by Webb, Peggy
“I don’t feel in control of my life anymore. When I’m on my horse, nothing else seems to matter; everything falls into its proper place. Does that make any sense, Jane?”
“You always make sense, Virginia. You’re the most sensible person I know. Sometimes I wonder if you’re too sensible.”
“What do you mean? Too sensible?”
Jane reached into her pocket and pulled out the note. “Here, read this first.” She handed Virginia the note. “From Bolton.”
Virginia refolded the note and held it in her lap.
“What’s the use of reading it? A note won’t change a thing.”
“That’s what I mean.” Jane squatted beside her chair and covered Virginia’s hands with hers. “I know I said some things that made you believe that I think a match between you and Bolton would be about the worst disaster since Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast, but I had no right to make that kind of judgment. Nor does anybody else. Forget everything and everybody. You’ve always been intrepid, Virginia. Look how far you’ve come! Be intrepid again and reach out for what you want.”
“What I want would not be fair to Bolton.”
“Why don’t you let him be the judge of that?”
Slowly Virginia unfolded the note. Bolton’s handwriting was exactly what she had expected, big and bold with straight, decisive lines.
“Virginia,” he had written. “You are my life, my love, and nothing else matters. NOTHING! Each moment we are not together is a waste. Together we are a miracle; apart we are two lonely people filled with regret. Marry me, Virginia. Let’s not waste our tomorrows.”
She read the note twice before she refolded it and put it in the top drawer of her bedside table.
“Well... What did he say?”
“Nothing that would convince me to change my mind.” Virginia hastily scribbled on a notepad, then tore the page off and handed it to Jane. “Will you take him this?”
“Shoot, I fancied myself as Cupid when all along I was nothing but the pony express.” At Virginia’s withering look, Jane threw up her hands; “All right, all right. I’ll take it.”
Bolton was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs.
“What did she say?”
“Here.” Jane handed him the note. “This is what she said.”
Virginia’s reply was brief: “Bolton, for me tomorrow may never come. I can’t and I won’t saddle you with my problems.”
Bolton was so still that Jane thought he had forgotten she was there.
“Will there be a reply?”
“No. No reply.” He started toward the door, then remembered his manners. “Thanks, Jane.”
“Wait. Where are you going? You’re not giving up, are you?”
“Never.” He smiled at her. “There’s an old Apache saying that wisdom comes to us in dreams.”
Virginia stood at her window and watched Bolton go down the path to the cottage, then enter. She could see movement behind the windows. What was he doing? Packing?
o0o
She heard Jane enter the room, but Virginia didn’t turn around; she couldn’t turn around, not as long as there was a chance to catch a glimpse of Bolton.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“Just that.”
“What?”
“The same thing you just said, except that he said, ‘What did she say?’ “
“Oh... Is there a note?”
“No. No note.”
Virginia wadded the curtain in her hand, her eyes riveted on the guest cottage. The curtains were open to let in the autumn sunlight, and through the French doors she could see him at the desk, using the telephone. Who was he calling?
”Did he say anything?”
“Some old Indian wisdom about Apaches coming with dreams.”
“What?”
“Or maybe it was dreams coming with Apaches.”
“Good grief. That doesn’t sound like Bolton.”
“That’s what I say. Good grief.” Jane puttered around the room, picking up every movable object. “Do you want to play checkers, Virginia?”
“No. I want you to go home and get some rest.”
“You haven’t heard from Dr. Mason.”
“I’m not likely to hear today, and I’m not planning to fall apart today, either.” She caught her friend’s hand. “Look, Jane. I feel better this morning, stronger. I thought I might even go downstairs and work at the computer awhile. Anything to keep my mind off myself while I wait to hear from the doctor.”
“If you think I’m leaving you till he calls, you’ve got another think coming.” Jane set up the checkerboard. “Do you want black or red?”
“Black. It fits my mood.”
Jane set up the board. “And don’t cheat. You always cheat.”
“I do not. You say that because I always win.”
Jane made her first move. “What do you reckon he meant about Apaches coming with dreams?”
Virginia shrugged her shoulders, then made her move. But her mind was not on the game; it was on an incredibly passionate Apache who had come to her bearing a dream, not once, not twice, but three times. Was she crazy to keep spitting in the eye of fate?
She never even noticed when Jane jumped her and swept her checker off the board.
Chapter Twenty
At mid-afternoon Bolton left on some mysterious errand and didn’t return until long after dark. If Jane had been awake, Virginia would have discussed his whereabouts with her, but Jane was stretched out on the chaise longue snoring. Exhausted.
Virginia watched as Bolton rounded the curve in the pathway that led to the cottage. He paused at the door and gazed toward her window. The moon slanted across his face and his mouth moved. Though she couldn’t hear the words she knew exactly what he was saying. “I love you.”
For an instance his face was illuminated by one of his quicksilver smiles, and then he went inside, vanishing as silently as one of the big, graceful wildcats she had seen on his mountain.
Virginia dragged herself to the bathroom. When she caught sight of herself, she jerked a towel off the rack and draped it over the mirror. The tightening in her throat signaled a gathering of tears. She felt totally helpless, even more helpless than she had when Roger had left her.
Suddenly Virginia remembered those days, days of wondering how she could raise her child and pay her bills alone, days of wondering where her next bit of strength would come from, her next bit of hope.
Intrepid, Jane had called her. And by George, she had been. She was.
She marched to the mirror, tore the towel off, and stared at herself. There was nothing wrong with the outside of her that a good shampoo and a good bath wouldn’t fix. As for the inside... she would cross that bridge when she came to it. And if cancer was waiting for her on the other side, she would fight a battle the likes of which had never been fought.
“You’re not going to beat Virginia Haven,” she said. “Don’t even try.”
Her chin held high and her step firm, she made her way to bed and was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow. She didn’t stir until the phone woke her the next morning.
“Virginia, this is Dr. Mason...”
She gripped the receiver so hard, her knuckles turned white.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“I didn’t expect to call you so soon. The test results are in.”
Virginia drew a deep breath. There would be no tears and no trembling for her today, just a good firm resolve that she would face whatever lay ahead with grace and courage and a tenacious will to win.
“What is it... who is it...” Jane sat up, her eyes still heavy with sleep and her hair poufed like a giant Christmas bow that had been battered about.
“Shhh... it’s Dr. Mason....” Virginia held the receiver close to her ear, hardly daring to breathe. “What was that?... I see... You’re sure?... Yes, so am I... Thank you, Dr. Mason.”
Virginia’s legs wouldn’t hold
her. She sank onto the edge of the bed.
“I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it,” she said.
“What?” Jane raced across the room, her sheet tangled in her pajama buttons and dragging along behind her. “What can’t you believe?” Virginia merely stared at her. “I’m going to have a heart attack... Virginia, was it that bad?”
“It was amazing, a miracle. That’s what Dr. Mason called it, a miracle.”
“Then it’s not cancer?”
“It’s not cancer.”
The two friends stared at each other, then they began to laugh and cry at the same time. Jane did a victory dance around the room, whooping and hollering, then threw herself onto the bed.
“Tell all. What did he say?”
“Because of the X rays from the mammogram and the location, Dr. Mason was certain it was cancer. So was the pathologist. When he saw the mass during surgery, he was furious that I had refused to sign so that they could remove my breast.”
“That’s why Dr. Mason wouldn’t tell us what the pathologist had thought.”
“Exactly... Then the result of the frozen section came in.” Virginia beamed. “It’s a miracle, Jane.”
Jane went into the bathroom to blow her nose and came back trailing toilet paper. “Shoot, it looks like I’m on a crying jag and fixing to wallow in it all day.”
“Go ahead and wallow; you’ve earned the right.”
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“Laugh, dance, sing, bathe, shampoo. Not necessarily in that order.” But there was one thing above all others that she had to do. “I want to see Bolton. I need to see Bolton.”
She picked up the receiver and dialed the cottage. The phone rang and rang.
“I must have dialed the wrong number.” She dialed again and waited, listening to the insistent rings in a cottage that obviously was not occupied. She tried his cell, but there was no answer.
“I guess he had second thoughts,” Virginia said. “Who can blame him?”
“Hey, chin up, pal. This is not the end, you know.”
“No, it’s not.” Smiling, Virginia slipped on her robe. “As a matter of fact, it’s just the beginning.”
“You’re darned right.”
“Jane, I don’t know what I would do without you.”
“The same right back at you.” Jane sniffled into a wad of toilet paper. “Let me get out of here before I start again.”
After Jane left, Virginia called Candace, then shut herself into the bathroom for a major overhaul. In bubbles up to her bandage she fancied that she heard music, a melody that reminded her of mountains alive with birdsong and newly greening trees and spring flowers.
She toweled her hair dry, sprayed herself with perfume that smelled like flowers in the summer sun, then put on her pink robe and shoved open the door.
“Hello, Virginia.”
Bolton stood in her bedroom smiling. The music was distinct now, Leonard Bernstein playing Copland’s “Appalachian Spring.” For a moment Virginia was speechless, lost in the absolute beauty of the man who had shared her bed and claimed her heart.
“You brought the music,” she said.
“Yes. I brought the music.”
Bolton crossed the room in three long strides. Only when he was standing in front of her did she notice what he had in his hand, an Indian blanket, brilliantly hued in all the colors of the rainbow.
“I’m glad you’re wearing the pink robe,” he said, draping his blanket around her shoulders. Then tenderly he lifted her into his arms. “It’s perfect.”
“For what?”
“For making a fresh start.”
As he left the room and headed down the stairs, the Bernstein orchestra segued into Copland’s lusty, dashing “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“On a journey that has no end.”
Music drifted around them as Bolton strode boldly through her living room, across the foyer, and out the front door. One of her white Arabians was just beyond the front porch, bridled and covered with another Apache blanket.
Virginia didn’t even consider protesting as Bolton carefully lifted her onto the stallion then mounted in front of her. Her curiosity was aroused, and she had to find out what he was up to. But more than that, she was filled with a sense of the inevitable, of being swept along on a wave that she could no more control than she could dictate the tides of the ocean.
“Hold on tight, Virginia. Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” She wrapped her arms around Bolton’s waist and leaned her head against his back. “I don’t want to ever let go,” she whispered, but her words were lost in the wind and the pounding of hooves.
Overhead the sky was as blue as a robin’s egg, and spread out around her was her land, its hills and meadows and forests and lakes polished by the sun and strewn with the colors of autumn. Exhilaration filled Virginia. The land was solid and enduring, a continual source of strength.
What did it matter the curves life threw her as long as she had the land? What did it matter where life took her as long as she had Bolton?
They passed the barn and the paddocks, rounded the lake and topped a hill, and there in the distance was Bolton’s tepee, rising almost as tall as the trees around it.
“How in the world did you get that here?”
“Callie dismantled it and shipped it express.” He drew the Arabian to a stop and dismounted, handling Virginia as carefully as if she were breakable. “We didn’t finish what we started, and since you can’t go back to the mountain for a while, I brought the mountain to you.”
“You’re a remarkable man.”
“So are you—a remarkable woman.”
He opened the blanket and stepped into its protective folds, drawing it around their shoulders so that they stood thigh to thigh, chest to chest, heart to heart.
“I love you, Virginia Haven. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you riding like an Apache on your white stallion.”
She pressed closer, and he claimed her with a kiss so sweet, so tender she almost cried.
“Bolton... there’s something I have to tell you. Something very important.”
“Nothing is important now except this.” He carried her inside, spread the blanket on the floor of his tepee and lay down with Virginia cradled in his arms. Bending over her, he kissed her hair, her eyebrows, her nose, her cheeks. He lingered over her lips, then moved his attentions downward, caressing her throat with lips and hands. Only when he caught the sash of her robe did she remember her bandages... and the damage they hid.
She caught the neck of her robe and held it tightly closed. He covered her hands with his.
“I’m scarred, Bolton.”
“The only scars that matter are the ones that damage the heart and the soul. You are whole, Virginia.”
Suddenly Virginia realized that there would be no halfway measures with this man. If she loved him, she would have to give herself completely to him, scars and all.
She released her hold, and Bolton spread her robe open. He touched the bandage almost reverently, and then leaned down to kiss it.
Such love filled her that she didn’t know how one woman could contain it.
“Do you love me, Virginia?”
There was no hesitation in her now, only a beautiful certainty.
“Yes, Bolton. I do.” What she had found with Bolton Gray Wolf was true love; their meeting had been no accident but destiny. Finally Virginia was free to love and to be loved as only the unencumbered can.
“You have my heart, Virginia. Say you’ll take my name, as well.”
The generosity and complete faith of his offer astounded her.
“You’d marry me without knowing whether I have cancer? Without knowing whether I have one breast or two?”
“One of the most beautiful creatures of legend has only one horn.”
“The unicorn?”
“Yes, the unicorn.” Bolton stroked he
r hair. “A creature gifted with powers of magic. Only a fool would throw away magic.”
Virginia smiled. “Is that an answer?”
“That’s my answer.”
“My left breast is scarred but otherwise intact, and I don’t have cancer. Dr. Mason calls it a miracle.”
“The Father Creator heard my prayers.”
Bolton kissed her brow, then propped on his elbow and studied her as if she were priceless.
“Yes, Virginia, it’s a miracle, but the greatest miracle of all is love.”
Epilogue
Virginia never tired of watching the sunset in the mountains. She swiveled her chair toward the window so she could see the sky change from blue to rose and gold then fade to a dusky pink that gave way to deep purple. Only when the shadows lay across the mountains did she turn back to her computer.
She typed the last word of the last sentence in the last chapter of her latest novel, and then she typed the dedication.
“To my beloved, whose love defines my minutes, my hours, my days, my years.”
As soon as Bolton entered the room, all her attention was focused on him. His cameras were slung around his neck, and his dog Bear followed at his heels. He wrapped his arms around her from behind the chair and rested his chin on her hair as he read over her shoulder.
“Is this beloved someone I should know about?” he said, teasing her.
“Maybe. He stole my heart two years ago, and I’ve dedicated every one of my novels to him.”
“He’s important to you, is he?”
“He’s my life, my love, my heart.”
Laughing, he picked her up and carried her outside.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“A barn. Horses. Trees. Pasture. A mountain.”
“What else?”
“You.” She ruffled his hair and kissed his lips.
“What else?”
She wrinkled her brow then glanced upward. “A sliver of a moon and the first pale stars of evening.”
“Anything else?”
“No...”
“You’re sure?”
“Bolton... what is all this mystery?”
He set her on her feet and draped his left arm over her shoulder. Then with his right he pointed to the clearing beyond the first ridge of the mountains.
