Page 32 of His Tenth Dance

“I was there for a couple of years,” he said. “Then we had a real bad accident…and it was my fault.”

She pulled in a breath and held it.

“Everyone told me it wasn’t. And maybe it wasn’t. But I sure felt like it was.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“It was a horse ranch, and we trained wild horses that we rescued from various parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas,” he said. “One evening, one of the horses wasn’t secured right, and that’s part of my job as foreman, you know? To make sure everyone knows how to take care of the horses the way they should.”

He paused. “Anyway, that didn’t happen, and we had a big stampede. Three men were hurt real bad, and one of them ended up dying a few weeks later.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Kristie said, with just the right amount of concern and disbelief, the words also laced with compassion.

“I couldn’t stay,” Mission said. “I left the ranch, packed up my stuff, and came to Colorado. I bounced around from farm to farm until Matt hired me. And I’ve been here ever since.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault,” Kristie said.

Mission shook his head, his jaw tight, but at least the words were out. “Doesn’t matter if it was or not,” he said. “Ifeltlike it was, and it haunted me for a long time.”

She curled her hand around the inside of his knee and squeezed. “Thank you for telling me.”

“I might seem insecure sometimes,” he said. “Or indecisive about what I’m doing on the farm, and it comes from that. I’m trying not to be, and Granddad’s told me a million times how good of a horseman I am. But sometimes my brain doesn’t believe him.”

He sighed, glad to have the story out. “My grandma died only a year after that. When I went back for the funeral, I told Granddad I really liked Ivory Peaks and the Hammond family farm, and I wouldn’t be coming back, so that’s when he moved here.”

“And what does he do?” she asked.

Mission grinned, because he loved his grandfather with his whole heart. “He makes Native American drums,” he said. “And he’s real good at it.”

“Wow,” Kristie said with a smile. “Where does he sell those?”

“To people he knows back home,” Mission said. “A lot up in Canada. He’s got himself a little online business. Does pretty well.”

“That’s great,” Kristie said.

Mission’s phone beeped with a notification. He looked and flipped it over in his hand. “Oh—pizza’s on the way.” He turned toward her and found pure energy vibrating in her gaze. He leaned toward her and pressed his lips right against her cheek.

“Thanks for letting me talk,” he said. “I promise I won’t clutter up the sunset with chatter tonight.”

She leaned into his kiss. “I don’t care if you do.”

“I’m sure that’s true, kitten. But I’m all talked out.”

She nodded. “All right then. Where are you going to take me for this amazing Rocky Mountain sunset?”

eleven

“This is for sure the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Kristie said.

Mission smiled over to her as he chewed his deep dish pepperoni pizza—with extra cheese and extra pepperoni. He had gotten himself a small Caesar salad to go with her garden salad, but they’d eaten those first at the dining room table in his cabin.

Then he’d taken the two pizza boxes in one hand and her hand in the other and led her out his back door. She hadn’t questioned him, because she trusted Mission—and Kristie couldn’t remember the last man she’d liked or trusted as much as him.

He’d taken her along the edge of the woods at the back of his property and past acres of fields that angled away from the part of the farm where Kristie was used to working. She could see the stables and walking circles in the distance. Eventually, Mission had taken her to a cabin that clearly didn’t get used very often.

The walk had taken maybe thirty minutes, and he’d ended it with, “We sometimes stay out here when we’re hunting or have to work on the fields and fences on the south end of the farm.”

Nothing but fields existed beyond the cabin, and instead of going inside or sitting on the steps—or even getting out lawn chairs and positioning them to face west—Mission had taken her to the west side of the cabin and nodded his cowboy hat at a ladder.

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