Dalton's Undoing

“You think I imagined that night?”

“No. Oh, honey, I’m sure you didn’t,” Marcy had replied in her patient, kind voice. “My friends and I have a theory. We call it Seth Dalton’s School of Broncobustin’. If you’re lucky to find him turning his attention to you, just climb on and hold on tight. It probably won’t last too long, but it will be a hell of a ride.”

“I’m not like that!” Ashley had exclaimed. “I never even go to bars. I don’t drink. I probably wouldn’t even have met him if my roommate hadn’t dragged me along that night.”

“Which is probably the reason he didn’t call you,” Marcy pointed out gently. “You’re a kindergarten teacher with Marriage Material stamped on your forehead. You’re sweet and innocent, and you probably have already got names picked out for the four kids you’re going to have.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Oh, honey, absolutely not. I think it’s wonderful, and somewhere out there is someone who is going to love those things about you. But that’s not what Seth Dalton is about.”

One of the third-graders had come in just then complaining of a stomach ache. Marcy had turned her attention to calling the girl’s mother to come get her and Ashley had returned to her class, but not before Jenny had developed a strong dislike for the man under discussion.

It was one of those weird cases where, once she heard a name, she suddenly couldn’t seem to escape it: Seth Dalton’s kept popping up.

She heard another teacher just before the start of a faculty meeting talk about running into him in the grocery store and how she’d been so flustered just because he’d smiled and asked her how she was that she’d left without half the items on her list.

When they were brainstorming ways to raise money for new library books, someone suggested a bachelor auction and someone else said they’d have enough books to fill every shelf if only they could get Seth Dalton on the auction block.

Now that she’d met him, she certainly understood all the buzz about the man. A woman could forget her own name just from one look out of those blue eyes.

“Are you done with your work?” Morgan asked from her spot on the couch, distracting her from her completely unproductive train of thought.

She closed her laptop and gathered her papers, shoving them back into her briefcase. She had learned long ago how to recognize a lost cause. “For now. Want to watch a DVD or play a game?”

“Sure. You pick.”

They were still discussing their options a moment later when she heard the back door open and a moment later her father came in, his cheeks red from the November chill and his arms full of wood to replenish the low supply in the firebox by the woodstove.

“You should let me do that,” she chided, upset at herself for being too distracted by thoughts of Seth Dalton to pay attention to her father’s activities.

“Why?” Jason looked genuinely surprised.

“I feel guilty sitting here where it’s warm and comfortable while you’re outside hauling wood.”

“I need the exercise. Keeps my joints lubricated.”

She had to laugh at that. At sixty-five, her father was more fit than most men half his age. He rode his mountain bike all over town, he fished every chance he got—winter or summer—and his new passion was cross-country skiing.

“Maybe I need the exercise, too.”

“And maybe it does my heart good to know I’m still capable of seeing to the comfort of my daughter and granddaughter. You wouldn’t want to take that away from an old man, would you?” Jason said, with a twinkle in his eyes and the incontrovertible logic that had made him such a formidable opponent in the courtroom.

She rolled her eyes and was amused to see Morgan copying her gesture.

“Grandpa, you’re silly,” her daughter said with fondness. “You’re not old.”

The two of them were kindred spirits and got along like the proverbial house on fire. Coming to Pine Gulch had been the right decision, she thought again. Even if Cole still fought and bucked against it like one of Seth Dalton’s horses with a burr under the saddle, the move had been good for all of them.

She couldn’t be sorry for it. Morgan and Cole had come to know the grandfather they had been acquainted with only distantly, and in a lot of ways, Jenny felt the same. Jason had been a distant, distracted figure in her life, even before her parents had divorced when she was twelve. Coming here had led to a closer relationship than they’d ever had.

“We’re going to watch a DVD. Are you interested? We’re debating between a Harry Potter or one of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.”

“Oh, Tolkien. By all means.”

They settled on which of the three to see and were watching the opening credits when by some mother’s intuition, she heard the low rumble of a truck out front.

“Go ahead and start the movie,” she said. “Since I’ve seen it at least a dozen times, I’m sure I won’t be too lost when I come back.”

She reached the front door just as Cole hopped down from a big silver pickup truck. Through the storm door, she studied her son intently. Though he didn’t appear to be exactly overflowing with joy, he didn’t seem miserable, either, as he headed up the sidewalk to the house.

She wasn’t really surprised when Seth climbed out the other side of the truck and followed the boy up to the house. She opened the door for her son, who would probably have walked right by without even a greeting if she hadn’t stepped right in his way.

“How did it go?” she asked, fighting the yearning to pull him into her arms for the kind of hug he used to give her all the time.

“My favorite Levi’s smell like horse crap.”

“I’m sure that will wash out.”

“I doubt it,” Cole grumbled. “They’re probably ruined forever.”

“Here’s a tip for you,” Seth spoke from the doorway with a lazy smile. “Next time you come to the ranch, maybe you shouldn’t wear your favorite pair of Levi’s.”

“If you’re going to suggest I buy a pair of Wranglers, I might just have to puke.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Seth drawled. “Then your favorite pair of Levi’s would smell like horse crap and puke.”

Cole’s snort might have passed for a laugh, but Jenny could not be quite sure.

“Wear whatever you want. But if you take the school bus to the Cold Creek on Tuesday, we might be ready to get into the real work on the car now that we’ve taken a look at the damage. Bus Fifteen is the one you want to take. Ray Pullman is the driver.”

“Right. I need to take a shower.”

“Bring your jeans out when you’re done so we can wash them,” Jenny said.

Cole didn’t answer her or even acknowledge her as he headed down the stairs to his bedroom, leaving her alone with Seth.

In part because of embarrassment over her son’s rudeness and in part because Seth was so masculine and so blasted attractive, she was intensely aware of him. He seemed to fill up all the available space in the small foyer.

She gave a small huff of annoyance at herself and tried to ignore the scent of him that seemed to surround her, of warm male and sexy aftershave.

“Tell me the truth. How did it really go today? I doubt Cole will tell me much.”

“Good. He worked hard at everything I asked him to do and some of it wasn’t very appealing. I can’t ask for more than that.”

She relaxed the fingers she hadn’t realized she’d clenched tightly in the pockets of her sweater. “Was he…” her voice trailed off and she couldn’t figure out how to ask the question in a way that wouldn’t make her sound like a terrible mother.

“Rude and obnoxious? Not much, surprisingly. He digs cars and we spent much of the afternoon working on mine, so everything was cool.”