Almost a Cowboy (35 page)

Jefferson took an Adirondack chair and swigged from the bottle. Together they examined their siblings. Emma and Aurora were knotted with Camden and Bennett. Franklin talked with Clinton, both hitched on the top fence rail. It surprised Utah that this volatile brother had remained after the reading.

“Woman trouble?” Jefferson asked without pretense. He passed the bottle back.

Utah wrapped the fingers around the bottle and brought it to his lips. “Yup,” he drawled.

“She leave you?”

His heart contracted. “Yes.”

“We’re in the same boat then, buddy.” Jefferson rested his forearms on his knees and stared across the yard.

Utah handed him the bottle. “Sorry to hear that.”

Jefferson heaved a sigh and downed more of the fiery liquid. “I’m not sure I’m accepting her rejection. She fits me like no one else ever could, you know?”

“I do know.” His voice grated, and not from the whiskey.

“You gonna accept it from Caroline?”

Before she’d shown him the newspaper article, he’d thought her the same girl he’d loved in his youth. During the past weeks, she’d continually told him she was different, but he hadn’t bought it. Now he wasn’t so sure.

Thinking about all those late nights she’d sat up writing cut him to the quick. All the time she’d been telling his story—his
private
story, goddammit.

Gunnison brought Alexandria to a stop, and Franklin helped her out of the saddle. He and Gunnison talked while she petted Miss Ruby’s shiny flank.

Utah directed his attention to Jefferson. “I didn’t let her walk away this time. I threw her out.”

Jefferson’s eyes widened. “What happened?”

“You might as well know now.” He picked up the paper sitting on the porch rail beside him and dropped it into Jefferson’s hands. “Page two.”

After a few moments, Jefferson snapped the paper shut. “She’s a reporter. Betrayal and trust broken.”

Utah’s throat closed. He forced out his answer. “Yes.”

Jefferson folded the newspaper and set it at his feet. “This is going to affect all of us.”

“Sure is. I apologize for it. And I’ll tell the others so they’re prepared for calls from the press.”

Chase’s wife was talking to Clinton’s wife and sipping iced tea. Their toddlers sat playing with gravel and babbling in baby voices. Two babies snoozed on blankets in the shade.

Utah wanted that picture postcard of his own. Caroline adding her blonde head to the group of Davies darks. He wanted tow-headed kids reaching to be picked up.

Unable to sit still another minute, he stood. “I’ll talk with everyone now.”

As Utah reached the porch stairs, his brother spoke. “Utah. Don’t be too hard on her. Love forgives, after all.”

He cocked a brow at him. “Is that what you did? Forgive?”

“No. I’m not ready for that yet.” Jefferson’s features hardened, and he rubbed the back of his hand over his firmly set mouth.

I’m not sure I am, either.
Utah gathered his siblings and gave them more news.

•●•

Caroline couldn’t sleep. Eat. Write. She could barely breathe. The memory of the look in Utah’s eyes after he’d read the article punctured her lungs over and over again.

Four weeks had passed since that day. Yet her heart ached more.

She’d caught a morning television feature with Franklin Davies looking fit and reserved in a suit and tie. He’d discussed his childhood using abbreviated and vague answers, as well as talked about Utah coming to find him.

Emma had texted Caroline on several occasions to say she didn’t mind the publicity at college, and she was running the track better than ever.

And Deirdre had actually phoned Caroline twice in the past month just to chitchat.

It made Caroline feel horribly guilty. She didn’t deserve anyone’s kindness, only ridicule.

If Utah screamed at her, it would be better than his silence. Knowing he was up on the ranch, working and thriving without her, chiseled away more of the stone wall she’d erected after her abusive marriage.

Who says he’s thriving?

Arial crowded close to her legs and proceeded to twirl in and out of them, coating her in cat hair. She bent and lifted the kitten onto her lap. Its legs were lanky now, its face growing fuller. Caroline scratched its stiff ears and kissed its nose.

“I miss him.”

The quiet admittance fell into her solitary space. She straightened in her desk chair.

Her need for him went deeper than bone—it filled every cell of her being.

The tears that never felt far away erupted. She sobbed against the kitten’s side, wetting its fur. As she let her tears fall, she realized the drops were coming for different reasons.

For her youth, wasted.

For Jeremy’s drunken abuse.

The relief of finding Utah—and being in his arms—again.

For getting her damned period instead of finding two blue lines on a pregnancy test.

At this, she dragged in a deep sniff. She wanted his kids. Wanted
him
. So why didn’t she go up there on the Davies ranch and beg him to marry her?

She leaped out of the chair, dumping Arial. The fur ball gave her a filthy look and padded out of the room. At the door, it glared over its shoulder.

A sniffly laugh burst from Caroline. Her mind spun ahead of her, running through town to the jewelers, to the travel agent to book flights for Vegas, and a honeymoon in the secluded Poconos where she and Utah would spend five days and nights in bed, making babies in every possible position.

She lurched to the kitchen, suddenly burning for him.

I’ve wasted enough time. I’m taking back my life.
Years ago, people had interfered. Then Jeremy had shadowed her every decision, even when she believed she’d outrun him. Really, she stood in the way of her own happiness. Well, no longer.

She grabbed car keys and her purse, secure in the knowledge she had her checkbook, and hurled herself out into the baking afternoon.

As she selected two simple platinum bands and paid to get them engraved at a later date, worry invaded her psyche. What if he didn’t accept? What if he turned her away?

All the what-ifs threatened to choke her. Still, she went through the motions of booking the honeymoon they’d once discussed when they were eighteen.

Even then he’d craved a secluded mountain. He’d spent a decade on one, but it hadn’t been enough for him because he’d wanted her to be with him.

Driving hell-bent for the ranch, she wrote and rewrote the things she wanted to say. Apologies and promises to hopefully be followed by passionate kisses and whoops of joy.

Then falling into bed with the man of her dreams and letting him peel her off the ceiling in the morning.

She clenched her thighs together, holding the good burn of want.

Landscape whipped past. She barely registered the soaring clouds and the dark blue sky that reminded her of Utah’s eyes, or fields where they’d lain together, dreaming spires.

Stomping on the gas, she rushed the last mile to his ranch.

That brought back the memory of his shock at discovering this was what Hollis Davies had left him. In the past month since then, had he mellowed at the news?

So much to find out and catch up on. Too many kisses put on hold.

She planned to get back every single one.

When she whipped into the gravel area in front of the ranch, she gasped at the improvements. Pristine fields were dotted with several horses. The barn had a new coat of red paint, and a bale of hay indicated there were livestock inside. He’d painted the trim on the house to her favorite red, and the porch had been stained a deep brown to match the siding.

He must have spent day and night just painting alone.

What else did he have to occupy him?

The old guilt bubbled inside Caroline, and her stomach shifted. What if he turned her away again?

Hardly able to draw breath, she climbed out of her car and swept the yard for signs of him. At this time of day, she could almost guarantee he wasn’t in the house.

She clapped a hand over the pocket of her jeans where the wedding bands lived. Her boots moving through the grass created whispers.
He won’t let you in. He’ll drive you away. You’re too late.

She kept on, plowing toward the barn, which was empty except for two cows and two young heifers. When she peeked into the pasture behind, she saw a bull.

So Utah was busy creating families. She prayed he had room for one more.

In the back field, she found the old tractor blocked up with one wheel off. But no Utah.

Heart thumping in a nauseating way, she searched inside and around every outbuilding on the property. His truck was here, so she knew he must be too.

Mounting the rise to the top fields, she scanned dozens of bales of hay waiting to be picked up. Catching movement from the corner of her eye, she spun. She stopped breathing at the sight of Utah’s hard backside. His broad back muscles rippled, bare in the sun.

Sudden uncertainty bloomed in her belly. But she had to try, right? If he rejected her, she deserved it. But she had to know.

Slowly she picked her way across the freshly cut field. Utah was bent over a bale doing something she couldn’t see.

He straightened and tugged his glove more firmly onto his hand. Caroline’s heart flipped at the view of him from behind. Tall, corded with muscle, and tanned on every exposed part. He wore his cowboy hat, but his hair curled under the brim.

When he turned and gave her his profile, her knees weakened, and she lost some nerve. At that moment, he pivoted to face her fully.

He froze.

She almost did too. Then she pushed forward, determined to follow her heart at long last. From twenty paces she saw the uncertainty on his rugged features. From ten she saw his gaze flicker over her body ever so slowly.

At five paces, she stopped.

“Hey.” His voice came out as rough as glass under a boot heel.

She met his gaze, heart hammering. She swallowed hard. “Hi, Utah.”

They stared at each other for long minutes.

“Did you need something that you came all the way up here, Caroline?” he asked at last.

Breath hitching, she nodded. She dug into her pocket and came out with the rings. The circles glinted on the open palm she held before him.

His expression closed off as he looked at the rings.

She shoved forward, totally wrecking any walls between them. “I’m so sorry, Utah. For the article, for evading you, for refusing to tell you how fucking much I love you.”

His features spasmed. Blue eyes sought hers.

She nodded. “It’s true. I’m in love with you and always will be. I want those kids and this ranch.” She swept a hand over the landscape. “I want to be part of your big, crazy family and help you discover who your siblings really are. I want to wake up beside you every morning of my life and have a bunch of little Utahs.”

She started to drop to her knees, but he caught her around the waist and hauled her against him. The musky scent of a hardworking man infused her with longing. Her breaths came in short pants.

He stared deeply into her eyes, into her very soul. “What are you saying, baby?”

At his use of the endearment, her heart fluttered. “I came to ask you to marry me, Utah.”

Something shifted in his eyes. Then he shifted his jaw. The dimple flashed. She held her breath, waiting for his response that would change both of their lives forever.

“Isn’t that my job to ask?”

“You asked once. I figured it’s a give and take relationship, and I’d better have a turn.”

Eyes gleaming, he leaned his head toward her. She gulped in his scent and fought the urge to take the kiss she needed so badly.

“What if I want to do the asking?”

Head tipped up to his, their lips inches away, she said breathlessly, “By all means.”

He gripped her hand and plucked the rings from her palm. Releasing her, he fell to one knee in a smooth movement. She swayed at the dark look he wore.

“Caroline, I’ve loved you for years and will love you forever. You said yes once, but I’m asking you to say yes again. Will you marry me?”