"What're you doing?"
Jilly's voice from the doorway startled Iris, and the stack of photographs she'd been holding slipped from her grasp, spilling across the smooth wood floor of her closet. Rowdy pounced, sniffing the photos. Iris batted him away as she tried to pick them up quickly. She sat cross-legged with her back to the doorway, so maybe Jilly hadn't seen what she was poring over.
Except a shadow blocked her light, and then Jilly was looming over her. Unfortunately, the shoebox of memories remained open at her knee. On top, the faded corsage of white roses that Callum had given her at prom. The item she'd already stuffed into her jeans' pocket seemed to burn through the fabric lining and ignite her skin.
"You're still moping?" Jilly asked.
"I'm not moping," Iris returned in a mumble.
It had been three days since her father's revelations. Callum and the boys had been gone within the hour, the boys sobbing with distress, enough to break Iris's heart all over again.
She hesitated over a photo of a younger Callum and herself, standing in front of Champ. In the picture, Iris held the horse's halter rope and stood toe-to-toe with Callum. He looked at her, his feelings for her clearly written across his face.
He'd never been able to hide his feelings from her, even when he'd wanted to.
Jilly took advantage of her hesitation to lean over her shoulder and scoop up the box.
"Hey!" Iris pushed herself off the floor—she'd been sitting there so long that her knees creaked as she stood. "Give that back."
Rowdy barked once as he bounced across the floor, following Jilly.
"I just wanna see your goodies." Jilly responded by dumping the shoe box contents onto the bed.
"Be careful!" Iris bent double to pick up the last few photographs from the floor. She tucked them quickly into a random stack and rushed to the bed to see what damage her sister had done.
Jilly had tucked the undamaged corsage back into the box and was rifling through the rest. Several movie tickets from shows Callum and Iris had seen together. A program from the ballet she'd danced the night he'd left. A piece of leather she'd cut from Champ's reins after the animal had died. Several folded notes that Callum had written her.
She was doubly glad she'd taken the ring out and put it in her pocket, now that Jilly was nosing through her memories.
"So you finally found out why Callum left," Jilly said.
Yes. It had been a strike to her heart, doubly so because she'd begun to hope that there was a chance for their relationship to survive.
She brushed away the tears that seemed to spill over anytime the thought of Callum and the boys crossed her mind.
She ran her thumb over the corner of the Champ photograph. "How can I still miss him so much?"
"The horse or the man?" Jilly asked dryly.
Iris sniffled. "Both."
Hearing that Callum had been involved in the accident that had killed Champ had brought the intense grief from that night rushing back. She'd had to say goodbye to the animal that had been a friend for years at the same time she'd been grieving Callum's desertion.
And then to find out that her father had known about it all along...and even pushed Callum to leave home.
That betrayal hurt just as bad.
"I can't believe Dad would do that," she said.
Jilly snorted. "I can. He hated Callum back then. And apparently still does. Any idea why?"
Iris shook her head, her eyes still on the picture. She'd never figured out why her father had had such a vendetta against Callum. It was more than an over-protective father.
Look at them there. They'd both been so young in the picture, so sure of the good things that the future had in store for them, so sure their love would be the one thing that would keep them together.
"I don't understand why he didn't come to me. He just...left."
"Maybe because he'd killed your favorite horse." Jilly's drawled statement brought Iris's head up. And Jilly's raised brows challenged her. "Or maybe he really had been drinking."
"No." The denial came swiftly, because she knew how adamant Callum had been about not ending up like his father.
But hadn't he admitted that he'd fallen into drinking and partying before he'd found out about the boys', before he'd gone into a twelve-step program?
Could she have been wrong about him back then?
"Of course, he had so many people supporting him back then, it must've made the decision to leave difficult."
Jilly's softly-spoken words crystallized things for Iris. Other than her, Callum hadn't had a support system back then. Her uncle had offered him a job as a ranch hand, but Callum would've expected Uncle Joe to side with her father, especially with one of his horses dead.
And Callum hadn't trusted that she'd stand by his side.
Or had he?
I knew you wanted New York. His words from days ago whispered through her mind.
Callum was fiercely protective of those he loved. She'd known it back then, and she saw it now with his boys. What if he had thought he was protecting her by leaving? With her father's angry accusations and threats against him, what if he'd thought leaving was his only choice?
And not knowing what Dad had told her, even if Callum had changed his mind later, he wouldn't have felt he could come back.
Iris wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling suddenly cold. She could understand Callum's motivations for the past. But could she forgive him for deserting her like he had?
"It seems so quiet around here without the boys running around causing trouble."
She snorted a soft laugh at Jilly's words. "They're kind of unforgettable, aren't they?"
"Tyler was just starting to warm up to me."
Iris had to squeeze her eyes closed against more hot tears as she remembered their last night together. She'd curled up on the couch with a blanket, and the boys had all piled on her lap to watch a movie together.
Tyler had laid his head on her shoulder, and she'd thought these are my boys.
She loved them as if they were her own.
And she still loved Callum. Time hadn't erased the way she felt, neither had the changes in their circumstances.
She knew what she had to do.
She dug into her waist pocket, pulling out the small gold band with a chip of a diamond.
Jilly's eyes went wide. "What's that?"
"The engagement ring Callum gave me a few weeks before my eighteenth birthday."
She pushed it onto her ring finger. It stuck, barely, on her knuckle but then slid the rest of the way home. "I wore it on a necklace because we weren't going to tell anyone until I turned eighteen. And then he was gone."
Jilly's eyes, still wide, now showed confusion, too. "So you're wearing it now, because...?"
Iris stood, her back straight now that she'd made her decision. "He made a unilateral decision back then to leave. Maybe he was trying to protect me, or maybe he was ashamed. Whatever the reason, I didn't get a choice in it. So now I'm making a unilateral decision that his decision is void."
Jilly's voice rang with disbelief. "You're just going to wear his ring? Just declare yourself engaged to the man? What if he doesn't want to marry you anymore?"
Iris experienced a pang of trepidation until she remembered the bleak look in Callum's eyes as he'd apologized to her, the utter desperation in his words. He still cared.
And she loved him enough to fight for him.
Including battling her father.
Midday sun streamed down on Main Street. Callum stood nervously in the vestibule of the only sit-down restaurant in Redbud Trails. Levi and Brandt stood on a bench made for waiting guests—thankfully there were none waiting, because after the boys bounced a few times, they launched themselves off, landing in a giggling heap on the floor.
Tyler stood next to Callum. Not clinging, but watchful. Maybe he sensed the unease that had Callum's stomach tied up in knots.
They were meeting Maude for lunch, but he doubted he could keep anything down.
Was he making a mistake?
He'd taken Iris's insights about his mother-in-law to heart. The grief of losing Iris all over again had driven him to his knees every night, and what he'd been hearing in those quiet moments was that he needed to forgive and give his in-laws a second chance.
He was still working on the forgiveness, but he was here. He'd chosen a public place because it felt safer. He'd notified the police department—not that he held out much hope of them backing him up—and texted his mother-in-law to set up the lunch date.
The door opened with the low chime of a bell, and she slipped into the restaurant. She was alone.
He'd thought he'd prepared himself, but his gut still tightened at seeing her so close, those memories of two terrifying nights trying to resurface. He stuffed them back down.
Tyler ducked behind Callum's leg; Brandt and Levi looked to Callum for assurance, and he nodded to them. "It's okay."
She knelt on the floor, and he could see tears welling in her eyes.
Brandt and Levi rushed to her, and she enfolded them in her arms. She looked up, smiling a wobbly smile that encompassed both him and Tyler. "Hi, Tyler."
Callum pushed the boy forward with a nudge to his shoulder, but Tyler stepped back, clinging to Callum's hand.
Callum held Tyler's hand as the boy joined the three-person hug. After she and the boys broke their embrace, he was there to put a hand beneath Maude's elbow when she stumbled as she stood up.
She felt thinner, more frail, than she had the last time he'd seen her. Rachel's parents must be in their fifties, but Maude had aged.
Right now, though, her expression radiated pure joy as she looked up at him. "Thanks for meeting me," she whispered.
The hostess ushered them to their seats before he had to admit to the unexpected lump that clogged his throat.
Maude spread her napkin on her lap as he herded the boys into one side of the four-person booth. He took a chair at the end of the table, the better to keep them corralled in place.
"You boys have gotten so big, I can barely believe it."
"I'm three now," Brandt said proudly.
"Me, too!" Levi echoed.
Callum shook his head, thinking how kids this age tended to state the obvious.
"I know," Maude said with a patient smile. "Your grandpa and I sent you birthday packages. Did you get them?"
There was a moment of tension as she looked to Callum.
"Yeah, they got them." He could've thrown the packages away, but he hadn't, and now he was glad. "Remember the big tractors, boys?"
With his rodeo days behind him and putting all his money into the new business, he hadn't been able to buy all the gifts he'd wanted to, and the surprise box in the mail had been welcome.
"Speaking of your grandpa, I told him we'd try to video call after lunch." She looked to Callum, her gaze questioning.
He liked that she wasn't taking anything for granted. He was working his way back to trusting her, and her humble spirit was helping with that.
"That's probably fine," he said. "How long are you staying in Redbud Trails?"
"I'm leaving for Texas tomorrow. I'm sure Jackson can't find the washing machine beneath his piles of dirty laundry."
"We used to live in Texas," Brandt piped up.
"Yes, you did." Maude's face softened as she looked down on him.
Levi started lining up pink sugar packets along the edge of the table, already distracted.
Brandt bounced in his seat, knocking into both of his brothers. "Do you got any presents for us today?"
Maude laughed. "Not today, I'm afraid."
They spent almost an hour like that, ping ponging between the boys' orneriness making them laugh and moments of barely-there tension between him and Maude.
It wasn't perfect. But it was a start.
They'd tumbled out of the restaurant onto the sidewalk when he felt a prickling of awareness and looked up. Right into Iris's dear face, as she stood across the street.
He saw her take in their group. The boys and Maude. Together.
And a small smile crossed her face. She knew what it meant.
He couldn't summon one in response, not with his heart lodged firmly in his throat and regret swamping him. He nodded.
"Iris!" Levi had caught sight of her too and waved wildly.
Callum caught Brandt in mid-leap as he launched off the sidewalk. "No getting in the street, remember?"
"Aw!" the boy cried.
Maude had touched Tyler's shoulder to halt him from following his brother.
By the time Callum had counted heads and taken a breath in relief, she was gone. He didn't know if she'd ducked into one of the stores, and he didn't see her car parked on the street.
Would she welcome seeing him face to face? No idea. So he comforted the boys as best he could, and they said goodbye to Maude and headed home.
Except it didn't seem much like home without Iris there.