Chapter 23

“I cannot believe this. You, in a knife fight, a common bar brawl.” Allison pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat him down. “What were you thinking?” Shane had shown up on the porch, clearly still reeling, and her first reaction had been to want to clock him one herself.

“Well…for starters…it wasn’t in the bar.” He formed the words slowly. “It was…an alley brawl, and second…I wasn’t thinking.”

She took his chin in her hand and turned his head to study the bruises, and black eye, and split lip swelling as she watched it. Then she saw the blood trickling from the back of his hand and the crimson stain on his shirt. Turning his hands over, she noted the grit and a glass shard sticking up.

This is more than I can handle. “Maybe we should take you to the ER. This doesn’t look good.”

“Nah, just…fix me up like you would one of your horses. I’ll be fine.”

“If you were one of my horses, I’d be calling the vet,” she scolded. “Oh wait, you are the vet.”

He tried to grin but winced instead. “Just get the peroxide and a couple of bandages,” he mumbled.

She went for the first-aid kit that had become rather popular of late. With a peroxide soaked cotton ball, she dabbed at the corner of his mouth first and almost laughed when he used a word she’d never heard him say before. His hand bore a small slice; he said it was from when he’d knocked the knife away from Darren.

A knife! He could have been killed!

She cleaned it up and removed the glass shard with tweezers and plastered it all with antibiotic cream and the wide bandages. Then she demanded he shed his shirt.

“This is retribution for making me show you the bruises on my leg,” she muttered and bent to the thin cut that zig-zagged in a broken line across his belly, just above his belt. She didn’t like the looks of it and soaked another cotton ball to dab at it.

He swore again.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, suddenly thinking of what might have happened to him…and all because of her. “You shouldn’t have done this. It wasn’t necessary.”

Grimacing, he grabbed her hands and pulled her back up to face him. “It was, and it was worth more than a few cuts. They won’t bother us again.”

“How do you know?”

He wiggled his jaw to loosen it up and eased her onto his lap. “Because I made sure of it.”

“How can you be so sure?” She rested her arms on his shoulders and pressed her forehead against his. “How can we trust them?”

“Well, all I can say is I warned them, and not in a gentle way. I don’t think Duane and Darren will come looking for any more trouble.”

Allison sighed and touched her lips to his forehead. “You’ve always been my hero, Shane McBride. Did you know?” Had she ever told him?

“Afraid I haven’t always been a very good one, but if you want, you can show me your appreciation.”

She dared to ask, “How?”

“You can kiss me…” He raised one hand and touched his split and swollen lip. “Here.”

Oh Shane. What will I ever do with you? But softly, she did as he asked.

With a raspy, “Ow,” he moved his finger to the other side. “And over here.”

She kissed where indicated, and then he turned and met her lips full on. It was a barely-there kiss, but oh so tender, and Allison’s heart suddenly filled to brimming. How had she ever lived without him?

How will I live with him?

“Where’s Lizzie?” he asked, moving his knees to bring her closer.

“In her room.” She shifted on his lap to avoid the cut and in doing so gave him access to slipping his hand up inside her T-shirt. He stroked along her stomach and then moved farther while pressing feather-light kisses along her cheek and down to the small pulse pounding in her throat, all the while murmuring soft “ows” each time his lips moved. Wherever he touched her, her skin quivered until she knew this had to stop.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she gasped and stopped his hand from traveling to the hooks on her bra.

“Best cure I know of…ow.”

“Shane, you have to let me see that cut on your stomach. It’s—”

“You can kiss it, too,” he offered.

“Not a chance.” She scooted off his lap and out of reach, just as Lizzie entered the kitchen with her arms full of kittens and Gypsy close behind.

Allison quickly straightened her clothes as the collie ambled up to Shane and laid her muzzle on his knee. Apparently, he was her hero, too.

The smile Lizzie first flashed him dissolved in an instant. “Da—ad, I mean Shane! What happened?” She deposited the kittens in their bed in the corner and approached him with her blue eyes wide. “You’re hurt. Who did this to you?”

Shane looked to Allison for help, but she backed off. “You better tell her.” Once again, this was his call, and she wasn’t going to cover for him.

He pulled his shirt back on and did his best to button up and cover the jagged wound. “I’m sorry you had to see this, Shortstuff. I just took care of some bad guys.”

“Looks more like they took care of you,” her ever-honest daughter countered. “I hope they look as bad.”

“Lizzie!” Allison started at the remark.

“Well, it’s true, I hope they do.” She touched the red welt on his cheek. “Was it the Potter brothers?”

He glanced at Allison. Perhaps in silent surprise that Lizzie knew who did this, too?

“Yes, and someday I’ll explain it all to you, but right now, it’s not important you understand.” He covered her small hand with his own. “I just want you to know you and your mom are safe now I’m here. I’ll make sure of it.”

Lizzie took a moment to absorb it all then turned to her mother. “We better get him fixed up, or he won’t look so good for the wedding.”

As usual, their daughter was right.

****

Allison put the last stitch in the hem of the dress and pulled it through the machine Grandma Ellie had taught her to sew on when she was not much older than Lizzie. Now there was only a little hand sewing left to do. Together, they’d chosen the patterns and material for both their dresses, and she’d worked on them every night this week, barely getting to bed before she needed to get up again. But at least planning for the wedding helped keep her mind off the threats to her farm—the incident in the pasture…and the big cat.

There’d been no other sign of the predator. No other nights with restless horses kicking in their stalls.

Maybe my bad shot scared it off for good.

She had to hope because Mark Williamson hadn’t been around to investigate the report she’d called in. The man could be such a jerk.

Forcing those thoughts away, she turned the dress right side out and shook it. Her baby girl would be so cute in the buttercup yellow and cream confection.

“I’m going to wear my best boots with it,” Lizzie had declared when they picked out the pattern. “I think it’ll look really cool. You should, too, Mom.”

“We’ll see,” Allison had mused. “I’m not sure they’ll go with my dress.”

Her simple ivory lace and pale peach sheath hung on the dressmaker’s form, waiting for her to hem it tonight…if she could keep her eyes open. She wasn’t sure about wearing boots with it, but the flowered wreath her daughter promised to fashion for her hair would be just perfect.

Too bad Mom and Dad can’t come home this one time. A swift stab of pain brought tears to her eyes.

When she called their condo, the housekeeper had told her they were on a month-long cruise on the Danube, and then going to the Mediterranean to celebrate their thirty-fifth anniversary.

She swiped at her eyes and pushed away the disappointment, deciding these were the last tears she’d shed for the parents who couldn’t be bothered with their own child.

Allison was just getting up to slide the yellow dress on a hanger when she heard Shane’s footsteps in the hall. As they neared the sewing room, she jumped to the doorway to keep him from coming inside and collided with his tall frame.

“Whoa, hey, what’s the deal?” He grabbed her arms to steady them both.

“You can’t see my dress!” She kept him from moving through the door, inched him out, and closed it behind her. “It’s a secret.”

“Secret, huh? So, is that why you’ve been burning the midnight oil?” He had set up a cot in the barn and spent most nights there this past week. In spite of the longing kisses he gave her every night, he refused to sleep in the house again until they were properly wed, “out of respect for our daughter,” but wanted to stay close for safety’s sake. It made her love him even more, and just knowing he was close by had given her peace of mind.

“Maybe, but are you spying on me?” She gave him a teasing, sidelong glance.

“Just in hopes of catching a glimpse of your silhouette in the window.” He dipped his head and stole a kiss before she could protest.

Allison gave up and wrapped her arms around his middle. “It doesn’t seem possible,” she murmured.

“What doesn’t?”

His hands stroking down the curve of her back set off little shocks of awareness.

“In just a few more days we’ll be together, forever and always.” She still had to pinch herself sometimes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming it all.

“And always,” he added, then pulled her arms from around him, and taking her by the hand, tugged her toward the living room where he sat her down on the couch and took his place beside her, but didn’t touch her again.

She knew by now this meant there was something important he had to say and drew her legs up beneath her in her best listening pose. “What’s up?”

Shane leaned forward a little and clasped his hands together in front of him, a nervous gesture she recognized. Whatever he needed to talk about made him uncomfortable.

“There’s something I think you should know, something I just found out but should have realized a long time ago.”

“About us?” Her heart beat a painful thump.

He faced her. “In a way, but mainly a truth I hope will give you some closure. Us some closure.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s about Jason, and how he…how he really was. I guess we just never realized.”

What on earth is he talking about? His clenched hands and set jaw had her worried. “Shane, would you please just tell me what it is?”

He closed his eyes, as if thinking before he spoke. “When you told me you and Jason never…that you slept together but you never made love, I had a hard time believing it, because I always thought he was in love with you, too, and maybe he was, in his own way.”

“I guess if he was I didn’t live up to his expectations, because I’m not lying when I tell you nothing ever happened between us. Not before Lizzie was born nor after.” Something she’d learned to live with the years they were married, and yet she’d never understood. “But like you said, that’s all in the past. So why does it even matter?”

His steady blue gaze met hers. “Because I want you to know it was never about you, Allison. It was about Jason, and how he felt…about me.” He shifted uneasily. “Jason had more to hide from his family than not wanting to go to college and play football. They never would have accepted him for who he really was. Do you know what I’m saying?”

Allison studied him as memories surfaced. Uncertainty when Jason offered to marry her, the gratitude for his caring, but then relief when she’d never had to share what she’d only ever shared with Shane. How she hadn’t wanted to try and figure it out when he’d turned his back to her; how he’d barely ever kissed her. Sinking every emotion into caring for her daughter and the horses, and how she’d been glad when Jason didn’t seem to want any more from her than dinner on the table and her presence at the Delaney holiday parties. At first, she had questioned and blamed herself. Then she had just been relieved.

She nodded slowly. It all made sense now, though not any easier to understand…for either of them by the way Shane glanced away from her, as if reluctant to say anymore, to speak the truth in plain words.

“I—I honestly never knew,” she admitted. Although, I always knew there was something he would never talk about. “Poor Jason, to think he had to live a lie and never got to be himself.”

Tears welled in her eyes, and she couldn’t help but remember that, in spite of his never showing her any intimate affection, he was only ever kind and protective of her and Lizzie. The day her daughter had been born, Jason stayed with her throughout it all.

“I can only hope we gave him some measure of happiness in those years we were together.”

Shane sighed, and hands on his knees, pushed himself up from the couch. “I’ve got some early barn calls in the morning, so I best get some sleep.”

Allison ached to reach out and hold him, because she sensed his personal turmoil in all this. “You can stay here.” She motioned to the couch. “It’ll be okay.”

He turned, and just for a moment, leaned down to touch her face. The cuts by his mouth were almost healed, and the bruises were fading away, and she wanted to kiss them all again.

“I think we need this one night to process all this, and then to put it in the past where it belongs before we start our new life together.” He ran his hand over her hair before he straightened.

She nodded and before he left the room said softly, “Thank you for telling me. I love you.”

Later, curled in her bed alone, she couldn’t stop thinking about shattered friendships and lives changed forever, and how they’d all suffered.

If only we’d known the truth, how different things might have turned out.

****

After doing one more barn check for the night, Shane stretched out on the lounge chair in the tack room. Clasping his hands behind his head, he thought about the conversation with Allison. How could she not have known about Jason? She’d lived with him for six years. Yet, by her own admission, she’d been okay with the arrangement she and Jason had come to and never questioned it, because it had served her as well as it did him. For that reason, maybe she’d never let herself wonder why it was only friendship they shared. Because to know more would have been to jeopardize the arrangement. Was that Jason’s purpose as well?

Was that why he had never let himself see the truth, either?

He could only wonder now if there had been signs. Things he’d shut out, because the truth wasn’t something he wanted to know.

Now he did know the truth, it didn’t matter anymore. Jason was gone. Life went on, and the life he’d always wanted with Allison was about to become a reality. That was his future.

But in his heart, he knew he would never forget what lay in the past.