WHEN Rachel arrived at Oak Valley the next day, Shane noticed two things. She was wearing his favorite smile and…
“I like the boots,” Shane said. “Did you pick those out all by yourself?”
To his delight, she blushed, just as he’d known she would. Rachel always looked pretty, but when she blushed she was darn near irresistible. Which was a good sign that he shouldn’t be trying to make her blush, but…those boots…
“As a matter of fact, I did pick them out,” she said, lifting her chin in a defiant gesture. “I liked the blue flowers curling around the instep. They look pretty against the golden leather, and, yes, I was told that they were impractical and that they would get dirty, that they were really more for rodeos and things like that, but I bought them anyway.”
He smiled. “Impulsive. Stubborn.”
She sighed. “Yes, but I bought them because…it’s just that I’ll probably never have another pair of cowboy boots. If I’m only going to have one…well, you know.”
“You don’t seem like the type of woman who allows anyone to dictate her style. You could wear boots for the rest of your life.”
“I know. But it would be different then. I would just be posturing. These boots are going to be real. I’m going to actually use them. If Lizzie lets me back in the saddle.”
Shane shook his head, confused. “Why wouldn’t she?”
Rachel laughed then, that spontaneous, pretty, bell-like sound that turned his body hot. “I think I might have bored her to death yesterday. Next time you show me how to keep her entertained.”
“Entertained?” Shane couldn’t hold back his grin. “Rachel, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who worried about whether the ranch animals were having fun. Lizzie is a working horse.”
“Who hasn’t been working for a while.”
“Can’t argue that.”
“Do you think she’ll mind getting moved around again when the ranch sells? I mean, she lived here with you, then she got moved to the other stable. Now she’s here again. But for how long? Someone might buy her and take her elsewhere. Do you think that horses feel stressed about moving around the way people do?”
Shane hesitated. She had injected the subject of the ranch selling, the only reason they were here and some thing that was quickly coming up on the calendar. And she was right, too. “Yes, I think they do feel stress. Are you trying to guilt me into making sure that Lizzie stays here, Rachel?” Not that he blamed her. The truth was that he had felt guilty about moving the horses away from their home.
Rachel looked up, her eyes wide. “I don’t know. I was just wondering. I—seriously, I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. You’re right. I’ll do what I can to make sure this experience is as stress free as possible for them. Now, I have a few things I want to discuss with you this morning. Have a seat.”
She sat, and he noticed the sunlight glinting off her hair. She was as lovely as one of her photos, he thought. He wished he could capture this image and hold it, but…
“Let’s discuss the schedule, first of all,” he said, and he told her what he had done and what he had left to do. “The house is looking very inviting. Warm,” he added. “You’ve made a big difference here.”
“Thank you. I wanted it to feel like a home,” she said softly.
The very words made his heart hurt. This house had never been a home, and he knew from things she’d said in the past how much she wanted one. Louise, his Realtor friend, had called him last night.
“Louise told me that she thinks she’s found you an apartment and that you concur.”
“Louise is a genius.”
“She is. So, tell me, what are your plans when you move to Maine?” The days were flying past, and it had occurred to him—several times—that Rachel was root less. She had her dream of a home, but she’d left her job with Dennis. “Do you have another job as a photographer lined up?”
Those brown eyes flickered. “Shane, I think I may have mentioned that I’m not really a pro. You’ve seen my work. It’s adequate, but not more.”
It was more.
“In fact,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to ask—”
Now she looked nervous, her tongue sliding over her lip in a way that was driving him crazy. He took a deep breath. “Ask.”
“Those shots I took of the ranch…I know they’re not great and I was wondering if you wanted me to redo any of them. I don’t want to fail you.”
That was it. Shane sat down and took her hands in his. “Rachel, I don’t need art to sell this ranch. The shots of the ranch are good. If I was going to buy a ranch, your photos would sell me on this one.” He glanced at one she had hung on the wall, the one with the field of flowers. “Who wouldn’t want to stare at that every day?” he asked. “But…” He could feel her fingers tense beneath his own. “Who made you so unsure of your talent? Was it that stepmother who nearly killed you?”
“That sounds über-dramatic, like Hansel and Gretel.” She was trying to make a joke, to keep it light, and Shane wanted to give her what she wanted, but ever since yesterday he’d known that bad things had happened to her. Her stepmother had sent her onto a roof and he didn’t care how “not very high” it had been. It had certainly been high enough to have made her fearful.
“Rachel, you’re a trouper. You’re a tough one. But…I need to know that you’ll be safe and settled when we part. I need to know how you ended up on a roof. And that something like that won’t happen to you again. Because I won’t be there to try and save you, and that’s going to make me insane.”
“Don’t,” she said, pulling her hand away. “Don’t pity me or feel responsible for me. I don’t like even mentioning this stuff. I never tell anyone. But if it will keep you from worrying, I’ll tell you this much. I had…have self-absorbed parents who didn’t want a child. So, as soon as I was old enough, they sent me to boarding schools. Lots of them. They moved me around on whims. And they married and divorced over and over, always trying to one up each other in the spouse department. I was called home when I might serve a useful purpose, such as sealing a deal with a potential new husband or wife. So, yes, there have been some bad moments and one or two bad stepparents. And, yes, my life has been rootless and unpredictable, and I’ve never stayed in one place long enough to have lasting friendships. But I don’t need or want pity or concern. I learned how to make friends fast and how to jump in and figure out how to make each place my own quickly. Above all, I know how to take care of myself.”
“I think that’s clear. I’m amazed at how much you’ve accomplished here.”
“One gets to be self-sufficient.”
“I don’t think many people would have such an optimistic outlook as you do. You’re an amazing woman, Rachel.”
She looked to the side. “What?” he asked, seeing that she was upset.
“I think you might have really meant that,” she said.
Now he was angry. “Hell, yes, I did. You can’t tell me that no one’s ever said something similar to you.”
“Dennis did. He said my photos were almost as good as his.”
Little angry fires started in Shane’s soul. “Dennis is a snake. And he’s wrong about your photos.”
Her head whipped around. “You don’t like them?”
He smiled, just a little. “You know I do. What I meant was that I looked Dennis up online. Your photos put his to shame. Especially the ones with Ella and Henry. Hank showed me what you sent to Marcia last night and…you’re amazing with children. You must have taken a hundred shots to catch the perfect expression. They were stunning, far beyond anything Dennis has ever produced. I suspect he knew that you are better than he is.”
She gave a tiny nod, but she didn’t look happy despite his compliment.
“So what do you plan to do in Maine?” he asked, getting back to what was worrying him even more now that he knew about her parents.
“I’ll land on my feet. I always make sure that I do.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
“Then you’re selling yourself short.”
“I don’t think so. I know what I can and can’t do.”
“I don’t want to know what you can do. I want to know what you’re really going to do. Whether you like it or not, I’m going to worry if you’re not set up with a way to feed yourself.”
She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I really am. I wish I could tell you, but I’d just be making stuff up. I won’t know until I’m there, facing reality.”
“So it’s just do or die when you get there? That works for you?”
“Well, it keeps me in food. I’m not dead yet.”
Shane frowned.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It was insensitive.”
“Don’t. You don’t have to muzzle yourself for me. But, yeah, I hate that when you leave here you’ll be standing on a ledge waiting to see which side of the drop-off the wind will blow you to. So…how about this? It’s not unusual for writers or artists to have another career to keep them solvent. With your natural way with children you could be a teacher. Maybe an art teacher. You’d be a sure success at something like that, and I just thought…why don’t you go to college and explore your options?”
She didn’t look convinced. “I did begin college right after I got out of school. My mother stopped paying the bills, and without a loan or a grant I was left hanging. Then she insisted that she was desperately ill and I needed to come home and help her.”
“Was she ill?”
“Sort of. She’d had a face-lift and then she’d fallen while she was ignoring the doctor’s orders to slow down. So I went home.” The way she said it led Shane to believe that it wasn’t the first time something like that had happened.
“She doesn’t have servants?”
“When Mother is between husbands she tends to fire her servants. Me, she can’t fire. It’s why I’m such a hot commodity with the parents when they’re between spouses and need someone to listen to them. Anyway, from there we went overseas for a year, and by the time we returned and Mother had met a man, I was two years behind. I got a job at a camera shop and never went back to college. Now it feels too late.”
“You’re twenty-five. I’ve met people who went back in their fifties. People have gone to college in their seventies.”
“It takes money.”
“You’ll get a loan.”
“I have to work so that I can eat.”
“So, take classes when you can. In fact…start now.”
Rachel frowned, confused.
“You can get some of your gen eds via web-based classes. Rachel, why not try? You can still keep working at your craft—it would be a total shame for the world to lose your art—but security can also be a very good thing.”
“Says the man who changes addresses every six weeks.”
“True. But I am always gainfully employed when I move.”
“Touché. I’m seldom gainfully employed, even though I’d like to be.”
“The world needs more people like you at the helm, Rachel. More spit in the eye people, more enthusiastic people. Some lucky employer is going to be fortunate to get you.”
“I don’t know. I’ve gone to so many schools. I—”
“Is that it? Because you’re not coming in as a freshman you’ll feel like the new girl again?”
“I—yes.”
“That’s the beauty of college. People transfer all the time. Go to a big school. Lots of other people are guaranteed to be new, too. You won’t be the only one. Just…think about it.”
She didn’t answer.
“Rachel?”
“I’m thinking about it,” she said. “Seriously. I’m thinking about it.”
Apparently that was as good an answer as he was going to get, Shane realized. He wanted to be happy with that answer. For her sake he would have to accept it.
But happy?
No. He couldn’t be happy knowing that Rachel could simply disappear off the face of the earth and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. That had happened to him before.
This situation with Rachel might not be life or death, but having her vanish and be swallowed up where he might never even be able to locate her still promised to be incredibly painful.
Rachel was trying not to think about the fact that she had spilled her guts to Shane. She’d never done that before and now she felt naked. Uncertain. So she was throwing herself into work, trying to avoid the big questions about his suggestion, but mostly…him.
The calendar days were dropping off. Goodbye was right around the corner and she didn’t want to think about it. So today she’d tackle one of her last cleaning tasks. She had almost worked her way to the back of the massive hallway closet, which housed decades of coats, mittens and hats. Boxes of greasy tools shared shelf space with old jelly jars with no lids. Torn and yellowed journals on ranching contained articles on such subjects as the pros and cons of different types of fencing.
“Pitch it all,” Shane had said whenever she’d asked him about anything she found in the various storage spaces in the house.
And she was in the process of doing just that when she came upon a large black lacquered box with an ivory scrimshaw cameo of a woman set into the lid. When she opened it up it smelled faintly of tea, as if that was what had once been housed there. But there was no tea in the box, just lots and lots of packets of seeds. The box was so full that when Rachel opened it some of them fell out. Phlox and pinks, zinnias and sunflowers, columbine and daisies, delphiniums and marigolds. The once brightly colored packets were slightly faded now, and a few of them were opened. She took them out and spread them out on the table. At the bottom of the box were charts outlining where each plant would find a home.
Pitch it all, she heard Shane saying. But…
Gathering up her find, she went in search of Shane and found him repairing an overhead light in the tool-shed. He was standing on a ladder, his arms over his head, the muscles in his back beneath his white shirt tensing with his movements.
For a moment she just watched him…until she realized that she was looking like some ridiculous plain-Jane schoolgirl salivating over a boy who would inevitably never notice that she was even in the room.
She cleared her throat, loudly.
And Shane hit his head on the light fixture. A string of low curses dropped from his mouth and he turned around.
Heat traveled up from her toes, making all of her feel…hot. Very hot. She knew she was blushing. Horrid habit. Why couldn’t she just control her body’s reactions to the man?
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I startled you.”
“Don’t apologize. You were just trying to let me know you were there. I’m the one who swore the air blue. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Then he smiled, and her inner schoolgirl emerged again. She held out the box mutely.
His smile disappeared. He came down from the ladder slowly.
“Where did you find this?” he asked.
“Buried in the hallway closet. It must have been in there a very long time. The colors on the packages are faded. I know you told me to throw everything in there away, but this seemed…special. The box is very pretty, unique, probably expensive. And the seeds…” The seeds interested her more than the box. “There are so many of them, and there are these wonderful planting charts with comments like ‘Phlox reminds me of home,’ or quotations by Wordsworth like ‘Daisies: The Poet’s Darling’ scribbled in the margins of the charts.”
She stared up at him, waiting for him to tell her about this treasure, because it was obvious that he knew what it was. But the look in his eyes…was it pain? Was it remembrance? “Were these yours?” she asked. “Or…?”
“My mother’s. I remember her planting a garden every year. She could never have enough and always tried to cram too many into the space she had plotted out. If a frost came she would run out in the night and try to cover everything up. I remember my stepfather, Frank, chiding her for that. ‘Flowers aren’t that important,’ he told her.”
“But they are,” Rachel said. “Even if you’re sad, a flower can cheer you up. Not that I know anything of gardens. I never had one. My mother…well, you know about my mother. She would be horrified at the thought of kneeling down in the dirt. And I was never in one place long enough to plant one of my own. There would have been no place for a garden, anyway.”
“Rachel…”
“No. That was bad of me. That sounded self-pitying and I’m not. I hate that kind of thing. It makes me feel small and icky. Besides, flowers are everywhere. I’ve had my share.”
“From men?” Shane was wearing that smoky look again, the one that made it hard to breathe…or talk.
She gave him a haughty look. “I—I don’t need a man to give me flowers,” she managed to say. “They were mostly from me to me. Those count.”
“They do. They count a lot.”
She glanced down at the box. “This was your mother’s. Not like the other stuff in the closet. What should I do with it?” She held it out to him. “You should keep it. Seriously. Just this one thing.”
He placed his hands over her own, shook his head and slowly restored the box to her arms. “No, I want you to keep it. Please.”
“But it’s special. It’s your mother’s.”
“It is special. And my mother would have liked it to be used by a gardener. When you get to Maine and find a bit of land, plant your own garden. The seeds won’t grow. They’re too old. But you’ll fill the box with your own. That’s a much more fitting end to it than sitting on a shelf in my apartment or hotel room. And someday you’ll have flowers.”
But the very next day she had flowers. Several vases of them arrived. When she approached Shane to thank him, he looked sheepish. “Have to have flowers for an open house,” he said.
“You’re a softie, Shane Merritt,” she said. “You know these won’t last that long. You just did this because I told you I hadn’t had any flowers from a man.”
“I did it because I can’t believe what a low class of men you must have been hanging around with if none of them sent you flowers.”
She smiled. “Well, I’ve obviously met a higher class of man now.”
He scowled. “No. You haven’t. This was bribery, pure and simple. Now, let’s get back to work.”
She did, but several times that day she stopped to bury her nose in the flowers. She tried to remind herself that these weren’t special. Shane had surely sent flowers to many women. And would again long after all she had left of him were memories.
Her heart hurt. She really needed to think about the future.
Soon.
Rachel wandered through the next few days in a fog of gratitude and pain and regret. She had finally taken Shane’s suggestions to heart and had enrolled in an online class. It was a small start, but maybe it would be something to look forward to when she was tempted to look back to her days on the ranch. That was the gratitude part.
For the rest…
“He’s not coming, is he?” Ruby asked one day. “Let’s face it. He’s going to leave here and never come back and we’ll never see him again.”
“Ruby…” Rachel said, her heart breaking for the woman.
“I know he has a good life and a good business, but…I don’t know. You watch a child grow up and become a man, you have a part in his life, and… I don’t have any children of my own. I never married. So the children in town are the closest I’ll ever get to having my own. I know I’m not the only one, either. It was awful when Eric died. He was so young. He’d been engaged, but he’d barely become an adult. He didn’t leave us by choice. Shane’s refusal to interact with us…it feels a lot like rejection,” Ruby said.
Rachel’s throat was closing up. She’d been dealing with the reality of leaving Shane for days, maybe ever since she’d come here. And, no matter how much she wanted to deny it, she’d developed feelings for him. Feelings she was doing her best to shut out. She had no choice. She wasn’t free to care. A man like Shane, who had told her from the first that he liked his life unfettered…falling for a man like that would be like ripping your own heart out voluntarily.
But Ruby…wonderful, warmhearted, fun and funny Ruby, who seldom was serious…to see her this way…
And Shane…whatever was keeping him from people like Ruby had to be something that hurt him badly. She knew he wasn’t a man who would harm someone uncaringly.
Swiping her hand across her eyes hastily lest Ruby see the tears that threatened to fall, Rachel made a resolution. One way or another she was going to confront Shane about the way he was ignoring his neighbors and ignoring his own history. And punishing himself, she supposed, for youthful indiscretion.
And if he fired her…
She took a deep breath. Well, I’m going anyway, she reasoned. But she didn’t want to think about that. Like everyone else, she wanted every last drop of time she could get with Shane.
Still, she would take the risk. He wasn’t going to be happy about her intrusion into his life again.
Too bad.
Rachel sat at the kitchen table waiting for Shane to come in for dinner. Her stomach felt as if a million miniature gymnasts were staging a show, doing cartwheels and handstands and stealing all of her air. She had waited until this late hour so that there would be time, but she didn’t relish making Shane angry; the fact that he was late only added to her nerves. Why was he late? Shane was not a man who showed up late with no explanation. She remembered his lecture about the dangers of ranching.
The phone rang loudly, startling her. “Rachel?” he yelled as she picked it up.
“Shane, what’s wrong?” His voice was strained, and she could hear air whishing past, so he was moving fast as he talked. He was incredibly late for dinner. Fear lurched through her.
“I’m not coming in.” He sounded as if he was running. “Rambler’s hurt. I—does blood make you faint?”
“It never has before.”
“Good. The vet’s on another call, Tom’s on the outskirts of the property, Hank’s getting over a cold and I’d rather not risk any more infection here. Meet me at the barn.”
She didn’t hesitate. She just ran, her legs pumping fast as she entered the barn to find Shane already there examining the horse with gentle yet persistent movements. At the sound of her entrance, he rose.
“You need to wash up,” Shane told her. He gestured to a sink and soap and began to scrub his hands. “I won’t need you to do more than hand me things, but I don’t want any extra germs.”
Rachel did as he said. She glanced at Rambler, who was clearly in distress, and at Shane’s tense expression. “Tell me what you need.”
“Saline first. Some sterile gauze, bandages and disinfectant.” He grabbed the saline and moved off toward the horse, clearly expecting her to follow. She scrambled to locate the other supplies and hurried over to where he was kneeling, next to the frightened and quivering animal.
“Shh, boy. How’d you do this, anyway? Were you dreaming of some pretty little filly and not paying attention to where you were going? It’s okay, Rambler. We all get hurt now and again.” As he spoke, his words soft and low and soothing, he gently washed the wound with saline, pressing his body against the horse’s, calming him. “But I’ll make it right. You’ll heal. You’re going to be just fine, boy. I know it hurts, but we’re going to do our best to make that better right away.”
As he spoke, he gestured to Rachel, who handed him whatever he was pointing to. He kept up the low, gentle conversation as he worked. “Just a little bit longer, boy,” he said, as he made the final wrap of the bandage. “I know this disinfectant doesn’t smell pretty, like Lizzie, but it’ll do the trick. Soon you’ll be galloping off around the fields faster than ever. You’ll play Romeo again. You’ll be just fine.”
He stood, straightening to his full height and patting the giant horse’s side. As he did, Rambler tossed his head just a bit. “Oh, already feeling a bit better?” Shane asked. “Or are you just showing off for Rachel?”
Rambler whickered weakly, just as if he was answering, and Rachel finally realized that she was standing next to a creature much bigger and wilder than Lizzie. But…what could she do? The animal was hurt. That had been a nasty cut.
“Will he really be all right?” she asked.
“He’ll be sore for a few more days, but he should be fine. The wound looked bad because of the blood, but it wasn’t deep. Thank you,’ he said. “I didn’t want to ask for your help, but I wasn’t sure what I was dealing with when I first got here.”
“You’re very good with horses, aren’t you?” she asked. “You calmed him. He knew you’d take care of him. There was something rather beautiful about the whole experience. The man caring for his horse.”
He shrugged. “Practice,” he said. “This was nothing.”
“Not to Rambler.” And not to her, either. But as her words trailed off, Shane finished up in Ramber’s stall, peeled off his bloody shirt and began to wash off. The muscles of his chest were slick as he reached for a towel.
Rachel closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was staring at her with a fierce expression. He has clearly seen her looking at him.
“I should go back to the house,” she said, her voice weak.
Shane nodded. And then he smiled that glorious dimpled smile. “I’ll be right up. We can share a meal and celebrate your successful baptism as a veterinary assistant. Another notch on your résumé.”
He looked happy. But Rachel knew that he wouldn’t be happy for long. She still had to do what she had sworn she’d do today.