A Rancher to Remember--A Clean Romance

by Karen Rock

  “What was the best one?” Noah asked through a yawn.

  “My favorite is ‘I Carry Your Heart with Me’ by E. E. Cummings.”

  Her gaze locked with Daryl’s for a heart-pounding moment. It carried him back to that distant Christmas, her warm body snuggled into his before a fire as he’d recited the poem, the words a perfect match, then, for his feelings.

  A long, long time ago.

  Day by day, year by year, Leanne had replaced Cassidy in his heart, love built on shared experiences, trials and joys. What he’d felt for Cassidy had been an untested love, fragile as a bubble drifting on a breeze...not meant to last.

  Not like he’d imagined with Leanne.

  When he’d followed voices down the hall a few minutes ago, he’d momentarily forgotten the accident and had expected to see Leanne with the children. The sight of Cassidy in her place was jarring. Unsettling. Would his heart ever comprehend Leanne was truly gone? How to accept losing a wife who’d already seemed lost to him before the accident?

  “Bleh!” Noah made a face. “I hate hearty-farty stuff.”

  “Can I hear the heart poem?” Emma pleaded.

  “I’m not sure...” Cassidy began. Uncertainty shook her voice.

  “I carry your heart with me,” Daryl began, his eyes stinging as he recited the rest of the poem by heart.

  “That’s beautiful,” Emma sighed when he finished, her eyes growing heavy, her lashes drifting to her cheeks. “I hope someone gives me that book someday.”

  “I wish I could have given it to you,” Cassidy sighed. “But it—uh—got burned.”

  He stared at her in surprise. Had it been destroyed in the car accident? “You still had it?”

  “I carried it with me. Always.”

  Noah made retching sounds, which earned him an elbow from his sister that, in turn, morphed into a shoving match.

  “Kids!” Daryl roared and they instantly subsided. “What’s the rule about bedtime?”

  “Toothbrushes aren’t weapons?” Emma supplied.

  Cassidy seemed to be fighting a smile suddenly and he wasn’t doing much better.

  “The other rule.”

  “No eating Flamin’ Cheetos in bed?”

  Daryl closed his eyes and counted to ten before saying, “No fighting.”

  “What about crying?” Emma asked, her voice tight.

  “If you need to, and you always have me,” Daryl vowed. He patted his shoulders. “These can take on anything—especially tears.”

  “I bet Aunt Cassidy never—” Noah cut himself off with an enormous yawn “—cries. She’s tough.” He twisted around until he faced the wall, his back to his sister.

  “When I grow up I want to be just like Aunt Cassidy,” murmured Emma before her eyes shut for the last time and her mouth slackened.

  A chill swept down his spine as he eyed his little girl. He didn’t want Cassidy’s risky, chaotic life for Emma. Misgivings over his decision to invite Cassidy home swamped him. Clearly, Emma hero-worshipped Cassidy. She might grow too attached and want to follow in Cassidy’s footsteps only to be devastated when Cassidy left.

  “Good night.” Cassidy slipped by him, leaving her familiar scent in her wake. It always reminded him of night-blooming flowers in faraway places. Beautiful and just out of reach.

  Daryl leaned in the doorway and watched his now sleeping children, his heart in overdrive. Cassidy’s positive effect on them was undeniable. She’d gotten them to sleep, even if it was with each other, on time and with the lights off. But the mixed-up feelings he was having for Cassidy, and the way her story turned Emma’s head, had him wondering if it was a good idea to bring Cassidy home after all...

  * * *

  SHARP PAIN LANCED Cassidy’s side as she stretched up to stack another dried dinner plate inside the cabinet a few nights later. She gripped the counter’s edge and waited for the hurt to abate and the room to stop spinning. Nearly a week had passed since her discharge, her healing steady but aggravatingly slow. Her left-eye vision didn’t seem to be improving much and her broken pinkie left her clumsy and unable to grip properly, especially something she’d have to keep steady, like her trusty Canon. Not that it mattered.

  It’d disappeared in the accident with her cell phone, right along with her memory of what’d brought her to Carbondale.

  To Leanne.

  In the background, a grandfather clock rang nine times. Beuford woofed quietly as he dozed by the front door. Down the hall, she pictured Emma and Noah, each asleep in their own beds at last after she’d told them another nightly adventure story. They’d asked her to wish their father, who hadn’t returned from the range yet, good-night.

  She tensed at a noise outside the door.

  Daryl?

  When quiet returned, she drew in a ragged breath, grabbed the dishrag and dried another plate. Living with Daryl had her on edge. Everywhere she looked, especially while staying in Daryl and Leanne’s bedroom, held signs of a shared life together. Everything from their framed wedding photos to the monogrammed hand towels drove home their happiness and their betrayal. Her emotions careened between old anger and fresh grief, to ongoing concern for a mourning Noah and Emma and a strange sense of peace when she cared for the children or lost herself in some domestic chore like drying the dishes.

  She gingerly stowed the plate, closed the cabinet and peered around the snug cabin. It had a rustic, homey feel with dark oak floors and log walls. A leather recliner, matching a three-cushion sofa, sat off to the corner beside deep bookshelves that spanned most of the far wall. The kitchen was separated by an arched entryway, open to the rest of the living room. Every inch of space screamed family, from the photos lining the walls, to the children’s drawings covering the refrigerator door. This was a home, not a house, a life, not a showroom.

  The efficiency rooms she’d stayed in these past ten years blurred together in a sterile composite, the exotic locations she’d traveled to a sharp contrast. Her old life was exhilarating, but lonely in comparison. Staying in one place for a change, on this sleepy, bucolic Rocky Mountain ranch of all places, provided another kind of satisfaction. She was needed in a more personal way than on the world level she normally experienced.

  Beuford barely left her side all week, sticking his nose in her hand, seeking attention and reassurance. As for her nephew and niece, their quiet grief and need for physical contact brought her to tears. The rush of love and desire to comfort them filled her with a maternal protectiveness she’d never encountered before. Her feelings for Daryl, however, were far from straightforward.

  Every time she met his large brown eyes, regret and hurt filled her, as well as sympathy. He grieved his wife, her sister, just like she did. The more time she spent with him, the harder it became to keep from finding common ground.

  Cassidy peeked in on a snoozing Emma and Noah, then let Beuford out the front door. A velvety darkness folded around her, the chill air making her shoulders hunch. She stood at the porch railing, rubbed her hands over her arms to keep warm and stared up at the stars, wondering which one was Leanne.

  Will I ever know why you summoned me? Why you needed your big sister again?

  Growing up, struggling through an impoverished childhood, she and Leanne had clung to one another, survivors, each other’s only lifeline. They’d often talked past their bedtime, Leanne counting off the number of children she’d have while Cassidy had listed the places she wanted to see. Leanne dreamed of home and hearth and Cassidy had longed for adventure and accolades. They’d never imagined their paths would intersect as they did, hadn’t imagined they’d lose each other along the way...and maybe...just maybe, Cassidy had been too harsh on Leanne.

  Yes, Leanne had stolen the man she loved and the life Cassidy might have had, but ultimately, hadn’t Leanne made a tough choice easier? Cassidy loved her career and the chance to fulfill the potential
her father envisioned. Should she have made amends years ago, before it was all too late?

  Or was her grief talking? You couldn’t be mad at someone you lost. Only now she had no sister to forgive and no place for her bubbling emotions to go.

  Beuford’s welcoming bark, followed by footsteps, broke her from her thoughts. Her heart picked up speed at the sight of tall, broad-shouldered Daryl. Shadows shrouded his face beneath his Stetson, but she sensed his fatigue, his sorrow, from the clenched hands filling out his pockets and the bow of his head, as if he walked through a hurricane.

  “Hey,” she called in warning before he started up the steps.

  He lifted his face and his soulful eyes landed briefly on her before swerving away. “Howdy.” His boots stomped heavily on the treads as he climbed. “Did I miss the kids?”

  “They fell asleep about twenty minutes ago. They wanted me to wish you good-night.”

  Daryl stopped on the top step and his scent of horses, leather and the earthy musk of a day’s work made her breathe deep. “Thank you. Getting them to bed’s been difficult since...” He cleared his throat and lifted his gaze to the stars. “I’m supposed to be helping you, but it seems as though you’re the one doing the helping.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  He flicked a sideways glance at her. “Not feeling too hemmed in yet?”

  She ignored the layers of meaning and history in the question and waved her broken pinkie. “My wings are clipped. I couldn’t fly away yet, even if I wanted to.”

  “How’s the pain?”

  “It only hurts when I breathe,” she joked, despite being dead serious.

  “Well, if that’s all,” Daryl teased back, then seemed to catch himself, his half smile disappearing into his beard.

  “I should go in and get some rest.”

  Daryl held up a hand, stopping her. “Travis gave me this. They recovered it from the scene.” From a bag, he pulled out her Canon Rebel T5i.

  Relief turned her knees to jelly. “I thought it was destroyed.”

  Daryl turned it over in his large hands, a look of longing on his face. “It was thrown clear.”

  A shudder tore through her body. Leanne had also been ejected from the car...but not cleanly. Or so she’d been told. Some memories Cassidy hoped never to regain. “Is the investigation report completed?”

  Daryl raised the camera to his eye and sighted her through the lens. “Yes. The swerve marks suggest fast acceleration prior to hitting the rail.”

  “I was speeding?” Her heart burned, sending flames into her throat to scorch her tongue.

  Daryl lowered the camera. “Yes.”

  “So I was negligent. At fault.”

  “We don’t have all the facts yet. Don’t...” He stepped closer and briefly touched the side of her face. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I just want to know what happened. But sometimes, I’m afraid of what I might find out,” she confessed.

  “Me, too.” Daryl shoved the camera at her as if it burned his fingers. “Some things are better forgotten.”

  “Do you still have your camera?”

  “That’s part of my past.”

  She turned his answer over in her mind, hearing what he didn’t say as loudly as his actual words. “Who took the pictures in your living room? The ones of the kids, Leanne, the mountains...?”

  Daryl shifted his weight. “Me.”

  “The composition’s beautiful. You haven’t lost your eye.”

  “I’ve forgotten nearly everything from college,” he said curtly, then strode inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.

  Including me?

  She bit her bottom lip to hold back the ridiculous question. Of course he’d forgotten her. How else could he have turned so easily to Leanne?

  And why was she still returning to their past? Clearly Daryl had moved on and she thought she had, too, until now, when the chance to resolve things with Leanne was lost forever.

  Cassidy raised her camera, adjusted her shutter speed and flash for nighttime and fired off a couple of shots of the orange moon cresting in a purple sky over Mount Sopris.

  Had she made a big mistake coming home with Daryl? It seemed to be opening up old wounds.

  Then again, maybe they’d never healed in the first place.

  She’d avoided Daryl and Leanne all these years because she’d thought she moved on, when clearly she hadn’t.

  Instead of simply enduring or marking the time she was marooned in Carbondale, she should work to find the closure she hadn’t known she needed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CASSIDY FOLDED ONE of the old maternity tops retrieved from the back of her sister’s closet with shaking hands. Across the large master bedroom, Joy opened an oversize plastic bag with a snap and dropped another pile of Leanne’s belongings into it. They’d been organizing things for Goodwill since Noah and Emma left for school this morning. Now the sun stood nearly overhead, the cheery azure sky at odds with their somber task. When the familiar apple blossom scent her sister favored wafted from the garment, Cassidy buried her nose in the soft material.

  Leanne’s voice drifted in Cassidy’s ears, carrying her back to their childhood.

  “What’s your favorite fruit?” Leanne asked as they swung together on an old tire swing munching heirloom apples. They faced each other, sneakers overlapping inside the empty ring, free hands gripping the rope dangling from an overhead branch, a piece of fruit in the others. They still wore their school clothes, and a limp pink ribbon dangled from one of Leanne’s glossy brown braids.

  “Not apples.” Cassidy winged the half-eaten fruit into the fields, then instantly regretted it. Besides her free lunch at school, food wasn’t always a given and her mother didn’t appear to be readying anything for supper. “I’m sick of them. Someday I’m going to eat mangoes. Passion fruit. Papayas.”

  Leanne eyed her golden-hued apple. “How do you know you’ll like them?”

  Cassidy tipped her head back and the wind, generated by the pendulum motion of the rocking tire, lifted her hair from her damp neck. “I don’t know. That’s what makes them exciting.”

  “I’d rather stick to what I know.” Leanne gnawed her apple with small precise bites. “Then I won’t be disappointed.”

  “But think of what you’ll miss...”

  Leanne peered skeptically at Cassidy with a pair of light eyes more silver than blue. “I’d miss apples.”

  “Honey.” Joy’s light pat on Cassidy’s shoulder yanked her from her reverie. “Why don’t you lie down and let me finish up.”

  Cassidy brushed the wetness from her cheeks. “I’m fine,” she croaked, refolding the top and placing it on the appropriate pile.

  “You look pale as a ghost.” Joy passed over a glass of sweet tea. “Drink this.”

  Cassidy obliged and closed her eyes at the first sip of the cool drink. It tasted of sunshine, of cozy chats on long summer nights, of family, friendship...home. She’d missed the taste. Revived, she lifted her lids and met Joy’s concerned gaze. “Better, thanks.” After another sip, she passed the glass back.

  “How are your holding up?” Joy pulled open another dresser drawer and began transferring pajamas into another bag.

  Cassidy drew in an aching breath. Her brain prepared a pat answer that dissolved on her tongue the moment she met Joy’s sincere, hazel eyes. “Sometimes, not so good.”

  “You’ve been very strong for the children. Leanne would be grateful.”

  Cassidy refastened the buttons of another top. “I’m not so sure she’d agree with you.”

  “Because of your history with Daryl,” Joy stated, matter-of-factly, as if it hadn’t been the scandal of the year when he’d dumped one sister to impregnate and marry another.

  “I never forgave her.”

&n
bsp; “Do you now?”

  Cassidy searched her heart, but it slammed the door and turned the latch before she could see inside. “I—I...”

  Joy patted her leg. “It’s okay to still be mad.”

  Cassidy swallowed hard. “Is it? You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, let alone hate them.”

  “Is that how you feel? You hate Leanne?”

  Cassidy’s chest grew impossibly tight. “I’m a monster for saying yes, but I loved—love her, too.”

  “Absolutely not,” Joy said crisply. “Dying doesn’t give us a pass on our mistakes or the wrongs we’ve done, and Leanne wronged you...as did Daryl. I love my stepson, but you love someone despite of the wrongs, not because of...”

  “I’ve never heard that phrase before.”

  “My grandmother always said we like people because of the qualities that please us, but we love people despite the qualities that drive us crazy.”

  Cassidy turned that over in her mind. “Makes sense. I’ll never get to make up with Leanne now.” Her chest grew tight again. They’d never settle their differences, never replace their hateful last words, never hug, kiss or laugh together. Not ever again.

  “She’s still there.” Joy pointed at Cassidy’s heart. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “You think people are still with us after we pass?”

  Joy’s eyes shone, overbright, and her mouth trembled slightly. “I hope so.”

  Cassidy hurried to Joy’s side. “Daryl told me about your mammogram results.” Concern for the blended Cade-Loveland families’ matriarch clenched Cassidy’s heart.

  Joy dipped her head. In the silence, Beuford whined to go outside and the oven timer on a pan of baking brownies dinged. After a moment, she brushed at her eyes and lifted a smiling face. “I’m sure everything will be fine. It’s just a biopsy.”

  “Joy—” Cassidy began but Joy waved her off.

  “I’d better go get those brownies.”