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Aunt Delores nodded in all seriousness, and Keena chuckled for the first time in what felt like forever. The lightening of her mood didn’t last long. Darkness and pain crowded in. She loved Aunt Delores and Mr. Creighton. They were all the family she had as far as she was concerned, but with Aunt Delores watching her like she thought Keena would break any second, she began to feel smothered. Keena didn’t relish going back to work like many people did to get past times like this. Teaching required too much brain function. She wanted to do no more than exist until her strength returned, until her mind and heart didn’t cry out day and night for Steven. She needed to get away.
“I’ve decided to take my vacation,” she announced.
Aunt Delores clapped her hands. “You’ll go to Cancun without him?”
Keena cringed. “No way. We had the honeymoon suite at the hotel.” She took a few moments to swallow in order to avoid crying again. “That would be too hard. Besides, that trip was a gift from his mother, and she was sure to snatch it back when the wedding didn’t happen. I’m sure that dragon lady was happy it went this way.”
“Hm, probably.”
“I’m going to . . .” Keena searched her mind for a destination. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll check online, something different. Not a beach because that will remind me of, you know. I’ll find something, but I have to get away. You understand, don’t you, Aunt Delores?”
“Yes, baby, I understand.” She hugged Keena and kissed her cheek. “You do what you need to do, and I’ll be right here when you get back to help you pick up the pieces.”
Tears flowed down Keena’s cheeks. “I love you so much. Having my mother’s sister raise me is just like having her. I couldn’t ask for a better mother.”
Aunt Delores, who always seemed to have a dish towel in her hand like she’d just finished drying dishes, threw the towel over her face and muttered from behind it. “Now you’ve got me crying, silly child.”
Keena smiled and pulled her aunt into another hug. They stayed there rocking while Keena scoured her mind for a place to hide away for the next three weeks.
* * * *
The airport van passed under a wide wooden archway that must have been fifteen or twenty feet high with a sign hanging from it that read Luna Mountain Ranch. Despite her heavy heart, Keena felt a tingle of excitement ignite inside. This was going to be an experience she had never dreamed of having, a city girl like her out here in the Rocky Mountains. The boldness of the decision, along with Aunt Delores’s terror that a bear would eat her, had almost made her change her mind. However, it was too late now. She was here.
The Luna Mountain Ranch nestled amid nine hundred acres of beautiful land, elevated at eighty-one hundred feet, the brochure had said. The amount of land belonging to the ranch allowed them to run their own hunts for elk without venturing over into public park land. Whatever—she was not so much of a city girl that she didn’t know elk were deer! She’d told Mirabelle, the woman she spoke with on the phone, that no, she did not want to be a part of the guided hunts they conducted. Apparently, women liked to participate. Not this woman.
When the van came to a stop and let the passengers disembark, Keena followed everyone else and stretched her cramped muscles as she glanced around. The layout of the ranch caught her breath and held it. Straight ahead of her was a large pond, where she knew the ranch offered fly fishing. To her left and right along a winding paved road were wooden structures of varying sizes. The biggest she guessed was the main lodge, where they would eat their inside meals, and the biggest of the housing areas. She had reserved a small cabin toward the back because she wanted the isolation, but seeing all the trees in that directi
on, each rising higher and higher the farther they were away, made her nervous. No mistakes—these were the mountains she’d decided on. Her cell phone not getting a signal attested to the fact as well.
Keena dragged in a deep breath and let it out a little at a time. “I can do this. It will renew me.”
A hand came down on her shoulder, and a friendly smile greeted her when she looked around. “Don’t you worry none, sweetie. You’ll have a grand time here. I promise you that. Luna Mountain Ranch is the best experience to be had anywhere.” She winked and stuck out her hand. “I’m Mirabelle. Welcome.”
Keena perked up. “Oh, yes, I spoke to you on the phone. I’m Keena Law.”
“Great to meet you, Keena. I came out here just to meet you since we spoke and you seemed so down. I knew I wanted to greet you myself.”
Tears pricked Keena’s eyes. “You did? How nice. Thank you. I think I’m going to love it here already. It’s different than what I’m used to, but I like to think of myself as adventurous.”
Mirabelle hooked an arm into hers like they were old friends and turned Keena in the direction of the rest of the ranch. They had taken a few steps when a couple vehicles rolled up and stopped alongside them. Several men jumped out with enthusiasm and began loading the luggage into the Jeeps. Mirabelle excused herself a moment to talk to one of the men, and Keena stood waiting and hugging herself.
The report on summer weather here had said temperatures ranged from seventies to the eighties in summer, with sudden changes upon occasion, but to Keena it felt more like sixty. She tried to remember where she’d packed her sweater when her slightly blurred gaze from the long trip skittered over the man Mirabelle spoke with. Ranch hands was what Keena thought she had read they were called. This particular man wasn’t handsome in the way that the men who caught her attention were. He was more arresting in his rugged features, exuding a strength she hadn’t noticed in Steven, now that she thought about it.
The ranch hand was at least six-two with broad shoulders and big arms that must have come from the hard work he did here. His short, dark hair was tousled about his head as if a sharp wind had blown it about. A few locks fell onto his forehead, obscuring one deep blue eye. While she watched, he raised a sun-bronzed hand to the lock and brushed it back. At the same time, he glanced in her direction. Keena couldn’t move. She couldn’t look away. The man imprisoned her attention and wouldn’t let it go.
This is ridiculous. He’s just a worker here, and I’m not in the market for a new man. Not now, not ever. She shook herself, blinked, and at last was able to turn away. The chill she’d felt earlier was replaced with a sense of being overheated. Annoyed and taking an instant dislike of whoever he was, she decided to steer clear of him while she was here. In fact, her objective was to keep to herself and let her heart heal. There would be no opportunity to develop a crush on Mr. Tall-and-Mysterious.
Mirabelle clapped her hands. “We’re all set, Keena. You’ll ride with Ryan since he’s going your way, and the Turners will ride with Jerry. I have got to get back to my kitchen before my son gets to the pies I left cooling.”
Keena’s empty stomach responded to the mention of kitchen and pies, and then she looked toward the two men who had stepped from the Jeeps. Which was Ryan? The tall man pivoted on the ball of his foot to open his passenger side door, and then he raised an eyebrow in Keena’s direction. Her shoulders slumped. He just had to be Ryan.
She thanked Mirabelle for the warm welcome and walked up to Ryan’s truck to get in. After he had walked around to the driver side and got in, he cast a grudging look her way. “I’m Ryan. I work here.”
Ya think?
He frowned, and she tried to school her features not to look so displeased at being paired with him. From the layout that she saw of the ranch, the drive shouldn’t be so far to get to her cabin. She could tolerate him for the moment. She forced a smile. “I’m Keena Law.”
She waited for him to tell her his last name, and with reluctance, he uttered, “Storm.”
