Autumn Promises (14 page)

C
ole walked into his exam room with a chart in his hand and a smile on his face. “Crystal! Hello, I just noticed the name,” he said, and gave the chart a wave. “We missed you at the white elephant auction last night.”

She laughed. “Jim had to work at the last minute. Dad brought his new
pet
over for me to store. It seemed silly for him to take it to Colorado and have to ship it back.”

“Ah, yes.” Cole chuckled. “The proud white elephant winner. I honestly don’t think he meant to bid. And speaking of new pets, who do we have here?” he asked, eyeing the too-thin puppy on the pedestal exam table in the center of the room.

“This is Miracle. Jim showed up with him late last night and we wanted him checked out first thing,” she explained.

Cole tilted his head, trying to put a name to the breed. “You’ve met Dangerous. He looked as bad as this little guy when I found him. I couldn’t resist him, either. So where did Miracle come from? And why Miracle?”

“Jim found him last night when he went out to investigate a crime scene.”

Cole picked up the pup and looked him over, grinning again at the smell of some flowery shampoo and if he wasn’t mistaken cream rinse, too. He chuckled. “Scent to the contrary, he is a male. Breed—”

Crystal jumped in, clearly distraught. “Tell me he isn’t part pit bull. Jim didn’t think he was, but he’s so small, I don’t know how he could tell.”

“Jim’s right. He doesn’t have pit skull characteristics. They’re unmistakable.”

“Oh, good,” she breathed. “We’ve been calling him Miracle because he was in a pen with several fighting dogs and they hadn’t torn him apart. The state police broke up a big dogfighting ring and Jim was the investigator called in. He brought Miracle home because he didn’t want him destroyed unless it was necessary.”

That sobered Cole. “Good for the police. As for this fella, Miracle’s very apropos. He was likely destined to be bait for the others to practice on.” Cole turned him on his back, pleased that the pup was completely nonaggressive. “I’d say he’s some sort of
retriever mix. Retrievers are usually great with kids. Are you going to keep him?”

“We talked about sending him to Jackson with Dad because of the construction, but by this morning we decided we’d keep him if you thought he’d be safe with the baby.”

Cole nodded and started a thorough exam on the pup. “He’ll need shots if we’re keeping him in the family, so I may as well get that started, too. So if your father’s talking about leaving I guess he’s leaving Meg behind, huh?”

“I’m afraid that’s what’s going to happen. I talked to him a little while ago and he was more discouraged than ever. He doesn’t want to leave without her, but…
home
is very important to Dad.”

“So my aunt loses out to the Circle A?” Cole asked, annoyed for Meg’s sake.

“No. It isn’t the Circle A—the ranch operation. It’s that the ranch is his home.” Cris went on to explain Evan’s early life and his attachment to the only secure place he’d ever known. Cole understood what home could mean to someone who hadn’t had one or had lost it. “Also, Dad has never gone anywhere. The idea of travel is as foreign to him as the countries Meg goes to all the time,” she added.

“They could compromise,” Cole said between teeth clenched around the barrel of a syringe as he used an alcohol swab on the pup’s hindquarter to prepare for the shot.

Crystal’s eyes widened as the puppy scrambled into her arms with a yelp. “You mean spend some time here and some there? They’d get to see us all more often. Maybe Meg could take fewer trips and Dad could give travel a try. I’ll talk to him. This could be the answer. I wonder why neither of them have thought of this.”

Cole shrugged. “Ever hear that old saying about not seeing the forest for the trees? Lucky we got to talking about this, huh?”

She stared at him in silence for a long moment, then looked down at the puppy. “Maybe he’s more of a miracle than we thought. If Jim hadn’t found him, we
wouldn’t
have talked, would we?”

Cole laughed. Anyone who thought God was just a casual observer walked through life wearing blinders. Since coming to the Lord he’d been constantly amazed by His power.

Evan dismounted Hunter. He and Ross had decided the horse deserved more than the barely passable rental stable the past prospective buyer had owned. So when Cris had mentioned buying a horse for Jim’s birthday, Evan immediately had suggested this one. At least he’d done something right lately. Meg had barely batted an eye the night before when he’d mentioned he wouldn’t be around to return the elephant for the next auction.

Determined not to start down a slippery slope,
he shook himself loose of gloomy thoughts. He’d learned that his problem with depression couldn’t be conquered with medicines alone. Victory came from medication
and
attitude. The doctor’s support helped with one, the Lord’s with the other.

He turned to Cris. “Hunter’s a beauty, honey. I’d go with him,” he told his daughter. “He’s big and powerful enough for a man Jim’s size, but he’s gentle and well behaved enough for someone of Jim’s limited experience.” He studied his daughter. “But you didn’t need me to look him over again, especially when I was supposed to be working on your addition today. I was the one who recommended him. Come on. Tell your old dad what’s on your mind. It’s almost noon and I’m burning daylight.”

“Actually, you are, Dad. You and Meg.”

Evan flinched. Now he wished he hadn’t asked. He also wished he hadn’t told the kids about his feelings for Meg. Last thing he wanted was their pity. “I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be a ‘me and Meg,’ honey. We come from different worlds and I can’t seem to find a way to convince her to live in mine. Your dad must be pretty uninteresting to a woman who’s seen the world.”

“What has you thinking like this?”

He led Hunter into the stable toward his stall and she followed. “I’m not having a problem, if that’s what you mean. Meg showed me a bunch of picture albums of her travels. She got her point across. And
if that didn’t, last night did. I’m just a down-home cowhand, honey, and she’s a sophisticated society lady, way too cultured for the likes of me.”

The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves on the stone center aisle was the only sound for a long moment. “That doesn’t sound like Meg,” Cris protested. “Are you sure she wasn’t trying to show you how much fun she has traveling?”

That stopped Evan in his tracks. That did seem to be more like what she’d been saying. And it
had
looked interesting. Not quite the quest for a secure place to lay his head, which is how he’d always thought of travel. He’d begun to think he’d enjoy taking trips now and then. But he also knew he’d want to return to someplace familiar, too. So there was still the East versus the West problem.

“Maybe she was just trying to show me that but, much as I love her, I’m not sure I’d be happy here the rest of the time. I’m a cowhand, not a horse-farm foreman. I’m glad to help Ross out and Laurel Glen is a nice place to visit, but it isn’t home. I need a purpose in life, honey. I’m too young to retire. Back home I just got involved in a new breeding program with Seth. And as much as I’ve gone hands-off with the Circle A, I built that place up from a two-bit operation through a lot of hard work, and I love it. Jackson and Beth are there with the twins, too. It’s home.”

She crossed her arms, her lips pulled in an angry
line. “What about me? I’m not moving back, Dad. Don’t I count at all? Doesn’t my baby? Don’t you want to be part of our lives, too?”

Evan quickly shooed Hunter into his stall and turned to embrace Cris. “Oh, honey, you know I do. I figured you’d visit and I’ll come see you every once and a while.”

“Is the office empty, Dad? I think we should talk.”

The room used as an office was unoccupied, since it was the foreman’s office and at the moment he was as close to a foreman as Laurel Glen had right then. They went in and he sat on the edge of the desk. Cris settled on the old beat-up leather sofa a few feet away. He noticed she’d closed the door when she’d entered after him.

“Now, what’s on your mind that’s such a secret?”

“You and Meg. Did you ever sit down with her and seriously try to work out a compromise?”

Was he slow or what? “What kind of compromise? She lives here. I live there. There’s about seventeen hundred miles between the two.”

Cris snorted indelicately and threw up her hands. “You do know what a compromise is, don’t you? Maybe you don’t. I mean, look at how you handled the problem between Jackson and you with the Circle A. Did it really have to be hands-off? Did it ever occur to you that Jackson would like you as a partner to work side by side with him?”

Evan stared. A huge sense of disquiet descended
on him. Had he blown it with Jackson again? “He never said.”

“Because you made it sound as if your mental health demanded you give up working the ranch. He really wanted you to work with him, but he didn’t want to put too much pressure on you, so he didn’t say anything.”

Evan blew out a breath. “I just wanted him to know he’d have as much, if not more, authority at the Circle A as he’d had here.”

Cris jumped up and paced to the door. “Like I said—all or nothing. Has traveling with Meg occurred to you at all?”

“I’m not a total idiot. Of course it has. But there’s still the east-west problem.”

“Could you live here part of the year and at the Circle A the other? That way you’d split yourselves between your children. As your investment counselor, I know you can easily afford it. And Meg isn’t exactly penniless. So where’s the problem?”

Evan was struck speechless. Could it be that easy? Hard as he thought about it, no reason surfaced why it couldn’t work. Maybe it could work. He’d see more of Cris and her baby that way. And Meg loved spring. He could arrange two each and every year for her with the differences in climates. And if they lived three months in each place, he wouldn’t get too homesick, especially if he had Meg with him.

He gathered his daughter in his arms and gave her
a bear hug and a big smacking kiss, then put her away from him. “Thank you, baby. You’re a genius! Your mama would be so proud of you. She was always one for a compromise.”

“And she’d want this for you, Dad. You know that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Oh, yeah. She’d just be annoyed it took so long for me to get to this place in my life. But better late than never. Right?”

Cole, meanwhile, was on his own mission. He didn’t intend to propose the compromise, as Crystal planned to do with her father. That would be Evan’s place. What he wanted was to make sure Meg was ready to hear what Evan had to say and that she understood how difficult what he was willing to do for her was for him. Which should, of course, show her how much the man loved her.

He owed it to her to make sure she got everything out of life she could. Because Meg had held him together in the worst and darkest days of his life. She’d written to him almost daily when his own out-of-control anger and grief had landed him in a military school far from everything and everyone he’d ever known. She’d guided him. Nurtured him. And finally urged him to come home after years away.

For years he’d credited an instructor for settling him down and later a counselor for telling him to go home. But recently he’d read through all his old let
ters from Meg, and now he saw that she’d been the one who’d really gotten through to him and kept his love of his home and family alive.

He grinned as he pulled to a stop in front of her Victorian cottage, remembering those first days back at Laurel Glen, when he’d come home and he and Ross had driven her so crazy with their bickering that she’d up and left on a cruise. The cruise had eventually brought Amelia into Ross’s life.

The hand of God was on that place and on all of their lives, and now it was time to remind Meg of that and to make sure she understood about Evan. Home to him, because one had been denied him for so long, was as vital as the very breath in his lungs.

Cole found Meg at the back of the cottage. She was up to her elbows in dirt, kneeling in old jeans and gardening clogs, a disreputable old straw hat on her head. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Getting ready to plant some perennials. I thought vintage roses. Lots of them. An arched trellis there covered in wisteria.” Her hands traced a graceful arch. “Maybe honeysuckle around a folly over there.” She made a sweeping gesture toward the back of the yard. “And flat trellises for climbing roses on either side of the porch steps.”

Cole was surprised at himself. How could they all have forgotten her love of flowers? She’d left so many plants behind in the sunroom at Laurel House. It was a constant reminder of her presence. He piv
oted to look at the area where she’d indicated she wanted the folly.

“How about a greenhouse disguised as a folly? Sort of a winter conservatory and sunroom just like you had up at the house?” he suggested.

“My brilliant nephew!” she shouted, and jumped up to hug him.

Ah! The perfect opening, Cole thought.

“I’m so brilliant that I know what this—” he gestured to the dug-up ground and the area that encompassed her plans “—this nesting you’re into is all about. Whenever you get stressed you turn to activity. You usually plan a trip. But if you leave this time, your problem would just follow you. It’s losing your chance for a life with Evan that has you so churned up.” He shot her a grin. “How’s that for brilliant?”

M
eg just stood there and stared at Cole. He certainly
was
brilliant. Uncomfortably so. She swallowed deeply, getting control of a sudden need to bawl like a baby. Still at sixes and sevens, she turned away and walked back to her digging.

She knelt and concentrated on pulling at a particularly stubborn root for a moment or two. Then she let go, took a deep breath and looked up at Cole. “I know you think I’m wonderful, darling, but apparently I can’t replace a chunk of Colorado real estate in Evan’s heart. He talks about leaving to go home all the time, even though he said he came here because he loves me. What he came here to do was to talk me into leaving with him so it could be all his way.”

“And is that beyond the scope of your love for
him? You go places all the time. Ever wonder exactly why that ranch is so important to him?”

That got her attention. “Actually, I don’t need to wonder, dear. I know. It’s the only home Evan’s ever had. His parents were worse than abysmal.”

“Crystal told me. In many ways that’s how I feel about Laurel Glen, because I couldn’t be here for so long.”

She turned and plopped onto her rump in the dirt, pulling up her knees and wrapping her arms around her legs. She frowned, considering her dilemma, but no clear ideas emerged. Her thoughts and emotions were as churned up as her yard. Maybe if she talked it out with Cole she’d finally be able to order her unresolved feelings.

“Pull up a rock, and let’s sort this out, shall we?” she said with a quizzical half smile. Cole perched on the boulder at the corner of the garden and she began. “First of all, I loved Wade Jackson with all my heart and for more years than he had a chance to live. I loved and valued my work, but I would have given up my dreams for him.”

“That’s a powerful statement, considering that the threat of losing this place and everyone here hadn’t turned you back from your goal.”

“I loved him,” she said simply. “And I loved his child. I gave up Jack so Wade’s son would have the kind of life I knew he would have wanted for him.”

“I know you made some painful choices once.
Some great sacrifices. You did it for Hope and me, too.” Cole gave her a keen-eyed stare. “But could you do it again?”

Meg nodded decisively. She knew the answer to it all now. “I could do it again. For Evan. But since meeting him, I’ve finally seen some of the things that were missing in my relationship with Wade. He was the one who pushed for the intimacy that created Jack. I gave up my principles for him. And then he went back to his helicopter flying. He didn’t have a choice by the time he’d met me, but he was frighteningly eager to go just the same. He probably would have gone back if he’d had a choice.”

She let her focus fade as her thoughts turned inward to the relationship she had clung to for so many years. “Wade had all these medals for valor, you see,” she continued, thinking aloud now. “He was a true hero, but he got them by being reckless and that’s how he was killed. Earning his last one. He volunteered to go after a downed pilot. His friend later wrote me that his commander had called it a near suicide mission. It turned out it was.”

“So you were angry?” Cole asked. Again that sharp look, as if he were trying to read her answer in her expression.

She shook her head. “No. I was too heartbroken and afraid to feel anything else. It was only after meeting Evan that I sat down and really analyzed my relationship with Wade. I still love him. Love doesn’t
die, you know. And it would be foolish to be angry at a dead young man who’d lacked the maturity to see his own folly. But now I see that it wasn’t the perfect relationship I’ve seen it as all these years. And…and…”

Cole held up his hand, silencing her attempt at deciphering her tangled emotions. “And you don’t want to be second to Evan’s love of the Circle A, is that it? Jack and Crystal always felt like that and you don’t want to feel that way, too.”

She smiled, but she knew it was a sad one. “I’m very afraid I would. I’ve been in that place all my life. To Wade’s flying and before that to your father.”

“To Dad?”

“I was always second best. Did your grandfather disown Ross for getting Marley pregnant? No. He just helped arrange a wedding. But when I wanted a career he saw as possibly leading to immorality, he turned me out before I’d done a thing wrong.”

Cole got up and drew her to her feet. He put his arms around her, then leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “I have more confidence in my aunt Meg than to believe she fell in love with someone who’d put her second to anything on this earth. Evan loves you and he’ll put you first. But remember how much the security of the Circle A means to him.”

He turned and sauntered away without another word.

Meg picked up her little shovel, then threw it back down. She twisted around and really looked at the churned-up, dug-up yard. Exhausted, she sank to her knees and stared up at the sky.

What if I convinced him to move here? I saw how homesick he is. He’s trying so hard, but he can’t change who he is, Lord. Or the things he needs—and at this stage of my life, neither can I. And I just can’t be near him anymore, knowing I’m going to lose him anyday! I’ve got to get away from here.

Her decision made, it took all of an hour. A true record for her. She got onto the Internet to her travel club’s Web site and found a ten-day Caribbean cruise leaving Norfolk, Virginia, at sunset. It sounded romantic, but she put romance from her mind. It had no place on this trip. She checked to see if she could get a flight, then booked the cruise and flight in a minute or two. She packed swiftly, acting automatically out of long habit. After leaving a message for Ross with his housekeeper, she headed for the airport. She had five hours to make the ship. Talk about perfect timing.

Though resigned and miserable, she was on the move. At least now she was in familiar territory.

Evan begged off working at Cris and Jim’s and went right to see Meg. But her car was gone. He smiled when he walked around the side of the house. Her yard looked as if it had been attacked by a de
mented gopher. A herd of demented gophers, actually. Her shovels and rakes still littered the yard. She must be out buying plants, he decided, and headed home.

When she hadn’t returned by dark, he called Laurel House to see if anyone there had seen her.

Ross answered. “You’re…ah…you’re looking for Meg?” he asked, sounding more than a little hesitant.

Evan felt his stomach flip. “Ross, is something wrong with her?”

“Actually, Evan…I’m sorry to have to tell you this. She left a message with Sally several hours ago, but I only just got it. She’s taken off to… Let’s see where this time.” He heard the rustling of paper. “Carousel Cruise Lines out of Norfolk. The
Destiny.
Headed for the Caribbean. Listen. Don’t take this the wrong way, because all of us have driven her to this before. Apparently Meg told CJ that she bugs out like this so no one has the chance to leave her before she leaves them. And Cole had a long talk with her earlier today. It seems as though she feels she’s always come second with everyone.”

Evan felt his anger at all of them flare. “And she hasn’t?” he asked, letting sarcasm show his anger.

Ross sighed. “Well, actually, she probably has. Definitely did with my father, but as I told you, I tried to make up for that. Anyway, that’s where you come in.”

Evan’s heart sank. Why hadn’t he seen it when
he’d seen the rest? “She thinks she’s second to the ranch, too. Right?”

“I’m afraid so. Is there any way you can let her know that isn’t true?” Ross sounded hopeful.

“I’d been about to propose a compromise, but now I don’t think that’ll do it.” Was that the end of it? he wondered with a heavy heart.

No. What was he thinking? He loved her and he was no quitter. And he wouldn’t quit on his love for Meg. She’d left rather than have him leave her. Wade Jackson had left. Her father had left in his own way. Forget Cris’s compromise. Meg would be first with him for the rest of their lives. He’d prove it to her every day.

He’d have to start now, though, so he ended the conversation quickly. “Thanks, Ross. I’ll keep you posted.”

Trip planning was out of his ken so he called Cris. Jim Dillon was at Cris and Jim’s working on the addition, and he had a few ideas, too. Together they constructed a bold plan.

He’d be waiting when Meg arrived in St. Thomas. She wasn’t getting away this easily. And if his plans worked, they’d have a three-day honeymoon on the way back to the States. It didn’t escape his notice that a man who’d never even seen the ocean was about to trek across it in a quest to win his lady fair.

A few days later, as the plane swooped down to St. Thomas airport, Evan felt his hair stand on end.
The sea sparkled a little too close below and a mountain loomed up to meet them. He wasn’t sure how often he could travel if being scared out of his wits was part of all Meg’s adventures.

Meg stood on her little balcony and watched as St. Thomas rose on the horizon just after the sun had. It looked like a jewel in the middle of a sea of blue.

And she couldn’t care less.

She
did
love the little island—the bustling waterfront and the streets filled with incredible shops. But Evan was back at Laurel Glen or in Colorado. The problem with the island, she’d decided yesterday, was that he wasn’t there.

The past days hadn’t been the respite she’d sought, but they might have been the most important of her life. She’d learned something vital. She needed Evan at her side.

She gazed out at the harbor as it came into view. The colorful buildings of the bustling port city didn’t lift her heart this time. Nothing was as bright now. Nothing was as joyous. Nothing mattered.

Nothing but booking the first flight home and telling Evan she’d live in a tepee at the Circle A if that was what he needed. She could still travel. She’d traveled alone for years. But now she’d have Evan to go home to. And they’d be sure to visit Laurel Glen sometimes. Crystal and her family would surely
make Evan want to travel at least as far as Pennsylvania.

She sighed. But all this speculation hinged on one question. Was she too late? It hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d freely told her he loved her and that she had never reciprocated—too afraid at first to put her trust in a man, then too stubborn to concede her lifestyle to his.

What if he’d simply tired of pursuit without hope? She prayed he hadn’t. She should have seen it before, but old hurts she’d never even tried to deal with had blinded her to the truth. It wasn’t fair to Evan to make him suffer because her father hadn’t been all he could have been.

Evan couldn’t help loving his home or needing the security of living there. She’d been given security and more love in the formative years of her life than he had. Now it was time to give to Evan rather than expect to collect on the old debt of two other men who’d disappointed her.

As the island drew closer, Meg went back into her cabin to lie down. She’d pack after they docked and then head to the airport.

Exhausted, having gotten up much too early, she slept until a knock on her door woke her. She started awake. “Yes?” she called, but couldn’t decipher the reply. Still fully dressed, she went to answer the door. Her peephole revealed flowers.

“Who on earth would send me flowers?” she wondered aloud, and opened the door.

Her answer stood on her threshold. And it was the last one she’d ever have expected. Shock and joy coursed through her like a sparkling fountain.

“Evan?”

He grinned, completely unrepentant for the shock he’d given her. “Hello, love,” he said. “You forgot something?” He handed her the flowers. Lilacs and daffodils—exactly the same as he’d brought her before.

Her brain simply refused to function. She couldn’t believe what stood before her. “What are you doing here?”

“You forgot something besides your flowers. Me. I know you’re used to traveling alone—but on your honeymoon? I like the ocean, by the way. I’d prefer it a little farther away from the airplane when I’m landing, but I like it.”

“Evan, what on earth are you talking about?”

He looked over her shoulder. “The captain says you have an outside cabin with a balcony. Let’s go talk out there.”

She backed in, afraid to take her eyes off him for fear of waking from this wonderful dream. The feel of the lounge chair under her and the salt breeze on her skin nearly convinced her she was awake. But then Evan tossed a large flat box that she hadn’t no
ticed before onto the other lounge chair and dropped to one knee in front of her. He was holding a ring.

“I love you, Meg. I’m sorry you thought I loved the Circle A more. I don’t. We’ll live in Pennsylvania. In the cottage at Laurel Glen, if you want. And this will only be our first of many trips together. I promise. Will you marry me?”

“Okay, now I know this is a dream,” she said shakily, her heart thrumming with a joy she was still afraid to trust.

He cupped her cheek and kissed her. “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” he whispered against her lips. “It isn’t a dream, blue eyes.” He pulled back, tilted his head a bit, a vertical concentration line appearing between his eyebrows. “And I’m afraid I’m no prince.”

“Evan, I can’t make you give up that ranch. I love you too much to take you away from your home. I’ll marry you, but only if we live at the Circle A.”

Evan slid the flowers to the deck, removed the box from the lounge across from hers and sat down. He stared at her for a prolonged moment. Then he gave her that heart-stopping lopsided grin. “You’re driving me around the bend, woman. You skipped out about an hour before I went to see you. To propose a compromise. I guess we’ll see if that works.”

Meg went still and Evan’s grin vanished. “A compromise?” she asked carefully.

The grin was back. “Supposing we plan to split
our time between the Circle A, Laurel Glen and traveling.”

“You’d do that?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” he asked.

She blinked back a rush of tears. “I’m beginning to think you really are.”

“Is that a yes? Because I’m not risking these old knees again if you’re going to go tossing up another hurdle for me to get over.”