by Violet Howe
On the one hand, I had thoroughly enjoyed the time we’d spent together, especially the part where we rolled around on the ground like teenagers. But another part of me was frantic about the sudden leap we’d taken into the realm of the physical.
Was it too soon? Was it too much? Was it too late to back out? Was it wrong to feel so good when I wasn’t sure if I wanted to feel it?
What had made him kiss me like that? He’d just brought up the painful experience of losing his wife. Had that made him vulnerable or put him in an emotional state?
Was it seeing me thrown from the horse and being grateful I wasn’t injured?
I reached up and rubbed my shoulder, thankful it wasn’t broken and that I hadn’t lost my tolerance for physical pain. I had no desire to test my tolerance for emotional pain again, and I stiffened at the very thought.
“You okay?” His voice rumbled in my ear.
I nodded, sitting up to take my weight from him.
“You were fine where you were,” he said. “In fact, I was rather enjoying it.”
So was I, but the tendrils of fear had arisen from the residue left behind by my past, and I couldn’t relax again.
Fallon was standing at the gate, just as he had predicted she would be. Cody had tried unsuccessfully to spook Dallas through most of our trip, but since the older horse was much calmer and not intimidated, the dog would give up for a while and trot alongside us. When he saw Fallon, he broke into a run, stopping to look back at us when Dax bellowed his name, nearly deafening in its proximity to my ear.
Dax insisted on examining my shoulder again once we’d reached the barn and dismounted, removing the coat and my poncho as he picked bits of nature from my hair.
“I told you I’m fine,” I said as he pressed his fingers up and down my arm and across my shoulder, sending a little rush down my spine that had nothing to do with injury. “I’m sure I’ll be stiff tomorrow and probably bruised, but I think your coat cushioned the landing.”
I shivered as the increasing cold of night swept in on a breeze, lifting my hair and carrying it across my face. He reached to brush it back, tucking the strands behind my ear, and I had an eerie flashback to a night on a boat so many years ago.
I bristled and stepped back, and though I could see confusion in Dax’s eyes, I couldn’t explain what had changed.
“It’s getting late,” I said. “I need to get on the road. Thanks for the adventure.”
He tilted his head to one side, his eyes questioning and filled with concern.
“You all right?”
I grabbed my poncho with a quick nod and turned to walk toward my car, caught off guard by the sudden hot rush of tears that threatened to spill from my eyes.
“Good night,” I called over my shoulder, praying he wouldn’t follow me. I was blinking rapidly, but the moisture was still coming, and I didn’t know if I could hold it back much longer. I certainly didn’t want him to see me crying, and I had no desire to try and explain why I was. I didn’t even understand it myself.
I closed the car door and started the engine before I dared to look back toward him. He was still standing where I left him, under the eave of the barn with his hands in his pockets and pain etched across his face.
I managed a wave before I pulled away, and then the tears broke free and flowed.
23 THE THREE MUSKETEERS
Dax called at nine the next morning.
I let it go to voice mail as I stared at the phone in my hand and fought the wave of nausea that swept over me.
Despite my best efforts to focus on work, after reading the same email three times and having no idea what I’d read, I grabbed the phone to listen to his message.
“Hey Maggie. I was calling to check on your shoulder and make sure you’re feeling okay after your tumble. I’ll be in the saddle the next couple of days so I might not have a great signal. Talk to you soon.”
I deleted it and swallowed hard to push down the lump in my throat.
“You didn’t call him back?” Sandy asked as we talked later that night.
“No. I need some distance.”
“You need a swift kick in the ass. Luckily, I know just the person to give it to you. What time are you picking up Alberto on Friday?”
“He lands a little before five, so by the time he goes through customs and gets his bags, I’m thinking we should be back here by six, six-thirty at the latest. Depending on traffic, course. What time are you here?”
“I should be to your place by five, so if you leave me something prepped, I could have dinner ready when you guys get there.”
“He wants Cuban food. He says they don’t have good Cuban food in Rome. Then he wants us to take him out dancing.”
“Dancing? Seriously?”
“I know. I’ve told him before the clubs in Orlando aren’t like the clubs in Rome, but he says the three of us haven’t danced together in ages. He wants to go out dancing.”
“Do clubs let people our age dance?” Sandy asked. “What if they card us at the door and tell us we’re too old?”
I laughed, though she had raised a valid point.
“I don’t know, but the trio hasn’t been together in years. If he wants to dance, we’ll find a place.”
We did find a place, and when Alberto broke out his hip-hop and break dancing moves, we were quickly welcomed into the fold. By the time we left around midnight, the entire club had circled around us on the dance floor like Alberto was the featured entertainment. They even demanded an encore song when we tried to leave the first time.
“My feet are killing me,” Sandy moaned as she slid off her shoes just inside my front door. “I haven’t worn heels in ages. Now I remember why!”
“I want to go back tomorrow night,” Alberto said. “That place was jumping!”
“I think I only recognized one song the entire night,” I said, uncorking a bottle of wine.
“It was a great crowd though, wasn’t it?” Alberto’s face was still flushed with excitement.
“Yeah, it was,” Sandy said as she grabbed three wine glasses from the cabinet. “But you! I can’t believe you can still move like that. Can you believe him, Maggie? I’d be laid up for days if I did half of what he did tonight.”
We settled into the sofa and chairs outside on the patio, and I yawned as I poured the wine.
“Don’t do that!” Sandy admonished. “You start yawning, and I’m done for. It’s way past my bedtime.”
“I’m surprised you made it this late,” Alberto teased. “I remember when we lived in the little blue house, you used to go to bed at like, eight o’clock. We lived with a toddler, but you were always in bed before Cabe.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I need more sleep than the average person.”
I smiled at the thought of the little blue house in Miami where the three of us had lived for the later months of my pregnancy with Cabe and the first two years of his life. Despite my circumstances then, they were some of my fondest memories.
“I swear you’re part vampire,” Sandy said, glaring at Alberto. “You never sleep, and you don’t age. Look at him!” She turned to me as she pointed to Alberto. “He looks the same as he did the last time we saw him. How is this fair? How is this not sorcery?”
She was right; he did look the same. His blond hair held no streaks of gray. The faint lines at the corners of his eyes were all but imperceptible. His dancer’s body was still every bit as taut and tight as it had ever been.
He grinned at her and shrugged. “Italian food. Italian wine. The Mediterranean sun.”
“Sign me up for that fitness plan, am I right?” Sandy teased as she rolled her eyes in my direction.
“You’re just jealous because you’re an old married woman now,” I said.
Sandy frowned. “I might as well be single with all the hours Hannah’s been working lately. She’s at the office ‘round the clock trying to tie up loose ends at the firm before she transfers.”
“I can�
�t believe the two of you will be in the same city without me,” Alberto said with a pout. “Maybe I should see if Orlando Ballet has any openings. I could move into your pool house, and we could go dancing every weekend.”
“Yeah, because when your resume has Vienna, Paris, and Rome on it, moving to Orlando is the next obvious career choice,” Sandy said, pouring herself more wine. “Besides, this pool house might not be available to rent. Maggie might be living on a ranch soon.”
“Oh, stop.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Don’t even go there, Sandra.”
“So, has she told you about him? The cowboy?”
“Oh, Lord. Here we go,” I said, reaching for the bottle and refilling my glass.
Alberto looked at me and grinned. “She mentioned on the phone that she’d met someone.”
“Did she mention they were rolling around lip-locked in the dirt?”
His eyes opened wide. “No, she failed to disclose those details. Last I heard, they’d had lunch and shared a bowl of chili. Are you holding out on me?”
“Oh, please,” I protested. “Like I get a phone call every time you get a piece of action. Not that I want one, mind you!”
He laughed, but Sandy was determined to make her point.
“You need to talk to her, Berto. She’s gonna screw this up if you don’t.”
I scrunched my face in confusion. “Screw what up? So, we’ve had lunch. Big deal. We took a horseback ride, the end of which resulted in the right side of my body being black and blue and me not being able to move my arm this week. You haven’t even met him, so how can you say I’d be screwing up?”
“Because he seems to make you happy, and I want you to be happy.”
“I’m happy being alone! Very happy, thank you!”
Sandy uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Well, would it hurt you to share that happiness with someone else? If this guy intrigues you, interests you, and turns you on—why not pursue it?”
“I’m not going to discuss this.”
“Oh my God! It was a lifetime ago. Let. It. Go!”
“Ladies, ladies, ladies,” Alberto said, raising his hand. “While it thrills me to no end to see that some things never change, it’s been a long day, and I’m too tired to play referee.”
Sandy turned to face him, her hands outstretched. “I just want you to talk some sense into her. Would it kill her to have a little love in her life?”
“What about him?” I asked, pointing to Alberto. “Why aren’t you on him? He’s not in a relationship!”
Alberto cleared his throat and grinned. “That depends on what you define as a relationship, but that’s another conversation for another time. Sandy, the decision isn’t up to you.”
“That’s right. It’s not,” I said, my chin raised in defiance.
“Maggie’s heart was dealt a crippling blow when it was young and formative,” he continued. “She had to close it off to survive. It was self-defense.”
“Yes! Exactly!” I nodded, crossing my arms in smug confidence that he was going to hand it to her.
“I understand that,” Sandy said with a groan. “Hello? I was there. I just think at some point, she has to take a chance. She’s played it safe long enough with the boring ones. This guy is different, and she knows it.”
I looked to Alberto, eager to hear him shut her down.
“Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t.” He shrugged. “That’s not for you or me to say. It’s Maggie’s choice.”
“Yes! That’s right,” I said, thrilled to have someone else take her on for a change.
“So, you’re telling me you’re okay with her never falling in love again? How is that healthy?” Sandy was sitting on the edge of her chair, her eyes flashing anger and her cheeks red with emotion and wine.
Alberto closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “How many times can we have the same conversation? When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter what you say or what I say. You should know that by now. It’s not up to us. She has made her decision, and even if we don’t agree with it—even if we think it’s the wrong choice—we have to live with it and accept that it’s hers to make.”
“That’s right,” I said, nodding furiously until his words sunk in. “Wait. What? What decision? I’ve already made what decision?”
He took a sip of his wine and sighed. “That Gerry Tucker is the love of your life.”
“What?” I slammed my glass down on the end table, nearly spilling its contents. “That’s not true. Gerry Tucker is most certainly not the love of my life. Please.”
Alberto shrugged again. “He must be. If you don’t allow anyone else the chance to be loved by you, then by default, he’s the only candidate.” He looked at Sandy and back at me. “By you closing yourself off to even the remotest possibility of falling in love again, then Gerry Tucker remains the great love affair of your life. Sad, disgusting even, but true.”
Sandy stifled a giggle and I threw a look at her that silenced it immediately.
His words stunned me, and I had no response ready. I’d never considered it in those terms.
Alberto leaned forward and held my hand. “Mags, I know you had your heart broken. Shattered. You were betrayed, and you paid a high cost for it. But if you continue to shut yourself off, then you’re still paying for a debt that’s been satisfied. The kids are grown. They’re happy. They’re healthy. They have lives of their own. It’s time to move on.”
Sandy came and sat on the sofa next to me as a light breeze stirred the air.
“Sweetie, at some point, you have to stop blaming yourself.”
“Don’t even say that, because she immediately discounts it in her mind,” Alberto said.
I jerked my head up and stared at him, nervous at what his insight would reveal next. “She knew on some level, but she didn’t go with her gut. That’s why she can’t forgive herself. Never mind that we’ve all done it—gone into something knowing we shouldn’t have and regretting it later. Maggie’s just happened to be a far-reaching, long-lasting mistake. She can’t let it go because she thinks she’s gonna screw up again. Don’t ya, Mags?”
He stood and stretched, his lean dancer’s frame bending backward with an arc before he walked over to plant a kiss on the top of my head and pat Sandy’s shoulder.
“Good night, ladies.”
“What?” Sandy and I both said in unison.
“You’re going to bed first?” she said. “Since when?”
“Since my body is still on Rome time. I’ve had a hellacious travel day and a fun evening of fellowship, wine, and dancing, which I’ve truly enjoyed. But believe it or not, this vampire has to get some sleep. Besides, we’ve had this conversation with Maggie a hundred times before. The outcome never changes. Good night. Love you both.”
Sandy was silent as he left, and when he’d pulled the French door of the pool house shut, she reached up to swipe the lone tear that had escaped to roll down my cheek.
“I don’t want Gerry Tucker to be the love of my life,” I whispered.
“He doesn’t deserve to be. And maybe this cowboy doesn’t either, but you won’t know unless you give it a try. Just because you screwed up once—”
“Twice,” I interjected.
“Okay, twice. But it was the same person, so I don’t think that counts as twice, but anyway. Just because you screwed up twice doesn’t mean you’re going to screw up again. You’re not the same girl you were then. You’re a woman, now. A smart, fierce, successful, independent woman.”
I swiped angrily at the stubborn tears that refused to disappear as I reached forward to grab my napkin from the tray on the low table.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve cried in the last ten years, but I seem to be in tears every night this week. Do you think it’s hormones?”
“Honey, do you like this man?” she asked. “Are you attracted to him?”
I nodded, holding
the napkin against my eyes and willing the tears to stop.
“Do you want to saddle him up and ride him like a cowgirl in the hay?”
I dropped the napkin and stared at her. “You’re insane.”
“Yeah. Hay would be all itchy, but you’re missing the point. If you’re interested, you need to take a chance.”
I shook my head. “I don’t ever want anyone to have that kind of power over me again.”
“Love is powerful, no lie. But you can’t think this guy would be anything like Gerry. Let’s face it. No one would be like Gerry. Snake. What’s your instinct tell you about this man?”
“We’re gonna trust my instinct? ‘Big mistake. Big. Huge!’”
“Did you not hear what Alberto said? It wasn’t that your instinct was off, it was that you didn’t follow it. If you had, then you would have let us be around Gerry more instead of pulling away. You would have insisted that he meet your parents. You would have called him out on anything that seemed fishy. You knew we didn’t trust him, and you ignored that. But you wouldn’t do that again, would you? I think if anything, you’re hyper-vigilant the other direction. You need to find a balance in the middle. Give the cowboy the benefit of the doubt, but listen to the little voice if things aren’t adding up.”
“So, what…I should invite you along for our next lunch date? Insist he meet my parents right away? How will that keep me from getting hurt again?”
She smoothed my hair back and rested her head against mine. “Oh, Mags. Nothing can guarantee you won’t get hurt again. But you can’t have love without risk. It has no value if it can be easily given and just as easily lost. Look, I’m more than happy to meet this guy and tell you my opinion, but the truth is you don’t need my approval or your mother’s. You need to trust the woman you’ve become.” She sat back and twisted a lock of my hair around her finger. “And I caught that Pretty Woman reference, by the way. Don’t think you slipped that past me.”
I smiled and she stood, reaching to take my hand and pull me up with her.
