Page 4 of The Spice Is Nice

Somewhere else was the food line, where Daisy Wylde was shouldering past Knox with a pie in each hand and her auburn hair catching the last of the sun. Sage followed behind her with a third pie, and Poppy brought up the rear carrying a basket of cookies covered with a cloth.

“First pies of the season,” Daisy called out as she set them on the picnic table with the rest of the food. “Early apples came in. Sage and Poppy picked them this morning.”

“First pies?” Knox called from the grill, leaning back to look at her. “You save me a slice, Daisy?”

She didn’t give him any satisfaction with even a glance. She arranged the pies next to Eldon’s potato salad as if placement was a matter of national importance. “There’s three whole pies, Knox. I think you’ll manage to get a slice.”

“Yeah, but I want a slice you cut for me. Specially.”

“Then you’ll be waiting a long time.” She said it flat, but I caught the corner of her mouth twitching. Knox kept an eye on her with the tongs frozen mid-flip, and a burger started to smoke before he remembered it existed.

I shook my head. Since the day I arrived at the ranch, Knox had been running this routine, and Daisy had been pretending not to notice him. Clearly, to any of us watching, there was chemistry between them, but they weren’t acting upon it. I had stopped trying to figure out which one of them was more stubborn about it.

Ash drifted over toward the grill and grabbed a beer from the cooler at my feet. “Good turnout tonight.” He nodded toward the far end of the clearing, where Dusty’s truck was pulling up the hill with his son, Eli, hanging out the passenger window and waving at Ro.

“Always is when the weather holds,” Knox commented.

“I heard from Chris this week. He’s talking about expanding the corporate retreat program in Virginia. But he wants to double the corporate bookings by next spring here, too. Talking about building a village of cabins and maybe even a small hotel here. The man is full of ideas.” Ash shook his head and took a drink and looked at me with that steady, measuring gaze he had, the one that made you feel like he was deciding whether to give you an order or trust you tofigure it out yourself. “Gonna need someone I trust who can take his vision and manage build the ranch up here. Colt, have you given any more thought to what comes next for you?”

The question landed exactly where he’d aimed it. Ash didn’t waste words. He was sounding me out, seeing if I’d commit to staying. Honestly, I’d stayed here longer than I originally intended. The ranch was only supposed to be a temporary stopover, a place to regroup after I left the Navy, before I headed back to upstate New York to reunite with my mom and sisters.

“Still figuring that out,” I said, which was the truth and also a dodge, and Ash knew it. He nodded once and let it go, because that was also what he had done. He planted the seed and walked away, then rejoined Willow and Ro at the hay bales.

Knox grunted. “He’s offering you a good opportunity.” It was easy for him to stay, to think of this as home; his family was from around these parts. He had a younger brother who played hockey for the Montana Frostbite and a little sister in nursing school in Billings.

I focused on my beer, and the smell of charcoal and Knox’s aftershave, and the sound of this community doing what it did every Sunday evening, being together because they chose to be. Like its own close-knit version of a family.

Then, before I could sink too deeply into my thoughts, I heard the unmistakable rattle of Ivy’s old truck making its way up the hill before I saw it. We were just about to eat; she was late, which wasn’t unusual. She took Sundays off from the Wylde West Outfitters, and she always arrivedat “church” just as the food was ready, as if she’d timed it down to the minute.

When she killed the engine, I could see through the windshield that her hair was down, that sun-touched blonde that she let go loose and a little wild now and then.

She opened her door, revealing her white cotton top had slipped off one sexy shoulder. I looked around, and it seemed every man with eyes zeroed in on her. I shifted off the pergola rail and set my beer down.

She stepped out onto the running board in a long denim skirt, buttons running all the way down the front. I didn’t allow myself to linger on those buttons too long. Her fancy boots were definitely not made for the mud surrounding her truck from the mid-afternoon’s rainstorm. The grass was torn up by truck tires, and standing water pooled in the ruts.

As she peered down, I could see her expression even from this far away. I stalked toward her.

“Don’t you dare get out and step in that, Wylde,” I said.

“My boots, Calhoun.”

“I know.” I reached past her and grabbed the dish from the passenger seat, a strawberry jello salad, and set it on the roof of the truck. Then I turned back to her. “Arms around my neck, or I’m throwing you over my shoulder. Your call.”

“You are not throwing me over your shoulder.”

“Then arms around my neck it is. If you can handle it.” I laughed.

She narrowed her eyes at me, that look she gave when she was deciding whether to fight or cooperate, the one that involved her mouth pressing flat and the mole above her lip disappearing into thetension.

Then she cooperated, which was not her default setting, and I pulled her out of the cab, one arm under her knees and the other around her back. She weighed nothing, but nothing sure smelled good, like honeysuckle. The way her fingers connected behind my neck turned my pulse up a notch.

“I could’ve walked around,” she said, her face close to mine.

“I saved you the trouble.”

“You always save me. Nasty habit of yours,” she said, light and grinning, the way she’d been saying it all summer since that kiss at the wedding. Each time I opened a door for her, or carried a box, or reached something off a high shelf at the shop. It was like an inside joke between us. An easy, safe joke between two people who’d agreed they were friends and nothing more.

“That’s what friends do.”