Unlucky in Love Read online

  Gunnar stood closer to the edge of the ridge with the instructors, helping the women with their helmets and straps, many of whom seemed to keep developing problems that required his assistance, she noticed. But was the equipment problematic? Or were the women just looking for some attention from their favorite cowboy?

  Lexi’d bet the latter, but the former was a distinct possibility. Dammit.

  Another woman leaped. Only two left now.

  She looked around, wondering if she could conjure up a stray lightning storm or something that would require them making a hasty exit from this ridge. But the sky was a deep, gorgeous blue, and as far as she could see, there wasn’t even one little puffy cloud to interrupt the view.

  Double dammit.

  Could she accidentally-on-purpose manage to sprain an ankle in the next five minutes, maybe? She looked around at the rocks scattered atop the ridge, thinking all she’d have to do is step on one just right, turn her ankle, and have to bow out. It wouldn’t be her fault, for goodness sake. I mean, look at all the rocks.

  “You looking for an exit that doesn’t involve wings?” Gunnar’s amused voice interrupted her search for the perfect boulder.

  “Nope.” She pasted on her best smile, squaring her shoulders. “Just thinking it’s a wonder nobody sprains an ankle running off from this ridge. Look at all the rocks.”

  He looked down at her, amused. “You ready? You’re almost on deck. Looks like your buddy’s ready.”

  Her stomach started quivering, and she avoided his eyes as she took a deep breath for courage. Tristan had better appreciate the lengths she was going to here. So maybe he hadn’t responded to her pics of the ranch, of the mountains, of her on a horse. There was no way he’d be able to avoid being impressed by her taking on paragliding. No way.

  “I’m ready.” She nodded, stepping forward. “Let’s do this.”

  “You sure, Lex?” Now his eyes were concerned. “You don’t need to prove anything here. Not to anybody who matters.”

  She heard the message in his statement, and while on one hand it warmed her inside, on the other hand it made her feel more pathetic.

  He tightened the straps over her shoulders, clipping the front and pulling it snug. “One question, Lex.”

  “All my worldly possessions go to my sister, if it comes to that. Is that what you’re going to ask?”

  He laughed. “No.” Then he got serious again. “Are you doing this for you? Or for—Tristan?”

  She heard him make the effort to say Tristan’s name, rather than calling him The Idiot, and she smiled in appreciation.

  “For me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  They both turned as the last woman leaped, whooping and hollering and screeching her way down to the ground below. A gust blew up, and for a second, Lexi was almost pulled off her feet.

  In that second, she was pretty sure she saw her entire life flash before her eyes…which was an expression she’d always thought was kind of odd, because would that really ever happen? When you were about to die, did you indeed see a high-speed newsreel of your entire existence, just to review it before you expired or something?

  And oh, God. If that had just happened, did that mean she was about to die? Did somebody upstairs know something she didn’t know? Was there a rogue gust just waiting to knock her into the rocks below? She looked up at the sky again. Lightning? Anything?

  Another puff knocked her off balance, and she couldn’t help it. She grabbed for Gunnar like he was the only thing that might possibly save her from certain death. She clutched his shirt like she’d decided that if she was about to go, he was coming with her, dammit, and his eyes widened as he scanned her face.

  He shook his head slowly, then more decidedly as he covered her hands with his. Then he unclipped her straps and slid them down her arms.

  “What are you do—wait. Gunnar?”

  “You’re not doing this.”

  “But—” A tiny part of her was annoyed that he’d taken it upon himself to decide something for her—without being asked, thank you very much—but a much, much bigger part of her was so glad to have those straps detached from her body that she actually wanted to hug him.

  “This isn’t you, Lex. It doesn’t have to be you.” He shook his head as he handed the equipment to the instructor and unclipped her helmet, looking into her eyes for a long, long moment.

  Then he sighed and turned away. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

  —

  “Heard you had a little adventure yesterday.” Ma buried her hands in the soap bubbles in the sink, attacking the breakfast dishes while Lexi put away the leftovers from this morning’s feast. Cole and Decker had just led the guests out onto the trail for the weekly overnight trip, so the main lodge was strangely peaceful.

  “I’m not sure adventure is quite the word.” Lexi smiled sadly. “I had great intentions of having one, but I chickened out.”

  “Well, might be just me, but I guess if I was bound and determined to find my adventurous side, I might start a little smaller than paragliding.”

  Lexi laughed as she picked up a dish towel to dry the dishes Ma was stacking on the drain board. “Touché. I think Gunnar might agree with you there.”

  “I think Gunnar probably saw you go six shades of white and figured he’d better unstrap you before you had a heart attack up on the ridge.”

  “It’s possible.” Lexi bit her lip. “I really did want to try it, until I actually got up there.”

  Ma paused her hands in the dish water. “Did you, really?”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you want to do it? Or did you want to be able to say you’d done it? Because that’s a pretty important distinction right there.”

  Lexi started to answer, then pulled back. She had wanted to do it…hadn’t she?

  Or had it really been more about picturing Tristan checking out his phone, and seeing a shot of her flying through the sky without a care in the world?

  “I’m not sure I can distinguish between the two, now that I didn’t go through with it.” Lexi stacked two pots together. “But I honestly am trying to make this summer my own little adventure. Truly.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you are, honey. And right now, you’ve got almost thirty-six hours before the guests get back here from the trail ride. A whole two days stretch out before you. What is it you want to do?”

  Lexi wrinkled her nose, picturing the sketch book and charcoals in her backpack…picturing that spot under the giant pine tree, right beside Whisper Creek…picturing a novel, a sketch, a nap.

  “Well, I’m—you know—still recovering a bit from yesterday’s big-adventure-that-wasn’t.”

  Ma laughed. “Gonna do some of that recovering from your porch swing? Or maybe take one of your long walks down by the creek?”

  “How do you know I—” Lexi tipped her head. “You pretty much know everything that goes on around here, don’t you?”

  “Sure do. But that’s my job. Can’t have guests running the place, and I surely can’t let the cowboys get hold of it, so I’ve got eyes on all sides of my head. It’s just how it works here.”

  Just then, Kyla came in from the great room, ever-present notebook in hand. She looked from Ma to Lexi, then shook her head as she set down the notebook and opened the fridge.

  “Lexi, when I was doing introductions and tours a few weeks back, did I mention the part about never getting trapped in the kitchen with Ma doing dishes?”

  “No.” Lexi smiled. “But it’s fine. I don’t mind dishes at all.”

  Kyla poured orange juice into a tall glass. “Oh, it’s not the dishes that’ll get you.”

  “What do you mean?” Lexi looked from Kyla to Ma, who was trying to bite back a smile.

  “Was Ma just talking about how she’s got ten pairs of eyes? How she sees everything that goes on here at Whisper Creek, even when we all think she’s not looking?”

  “Um, yes? Sort of?”

  “Well, that’s just her le
ad-in.” Kyla sat down at the big oak table, opening her notebook. “You’re about to be psychoanalyzed. Fair warning.”

  Ma turned. “I do not psychoanalyze anybody.”

  Kyla snorted. “Oh, yes, you do.” She put up one finger, then another. “Hayley? Jess? Just for starters? You are the queen of analyzing the innocent.”

  “Ha.” Ma puffed out a perturbed breath. “I just like to ask questions.”

  “Analyze.”

  “I’m interested!”

  “Analyze.”

  Lexi laughed at the two of them. “Well, good news. I’m terribly uncomplicated, so she’ll be bored really quickly.”

  “Don’t bet on it.” Kyla winked. “The woman’s got serious skills.”

  Ma rolled her eyes. “Kyla Driscoll, if you weren’t the wife of my son, I’d—”

  Kyla got up and hugged Ma from behind, then headed for the door. “You’d what, Ma?” When Ma didn’t answer, she turned to Lexi. “Don’t tell her your deep, dark secrets. I’m telling you, if she likes you, she’ll have you convinced you need to move out here in ten minutes flat. This is her way.”

  Lexi laughed again. “No worries. I’m due back in Maine in less than a month.”

  “Yup. I know.” Kyla paused with her hand on the doorknob. “So was Hayley. So was Jess. So was I.” She pointed at the glass of water Lexi had just lifted to her lips, shaking her head.

  “I know I warned you about the water.”

  Chapter 11

  Later that afternoon, Gunnar pulled back on the reins, stopping Smoky well short of the creek. He peered through the trees, down the little pathway where he’d seen Lexi disappear two hours ago. It was his one day off this week, and he’d intended to pack up his saddlebags, ride out to his own property, and camp out for the night.

  But then he’d seen Lexi amble down the path with a giant Thermos and her backpack, her mind seemingly a million miles away, and he’d been intrigued. When she hadn’t come back after a couple of hours, he’d decided to go check on her. As a Whisper Creek staff member, it was the responsible thing to do, right?

  It wasn’t that he couldn’t stop thinking of her…wasn’t that he was looking for an excuse to get her alone…wasn’t that the only frigging thing he could think of to do with his day off now was find her and spend it with her.

  He hung Smoky’s reins over a branch and set off walking toward the path, but stopped in his tracks when he spotted her sitting under a huge pine. Her back was angled to match the tree, and she held a sketch pad on her knees. He was too far away to see what she was drawing, but he could see her fingers moving with fluid grace over the paper.

  She was in profile as she looked off in the distance, then down at her sketch, and as he watched, she kept pushing a stray section of her hair back over her ear like it was bothering her concentration. The sunlight slanted down through the trees, touching her with a soft light that accentuated the gold in her hair and the curves of her body, and he knew he should go.

  Yes, he should turn around, get back on his horse, and keep right on riding. Because she was obviously fine. She was just peacefully sitting by a creek, drawing, enjoying the silence of a gorgeous summer afternoon.

  And that’s exactly why he couldn’t turn around at all.

  Seeing her there, watching her, feeling the peace that settled around her did something to his insides that he couldn’t explain. Yesterday he’d watched her stomach practically implode as she’d tried to convince herself she could leap off that ridge. She’d been terrified, at the same time she’d been trying to pretend she wasn’t.

  And he’d been so angry with the person who’d made her feel like she needed to pretend she was somebody else that he’d felt like he could spit nails.

  Because this right here—this woman sitting in her jeans and cotton T-shirt by a creek, listening to the birds while she sketched whatever it was she was sketching—this was the real Lexi. It just was. And yeah, he barely knew her, but it was so damn obvious.

  She wasn’t the girl who partied. She wasn’t the girl who would take on a rodeo circuit someday. She definitely wasn’t the girl who’d willingly strap on wings and fly off a cliff.

  And for all of those reasons, he was dead falling for her, dammit.

  He must have made a noise, because suddenly, her head snapped around and she spotted him. Color rushed to her cheeks as she tipped the sketchbook away, but she didn’t move.

  “Hey, Lex.” He walked closer, because he couldn’t not walk closer.

  “Hey, yourself. I thought you were out on the guest ride.”

  “Nope. Drew the long straw this week. I actually get to make my own schedule for the next twenty-four hours.”

  “Nice.” She closed her pad. “So what are you going to do with yourself for a whole, entire day?”

  “I thought I might go paragliding. You want to come?”

  She laughed. “Absolutely.”

  He motioned to the ground. “Mind if I sit for a minute? Or are you trying to escape all of humankind? Because I can totally respect that, if you are.”

  “You did save me from myself yesterday. If anything, I should probably keep you closer.”

  He saw her nose wrinkle for the briefest second after the words came out of her mouth, and he knew she hadn’t meant them the way he really wanted her to.

  “Pretty sure you wouldn’t have leaped, even if I hadn’t been there.”

  “Oh, really?” She rolled her eyes. “Upon investigation, I’m pretty sure I would have died, if you hadn’t been there.”

  “Not that you’ll be extreme about it or anything.”

  She laughed. “Just being honest. But at least we got a picture, right? In my mind, I can pretend I did it.”

  He nodded reluctantly. Yep, they had. They’d faked it, but on her phone was a picture that looked very much like she was gliding through the air with a big-ass smile on her face, not a care in the world.

  So her feet had been firmly planted on the ground. So the flight instructor had been crouched behind her, holding up the glider wings so it looked like she was wearing them. So Gunnar had been lying on the ground with her phone, shooting upward like he was free-falling below her.

  It had seemed like the least he could do, given the fact that her face at the time could have given Casper the Friendly Ghost a run for his money.

  “So did you send the picture? Is The Idiot suitably impressed?”

  “I—don’t know.” Her smile turned quickly to a frown. “I don’t really even know if he’s getting my messages.”

  Gunnar nodded. “Well, like you said…maybe he’s somewhere where signals are bad or whatever.”

  “Sure.” Her voice was sad. “I’m sure that’s it.”

  “So what are you drawing?” Gunnar pointed at her sketch pad, not wanting to give her ex any more air time than he deserved. Which was none.

  “Just fiddling around. I’m actually pretty terrible at it, but it’s relaxing.”

  Gunnar tipped his head, a sudden memory leaking through. “My mother used to draw, way back when.”

  “Really? What did she like to draw?”

  “She used to like to try to draw me, actually. But she’d get so annoyed, because I never stayed still long enough for her to finish anything.”

  Years ago, when he’d been packing to move to Whisper Creek, he’d come across one of her old sketch pads, buried in some suitcase. He’d flipped through it, floored by her talent. That’s when he’d remembered her art degree…remembered her getting dressed up sometimes in long black dresses for her shows, smiling as she dabbed her favorite perfume behind her ears and on her wrists.

  But then he’d remembered the desperation in her voice as she’d talked quietly to Dad on the phone. He’d remembered the constant packing, the constant moving, the constant not knowing whether to bother to make friends. He’d remembered her changing her perfume when she smelled another one on Dad. It had been sharp, musky, and not her at all, but she’d assumed he must like that
scent better.

  She’d changed her clothes, her hair—even the way she’d talked, for one strange summer—but none of it had brought him back, at least not for more than a night here or there.

  And then he’d remembered the drive-bys—the Saturday afternoon jaunts disguised as ice-cream outings—when they’d roll slowly by Dad’s new house in Dad’s new neighborhood…and see Dad’s new wife in the window.

  Mom hadn’t drawn much since their third move, but he’d taken that pad with him when he’d left. It served as a stark reminder of a woman who’d lost herself while trying to put on someone else’s life.

  “I’m terrible at portraits,” Lexi grimaced. “But I can do a pretty kickass pine tree when inspiration strikes.”

  Gunnar smiled. “And has inspiration struck?”

  “It has.” She wiggled her eyebrows, tipping the pad toward him. “Behold, a pine tree.”

  He took the pad, looking at the sketch she’d been working on. It was just shades of charcoal, but he’d almost swear the picture was in color, for all of the nuances she’d created. He could see individual pine needles in one spot, shadows on grass in another, and he could almost hear the burble of the creek, looking at the way she’d drawn the water flowing over the boulders.

  “You really do draw a kickass pine tree, Lex.”

  She smiled, taking the pad back. “There was a bunny over there for a few minutes, but he didn’t stay long enough for me to get him in the picture.” She squinted, pointing at the page. “I think I only got his ear done before he scooted.”

  “Tough models, those rabbits.”

  “Speaking of models,”—Lexi started, then broke off, looking the other way—“never mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “What?” She turned back to him.

  “You said never mind. I said okay.”

  She sighed, picking up a little bunch of pine needles. “You know, Gunnar, when a girl starts a sentence, and then says never mind, you’re supposed to insist that she finish it.”

  “Really?” He felt his eyebrows rise. “Is that a rule?”