A Town Called Valentine(38)
Nate shoveled a pile of straw into the wheelbarrow. “Dodge?” He didn’t want to talk about Emily. But now she was there in his mind, her expression full of hesitation and hope and even wariness in the shadowy dining room looking at the box from her past.
And then his phone rang on his belt and relief washed over him. He tipped it toward him to read the ID. “Give me a sec. It’s about the grandstands for the rodeo.” He kept the conversation brief, then tapped his earpiece to hang up. “So what happened at Outlaws?”
“It’s amazing how you go from one thing to another without missing a beat.” Josh smiled, shaking his head, and took his towering wheelbarrow outside to shove onto the flatbed.
Nate piled his own wheelbarrow a bit higher than his brother’s had been.
“You have an amazing mind,” Josh continued, returning to lean against the empty stall, “able to do so many things at once—too many things. You can’t possibly keep functioning this way, doing everything, being everything to everybody.”
“Josh, you sound like I’m an old man who needs to slow down. I’m in my prime, boy!” he said, keeping his voice light, even though Josh was irritating the hell out of him.
“I’m glad about your new girl, really I am.”
Nate kept his face impassive. “She’s not my girl.”
“Tony De Luca said you met her the first night she was in town. That’s good. She might help you remember there’s more to life than work.”
Nate turned his back. “I played some pool that night, and that was all.”
“Really? Besides Tony, there were others doing some talking.”
Nate rubbed his forearm across his perspiring face. “Let me guess—Ned and Ted.”
As Josh gave a knowing grin, Nate’s phone rang again. The strangest expression came over Josh’s face. Nate let the phone ring.
“Get that,” Josh said seriously. “It’s important to you.”
“Everything’s important to me. And I treat it all that way.”
Nate answered, continuing to rake while he talked to Joe Sweet about Valentine’s organic farms co-op. Joe was a fellow rancher whose family also owned the Sweetheart Inn. As if Joe didn’t have enough to do, he’d gotten involved in coordinating the distribution of organic produce to restaurants in Aspen and the rest of the Roaring Fork Valley.
When he hung up, Josh was coming back in with the empty wheelbarrow. The phone rang again, and Nate silenced it without looking.
Josh sighed. “I know you. You’ll regret not taking that. You try to be there for every fence post we put in a hole, every horse that needs to be shoed—and every report about the winery or the farm. You can’t keep this pace up. Maybe this woman will help you see that you have to make choices, Nate.”
“That’s enough,” Nate said shortly.
“For now,” Josh shot back, and stalked out of the barn.
Emily slept a bit too late for a long run, so she decided to walk through Valentine Valley for her exercise. On leaving her room, she glanced at her mother’s box, then away again. It seemed to stare at her as she left. She was being an idiot. Remembering the lunch she’d packed the night before, she realized she would have to do another grocery run soon, further depleting her savings.
Rain had fallen through the night, making everything glisten with the morning sun, like the world had been sprayed with glitter. The Silver Creek was running even higher as she crossed the bridge, flecks of foam spraying into the air. She walked the streets parallel to Main, enjoying that they were all named after women: Nellie Street, Clara Street, Grace, Mabel, and Bessie, names that must have been popular in the late nineteenth century when the town was new. Past the town hall, an inn gleamed with old-fashioned elegance, perched on the slope of the Elk Mountains. She’d heard more than once that she should try the restaurant there, the finest dining in town, but that would be too big a strain on her wallet.
A landscaped rose garden made up a city block, complete with a fountain and a stone bridge over a fishpond. Four bed-and-breakfasts presided, one at each corner. Monica had called them the Four Sisters, and with the cupolas, gingerbread trim, and wraparound porches, they were elegant reminders of another era. A van was parked in the driveway of one of them, unloading tables and chairs, and Emily imagined an outdoor engagement party or wedding reception.
And everywhere, even at midmorning, were the lovers. She spotted them kissing under vine-covered trellises or biking side by side. At the rose garden, she was asked to take a couple’s picture on the bridge, and they confided he’d asked her to marry him on that same spot fifty years ago.