by Jodi Thomas
Ronny closed her eyes and thought about what the kid had said about the night. She could almost feel the stillness, like daytime was for the heartbeats and the night seemed the silence in between.
A long black Lincoln turned onto her street and pulled up in front of her house, drawing Ronny’s attention back to the present.
She looked toward town, making sure no one else was on the street. Her mother had been known to drive by, but never this late.
No one moved in the night. Beau and Border would be at least another two hours practicing their music at the bar. When they came in, they’d see her dark quarters and assume she’d gone to bed. No one would miss her if she disappeared for a while.
She walked toward the car as the driver stepped out and opened the back door for her. He nodded politely but didn’t look up at her. Once she was inside, he climbed back into the driver’s seat, put on music she knew someone had selected for her to listen to, and silently drove away.
As they left the lights of Harmony, she pulled the blanket from the seat beside her and leaned her head back. She had a long drive with little hope of finding happiness at the end. She’d made it before only to be turned away, but maybe tonight would be different. Closing her eyes, she wished for what might have been.
Ronny had no idea how long she’d slept, but the bright parking lot lights of a huge hospital woke her. As she straightened, the car pulled to a side entrance where a tall man in black waited. He was rail thin and his hair looked silver in the harsh light. When she’d seen him once before, he hadn’t stepped closer; he’d only shaken his head as if to say I’m sorry and slipped back inside the hospital, closing the door so she couldn’t have followed.
This time the driver remained in place as the tall man moved forward and opened her door. “Good evening, Miss Logan. I’m glad you agreed to come.”
“I’ll always come. Mr. Carleon, right?” she said, wondering if anyone else visited at this time of night.
“Yes. I’m the one who sent you the note. I feel as if I know you, miss.”
They reached the hospital door and this time it stood open, waiting for her.
“If you’ll follow me.” Mr. Carleon moved swiftly. “He’s expecting you this time and we have no roadblocks.”
Ronny straightened and fought back tears. Two years without a word from Marty Winslow, and then a registered letter asking her to be ready an hour before midnight and to trust Carleon to make the plans. I’ll be waiting. Marty was all the personal note she’d gotten from a man who’d stolen her heart just by being kind to her. He’d never pretended to be more than a friend, but for a woman starved of all love, it had been enough for her to build a world of dreams on.
“I’m sorry about last time, miss.” Mr. Carleon kept his voice low as they walked the darkened back hallway. “There had been a shift change I hadn’t been aware of.”
She didn’t care about the wasted journey she’d made a month ago. All that mattered was that Marty Winslow had contacted her. “How is he?”
“Weak, miss. Very weak.”
Mr. Carleon moved from one hallway to another until they came to a freight elevator. When the man finally faced her, she saw kindness in his pale eyes and gray-salted hair that had once been black. He could have been anywhere between forty and seventy, but there was strength about him, a stillness that must have come with age.
“I’ve been with Mr. Winslow since he was ten. I was waiting at the base when the skiing accident paralyzed him almost four years ago.” The older man’s face wilted with sadness. “He’s very near death, miss. This last surgery took all he had, and now infection has set in. The doctors are doing all they can, pumping him with drugs, monitoring him constantly. His parents are dead, but his older brother has taken charge. Daniel insists Marty suffer no pain, but if he takes all the pills, he’ll sleep his last hours away.”
A vision of how Marty had looked the day she’d met him flashed into her mind. He was alone and angry but very much a man in his chair. With his dark hair and fiery eyes, she’d thought he was a devil, and he’d been angry enough at the world to almost make her believe it.
“How long?”
Mr. Carleon shook his head. “I can only allow you an hour. Maybe a few minutes more.”
“No.” She didn’t care how long the visit would be. “How long does he have left to live?”
“A few days. A week at the most, the doctors say. Even if the infection clears, his body is beginning to shut down. One of his doctors suggested flying him somewhere else for a therapy, but his brother was told he might not even survive the journey. So Daniel finally said no. Two years, five operations, and a dozen hospitals is enough. With Marty here, he’ll be home when the end comes. The brother and doctors decided that’s all they can do for him. He’s out of time, miss.”
Ronny fought back her scream. Marty had been there for her when she came alive, and if he asked her to, she’d be there for him when he died.
She had a hundred other questions, but Mr. Carleon opened a door and she stepped into a private room lined with machines.
For a moment she didn’t recognize him. Marty was thin and pale, as though he were fading away. She remembered how his strong arms had held her and how his laughter could fill a room.
It took all her strength to move to his bed and take his hand. Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, “One heartbeat past forever. That’s how long I’ll love you.”
Marty didn’t open his eyes.
Mr. Carleon pulled up a chair and offered it to her, but Ronny couldn’t sit down. She stood like a soldier as one by one her memories of Marty faced the firing squad until the only reality left was the man in front of her barely breathing. His hand that had once set fire to her with a touch was now cold and limp. His lips that had taught her to kiss were almost white and thinned in pain. His laughter, his teasing, his loving words were all drowned out by the rattle of machines that played an out-of-tune death march through the night.
Minutes ticked by, but she refused to move. She stared, hungry for a sign from him. She took the pain of how little of him remained. A hundred things passed through her mind that she needed to tell him. She’d almost finished her degree in finance. She’d learned to cook. She’d bought a new car. She’d made friends in town. Like he told her to, she’d grown.
But she’d missed him every day that he’d been gone. It took her a while, but she finally figured it out. There was no forgetting Marty, no getting over him. She’d love him forever.
“Miss?” Mr. Carleon whispered beside her. “Miss, you have to go. The hour is up.”
“But he didn’t wake.” She tightened her grip on Marty’s hand, hoping he’d at least squeeze her fingers back.
“I was afraid he wouldn’t,” Carleon said, too calmly to betray any emotion. “I think he knows you’re here, though. His breathing has calmed since you took his hand. I’ve been watching. His heartbeat is steady.”
“Can I stay longer, please?”
“Miss, it would mean my job if Daniel knew I brought you here.”
“Then why did you?” Never seeing Marty again would have been less painful. “He won’t even know I’m here.”
“Every time he wakes, he waits until only the two of us are in the room, then motions me near. I lean close and he whispers your name.” Mr. Carleon stared at Marty. “I know you’re always in his thoughts. I know his brother thinks I work for him, but I work for Marty Winslow and I will until the day he dies.”
“Can I come back?” She kissed Marty’s hand as she pulled her fingers away.
“I’ll send the car every night I can an hour before midnight. It will wait ten minutes. If you can’t make the trip, I’ll understand. If I don’t meet you at the back door of the hospital, you’ll understand. There are very few people I can trust.”
“I’ll come if the car is there.” She walked to the door, not daring to look back. The only man who’d ever thought she was beautiful was dying, and she was allowed only an
hour a night to see him, with nothing but a promise of a next time.
As she rode back toward Harmony, tears ran unchecked down her cheeks, and she knew that when Marty Winslow died, so would she.
Chapter 6
ALMOST DAWN
DUPLEX
BEAU YATES LEANED AGAINST THE WINDOWSILL, HIS BODY so slim and still he almost looked like a part of the frame. He watched his neighbor step out of a late-model Lincoln and walk slowly toward the porch they shared.
He couldn’t help but wonder where she’d been. If Ronny Logan had been another kind of woman, wild or even normal, he would have guessed she’d had a wild night out, but she wasn’t the type. Ronny was warm hot chocolate on a cold night. She was kittens and apple pie and all the kind of things he thought of as pure good. He’d never heard her say a bad word or claim she hated anyone. She didn’t even complain about her witch of a mother, who flew by now and then on her broom just to remind her only child that she still hated her.
Beau picked up his guitar as his neighbor went into her side of the duplex without raising her head. Somehow, she had a secret. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it was good. Maybe she prayed at church all night?
As his fingers began to play across the strings, he smiled, thinking of his secret life. He also climbed into a car now and then with a girl he called Trouble, and they raced the moonlight. It seemed the only time in his twenty years of life that he didn’t feel like he was waiting for something to happen. With the girl in the ponytail, he just relaxed and breathed in life.
Slowly, he picked out the melody to a song about how most folks while their life away waiting for lightning to strike and set the dullness of their days afire, when all they’d have to do is pull the box of matches from their pocket and strike one.
Maybe Ronny was doing just that.
Beau smiled, thinking that he was one of the waiting ones. His father, a preacher to the bone, was convinced Beau lived in sin. He’d left home. He played in a bar. He shared an apartment with a guy who had tattoos and drove a motorcycle. He stayed up all night writing songs.
Setting the guitar down, Beau watched the first pale light of dawn. With luck, he could be sound asleep before full sunup reached Harmony. At least he’d break the bad habit of staying up all night his father thought he had.
Pulling off his shirt as he walked toward his bed, he thought of Trouble in her car as she let the night wind blow her hair. If she ever came around again, he could get used to her as a keeper in the bad-habit column of his life.
Chapter 7
BOXED B RANCH
CORD WORKED UNTIL AFTER MIDNIGHT, THEN TURNED OFF the study lights and carried his sleeping bride to what he hoped was their room in the rambling old ranch house. She’d set his suitcase by an empty closet door, but she hadn’t bothered with a tour of the place.
He pulled back the cover on one side of the king-size bed and laid her down. Slowly, he tugged the tie from her hair and let the long white-blond strands spread out across the pillow in streams of gold. With a hunger for something he’d never known, he watched her breathe. She was so lovely, this wife of his, and fragile despite all her tough-girl attitude. For a few minutes he just studied her, learning the curve of her face and the beauty of her hands as he wondered if he’d ever know her better than he did right now.
Neither of them had said a kind word all evening. He’d asked questions and she’d answered, pouting when she didn’t know the answer, sharp when he pushed, but always honest. He didn’t have to tell her what a mess the ranch was in; she saw it same as he had. If the spending continued without any profit coming in, the Boxed B wouldn’t last another year, and she obviously had no one to turn to if she’d come to him.
He doubted she even liked him, but she needed him, and he planned to be there for her—though they both knew they’d be counting this marriage in months.
In one evening with her he’d figured out two things. He already knew more about the ranch than she did, and no other man besides her father had left his fingerprints on the maps in the study. No brother of hers. No husband had cared about the ranch. He’d be the first since her father to take charge, and that was one question he hadn’t had the nerve to ask why.
He told himself that the ranch was why she’d brought him here, but deep down he knew there was more she wasn’t talking about. He felt it. A shadow hung over the ranch like an aging dragon waiting to fight one final battle.
When he’d asked about the oil business, she’d said she almost bankrupted it buying her brother’s half of the ranch. He’d walked away with millions and left her with two lame businesses about to fail.
She’s a fighter, Cord thought as he covered her and went to the other side of the bed. The night was warm enough that he spread out on top of the covers and fell asleep to the soft sound of her breathing.
When he woke it was after nine. The glare of full daylight shocked him awake. Cord had gotten up early for so long, he felt disoriented at first.
He didn’t see the note on the pillow between them until he stood.
Gone shopping. Be back at noon. She’d signed her initials, like he might not know who’d left the note.
He walked around the room, unsure what to do. When he realized he was alone in the house, he went through each room. Five bedrooms, each with a bath. All but the master looked to have been closed off years ago. Two living areas, two dining rooms, one small, one huge. A breakfast nook off the ranch kitchen and a big bathroom next to the back door. The wide office they’d worked in had windows facing west.
Two facts about it tumbled in his mind. One, he could almost see his farm if he stared hard enough, and two, a loaded Colt rested in the bottom drawer of the massive desk. Maybe Nevada kept her father’s Colt there to remember him, or maybe she felt there was a need to be armed.
When they knew each other better, he’d act like he’d just noticed it and ask. Maybe. His headstrong wife was afraid of something . . . something more than him. She was skittish as a pony who’d heard a rattler.
Cord found another office upstairs next to an exercise room and a game room. The pool table looked as if it had never been used, but animal heads covered the walls and full gun racks braced each corner. Most of the weapons were classic Remingtons that looked like they’d never been fired.
Cord felt a little like a robber casing the place, but he needed to know the house and he wasn’t sure she cared enough to show him around.
The upstairs study was cluttered with papers and books. This was Nevada’s world. He could almost feel her here. It looked newly painted in pale blues and greens with sketches of horses covering the wall. When he moved closer he saw dates on each frame along with N.B. scribbled in the corner of each. She’d been painting pictures of horses since she was seven, each year getting better and better. Her office was the only room he felt reluctant to leave. The only room that wasn’t cold and aged.
He knew without asking that this place might be her house, but she had never made it her home. There were no pictures of family, no trophies, nothing that looked like it might have belonged to any one person.
By the time he got to know the house and showered, Nevada was back. She walked into the bedroom as he buttoned his Levi’s. When he looked up she was standing in the door, her arms loaded down with bags and her blue eyes watching him.
He’d never thought of himself as shy, but darn if he didn’t feel himself blush. “Any chance you bought me a shirt? The only dress shirt I own is pretty wrinkled after I slept in it.” On this full day together he didn’t want to wear one of his old work shirts.
She popped out of her trance. “I did. Most of what I bought is being altered or ordered, but I did pick up a few things. You’re about the same size as my brother, but I tossed all his clothes when he left.” Like a rabid squirrel, she dropped the bags and began rummaging, then proudly showed her prize to him.
“Thanks,” he managed to say as she stared at his chest. “You finished looking?”
While he pulled the pins and cardboard out of an eighty-dollar pale blue shirt with pearl snaps, she lined up socks atop a boot box. “I just told the Bailey brothers to load me up with a week’s worth of work clothes. They said that after forty years in the business they can guess a man’s sizes down to his underwear when he walks in the door.”
Cord pulled on the finest shirt he’d ever owned, thinking that she thought it was a work shirt. The cotton had to be blended with silk or something. He thought of telling her a twenty-dollar shirt would do fine, but he’d already agreed she could dress him, so he might as well play along. Shopping was something she probably had made pro in before she was out of high school.
Five minutes later he realized the boots fit perfectly as well. They had an inch heel and the leather was soft. When he faced her, he held up his hands, feeling a little like the world’s largest paper doll. “Do I pass?”
“You passed, Cord, when you were just wearing your jeans, but now you look like a man who runs a ranch. Ready to see the place?”
“No,” he said. “First we eat. I’ve already missed breakfast and it’s almost noon.”
“This feeding you might be a problem. When Ora Mae shows up Monday, I may have to give her a raise.”
“Come on, Princess. I’ll show you how to make sandwiches. We can eat once we’re in the saddle. I plan to see every square mile of this place before dark.”
“Let me change first. You can put your things in that closet while you wait.” She pointed to the closet where she’d left his suitcase as she crossed the room to the other walk-in closet and bathroom. “And,” she yelled over her shoulder, “don’t call me Princess.”
