"Yes!" Lea said happily, clapping her little hands with excitement. Leave it to a three-year-old to be excited about having attended a meeting at a bank. All it took for her was the bright red sucker given out at the end, and she was over the moon. She didn't even care about the amazing news Austin had just gotten.
“Because, little Lea,” he continued, this time kissing her on the tip of her nose. “You’re the best thing since sliced bread.”
Lea started laughing, which set Austin off, and soon they were both cracking up without either of them really knowing why. It made Austin’s heart sing to hear his daughter’s giggles after the terrible period of silence when she had first come to live with him. He didn’t think he would ever get tired of hearing her voice, of seeing her exhibit the carefree joy that only a child was truly capable of. He was pretty sure it would be one of his paramount sources of joy until his dying day.
As for him, after his latest meeting with the loan officer he was feeling downright giddy. It hadn’t been so long since Pete, a man he would never again allow himself to think of as his father, had duped him so completely. That man had taken thousands of dollars of equipment, but he had taken something less tangible, too, the most valuable thing of all. He had taken Austin’s hope for the future, and before Rachel had verbally smacked him upside the head, Austin had been ready to throw in the towel on the whole thing. It had seemed like a pipe dream, a foolish plan to build the life he’d always wanted when he was a kid.
“Why you still smiling, Daddy?” Lea asked from her seat in the back, her always watchful eyes studying him in the rearview mirror now that their laughter had died down.
“Because I’m happy, baby,” he answered, his grin spreading even wider, one hand leaving the wheel to turn up the song on the radio.
“How come you’re happy?” she asked, starting to smile again herself, although she probably didn’t completely understand why.
“Because, sweet girl, that nice man at the bank--”
“The lollipop man!” she interjected with infectious exuberance.
“That’s right,” he chuckled as he nodded his agreement. “The lollipop man. I had some things to ask him, things I need to add some extra things to the ranch, and he said that as long as Aunt Rachel agrees to sign off, I can have everything I need. And that means that things are looking up, baby girl. Things are finally headed in the right direction.”
Lea thought about it for a moment and then nodded happily, returning to her humming and watching the world roll by outside her window. For her, the answer was enough. She was willing to accept almost anything he said and then go about her day. It was a level of acceptance only a child could display, and it sent a fresh wave of love washing over him so profound it actually made his heart ache.
"It's happening," he whispered to himself, gripping the steering wheel more tightly in lieu of being able to pinch himself to make himself believe it was real. "Now I just have to hope it's enough." Because he was happy right now, here in this moment, but he knew that when the high of the successful meeting wore off, he’d go back to feeling unfinished, like part of him was missing, and always would be.
God knew he had tried to put his time with Sara behind him. He had done everything he could to write it off as a summer fling and be grateful for everything she had done with Lea. He knew that people did this all the time. People went through breakups of relationships that had lasted far longer than his dalliance with Sara, and they found ways to move forward with their lives. He would do the same thing, too, if that’s what turned out to be required of him. What he wasn’t prepared to do, however, was give up without a fight. He had a new plan now, one that was entirely designed to make her understand just how important she was to him and how ready he was to make room for her in his life. Now he just had to hope it would be enough, and not a case of too little, too late.
Sara sat in her idling car outside the school board's office, staring up at the looming brick facade with uncertain eyes. She had been here before, but it looked different somehow, more imposing. It struck her as the kind of place that might swallow a person whole if she wasn't careful. Even the oversized double doors acting as the entrance sent a little chill of uncertainty up her spine. They reminded her of a great mouth just waiting for a reason to open.
“Stop it,” she chided herself gently, shaking her head as though the motion might clear her mind of its racing thoughts. “You’re acting like a kid jumping at shadows.”
She glanced at the oversized purse sitting on the passenger seat of her car. Sticking out of the top of the supple leather was the worn envelope containing her contract. It looked the same as ever, although maybe a little worse for wear, but what was on the inside was profoundly different. Before, it had only been a contract, merely an idea of the new life she might have. Now, it contained her signature in all the necessary places — a small difference, perhaps, but also a vitally important one.
Everything was decided, all of her i's dotted and her t's crossed. As soon as she made sure her contract got into the appropriate hands, she was going to contact the realtor about taking that apartment. She was a little nervous that maybe it would be off the market, but if that was the case, there would always be another one. It wasn't as if her heart was already settled in the place. Anywhere she chose to live in Casper was, at heart, a place for her to wait for Lea and Austin's hold over her to fade.
The buzzing of her phone broke the trance her thoughts put her in, and she scrambled to retrieve it from her purse, cursing under her breath as she pushed aside too many old receipts and an obscene number of lip glosses. For some reason she was sure it would be Austin calling her, maybe to tell her what a mistake he had made and that he wanted her to come home. Instead she saw Ted’s name blinking across the screen, which made her sigh and drop the phone right back where she found it. She was done with that piece of her life now, something she felt she had made abundantly clear during their last meal together. It was a different part of the past she was hoping would come back into her life, the same one that made her think she saw Austin around every corner she turned.
“Sara! Oh my God, hi!” a voice said through the glass of her window, followed immediately by a knock that made Sara cry out in surprise. When she looked at the source of the interruption, she saw a woman she vaguely recognized--Meredith something--standing there with a smile and waiting for Sara to roll down the window.
"Hi, Meredith," she said sheepishly, aware that her jumpiness probably looked sort of foolish. "I'm sorry I didn't notice you there."
“Yeah, I can see that,” Meredith said with a friendly laugh, hefting her own oversized canvas bag higher up on her shoulder. “Which means that it’s me who should be apologizing. My husband is always telling me I should wear a bell around my ankle so I don’t startle people.”
Sara laughed with the slight feeling of awkwardness that often came with seeing somebody you knew, but not very well. Meredith had worked in the administration office of Sara’s last school. She was a nice enough woman, although from what Sara understood, prone to joining in on office politics and gossip. Those were two things Sara had all but forgotten about since leaving the school system. They were things she wasn’t anxious to return to, either.
“It’s great to see you,” Meredith continued now as she looked curiously into Sara’s car, her eyes immediately finding the envelope sticking out of Sara’s purse. “A little birdie told me that you had been offered the head speech pathologist’s position in the elementary charter school. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Sara answered, shifting uncomfortably in her seat as she wondered who that “little birdie” might be. “It is.”
“How wonderful!” Meredith cried, clapping her hands as though she and Sara were two long-lost best friends finally reunited after a prolonged absence. “And are you going to take it?”
“It looks like that’s the plan,” Sara said with a tight, almost defensive shrug. She didn’t like being grilled like this, ev
en if it was coming from a place of friendly interest. Being asked these questions so directly made her feel exposed, laid open for everyone to see. She didn’t welcome the idea. Not when she still carried so much raw pain and regret inside of her.
"How great!" Meredith continued, apparently not picking up on Sara's uncertainty. "I bet it's going to be such a relief to be plugged back into the system. There's so much more regularity when you're working for a school, you know? Like, you know exactly what to expect from one day to the next. You know what people want from you, too, and what you can and can't get away with. And there are all of those new students to get to know every year, and their parents. Seriously, you must be ready to get started like yesterday!"
Sara nodded along, mostly because she knew it was the response that was expected of her. Internally, though, she was practically screaming. The more Meredith described the daily grind of being back in the system, the less Sara felt like returning to it. In fact, come to think of it, she couldn't imagine anything in the world she wanted to do less. It was a good job, and she knew she should be grateful for the opportunity, but it had been working in the school system that had so completely disillusioned her in the first place. In the midst of the chaos and red tape of the system, she had forgotten what she loved about working with kids in the first place. More often than not, she had felt like her hands were tied so that she couldn't make any real progress.
Her phone chimed to let her know she had a new text message, and Sara reached for it, already dreading what would probably be from Ted. Instead she saw a message from Rachel, one that made her heart race so fast that its beating was the only thing she could hear.
“Austin is miserable here without you, girl. He’s too proud to ask, so I’ll do it for you. When are you coming home?”
Twenty-Six
With the decision made to fight for what she wanted, Sara couldn’t get back to her mother’s house fast enough. She hurried inside, taking the steps two at a time and ignoring her mom’s inquiries about whether or not she had turned in her contract. There would be time later to explain that she wasn’t ever going to be working for the school system again. At the moment, the only thing she wanted to concentrate her energy on was packing an overnight bag. Now that she had decided to fight for Austin and Lea, she couldn’t get on the road fast enough.
She understood now that she hadn't seen her situation with Austin clearly, hadn't understood it for exactly what it was. For all of her desire to take her life into her own hands after the catastrophe of her marriage to Ted, she hadn't actually done it when push came to shove. Austin had been afraid after his own relationship meltdown. He had wanted to push her away, and she had let him do exactly that. Ever since leaving the ranch, she had been busy blaming him for not being willing to fight for her. Now she understood that she hadn't fought for what she wanted, either. If there was blame to be assigned, a portion of it belonged on each of their plates.
“Sara?” her mother asked, knocking tentatively on Sara's closed bedroom door. “Honey?”
"I know, I'm sorry!" Sara called back, wincing when she thought about what a crazy person she must have looked like bounding up the stairs. "I'll explain everything, I promise. I just--"
“No, sweetie,” her mother interrupted, opening the door and raising an eyebrow when she saw Sara’s normally neat room littered with scattered clothing. “It’s not about that. You have a visitor.”
“A visitor?” Sara repeated, immediately wary. Her mind went back to Ted’s call, the one she had left unanswered. After the way he had shown up unannounced at Austin’s place, she wouldn’t put it past him to do the same thing here. She was sure he knew she was here. If she had any doubts about how quickly word spread in Casper, her conversation with Meredith had done away with them nicely.
“That’s right,” her mother nodded. “Two, actually. A man and his daughter. She’s a darling little girl, and so sweet. She asked for you by name. Seems like she knows you well.”
Sara rose slowly, light-headed, and dizzy with this new information. She had dreamed of the moment when Austin would come knocking at her door, desperate to have her back and ready to admit his mistakes. They had only been dreams, though, the same kind that every woman with a broken heart harbored. Never in a million years had she thought it might actually happen, and now that it had, she was terrified to face him again. At the same time she couldn't wait to be near him, just to breathe in deeply and get a whiff of his spicy scent.
“Thanks, Mom,” she said shakily, smoothing down her hair and pinching her cheeks to infuse them with more color as she headed for the door and out onto the landing. “I...I--”
“I’ll wait up here,” her mother said kindly, squeezing her arm reassuringly and smiling a knowing smile. “Let you three have a little bit of privacy.”
Sara nodded, no longer trusting herself to speak. Part of her was still sure this was all in her imagination, conjured up to give her the courage she needed to travel back to the ranch.
It was no dream, however, and when she walked uncertainly into the living room, she found Austin waiting there with his hands deep in his pockets. Lea stood expectantly by his side, her entire face breaking open into a sunny smile when she saw Sara.
“You’re here!” she cried, rushing forward and throwing her arms around Sara’s knees. “It’s you!”
“That’s right,” Sara laughed, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “It is, and I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you again. I’ve been missing you, sweetie.”
“What about me?” Austin asked quietly, clearing his throat when his voice cracked on the last word. “Have you been missing me any?”
Sara gazed at him, still hardly able to believe that he was standing in the living room of her childhood home. His face looked somewhat haggard, and even from several feet away, the bags under his eyes were jarring. It was easy to see that he hadn't been taking good enough care of himself, and it was all Sara could do to keep from flying across the room and throwing her arms around his neck. The only thing that stopped her was the knowledge that she didn't yet know why he had come. Losing him and Lea was already painful enough without adding a healthy dose of humiliation into the mix.
“Austin,” she stammered with no idea of how to navigate this unexpected conversation. “I--”
“Wait,” he stopped her, crossing the room in three wide, easy steps. “Let me tell you what I came to say before you answer that. Sound fair?”
Sara hesitated a moment longer, then nodded, which made Lea squeeze her tighter before finally letting her go and skipping to the couch. Sara could see by the look on the little girl’s face that she had an idea of what her dad was going to say. Whatever it was, Lea seemed to approve of it wholeheartedly.
“I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, Sara, Lord only knows how many,” Austin started, removing his hat and clutching it tightly in his hands. “But pushing you away like I did, that one is easily the worst.”
"You don't have to say that, Austin," Sara said before biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying. Her feelings for Austin were so intense that she could hardly stand to look at him, and yet at the same time, she couldn't seem to look away.
“You’re right,” he agreed, his voice touchingly earnest. “I don’t. I’m saying it because it’s true. The thing is, I’ve spent my whole life being the responsible one. I’ve been responsible for everything because I had to be. You’ve seen firsthand what kind of a man my dad is.”
“I have,” Sara said quietly, her muscles aching with the longing to go to him now. “And I can only imagine how hard it was. How alone you must have felt.”
“But you changed all that,” he continued, his eyes bright and completely locked onto hers. “You just showed up on my doorstep and in my life, and you were the first person I ever wanted to share things with. Even my responsibility, which is something I’ve never shared with anyone before. I’m just sorry it took me so long to realize it, and I’m even more sorr
y that I hurt you in the process.”
Sara could only nod. She didn’t want to burst into tears, especially not in front of Lea, but she didn’t trust herself to speak. She shut her eyes tightly, and part of her was sure that when she opened them again, it would all have been a dream. She would find herself standing alone in the living room with her bag upstairs half-packed. It was the feeling of Austin’s hands on her arms, the gentle pressure of his fingers where they held her, that made her open her eyes again. When she did so, she found him so close that all she needed to do was tilt her head a little for their lips to touch.
“I love you, Sara,” he said urgently. “More than I ever knew I could love a woman. I was too stupid to realize it before, and because of that, I lost you. I don’t ever want to do that again. I don’t ever want to let you go.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” she whispered, although the pounding of her heart told her this was exactly what she’d been hoping for. “I don’t know what you’re asking me for.”
"I'm asking you to move back," he said instantly, not even a hint of hesitation in his voice. "I'm asking you to come back to the ranch with Lea and me, to make it your home. Because that's what it was with you there. A home. Now it just feels empty. It's lost its heart."
She wanted so badly to say yes right then and there. It would be so easy to fall into his arms and tell him to take her back right now. He would take her by the hand, and the three of them would go back to the life they’d had together before. Except that Lea didn’t need her services the way she had at first and without her to tutor, what would Sara have to do with her time? She couldn’t rely on Austin and Lea alone to provide her with fulfillment and happiness. She didn’t want to.
"But what would I do, Austin?" she asked nervously. "Lea doesn't need my help anymore. What would I do with my time?"
“Right!” Austin said instantly, his voice loud and full of eager excitement as he pulled something from his back pocket. “I thought about that, too, and I came up with something I think you’ll like. At least I hope you’ll like it. And if you don’t, we’ll come up with something else. I’m willing to do just about anything to make you happy.”
The Rancher’s Tempting Nanny Page 18
