A Maverick To (Re)Marry. Christine Rimmer
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up with Collin a while back. Besides working the family ranch, I make saddles and a variety of fine leather goods. I’ve kind of built a name for myself—and earned some good money, too.”
Leatherwork. He’d always had a talent for that. He used to make pretty beaded leather jewelry for her. And for her eighteenth birthday, he’d made her a leather vest and a fringed skirt. She’d loved them and worn them proudly. Still had them, too, tucked in the back of her closet.
Because she never could quite bear to get rid of them.
“We have a shop on Sawmill Street, at North Broomtail Road,” he said.
“CT Saddles, right?”
“That’s it.”
“I drove by it the other day. And I’m glad that you’re doing so well—but, Derek, I want to pitch in, too. I am the maid of honor, after all, and I should pay half.”
He looked at her for a long time. She felt the sudden presence of the past—their past—rising up in the darkness between them.
What had he said?
I’m not the same broke-ass cowboy you used to know.
It wasn’t that he came from a poor family. The Daltons had been ranching in the Rust Creek Falls Valley for generations and his dad was a leader in the community, a lawyer with an office in town. Still, back in high school, Derek hadn’t had much, not in terms of cash in hand. When they ran away to Kalispell, he’d bought her a simulated diamond ring for forty dollars at Walmart.
She’d thrown it at him the day he told her to get her stuff and go with her dad. Where was that ring now? What had he done with it?
Not that she’d ever ask.
“Okay then,” the grown-up Derek said. “We’ll go fifty-fifty on the final bill.”
“Perfect. Thank you. Now, let me see...” She woke her phone, punched up the party file again and brought up the dual lists of what had to be bought and what would need to be made or otherwise assembled.
“How we doin’?” he asked.
She gave him a nod. “Really well, actually.”
“You feel like we’re getting somewhere with this party, then?”
“I do. And I think we’re pretty much set for now.”
Their non-date was almost over.
And somehow, they’d managed to steer clear of the past—mostly, anyway.
All good, she told herself. It was the past, after all, over and done, and they didn’t need to go there.
But then he stretched out on his back, laced his hands beneath his head and stared up at the wide indigo sky. “Lots of stars out tonight, Miss Wainwright.”
Miss Wainwright.
Their private joke. He’d called her that in their first tutoring session and it had stuck.
“Yes, Miss Wainwright,” he would tease her.
“Whatever you say, Miss Wainwright.”
“Miss Wainwright, you’re the boss.”
He looked pretty comfortable, lying there. Not like he planned to get up and leave anytime soon.
Maybe the evening wasn’t over, after all.
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