A Father's Stake

by Mary Anne Wilson

  She must have gasped, because Moses was studying her.

  “Are you doing okay?”

  She was shaken by what she’d just realized. She loved Jack Carson. As insane as that seemed, she felt it deep inside her. And she didn’t want him to be in pain, to be hurt. She couldn’t stand it if she hurt him. “I’m okay,” she lied.

  “Good, Lilly should be up in her room by now. Why don’t you head up and see how she is?”

  “Yes, yes, I will,” she said, and turned toward the elevators.

  “Grace?”

  Moses came hurrying after her, the huge bear Grace had seen earlier in the waiting room in his arms. “I’m assuming this is yours, or at least Lilly’s?”

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” she said, taking it as the elevator panel chimed and the door slid open. “Thank you,” she repeated as she pressed the button for the second floor.

  * * *

  JACK LEFT THE smell of disinfectant, the echoing of voices and footsteps on polished tiles. He hated them all. He hated the hospital, but he hated himself more. He’d thought he could be there, that he could stay with Grace, but when they’d stopped by the waiting room near the ICU he couldn’t go any further. He could barely breathe.

  He’d left, as quickly as he could, but didn’t make it to his Jeep. He sat on a half wall just outside the hospital doors, unable to move. He had no idea where to go. There was no place, no part of the town or the ranch that he could go to and get rid of his guilt. And Grace was still back at the hospital.

  “Jack?”

  He looked up and found Mallory standing there, her face creased with concern. She studied him. “Oh, boy, you....” She bit her lip. “Do you want to come inside?”

  “No,” he said, he couldn’t go in that place again.

  Mallory sat down on the wall beside him. “You know, Jack, we haven’t been really close. You were always ahead of me in school, and you were always with Robyn.”

  He felt cold, yet it was balmy outside.

  Mallory kept talking. “I’m probably way out of line here, but you’re doing what I did when Henry died.”

  Jack protested quickly, “It’s not about....” But he couldn’t finish the statement. “Moses called you to tell you that I’m acting crazy?”

  “Oh, no, I mean, he called, but he’s worried. He’d hoped you’d go back and talk to him.” She seemed to brace herself. “I’m sure Grace was very grateful that you were there for her. Poor Lilly, hurting herself like that. It’s sad, but also happy. She’s going to be okay, good as new, so Moses told me.”

  Jack stared at her, waiting, knowing something else was coming and that he probably should brace himself for it.

  “The thing is, Moses doesn’t understand. He’s totally compassionate, and sympathetic, but he never lost part of himself, part of the life he wanted to live. I have. Three years ago, now. Henry was gone. And I was here.” She touched his arm. “And I was like you, scared and upset, and feeling guilty that I was alive and he wasn’t. Then Moses came, and I fought it. I really did, but suddenly I knew that Henry loved me, and if he could come back for one instant, he’d tell me that he wanted me to be loved again, and to love again. And I do, Jack, I love Moses as surely as the sun rises, and it’s real love, but it’s different. Moses is different than Henry, but I love them both, and I always will.”

  Her hand was slightly unsteady on him, and he kept hearing her words over and over again, although she was watching him silently now. “Mallory, I—”

  She looked down at his hands, and he realized he was twisting his gold wedding band around and around. “You feel unfaithful?”

  He glared at her. She’d hit the mark and it hurt. “You don’t?” he asked.

  “I did. I really did, but what if you’d been the one taken, and Robyn was here alone. Is that what you would have wanted for her, to be alone for the rest of her life?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Then why do you have to be a martyr? I don’t know if Grace is that special to you or not, but at some point you have to let go of the guilt and move on...start to live again.”

  Jack looked at Mallory and something inside him started to fall into place. Could it be that simple to love again? And the answer came with brilliant clarity.

  Yes. If it was Grace whom he loved.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, LILLY sat propped up in the hospital bed, using her good hand to color in a book Lark had brought in for her. She hadn’t shown any signs of a fever, and the medication was working to dull the discomfort of a new, brilliantly white arm cast. Grace had already signed it, along with Lark, Herbert, Gabriella and Parrish. Moses had drawn a happy face on it and Mallory had drawn a remarkably accurate silhouette of Lilly near the wrist.

  So far, the doctors were going with a release date of the next day by noon. Grace sat in a huge recliner that they’d supplied for her to sleep on. It lowered almost horizontal, and the TV in the room had cartoons on it.

  “How could life be better?” Grace thought, then knew how it could. In the morning, she’d make it better, one way or the other.

  Grace slept that night in the chair in Lilly’s room, and when dawn broke, Gabriella was there with Parrish as Doctor Stater came into the room. He carefully checked Lilly, then backed Moses’ call on the release. “Today by noon, you can take her home,” he told Grace.

  Before noon, she, Lilly and her mother were in the car driving to the ranch. They pulled up the driveway, crested the rise, and came to a stop in front of the porch steps. Parrish was there to greet them.

  “Well, Little Lady,” he said, opening the back door for Lilly. “Come on in.” He expertly undid her restraints, then lifted her, managing to support her cast while he carried the child into the house. Gabriella followed them, and the last thing Grace heard was Parrish saying, “You know, that little Paint of yours needs a companion, one your grandma could ride.”

  The door shut and Grace felt the wind go out from under her. Slowly, she sank down on the top step and looked over the stables to the distant valley and the mountains beyond.

  She wanted the ranch, this peace and quiet. The beauty. She wanted it for her family, but Jack needed it too. She knew that as certainly as she knew that she loved him. He’d lost so much, and a part of her didn’t want to add this ranch to his losses. She didn’t want to be responsible for any more hurt in his life. But she didn’t know what to do.

  By the time she’d gone inside and had lunch with Lilly, her mother and Parrish, who had started calling her mother Gabbie, Grace had a real need to just walk around the ranch. She kept telling herself that it was hers and she could do what she wanted with it. If that meant easing some of Jack’s pain, she would. If she could just figure out how to do it and keep her family here as well.

  She walked until late in the afternoon, then headed back to the house. She couldn’t just go in, have dinner, put Lilly to bed, then go to sleep herself. An idea had come to her sometime during her walk. She was beginning to believe she might have an answer both she and Jack could live with. She had to do something about it right away, or she’d never sleep that night.

  After going inside to let her mother know she had an errand to run, she got in her car and drove off toward town. But when she got to Jack’s offices, he wasn’t there. His assistant told her he hadn’t been in all day.

  Slowly, she went back out to her car, then drove back the way she’d come. But she didn’t turn in at her driveway. She kept going until she was at the Carsons’. Stopping by the open gates, she almost turned and left, but she knew she had to do this. She drove up the long drive, spotted the red Jeep parked by the side of the house and pulled in beside it.

  Walking over to the main entrance, she lifted her hand to grab the huge bull’s head knocker on the dark wooden door, then let it fall with a thudding clang. There was no response, and she was about to turn and leave when the door finally opened and Jack stood in front of her. His clothes looked wrinkled, and more than a day’s bea
rd shadowed his face. He stood there, silently, just staring at her with those midnight-dark eyes.

  She almost turned and left, her nerves so on edge that all she could think of was running.

  Finally Jack spoke. “No one’s here,” he said flatly, as if that meant she should turn and go away.

  “I came to see you,” she managed to get out. “We need to talk.”

  He paused, then he stood back and let her walk inside. Closing the door behind her, he strode ahead of her through the great room, then up a staircase to the second floor. Quickly, Grace followed, and found herself in a library. The walls were lined with heavy wooden bookcases, and a huge desk stood in the middle of a thick Oriental carpet. Jack went around behind the desk and dropped heavily into a high-backed leather swivel chair.

  “Moses told me Lilly went home today,” he finally said as she sat awkwardly in a chair across from him.

  “I need to tell you something—” Grace barely recognized her own voice, with its tremor and slight huskiness. “And please, don’t interrupt me.”

  * * *

  JACK LEANED FORWARD IN the chair.

  “What?” he asked cautiously.

  “First, I need to thank you for bringing in Doctor Stater. He’s so wonderful, and Moses is beyond great.”

  Jack wasn’t sure how long he could just sit there, looking at Grace’s delicate features, that smile, and her lavender eyes on him. “You said you needed to talk. Was it about the doctor? If so, I told you, we’re old friends, and I’ve saved his butt more than once. He owes me.”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s not about that, although I’m glad he owed you. It’s about the ranch.”

  He held up both hands, palms out. “It’s yours. Let’s leave it at that and get on with our lives.”

  She looked stunned. “No,” she said, sitting forward, pressing her hands on the edge of the huge desk. “No, it’s yours. It’s ours. I mean, I tried to figure out what to do, and I think that you should have the land. I can’t run a ranch. I thought I might be able to, but I know now I can’t.”

  She got to her feet, shifting her hands to rest flatly on the desk top, coming closer to Jack. “I think it could work, that you could have the land, you know, divide it or subdivide it or something, and Lilly, my mother and I will live in the house.”

  Jack watched her as she talked, the intensity in her eyes willing him to see things her way. “And you think that could work because—?”

  “Because you love that land. I know, I know, the house is important too, but it would still be there and I’ll promise to keep it the way it always was. You could come there whenever you wanted to and you could ride around on the pastures and run cattle or sheep or whatever.”

  He stood slowly, keeping the desk between them. “And you’d be willing to do that? Is this your back up plan?”

  “No, I mean, I guess, but it’s the best I can come up with. I just want....” Her words trailed off and she straightened, then hugged herself tightly and looked down.

  “What do you want?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her.

  Finally, she lifted her gaze to his, and he was shocked by the confusion he saw there. “I know how much you loved your wife, and you lost her. You love the land, and you lost it.”

  She bit her lip, then said in a rush, “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen real love, I mean, beyond what I feel for Lilly and my mother. But loving someone like you loved....” She bit her lip again and frowned. “That’s something I never knew. I don’t think my dad could have really loved my mother or me, and I don’t think my ex-husband ever loved me, and I know, in retrospect, that I probably never loved him. I let go too easily when he left. Now, I can go weeks without thinking about him, unless someone else brings him up.”

  His stomach tightened and he clenched his hands, feeling the absence of the wedding ring he’d taken off last night. “Where’s this all coming from?” he finally asked, slowly going around the desk to get closer to her.

  She shrugged, and a single tear slipped out of her eye and rolled slowly down her cheek. She didn’t seem to notice, until he lifted his hand and brushed at it with his thumb. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered. “I’m in love for the first time in my life, and I know that it’s all wrong, and it’s tangled up with all sorts of things that make it impossible, but one thing I can do is let you have the land.”

  He wondered if he’d heard right, and his hand stilled on her cheek. “You what?” he breathed, not daring to move.

  “I want you to...to have the...ranch.” Her voice broke, and she had to swallow to finish the words. “I can do that for you. I want to do that for you.”

  He drew back, looking down into her upturned face. More tears came, silently, and she didn’t bother to swipe them away. “No, before that. Before the stuff about the land. What was that?”

  She grimaced and slowly sank back into her chair, hugging her arms around herself. “Please,” she protested.

  He hunkered down in front of her, but didn’t touch her. “No, tell me.”

  The tear-bright lavender eyes slowly lifted to meet his gaze and he heard her swallow hard. “I’m in love for the first time in my life.”

  He let the words settle in, then he slowly lifted his hands and framed her face. “With me?”

  Her tongue touched her pale pink lower lip. “It’s crazy, I know, and it can’t happen, and I didn’t mean to tell you, ever.”

  “Why not?”

  She shook her head, freeing herself, and pushed to stand, almost knocking him backwards. “Now, I have to...to go home and see about Lilly, and my mother, and figure out how to make this all legal, the land and house and all.”

  He steadied himself, but didn’t move to let her pass. “No,” he said, forcing himself not to touch her again. Not yet.

  She blinked, her lashes wet with clinging tears. “What?”

  “No, I’ve got a better idea. Grandpa just wanted someone on that land that loved it, that would care for it and build a family in the house. That’s what he’s got. And I’m okay with that.”

  “You are?”

  “Well, almost okay with it. But I need to make one alteration in the setup.”

  She nodded. “Anything,” He felt a lightness in him, a sense of the future and not the past. He’d finally managed to say goodbye to Robyn the night before. He’d always love her, but he knew that he could still love in this world, and he would.

  “This is my plan. I’ll take care of the land, make it work again, and I’d like to take care of the family, too.” He paused, almost afraid to say the rest, but he went on. It had to work. “I want to build a family there, to make a real life.”

  Her face crumpled, and the tears came again. “No, no, no,” she sobbed into her hands.

  He grabbed her shoulders, pulled her closer, but not against him. Waiting for her to calm a bit, he finally saw his opening when she sniffled, then slowly lowered her hands. “I can’t take Lilly away from here. I can’t.”

  “You won’t have to.” He looked right at her. “I’m going to say something that I never knew I’d ever say again in this world. I loved Robyn, I always will love her, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t love someone else just as much. Maybe differently, but with all my heart.”

  She grew very still, the tears stopped, and he felt as if the world was waiting for him to step back into it and make it spin again. “Grace, I love you.”

  The words hung suspended between them, and the ensuing silence felt like an eternity. Then slowly, very slowly, Grace seemed to fall toward him, her arms holding on to him for dear life.

  He could feel a trembling in her, and she moved back a bit, but did not let go of him. “Really?” was all she asked.

  “Really. Things have been so tangled up and confused that I didn’t realize that everything that was happening was happening because I love you. I fought it, I wanted it, I hated it, then I knew that I needed you more than I could ever tell you.”

  There was a wariness
in her that he didn’t understand. “I can’t be a backup plan, Jack, I can’t. I can’t be just a way to get your land back. I’ll give it to you, I swear I will. You don’t have to say all this.”

  His smile came out of nowhere, and he said something he hadn’t even thought about until that moment. “Grace, I love you, and I’m in love for the last time in my life.”

  She lifted her arms, clasping her hands behind his neck and standing on tiptoes to meet him in a kiss that didn’t stop his world at all. It started it again, and that took his breath away. Moments passed, then both were breathing hard, still holding to each other, neither willing to let go.

  He was grinning, and he knew it. He must look like some lovesick teenager, but he didn’t care. Because he was in love, again, forever.

  Could it be that simple? Could it be that miraculous? Both, he knew as he looked into lavender eyes that were filled with warmth and promise.

  “I love you so much, Jack,” she breathed, and he knew it was all true. His future had been there, waiting for him in the form of Grace Evans and a little blonde girl with pigtails. His second chance, his future.

  * * *

  AN HOUR LATER, Jack and Grace drove up to the old adobe, after promises had been made and a future laid out between the two of them. Her mother was there with Parrish and Lilly on the porch. The arm in the cast was supported by a bright red bandana, and the older man and little girl were playing a game of checkers on a tiny table between them.

  Grace got out and met Jack at the front of his Jeep, then he took her hand and they headed toward the porch. Gabriella started to call out, “Things here are good,” then stopped when she saw them holding hands.

  She didn’t say anything, but just grinned at them as they took the stairs together. “Mom, I need to talk to you.”

  “And I need to talk to you.” She glanced at Parrish, who leaned closer to Lilly and said, “Why don’t I get you settled in the house for a bit. We’ll find you some ice cream.”

  “Sure,” she said, and she went with Parrish inside.