First Kiss with a Cowboy: Includes a bonus novella Page 19

  “I thought I knew. In those years after I lost my husband, I became a different person—stuffy and miserable, but coming here has woken me up to this whole side of myself I’d forgotten about.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a stack of books. “Thanks to your book recommendations, and thanks to William, of course, I’ve opened up to the more sensual side of life.”

  “I’m glad I could help.” If only she could help herself. Jane looked through the pile of books Bernadette had set between them. “Mountain Destiny.” She pulled her book out of the pile.

  “Oh, yes.” The woman stole it out of her hands. “I loved this one! I picked it up on my way out the last time I was here.” Bernadette leaned in closer. “Talk about sensual. It’s brilliant.”

  The compliment reached in and squeezed her heart.

  “Have you read it?” Bernadette asked.

  She almost said no and moved on to discuss another book, but she stopped herself. “I’ve read it.” Her voice seemed to shrink. She’d never wanted anyone to know. It would be like they could see too much of her, too much of her heart, too much of who she was. But when she’d told Toby it hadn’t been nearly as scary as she’d thought it would be. “I wrote it actually.”

  Bernadette laughed. “And I wrote Pride and Prejudice.”

  “I’m serious.” Jane took the book away from her. “Didn’t the hero remind you of anyone you know?” Surely Bernadette had noticed where she’d gotten her inspiration.

  “Well, I thought of Toby, of course. He’s the only cowboy I know.” Her eyes narrowed and she snatched the book away from Jane with a gasp, flipping through the pages. She stopped near the beginning and started to read. “‘Celeste had always thought cowboys were tall, dark, and handsome, like in the books her mama read. Beau wasn’t tall or dark, but he somehow managed to be sinfully handsome.’”

  Jane jumped in to recite the words with her. “‘When he took off his Stetson the sun highlighted dusty blond hair long enough to run her fingers through. But it was Beau’s eyes that posed the biggest threat to the manners she’d learned in finishing school. Those eyes burned blue. Never had she seen a blue so vibrant, so fierce, so alive.’”

  “Oh my stars.” Bernadette snatched the book shut. “You wrote this! You wrote Mountain Destiny!”

  Jane nodded, tears crowding her eyes. She didn’t even care if everyone heard. “I finished a second book this week.”

  “And Toby was your inspiration?” Bernadette carefully set down the book. “Well, I’ll be. I had a feeling about you two from the very beginning. Your history together makes it all the sweeter.”

  Jane let a few tears spill over before fishing a tissue out of her purse. “He would make the perfect Beau.” And the perfect Amos. He had the same attributes as her heroes, the same humor, the same swagger, and the same rugged, brave, tender heart. “I fell for him when I came home.” A rock lodged itself in her throat. “But I had to walk away from him.” She tearfully told Bernadette about the night at the winery, about the panic and the anger that had torn her apart. “I don’t want to love him.”

  “But it seems you might anyway,” the woman said gently.

  Jane didn’t deny it. Over the last few weeks he’d touched her heart. Yes, he was a show-off sometimes. Yes, he had wounds that made him cover up a deeper part of his heart. But he was also fun and thoughtful and romantic. And he cared about her. He’d shown her that. “There’s this deep part of him I don’t understand, that I’m not sure I can support.” Even simply hearing him talk about riding had nearly broken her. “I don’t know that I could love that part of him.” Would she be angry every time he left? Would her stomach lurch every time he talked about getting thrown?

  “I understand, dear girl.” Tears gathered in Bernadette’s eyes too. “Believe me, I do. But I can tell you from experience, loneliness will kill you much faster than worry.”

  Jane closed her eyes, letting the truth of those words sink in. Before she’d come home she hadn’t necessarily felt lonely, but now she couldn’t fathom going back to California, back to her empty, quiet condo. She couldn’t imagine never experiencing the kind of tenderness and happiness she’d felt when she was with Toby.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Jane nodded but braced herself too. It must be a tough one if Bernadette was requesting permission.

  “Why do you write so much adventure and danger and risk into your novels?”

  “Because that’s what people want to read about.” That’s what she wanted to read about. “People read for the experience, the escape.” That was why she’d lived behind books after her dad died. They took her away while also letting her process her pain.

  The woman smiled as though she was hoping that’s what Jane would say. “You claimed you don’t understand that part of Toby. The part of him that wants to have those kinds of experiences, but you crave adventure too, my dear.” She picked up Mountain Destiny and handed it back to Jane. “It’s all in here. You want something more, even if you’re denying yourself. I think you might relate to him more than you realize.”

  * * *

  Toby parked his truck on the road in front of his parents’ house and let it idle. He was half tempted to text his mom and tell her there’d been a change of plans and he wouldn’t be able to join her and his father for dinner. But, in some ways, he’d been putting off this conversation for over twenty years. Too long.

  He cut the engine and climbed out of the truck, taking his time as he made his way to the front door. Everything about their house had always looked perfect. It was a rambling ranch-style structure, built with timber and stone based on his father’s specifications. They’d moved in when Toby had turned eight, about a year after they’d arrived in Silverado Lake. Being the meticulous man that he was, their father kept up with everything—updates, repainting every couple of years. If he wasn’t working at the hospital in Denver, it seemed Dad was busy with a project. Toby’s mom had always called it puttering, but now Toby couldn’t help but wonder if it had all been in avoidance of other issues.

  He walked up the steps with nerves zinging through him. The front porch seemed to have a fresh coat of stain and his mother had already put out her American flag collection for the upcoming Independence Day holiday.

  The front door stood open, so Toby slipped through the screen door and wandered down the hall to the kitchen. Lasagna. He could smell it—the garlic, the tang of the tomato sauce. His mother stood at the counter buttering slices of thick-cut French bread.

  “There you are.” Her smile seemed to be a little too big. “Just in time! Why don’t you go ahead and toss the salad?” She nodded to a large bowl sitting next to her on the counter.

  “Sure.” Toby grabbed the tongs sitting next to the bowl and stirred up the lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and generous helping of feta cheese.

  “So, how’s everything? How’s the ranch?” His mother slid the tray of sliced bread into the oven and then wiped her hands on her apron.

  “It’s good. I like being there.” These were the same kinds of conversations he’d had with his parents his whole life. The small talk, the catching up on the details of his day. But knowing what he wanted to say to them now made it feel phony.

  “It’s amazing what Mara has done with that place,” his mom chatted, washing a dish in the sink. “Making it into such a profitable business after everything she went through. I admire that woman.”

  “Yeah. She’s pretty great.” Her daughter was pretty great too. Toby couldn’t seem to have a conversation without Jane popping up in his thoughts. But his threshold for small talk was coming to an end. Now that he was here, he couldn’t imagine why they’d never talked about what really mattered. He couldn’t imagine how she looked at him every day and didn’t see Tanner. He walked to the table and set down the salad bowl.

  “Hey, son.” His father appeared in the doorway, fresh home from work it seemed. He loosened his tie and pulled it off over his head, tossing it onto the
back of a chair. “How’s the shoulder?”

  “I’m cleared.” He smiled as he said it, but the news came with a gut-sinking reminder that it had driven Jane away from him. His chest tightened.

  “I knew it.” His dad squeezed Toby’s other shoulder. “Dr. Petrie may be lousy at golf but he’s a miracle worker in the operating room.”

  “We have to celebrate!” His mom brought a bottle of wine over to the table and Toby helped out by carting over the French bread that had warmed in the oven for a few minutes and then the lasagna.

  “When are you headed back out on the circuit?” his father asked serving Toby’s mom salad and lasagna.

  “I assume you’ll take a little more time off.” His mother opened the wine and poured Toby a glass. “There’s no sense in rushing things after what you’ve been through.”

  “I’m not sure when I’ll go back.” Toby dished up his own food but didn’t lift his fork. He wasn’t hungry. “There’s something I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you about for a while.”

  “Oh?” His father helped himself to a piece of bread and his mother poured dressing on her salad. They weren’t anticipating what was coming.

  “I want to talk about Tanner.”

  Both of his parents stopped what they were doing. They looked at each other and then at him.

  “What about Tanner?” His mother’s customary smile faded.

  There were so many things he wanted to say, to ask, but it all seemed to jumble in his brain. “Why don’t we have any pictures of him?” He pointed to the dining room wall, to all those family pictures of him and his sisters and his parents. “We don’t have any with Tanner.” Unchecked emotion lurched his voice. “He’s not in any of the pictures. It’s like he never even existed.”

  Staring at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, his mother slowly set down her fork. Next to her, his father’s jaw had tightened, but Toby had to keep going. That emotion boiled inside of him. It had to come out. “We never talk about him. Once we moved, it was like you forgot. Or you wanted to forget. I don’t know. But I didn’t. I never have forgotten. I can’t.”

  “You think we forgot about him?” His mother’s voice shook. “How could you think we’d forget about our child?”

  His father took Toby’s mom’s hand. “Where is this coming from?” he asked gruffly. “Why are you attacking us?”

  Toby inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that.” He didn’t know how to say it, not after all this time. Emotions were fast and he didn’t know how to wrangle them. “I just want to understand.” He brought his voice back under control. “I want to understand why we had to move, why we had to leave his memory behind and start over without him.”

  “That’s not what we were doing.” His mother’s tone edged toward a shout. “We weren’t leaving him behind. We were trying to survive.” She choked out a sob. “You have no idea what that was like for us.”

  “No, I don’t,” he admitted. But he would’ve liked to. He would’ve like to have known he wasn’t alone. “You never told me. You never talked about it.”

  “I didn’t know how.” The words dissolved into more tears. His mom balled up her napkin and pressed it against her mouth, quietly sobbing.

  “I’m sorry.” Seeing her grief made him look away. This had been a bad idea. He shouldn’t have brought it up. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just miss him. Still. Even all these years later. I miss him.”

  “So do we.” His father slipped his arm around Toby’s mom. “And you have every right to bring him up.” Toby had never seen his dad cry, but tears glistened in his eyes. “Losing your brother…” He blew out a sigh and shook his head. “It almost broke us. We were used to caring for him, to devoting so much energy to making him happy and comfortable. And then when he died…”

  “We were lost,” his mom finished. “Oh, my God, Toby, we were so lost.”

  He looked across the table at his mom, seeing the real her for maybe the first time in his life. Now he knew why she worked so hard to make everything perfect. Why the house always seemed flawless, why she worked herself half to death to make meals and do laundry and create perfect holiday memories. She would forever be trying to get back what she’d lost, what they’d all lost.

  “That was the only way I could get through it,” she murmured. “To find another focus, to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to go somewhere I didn’t have to explain it over and over, reliving it every single time.”

  “I know it was hard on you.” His dad’s shoulders slumped with what looked like defeat. “And I’m sorry if you thought we were trying to leave Tanner behind. We were doing our best. It wasn’t good enough, but it was all we could manage.”

  And that was all Toby could ask of them. To do their best. It didn’t mean they’d never failed, but now, hearing them talk about it, he could understand why they’d made those decisions.

  “I wanted to die with him.” His mom had stopped crying and now her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “But I knew I couldn’t. I knew I had to force myself to live without him so I could still be a mom.”

  “You’re a great mom,” Toby told her. Like his father had said, they’d done their best with what they’d been given. He hadn’t seen their perspective back then. He couldn’t. He’d only been seven years old and all he’d known was that his brother was gone and no one else seemed as sad about it as he was.

  “He loved you much.” His mom took Toby’s hand, squeezing it in hers. “You were his favorite person in the whole world.”

  “I loved him too.” He loved him even more now that he’d lost him. “And I’ve been trying to keep his memory alive.” He’d done his best, but he couldn’t do it alone anymore. He couldn’t orient his whole life around trying to bring his brother back.

  “The library,” his mother murmured. “‘In memory of Tanner.’”

  “You saw it.” He’d wondered if they’d ever noticed. In some ways, even though he’d kept it a secret, he’d hoped they had. “I never wanted to upset you, but when I heard they wanted to upgrade, I knew what I had to do.”

  “We’re not upset.” His father shared a sad smile with Toby’s mom. “It’s hard for us to talk about. That’s all. Even now. It’s hard to remember.”

  “We can do better.” His mother jumped up suddenly. “I have a whole box of pictures upstairs. I’ll bring them down.” She disappeared into the hallway leaving Toby alone with his dad.

  “I’m proud of you, son.” His dad had said that a handful of times. Mainly after a competition or out on the football field in high school. But he’d never said it with tears in his eyes. “I know it couldn’t have been easy to bring that up. But I’m glad you found the courage to do it. It was something we needed to hear.”

  “I had to.” Ethan was right. He had to stand up and fight for the relationships he wanted. He had to learn to walk through the tough stuff. With his brother’s memory. With his parents. And most of all with Jane.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It’s been too long since I’ve used power tools.” Ethan flicked down his safety glasses and turned on the saw, slicing the two-by-four in half while Toby stood back and watched, primed and ready to jump in if needed. As far as he knew Ethan wasn’t exactly into woodworking, but his friend had gotten the brilliant idea—two days before the wedding—to build his wife an arbor for the ceremony that they could put in their garden afterward. More accurately, Ethan had gotten the brilliant idea that Toby should make the arch and let him do the cutting, even though angles weren’t his friend’s forte.

  He tried not to tense up watching his friend wield the saw, but Ethan’s cut wasn’t exactly straight. He’d made it halfway through the board in a zigzag line that Toby would have to fix later. Suddenly the saw shut off and the lights in the garage went out.

  “Damn.” Ethan tried to pull out the saw, but it was wedged in there.

  “Power must’ve gone out.” Toby checked his watch. That wasn’t g
ood. The rehearsal dinner was supposed to start in just over two hours. “Guess we’ll have to sit tight. I’d better go check on Louise in the kitchen. She’s probably ready to blow a gasket.” Last time this happened, they realized the generator didn’t work. He’d ordered another one, but it wouldn’t be delivered for another few weeks.

  “Guess we’ll have to finish the project tomorrow.” Ethan pulled off his gloves and tossed them onto Toby’s workbench. “Oh, speaking of tomorrow, a bunch of our family wants to go on a white-water rafting trip before they head home after the wedding. Beth found a company that can take us. You in?”

  “Uh…” Toby walked out into the sunlight and automatically thought about Jane again. She likely wouldn’t be going, and he’d been hoping to find some time to talk to her.

  “Come on.” His friend followed him out of the garage. “I could use you there. Beth and I would love to have at least one more experienced paddler.”

  “Okay.” Why not?

  “Great. We’ll add you to the reservation.”

  “Sounds good.” Toby said goodbye to his friend and jogged all the way to the lodge, heading straight for the kitchen to check on how Louise was handling the power outage. Sure enough, the woman was rushing around with the phone attached to her ear.

  “I don’t care if there’s a widespread outage. I have eighty people coming here for dinner in two hours. What am I supposed to feed them?” she demanded.

  He winced. He’d hate to be on the other side of that phone call.

  “I want to talk to your supervisor.” Louise slammed down the pot she was holding. “Then I want to talk to your supervisor’s supervisor.”

  There was a pause.

  “Don’t give me that—” she started but then she pulled the phone away from her ear. “He hung up on me. Can you believe that?”

  “Kind of.” Toby scanned the mess on the countertops. It looked like she’d been in the middle of prepping the food when the power went out.