Operation: Married by Christmas (7 page)

But it was a clear sky, and Will didn't feel any kind of support.

It was as Miss Adela was fond of saying, “God was God. He does what He wants and watches how we respond to His actions.”

Will figured if that were so, then the Lord was probably not too happy with him right now.

Will figured that just made them even.

H
aley hadn't been on a horse in ten years, but it was like riding a bicycle. When she'd climbed onto Puddin's back, she'd felt an excitement she hadn't experienced in years. She hadn't realized how much she'd missed riding every day. Of course, tomorrow her sore legs would remind her just how long it had been since she'd been in the saddle. The pain would be worth it, though, because riding always had been a way for her to relax and unwind. She did some of her best thinking while riding, and she needed stress relief as she'd never needed it before. She'd acted like a child.

What had she been thinking? Stomping out like that—
ohhhh
how she hated to apologize for anything. She always had. She was stubborn when it came to backtracking. And now, just look at the situation she'd put herself into. If she'd just kept her cool, held her tongue and talked about production props, she'd have been fine.

Then talking to Applegate, well that had been like a big fat slam to her conscience. How could she have left him here all this time and not come home to check on him? Was she one of those people who forgot about her responsibility to the people who loved her? Who just walked away? It was a hard fact to face about herself…and she needed to think.

Sensing it, Applegate had told her that he'd stashed in the hall closet a big box of clothes she'd left behind. She hadn't wasted any time dragging it out. Sure enough, there was a box of her old jeans, some T-shirts and a couple of pairs of boots. One of them was her favorite pair, soft and worn and as comfortable as slippers. Elated, she'd changed clothes, thrilled that she could actually fit into the jeans. Of course, her figure had shifted a bit and they were a little tighter than she remembered them being ten years earlier, but she wasn't complaining. She'd quickly pulled on her boots and coat, then hurried to the barn and saddled up her horse, Sweet Puddin. Funny how she'd let something she loved so much slip away, but keeping up with the fast-paced real-estate market of Beverly Hills hadn't left much room for horses.

Her job hadn't left much room for anything except business—racing to make the next big sale. She had a bank account to prove that she was successful at her job, but what else?

She pushed away the thoughts, breathed in the cool crisp air, and took the eastern path. It was purely out of old habit that she rode the familiar trail. She'd created this trail as a child, and memories bombarded her as she rode. Memories of her and Will loping on horseback came immediately to mind. The man wouldn't leave her alone. He was everywhere. She paused where the trail snaked through the woods to the river.

Sitting in the saddle now, she pushed the sound of his laughter out of her thoughts and studied first the path to the left that would lead her downstream along the edge of the woods then circle back around to Gramps's house again. Then she studied the trail that would take her deeper into the woods before coming out farther upstream. It was that trail she chose despite the pain she knew she would suffer tomorrow for pushing herself her first day back in the saddle.

She'd gone pretty deep into the woods when she paused on the trail. She was pushing a tree branch out of her way when suddenly a squeal broke through the silence and a wild baby boar charged from the underbrush. One minute Haley was in the saddle, the next she was flying toward the ground with one thing on her mind—where there was a baby boar, a mean mama boar was somewhere near.

Scenes from
Old Yeller
flashed through her mind, reminding her that the ground was not a place she needed to be when a tusked wild sow bent on protecting its young came around the corner.

Haley hit the ground with a thud that rattled her brains but thankfully didn't knock the breath out of her. This was a good thing because she could see the bushes moving and the ground shaking. That meant only one thing—something mean, mad and ugly was coming her way!

Haley scrambled to her knees just in time to see the female bush hog charging toward her like a line-backer on the tackle. Like all wild hogs, it was pure lean muscle with blackish bristles and two sharp, destructive tusks curving up beside its prominently extended snout. A snout that was about the ugliest thing Haley had ever seen. Anyone who'd grown up in Texas knew that wild boars were fearsome would-be killers when cornered. As mean as they were ugly.

Haley knew all of this.

“Wh-whoa, girl,” she managed to say, scrambling up, knowing her only defense was to run. On her feet at last, she dove hard to the right as the queen of ugly missed her by a hair. Boars were agile, and Her Ugliness proved it when she twisted around, sharp tusks glistening in the light, and came immediately back at Haley. Gasping, Haley grabbed a broken tree branch, thinking that maybe if a boar had a weak spot she could buy herself a little bit of time by smacking it on its nose or something. She said a prayer as it was charging straight at her. She barely had time to swing the limb like a baseball bat.

It connected with the boar's thick skin with a jarring impact that sent Haley stumbling back while the pig came to a dead halt, shook its head and thought about what had just happened to it. It decided within a matter of a split second that it didn't much appreciate getting smacked on the jaw by a human. Madder than ever, it lifted its head, met Haley's gaze, then charged again. This time it emitted an unearthly sound that would have scared the life out of a person with much more courage than Haley had. Haley screamed like the girl she was and resumed running.

Okay, so she really admired that men could control their vocal cords when it came to screaming—and she readily admitted that she despised squealing—but the thing was, she wasn't a man and this repulsive heap of bad pork chops was about to shred her like cedar logs thrown in a mulch machine! She opened up her vocal cords and continued to let 'em rip. She was being chased by a pig. A pig with sharp tusks and slobber-covered teeth that liked to eat anything and everything. Why, Haley would simply be a delicacy to a pig like this!

Heart pounding, feet, too, she scanned the woods as branches slapped at her, and her options raced through her brain. She was a great problem solver, but this,
this
was a little out of her league. She was seconds from being mowed down when she saw the hog trap.

It was your standard hog trap, about four feet tall and five feet long, sitting on the edge of the woods waiting for an unsuspecting hog. Haley wasn't the hog, but she saw protection and without hesitation charged inside, instantly tripping the trap door. As the heavy guillotine-style cage door slid down behind her with a bang, Haley almost passed out from relief. Especially when the Queen of Ugly rammed the door with the force of a bull.

The force knocked Haley off her feet and sent her tumbling into the far wall of the cage. Madder than ever, the pig squealed and started rooting around the edge of the cage, glaring at Haley through the metal. Haley nervously studied the bars and wondered exactly how safe she was. She reassured herself that Applegate wouldn't put a cheap cage out, so she calmed down. She was safe.

Thank goodness it didn't take the pig long to grow bored with her or get a headache from ramming the cage with its head. Haley breathed a sigh of relief watching it disappear into the woods.

“What a day,” she mumbled when the last sound of rustling leaves died away. Hunkered down inside the cage, she studied her now peaceful surroundings. It wasn't exactly the tranquility she'd envisioned when she'd saddled up Puddin.

She listened for the pig but figured it was long gone. Still, she wasn't certain she was ready to leave the safety of the cage, not just yet. Instead, she wrapped her fingers around the bars and couldn't help laughing at the picture she must make.

Just a few days ago she'd been dressed in a designer wedding gown, and now she was inside a cage in the middle of nowhere looking like a monkey at the zoo.

Deciding it was better that no one saw her or ever heard about this, she crawled over to the door and reached for the latch. But it looked funny.

It looked broken.

She groaned, tried to pull the hinge, but the lever had jammed, probably from the impact of the pig ramming into it. After a moment of working with it, she realized there was nothing she could do to release the mechanism.

Haley's heart sank. She was trapped inside a cage.

A pig cage.

This would not do. This would not do at all.

Grabbing the bars with both hands, she shook them. But that was about as effective as a spider monkey trying to shake free of a heavy iron leash.

Applegate had never been one to do a job halfway, and he'd obviously bought a cage that would hold a rhino-size hog.

Haley was stuck in the hog trap.

It was a Haley Bell story that would rival the best of them. And with the way her luck was going, an early ice storm would blow in and freeze her to the bars.

Miserable, Haley sank to the floor and looked gloomily out at her surroundings. At this point, getting frozen like an ice cube might be the only bright spot in an otherwise pathetic day.

T
here were too many memories creeping out of the woods to haunt Will as he rode out to find Haley.

He'd spent hours traipsing through these woods, hunting and fishing.

And riding with Haley.

At the fork in the trail, he took the one that wound deeper into the woods. The woods were dense here, but would eventually open up to a small cove where Haley loved to sit and think. Yet he hadn't gone far when he saw her horse. Alarm rang through Will at the sight of Puddin's empty saddle.

“Haley,” he called and rode toward Puddin. When no answer came, he scanned the bushes and searched the trail for signs of her. The woods were silent as he called again, but still no reply. He hurried forward. Every terrible scenario he could imagine rose in his mind. She could have fallen and could be lying somewhere hurt; she wouldn't let her horse wander around if she was okay. And she would have answered him. Forcing down the fear, he urged his horse forward, toward the river. He hadn't gone ten feet when he saw where she'd fallen from her horse. His alarm increased when he saw the hog tracks. He knew how to track, but it didn't take much to see that a scuffle had happened here. Hurrying he followed her trail through the woods, toward the rushing water where the river bottlenecked through a rocky area before pooling upstream around the bend. He was praying that the loud sound of the rapids were making it hard for her to hear his calls for her as he urged Muffin on as fast as he dared on the uneven terrain.

Hogs were mean and could shred anything that got in their way if they were mad enough or scared enough. If Haley had fallen in the path then he hated to think what he would find upstream, the fact that he wasn't seeing blood gave him hope. He bent low to miss a pine tree branch. And then he saw her slumped inside the large hog pen near the edge of the woods.

Anyone other than Haley he would have been startled to see in a hog pen, but for Haley it fit. Another escapade for her long list. However, he wasn't focused on that as he sprang from the saddle. “Haley,” he called.

“Oh, Will,” she said the moment she saw him. “Am I glad to see you.”

He took in the tracks around the pen, evidence that the hog had tried to get at her even after she'd made it into the protection of the heavy metal pen. It had been smart thinking on her part but why was she still inside?

“I was hiding from a hog and the latch broke. Who ever heard of a latch breaking?”

Will smiled at the relief in her voice and immediately went about getting her out of the trap. He pulled out his pocketknife and after a minute was able to open the latch and raise the door.

Without any urging, Haley scrambled out, smiling in relief. “Free at last! Whew, I am just a little too tall for that cage.”

Will chuckled, all the tension between them forgotten momentarily. “I'm glad you found it. Didn't Applegate tell you he was trying to trap a wild hog?”

Haley waved the question away. “Will, you know as long as I can remember my grandpa has been trapping hogs. It's the only way to keep them under control and not let them take over his land. You know that old saying he's always quoting, that ‘If a wild hog has six piglets you can expect eight to survive.'”

That was almost true. The animals populated faster than people could trap them and haul them away. For the most part they let people be, but they could ruin a man's property if left to their own devices. “So what happened?”

“Me and Puddin startled a baby and Puddin reared up and I slid right off into the path of a protective mama. She was just defending her baby. I would have done the same thing if I was in her position.”

Will couldn't stop staring at her. She was beaming from excitement. She looked fresh and young, and it suddenly hit him that she was wearing her favorite orange T-shirt beneath her jacket. He remembered it because he had a picture of her in that same shirt in his wallet all through college. He took a step back at the memory as it threatened to open a floodgate of emotions. The memories were too painful to think about because of the promise they'd held and the loss they now represented.

“What are you doing here?”

Her question jarred him and he lifted his gaze from the shirt. “I came to talk and after Applegate gave me the once-over, he told me you were riding and let me borrow Muffin to come find you.”

Her face softened. “I am so glad you showed up.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Will didn't know what she was thinking, but he was having a hard time not thinking about all the times they'd stood beside this river and shared kisses.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, me, too.”

Haley blushed and he realized that maybe she'd been thinking about the same things he'd been thinking.

“After the way I acted at your house, I'm surprised you came.” She tucked her hands into her back pockets and looked at him with clear green eyes.

He cleared his throat again. “Look, Haley, I've been sarcastic ever since you showed up here and while I don't pretend that we can go back and change whatever it was that went wrong between us, I do think we should at least make an effort to work together. I mean, we are adults.”

She didn't say anything but he could tell her mind was whirring. Her eyes had always brightened, grown sharper when she was wading through things. Will always had admired her thinking process. He wondered suddenly if he'd ever told her that. The realization that he couldn't ever remember telling her how much he liked the way her mind worked caused him to wonder if she'd noticed. Of course she had. He felt uncomfortable now at discovering his lack of consideration.

“You're right,” she said a heartbeat later. “I actually came out here to think.” She scanned the surroundings. “The way I see it, despite our past we should still be able to conduct ourselves in an adult manner. I mean, we are both businesspeople, after all. We know what it takes to relate to people without getting personal so we should be able to put our differences aside and move forward.”

Businesspeople—
Will's temper flared at the thought that she wanted to treat him like a mere business acquaintance. It was irrational on his part, especially in light of this new revelation.

“Right,” he snapped in a completely nonbusiness-like response.
Right?
What kind of an answer was that? He raked his hat off his head with his right hand and ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair. He studied her for a long moment, half expecting her to smile and say she was joking. But she wasn't and he knew it. He should be apologizing to her for not expressing enough admiration all those years ago. But what did it matter now?

Where was the Haley he'd loved? Moments ago when he'd come upon her stuck in the hog trap, he'd glimpsed his Haley. The one who was always getting herself into funny escapades that he needed to rescue her from. He realized now that for a brief moment he'd hoped, however unrealistic a thought it was, that they had a chance of getting back together. But he'd been dreaming…or
hallucinating
might be the better word because this woman who looked at him as only a fellow
businessperson
had no interest in anything of the sort. What had he been thinking?

 

Haley looked around for the boar, knowing that it was long gone but needing something other than Will to occupy her thoughts. Taking a deep breath, she tugged her coat tighter, feeling the temperature drop even though it was midafternoon. It was going to be a cold Thanksgiving, which was nice. Although she hated cold weather, there was just something about a brisk Thanksgiving Day that made it feel more traditional.

Haley was hit by the irony of her situation. A few days ago she'd almost married one of the wealthiest men in the United States. She'd walked away in search of something that she couldn't put a finger on, and today she was crawling out of a pigpen nearly on her hands and knees feeling like a skunk rather than a free woman. It was true. She was a mess and Will Sutton wasn't helping the situation in any way, shape, or form. Standing tall, methodically thumping his black Stetson against his thigh, she was so tempted to ask him if he'd ever thought about what it would have been like if they'd gotten married that day.

Haley blinked hard and came to her senses.

What was she thinking? Did she want more humiliation?

She'd just told him they should be able to conduct themselves in an adult manner, and she was about to bring up the past. Well, it was time to get over it.

“Anyway, I'll help with the design of the props and I won't have any more childish outbursts. Is that a deal?”

She held out her hand. It was a normal thing to do. She shook hands in her business ten, sometimes twenty times a day. Shaking hands was a natural extension of the type of relationship she was trying to set up between her and Will.

His jaw clenched slightly, drawing her gaze. And then he reached out and grasped her hand in a brief, firm handshake.

“You're right,” he said, his eyes cool. “We're adults, after all.”

Haley nodded, her gaze dropping to the impersonal handshake.

Yes, they were adults.

So she reminded herself again to act like one.

 

“Haley! Yoo-hoo, Haley!”

Hearing her name yelled out, Haley stopped outside of Sam's and searched the length of Main Street. Down the street at Heavenly Inspirations, Esther Mae was waving furiously. Haley waved back.

“Come down here,” Esther Mae shouted.

With nothing pressing other than grabbing a soda and watching Applegate and Stanley battle it out over their checker game before she headed out to Will's, Haley easily changed course. Crossing the street, she strode down the sidewalk past several vacant buildings, past a candy store that looked interesting, past the dress store she'd yet to venture into, and finally to the glaring pink two-story building that housed Heavenly Inspirations. Up close, it was even pinker than she'd thought—if that was possible.

Esther Mae, her hair in white perm rods outlined with a thick strip of cotton and topped off with a clear processing cap, waved her forward. She stank like the perm she was getting—like rotten eggs and Haley felt sorry for her poor husband, Hank. He'd have to be in the same house with her for the next few days until the scent wore off.

“We were just talking about you and then, ‘ta-da!' You drive up. Imagine that. I was standing right there in the doorway—had to because I can't stand the smell of these perms, they're worse smelling than an auction barn on sale day…if you know what I mean. But, I was in the mood for a little pick-me-up so Lacy's fixing me up. Like my mama always said, a girl has to suffer to be beautiful. Hey, everyone, look who's here,” she bellowed suddenly and then basically yanked Haley inside and blocked her escape.

The salon was packed. Norma Sue was getting a trim, but Lacy paused long enough to whip over and give Haley a hug. Though they'd only just met, Haley felt a kinship with Lacy that she didn't quite understand. If her instincts were on target, Lacy felt it, too.

“We are so glad you came in,” Lacy exclaimed and everyone echoed her welcome. There was Esther Mae and Norma Sue, then Adela and Sheri, the nail tech she'd met at the theater meeting.

“I've been hoping to get to know you a little better,” Lacy said. “I feel almost like a kindred spirit with you already.” She laughed as she took her place behind the styling chair and started snipping at Norma Sue's wiry gray hair. “We sound like we have a lot in common. Have a seat over there.” She pointed the scissors at the empty hair-dryer chair.

Haley backed up and sat down. “We do?” she asked, curious, but not at all surprised that Lacy had heard stories.

Chuckles erupted around the room. Lacy paused her scissors in midair and grinned at Haley. “From what I've heard from Applegate over the last few days, you have a habit of acting on things before you've thought them through all the way.”

Haley smiled weakly and shrugged. “Guilty as charged. But I've gotten better over the years.”

Lacy turned serious suddenly, dropping the section of curly gray hair, her penetrating blue eyes seeming to peer into Haley's soul. “Why did you have to get better?”

Haley was taken aback by the intensity of the question as all eyes turned toward her. “Well, I—” she stumbled over her response. “Crazy spontaneity with a tendency toward screwups isn't exactly the way to advance a career. Or to get taken seriously,” she added, deciding to be totally honest.

Lacy chuckled, pointing the hot-pink comb she held. “The way I've always looked at it is if I couldn't be myself, then I wasn't being honest.”

Sheri hooted from the corner. “She has to say that or she'd get herself in trouble. Lacy couldn't be any different even if she tried.”

“And we wouldn't want her to be,” Adela said in her soft voice. Always the mediator, calm, cool and collected.

“And I agree,” Sheri said, bending over Adela's nails as she added a blush-pink to them. “I was just letting Haley in on what we all know, but she hasn't had a chance to realize.”