Return to Marker Ranch (9 page)

Todd laughed as he turned Edward downhill to start collecting the heifers. The guy was downright giddy now that he was engaged to Nora. Wanting everyone else to overcome their troubles and waltz off into the same happily-ever-after that he was living in.

Wade thought again of Lori crying the other night. They were miles away from happily-ever-after. But as a friend, he could offer her a ride in the mountains. It would give him a chance to make sure she was okay and maybe help them find a way forward now that this strange, sad connection was out in the open between them. And no, he wouldn't think about that kiss. Not at all.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

M
OST
OF
THE
TIME
, Lori figured it was best to face a problem head-on and get it over with. But when her phone screen lit up with Wade's name, she touched Decline in a moment of pure cowardice.

Ever since her confession that night at the bar, she'd been doing all she could to avoid him. There were just too many layers of misery there. Embarrassment for sobbing her heart out all over him. Regret because telling him had been a bad decision. The information would always be there now, lurking between them. He would see her differently—a living reminder of a horrible mistake.

And then there was the kissing. Another bad idea. Because those kisses wouldn't go away. They kept popping up from her memory at random times, bringing heat and longing with them. The past she shared with Wade was already so complicated. Why did she have to kiss him and make the present complicated, too?

So she'd stayed on her ranch and kept herself busy for over a week now. It was easier than trying to figure out how they were going to navigate the strange and uncomfortable connection between them.

In her more panicky moments, she wondered if perhaps there was a way to never see each other again. Maybe they could coexist on neighboring ranches and share water, but never actually come into contact. She pictured herself sneaking up to the well in the middle of the night to switch the irrigation line. Ridiculous. She had to grow up and face the consequences of
all
her choices. Whether it was the pregnancy years ago, or a kiss a week ago.

So she'd called him back, and said yes when he asked for help. Which meant that at the end of a long day, with her emotions tied in knots, she was climbing a mountain with Wade, looking for his lost heifer.

The path Lori and Dakota followed meandered through stands of pine on the edge of an enormous open meadow. Wade was riding JM somewhere along the other side. Just as the trail turned back into the meadow again, Lori saw tracks in the soil. She jumped down from Dakota's back to examine them more closely. Cloven and way too big for a deer. Wade had been right. The heifer
had
come this way.

A rustling in nearby shrubs had her turning in relief. She'd grab the heifer and bring her down, and get home in time to knock a few more chores off her list before dark. She reached for the coil of rope hanging from her saddle horn and headed toward the noise. A loud snuffle stopped her in her tracks. That wasn't a sound she'd ever heard from a heifer.

Turning quickly, she grabbed Dakota's reins so she wouldn't run off. With a snap of breaking branches, a black bear lumbered from the bushes just a few yards away from them.

Oh no.
She'd forgotten how big they could get. Dakota snorted and danced at the end of the reins. Lori went with the mare's instincts, backing them both away along the trail into the meadow.

The bear eyed them, swinging its head to catch their scent. It took a step closer, and Lori's heart slammed into her chest. The bear was too interested. She moved closer to Dakota.

The bear went up on its hind legs, sniffing, trying to get a read on whether or not she and Dakota were dinner. Suddenly she remembered what to do. “Bad bear!” she yelled, still moving slowly backward with Dakota. But now the mare had decided she'd better run and was hauling on the reins, stomping, doing her best to leave Lori in the lurch. Lori clung to the reins. “Get out of here, bear!”

Dakota was frantic and circling when the bear went down on all fours. Was it getting ready to charge? Lori made a snap decision not to stick around and find out. Throwing the reins over Dakota's neck, she tightened them, shoved her foot into the stirrup and vaulted onto Dakota's back. Miraculously the mare stayed still long enough for Lori to reach the saddle. The bear watched them with what seemed like a bemused expression. “Go on, bear!” she screamed at it.

The bear didn't budge, so she gave Dakota her head, leaning low over the saddle horn as the mare spun around and charged up the path. They covered a few twists and turns of the trail in moments. Glancing back over her shoulder, she was relieved that there was no sign of the bear. Still, she wouldn't slow the horse until she was sure there was more distance between them.

After a few minutes, Dakota seemed satisfied that they'd escaped the threat. She slowed easily to a walk at Lori's signal, blowing hard, catching her breath. Lori caught her breath, too. She'd seen bears before, but never that close, never where she could look right into those beady dark eyes and see a life so different from hers.

Over the thud of her own heart, another sound penetrated. A plaintive moo coming from the meadow. She turned Dakota toward the sound and let her pick her way carefully out of the pines and into the dry grass. Down the hill she saw Wade and JM riding behind the wayward heifer. Wade was driving it across the meadow toward the trail Lori had ridden up on. The trail with the bear.

Lori urged Dakota into a jog to close the distance between them. It wasn't that difficult, since the heifer seemed intent on grabbing as much grass as she could before she was marched back down to the confines of the ranch. “Wade!” she called, relieved when he looked up.

“I found her,” he called. Then, as she came closer, “What are you doing so far uphill from me? I figured I'd catch you on the way back down the trail.”

“There's a bear!” She pointed to the woods, at a fallen tree she recognized. “Over there, back under the pines, on the path. We ran!”

“You met a bear?” He brought JM closer, and she could see the deep line of worry between his brows. “Are you okay?”

“A little shaken up, but we're fine.” Now that it was over, she felt a little silly. People met bears all the time around here. It wasn't a big deal.

“Why didn't you call for me? Why didn't you ask for my help?”

She looked at him sharply, surprised by the anger spiking his voice. “Because I didn't need it. I just yelled, waved my arms, the usual.”

Wade took a deep breath as if trying to steady himself. “You could have been hurt. And I would have been just across the meadow, and I wouldn't have known.”

“I was okay.”

“
This time
you were.” He scowled at her, his fingers tapping restlessly on the reins. “I just don't get it. I know you're trying to prove to the world that you're tough. But this is
me
. You can ask for help. I
want
to help. I would have helped with that bear.”

“You wouldn't have heard me if I had called. Did you hear me yelling at it?”

“No.” His glare was sullen.

“So back off. I scared the bear away by myself. You should be proud that you know such a bear-savvy person.”

He looked away, in the direction of the bear, the strong line of his jaw set at a stubborn angle. “You can turn to me when you need help.”

And then it hit her. “Oh.” She let what they were
really
talking about sink in. “You're talking about my decision. Back then.” Disappointment settled leaden hands on her shoulders. “You're angry about what I did.”

“No,” he said quickly. The late afternoon sun gilded his face, and she could see the depth of emotion in his eyes. “I'm not angry. But I can't stop thinking about how you did it alone. I just keep wishing that I'd been there for you. So yeah.” He smiled faintly. “Maybe this isn't really about the bear.”

Here it was. The judgment, the admonition that she should have done things differently. She didn't need it from him. She'd had plenty of it from herself, on a daily basis, for years now. “I did it alone because I had to.” Her voice was rising but she didn't care. “Let me see if I can recall your exact words that morning after we'd had sex. There was the part where you told me it was all a mistake. That was uplifting. And then the bit where you said you could never care about me the way I cared about you. That was especially nice to hear, by the way...”

“I was a total jerk,” he said quietly. “I'm not denying it. But for what it's worth, I said those things because I
did
care about you. Too much. I always had. But the way I felt, and the way I could see that
you
felt—it scared me. We were so young. I'd been kicked out of school and I was moving away. I knew I wasn't good enough for you. I thought if I pushed you away, made you hate me, it would set us both free.”

“And what gave you the right to decide that for me?”

He grimaced. “I know it was wrong. But I never understood it—why you were always so good to me. I was a loser Hoffman with a bad attitude and a hundred-pound chip on my shoulder. You were class president, cheerleader, 4-H champion... Hell, Lori, you were
everything
, and you just got smarter and better every year of high school. It was crazy that you liked me the way you did. How could I let those feelings slow you down? I knew that you could do better than me. That you'd move on to some good, wholesome guy if you thought I didn't care.”

“But that didn't happen.”

“I was wrong about a lot of stuff.” He was quiet for a moment, watching the heifer graze. “I just wish I'd known. I feel so horrible, so guilty, that I wasn't there for you.”

She didn't know how to talk about this. It was one thing to have her own regrets and to have wrestled with them for almost a decade. It was another to listen to his. They sat on their horses in silence, watching the heifer eating.

Finally Wade spoke. “I keep thinking about it. What I would have done if you'd called me. I like to believe... I have to believe that I would have been on the next bus to you. That I would have done anything I could for you.”

Her voice shook a little, but she managed to steady it. “There was no good answer for what to do.”

“But maybe I could have helped you find the best answer for you. For us.”

“Maybe.” She shook her head doubtfully.

“I could at least have held your hand.”

“And what if I'd decided to keep it? Would you have raised the baby with me? Become a teenage parent? If we'd done that, you would never have joined the army and done what you did for our country.”

He looked ill for a moment. “I'm not sure that would have been such a bad thing. The army didn't get me very far.”

“How can you say that?” She stared at him in shock, seeing the soldier in every part of him. “You're different. You're grown. You're a man.” She stopped before she embarrassed herself with adjectives she'd regret.

“You don't think having a baby would have grown me into a man?”

“Ha. No. I think there are about a billion examples out in the world that prove that having a baby is not an experience that magically grows men up.”

He smiled ruefully at that. “I guess you're right there. My own father being one of those examples.”

“You can't fix this for me,” she told him softly. “
I
made my decision and
I
live with the consequences. Maybe your decision would have been different. Maybe you being with me would have made my decision different. But it's all just useless wondering now. And it gets you nowhere. Believe me, I know that firsthand.”

He was silent, running his fingers through JM's messy mane, obviously thinking about her words. Then he looked up, his expression soft with worry. “Are you okay?”

“I don't know,” she told him truthfully. “Sometimes, sure. But other times, like sitting with all those new moms in the bar last weekend?” She put her hands to her flushed cheeks. “You saw me. Definitely not okay.”

“You wish you'd done something different.”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling the old knots wind again in her stomach. “I regretted it the moment it was over. The moment it was too late.” It was the first time she'd said the words out loud. They hung there in the still, clear autumn air. She could almost see them, and she stared in wonder at their stark sadness.

“I'm so sorry, Lori.”

She straightened in the saddle, forced her shoulders square. “Look, it's done. I don't want you feeling sorry for me. I don't want your guilt or pity. I'm sad sometimes. I have regrets. But everyone has stuff they're sad about, right?”

He nodded slowly, still watching her intently. “I don't pity you, not like you're thinking. You're strong, Lori. So strong. You always have been. I saw how you carried your family after your mom died. You became the heart and soul of your family.”

She stared at him. How had he seen so much? She'd walked around pretending everything was okay, but she'd been terrified. She'd never felt so lonely. It had been one of the reasons she'd run straight into Wade's arms when he'd finally opened them. A chance for connection, for emotion, for a living, breathing body to reassure her that she was still alive.

“And you're right,” he continued. “Most of us have some kind of sadness in us. My family might not have died, but I lost my parents and my older brothers to all their poor choices. And there are other kinds of sadness, too...” He looked away. The heifer had moved several yards off while they spoke, and he nudged JM to walk around to the other side of her. With a gentle wave of an arm, he brought her closer to Lori again. “I just want you to know that I get it. That I might not know
exactly
what you went through, but I know loss.”

Tears were starting at his unexpected kindness, and she didn't want them.

“We'd better get back.” She urged Dakota closer to the stray heifer, who took a few reluctant steps, then stopped to glare at her with doe eyes and about a pound of dry grass sticking out of her mouth.

Wade had the sense to let the topic go. He swung his rope gently at the heifer's hindquarters to get her started. They rode in silence back to Marker Ranch, picking their way down the steep slope. By the time Lori had Dakota wiped down and loaded into her horse trailer, the heifer was back in the pasture munching on its evening hay, totally oblivious to the havoc it had wreaked upon Lori's afternoon.