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When I Found You (A Box Set)

Page 40

by Webb, Peggy


  “I saw Bolton’s car leave.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Will he be back?”

  “No.”

  To her daughter’s credit, Candace didn’t smile at the news.

  “It’s for the best,” she said.

  “Yes,” Virginia agreed. “It’s best... for all of us.”

  From somewhere deep inside, Virginia drew on a reserve of strength she hadn’t had to use in many years. She threw back the covers, got out of bed, and kissed her daughter good-bye.

  “Take care of yourself, baby.”

  “You, too, Mom.”

  As she held out her hand, Virginia even managed a smile. Candace pressed her palm against her mother’s.

  “Two against the world,” Virginia said.

  o0o

  She was sitting in her office staring at the computer screen. Virginia had done a lot of that lately. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t written a single word since Bolton left. Not one. She had tried. She’d put words on the paper, but they were just words. They didn’t leap off the page and grab the reader by the throat. They didn’t sing. They didn’t even whimper.

  She’d used the delete key so much that the lettering was wearing off.

  It was useless to keep sitting at her keyboard accomplishing nothing. All she was doing was adding failure to misery.

  She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Jane? Can you come over? I’m ready to run.”

  “Thank goodness. I thought you’d died and gone to that great writers’ conference in the sky.”

  “I’m not laughing, Jane.”

  “Somehow I didn’t think you were. I’ll be right over.”

  Virginia was dressed in sweats, waiting on the front porch swing.

  “Up and at ‘em,” Jane said. “Let’s go, kid.”

  “I don’t have the energy to move.”

  “I heard that Bolton left.”

  “You can’t keep a secret in Pontotoc.”

  “Is it supposed to be a secret?”

  “No.”

  “Did he leave on his own, or did you send him away?”

  “I sent him off, but not the way I’d planned. I made a fool of myself, Jane.”

  “Good. Join the human race. I do it daily. Sometimes more than once.” Jane grabbed Virginia’s hands and tugged. “Come on. Get your bones moving. You look like death on wheels.”

  “That’s how I feel.”

  “Not for long, kid. Old Jane has come to the rescue.” Jane let go and twirled around on the front porch. “Do you think I have a cute butt?”

  “I’ve never noticed.”

  “Well, notice. Is it cute?”

  Virginia smiled for the first time in three days. It was then that she knew she was going to be all right.

  “I don’t know anything about cute butts,” she said, “but yeah, I guess yours is cute. Why in the world do you want to know?”

  “Old Eldon at the post office told me it was, and I wondered if he was telling the truth or just trying a new tactic to get me to play fun and games with him.”

  “Eldon!” By now, Virginia was laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Yeah, I’m just kidding, but I made you laugh, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, and it feels good.”

  “You want to know something else that will feel good... besides, you know what, I mean.”

  Virginia kept the smile on her face, but she felt a small quick rush of loss and regret.

  “All right. I’ll bite. What?”

  “Spending money. Reed’s in Tupelo is having a wham bang sale. After we get our bodies gorgeous, let’s go over there and spend an obscene amount of money.”

  “I’m too far behind with my writing.”

  “You say that every time you start a new book.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yep. If you weren’t behind schedule, I’d think something was wrong with you.” Jane marched around her friend, exaggerating her perusal. “Yep. Just as I thought. Nothing wrong that spending a little money won’t cure.”

  Suddenly the starch went out of Virginia. She sat heavily on the swing.

  “I wish that were true.” She was foolishly close to tears.

  Jane sat beside her, and kicked the swing into motion.

  “You did the right thing, Virginia.”

  “My head knows it. I just wish I could convince my heart.”

  “Go ahead and cry if you want to.” A cardinal swooped onto the lowest branch of a pecan tree, his coat a flash of scarlet in the early-morning sun. “Nobody here but us old birds.”

  “I’m not going to cry. I’m sick and tired of crying.”

  “Atta girl!”

  Virginia watched as a sassy mockingbird tried to chase the cardinal away.

  “He hasn’t even called,” she said. “Why doesn’t he call?”

  “Do you want me to answer that?” Virginia waited, knowing Jane could never resist saying exactly what she thought. “I think Mr. Bolton Gray Wolf got back out to Arizona and licked his wounded pride for a couple of days, then he took a good hard long distance look and decided he’d had a very narrow escape.”

  Virginia sucked in her breath.

  “Well, you wanted the truth, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Look, Virginia, you did the right thing. People are still talking about the two of you at that dance.”

  “What are they saying? No, wait a minute. I don’t want to know.”

  “They’re saying exactly what you’d expect them to say. But it’s over and done with now, and you’re going to dress up in one of your outrageously expensive outfits that makes you look twice as beautiful as you already are and stick out your chin and sashay your gorgeous self all over this town smiling like you’ve just been crowned the Queen of the World... even if I have to drag you down the streets kicking and screaming.”

  Strength began to pour through Virginia. With a friend like Jane, nothing was going to happen that she couldn’t handle.

  “Jane, that is quite possibly the worst example of syntax I’ve ever heard.”

  “Hey, I never do anything halfway.”

  Virginia leaned on her porch railing and took a deep breath. Her land was spread out before her—the lake sparkling in the autumn sun, the pasture with patches of brown beginning to show through the green, the woods that would soon put on a flamboyant color show to rival anything she’d see on the world’s greatest stages. In the distance her Arabians cavorted in the paddock. It was all hers, a land, a home, and possessions she’d acquired the hard way, with years of sacrifice and perseverance.

  “Neither do I,” she said.

  She had a good life—a wonderful daughter, a dear and loyal friend, a comfortable home, a great career.

  Nothing was going to steal her joy. Not even the loss of a magnificent Apache warrior called Gray Wolf.

  o0o

  Bolton rode Apache style, his knees dug into the stallion’s side and his hands so light on the reins that horse and rider seemed one. The horse was a paint, the kind ridden by his ancestors, a gritty breed exactly right for the kind of daredevil riding Bolton loved. They thundered down from the mountain, taking the precarious trail at a speed no other would dare... no other except Callie Gray Wolf.

  She stood in the paddock watching her twin brother’s descent. Her Jeep Wrangler was nearby, her black Lab was at her feet, and her eyes were riveted on horse and rider.

  It was too dark for him to be riding that way. Even Callie wouldn’t have taken such risks with the blood-red sun disappearing over the rim of the mountain and casting purple shadows on the trail. Though patience was not her style, Callie had to wait until Bolton wheeled the paint to a stop to have her say.

  “What are you trying to do?” she said. “Kill yourself?”

  “Hello, Callie. When did you get back from Africa?”

  “Last Tuesday. I can’t believe you’d risk the stallion that way.”

  “Lancelot wa
s never at risk. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Oh, do you?”

  “Yes. Always.”

  Callie stood toe-to-toe with her brother, eyes blazing and hands balled into fists.

  “I ought to horsewhip you.”

  Coming from Callie, that was no idle threat. Bolton had seen her in action. When they were eight years old, visiting their mother’s people in Mississippi, she’d taken her grandmother’s buggy whip to a boy twice her size for calling her a papoose. If Bolton hadn’t stepped in, her victim probably would have ended up with more than a cut on his cheek and a bruise on his arm.

  Bolton stared into a face as inscrutable as his own, with the same high cheekbones, the same dusty golden skin. They had the same blue eyes, the same tall frame. But there the resemblance ended. He was calm and self-contained, she was explosive and analytical. He was rugged and masculine, she was blatantly feminine. He walked a steady course, always certain of what he wanted while Callie zigged and zagged all over the country, never sure of what she wanted or what she would do next.

  A doctor specializing in exotic diseases, she traveled the world doing battle against little-known deadly viruses. It was a job suited for a woman with her temperament and courage.

  But no matter where she went, Callie always came home to the White Mountains, always came back to the land that had nurtured her and the family that loved her.

  Her greeting was typical. Between journeys Callie took up exactly where she’d left off, perhaps in an attempt to act as if she’d never left home to put herself at risk time and again.

  They both looked at each other and suddenly burst into laughter.

  “Welcome home, Callie.”

  She looped an arm around his waist, and they walked together toward his house.

  “I can, you know,” she said, “... whip the daylights out of you.”

  “I’ve no doubt that you’d try.”

  They sat together on the front porch swing with Callie’s Lab licking her ankles.

  “My original question stands. What are you trying to do to yourself?”

  Callie never asked an idle question. Trained in science and medicine, she had the kind of mind that sifted through extraneous details and cut right to the heart of the matter.

  “You’ve been talking to Janice,” he said.

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re not the only one with analytical abilities, Dr. Gray Wolf.”

  “Yes, I’ve been talking to her. But not behind your back.”

  “I know you wouldn’t do that, Callie.”

  “She told me you dumped her for that novelist.”

  “Janice said that?”

  “Not exactly in those words. She’s too sweet for that. She said that you’d fallen in love and Virginia Haven had broken your heart.”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way.”

  “How would you put it, Bolton?”

  “I’d put it this way, Callie: I love Virginia and I’m going to be with her. Period. End of discussion.”

  “Are you telling me this is none of my business and to keep my nosy self out of it?”

  “I couldn’t have said it better.”

  “Well... you know what a fool notion I think love is in the first place. And in the second place, you need not tell me what to do because I won’t listen.”

  He laughed. “You never have. Why should you start now?”

  “Precisely. Now that we’ve got that settled... get yourself inside and put on something that doesn’t smell like horses, because you and I are going to Mom and Dad’s for dinner.”

  “I’ve already declined that invitation.”

  “I undeclined for you.”

  Bolton hadn’t wanted to do anything since he got back from Mississippi except ride through the mountains with the wind in his hair and the rain on his face. He had spent days in quiet communion with nature, days listening to the sounds he loved—the call of the eagle and the trill of the turtledove, the roar of waterfalls and the trickle of streams, the mighty rush of storm winds and the whisper of breezes. And through it all there had not been one day that he hadn’t thought of Virginia, not one hour that he hadn’t longed for her, not one moment that he hadn’t loved her.

  As much as he loved his sister and his parents, he’d needed that time alone. But now it was time for action.

  He stood up and looked down at his sister.

  “Wipe that smug smile off your face. I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it because I want to.”

  Callie swatted his leg.

  “Scat. Shoo. Go in there and get gorgeous. The world is full of women waiting to swoon over you.”

  “There’s only one woman I want.”

  Callie felt a gut punch that meant trouble. Ever since they had been children, she’d always known instinctively when her twin needed her help.

  She followed him into the house and didn’t bat an eye about snooping while he was in the shower. Not that he was trying to hide anything. The thing about her brother that made him so vulnerable was his frank and open manner.

  The pictures were spread across the coffee table, dozens of them, some black and white, some color, all beautiful, all of the same woman.

  Callie picked up the first one and sucked in a sharp breath. The woman’s face was soft and misty and full of wonder.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Callie whirled around. Her brother was standing behind her, his hair still damp from his bath. It didn’t surprise Callie at all that Virginia Haven had fallen in love with him. What surprised her was her own reaction, fear tinged with sorrow... and envy.

  “Hey, you’re crying.” Bolton took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his sister’s face. “There’s no need to cry, Callie. Everything is going to be all right.”

  “I thought so too... until I saw this.”

  Bolton took the photograph. It was the one he’d taken underneath the trees on Virginia’s farm right after they had first made love.

  “It’s Virginia.”

  “I guessed as much.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Callie sniffled. “I didn’t think it was real, Bolton. I mean... love. It just doesn’t happen.”

  “It happened to Mom and Dad.”

  “I know, but that’s different. They’re our parents.”

  “Callie... Callie...” Bolton hugged his sister. “When are you going to learn? Love happens.”

  She took a big sniffle, then threw back her head and glared at him.

  “Not to me, it won’t. I’m not planning to mess up my life with that kind of sentimental poppycock.”

  “You don’t have to look so fierce. I’m not arguing with you.”

  Callie took the handkerchief and finished wiping her face, then she sat on the sofa and picked up the other photographs, one by one. With his camera Bolton had uncovered all of Virginia’s secrets, had laid her emotions bare.

  A close-up of Virginia in her pink bathrobe slid to the floor. As Bolton picked it up he remembered the morning he had snapped it, the morning he had walked up the stairs with her and made love in her bedroom that smelled like roses.

  His heart hurt so much that he could hardly breathe. He studied the picture, not critically in the way of a professional photographer, but tenderly in the way of a lover.

  Had time and distance made a difference? Would she listen to her heart now? Or was he being a fool? Maybe she’d been listening to her heart all along, and its answers were not the ones Bolton wanted to hear.

  “She loves you, Bolton,” Callie said.

  “You must have read my mind.”

  “I always have.”

  He traced the path of sunlight on Virginia’s face.

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve seen that look on the face of our mother.”

  Bolton had too. In old photographs taken when Jo Beth McGill married Colter Gray Wolf, in snapshots taken over the years and pasted in the family album, and on his mother’s face eve
ry time she looked at his father.

  “Thank you, Callie.”

  She didn’t have to ask to understand why he was thanking her. Callie slid off the sofa and put her hand on his arm.

  “You know I don’t understand any of this, Bolton. I’m not even sure I approve, and not because of her age. Janice told me, and I don’t give a flip about that. But I want you to know one thing: I’ll do anything to help you.”

  “I know you mean well, Callie, but I can do this.”

  Callie was on a roll and wouldn’t be stopped.

  “I’ll pick out a ring, I’ll shine your shoes and clean your stables. Heck, I’ll even fly down there and tell her how wonderful you are—when you’re not being a pain in the gluteus maximus.”

  “You would too.”

  “You’re darned tootin’.”

  They didn’t have Mississippi grandparents for nothing. When they were youngsters they used to follow Silas McGill around the house imitating him. Darned tootin’ hadn’t caused much of a stir when they tried out their new vocabulary back home, but some of the things they’d learned from Silas had gotten them into more hot water than they cared to remember.

  “I still miss him,” Bolton said. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes. But I’m glad he went when he did and the way he did. Dying in his own backyard of a quick heart attack is a far better alternative than wasting slowly in a nursing home. Advanced Alzheimer’s is devastating for the family.”

  Callie started straightening the stack of photographs.

  “Hey, we’d better leave before Dad sends out a search party.”

  “You go ahead,” Bolton said. “There’s something I have to do.”

  Callie narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not just making up excuses, are you?”

  “No. I’ll be there in time for dinner. I promise.”

  “Would this mystery chore have anything to do with Virginia Haven?”

  Bolton took her arm and escorted her toward the door.

  “‘Bye, Callie.”

  “That’s not a very polite way to treat a lady.”

  “Since when did you become a lady?”

  “Bolton Gray Wolf, I take back every nice thing I said about you. Furthermore, I might just call a certain woman in Mississippi and tell her how you hog all the popcorn at movies.”

  “You’re all heart, Callie. I knew I could count on you.”

 

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