She wouldn’t take his calls. Colt didn’t blame her. If he’d been in her shoes he wouldn’t have taken his calls, either.
He did something he hadn’t done in a long time then. Something he never thought he’d do. He went back to his family’s ranch in Texas. The place where he’d grown up.
The northern part of the state wasn’t the dry desert everyone thought it was. There were areas of green. Valleys and canyons with landlocked lakes. It was beautiful country. Perfect for raising cattle.
He turned down the narrow, two-lane road that led to his parents’ home. That’s what it was—his parents’ place. It had never been his. The two-story ranch house was deserted, as he’d known it would be.
Except for the extreme dust and spiderwebs, it was exactly as he’d left it.
Ten years ago he’d packed up and headed out on the rodeo trail. Occasionally he would come back, when a competition brought him nearby, but for the most part he’d stayed away. It was too painful to return. So he’d lived the life of a hobo, staying this place and that.
He tried calling her one last time, and when that failed, broke down and phoned Logan.
“So you finally decided to call me back?” his old friend asked, but he didn’t sound angry.
“Had a hell of a time tracking you down,” Colt admitted, sitting in one of his mother’s kitchen chairs. They were old, with hollow aluminum legs and vinyl seats. Buttercup-yellow. The whole kitchen was yellow. He didn’t have the heart to change it…not yet. “Last time we talked, you didn’t have a cell phone.”
“How’d you find me?” Logan asked.
“Rodeo crowd.” Colt absently patted Mac’s head.
“Ahh,” Logan said. “Word of mouth.”
Colt swallowed. “Have you seen her?”
There was a pause. “Next week, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Amazingly, she actually called me and set up a time.”
“So you’re going to take him back?”
There was another pause. “I don’t know what I’m going to do just yet.”
And in the words Colt heard sorrow…and regret.
“Why’d you make her out to be a witch?” Colt asked.
“She was,” Logan said. Colt pictured his friend. Dark hair. Dark eyes. So very like Dee. It was remarkable that Dee had so much of both parents in him. Yet again, Colt was shocked he hadn’t put two and two together far sooner than he had. “Or she has been.”
“She isn’t now?” Colt asked, getting up and staring out the kitchen window. Rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see.
A thousand acres.
It had been a bitch to keep current on the property taxes, but he had. The whole place was his. No mortgage. No liens. Just land. His father’s land, and his father’s father’s before that.
“She’s…different now,” Logan said. “More willing to talk to me about Rudy.”
Rudy. The name Logan would always call his son. Just like Amber would always call the boy Dee. Her pet name.
“How is he?” Colt asked, clutching the counter in front of him.
“Good. No more seizures. She’s thinking it really was diet related.”
“I hear that can happen with autistic children.”
Another pause. “Yeah, I guess he really is autistic, isn’t he? But Amber’s staying on top of things now.”
As she always had.
“Hey, listen,” Colt said. “If you see her, will you give her a message?”
“I don’t know,” Logan said. “I have a feeling mentioning your name to Amber might ruin our new-found friendship.”
But Colt could tell his friend was joking. Whatever had happened to him all those years ago, what ever had caused the drinking, the partying, the carousing, it was over now. Colt had no doubt Logan was ready to take on the duties of fatherhood.
“Tell her I’m sorry,” he said. “And that I wish…I wish things could have been different.”
“I’ll do that,” Logan promised. “You coming out to California again anytime soon?”
“No,” Colt said. “I’m done with rodeo.”
“You sure? I still got my old rope horse out in Morgan’s pasture.”
“No.” Colt glanced out the window once more. “I’m going to try and make a go of it here.”
Logan paused again. “Good for you.”
“And good for you, too. Tell Dee that Mac says hello.”
And that I miss him.
Miss them both.
SHE’D BEEN DREADING the meeting for weeks. But a deal was a deal, Amber thought. She’d promised Logan she’d give him a chance. That he could spend some time with Dee…if for no other reason than to convince him that keeping Dee in an institution was the right thing to do.
She’d chosen a neutral spot—Golden Gate Park, just a little distance from Camp Cowboy. It had dawned a beautiful day. The fog that had plagued the camp for weeks had disappeared. So they’d spent the morning walking to Baker Beach. It had been a bit of a hike, but Amber didn’t care. It was so green and peaceful. The peninsula was on a slope, and she could see breakers rolling toward shore. The Golden Gate Bridge was off in the distance, its shadow seeming to undulate on the choppy sea. Dee hung back, his eyes firmly on the crashing waves.
Rudy. Dee.
That’s why Colt hadn’t put two and two together. Logan had confessed it all. How he’d sent Colt to find Dee, since she wouldn’t tell him where Dee was. How Colt had begged him not to do it.
Colt hadn’t been lying about that. She didn’t know what to think.
“Hello, Amber.”
She stiffened. She’d been expecting the meeting. She should be nice. This was, after all, Dee’s father.
“Logan,” she said, turning to face him.
He’d aged.
It shocked her, this first glimpse of him. His black hair had gone gray around the edges, though he was barely in his thirties. Usually a little on the long side, it was close-cropped. His eyes were still the same warm brown, but they held the weight of the world.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
She shrugged, returned to staring at the ocean. Sailboats were zigzagging through the channel. “We made a deal.”
“Rudy?” Logan said gently, far more gently than Amber would have ever thought possible from him.
“He likes the waves,” she found herself saying, even though the last thing she’d told herself to do was try to soften this meeting. Dee’s autism was why Logan had left in the first place. Why her sister had called it quits all those years ago. He couldn’t take living with an autistic child.
“Rudy?” he said again, stepping in front of him.
Amber was stunned. The old Logan would have made some ridiculous comment. Would have claimed, “I can fix him.” Would have argued with her when she explained that Dee’s condition couldn’t be fixed.
This Logan squatted near Dee. “Hey, son.” He didn’t clutch his shoulder. Didn’t force him to turn and look at him.
“It’s me, Rudy…Dee,” Logan corrected. “Dad.” Amber watched as he swallowed. “I’m your dad.”
Dee didn’t look at him. Didn’t even move. Just stared out at the ocean.
And Amber could see the hurt in Logan’s eyes.
“It’s nothing personal,” she said. “He’s like that with everyone, even me. But he’s aware. I swear to you, Logan, he knows everything you say.”
That had been illustrated to her perfectly on that day she’d been sobbing in the child’s room.
Dee loves you.
Logan glanced up at her, his hair blowing in the breeze off the ocean. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Dee’s father stood back up. And Amber noticed he was even dressing differently. No jeans this time out. He wore brown slacks. And a dark-brown, button down shirt instead of a T-shirt. But most impressive was that he didn’t try to touch his son. Didn’t try to hug him. Didn’t do anything the old Logan would have done.
“Give it time,” Amber said.
Logan nodded, then turned so he could follow where his son was looking. They stood there together for goodness knows how long. Amber was so completely transfixed by the sight. She’d always thought Dee looked like her sister. But that wasn’t true.
Dee resembled his dad.
She swallowed hard. How she not seen that before?
She hadn’t wanted to.
But this wasn’t the man she remembered.
“He never told me where he was, you know,” Logan said.
“Pardon?”
“Colt,” Logan said. “He didn’t betray you like you think he did. He’d already put it together, who Dee was. A week before Dee got sick, he knew. But he never told me where Dee was specifically. Instead, he begged me to give it a chance. To trust you. I have the email if you want to see it.”
“No.”
Logan came over and placed a hand on her shoulder.
Amber wanted to cry.
“He told me I owe you big time.” He half turned. “For everything you’ve done. And I know I do, Amber. I really do.” He looked down at the sand. “I messed up.” And there were tears in his eyes. “I really messed up.” The wind caught his hair again. “But I’m sorry. For everything, Amber. I’m so damn sorry, and I swear to you I’ll make it up.” She heard his voice hitch. “I don’t know if I ever can. But I swear I’m going to try.”
She couldn’t breathe for a moment. How had this happened? How had a man who’d been so horrible, changed so much?
She couldn’t deny that he had.
Sharron would have wanted her to move forward.
“You don’t need to make it up to me.”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I do. And I promise I’ll be there for the both of you. I swear to you, Amber.”
They both glanced at Dee. The little boy had turned. A second later he lifted his hand and pointed. “Mac!”
It was like a stab to the heart. “No, Dee, that’s not—”
But it was.
A dog that looked just like Mac ran forward, a gray-and-white speeding bullet that hurled itself straight at Dee.
“This is step one of making it up to you,” Logan said. “He loves you, Amber. I’ve never met a man so devoted to a woman. Your rejection is killing him. Please, give him a chance.”
Because beyond Mac, walking along the edge of the beach toward her, was Colt, black cowboy hat firmly in place.
“Oh, damn,” she muttered.
Through eyes suddenly filled with tears, she watched as Mac threw himself at Dee’s feet.
“Mac!” Dee cried.
That was all the incentive the dog needed. Rear end swaying, tongue lolling, eyes wide and bright, Mac rubbed up against the little boy he loved so much.
“Mac,” Dee repeated, squatting and burying his head in the dog’s thick fur.
She had to look away. If she didn’t she’d start bawling like a baby.
“Hello, Amber.”
She still found herself dashing tears away, having to inhale deeply before facing him. She should be angry. She should tell both of them, Logan and Colt, to get lost.
“I hope you’re not mad at Logan,” Colt said.
The sound of the ocean was nothing compared to the roar in her ears. “I’m not,” she said, uncertain what she felt. But it wasn’t anger.
Colt blocked her view, so she had to look at him.
“I went back to Texas, Amber,” he said. “I went back and faced my inner demons.”
She inhaled deeply. “And?” Something inside her shifted as she looked into his blue eyes.
“All alone, surrounded by a thousand acres…all I wanted was you,” he said, reaching out to brush a lock of her hair away from her eyes. “And I found I couldn’t live without you.”
“Colt…”
“I hated myself before I met you, Amber. I couldn’t see the good in anything…or in anybody. And then you came along.”
She tried again. “Colt…”
“And I realized that if a woman like you could like a man like me…”
She shook her head.
“That if someone who only saw the good in things could find some good in me… And if she wasn’t afraid to put everything on the line, then I could do no less.”
Her vision began to blur. He reached for her hands.
“I love you, Amber. I love you more than I’ve loved anything in my life.”
Except his parents and his sister. But he didn’t need to qualify it. His family that he’d loved so much, and that he blamed himself for killing. But he’d forgiven himself now. Amber had taught him how to do that. She’d forgiven the man who’d killed her sister. How could he do less? She could see it in his eyes.
“I love you,” he repeated earnestly, cupping her face in his hands.
She loved him, too. Still. With him standing in front of her, there was no way she could deny it.
“You lied to me,” she whispered.
“I might not have been honest about my reasons for coming to Camp Cowboy, but I never lied.”
“But it was dishonest.”
“Yes,” he admitted, “it was. And I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
He clutched her hands again. “I love you,” he repeated. “Please tell me you forgive me.”
She drew a deep breath, inhaled the scent of him and absorbed the feel of his body.
“Marry me?” he asked.
She looked past him, at Logan, who’d been kind enough to step away and give them some privacy. At Dee, who sat stroking Colt’s dog. And at the sky, so blue and beautiful and so much like Colt’s eyes.
“Marry me?” He tipped her chin up and forced her to look at him.
He loved her.
“Marry me.”
He kissed her. And the moment their lips touched, she knew it was useless. She loved this man. He might have met her under false pretenses, might not have been exactly honest, but she loved him. And when he kissed her, she couldn’t doubt that he loved her right back.
“Marry me,” he said a fourth time.
And this time when she looked him in the eyes she answered, “Yes.”
He jerked her to him so quickly and so suddenly that she gasped. And then she was laughing. And crying. And hugging him back.
“Dee love Mac.”
They both glanced over in time to see Dee plop down on the beach as he wrapped his arm around Colt’s dog.
“Good dog,” the little boy said.
And then they were both smiling and laughing, as for the first time, Amber felt hope. Colt loved her. Dee loved Colt’s dog. Amber loved Colt. And if Dee continued to speak, that was a minor miracle in and of itself.
The second miracle of her life.