by Liz Isaacson
Now, he felt a hole in his soul that wouldn’t go away, and he had no idea how to fix it. He stayed out in the wild quiet until the heat of the day started to oppress him. Then he collected the horses from the fields where they’d wandered and took them back to the ranch.
He knew something was up when he came down the road and found Tess and Megan standing in front of his cabin, both of them pacing. Blake wasn’t working on the cabins anymore, and everything on the ranch seemed muted.
“Tess?” he called, and she spun toward him, worry mixing with relief when she saw and recognized him. “What is it?”
She strode toward him, Megan following her. They reached him at the same time. “It’s Molly,” she said. “Well, her dad. He collapsed last night, and she left the bakery almost right after we got there.”
Confusion drew his eyebrows into a V. “Why didn’t she call me?”
“She did.” Tess looked at Megan. “Twice. You didn’t answer.”
Emmett shook his head and pulled out his phone. “No, look. I haven’t heard from her.”
Tess looked at the phone for a fraction of a second. “Okay, but she called.”
Desperation pulled through Emmett. He wanted them to understand he hadn’t blown off the calls, but it wasn’t worth arguing over. “When you say she left, what does that mean?”
“It means she’s gone,” Megan said.
“For good?” Emmett asked, the reins he held in his hand suddenly weighing a hundred pounds.
“That’s what she said.” Tess drew him into a hug. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
Chapter Twelve
Molly slept in a hotel in a suburb of Denver, after an exhausting eight-hour drive. After five hours, she hit the road again near nine o’clock, frustrated that all of her messages and calls to Emmett had gone unanswered. He’d called her, and she’d sent it to voicemail because Erin had just brought out the key lime tarts, and the ladies were in a chorus of squeals over the treats.
Her world had gone from carefree and full of laughter to terrifying with a single phone call, and she’d left town without anything but her truck, her purse, and the clothes she’d been wearing.
She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel and watched the clock until it clicked to ten, the appointed time when she told her mother she’d call. Out of sheer desperation, she tried Emmett again.
His phone only rang once before going to voicemail, and she wondered if the cell tower out on the ranch had gone down. She couldn’t quite explain any other reason why he wouldn’t answer, other than he was angry at her for not answering.
“That makes no sense,” she said. They’d traded calls and texts before. All summer long, in fact. But she couldn’t help worrying over him—and it wasn’t because he wasn’t answering.
It was because she wasn’t returning to Brush Creek. She couldn’t worry about her belongings there; she suspected she could ask Megan to box up her clothes and shoes and mail them to her. It was fourteen hours from Omaha to Brush Creek, and it seemed silly to take a twenty-eight hour round-trip just to get a few blouses and jeans.
Still, she felt a keen sense of loss over her clothes. Over the three horses she’d grown to love. Over Emmett.
She sighed, startled out of her feelings by the ringing of her phone. She fumbled it in her haste to answer, disappointed her mother started talking instead of Emmett.
“Your father is stable,” she said, a sigh accompanying the words. Mom sounded so tired and Molly wanted to be close by to support her. She thought about her mom planning a funeral by herself, and a sob crept up her throat.
“How are you?” Molly choked out.
“Surviving.”
“What are his chance of recovering this time?”
“The same as always.” Mom’s voice lowered when she continued with “But honestly, Molly, I don’t think he’ll leave the hospital again.” How she could say the words with such steadiness, Molly didn’t know.
“I’m on my way,” she said. “I’m only five hours out. Tell him, okay? Will you tell him I’m coming?” Molly wiped her eyes, glad she didn’t have to be strong in this moment, relieved no one was with her to see her cry.
She hung up with her mom and took an extra second to blink. “Please don’t let him die before I get there.” She kept a steady, silent prayer going as the miles continued to roll by.
An hour out, she grabbed something for lunch so she could get right to her father when she arrived at the hospital. She’d barely set her truck on the highway again when her phone rang.
When she saw Emmett’s name on the screen, she swung onto the shoulder, unable to focus on driving and speak with him at the same time.
“Emmett,” she said.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said. His voice sounded off, but she couldn’t quite place the emotions it carried. “Where are you?”
“About an hour outside of Omaha.”
She could imagine him nodding his head, short little bursts of movement. He’d be swallowing about now, and probably glancing away as he tried to figure out what to say.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer,” he said. “Something happened with my phone. I didn’t get any messages or calls, and when Tess found me and told me what was going on, I restarted my phone and reset it, and they all came through.” He exhaled, the sound heavy and full of frustration. “I’ve never had thirteen unread texts before.” He chuckled, but it sounded off.
“Emmett—” She didn’t know what else to say.
“I wish I’d have gotten your call. I would’ve come with you.”
“I know.”
“Is it true you’re not coming back?”
“I don’t know right now, Emmett.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t know what my dad will be like, and I can’t imagine leaving my mom here alone if he—if he—”
“But I thought you didn’t want to stay in Omaha. You told me that you just couldn’t stay there.”
She had said that. She had felt suffocated in her hometown, in that same house where she’d grown up, with her ill father and her broken mother. The thought of staying in Nebraska made her stomach roll, and the thought of never seeing Emmett again, never smelling his skin, never kissing him, caused every muscle in her body to tighten.
“Can I call you later?” she asked. “After I see my dad and talk to my mom?”
“Sure, of course.” He cleared his throat. “Should I come to Omaha?”
Her first instinct was to say no. She didn’t want him to see her in such distress. At the same time, she could use someone strong to rely on. She ended up saying, “I don’t know.”
“Think about it,” he said.
Her brain whirred, settling on several things at once. “You can’t leave the horses. We just started with Double Chocolate Latte, and you’re meeting with that cowgirl from Austin on Tuesday.”
“I’m sure Landon could handle the meeting. He has to approve all the sales anyway.”
“You’ll be heartbroken without Beauty.”
He scoffed and said, “Heartbroken? She’s just a horse.”
“She’s your favorite horse.” She managed to smile and she eased back onto the road, able to drive and talk now.
“You’re my favorite,” he said, and her heart stuttered.
“I have to go.” Her voice came out way too high and she ended the call before he could say anything else.
When she got to the hospital, her mom met her in the lobby. “Mom.” Molly took a big breath and kept the tears dormant. Her mom trembled in her arms, and Molly held her, soothed her, was the strong one in the relationship just like she’d always been.
“How is he?” She held her at arm’s length and looked down at her mom.
“They just took him in for some tests. He should be back soon, and he’ll be awake.”
“Let’s go up then.” Molly pasted on a smile and let her mom lead her up to the fourth floor. Molly couldn’t seem to sit still, and there was
only one chair anyway. She perched in the wide windowsill, her foot bouncing, bouncing, bouncing.
Mom chattered about the roses Dad had planted and how he spent hours everyday pruning them and dallying around outside. “How he deals with the heat and humidity is beyond me.” Mom fanned herself and watched the TV mounted above the door. “But he does love those roses.”
“How are the pink lemonade ones doing? The ones I gave him for Father’s Day a few years ago?” Molly had really wanted to give him something he’d be able to look at and see her.
“He brings a new bloom in everyday. They really smell like lemonade.”
A ghost of a smile drifted across Molly’s face. “I remember.”
Several minutes later, the door opened and two nurses wheeled in her father. Molly shot to her feet, that lump in her throat clogging all the words and making speaking impossible.
“Look, Gene. Molly’s here.”
Dad’s eyes wandered, finally landing on hers. He smiled and lifted one veined hand toward her. She couldn’t believe how old he looked, how frail lying in the bed, how much he’d aged in the single summer she’d been gone.
Should she have stayed? Been with him in his last days?
These aren’t his last days, she told herself firmly, straightening her shoulders and taking his hand in between both of hers. And you’re here now.
“Hey, Daddy.” She leaned in and took a breath of him, getting the hint of his unique smell of blooms and butterscotch beneath the antiseptic scent of the hospital. “How are you feeling?”
“Oh, just fine.” His voice sounded like he’d gargled with glass, and there was hardly anything about him that she remembered. This wasn’t the man she knew growing up. That man kicked a soccer ball with her when she was eight years old. He’d taken her to her first horseback riding lesson—and every one after it. He’d come to all her rodeo events her first year, and would’ve the second too if not for the cancer diagnosis.
“These nurses, they overreact.”
Molly glanced at one of them, who gave her a knowing smile. “I’m sure they do.”
“You didn’t have to come all this way.”
“Dad, you’re—” She cut off. “I wanted to come see you guys. It’s been a few months.”
“How are things going on the ranch?” Mom asked.
“Just fine,” she said, not wanting to talk about the ranch, or horses, or anything remotely related to ranches or horses right now. She certainly couldn’t voice that she’d found what she wanted to do with the rest of her life in training barrel racing horses. Not right now. And she didn’t want to talk about her newfound faith, because it felt so far from her right now. Almost like God had forgotten about her, or given her something wonderful only to snatch it away in the next moment.
She wouldn’t mention Emmett, because if she did, she’d break down, and that was not an option, not with her father resting in a hospital bed and her mom barely conscious in the chair beside him. No, Molly needed to be the strong one here, and if that meant keeping her life in Brush Creek close to the vest, she’d do it.
A week later, Molly entered the kitchen where she used to eat Lucky Charms and found her mom standing at the window, a mug of steaming coffee in her hand.
“Morning,” she said, pulling a mug down from the cupboard and filling it with liquid caffeine. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and drinking coffee was the only way she’d make it through the day. It was probably also why she laid awake at night.
That, and her worry about her father, and her increasing misery over Emmett. He’d texted a couple of times, but he’d stuck to business. He’d sold Beauty to the cowgirl on Tuesday, and he had two meetings with potential buyers for Hurricane lined up at the end of the month. He didn’t mention Double Chocolate Latte, and Molly found herself wondering after the Friesian. She’d grown attached to the horse in the month she’d worked with him.
She didn’t ask. She filled her messages with exclamation points and smiling emoticons so he wouldn’t know how unhappy she was. She spooned sugar into her coffee and joined her mom at the window.
Mom finally turned from the world outside and said, “Oh, good morning, dear,” as if Molly hadn’t already said good morning and hadn’t spent the last couple of minutes banging around the kitchen.
Worry needled through her, but she supposed Mom hadn’t been sleeping either. Spending hours that felt like days in the hospital didn’t help, and nothing felt real in Molly’s life anymore.
“Who’s Emmett?” Mom asked, jumpstarting Molly’s heart.
“What?”
She glanced at Molly’s phone on the counter. “He’s texted a couple of times this morning.”
“Oh.” Molly waved her hand. “He’s my boss. Well, not really my boss.” A nervous giggle left her lips. “He and I train the horses together on the ranch.” She took a giant sip of her coffee and burnt her tongue and the roof of her mouth and all the way down her throat. She coughed, which finally alerted Mom to something suspicious.
“You work with him?”
“I work with a lot of cowboys. Well, not a lot.” She cringed at the way she kept saying things and then correcting herself. “A few. My boss is a cowboy.”
“You seeing anyone? Maybe one of those cowboys? Maybe Emmett?”
Molly scoffed and pushed out one laugh. “Why do you think that?”
Mom glanced at the phone, and Molly turned to pick it up. Emmett had finally broken from business to say I miss you. Have you thought any more about me coming to Omaha?
She had thought more about it, and the more brain space she dedicated to it, the worse the idea sounded. What would he possibly do here? She didn’t need to work because of her winnings in the rodeo, but she was bored out of her mind. She’d taken to her father’s gardens just to fill the hours with something that felt semi-meaningful.
She lowered the phone and looked at her mom. “Yes, I’m dating Emmett.”
A smile as wide as the sky graced her mom’s face. “That’s wonderful.” As quickly as the grin had appeared, it faded. “Is that why you’ve been so miserable here?”
Molly shrugged. She hadn’t cried in front of her parents. She’d keep the tears for her pillow and only after she was sure Mom was asleep.
“Are you going to let him come?”
“I don’t know, Mom.”
“Do you love him?”
Molly flinched at the question. She wasn’t even sure she knew how to love a man. She thought she’d been in love with Clay, and that had gone terribly wrong. Or he was terribly wrong. Or maybe she was. She still wasn’t sure what she’d seen in him now, especially when she considered Emmett and his calm personality, his quick laughter, his kind soul.
With a jolt, she realized that she did love him. She turned toward her mom as the sunlight poured through the window, almost like a beacon from heaven. “I think so.”
Her mom’s tired, crinkly face smoothed and lit up. Molly was able to see the woman she’d grown up with, who she loved, whof she’d come here for, in that single moment. “Are you going to let him come, then?”
Molly looked at the phone clenched in her hand. The sun went behind a cloud, and everything in Molly’s mind scattered. “I don’t know. He’s really busy on the ranch right now. It’s almost the harvest, which all the cowboys help with, and he’s finishing up with one horse and just starting another one.”
Mom nodded like what Molly had said wasn’t just an excuse. She sipped her coffee and looked out into the yard, with its dozens of rose bushes and lanes of emerald green grass. Thunder sounded overhead, making the light even dimmer.
“Maybe you should let him decide.” Mom put her hand on Molly’s forearm and squeezed. “I’m going to go shower and then we’ll go over to the hospital. Your father loves the rain and he’ll want me to wheel him to the balcony.”
Molly nodded, her words stuck somewhere deep inside her chest. She loved her parents, and she wanted—needed—to be here with them right now.
<
br /> But did that mean Emmett couldn’t be with her too?
She pressed her eyes closed and searched her soul, the way she’d learned to do this summer as Pastor Peters stood at the pulpit and said wonderful things that rang true in her heart. She loved Emmett Graves, and she didn’t want to let her father’s illness keep them apart. She had to be here for right now, but maybe not forever.
And if she didn’t cling to Emmett now, she could lose him forever.
Her eyes popped open and her fingers flew across the screen.
Chapter Thirteen
Emmett picked up the phone when it rang, though he usually didn’t do such things while working with his horses. He felt utterly abandoned since Molly had left last week and he’d sold Beauty. He’d spent all day Sunday and Monday with her, telling her she was going to love her new owners, and that he’d be there at her first professional rodeo.
The horse didn’t answer back—likely didn’t even know what he was saying—but he liked to think she would comfort him, tell him it was okay, that she was ready to start winning championships and that she’d thank him in her acceptance speeches.
“Hey,” he said to the pastor’s wife, Alison. “Any news?”
“My daughter in Elkhorn will take your cat. She’s thrilled because she’d been trying to find a birthday present for her daughter, who loves cats.”
Emmett’s chest expanded and collapsed as he breathed. He couldn’t believe he was getting rid of Tigress, the one creature who hadn’t left him yet. On his next breath, he reminded himself that if he wanted Molly in his life, he couldn’t have Tigress. And this was weeks in the making.
“Great,” he finally said. “I can drive over to Elkhorn in the morning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s an hour away,” she said. “Heather is coming here next weekend. I’ll take Tigress until then. I know you boys are busy with the harvest at this time of year.”
As if Emmett’s heart wasn’t already in his boots. He hated the harvest, as did most cowboys. Blake especially. But Emmett pulled his weight around the ranch, and if they wanted to feed their cattle and horses all winter, they needed the hay.
