“Good night.” She smiled again, then buzzed up the window. He stepped back as she put the vehicle into gear and watched her drive away, dust roiling up from the tires and illuminated by the taillights. The SUV went through the gate, turned left, and then its red lights disappeared into the night.
Tucker raised his hat and pushed his fingers through his hair, then set it back on his head and tugged it down. He turned and walked toward the barn, his boot hitting a small rock and sending it rolling away.
His thoughts stayed focused on Ellie, and he wondered why he was so drawn to her.
No, he knew why. It was everything about her. She was a knockout with a fantastic personality, and she was intelligent, funny, and fun.
Yeah, he was already falling for Ellie, and he was falling hard. Truth was, he’d fallen for her the first time they met.
The sound of music and laughter floated in the air from the barn. It already felt lonely without her, and he had to tell himself that he wasn’t some lovesick teenage kid, so he needed to stop acting like it.
He smiled at the children who darted around the yard and played while their parents danced.
What did Ellie think about kids? He shook his head. He just kept getting way ahead of himself.
5
“What were you doing yesterday, Elsa?” Greta McLeod asked Ellie in German. Despite living in the U.S. for over thirty years, her accent remained heavy.
Ellie’s mother insisted on calling her by her given name, Elsa. Although she had wanted to be called Ellie at a young age, her family still slipped—or, in the case of her brothers, they sometimes did it to tease her, and she ignored them. On the other hand, Greta stubbornly refused, and Ellie gave up on convincing her mother long ago.
“I went to a barn dance in Gold Canyon.” She responded in German as she took the plate her mother had washed and dried it with a kitchen towel. “A new client, Tucker Rawlings, invited me.”
“A real womanizer.” Tanner, Ellie’s twin brother, tugged on her braid as he jumped into the conversation in English. “Stay far away from Rawlings.”
Ellie rolled her eyes, and her mother handed her another clean plate to dry. “Like you can talk.” Her twin was trying to get a rise out of her, but she could give as good as she got. She set the dried plates in a stack. “I heard you dumped Jackie. What’s that, the third woman in a month?”
“Ha.” Tanner took the stack and put it in the cabinet. “She was the fourth, and it was only three weeks.”
Ellie laughed. Tanner wasn’t much for dating, and his relationships tended to last a while when he met someone he enjoyed being with. King Creek didn’t have a huge dating pool. “Tucker said he knows you and Jace.”
“For quite a while now.” Tanner took a dried serving dish from Ellie and put it effortlessly on the top shelf of the highest cabinet. All of Ellie’s brothers were six-two or taller. “He’s got a fine operation.”
The screen door squeaked, and Jace poked his head in. “Come on out. We’re ready.”
“Just a sec,” Ellie said. “Mom, Tanner, and I are almost finished.” Next time, it would be Braxton, her other brother, Jace, and Levi’s turn to clean the kitchen after Sunday supper.
“Get your butts in gear.” Jace disappeared from view before Ellie’s balled-up dish towel could hit him on the head.
Ten minutes later, the McLeod siblings and their dad, Hoss, gathered in the yard to play horseshoes in the sand pit to the left of the old mulberry tree.
Still beautiful and able to pass for forty while now in her early sixties, Greta sat on the double swing with a pad to keep score and a ruler by her side.
“Can’t let Ellie and Tanner win again.” Braxton, the second-youngest, picked up a pair of shoes. “They’ve always been double trouble.”
Jace nodded. “The twins shouldn’t be allowed to be on the same team. It’s rigged.”
Braxton stood at the back line of the pitching box, forty feet from the iron stake that had been there for some twenty-five years. He lined up his first horseshoe, aimed, and tossed the shoe underhanded. “That’s a point,” Braxton said when it landed within six inches of the stake. He pitched his other, and it hit the ground a good foot away from the stake.
Levi, the oldest McLeod brother and Braxton’s partner, stood at the other end of the pit and threw his shoe in the opposite direction. He pitched his first and second shoes, and they both landed within a foot of the stake.
Their dad stood at the back of the pitching box. “Let me show you how it’s done, boys, and my little girl.” Hoss winked at Ellie. “He pitched, and the shoe hit the stake, spun around, and landed at the base. “There you go.” He straightened. “A ringer right off the bat.”
“Good job, Liebling.” Greta applauded as she called out the German endearment for “darling.”
After Hoss pitched his second shoe, which landed away from the stake, Jace took his turn. He did well with both pitches. At this rate, they would need the ruler to determine who scored the most points for the round.
Tanner and Ellie took their turns. Ellie didn’t do as well as usual for her first two pitches. Her thoughts kept turning to Tucker, daydreaming about her time with him at the barn dance and the fun they’d had the day they met at the Ren fair. She’d have to push the distraction aside to hold up her half of the team.
