Last Dance. Cait London
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hide behind my mother. Don’t ever hide from me behind anyone again,” he said, reminding her of how she’d hovered behind Leather, afraid to talk with the husband she abandoned on their wedding night.
“I can handle you on my own,” she answered, lifting her chin to angle a hard stare up at him.
“Can you?” The question was too soft as Tanner reached out, grabbed the flannel shirt covering her T-shirt and hauled her up close to him. Fear ruling her, Gwyneth brought her boot down on his and there in the quiet layers of morning mist, with the meadowlark trilling on the old fence post and the roosters crowing, Tanner studied her face. “I’m wearing steel toe work boots, honey. I never felt a thing. Now that was an interesting move. You’ve had some self-defense training, too, haven’t you? Why?”
Her hands had sought an anchor as he’d lifted her to her tiptoes, and the warm muscles surging on his upper arms told her that Tanner had only gotten stronger. She met his dark look, forced her fingers to uncurl from his arms and pushed the trembling fear back in its hole.
“The Founding Mothers knew how to shoot well enough to protect themselves and others. Times haven’t changed that much, just a new twist on the methods,” she shot back and tore herself free of him. She breathed unsteadily, trying to recover her reality before Tanner began prying into her life, yet every breath took his scent into her.
“Not around here. That’s what the video training course was at my mother’s, wasn’t it? She was helping you. Why?”
She missed Anna terribly. “We were friends. I loved her. She helped me…we learned self-defense together. That’s all you need to know.”
“My mother? Sparring in the backyard?” he asked in disbelief.
His expression was dazed, almost comical and Gwyneth waded in to deepen the shock and shake his almighty arrogance. Apparently Tanner had the same view of women as Leather—that they needed big, strong men to protect them. “We used my barn hay and I was very, very careful not to hurt her, but she tossed me good once or twice. I was quick, but Anna was sure.”
Tanner ran his hand through his waves, tilting his head in that old way, his eyes shadowed by those gleaming lashes, as though he was trying to understand. He lifted his head to scan the Smith ranch yard and fields, the house with its missing shingles and boards nailed over her bedroom window. His gaze lingered there, reminding her of how he’d tossed a pebble at her window years ago; he’d given her a wildflower bouquet at midnight and told her he loved her. Now the sound of his hand sliding slowly across his unshaven jaw caused her to shiver. “Invite me in, Gwyneth. Let’s talk. I need answers.”
“Is that why you came? To push and pry and ruin my life again?”
“You’re hot-tempered too early in the morning—I wonder why? Is it because you know that I tried and you didn’t? How many times did I try to talk with you? How many times did I call? And how many times did Leather lie for you, enjoying taunting me?” His finger strolled down her taut jaw. “I came to get my mother’s two milk cows. You’ve got enough to do here without milking chores. But the yell sounded real interesting—I want answers, Gwyneth. Something is very wrong and it has been for years. You flinched when I touched you yesterday and again today. Haven’t you gotten over that yet? Do I repulse you that much?”
For just a beat of her heart, Tanner’s expression revealed that same quick shaft of confusion and pain. Then his look down at her was too mild, his half smile too practiced.
She swallowed, forcing moisture down her dry throat, for this man wasn’t young Tanner; dark rivers of emotions ran through him now, and the mist seemed to pulse with his storms.
“Everything is just peachy. Go away.” She wished she hadn’t seen the doily escaping his jeans pocket. He missed Anna, and the painful task of separating her household possessions still awaited him and his sisters.
“Sure,” he returned easily. “I knew you’d be too afraid to actually talk to me. Is that your studio, that addition onto the old house?”
He was a carpenter, learning from his father, a hand-craftsman and perfectionist. The addition she’d built was poor looking, but sturdy. She’d used old boards from a shack, read how to build a block foundation and set studs, but none of it could compare with the work Tanner could do. It was all hers, her safe place, where the potter’s wheel hummed and fear and worry spun away in the clay. She couldn’t let him into her life; she couldn’t. “I’ve got work to do—”
“Sure you do, Gwyneth.” His singsong taunt said he didn’t believe her, that he knew she was trying to escape him. “You can yell now. I hear it’s good therapy,” he said before turning and strolling toward Anna’s two milk cows.
Penny and Rolf followed at Tanner’s heels. “Deserters,” Gwyneth muttered darkly and tried not to notice how Tanner had become broader than the boy, his walk easy in the manner of a man who was proud, who knew who he was, and where he was going. As if he decided his fate. She resented that confidence, resented the hungry lingering of her gaze upon him. When Tanner reached to pet Sissy, she heard herself call, “You’re no farm boy, Tanner Bennett, and those cows need milking twice a day. Make sure you let me know when you turn them back into my pasture, and make yourself scarce in the meantime. And don’t you sell them to anyone but me. And don’t you sell Anna’s house until you let me—”
She hated swallowing the rest of the words. But the new well had cost too much and her mortgage to the bank wouldn’t allow the purchase of Anna’s home. Somehow she’d find a way, she always had, and she always paid her bills.
Tanner turned slowly, like a man who chose everything in his own time, not another’s; he studied her across the small distance of the field. Then he blew her a kiss that sailed across the morning air and knocked her back into the old barn and pushed her breath from her body. “Don’t you dare start up with me, Tanner Bennett,” she heard herself whisper shakily. “Just go somewhere I’m not.”
Late the next day, Tanner slapped his hand against the stack of new boards. Gwyneth drove herself too hard to keep the Smith ranch, doing enough work for two men. As a boy, Tanner had seen his mother too tired, pitting herself against work that was never done. He remembered the late nights when she made jams to sell, doing other people’s laundry, and then sitting down with a pad and pencil and her checkbook to see what was left. She’d cleaned houses and baby-sat, and never once complained. As soon as he could, he helped, sending money home—there was college tuition for Kylie and Miranda, but Anna wanted nothing for herself; she was happy with what she had, with the balance in her life. Anna had achieved what most sought and couldn’t find—peace.
But the frustration of seeing his mother work too hard, draining her body and mind to keep them together, to feed her growing family, had remained deep within Tanner. He’d been too young to help much, but he had, hiring out to ranchers for bailing, farm and cattle work. He’d hated the way his mother’s shoulders drooped back then, weary from work, the way her hands were too broad and callused for a woman’s, the way she’d made do with old clothes.
Now Gwyneth was doing the same thing, working too hard, trying to hold her land. Without looking at her hands, Tanner knew that Gwyneth’s were callused and competent. The defined yet feminine muscles of her shoulders, arms and legs said she’d tested her strength to the limit. He’d planned to collect Anna’s chickens, too, but Willa at the café had said that Gwyneth needed the egg-money, just like his mother had. He glanced at Koby Austin, who had come to help him build a new chicken house. Koby had lost a wife in childbirth and a son who never drew breath. Now his power saw tore across boards as fate had torn him apart. He glanced at Tanner and switched off the saw, lifting his safety glasses to his head. “This is like old times, isn’t it? You and me working together, like when you came to help my folks build that barn. You were just twelve, when your dad died, and you hitched a ride to the ranch, toting your father’s toolbox. My mother said you’d be a catch someday and that she was in love with you right then.”
Tanner tossed Koby a cola from the small cooler. “My dad taught me a skill that will always serve