“You’re right. I know that one person can change everything for a child,” she said, so thankful for the Connors, who never saw her as a girl who wouldn’t talk and wouldn’t laugh and who cut herself off. They’d seen her as a child to love.
She had to say one more thing. “I don’t want you to think the Roger you met on the phone is the Roger I know.”
“Honestly, my thoughts back there about Roger were pretty simple. I wondered what kind of man leaves you here alone yet says he’s worried about you being here alone?”
“Roger has commitments,” she said, finding herself defending her fiancé again. She hated it.
“Being with you and making sure you’re safe, isn’t that a reasonable part of being committed?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
LIBBY LOWERED HER eyes to look somewhere around the buttons that were undone at the throat of his thermal. There was no heart in her to defend Roger anymore, so she wouldn’t answer his final question. She got to her feet and said, “I think I’ll finish getting the office ready.”
Jake got up. “I’ll set up your drafting table.”
She nodded, then turned and headed into the office. As she sorted through the boxes she’d brought in, Jake put the table up and placed it right where she wanted it. He left enough space between the desk and the table for her to sit in the computer chair and swivel from one work area to the other. He attached a work light to the drafting table, and when he turned it on, it cast a clear light over the whole work space.
When Jake headed off into the great room, for some reason, she called after his retreating figure. “Roger and I are committed to each other, and he’ll get here for Christmas, too.” He kept going with no clue what she’d said, but in some way, she felt better when she sank back into the chair. Truth be told, she had no idea when Roger would show up at the ranch so they could decorate the tree for their first holiday together. He’d been so vague on the phone, not sure when he could leave the site. But he’d promised to try. That was the only part of the conversation with him that held any hope for her.
She didn’t realize Jake had come back until he spoke. “Do you need more light in here?”
He was in the doorway holding a tall floor lamp with what looked like a cowhide shade on it. “First of all, tell me that shade isn’t really cow skin before I commit to it.”
He shrugged. “All I know is it’s some sort of parchment that’s been stained. Now, if we’re talking about the bench in the entry—”
She grimaced. “No, I don’t want to know, or I’ll never sit on it ever again.”
He held the lamp up toward her with a smile. “Binary choice. Yes or no? Take it or leave it.”
“Yes,” she said. “Maybe over there by the window.”
He crossed to where she’d motioned to her right and crouched to plug it in. When he finally eased to his full height, she noticed fine lines at the corners of his eyes as he narrowed his gaze on her. “I need to say something. Whatever you and your fiancé do or don’t do is none of my business. It obviously works for the two of you, so all that matters is you’re happy with it.”
She hadn’t expected that at all. “I do miss Roger when he’s gone, especially now,” she admitted. “This is our first Christmas we can be together. He was gone last year.”
He sat down on the wooden chair by the desk to face her. “In Africa?”
“Southeast Asia, near Cambodia. While he was gone, I blew up some pictures that his crew had taken at some of the sites. They were wonderful photos of children with huge smiles as they played in water and ran under water sprays that reflected rainbows. Their joy was breathtaking.”
She had known only after he’d hung them in his office that those photos had made her realize she loved him. He’d rescued those kids by what he’d done for them, and maybe being there with those kids had done a lot for him, too. That resonated with her. She’d been rescued by the Connors and her parents had told her she’d rescued them, too.
“You obviously love him,” Jake said softly.
“I do.” She felt befuddled, a word her mom used when she couldn’t think straight. Her last conversation with Roger had left her unfocused. She still wished she’d never made it, that she’d waited until they could’ve had an unrushed conversation. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go up to bed now and get to work early tomorrow.” She stood and without looking back, headed out of the room and didn’t stop until she was upstairs in the master bedroom. By the time she changed into a T-shirt and pink pajama bottoms, she all but fell into the large bed.
With no fire in the hearth when she turned off the bedside light, the room was cast into deep shadows. As she tugged the blankets up over herself, that moment when Jake had said, You obviously love him, ran through her mind. She loved Roger, and everything would work out. “That’s all that matters,” she whispered into the darkness.
* * *
IT WASN’T ANY of his business, but Jake didn’t regret correcting Liberty about the importance of what she was a part of at the ranch. He didn’t know anything about relationships. He didn’t need anyone complicating the life he was living. But he understood one thing: Liberty was going to be helping one boy at a time. Sarge believed that was the way to rescue damaged boys, and he had lived that with Maggie as his partner.
Sleep for Jake came well after midnight, and when he opened his eyes again, he blinked at pale gray light behind glass doors that were frosted over. As he pushed himself slowly up, pain came out of nowhere, a stabbing fire in his right ear. Then it faded and was gone. It was almost as if it had never happened, but he knew it had. He waited, but it didn’t come back. As he sat there, he felt something else, something he couldn’t figure out. Maybe a shift in the pressure in his ears. If it was better or worse, he couldn’t tell. Although the sounds were the same, existing only under the muffling pressure, he thought something had changed.
He slowly got to his feet and waited. No nausea, no dizziness, no pain. He took a couple of even breaths and released them unhurriedly. Liberty wasn’t in the kitchen, so he turned and slowly walked over to the office door in the jeans and thermal he’d slept in.
It was empty, totally unchanged from the night before. “Liberty?” he called as he turned to the great room. He waited, but she didn’t show up. His chest tightened at the thought that she might have left to find a phone signal again. He padded in his socks across to the entry and over to the door to pull it open. The scene outside was still and pure white. No vehicle had left or arrived through the deep, pristine snow.
He turned, looked at the bench and groaned. Liberty’s jacket and boots weren’t there. She’d gone out on her own, but she hadn’t left by the front door. He quickly put on his boots and grabbed his jacket before he headed back through the great room, through the kitchen and mudroom, to the back door. There was puddled water on the floor, melted snow, and when he opened the door, more snow fell in where it had drifted against the back of the house.
He stepped over it as he pulled his denim jacket on and did it up. When he looked down, he was standing where Liberty had stood when she’d walked out of the house. He looked at her tracks going to the edge of the deck, down the stairs, then north toward a large grazing area dotted with thick stands of trees blanketed with snow.
Flipping up the collar of his jacket, he went down the stairs and called, “Liberty!” With no wind, nothing stirred, and the tracks in the snow seemed to go on forever to the north.
“Liberty?” he called again as he started following her path. His breath curled up into the air as he plodded on. Halfway to the trees, he felt the wind starting up again, coming down from the west, and he felt the knit hat in his pocket where he’d stuffed it after the last time he wore it. He pulled it on and hunched into the wind.
He knew how much the wind had bothered Liberty and why. He tried to go faster. He called again, “Liberty!” Nothing. But as he
got closer to the snow shrouded expanse of trees, he spotted something moving among the thick trunks and low branches. Then it was gone.
Just seconds later, Liberty burst out of the trees coming right for him. Her hood was down, her hair was loose and tangled, and snow clung to her jeans and jacket in clumps. He pushed to get to her as quickly as he could but felt as if he was running in mud.
“I heard you and—” Jake saw Liberty start to say when she got closer to him, but her words were cut short by a flash of movement as something struck her from behind. There was enough force to push her right at him, and the momentum sent them both tumbling back into the snow.
Liberty was on top of Jake, her face inches from his, and he was stunned to see she was grinning as if she was having a great time. Then she pushed against him and rolled off to his left into the undisturbed snow. That’s when he saw her attacker. A huge, mangy-looking black dog stood motionless just inches away from his feet in snow up to the animal’s chest. Each breath the beast exhaled rose up into the freezing air. His teeth weren’t bared, but his amber eyes were fiercely glaring at Jake and his upper lip was quivering.
The dog flashed a look toward Liberty, who was struggling to get to her feet, then quickly back to Jake. “Don’t move,” Jake hissed without taking his eyes off the dog. The animal turned to him when he spoke. Liberty kept moving and was on her feet, saying something to the animal that he couldn’t make out. “Liberty be quiet,” he whispered.
She turned, started to say, “He’s just—” and was cut off when the dog rushed at her and brought her to her knees. The next thing Jake knew the animal was trying to lick her to death.
He saw her say, “Get back, you doofus. Get off me!” The dog actually moved back enough for her to push herself up to get her footing again. He rolled his eyes up at her, then slowly turned to look back at Jake.
“Can I move?” Jake asked Liberty.
“Sure,” she said, and held out her red-gloved hand to him.
The woman seriously still thought she could pull him to his feet. He did it himself, getting up cautiously, then he faced her and the dog as he swiped at the clinging snow on his clothes. “What is that?” he asked, motioning toward the animal who seemed glued to Liberty’s side now.
“It’s a he, and he’s a big baby,” she said, her smile coming back. “He won’t hurt you.”
Jake wasn’t so certain about her last sentence. He pushed his hands deep into his jacket pockets. “I thought he was attacking you,” he said, unable to smile about anything right then.
“Oh, I was attacked, but not in a bloodthirsty way. When I stepped into the trees, he was there and dived at me. I thought he was a wolf at first, and I was going to be his lunch. But the only way he tried to kill me was by licking me.”
“You’re okay?” he asked a bit stupidly since the death-by-licking obviously hadn’t worked.
“Just a mess,” Liberty said. “I heard you and was trying to get out of the trees so you’d see me, then he headed off the other way. I thought he’d left until he hit me in the back.” She was stroking the matted fur on his head as she kept speaking. “He’s just hyper, and I think pretty lonely and hungry.”
Jake exhaled, thankful his heart had returned to a near normal pace. The fear he’d felt in that moment, when he thought Liberty was in real trouble, seemed way off the charts. It was still raising his heartbeat, and he tried to breathe to push it back. “Why did you leave without telling me?”
“You were sleeping. It wasn’t snowing, and I wanted to walk a bit before starting work. Then I got the idea to go and see the original cabin past these trees. Seth told me about it, that Sarge built it when he first came on the land.” She paused. “You didn’t need to come looking for me.”
“I wish you’d told me before you took off,” he said, not about to explain how worried he’d been during that long hike to find her. He looked up at the heavy clouds overhead, then back at Liberty. “Let’s get back before it starts to snow again.”
“I’m taking him with us.” Her hand stilled on the animal’s head. “He obviously has no place to go, and he’ll freeze out here.”
“Okay, but we need to get back.”
“Thank you.” She bent over the dog, saying something near his ear before she stood to look at Jake again. “He wants to come with me.”
“So, you’re a dog whisperer?”
“No, but I can tell he’s alone and needs me.”
A caseworker had come to the ranch when Jake had jumped off the garage roof and broken his ankle, intent on taking Jake back to a special facility for troubled youths. Sarge had challenged her immediately. He stays here with us. He’s alone and he needs us. The worker had left without taking him.
Jake looked at the ugly dog, one ear up, one down, and his tangled, dirty fur. “He’s all yours.”
* * *
NOW THAT WAS SETTLED, Libby was hungry. Jake turned to retrace his steps, and she followed, staring at his back all the way to the house. The dog never left her side. She remembered what Jake had said about no ties, no relationships, and it was obvious that could even mean a relationship with a dog. That made her feel sad for him. A man who did amazing things routinely with powerful jets couldn’t trust himself to even have a dog in his life.
When they arrived at the deck, Jake hurried up the stairs and into the mudroom. “Come on, buddy, we both need to warm up,” Libby told the dog. “Just don’t listen to anything he says.”
Jake glanced at them as they stepped into the mudroom. “I guess he really is yours,” he said with what might have been a “What were you thinking?” look on his face before he took off his jacket.
She liked that idea. He was hers. “Yes, he is. And I’ll clean him up, but before I do, I want to say I was wrong not letting you know I was going out. But the good thing is, I found him.” She patted the dog’s head, knowing she couldn’t have just left him behind. He was totally alone and had no one. She knew what that was like, and she didn’t want even a dog to experience it. She was so glad he’d come along willingly.
Jake barely acknowledged what she’d said. “Yeah. Now, close the door before you freeze.” With that, he walked out of the room and took his jacket and boots with him.
She sat on a wooden wall bench in the mudroom with the dog beside her as she took off her boots, her jacket and the wet gloves. She spotted a towel under the bench across from them and grabbed it to start drying the dog’s fur. He was as controlled while she did that as he’d been out of control outside. Her jeans were wet up to her thighs and her hair was damply clinging to her face and neck. All she wanted was to get into a hot bath.
Jake was by the fireplace when she cut across the great room to go upstairs with the dog. If he hadn’t spoken, she wouldn’t have stopped. “Just let me know when you’re leaving next time,” she heard him say just before she stepped up into the entry. “It’s too dangerous for you to be out on your own in this weather.”
She stopped on the step up into the entry, waiting for him to glance over his shoulder at her before she responded. “I already apologized.”
His gaze dropped to the dog. “He’s not pretty.”
“He will be. You just wait.” She turned and went up to the master bedroom with the dog at her heels.
Almost an hour later, Libby sat on her bed in fresh jeans and a pale blue thermal top. She’d blown her hair dry and contained her ringlets in a high ponytail. The dog was lying by her bare feet. It had shocked her that he’d calmly stepped into the bathtub when she’d brought him close to the warm water, and he’d been patient with her fussing over him.
Now clean and towel-dried, he smelled good from the rose-and-vanilla shampoo she’d used to wash him. Jake was right—the dog wasn’t pretty. Maybe that would come when he fattened up. He looked at her and whined softly in his throat.
“You poor thing. You’re hungry.” She
got up. “Come on.”
He was right with her as she went back downstairs. Jake wasn’t in the great room, so Libby went into the pantry to find something to feed the dog. She actually found an unopened bag of dog kibble, and she sat in the mudroom with the animal while he wolfed it down. As he drank some water out of a large bowl, Libby heard footsteps overhead. When she went into the kitchen with the dog, Jake was stepping down into the great room.
“See if this fits him,” he said as he walked over to her and held something out to her.
“Where did you get it?” she asked as she took a well-worn dog collar from him.
“It was made years ago for a dog named Pax,” Jake said. “It’s the beast’s if he’ll wear it.”
“He’s not a beast,” she said, then turned to try it on him. He didn’t object at all. “Thank you very much,” she said to Jake. “Now he’s fed, I need food.”
* * *
AFTER EATING SOUP and sandwiches in silence with Jake, Libby watched him load the dishwasher. When he turned to her by the island, she said, “Do you think the snow’s going to stick around for Christmas?”
“Pretty sure it will” was all he said as he went around her and down into the great room. He walked past the tree and over to the fireplace. She watched him crouch to freshen the fire, then she went over to the hearth so he could see her speak. She really wanted him to help her decorate the tree, because it was starting to really depress her to have it sitting there naked. She wanted to enjoy the tree and have it all spruced up for when Roger showed. So, she’d do it and surprise him when he finally got here.
But when Jake looked over at her, she couldn’t ask him to help. He just looked tired. She shifted gears. “I’m going to do some work.”
“Okay,” he said, then turned back to the fire.
Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Page 57
