A Gift to Cherish (Road to Refuge Book 2)

by Victoria Bylin

  “I will not go nuts! I will not go nuts!” Daisy’s muttering spilled through the open door.

  Worried, Joan peered into the workspace cluttered with paper, Post-it Notes, purple pens, and photographs of the ranch, both new and old, spread across the side credenza. Daisy was seated at her desk but facing the window instead of the monitor. With her back to the door and earbuds in place, she was pulling her short hair out to the side, her fingers knotted so tight they glistened white.

  “I will not go nuts!” she muttered again.

  “Daisy?” Joan rapped on the doorjamb. “What’s wrong?”

  Spinning around, Daisy shook out the earbuds. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you. I was just—just—”

  “Having a moment?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know you’ve been working hard on the giveaway and the book. Do we need to make some adjustments? I don’t want you pulling your hair out—figuratively or literally.”

  Daisy finger-combed the blond strands back into place. “It’s not the job. I love working here.”

  “Then what is it?”

  The poor girl looked like she’d swallowed a bullfrog. “It’s just—just life.”

  Joan had been around enough young women to know that life’s complications, especially ones that caused exasperated hair-pulling, usually involved men. Thanks to Trey Cochran, she had done some exasperated hair-pulling of her own. “Does this involve Rafe Donovan, by any chance?”

  “It has everything to do with Rafe.” The last word she whispered like an endearment.

  “I see.”

  “You do?”

  “You like him. Quite a bit, it seems.”

  Daisy pressed both hands to her cheeks, as if she were trying to hold herself together. “We’re going out to dinner tomorrow—to the Riverbend Steakhouse. It’s a dress-up date. High heels. The whole bit, and I can’t wait. But if playing Barbies counts as date number two, then we have to have the talk. But if it wasn’t a date—and dinner is date number two—the talk can wait until date number three. But it can’t wait any longer than that, because . . . well, it just can’t.”

  Joan arched a brow. “I’m stuck on ‘playing Barbies.’ You mean the dolls?”

  A sparkle bloomed in Daisy’s eyes, making them even bluer and brighter as she practically swooned. “He came over Tuesday while I was babysitting Hannah. Cody came downstairs, and the four of us played with Barbies and Avenger action figures. We had a blast, then Rafe and I had a serious talk about life and what we believe.”

  “Is he a Christian?”

  “I asked him that, and he said ‘mostly.’” Daisy’s expression turned serious. “He’s not strong in this area, but he’s searching like I did at first. I prayed about it, and I’m okay with getting to know him. This is a friendship first—with a little romance tossed in.” A dreamy look softened her entire countenance, but then she wrinkled her nose. “So does playing with Barbies count as a date?”

  “It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “Did he kiss you good night?”

  Daisy threw back her head, spun the chair once, and broke out laughing. “Did he ever! I can’t even—”

  “That settles it. It counts as a date.” Joan gave herself a pat on the back for playing Cupid when she asked Jesse to assign Rafe to the ranch. “In fact, it sounds like a very nice date.”

  “Oh, it was.”

  “You two have a connection.”

  “Yes, we do.” The words tumbled over themselves. “He makes me laugh, but he can be serious, too. He doesn’t push me at all, but I feel brave when I’m with him. Did you know he’s a police officer?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “It’s dangerous work,” Daisy said quietly. “He’s from Cincinnati. He came out to see Jesse and—and to deal with some stuff from his past. There’s still a lot I don’t know about him, but that’s okay. We’re getting to know each other. He listens—really listens to me. And he’s great with kids— Oh, no!”

  “What is it, dear?”

  “I just said kids.” Daisy collapsed back in the chair and then slumped forward, as if she’d been shot in the heart. “It’s too soon to even think that word!”

  It was all Joan could do not to laugh. If there was anything more gloriously upsetting than falling in love, she didn’t know what it was. Falling out of love was a different experience entirely, but that was a topic for another day.

  Daisy groaned out loud. “That settles it. We need to have the talk. It’s not fair to him—or to me.”

  “I’m not following you, dear. What talk do you need to have?”

  Daisy looked her dead in the eye. “The one where we define the relationship—where I tell him that I’m waiting for marriage, if you get my drift.”

  “Oh, I get it.”

  Decades had passed since Joan felt that hormonal insanity, but the feelings were as timeless as the pull of the moon on the ocean. On the other hand, social mores had changed drastically—and not all for the better, in her opinion.

  She felt a lecture coming on but stifled it. Daisy didn’t need a speech from an irritable old college professor. She needed friends like the women Joan had known in grad school—women who listened to each other, supported and challenged each other. Joan and her three housemates in particular had bonded. The memory of their afternoon “toast parties” put a wistful smile on her face, and she silently celebrated that history and the chance to share some of that wisdom with Daisy.

  Reaching down, she scratched the top of Sadie’s big head. “Sadie and I were about to have a snack. How would you like to continue this conversation in the kitchen?”

  “I’d like it a lot.”

  “Good.” Joan pointed a finger at the computer. “Turn that thing off and join us. You’re done for the day.”

  Before Daisy could reply, Joan left for the kitchen. She gave the dog three salmon treats, then gathered bread, butter, and jam. She placed the items on the table along with the spiffy Cuisinart toaster that looked nothing like the one at that first toast party on a stormy November afternoon back at Cornell.

  Daisy stepped into the kitchen, saw the toaster on the table, and cocked her head. “We’re having toast?”

  “Yes. It’s a tradition.” Joan set down the jar of apricot jam. “It started when I was in grad school and living with my three best friends. We were too busy to cook, but we always had bread and jam on hand. We took to gathering in the kitchen in the late afternoon. Before we knew it, other friends started showing up, and they’d bring their own bread so we always had enough. Some of the best conversations of my life took place in that kitchen.”

  Daisy headed to the Keurig and selected hot chocolate. “Are you still in touch with your roommates?”

  “We all email now and then, and Shirley calls each of us on our birthdays. Jennifer isn’t well, but Linda and I are going strong. In fact, the four of us are planning a reunion cruise in the spring.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Where to?”

  “Alaska, I think. But this conversation isn’t about me.” She indicated the loaves of bread on the table. “Go on. Make some toast and tell me about this conversation you need to have with Rafe.”

  Daisy picked the cinnamon swirl and popped a slice into the toaster. “I just wish it wasn’t necessary.”

  “Are you sure it is?”

  “Definitely.”

  “And why is that?” Joan knew how she’d answer the question. The point was to encourage Daisy.

  “Rafe needs to know what to expect—and not expect—from me. And I need to draw lines to protect myself. I can be impulsive—” The toast popped and startled them both. Daisy gasped, then laughed. “I’m ridiculously nervous about the whole conversation.”

  Joan smiled as she put a slice of sourdough in the toaster for herself. “That’s normal, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, but it’s just so . . . confusing. And scary. I’m scared he’ll dump me because I won’t sleep with him. And I
’m scared he won’t dump me, and I’ll have to be strong enough to stick to what I believe. That’s not easy. Sometimes I wish women still had chaperones—well, not really.”

  “There were pros and cons,” Joan replied. “A woman’s reputation was everything and had to be protected. On the other hand, why was she judged in a different light than a man?”

  Daisy slathered the cinnamon toast with butter, nodding her head vigorously as she wielded the knife. “Definitely a double standard.”

  “We could talk all day about why that double standard existed, but we live in different times now—as we both well know. I’m proud of what the women’s movement has accomplished over the decades, especially regarding property and voting rights, but I fear we solved some problems and created others.”

  “Like what?”

  Joan looked down her nose. “You do realize I taught women’s studies for thirty years? I can bore you for hours on the subject of social change, gender roles, and economic power.” Forget Billy Graham. Now she sounded like Oprah Winfrey.

  “Go for it.” Daisy bit into her toast. “This is the closest I’ll ever come to going to college. I love learning from you.”

  Joan’s heart warmed with the praise—and with the sweetness of being needed again, especially by Daisy, who felt more like a daughter with every passing day. “You have an education, dear. It didn’t result in a college degree, but you have unique and valuable experiences.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You learned some very tough lessons.”

  Daisy chewed her toast thoughtfully. “Very tough. I made some awful choices that I can’t take back. I’m responsible for those, but some of the bad stuff just happened. I worry about Chelsea. She’s pretty serious about a guy she met online. He seems nice, but what if he isn’t? MJ struggled with dating, too. So did my brother but in a different way. Why is it so hard?”

  “Courtship has always been fraught with challenges, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.”

  “The difference now is the level of personal freedom. Thanks to reliable birth control, women have more choices than ever before and so do men. But with freedom comes responsibility—both to one’s self and to others. I worry that my generation put too much emphasis on self and not enough on others. Our focus shifted from moral absolutes to moral relativity, where we each choose our own values. Am I boring you yet?”

  “No!” Daisy wiped crumbs off her fingers with a paper napkin. “I know just what you mean. That’s what ‘defining the relationship’ is all about. Different people want different things. Do you think that’s bad?”

  “Bad? No. But I do think that position fails to ask an important question. Which is . . .?”

  Daisy thought a minute. “I don’t know. What is it?”

  “It’s this: What makes human beings different from the beasts of the field? Did God create us, or did we evolve from the primordial ooze? If we’re created in God’s image, we have a spark of the divine. We have souls. We’re obligated—even driven—to define ourselves through that knowledge of our Creator. My own spiritual seeking brought me to the foot of the cross.”

  “Me too.” Daisy paused with the toast in hand. “Everything changed when I became a Christian.”

  “It did for me as well—and rather drastically.” An image of Trey swaggered into Joan’s mind, but she pushed him away. “Christians choose to define their relationships biblically. But other people won’t agree. If human beings are merely the stew produced in Mother Nature’s kitchen, it’s reasonable to put our individual interests first. And that, I believe, is why ‘defining the relationship’ has become necessary. We live in a world with a cornucopia of beliefs. Some are compatible; others are not.”

  “Wow.” Daisy put another slice of bread in the toaster. “That pretty much says it.”

  “So be brave with Rafe, dear. Stand up for what you believe. Physical attraction has a way of making people forget themselves—and the consequences.”

  Daisy wrinkled her nose in a searching way Joan recognized. “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that I’m not strong—but God is.”

  “Yes, he is. And he made you into the wonderful woman you are now.” Emotions clogged Joan’s throat—good ones that healed one of the fractures in her own heart. “He loves you, Daisy. And so do I.”

  “Oh, Miss Joan—I love you, too.” Daisy reached across the table for Joan’s hand.

  Joan reached back, but they stood and hugged instead. “I’m grateful for you, dear. You’ve become far more than my assistant. You’re the daughter I never had.”

  They stood that way, holding tight, until the toast popped, then they sat and finished the last two slices.

  The toast party was a huge success, but amid the crumbs and smears of butter and jam, Joan was left alone with her memories of Trey. She couldn’t seem to escape him these days.

  Daisy’s shy voice broke through the mist. “May I ask you something?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Trey Cochran . . . Were you in love with him?”

  “Madly. Deeply.” Joan laughed. “I sound like one of those romance novels with overly muscled men on the cover and too many adjectives. But I confess, I do love the clean ones.”

  Daisy ignored the dodge. “But it ended, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. It did. It was my doing. It’s a tale of woe for another time. I’d much rather hear about what you’re wearing for this date.”

  Taking the cue, Daisy chatted about her favorite dress—a short blue-satin sheath with a scooped neck and a rhinestone belt. They agreed it called for her most sparkly earrings, her highest heels, and gentle pink lipstick.

  Despite the distraction, Trey Cochran sauntered back into Joan’s mind. Like that 1990s Celine Dion song, the one Joan used to sing alone in her car, it was all coming back to her now.

  Trey and I didn’t sleep together during that first visit. He stayed strong, and after that heady reunion, I, too, came to my senses. He was still married.

  Still. Married.

  I must have repeated it to myself a thousand times.

  Still. Married.

  Over the next couple of visits, those words stopped me from inviting him to the house for dinner, or being alone with him anywhere for too long. Trey flirted in that cowboy way of his, but he didn’t press me to cross the line we’d drawn. Instead we drove into Refuge and ate at Cowboy’s Cantina at least three times a week. It was brand new back then, and Trey was still enough of a celebrity to have the manager put his photograph on the Cowboy Wall of Fame.

  We also spent a lot of time in the barn with the horses. It was a safe place for us, and we fell into the habit of sharing Graciela’s picnic lunches with the ranch hands who happened by. They all loved Trey and his stories. So did I.

  Over the course of the summer, he delivered horses four times, with each visit lasting three or four days. They all ended the same way—with a long kiss, hope for the future, and his promise that the divorce would be final soon. Then he’d drive home to Texas, where he lived in an apartment while Kathy stayed on their ranch.

  Separated again, we went back to late-night phone calls and talking in the dark—just his voice and mine. I think about that now and wonder what FaceTime would have revealed—if seeing his expression would have clued me in to the ambivalence beginning to brew? I don’t know. Trey was a good actor. But even more to the point, I think he believed every word he told me—until those words stopped being true.

  At this stage, we were mooning over each other and desperate for the divorce to be final. He complained about going to counseling, and I sympathized with him.

  “I can’t stand it, Joanie,” he told me on a hot September night. My window was open wide, and the crickets were singing their hearts out. Trey’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I miss you so much I can hardly stand it.”

  “I miss you, too.” The words were a mere breath, but breath is what sustains life.

  “Forget waiting for the
next horse delivery. I’m sick of waiting, and I’m sick of the drive. I’m flying up this weekend. No hanky-panky. I want to sit with you by the river and just be us.”

  “I’d like that.”

  The crickets kept up their song, but I barely heard them now. My heart was too full of Trey. I loved him. I missed him. I was desperate to move past the divorce and grab hold of the future. Marriage. Children. I wanted it all, and I wanted it with Trey.

  We said our good-byes with sweet anticipation, then hung up on the count of three like we always did. The ritual softened the good-bye, but the click of the phone in its cradle plunged me into a hateful silence. Fury pulsed through me—at our situation, at Kathy, at Trey’s attorneys. Why couldn’t they move faster? Why wouldn’t she let him go?

  But in the next breath, guilt swamped me. If she really wanted the divorce, why was it taking so long?

  Was I stealing her husband?

  Was I betraying everything I believed about women supporting each other as sisters? I wasn’t responsible for the failure of their marriage. They had fallen apart months before Trey and I met. None of it was my fault, but I felt like an accessory to a crime.

  Guilt plagued me day and night—until Trey arrived at the ranch and I saw the deep lines etched on his handsome face. He looked cadaverous, broken, shattered. Couldn’t Kathy see the devastation? Why wouldn’t she let him go? In that moment, I hated her.

  The next day, Trey and I rode to the river. When I asked Graciela to pack a special lunch, she assumed the divorce was final, and I didn’t tell her otherwise. The morning sun burned especially bright that day. I rode my favorite mare, and Trey saddled up one of the rescue horses. We checked out the new pastureland, then we rode farther—farther still—until we reached the river’s edge.

  The silvery water flowed past us at a languid pace. The sun warmed our faces as we ate lunch. When we finished the last of the ripe peaches dripping with juice, I took off my boots, rolled up my Wranglers, and waded into the river. Trey stayed on shore. I sensed him watching me and turned. But it wasn’t me he was watching. His eyes were closed, and the look on his face was one of pure pain.