IT SEEMED IT was hours later that Tess was safely tucked into her own bed, ugly Jerry lodged comfortably beside her. The police were finally gone. Aidan sat on the sofa, his elbows on his knees, his head cradled in his hands.
Noelle brought him tea. He took it, and she sank down on the couch beside him.
His eyes met hers, the longing undisguised, before he looked quickly away. It was the face of a man tormented.
And Noelle knew why she had not allowed herself to sink into despair after his departure on the day after Christmas. She knew why, instead of taking to her bed and a bucket of ice cream, she had learned to dance and gone to read to children at the library.
Because love required her to find herself.
Love required her to be strong enough, sure enough in her own being, to go into the darkness he had wrapped himself in and bring him back out. To be brave enough to rescue this lonely, strong man who was determined to use his strength for all the wrong things. To keep love at bay, instead of to embrace it.
“I understand it now,” she said softly. “You didn’t leave because of a pony.”
He was stubbornly silence.
“You used that as an excuse.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you loving me.”
He drew his breath in sharply. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. The fact that he seemed incapable of denying it gave her the courage to go on.
“You love me so much,” Noelle told him softly, “that you thought you had to protect me. You couldn’t possibly see yourself succeeding in this arena. How could you succeed at love?”
“Precisely,” he said.
“You had no models for a good relationship. You saw that when you married Sierra. That you didn’t have the tools to make it work.”
He nodded.
“And yet your love for Tess is the model for all love,” she told him softly.
“It’s not. Look at what just happened. She ran away from me.”
“Did she? Or did she know in her heart what needed to happen? Did she sense somehow that you needed me?”
He looked as if he intended to protest. His mouth opened. But again, not a single sound came out.
“You were trying to protect both of us, Tess and me, weren’t you, from what you saw as your inevitable failure?”
“Look, this conversation is pointless—”
“I agree,” she said. “The time for talking is done.”
He actually looked relieved. Until she leaned toward him. He could have gotten away, but he was paralyzed. She took his lips with her own. Tenderly. She let the touch of her lips tell him what he would not allow himself to hear in words.
That she was strong enough to face the storms.
That when his strength failed, hers would take over.
That she carried within her a legacy of such enormous love that the light of it would guide them both through the uncertain waters of a life together.
At first, his lips remained closed against hers. And yet, he did not push her away. She sensed he wanted to, but could not. And so she deepened her kiss until she felt the tiniest give in him, the tiniest of surrenders.
And into that gap, she poured everything she was, and it was like sunlight pouring over snow, turning what was hard and cold into something silver and liquid.
He broke free of her lips, but he did not get up and leave. Or throw her out. Instead, he seemed to be eyeing the life rope she was throwing him.
“What if I hurt you?” Aidan whispered. “And in hurting you, hurt my daughter? She wants you as a mommy so desperately. I’m going to blow it.”
“Are you?” Even though he had said that, she could see him reaching out for that rope.
“Yes,” he said.
“Just trust it a little bit,” Noelle told him. “Just trust love a little tiny bit, and see what it can do. Let’s see what happens next.”
For a long time, he said nothing. But then he took the rope she offered, Noelle saw the answer in his eyes, she saw in them that little flicker of light that was at the heart of the human spirit, and that was at the core of all human strength.
The ability, in the face of overwhelming evidence that it might be heartbreaking to do so, to still say yes to hope.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s see what happens next.”
Over the next few months, Noelle discovered that Aidan was not a man who did anything by half measures, including seeing what happened next, including falling in love.
He courted her with an intensity, an attention to detail, a fierceness, a tenderness that made her feel as if she was the most loved woman in the world.
He wined her. He dined her. He showered her with gifts. They hiked the trails of Banff National Park and rode the gondola to the top of the world. They rode a different kind of gondola in Venice and snorkeled off the coast of Kona in Hawaii. They went to visit the wineries of the Sonoma Valley. They rode in a hot air balloon. They took a road trip and found each of the hidden hot springs of the Kootenays. They embraced adventures: rock climbing and kayaking and white water rafting. They took cooking classes and ballroom dancing classes.
They discovered what it meant for them to be a couple. Rufus and Nana, who had gotten married a scant two months after Christmas, happily took Tess when they went away.
And they discovered what it meant for them to be a family. They took Tess to Disney World in Florida, and the fabulous Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. They took in children’s theaters and themed playgroups.
And for all this, Noelle’s favorite moments with Aidan and Tess remained the simplest ones. Walking hand in hand along the Bow River as pussy willow buds burst in the trees. The three of them going together to story time at the library, or sprawled out on the floor of the children’s section of the bookstore. Sitting on a bench and eating hotdogs at the truck downtown at lunch hour. All of them crowded into Tess’s bed reading stories at night.
Best of all was when they went to the ranch together. Watching the quiet love grow between Nana and Rufus, and watching Tess learn to ride Gidget, playing board games at night and sitting in the hayloft together after everyone else had gone to bed.
The ranch was “their” place somehow, the place where, entirely free of distractions, something bolder and more beautiful than they had ever imagined for their lives had taken root.
They were at the ranch one summer evening when Aidan asked her to go for a walk with him.
They found themselves at the Honeymoon Cabin.
“I have a gift for you,” he said quietly.
Noelle laughed. She had tried so hard to dissuade him from gifts, but there was no point. She took the envelope he held out to her. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
Noelle opened it and found a sheaf of legal-looking papers.
“I don’t understand what this is.”
“Your grandfather took me aside a few weeks ago and gave me a talking-to.”
“Really? What did he say?”
“He said he understood I was trying to do the honorable thing. He said he understood that it was important for a man to make the woman he loved feel as if she was a princess. He said he understood the value of an old-fashioned courtship. But he said enough was enough. He told me to get on with it.”
Aidan was looking at her with a quiet intensity that made her heart stand still. That thing he did to her heart never seemed to change.
“He said time was shorter than a person could ever imagine. He said that’s why he and Nana did things so quickly. Because they have both experienced losses and they have the maturity to understand that time runs out.
“He told me to marry you and have some babies, already.”
“Aidan Phillips! Are you asking me to marry you?”
He was silent.
Even as her heart soared, Noelle could not resist teasing him. “Because my grandfather told you to?”
“Actually, he said all that after.”
“After?”
“After I asked his permission. Quit rushing me!”
“His permission?”
“To marry his granddaughter.”
Suddenly, Noelle didn’t feel like teasing him anymore. This was real. This was what it all had been building toward: the time together, the increasingly heated looks and kisses. She loved spending time with him. She would not give up a moment of their romance.
But she was with her grandfather on this one.
She needed Aidan at a different level now. She needed to touch him in places where no one else touched him, and she needed to let the heat of his kisses spread until they were both weak with it. She needed there to be no more reasons to say no.
Aidan got down on one knee before her. She resisted the impulse to touch his hair.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He snapped open the lid. The band within, studded with perfect diamonds, winked with astonishing blue lights. He cleared his throat.
“Noelle McGregor, I am so in love with you I can barely think for it. I am so in love with you I can barely breathe for it. You have taken a landscape that was bleak and dark and brought it to color and life. You have shown me the meaning of my life. You have become the role model for my daughter.
“I cannot imagine my life without you. I want to spend the rest of my days with you. I want to have children. I want to love you until you are breathless with my love.
“Will you marry me?”
Noelle was crying shamelessly. She dropped the papers he had given her and they scattered in the wind. She let her hands roam in his hair, relishing it, delighting in it. This incredible man was asking her to join lives with his. For the rest of their lives. Forever.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”
He rose to his feet and gathered her in his arms, and then shouted so loud the mountains sent an echo back to them.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for giving me something to hope for.”
It was a long time before they came up for air.
“I guess we should find all those papers,” he said reluctantly.
“What are they?”
“The deed for all this land. We’re going to build our house here one day. And raise our children here.”
“You bought back the McGregor land?”
“Every inch of it.”
“But you’re not a rancher!”
“I can learn. Plus, I figured you probably won’t be able to keep your hands off me if I’m wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse.”
“I can barely keep my hands off you now,” she said wryly.
“Oh, in that case, maybe I’ll just lease the grazing rights.”
It was her turn. “Thank you.”
Not just for the land. In fact that seemed like the least of it. For all of it. For teaching her what love was. For giving her back her sense of family. For renewing her trust in life. For giving her a sense of herself, for allowing her to evolve into a woman worthy of love.
Worthy of him.
They turned, and hand in hand, they chased down all those papers that were scattering in the wind. It seemed those papers were playing with them, leading them on a path that pointed straight to the future.