Page 18 of For Always
She closed her eyes, but when she opened them, the message was still there. Until she felt the hand on her shoulder. Then, Gabriella moved quickly, erasing the message and dropping the phone back into her purse.
“Oh, sorry. That was just something about work,” she stammered. “Another client that I need to follow-up with.”
Dessie was now standing over Gabriella, staring down at her with her brow creased.
“All right, then, if you say so,” Dessie said. “Drink your coffee. It’ll settle your nerves.”
Yes, Gabriella thought, she definitely needed to settle her nerves. So instead of continuing the conversation with Dessie, she sat at that table sipping her coffee and telling herself that it was just words. The words didn’t mean anything. Just like those sounds at her door last night hadn’t meant anything. Except this morning when she’d finally gotten out of bed after her restless night, she’d gone out onto the patio and had been slightly bothered to see that one of the chairs was overturned. That, didn’t mean anything either. She prayed desperately that it didn’t.
“I’m going to stick around here today,” Dessie stated after a few moments of silence. “Audrey’s filling in for me at the resort, so I’m going to get some cleaning done and cook a nice meal for everybody. It’ll be a big Sunday dinner, just like Verna used to have.”
“My mother loves cooking and hosting family dinners,” Gabriella said. She’d been thinking about her family and how she prayed none of what was going on in her life now, would ever touch them.
“Then you’ll join us too. It’s nice to have everyone gathered around good food. Brings people closer together. And that’s just what we need around here if we’re gonna face what happened and what we need to do going forward,” Dessie said.
“We’re not only going to face what happened, we’re going to find who killed my parents,” Tyler said when he stepped back into the kitchen.
Gabriella looked over to where he was standing and had to take another sip of her coffee. As if he hadn’t looked delicious when she’d first arrived wearing basketball shorts and a black tank. The muscles in his bare arms bulged and when he’d stood, the trim narrowing of his waist had her mouth watering as she recalled the pictures of his perfect eight pack that she’d seen online. Now, showered, his hair still wet and wearing khaki shorts and a white t-shirt, he looked neat, athletic and sexy as hell.
Dessie stood from the table. She carried the bowl and knife to the island before replying, “And in the meantime, decisions have to be made.”
“I’m going to make them,” Tyler told her. “You ready for the tour?”
“Ah, yes,” Gabriella managed to say after she finished gawking at him. She stood and picked up her mug, about to take it to the sink, but Tyler took it from her.
She retrieved her bag, slipping the leather straps over her shoulder as she turned to smile at Dessie. It was just in time to see Tyler lean in and kiss the woman on her cheek. Dessie smiled and patted Tyler’s hand that rested on her shoulder. And Gabriella sighed. If Tyler West loved his mother half as much as he seemed to love Dessie, he was a damn good man, even outside of his good looks.
They’d seen the employee residences first and he’d watched while she took notes and measurements. They rode in the Jeep along the paved roads of the ranch after that, stopping so that she could see the areas where the animals were housed. She took more notes. From a distance, they’d watched the cows grazing in the early afternoon sun. She’d asked a few more questions about their feeding and selling process while she took even more notes. But it wasn’t until they came back to the equestrian center that Tyler noticed the light in her eyes.
She stepped right up to the paddock door and extended her hand to the Arabian bay. The horse, in return, dipped his head and let her run her hand down his forehead and muzzle.
“You’re a natural with them,” he said before he could stop himself.
Today she wore flat gray tennis shoes and had to go up on the tips of her toes to reach the horse. She looked adorable when she turned her head and smiled at him. The way the end of her ponytail shifted with her movement and her eyes lit up with the smile. It reminded Tyler of when he was a teenager and they’d first started having monthly rodeos at the ranch. He was always in charge of the pony rides and the children who were brave enough to climb up on that pony always smiled and looked over to him as if that were the best moment in their life. As he’d concluded earlier, Gabriella was no child, but she did look extremely happy at this moment.
“My dad had a vision for this place,” he said, thrusting his hands into the front pockets of his shorts.
He didn’t know why but he’d been talking a lot about his parents on this tour.
“I know you’re probably tired of hearing about them by now,” he added.
She shook her head. “Not at all. The background of this place is great information. If you decide to re-decorate, then knowing the visions and feelings of the people who lived and will continue to live here is imperative.”
She was still rubbing her hand along the horse’s muzzle. This one was named Brown Eyes, for obvious reasons.
With a slight shrug, Tyler moved a little closer to where she stood and continued. “When I turned fourteen we started hosting two rodeos per year. The people in town seemed to like it and when word began to spread, tourists started stopping by when they were in town, asking when the next rodeo was scheduled. So my dad decided we would begin to host them once a month. I was sixteen by then. We only had four horses at that time. I left two years later and, another two years after that, Jagger was off to Harvard.”
“I think it’s a good thing for people to branch off in their own direction, to see the world through their own eyes at some point,” she said as if she knew the guilt he still harbored over leaving.
“Is that what you did?” he asked, suddenly more curious about her than his own guilt-ridden past.
Her hand slowed and Brown Eyes nudged his muzzle against her palm, as if telling her to keep going. Tyler smiled because the bay must have been reading his mind.
“I went to college right after high school. The University of South Dakota was my choice and after the first year and a half, I finally decided to study photography. But that didn’t really work out. I took a year off and traveled to Pirata.”
“Where is that?”
“It’s a small village in Brazil where my mother is from. Well, actually, she’s the princess of Pirata. There are approximately two thousand people living in the town and her older brother governs them, so she was free to leave and marry my dad.”
