A Cowboy's Christmas Promise (25 page)

“Oh, horrors!” Hayley smiled as she turned her toward the stairs. “Not that!”

Daniel watched as she maneuvered both girls upstairs, feeling uncharacteristi
cally depressed as her last words knocked around in his skull.

Half an hour later, Hayley tiptoed down the stairs, finger to her lips as she perched on the arm of the chair across from where Daniel sat on the couch, eyes closed. “They're asleep,” she whispered, not sure whether he was awake.

His eyes opened sleepily. “Already?”

“It's probably because I sang. They forced themselves to fall asleep so they wouldn't have to listen.” She looked down at her feet, feeling suddenly unsure of herself. “How did everything turn out?”

“We lost one.”

“Aw, Daniel. I'm sorry.”

“Their daughter's going to be devastated when she gets home.”

“How old is she?”

“Sixteen.”

Hayley nodded thoughtfully. “Hard lesson, impermanence.”

“I suppose.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but was biting his tongue.

She looked around, then got up to gather the books into a neat pile. Despite her best efforts, she hadn't quite been able to corral the detritus of a day with two seven-year-olds. “I'm sorry you had to deal with that today. It never gets easier, does it?”

“No, it really doesn't.”

Her eyes scanned his face, but it was strangely blank. “Are you okay?”

“Just done in.”

“Okay. I should—I should go so you can get to bed.”

He shook his head. “You don't have to go. I mean, unless you want to. You've been here for two days, for God's sake. You probably can't wait to get out of here.”

Why did his voice sound so funny? It was almost like he
wanted
her to leave. “Are you kidding? I loved every minute of being here.”

“Every minute?”

“Well, the smoking lasagna was a low point, but all the rest were good.”

Except for the part where Evelyn put me in my proverbial place.

“I'm sorry you had to be here for so long. I had no idea what I was riding out to over there.”

“It was no problem. We had fun.”

He was silent for a long moment, then leaned forward and put his head in his hands, scrubbing his forehead. “I just got a call from my attorney. Evelyn filed for custody this afternoon. For real.” His voice was exhausted, sad, and she fought the urge to go sit beside him, fought the urge to take his two-day-bearded face in her hands and kiss the worry lines away.

Then she had a frightening thought.
Oh, God. Was it because Hayley'd admitted he'd been out on a call for two days straight? Had that been the straw that had finally pushed the stupid camel to go all the way?

She swallowed hard. “You're—you're kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

“That woman.” Hayley got up and started pacing back and forth, setting the mugs back on the table and clenching her fists.
Should she tell him Evelyn had come by?
“She can't possibly win, can she?”

“My attorney assures me she can't, but at this point I think the threat of the battle is as much her point as the end result anyway.”

“Could this end up going to court?”

“Possibly.”

“Oh, no. They wouldn't make the girls appear, would they?”

“That's the fear she's banking on. That I'll capitulate so they don't have to go before a judge.”

Hayley couldn't imagine poor Bryn and Gracie getting dragged into a courtroom, peering up at a robed judge, fearing they were going to lose their daddy. “Omigod, Daniel. What are you going to do?”

“I have a few options.”

“Like?”

“Option one is to pack them up and leave the country.” He sighed. “So, since that's illogical on so many levels, I'm looking at option two: if my attorney can't get this thing squashed, maybe I just need to move back to Denver and call off Evelyn's dogs. Because as long as I stay here, that woman is going to make my life a living hell. That I'm sure of.”

“You'd really go back there?”

“Not willingly.”

Hayley bit her lip. “What about option three? Burying her in the backyard?”

“Don't tempt me. In my current state, I could claim sleep-deprived insanity.”

“Still…jail time.”

“Right.” He sighed. “So we're back to option two.”

“Back to Denver.” She felt a mixture of queasiness and pain as she processed the possibility.

He was quiet for a moment, then looked at her intently. “There could be an option four.”

Her stomach jumped. “I'm all ears.”

“You marry me, move out here, and partner with me in the practice.”

Hayley felt her mouth fall open as she looked at his tired eyes. Then she clamped it firmly shut and shook her head.
He didn't really mean it.

“Wow. You really
do
need sleep.”

“Is that a no?”

“Daniel, be serious. You are all kinds of crazy right now. It's been a hideous day, Evelyn's knocking down your door, and you're two options away from packing the kids in the truck and disappearing. I'm pretty sure we shouldn't take anything that comes out of your mouth right now very seriously. Especially—that.”

“I think I resent that.”

“You can resent me now, but you'll thank me in the morning when you barely remember this conversation.” The queasiness in her stomach was replaced by little chainsaws. He wasn't asking her because he loved her. He was asking her because Evelyn had laid her ace on the table and he was fresh out of other options.

Evelyn had been right, dammit.

Daniel stood up and took a step toward her. In response, she stepped backward. “I'm dead serious, Hayley. And this isn't a result of two sleep-deprived nights, or a crazy mother-in-law, or a dead horse. This is something I've been thinking about for months. You hate your practice and you love mine. I'm offering you a chance to come work with animals bigger than your own head.”

“You were offering a lot more than that a few seconds ago.”

“Well, in retrospect I should probably not have lumped it all together. Let's just talk about work.”

“Daniel, as much as I love it out here, I can't leave my practice. My uncle gave it to me,
after
paying for a good portion of my tuition. I can't just say
thanks, but no thanks
two years later. I'd never be able to live with myself.”

“Okay, then forget about work. Bad place to start. What about the rest?”

“Oh, Lord.” She looked toward the door. “You don't mean the rest. You're tired, you're stressed, your back is up against a wall, and this might sound like a good solution to all that right now, but in the morning, you're going to be staring at your coffee wondering what the
hell
you said last night.”

“So—” He rubbed his hand over his stubble, and Hayley cringed internally as she realized how badly she wanted to kiss that same stubble, wanted to feel it rub against her skin. “So these past few months—this week—what is that to you?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.” She crossed her arms slowly.

“All this time, have you ever thought maybe this was…something? Me? You? Us?”

“Of course! It's been fun. We have a great time.”

Oh, God. What was she saying?

“Ouch.”

“Why ouch? Fun is good. I love it out here, I love your girls, I love—being with you guys.”

And the perfect next sentence might have been
I love you,
but she knew they both heard the gaping hole where it didn't actually land.

He stared at her for just long enough that she had to break his gaze. Either that or she was going to get sucked into those eyes, move toward him against her will, wrap herself up in him and never let go.

Finally he made a frustrated sound and shook his head. “I have to be honest with you, Hayley. I really thought maybe we were working on something here that could turn out to be more than a casual friendship.”

“Well, if it's any consolation, I definitely don't kiss my casual friends. Or sleep with them.”

“Very reassuring.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, then sighed.

The only way out of this was to lay it on herself, not him. Even though she'd come out here, fallen completely in love with Montana, with the girls, with him, there was no way she could admit it now.

She'd been played by a master, apparently. Maybe
he
didn't even realize he was playing her, but Hayley couldn't get Evelyn's words out of her head. When the dust settled on the custody thing and Daniel woke up and realized he didn't need her anymore, what then?

If she made a clean break now, at least then she could leave with an ounce of pride intact. “I shouldn't have kissed you. Not last summer, not this week. I just—I shouldn't have. And I never should have stayed the night. I'm a bad risk, Daniel. I don't believe in
forever
or
happily-ever-after
or any of that stuff. I never have, and I never will. I'm just not built for permanence. I'm sorry if I ever gave the impression that I was.”

The words sliced at her ribs as she realized how much she
didn't
believe them anymore. How much she'd been dying to show him how he'd convinced her they weren't true.

“You've been pretty clear about it, actually.”

“I really like you. Really,
really
like you. But I'm not the one who's going to be your option four.”

“I do have the capability of asking more romantically than that.”

She laughed sadly. “I know. I'm just saying—I'm all sharp corners and jagged edges, Daniel. I'm not the girl you need, and I'm not going to say I'll move out here and pretend I am, only to see it all blow up. That wouldn't be good for anybody, especially the girls.”

He stared at her, hard. “Hayley, can you really tell me you don't feel anything?”

“No. But I don't feel the
right
anything, and it's not fair to you to pretend it could ever be any different.”

“Wow.” He sat back down, looking deflated. Looking not at all like someone who was playing games, but she didn't dare trust it.

“Daniel, you need to decide what's right for you and the girls, without me—or anyone else—in the mix.”

“What if
you're
what's right for me and the girls?”

Oh, God.
Why was he saying these things now, when she was trying to extract herself?
“I'm not. I'm really not. I wish I were. I wish I could wave a magic wand and make things right again, but I can't. I can't bring Katie back, and I most certainly can't replace her.”

His eyes widened as his mouth formed a hard line, and Hayley winced at the pain in his face.

His voice was deathly quiet. “I would never ask you to replace her.”

“I know. But she's in your heart, Daniel, and I'm not sure there's really enough room for someone else in there.” Hayley bit her lip and turned away, but not before she felt tears crowd her eyes. “Oh, boy. Okay. I really need to go.”

As she gathered her bag and coat from the entranceway, she heard his strangled voice as he got back up from the couch.

“Don't go, Hayls. Don't go like this.”

She looked up at him, knowing he could see the tears in her eyes, dammit.

“I have to. I've already done what I never meant to do, and I don't want to hurt you any more by pretending I'm something I'm not.”

“No one's asking you to pretend anything.” He put his hand up to touch her, but she backed away. If she felt his skin on hers, she'd never be able to make herself go.

“I can't be what you need, Daniel. I can't be what the girls need, or what they deserve.” Her voice went quiet. “I'm sorry if I made you think otherwise. I really, really am.”

“I miss Hayley.” Gracie frowned as she pushed scrambled eggs around her plate the next morning.

“Me, too,” Bryn echoed. “When is she coming back?”

Daniel sat down at the kitchen table with them, his bacon and eggs looking as listless as they'd probably taste. He'd lain awake staring at the ceiling for half the night, replaying every word Hayley'd spoken last night. Unfortunately, daylight hadn't brought clarity. “I don't know, girls. Her vacation is almost over. She'll be heading back to Boston soon.”

Bryn's eyes filled as she dipped her spoon in and out of her Cocoa Krispies, not eating them. “Does she have to go?”

“She does.”

“I wish she could move here.”

Gracie brightened. “Me, too. Can we ask her?”

Daniel felt his jaw tighten.
Already tried that, little one. Went down in flames.

“It's really hard for grown-ups to make a move that big, honey.”

“But she loves us! I'm sure she wants to live close to us!”

It was time to change the subject, as this one was going down a road he didn't want to be on. He picked up his fork, determined to get some sort of nourishment into his body besides the six gallons of coffee he'd consumed over the past two days. “So, tell me what you did while I was gone.”

The girls launched into a ping pong-style reporting of the last forty-eight hours, starting with making snowmen, running through the sleeping bags by the fire, and ending with cupcakes.

“You made cupcakes?” He looked around the kitchen, but didn't see any.

“Yup! For Mommy's birthday!” Gracie pointed through the archway into the dining room. “They're on the table in there.”

Bryn nodded in excitement. “Hayley asked us what Mommy's favorite color was, but we couldn't remember.”

“So she made all the colors of the rainbow! We made rainbow cupcakes!”

“Because Mommy's in Heaven where rainbows start.”

Gracie put down her spoon. “Making cupcakes is what Hayley does when she wants to remember somebody. Did you know that?”

Hayley had made cupcakes—for Katie? His chest actually hurt as he pushed away his plate.

“And guess what else?” Gracie ran into the dining room and came back out two seconds later. “Look what we made!” She held up a Tupperware bowl that was full of slips of heart-shaped tissue paper.

“What's that?” He peered into the bowl and could see writing on the wispy colored paper.

Bryn pulled one out. “We wrote messages to Mommy, to put on balloons.”

“Hayley said they might not get all the way to Heaven, but it's a nice remembering thing to do.” Gracie's face was serious. “But then the power went out, so we didn't get to finish them.”

“And then Nana came.”

“Nana was here?”

Alarm snaked in his gut.

Bryn nodded solemnly. “She and Hayley talked.”

“Did you hear what they talked about?”
Please, no. Not this time.

“A little bit.” Gracie's eyes told him she wasn't quite telling the whole truth.

“Because we sneaked down the stairs.”

“Bryn!” Bryn cringed as Gracie rounded on her.

Daniel put his hands up, consoling. “It's okay, girls. You know better than to listen in on grown-up conversations, though. Those words were just for adults.” He was dying to know what had been said, and
more
dying to know whether Evelyn's words had led to Hayley's staunch refusal to even consider the thought of a future here in Montana.

“What did they say?”

“Nana said Hayley could never be as good as Mommy, and she shouldn't even think about trying. Something like that.”

Oh, Lord.

Bryn shook her head. “Those were not nice words. Hayley's nice.”

“Absolutely. That's right.” He nodded.

Gracie frowned. “She said a lot of other things, too, but we went into our room so we wouldn't get in trouble again. Hayley was sad after she left. She said she was allergic to something and had to go blow her nose. But me and Bryn think she was crying. Why would Nana make her sad?”

“I don't know, sweetie. I really don't know.” He looked out the window, where fat flakes were falling again. “But hey, look. It's snowing again!” He tried to inject false energy into his voice, but knew he was failing miserably. “Do you girls want to go out and play?”

Daniel got them bundled into layers and sent them out the door, then sat back down at the table to read the tissue paper hearts. Both Bryn and Gracie had obviously embraced the activity, writing down everything from what their favorite foods were right now to telling her that Daddy finally liked cats because Olaf had trained him. There were hearts that said
Miss you, Mommy
and hearts that had wishes on them. Hearts that made him laugh, and hearts that made him think he might need to find the tissues.

When he got toward the bottom of the bowl, he noticed there were a few that Hayley must have written. As he read them, the breath left his lungs. No way was he meant to see these. They'd obviously been meant to be on a balloon headed toward Heaven long before he came home.

He sat in the chair for a full five minutes. Then, with shaking hands, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number he wished he didn't know by heart. When Evelyn answered, he wasted no time on preliminaries.

“I need to see you. This morning. At the house.”

She started to sputter, but he pressed end before she could get a sentence out. He knew she'd be in her car within a minute, so his next call was to Megan.

“Any chance you could come take the girls for a couple of hours?”

“Right now?”

“Evelyn's on her way over.”

“I'll be there in five.”

He hung up, then sat there fingering the paper hearts, picturing Hayley sitting here at this table with his girls, writing messages to a woman she'd never met—apologizing to Katie for falling in love with her family.

For falling in love with him.

Half an hour later, Evelyn's car pulled into the driveway. He took a deep breath, bracing himself for a confrontation that should have happened months ago when Evelyn had first brought up the idea of Southwick Academy. He was done with tiptoeing around her, done with fearing the courts, done with fearing
her.

This ended today.

Evelyn knocked tentatively, and he opened the door brusquely. “Thank you for coming.”

“You didn't give me much choice,” she huffed.

“May I take your coat?”

“I think I'll leave it on, thank you.”

“Suit yourself. I want to show you something. Follow me.” He led her to the dining room, where the cupcakes and hearts were laid neatly on the table.

“What am I looking at?”

“This is your granddaughters celebrating their mother's birthday yesterday. With Hayley.”

Evelyn took a quick breath. “What?”

“I thought you should see this. I imagine you didn't when you were here yesterday, trying to make it clear that she could never measure up to Katie.”

Evelyn looked scared.

“She told you about our visit?”

“No. She didn't even tell me you'd been here.”

“Then how—”

“The girls told me. They were sitting on the stairs, listening to yet another conversation that seven-year-olds should never have had to hear.”

Evelyn blanched. “Let me expla—”

“No. No explanations. This has to stop. Now. Today. It wasn't fair of you to involve Hayley. She's innocent in all this. It's not about her.”

He pointed to the hearts. “Look at these. She worked with the girls to write little messages they could tie to balloons and send toward Heaven. Does that sound like someone who's trying to step in and erase Katie from our lives?”

Evelyn stayed silent, fingering a couple of the hearts the girls had written. Daniel leaned over the table and picked one up. “Look at this one.”

Evelyn shook her head slowly, but her shoulders dropped.

“Daniel—”

“Here. Read a couple.” He handed her two of the hearts Hayley had written, daring her not to take them. She reluctantly reached out and took the tissue paper, but didn't immediately look at them.

Daniel pointed at the notes. “This is a woman who has fallen in love with the girls—and possibly even with me—but is heading back to Boston in two days rather than take a chance on admitting it, in no small part because of your machinations.”

“She told you this?”

“No.” He pointed to the hearts in Evelyn's hand. “These hearts told me this. I'm one hundred percent sure she planned for these little slips of tissue to be heading toward Heaven long before I got home, so me finding them was not intentional on her part.”

Evelyn leaned her hand on the back of a chair, looking a bit like a deer in the headlights.
Good.

“Read the hearts, Evelyn.” Daniel left her in the dining room and headed for the kitchen.

Two minutes later, Evelyn appeared in the arched doorway. Her eyes were red and the tissue paper shook in her hand before she carefully set the hearts down on the counter.

“Did you read them?”

She nodded.

“And?”

“I…I don't know what to think.”

“Well, I'll tell you what to think. When Hayley found out that yesterday was Katie's birthday, she could have handled it any number of ways. But what did she do? She baked Katie cupcakes and spent the morning helping the girls remember happy times with their mother. Then she cut out a gazillion tissue hearts so they could send her messages.

“She has no delusions about replacing Katie, Evelyn. She has no
intention
of replacing her. She isn't the girls' mother, and she never will be, but she loves Bryn and Gracie. And the feeling's completely mutual. You can't be with the three of them for five minutes without seeing it.”

Evelyn took a deep, shaky breath. “So what do you plan to do?”

“I'm still working that out. For two years now, I've thought I would never find someone I could love like I did Katie, and I didn't ever intend to look. But here's what I know now. I
won't
ever love someone like I did Katie. She was one of a kind, and our marriage was one of a kind. I'll never—
ever
—have that again.

“But that's where Hayley finally brought clarity. What Katie and I had…could
never
be the same with anyone else, but that's okay. It shouldn't be. What I've maybe found with Hayley is different. Amazing and—different.”

Evelyn's shoulders shook and she reached her other hand for the counter.

Daniel took a breath. “Katie would want me to decide where and how Gracie and Bryn are raised—and I think you know that, Evelyn. I think beneath the bluster and the threats and the anger, you know that I will make the right decisions for them, and what scares you most is that those decisions might not include you.”

“I—I—” Her hand went to her throat.

“You know I'm a good father. You know it the same way you've always known it. Yes, there are days when they come with me to the barns; and yes, there are nights when they stay with my mother because I'm on a late call. But Evelyn, you must be able to see how well Gracie and Bryn are doing. They laugh. They smile. They crack ridiculous knock-knock jokes—just like seven-year-olds are supposed to do.”

He pointed toward the refrigerator, covered with drawings of pinks and purples and yellows. “They're happy, Ev.
Happy.
And could we really ask for any more than that right now?”

“But—Katie.” Her voice was pathetically small now.

He sighed, gentling his voice. “I didn't move here to try to lose Katie. I moved here to find myself. She's not coming back, Ev. We can't have her back, but she left us these two precious little girls. I will never let them forget their mother, and I would never
ever
invite another woman into our lives who would be a threat to Katie's memory. That I can promise you.”

Evelyn stayed silent, but he could see her chin quivering.

Just then his phone chirped with a text message, and he felt his forehead crease into disbelief as he read the words.

“News?”

He lifted his eyes from the phone. “You already know what this message is, don't you?”

“Yes.” Evelyn sat down on a stool, unsteady. “I talked with my attorney this morning.”

“And withdrew your petition?”

She closed her eyes. “I told him I wanted to see if we could work things out ourselves.”

Daniel felt his shoulders sag in relief, but he didn't quite dare to trust the feeling. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“It's not that sudden.” She shook her head, looking through the archway to the dining room and then into the living room where he could see toys scattered all over the floor. “I hate that this is true, but I was so scared you were going to take these babies away from me, I didn't know what else to do.”

“Why would you ever think I'd do that?”

“Because! There you went, hundreds of miles away, as soon as you could see clearly enough to pack. How was I to know you wouldn't go further? Or get sick of making the trip to Denver every month? The girls are getting older. They're going to start having activities that make it harder to find a free weekend. They're going to stop
wanting
to come.”

“I never—”

“I know. I lashed out because I was hurting, and in the end—I just hurt everybody even more.” Tears licked at the inside corners of her eyes, but she dabbed them quickly with her finger. “And then I came here for Christmas, and there's this gorgeous girl who's obviously falling head-over-heels for the whole lot of you, and I panicked.”

She sniffed delicately. “She loves you, Daniel. I didn't want to see it, didn't want to know it, and I most certainly didn't want to admit it. But more than that, it was the girls. They—they adore her like they adored Katie. They nestle up to her, they laugh with her, they—they just love her.”