And Then You Dance (Crested Butte Cowboys Series Book 2) Read online

  AND

  THEN

  YOU

  DANCE

  Heather A. Buchman

  Volume 2 in the

  Crested Butte Series

  And Then You Dance

  © 2013 Heather A. Buchman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Cover and content design by Sparrow Marketing & Design

  Available from Amazon.com and other retail outlets.

  She danced

  She sang

  She took

  She gave

  She loved

  She created

  She dissented

  She enlivened

  She saw

  She grew

  She sweated

  She changed

  She learned

  She laughed

  She shed her skin

  She bled on the pages of her days

  She walked through walls

  She lived with intention...

  —Mary Anne Radmacher, Living Eulogy

  And Then You Dance

  is the second book the Crested Butte series.

  Although you will enjoy this book on its own,

  I highly recommend you read

  And Then You Fall,

  the first book in the series, before this one.

  Also available…And Then You Kiss—

  book three in the Crested Butte series.

  Thanks for reading!

  Coming soon…And Then You Fly—

  book four, with more from those Rice boys!

  For the kind of cowboy that makes a girl’s heart beat just a little faster.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my readers—Angelina, Catie, Cathy, Eileen, Erlinda, Jacki, Kym, Stacey and Vicki. As always, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  My inspiration comes from so many places. Music is at the top of the list. I make playlists when I start writing a book, and those songs become the music I hear when I’m writing, or reading, whether it’s actually playing or not. If this book ever becomes a movie, I have the soundtrack ready to go. There are too many musicians, or bands, to list them, but I give my thanks for their inspiration anyway.

  Chapter 1

  October

  Billy stood out on the deck, the baby monitor in his back pocket. She’d probably sleep for at least an hour, maybe even two. He hoped so anyway, for her sake as much as his. She was a much happier baby after her afternoon nap. If she didn’t wake up on her own at the end of two hours, he’d wake her.

  Dottie, his mother, told him he should never wake a sleeping baby, but he didn’t listen. By then, he’d miss her so much that watching her sleep wouldn’t be enough. He’d want to feel the warmth that thawed his body when she smiled at him, and kicked her feet, and put her head on his chest at the end of her nap.

  Plus, when Willow was awake, his thoughts didn’t stray to Renie as much.

  Today marked eight months since he’d seen her, and next week his baby girl would be celebrating her first birthday. He never dreamed they would be doing it without the woman he swore he couldn’t live without.

  It had also been eight months since Renie had seen her horse. He’d been sure having Pooh stabled at his ranch, would mean she’d come. Another thing he never dreamed—that Renie would go this long without even asking about her horse. Asking would have meant Renie had to talk to him, and he doubted she ever would again.

  The woman he thought he knew better than any other person on the planet had turned into someone he no longer recognized. And all because of an innocent baby girl.

  October in Monument, Colorado meant that yesterday was a beautiful seventy-degree day, and today the weather report called for snow. The cold front brought ten-degree temperatures with it. He welcomed it. In nothing but his jeans and a T-shirt, the outside of his body was numb. He wished it would numb him straight through, to dull the ache of missing her. He’d gotten used to it, that constant pain no pill took away.

  The only time he experienced joy was with Willow, his beautiful baby girl who had the same blue eyes and flaxen hair as Renie. He’d be willing to bet that Willow looked a lot like Renie had when she was a baby. He didn’t have any photos to look at though, to find out for sure.

  Eight months. It didn’t seem possible. Soon, Willow would be walking; she already made her way around the room, holding on to anything that would get her from one place to the next. And Renie wouldn’t be here to see it. Why had she left him? He asked himself that question a thousand times a day.

  — • —

  Previous January

  “Damn that Liv Fairchild,” he muttered under his breath. Billy slammed the barn door shut behind him, and stomped to the house. Of course, she wasn’t Liv Fairchild anymore, now she was Liv Rice, but that didn’t change how mad he was at her.

  When she came to him and asked whether he wanted to buy her ranch, the answer was obvious. Of course he did. His family’s ranch bordered hers, and they’d wanted to buy this land since he was a boy. His family didn’t begrudge Liv’s; the Pattersons had been leasing grazing rights since they bought the place. And her house, well, it was one of the nicest houses he’d ever seen.

  She named a fair price, and he certainly could afford it. It was the side deal she made with him that was the problem. Liv had been boarding horses for years, and she didn’t want to let the families down that counted on her, so she made Billy promise to keep the boarding stables open.

  How he’d do that, was beyond him. He traveled as a saddle bronc rider on the rodeo circuit, and sometimes he was away for two or three weeks at a time. He told Renie she could keep her horse there for as long as she wanted. She had four years of school to finish before she got her degree and became a large animal vet. He wouldn’t have asked her to move Pooh, the fourteen-year-old mare she’d had since she was ten. But taking care of her horse, along with all the others, wasn’t something he signed up for.

  Liv told him to hire somebody. Plenty of ranch hands worked Patterson Ranch, his parents’ place, but he doubted a job this small would be very enticing.

  He was almost thirty-four years old, and this was the first time he had a place of his own. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to before; he just hadn’t had any good reason. He was on the road so much, and when he was home, his parents’ place was plenty big enough. His room was on the lowest floor of their tri-level house, and he had plenty of privacy, not that he’d ever taken advantage of it.

  “You
need to move out Billy,” Renie said to him. “You kinda seem like a loser, still living with your parents.”

  He knocked her into the water trough when she’d said it. He thought that might teach her, pain in the ass that she was.

  ***

  “You should hire Blythe,” she said, trying to help him come up with a solution for the stables.

  “Blythe who?”

  “Blythe Cochran.” Paige and Mark Cochran were her mother’s best friends. She and Blythe had been friends since they were five years old. She wondered why Billy acted as though he didn’t know who she was; they’d spent enough Thanksgivings and other holidays together.

  “Why would I hire her?”

  “Because she’s home. She quit school and doesn’t have anything to do.”

  That didn’t sound like the best reason he’d ever heard to hire somebody. And the fact that she quit school didn’t fill him with confidence. The last thing he needed was to get a phone call while he was out on the road, telling him she was quitting. What the hell would he do then?

  “Why’d she quit?”

  “She decided she didn’t want to be a nurse. You shouldn’t look down your nose at her Billy. I quit school too.”

  “You did? Since when?”

  “Well I quit Dartmouth, but I guess I transferred instead of quit. For the same reason though, I realized I would have made a crappy people doc.”

  Renie had switched fields from biomedical to veterinary medicine last year, in her junior year, and now went to Colorado State University in Fort Collins. It was a two-hour drive from the ranch, so he told her she could stay at the house as much as she wanted. It was the house she grew up in, and with him away so often, they’d almost never bump into each other.

  “What about when you bring girls home?” she asked.

  “What girls?”

  That elicited another “loser” comment out of her. He supposed she was right. Plenty of girls would be happy to come home with him, even if only for a night. He wasn’t bragging, it was the nature of being a bronc rider, saddle, or otherwise. Having a one-night stand on the road was one thing; it was different at home.

  “You’re a hot guy Billy.”

  “What? God Renie, you can’t say that to me.”

  “What? It’s not like I’m interested.”

  “Jeez, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t see what the issue is, but let’s get back to the original subject—you should hire Blythe.”

  “She know how to take care of horses?”

  “No, but…”

  Billy figured Renie was at least five times as infuriating as any woman he’d ever met. “Now why would I hire somebody who doesn’t have experience with horses?” He walked away at that point.

  “Because she needs the job Billy, and she’ll learn. In fact, I’ll teach her.”

  “No.”

  Renie walked over and grabbed his arm.

  Whoa, what the hell? It was as though a bolt of lightening hit him and the current surged through his veins. It almost knocked him on his ass.

  “Please,” she said, in that soft tone she used sometimes when she tried to get her way. It used to make him laugh, and he’d tell her he saw right through her. Today, he had a different reaction. Today, he’d be willing to do anything Renie Fairchild asked.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” Billy didn’t know what in God’s name was going on, but he knew he needed to get away from Renie right now. “Listen, I gotta go into town.”

  “Where are you headed? I’m not doing anything. I’ll go with you.”

  “No. Not tonight. I’ve…um…got a date.”

  “You do? With one of these girls you don’t plan to bring home?”

  She was killing him. She didn’t appear as affected by the touch as he had been.

  “Whatever Renie. Mind your own damn business.”

  Renie watched Billy stomp away from her. She spent a lot of time watching him walk away from her. She’d been in love with Billy Patterson her whole life. No one, not a single living person, knew how she felt about him. The only one she ever talked to about him was her horse, which was stabled in the barn Billy now owned.

  It didn’t seem as though much had changed at the ranch since Billy bought it. In fact, her mom left most of the furniture in the house when she sold it. She and her new husband, Ben, hadn’t needed it at their place in Crested Butte.

  With Billy home so infrequently, most of the house looked exactly the same as it always had. The master bedroom was the one room Renie was sure was different. She hadn’t set foot in it though. It was almost as though the bedroom was the only place in the house Billy lived. It seemed wrong to invade his space.

  When her mom decided to sell, she asked Renie first if she wanted to keep it, live there herself, but Renie told her to sell it to Billy.

  With four years of school still ahead of her, she didn’t have time to take on the ranch.

  She thought a lot about whether she’d regret her decision later, after she graduated and started a practice. Even then, she knew she wouldn’t be able to live the rest of her life next door to the Patterson family. The heartache of seeing Billy come to visit his parents with the wife he would he eventually marry, and the children they would eventually have, was more than she’d be able to handle. You didn’t love someone the way she loved Billy and ever truly move on from it.

  Something didn’t feel right between them tonight. It almost seemed as though Billy was mad at her.

  She’d planned to stay here for the weekend, ride Pooh, and study. She should ask whether it was still okay. Maybe she was making too much of it. Then again, he might be telling the truth about having a date.

  She decided to text him. Can I still stay this weekend?

  He answered within seconds. Yes.

  Thanks. See you tomorrow.

  ***

  William Prescott Patterson Junior was eleven years older than Irene Louise Fairchild. Her first memory of him was when she was ten, right after her grandfather died, and she got Pooh. She and her mom were out riding in the big meadow over the hill. It was wide open, and a great place to let the horses run. Billy waved them over.

  “Who’s this Renie?” he rubbed the horse’s nose.

  “This is Pooh,” she said proudly. “She’s mine.”

  “Great name,” he answered as he slowly walked around her, running his hand over Pooh’s body. “She’s sound. You pick her out yourself?”

  “Mom helped.” See, Billy didn’t think Pooh was a boy’s name, as her mom did.

  “My favorite quote from Winnie the Pooh goes like this, ‘Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.’ You remember that Renie, talk to her, but remember to listen too. Will you do that?”

  Brilliant, she thought. He must be a very good bronc rider if he knew how to listen to horses. From that day on, Renie spent as much time listening to Pooh as she did talking to her.

  ***

  She must’ve read the same page over at least twenty times when she put the book down and turned off the light. Billy either wasn’t coming home tonight, or he planned to get back late enough that she’d already be asleep.

  Something happened between them today, and it was the reason he left the way he had. She wondered where he’d gone, but if she thought about it too much, she wouldn’t get any sleep at all.

  ***

  Telling Renie to stay at the house had to have been the stupidest thing Billy had ever done. On the other hand, he loved having her there when he was. Hell, he couldn’t make up his damn mind what he thought about it.

  When she touched him today, he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Since then it was the only thing he thought about. But, it was more than that. His mind drifted to the other things he wanted to do to Renie Fairchild. He tried to shake it out of his head. Thinking about kissing her was bad enough. More than that was…incestuous—or something.

  It might ha
ve been a fluke. He’d see her tomorrow, and it would be as though nothing happened today. If it were that cut and dried, he’d be inside his house, not sitting outside in his truck.

  He told her he had a date. It was a lie, but at that moment, he had to leave, and the last thing he wanted was take her with him.

  He ended up at the brewery first, then next door at the movie theatre, and then he went to the bowling alley. All in all, he’d killed about four hours. He drove around for another hour, wasting gas until he decided he was being ridiculous.

  Once he got home, he put off going inside. He’d been sitting outside in his truck for twenty minutes, and it was damn cold. It was January after all, and Monument, sitting at 7,000 feet elevation, was colder on average than the surrounding towns and cities.

  “Ah, to hell with it.” He got out of the truck and went in the back door of the house. One light remained on, in the kitchen. Renie told him she and her mother left that light on whenever someone would be getting home late. He decided it worked for him too. He liked it. It made him feel as though somebody waited for him. He left it on even when he was at the house alone.

  ***

  Renie was gone the next morning when he got out of bed. It wasn’t unusual for her to be. She was always running off somewhere, meeting up with that friend of hers.

  Blythe. That reminded him; he needed to hire somebody to take care of the boarding stables.

  He drove to his parents’ place and talked to his dad, William Prescott Patterson Senior, whom everybody called Bill. His mom, Dottie, was like a second mother to Liv, and a grandmother to Renie. Which meant Billy was practically Renie’s uncle, and for the last twelve hours he’d been fantasizing about what it would be like to kiss his niece. Yep, he was fucked up all right.

  His dad recommended the same man who ran the stables for Liv last year, after an accident kept her away from the ranch for a couple of months. Steve Sookan was his name, but everyone called him as Sookie. One of their more reliable hands, he’d worked for the Pattersons for a several years.