He slung an arm around his wife’s shoulders as he continued, “And if you’re wondering where to start, during breakfast tomorrow there will be a newcomers’ session to acquaint you with the many options available at our ranch.”
“Breakfast?” Kacie muttered under her breath to Kelsey. Getting up early didn’t sound like a vacation to her. But she needed to remember she was here for her mom and dad. Kelsey elbowed her, shushing, and pointing to Mr. O’Brien finishing up his talk.
“We’re especially excited that your two-week stay will wrap up with our annual Harvest Festival that’s open to the public. There will be games and a parade. We finish off with a costume party for our guests. But for now—” the ranch owner gestured wide “—let’s enjoy some of Tennessee’s best barbecue.”
A cheer lifted from the crowd as the guests started filing over, her parents moving toward the end of the line. She saw her dad gesture for her mom to go ahead of him. A good thing. But they didn’t touch at all. And that worried her. Why didn’t her dad even try?
She looked around at the other families there and her chest ached. She’d tried so hard to be good and not cause trouble, get good grades, do her chores, cover up what was really going on.
Kacie tugged her arm impatiently. “Quit daydreaming and come on, we’re supposed to be acting like a family.”
She couldn’t let them guess. It wasn’t easy for her, trying to pretend all the time, and she was so mad at Kacie for focusing on the stupid competition back home instead of helping more with getting their parents to stay together. Time was running out to repair their family.
Because if everything she’d studied up on was true, then before long, she would die just like her uncle.
Chapter Four
Douglas tucked his arm under his head and stared up at the shadows playing off the cabin ceiling. The futon wasn’t half bad.
For a futon.
He would rather be in bed with his wife. In his bed at home. He needed to focus on this two-week window of time with no distractions.
Although she was a distraction of a whole other kind. Douglas drank in Nina’s moonlit curves. Even from under the flowered quilt, she still could snatch his breath from his chest.
Scrubbing a hand over his bleary face, he gave up on sleep. He’d already called to check on the place three times, but even hearing that all was well didn’t stop the worries, and yes, even the resentment over losing what could be the final days to enjoy his birthright.
One that had been hard-won. Filled with pain and resilience.
His dad had worked endlessly trying to save their land during a time when family-owned farms were struggling, then had a stroke in the field, dead before anyone found him. Their mom had died of a broken heart. Well, technically, it had been an overdose of her mood meds. He didn’t think it had been intentional, more of a passive suicide.
Tyler had stepped up to take care of him at a time his brother had every right to lose himself in his own grief. He’d even left college, giving up his baseball scholarship. Been the model older brother. Sacrificed everything for him.
He’d been the one to teach Douglas how to fish, how to ask a girl out on a date. He’d encouraged Douglas to have a life other than the farm. But Douglas loved the land like his father had. It was in his blood.
Now he had no idea what to do with his life. The future looked so bleak without his home...his family.
It was such a simple house, but it was everything to him. It hurt to think how little it would sell for. Chances were that if the land sold, the house would be leveled.
The single-story brick ranch-style house was where he’d hung out in the kitchen with his mother. At first, he’d resented having to help cook, even if she was making his favorite, fried catfish. That was until his mother started telling stories of her childhood, of their family. How his grandmother had taught her all the family recipes in the way recipes used to be taught. Gathering around the stove, learning to cook by smell and color. A tradition he’d kept alive with Nina and the girls.
Then there was his family’s sprawling red barn where he and Tyler had readied for a rodeo as kids. He and Tyler, armed with scissors, had approached Whisper, the red roan gelding. Horses needed their manes in tight braids for the show. So they’d tried their best, which had meant cutting the mane to only two inches. Completely unbraidable, but short. Mission half achieved. Phantom laughter ached in his gut as he remembered Tyler’s wide-eyed surprise that their trimming efforts had resulted in something more like a horse mullet.
The memories were invaluable, but not particularly marketable. The milking machines and the cattle were the most valuable assets, yet once they were sold, there would be no way to keep the land and have it turn a big enough profit to fight off the creditors.
Frustrated, he scrubbed a hand over his chest. Songs from owls and crickets filtered into the cabin as he tried to determine if her breathing was the slow, deliberate march of a dreamer. Or if she, too, found sleep impossible.
“Nina, are you awake?”
Blond hair awash in moonglow, she turned to him for a moment. Eyes meeting. A slight electric hum between them. Even in subdued light, her brown eyes warmed him.
Short-lived electricity crackled before she turned back to stare up at the ceiling “Yeah. Just thinking about that time we went to the Dresdyn Family Farm Festival five years ago. How Kacie ran into the corn maze chasing that border collie.”
Memories of Kacie flickered through his head, his daughter ever impulsive and full of spirit, running in her dusty-pink cowgirl boots, blond hair streaming behind her. “I had forgotten about that. You know, I think that was the first night she picked up a rope.”
Nina chewed her bottom lip as she did when lost in thought. “And Kelsey wanted the pumpkin patch attendant to explain what made some pumpkins grow so big and others so small. She was entranced by the variegated colors on some.”
“Her curiosity is still insatiable.” He sat up on the futon, playing with one of the dog-themed throw pillows, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand. “And then that rainstorm came and soaked us all to the bone. I was basically a drowned rat.”
Laughing, she raised her hands to her face, fingers on her temple. “I remember the rainstorm, all right. But I also seem to remember that even though you were drenched, I pulled you to me, and we danced to that local band underneath the tent.”
That night, she’d looked so beautiful in her jean shorts and tank top, was still so gorgeous it made his chest ache to know she was all his. He’d known even then that he’d been lucky to have her. “Nina?”
She didn’t answer, or even look at him. But he saw her swallow as the memory clearly grabbed hold of her, too.
Douglas cleared his throat and tried a different approach. If farm life had taught him anything, it was to be flexible. To shift tactics to address the needs and demands of the land. That line of thinking seemed applicable here when so much was at stake between them. “You seemed to enjoy yourself tonight.”
Dressed in shadows, her turn toward him set something ablaze in him. All those years he thought they’d have to get it right.
“I did.” She shifted under the covers. “It was fun chatting with the other couples.”
“We haven’t had much time for a social life over the years, first with preemie twins...” A lump lodged in his throat thinking of how close his daughters had come to dying, of living through the horror of waking up every morning wondering if they would still be alive when he put his head back on the pillow. He pushed through. “Then because of Tyler.”
Except he didn’t want to think of his brother right now. Nina would probably say he was pushing aside his emotions, but so be it. That was how he got through his days.
Sitting up in the bed, she hugged her knees, the light pink spaghetti-strap sleep shirt sliding down her shoulder. “It’s nice to give the girls this break.”
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Their eyes met. Held. But then she shook her head as she looked away.
“And you,” he pressed. “I’m glad you are getting this break.”
“This trip doesn’t change things between us.”
He could sense her walls going up as tangibly as if they’d been built a brick at a time. He saw the way her jaw worked into a mask of ironed neutrality. No. Not neutrality. Something else...something more like a castle preparing for a siege.
And maybe in a way, the kingdom really was at stake. He needed to convince her that he wasn’t the enemy. He wasn’t a raider or a threat. So he would shift, make the space before them more comfortable. Anything to keep the line of dialogue open.
Maybe he needed to start talking her language more, even if he didn’t feel it. “Who says the trip has to change anything?”
Willing his body into a nonchalant shrug that he didn’t feel, he shot a sidelong glance her way.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” She let go of her knees, straightening her legs and her spine. Alert.
Yes. He had her attention.
“What if we just roll with the flow, enjoy the free vacation with our girls and each other?” He let his thoughts wander with possibilities of where this time could lead. What he wouldn’t give for the chance to hold her again. Touch her. Remind her how good they could be together. Fairy-tale love wasn’t everything. Their life together—and yes, the passion they felt for each other—was more than enough, more than many people had.
Nina tilted her head. “What exactly do you mean by ‘enjoy’?”
He was glad the dark covered his smile. “Nothing more and nothing less than what you want it to mean.”
Her husky laugh flowed over him. “Somehow I doubt you can keep to that vow.”
And she would be right.
“I’ll take that as a challenge.”
“Really?” she asked warily.
“Absolutely. I’ll keep things platonic...” Hopefully not for much longer, he thought. “Although you can feel free to change the rules anytime.”
He waited, but the silence stretched. “Nina, do we have a deal to go with the flow?”
“And I can really trust you to keep your word?”
“Have I ever lied to you?” He may have messed up his fair share of things in the past, but he kept his word.
“No, Douglas, you are a man of honor.”
Was that why even the thought of divorce was beyond considering? He didn’t shirk responsibility. “All right, then. What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”
“The girls are choosing, and they didn’t say other than they want to surprise us.” She stretched back out again. “We should get some sleep or we’ll be dead to the world in the morning.”
Sleep? Not likely. After a conversation that opened up the possibility of touching her again, he would have to be dead to sleep when the wife he hungered for was just a few short steps away.
* * *
Nina couldn’t remember when she’d last felt so alive.
She told herself that had nothing to do with the conversation she’d had with Douglas the night before, even if the idea of spending the next two weeks together away from the stresses of home was becoming more and more tempting. So much so, it was all she could do not to reach out to him now.
Settling into the saddle, her fingers resting on the well-worn leather of the horn, she adjusted her weight to the white mare’s leisurely gait. Hands loose on the rein braids. Barely having to guide the mare, Moonbeam, as she rode beside her husband and fell in line behind the ranch guests, about a dozen in all, some of whom she’d met at the cookout the night before.
The early-morning sun sent dappled beams through the trees along the grandmother, mother and daughter trio, sitting atop big, beautiful bay horses, their black manes and tails streaming in the light breeze that rustled the trees as they made their way into a more shaded portion of the mountain trail. From where Nina rode, she could feel the intergenerational connection between the women.
And something in her heart broke a bit at the lack of connection in her own life.
No matter. She would stay here. Present in the golden glow of a Tennessee fall, her breath puffing clouds in the cold morning air. The smell of damp leaves and steady sounds of hoofbeats on loose dirt.
True, they lived on a farm. True, Archer land was lovely. But she couldn’t remember the last time she had spent time outside like this, experiencing rather than working. Had allowed herself to take in such pristine beauty. To really just be present.
At the very head of the line, Jacob turned in his saddle. The ranch owner surveyed the line, ensuring no one had gotten lost.
She registered every nuance with her artistic eye, taking advantage of the horse’s steady gait to lift the camera and snap photos. Tufts of silver-gray smoke rose from a cabin that seemed to melt into the landscape. Swishing tails. Leaves on the oaks the colors of fire, of change. Birdsong. A doe peering from behind bark, those dark eyes deep and knowing, unafraid of the group as they passed by. Snippets of conversation and hoofbeats folding into a sweet melody.
Her love of photography had grown as a teen, taking photos in each foster home, hoping to hold on to a sense of family, home, love, before she lost it again. As inevitably happened. How ironic that when she put down the camera, thinking she was safe, she actually lost everything.
She pushed away the negative thought and focused on the moment.
Again turning in his saddle, the reins easy in his left hand, Jacob O’Brien raised his right hand, pointing down the valley’s ridge. “That’s our little Top Dog village, modest but full of the best people you’ll meet.”
He directed their attention down the clusters of red, yellow and orange trees toward the tiny community. Several shops leaned against each other, the street small and quaint. A carryover, she guessed, from the turn of the twentieth century.
“The building in the center is Hollie’s ice cream shop. You won’t find a creamier selection around.” He angled a glance back at Nina and Douglas. “Although I would imagine your dairy farm offerings might give us a run for our money when it comes to fresh ice cream.”
What would life be like without the things she’d taken for granted? Fresh milk, farm eggs, ice cream made from the very best milk their cows had to offer?
Without Douglas?
She shot a glance at her husband, who was looking too sexy for his own good. How did he manage to make a beat-up jean jacket over flannel so mouthwateringly masculine? The sherpa collar was flipped up against his neck, no doubt catching against the bristles of his unshaven face. Her fingers twitched at the phantom memory of the texture.
Jacob continued, “It’s hard to see from here, but it’ll get easier as we keep heading north. There is a cave with hot springs that our patrons can schedule times to indulge.”
“Wait a second,” Kelsey squealed.
“What is it, darlin’?” Jacob asked, concern shadowing his eyes. “Are you feeling uncomfortable on Lyra?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine, thanks.”
Kacie stroked the sorrel mane of her horse, Jupiter. “That’s just what she does when she gets excited or remembers something.”
Delight and possibilities colored Kelsey’s blue eyes deeper. “Are those the hot springs that are called Sulis Springs? As in the place where magic carried from the Old World still lives with the animals who lived nearby?”
The ranch owner nodded. “Someone has been doing their homework. Yes, this is Sulis Springs. Once upon a time, when my ancestors were settling in this area from Scotland and Ireland, they followed a doe to the cave opening. It wasn’t just any old doe, though. So, Kelsey, did your research tell you that as well?”
“It was the Queen of the Forest—who glowed like starlight, right?” She all but bounced in the saddle as she answered.
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sp; “That’s right. The Queen of the Forest. My ancestors knew the type of animal well. They used to roam Scotland and lead wayward souls to safe places and healing water. They offered respite. A way to connect. You see, my ancestors were struggling to get settled in this region. Many challenges almost broke them. They wanted to give up on the land. On each other. But they followed the Queen of the Forest to the cave mouth.”
Nina’s stomach clenched. She could all but feel the weight of Douglas’s gaze. No doubt he identified with the O’Brien passion for land.
Kacie leaned imperceptibly forward in her saddle.
Jacob clasped the reins loosely in his hands. “There was a lost pup in the cave that needed attention. So while they waited for a pot of coffee to brew over the fire, they cleaned up the young pup. As they rinsed the puppy, their bond was renewed. Healed. They found a way to work with the land, with one another.”
Kelsey leaned to whisper to her mom, “See, I told you. Magic.”
“Now,” Jacob finished up his tale, “for the past couple centuries, people take the same path back to the Sulis Springs and leave pumpkins and fresh-cut sunflowers for the Queen of the Forest and her magic that brings people together. Much like how our hot springs have healed and gathered people to this land for over a hundred years. We have a reputation for bringing people together because of it.”
Jacob nodded toward a small pond a hundred yards down the hillside, his brown Stetson obscuring his eyes for a moment. Rustling autumn wind stirred a simple, lacy white wedding gown on a woman in her midfifties. The groom, silver-haired, clasped his bride’s hands as he stood on the dock by the pond.
“Those two came to the ranch last year, separately. Rumor has it they fell for each other when he jumped into the pond to save her.”
Kelsey gasped. “What happened to her?”
“A fish hopped into her canoe, startling her dog, which tipped over the boat.” He pointed. “That same dog is their ring bearer.”
For heartbeats that felt like centuries, Nina’s eyes followed the scene unfolding on the dock. The sparse but beautiful flowers. Sparkling flecks of water. So enchanted by the scene, she’d fallen out of her place in the trail line. Awareness of Douglas pulsed through her as Moonbeam’s stride became even more leisurely. Nina hadn’t even realized their horses were trailing the others. She glanced at Douglas suspiciously.
Last-Chance Marriage Rescue Page 5
