The Bride Wore Starlight (11 page)

“And I told you, a bet's a bet.”

Alec could hear the laughter behind Vince's words. The man was on his way to making some point, but Alec had no clue what it was. After three years all contracts were null and void as far as he was concerned. Besides, it was far too late to collect on the bet. Ghost Pepper had to be in his late twenties now and retired to some beautiful pasture with other equine greats. Or he could be dead. That was a real possibility.

“What was the wager anyway?” Alec tried to make light of the wager he knew perfectly well. “A case of Bud? Hell, let's settle up. It's on me.”

“You can buy me a case of beer anytime you want, bro'.”

Alec sighed. Was his oaf of a friend seriously still going to make a stink about the hat? His stomach dropped at the thought. The hat was sacred. It rested in a plain white box on his closet shelf, and he wasn't about to give it up for the sake of a bar bet made ten years before under the influence of too many tequila shots.

A flash of annoyance surprised but galvanized him. It was Buzz's hat. He was Buzz's cousin. Damn it all, the hat wasn't going anywhere.

“Hey, Vince, look,” he said, “you know it's great to talk to you, but what's this really about? I don't ride broncs anymore, it's not physically possible. Ghost Pepper is long gone and—”

“Oh ho, buddy, that's where you're wrong.”

“Oh?” Alec asked warily.

“Ghost Pepper is very much alive and, literally, kicking. Wanna know how I know?”

“I'm on the edge of my seat.”

“I'm lookin' at him.”

Alec sat back in his chair, stunned. He hadn't expected that. “ 'Scuse me?”

“He's eating like a horse right outside my barn. Gorgeous, sweet-tempered, and talented as ever. And I want you to come over here and learn how to ride him.”

“A
LMOST HOME, SWEETHEART
. How are you feeling?”

Joely smiled at her mother, who sat in the passenger seat of her pickup truck clearly happy to be on Crockett land again. They were still nearly fifty driving miles from Rosecroft, but her mother's face had finally lost the drawn, devastated shadows of grief that had lined it for the past three weeks. They'd flown the 960 miles to Los Angeles from Jackson twenty days ago, to take care of packing and sorting Joely's belongings, fighting twice with an angry Tim, quitting her part-time job and her volunteer positions, and packing up her beloved Penny along with the mountains of tack and equipment that went with owning a champion barrel racing horse.

Now they were on the final few miles of a marathon drive back to the ranch—the empty ranch since her father was no longer there. Still, both she and her mom couldn't wait to be home. Joely was determined to make this move the most positive thing she'd ever done. Taking over management of Paradise Ranch would be good for her. She could do it with Cole's help. With Leif and Bjorn's help. With her mother's help. It wouldn't matter that Paradise was in financial trouble—they would turn things around. Her life was about to turn around—she could feel it. She pressed the accelerator down a fraction of an inch. The big Ford pulled the three horse trailer so easily—especially with only one horse in it. The speedometer in the truck crept toward eighty—far too fast, but this part of the highway, cutting through the southeast corner of Paradise, was always deserted. They were almost home.

A voice from somewhere outside her head, as if she were dreaming, screamed at her to let up on the gas. She laughed. Just this once she was going to live free, not be rule-bound.

“I'm doing fine, Mom,” she replied. “How about you? You don't seem to mind coming back.”

“It's hard, but it's where I want to be. My goodness, that's quite the load he's carrying up ahead.”

Finally Joely eased on the brakes slightly. The semi and flatbed was still a ways ahead, but the pile of logs it hauled extended above the semi's cab. Joely checked the stretch of board-straight road ahead and saw nothing. She could pass the log truck—they were catching up quickly to the slow-moving vehicle.

She turned on her blinker and saw the first chain snap just as the bloink-bloink of the turn signal sounded. Someone outside her head screamed again. The chain flailed in the air like a drug-crazed rattlesnake.

“Brakes, Joely,” her mother said. “I don't like the look of that.”

“Let's just get past him. I don't like it either.”

She had no time for either choice. A second chain snapped. She could hear the angry explosion of the two metal snakes biting into one another. And then the world turned into a series of flashes that made no sense. Flying bark, a horrendous grinding crash, a spine-snapping dead stop, smashing glass, the rings of a tree's cross section so close she could almost count them.

The voice screamed again. Her mother.

“Mom? Mom?”

Nothing

Voices and snips of words. Excruciating pain as strong hands rolled her onto something very stiff and hard. She couldn't move her head. Blackness.

“The horse won't live.”

The screaming from outside her head again. Crying.

“Don't let her die.”

Had she said that out loud? Who? Her mother or her horse? Wait. The horse won't live? What did that mean? Blackness.

Chopping air, loud, percussive. Blue sky moving above her until, suddenly, blades of metal spun into her vision, making her dizzy. Helicopter rotors. Then a lift and a jolt. Pain sliced through her, slashing every atom in her body. A ceiling with little strips of green neon lights.

This had to be what an alien abduction looked like.

“Joely, can you hear me?”

Slowly the green lights and the gentle voice she didn't recognize faded into a gray fog. She struggled. And once again came the screaming from somewhere beyond herself.

“Joely? Joely, honey, wake up. You're okay, you're safe.”

She sat straight up and grabbed . . . “Mia?” Joely gasped in relief. This was reality. Mia hadn't been in the accident.

“You're okay,” Mia said again.

In a miraculous rush, Joely's brain cleared and the memories faded; the dream became a dream. She was not in a medivac helicopter. She was in her room. In her apartment. Mia was staying overnight. Yes. Helping her pack. She breathed more easily.

And then the embarrassment slammed her. That, too, was familiar after waking many an orderly or night care nurse over the past months.

Sobbing racked her head to toe. “I'm sorry, Mia. So sorry.”

“For what? There's nothing to be sorry for.”

“For being so stupid. These dreams are ridiculous.”

“They aren't. They're helping you cope, believe it or not. Your mind is letting the images out so you can eventually let them go. Don't try to hold them back. This is why you need to come home and not go off on your own. It's time to be there with us and forget moving into town.”

“No! This is exactly the reason I'm not coming back. I can't stand putting this burden on others. I need to stay in my own space where my dreams and my body won't be in anyone's way.”

“For crying out loud.” Mia took Joely's face in her palms. “Listen to me. That's asinine, honey. You can't bother us. One for all and all for one. It's truer now than ever.”

“Not according to Alec Morrissey.”

“Alec? What does he have to do with this?”

“He has a prosthetic leg.”

“Uh. Yeah?” Mia knotted her brows, clearly needing an explanation for the non sequitur.

“I didn't know about it. Not until a week ago when he told me I needed to quit whining and stop waiting for everyone to help me, and then he yanked up his pant leg with no warning.”

“My goodness, how dramatic.” She didn't sound like she thought it was the least bit out of line. “And he told you to quit whining? In those words?”

“Pretty much.”

“Of all the arrogance.” Mia grinned.

“Oh, nice. Some sisterly support. What are you smiling about?”

“Believe me, I think Alec Morrissey
is
maybe a little arrogant. But in this case, he's right. Or partially so. It's true you can't just wait for people to help you. You do have to buck up and make your own decisions.”

Mia's words stung even more than Alec's had. A single, embarrassed tear burned at the corner of Joely's eye. Mia ran one thumb beneath it.

“Why do you think I'm moving to my own place?”

“I didn't mean you've been whining, Jo-Jo. Alec was not right about that. You never whine, but you don't tell us honestly what you need either. We
want
you to ask for help. We want you to come home and start learning to be independent around people who love you.”

“And take up even more of everyone's time and energy? Confirm that I'm a demanding person who has evidently been driving everyone insane the past eight months.”

“Stop it, you know better than that.” Mia drew her into a hug even as she chastised. “If you haven't learned by now that none of your sisters is going to feel sorry for you, then you're an imposter Crockett who didn't grow up in our family. If you were driving us insane, we'd let you know it. Am I right?”

Joely had to concede. With the possible exception of their oldest triplet, Grace, not one of the Crockett sisters knew how to mince words. “Yes,” she said, her voice small in the dark bedroom.

“Then believe that I, that
we
, adore you, and all we want is to help you take the next step in healing. If it takes arrogant Alec Morrissey to aggravate you out of your shell, then I'm a fan.”

Alec Morrissey.

Every time she heard the name the most confusing mix of feelings assailed her: shivers, annoyance, happiness, despair, a deep desire to punch him . . . a deeper, hotter desire to try kissing him. She wondered if she had some variation of Stockholm Syndrome—finding her tormentor attractive.

With a deep breath and a long exhale that released the last of the dream's hold on her, she also released her sister.

“Do these dreams happen often?” Mia asked.

“Not dreams plural. It's always the same dream—reliving the accident.” Joely wiped her eyes with steadier hands. “I guess they happen a couple of times a week.”

“Have you told your therapist?”

Joely said nothing for a long moment. She'd dreaded telling Mia or Gabe what she'd been keeping secret since moving into this apartment.

“I'm not going to a therapist—not that kind. He wasn't helping.”

“Oh, Joely.”

“I know. I know what you're going to say—that I could have looked for someone new. That it was helping in ways I couldn't see. That I can't keep all this bottled up inside.”

“That's exactly right.” Mia's eyes were stern in the dim light. “And so, if you know all that, then why have you quit?”

“We were rehashing the accident. Rehashing my marriage. Rehashing my relationship with my father. I can rehash things on my own. If I know all of this is, quote, normal behavior, then I don't need a counselor to keep telling me so.”

“He's there to help with problems that crop up as you go. Like dreams that won't go away. Or maybe like Alec Morrissey?”

“Oh no. I'm not talking to any therapist about a cowboy who's the model amputee to my pathetic accident victim. I was with him when he danced—he's got it all figured out. I'm still working on it.”

Mia smoothed her hair. “Yes. And you're doing fine. But it's four in the morning and you're exhausted, and things seem worse than in daylight. Do you want me to stay in here with you?”

“No.” Joely buried the further embarrassment Mia's question raised. She appreciated her sister's unhesitating support, but when she thought sleeping together was necessary, Joely knew she'd let her fears go too far. “I really am used to this. The dream wakes me up but it doesn't keep me awake.”

“Good.” Mia stood. “But I'm right in the living room if you need me.”

“I know. Thanks.”

The night closed around her again once Mia left the small bedroom. Small—that was the secret. She loved the compactness of her space. The fact that she never had to navigate more than a few feet and never had to make room for another person was comforting and kept her safe. Rosecroft was enormous by comparison, and it was lousy with people and sound and constant interaction. The thought of living there filled her with apprehension.

Despite her assurances to the contrary, Joely didn't find sleep in the early morning darkness, although it was true the dream wasn't the cause of her racing brain. Like Hitchcock's birds, the tasks awaiting her come morning swarmed her thoughts: wrap up her pictures, pack the last of her few dishes, clean out the refrigerator, strip the bed. Sign the stupid divorce papers.

Her heartbeat accelerated in familiar anger. She wanted nothing more than to be rid of her husband. Throughout all the trials of the past nearly four years, he'd been nothing but unsupportive, unemotional, and demeaning. He'd changed almost the day they'd returned from a dream honeymoon in Alaska. From suave, charming, and solicitous, he'd become critical and demanding.

Now he wanted to keep everything in the house she'd worked so hard to make a home. Granted, she'd been gone for nearly three-quarters of a year, and if the new love of her husband's life had been living in the house, then Joely didn't want much. She wished there were some way to make him pay a little and prove he, not she, had been the wrong-doer. But there was nothing. She had no power over him.

It took a full hour to calm the whirling inside her brain and finally drift off into a dreamless sleep. Dreamless until pictures of Alec Morrissey floated through her mind in montages of male beauty—wide cheekbones, thick sandy brows, tousled hair with the barest touch of wave to it. And a smile that could probably have solved the Middle East crisis. A beautiful, impish, sincere, forthright smile that was as confusing as her feelings for his sudden presence in her life.

When she swung her legs to the side of her bed in the morning and reached for her walker, she stopped and looked down at her pajama-clad thighs. Beneath the cotton fabric, her left thigh had a scar to match the one on her face. The shattered patella had been repaired, but the two main calf muscles—the larger gastrocnemius and the inner soleus—were crushed and had atrophied to the point where the injury's aftereffects were visible and always would be. But she couldn't see it through her pajamas.

Alec Morrissey's face was fresh in her mind, and his words echoed in her memory. “Of course you know what you want. You want to be able to do what you did before.”

She did. More than anything. But she'd never race around a barrel cloverleaf or ride a reining pattern on Penny's back again. Chances were she'd never really ride at all. Still, if she was going to live on her own, she'd have to relearn a few skills. Like getting to the bathroom without a ridiculous walker.

Picturing the long, successful moments of her dance with Alec, Joely pushed the walker to the side and stood, putting ninety-eight percent of her weight on the good leg. Once she stood solidly, she increased the weight on her left leg and balanced as evenly as she could. The injured leg swung forward easily and she placed it on the floor. For several seconds she panicked, longing for the safety of the walker or crutches—or a pair of arms. Gritting her teeth, she stepped fully onto the leg and rushed the other forward, keeping herself from stumbling with sheer willpower.

The second step was just as difficult, but the third and then the fourth were more coordinated. She counted the halting, shuffling steps as if they were advances up a cliff side. Six. Seven. Eight did her in.