by Lori Wilde
“Maybe I could just text her, see how she is.”
“No,” Dawn said. “If you want her to realize how much you mean to her, she needs to feel the jealousy.”
“The last thing on earth I want is for Ember to get hurt.” He shook his head. “I have to talk to her.”
“And you will, but let it arise naturally. If you go to her now, she’ll be embarrassed and probably deny what she’s feeling.”
Dawn was right about that.
“Don’t make a big thing of it,” Dawn coached. “You’ll see her tomorrow. Feel things out then. Who knows? Maybe it wasn’t even her at the door.”
“It was Ember.” He was certain of that. No one else smelled like his best friend, so spicy and delicious. “I don’t want to be the cause of her pain. It’s cruel.”
Dawn stood up, rested her hands on his shoulders, stared him squarely in the eyes. “Sometimes, darlin’,” she drawled, affecting a Texas accent. “Here’s the bottom line. Sometimes, you gotta be cruel to be kind.”
Regroup! Regroup!
Ember pounded her forehead with the palm of her hand. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
She had started down the mountain road, headed home to Marfa, but her hands had been shaking so hard, she’d pulled over on a scenic turnout to collect herself. The sun had disappeared down the horizon, but she could still see the ghosts of orange and purple light fingering the sky.
Her chest was tight, achy; her heart ragged and bruised. Her pride in tatters.
Dammit, she was mad.
Not at Ranger. He was doing what she’d pushed him to do. Find someone who was marriage-worthy to boost his career. How could she blame him? He had no idea how she felt. No idea she’d heard the humming.
And when he’d asked about her tears after the kiss, she’d told him she was acting. What was he supposed to think?
No, not mad at Ranger.
She was pissed off with Kaia and Granny Blue and the whole damn humming thing for getting her hopes up. She felt deceived, betrayed.
But mostly, she was angry with herself. She’d jumped the gun, jumped the shark, jumped every last bit of common sense and impulsively crawled out on a limb. If she’d stayed home, she wouldn’t have seen him lean in to kiss Dawn.
And she’d still be having pipe dreams about happily-ever-after.
Truthfully, setting her jealousy aside, Dawn was good for Ranger. They were both tall and tanned and gorgeous. Both scientists. Dawn knew his world. Had great social skills. She would be an asset to any man trying to climb the academic ladder.
She should have recognized this right off the bat.
For God’s sake, Ember, you are not a matchmaker. She had gotten lucky with four couples. Most likely they would have ended up together without her meddling.
Face it. She was clueless.
She didn’t know anything about making a long-term romantic relationship work. Who was she to tell anyone anything?
You got that right, Trey’s voice echoed in her brain. How many times do you have to get hit upside the head before you learn?
Apparently, a lot.
Which left the big gaping hole of a question: What did she do about the humming?
Did she tell Ranger how she felt when it was clear that he and Dawn were already pairing up and things were going well for them? Or did she suck it up, ignore the humming, and keep her feelings to herself?
Her heart begged her to run to Ranger and spill her guts. Tell him everything. But the part of her that wanted him to be happy above all else, whispered, Shh, shh, shh.
What if after she told him everything she was feeling she learned Ranger did not feel the same way? Her heart cracked at the thought. No, no, she didn’t think she could bear the weight of his rejection.
If he didn’t love her the way she loved him, she’d have to leave the Trans-Pecos. There would be nothing for her here but heartache.
But what if he does feel the same way? What then, her soul murmured.
For that, Ember didn’t have an answer.
To get through the rest of the filming of The Cupid Camel Corps, Ember donned her emotional armor and girded her feelings. She was strong and capable. She could do this. Her old boss had called her the Cutthroat Redheaded Real Estate Warrior.
Warrior.
She liked that. She was in warrior mode. Yes, okay, sometimes that meant she had to bark orders. So be it. It kept people at a distance. But not Ranger. He wanted to know what was wrong. She told him she had to focus on film production to keep the cost down. He asked how he could help. She told him the best way was for him to stay out of her hair. He invited her to hang out with the cast and crew after filming. She growled that if she mingled with the help they wouldn’t take her as seriously. He’d grinned and said, “It’s lonely at the top, huh?”
She nodded sharply and replied, “Shoo.”
The hurt look on his face had taken a slice out of her heart, but she erected a stony wall and refused to let herself feel.
Okay, that was a lie. She still felt the pain; she just sucked it up like any good warrior.
At times, she would catch him watching her moodily across whatever room they were in for family gatherings, or the film set, and just when she’d convinced herself that her keep-away strategy was the wrong one, Dawn would swoop in, link her arm through Ranger’s, and carry him off.
In the wee hours of the morning, an impulse to text him would come over her, and she’d pick up her phone only to stare at his picture on her speed dial, get choked up, and put the phone away.
But what stung most was that he’d stopped texting her too.
Stupid. Yes, she knew that. She’d wanted him to curtail contact, but she hadn’t truly expected him to do it. He must seriously be into Dawn.
Good. Fine. Great. Perfect.
On the day they finished filming the final scene, two days before Ranger’s birthday party, Dawn slipped her arm through Ranger’s and pulled him aside for a cloistered conversation, and Ember realized something monumental. The very thing she’d feared would happen if she told Ranger she loved him was already happening.
Their friendship was dissolving.
She was losing her best friend.
Ember felt as if her guts were being pulled out through her belly button. Ruptured. Eviscerated.
You caused this.
Yes, yes, she knew that, but if Ranger had feelings for Dawn, she needed to come to terms with it and get out of their way.
The longer she and Ranger didn’t hang out together, the harder it was to bridge that widening gap, and the louder the self-doubt monster roared in her head. Which wasn’t her. Not at all. Usually, when she made a decision, she stuck with it. No second-guessing. That was the way of the warrior, after all.
But with Ranger? She couldn’t seem to move past the choice she’d made to let him go.
It was as if they were walking a single tightrope across the Grand Canyon, coming from opposite directions, and if they met in the middle one—or both of them—were going to fall off.
So they both stood trembling on the wire, afraid to make a move.
On this last day of filming, no one invited her to come out with them when they wrapped. She couldn’t have gone anyway, but that didn’t stop her from feeling left out. It wasn’t an unusual feeling. Most of her life she’d felt out of step, even with her own family. The only person she could always truly be herself with was Ranger.
Until now.
That’s what hurt. Losing the one person who not only accepted her, but also celebrated her differences.
Ember went over to Luke’s house to review their work.
With her experience in advertising and production, Luke’s wife, Melody, had already been editing the film dailies, revising and making filming notes for Ember. Tonight would be her first time seeing the short film in its entirety.
She was anxious.
They sat in Luke and Melody’s theater room, complete with popcorn and soft drinks, and the first image on
the screen, after the opening segment, was of Ranger in his commanding officer uniform standing on the porch of the Fort Davis house. At the sight of his dear face, Ember’s heart fluttered.
Wildly.
In her estimation, Ranger Lockhart was the most handsome man on the face of the earth. She sat in the dark room feeling swept away and more than a little weepy. But she did not cry. Not in front of the Nielsons.
It wasn’t easy, watching him on-screen, longing for him, missing him, unable to fix what she’d broken.
The film wasn’t perfect. Far from it. The production value was clearly on the . . . um . . . affordable side. But the overall acting wasn’t bad. Not Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination, but for a local Chamber of Commerce tourism film, it got the job done. The camels were a hoot and even the snafus were amusing, which they kept as outtakes.
She started bracing for the on-screen kiss before it arrived. Telling herself to chill out, but her coaching did no good. She gripped the arms of her chair and held her breath, and when the camera panned from the camels and desert to Ember wearing a brunette wig as Mary Beale, standing on the porch beside Ranger, her heart took off like a jackrabbit running from a coyote.
When he kissed her on-screen, it was like experiencing the kiss all over again. As his lips touched hers, a steady hum began at the base of Ember’s brain and spread out until her entire head tingled with the vibration and one solitary thought pounded.
The One. The One. The One.
A lump lodged in her throat as she watched tears of joy flow down her face. Felt corresponding tears of loss pushing at her now. She blinked her eyes and gritted her teeth, overcome, overwhelmed.
Do not cry in front of Luke and Melody. Do not do it. You are the Cutthroat Redheaded Real Estate Warrior. Crying is for wimps.
What she saw next hit her like a jagged lightning bolt splitting an aged oak tree.
The expression on Ranger’s face after the kiss. He was gazing at her with such rapt attention, his eyes a bit dazed as if he was in shock. The way he was looking at her was the exact way she felt when he’d kissed her. Stunned by a stunningly divine epiphany.
And she wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“Oh my gosh, Ember,” Melody whispered. “Did you have any idea that Ranger was crazy in love with you?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Ranger told Dawn as they sat at the bar at Chantilly’s. He had a beer in front of him, but had barely taken a sip. He didn’t want it. Didn’t want to be here. Dawn was fine company, but not being with Ember was killing him.
“You do love her so much, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I can’t wait any longer. I have to tell her what I figured out in New Zealand. I love her with everything I have in me.”
“Tread lightly,” Dawn warned. “Remember, you were doing this for Ember to slowly realize she’s in love with you. Jump the gun and you could lose her forever. You’ve had a year to figure out that you were in love with her. If you go barreling in, professing your undying love before she’s ready to hear it . . .” Dawn shrugged. “Look how she’s already backed away from you. Give her time and space. Let her come to you.”
Ranger kneaded his brow with two fingers. Dawn’s argument sounded convincing, but his heart just wasn’t buying it. He knew Ember better than he knew anyone else in the world, and he wasn’t so sure that her pride would ever let her be the one to say it first.
Expecting Ember to be something she wasn’t was like saddling a camel and calling it a horse. He didn’t want her to be anything other than who she was. He didn’t want to change her or alter her in any way. He loved her just as she was, faults and all, because God knew he had plenty of faults of his own. And she made allowances for him.
“I gotta go.” Ranger got up off the barstool.
Dawn laid a hand on his palm. “Go see her if you must, but for God’s sake, don’t throw the L word around. Not yet.”
“I appreciate the advice,” Ranger said. “You’ve been a good friend.”
“Apparently, not as good as Ember. She loves you so much she’s willing to let you be with me if she thinks it’s best for you. If you were my man, I’d scratch the eyes out of any woman who came within ten feet of you.” Dawn paused, screwed her mouth up in a pensive gesture. “Unless of course, Ember really doesn’t love you the way you love her.”
Dammit. Why did Dawn have to throw a doubt blanket over him?
Maybe she was right and he should keep the L word off the table for the time being, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t go see Ember.
He settled his Stetson on his head, told Dawn good-night, and went to find his best friend.
Ember left Luke and Melody’s house—located halfway between Marfa and Cupid—bathed in a cold sweat. She was headed back to Chantilly’s to find Ranger. She’d thought about texting him, but didn’t know what to say. This conversation required a face-to-face meeting.
It was almost dark, but she didn’t have to get up early in the morning and neither did Ranger, as far as she knew. Their talk couldn’t wait.
The road was empty, a straight desert stretch of highway. The horizon flowing endless miles into the distance. The Davis Mountains lay to her right; the twinkle of Cupid’s lights were directly ahead.
Every muscle in her body was tight and her mind whirled dizzily. If Ranger was as in love with her as it looked like on film, why had he been kissing Dawn?
Well, she had told him she was just acting when he asked about her tears. What was the guy supposed to do? Pine for her forever?
Okay, okay, she was not going to think or question or second-guess anything. She was just going to find him and ask him point-blank.
A few miles away, coming from Cupid and headed for Marfa were the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. She didn’t pay much attention to the car. Thoughts of Ranger swamped her mind. All she could think about was finding him and telling him she’d been wrong to try to find him a proper wife because she wanted the role.
Unfortunately, Ember was not very proper.
Not in the least.
She was a bit too passionate, a bit too loud, a bit too bossy by half, but she didn’t know any other way to be. Fortunately, Ranger seemed not to be put off by her personality, but rather, awed by it.
Such a man was a rare and precious find. And he could be hers if she was brave enough to tell him.
What if she found him with Dawn again? What if they were in bed together?
Oh lalalala, shut up, shut up.
The other vehicle—a pickup from the level of the headlights—seemed to be driving as urgently as she. Someone else on an impulsive mission? The truck, on the opposite side of the road, bulleted past her.
Wait! Holy Cupid, it was Ranger’s truck.
Ember tromped the brakes, the tires of her Infinity screeching in protest. She heard a corresponding squeal of tires behind her. She spun the wheel, U-turned into the opposite lane, saw that Ranger had done the same thing.
Laughing, she drove happily toward him.
They stopped when they were abreast. The only two cars on the long, lonely desert road. Simultaneously, they rolled their windows down.
Her heart somersaulted at the sight of him, his Stetson off, his hair rakishly mussed.
The electricity vibrating between them was high-voltage, hot and impossible to ignore, striking like dry lightning on a cold desert night.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself, cowboy.”
“I was coming to find you,” Ranger said, resting his arm outside the window, studying her with hungry eyes.
“Same here.”
“Why?” he asked.
“We need to talk.”
“I know.”
“A long talk.”
“The Silver Feather?”
“Too many prying eyes. Marfa? My place?”
“I’ll meet you there.”
She headed toward Marfa, her fingers drumming on the steering wheel. She turned on the radi
o, fiddled around for a song, stumbled across Jewel singing “You Were Meant for Me.” Belted it out as loudly as she could. Joy spreading her mouth as wide as it would go.
And she decided this was going to be the very best night of her life.
Chapter 18
“If things are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”
—Jane Austen, Emma
Ranger’s heart felt like a fledging eagle leaving the nest to fly free for the first time, the sky unfurling endlessly before him. It was as if a great weight had dropped from his shoulders, and he found himself darting down the highway headed toward his favorite place.
And his favorite person.
They were one and the same.
Ember.
Excitement pulsed through him and goose bumps spiked his skin. His hands trembled. Dammit, Lockhart, get hold of yourself.
But he could not. All he could think of was getting Ember alone.
He kept flicking his gaze to the rearview mirror, making sure she was still behind him, both concerned for her safety and still not quite believing she was there and they were going to her house for a long talk. He prayed “talk” was a euphemism for something else, but even if it wasn’t, he didn’t care.
All he wanted was to be with her.
A year away in New Zealand had brought that into sharp focus, and he couldn’t deny it any longer.
He didn’t realize he was driving a good ten miles over the speed limit, until the wail of a siren and red-and-blue swirling lights appeared from the other side of the Prada Marfa art sculpture.
Aww crap. He knew better than to speed past the faux shoe store. The wacky work of art was Deputy Sheriff Calvin Greenwood’s speed trap of choice, especially on Friday nights.
Grunting, Ranger pulled over.
The patrol car parked behind him.
A few seconds later, Ember drove by, tooting her horn as she passed. Ranger was still grinning when Calvin rapped his knuckles against the driver’s window and shone his flashlight into the pickup.
Ranger rolled his window down. “Evening, Calvin.”
“Deputy Greenwood,” Calvin corrected, even though they’d gone through school together. “Where’s the fire?”
