“This city girl has come to realize that some things are indeed better in the country…and this dinner and show rank right up there, if not beyond, the best restaurants I could think of.” They both lapsed into a companionable silence while they ate their dessert and enjoyed the peace of the early evening.
She finished hers and sat the bowl on the small table next to her lounger. Her gaze traveled to the sky above.
“Was that a sigh, I just heard?” Rance asked, his bowl going to the matching table beside him. He assumed much the same pose she had…arms crossed and fingers casually interlaced over his stomach. “Good one, I hope.”
“Still fishing for compliments, Marshal? Your culinary talents are good, but your choice of the evening’s splendid outdoor show is beyond words. You are truly the blessed one to have this as your home.”
“It is something. I find it harder to leave here each time…to go back to city life. I’m either mellowing in my old age, as my brother puts it, or I’m just getting some brains.”
“Your brother is a very smart man. I enjoyed meeting him and Ally, and their daughter Jillie is an amazing young lady.”
Rance laughed. “She is still a pig-tailed, scrawny little kid running around and sounding so grown up even as a first grader in my mind. But she is growing up into a young lady, and I get to kid my brother that thankfully, being the sheriff, he has a lot of guns and deputies to fend off the guys soon.”
“All of your family are great. They have their lives so complete and happy in this beautiful valley. Thank you for letting me in on the well-kept secret. I hope it always stays this way…a microcosm of beauty and civility suspended in time.”
“Wow, Your Honor, that was a weighty statement.” He was teasing her.
“Yes indeed. Guess you can take the girl out of the city, but not the jurist.”
“That’s fair. But I think you can be both…don’t you? Or is it a better question to ask…would you be happy being in both worlds? Could they truly exist?” His gaze was on her—she could feel it. She should not meet it. Her brain said so. But to her shock, another part of her…that strange area that she had learned to seal off often, as a jurist, was revolting. Erin met the gaze that riveted hers.
“A month ago, I would have said no. But that would have been wrong. One part of me is a jurist…that is what I have studied and what makes my daily existence. But I now realize that the other part of me is more alive and at peace when the jurist was set aside and allowed the person inside me to come forth. They are equally important I have come to learn. They exist and people can have the best of both inside them. It’s realizing that and then acting upon it that is the key to life.”
There was a flicker inside those emerald depths locked on hers. It mesmerized her and warmth spread to bridge the small distance between them. It felt as if time did indeed suspend itself. The sunset had given rise to a moon taking its place. The world took on a silver illumination around them. The river running over rocks just beyond was a pulsing rhythm, much the same as the beating of her heart.
“I am going to step out on a very tenuous branch here,” he whispered, as he leaned closer, “and say that I hope I had a little something to do with that…not in an egotistical sort of way, but as a guy who dares to hope he did have a little effect on a girl and her feelings. If I might be so bold, Your Honor?”
That bridge was growing shorter as she moved slowly within a mere inch of his lips while their gazes held to something too strong to resist. “Your Honor is off the clock. But Erin is taking charge and bold is called for.”
Lips met. Sizzle sparked. Warmth drew searching. A country boy’s heart and a city girl’s heart said hello to each other and a strange bond was melded…its destination still a secret, but it had begun the journey as one. Seconds became minutes and the silver light grew brighter, anointing the pair. Slowly, in accord, the separation came. But the distance stayed the same. Whispers were the spirits of the night.
“It’s nice to meet you, Erin Latham, city girl.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Rance Parker, country boy.”
“This could be a problem,” he said, words soft and still tentative.
“I’m an expert at problem solving,” she responded, a slow smile declaring the absoluteness of her statement.
Chapter Fifteen
Expert at problem solving. Those words brought another huge smile to Rance’s face. In fact, he felt that he’d smiled all night and woken up with a huge grin in its place. The judge had pronounced the decision. But the city girl’s kisses had served his sentence up for him. How did it happen? That smart big brother of his…and his know-it-all sisters…had been right all along. When that one person appears, life changes. It can be slow until it seems like it was always that way. Or it can come in a second, crashing into all you thought you knew. Was it strange that he felt it might be a mixture in his case? Slow and then crashing? However it had made its appearance, it was there. That elusive emotion is called love.
In a way, he thought he had been left out of that emotion. He might have gone through life watching others take that fall and never know its pull on him. But he had been wrong. The feeling was there. But he had no idea about the uttering of it. It hadn’t been spoken by him aloud. That was good because she hadn’t said it either. And that thought ceased the smile. What did she feel about it last night? Did it have the same effect on her? Or was it just the moonlight? Doubts. Another new feeling came along. He schooled himself to live without doubts…in his work, in his life. They could lead to all sorts of problems.
He poured another cup of coffee and slowly walked toward the outside door. He stepped into bright sunshine.
“Look who finally decided to enjoy the morning. Thought you might not make it out into this beautiful day until noon or after. What a waste that would be.” His brain hurried to catch on to the facts before him.
The voice belonged to Erin. The name was still new to his way of thinking, having known her as Judge Latham in his brain for so long. A few extraordinary kisses had changed that. Her voice was bright and cheery and somehow a headache had begun a few minutes ago when the smile had faded. But the sight of her stopped him in his tracks. She had on a pair of his sister’s fishing waders and had a rod and reel in her hands. She was standing in the river just below her knees. Had the world gone completely crazy?
“What’s with the scowl on your face? Did you eat yet?”
He shook the fog off the brain cells and smoothed the furrows from his forehead. “I haven’t eaten…just coffee. Guess I did oversleep. But what are you doing?”
She held up the rod in her hand and lifted her shoulders. “When in Rome and all. How hard can it be, I asked myself…to become a semi-expert at this? So here I am, trying it again. But I do apologize.”
“Apologize?” His heart stood still. She regretted last night’s kisses. He moved slowly to the edge of the deck and waited.
