Harlequin Romance Bundle: Crowns and Cowboys

by Judy Christenberry

  She didn’t move, just breathed in, breathed out. Waiting.

  So he kept talking, forcing the words out. He told the whole story, at first because it would help Laila; but as he spoke, the pressure of the darkness living inside him, heavier from being mute for so long, felt like a coil releasing.

  Finally, after the dusk symphony of chirping crickets and screeching galahs gave way to the soft chirruping hiccup of small parrots finding roost for the evening, he opened his eyes, looked at Laila and finished his story. “So I left Burrabilla, and John Jacob Sutherland, behind. I became Jake Connors, jackaroo. I worked at four other stations, each one further south from home, until I came here. If somebody started to wonder about me, or got too close, I’d leave the place. Until I came here,” he repeated, wondering why he did so.

  But he was done. He’d said it all, and sweet, blessed relief filled him. The pain of silence, feeding upon itself, had grown into a black malignant cloud through the years, taking him over. Just telling someone, telling Laila, lightened the burden…

  What was she thinking?

  “So Jenny agreed not to decorate the nursery until you came back?” she finally asked, her tone thoughtful.

  “She said she’d only paint the bottom half of the room,” he said slowly. “I didn’t even like that, but I knew her. She liked the Outback life, was raised to it, but she didn’t like being alone doing nothing.” He smiled at her. “You and Jen were alike that way, both very active people. She had to keep busy while I was gone. So I agreed.”

  “So you knew she’d keep going when that was done?”

  “I should have known it!”

  “Are you saying you knew she’d climb a chair to hang a mobile from the ceiling, instead of sticking to painting the lower areas?”

  “Hell, no,” he snapped. “I didn’t begin to dream she’d…not at seven months…” He had no words to describe his feelings—none that wouldn’t betray Jenny, at least.

  With only traces of her own grief still lingering in her eyes, Laila frowned. “This is why you’re so overprotective with this baby and me, isn’t it?”

  He couldn’t read her tone, but for the first time she seemed to be asking without defiance or rancor. In simple relief he nodded, and buried his face in her hair.

  Finally she turned a little, and kissed his forehead. “Thank you.”

  She was silent for a long time after that. They held each other in a peace they’d never achieved together before this moment.

  Jake felt at peace. Laila had only asked a few questions. She didn’t judge him, offered no platitudes, gave no advice. She just held him and let him feel as he did, let him be, and for the first time since Jen’s death, the burden of guilt and dark silence wasn’t weighing him down. He wasn’t alone…and if he didn’t deserve the gift she’d given him today, he’d still take it, clutch it to his chest with the greed of long abstinence from the human race. When had he deserved any of the sweet miracles he’d been given since meeting Laila?

  He kissed her gently on the cheek. “Thank you, Laila.”

  She smiled at him, but it was tinged with sadness. No wonder, after the day they’d had, the pain they’d shared. “So what’s next?”

  The question took him by surprise. He frowned, and waited. He knew her well enough by now to know when she had something on her mind.

  She surprised him again, by the quiet sorrow in her eyes as she waited.

  Waited for him to speak.

  After a long silence, he rasped, “What do you want from me?”

  Her eyes shimmered with that sweet, disturbing sadness. She shook her head. “No, Jake. Not what I want. Not what’s best for me, or for the baby. What do you want?”

  He stared at her, his frown deepening. Why was she asking?

  A tender hand closed his eyes. “Don’t think, Jake. Just tell me what you want to do. First thing that comes to your mind.”

  The first thing that came to his mind? No, no! The very thought filled him with terror. He gripped her waist, trying to stop himself from shaking, but the tremors overtook him and wouldn’t be denied. “No,” he growled, closing his eyes against the pain. “No!”

  “Then I’ll say it for you.” The sweet whisper sounded in his ear. “You want to go home. You need your family. You want to see her. You need to see her.”

  He scrambled out of her arms and off the bed, fury filling every part of him. “No!”

  If the snarl took her aback, she didn’t show it. “Have you been to see her, to see your daughter, since the funerals?”

  Beyond words now, he held up a fisted hand to stop her—a command or plea, he no longer knew. At this moment, he didn’t know anything except that he could never go back.

  “If I was Jenny—if I died, and our baby—I’d want to be remembered,” she said quietly. “I’d want you to come and see us, to remember and honor the love we shared.”

  His knees wouldn’t hold him up. He landed on the ground before her, and grasped her arms. “You’re not going to die. You and this baby will not die!”

  Her mouth trembled, and she bit it down. She sat up; tender hands cupped his face. “This isn’t about me, or this baby. It’s about Jenny and Annabel—it will always be about Jenny and Annabel, and why you won’t go to them.”

  “Stop. Please.” He couldn’t say any more.

  “Someone has to, Jake. You won’t let anyone else in, and you won’t listen to your own heart, so it looks like it has to be me. You need to go home.”

  Desperate to end this, he growled, “If you don’t stop this I’ll leave tonight and never come back!”

  She smiled at him, with infinite sadness. “If you don’t stop this, you’ll never stop running anyway. I think I always knew you’d go one day.”

  He let go of her shoulders, and gripped the bedcover with fists so hard he could feel the tough fabric starting to tear.

  Her palms moved tenderly over his unshaven jaw. “You’ve been resisting, fighting living again for so long, I think you’ve forgotten what the fight was about in the first place. Maybe if you go home, you’ll find out.”

  He jerked his face from her hold; avoiding her welcoming lap, he dropped facedown onto the bedcovers. “I can’t go home. I don’t deserve to go home. I don’t deserve to heal!”

  After a short silence, the breath whooshed out of her; and that was the only sound for a very long time. He couldn’t look up, refused to see the pity in her eyes—

  “That has to be the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Stunned, his head snapped up; and he saw, not compassion, but distinct exasperation in those expressive eyes. “What?”

  “You heard me.” With a well-aimed shove, she left him tumbling to the floor. “You said you were responsible for my mess? Look at the disasters in your own life before you take on the problems in mine, bud. I can look after myself and the baby. Stop hiding behind me. Grow up, John Jacob Sutherland. Be a man and face up to the past, and your responsibilities. Go home and see your sister and brother, who’ve been covering your butt the past five years. And go and see Jenny and Annabel while you’re there.”

  Jake scrambled to his feet, chest heaving with his own fair measure of anger. “Yeah, sure, Dear Abby—and what’s next? Saying goodbye to them, so I can heal and ride into the sunset with the pregnant princess?”

  “Oh, give me a break! What makes you think any of this is about me—or about you, for that matter?” She rolled her eyes. “Right now I don’t give a hang what you want, what you need or deserve—but your sister and brother, your wife and daughter, deserve far better than the nothing you’ve given them while you’ve run around the Outback in a self-hate party for one for the past five years!”

  It was as if a sudden explosion blasted behind his eyes; pain roared through his solar plexus. Half-ready for escape, he took an instinctive step back, and gripped something behind him for balance as he absorbed the truth.

  She was right.

  Had he ever really thought about
how Sandy and Aaron had coped the past five years? Had he ever seriously considered asking? No—it had all been about him. What he deserved—or didn’t. He’d never once wondered how they were coping.

  He’d lived like a hermit nomad the past five years to avoid the one thing he’d longed for and feared the most: going to Jenny’s grave, and Annabel’s.

  He closed his eyes, and a single tear leaked from behind his right eye.

  “Go,” Laila said softly, her voice gentle. “Go to them.”

  “I can’t,” he rasped. “I can’t do it, Laila. I—I don’t know how to forget them. I can’t say goodbye, or accept that they’re never coming back…”

  “Then don’t,” she whispered. “Just tell them the truth.”

  Another tear slipped down his cheek. He swiped at it. “What truth?” he asked huskily. He wasn’t sure of anything at this moment.

  “Tell them you’re sorry,” she said, very quietly. “Tell them you’d give anything to have them back.” Her voice was almost gone now, but she kept speaking, rough with pain. “Tell them you’ll never forget them.” She paused for a few moments, then whispered so softly he had to strain to hear it. “Tell them you love them, and you always will.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  JAKE’S head bowed. He felt stripped bare, years of bitterness and self-hate exposed to her clear-eyed gaze—and worst, the love. This magnificent woman, the woman bearing his child, wouldn’t fight for him. She knew he loved Jen, and accepted it with a dignity he hadn’t found inside himself for too many years.

  Slowly he nodded…and the acceptance of what he had to do washed over him like cool water over desert-heated skin. It was time.

  “Go,” she whispered. “Go now.”

  His eyes burning, he looked at her.

  White and still, her eyes dark and red-rimmed, her bright hair a mess around her face, she had never looked more beautiful to him. Tears streaked her cheeks, but still she smiled, sweet and tremulous. “Go. We’ll be fine.”

  “Come with me.” He held out his hand to her.

  She shook her head, smiling. “It’s not my place. Just go.”

  Frowning, he muttered, “I want you to come with me.” He wanted her to meet his family, wanted to bring his new life into the old. Wanted to marry her and make a family once again, without needing to say goodbye to the past.

  But Laila shook her head once more, pressing her lips together for a moment before she smiled again. “Your family deserve to see you—Jenny deserves this, without me in the way.”

  Yes, she was right; yet his every instinct screamed against leaving her.

  “Come with me. I want you to meet the family,” he pressed, not knowing why, only that he couldn’t bear the thought of going home without her beside him, giving him her fearless truth and unvarnished insights, showing him as the man he really was—and how he could be.

  “No,” she whispered again, her face white. “This is your life, Jake. Not mine.”

  A frisson of panic skittered through him. “It can be your life, Laila, if only you want it. The wedding, the home and kids…finishing your course.” Me. I’m offering you all that I am, all that I have. She deserved all that and more, for everything she’d done for him.

  For once she didn’t seem to hear his internal cry, his silent call for her. She turned away, groping for her pillow, and hugging it to her. So lost, so fragile, yet her strength awed him over and over. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  He watched her gulp in a breath, as if she’d forgotten how until that moment. Not looking at him, she said in a rush, “You know why. I’ve told you so many times it must be boring.”

  Love. She wanted love. The one thing he still couldn’t, maybe never could, give her.

  Slowly her gaze came around to meet his. “You belong to her. Apart from the baby, I’m just a stepping stone on your path back home…aren’t I, Jake?”

  The look was steady, accepting—filled with an honesty that compelled his own. “You’re far more than that. I—I care about you, Laila. I need you—and I’d be faithful—”

  She tucked a mass of hair behind her ear. “I wish that could be enough.” A little, hopeless shrug. “But I’m in love with you, Jake. I have been from the start.” Her gaze dropped to the pillow; she nibbled on her thumbnail for a moment, while he stood there, feeling humble and awed and ashamed. “Go home, Jake. Be the man I always knew you could be.”

  “I don’t want to go without you, Laila. I want you with me.” He knew he was pleading now, but he didn’t care; he needed Laila, needed her presence to feel like a whole man again. He knelt before her, and lifted her chin, trying to force her to look at him. “You said you’d marry me when I could say I want to marry you. I’m saying it. I want to marry you, and not just for the baby. I want you with me for life.”

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I must have lied,” she mumbled. “I didn’t know then. But I can’t imagine worse torture than living in your home, where she was—where she’ll always be a part of your heart.”

  His straight-down-the-line Laila was changing the rules on him? He jerked back, letting go of her chin. “I thought you understood my feelings for her. I thought—”

  “I do,” she cried, fierce with restrained passion. “She should be part of your heart. I could never begrudge her that—but it’s harder to take when you don’t—when you don’t love me. I—I can’t endure years of watching you trying so hard to give me what you don’t have.” Her little, gulping sob left a physical ache in Jake’s throat. “I’ll let you know when the baby’s born, all right? I’ve never asked you for anything. Please, just go!”

  She was ready to cry, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. Helpless, frustrated and wishing he could give her everything she hadn’t asked for, he kissed her cheek, and said, gently yet with the force of a vow, “I’m coming back for you, Laila. I’m coming back.”

  She shook her head and buried her face in the pillow, no longer caring if he saw her cry or not, or she couldn’t wait any more for him to leave her in peace.

  Jake got to his feet and walked out of the room on unsteady feet, feeling like a stranger in a world he thought he’d known.

  From her window, dry-eyed and calm, Laila watched the family light plane take off an hour later.

  He’d taken the family plane. He’d meant what he’d said. He was coming back.

  Coming back to me.

  Or he thought so, now—and he probably would come back. There was the baby to consider—but he hadn’t yet been home. He hadn’t seen his family…or told his long-dead yet still beloved wife what he needed to say.

  She wondered, briefly, like a coward, if she could stay in this room for the next few days or weeks, until she could tell the family what they were waiting to hear without breaking down. She felt so lost, so alone.

  The baby kicked, a soft, bubbling flutter.

  Laila smiled and caressed her tummy. “I know, little one. You’re here, and I love you.” But I love your daddy, too, and he’s leaving—

  She closed her eyes as the familiar stinging returned.

  A soft knock sounded at the door. Laila sighed, gathered up her courage and resolve and said, “Come in.”

  Dar’s face popped around the door. “Hey, Princess.”

  “Hey,” she replied huskily.

  He smiled at her. “Thought you’d want to know, Tom Appleyard rang up just now. Said the foal’s drinking well, and standing without assistance. The surrogate mare’s accepted her, and she’s accepted the mare.”

  Joy and sorrow mixed in her heart, like a bittersweet cocktail of loss and healing, hurting and yet right. And she smiled back. “That’s good news.”

  He didn’t come into her room, but remained at the half-closed door. “Dave Randall said it’s been a hard summer and autumn for him. He wanted to know if you’d consider work experience for the next couple of months. You’d be his assistant, doing the smaller jobs for now, but leaving him free for the hardest stuff.
”

  “Sounds like exactly what I need right now, like a gift from heaven…or maybe not,” she added, suddenly suspicious. “Be honest, Dar. Did Dave call here, or did you call him?” She watched her father closely.

  Her father’s twitching grin gave him away. “Well, Dave jumped at the idea…”

  And though she thought it would take a long time to laugh again, she found herself chuckling. “You’re a shocker, you know that?”

  He shrugged. “Can’t help myself, Princess—but I am trying to let go.” Staying at the door he asked, with obvious diffidence, “You…okay?”

  Her anxious, overprotective Dar was giving her space, asking without demanding. A long-overdue acknowledgment of her maturity, and her right to make her own decisions. The tears spilled over again before she could control them, but she smiled. “No, Dar, I’m not okay—but I will be.”

  She opened her arms, and her father came to her, an equal for the first time.

  Moments later, the small, winking light of the light plane faded into the distance, and disappeared.

  This was all wrong.

  The deep darkness of a cool autumn night over Burrabilla was punctuated by the lights of every car on the place, turned on and facing each other every fifty meters or so in a makeshift runway.

  This was the welcoming party he wished he could have avoided. He’d wanted, more than anything, to see only Sandy and Aaron first, or better yet, go to Jenny’s and Annabel’s graves before going home at all; he wanted to ease back into the life he’d left behind. But it was dark and this wasn’t his plane, so he had to radio his arrival in.