33 The Return of Bowie Bravo

by Christine Rimmer

  He’d turned and embraced her, kissing her so sweetly. She wondered now if the kiss might have been at least partly an attempt to distract her from the carved box. “I’ll just be a minute,” he’d said, and turned her by her shoulders, pointing her back at the door.

  She’d returned to the house, oblivious to any secret motives, sending him a last warm glance over her shoulder before she shut the workshop door.

  The workshop.

  After Matteo’s death, she’d hardly been out there. Matteo had spent a lot of happy hours puttering around in that half of the barn. The first few months after he was gone, being out there in his special space had made her feel the loss of him all the more acutely. She’d never gotten around to going through all the stuff he kept there, deciding what to save and what to give away.

  Was that carved box still out there, tucked away in a drawer or a cabinet somewhere?

  She turned on the lamp, pushed back the covers and put on her robe and slippers. Pausing only to grab the baby monitor from the night table, she tiptoed down the stairs.

  In the workshop, she flicked on the overhead bulb, put the monitor on the workbench nearest the door—the same one she remembered Matteo standing at that long-ago evening—and she started going through the endless rows of storage drawers.

  The second drawer down in the second row of drawers opened only halfway. Glory shut it. Opened it again. The back of the drawer was right there in front of her.

  Or was it a false back?

  She eased the drawer off its gliders and set it on the workbench.

  And there it was, a second compartment behind the first. The pretty carved box waited there, so easy to find once she started looking.

  With care, she eased the box out of its hidden space. She set it on the workbench and then, for a moment, didn’t quite dare to open it.

  Was it wrong to pry into Matteo’s secrets now that he was gone? Who was she to invade his privacy? If he’d wanted her to know what was inside the box, he would have shown her.

  She sent a little prayer to heaven for his understanding. And then instantly, she felt a kind of peace, a sense of rightness. Where Matteo was now, he didn’t need secrets. And she really had no malice toward him. She was only grateful to have known him, to have been the recipient of his tender care at a time when she needed a companion, when she yearned for a good man to turn to in the middle of the night.

  It felt right. It felt okay. To take the lid and ease it open.

  Inside, she found a curling lock of golden hair tied with a blue ribbon, three photographs and an envelope with Matteo written on it in a small, neat hand.

  She touched the lock of hair, smoothed the ribbon with care. And she studied the photos, two of a pretty blonde girl perched on the deck railing in the back of the Sierra Star. She had wide eyes and a shy smile. She tipped her head for the camera, flirting so sweetly with whomever had taken those first two pictures.

  The third photo was the same girl, standing at the same railing, with Matteo. A Matteo so young that the sight of him brought tears to Glory’s eyes. He had his arm around the girl and the look on his face…it was the dazzled, ecstatic look of a man who has everything. A man far gone in love.

  Glory stared at that snapshot for a long time. Finally, she set it aside and picked up the envelope.

  It was the letter. She knew it before she opened it. The letter Emma had asked Chastity to give to Matteo.

  Dear Matt,

  I have to go away now. I can’t stay here any longer, not without you. I can’t sleep in my room now, the room where we were together, where you said you would never, ever leave me. Where you said we would be married, make a family, have the rest of our lives.

  Together.

  My love, I need a clean break. I need to forget you. I don’t know how I will do that, but I’m determined. Somehow, I will find happiness. I’m not staying in Grass Valley. I’m not even going to be in California.

  I hope someday you can get free of what is holding you back. No, I’m not going to write down her name. I’m going to try not to hate her. I only want, in time, for you to find someone who can make you smile and fill your days with all the joy I dreamed of giving you.

  With all my love, now and forever,

  E.

  It was well after midnight when Glory returned to the house. She brought the carved box and its treasures with her and put it away on the top shelf of the master bedroom closet. Someday, years from that night, she would give it to Sera.

  When and if the time was right.

  And speaking of Sera…

  The fussy little whines had started. Glory went to the baby’s room and got her. She fed her and changed her. Then she carried her down to the kitchen where she put the water on for tea.

  And she picked up the phone.

  Bowie answered on the first ring. “Glory?” The sound of his voice reached down and touched all of her most private, secret places, just the way it always had.

  She kissed her baby’s soft cheek, smiled as though the man on the other end of the line could see her. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Who else would be calling me in the middle of the night?”

  “You busy?”

  “Are you kidding? I’ll be right over.”

  Glory stood at the front window in her red robe and slippers, holding her baby, waiting for him. He arrived in no time, the shiny SUV sliding silently to a stop at the curb in front of the house. She went to the front hall and pulled open the door and watched him run up the walk toward her, a big, handsome man in old jeans and a faded chambray shirt. She thought of that day he came back, of the way he’d come toward her, seeming to materialize out of the swirling snow.

  His golden hair was curling on his collar now. She liked it that way, longer.

  At the door, he hesitated. His eyes told her he didn’t yet quite dare to believe. “Glory?” he asked on a breath.

  “I love you,” she told him, standing right there at the open front door in the light of the porch lamp in the middle of the night. “I always did. I never stopped. I love you…most of all. I felt bad about that. Bad for Matteo. Guilty. But I see now that feeling bad and guilty doesn’t change the basic truth. Feeling bad and guilty doesn’t really do a thing for anybody. Love is what matters, Bowie. And I love you.” She reached out her hand to him.

  He took it, those warm, strong fingers closing over hers. “Glory, I love you. Only you. Always…” He came inside then. She stepped back to make room for him. He pushed the door shut with his boot.

  Sera made a cooing sound, as if she recognized him.

  Glory stared up into his face, marveling. He looked at her the way Matteo had looked at the golden-haired girl in the old photograph. “I’m so glad you’re here. Glad you came back to town at last. Glad you…put up with me until I was ready.”

  He touched her hair, traced a loving finger along Sera’s downy cheek. “For you, I would wait forever. Waiting’s no fun, but it’s better than the alternative. I’ll never leave you again, Glory, not while there is breath in my body. I swear it to you.”

  She went on tiptoe. He bent his head. Their lips met as the baby in her arms made the cutest little giggling sound. The kiss lasted a long time. Glory reveled in it.

  And Sera didn’t seem to mind.

  When he lifted his head, she said, “I’ll just put this baby to bed.”

  “Let me?” he asked, with obvious eagerness.

  Glory handed Sera over. He carried her up the stairs. Glory went into the family room and sat on the sofa, waiting for him.

  When she heard his footsteps on the stairs again, she called to him softly. “In here…”

  He came and stood above her. His eyes were blue fire. “How many times did I ask you to marry me, b
ack in the day when you kept saying no?”

  “I don’t remember. So many times…”

  “Well, I’m asking again. Marry me.”

  “Yes,” she replied without hesitation. “Yes, yes, yes.”

  “Right away,” he demanded.

  She nodded. “As soon as we can get the license.”

  He bent close, bracing his hands on the back of the sofa, bracketing her between his powerful arms. “That’s what I’ve been waiting to hear.” And he kissed her, a kiss that melted all her secret places, a kiss that made her whole body shimmer with heat.

  When the kiss ended, she suggested softly, “We could go upstairs, or out to the workshop.…”

  “You tempt me.”

  She chuckled. “Always.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers and he said in a husky whisper, “But I want to wait. Until you’re my wife at last. I want you and Johnny and Sera to come live in my new place with me. Is that something you might consider? Letting me carry you across the threshold into the house on Catalpa Way?”

  She lifted her mouth, brushed her lips across his. “I can’t think of anything more right than that. Yes, let’s go down to the courthouse as soon as it opens in the morning. And then let’s get married right away. So we can make love in your bedroom in the house on Catalpa Way.”

  “Our bedroom,” he corrected her.

  “Yes, Bowie. Ours.” She pulled him down to her, scooting over so he could sit beside her. He wrapped an arm around her. She snuggled in close.

  They talked for a long time, about the life they would share, about the future that would be theirs. She told him all about Matteo and Emma and the carved box she’d found in the workshop.

  Much later, when Sera woke, he went up and got her. And then after Sera had nursed, he took her upstairs again.

  By then, Glory could barely keep her eyes open. She stretched out on the couch cushions and drifted off to sleep, waking only briefly when Bowie came down again and took her in his arms. She leaned her head on his shoulder, content in a way she’d never been in her life until that night.

  Love will do that, she thought as sleep settled over her. It had taken a long time, some serious growing up on both their parts and a whole bunch of heartache. But in the end, love had made everything right.

  The next morning, earlier than usual, Johnny came down the stairs and found his mother and father sound asleep on the sofa in the family room. Together.

  He stood and stared at them.

  When they just went on sleeping, he turned for the kitchen. He wasn’t allowed to use the cooktop without an adult supervising. But he could fix his own cereal and get himself a glass of juice.

  He ate his breakfast and he stared out the window by the table, thinking of the puppy he would be getting soon, of the bedroom in his dad’s house where he could hear the river from his bed.

  Johnny smiled. It was going to be a sunny day.

  * * * * *

  ISBN: 9781459220683

  Copyright © 2012 by Christine Rimmer

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