by Kathryn Shay
“But why? You love the theater, the company —”
“Why should be obvious. That rascal Grover knows a thing or two about women. Always did fancy a younger man. And the man still can move.”
She smiled, and Donna felt a blush rising, and felt the urge to whisper Oh, my, and fan herself, the way Henri had about Ed.... Ed.
“I’ll still have the theater,” Maudie was saying. “Going to work with the companies coming through, make settling in easier for them. As for loving the company, I realized that the ones I like the best are folks like you and Theresa, the ones who end up leaving. You have Barker call you a cab. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
With her mind, so long numb, trying to process Maudie’s news, she let the older woman hurry her toward the door.
Absorbed in the strange, small luxury of buttoning her coat, letting her fingers linger on the buttons Ed had found for her, Donna opened the stage door to discover the day’s drizzle had turned to deluge. In her umbrella-less state, she remembered Maudie’s order to call a cab.
She turned to call to the doorman, but in the motion, she caught sight of a solitary figure standing in the rain.
Her heart lurched with knowledge. Her breath stopped with joy.
“Ed.”
He said nothing, just looked up at her. Rain sluicing down off his cowboy hat, blown into his face. His eyes raw and dark.
Then he opened his arms, and she was down the steps, flying at him before reaching the bottom, wrapping herself around his tall, strong, wet frame.
“He said you wouldn’t see me,” he said between kisses. “He said you said to go away.”
“I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t know.”
“I couldn’t go away. I drove straight through. Two days. I couldn’t go away. I couldn’t stay away. Not until — not until I tried — Donna, I love you.”
“I love you, too. Oh, Ed, I do love you. I wanted to tell you that so much. But it didn’t seem fair when I was saying — ”
He tried to hold her away from him. She wouldn’t let him, tightening her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist.
“I didn’t say I love you before that last minute because I can’t say it without wanting to ask — but I wouldn’t let myself ask, because this is your dream. But I couldn’t stay away, either.”
“Oh, Ed.” She hung on to him, feeling his realness all around her. And then she felt something else. She angled back to poke at a bulge in his coat where it covered his chest. Something crinkled. “What is this?”
“Damn. I forgot.” He opened two buttons and pulled out a trio of wilting branches with clumps of white berries, tied with a red bow. “Snowberry. For you. Didn’t want ’em to get wet, though that doesn’t make sense now I think of it, since they stand out in all weather. It’s just, they made me think of you and I wanted to protect... ” He swallowed. “Well... ”
“Oh, Ed.” She took the branches from him and threw her arms around his neck again. “You’re my glow. You’re my joy. You’re what I’ll fight for. What are we going to do?”
“Not sure I followed that, but from what Grover and Maudie said there aren’t many doing these musicals real long, maybe till they’re forty or so.”
“Forty!”
“Yes,” he said, firmly. “So I’ll wait. Then we’ll marry, have a family, be at the ranch. Until then, you dance, you sing. You go after that dream, and I’ll wait. I’ll come see you as much as I can.”
“What if I can’t have children when I’m forty?” That wasn’t the objection she’d meant to make, but those were the words that came out.
“We’ll adopt. Plenty of ways to have a family.”
“Oh, Ed,” she whispered, looking into his eyes from the bit of shelter his hat brim provided from the rain. She knew she kept saying it over and over, but his name made him real, not an illusion appearing after a long night of staring at a ceiling.
“And even then, it’s not like once you’re at the Slash-C you can’t go anywhere ever again. I’d never keep you from trips — whenever you want. And we’ll go places together after I retire.”
“Retire!” She had a hard time imagining forty. Retirement was impossible.
“I know it’s a long way off,” he said fast, “but I will retire, Donna. I swear it. We’ll save every week right from the start, so we can travel to all the places you want to see. With you, I’ll want to see them, too. We’ll have a son and we’ll put the ranch in his hands, because it’ll be going really good by then and —”
“What if we don’t have a son?”
But even as she said it, she knew they would. A sturdy toddler with his father’s smile, before he became a man any parents could be proud of.
Oh, my God, she knew because she’d seen him — their son. The toddler in that odd seeing-triple moment the very first night. And the older man? Was that her future Ed? Oh, how she hoped so.
“We might have a daughter,” she added.
A Lisa. Yes, they would have a girl named Lisa.
He stopped. “A daughter,” he said slowly. Then, even more slowly, that wonderful smile spread across his face. “Who looks like you. That would be —” He swallowed hard again.
She blinked against a sting in her eyes, but kept her voice firm. “And what if they — the son, the daughter — don’t want to take over the ranch.”
His smile faded. “Then we’d sell it. Should be worth enough by then so I can take you places you want to go.”
She sucked in a breath. He would. He would sell his family ranch that meant so much to him. The last thing she ever wanted him to do, he would. For her.
“Ed, I need you to do something for me. Will you promise?”
He tried to look into her eyes, but she had dropped her chin so he couldn’t.
“I promise to try my damnedest to do it for you, Donna.”
She raised her face. “Ask me.”
“What?”
“Ask me. What you drove two days to ask, ask me now.”
“Donna—”
“You promised.”
“But —”
“Ask me, Edward David Currick.”
“I —”
“Ed—
“Okay, okay, I’m asking. Will you marry me, Donna? When you can — when you want to — will you be my wife?”
“Yes. And when I want to is forever. Starting right now.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“But —”
“You’ve got to break this but habit, Ed. I’ll marry you, and I’ll be your wife at the Slash-C now, and I’ll find ways to sing and dance, because I don’t need a stage for that. And when you retire — and retire you will, I will not have you work yourself to death — we will go to many wonderful and exotic places together.”
Maudie was right. She loved singing, she loved dancing. She didn’t need an audience for that love to continue. But she needed Ed. And his love. This was what she would fight for. Always.
“Donna —”
“Now it’s your turn to say yes.”
He studied her, blinking through rain that slid past his hat brim, and perhaps tears, to look into her eyes.
“Yes,” he said slowly. Then he smiled, and she knew she would never stop loving that smile. “Oh, hell, yes!”
He kissed her hard and deep, his arms around her no longer simply supporting her, but binding her to him. He tried to push her coat aside.
“What the hell?”
“I sewed on the buttons. Just now.”
He grumbled a curse.
But eventually — hours after he had wrenched several off in his glorious hurry to get her out of her coat — he forgave those buttons. They were the only reason they made it back to her hotel room without giving an X-rated show that might have shocked even San Francisco.
EPILOGUE
Knighton, Wyoming — Present Day
“DONNA, IF YOU don’t come now, we’ll miss the flight.”
“I know. As soon as
I check the freezer —”
He caught her arm, preventing her returning to the house.
“Dave is too smart to starve. If he weren’t, I’d be a damned idiot to leave him to run the ranch.”
“Of course he’s smart — he’s brilliant,” she said immediately, letting herself be led toward the pickup. Count on her to defend her kids from any whiff of criticism... unless she was voicing it. “His law practice is going great and he’ll keep the Slash-C running smoothly.”
“Especially with Jack’s help.”
“Jack’s a great foreman.” Uh-oh. She’d said the right words, but with a distracted air that said something else was occupying her mind. “I just worry...” She stopped, looking back at the house.
“About all your little chicks.”
“Well, I do. Ever since Lisa came back from New York —”
“She’s told you she’s fine, and she’s asked us to respect that she’s an adult.”
She tch-ed her dismissal of that before adding, “And Dave pretends he’s got everything under control. But with Matty gone —”
“Ancient history, Donna. And our plane reservations are going to be in the same category if we don’t leave now. Besides, you do know they’re all waiting at the airport for a sendoff, don’t you?”
“Of course. But how do you know?”
“Jack.”
She tipped her head. “Jack told you? He says so little —”
He grinned. “He didn’t say one word. I saw the note stuck in the visor of his pickup, with the time and date — same as our departure. If we ever get to the airport.”
She ignored that last part. “I worry about Jack. He keeps himself so... separate.”
“I know you do, hon, but he’s a grown man, and not one of your kids.” What Jack Ralston had told him was one of the very few things he hadn’t shared with Donna in these past thirty-five years. Jack had asked him not to, and it would have worried her even more than she worried now.
Thirty-five years.
It was hard to believe. Some bad days, but better years than he could have imagined that Christmas night in San Francisco when she said she’d marry him. He’d thought that would be the best day of his life. It had just been the beginning.
Becoming husband and wife. Having Dave, then Lisa. Building the ranch together. Being part of a community. Helping their neighbors. Being helped. Laughing. In a way, she’d taught him how to sing and dance through each day — without his knowing a step or a note.
And now —
“I love the Slash-C,” Donna said thickly, as she looked across the land that was their home, that had been the foundation for so much joy.
“I know you do.” He cleared his throat, forcing back the lump, making his voice go mock plaintive. “But don’t you want to go to Paris with me?”
She spun around, stepping into his arms. “Of course I do! Paris and Brittany and Wales and Spain and Ireland and —”
He scooped her up, and set her on the truck seat. “Great. But first we have to get to the airport. And we have to go through Denver, which is always a mess, so if we want to get to Paris... ”
“Oh, Denver wasn’t so bad to us.” Still with tears in her eyes, she smiled as her arms encircled his neck. “I wouldn’t mind a few nights on a narrow bed with you in Denver.” She kissed him.
He was two-thirds of the way to just crawling in the truck with her right then and calling it a day, when she placed a palm to his cheek and drew back slightly. “But Paris first.”
He sucked in a breath. “Right. Paris.”
He slammed the truck door on her chuckle, then wasted no time sliding behind the wheel, and getting to the end of the drive, ready to turn onto the highway. There he stopped, though there was no traffic in sight.
He spared a last look at their home in the rearview mirror. She put her hand on his. And then he could look nowhere but at the woman he loved.
“You have changed my life, Donna Roberts Currick.” Slowly, he smiled, and named the song no one knew was theirs except for them, “ ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me.’ Any of it. Ever.”
“Us,” she amended, as one of them always did.
He pulled onto the highway.
“We’re on our way, darling.”
“We’re on our way,” she agreed.
-THE END-
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If you enjoyed Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning check out the other books in the Wyoming Wildflowers series:
Almost a Bride (Indian Paintbrush)
Match Made in Wyoming (Fireweed)
My Heart Remembers (Bur Marigold)
Wyoming Wildflowers Trilogy Boxed Set (3 Books in 1)
www.PatriciaMclinn.com/Patricias-Books/Wyoming-Wildflowers/
Almost An
Angel
A Daddy School Novella
By Judith Arnold
Chapter One
THE CALL CAME during a meeting, interrupting Conor in mid-sentence. Three engineers and his VP of marketing were seated around the table in GateKeepers’ conference room, and the technology officer of a West Coast software firm appeared on a monitor at one end of the table, courtesy of Skype. Conor had been elaborating on the features of GateKeepers’ network security software to the West Coast guy when the phone at his elbow dinged.
He muttered an impatient “Excuse me,” and lifted the handset. “Yeah?”
“Amy’s school is on the line,” Marion reported.
His daughter’s school? Not good. He thanked Marion, then sent an apologetic look to his colleagues and the disembodied head on the screen at the opposite end of the table from him. “Sorry, people. I’ve got to take this.” He stood, asked his VP to explain more of the software’s selling points to the West Coast guy, and slipped out of the room, the phone’s cordless handset clenched in his fist.
He shut the door before pressing the button to connect the call. Taking a steadying breath, he forced some optimism into his voice before saying, “Conor Malone here.”
“Hello.” A woman’s voice, smooth as satin. “This is Eliza Powell, the school psychologist. I just had Amy in my office.”
Conor didn’t recognize the woman’s name. Where was Rosalyn Hoffman, the wonderful school shrink who’d gotten Amy through so much trauma last year?
No matter. Whoever this new shrink was, if Amy had been sent to her office, it was definitely not good. “What happened?”
“It seems she punched another student.”
“Punched?” he blurted out, then glanced around him. He had the hallway to himself, but the software team in the main room could have heard him if they’d wanted to. Most of them were so absorbed in their work, lobbing ideas back and forth like ping-pong balls, that they probably weren’t even aware of their boss standing just a few feet away, receiving unwelcome news. Even so, he lowered his voice when he said, “How could she punch someone? She’s a little girl.”
“As I understand it, the boy she punched—”
“She punched a boy?”
“—is two inches taller than her and outweighs her by twenty-five pounds. He isn’t hurt. If he was, she would have been sent to the principal’s office for disciplinary action, not to me.”
“I’m sorry—who are you again?”
“Eliza Powell. The school psychologist.”
“What happened to Dr. Hoffman?”
“She retired.”
Damn. He’d liked Dr. Hoffman. More important, Amy had liked her. And trusted her. Dr. Hoffman had helped Amy endure a trauma no third-grade girl should ever have had to experience.
Amy was in fourth grade now. Apparently she still needed help. “My daughter punched a boy,” he muttered.
“She said he was making fun of her.”
Then the bastard deserved whatever Amy had done to him, Conor thought, his protective-dad reflexes kicking in. “Look, Ms.—Dr.—Pollack—”
&n
bsp; “Powell,” she corrected him.
“I’m sorry. Dr. Powell. Amy’s been through a lot in the past year. If her classmates are making fun of her—”
“According to Amy, the boy told her she was stupid for believing in Santa Claus. She said he called her an idiot, among other things.”
“So she punched him.” Conor knew he ought to be angry with his daughter. He supposed he’d have to give her a stern lecture that evening. But hell—a boy had called her an idiot for believing in Santa. If Conor had been there, he might have been tempted to slug the kid himself.
“Amy seems to believe,” Dr. Powell continued, “that her mother is Santa’s angel, and that Santa is going to bring her mother to her this year for Christmas. I’m new here at the Adams School, Mr. Malone, but I’ve read Amy’s file. I’m not sure where she got the idea that Santa was going to bring her mother back to her, but if she truly believes that, she’s going to be in for a huge disappointment Christmas morning.”
Conor knew where she’d gotten the idea: from his parents last week at Thanksgiving. He and Amy had traveled to Maine for the holiday, and Amy had been anxious and weepy, worrying about how she was going to survive another Christmas without her mother. Last year had been a horror, Sheila’s death still so fresh in his and Amy’s hearts that they hadn’t celebrated Christmas at all. This year he was determined that his daughter would rediscover the joy of the holiday.
But she’d been moody and fretful last week, bursting into tears at the slightest provocation, until her grandmother had come up with the bizarre idea of assuring Amy that Sheila was Santa’s special angel. When Amy had asked whether Santa would give her her mother for Christmas, Conor’s mother had said yes. When Amy had asked her grandfather for confirmation, he’d loyally backed up his wife.
The lie had made for a much happier Thanksgiving. But now Conor was stuck dealing with the aftermath.
“All right,” he said, remembering that he was supposed to be in the conference room, participating in an important meeting. “What happens next? Is the boy planning to press charges? Do I have to hire a lawyer?”
