Their Wander Canyon Wish. Allie Pleiter
had indeed been the talk of Wander’s wagging tongues. It had been a relief when the Wander gossip mill focused on Dad’s fast marriage to Pauline. And then his stepbrother Chaz’s taking over the ranch. And then Chaz’s surprising marriage to Pauline’s niece, Yvonne. A little Wander Canyon soap opera tailor-made to shift the spotlight off him. The cascade of those three dramatic events had made it easy—well, easier—to slip out of his son-and-heir status when it came to the ranch.
Of course, it hadn’t been anything close to easy. He’d wrenched himself out from under that yoke with pure brute force and open rebellion. Chaz was over it, Dad was trying to get over it, but the rest of the town hadn’t been so gracious. After all, it wasn’t hard to pin a new underachievement on Wander’s established bad boy. He was actually surprised Marilyn didn’t already know—but then again, she’d been living in Denver. Most days he sloughed the scorn off, but the sideways glances and disapproving tones were evidently getting to him. How else could he explain the sudden, uncharacteristic offer to not only help Manny out, but to step in and fix the carousel when it broke?
“The ranch was never really my thing,” he admitted, using his now-standard explanation. Wyatt nudged his tool bag with one boot. “I’m covering Manny Stewart’s auto shop for him for a while.”
“And fixing merry-go-rounds,” one of her girls added. Which one? He couldn’t hope to tell the girls apart. Two sets of big brown eyes—three, if you counted their mother’s—with two bouncy sets of pigtails to match. Marilyn’s hair was a tumble of brunette waves, so the girls’ straight hair must have come from their father. He didn’t remember much about Mari, just that she was part of the popular crowd he steered well clear of. The kind of girl who got awards and good grades and stacks of teacher recommendations on her college applications.
“I’m trying,” he replied. An unexpected sour spot grew in his stomach from disappointing the little girls. He still hadn’t quite figured out what made him step up to play the hero and fix the famous Wander Carousel when it broke down right before Memorial Day weekend. The loyal good-guy bit was his stepbrother Chaz’s thing.
It certainly wasn’t turning out to be his thing. So far Wyatt had only found multiple ways to fail. Finicky mechanisms, obscure parts he couldn’t quite figure out how to order—the carousel felt like a puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. It lacked the straightforward functionality of the car engine he knew well. Every day those carousel animals stood still bugged him a little bit more.
He pulled out the small notebook he always kept in the back pocket of his jeans. “Tell you what. If you give me your phone number, I can call you to come have the first ride when it works.”
Marilyn gave him a look. Ah, so she hadn’t forgotten him. There was a time when collecting women’s phone numbers had been a spectacular talent of his. Still was, if the filled pages of that little notebook were any indication. The right kind of woman always had a soft spot for the wrong kind of man.
“For the girls,” he emphasized, adding his best contrite look. If she did remember him like her current scowl implied, she should know dating widowed mothers was definitely not in his wheelhouse. “For disappointing them today.”
She did not look convinced, nor did she offer a phone number. He flipped the book closed and slipped it back into his pocket. “I’ve got another idea, then.” He pulled out his wallet and produced a small red tag with his signature on the back. Holding it up, he said “Go on over there to the Wander Bakery.” He pointed to the shop down the block his new sister-in-law purchased this past winter. “Give this to Ms. Yvonne inside. She’ll know it means I said you could have any cupcakes you wanted. On my tab.”
“Cupcakes!” the girls shouted in perfect unison. “Mom, can we?” asked one while the other tugged insistently on her mama’s sleeve.
“And whatever you want, too,” he added to Marilyn, handing her the ticket. “I figure it’s the least I can do until I get things up and running in there.”
She took the ticket with a reluctant smile. Marilyn was pretty, elegant even, with delicate features and the creamy skin of a well-to-do woman. And while that chin tilted up a bit too much for his taste, she also had a tired, scraped-thin kind of look. She held herself too erect—like someone afraid of toppling over. She forced up the corners of her mouth in a way that told him she hadn’t had too many genuine reasons to smile of late. The stance of a soul just barely holding it together. Given the sad news she’d told him, it was likely true. “That’s very kind of you.” Her tone was overly formal.
Kind? Maybe. Mostly just opportunistic. In his experience, only the rare female turned down free baked goods. Especially ones as good as Yvonne made. Dates who’d been canceled on, disappointed garage customers, moms of customers, most anyone could be easily appeased with something from Yvonne’s bakery. Running his “red ticket tab” at Yvonne’s had been one of the smartest ideas he’d ever had. His new sister-in-law might give him grief over it, but it had come in handy for a whole host of reasons, business and otherwise.
“Which one do you like?” a tiny voice asked.
“Cupcakes? I go for the double chocolate,” he replied. “And Yvonne makes them with a whole pile of frosting, just the way I like it.”
A set of pigtails bobbed in giggles as one girl pointed to the building behind him. “No, silly, I meant the animals. In there. You tried to guess our favorites. You didn’t tell us yours.”
Wyatt told the truth as he flashed his most charming smile. “Me, I like ’em all.”
Over the top of the girls’ heads, Marilyn gave him a look that said some things never change. Clearly, she wasn’t referring to cupcakes.
Yep, she remembered him all right.
“The merry-go-round was still broken.” Maddie’s pout was as wide as Wander Canyon as they walked in the door of the Ralton family home.
Marilyn’s mother looked up from her knitting. “You’re kidding. I was sure it’d be fixed by now.”
You could have told me to check, Mom. Marilyn tried to tamp down as many disappointments as possible for her girls since moving back. It took a heroic effort to paint this move as a happy, positive step, and she needed all the help she could get.
“But we got cupcakes,” Margie countered, holding up the box of coffee cake Marilyn had purchased for the following morning. “For free.”
Dad came in from the backyard, wiping his hands on a towel that hadn’t been white since Marilyn was in high school. “Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”
“They weren’t exactly free.” Marilyn took the box from Margie and set it on the counter.
“The nice fix-it man got ’em for us,” Margie explained, producing a “care to explain that?” look from Mom.
“We met Wyatt Walker coming out of the carousel building. The cupcakes were his idea. He runs a tab at the Wander Bakery, evidently.”
Mom’s scowl spoke volumes. “I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea to let Wyatt Walker try to fix that carousel. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it’s still not running.” The carousel was a source of huge civic pride for the small town. Which made it not at all the kind of thing anyone would be quick to put Wyatt in charge of handling. Marilyn was ashamed to admit she’d had the same thought.
“He’s supposed to be mechanically inclined, so maybe they thought it’d make sense,” Dad said. He peered into the bakery box and sniffed. “Cinnamon. My favorite.” He gave Margie a conspiratorial wink. “Should we connive to have some now?”
Margie loved “conniving” with her grandfather. Both girls had terrific relationships with their grandparents. It was the only thing that eased