Heartland

by Julie Cannon

  Rachel laughed nervously. “How can it be lonely? The place is crawling with lesbians.” And that was her biggest fear, she realized. That Shivley would want someone else.

  For the first time since she opened the door, Shivley met her gaze and held it. What she saw gave Rachel hope and encouragement, and it cleared up any remaining doubt as to why she had traveled hundreds of miles to be sitting next to the most beautiful woman she had ever known.

  “Because there’s no one to share it with,” Shivley said without hesitation.

  This was the opening Rachel was waiting for. “If you could have anyone in the world to share it with, who would it be? Wait, don’t answer that,” Rachel said suddenly. She had to do this. She had to take control of her life, and if she was ever going to take a chance on love, to be able to look herself in the mirror, she had to make this move. She had to risk it all.

  She took Shivley’s hand. “I want to share it with you.” Rachel could almost hear her heart opening to this wonderful woman. She had come here to be with Shivley. In that instant Rachel realized just how much she was in love with Shivley. It had happened so easily, so naturally she had not recognized it, had not seen it coming. Like a thief in the night, the rancher had stolen her heart. Her emotions soared, but she was still afraid it would all come crashing to the ground.

  Rachel’s eyes never left Shivley’s. She had never felt so strong or so frightened. She wanted this, desperately wanted this, and she was not going to let it slip through her fingers again. Everything was at risk here, and Rachel was willingly putting it all out on the table. “I want to be here with you.” Rachel caressed Shivley’s cheek. “You were right, that night when we made love, it did mean something to me. It meant everything to me. You mean everything to me.” The flash in Shivley’s eyes boosted her courage.

  “I heard you and Ann talking in the kitchen that morning after.” Rachel stuttered on the last few words. “You said you regretted making love to me. Well, as much as I run the risk of being hurt, I don’t. Regardless of whether or not you want me in your life, I don’t regret it at all. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.” Rachel finally felt herself relaxing. “I love you, Shivley. I never thought I’d be capable of loving someone, but I do. You have given me another lease on life. I thought I was happy staying just on the edge of feeling anything, but now I see I was a coward. I don’t want to be in that safe place anymore because it’s too lonely there. There is no one to share it with because it can’t be shared. I want to live my life. A life full of emotions. I want to be happy and sad and joyous and so goddamned ecstatic I could shout it from the top of the tallest tree on your beautiful land. What you have here is priceless, Shivley, you are priceless, and I want—no, I hope with all my heart that you want to share it with me. I love you.” Rachel took a breath. She felt winded, as if she had just run a marathon.

  A thousand thoughts raced through Shivley’s mind, one of which answered the nagging question of what had happened that made Rachel withdraw from her. But the overwhelming realization was that Rachel loved her. This beautiful woman who could have any woman in the world loved her. Her, a podunk rancher with a few acres of land and some cattle. Unbelievable. Suddenly the cloud of guilt lifted and she was soaring. But just as suddenly, she thought about Dale. She loved Rachel, and as such, she deserved to know everything.

  “I need to tell you something.” Shivley watched as Rachel’s face dropped. She smiled gently and kissed the palm of her hand.

  “I fell for you the minute you stepped out of that ugly rental car. And then when you stepped off the plane, I knew that my life had changed forever. But I was too stupid to realize it at the time. I hid behind some ridiculous sense of propriety about not getting involved with guests when that was exactly what I wanted to do.” Rachel looked at their hands, fingers intertwined. Shivley continued.

  “I loved Dale. She was a part of my life for a long time, and I can’t forget that. I won’t forget it. But Dale is in the past. I have come to terms with our relationship and her death. For the longest time I felt guilty for not loving Dale enough. She died not having someone love her like she deserved. She was a warm, wonderful person, and at one time we were happy, I was happy, but in the end, we were just together.

  “Sure, I was with her when she got sick and through her treatments because I did love her. I wouldn’t have been anywhere else. But I wasn’t in love with her. I used the money she left me and her life insurance and bought the ranch. It was my dream, not hers, and I used a terrible twist of fate to live my dream.” Shivley raised her gaze. “I didn’t realize any of this until you came into my life, and even then it took a while for me to figure it out.” She chuckled. “Sometimes I’m not the sharpest blade of hay in the stack. It took you leaving and Ann beating some sense into me to realize it.”

  Rachel had not said a word, so Shivley continued. “I thought I didn’t deserve to love someone again. That’s because I did such a disservice to Dale that I could never be with anyone else again. I would not do that to someone else. But I now know what Dale and I had, and in the end, what we didn’t. It takes two to make a relationship work, and I don’t think either one of us had it in us to make it work for us. It wasn’t all my fault, and I’m done thinking it was.”

  Shivley lightly stroked the top of Rachel’s soft hands. “It was you I was with when we made love, Rachel, not Dale.” Rachel cupped her hand to Shivley’s face. “It was always you. And I don’t regret a minute of it.”

  Joy ran rampant in Rachel’s heart and threatened to bubble up and explode but was kept at bay by another equally driving emotion: fear. Rachel was afraid of what this meant to her, what this meant for the rest of her life. She had never been able to trust someone enough to have a true relationship. Her heart had been shut down for so long she didn’t know what to do or how she should act. But what she did know for certain was that she wanted to learn from Shivley.

  “I don’t know the first thing about being in a relationship,” she said tentatively, almost shyly.

  “I’ll teach you.”

  “I’m not used to being around people who truly love each other.” Rachel thought about all the political husbands and wives who were together for anything but love.

  “You’ll be surrounded by them.”

  Rachel’s eyes welled up with tears and she lowered her gaze. She had not cried since her mother left, and it was an unsettling experience. Her voice shook. “I don’t know how to trust.”

  Shivley wiped the tears from Rachel’s cheeks and lifted her chin so that she had to look in her eyes. “I will never leave you, Rachel.” She had never believed anything more than what she was saying now.

  “I don’t know how to do this. I’m afraid.” It was the first time Rachel had uttered those words.

  “I will never leave you, Rachel.” Shivley repeated her declaration. “I love you.”

  Rachel’s world started spinning. She wanted to bolt from the room, run away from the panic that was engulfing her like a bad storm. She wanted to crawl back into her safe life where she controlled everything and where fear and uncertainty did not have a place. But she had come here for a reason, and it was to make a life with Shivley. A life built on hope and love and trust. And hard work. Lots of hard work. But the reward was dazzling.

  “God, I love you too.” Rachel could not remember ever saying those three powerful words. She might have said them to her mother, but she was too young to know what they really meant. She wasn’t sure she knew exactly what it meant now, but she was ready to find out.

  A slow warming coursed through Shivley’s body. She wanted to jump for joy, to run through the street telling everyone she passed that this wonderful woman loved her too. But she knew she would have to take it slow with Rachel. Trust was built on time, and she was going to spend the rest of her life convincing Rachel just how much she loved her.

  “Yes, I want to share this with you. There is no one I want by my side except you. There’s not muc
h call for a political strategist around here, but you could still do your job. Sky Harbor airport is in Phoenix and not that far away.” Shivley wanted Rachel to run the ranch with her. To be beside her every day, but that might not be what Rachel wanted. She was not going to make that mistake twice.

  “You asked me once if I was happy shoveling shit all day. I wasn’t then, and I certainly won’t be in the future. I sold my soul one too many times. I don’t know if I chased the money, the challenge, or the glory. One day I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror. My life changed when you stepped out of your Jeep and hollered at me.” Rachel leaned over and kissed Shivley softly, all her fears sliding away. “I don’t want to work anywhere other than right here, with you, every single day.” She was rewarded with a smile so bright it was blinding. Shivley stood and grasped her hand.

  “Come on, dinner’s ready. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  About the Author

  Julie Cannon is a native sun goddess born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. After a five year stint in “snow up to my #$&” and temperatures that hovered in the 30’s, she returned to the Valley of the Sun vowing never to leave again. Julie’s day job is in Corporate America, and her nights are spent bringing to life the stories that bounce around in her head throughout the day.

  Julie and her partner, Laura, have been together for sixteen years and spend their weekends camping, riding ATV’s, or lounging around the pool with their seven-year-old son and daughter.