Laurie Jean herself, but it did speak volumes that her mother had sent Freida to do her bidding.

  “How upset?” Millie asked, and she flashed back to the memory of walking in on her mother when she’d been staring at a bottle of sleeping pills.

  Maybe Laurie Jean had just been searching for an end to insomnia, but it had given Millie a bad feeling. Like maybe her mother had been searching for an end, period. Then again, with her mother’s personality, she probably wasn’t the sort to consider ending her life. Still...

  “Upset,” Freida verified. She paused again. “This has brought up talk about her parents.”

  “Yes, she mentioned that when she came by the shop.” Millie hadn’t meant for her tone to dismiss her mother’s concern, but it must have seemed that way to Freida because the woman reached out, took hold of Millie’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “Your mother has always felt she had to be doubly good to live up to the Parkman name,” Freida said.

  Millie was well aware of that, too. “Some people call the Parkman Cemetery Hoity Toity Hill. So, not everyone in Last Ride believes the Parkmans have a name worthy of being lived up to.”

  Freida gave an elegant lift of her shoulder. “Some call us Greedy Grangers, and of course, there’s the ever-popular Damn Daytons. It doesn’t bother us because we know every family is like an apple. There’s the sweet juicy part, the core, and yes, the occasional worm. But there’s more sweet juicy part than the rest.”

  Millie frowned at that analogy. “Mom thinks gossip is a worm. I just wish she wouldn’t care so much about what other people think.” She heard herself and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or groan. So, Millie did both. “I wish I didn
’t care what other people think,” she tacked on to that.

  “I know.” She squeezed Millie’s hand again. “Your mother simply doesn’t want to do anything that would embarrass your father. She loves him and would do anything for him.”

  That was something Millie couldn’t dispute. Laurie Jean did indeed do the whole ground-worshipping thing when it came to Asher. And there was genuine love, maybe even the heat of attraction in her mother’s eyes when she looked at her husband. Pretty amazing, considering they’d been married for thirty-three years.

  Or rather thirty-three and a half years as Laurie Jean would emphasize.

  Since Tanner was thirty-two, her mother always wanted to make sure that folks knew that he hadn’t been conceived before Asher and she had married. That kind of speculation just wouldn’t do.

  “I recall when your parents first started dating,” Freida went on. “They were inseparable.”

  Millie had heard all of this before. The grand love story and the inseparable part. They had started dating in college when Asher had been in law school and Laurie Jean had been studying interior design. Their only time apart was when her mother had studied abroad in Italy one summer, and even then Asher had flown to see her. It was hard for Millie to see her “by the book” father and her “stickler for appearances” mother being that hot for each other.

  “I’m not sure I ever once had that kind of heat or attraction with Royce,” Millie muttered. Of course, the moment the words left her mouth, she wished she’d choked on them and hadn’t spoken.

  “Well,” Freida said, easing to her feet. She kissed Millie’s cheek. “Every marriage is like an apple. Sweet and juicy. A core and sometimes a worm. It’s likely you had all three with Royce.”

  And with that clever observation, Freida said her goodbye and made her way to the front door. Millie stood there, suddenly steeped in memories she didn’t want. The trouble was she hadn’t known there’d been anything but the sweet and juicy with Royce. Maybe it hadn’t been the absolute sweetest apple in the orchard, but they’d been happy.

  Maybe.

  She went toward the kitchen, threading her way through the living room where she’d been napping and into the hall that led to the back of the house. The route took her past the closed door to Royce’s home office.

  Where she hadn’t been since his death.

  Well, she had opened the door once, on the first anniversary of his death, and with her eyes shut tight, she had tossed her wedding rings inside. They’d been yet something else she hadn’t wanted to have to see. Reminders of Royce, of his betrayal. She’d shut the door without getting so much of a glimpse of what might be in there. However, she considered reaching for the knob now.

  But Millie dismissed it just as fast.

  She’d managed to pack up and donate all of Royce’s clothes from the master bedroom closet, but going through the things in his office could be like opening a can of those worms that’d eaten into her apple of a marriage. There could be something about Ella in there. Pictures, maybe. Love letters or emails.

  Nope, she wouldn’t be going in there tonight. Maybe not ever.

  Fighting back the blasted tears that burned her eyes, Millie wished she had the magical powers to burn down that specific room. Heck. Maybe burn down the whole house and start fresh in another place. But Millie Vanilla couldn’t do that. This house was a Dayton legacy, one left to Royce by his grandparents, and a Dayton had lived in it since it’d been built over a hundred years ago.

  She forced her feet to get going, and she stepped into the kitchen. One of the few rooms in the house that Royce and she had remodeled. It was all cool and polished. A lot like Royce himself, but looking at all the stainless and quartz now just left her cold. So did the idea of eating bean casserole and salad. Or anything else she could scrounge up from her fridge.

  Millie tugged on her shoes, grabbed her purse and headed toward Main Street. Which wasn’t far. She could have walked there in about ten minutes, but she would have run into people who’d want to stop and chat. She definitely wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

  There were plenty of places in Last Ride to get a meal that didn’t take into account things like health, grief or such, but she headed to O’Riley’s. She could get some nachos to go and eat in her car. Depending on how much gloom and doom she was feeling after that, she might be able to go to the cemetery and get a picture of Ella’s tombstone.

  O’Riley’s was a 1950s-style café with a wall of windows on the front and outdoor seating on the sides. What it didn’t have was a drive-through, but she parked in the back next to a half dozen other vehicles and, hurrying, Millie rounded the corner of the building toward the window to order.

  And she practically ran right into Joe and Dara.

  Millie froze. Joe froze. And Millie could have sworn every single person in the vicinity of O’Riley’s froze, too, holding their breaths. Her theory of every frozen person quickly got shot down though when Dara made a slurping sound with the straw in what appeared to be a mango smoothie.

  “Want some nachos?” Dara asked her. “Dad had a big lunch and isn’t hungry. There’s no way I can eat all of these by myself.”

  The girl was indeed holding a platter-sized paper bowl that’d been piled high with O’Riley’s Treasures and Trash nachos which were topped with pretty much everything that tasted like heaven on tortilla chips.

  “Uh, I was just going to get something to go,” Millie said, fumbling with her words.

  “No need. This is way more than I can eat,” Dara insisted, but she wasn’t looking at Millie. She had her attention on a group of kids around her age who came walking up. “Here.” She practically thrust the nachos into Millie’s hands. “I’ll be right back.”

  Millie fully expected Joe to snag the food and tell her that she didn’t have to accept his daughter’s “dinner” invitation. Or words to that effect. But he was looking at the kids, too. And frowning.

  “That’s Rico Donnelly’s kid,” Joe practically growled.

  Millie remembered the night she’d gone to his house to tell him about the drawing, Joe had had an axe. A deterrent, he’d called it. For any boy visiting Dara. Millie guessed Rico Donnelly’s kid was one of those boys.

  Since Joe looked ready to bolt over and threaten the boy, Millie tipped her head to one of the empty outside tables. “Why don’t we sit down so I can have some of these nachos?”

  It was still too hot to eat outside, but she doubted she could convince Joe to let Dara out of his sight. Her own father hadn’t been so protective of her, but Millie had had enough embarrassing incidents with Laurie Jean practically dragging her away from whom she’d deemed as unacceptable friends.

  Millie set the nachos on the table. “Let me get a Coke—”

  “I’ll get it,” Joe said, maybe to be polite. Maybe because it would put him closer to his daughter.

  Without taking his eyes, and his scowl, off the group of teens, Joe went to the order window, and less than a minute later, he came back with her Coke. He sat across from her and kept watching Dara.

  Since merely sitting with Joe would no doubt stir up gossip, Millie figured the damage had already been done so she helped herself to the nachos. Mercy, they were good.

  “Did you know my parents have gotten the wacky notion that you and I are having sex?” Millie asked him.

  That got his attention off Dara, and he frowned instead of scowled. “Yeah. I started that rumor. I’m really sorry about that.”

  Millie nearly got choked on the Coke, and she shook her head, certain that she’d misheard him. “You started a rumor that we were lovers?”

  His frown deepened, and he finally turned away from his daughter to face her. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Asher paid me a visit, and everything he said just hit the wrong buttons. I blurted it out before I thought it through.”

  Millie groaned and
didn’t have to ask the specifics of what her father had said to Joe. Asher had no doubt played the “you’re not good enough for Millie” card.

  “I’m sorry,” Joe and she said in unison. “I hope you won’t catch any grief about that,” he added.

  She would have forced herself to eat bean casserole for a lifetime before she would admit to him that it’d already caused her grief. And would continue to do so.

  “I can try to make things right with Asher,” Joe continued. “I can tell him nothing’s going on between us.”

  At that exact moment, his gaze lowered to her mouth. A longing kind of look that made her think something was indeed going on between them.

  He motioned toward her mouth. “Cheese,” he said. “There.” He tapped the corner of his own bottom lip.

  So, maybe not a longing look after all. Millie used her tongue to go after the cheese dribble. When that failed, she licked the other side of her lip. And she saw yet another of those looks from Joe.

  Definitely longing.

  Which, of course, was just another way of saying lust.

  It was probably reasonable in an unreasonable sort of way. A forbidden fruit kind of thing. Then again, the lust was perhaps only on her part because the guy was panty-dropping gorgeous.

  “I dreamed about you,” Millie commented.

  Crap, crap, crap. Why had she confessed that? Once again, she wished she could time travel and keep that little tidbit to herself.

  His eyebrow winged up, and he opened his mouth as if ready to ask “What kind of dream?” But then, he stopped. Cursed and scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s because we were thrown together over this research,” he said.

  “Probably,” she muttered, but Millie would have at least partially agreed to any reasonable explanation about the scalding dream she’d had about him.

  And the thoughts.

  Thoughts, like now. Oh, mercy. She was in trouble here, and she likely would have blurted out yet something else she’d regret, but Joe spoke before the blurting and blathering could continue.