Page 3 of The Spice Is Nice

Colt had quietly entered and leaned against the doorframe with his thumbs in belt loops. The steadiness in his face was so complete that it actually made my throat ache. He’d followed me, worried about me, like a good friend would.

“He’s gone. Left on his bike. Knox watched him head down the road.”

I exhaled and released all the tension in my shoulders. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. For the… the kiss. That wasn’t fair to you.”

“I’m not complaining.” He crossed his arms and studied me with those quiet blue-green eyes. “You want to tell me what that was about?”

I owed him that much. The least I could do was give him the truth, or the version of it I was willing to say out loud. “Seth and I were together once. Things were bad. I’d wanted out for some time, and finally got it when he ended up in prison. I was able to come back here and start over. With him put away, I thought that was the end of it. But now he’s out on parole?” I shook my head. The rest of it was still tangled up in my chest. His father must have used his influence as a congressman to see his son got out early was my suspicion.

Colt stayed quiet for a moment. He didn’t push or offer sympathy or advice or any of the things people said when they didn’t know what else to do.

“I panicked. He was walking toward me, and I needed him to think I wasn’t alone. If I were with someone, maybe he’d leave me be. You were the nearest person who—” I stopped.

That wasn’t the whole truth either. Colt hadn’t been the nearest person. He’d been the one person I’d walked straight to, past a dozen other options, because something in me had known he was the one who’d make me feel safe. But I wasn’t ready to say that.

I wasn’t in the right place to do relationships right now. I didn’t trust myself with them, not after Seth, and the years of bad choices with men that had nearly swallowed me whole.

“The nearest person who looked like he could handle a kiss like that?” Colt offered, eyebrow cocked, and the faintest trace of humor crossed his face.

A humorless laugh escaped me. “The nearest who was afriendI could count on.”

“Friend.Got it.” He nodded once, like he was filing the entire story away in some organized place in his mind where he kept things that mattered. “Look, Wylde, if that situation ever comes up again, you don’t have to explain. As yourfriend,I’ll be there for you.”

The words landed somewhere behind my sternum, warm and unexpected. I looked down at my hands. They’d stopped shaking at least. “I hate dragging anyone into my mess.”

“I don’t get dragged anywhere I don’t want to go.” Hepushed off the doorframe and held his hand out. “Come on. It’s a wedding. If you sit in here much longer, your sisters are going to come looking for you, and then I’ll have to explain why I’m alone in a closet with you.”

I chuckled at how right he was and took his hand. His grip was firm and warm and calloused in the right places, and he pulled me to my feet with an easy strength that didn’t need to show off. We stood there for a beat, our breaths mingling closer than friends should, his hand still wrapped around mine. If I kissed him again right now, in this room with no audience and no ex-boyfriend to perform for, it would feel different.

I cleared my throat and let go of his hand. I smoothed my skirt and hair. “How about a friendly little dance or two?”

“I can handle that.” He opened the door and held it for me, and we walked back into the noise and the light and the celebration like nothing had shifted between us at all.

In my mind, something had. I could still feel the ghost of his mouth on my lips. My skin still tingled where he’d touched. If we weren’t friends, we could be unmistakably more. But as we danced, I turned my face before I could give any of these thoughts away.

I didn’t trust myself with love anymore. I was building a new life in Forest Grove, brick by careful brick, and I would not let a panic kiss with Colt in a honky-tonk bar undo any of it.

Even if it had been the best kiss of my recent years.

Chapter 2

Weight of a Wylde Woman

Colt Calhoun

A daylike today reminded me I was alive, and I should be glad for it. The clear blue sky and a cool breeze coming off the mountains provided the perfect setting for the late August evening that made Montana feel like something God built on purpose. The whole ranch staff and friends and family had gathered in the clearing on the hill behind the main barn, sitting on hay bales and overturned buckets, or on tailgates and picnic tables, or in folding chairs dragged up the slope and circled in loose clusters.

This was our “church.” No hymns or sermons, but what we’d come to know on the Off-Duty Rescue Ranch as a gathering of souls on the hilltop, being thankful for another week of living and working. Every Sunday evening during good weather, the same ritual occurred. Occasionally, even the pastor from the church in town joined us for the meal.

Everybody brought what they could. Eldon had already set out his famous potato salad and a vat of baked beans. Anson had contributed a bin of tomatoes and cucumbersfrom the ranch garden. Willow had brought cornbread, still warm. I went in with the other ranch hands, pooling our money for some bags of chips and containers of dips.

Knox manned the grill, keeping an eye on the lineup of hot dogs and burgers with the tongs in one hand and a beer in the other. He wore a clean snap-button shirt and enough aftershave to season the food. Eldon had already teased him twice that if his cologne interfered with the meal, he’d be eating alone on the far side of the pasture.

I leaned against the pergola post a few feet from the grill and watched the clearing fill up. Later, Knox would build a fire in the ring for light once the sun dropped. It was too warm yet for a bonfire, but the ring was where everybody gravitated after the food was gone and the sun went down. Where some of the guys pulled out guitars and sang songs to stretch the evening out.

Ash caught Willow up in his arms and twirled her around. I’d watched him the day they married, how his jaw worked when she came down the aisle. The man who’d once told me he didn’t deserve good things had married the best thing that ever happened to him.

I was happy for them. But watching it sometimes made me uncomfortable, so I looked somewhere else.