Small-Town Dreams (33 page)

Jeff stared at her. She was right. The only reason there wasn’t talk yet was that most of the community considered him an invalid. Even in this modern age of people living together, sleeping together before marriage, Hope’s reputation, unlike his, had always been above reproach. Her air of innocence and the sheer purity of her beauty had drawn him to her in ways none of the sophisticated women he’d been involved with over the years had. He knew that about her, but others didn’t, and Jeff didn’t want Hope subjected to even a hint of scandal.

“Where has my head been? I’m so sorry. I never even considered that anyone would think—I—I guess you’ll be going back to Laurel Glen.”

“No. You’re right about my father. I refuse to go back home and fight with him every waking moment I’m there. I’d wind up with the sort of relationship with him that Cole has. There have been enough harsh words said between us already. I’ll start looking for a place of my own but I’d like to stay on till then.”

“You’re welcome, of course,” he said, but he hated the idea of her finding an apartment or a house. He hated the idea of her losing Laurel Glen. But more, he hated that he’d caused a rift so severe between her and Ross that she felt she had to live elsewhere.

“Maybe you could talk to Ross again,” he suggested. “Maybe if he sees that I’ve got real plans for a future, he’ll object less to our partnership. And if you’re not living there…”

Hope shrugged. “I’ll try, of course, but Dad is nothing if not stubborn.”

“Well, you’re certainly welcome to the homestead house for as long as you want to use it. I wish you were staying, or at least going back home, but I understand your feelings.”

What Jeff didn’t understand was what had turned Ross against him. That had been the worst year of his life. First Marley Taggert had been killed and Cole had gone off the deep end. Jeff had tried to keep him from doing anything too crazy, hoping to hold the only real family he’d ever known together.

Next his father had refused to fund his equestrian competitions unless Jeff went to Penn. He’d gone to Ross for advice, as he often did. Ross had said an Ivy League degree certainly wouldn’t hurt him, and he’d advised Jeff to buckle down and try to get the grades he’d need to get in to Addison’s alma mater. Jeff had, but then it had all fallen apart anyway.

One night during semester break, Cole had come over after an argument with Ross. Jeff had usually been able to calm his younger friend down, but Jeff had an appointment with a tutor that night, and Jeff’s mother had insisted Cole leave. Cole had gone looking for trouble and found it in the guise of a police cruiser with its motor running. He’d gone on a joy ride, been caught, arrested and given the dubious choice of military school or juvenile detention with the possibility of being charged as an adult.

Jeff hadn’t known why, when he came home that spring, he was no longer welcome at Laurel Glen. Now he knew that once Cole was gone Addison must have started poisoning Ross’s mind. Jeff supposed Ross might have thought Jeff had been a bad influence on Cole and therefore was the author of all the family troubles.

Whatever the cause, Ross’s cold anger toward Jeff had been uncomfortably evident, so he’d withdrawn from Laurel Glen except for riding occasionally with Hope when they’d meet at the border of the two properties. At least with Hope as his partner, he wouldn’t finally lose it all.

N
o you don’t, Hope thought. You don’t have a clue why I’m leaving!

And at that moment she knew beyond a doubt that she’d made the right decision. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until Jeff saw that she didn’t find him wanting because his legs no longer worked. Perhaps he’d even walk again. But she also had to accept that his new faith in God didn’t guarantee that he’d come to see himself the way she did.

If she had to settle for being his partner, she would. Seeing him every day, working with him, most certainly would be better than only the occasional visit. And she couldn’t go on living at Lavender Hill in the hope that he would regain his ability to walk or that he would come to a place about his paralysis where he could truthfully finish the conversation he’d begun on the hilltop just before his accident.

To wait around, living in his pocket while he kept her at a distance, would have been emotional suicide. He had God in his life now and could lean on Him for strength in difficult times. So it was time for her to leave.

Maybe she could repair her relationship with her father. And maybe—just maybe—if she wasn’t quite so convenient to Jeff and if he had the chance to miss her when she was gone, he just might wake up. Maybe then he’d look past his pride and move fully into the future whether he was walking or rolling forward.

Late for dinner, Hope stopped dead in her tracks the second Jeff looked up from his plate. His right eye was on its way to a classic shiner, and his cheekbone wasn’t far behind on the color scale. “What on earth happened to you?”

Jeff and Curt exchanged twin guilty looks.

“Did you two have a fight or something like that?”

Jeff was instantly indignant. “Of course not! Do we look that juvenile?”

Hope put a hand on her hip. “Actually you look like a couple seven-year-olds caught with their grimy little hands in the cookie jar. What do you think you look like?”

“I think you’re too nosy,” Jeff complained. “If you must know, I fell. Okay? Could we drop it at that? It’s embarrassing.”

Hope nodded, hating that she’d upset him, but then she caught another odd look between the men. What were they up to?

“How goes the apartment hunt?” Emily asked as she set a warmed plate of food at Hope’s usual seat.

Hope sat and said a quick silent grace before answering. It was a depressing topic. “It isn’t. Two weeks and all I’ve seen are a ton of uninspiring boxes the builders stacked along hallways and on top of one another. I’ve come to the conclusion that apartment complexes are just not my cup of tea. Then there were the three cottages she took me to today. They turned out to be nothing more than falling down shacks sitting at the edge of three equally dilapidated farms. Anything else the real estate agent found so far is either way out of my price range or too far from Lavender Hill.”

“We could up your salary draw,” Jeff suggested. “It would take a little longer for you to be a fully vested partner but—”

“No. I’ll find something. You’re risking too much on your own with this as it is.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to Laurel Glen?” Jeff asked.

Hope shook her head. “After Ross’s reaction to my decision to work with you on the training facility there’s just no way I’m going to move back home and continue to argue with him every time we run into each other. Even short visits are getting more and more strained.”

Ruby, her personal horse, felt Hope’s restlessness when Hope went over a couple times a week to ride her. She should bring the mare over and stable her at Lavender Hill, but that felt so much like cutting her ties to home that she couldn’t bring herself to seriously consider it.

Though she resisted the idea, Hope knew she should do it. The last time she’d seen her father had been anything but pleasant….

“You’re actually going to work for him?” Ross had demanded when she’d told him about the training facility. “Hope, this is insane. Jeffrey Carrington opening a school? I know what the equestrian world is like. Between events those people have affairs and change partners the way the rest of us change clothes. Carrington running a training facility is like asking a fox to guard a henhouse.”

Hope fisted her hands at her sides. Her father was the only person other than Jeff who could make her this mad. Maybe because she loved them both so much. “That’s beyond insulting! Jeff would never take advantage of a young girl. That isn’t the kind of person he is. If he was ever as promiscuous as you say, then he’s changed. I told you that he’d accepted the Lord and that he’s going to church with me now. He’s become friends with Pastor Jim. You’re wrong and you’re too stubborn to give him a chance.”

“And you’re blind. This whole thing is just too convenient. He decided to open this facility right about the time you say he stopped slipping back into his so-called depressions. Don’t you see? He’s using this facility to hold on to you.”

Hope had smiled. “Forget it, Dad. If that were true, it would mean that my fondest wish had been granted.”

Emily put a drink to the right of Hope’s plate and called her back to the present. “No, I won’t move back there,” she told Jeff. “Aunt Meg doesn’t need my presence adding more tension to that house.”

Jeff grimaced. “I’m sorry. I should never have asked you to work on this with me.”

“I’m not a child, and my father has no right to pick my friends.”

“He loves you. It’s a gift some of us never got. Don’t waste it, Hope.”

She gave an unladylike snort. “Why tell me? Tell him. He’s the one who won’t even consider changing his mind.”

Jeff lifted the receiver of the phone then dropped it in its cradle. He sighed. What was that? The tenth time in as many minutes that he’d chickened out on making the call?

This was ridiculous. He’d known Ross Taggert his entire life. Because Addison had gotten rid of all the animals when he’d inherited Lavender Hill, it had been Ross who’d put Jeff on a horse for the first time. It had been Ross he’d run to for advice in the confusing teen years when Jeff had been pulled in so many directions at once by his own needs and wants and those of his father, which had been diametrically opposed to his own. And now the man he’d grown up thinking was the ideal father hated the very sight of him.

But that wasn’t Jeff’s fault. He’d done nothing to deserve it. Somehow he had to convince Hope’s father of that, then reach some kind of accord with him. Jeff couldn’t let her lose what he had craved over a lifetime. He couldn’t let her be hurt that way and not try to make things better.

Before he could change his mind, Jeff lifted the receiver and dialed Ross’s office number.

“This is Ross Taggert. I’m busy on another line. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

Jeff ground his teeth. He hated answering machines. “Ross, it’s Jeff Carrington,” he said into the mouthpiece. “It’s about Hope. Could you call me right back?”

Ten minutes later Ross Taggert charged into Jeff’s office. “Is Hope all right?” he barked, then stopped in his tracks, his gaze riveted on Jeff’s bruised face. “Were you two in an accident? Where is she?”

Jeff fought a smile. Yeah, Ross was a real tough guy. His voice was shaking as much as his hands. Jeff wondered what it must be like to have a parent care about you like that.

“Relax. Hope’s just fine,” he told her father. “She isn’t even here. I’m sorry I worried you. The bruises have nothing to do with Hope except that I got them in therapy and she’s the one who got all that started.”

Ross heaved a deep sigh and sank into the green leather wing chair opposite Jeff. He raked a trembling hand through his hair then braced his elbows tiredly on his thighs. His shoulders sagged as he let out another deep breath.

“If she’s fine then why the call?” he asked, sitting back in the chair and pinning Jeff with his arresting blue eyes, so much like his daughter’s.

“Physically she’s fine but she misses her family. Specifically her father, since Cole visits here and she sees Meg at church all the time. I’ll get right to the point. We have something in common, you and I. Hope. You love your daughter, and it might surprise you to know that I do, too.”

“You don’t know the meaning of love.” Ross sneered.

“That was once all too true,” Jeff conceded, trying to be polite. “Love is something I never had, which is probably why I didn’t recognize it until it may have been too late.”

“What do you mean, it may have been too late?” Ross asked, his face fixed in a deep frown.

“We have something else in common. You don’t want Hope tied to a cripple. Well, neither do I. And if I can’t get myself on my feet, she’ll never know how I feel.”

“You heard my argument with Hope about you,” Ross said, looking uncomfortable and embarrassed. “I spoke in anger.”

“I am a cripple, though I prefer paraplegic. But I’m not content to stay this way. I’m not giving up. If there’s any way I can walk again, I will. Then, and only then, will I tell your daughter how I feel. And I’ll ask her to marry me at the same time. I’d like your blessing.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Ross growled.

“Then you’d be the loser. And Hope would lose, too. I’m sorry, Ross. You also called me selfish that day, and I guess I am. I’m not giving up the only person who’s ever loved me because you want to believe things my father said about me. You never really respected his opinion about anything else. I don’t know why you chose to about me.”

“Because he was your father. Why would he lie? And how can you say your parents never loved you? They gave you every advantage. You went to the best schools. Had the best of everything.”

“No. I didn’t have the best of everything. Maybe from the outside looking in I did, but I didn’t. Hope and Cole—
they
had the best. They had parents who loved them for who they were. Kids don’t care about money. They care about love. They care about acceptance. They care about respecting their parents. If you couldn’t respect Addison, what makes you think I could?”

Ross nodded but he didn’t look as if he’d changed his mind about anything. “Is that all you had to say?” he asked, the forbidding frown still on his face.

“No. It’s not. I never meant to come between you and Hope but I have. I wanted to try to show you that your worries are unfounded. I love her. I promise not to ever intentionally hurt her and I don’t want to see her hurt by anything any more than I think you do. But you
are
hurting her. You’ve all but lost Cole. Please, Ross, don’t make the same mistake with Hope. I wanted you to know how far this has gone with her. She’s moving off Lavender Hill, but she won’t even consider moving home to Laurel Glen because of the tension between you.”

Ross stood. He looked both thoughtful and confused. “I appreciate your honesty and your concern for Hope. I guess you’ve given me a lot to think about. As for Hope moving off on her own, it may be for the best. Things aren’t very good at Laurel Glen right now.”

“If it’s financial—”

“I’ll handle it,” Ross said, shaking his head. He hesitated, then reached over the desk and offered his hand. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the accident. If any of us contributed—”

“Don’t.” He took Ross Taggert’s hand and said a quick prayer as he shook it that this meant a new accord between them. “I should have checked the girth myself, Ross. You were right about that. I’ve tried to tell Hope from the beginning but she’s as stubborn as her father.”

Jeff grinned and added, “And maybe this talk should stay between us. Hope doesn’t know how much I heard that day. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.”

Ross nodded. “I’ll be in touch,” he said with a small smile and left.

Jeff was struck by how young the man looked when he smiled. He couldn’t help wondering why so nice-looking a man had remained alone for fourteen years. Jeff imagined Ross Taggert could have had any woman he wanted. Which meant he still wasn’t interested. How long could grief last?

Then Jeff thought of the very real possibility of losing Hope, and he realized he had one more thing other than love for Hope in common with Ross. He, too, would love only one woman in his lifetime.