The parallel bars in the gym came to mind. She was grateful that Caleb had helped her, even more grateful that he’d seen there was a problem. After never having suffered an injury on the job, she didn’t want to fall off her own equipment while she was alone in the gym. Speaking dismissively to Caleb had been a mistake. She thanked him, then showed him the door in practically the same breath. He wasn’t Xavier. She knew that, but in that instance he reminded her of him. Not by his looks, but by how he commanded things. How could she have ever thought she and Xavier could make a life together?

  Piper got up to clear away the dishes but heard a vehicle coming. Her shoulders dropped. She wasn’t ready for Caleb Masters again. But it wasn’t Caleb’s truck that came to a stop in front of the house.

  “Meghan,” Piper called, going through the door and rushing down the steps as her friend jumped from the seat of her truck’s cab.

  Piper and Meghan had known each other since kindergarten and having a friend who always supported her was one of the reasons Piper returned to the ranch.

  The two women hugged. Meghan owned a hotel in town and lived in the house attached.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had to go pick up an order in Butte.” She hunched her shoulders. “The joys of hotel management. So, as I was out this way, I decided to drop in and see my best friend.”

  They both smiled and went into the house, naturally stopping in the kitchen. It was their favorite place. Piper poured two cups of coffee, Meghan’s preference, and they settled across from each other at the table.

  “I’m glad you had time to stop by,” Piper said.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Fine. Except for the kids I give lessons to, I rarely see anyone.”

  “You could change that.”

  Piper frowned. She knew she could be more involved in town, but she didn’t want to answer all the unasked questions.

  “I guess it can be pretty lonely out here with your aunt and uncle gone. I sure miss them.”

  “I do, too. But I keep busy with the riding school.”

  “What about him? Have you seen him yet?” Meghan asked.

  “Him being...” Piper left the sentence hanging.

  “Him being the new owner of the Christensen ranch.” Meghan glanced in the direction of Caleb’s property.

  “You mean the Masters ranch,” Piper corrected. “Mr. Caleb Masters informed me of that detail himself.”

  “Ah, so you have met him.” Meghan’s face lit up. “What’s he like? Everyone in town is all abuzz about him.”

  Meghan was more excited about Piper’s neighbor than she was. But then Piper was off men and Meghan was always on the hunt.

  “He’s a man. You’d like him. He’s tall, fit, rugged.”

  “As in ruggedly handsome?” Meghan smiled.

  “If you like that type,” she said, smiling.

  Meghan flashed her eyes at Piper. “You like him,” she stated.

  “Not me.” Piper put her hands up, palms out, and leaned back as if something awful was about to touch her. “I’m done with men.”

  “You’re not going to let what happened with Xavier turn you away from romance forever, are you?” Meghan’s voice was dead serious.

  “Not entirely. I’m not ready for a relationship,” Piper admitted.

  “Okay, but you shouldn’t hide yourself away, either. You don’t come to town unless absolutely necessary. You don’t attend any events, or talk to other people. Only the parents and kids you teach get your warmth. The rest of us are shut out.”

  “The kids are doing fine.” Some were enthusiastic to begin. Others a little apprehensive of such a huge animal, but after their first lesson, all their fears were gone.

  “I know they are. Their parents are proud of their accomplishments and think you’re an excellent teacher, but they wish you were more sociable.”

  Piper said nothing. She thought about what Meghan said, but she didn’t want to go into town. Invariably, people would want to know about the accident and someone would surely bring up the fact that it was her fault.

  “What does that mean? Most of the people we went to school with have moved away.”

  “So, make some new friends.”

  “I will,” Piper agreed, but she had no intention of doing so. “But not yet.”

  “I tell you what. There’s a new movie in town I’ve been dying to see. Why don’t you come with me?”

  “With you and who?”

  “Travis and me, and if you want to bring someone—” Meghan glanced at the wall toward the Masters ranch.

  Piper held her hand up to stop her friend. Travis was Meghan’s on and off boyfriend. Piper didn’t want to be the third person on a date.

  “No, thank you. I have plenty to do and I’m not up for a date night or a blind date.” There was a clear warning in Piper’s tone.

  Meghan took a sip of her coffee. She was obviously disappointed.

  “All right, how about just lunch with me in the hotel restaurant? At least change your scenery to something different from the sky and the mountains. Being alone all the time is not good for you.”

  Piper hesitated. She wasn’t alone. There were grooms and caretakers on the property. The vet visited, too, from time to time. Still, she knew if she didn’t agree to something, Meghan would continue making suggestions until she did.

  “All right, lunch.”

  “Tuesday at one,” Meghan prompted.

  Piper shook her head. Tuesday was only a few days away. “How about a week from Tuesday?”

  “Great,” Meghan said, evidently satisfied with the compromise.

  Standing up, Meghan said, “I’d better get back now. The hotel would fall apart without me.”

  Smiling, Piper walked her to the door. She watched as Meghan skipped down the steps and went to her truck. Opening the door, she stopped and turned. She wasn’t looking at Piper, but at the distant house that once belonged to the Christensens and now had a completely different resident.

  Piper followed her gaze. She felt compelled to do so, as if Caleb Masters knew she was spying on him.

  Meghan got behind the wheel. “Next Tuesday,” she called as she backed away from the house. “I won’t allow a no-show for anything other than hospitalization or death.”

  Both women smiled and waved. Piper waited until Meghan’s truck rounded the bend in the road and all she saw was a cloud of dust. Opening the screened door, she went inside already thinking of a reason to avoid lunch. The last thing she needed was to sit in a crowded restaurant among whispers and stares, even with a friend she’d known since childhood.

  * * *

  CAL LEFT HIS truck in the supermarket parking lot. Walking to the door, he was stopped by several people who greeted him warmly and welcomed him to Waymon Valley. It was a friendly place and he felt buying the ranch as an investment was a good idea, but he’d been in the Valley for over a month and people still greeted him as if he’d arrived yesterday. He supposed it was small-town life. Traveling so much, Cal had experienced different kinds of receptions in the past, some not always good, but he’d have to get used to the overly friendly citizens of the Valley. That is, overly friendly minus one.

  Grabbing a cart, he started down the aisles. Naomi usually did the shopping, but Cal needed something to do and he’d offered to run into town and get supplies. Used to heading up a crew and being active as an engineer, Cal was going stir-crazy sitting around doing nothing. His brightest spot had been with his antisocial neighbor, Piper Logan. She had a pretty name and it extended to her features: tall, with dark red hair and highlights that made it glow in the sunlight as fiery as her temperament. Her body was lithe and toned. She had warm brown eyes, and when she smiled, it was winning. By far, her eyes were her best feature, large with depths that seemed to bore into the soul.

  And the way she rode a horse. Cal shook his head in appreciation, remembering her on the ridge. It was like nothing he’d ever seen outside of an old movie, but Piper performed as if she and the horse had melded into one.

  Pulling his attention back to the store, he took out the list Naomi had given him and went down aisle after aisle pulling the items she’d outlined. The cart filled up quickly, not only with what Naomi needed, but Cal had his own ideas and made his selections accordingly. He’d fended for himself plenty of times, and when Naomi wasn’t there, he could whip up a quick meal or set a delectable spread with only an open grill and a handful of ingredients. He recalled several times when he was on a jobsite and the smell of cooking meat sparked an impromptu picnic. His mouth watered at the memories. It had him adding sausage and pork ribs to his cart.

  Passing the bakery section, he remembered the cakes he’d left for Piper. A smile tilted the corners of his mouth. He wondered if she’d eaten them. Probably, he concluded. Even though his time in the Valley had been short, he’d heard that no one turned down Naomi’s cooking. Rejecting the idea of purchasing pastry, he headed for the cashier. That was when he saw her. Cal blinked, making sure it wasn’t his imagination conjuring up his thoughts. Piper stood in the frozen foods aisle. She was looking into one of the freezer compartments as if she was deciding what to choose.

  He turned away before she could see him. The line at the cashier was long, so he used the self-checkout and was on his way to the exit when he saw a flyer on the wall among business cards and one-page flyers offering services. The photo of a horse grabbed his attention and he stopped. Reading it, he discovered it was Piper’s advertisement for horseback riding lessons. While it was directed mainly at kids’ lessons, the thought that entered Cal’s mind ballooned into a full-blown idea.

  In the open air and to no one in particular, he laughed out loud at what he thought Piper’s expression would be when she saw his name on an application.

  Leaving the market, Cal pushed his cart to the truck and began loading the groceries in the back. He kept his eyes on the door of the store, waiting for Piper to appear. As he put the last bag in the cargo bed, she came out pushing a heavy cart and balancing a bag in her right hand. Cal rushed over.

  “Here, let me help you.” He took the bag from her before she could refuse.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, looking up at him. “It seems every time I turn around, there you are.”

  Caleb noticed her eyes. The sunlight made them brighter. Like her hair, they mesmerized him. For a long moment he said nothing.

  “Cal?” Piper called.

  “A man’s gotta eat.” He said the first thing that came to mind.

  She glanced at him and almost smiled, then pushed the cart toward her truck. “But I thought Naomi did the shopping.”

  “She was busy this morning and I needed something to do.”

  “I take it sitting around relaxing doesn’t fit your lifestyle?”

  “I’ve been working since I graduated from college. Sitting around and watching the grass grow is a little foreign to me.”

  “You could always take up a hobby. I hear golfing at the country club is popular.”

  “Funny you should mention hobbies.”

  They reached her truck and she swung a bag over the side, settling it on the bottom of the bed near the cab. Cal followed suit.

  “I saw your horseback riding notice in the store,” he said. “Do you teach adults?”

  She stopped, holding a plastic-coated reusable bag with a long, unwrapped stick loaf of bread poking out of the top. “I haven’t done so while I’ve been here, but I can. Why?”

  “I want to enroll.”

  “What?” She took a step back, cutting her eyes at him as if he’d proposed the worst idea imaginable. “Are you serious?”

  Cal watched her expression. He thought she was wondering if he was being facetious.

  “I saw you riding. Would you teach me to do some of those tricks?”

  Her face changed. Frown lines formed between her eyes. “You don’t just get on a horse and try that,” she said. “Stunts are an art and they are not learned overnight or during a ten-week session with someone who’s only a weekend rider.”

  Heaving the last bag into the cargo bed, she faced him straight on. “Kids are one thing. They want to learn and many of them are just afraid enough of an animal that size to do what you tell them. Adults are a different story. If you want riding lessons, that’s one thing. Stunts and tricks, I don’t teach.”

  Cal was stunned at her abrupt change of attitude. “Why is that? You had to learn them someplace. Wouldn’t it be safer to train a person the right way?”

  He knew the answer to that. He’d used the technique many times in his career as an engineer, especially when he encountered someone who was resistant to change. He didn’t have that impression of Piper. Yet there was something about her that he felt she was hiding. From what he’d heard of her, she was just short of being reclusive. And her attitude seemed to prove it.

  “I’ll sign a waiver,” he prompted, flashing her a wide smile. Cal knew a waiver was part of any sports training arrangement.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time for that. Maybe you can check with other riding instructors. Good afternoon.”

  Without giving him time for an additional argument, she slipped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  Cal walked to the window. “Call me Cal,” he said. “We are neighbors.”

  “Cal,” she repeated. “Good luck.”

  * * *

  IT WAS NOON the next day before Piper got to her breakfast. She had three back-to-back lessons, but she was free the rest of the day. Curled up in the kitchen window, she savored her second cup of coffee as she watched the calming mountains in the distance. She’d go for a ride later. Maybe head up into the hills, taking her camera and capturing some of the natural beauty of the area. She wasn’t a filmmaker, but she’d worked in the industry long enough to have some of the tinsel enter her core.

  A beeping noise caught her attention. It came from her office computer. She usually worked her horse riding business in the morning before any lessons, but today she’d overslept. Her night had been marred by thoughts of the accident. Only this time there was a difference. Instead of the jib, or working arm of the crane she’d seen in past dreams, this time there was a parallel gymnastics bar. Chalking it up to thoughts of Cal helping her reset the bars, she tried to push the thoughts aside.

  The beeping continued. Usually there was nothing new. Most of the applications for horseback riding lessons had already come in. But there was an occasional one or two a month from people discovering her and sending an inquiry.

  Piper had set the machine to notify her of different types of requests. What she heard wasn’t a general inquiry. It was an application coming in. She wasn’t a computer wizard. But her automatic reply said she’d respond within twenty-four hours, although she usually did it in less time.

  Taking her coffee cup, she unwound her legs from the window seat and headed to the small room off the kitchen that she used as an office.

  He didn’t. Piper plopped into the chair in front of the screen. She stared at the display for several seconds before blinking. Then she blinked again. Surely she wasn’t seeing clearly. Opening her eyes, the screen hadn’t changed. Caleb Masters’s application for riding lessons was clearly visible. Did he really want lessons or was this another attempt to poke and prod at her?

  Piper shook her head, going back to the computer screen. She recalled the first time she’d seen him, the first time they’d touched. And then there was the supermarket. Despite their conversation, she had seen the interest in his eyes. She had hidden her own. Piper didn’t trust men. She’d been burned by more guys than just Xavier, although he was the latest. Sadly, it had started with her parents, who ignored her and her siblings in favor of pursuing their careers in the theater and on the silver screen. Even though her aunt and uncle had welcomed them as children and treated them as if they were their own, she’d never quite pushed off the blanket of feeling rejected.

  Hunching her shoulders, Piper decided to give her neighbor the benefit of the doubt. She could be wrong about his intention toward her, but she doubted it. She smiled. He wanted riding lessons and that was exactly what he’d get. Tapping the icon to process the application, a series of programs went into effect, one sending an acceptance to Caleb Masters.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CAL’S TRUCK ROLLED to a stop near Piper’s horse barn. He cut the engine and got out. Today was his first lesson. Although he didn’t have the apprehension he felt when his mom let go of his hand on his first day of kindergarten, he felt something that he couldn’t quite identify. After all, it wasn’t like he was going to have to scope out the schoolyard and establish himself as friend or foe. He liked Piper and believed somewhere deep down she liked him, too.

  Cal went into the barn. He hadn’t visited his horses yet. There were twenty of them when he bought the ranch. The Christensens sold ten before he took possession. Seven others were contracted for, leaving three that Cal agreed to take. He found their stalls in the barn. As he stopped at each stall, they came to him, friendly, seeking something to eat probably. Cal had nothing. No fruit, no carrots, no sugar cubes. Still, they appeared interested in him.

  He remembered their names from previous visits, yet they were printed on the outside of the half gate where they were stalled. Cal spent a few minutes with them before heading out to find Piper and mentally agreeing to come by and exercise the horses himself.

  Outside, he spotted Piper carrying a saddle. Slinging it over the slated fence, she settled it next to one that was already there. His footsteps, crunching on the hard ground, must have alerted her to his nearness. She turned and looked at him. Her hair was under a hat and pulled back behind her ears. The sun made her skin glow golden and as usual her hair flamed as it flowed across her shoulders. Cal moved before he realized he was doing it. He felt as if she were drawing him to her. She had no smile, although her face was relaxed. Walking with purpose, he stopped short of stepping into her personal space.