The Bride Wore Red Boots

by Lizbeth Selvig

  “Something a little different from a year ago,” Harper said, wrangling everyone’s attention with her sweet voice. “A salute—to new family members. Damien, Jason, and Pat, whom we’ve adopted.”

  “To Cole!” Kelly said. “He’s not new, but now he’s officially part of the family.”

  “Gabe,” Mia said with a flush of pride. “He’s wormed his way in. And, of course, a very special new member, the newest guy in my life, Rory.”

  “Now everyone fill up your glass again,” Harper said. “Just like these guys fill up our lives.”

  The schmaltzy show was a huge success. Cheers rang out and glasses were filled with wine, water, and juice. When the hubbub died down again, Leif took a turn calling for attention.

  “We haven’t had a new young person around her for a long time,” he said. “And he’s been pretty quick to adopt us all. One thing Skylar has discovered is that Rory here has been bitten by the horse flu. He likes his rides. So, we have an early Christmas present out front. Rory, you want to come and see?”

  When Rory saw the black-and-white pony tied to one of the huge old pin oaks on the front lawn, his mouth hung in a silent O.

  “One of our neighbors has been keeping this guy since his own kids got too big to ride him. He wanted a good home where someone could really use him again. Rory, that’s you. Think you want to learn to get along with a pony named Panda?”

  Mia had more tears in her eyes than Rory did when he took Skylar’s hand and followed her with hesitant disbelief. He looked quickly back at Mia and she nodded. When he reached Panda, he stared a minute, then threw his arms around the pony’s neck.

  “Really?” he asked. “Really?”

  “Yup, really,” Skylar said. “He’s here for you whenever you come and visit.”

  “I’m not coming to visit. I’m staying right here with him.”

  She felt Gabe’s presence without a single touch from him. He stood behind her and, finally, put a hand on her shoulder. She leaned against his chest and tilted her head back to gaze at the underside of his chin. Stiff, sexy stubble shadowed his skin.

  “Is this a good idea?” he asked.

  Surprised, she frowned. “Look at him. It’s a wonderful idea.”

  “You’re rooting him to this place. Isn’t it going to be hard on him to leave?”

  She smiled secretively. “About that.”

  “Now’s not the time to talk about it.”

  A tiny bubble of frustration rose in her chest and threatened to blossom into anger. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “I might not be a therapist, but I know bullshit when I hear it.”

  It was his turn to look stunned. “That was rude.”

  “You’re being a little bit rude yourself. Care to explain, or do you want me to tell you what I think?”

  “Mia . . . ” He spun her around and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I . . . ”

  “You’re wrong.” She cut him off. “This is a perfect time to end this.”

  “End . . .?”

  She’d been purposely obtuse, but he deserved the look of utter destruction in his eyes. Mia whispered to Harper that she had something else for Rory and she and Gabe were going to the barn to get it. A blatant lie, but desperate times . . .

  She grabbed Gabriel’s hand and pulled him after her, headed for the barn.

  “Mia, what—”

  “No talking yet.”

  She led him all the way to the door of the cabin and finally stopped. With a deep breath she faced him. “Now,” she said. “Talk.”

  “I’m trying to reconcile you leaving with all the sugarcoated family stuff everyone is gobbling up back there. A pony, for God’s sake.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Nothing. Nothing, Mia. I just want to know why you’re making you and Rory slipping back out of my life so damn painful. It’s like promising him Santa is real when he’s not.”

  “Have you ever thought that maybe Santa is real?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, Gabriel, that this could work, you and me. If you want it to.”

  “Long distance doesn’t work. Not over the long haul. You can’t have someone two thousand miles away asking you to divide your passions.”

  “That’s it? That’s what you have to offer me?”

  “I’m not standing in the way of your dream. I refuse.”

  “I don’t believe it. Where are the balls you said you grew that day Rory arrived? What about having my back?”

  He shuffled on his feet, the fierce light of anger flaring in his eyes, reddening his cheeks even more than the cold air. Mia found the door key and let them into the cabin.

  “I have your back,” he said. “I want your dreams for you—they’re a lot older than the little attraction we’ve started here. I’m not going to make another mistake by letting you make a mistake.”

  She’d come down here to surprise him. To let him be depressed until she made it all better. But this? This was a decision carefully thought through and planned. The idiot was breaking up with her before even discussing the matter. It stunned her how painful the wound was.

  “I don’t believe it. Ever since I met you you’ve been fighting for something. You’re like this Energizer Bunny Warrior for every underdog you meet. My sister, my mother, your squad of misfits who nearly got you fired before they figured it out. You don’t care—you’re a safety net for everyone. But here I come, with problems that aren’t even problems and you pack it in without lifting a finger much less a sword to rescue us. Where’s the fight for us? Where’s my safety net?”

  “You have more safety nets than I could ever provide,” he said, anger still flashing. “Your job, a child who needs you, a city full of sophisticated prospects. I belong here—with the misfits. You have a world there. You belong to it. Go grab the future.”

  She almost let tears fall, but she held resolutely firm. Her decisions and all the plans she’d been so excited to tell him about suddenly felt very unsteady, but her anger remained true.

  “My father used to tell me what I should do and where I belonged, Gabriel. Don’t you dare go there. How about I finally get to decide where I belong?”

  “Fine.”

  She scoffed in retort. “Fine. You talk about grabbing the future. What about yours? When are you going to grab it by fixing the past? When are you going to send those letters you’re so afraid of? Don’t make all these plans for me when you’re—”

  “I sent them two weeks ago.”

  His voice had quieted. His words weren’t strong or even proud. He just told her.

  “You . . . you did?”

  “The day before Rory arrived.”

  “Have you heard anything?” She held her breath.

  “No.”

  “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Dead silence filled the cabin. She could hear him breathing. Almost hear their hearts beating.

  “Why do you want to push me back to New York?”

  “I don’t.”

  “You must; you never asked me to stay. Do you even want me to stay?”

  He grabbed her with all his old forcefulness. With a deep-diving thrill from her heart to her stomach, she watched his eyes blaze to life, and with it came a little bit of hope. His mouth crushed hers with heat and passion and the hot, angry taste of him. She poured her feelings back to him, delving, fighting, pleading, until at last he gentled. He cupped her face and worked his jaw, his tongue, his body into the kiss. She groaned when one hand dropped to her breast and kneaded through all the layers—more erotic than if he’d mined through the fabric to find her skin. She pushed into his touch. She sent her own hand slipping around to his seat and pulled him to her, thrusting forward to meet him. He moaned and pulled away.

  “You said I didn’t fight for us. You’re wrong, Amelia. I fought harder than anything I’ve fought for in my life. The trouble is, I fought myself. I’ve tr
ied to be everything I’m not—selfish, superficial, wounded, sorry, unsure. I didn’t want you to think I’m any of those things. But guess what? I’m all of them.”

  “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

  “Stop. It is the truth, and I’m done blowing smoke up everyone’s ass. I’m superficial, Mia. I want it all. I want stuff. Things like a home, and bikes in the yard, and messes in the kitchen, and fences, and mortgages to pay for it all.

  “And I’m wounded. I’m angry that I lost Jibril. I haven’t forgiven myself, and I’m tired of pretending I haven’t. I’m not stoic and happy and healed. Damn it, I’m not. But I will be. Someday. You’re the only one who’s ever made me take even two steps in that direction.

  “And finally? I am selfish, Mia. I’m damn selfish. You asked if I want you here. You bet your kids, dogs, and stupid new ponies I do. More than anything. I can’t tell you how pissed off I was that you wanted to go back to New York more than you wanted to stay with me. Hell, I’m still pissed off. And I’m not sorry. Because it’s honest—the first honest thing I’ve felt since falling in love with you. So go and get your dream. But I’m no longer going to even pretend to be happy about it.”

  Mia sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit down to keep tears and laughter from giving her away too quickly. She looked deeply into Gabe’s face without saying a word. He didn’t flinch. No defiance shone in his eyes. Clear, unapologetic, uncensored Gabriel Harrison looked back at her, and all she saw was truth and love.

  “So ask me.”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Stay here. I don’t want you to go back. I don’t want Rory to go back. I want you to live here where your home is.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said quietly. “Because I turned down the job.”

  Epilogue

  “LOOK! THERE’S GRAND Teton!” Mia laughed as Rory popped out of his half-slumber in the back seat of the new Silverado, Gabe’s pride and joy, and pressed his nose against the window. He’d learned his Wyoming geography well.

  “Not far, now,” Gabe said. “Ready to be home?”

  After three weeks in New York and five days each way on the road, they were all ready to be home. Pulling the loaded U-Haul trailer, filled with the contents of Mia’s condo, across country, had thoroughly broken in the Chevy, the newest addition to the fleet of Paradise Ranch work vehicles.

  “I’m ready to see Jack. And Panda. And Buster.”

  Buster. The fuzz ball of a black lab-slash-something-something-and-maybe-a-little shepherd mutt Rory had begged to bring home when a school mate’s dog had birthed surprise puppies. He was named for the New York Buster, who now had a full-time job in Queens and an address where Rory could send mail.

  “Do you think Harper has taught him not to chew since we’ve been gone?” Mia asked.

  The dog was almost two months old. He wouldn’t be done chewing for another two years.

  “Doubt it,” Rory said, and Mia laughed.

  She reached for Gabe’s hand and gestured out the window to the wild, rolling hills between the highway and the national park. A sheen of pale green graced the undulating landscape and the mountains in the distance wore caps of snow that had shrunk considerably since Gabe and Mia had left with Rory the first week of March. “Look how gorgeous Wyoming is in April. It actually looks like spring.”

  “There was a reason I moved out here,” he said and squeezed her fingers. “What do you think, Rory? Still don’t regret moving away from New York?”

  “Not for a New York minute.” He repeated the phrase he’d learned during their whirlwind trip.

  The landscape wound past, and Mia’s contentment, which she wouldn’t have guessed could get any higher, rose with every familiar landmark. The job at the VA with Perry Landon was hers starting in May, the hours far less than what she’d endured—because now she looked at her old life as an endurance run she’d mistaken for success—in New York; Harper and Cole had set a wedding date for mid-May, six weeks away; and Joely was finally making progress in rehab. Mia loved being home to witness all of it.

  She didn’t immediately notice when Gabe pulled off the highway and swung the truck and trailer easily onto a flat overlook out of sight of the road.

  “Recognize this?” Gabe asked.

  “Of course.” She smiled. “Where we watched those mustangs that night back in November. The ones that started it all. But, why?”

  “We need to have a few things understood by the time we get home,” he said. “I have a couple things to ask you.”

  “What?” Rory asked. “Do you want to finally get a horse, too?”

  “Yeah!” Mia laughed. Gabe had stubbornly refused to get his own horse until, as he put it, he knew it was the right moment—whatever that meant. “You want to ask Santa for a pony.”

  “In April?” Gabe asked. “That makes no sense. I’ll tell you what makes sense. Come on. Out of the truck. Stretch the legs a sec.”

  “We’re almost home—”

  He cut her short with a finger to her lips. “Just get out.”

  They made their way around a grassy hillock, and Mia gazed out across the rolling hills. Closing her eyes, she remembered the tiny band of mustangs that truly had led to everything.

  “The guys asked me to make a proposal,” he began.

  Her heart lurched. “Proposal?”

  “Sorry, their kind of proposal. They want to start another program at the ranch—one where more injured vets can come and work with horses—either temporarily or to try and adopt a mustang like they did. They’ve got it all planned—a private enterprise, not funded by the VA. I promised I’d plant the seed of the idea. What do you think?”

  She laughed.

  “I think it’s got great potential. It’s a wonderful idea, and I’d like to hear their details. And,” she kissed him, “I think you could have asked me that in the truck.”

  “That, yes. But not this. This is my new proposal.”

  She stared, her heart leaped again, higher this time, and pounded harder as Gabe dug into his jacket pocket, produced a small white box, and sank to one knee in front of her. Rory’s mouth popped open, and he flew to Gabe’s side, peering into the box as he flipped it open.

  “Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!” Rory hopped in place with each exclamation and then vaulted onto Gabe’s back, hugging him around the neck.

  “Amelia Crockett, will you marry me?” Gabe made a choking sound and grinned.

  She burst into tears.

  “Mia?” Rory asked, turning worried eyes on her. She nodded at him and, grinning and snuffling, held up a hand to show she was okay. She couldn’t remember ever being so stereotypically female as to actually erupt into crying, but Gabe had shattered the last walls that existed in her heart. “What’s wrong with her?” Rory swiveled his head and beseeched Gabe.

  “She’s happy. I think.”

  “Wow. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.” He grinned with relief.

  “Yes.” She managed the word at last. “It might be dumb, but yes.”

  “Yes what?” Gabe asked, teasing.

  “Yes, I’m happy. Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”

  With a whoop only a ten-year-old boy could produce, Rory released his neck hold on Gabe and spread his arms, preparing to zoom off like a plane. Gabe snared his hand and stopped him midtakeoff. “Wait. I’m not done with you, kid.”

  He stood and then squatted directly in front of him. “I have a question for you, too. Rory Beltane, I’d like to know if, when I marry Mia, who I know is your favorite person in the world, you would also let me be your dad.”

  Rory stood still as the rocks and mountains surrounding them, his zooming wings temporarily grounded. He nodded somberly, and then he burst into tears.

  “See?” Mia squatted beside him, too, and reached for Gabe, capturing Rory in their embrace. “This crying thing? It’s not so dumb after all, is it?”

  “I . . . I’ll have a dad.”

  “The best one.” It was
an easy promise.

  “If Gabe is my dad . . . Will you be my mom?”

  Tears welled anew and Mia swallowed, gaining time to find her composure. “I’ll never be the same as your real mom,” she said. “You’ll always remember her, and she’ll be your guardian angel up in heaven until you see her again. But, yes, I would like to be your mom here on Earth. If you want that, too.”

  Rory’s tears were gone by the time his hug confirmed that he definitely wanted it, too.

  They let him loose then, and he revved his happily screechy engine and zoomed off toward the open grasslands, a little wild mustang, finally free and safe.

  “What a way to start,” Gabe said, sliding his arms around Mia and pulling her close. “I might be crazy. We’re probably all crazy. But instant family feels pretty right to me.”

  “Incredibly right,” she agreed, holding up her hand and inspecting the glittering circlet on her finger with awe.

  “Can you handle one more piece of news?”

  She drew back. “Good or bad?”

  “Bad?” he asked. “Really? You think I’d follow all this with bad news?”

  She laughed. “This all seems like it could be puffed away like dandelion seeds if I’m not careful to stay asleep. I’m sure something’s going to start blowing on my good dream any second.”

  “You’re not dreaming.”

  Stepping back, he pulled a square-folded paper from his back jeans pocket. He bit a lip and stood a moment. “Harper texted me that an envelope came from the embassy in Iraq four days ago. I asked her to open it.”

  “Oh, Gabe.” Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Then I asked her to e-mail me what she found. I printed it at the hotel we were at night before last. She sent me these three sheets.”

  He handed her the papers and she unfolded them carefully. The top was a brief, one line letter on US Embassy letterhead.

  “Dear Gabe,” Mia read. “Success can be sweet. Paul.”

  She looked up, her breathing coming with even more difficulty. Gabe nodded, urging her to keep going. She turned to the second sheet, a much longer typed page.