“What the bloody hell is going on?” David demanded.
“This man of yours can’t follow simple directions. He was about to overfeed this horse by three times what it should get. It’s not his first mistake. And he’s rude and slow. You need to economize around here. You start with him.”
Andy said nothing. He stared at the ground, fists clenched, jaw twitching. Bruce Banner about to become Hulk. “Why do you let them walk all over you?” Rio had asked. “Where’s the great survivalist?”
Damn, she’d been too right. He’d tried so hard to gain acceptance from his family over the years that he’d cheated himself. He’d learned it from his mother. And with his father he’d nearly sold his soul to the devil to gain acceptance. For the first time he saw the answer to every one of his problems clearly. It would be better to lose the farm than lose his self-respect. Than to lose Rio.
“Carter. You’ve just overstepped your place by a margin too great to make up. As of this moment I’m reneging on our agreement.”
“Now, wait just a minute.” Carter sputtered like a dying car. “We have a legally binding contract. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’ll have a lawyer here in half an hour, you flaming idiot. How dare you presume you have the right to fire my staff. For your information, if there was a mistake made, it wasn’t Andy’s. He’s worked here for years and never once mistaken amounts of anything. That’s your bloody horse, you check the feeding instructions. They will be wrong.”
“Now, cool it down, laddie.” His father stepped in. “This is not a disaster. Just a misunderstanding.”
“Sod off,” David said. Their fragile goodwill disintegrated
“I’ve got money invested in this place,” Carter spat.
“You’ll get every penny back. So pack your bags and find yourself the first available ticket. Head back with your mentor here. Keep the act together.”
“That’s uncalled for—” Colin began.
“No, Da’. I’ll tell you what’s uncalled for—letting you convince me to slink around like a second-class Pitts-Matherson for most of my life. You say I lost some sort of manliness or honor in the army. Wrong. I
gained
honor and bravery when I defied that lieutenant’s stupid, ignorant order in the first place. What lost it again was listening to the army’s rot when they threw me off and then listening to yours when you told me how disappointing I was.
“The best thing I’ve ever done is buy this place. It’s mine. I built it. But still I’ve let Mum turn it into her personal dollhouse. And let you keep coming ’round to tell me it’s not quite good enough.”
“Oh, now I—”
“No.” He held up a hand. “Rio was right. She was always right. This is a showplace that’s crumbling under its own weight. The economy can’t sustain it in this form. Rio might scrimp and find unorthodox ways out of trouble, but at least she’s fighting for her dream. So, sod the pair of you. I’m about to go fight for mine.”
Neither man said a word. David started down the aisle and then turned.
“Be ready in two hours, Da’. Andy, you’re getting a raise.”
“David.”
“What?
Colin
.”
“I knew I liked that girl.”
R
IO SAT BACK
in the Adirondack chair on the miniscule porch of her cabin. She pulled a wool blanket more tightly around her shoulders and listened to the wind howl through the hills behind her new home. To the front of the cabin, two football fields distant, the main ranch house glowed in the eight o’clock dark.
Idyllic.
Everything she’d ever dreamed of having hunkered around her in a big, unbelievable package as perfect as if she’d designed it herself. The Bighorn Mountains were not high and craggy like the pictures of the Rockies, but rolling and mysterious, rising up in unexpected places, steeped in history.
Coyote Creek comprised ten thousand acres. Two hundred head of cattle roamed the pastures, ready to be herded by visitors. Rio had seen bighorn sheep, elk, and mule deer. Birds filled the grasslands. And quiet? She’d hit the jackpot on quiet. Hours and hours of it after she left work.
Bonnie detested it just like she detested Rio. She’d started school this week after ten days of moving and getting settled. Sheridan was forty minutes away, the little towns of Story, Buffalo, and Gillette surrounded them. School was a forty-five-minute bus ride. Rio told herself she could handle Bonnie’s anger; it would cool. The freedom and the safety were worth it.
Paul had turned himself in and, in exchange for giving up Hector, received a shortened sentence in a minimum-security facility. He’d done the right thing. Another reason to be thankful.
To top it off, the job was a dream. She’d already learned more than she’d known there was to learn. She’d ransacked the Internet to supplement her list of memorized family recipes, and she’d sold the ranch kitchen on four of them. Her co-workers were smart and talented, and they accepted her and even respected her.
But they didn’t love her.
She didn’t need their love, of course. She’d come for the solitude, the landscape devoid of bustle, smelly cars, screaming neighbors, and insane family members. Admittedly, things were too quiet sometimes. Business and crowds would pick up over the holidays, they told her, when there would be Christmas guests, hayrides, and sleigh bells.
Idyllic.
Thirty-one crept out of the neat, sparsely furnished cabin. Even the cat had mellowed in the two weeks since arriving. She clung to Rio and Bonnie and had her fill of field mice and birds to chase. Rio picked her up and snuggled her under the blanket. Life was . . . good.
The headlights that swung into her short driveway shattered the peacefulness and sent her pulse racing. Nobody came here at night. Nobody drove the property at nine-thirty. She stood and let the blanket heap to the ground. A chair scraped inside and seconds later Bonnie stood beside her.
“Who’s that?”
“No idea.”
“Should we lock the door?”
How ridiculous was that? Rio thought. She’d come from a gang-infested city where she’d walked the streets in inkier darkness than this. Here she was, in the quietest place she’d ever been, scared of one car.
“It’s probably Don. He said he’d keep an eye out while we settled in.”
The headlights blinked off.
Seconds later the dome light shone weakly as the driver’s door opened. She couldn’t stop the irrational fear, despite her assurances to Bonnie, that Jason’s hockey mask was about to glow into view. Then the passenger door followed suit. No one said a word. Both doors closed at the same time.
Bonnie screamed first.
“Dawson? My gosh, it’s Dawson!”
She leaped the three steps to the ground and flew toward the car.
Dawson?
And then a face did appear out of the colorless night. No hockey mask, just a familiar perfect smile and a smile shadowed by a handsome, unfamiliar tan cowboy hat.
“I don’t expect a welcome anything like that one, but maybe a hullo?”
She muffled a gasp with one hand, and Thirty-one jumped from her hold to the blanket. She sprang to the porch railing and rubbed against David’s shoulder. He snorted in amazement.
“Get that, will ya? What did you do to the cat?”
Pure joy freed itself inside of her, and she began to laugh. In one stride she picked up the cat and moved her out of the way.
“David,” she whimpered, leaning over the low railing and wrapping her arms around his neck, knocking the hat back on his head in her eagerness.
“Hey you, rancher girl. There are a few things I realized I didn’t get to say to you before you left.”
“Yeah? No, wait, don’t say them yet.” She broke away, crossed to the stairs, and followed Bonnie’s lead by leaping onto the lawn. He was beside her in less than a second and lifted her off the ground so she could wrap her legs around him. “Now,” she said.
“I love you. I told Kate. But I never said it to you.”
She laughed again. “You came all this way just for that?”
“Just for that. And a few other things.”
“What’s with the cowboy hat? No, shhh. My turn first.” She kissed him, long and a little desperately. If this was a dream, she wanted to be sure and get it in. She pulled back, taking his bottom lip with her between her teeth and letting it go with a soft scrape. “I love you, too.”
“You do?”
“I loved you the minute you clotheslined my brother the first night at Crossroads. And then you opened that gorgeous mouth and spoke like a fairy-tale prince. I was a goner.”
“I only loved your hair.” He laughed and kissed her—one quick taste. “And your eyes. And that feistiness and stubbornness. And bravery. The rest I took my time with.”
“So what are you doing here? And . . . hold on, where did the other two go?”
“They don’t want to see this. We’re the old farts. They’re off snogging behind the house.”
“I don’t want to hear that.”
“Then hear this. You asked why the hat. You’ve always wanted a cowboy, and even though I’m far from one, I’ll stay here with you, Arionna Montoya. I don’t care about some stupid ten-year plan I made. I don’t care about Bridge Creek if giving it up would mean I could keep you in my life. It took an army, a scrawny horse, a gorgeous redhead, and ten long years to show me I don’t need more money as much as I need you. If this is your dream, then it’s my dream. I’ll start over.”
“I hate my dream. My dream stinks.” She laughed again.
“Excuse me?”
“I didn’t know. I’d never been alone. Do you have any idea how lonely being alone is? I don’t need solitude—not like this. Security—that’s what I found with you. We were in turmoil, but the ground was rock steady. Your family is crazy, but at least it isn’t going anywhere. I found people who don’t leave you because there’s trouble. They don’t take advantage of you. They want you.”
“Will you be my family, then?”
“Will you be mine? I’ll even try to get along with Crazy Carter.”
“Carter was an idiot. He’s packed off back to Florida. I’m back to having debt up to my eyeballs, so you have your scrimping and saving work cut out for you.”
“Finally. Something I’m good at.”
“Madam, you are good at so very many things.”
He squeezed her to him. Heat sluiced through her veins. “I don’t think we can do this here. Not with those two in this little place. It’s cute, but far from soundproof.”
“Then how soon can you quit your new job? There’s actually one room in my house you’ve never seen.”
“Your bedroom.”
“Precisely.”
“How did your mum decorate that?”
“I wouldn’t let her near it. It’s painted beige. It’s got some store-bought greenish, bluish, stripy curtain things on the window, and it’s an unholy mess.”
“Does it have a bed?”
“King-sized. Quite comfortable, actually.”
“It sounds heavenly.”
She kissed him again. This one took off on a timeline of its own, leaving them both out of breath.
“Can you two knock it off?” Dawson’s voice barely fazed them. They both turned their heads, cheek resting against cheek. “We want to go inside, it’s cold out here.”
“It is?” David asked.
“Hadn’t noticed,” Rio added.
“Blech,” said Bonnie.
“You two go right ahead.” David straightened their kiss back out. “We’re still discussing the future.”
T
HE
C
HRISTMAS TREE
sparkled against the picture window in the living room, its backdrop a postcard-perfect fall of fresh snow. Rio never tired of the lights in every shimmering color, and the glass ornaments, discount-store frugal but richly colored and plentiful. Her favorite decoration was the long garland of popcorn and cranberries they’d spent three nights stringing.
Cinnamon wafted from the kitchen where the rolls still baked for brunch in half an hour. A bayberry candle burned on the mantle, and the tree still offered up its sprucey fragrance.
Bonnie tore into a present, her fourth of the morning, with the maturity of a five-year-old and squealed when she revealed a pair of paddock boots just like the ones Rio had opened minutes before.
“Thank you, David. Thank you so much!”
“You’re official now. Helmets, boots, breeches. No excuses not to be on the next Olympic team.”
“Okay. Sure.” She rose and gave him a huge hug. “Thanks, soon-to-be brother-in-law.”
Rio grinned and stared at her present—the tangible sign Bonnie’s statement was true. The promise of hundred Christmas mornings to come, according to the note that had lain in the box beside it. The diamond on her ring finger caught the brilliance from the tree lights and made a tiny Christmas rainbow on the wall. It still took her breath away.
“I have one more for you.” David leaned across the couch and kissed her.
“No, David, you’ve given me too much already. I—”
The peal of the doorbell cut off her protest.
“Paul!” Bonnie jumped up, still clad in her pajamas and robe, and raced to the door. Five minutes later, their brother stood in the room, slightly sheepish, but smiling.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “It’s a long drive in the snow.”
He’d been out of prison for three weeks. Hector, on the other hand, wouldn’t be celebrating Christmas outside Stillwater Correctional Facility for ten to fifteen years. Boyfriend was awaiting trial without bail.
Rio hugged her brother tightly. David shook his hand. Paul held out a bag with three gifts in it.
“Not much,” he said. “Thanks for letting me come.”
“Don’t be silly. You didn’t need to bring anything.”
They hung his jacket on the banister and ushered him to the armchair. Bonnie opened a set of notebooks and a fountain pen. David unwrapped a scarf with a Union Jack on one end and an American flag on the other, which made him crow with delight. Rio’s box was a fair amount bigger.
“What on earth?”
She unwrapped it slowly, savoring the moment with her family as much as the gift, until the box was open. Several wads of newspaper later, she covered her mouth and muffled a cry. In her hands was a vintage Breyer horse, exactly like the one she’d lost in the fire.
“Oh Paul. No way! Wherever did you find one?”
“It’s not a random one,” he said. “It’s The One. It’s yours.”