Maverick (Star Valley Book 3)

by Dahlia West

  Leah’s chin hit her chest and fresh, hot tears spilled onto her shirt. As much as she wanted to be with him, wanted him to love and care for her always, she couldn’t do that to him. “No,” she whispered even as her heart broke inside her hollow chest.

  “Leah, I know it won’t be easy but I’m not ready to give up on us. I’m not ready to lose you. Come home. We’ll get married. We’ll work all this out. We’ll heal from this. Together.”

  “I can’t let you.”

  Austin took her by the shoulders. “We—”

  Leah raised her face and looked into his eyes. “There is no we,” she argued. “You can’t do this, Austin. You can’t tie yourself to me. I can’t have children, which means you’ll never have children. You’ll never have the big family you want. Not with me.”

  “Is that what you’re worried about? Is that why you won’t say yes? Leah, I want it. I did want it. I won’t lie to you. I did want it, but I need you. You don’t know how much I need you.” He took her hand and placed it over his chest. “There’s nothing here, Leah. There’s nothing here without you. You have to come home.”

  “Don’t you get it? I might die!” she shouted, pressing her hands against his solid frame. “I still might die and you’ll be alone!”

  Instead of being pushed away, Austin pulled her closer, so close her belly was pressed against his, her whole body crushed by the hard length of him.

  His empty chest.

  Her empty belly.

  What a pair they made.

  “Maybe!” he yelled back over the storm. “But you’ll live until then! You’ll live, Leah, every minute, every day. I’ll make sure of it. We’re going to get to the end of this list, Leah. And then we’ll make another one. And another one. And we’ll keep making them for as long as we can, if that’s what happens.”

  Leah glared up at him. “So you want to make lists instead of babies? Is that it?”

  “Yes!” His roar rivaled the thunderclouds above them.

  She stared at him, mouth open, eyes wide.

  “I’ll leave everything,” he told her. “I’ll walk away. Leave the Folly—”

  Leah shook her head. “Austin—”

  “I’ll leave Snake River and—”

  “You can’t!”

  “I will,” he growled. “I will move here, Leah. I’ll walk with you to work. I’ll bring you dinner. I’ll sleep on your doorstep, if I have to. Wherever you are, I’ll be there. Forever. And we will have forever. I believe that, even if you don’t. I’m betting on us, Leah. I’m all in. And I don’t care how long it takes. You will be, too.”

  Leah blinked up at him, hot tears mixing with cool rain on her face. Here was a man who’d risked it all, time and time again, the luckiest person she’d ever met. And he was standing in front of her, willing to risk it all again.

  On her.

  “I know you love me, Leah. Even if you won’t say it. I know you do. I know you didn’t just stop when it all fell apart.”

  And maybe she was weak, too weak, too selfish. Or maybe Austin, towering above her with his hard, muscled frame and clenched jaw, seemed strong, strong enough to lift her, to hold her up, to help her climb again. Because Leah moved forward then, every part of her wanting to take a leap—a different leap—straight into his arms.

  Austin caught her as she stumbled forward, dragging her against him and pressing his lips to hers.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I never stopped believing in you. I think I just stopped believing in me.”

  Leah tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder and glanced up at the threatening sky. “There’s a storm,” she said, huddling closer to him. She felt Austin’s arms tighten around her, holding her in place. Rain soaked them both.

  “It’ll blow past us,” he told her. “I promise.”

  His hand found hers and he slipped the ring onto her finger.

  Chapter Forty-Three

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  Austin held her so close to his side that he was damn near carrying her by the time they got to their rented hotel room. Neither of them had the energy to try to drive all the way back home. In the cool, darkened room, he pulled off her wet clothes, drew back the sheets and laid her naked in the middle of the bed before covering her with the thick blanket.

  He stripped off his own sodden clothes and threw his boots in the corner and slid in beside her, skin to skin, huddled under the covers. Outside the last remnants of the storm could still be heard. Rain dropped a steady beat on the window and the occasional peal of thunder broke up the rhythm.

  “I can’t believe you found me,” she whispered. “If you’d come later or given up…” Her voice trailed off like it was too awful to say out loud.

  He held onto her tightly, for his own benefit as much for hers. “I went to the apartment first,” he told her. “Then to your job. The only other place I could think you might be was the dam. If…If I’d lost you, Leah, I just don’t know. I just don’t. I would’ve followed after you. I know that much. I’m not going to be here alone. Being alone was more than I could take. I’d have taken my chances after the jump.”

  “Austin!”

  “You’re my family, Leah. My heart, my everything. I will go where ever you are, I told you that. Here or in the next life, doesn’t matter.”

  “You already have a family,” Leah insisted.

  “And you don’t? What about your mom, your dad? Candace? People love you, Leah. There are people who can’t live without you. Not just me, but a lot of people need you.”

  “I feel like I let them down. Like my body keeps rebelling and keeps disappointing everyone, ruining their lives.”

  “The leukemia was what it was. No one holds it against you. And the fall was an accident. There was nothing to be done about either.” The land took, to be sure, but there was nothing vicious or cruel or calculated about it. He was calm enough to see that now. Things happened. The odds weren’t always in your favor. “I don’t know why this life has been so difficult for you Leah, but I promise I’m going to make it better. But you can’t leave me again. And you can’t do anything you can’t take back.”

  He swallowed hard, gazing at the ceiling. “My father did that. Killed himself.”

  “I…I had no idea. Austin, I…God…I—”

  “He did it for us, or thought he was. But we’d give anything to have him back, anything at all. We’d even give up the Snake to have us all together. The thing is, in his shoes, I’d have made the same choice, thinking it was the right one. But now that I know how much it hurts, I couldn’t do that to them, not to save them. But I’d go along with you, though,” he whispered. “Because I don’t think I could lose one more person and keeping waking up every day.”

  “Austin, don’t talk like that!”

  “Then don’t you think like that! Don’t go thinking I could make it without you because I can’t, Leah. And I won’t. It was hard enough letting you go the first time.”

  “It was hard for me, too. I missed you,” she whispered, clutching at him. “I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t want to leave but I couldn’t stay. I was just so…so…”

  Austin kissed the top of her head and held her against him. “You needed time. I needed time. We each needed to grieve in our way. And now we’ll do it together.”

  He wasn’t naive about that. He might not be willing to accept the possibility of Leah’s leukemia coming back someday, but losing the baby had still been an awful blow, and the wound needed time to heal. But they’d weathered more than one storm together. They’d make it through this one.

  As he swallowed, he noticed the hollow ache in his chest and the near-constant rawness in his throat was not quite as sharp, not quite as painful. Maybe it was just a little bit lessened, a tiny bit, but it had still dulled, thankfully. Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her, as though Death, or anyone, anything, would have to pry his grip from her to take her.

  And it would.

  Now it would.

  A
ustin had Leah in his arms again and he was never letting her go.

  “What would you have named the baby?” he asked her quietly, wiping one of her errant tears with his thumb.

  She smiled, embarrassed. “If it was a girl, I was thinking about River.” She gave him a shy look. “If you’d have let me.”

  He grinned back at her. “River. River Barlow. I like it.”

  “What about you? Did you have some ideas?”

  “Rafe for a boy.” He grinned. “To stake my claim on the name before any of my brothers. If Seth’s baby isn’t a boy.”

  “Your father would’ve liked that, I bet.” This time, Leah reached up and wiped his tears. “Rafe,” she said, like she was testing it on her tongue. “I would’ve liked that, too.” She sighed. “I can’t sleep without you. I haven’t slept since I left. In my dreams, it’s a girl, and she’s falling, but I don’t catch her.”

  “It’s the same for me,” he admitted. “No sleep. It hurts too much. And I already know no pill will kill it. No drink will make it go away forever.”

  He never dreamed of a baby, or of anything that he recalled. But his whole body hurt whenever his eyes opened. If Leah dreamed of a girl, then it must have been. With dark eyes and a mass of soft brown hair. He could picture it, picture her, picture them all together.

  The storm had finally died down. There were no more tinny droplets splashing on the window pane, no more low rumbles of thunder in the distance. Now just the hum of the air conditioner kicking on filled the silence in the room.

  “We’re right back where we started,” she said quietly as the curtains rustled.

  Austin squeezed her tighter, silently vowing to never let go again. “But we’re not going to end here.” He said it like a challenge, to anything out there that might be listening.

  Nothing answered back.

  Nothing dared.

  Chapter Forty-Four

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  Leah pulled her sunhat down, shading her face from the rays beating down. She checked to make sure the baby’s hat was tied tightly as well and that the sunscreen hadn’t worn off. The light blanket she was swaddled in was sufficient to keep her warm from the breeze coming in off the Tetons in the distance.

  Blue eyes, so very like Leah’s own, shone up at her. A dimpled smile showing off a toothless grin made her laugh. A tuft of dark, soft hair that was already wavy like Austin’s fluttered in the wind.

  Leah laid the baby down on the grass and tickled her feet. “I’m going to get your toes!” she sang and the giggle that erupted in response made her heart skip a beat. “Where’s Daddy?” she asked. “Do you see him? Do you know where he is?” She shielded her eyes and scanned the vast field, looking for a chestnut horse with a long-legged cowboy sitting astride. “I don’t see him. Do you? Baby, do you?”

  She glanced down at the grass but there was only the white blanket, wrapped like a bundle but with nothing inside. “No,” Leah breathed and snatched at the top layer. She peeled back layer after layer, faster, faster. “No, no, no.” She tugged at the last layer and heard the rip of the fabric. “No!” she screamed as her fingers sank into the earth and she clawed at the dirt.

  “Leah? Leah, wake up. Don’t. Leah, stop.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, puffy and stinging. Austin switched on the light on the nightstand and she blinked rapidly, as fast as she was still breathing. She’d ripped his shirt but her throat was raw and her apology came out as little more than a guttural sound. “Sh…she was there. She was there and then she was gone.”

  He held her through her tears until she was calm enough to realize he didn’t look much better than she must have. His eyes red-rimmed and he was in need of a shave. “River,” he murmured while pulling her closer. “Her name was River. And she’s somewhere now, Leah. She’s somewhere, I know it.”

  Leah knew it, too. Or wanted to believe it so badly that she convinced herself of it. No one so loved could just disappear into the ether or be erased from existence. Her little miracle was someone else’s miracle now.

  She lay with Austin in the dark until the sun rose and shone through the space between the curtains. It was time to get up, time to face the day (and all the days after).

  At the apartment for the last time, she and Candace exchanged tearful goodbyes. “I’m still going to come and visit you,” Candace told her.

  “You better,” Leah replied.

  Candace gripped her hand and looked again at the ring on Leah’s finger. “It’s beautiful, Leah.”

  “It is,” Leah concurred. “And it will be.”

  They drove out of Cody just before the day began heating up. When Austin passed the dam she gave it a look but didn’t ask him to stop. Somehow she knew seeing all her little scraps of paper scattered on the splintered timber would be too much. There might be other lists, someday. But that one was gone.

  They sat hip to hip in the cab of the truck, with Austin’s arm around her as she lay her head on his shoulder. The drive seemed long, too long, and she nodded off for a few minutes here and there, catching up on all the sleep she’d lost since the storm. She sat up when the rumble of the Snake River Ranch driveway rattled the cab hard enough to wake her.

  Most of the family greeted them in the driveway. Rowan, arguably the most concerned, probably out of sheer professionalism, stepped forward and looked Leah up and down in a way Leah was now getting used to.

  “Leah, I’m so sorry,” said the other woman quietly, taking her hand off her own belly.

  Leah rushed forward then, taking the slightly older woman into a fierce hug. “Don’t do that,” she whispered into Rowan’s ear. “My happiness isn’t tied to yours, okay? Just because you have something doesn’t mean you stole it from me.”

  It was a lesson she’d learned in small chemotherapy rooms, in large plastic covered dentist-type chairs where you saw the same kids every week…until you didn’t. And the nurses would tell them that no one was better or worse for still being alive, some things just were.

  Even Walker, normally so aloof, offered her a smile. “Glad you’re back home,” he told her gruffly.

  Dakota hugged her but she was hesitant and seemed unsure. She glanced at Leah’s ring and a strange look passed over her face.

  Leah understood they all had to make an adjustment. Her original reason for being here was gone and a new one had come to take its place. They would all need some time to change gears.

  Sofia held onto her next, whispering something in Leah’s ear that sounded like Spanish prayers. “God is in the earth,” the woman told her and Leah didn’t know quite what she meant but it was still comforting in its own way.

  As everyone gathered for dinner, Leah remained in the living room, closer to the staircase than the dining room. Austin found her and took her by the shoulders, rubbing her arms. “Are you hungry? You should eat. I can get you a plate.”

  Leah shook her head and sighed. “I’m not hungry. I just want to go upstairs.”

  Austin’s expression was full of concern, but Leah took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “I just want to lie down. Just tonight. I just want to be with you.” He nodded and followed her upstairs, to their bedroom, where Leah put on a nightgown and crawled between the cool sheets, snuggling up to him as he lay beside her. She was still tired, so tired, but it didn’t seem to matter much.

  Unable to fall asleep, unwilling to wake up in tears, she lay awake in the bed, watched the shadows of the leaves dance on the far wall. Whether she somehow woke him or he simply sensed something was wrong, Austin turned and found her awake.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Do you need anything? Can I get you something?”

  Leah shook her head and pulled him closer, held him tighter. She had everything she needed here. The rest was just time. “No,” she told him and meant it. “I’m just glad to be home.”

  And she was. Despite everything, she truly was.

  Chapter Forty-Five


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  Austin and Leah woke together and dressed silently, now a solid part of their daily routine for the last two weeks. Leah pulled on a pair of jeans and boots and they headed downstairs, careful not to wake anyone. Breakfast was quick, just toast and coffee for both of them. They washed their plates and stepped out into the hazy summer morning. The dew on the grass sparkled in the sunlight.

  He readied Colter while Leah saddled her own horse, having memorized each step, and tightened the cinch so she could mount easily. Their rides had never taken them far, first the indoor ring, then the outdoor paddock, and now they were taking their third trip around the perimeter before the acreage opened up to miles of cattle range.

  In the east the sun rose to throw apple-gold rays toward the mountains that lay to the north. The peaks glowed fiery red, blazing against the light blue sky. He knew it was her favorite time of day and rode in silence next to her so as not to spoil her moment.

  The dark circles under her eyes had faded somewhat. The night terrors were becoming less and less frequent, though if she thought he didn’t know that she was sneaking out of bed in the wee hours to sit in the rocking chair in the corner, she was wrong. She never left the bedroom and she never woke him, but when she did finally come back to bed (and she always came back) she held him a little tighter.

  She halted her mare at the crest of the hill and reached out for his hand. She didn’t speak, but Austin thought that was fine. As long as she kept reaching for him, things would be okay. She seemed to feel it, too, because when he took her hand, she squeezed it, while still gazing at the mountains ahead of them.

  “I’m ready,” she said suddenly and Austin glanced at her. She nodded once, firmly. “I’m ready.”

  He squeezed her hand in return, then dropped it and gathered Colter’s reins. “Let’s go get packed, then,” he replied, and turned Colter back toward the barn.

  It was still early when they started out, cresting that same hill again half an hour later. They trekked beyond it, down into the valley, and through the trees that lined the first bend in the river. They made it to the bend in the well-worn path where the ancient, leaning outline of a building could be seen between the trees.