“We’re living proof that first impressions don’t always count.”
“Wrong.” She stretched up to whisper in his ear. “I never told you what my first impression was.”
“Oh?”
“I came to think you were an arrogant know-it-all, but my thought the very first time I saw you was that I’d pay a lot of money to find out if you could kiss to match your looks.”
“So I was nothing more than a piece of meat.” He tried to hide his grin, but right at that moment she was too cute, too funny, too amazing.
She laughed. “Absolutely true. Pure animal pheromones. Believe it or not, I’m usually much more restrained when it comes to kissing men, but suddenly I can’t help myself. Even weirder, I kind of like you even when I’m not kissing you.”
“So, I didn’t blow that first kiss, obviously.”
“It seems pheromones don’t lie.”
“You won’t believe me when I tell you what my first impression of you was.”
She checked on Jason again before turning back to Gabe. “Tell me.”
“I thought you were the smartest person I’d ever met. I liked the way your voice sounded, and I liked the way you cut to the heart of all the problems without dwelling on maudlin emotions.”
“So I wasn’t a piece of meat? A simple object for pleasure?” She almost looked disappointed.
“You were not. Until you decided you didn’t like me and I found out how beautiful you were when you were frustrated and furious. Then, all I wanted was to fluster you. I would have kissed you back then, but that would have been highly inappropriate.”
“It definitely would have been that.”
“Come to dinner with me tonight,” he said, out of the blue. “After we work with London. After the guys head home. Leave your family.”
“A date?”
They hadn’t really had an official one. Everything had been wrapped up in work, or Joely, or the horses. He’d eaten here at Paradise often, but he’d never officially asked her out.
“A date,” he confirmed.
“I might like that—” A shrill melody cut her off. Her frown returned as she stepped back from the fence and dug for her phone in her pocket. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s Brooke.”
A shiver of dread crawled down his spine as he waved for her to take the call. When she’d listened several moments, she put a hand to her mouth.
“Oh, Brooke, no!”
Dread landed in his gut and slowly solidified into rock hard certainty of disaster.
“Is he all right?” Amelia asked, a tear streaking her dusty cheek. “Did he get to see her before she was gone?”
Rory’s mother had died. Amelia hadn’t shared a lot of detail about the child, but enough that Gabe knew she took her friendship with the boy and his mother seriously. He left her momentarily, broke into a trot around the perimeter of the round pen and found the gate. As he entered the pen, Brewster watched, his hand frozen on the rope beneath Ollie’s chin.
“What’s wrong? He asked.
“Something in New York.”
Gabe encircled Amelia’s shoulders without interrupting her call, and led her out of the pen to a long, low bench normally used as a mounting block. He urged her to sit and, with great effort, left her alone to finish the conversation. She needed to say whatever was in her heart. As much as he wanted with every fiber of his being to stay and help her fix the problem, she didn’t need him there stymying her emotions. They were sometimes hard enough for her to show.
He explained the situation to Jason, who left with Ollie, promising to check in later and find out how Mia was doing. By the time she came to Gabe and slipped her arms around his neck, they were alone.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Really, really sorry. I know you expected her to get better.”
“Rory got to see her two days ago. She passed away early this afternoon.”
Her voice held no tears, no choked words, just a flat disbelief, as if she was trying to pull together her calm, impartial doctor’s demeanor.
“That’s good. You helped that happen. Now don’t try so hard to keep it together.”
“Oh, I have no choice now but to do exactly that.” Despite her words, tears dripped from the side corner of each eye. Gabe brushed them away with his thumb. “Rory doesn’t have anyone else to keep things together for him.”
“You’ll see him when you get back. You can be strong then. He’s got people to look after him right now.”
At that her voice finally broke.
“There’s something you don’t know. Something I . . . ” She sniffed and wiped her nose and mouth with jacket sleeves pulled over her hands. “Something I neglected to tell you.”
“Okay. Tell me now,” he said gently.
“Monique named me Rory’s legal guardian. And now, they’re sending Rory here to me.”
THE LOOK ON his face couldn’t have been more clichéd: eyes gone immediately wide, jaw slackened just enough so words couldn’t be formed, head thrust forward as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. Mia would have laughed—in understanding if not humor—if she hadn’t been numb and so utterly sad.
“I know,” she said, before he regained his speech. “I found out only a week or so before I left. I told them I didn’t believe it. I told them I was the totally wrong person. I was, am, a friend, nothing more.”
“Apparently the mother didn’t think so.”
She railed at his generic labeling of Monique, but she couldn’t muster any extra emotion to call him on it. “Monique,” she said dully.
“Sorry. Of course, Monique.” Another pause. “They’re sending the . . . Rory here?”
“He has nowhere else to go. The foster parents he’d been with have adopted a child, and they don’t have room any longer. He’s been at a halfway-type house for the past four days and he’s begging to stay with me, I guess. He’s coming on Sunday. They’re not even having a funeral or service for his mom.”
“There are no relatives?”
“Monique has a stepbrother in Florida, I think. But they were estranged. Her parents are gone. She was pretty much an orphan she used to say. Except for Rory.”
Telling the heartbreaking story brought tears welling up again in her eyes. She hated the weakness. Hated the system and fate for leaving a traumatized little boy without a safe, real home. And she detested the emotions that clouded her ability to make sense of the situation. She had no idea what to do or what to think.
And then a long, strong arm pulled her into a harbor that stopped her emotional sea from roiling, that protected her from the November chill, and that smelled of wind and pine spice. She breathed in and held Gabe’s scent in her lungs like curative vapor. Tears trickled down her cheeks, but they relieved her.
“Why are they sending him all the way here?” he asked. “If they think you’re coming back in two weeks?”
The stark question filled her with despair. Not because Rory was coming, but because the thought of returning to New York put a hole in her stomach that reached all the way to her heart. An inelegant sob disguised as a hiccup escaped, and Gabriel pulled her tighter to his body.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Even though this is insensitive given the circumstances, I don’t want you to go back. Not yet, child or no child. I want to explore this, whatever it is we’ve started, but it’s selfish, I know. So, why go to the expense of flying the boy to Wyoming?”
He didn’t want her to go. The knowledge astounded her.
He’d seemed so cavalier about the fling they were having. Easy, breezy, fun, and funny. He’d watch the horse, he’d watch the men, he’d wait for her to visit.
Or maybe that was her self-protective projection of his attitude. They’d never talked at all about the day she would leave. How would she know what he wanted?
“If I’m going to take care of him, Social Services needs to be able to close out his file by saying they believed Rory was going to a safe environment. Since he’ll
presumably be traveling here with me regularly, they might as well check it out. My friend Samantha can already vouch for my situation in New York.”
“And they’ll turn him over to you just like that?”
“That’s the system for you. They’ll be lucky, space- and funding-wise, to have him off their hands. No other relatives are contesting the will. If I say yes, he’s one less problem for them.”
“Do you want to say yes?”
She pulled loose from his arms and met his eyes, hot-chocolate brown and just as comforting. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
She half expected him to continue with practical questions and even more practical reasons she shouldn’t be thinking hard about letting Rory come, and she found herself steeling for the onslaught of reason. The truth was, she wanted nothing more than to have Rory come. Where better to see how they could get along than during the last of her vacation, when she didn’t have to shuttle him off to school, or day care.
School.
She covered her eyes again as an avalanche of practical difficulties slammed into her. Day care. Health insurance. Sleeping arrangements. The cat. Buying clothing. Living with a child and knowing nothing even remotely about how to deal with one. Dealing with his grief. Dealing with . . .
“Hey,” Gabriel said. “You’re shaking like ghosts are chasing you with ice water.”
His voice, filled with gentle humor, slowed her involuntary quaking and pulled a laugh from her.
“Only one ghost—saying she expects me to take care of her son and not screw it up. Oh, Gabe, Rory is an amazing kid, and I have to honor Monique’s wishes. But I don’t know how to raise a partially grown boy. I can’t even deal with people I work with. I was told so unequivocally. How am I going to keep my patience with someone day after day?”
“First of all, you don’t have to do anything. Your job is to do what’s best for Rory. And if that’s letting him stay with you, then you don’t have to be perfect. No parent is.”
“How are you such an expert?”
“I have parents. My friends have parents. You have one. I’ve already heard how imperfect your father was—yet, look at you.”
He pushed her back from his embrace and cupped her face in his hands. His cheeks held a slight burn from the wind, his nose was just starting to tip with red, and his hair had been mussed by the breeze. She leaned into his touch.
“Look at me,” she scoffed. “A mess and a half. Nothing in my training prepared me for this.”
“No. But that’s not a bad thing. You stay in your safe career track because you don’t trust that you can handle things outside of the hospital and your relationships with your patients. But you’re so wrong, Amelia. You’re a great teacher, a caring sister, a loving daughter, a hell of a kisser . . . ”
“Swell.” She laughed in spite of herself.
“This is my point. Your father didn’t mess you up. Your parents together raised a brilliant girl who became a special woman. They didn’t know any more when they started than you do now.”
“They started from scratch, though.”
“Not a requirement.”
“So you think I should do this?”
“I can’t answer that for you. But I think you should welcome Rory for now. He needs you, and I can tell you need to do this. This doesn’t have to be permanent. This isn’t about doing something because you owe it to a woman who passed away. It’s about doing what’s best. You can’t know what that is until you give the situation a try.”
She covered his hands on her cheeks with her fingers. “How do you do this whole sensitive guy thing so well?”
“It’s what I do all day at work—solve problems, use logic, pretend I’m a therapist.” He laughed.
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Oh, no. Babe, this is most definitely not easy. This is life-changing. But.” He brushed her lips with his. A thrill zipped through her body. “You are a tigress. You can do this.”
For an instant the power of his words filled her, and she believed him. After that, she stared into his eyes, dumbstruck. How had this happened? This man, in just over two weeks, had turned her life into a screenplay by Nora Ephron—or Nora Roberts. She couldn’t believe she’d won such a fantastic leading lady role. Couldn’t believe she was watching the plot unfold as if it were real. But it wasn’t really real. The movie was going to end sooner or later.
And she’d have to go home.
Chapter Eighteen
THEY DIDN’T CANCEL their date, and to Mia’s surprise, they laughed all through dinner. Instead of the fancier Basecamp Grill steakhouse in Wolf Paw Pass, Mia opted for Dottie’s Bistro, the homespun diner owned by Dottie French, whose family had been in the Jackson area almost as long as the Crocketts. Mia hadn’t been into the restaurant yet this visit, and Dottie greeted her with squeals, hugs, and kisses in a familiar ritual that usually left Mia tolerating it the way a kid tolerated an overly touchy-feely relative. This time the small-town greeting left her warm and glowing. It seemed, having a community around her when she was hurting felt far better than toughing it out alone.
She and Gabriel ate comfort food to go along with the comfort of Dottie’s welcome. Gabe, who Dottie claimed was one of her favorite people in the world, ordered meatloaf with a huge side of mashed potatoes and gravy. Mia ordered beef pot pie—full of locally raised beef, vegetables, thick creamy gravy, and delicious calories she didn’t even want to estimate.
After regaling her with stories of getting into regular scrapes with his older brother George—and making her stomach ache from laughter on top of stuffing it with dinner, Gabriel ordered bread pudding for dessert. Despite her protests, not a single drop of rich praline topping remained on her plate when she dropped her fork drunkenly onto the table.
“I can’t believe this,” she said. “I’ve been eating like a mustang since I got to Wyoming.”
“It’s a night for overindulging. Not that I haven’t been eating like a horse myself since I started coming around Paradise Ranch for dinners. Are there nothing but gourmet cooks in your family?”
“Just the triplets, with their bakery-slash-organic-foods restaurants in Denver. They learned most of their mad culinary skills from my mother. Harper cooks, too. Grandma Sadie and I are the only ones who don’t do much in the kitchen. The triplets usually cook mean and lean, but it’s been a calorie-fest the past two weeks. And now I’ve eaten as many tonight as in the past ten days combined.”
“We can walk a few off before I take you home. Let’s see who’s jumping the gun on Christmas decorations.”
“Ugh. Christmas. How will I handle Christmas if I have a small person living with me? What do I know about kids and Santa? Does a ten-year-old still believe in Santa?”
He laughed. “Some do. What about you? Do you believe in Santa?”
She scoffed. “Sure. Why not?”
“I’m serious. Do you have a magical spirit or a totally realistic spirit?”
“Totally realistic. How could you not know that even after the little time you’ve known me?”
“I think I do know. I just don’t think you know.”
She pushed her chair back and stood with a groan. Gabriel picked up the bill, which got paid the old-fashioned way by bringing it to a cashier at the front of the restaurant. “Let me help with that.”
“Absolutely not. This is a strictly old-fashioned date. And here’s a perfect example. You think you’re practical and realistic, but deep down inside, I know you’d love to just let Prince Charming whirl you away for a while.” He winked and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair.
“Oh, I would.” She closed her eyes momentarily and sighed. “Do you know him? Prince Charming? Can you set me up?”
“Oh, nice, Amelia.” He got to her jacket before she did and held it open for her. “As if I’d introduce you to any other Prince Charming.”
“You worried about your competition?”
“Hell yeah.”
<
br /> She wrapped her arms around his bicep and leaned into him. “You probably don’t have to. Worry.”
He snorted his laughter. “Great. Then I probably won’t.”
He led her to the cash register between the restaurant section and the mountain lodge–themed bar area. It was Friday-night busy, laughter and voices carrying from the solid pine bar and the high-top tables scattered through the space. On the far wall, a large TV screen carried the local news.
“It’s so good having you back for a while, Mia.” Dottie finished ringing up the check and Gabriel signed the slip.
“It’s been interesting,” Mia said. “Different without Dad.”
“He’s sorely missed, I’ll tell you that.”
“I’m sure. He loved this place.”
“Friday breakfasts. Almost without fail. I’m so sorry.”
Mia was, too. Especially now in light of what Rory must be going through, she was acutely aware of how much she’d taken her father’s omnipresence for granted. Tough, gritty, no-holds-barred Sam Crockett should have been indestructible. Maybe if she’d come back more often, or if she’d spoken to him a little more intimately after she’d gone to school—
She halted her thoughts abruptly. She knew better than to go there. She saw too much guilt in her job, too many “if only I’d dones” to let herself fall into the trap. Everyone had regrets. And, her father hadn’t come to her either.
“Everything all right?” Dottie asked. “Sorry to bring up sad memories.”
“Oh. No, no, everything’s fine. It’s good to think about Dad. Don’t stop bringing up memories, Dottie. Truly.”
The older woman smiled, a hint of shine in her eyes. “Sam was a lucky man. He raised a beautiful family. And now,” she scanned Mia’s hold on Gabriel’s arm, “you’re meeting the locals. Can I hope that means you might be staying on with us a while?”
Mia felt the blood rise to her cheeks, and she looked up at Gabriel, surprised to find him unaware of her conversation with Dottie, his eyes focused on something in the bar.
“I’m afraid not,” Mia said. “Gabriel and I are just friends. I have to return to New York in a couple of weeks.”
The Bride Wore Red Boots Page 22
