Authors: Jodi Thomas
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Charley
March 27
I
T
WAS
AFTER
twilight when Charley walked out to the barn to check on the horses one last time before he turned in. He'd put in a hard day on horseback and stayed away from the house in the afternoon.
Only the plan hadn't kept Jubilee from his thoughts. He was attracted to her, but he had to keep his distance. This was one time he didn't want to ruin what he had built. A friendship, he reminded himself. Nothing more.
He never slept well when Lillie wasn't asleep in her bed so he usually worked late and read late into the night on those nights. A part of him wondered if, when she grew up, he would miss her forever.
The colt was asleep in the soft hay beside his mother and, to Charley's surprise, Jubilee was curled in the corner of the stall, her head resting on a blanket Lillie sometimes curled up in when she watched him work.
He sat down beside Jubilee, leaned his back against the stall boards and rested his hand on her shoulder. “You sleeping it off in the barn, boss, or did the evil sister kick you out of your own house?”
Her big brown eyes opened slowly and tried to focus. “I... I...”
He brushed her hair away from her face. “You're in the barn on your ranch. You're safe.”
She frowned at him. “I know where I am, you idiot.”
“The lady is awake. Want to talk about it?”
“No. You told Thatcher he could sleep in the barn. Maybe I thought I'd give it a try.”
“He didn't take my offer after you handed him that stack of new clothes you bought him. New jeans and a Western shirt with pearl snaps. That and Kristi Norton go a long way in making him want to catch the bus to school.”
They both smiled and she straightened so she was leaning against the stall wall. Her shoulder was almost touching his, but Charley didn't move away.
“First love.” She sighed. “I remember mine. His name was Benny. I followed him around for months. I knew his class schedule better then he did. I even kept track of what he ate.”
Charley grinned, thinking about her following some guy around like a puppy. “How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“How far did he get?”
“First base.” She laughed. “The moment he realized how flat-chested I was he ran. Kind of the story of my life. Guys stay around until they figure out what's wrong with me, then they disappear. No boobs. Then no trust. And finally, no commitment. I'm the kind of girl guys wonder why they ever got involved with.”
“I find that hard to believe, Jubilee. I've seen how hard you plan and work.” He nodded toward the mare. “I've seen how much you care.”
“Charley,” she whispered as if they'd wake the horses. “Would you hug me? This is nothing to do with you or me or starting something between us. I could just use a hug. It's been a bad day.”
He opened his arms and she moved against him. For a long while he did what she'd asked, he just hugged her. He'd always said he wanted a woman for a friend and she seemed to want the same thing. He could be happy with that, right? No complications.
He liked watching her move. He enjoyed teaching her about ranching and laughing with her, but she'd made it plain that their friendship would never go further. It couldn't, because if it did they'd both probably break this time. They both seemed like old veterans of a long war. One more battle would shatter them both.
All he'd ever been good at was ruining relationships, and he had a feeling she was the same. She had a goal to build this place up and he could help her with that, nothing more.
He leaned close to her ear. “Unless I'm mistaken, boss, I don't think you have to worry about the âno boobs' problem any longer.”
She pulled away suddenly.
“I may be tired, but a man knows when he's hugging a woman.” Even in the shadows he swore he could see her blush.
She slapped him on the shoulder and rolled next to him again, shoulder to shoulder. “All right, cowboy. Now you. Tell me about your first love.”
He thought of lying, but they'd become friends. “Her name was Sharon. I was seventeen and she was sixteen. I had wild dreams of going to college, getting a degree and managing the family ranch. She had wild dreams of being with me. We went all the way on our first date and I thought I was the luckiest guy in town. By the time I left for college she was like a drug. I came home every weekend just to be with her. Sometimes we didn't even talk, we just had sex. Before the end of my freshman year, her dream came true. She was four months pregnant when we married that summer.
“I thought I could finish college, we'd move back to the ranch and have a few more kids, but I guess marriage and motherhood wasn't what she wanted. She left Lillie and me three months after Lillie was born. I stayed in school, working thirty or forty hours a week, and rocking a baby at night. My dad was so mad he almost disowned me then. He didn't make it easy on me, but at least he paid tuition.”
He'd never been so honest with anyone in his life. Most folks didn't really ask. They thought they already knew the story of his life.
“Did you love her a great deal? Did her leaving break your heart?”
He pushed his palms against his eyes and decided to be truthful with himself for a change. “I don't think I ever loved her at all. I loved what we did on our first date. All I could think about was doing it again. I thought I loved her when she was carrying my child, but when she didn't love Lillie things changed. I found it hard to look at her and there was no way I could make love to her when she just let Lillie cry and never bothered to change her.”
He kicked at the hay. “One of the last things she ever said to me was that she thought I loved Lillie more than I loved her. She was right. I didn't blame her for leaving.”
Jubilee looked at him. “How many women have you slept with?”
“Not many. Sharon, one married woman I shouldn't have and maybe a half dozen girls I've picked up in bars where we were drunk and both knew it was a one-night stand. On those nights I was so drunk we may have only slept.”
“I've slept with four, all nice guys I drifted into relationships with. Friends who filled in as lovers.”
“How many did you love?”
She shook her head. “None. Something is broken in me. At least you thought you loved Sharon. I never even got that close. I'm messed up.”
“Me, too,” he said. “We're the kind of people who give loving a bad name.”
She giggled. “Isn't that a line from a song?”
“Probably. I sometimes think my whole life is a country song.”
“Maybe it is. Trust me. I'm older than you and for a year or two I was big into country music. I even kissed Willie Nelson at a concert.”
“I got a feeling thousands have done that. And I figured out you had to be at least a year, maybe two years older than me. But, boss, being around you, I'm aging fast.”
They were both laughing when Destiny stepped up to the open barn door. “I can't sleep,” she announced, as if it was a global problem someone needed to solve. “For no reason at all I seemed to be missing Mason.”
Charley stood, pulling Jubilee up with him. “Sorry about that, lady. The best cure for sleepless nights is a long ride. You want me to saddle up a horse?”
Charley wondered why he ever thought Destiny was pretty without her makeup. From what he could tell by the clinging silk robe, a few pounds had joined the wrinkles crawling up on her while she slept.
“You have got to be kidding.” She made a face that caused an outbreak of new lines.
“I wouldn't mind a ride,” Jubilee said from behind him.
Charley did his best to ignore Destiny's complaining as he saddled two horses.
When he walked them between the two sisters, Destiny was saying that she'd made a few calls today and things around here were about to change.
“Help me up,” Jubilee whispered to him as she put her foot in the stirrup.
He placed one hand on her knee and the other on her backside, smiling as he boosted her into the saddle. When he looked up she was grinning down at him and he knew they were both thinking of the first time he'd helped her up.
“All right?” he asked as his hand moved along her leg, checking that her boot was firmly in place.
“I'm fine. Let's ride.”
She was out the barn door before he could swing into the saddle. Neither looked back at Destiny. Neither cared. At this moment they just wanted to leave everything behind them and simply ride the wind.
He caught up with Jubilee halfway to Lone Heart Pass. She'd learned to ride over the weeks she'd been here and he'd found he enjoyed watching her moving so gracefully with the horse as she rode.
The night was cool, but he barely noticed. She looked so beautiful with her long blond hair flying like a mane. He could hear her laughter in the wind. Her bad day was disappearing under the pounding of hoofs over grassland.
She slowed when they reached the rocky entrance to the pass. The tall pillars of rock looked milky white in the moonlight, and the entrance was completely black.
As he pulled up beside her, he said, “The old timers called this Lone Heart Pass because only one man can ride in at a time. I've always thought the name had a lonesome sound to it. Kind of sad. Haunting.”
Jubilee slid off her horse and walked to the entrance. “Wish we could go in, but it's so dark. Too bad a full moon isn't high over the top.”
Charley climbed down and reached into his saddlebag. “No bright moon crossing tonight. What was it Lauren said, something about a heart's wish coming true when the moon shines down from the opening above the pass?”
“It's still beautiful. A passage guarding an opening to the canyon. I love that this place is on my land.”
Clicking on a small flashlight, Charley said, “How about we go in just for the fun of it? There's no full moon tonight, but we should be able to see enough to walk the pass through. On the other side we'll have a great midnight view of the canyon.”
He took her hand and they moved slowly up the rocky trail to the opening. Once inside the passage, they moved into a long roofless opening just wide enough for them to walk through together.
Charley gave her the flashlight and raised his arms wide. His fingers brushed along rock washed by oceans for thousands of years before the sea that had once covered this land dried out. He could feel her excitement, and hoped that whatever was torturing her earlier would leave her alone in this quiet place where ghosts seemed to whisper and heart dreams were believed to come true.
They made it to the other side and stood silently staring as moonlight danced over the stillness of the canyon at night. It was like a stunning oil painting done in black and shades of blue and gray.
“It's beautiful,” she whispered.
He rested his arm lightly across her shoulder. “That it is. The evergreens look almost black in the night, like a ragged line of ink running the canyon walls. The tumbleweeds near the bottom almost seem to be dancing in the shallow water.”
She moved closer to him for warmth and they stood in silence for a while.
Then, without a word, they turned around to walk the passage back toward her ranch.
Halfway through, he whispered, “Turn off the flashlight. I want to see how dark it is.”
She did and suddenly it was so black she seemed to have disappeared at his side.
She giggled. “It's a level of dark I've never seen.”
“You vanished, Jubilee, but you left your laugh.”
Her hand touched his chest. “It's like we fell out of the world. I only wish it was that easy to step out of my life sometimes. It's so silent here. So dark. I've disappeared from my life and I'm floating free.”
“What would you do if you really could disappear from all your problems? Become an only child? Fly away on a moonbeam? Live in a daydream?”
She was silent, but he could still feel her hand resting on his chest. She was right in front of him. He could hear her breathing, feel it against his collar. He could smell the light, fruity smell of her hair.
“What would you do right now, invisible lady, that the world would never know about? No one would see. No one would remember.”
Her hand started at his heart and moved up his body until she brushed the day's growth of stubble along his jaw. “I'd kiss you,” she whispered. “I'd kiss you softly, gently, like I think a man like you has never been kissed.”
Charley couldn't have moved if a dozen rattlers circled suddenly around his boots. He'd known passion and he'd tasted wild sex just for the excitement of it, but she'd just named the one thing he'd never experienced.
She leaned slowly against him and moved her lips along the path her fingers had just traveled from his jaw.
When her mouth moved over his, he drew in a breath, but didn't move.
Soft, full lips began at the corner of his mouth and gently planted feather kisses across his bottom lip. There was no race into passion. No attack. No fevered assault. Not a beginning or an ending. Just a tender, loving kiss as fleeting as a butterfly, as beautiful, as priceless.
If he hadn't already been leaning against the passage rock, he had no doubt that his legs would have buckled.
When she kissed him with only the slightest pressure, and then pulled away, he whispered, “Again. Dear God, you've got to do that again.”
He felt her smile as she brushed over his mouth once more, this time welcoming him returning the kiss. Any other time and he would have advanced, turning the slow burn to fire, run full force into what he had no doubt would be an earthquake of a climax. But this was Jubilee, his friend, and she was offering him what he'd longed for.
Her open mouth moved to his ear. “When we leave this place we'll never speak of this kiss again. I want to hold the tenderness of it in my heart.”