A Silver Lining Read online

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2018 Beth D. Carter

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-822-8

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Lisa Petrocelli

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  I can’t thank Evernight Publishing enough. My deepest gratitude to Stacey, Lisa and all the staff behind the scenes. You are the ones who make me look talented.

  For my hero, Mike. I love you more than words can express.

  A SILVER LINING

  Beth D. Carter

  Copyright © 2018

  Chapter One

  Heather sat at attention in the bleacher section, leaning forward slightly, watching the rodeo in the small arena below with fascination. Local cowboys had gathered at Hart Ranch to put on the exhibition. They were mostly practicing, but it gave everyone from other ranches a chance to meet and have a summer party.

  She had come to Louisiana with her parents to visit her grandfather—her father’s father—since they had never met before. And so far, ranch life seemed as romantic as she imagined it would be. Heather had a whole satchelful of romance books featuring the Old West, dangerous cowboys, and gunslingers with hearts of gold.

  “This is fun, huh, Heather?” her mother said from beside her.

  “Yep.” She didn’t even take her eyes away from the competition as she answered.

  “I can’t wait to try the beef that’s been roasting over the spit,” her mother continued. “Your grandfather marinated it in whiskey and peppercorns. Imagine!”

  Heather made a face. Her father, uncle, and grandfather were busy grilling steaks and hamburgers for the afternoon picnic. In fact, the only drawback to ranch life, she discovered, was that meat was a staple at mealtimes. She abhorred the fact that breakfast always, always consisted of eggs and bacon. She hated meat. She planned to become a vegetarian as soon as she returned home.

  Luckily her mother didn’t continue her musings on the food so Heather returned her focus to the events. When the last cowboy got bucked off his horse, she stood up quickly and trotted down the bleacher steps. She wanted to see the animals up close. But as she skipped down the metal steps, her elbow hit a broom. She turned to apologize to the person it belonged to, when her foot slipped off the step, and her ankle twisted.

  Pain shot through her like a white-hot iron, radiating up her leg and into her brain. She felt herself falling but couldn’t really do much except put her hands out to try to brace her fall. The hard ground jolted her, making her teeth rattle in her head, as the world slowly came back into focus. She landed on her hands and knees. Fortunately, she had been toward the bottom of the steps, because she realized how close she came to breaking her neck. She heard her mother call her name, felt pain lancing up her leg, and struggled to hold back the tears stinging her eyes.

  “You need my crutches?”

  Heather looked up, past a cast-wrapped leg, over a large silver belt buckle, and into the darkest eyes she had ever seen. The rest of the face wasn’t bad either, and Heather felt her heart flip-flop in her chest. High cheekbones, tanned face, handsome beyond belief. He gazed down at her with an eyebrow raised, standing next to another cowboy who moved to help her up.

  “Heather, are you okay?” her mother asked anxiously.

  Once on her feet, she stood there for a moment still staring at the cowboy who had offered his crutches. Her heart pounded rapidly in her chest as the broken-leg cowboy smiled at her, and she felt heat creep into her cheeks. Dang, of course she’d look like a fool in front of a really cute guy. It always happened. Just once she’d like to be a cool cucumber like the heroines in her romance novels.

  She blinked and looked down at her foot that she held up off the ground, struggling to appear normal. Like the cute guy didn’t affect her in any way, shape, or form.

  “Yeah,” she said, clearing her throat. “Just my ankle. I twisted it.”

  “Can you walk?” the cowboy’s friend asked her. He let go of her arm gradually, afraid she’d keel over without his support.

  She put her foot down, but as soon as the ankle flexed, pain exploded, causing her to gasp and blink back tears.

  “No,” she mumbled.

  “Where are you staying?” the cowboy asked.

  “Main house,” Heather’s mother answered him. “Lincoln Hart is my father-in-law.”

  “Well, then we’ll help you back to the house,” the cowboy told her. “I know the perfect remedy for that ankle.”

  Heather wasn’t really aware of anything except the broken-legged cowboy next to her. His friend swung her up in his arms, and they all walked the path that wound up to her grandfather’s house. Heather was aware of commentary between the two cowboys and her mother, but she didn’t participate. She was too busy tying to steal glances at the man who limped beside them on his crutches, trying to figure out the weird feelings he invoked. What drew her gaze? Why did her heart beat so fiercely? Why him, when she had been around a hundred other cowboys in the past few days?

  When they reached the house, her mother let the men in, and they brought her to sit at the kitchen table.

  “You have apple cider vinegar, a brown paper bag, a large bowl, and some scissors?”

  “Yeah,” her mother replied. “Why?”

  “Old cowboy trick,” he replied with a grin.

  While her mom went to gather the supplies, broken-legged cowboy eased himself down in a chair across from her and brought her twisted ankle to rest on his cast. Her mother was back in moments, placing all the requested ingredients on the table.

  “I’m Tristan,” he said by way of introduction. “Tristan Rogers. This is Duke.”

  Duke held up a hand in greeting and began to cut the brown bag into strips.

  “I’m Janet Hart, and this is my daughter, Heather.”

  “Hello, Heather,” Tristan said.

  Heather glanced up at him, feeling heat race over her cheekbones once more. Hating that her fair complexion gave away all her emotions. “Hello.”

  “What we’re going to do,” Duke broke in, “is soak these strips in the vinegar, and then wrap your ankle like a cast.”

  “You’re more than welcome to use my crutches.” Tristan teased her.

  “And what is this going to do?” Janet asked.

  “I guarantee that not only will there not be swelling, but Heather’ll be able to walk tomorrow,” Tristan replied.

  “Really? How interesting,” Janet said with enthusiasm as she watched the two cowboys prepare their homemade remedy.

  Tristan took Heather’s ankle, carefully flexing it. She hissed at the pain, and he flashed her an apologetic look. Keeping her foot flexed, he started wrapping it in the makeshiftvinegar-soaked bandages.

  “This is going to smell, I know.” It felt like he spoke only to her. Everyone else faded away. “But it’ll get better as it dries.”

  Heather sniffed a little and nodded. She watched him, keeping her gaze trained on him and not caring about the bandage he was applying. She almost wished he would keep wrapping it forever, because tingles were dancing up her leg, and they weren’t from the throbbing and bruised joint.

  “Do you work on Hart Ranch?” she asked.

  “A bit. My uncle is the foreman. I went to work a rodeo a few weeks
ago and a damn bull mashed me up against the bucking chutes. Leg had no place to go. Broken in seventeen places.” He shook his head. “I don’t recommend it.”

  He smiled at her, white teeth flashing in his tanned face. She smiled back, shyly, words temporarily fleeing from her brain. Her mouth went dry.

  “You work in the rodeo?” her mother asked, unknowingly saving Heather from her inability to talk properly.

  “Not really,” Tristan replied, flashing his charming smile. “A couple of times I’ve worked as the rodeo clown on some events in Texas. I save the riders who fall off the bull.”

  “So you save them, but who saves you?” Heather asked.

  He looked at her, his smile fading just a bit. “Nobody saves me except my partner. I didn't have one that night. I was working by myself, which seemed like an okay thing to do at the time. Obviously hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

  He sat back and showed off Heather’s newly wrapped, vinegar cast encased foot. Her toes were peeking out, and the paper came up to mid-shin.

  “Do you have an ACE bandage?” Tristan asked her mother.

  Janet stood. “I’m sure we do. Let me run upstairs to look for one.”

  She left the kitchen, and Heather was overjoyed at the prospect of almost being alone with Tristan. He caught her gaze, held it, and a wealth of something flashed between them. Heather realized she didn’t know what that exact something was, but her body reacted to it anyway. She was acutely aware of the place where his hands rested against her skin.

  Duke cleared his throat and nudged Tristan. “Dude,” he said.

  Tristan flashed him an irritated look before glancing back at Heather. “So, Lincoln Hart is your grandfather.”

  “Yes.”

  “You live in Louisiana?”

  “No, Los Angeles. We go back there in three days.”

  Janet came down with the wrap and handed it to Tristan, who expertly covered the cast.

  “How did you learn this?” Janet asked.

  Tristan shrugged. “My dad did it to me when I broke my ankle in high school. Tore it up good, and it swelled up. Docs couldn't get it to go down enough to cast it. Dad could. It's an old racehorse remedy.”

  Duke stood up, signaling their work was done. He held out Tristan’s crutches. Janet was oblivious as she gushed her thanks for their help.

  Heather just sat there watching as Tristan grabbed his crutches and stood. “Just stay off the leg,” he told her.

  “Will you stop by tomorrow?” she asked, desperate to find some reason to make him linger.

  He nodded, smiled, and was gone.

  Heather half-heard her mother escorting them out the door. She was too much in a state of shock to do anything else. Not about her ankle—that particular pain had gone by the wayside a while back—but because she realized, on some teenage level, that she had met a man who could change her life.

  Chapter Two

  Twenty years later…

  Heather pulled her barely functioning car in front of the grand main house of Hart Ranch. The vehicle gave a little stutter and then died as she clicked off the ignition, leaving her wondering if it would ever start up again. It was a game she played every time she needed to drive it.

  She took her time looking at the house through her windshield. It hadn’t changed all that much since her last visit, but she could see the small cracks of time in the stately two-story house. The front porch railing wasn’t quite as white, and weeds climbed up the sides of the brick structure like little snakes. Not much work would be needed to restore its former glory, but right now it held the air of something neglected.

  She reached for a cigarette and lit one, taking a deep drag before exiting the car and smoothing down her short skirt. The pastures behind the house had changed some as well. They were still lush and green, and the mountains swelled in the background like majestic domes, but outbuildings now littered the landscape. Three trailers sat east of the house next to a pond that hadn’t been there before. One structure caught her attention, so she took off walking, circumventing the house to a rock path that wound down the hill. She knew cowboys were watching her, workers who paused for a moment to make sure they were really seeing a tall, leggy, sun-streaked blonde walking in their midst. But her mind had already focused on the arena and the memories it evoked.

  Inside, the air lay perfectly still, quiet, vastly different from the last time she had visited it as a fifteen-year-old girl. The bleachers were now pushed all the way against the wall, collapsed until the next use. The dirt had been cleared away to show the concrete foundation. An air of desolation and abandonment hung heavy in the darkened building.

  “Smoking’s bad for you,” came a deep, rumbling voice behind her.

  Heather didn’t jump, though she did take a moment to close her eyes as his voice washed over her. She knew that voice. Heard it in her dreams. She always knew that somehow, someday, they would meet again. Call it fate, destiny, invoke whatever deity happened to be listening. She had felt his presence the moment he had moved into the open doorway, and her battered heart jumped with excitement.

  “So’s fighting bulls, I hear,” she answered without turning around, taking another drag on her cigarette.

  He remained quiet, and tension grew so thick between them she half-fancied she could cut it with a knife.

  “There’s no smoking in the barns,” he finally said, the words hard and forceful. “Fire and hay don’t mix, so make sure you bank that thing good.”

  And then he was gone. Heather turned around and watched him walk away. She ogled his rear, the way his jeans caressed his ass and molded to the hard sinew in his legs. Men were one species she did know, and she recognized a fine cut when she saw it. Those muscles had been made by hard work.

  Twenty years ago he had been a promising young man and turned into one fine specimen. She closed her eyes for a moment and the Tristan Rogers of then came easily to mind. Dark hair, a face smooth and unlined, the wicked wonderment of a hell-raiser anxious to go explore the world shining from his eyes.

  Heather took a deep breath and then opened her eyes. He had gone, vanished in the workings of a ranch. She raised a foot and smashed the lighted end of her cigarette out on the sole and then pocketed the butt. She made sure to stomp on the ash that had fallen before leaving the deserted arena to make her way back up to the house.

  She had known he would be here. When her grandfather’s lawyer had called her, he had told her that Tristan had been the foreman for the past ten years, taking over when his uncle had unexpectedly died, along with hers, in a truck accident. He had a love for the land and knew every facet of Hart Ranch. Though the lawyer didn’t say it out loud, it was clear by the tone in his voice that her grandfather respected Tristan in a way that he never respected her father.

  Over the years he had entered her mind, lingering in the background as she had grown into womanhood. He had been a fantasy, albeit a safe one, with the whole romantic cowboy persona like in the movies. Romances set in the Old West were her favorite books to read, but she had learned the hard way that fantasies lie.

  She walked back the way she came, this time going directly to the entrance that opened to the kitchen, and went in without knocking. Not much had changed here either. Same oak table that sat eight, same linoleum floor, more brown than tan, with faded areas from years of feet walking on it. The inside had the same neglected air as the outside.

  In fact, the only things that looked new and updated were the appliances. Heather opened the refrigerator, shocked to see the thing packed with all types of food, from lunchmeats to a whole ham. Potato salad, macaroni salad, regular salad, fruit salad, not to mention trays of cut vegetables and hunks of cheese. Pies lined one shelf, covered with plastic wrap and stacked neatly one on top of the other. Pitchers of beverages, sodas, and several types of beers. Heather was afraid to look in the freezer. She grabbed a beer and shut the door, twisting off the lid and tossing it on the counter. She wandered from the kitchen into the di
ning room that had long ago been abandoned as a place to eat. The last time she had been here, twenty years ago, they had either eaten in the kitchen or outside on one of the picnic tables. Come to think of it, they were gone too, she mused as she wandered on through the house. The den had a desk overrun with papers. The study still had floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with books. She walked in and found the book she had been reading the last time she had been here, The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. Of course, that was before a certain dark-haired cowboy stole into all her spare reading time.

  A creak sounded overhead. Abandoning the library, she headed up the stairs and saw a black woman coming out of the bedroom at the end of the hall. She paused, eyebrows raised, as she caught sight of Heather.

  “May I help you?” she asked politely.

  “I’m Heather Hart.”

  Recognition lit her soft ebony eyes, and she smiled. “You grandfather is in here.” She gestured to the door she just closed. “He’s been waiting for you.”

  “You’ve been taking care of him?”

  The woman nodded. “Him and the boys for the past fifteen years. My name’s Mabel.”

  Heather held out her hand. “Good to meet you.”

  Mabel smiled and shook Heather’s outstretched hand. “You got his eyes, the Hart eyes as I call it. Not quite brown, not quite green. Your Uncle Avery had ’em too.”

  “I only met Avery once.”

  “Yeah, it broke your grandfather’s heart when he died.” Mabel shook her head against the sad memories. “Avery was a fine man.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Lincoln will be happy to see you. He’s having a good day today.”

  Mabel smiled and then headed down the hallway, leaving Heather alone in front of the door. She took a moment to recall her grandfather, remembering a robust man with a head full of white hair and a moustache to match. She had been slightly intimidated by him at age fifteen, as she had been by the tension between him and her father. Now she entered his bedroom as an adult with twenty hard years under her belt.