SHOPPING FOR CHRISTMAS was completely different that year. Spencer went out with abandon. He’d already purchased the horse for Tabitha. At Natasha’s suggestion, he’d gone back and bought one for Justin, too. As she pointed out, as much as they grumbled, the kids did everything together. They were best friends.
And he would make every effort to keep them close. He and Natasha both knew what it was like to grow up alone. What Tabitha and Justin had was…priceless.
Natasha again. Everywhere he went, everywhere he looked—most particularly in his own thoughts—Natasha was there.
Not because she pushed herself in. Or was even around nearly as much as he’d once thought she would be—like Christmas shopping with him, for instance. Instead of going together to shop for the kids, they were each doing their own shopping and wrapping.
He didn’t know why he couldn’t take a step without seeming to take her with him. But he’d slowly grown accustomed to having her there.
And when he started to get uncomfortable with his fascination for his business partner, he’d try to reason away his obsession. The woman was gorgeous. What guy wouldn’t think about her?
They were engaged to be married—and had to keep up appearances of such in more than just a business sense. It was natural he’d have her on his mind.
She had his back. Not since he was six years old had he felt that assurance. Or known what that was like.
Not even with Bryant. Because he hadn’t let himself get that close.
Bryant didn’t know Spencer wasn’t a Longfellow. By the time they met, he had been one. Bryant had thought, as most everyone did, that Spencer was Gerald’s son. That was how Sadie had passed him off.
He’d been born on the farm. Other than the doctor who’d delivered him, who had long since passed away, who was there to have known outside their secluded little world that he wasn’t Sadie’s son?
But Natasha knew. Everything. And she had his back.
She’d risked Family Secrets for him.
She’d given him the one thing he’d been unable to give himself—himself. She’d handed life to him.
Her friendship, her caring, had given birth to a new man. One he’d been born to be.
When he realized that he’d been standing in the same aisle of a toy store for nearly twenty minutes, and that he couldn’t remember one thing he still needed, he left the store.
He was in Palm Desert. Natasha was at the ranch with the kids. Making Christmas cookies, of all things.
He didn’t think he’d ever had Christmas cookies baking in his home before.
He wanted to rush back.
To join in.
But they had another new agreement. He had to keep his distance from her whenever he could. This was her special time with the kids.
He had to do more than just stay away. He had to find a way to…
Natasha had given and given. She’d had his back over and over. And what had he done for her? Other than help show ratings that hadn’t been hurting to begin with?
In the end, he went home anyway. He couldn’t not. His family was calling to him in a way it never had before.
The call scared him. Life and death scared him. So much he wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer it.
When he got to Longfellow Ranch, he didn’t go to the main house. Natasha was putting the kids to bed that night.
He parked the truck at the cow barn. And then he took off. Starting at a run. Slowing at some point to a walk. When it started to get dark, he sat for a while. Facing life. And death. Meeting them head-on.
All that he’d lost. All he could lose.
He shook like a baby. Maybe from the cold. Maybe not.
Eventually he stood and started walking again.
He’d made no conscious decisions. Other than, maybe, to acknowledge that his choices had been taken away from him.
Maybe to let them go.
* * *
NATASHA WAS TIRED. Ready to rest now that the kids were sleeping soundly.
She was sad that Spencer hadn’t come in the house in time to have cookies and milk with Tabitha and Justin before they’d gone to bed.
She’d heard his truck come up the drive hours ago, but he hadn’t stopped at the house.
Whether he was out with the cows or just…out…she didn’t know.
And couldn’t care.
Her heart was open to the kids. Wide open. It was open to her mother. To Angela. To her Family Secrets family.
Not to Spencer.
That was how she survived. She closed the doors that led nowhere.
Long talks with Susan in New York had helped her see that.
She could watch television. Didn’t want to have to avoid Christmas specials that inevitably led to warm, fuzzy family moments.
She’d have her own moments. At the Family Secrets Christmas party. With her mother and the kids on Christmas morning.
Spencer would be there, too. Just not in her warm, fuzzy moments. He’d be the friend who happened to stop by before she got there and stayed until after she left. Or something like that.
When the house started to close in on her, she left Daisy Wolf inside with the kids, pulled on her sweater coat and moved outside to the deck. It was still in the low sixties. This part of the California desert rarely got down to freezing, even in January. She felt the chill, though.
She wasn’t sure, at first, if she was just hearing things when a strum wafted through the air. Still not used to the quiet of a night that allowed even the softest sounds to travel, she tried to make out what she’d heard.
Some kind of bird? Wind?
It came again. One strum. And then two.
Afraid to move, though she couldn’t say why, she sat completely still. Waiting.
A couple of chords followed. Called to her.
Spencer was out in the darkness. Playing his guitar.
Remembering that night months before, she knew it had been the night she’d begun to fall in love with him. She’d been so hurt that he didn’t want her to be friendly with his kids. Hurt beyond what a producer would feel toward her employee.
The kids had already had a part of her heart then. That quickly. She’d never known love could just…happen.
That it could descend without warning. Take possession so quickly and completely.
Soft chords filled the air now. She wasn’t sure if they were coming closer. Or if he was playing louder.
As though in a trance, she stood. Followed the sound.
Once she was in the yard, she knew where the sounds were leading her. Back to that first night. His father’s truck.
Only now she knew it was Frank’s truck. Not Gerald’s.
Knew, too, why the truck was still there.
He missed her friendship. He’d told her so. She missed his, too.
Walking closer, slowly, so slowly closer, she wanted to be able to be friends with him.
Wondered if time could take care of that.
She could see the truck. Could see a shadow of the man sitting atop it, strumming his guitar. She recognized every nuance of his shape in the darkness. The tilts and angles.
Her heart would know him anywhere.
And then she heard his voice. As though he knew she was there. And he was speaking to her.
“‘But it’s your world now I can’t refuse.’”
She froze. Just stopped cold.
She knew the song. Anyone growing up in her generation had to have heard it. Country-music lover or not.
Garth Brooks, the singer and songwriter of that piece, was a legend.
And this particular song… Women all over the world longed to have a man sing it just for them.
Or at least, Natasha always had.
He was singing about having a lot to lose.
No. For the first time ever, Spencer Longfellow had nothing to lose.
But he continued on. Calling to her. He called his life his own. Was in control. Until she’d come along.
Now he was shameless in his love for her. Just like the song said.
Like he was saying.
He didn’t have original music. But the music he sang spoke for him. She knew that now.
Natasha started to back away.
There was just one problem with all of that.
He wasn’t singing to her, calling to her. He didn’t know she was there.
She’d let her heart get away from her. Get in the way of her focus. She took a deep breath with every backward motion she made. Focused on facts. Spencer’s growing up. The lack of nurturing he experienced. His inability to…
He wasn’t on the truck anymore. She’d watched his shadowy frame slide down off the hood. He was still singing. Softly. Hadn’t missed a beat. The same song. A second time. But with every line he sang, he took a step closer. Matching hers.
For every step back she took, he took two steps forward. Until she just quit stepping back.
And he stopped singing.
* * *
SPENCER DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING. He didn’t have any words to give her. Or the ability to deliver them.
Not without his guitar and another man’s song.
“Spencer?”
She needed something from him. He held up his guitar. Held open his arms. And knew complete and total happiness when she came into him, wrapping him up tight.
“It might take me a while,” he whispered into her hair, just above her ear.
“The song. Do you relate to it?”
She didn’t loosen her grip on him. Or look at him.
“I do.” An admission about a song he sang. He got it out.
“Who do you think of when you sing it?”
That was easy. “You.”
“Then you go ahead and take as long as you need, Spencer. Take forever. Just don’t stop singing your song.”
She was crying. He could feel the shudders against him.
Inside him.
And he was crying, too. Just a couple of tears. Filling his eyes. Not falling. Tears of joy. Of thankfulness.
And that was when he looked up and saw the twins…gazing down at them from the second-story window of Justin’s bedroom.
His son who couldn’t fall asleep—and the twin sister who always had his back.
Their grins seemed to spread across the state of California. Justin gave him a thumbs-up. Tabitha nodded. She looked like she was crying, too.
There was nothing more to say. No plans to make. No agreements or agendas or paperwork to tend to.
Just raw, naked truth exposed.
Bared and fragile souls finding each other.
His lost cowboy heart had finally found its way home.
* * * * *