by Nikki Logan
‘She went out?’
‘And she died. And Deputy got beaten.’
Ellie gasped. ‘Maggie was Deputy’s handler?’
He looked across the seat of his car at the dog that’d looked up when he heard his name. His head nodded, brisk and small.
‘I’m so sorry.’ The urge to touch won out. She slid her hand onto his arm. ‘You loved her.’
The bleakness in the eyes he turned up to her took her aback. ‘That’s just it. I didn’t love her.’
Maybe someone had to live with it to recognise it in others, but Ellie suddenly wondered how she’d never seen it in him before.
Blazing, damning shame.
‘Oh, Jed…’
‘Five years, Ellie, and I kept her at arm’s length the whole time. So much so she had to chase me from department to department to stop me slipping away.’ He swallowed past the pain. ‘I dishonored her the whole time. Deep inside. Overcompensating for the love I just didn’t feel.’
‘Why did you stay together?’
‘Because she adored me, because she’d put our relationship ahead of her own career so many times. Because she was willing to take whatever I could give her.’
Ellie felt sudden and cell-deep empathy for the woman who had tried so hard to win Jed’s love. Who’d died trying.
The pain in his eyes told her exactly how deeply he felt that, too.
‘Being together was the perfect excuse not to be with anyone else. Work was the perfect excuse to keep things superficial. To manage Maggie’s expectations.’
Excuses. Didn’t that sound familiar?
He turned to her, self-loathing blazing in his eyes. ‘That’s the kind of man I am, Ellie. That’s why I know I can’t commit no matter what I feel for you. You deserve someone who’s capable of loving you with everything in them.’
Deputy’s heavy sigh punctuated the silence. Was he afraid they were going to start fighting again? Ellie fought hard to keep her body language relaxed. ‘You’re not that man,’ she whispered.
He turned to her suddenly and pain glowed real and raw in his plea. ‘Then who am I?’
She shook her head. ‘A man who’s been really hurt in his past. A man who protects himself from loss before it can happen.’ She took a breath. ‘You’re the male version of me.’
Jed stared at her, pain giving way to confusion.
‘Do you think your Maggie would blame you for what happened to her?’
His answer was a frown.
‘Do you think she would blame you for not loving her more than you could?’
‘I blame me.’
‘I don’t,’ she breathed. ‘Not for her.’ She bent lower to stay connected to eyes that suddenly dropped to stare at the dirt. ‘And not for me.’
And it was true. She could no more blame Jed for not loving her the way she needed than she could blame Deputy for falling to pieces at the sound of raised voices.
But she could love him.
And she would.
And she wouldn’t hide it.
She curled her hand around his arm, touching him. Letting every feeling and emotion and hope run through her body and into his. Letting her know she accepted him.
He shrugged her hand free and she slid it back on, refusing to let him back away again.
‘I can’t love you, Ellie.’ His volume betrayed his pain. ‘Not the way you want.’
Her heart hitched. Can’t. Not don’t.
‘Why?’
‘Look what I did to the last person who loved me.’
‘She would forgive you, Jed.’
He shook his head, not hearing. Not wanting to. ‘You can’t know that.’
‘I can know it, because I know you. And because I love you like she did. And I know that I would forgive you if I had the chance.’
He stared at her, eyes roiling with a mix of pain and confusion.
‘Give her the chance,’ Ellie pleaded, and slipped her fingers in between his. ‘Forgive yourself so that she can, too.’
He stared at her, the options tumbling visibly in his gaze, and then—exactly like the houselights used to come on after she’d been lost in the depths of a performance—the shadows leached out of his eyes and he almost blinked in the sudden brightness of hope.
And in that exact moment, Deputy chose to nudge his wet, cool nose into the place their hands entwined. He’d moved more silently than a dog his size should ever have been able to and he blazed his wide, dark, loving eyes straight up into Jed’s.
It was Maggie’s forgiveness.
And his own.
And it broke the last of Jed’s strength.
Ellie slid her arms around him and let him bury his face in her neck. His hold tightened hard around her, hard enough to last them forever. Ellie didn’t care how many of the Calhouns might be watching out of the window. She was through with worrying about appearances.
‘Stay.’ The word croaked against her neck, but Jed’s tight arms reinforced it. And the four tiny letters carried a universe worth of meaning. ‘I don’t want you to leave.’
She pulled back a little. ‘I can’t stay.’ Not without being certain.
He cleared his throat and lifted damp eyes. ‘Remember the bats? The way I stood behind you on that cliff top and kept you safe while you danced? How scared you were?’
Her chest threatened to cave in. Those memories would be the ones replaying on her deathbed in a half-century. She pushed the words through her tight throat. ‘Of course.’
He paused and there was confusion in the dark depths of his eyes. But it was greatly outweighed by something new. Something she’d not seen there in all the time she knew him.
‘I’d be willing to do that again, to help you heal.’
She scrunched her forehead. ‘With the bats?’
Intensity blazed down on to her. ‘With me. And with you.’ His fingers rose to trace her jaw. ‘Slowly. Until you’re ready to feel yourself fly again.’
His meaning finally dawned on her and her lungs cramped. ‘Are charity cases part of your job description?’
He smiled down on her, and didn’t let her hide behind sarcasm. ‘I want you to stay, Ellie. With me.’
She refused to let herself hope. Old habits died way too hard. ‘Just like that?’
He stroked the hair from her face. ‘No, not just like that. Feeling like this absolutely terrifies me.’
She could see the uncertainty live and real in his eyes. But it wasn’t alone. Something else flanked it, keeping it at bay. It shifted and flirted at the edges of his gaze, ducking and weaving just out of view so that she couldn’t quite place where she’d seen it before.
‘Feeling like what?’
The golden threads between her eyes and his were enough to let a little piece of his soul cross over. ‘Like my world will end if I let you drive away today.’
Her breath faltered and her chest tightened as he took her hand, pressed his fingers to hers and returned her own words from last night to her. ‘But I wouldn’t feel safe being terrified with anyone else, Ellie.’
Every old instinct she had urged her not to allow this hope. But something newer overruled that. The same something she saw fighting the fear in his eyes. And in a moment of intense clarity she suddenly knew where she’d seen it before.
Just now—in the look passing between Johnny and Jess.
In the look she must be blazing up at him now.
Love.
Jed would keep her safe while she learned to accept every part of herself. She’d do the same until he could recognise the feelings he harbored. Understand them. She absolutely would.
He lowered his mouth until it was just a breath from hers and his hat blocked out the sun. ‘It’s been so fast, Ellie, it’s hard to trust. But if this isn’t love, then God help us after another week together.’
It was love, for both of them. Inconceivable and miraculous. She knew that way down deep in the oldest part of her soul, the part that held all her truths. And she so badly wa
nted to be in the room the moment it finally dawned on him.
‘I want to stay,’ she whispered against his mouth. ‘I want to feel like that again.’
He touched his lips lightly to hers and her soul sang. He nibbled the corner of her mouth and then turned it into a fully fledged kiss. A searing kiss. They were breathless when they pulled apart.
That rich, golden glow now consumed his eyes. There was no fear.
‘The bats, Ellie? That feeling? I give you my word, that was only the beginning.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE bats were only the beginning. It took a scandalously short number of weeks for them to discover, tucked up in her comfortable loft bed, they could reach a place Ellie never imagined actually existed. A safe place. A place where the feel of their two bodies moving in sync was the most poetic and seductive kind of dance ever.
Jed was patient and gentle and forceful and strong in just the right amounts and he let her fly when she needed to and shelter when she had to.
When she wasn’t with him, she hung out with Jess or Sarah, and she’d started teaching ballet to the local schoolchildren and, thanks to a bizarre request from the eighty-year-old Misses Darcy and Louisa, to Larkville’s senior ladies. Now she taught three times a week.
And it meant she was dancing again.
She still loved her solitude, but alone had so quickly come to mean just her and Jed and Deputy. The word had failed to apply to Ellie by herself because she just didn’t feel alone any more even when she was.
Jed kissed his way from her thumb, up her inner arm to the crook of her elbow, and then murmured against her strong pulse there. ‘I have something to ask you.’
She matched his gravity. ‘Okay.’
‘Gram’s coming down next week.’ She pushed up onto her elbows. ‘I wanted the two most important women in my life to meet.’
She stared at him. For Jed, that was quite a pronouncement.
‘I’d like that.’ But then something occurred to her. ‘Where will she stay?’
‘Right here in the barn.’
‘Then where will I stay?’
His face grew serious. ‘I thought that you could move in with me.’
Ellie’s lungs refused to inflate. ‘Just while she’s here, you mean?’
He took her hand in his and absently played with her fingers. It was the least casual casual thing he’d ever done.
What was happening here?
‘Sure. Or we could keep the barn for her visits. Or if one of your family visits.’
She sat bolt upright and the covers dropped to her waist, leaving her naked and exposed. That no longer troubled her. In fact, she positively adored the way his face and body changed in response to hers.
‘Just so I’m clear…’ She swallowed past the lump which grew low in her throat. ‘You want me to meet your gram and you want me next door with you? For good?’
His eyes sobered. ‘I do. And so do you.’ He leaned in and traced her collarbone with his lips. ‘It’s in the special laugh you reserve just for me and the fact you let my dog sleep on your feet in front of the television…’
‘He’s very warm—’ Ellie started, her natural instinct to protect herself creeping through.
He smiled against her lips. ‘It’s in the way that you touch me and that way you let me touch you. You love me.’
‘That’s hardly a newsflash.’
His kiss grew more ardent before he tore himself away. ‘It’s funny…’
Lack of oxygen dulled her capacity to keep up with his mental tangents. ‘What is?’
‘You hated this body for being weak, but I love it for being so strong. Strong enough to get you through.’ His eyes darkened and lifted to hers. ‘To get you to me.’
She cleared her suddenly crowded throat. ‘You…love it?’
The wonder in his face didn’t change. ‘Every part of it.’ His eyes locked on hers. ‘Every part of you.’
Ellie’s heart raced her mind. He looked so casual lying there talking about the weather one moment and the next—
Joy contributed to the gentle spin of the room but caution still ruled. Because he still hadn’t said those all-important three words. Not exactly. And she knew him to be a man of his word.
When he said it, he’d mean it.
‘I’d sort of hoped to do this somewhere more memorable,’ he frowned.
More memorable than in his arms after a morning of beautiful intimacy? Did such a place exist?
He took her hands. Both of them.
Her breath froze.
‘You’ve been so strong, Ellie. And so patient while I worked my complicated way around to this.’
She still hadn’t breathed.
‘Everything before you felt slightly off kilter but I just didn’t know why. Everything since that day with the cows has felt…right. Colours got brighter. The air got fresher.’
Words to die for but she hoped it wouldn’t be literal, from oxygen deficiency.
‘I love you, Eleanor Patterson-Calhoun.’
Elation, gratitude and adoration tingled under her skin and she worked hard not to throw herself straight into his arms. The moment she had the words, she realised that she’d known them all along. ‘Would you have said that if your grandmother wasn’t coming to stay?’
‘You think I’m declaring love to free up a bed for a tenant?’
She smiled and nudged his shoulder. ‘I think you’d say anything to get me to move in with you out of wedlock.’
‘Who said anything about out of wedlock?’ His eyes devoured her metaphorically and then his lips repeated it literally. When he finally released her he said, ‘How would you feel about a fall wedding?’
The earth stopped revolving. ‘You’re proposing?’ Such short words but so very hard to get out.
He took both her hands. ‘Ellie… Believing I was worthy of your love was the tough part, marrying you is a no-brainer. If you’ll say yes.’
Yes. Oh, two hundred times, yes! She was so ready to love and be loved for all the world to see. ‘We’ll need a long engagement.’
He flinched, just slightly. ‘So you can be sure?’
‘I am already sure,’ she said, holding his eyes with hers. ‘But if we upstage Clay’s memorial Sarah will skin us both alive.’
They laughed until the smiles turned to kisses.
‘And one thing…’ she said, emerging for breath. ‘That’s Eleanor Patterson-Calhoun-Jackson to you, Sheriff.’
A fire burst to life deep in his eyes and he pulled her back onto the bed before twisting over the top of her.
‘Jed,’ she laughed from under his weight, ‘your gram’s going to be sleeping here…’
His powerful arms shoved his hard, naked body out into the cool morning air, leaving her with ringside seats to the breathtaking view.
‘That does it. I’m packing your things,’ he said. ‘You’re moving in right now.’
* * *
Dearest Alex,
I’m sorry I’ve been so lax in writing. Though I know you’ll forgive me when you understand why.
I’m really not sure what part of this letter will stun you most. That I’m engaged to a spectacular man whom I love and trust beyond either of our wildest dreams, or the other news I have yet to share.
But first the man… I know you’ll only skip down to that part anyway.
And out it all came.
Jed. Deputy. Larkville.
Her entire second family and the Fall Festival. The amazing personal leaps she’d made since arriving and how, for the first time, she felt whole. Whole! Not like she’d rattle if she shook her head hard enough. The hard truth she was going to have to tell Matt and her concern that such bad news would be better coming from Alex, or Charlotte.
The ink flowed over the linen weave parchment, her handwriting still as practised and careful as ever.
Love’s a funny thing, Alex, the more you have, the more it seems you can fit in.
So, no matter how many sec
ret siblings I turn out to have, you remain—and always will—the sister of my heart.
Please come, if you can, in October.
I cannot wait for you to meet Jed.
xx
Ellie
‘Hon, Holt’s only back for a few hours. Given you’re the guest of honour do you think we should get going?’
He was so handsome, and so impatient. And so beautifully, wonderfully hers. She pressed a seldom-used number in her contacts and held up two fingers to Jed, apologetically.
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
He smiled and shook his head.
A man answered and she brought the phone quickly back to her ear.
‘Hi. Matt…?’ She kept her eyes on Jed. He looked so proud. And so in love. And so very, very certain.
Pretty much everything she felt.
‘Matt, it’s Ellie…’
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of The Rebel Rancher by Donna Alward!
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