But it was a realization he’d have to make on his own because he’d been right about one thing. It was time for her to go.
* * *
Stars still hung in the inky sky when Jarrett walked down to the stables. He’d given up sleeping sometime around four o’clock that morning. About twenty minutes later, he gave up eating as he couldn’t stomach more than a bite or two of the bacon and eggs he’d fried.
Hunching into his denim jacket against the chill in the air, his hat pulled low, he almost missed seeing the shadowed figure leaning against the corral fence. Even in the faint light, his mother’s blond hair gleamed. His footsteps slowed, but it was too late. She whirled at the crunch of his boot heels on the gravel path, clutching the blanket she’d draped over her shoulders closer to her chest. “Oh, goodness, Jarrett.” Her breath escaped in a cloud as she gasped. “You startled me. I didn’t expect you to be up this early.”
Not bothering to explain that “out late” would have been a better description than “up early,” he shrugged. “Could say the same about you.”
Opening the door to the stables, he flicked on the light in his small office. The chores could wait until the sun at least peeked over the horizon, but there was always paperwork to do. Mostly because he always put it off for as long as possible. If nothing else, maybe the tediousness of it all would help him find the sleep that had eluded him.
Lilly trailed after him, hitching up the blanket to keep the corner from dragging on the ground behind her. “Yes, well, I don’t want to bother you, but I wanted you to know I’ll be checking in to a hotel in town for the rest of my stay.”
The harsh lighting touched on her resigned expression. Maybe it was the early-morning hour, the bed-rumpled hair and lack of makeup, but Lilly looked pale and tired. She held her head high, though, managing a small smile as she said, “I’m sure ya’ll will be glad to have us out of your hair.”
“‘Us?’” he echoed, a little surprised that Summer would be making the move to town, even though it only made sense.
“Yes, I spoke with Summer. She says Theresa’s leaving today, too.”
He froze as he circled around his desk. Two days. They were still supposed to have two days, and even after all that had happened, he didn’t want her to leave. He wanted those two days of torturing himself with her presence before sinking into a lifetime of torturing himself with her absence.
Pulling out his chair, he dropped into the seat. Ten years’ worth of bone-jarring rides and backbreaking falls caught up with him, and he ached from head to toe. Even his teeth seemed to hurt as he forced the words out. “It’s probably for the best.”
“Best for whom? Certainly not you if your appearance is anything to go by. You look horrible.” Concern filled her eyes as she asked, “Did you sleep at all?”
Don’t worry about that nasty nightmare. I’m right here...
“Doesn’t matter,” he said abruptly. “It’s like you said. Sometimes loving means letting go, and I—I just want what’s best for Theresa.”
His mother stared at him, her jaw going slightly slack. “Of all the things we talked about, that’s the one thing you take to heart? Honestly, J.T....”
He waited for the quick stab of pain at hearing his childhood nickname spoken in that soft, Southern drawl, but it didn’t come. Maybe he was just too wrung out to feel much of anything.
But as his mother stepped closer, reaching out a tentative hand from beneath the blanket to touch his shoulder, the numbness inside his chest started to wear off a bit. “Sending you back to your father was the hardest decision I ever had to make. As your mother, I had to put my own feelings aside and do what was best for my little boy.
“But, Jarrett, Theresa isn’t a child. She’s a grown woman. She doesn’t need you to decide what’s best for her. She can make up her own mind, and if you give her half the chance, she’ll choose you. That girl loves you, and if you let her go, you’ll regret it. Just like I’ve spent my life regretting losing you.”
As feeling rushed back to his heart, pinpricks of awareness jabbing like thousands of needles, Jarrett thought maybe the numbness was better. He wanted to retreat back into the unfeeling shell where nothing could reach him. Untouched...unloved.
Lilly’s hand slowly slipped away, disappointment written in her expression as she headed toward the office door. She’d taken a step outside before he asked, “How long are you staying in town?”
“Until the end of the week.”
“Okay. I, uh, I’ll see you.”
As promises went, it wasn’t much. But as their gazes met, the hope in his mother’s eyes told him she recognized that it was something at least. A place to start. “Okay, then, I’ll see you later.”
Jarrett didn’t know how long he sat alone after she left, staring blankly at the top of his desk before a folder caught his eye. Silverbelle’s paperwork. He’d pulled it out the other day after the potential adopter stopped by. The file contained everything from Mrs. Davis’s adoption application to vet records to the recent photos Summer had taken for the rescue website. But as he flipped the folder open, the picture that slid out wasn’t one of Summer’s.
It was the shot he’d taken the day Silver arrived.
He would never claim to have his sister’s gift for capturing a horse’s spirit and personality in a single snap, but his lack of skill wasn’t the problem. Not even a world-class photographer could have made that picture into anything more than it was—a heartbreaking image of a mistreated animal.
If Jarrett didn’t know better, he would swear it wasn’t the same horse. Little more than skin and bones, Silver’s lackluster eyes gazed back at the camera. She’d been in bad shape, neglected and abused and wary of any person who got within ten feet of her.
On Theresa’s first day at the ranch, he’d thought he’d seen something in her blue eyes that reminded him of Silver’s soft brown ones. But looking at the horse as she’d been when she first arrived, Jarrett didn’t see Theresa at all.
He saw himself.
Beaten and broken and distrustful of anyone who tried to reach out, even with a helping hand. And like Silver in those early days, he snapped and kicked and warned them all to keep their distance.
But unlike Silver, who’d bravely gone on to trust in humans again, he’d given up. Oh, he’d healed on the outside, but inside? The pain of the past still festered, and when anyone got too close—his mother, his sister, Theresa—he’d lashed out.
He rubbed at the ache in his chest. He’d thought he was playing it safe. After all, what kind of idiot put his heart out there time and again only to have it trampled over and over? So he’d kept his guard up, but what he’d been protecting wasn’t worth having. Bitterness, anger, resentment, he’d held on to it all, unwilling to give it up, unwilling to let it go.
If his work with rescue horses had taught him anything over the past year, it was that the first step was always the hardest. Once an animal took that chance, once it started moving forward and not looking back, he knew the slow road to recovery would begin. All it took was a first step.
Reaching out, he picked up the phone and dialed the number on the adoption application.
* * *
Did it make her a coward, Theresa wondered, that she’d stopped by the ranch’s small rental office to drop off her key rather than going out to the stables? She’d known her chances of seeing Jarrett were slim, and the relief pouring through her when she stepped inside the empty room nearly left her light-headed.
She placed the envelope on the desk. She’d thought about leaving a note, but her courage had failed her there, too. She’d been afraid of what she might write.
I love you, Jarrett. I want to stay here. I want to be with you. Please. All you have to do is ask.
But she already knew how that played out. She’d never heard a sound as lou
d as Jarrett’s heartbreaking silence. Without any response from him, her own words played like an endless record through her thoughts—more painful, more humiliating with every turn.
It would get better, she promised herself. Given enough time, she would start to heal, and the pain would begin to fade. But her love for Jarrett? That would stay with her for a long, long time.
Blinking back tears, she stepped out of the office, and her heart nearly stopped when she caught sight of him seated on Silverbelle just a few yards away. Just like the first time she’d seen him on the horse, he took her breath away. He sat strong and sure in the saddle, his hat pulled low over his brow, but she could still feel the intensity of his green-gold gaze.
“Theresa...”
The low murmur of her name on his lips seeped into her soul.
After all that silence, had he really sought her out just to say goodbye?
Swinging down from the saddle, he walked toward the porch and paused with his boot on the first step. Déjà vu swept over her, a replay from that first moment all those weeks ago. She’d been standing in that same spot, her luggage beside her, after her cousin had dropped her off. And now she was there again, waiting for Sophia to pick her up.
Two brief moments of welcome and farewell bookending what felt like a lifetime in between.
“Don’t go. Stay.”
The breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding whooshed from her lungs. Not goodbye after all... Her heart fluttered in her chest. Tiny signs of life to prove it was bruised but not broken.
“Jarrett...”
“Don’t go back to St. Louis.”
St. Louis. Theresa could have told him right then about her plans, about her decision to stay. About the tour Marie Oliver had given her of the medical clinic. About meeting with Doc Crawford and instantly liking the older man’s calm, caring demeanor, his confidence in her abilities. About how stepping into the exam rooms had felt so right, and she’d known it was the place for her.
A nursing career in a small town would never be the same high-energy, fast-paced adrenaline rush of working in an inner-city emergency room. But the local clinic would give her an opportunity the ER never had—the chance to slow down and truly get to know her patients. To learn more about them than whatever immediate injury needed treatment. To help over the long run rather than focusing on the short-term.
And she had hoped, too, that sticking around would prove to Jarrett that she was there to stay. She’d make her own decisions about what was best for her and her future. But she wasn’t ready to let him off the hook so soon. Not when there was still so much undecided. “I told you, I won’t watch you risk your life bull riding again.”
“About that...I called a rodeo promoter. A friend from the old days.”
Fear sliced through her. “No, Jarrett. Please.”
“I talked to him about having a benefit rodeo at the Clearville fairgrounds with the proceeds going toward the rescue.”
“You...what?” The words, so different from the ones she’d expected, almost didn’t register as Jarrett finished the climb up the porch steps and stopped in front of her. Her gaze roved over his handsome face as she tried to make sense of what he was saying.
Different words...different man.
The shadows were gone from his eyes. The air of isolation around him had disappeared. He looked younger, free from the burdens of the past.
“From there, the ball just kept rolling as I got in touch with some old friends and sponsors.”
It hadn’t been easy to make those calls. Asking favors from people he hadn’t talked to in over a year. He still felt humbled and slightly ashamed at the warm responses he’d received. Their willingness to hear what he had to say only emphasized the realization he’d had. If his friends had walked away from him after his injury, it was only because he’d repeatedly shoved them out the door.
“It’s gonna be a huge undertaking and hard to say how much money it’ll bring in the first year...” Jarrett shrugged, trying to focus on realistic expectations and not let his excitement carry him away.
“I think it sounds like a great idea. The perfect way for you to bring attention to the rescue.” She hesitated a second before quietly adding, “You know your mother doesn’t want you to pay her back, don’t you?”
“I know, but I need to. And I’ve talked to her about it. We’ve both decided the money was a loan, and I’ll pay it off as I can. Both she and Summer are over-the-top excited about the rodeo.”
“You’re letting them help?”
“Letting them?” he echoed with a laugh. “I don’t think I could stop them. And I’d be stupid to try. I might know rodeos, but I don’t have a clue when it comes to charity events. My mother has made a career out of volunteering and raising money for charities. And even if she hadn’t, it feels right to do this together. I think—I think it’s what my dad would have wanted.”
“And you?”
“I want this, too. I’ve spent too many years of my life thinking I was better off on my own. I didn’t need anyone, and I didn’t want anyone to need me. I thought that meant I was tough, but all it really meant was that I was afraid of letting anyone too close. Until I met you.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes, and a sudden panic gripped his chest, but he pushed past the nerves, past the fear. “I love you, Theresa. I should have told you that yesterday. Hell, I should have told you that weeks ago. And if I haven’t ruined everything by being a hardheaded fool, then I’d like a second chance to do this right.”
He yanked his hat off his head, spinning the brim between his palms to keep his hands occupied. To keep from reaching out, pulling Theresa into his arms and telling her with his body everything he wanted to say. She needed the words, the ones he’d denied when she’d poured her heart out and he’d kept silent.
“I love you, too. Stay. Please stay. I can’t imagine my life without you.”
The tears she’d been holding back spilled over her cheeks. “I’m not going anywhere, cowboy.”
“But I thought—”
“I need to go to St. Louis to pack my things, but then I’m coming back here. In a few months, I’m taking over for the nurse at Doc Crawford’s office. I’ll have a chance to get to know patients as people, as my neighbors. From now on, this is my home, too.”
Her words lifted a weight from his chest, but deep down, Jarrett knew it wouldn’t have mattered. If Theresa had moved back to St. Louis...he didn’t know what it would be like to run a horse rescue in the city, but he would have found out.
“I never should have tried to push you away.”
“What about Silver?”
Jarrett looked over at the mare. Maybe it was just imagination that the horse seemed to cock her head in their direction, flicking her ears as if waiting for his answer, but he smiled anyway. “Don’t worry, girl,” he called out. “You’re staying here. Right where you belong.”
“Right where we belong,” Theresa corrected.
Hearing the certainty in her words, the promise of forever, Jarrett knew it was true. “Where we belong,” he echoed as he leaned forward and sealed the words with a kiss.
Clearville might be where he lived, but Theresa was his home.
* * * * *
Don’t miss Ryder Kincaid’s story,
HIS SECRET SON
the next installment in Stacy Connelly’s miniseries
THE PIRELLI BROTHERS
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Chapter One
There was no less-qualified cook in the town of Peach Leaf, Texas—okay, possibly the whole world—than Lucy Monroe, and she would be the first to admit it.
So then, to Lucy, given the way things had been going lately, it wasn’t really all that surprising that she was responsible for preparing lunch for the hungry kids on a field trip, who now crowded the Lonestar Observatory’s small café. Thirty or so second graders, and their already-worn-out teachers and parent-chaperones, who must be standing staring at the still-swinging kitchen door, thinly veiled impatience clouding their features as they wondered what on earth was keeping their solo waitress. Not that Lucy was much of a server, either, for that matter. Lord help her, Lucy needed a break.
Or a miracle.
She was short on both.
Full order pad in hand, she grabbed an apron, tying it quickly over her lemon-colored pencil skirt and white button-down shirt. Lucy rushed to the prep table to start slicing cheese and bread for sandwiches, and to check on the caramel apple pies she’d had the foresight to put in the oven earlier between her regular duties. The pie recipe was her grandma’s—an old favorite—and the only thing she really knew how to get right in the kitchen.
Unlike Nana, Lucy was as out of her element in a kitchen as a hog in a chicken coop, which was exactly why she’d hired the best chef she could find to handle the observatory’s little café. A very skilled, highly trained, seemingly intelligent chef, who, at that very moment, was on a plane to Las Vegas with the fiancée he’d met only a week ago.
Romancing the Rancher (The Pirelli Brothers) Page 19
