Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning (16 page)

She turned to call to the doorman, but in the motion, she caught sight of a solitary figure standing in the rain.

Her heart lurched with knowledge. Her breath stopped with joy.

“Ed.”

He said nothing, just looked up at her. Rain sluicing down off his cowboy hat, blown into his face. His eyes raw and dark.

Then he opened his arms, and she was down the steps, flying at him before reaching the bottom, wrapping herself around his tall, strong, wet frame.

“He said you wouldn’t see me,” he said between kisses. “He said you said to go away.”

“I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t know.”

“I couldn’t go away. I drove straight through. Two days. I couldn’t go away. I couldn’t stay away. Not until — not until I tried — Donna, I love you.”

“I love you, too. Oh, Ed, I do love you. I wanted to tell you that so much. But it didn’t seem fair when I was saying — ”

He tried to hold her away from him. She wouldn’t let him, tightening her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.

“I didn’t say I love you before that last minute because I can’t say it without wanting to ask — but I wouldn’t let myself ask, because this is your dream. But I couldn’t stay away, either.”

“Oh, Ed.” She hung on to him, feeling his realness all around her. And then she felt something else. She angled back to poke at a bulge in his coat where it covered his chest. Something crinkled. “What is this?”

“Damn. I forgot.” He opened two buttons and pulled out a trio of wilting branches with clumps of white berries, tied with a red bow. “Snowberry. For you. Didn’t want ’em to get wet, though that doesn’t make sense now I think of it, since they stand out in all weather. It’s just, they made me think of you and I wanted to protect . . . ” He swallowed. “Well . . . ”

“Oh, Ed.” She took the branches from him and threw her arms around his neck again. “You’re my glow. You’re my joy. You’re what I’ll fight for. What are we going to do?”

“Not sure I followed that, but from what Grover and Maudie said there aren’t many doing these musicals real long, maybe till they’re forty or so.”

“Forty!”

“Yes,” he said, firmly. “So I’ll wait. Then we’ll marry, have a family, be at the ranch. Until then, you dance, you sing. You go after that dream, and I’ll wait. I’ll come see you as much as I can.”

“What if I can’t have children when I’m forty?” That wasn’t the objection she’d meant to make, but those were the words that came out.

“We’ll adopt. Plenty of ways to have a family.”

“Oh, Ed,” she whispered, looking into his eyes from the bit of shelter his hat brim provided from the rain. She knew she kept saying it over and over, but his name made him real, not an illusion appearing after a long night of staring at a ceiling.

“And even then, it’s not like once you’re at the Slash-C you can’t go anywhere ever again. I’d never keep you from trips — whenever you want. And we’ll go places together after I retire.”

“Retire!” She had a hard time imagining forty. Retirement was impossible.

“I know it’s a long way off,” he said fast, “but I will retire, Donna. I swear it. We’ll save every week right from the start, so we can travel to all the places you want to see. With you, I’ll want to see them, too. We’ll have a son and we’ll put the ranch in his hands, because it’ll be going really good by then and —”

“What if we don’t have a son?”

But even as she said it, she knew they would. A sturdy toddler with his father’s smile, before he became a man any parents could be proud of.

Oh, my God, she knew because she’d
seen
him — their son. The toddler in that odd seeing-triple moment the very first night. And the older man? Was that her future Ed? Oh, how she hoped so.

“We might have a daughter,” she added.

A Lisa. Yes, they would have a girl named Lisa.

He stopped. “A daughter,” he said slowly. Then, even more slowly, that wonderful smile spread across his face. “Who looks like you. That would be —” He swallowed hard again.

She blinked against a sting in her eyes, but kept her voice firm. “And what if they — the son, the daughter — don’t want to take over the ranch.”

His smile faded. “Then we’d sell it. Should be worth enough by then so I can take you places you want to go.”

She sucked in a breath. He would. He would sell his family ranch that meant so much to him. The last thing she ever wanted him to do, he would. For her.

“Ed, I need you to do something for me. Will you promise?”

He tried to look into her eyes, but she had dropped her chin so he couldn’t.

“I promise to try my damnedest to do it for you, Donna.”

She raised her face. “Ask me.”

“What?”

“Ask me. What you drove two days to ask, ask me now.”

“Donna—”

“You promised.”

“But —”

“Ask me, Edward David Currick.”

“I —”

“Ed—

“Okay, okay, I’m asking. Will you marry me, Donna? When you can — when you want to — will you be my wife?”

“Yes. And when I want to is forever. Starting right now.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“But —”

“You’ve got to break this
but
habit, Ed. I’ll marry you, and I’ll be your wife at the Slash-C now, and I’ll find ways to sing and dance, because I don’t need a stage for that. And when you retire — and retire you will, I will not have you work yourself to death — we will go to many wonderful and exotic places together.”

Maudie was right. She loved singing, she loved dancing. She didn’t need an audience for that love to continue. But she needed Ed. And his love. This was what she would fight for. Always.

“Donna —”

“Now it’s your turn to say yes.”

He studied her, blinking through rain that slid past his hat brim, and perhaps tears, to look into her eyes.

“Yes,” he said slowly. Then he smiled, and she knew she would never stop loving that smile. “Oh, hell, yes!”

He kissed her hard and deep, his arms around her no longer simply supporting her, but binding her to him. He tried to push her coat aside.

“What the hell?”

“I sewed on the buttons. Just now.”

He grumbled a curse.

But eventually — hours after he had wrenched several off in his glorious hurry to get her out of her coat — he forgave those buttons. They were the only reason they made it back to her hotel room without giving an X-rated show that might have shocked even San Francisco.

Knighton, Wyoming — Present Day

“Donna, if you don’t come now, we’ll miss the flight.”

“I know. As soon as I check the freezer —”

He caught her arm, preventing her returning to the house.

“Dave is too smart to starve. If he weren’t, I’d be a damned idiot to leave him to run the ranch.”

“Of course he’s smart — he’s brilliant,” she said immediately, letting herself be led toward the pickup. Count on her to defend her kids from any whiff of criticism . . . unless she was voicing it. “His law practice is going great and he’ll keep the Slash-C running smoothly.”

“Especially with Jack’s help.”

“Jack’s a great foreman.” Uh-oh. She’d said the right words, but with a distracted air that said something else was occupying her mind. “I just worry . . .” She stopped, looking back at the house.

“About all your little chicks.”

“Well, I do. Ever since Lisa came back from New York —”

“She’s told you she’s fine, and she’s asked us to respect that she’s an adult.”

She
tch
-ed her dismissal of that before adding, “And Dave pretends he’s got everything under control. But with Matty gone —”

“Ancient history, Donna. And our plane reservations are going to be in the same category if we don’t leave
now.
Besides, you do know they’re all waiting at the airport for a sendoff, don’t you
?
”

“Of course. But how do you know?”

“Jack.”

She tipped her head. “Jack told you? He says so little —”

He grinned. “He didn’t say one word. I saw the note stuck in the visor of his pickup, with the time and date — same as our departure. If we ever get to the airport.”

She ignored that last part. “I worry about Jack. He keeps himself so . . . separate.”

“I know you do, hon, but he’s a grown man, and not one of your kids.” What Jack Ralston had told him was one of the very few things he hadn’t shared with Donna in these past thirty-five years. Jack had asked him not to, and it would have worried her even more than she worried now.

Thirty-five years.

It was hard to believe. Some bad days, but better years than he could have imagined that Christmas night in San Francisco when she said she’d marry him. He’d thought that would be the best day of his life. It had just been the beginning.

Becoming husband and wife. Having Dave, then Lisa. Building the ranch together. Being part of a community. Helping their neighbors. Being helped. Laughing. In a way, she’d taught him how to sing and dance through each day — without his knowing a step or a note.

And now —

“I love the Slash-C,” Donna said thickly, as she looked across the land that was their home, that had been the foundation for so much joy.

“I know you do.” He cleared his throat, forcing back the lump, making his voice go mock plaintive. “But don’t you
want
to go to Paris with me?”

She spun around, stepping into his arms. “Of course I do! Paris and Brittany and Wales and Spain and Ireland and —”

He scooped her up, and set her on the truck seat. “Great. But first we have to get to the airport. And we have to go through Denver, which is always a mess, so if we want to get to Paris . . . ”

“Oh, Denver wasn’t so bad to us.” Still with tears in her eyes, she smiled as her arms encircled his neck. “I wouldn’t mind a few nights on a narrow bed with you in Denver.” She kissed him.

He was two-thirds of the way to just crawling in the truck with her right then and calling it a day, when she placed a palm to his cheek and drew back slightly. “But Paris first.”

He sucked in a breath. “Right. Paris.”

He slammed the truck door on her chuckle, then wasted no time sliding behind the wheel, and getting to the end of the drive, ready to turn onto the highway. There he stopped, though there was no traffic in sight.

He spared a last look at their home in the rearview mirror. She put her hand on his. And then he could look nowhere but at the woman he loved.

“You have changed my life, Donna Roberts Currick.” Slowly, he smiled, and named the song no one knew was theirs except for them, “ ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me.’ Any of it. Ever.”

“Us,” she amended, as one of them always did.

He pulled onto the highway.

“We’re on our way, darling.”

“We’re on our way,” she agreed.

	Read an Excerpt Dave Currick has everything he wants, except the woman he loves . . . Almost a Bride
	Cal and Taylor can spark a wildfire, but will they come together in … Match Made in Wyoming
	Lisa Currick’s carried a secret in her heart for years–and he just hit town … My Heart Remembers
	Or read the three books for one great price in the Wyoming Wildflowers boxed set …   Wyoming Wildflowers Trilogy Boxed Set, 3 Books in 1
	Read an excerpt of the new Wyoming Wildflowers book coming in 2015, Jack Ralston’s story: Jack’s Heart