Between the Reins (Gold Valley Romance Book 4)

by Liz Isaacson

  His breath billowed in front of him in a white cloud, even inside the house. No wonder Nat wasn’t here. The tiniest balloon of hope began to fill within him. Her furnace had gone out, that’s why she wasn’t here. She hadn’t left town. She’d simply gone to a hotel.

  And since Gold Valley only had one hotel, Owen knew exactly where to go.

  19

  “What do you mean, you can’t tell me?” Owen leaned his full weight into the counter at the hotel, where Dahlia Carter stood. He’d gone to high school with her, knew her family. They’d owned this hotel for generations.

  “I mean, I can’t tell you, Owen.” She only looked the slightest bit nervous. “It’s hotel policy.”

  “You can’t tell me if Natalie Ringold stayed here last night?”

  “I can’t.” Something in her eyes told him she was lying.

  “I don’t think that’s hotel policy,” he pressed.

  “Would you like me to call my father?”

  “Yes, I would.” But Owen really didn’t want to waste the time. He needed to know if Natalie had been here. For some reason, it mattered. If she’d stayed in a hotel, he assumed her next step would be to leave town. But if she’d stayed with a friend, she’d probably meet the furnace repairman this morning to get her house back in order.

  Dahlia hung up. “My father says we can’t tell you.” She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry, Owen.”

  “It’s okay.” Owen turned away, frustrated but not hopeless. He’d fix Natalie’s furnace, and he’d call her until she picked up the blasted phone.

  By lunchtime, he and Marie had eaten breakfast, and he’d identified the problem with Natalie’s furnace. Marie had been sitting in a patch of sunlight that hit Nat’s couch, a blanket tucked around her body.

  “Baby doll,” he said. “I have to run to the hardware store. I’ll grab us some sandwiches, okay? Will you be okay here?”

  “Maybe I can wait at our house.” She kicked the blanket off. “Tar Baby’s there, and he’ll help me not to be scared.”

  “You can just come with me,” Owen said. “That’s fine too.”

  “I want some of Nat’s chili.”

  He tousled her messy hair, thinking Natalie would’ve braided it into a crown instead of allowing Marie to walk around looking homeless. “All right. Let’s go back to our place.”

  Once he had Marie set up with a warm bowl of chili, Tar Baby begging at her side, he headed over to the hardware store for the parts he needed. He had the right filter and the appropriate fuses when he spotted Maureen Baldwin, the activity director at the church.

  “Maureen.” He practically rammed his cart into a display of paint trays in his haste to turn toward her. He approached her, taking in her curious expression. “Hey, Miss Baldwin,” he started again. “I’m wondering if you’ve heard from Natalie. Will she be in her cooking classes this week?”

  The brown-haired woman blinked. “Why, no, Owen. I spoke to her this morning. She said something had come up.”

  Owen’s heart skyrocketed, though the information still didn’t tell him where she’d gone. “Oh, that’s too bad,” he said. “Marie loves her.”

  “Since the class ends this week, I told her I’d find someone to cover the last class.”

  Owen nodded. “All right. Did she say where she was going?”

  “She just said she needed to see her father.” Maureen fiddled with the collar on her coat. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “We weren’t—” Owen caught himself. “I mean, she wasn’t supposed to go to Wyoming for a couple more weeks.” She probably would’ve gone sooner, but Owen had to work until December twenty-third. He normally worked holidays too, but Dr. Richards had been extremely understanding this year, and he had other faculty members who didn’t have the family commitments Owen did.

  “She sounded upset on the phone.” Maureen glanced around, and Owen realized he’d asked the wrong person about Natalie. “I do hope her father’s okay. Has she said anything to you?”

  “She must be in the mountain pass,” he said. “My calls go right to voicemail.” Not entirely true, but seeing as every call had eventually gone to voicemail, he didn’t feel too badly about the little fib. “I’m sure she’s fine. I’ll let you know when I hear from her.” He moved away quickly, checked out, and hurried back to her house.

  With the furnace fixed and pumping warmth into her house, he called her again, praying with everything he had that she’d answer this time.

  “Owen,” she said, and relief cascaded through him so strongly he collapsed onto her couch.

  “Natalie,” he breathed.

  She exhaled. “I wish you wouldn’t say my name like that.”

  “Where are you, sweetheart?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me sweetheart.”

  Life zoomed out, and Owen felt so far from her. From all of civilization. He needed help to get back where he belonged, and he poured out the desires of his heart to the Lord. Just like he had when dealing with Davy, he pleaded that the words he needed would drop into his mouth.

  “Remember when Pastor Palmer said we needed to find something good to focus on in our lives?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She sounded dubious, and he didn’t blame her. He wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this thought.

  “I wasn’t sure what that meant for me. My entire life had been turned upside down when my sister and her husband died and I got Marie. I already felt lost, and like I didn’t have anything else to give, and there he was, asking us to pursue something more.”

  He paused for a moment, trying to organize his thoughts. “I thought I should focus on you,” he said quietly, his voice almost silent. “And it felt too easy, because you were already in my life, so willing to forgive and so easy to fall in love with.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” The arctic bite in her voice wasn’t hard to hear.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I thought the Lord might want me to do something a little harder. So I chose my boys. I really wanted them to feel like someone could love them, despite the bad things they’d done. I wanted them to know I loved them, and that God loved them.”

  “I’m sure they feel that way, Owen.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “The problem was, in doing that, I neglected you and Marie.” His internal organs seemed so tangled, so twisted. “I didn’t mean to do that. You have to believe I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I just know I’m really tired.”

  “Of me?”

  “No, maybe, yes. ”

  That single word—yes—knifed through him, left him gasping for air.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel…I feel like no matter what I do, no matter how often I have dinner on the table and anticipate your every need, that it will never be enough. That I will never been enough.” She exhaled and continued before Owen could assure her that she already was enough, simply by being her. “I just need a few days to figure things out.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Almost to Butte.”

  “Are you on your way to Wyoming?”

  “I was, but now I’m not sure. I haven’t called my mom or anything.” She inhaled, and he imagined her hazel eyes as they would be staring at him, searching his face. “Honestly, I just want to come home.”

  “I fixed your furnace,” he said.

  “You did what?”

  “I came over to find you and apologize, hopefully take you to breakfast, but you weren’t here. I noticed it was frigid in here, and I fixed the furnace.”

  “So you broke into my house.” The playful, familiar tease made his heart flinch and a smile to flicker on his face.

  “Yes, sweetheart. I broke into your house. I was—I am—desperate to see you. I didn’t realize how much I’d hurt you when I left years ago. I mean, I thought I knew, but I didn’t. I didn’t know until I entered your house and realized you were gone. Th
at you’d left, that I might never see you again, or talk to you again, or—” His voice choked and he pressed his eyes closed until he regained his composure. “I will never be able to fix that mistake. I’ve been wondering for the past few hours if it’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life. It seems unfair that something I did as a dumb teenager will haunt me forever.”

  As Owen spoke, he realized why he connected so strongly with his boys. He coached them to move past their young, stupid mistakes. Encouraged them that they could still lead good lives, find happiness, if they started making the right decisions.

  But he knew that sometimes decisions impacted a life forever. And not just one life, but many lives.

  “Some decisions are life-changing,” she said.

  “Some are,” he agreed. “I will apologize every day of my life. I will do everything I can to show you and tell you that I love you, that you’re the most important person in my life.”

  “Owen,” she said reprovingly. “I don’t need you to do that.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  Several long seconds passed before she asked, “Why did you react so badly to me sending in that track?”

  Owen took a few moments to examine his feelings, though he’d had plenty of time to self-reflect. “Honestly?”

  “Aren’t we always honest with each other, Owen?”

  He chuckled, breathed, and started speaking.

  “That song is deeply personal to me,” he said. “I’m not sure what Davy told you about it, or how it came to be, but I wrote that…I wrote that song about you.”

  She’d known that, but she simply said, “Okay,” so he’d keep talking. She’d pulled over to the shoulder of I-90, and on this winter weekend, there weren’t many cars speeding past.

  “And I wasn’t ready to share it with you. With anyone, but especially you. I would’ve preferred to do that in my own way, create a memory for the two of us to share forever, get your opinion on what I should do with the song. If I should send it in, or just record it for us to dance to on our anniversary.”

  Natalie hadn’t cried yet that day, but she did now. Owen wasn’t perfect, but he was kind, and he did have a good heart.

  “So that was taken from me, because I assume you listened to the song before you sent it to Universal?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. “And it was beautiful.”

  He sighed. “Thank you. I—I sang it for my boys because it seemed to heal them. It brought us together when we’d been fractured. My singing and playing meant something to them, and well, it hasn’t meant much to anyone for a long time. That made me feel good.”

  “Your music has always meant something to me,” she said.

  “I know that, Nat, honestly. You always asked me about it, even when you probably didn’t want to.”

  She had, but she bit back the confirmation. “So what are you going to do now? With the song, I mean.”

  “They want me to come to Nashville in January.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t commit. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  Confusion pricked her mind. “But—”

  “But then I found out how they’d gotten the song, and I just sort of lost my temper.”

  “I didn’t know you could actually do that.”

  “It’s something I’ve worked on my entire life.”

  Natalie stared out the windshield, battling with herself. She didn’t know what to do next. She had a half a tank of gas and a thousand dollars in her bank account. She wanted to go home. She wanted to make everything right with Owen.

  “I need to go,” she said.

  “When will I see you?”

  She didn’t know and didn’t want to promise him something she couldn’t deliver. “When you see me.”

  “I love you.”

  “I’ll talk to you soon.” She hung up before she could repeat the sentiment to him, flip her car around, and drive the four hours back to his warm embrace. Alone in her car on the side of the freeway, she whispered, “I love you too, Owen Carr,” because she did. But she felt like she needed some time to figure out how to be Natalie while with Owen.

  She’d been feeding her faith since Pastor Palmer had given that sermon, so she believed she would make the right decisions, believed that the Lord would lead her down the right path if she asked.

  So she closed her eyes and prayed. As she did, she set aside her own desires and demands. “I just want to know and be able to do what Thou would have me know and do.”

  As the wind howled past her window, she waited.

  As the sun continued its journey toward its pinnacle, she waited.

  As cars and trucks buzzed along the freeway, she waited.

  She didn’t get an answer—but she believed she would. For now, she put the car in gear, checked her mirrors and eased back onto the freeway. A half an hour later, she pulled into Butte, making a decision to treat herself to lunch and then get some Christmas shopping done.

  She started at Muddy Creek, a little pub that served the best macaroni and cheese she’d ever eaten. Situations like this certainly called for high-carb foods, and she asked her waitress if there was a bakery nearby.

  “Just down the street,” she said. “Bread Underground. Best bread in the state.”

  Natalie thanked her, seriously doubting that Ginny, the bakery owner in Gold Valley, would agree with the waitress’s assessment of Bread Underground.

  Stuffed with pasta and cheese, Natalie wandered down the street to a local boutique. She shopped for herself, tried on a few things, looked at the touristy mugs and glass cutting boards. She bought Marie a cute pair of pajamas with a grizzly bear on them, and a Christmas ornament that said “Butte” in glittery, white writing.

  A pang of homesickness hit her as she remembered Owen was going to go get a Christmas tree with Marie that weekend. He’d asked her to come help decorate it and then stay to watch Sterling Maughan as he tried to win the first X-Games of the season. Since Sterling had married a counselor at Silver Creek and made his home permanent in Gold Valley, the whole town had been rooting for his heroic comeback. It hadn’t quite happened yet, but several stores around town advertised that they would be showing the games during their business hours.

  “There you go.” The clerk handed Natalie her bag of goodies, snapping Nat from the day’s events she’d left behind. Surely Owen hadn’t gone up Bear Mountain to get a Christmas tree like he’d planned. He said he’d fixed her furnace, something Natalie felt a bit guilty about, especially if it meant Marie had to wait another week for a tree. She’d told Owen she was the only kid in her second grade class who didn’t have one up yet, and he’d promised they’d get one this weekend.

  She’s not your daughter, Natalie told herself, but it didn’t lessen the love she felt for Marie, nor her desire to shield the girl from disappointment as much as possible. After all, she’d already lost both of her parents in a terrible accident.

  When Nat went back outside, she saw a hotel right next door. She paused, wondering what she should do. She wanted to get home and listen to what Pastor Palmer had to say. He only had three Sundays left before he retired, and she would miss his powerful spirit and quiet energy. If she stayed the night in Butte, she’d have to leave by six-thirty in the morning to get home, get changed, and get to church by eleven o’clock.

  But it was already one-thirty, and the thought of driving another four hours today had every cell in her body rebelling. Making her decision, she moved toward the hotel to inquire about a room. They had one, and she booked it.

  Across the street sat Wein’s Men’s Store, and she thought she might check it out and see if she could find something reasonable for Owen. One step through the door, though, and she knew everything in the store would cost a pretty penny. Still, she browsed the aisles anyway, bypassing the sportcoats and suits. She’d never seen Owen wear much more than jeans and a white shirt to church, but she thought a tie might be a good idea.
/>   As she fingered the silk neckties, a salesman approached. “Can I help you find something?”

  “Do you sell cowboy hats?” she asked.

  He smiled. “We don’t. We only have caps. If you’re looking for a cowboy hat, I’d try Ward’s.”

  “Hmm.” She nodded. “What about cowboy boots? Do you do special orders?”

  The salesman helped her order a pair of custom-sized boots for Owen, and she left the store knowing the boots would show up at her sister’s house in Peach Valley. She hoped she’d be there with Owen in a couple of weeks.

  She wandered down the street in this obvious historic district. She thought Butte would be a great place to spend a weekend as she passed several art galleries and antique shops. But in mid-December, with the tail of a storm still hovering overhead, she just wanted to get out of the cold.

  She spied a church, and ducked down the sidewalk and inside. Someone was playing the organ, and she slipped into the back row of the chapel to listen, to think, to seek more answers.

  20

  The next time Natalie slid onto a bench in a chapel, it was the next morning and the congregation in Gold Valley was already standing, singing the opening hymn. She hadn’t told Owen she’d be at church that day. She had texted him to say she was staying in Butte last night. To his credit, he hadn’t asked when she’d come back to town. He’d simply thanked her for letting him know she was safe. He was certainly acting better than she had when he’d left town.

  That’s because he knows you’re coming back, she thought, a shot of acid going into her stomach. At that moment, she knew.

  You haven’t forgiven him for leaving you behind all those years ago.

  A warm feeling flowed over her like someone had turned on a soft rain of scented, heated water. At the same time, her breaths felt cold as they entered her lungs. She’d had twelve years to forgive him. She loved him. What more did she need to do that she hadn’t done?

  “This Christmas season, I’d like to challenge you to focus on something.” Pastor Palmer stood at the pulpit now, his usual smile on his face. “The Savior could see people for who and what they truly were. I think that might be a challenge for us in the world we live in. We’re bombarded by images and statuses portraying who we should be, and what we should be doing.”