Forgotten Heart by Sloan Archer

Author:Sloan Archer [Archer, Sloan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Cash finished up the rest of his chores a little before sundown. With Harrison being away, it had taken him a couple hours more than normal to complete his work, but the alone time had done him some good. He was no longer feeling unsettled and grumpy, as working with his hands had resulted in its usual soul-calming effect.

He’d been keeping an eye out for Vanessa unconsciously, his gaze drifting across the field every so often, but she never materialized. As he headed toward the mailbox at the foot of his driveway, he considered his next course of action with her. He’d already decided that being friendly was the best way to go, yet he was struggling to figure out how to take the first step after their embarrassing exchange.

The solution came to him while he sorted through the day’s mail. He’d received a check-up reminder from Dunblair Ridge Dentistry in the form of a post card with a cartoon of a grinning tooth waving a bright red toothbrush: We’ll put a neighborly smile on your face! It was food for thought, but Cash’s mind wasn’t on his upcoming teeth cleaning.

Neighborly, I can do that, he thought. Okay, so what had he always done with Jeanie that had put a smile on her face? She’d always seemed to enjoy their little gift exchanges, which was easy enough for him to do now.

Cash went inside to take a shower. His muscles ached from the exertion of manual labor, and the water’s heat soothed them like magic. After he toweled off, he put on one of his nicer pairs of jeans, a snug grey t-shirt that brought out the deep green shade of his eyes (so he’d been told), and a pair of cowboy boots—Cash kept two different types of cowboy boots, dirty ones that he used solely for ranching and nicer clean ones that he used for socializing, which included the times when he was trying to impress a female. These were clean.

Downstairs, he went into the storage pantry and pulled a bottle of hard cider and a jar each of salsa, green beans, and pickles that he’d canned himself—you can’t call yourself a true Montanan if you don’t can—as well as a carton of free range eggs from the fridge that his chickens had laid. In the garage, he removed a couple frozen steaks from the deepfreeze and then went back inside and carefully put everything into a paper bag.

Noting that the paper bag looked shoddy, he hunted around for a better container, finally settling on an old wooden fruit box that he’d been using to store excess firewood. He wiped the box clean, lined it with brown butcher paper that he crinkled up—something he suspected Luxury Travel West would call “rustic”—and then placed everything inside.

Here goes nothing, he murmured. Box in arms, he walked across the field to present his welcome gift to Vanessa.

This time, Vanessa seemed a lot happier to see him as she stepped onto the porch.

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