The Ranch She Left Behind (34 page)

She wondered whether she’d slipped back into a happy painkiller haze. Had he really said that Ellen had helped him? “Go on,” she said cautiously.

“Okay. So that’s one. Two, the tattoo. That was Alec’s idea.” He felt around in his jacket’s outside pocket, and he brought out a small rub-on tattoo. It was a bluebird.

“Nothing on the list says your tattoo has to be permanent. And you said you’d already decided not to get one, so Alec thought one of these rub-on deals would be best.”

He grinned. “It took us two hours and seven stores to find one in the right color. Silverdell doesn’t exactly have a lot of cutting-edge teen emporia.”

“No,” she agreed, still bemused. “No, it doesn’t.”

“Okay. So that’s two down. Next comes the costume party. In that white box is a beautiful princess costume that Ellen picked out for you. She says we should have a Halloween party, and you and she can come as princesses. Only two small hitches. One, we have to have an early, early Halloween party, because none of us is willing to wait.”

“And the other hitch?”

“Ellen says Alec and I have to come as princes. I’m willing to make the sacrifice, but Alec is standing firm. No prince costume for him. Ellen is very put out.”

“I can imagine.” She bit her lips so that she wouldn’t laugh. Laughing really did hurt. Unfortunately, so did biting her cut lip.

“Okay. So that’s three down. Which brings us to the sailboat thing. We were kind of stumped there. None of us had any idea what you really meant by just that one word…
sailboat.
Ellen was sure it meant you wanted to buy one, but then she’s a big fan of conspicuous consumption. Alec, who has been brought up frugal, said probably you just want to paint one.”

Penny was finally beginning to put the big picture together. And what a lovely, dreamlike picture it was! Alec, Ellen, Max—all conferring together to try to make Penny happy. How she would have loved to see them together like that, heads bent, faces intent, all in harmony. All focused on her—and not with hatred or resentment, but with affection and care.

She felt suddenly so lighthearted she thought she might float up off the sofa. She wondered how a body could be so battered and so aglow with happiness at the same time.

“How about you?” She gave him a teasing glance. “What did you think
sailboat
meant?”

“I thought maybe you just wanted to rent one and sail it somewhere special. Somewhere romantic…”

“Close.” She put her hand on his thigh. “I want to make love on one.”

His eyes widened, and then so did his smile. “Then I guess I’d better buy one,” he said. “It’ll be cheaper in the end.”

She laughed. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? I don’t remember saying I wanted to make love with
you….
”

“Don’t you?” He took her hand and placed it over his heart. “I do. I remember your body telling me that you wanted to make love to me all night long. I told you I’d never forget it, and I never will.”

“Yes,” she said. “We agreed that we’d be happy memories for each other….”

“That’s what I’m here to tell you. I was kidding myself, Penny. I can’t be content with being a memory. It’s just not enough—not anywhere nearly enough. I love you. I want to make new memories with you every single day for the rest of our lives.”

“You do?” She sounded like an idiot. But happiness was like soda fizz spritzing through her veins, making her feel slightly drunk. She could hardly sit still, because everything inside her was bubbling and tickling and doubling over on itself like a hurricane caught in a bottle.

“But what about Ellen?”

“She loves you, too.” His face was earnest. “I think we both knew, almost from the first moment we met you, that you were the one we needed in our lives. That you were the one who could teach us to love again. To be happy again. But it was so hard to believe. So hard to trust. We both tried to deny it for far too long.”

He touched her face gently. “We’re both through denying it, Penny. We love you. I love you. I know you wanted time, time to find yourself, to learn who you are and what you want, and if you still feel that way, we’re willing to wait.”

It was all she could do not to lean over and kiss that handsome, sensual and yet indescribably gentle face. Good thing her body was a wreck right now, or she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself.

And there was still so much to be said.

“I…I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully. “You haven’t told me how you’re going to deal with the juggling problem.”

He grinned. He knew, the scoundrel. No matter how she tried to tease him, he knew she loved him. He had probably known it from the start.

Or at least from that night—the night she gave him her body, he couldn’t have missed that she also offered her heart and her soul.

“Yeah. The juggling. About that…”

She waited.

“We’re going to have to remove that from the list. Just cross it off, snip it out, throw it away. Pretend it wasn’t ever there. The three of us hashed that out for an hour or more, and we decided you are, indeed, hopeless.”

She shook her head. “Fine thing to say to the woman you love.”

He leaned over and softly kissed the bandages above each of her eyes. Then he kissed her swollen upper lip, so gently she almost couldn’t tell when his lips were gone. Except that her lip tingled, and seemed to heal a little in that very instant.

“I think it’s the perfect thing to tell her. I don’t love you because I imagine you’re perfect. I don’t love you just because your body is beautiful and your face is young and sweet. I love you because you’re you. I love the parts that are perfect, and I love the parts that are clumsy, or frightened, or sad.”

She blinked, willing the silly tears to stay away. This was not a time for tears, not even happy ones.

“So what do you say, Penny? Will you give up that one thing on your list and take a husband and a daughter in its place? We’re both slightly used and more than a little damaged, but we love you, and we need you, and I promise we’ll work very, very hard to be sure the rest of your life is as happy as we can make it.”

She reached up with her good hand and ran her fingertips through his hair. He shut his eyes briefly, absorbing the sensation, and when he opened them she saw that this tiny touch had ignited a fire.

“There’s only one problem,” she said. She waited to be sure she had his attention. “You see, yesterday I decided that list was absurd. Those weren’t the risks I really wanted to take in my life. They weren’t the things that mattered. And yet, just because I had put white-water rafting on some arbitrary list, I almost died in the rapids.”

She took a deep breath. “So, while I was in the hospital, I made an entirely different list.”

His jaw went momentarily slack. “An entirely different list…” He sounded stupefied.

“Yes. Want to see it?”

He nodded, half-dazed.

“It’s in the drawer next to my bed.” She nodded toward the hall that led to the bedroom. “I’d go get it myself, but…”

“Of course.” He stood, went down the hall and within seconds was back, with her notebook in his hand. He extended it, but she shook her head.

“I’d like you to read it, if you will,” she said. “It’s on the first page.”

She knew the list by heart, because, this time, it was the list of her heart. It was shorter, but much harder to achieve. Everything on there was frightening, difficult and very, very real.

He began to read the list out loud.

“One: Learn to separate the Bell River of the present from the Bell River of the past. The stairs are just stairs. Put those ghosts to rest.”

He glanced at her, his eyes somber. She didn’t speak, so he went on.

“Two: Learn the sound of your own inner voice. It doesn’t sound like Dad, or Mom, or even Rowena or Bree. You know it when you hear it. Learn to obey that voice and that voice only.”

He hesitated a moment, then sat on the nearest chair, as if he needed to be at rest, so that he could really absorb and understand. He was clearly catching on that this wasn’t a list that anyone could “help” her accomplish. And it wasn’t a list that would be mastered in a month, or a year, or maybe even in a lifetime. But it was a list to live by.

“Three: Accept that there are no places where no storms come. Don’t hide from life. Learn to value the storm as well as the calm.”

She closed her eyes, waiting for numbers four and five. They were the ones that really mattered. They were the ones she needed him to hear.

“Four: Tell Max that you love him.”

He cleared his throat, as if some emotion had clogged it, making it hard to speak.

He started again, but had to stop. And so she spoke the last one for him.

“Five,” she said softly.

“Love is the only risk worth taking.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Three months later

S
HE’D
BEEN
ON
a sailboat so long she’d lost her land legs, it seemed. They got off the plane, drove through the bleak gray and white landscape of an approaching Colorado winter, made their way to Silverdell and pulled onto the grounds of Bell River before she really felt that the ground wasn’t swaying and swelling beneath her.

The honeymoon had been two weeks on a schooner, sailing around Hawaii, drinking out of coconuts, dancing under the starlight and always, always making love.

It had been two weeks of heaven.

But now they were home, and they could hardly wait to see Ellen, who’d been staying at the ranch while they were gone. They’d talked to her every day, and they’d called on Skype and texted and created Google hangouts…at least they did so whenever Ellen could find the time for them.

Max had pretended to lament the loss of his daughter to her two new loves, horseback riding and photography, but Penny knew that he was deeply grateful to see her so busy, so passionate and so healthy.

She’d shot up about six inches in two months, and was starting to look like a fashion model. Ironically, all that had happened just about the time she stopped believing her looks were the most important thing in her life.

When they arrived, a red-nosed, jacketed welcoming committee was gathered around the front fountain, so Max parked the car out front. They’d be moving into River Song cottage, and turning the duplex into the art studio Penny had always dreamed of.

They’d spend the first month in the main house, though, while an addition to River Song was finished. Ellen was going to need more privacy than the original two-bedroom floor plan would have allowed. She would be a teenager in a couple of years—and heaven help them then!

Penny was bouncing with excitement as they parked the car. There was Ro, looking…oh, dear heaven, she was looking so very pregnant! And Bree, cuddling under Gray’s enveloping arm, and smiling from ear to ear with such warmth it was hard to believe she’d ever been called the Ice Queen.

And there was Ellen, all svelte and elegant in her riding jodhpurs and fur-trimmed jacket. Alec had grown another foot, as well, and would soon be as tall as Dallas. Right now he rode his uncle Mitch’s shoulders, but he wouldn’t be able to get away with that much longer.

Barton had his guitar out, and was singing “Blue Hawaii” softly in the background, though his hands must be freezing in this crystal-ice air.

The minute Max and Penny emerged from the car, they were swarmed, covered in love and hugs and laughter and kisses like a coating of honey. The men slapped each other on the shoulders, and the women cried and kissed, and the kids just laughed at everyone.

Penny hugged Ro an extralong time. “I can’t believe you,” she said, putting her hand on her sister’s small, but unmistakable, baby bump. “Is everything going well?”

“It’s going perfectly,” Ro said, and Penny could see that it was true. She was no longer gaunt and bony. Her face had softened with baby weight, until she looked more like a Madonna than a firebrand.

“Is Mitch all right?”

Rowena nodded. “Oh, yes. Thank God. It was killing Dallas, the not knowing. Of course, we still don’t know much about Bonnie.”

“I wondered whether Dallas would be able to talk him out of going after her,” Penny said, her gaze resting thoughtfully on her brother-in-law, the born protector.

When Mitch had returned, he’d told them all that even he didn’t know where Bonnie was. He simply had awakened one morning, and she was gone. After Penny’s wedding, it had been clear that Mitch had been itching to go back out and try to find her somehow.

“So far, so good,” Rowena said, but her voice sounded somber, and Penny knew Mitch’s heart wasn’t yet resigned to the loss.

Penny nodded. Life was so complex. Amid happiness, fear still had a place at the table. In the middle of security, there was always a kernel of doubt.

But she’d finally stopped dreaming about a day when everything would be sunshine and flowers. She was learning, day by day, to cherish the storm as well as the calm.

Gradually, everyone began to shiver, even with the jackets and gloves. It was mid-December, and far too cold to dawdle outside when the fires indoors called so invitingly. One by one, they began grabbing suitcases and helping to carry them in.

Penny and Max were the last. They stood in the bronzing twilight and let their gazes rest gently on this softly undulating land that was to be their home. The ranch she had left so long ago in agony…

Today she returned in joy.

“You ready?”

Penny nodded. It wasn’t strictly true. Fear was knocking at her heart again.
Remember me? Remember me?
But she and Max had talked it over, as they lay in each other’s arms under the stars. And they had decided that, today, she would return to Bell River through the front door.