Between the Reins (Gold Valley Romance Book 4)

by Liz Isaacson

  Natalie nodded, along with everyone in the row in front of her. Someone on the other side of the aisle from her whispered, “Mm hmm.”

  “I think we should strive to be more like the Savior. Look at people as who they really are: a child of God. I think if we can manage to do that, we’ll forgive more easily, settle old disputes, and be kinder with each other. Most of us are ill, my friends, and I don’t mean with a cold or cancer. I mean we’re spiritually ill, and we could all use a smile, a hug, and an understanding heart. The Savior had a unique ability to see this in every person he met. Can we do the same?” The pastor’s gaze swept the crowd. “And my dear friends, one more thing. It would be well with us if we could see others as the Lord does. But do we see ourselves that way too? Do you believe you’re a child of God, that He loves you unconditionally, that you are worth His sacrifice?”

  Natalie wept at the power in the pastor’s words. She wanted to see people—and herself—the way the Lord did. She wanted to forgive more easily. Wanted to heal old hurts within herself and wanted to support and help others as they healed.

  But she had a couple of problems. Number one, she didn’t know how to view people through the Savior’s eyes. And number two, she still feared that even if she could figure out how to forgive Owen, she still wouldn’t be enough for him.

  Owen fidgeted through most of church, listening and feeling the truth of Pastor Palmer’s words but restless nonetheless.

  He needed to see Natalie. Look into her eyes and see the woman she was. Search her soul to see if she could stay with him while he explored his options in Nashville. That much had also become clear to him in her brief absence.

  He wanted to write country music. He needed to. Something about composing the music and searching for the exact right lyrics bled the negative emotion from him. And he needed that outlet to be mentally healthy.

  “And now, you all get to try exactly what I’ve asked you to do.” He gestured to someone sitting on the front row. “I’ve asked my successor to speak with us today, and next week he will give the entire sermon. Doctor Pinnion.” Pastor Palmer backed up as the tall, dark-skinned man mounted the steps and took his place in front of the microphone.

  Pastor Palmer grinned and bent to adjust the mic to a higher position. Dr. Pinnion stared out at the crowd, his dark, deep eyes drinking them in. Owen felt the man’s spirit, and it was strong.

  “My brothers and sisters,” he said. When he spoke, the air vibrated because of the bass quality of his voice. “It is good to be here with you today. Your spirits are strong, and I am grateful God has led me to Gold Valley.”

  Owen wanted to add an “Amen,” to that statement, because he also felt called to Gold Valley—which made his desire to work in country music that much more confusing. He needed to riddle it all out, make all the pieces line up.

  He glanced over his shoulder, like the woman he sought would suddenly appear. He needed to talk to Natalie.

  At the same time, his mind rebelled from the idea because his heart wouldn’t stop screaming a warning. At some point, he’d have to put her first, and he knew she wouldn’t stick around forever, waiting for him to do that. In fact, she might decide a relationship with him was too complex if he sought her opinion about Nashville, if he asked her to care for Marie full-time so he could go to Nashville, if he had to leave Gold Valley in favor of Nashville.

  Fear ruled him, and he wondered how he could prioritize Natalie when he also had Marie, his music, and his boys to consider. A voice inside whispered that he couldn’t do it all, but he couldn’t see himself giving up any of them. Not again.

  And so he found himself between those reins again, not really sure if he should pull right or left, gripping them too tight so the horse couldn’t take a step at all. That was how he felt: Trapped, with multiple ways out as long as someone else paid the sacrifice for him.

  Without word from Natalie, Owen loaded Marie in his truck and went over to his parent’s house for dinner. He had plenty of money to eat out, but he liked a home-cooked meal better than anything he could get in a restaurant. Like a punch to the gut, he realized he’d taken Natalie’s culinary skills for granted.

  “You go on in,” he told Marie as he pulled into the driveway. “Tell Grandma I’ll be in in a sec.” He got out his phone and sent a text to Natalie.

  Missing you today. He glanced up and out the windshield, wondering how he could convey his longing for her in only a few words. That was the part of songwriting that the music took care of. The way he sang the lyrics gave them a different emotion, made them come alive, made them more than words. The chords he matched the words with brought even more meaning, deeper understanding.

  He couldn’t appropriately tell her how he was feeling in a text. So he sent just those three words and trudged up the shoveled sidewalk to his parents’ front door. He entered the house to the sound of laughter, and it made him pause. His parents had been struggling to come to terms with Tasha’s death, and Owen had no idea how to help them.

  But there was his mother, her head tipped back as she laughed at something Marie had said. The girl giggled and said, “Help me with my apron, Grandma.”

  His mother gazed at her tenderly as she lifted Marie’s hair and tied the apron around her neck. “There you go, princess. Now.” She turned. “For oven pancakes, we need a dozen eggs. Do you think you can crack that many?”

  Marie’s eyes looked like someone had lit a fire behind them. “Yes!”

  “Right there in that bowl.” His mother turned and caught sight of Owen. He lifted his hand in a greeting of hello, and she said, “Owen,” warmly before turning back to what smelled like bacon on the stove.

  He moved into the kitchen and gave his mother a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze. “Hey, Ma.”

  “Where’s Natalie today?” she asked, still poking at the sizzling bacon with a pair of tongs.

  “She—” Owen started, but Marie said, “She left town,” Marie said. “Her furnace was broken, and she was cold. But she left us a lot of chili.” She cracked another egg against the counter and swooped it up to the bowl before any of the white could leak.

  “Is that right?” his mom asked.

  “Yup,” Marie said. “She’ll be back soon.” She looked at Owen, her eyes wide and round and beautiful. “Right, Uncle Owen? Natalie will be back soon.”

  “Right,” he said, but his voice fell short of reassuring. He hadn’t heard from her since last night, and he wasn’t sure what she would consider pushy. “Where’s Dad?” he asked his mother.

  “Out feeding the chickens and rabbits.”

  “Oh, no,” Marie said, and Owen’s gaze flew to hers, expecting a yolky mess.

  He saw nothing. “What is it, baby doll?”

  “I like to go out with him to feed the chickens and rabbits.”

  “He went out just before you got here,” Owen’s mother said. “Get your coat on and go find him. I think Owen can take over cracking the eggs.”

  Marie jumped off the stool, flung her arms into her jacket, and raced out the backdoor. Owen took her place in front of the egg carton. “You might be wrong about me and these eggs,” he said, his large hands barely able to hold the egg. He managed to clink it against the side of the bowl until it broke enough or him to break the shell apart.

  “So, Natalie left town? Or she just went out of town?”

  So his mother had picked up on the slightly odd wording. “She…did both,” Owen said. “She’s staying in Butte for a few days.”

  “Are you still going to Wyoming with her for Christmas?”

  Owen sighed and almost smashed his eggshell into smithereens. “I don’t know, Ma.”

  She stepped away from the stove and moved next to him. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  He stared down at her, but she didn’t flinch away from his gaze the way some people did. “I mean I lost my temper with her, and things…sort of blew up.”

  “That’s why she left town.”

  Ow
en nodded and selected another egg from the carton. “I talked to her on the phone yesterday. She texted that she was staying in Butte last night.”

  “Did you call her today?”

  “Do you think I should?”

  “Owen,” his mother said in a placating tone. “Do you love this woman?”

  “Yeah, Ma.” Owen sighed again, this time the sound full of longing instead of fueled by frustration. “Yeah, I love her.”

  “Does she know you love her?”

  “I’ve told her a couple of times.”

  Several beats of silence passed while Owen wrestled with the egg and his mom watched him. She finally said, “Hmm,” and moved back to the stove.

  “So should I call her?”

  “She probably would’ve liked a call this morning,” his mother said. “To find out if she was going to be at church so you could save her a seat.”

  “I—” Owen clamped his mouth closed and cracked another egg, his mind set on warp speed. “I was giving her some distance,” he said. “She said she needed time to figure things out.”

  “Sure, but time doesn’t mean silence.” She reached past him and extracted a plate from the cupboard. “Bacon’s done.” She rested her elbow on the counter. “You know, if I’d been told one thing, but then a person’s actions said something else, I’d be pretty confused.”

  Owen barely refrained from rolling his eyes. “All right, Ma. I’ll call her.”

  “Good.” She smiled at him as she tonged bacon from the pan to the plate. “Now tell me what you lost your temper over.”

  “A song.” He finished with the eggs and rinsed his hands.

  His mom had abandoned the bacon completely. She stared at him. “You’re writing songs again?”

  He couldn’t tell if she was more shocked, more horrified, or more excited. He took the tongs from her and finished the job of removing the bacon from the pan. “Yes, Mother. I like writing songs. It makes me…feel something good. It—it takes all these negative things I feel, all this sadness and longing and depression, and it bleeds onto the page, into the song. Then it’s not inside me anymore.”

  “I’ve seen you happier these past several months,” she said, her voice barely audible. “I thought it was because of Natalie.”

  “It was. The song is about her. She….” He didn’t quite know how to put into words what Natalie was to him, how he’d felt her influence in his life, over his heart, guiding his decisions, since the day he’d met her. “She’s inspired a lot of my songs,” he said. “Nearly all of them on my first album are about her, or what I wished had happened with her, or from something I learned or did when I was with her.” He shrugged. “This time, I expect it’ll be about the same.”

  His mom wiped her eyes. “You two are somethin’ special.”

  He grunted, because he wasn’t entirely sure they were still together. “I wrote the song and played it for my boys at Silver Creek. They wanted to record it, so I did. One of them gave the track to Nat, and she sent it to the VP at Universal Music Group.”

  “And that’s why you got mad.” She wasn’t asking, and she turned away to collect her recipe book. She added salt and flour to the eggs, a splash of milk and a bowlful of melted butter. Owen watched her bring together the oven pancake batter, his mind far away.

  “Why are you still standin’ there?” His mother made a ruckus as she got out a sheet pan. “Go call that woman and invite her over for oven pancakes and bacon.”

  Owen snapped to attention and walked into the living room to make the call, hoping for some measure of privacy, but the way his mother hovered near the mouth of the kitchen, he didn’t think he’d get it.

  21

  “Hey,” he breathed into the phone when Natalie answered. “So I’m at my parents’, and this might be a long shot, but I’m wondering if you’re anywhere nearby and can possibly come over for the best oven pancakes you’ll ever eat.” He pressed his eyes closed and waited.

  She laughed, which Owen took as a good sign. Relief spread through him with the speed of lightning, and it felt just as electric and hot.

  “I happen to be just sitting down to eat with my friends,” she said. “But maybe I can sneak away in a few minutes.”

  His heart felt like it had been attached to a yo-yo. It went up and down, up and down. “So you’ll come?”

  “Hmm…can I wear my stretchy pants?”

  He couldn’t help it—he burst into laughter. “I can’t wait to see them.” He hung up and spun back to his mother. “She’s coming.”

  She smiled and glanced toward the window overlooking the backyard. “I knew she would.”

  Owen wished he had his mother’s confidence, but his nerves assaulted him, especially because she hadn’t said she’d rush right over, hadn’t been willing to completely abandon her friends for him.

  At the same time, he reasoned that she had done exactly that for the past several months. He knew she used to spend Sundays with them, but she’d been devoting her time to him and Marie since August.

  He coached himself not to be impatient, but he couldn’t help keeping one eye on the clock as the pancakes came out of the oven, as his mother heated the syrup and called everyone to the dining room table. One extra plate sat on the counter, and Owen glared at it like it was the reason Natalie hadn’t come yet. But deep down in his soul, he knew he was the reason for her absence.

  Natalie nibbled on vegetables as Stephanie talked about the dance studio manager. They hadn’t been getting along, which was nothing new. Natalie had heard it all before, experienced a lot of Stephanie’s complaints herself. She was sympathetic and gave Stephanie a hug. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to quit or anything.”

  “Of course not.” Natalie had never considered leaving the studio, though there were things about it she didn’t like.

  Jason broke into their conversation with, “Did you guys see Sterling win last night?”

  Stephanie’s face brightened, and she placed a pasta salad on the table as she said, “Wasn’t he amazing? Did you guys see Norah cheering in the crowd?” She sighed like it was her romance being played out on television. “They are so cute together.”

  Natalie hadn’t seen it, so she let the conversation flow over and around her, nodding and smiling in appropriate places. She picked at her food, wondering what an oven pancake was and if she should save a lot of room for them.

  Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. They’re probably done eating by now. A glance at the clock confirmed that it was almost five o’clock, and the Carr’s ate at four.

  Stephanie caught her looking at the clock. “Is everything okay?” Her eyes darted to her phone. “Hey, who called earlier?”

  “Owen.” Natalie flipped her phone over, and over, drawing the attention of Jason and Bea. She hadn’t told anyone that she’d left town for a day, that she was having doubts about Owen, about everything.

  Stephanie cocked her head. “I thought it was weird you came tonight.”

  “I’ve been coming.” Natalie reached for her water glass.

  “Not since you started dating the hottest bachelor in town.” Bea glanced at Jason, who rolled his eyes.

  “There are a lot of bachelors in town,” he said.

  “He’s just the best looking,” Bea insisted. “So why are you here instead of with him?”

  Natalie lifted one shoulder in a very unconvincing shrug. “It’s complicated.”

  Stephanie scoffed. “I don’t believe that.”

  “Owen is more complicated than you might think,” she said. “And there are a lot of issues from the past.”

  Stephanie collected her plate and took it into the kitchen. “You gotta leave the past in the past, Nat.”

  “He invited me to dinner at his parents.” She took her dishes to the sink too.

  “Just now? Tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why are you still here?” Stephanie stared at her like she’d grown an
extra head.

  “I wasn’t just going to run out on you guys.” She looked at Stephanie and Jason and Bea. “You guys are like my family.”

  “Maybe you should bring Owen here next week,” Jason said. “He should get to meet your family.”

  “We were supposed to go to Wyoming for him to meet my parents. I mean, he’s met them before, obviously. But….” She trailed off, not quite sure how to finish the sentence.

  “If I remember right.” Bea added her dirty dishes to the pile with a loud clattering sound. “Owen wasn’t particularly loquacious.”

  “English, Bea,” Jason said.

  “He didn’t have a lot to say.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “It means that maybe Natalie should listen to what he does say. Take it at face value.”

  Jason chuckled. “Not everyone is like you, Bea.”

  “And what does that mean?” She cocked her hip and glared at him.

  “It means that if you took your own advice, maybe you and me—” He cut off and glared at her for a moment longer, a redness entering his face. Natalie watched them both like they were the most fascinating tennis match she’d ever seen, her gaze volleying back and forth between them until Jason shook his head and walked toward the front door. He calmly collected his coat from the rack, put it on, and said, “Thank you for dinner, Steph. It was delicious, as always.”

  He slipped into the night, the door behind him echoing with finality. Bea deflated then, and Stephanie slid her arm around her shoulders. “I didn’t know you and Jason had a thing.”

  “We don’t.”

  “What was that about then?”

  Bea glanced at Natalie. “It’s complicated.”

  A small smile stole across Natalie’s face. “I get complicated.”

  “You should go see Owen,” Bea said, to which Stephanie vehemently nodded.