The Rancher's Dance by Allison Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

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    Gloria and Squire Clay technically weren’t Lucy’s grandparents. Gloria and Squire had been married for as long as Lucy could remember, but Squire had already raised five adult sons by that time, and Gloria had raised Belle and her twin sister, Nikki. And Belle was Lucy’s stepmother. But those kinds of distinctions had never mattered when it came to the family that her father had married into.
    To the Clays and everyone who came under their umbrella, family was family. Love was love.
    It was that simple.
    So Lucy swallowed her protests that she was fine and didn’t need them worrying about her and let Gloria, who was a retired nurse, fuss over her knee and let Squire, who’d become an unrepentant and somewhat wily nosy body in his later years, guilt her into eating not only half of one of the decadent rolls, but the whole darned thing.
    Spaghetti the night before.
    Fat, fluffy cinnamon rolls now.
    She’d be working out for hours just to calm her conscience.
    Then, before Gloria and Squire departed, one of Lucy’s cousins, Sarah Scalise, showed up with her three kids in tow.
    The house just got more crowded as the morning wore on.
    And even though Lucy was truly delighted to see each and every one of them, she couldn’t help but be aware of the silence from the back of the house where the day before had come the sound of Beck’s power tools and hammer.
    He hadn’t shown up that morning at all.
    Because of that strange, stilted dance they’d conducted over his mercy package of spaghetti? Or because of something that had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with her?
    A part of her chided herself for thinking that she might have had any disturbing effect on the man strong enough to make him keep his distance. But another part of her knew that…disturbing…had definitely been one of the things floating in the air between them.
    â€œSo, we’ll all meet at Colbys tomorrow night,” Sarah was saying as she stood in the doorway, keeping a weather eye out on her two thirteen-year-olds—Eli and Megan—as they kept their four-year-old brother, Ben, occupied in the front yard. “Girls’ night out.” She’d already made plans with the rest of the cousins to meet in town. “We’ll catch up on all the gossip and drink until we’re silly and my husband’s deputy sheriffs will have to drive us all home.” She grinned. “Sound good?”
    â€œSounds great.” Lucy had a smile on her lips because she was looking forward to it, but she also knew her gaze kept straying past her cousin to search the road for signs of a dark blue pickup truck.
    â€œSure you don’t want me to come out and get you?” Sarah lived in the town proper, whereas most everyone else lived in the outlying rural areas, like the Lazy-B.
    â€œI drove here all the way from New York,” Lucy reminded her wryly. “I think I can make it into town from here.”
    â€œAnd I still can’t believe that you rented a car to drive it,” Sarah returned. “It would have been so much quicker to fly.”
    Lucy shrugged. “I like to drive.” She was not averse to flying, but she’d needed the long hours on wide-open roads to get her head together and shake off the worst of her feelings about what she’d left behind.
    In one part, she’d been fairly successful.
    She could think about the cheating pig, for example,without wanting to break something. Namely his handsome face.
    In another part, however, she had accomplished nothing. Because she was no closer to knowing what to do with her life if she couldn’t go back as a dancer than she had been when she’d packed up her dressing room at NEBT.
    As she left, Sarah was still shaking her head as if she couldn’t fathom Lucy’s decision. “See you tomorrow evening,” she called as she corralled her kids into her SUV.
    Lucy nodded and waved, and even