Rocky Mountain Shelter

by Vivian Arend

  A snort of disbelief escaped. “I haven’t done anything but screw up.”

  Her fingers curled around a fistful of his shirt, tightening as if she could hold him in place. “You keep saying things I don’t understand.”

  Trevor took her in, her shining eyes, all of her so strong and resilient, and this crazy sensation rippled through him. The realization that if she wasn’t in his life it would be like giving up oxygen.

  “I feel like I’ve let you down,” he admitted, ready and willing to do anything necessary to make sure he stopped being such a fool. “I’m sorry, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make it up to you.”

  “There you go again, making no sense.” Becky cupped his face in her hands. “You’ve never let me down. You’re the most incredible man I know.”

  He shook his head, or he tried to, but found himself trapped by a set of steel vises that refused to budge. She was glaring at him now, a spitfire mix of anger and delicious attitude as she held him firmly and refused to let go.

  “I never do anything important,” Trevor insisted. “I’m just me.”

  “Trevor Coleman, you listen to me, and you listen to me good. I don’t know what it is you thought you needed to do to be important, because for the last four months you have been exactly the kind of man I needed in my life. And if you think what you were doing wasn’t good enough, we’re going to stand right here in the middle of this stinking field until you get your head out of your ass and admit that you’re perfect for me.”

  “Oops, Rodeo, you swore.” The quip escaped before he realized it, and her lips twitched into a smile. “Stop that,” he ordered.

  “I can’t, because that was my Trevor, teasing me and making me smile even as he’s so careful to make sure I’m happy and not afraid.” Becky slipped her arms around his waist, leaning their torsos together as she tilted her head back to stare into his eyes. “You can’t fix everything for me. You can’t fix everything for everyone else all the time, either, but you do an awful lot of good just being yourself. Making people smile, whether it’s because you’re poking them or offering them your truck.”

  “Offering them my truck is poking someone,” he admitted. She waited as he tried to think of the simplest way to explain it. “When you get car insurance, they look at a chart to see how risky it is to own a vehicle in the area. I told them they were crazy to have Rocky in the same category as Calgary or Edmonton. I bet them I could leave the keys in the truck, even offer for strangers to drive her, and I’d still have no accidents for a year.”

  “You made a bet?”

  He nodded. “They changed the zoning for the entire area in June because of it.”

  Becky’s lips curled upward. “You’re perfect,” she repeated. “For me, and for the rest of your crazy family.”

  There had to be something he could blame for what happened next. Like maybe a short circuit between his brain and mouth, because suddenly the words escaping were exactly what he’d been thinking, but they were popping out at what had to be the shittiest moment ever.

  “Marry me.”

  This time it was Becky’s eyes that widened. “Wha…what?”

  Jeez. He’d only missed a half-dozen steps.

  “I’m such a damn fool.” He kept her close, standing there in the dirt as he tried to straighten this out. “Let me try that again. Becky, I love you. Will you marry me?”

  Her mouth still hung open in surprise. “Trevor?”

  The stupid part was he hadn’t said it before now. “Is that so impossible to believe? This is me, being a perfect Trevor, and I’m announcing that in spite of feeling like I have nothing to offer you, I still want this more than anything. I want to be with you. Because I love you.”

  “Am I imagining this?” She blinked hard, seeming dazed.

  “I didn’t expect to fall in love,” he admitted, “but hell, Rodeo, you snuck right in and lassoed my heart.”

  Talk about impossible things. Waiting for Becky to respond seemed to take hours even though seconds after he’d spoken, she slipped her hands up his arms until she was once again hugging his neck. “I love you too.”

  Exchanging I love yous while standing ankle-deep in well-manured soil. Damn if he wasn’t the most romantic man on the face of the earth.

  He picked her up, holding her tight as he kissed her. Her fingers around his neck, squeezing him close as a sweet breeze blew through the garden, sending his hat flying and ruffling Becky’s hair around them both.

  Becky smoothed her fingers through his hair as he settled her back on her feet. “Listen to everything I say before you get mad. Yes, I love you, and yes, I want to be with you, but no, I won’t marry you.”

  Trevor waited for a punch line, but none came. “You better explain a little more.”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t make a very good wife.”

  “You said that about not making a good girlfriend, and look how well that turned out.” Trevor wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the set of horseshoes he possessed at the moment, but while he had the advantage, he was going to push aside all of his doubts and get everything he wanted. “I don’t want to just be with you, I want it to be official. On paper and with the government.”

  What he wasn’t saying must have rung through loud and clear because she swallowed hard. “Will you stop being so damn perfect?”

  He raised a brow at her swear.

  Becky ignored him, building up a head of steam so she could roll him over with her protests. “It’s not fair for you to marry me. I still don’t like sex, even though that might get better down the road. And if we don’t have sex, I can’t have children, and I don’t know if I can have them anyway, because if I didn’t get pregnant in five years, chances are I can’t.”

  Trevor listened to her breathless complaint carefully. “Do you want kids?”

  “Not right away. I want to do so much first. There are so many things that I haven’t learned yet.”

  He nodded. “I’ve always joked about not liking kids, but I’m kind of on the fence now. I still don’t really like other people’s, but I think if you and I had some, that would be fine. And if we didn’t, that would be just fine as well.”

  There should be smiles or laughter happening, but Becky was still not cooperating.

  “So you want to be together, but not be married…?”

  “I want…” She frowned. “I don’t know what I want, but I don’t like sex.”

  Trevor snickered. Okay, now she was complaining about something he did know how to answer. “You think waiting is a problem for me? Good grief, Rodeo, I’m a rancher. Waiting was programmed into me before birth, or at the latest, by the time I cut my eyeteeth.”

  “But—”

  He twisted her in his arms so she could look over the land. Where they stood, the rise of the land let them see nearly all the way from Six Pack land over the Moonshine spread to the rental—to Uncle Mark’s.

  “We broke this land about five years ago. Harvested all the trees, hauled out the roots. We had burn piles the size of the houses scattered all across the field, then we had to wait until the middle of winter until the snow was deep enough it was safe to light them. It took three more years of harrows and hoes, planting a cover crop, turning it under—all before we even tried to grow anything.”

  The patience of a rancher. She had no idea who she was arguing with. Trevor’s confidence was back, rising by the second.

  He turned her to face him. “And then when we do decide it’s time, it’s not like your garden where a couple of nights of hard labour get the weeds out and the seeds in the soil. We drive those damn tractors in circles, row after row, and field after field. Turning and seeding and cutting and raking. By the time we’ve got the first bales dropped, we’ve probably been over every part of the land a hundred times or more.”

  “And that teaches a man to be stubborn?”

  “Stubborn? We call it patience. And some years you seed and it doesn’t rain, or you cut and it pours, a
nd in either case your dreams and cash lie barren in the ground.”

  Becky stared with big eyes at him. “I don’t want you to ever feel like you lost out by choosing me.”

  Trevor curled his hand under her chin and tilted her head back so he could kiss her. Soft and tender. “We do it all over again the next year, don’t we? Because we’re stubborn fools who just won’t quit.”

  “Not fools.” Becky stroked his cheek, amazement in her eyes. “Stubborn, I’ll give you, but a fool? Never.”

  He kissed her again because he had to. And then once more because she hadn’t given him the answer he wanted. “Say yes, Rodeo,” he murmured against her lips.

  “I’m stubborn too,” she warned. “Yes, but not until I’m ready.”

  Trevor could live with that. “Just don’t make it too long, okay?”

  “I thought you had all sorts of patience,” she teased.

  “I do, but I want to beat my kid brother to the altar. Lee and Rachel have been engaged to be engaged for months, so we can’t wait forever.”

  She laughed against his chest. “It’s not a contest.”

  “Hell, yeah, it is.” He picked her up and carried her back to the truck, setting her down on the tailgate. Trevor stepped between her legs and pulled her to him. “Now, about the rent I charge for using Esmeralda…”

  Becky’s face wrinkled in confusion. “Esmeralda?”

  He patted the tailgate. “My pride and joy. You didn’t think I’d let you use her for free, did you?”

  She laughed, pulling him to her and planting a big, steamy kiss on him, distracting him all over from what he was supposed to be doing.

  Which was exactly where he wanted her—in his arms, and in his life.

  Epilogue

  December, Rocky Mountain House

  “Why the hell didn’t you boys tell me you were bringing them in?”

  Trevor and Lee glanced at each other then pointed at Steve. “His fault,” they said in unison.

  Randy stomped to a halt outside the stables, pushing back his hat to glare at his oldest son who was patting the nose of his horse and looking far too satisfied. “You were supposed to let me know when you were heading out to get the mares,” Randy complained.

  “Didn’t need four people to do it,” Steve said calmly.

  “Then you should have—”

  “Shhhh,” Steve warned. “Don’t upset her. She’s sensitive right now.”

  That was all it took to make their dad clam up, his body relaxing as he leaned his elbows on the railing and stared in at the pregnant mare.

  He lowered his voice and spoke to her, ignoring the rest of them. “Pretty girl. Yeah, you’re a good girl. I’m not upset with you, just with this trio of jackasses who keep treating me with kid gloves.”

  The mare turned toward him, nostrils flaring briefly as Randy soothed a hand over her nose.

  Steve patted her withers before slipping from the pen. “For the record, the trio of jackasses are totally not treating you with kid gloves. We’re letting you pick and choose your work list, except when it means going out in freezing weather to do a job that doesn’t require extra hands.”

  “Besides, these are Lee’s favourite weather conditions,” Trevor said. “We need to get him snowed in again this year, for old time’s sake.”

  They all moved toward the door. Randy kept stride with them easily as he checked about work plans for the rest of the day. Trevor slowed so he could watch, but other than a faint hint of a limp at times when he overdid it, his father was back to his old self.

  It had seemed like a fast cure after a long time coming, and every time Trevor noticed, the changes made him happy all over again.

  “You coming into the house?” his dad asked, hand on the door as he waited.

  Trevor shook his head. “I’m done for the day. Started at five—and Becky is home early today as well.”

  “You’re bringing her by for lunch on Sunday, right?”

  “We’ll be there.” So would the entire lot of the Moonshine clan, and Trevor couldn’t wait.

  The past months had been filled with settling in and setting new paths. He’d joined Becky in the rental, which gave him an excuse to write to Uncle Mark on a regular basis without really ignoring the request not to. He was careful not to push an agenda, but keep the door open, even if just a crack.

  Becky had begun to write to Sarah. Trevor still tasted rage when he thought of how much pain her sister had caused that day, but Becky—his sweet, forgiving, giving Becky had convinced him there were layers of reasons for the betrayal they might not be aware of.

  He was still working on forgiving Sarah, but for the kids’ sake, he could hope for a different future.

  So once every couple of weeks they both sat down and found something to share. Maybe, some day, what they were doing might make a difference. Might make it possible to have family join them.

  He slipped behind the wheel and cranked on the heat for the short trip home. December had teeth, sharp and bitterly cold, but he spent most of his days in a happy haze, Becky’s warmth enough to carry him through the coldest tasks.

  He was one cheesy, lovesick fool, and he didn’t mind one bit.

  The sun vanished far too soon these days. Even done as early as he was, by the time he pulled into the driveway and parked next to her secondhand Ford, the sky behind the house had already faded to dim twilight.

  But from the windows, a warm, flickering glow welcomed him home. Trevor left the keys in his truck with a laugh, more than ready to get to spend another evening with the woman he loved.

  He paused. Lights flickered by the front door, so instead of going to the back like usual, he took the front stairs two at a time, pausing to admire the mess of tea lights on the chair placed outside on the porch.

  Becky was up to something.

  Inside the house candles were everywhere. Wineglasses and snack plates sat on the stairs and seats of chairs, small honey-scented candles flickering as the air currents caught them and turned the entire house into an invasion of fireflies.

  “Hey, Rodeo.”

  He listened for a moment, the low sound of bluesy music drifting to him from the living room.

  Trevor moved slowly, taking in what had to be over a hundred flickering lights. They’d been lit long enough ago to melt, the small tin containers holding the liquid wax safely.

  It was pretty, but more, his curiosity had shot to maximum. “Sweetheart? Where’re you hiding?”

  He didn’t have to go far to find an answer. The lights led him in the right direction. The living room was awash with candles, the obvious source of their firefly invasion.

  Trevor stepped through the doorway and his throat tightened.

  Becky lay propped against a pile of pillows in front of the fireplace. She wore white lingerie—a barely there bra and a pair of panties that must’ve been in heaven, snugged up against her perfect body.

  “There’s an angel in my living room,” he said. She blew his mind every single day.

  She lifted her chin and curled herself up, a seductress set on teasing him, the weight of her breasts dipping forward as she moved. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  He lowered himself onto the coffee table as she sat back on her heels, a tempting vision. “Looks as if you got something on your mind.”

  She nodded. “I have something to tell you, but first, go grab a shower.”

  Fuck. “Wait right here.”

  “Hurry.” She teased her fingers up her rib cage, skimming them over her breasts, and then Trevor couldn’t see what she was tormenting him with because he was out of the room, up the stairs and into the shower for the fastest scrub-down ever.

  There was barely time for steam to build before he was done. She’d snuck in while he was under the taps and left him clean clothes on the counter. Black jeans and her favourite shirt of his.

  He didn’t know what he was getting dressed for when she was in nothing but her underwear, but like he was going to
argue.

  Walking out of the bathroom, he discovered all the candles had been extinguished except for a single trail leading down the hall to their master bedroom.

  This was getting more and more interesting.

  She waited for him by the window, her seductive outfit covered by a dress of palest pink.

  “It’s hard to complain when you look so pretty, but I hope I get to unwrap you. Soon.”

  Becky held out her hands, and he took them, waiting for her to make the next move. She took a deep breath. “I love you, Trevor Coleman.”

  He was never going to get tired of hearing that. “I love you too, Rodeo.”

  Her lips twitched into a smile. “It’s time. I’m ready to get married.”

  Jesus. Trevor opened his mouth but no words came out. He wasn’t sure his brain was still functioning.

  “I know you want to do it up all formal, and I’m willing.” Her words were soft but deliberate. Her eyes mesmerizing. “It won’t change what we’ve already committed to, like being there for each other. Like you’ve been there for me the past months.”

  Happiness and concern warred together as his protective instincts shoved into overdrive. He didn’t want her to push herself too far, and as pleased as he was that she’d agreed to get hitched, he was worried that’s where this was heading.

  Trevor cupped her face carefully, putting every bit of love he could into words. “I’m glad. And we’ll get started on planning right away, but…what’s up with tonight? Why the pretty dress and sweet candles?”

  Becky hesitated. She caught his wrists, tugging one hand downward so she could place it on her chest. “Feel that? That beats for you. My body sings when you touch me. There’s nothing I want more than to be with you every way possible.”

  Under his hand her heart fluttered like the wings of a bird, and his soul ached. “Sweetheart…”

  She touched her fingers to his lips, smiling softly. “Don’t panic, Tigger. Talking with the counselor has helped, but I’ve still got a long way to go. I know I’m not ready, not for some things, but you keep telling me that it doesn’t matter. You’ve said it, and you’ve shown it. In words and in everything you do. So I’m finally finished with feeling I’m not enough, or that I’m holding you back. Because you’ve spent every day showing me how much you love me.”