A Love Like Ours (35 page)

This little house meant something to her, so he pulled up the hem of his shirt and quickly moved everything into it that he could. “Now?” he gritted out.

“There’s still . . .” She leaned across him, indicating more pieces he hadn’t seen.

He loaded up the rest. Twisters were bearing down on them, and he was saving a dollhouse.

Once they’d gotten it all, they ran for the staircase, both of them bent against a sudden stinging downpour that did its best to drench
them. They burst into her apartment. Her dogs watched them with frightened eyes as they unloaded everything onto the dining room table. A pile of tiny stuff had been placed there already, evidence that she’d made other trips.

The TV played weather coverage, the sound of it mostly overpowered by the noise of the rain and wind.

“I tried to call you,” he said.

Her hair was completely saturated. Moisture slicked the clean and lovely angles of her face. Mud marked her jeans and riding boots. “I must have been outside, getting the stuff from the hero house.”

A series of barks came from outdoors.

Lyndie went to one of the windows. She looked out at her backyard for a moment, then moved toward the door.

Jake planted his palm against the door to keep it closed. “You’re not going back out there.”

“I am. My neighbor’s golden retriever is outside.”

“And?”

“He must have gotten loose. I’ll run out and bring him back inside with me.”

“Your neighbor’s dog will take care of himself.”

“There’s still enough time for me to go out there and get him.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“There’s enough.” The dismay in her expression undid him. “I can’t let anything happen to him.”

He remembered all the times she’d pleaded with him as a girl to save an animal. He’d never been able to say no to her then, either. “I’ll go and get the dog.”

Lightning flashed and in the split second after, the electricity cut out. The TV silenced. The apartment fell dim.

“Do you have candles?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Stay inside and light them.”

“Jake—”

He shouldered through the door and back into the storm,
searching through the chaos of the weather for the dog. To the south, the clouds had gone dark gray and uneven at the bottom. Lightning flashed almost horizontally there, several strikes at a time. Thunder rolled again and again, approaching.

He couldn’t see the retriever—

Lyndie streaked down the stairs in his direction.

“Stay inside!” he yelled, motioning her back.

She sprinted to him, one arm up and shielding her head. “He doesn’t know you.” She had to shout to be heard. “He won’t come to you.”

Furious, frightened for her, Jake hauled her up and over his shoulder. His patience for reasoning with her and her stubborn bravery had passed. He carried her back upstairs, ignoring the muffled sound of her voice. His men had died under his command. He
was not
going to let the same thing happen to her.

When he had her back in her apartment, he set her on her feet. They were both breathing hard, facing off against each other with their hands fisted. The two candles she’d lit and placed on the bar shed muted light.

She whipped wet hair out of her eyes. “He won’t come to you!”

“I’ll get him,” Jake growled. “You’re going to have to trust me.”

“Trust you?” Her eyes blazed.

“Are you going to stay inside or not?”

She pulled her head back. The sirens began again.

“What’ll it be?” he demanded.

“I . . . I’ll stay inside.”

As he moved to leave, she took a step forward. “Jake, wait.” She darted a look outside. “I don’t know if I want you to go now. We might have run out of time.”

At this point, there was no way he was leaving the lousy dog out there to get impaled by a flying piece of wood. “I’ll get him. And I’ll be right back.”

———

Lyndie stood at her window and watched Jake disappear beneath the cover of the swaying trees. She’d made a bad decision.
She shouldn’t have let him go just now. She hadn’t intended for him to go at all! She’d intended to go herself.

The weather had turned fierce and terrible. The eerie black clouds weren’t moving in one direction like they usually did but had begun to form a huge circle.

Lyndie chewed the inside of her lip. Why had Jake come here, in the middle of this storm, after days of silence?

He’d said he’d come to make sure she was okay, the same way he’d always made sure she was okay when they were kids and since she’d been working for him. Regardless of whether or not he loved her, it seemed as though he couldn’t stop himself from protecting her. It was built into him.

Shivering from cold and fear, she scoured the view for a sign of him. It had seemed worthwhile to rescue Max, her neighbor’s sweet dog, when it had been her hide at risk. But Jake’s hide? Too high a price. Maybe she should go out and bring him in—only she’d told him she wouldn’t.

He rushed from beneath the trees, carrying Max. A relieved exhale wrenched from her.

Jake’s jeans had turned as dark as the shirt he wore. His face was set in relentless, determined lines. And Lyndie was positively certain that even if a tornado had been upon him and he’d had to lasso the dog, he’d have brought the animal back for her.

He was not and never had been a colossal jerk. Her wild emotions didn’t know which way to spin, toward tears of love for him or tears of angry frustration because he’d broken her heart.

She wrestled the door open, then slammed and bolted it behind him. He set Max down. The retriever shot into the living room, leaving muddy tracks in his wake. He hid under an armchair, his tail between his legs, trembling. Mrs. Mapleton meowed at the bad-mannered houseguest, and Lyndie’s dogs blinked nervously at her from where they sat beside her sofa.

The remains of Jayden’s hero house rested on her table, uprooted, a reminder of what could happen to things that had been carefully built, when forsaken to the wind.

It took effort to make herself meet Jake’s gaze. When she did, she felt the clash of it all the way to her toes. The hazel depths of his eyes, rimmed by wet lashes, glowed with emotion. Water slicked his dark hair. The power of his blunt handsomeness, slashed by his scar, had never been so obvious.

Her mouth went dry. She was sorry she’d sent him into the thunderstorm and grateful to him for helping her rescue the hero house and Max. At the same time, the painful memory of what had happened between them the last time they’d seen each other hung in the air, destructive. “Thank you for getting the dog.”

He didn’t respond. His chest was hitching in and out, and he was no doubt trying to organize a blistering lecture on tornado safety.

She didn’t want a lecture. She wanted honest answers from him. Did she have the guts to deal with him head-on?

She had a great many faults. But a lack of guts had never been one. “Ever since I moved back from California,” she said slowly, distinctly, “I’ve been trying to pull the truth from you, Jake. I haven’t succeeded. But I think the time has come for us to be honest with each other. Even if it ends up hurting me, I
need
for you to tell me the truth now.”

His forehead furrowed.

She gathered her courage. “Do you care about me?”

Sheets of rain drummed the roof. “Yes.”

“Then why did you ruin what we had?”

“I . . .”

She gave him time to finish. He didn’t. “Was it because of how I jockeyed Silver Leaf?”

“No. It was never about that. I lied.”

Her adrenaline began to race. He was finally opening up to her. “Then why did you take me off Silver Leaf?”

He appeared to be wrestling internally with whether to trust her with all of it.

Trust me
, she wanted to beg—

“I took you off Silver Leaf because I can’t stand to put you in
danger. I can’t do it. It overwhelms me with fear, and I can’t . . . I can’t risk your safety.” His face looked anguished. “Not for any reason. I’ll lose it if I have to.”

Lyndie’s sympathy swelled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m not proud of it. And also I . . .” His lips set.

“Yes?”

“I worried that you might understand.”

“Which would have been a bad thing because . . . ?”

“Because then I would have had a chance at happiness.”

Comprehension dawned. It had been his fear for her and his survivor’s guilt that had sabotaged him—
them
.

“You love riding,” he said. “I hope you can forgive me for taking it from you and for the things I said to you at Lone Star. I won’t blame you if you can’t.”

What she’d learned from her life with Mollie was proving true with Jake, also. Loving someone wasn’t about their perfection. It was about coming to accept every part of them, their good qualities and their weaknesses and flaws—looking on everything they were and loving it all.

As she looked on everything Jake was, right down to his center, she loved him.

She closed the space between them. “You’re right. I love riding. But is it worth more to me than you? If I have to choose between it and your sense of peace, then
I choose you
.”

“Lyndie,” he rasped. He studied her as if trying to find enough hope within himself to put faith in her words. His hands remained at his sides.

“I think I’ve made a mistake with you, Jake.” She took fierce hold of his rain-soaked shirt, intent on keeping him right where he was, on making him hear her. “I didn’t tell you exactly how I felt about you because I didn’t want to scare you or rush you. But now I see that I was wrong, that maybe I should have made myself very plain from the beginning.”

She felt his big body brace, as if preparing for bad news.

“Given a choice between my riding and your sense of peace,”
she repeated, “I choose you. Do you understand me? Am I being plain enough?” Tears piled up on her lashes.

“Yes.”

“I choose you because I love you. Just so that there can be absolutely no doubt or worry about it in your mind from this day on, I love you.”

His face revealed heartbreaking uncertainty. “You love me?”

“I love you.”

“I’m not—” His voice broke. “I’m not . . . whole. I’m afraid I never will be.”

“None of us is whole. Only God is.”

Tenderness filled his gaze. “I love you, Lyndie.”

“Then what more could a girl ask, Jake Porter?” She smiled shakily. “You’re something better than perfect. You’re mine. We’ll trust God with our shortcomings.”

He dug his hands into her hair and took her mouth in a kiss of such spiraling adoration and passion that Lyndie felt her tears tumbling down her cheeks. He walked her backward while they kissed, finally settling her against the smooth hallway wall and kissing her like he was never going to stop.

When he lifted his head, they stared at each other, breathless. In the candlelight, his eyes glittered with his dedication to her. “I’m sorry that I took jockeying from you,” he said.

She set a hand on his uninjured cheek, marveling over him. He loved her! He
loved
her. “Whispering Creek has a lot of horses, and not all of them are in training. When I feel like taking out a horse, I’ll take out one of those. I don’t have to ride on a racetrack to enjoy it.”

“It was your dream.”

“It was one of my dreams. You’re giving me reasons to dream new dreams.” She interlaced her fingers behind his neck, feeling muscles there. Jake loved her! He’d said it in a way that could not be mistaken. “I’ll go to Elizabeth and tell her we’ve decided that she’ll be Silver’s jockey from now on. I’ll show her how to win him over.” She could see how it would be, and though the sacrifice
stung, she wasn’t sorry. “It’ll take Elizabeth time, but for Silver Leaf, she’ll be willing to put in the time. And she’ll be excellent. She is excellent. They’ll win together, and you and Bo and Meg will have your champion horse.”

“Lyndie,” he whispered. “I don’t care about having a champion horse so long as I have you.”

“Even so, you’ll see what’ll happen. You’ll have me and your champion horse, too.”

He caught an escaping tear on his thumb, wiping it away with incredible softness. “Will you come to the track and train horses with me?”

“Of course I will.” Standing next to him at the rail had been the best part of her day.

“When my horses go to New York, they’ll go without me.”

“You’ll stay in Holley?”

“Yes, because you can’t leave Mollie.”

“No. I can’t.”

“And I can’t leave you.”

She sniffed, used the back of a hand to dash away the last of her tears, and returned her hands to behind his neck. “Speaking of Mollie, I want you to know that she’s improved. We brought her home today.”

“That’s very good news.”

“Very.”

He gave her a small and crooked smile.

“Did . . .” Her brows lowered as sudden suspicion twined through her. “Did you go see Mollie this past week?”

“Just once.”

“And God used her to help you, didn’t He?”

“God helped me. I don’t know if He used Mollie.”

“Of course He did! He always uses Mollie to heal.” She laughed, then found herself getting choked up all over again. “You’re different. And it’s because God changed you.” She could see it in him. She could sense it. Jake had finally made his way back to the God who loved him and had never stopped pursuing him.

Jake’s fear for her safety, she knew, stemmed from his mistaken belief that her protection rested on his shoulders. One day, he’d see that it didn’t. In time, she believed that Jake could learn to trust the God who was able, the God who was good, with it all. If God had the power to overcome Jake’s darkness and return Jake to Himself, then He had the power to accomplish still more. In time.

In her mind she saw a picture taking shape. The once gloomy prince stood in the center of the page, with beams of sun pouring down on him from heaven. And not just upon him. The sun was also inside of him, illuminating. He’d swept the grinning blond fairy into his arms. The unicorns and the red-haired fairy circled them, applauding while roses fell from the sky.