Summertime on the Ranch by Carolyn Brown (leveled readers txt) 📗

“Then why the string to control the boat?” She touched her lips to see if they were as hot as they felt and was surprised to see that they were actually cool.

“Because sometimes I’m not quite ready to let go of my worries, but when I am, I drop the string,” he answered.

“What worries are you going to put on your boat today?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” he replied.

“You first.” She nodded toward him.

“My first worry is that this will be our one and only real date.”

You kissed me on Sunday. According to Grammie, that makes it a real date, she thought.

“My second is that my wild past will always hang around to haunt us both.”

Not if we work at squashing it every time it rears its ugly head.

“My third is that I won’t have the courage to tell you how I feel about you, and make you believe me.”

I think I already know because I’m listening to my heart.

“Now, it’s your turn,” he said.

“You cited three, and that’s a lot to put on one little boat. My worries are number one”—she held up a finger—“ that if we did enter into something serious, you’ll get tired of me and break my heart.” The second finger went up. “That I might regret not giving Nashville one more year.” The third finger shot up. “And that you’ll never bring me back here again.”

“I would never get tired of you, darlin’”—he took her hand in his—“and if we get really serious about each other, I will love you so much that Nashville will never enter your mind again.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed each knuckle. “And Friday or Saturday night can be our official weeping-willow-tree date night. Are you ready to sail our vessels down the Red River?”

“This is crazy to think about this right now, but I just remembered that Austin scattered her grandmother’s ashes on this very river. Do you think she’ll destroy our worries for us?” Becca put all the trash and leftovers back into the basket and then stood up.

“Rye told me that the first time he laid eyes on Austin, she was at the edge of the river giving it her grandmother’s ashes, and it was love at first sight,” Dalton said. “I bet her granny will be glad to drown our worries for us.”

Dalton got to his feet and picked up the paper sack. In a few long strides they were beyond the willow tree, and he took two small pieces of wood from the bag. He’d drilled a hole in the top of each one that held a tiny paper sail affixed to a dowel rod.

“They really do look like little sailboats,” Becca said.

He tied a long piece of twine to each of the dowel rods and handed one to her. She set her boat in the water and mentally loaded it down with her worries. Dalton did the same, and soon the river gently took them both downstream. Within a few minutes, the strings got tangled up together and tightened in their hands.

Becca took a deep breath and let go. Dalton held on for just a second longer and then turned his vessel loose. The strings were so tangled up with each other that the little boats floated side by side on down the river, forever touching each other.

“Think that’s an omen?” she asked.

He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I hope so. We’ve known each other almost six months, Becca. We’ve worked for the same folks and gone to the same church, so we know each other pretty well. I don’t know where the future will take us, but I hope that those little boats with their strings all tangled up together mean that wherever our life journey takes us, we are together in it. I would never rush you, but will you be this old cowboy’s lady?”

Without hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, “Yes, Dalton, I will be your lady.”

Read on for a peek at an exciting re-issue of one of New York Times bestseller Carolyn Brown’s first romances, with a classic story of redemption and a chance to win back the love you thought was lost forever:

Coming soon from Sourcebooks Casablanca

Chapter 1

Clancy Morgan hadn’t planned to go to the Tishomingo Alumni Reunion, but changed his mind at the last minute. The banquet part of the evening was almost over when he arrived, so he stood in the back of the room and scanned the crowd from the shadows. Evidently, one of his classmates was doing the same thing, because a woman stood over behind a huge fake tree just inside the double-wide doors leading into the ballroom. Clancy’s dark brows drew down until they were almost a solid line above his chocolate-brown eyes. Something about her silhouette looked familiar, but it had been a while since he’d seen most of his former classmates, and he couldn’t make out her face in the dim lighting. Perhaps she hadn’t been a member of his graduating class, but was someone’s wife or plus one.

A vision popped in his mind of a girl who used to stand like that, with one hand on her hip. He shook the memory out of his mind. Angela wouldn’t show up to a noisy ten-year high school class reunion, not as shy as she had been.

“And now, please welcome Dorothy Simpson, valedictorian of the class of nineteen fifty-three, and the woman who keeps this alumni association going,” intoned the master of ceremonies from the podium. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

The crowd applauded as a frail, elderly woman made her way to the front. Clancy sneaked in and sat down at the first table with an available empty chair.

“Dorothy Simpson is probably the only living member of that class,” Janie Sides Walls whispered to him.

Clancy smiled and applauded dutifully with the rest of the alumni. When he looked back to see if