by Nora Roberts
take Harmony on this ride. Wanted to ask if I should load Sundown up to trailer down to the center for the lesson you’ve got coming up.”
“I’ll ride him down. We can both use it.”
“Sundown’s here.” Alice gestured. “I see him.”
“That’s one fine horse. Big boss coming,” Easy added, and Alice tore her eyes from his face to look around.
“It’s Bodine!” Alice’s hand relaxed in Cora’s. “Bodine works here, too. It’s close to the Bodine House.”
“I’ll get these fellas saddled. Ladies.” Easy tapped his brim again, led the horses away as Bodine strode up.
“Bodine. I went to see Bodine House. Nothing looks the same. Everything’s different. It’s big.”
“It is big.” Casually, she draped an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “We like to think we have something for everybody who’s looking for a Western experience. Maybe one day you’ll take a ride around with me, see more of it. To my mind there’s no better way to see Bodine Resort than on horseback.”
“We can ride around?”
“That’s right.”
“Now?”
“I—”
“I’d like to ride now. I can take a ride with you.”
“Um.”
Callen grinned at her, knowing she’d be ticking off a half dozen things she’d planned to do. And none of them would be giving Alice a tour on horseback.
“Bodine must be so busy,” Cora began.
“She’s the big boss.”
“You know, you’re right. And the big boss can take an hour to show you around. Skinner, you pick out a good mount for my aunt.”
“I can do that.”
“You’ll have Leo. I saw him over in the paddock. I’ll have a new horse. I’m not afraid to ride a new one.”
“You ought to come over with me, pick out one who looks good to you.”
Obviously pleased, Alice took Callen’s hand.
“I know you’re busy, Bo,” Cora said, watching Alice walk away with Callen.
“I like being busy. Why don’t you and Grammy go on up, have some lunch, and I’ll text you when we’re back.”
“You’re a good girl, Bodine. Don’t let anybody tell you different. Come on, Cora. I’m in the mood for a glass of wine with lunch.”
She’d have to work late, Bodine thought as she saddled Leo. But she’d planned to anyway. Two events that night, she mused, and she wanted to lend a hand at least in getting them going.
Besides, she had that fancy dinner to look forward to tomorrow night. She figured Callen would get his words together by then. And if he didn’t, she’d take that bull by the horns and say her own.
“Carol works here,” Alice said so quietly Bodine barely heard. “She’s taking those people out riding. She has bluebirds on her boots.”
“She’s taking them on a trail ride. I thought we’d ride more in the open, so you can get a good idea how things are laid out.”
“We’ll ride in the open. Easy works here. He’s too thin. He must need a wife to cook for him.”
“He could learn to cook for himself.”
“He calls Cal boss, but you’re the big boss.”
“And she doesn’t let us forget it.” Callen moved in to check the cinches. “You picked a good one here with Jake. Want a leg up?”
“I don’t need one anymore.”
Alice swung into the saddle as if she’d done so every day of her life. And made him proud.
“You have a good ride, Miss Alice.”
“I can, because you and Sundown taught me again. You’ve got a ma, but you’re mine, too. You can be mine, too.”
Touched Callen patted her knee. “We can be each other’s.”
“I’m Alice. You call me Alice. No more Miss Alice if we can be each other’s.”
“Alice it is.”
With Bodine, she walked the horse through the gate Callen opened.
“We can ride toward the river,” Bodine told her. “We’ll see some cabins, and pretty country, and one of the camps.”
“Camps.”
“It’s called ‘glamping.’ Glamour camping, because it’s really fancy and plush, and we do it up right on the resort. Not like pitching a tent and pulling out a bedroll.”
“Do we have to meet more people?”
“No.” Recognizing her nerves, Bodine tried an easy smile. “I mean, we could go by somebody who’d say hi, but you don’t have to talk to anybody if you don’t want to.”
“I get nervous when I do if I don’t know them. I’m better. I think I’m better.”
“Alice, you’re so much better.”
“I met Carol and Easy.”
“And that’s enough for one day.”
Smiling, Bodine looked over, and saw tears standing in Alice’s eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you want to go back?”
“No. No. No. I was happy to see you. Happy to see Cal. I get happy to see Chase, and Rory. You’re not mine. You’re not mine. He took my babies away, all my babies. And they’re not my babies now. They’re my babies and not my babies. If Bobby found them, if I found them, they’re not my babies. All grown up, and with another ma. A good ma would never, never tell them about their daddy. I can’t have them back. I’d have to tell them. And they don’t know me. I’m not the mother.”
She let out a shuddering sigh. “I can say it, I can tell you when we’re riding. It hurts in my heart, but it hurts more when I think of telling them. Cal says I’m brave. It’s braver not to look, not to find, not to tell. But it hurts.”
“I can’t even imagine how much.”
“Bobby put the man who shot Cal and Sundown in jail. He’ll put Sir in jail when he finds him. But I have to tell him not to find my babies. I have to tell him that, and protect them.”
“If I ever have a daughter, I’m going to name her Alice.”
Alice gasped, and though tears shimmered in her eyes, they widened with stunned joy. “Alice? For me?”
“For my brave aunt, who’ll get to spoil her.”
“And rock her to sleep?” This time her sigh spoke of pleasure. “I can sing to her. Reenie and I can sing to her. She’ll have a good ma, a good daddy.” Settling, she looked around. “It is pretty country. It feels like home again. Every day it feels more like home again.”
* * *
Whatever crunch it put her in, Bodine deemed it worth the hour or so she spent riding with Alice.
At sunset, she stepped out to check on the photography club holding their annual awards banquet, and was pleased to see the sky didn’t disappoint.
All thirty-eight members worked to capture the brilliance of light and color, the billows and streams. A number of guests there for the first outdoor concert of the season did the same.
Satisfied, she went to check on their headliner, the musicians, ran into Chelsea and Jessica.
“Have the waitstaff light all the candles in about fifteen minutes,” Jessica said. “I want the porches, the patios, the gardens to sparkle as soon as it’s dark. And we need at least two waitstaff circling out here.”
“On my list,” Chelsea assured her.
“I was about to hunt you down, and here you are. Chelsea, did you pick up those samples for the summer setups? The napkins and rings and candles?”
“Yesterday. I left them on your…” She slapped a hand to her face. “Crap! I left them on my kitchen counter. I walked right out without them, and you wanted them today. I’ll run home and get them right now.”
“You’ve got a full list right now. It can wait.”
“I’m sorry, Bo. I know you wanted to look them over, show them to your mother and your grannies, and I just— It won’t take me ten minutes to get them and come back.”
“You’re going to be running around here nonstop in about five minutes,” Jessica reminded her. “I can slip out in about an hour.”
They weren’t top priority, Bodine thought, but they were on the day’s agenda. “Why don’t we do this? I c
an just swing by and get them on my way home. I’m hoping to leave all this to both of you in about an hour. It’s easy for me to go by the Village on the way home. If you don’t mind giving me a key.”
“I’ll get it for you. I’m really sorry.”
“It could wait, but I’m going to be showing it to a bunch of women. I want to give them time to argue about it.”
“Two minutes. Just put it under the mat when you leave. I’ll give the waitstaff a heads-up on the way.”
“She’ll kick herself for a week.”
“She shouldn’t,” Bodine said. “She did me a favor picking them up when I was crunched for time. In any case, I’ll be here for another hour, longer if you need. Just let me know if you need a hand with either group.”
With Chelsea’s key in her pocket, she circled around, slipping into the dining hall to check on setup, then over to the Mill to do the same.
She came back out to Callen standing with the horses under the rise of a full red moon.
The music started up with the lusty “Nothing On but the Radio.”
She considered it perfect.
“I thought you’d have headed home by now.”
“I’m about to,” he said as she walked to him. “I wondered if I’d put it off long enough for you to be ready.”
“Not for about an hour. You’ll lead Leo home for me? I’m going to steal one of the Kias.”
“Then I better give you these now.” He pulled a clutch of flowers from his saddlebag.
“You bought me flowers?”
“I stole them from here and there on the way. I guess the sunset put me in the mood, and that moon did the rest. You said once you like getting flowers from a man.”
“And I do.” She took them, smiling at him. “That’s something I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”
“I remember a lot when it comes to you. I’ve got those words.”
“Oh, but—”
“I planned to put them together tomorrow, after that fancy dinner. That’d be more standard. But look at that moon, Bodine, that big, red moon hanging up there. It says more for people like you and me than champagne.”
She looked up at the big brilliant ball in the endless sky. It did say more, to people like him and her. He knew her. She knew him.
“I want you to know what I’m going to say I haven’t said to another woman. My mother, my sister, a few times. Not enough times, but I’m going to work on that. But never to a woman, not when I was here, not when I was gone, because saying it changes things, so I’ve been careful.”
She looked down at the flowers—wild ones, she thought. Nothing hothouse, but flowers that came wild and free. And back up at him. His face still bruised, his eyes blue in the moonlight. “That’s a lot of words already, Skinner.”
“I’m working up to the important ones. When I came back, when I saw you again, it gave me a jolt. Not just that you’d grown up, gotten prettier, but seeing you made me realize I’d thought of you a lot when I was gone. Just little things, bits and pieces of my life here. The good ones. The good ones always seemed to have you in there, one way or the other. I didn’t come back for you, but you made coming back right. All the way right.
“We felt something for each other, and maybe we figured we’d jump into that, and that would be enough. It’s not enough for me, and I’ll do whatever it takes so it’s not enough for you. I love you.”
“There it is,” she whispered, took a step closer.
Lifting a hand, he nudged her back. “I’m not finished. You’re the first, you’re going to be the last. You can have some time to get used to that, but that’s how it is. Now I’m finished.”
“I was going to say I love you back, but I’m going to need you to specify just what you’re saying I have to get used to.”
“A woman as smart as you ought to make that connection. We’re getting married.”
“We—what?” She took a deliberate step back.
“You can take some time on that, but—” He yanked her back. “Go back to the first part.”
“You can’t just leapfrog right over—”
He kissed her, drew it out. “Go back to the first part,” he repeated.
“I love you back. But you can’t tell me we’re getting married.”
“Just did. I’ll get you a ring if you want one. I’ll pick it out though.”
“If I’m going to wear something I ought to have a say in—” This time she cut herself off, nudged him back. “Maybe I don’t want to get married.”
“A woman comes from what you do, sees what it can mean to make that promise? She’ll be fine with it. I’m going to need your promise, Bodine, just like I’m going to need to give you mine. But you can take some time on it.”
He kissed her again, hard, brief, final. “We can talk about it when you get home.” With that, he took Leo’s reins, swung up on Sundown. “I’ll wait for you.”
As he started to turn the horses, Sundown sent her a look. On a human face she’d have called it a smirk.
“You might have a long wait!”
“I don’t think so,” he said, and broke into an easy trot.
* * *
No doubt Bodine ran late because Callen had messed up her thought process. How was she supposed to concentrate on work, on questions from staff, on making sure the opening concert of the season got off to a smooth start when he’d effectively tossed marriage at her like a set of car keys and told her she’d be driving whether she was in the mood or not?
She’d prepared herself for the I-love-you, I-love-you-back portion—though by her schedule that should have been on Saturday’s menu. But the leap straight to marriage didn’t give her time to get her feet under her.
Still, she put his flowers in a vase, put the vase on her desk. She appreciated the flowers. She appreciated a lot when it came to Callen Skinner.
She didn’t appreciate being told how she’d spend the rest of her life. Because he’d hit the bull’s-eye on one element. She knew where she came from, and where she came from took marriage seriously. Not on a whim, not in a rush of hormones or dreamy feelings, but seriously, as the foundation for everything else.
With Chelsea’s key in her pocket, she got behind the wheel of the little car she’d borrowed for the night. That’s what she’d tell him, she decided. She wouldn’t be told, and she took marriage seriously.
And she’d say just that when she damn well felt like it. He could wait.
She left the music, the lights, the guests, and the staff behind and drove into the quiet. She could use some quiet, some thinking time. As she pulled up in front of Chelsea’s apartment in the Village, she half wished she’d asked Jessica for her key, too. A little quiet and thinking time there, then a friend to listen.
Maybe she’d pick up the samples, take them back to her office. Or take a drive along the river. Or go home and close herself up in her room.
All of which, she admitted, struck like avoidance when she laid them out.
Hell with it.
She unlocked the door, propped it open with her hip to slip the key under the mat. And stepping in, reached out to switch on the lights.
The arm around her throat cut off her air and turned her shout into a garbled gasp. Instinct had her stomping down with her boot, jabbing back with an elbow. The quick, sharp bite in her biceps turned panic into terror so she dragged uselessly at the arm around her neck.
And felt herself falling, falling down a tunnel, limbs limp.
