The Bride Wore Red Boots (20 page)

“There are no relatives?”

“Monique has a stepbrother in Florida, I think. But they were estranged. Her parents are gone. She was pretty much an orphan she used to say. Except for Rory.”

Telling the heartbreaking story brought tears welling up again in her eyes. She hated the weakness. Hated the system and fate for leaving a traumatized little boy without a safe, real home. And she detested the emotions that clouded her ability to make sense of the situation. She had no idea what to do or what to think.

And then a long, strong arm pulled her into a harbor that stopped her emotional sea from roiling, that protected her from the November chill, and that smelled of wind and pine spice. She breathed in and held Gabe's scent in her lungs like curative vapor. Tears trickled down her cheeks, but they relieved her.

“Why are they sending him all the way here?” he asked. “If they think you're coming back in two weeks?”

The stark question filled her with despair. Not because Rory was coming, but because the thought of returning to New York put a hole in her stomach that reached all the way to her heart. An inelegant sob disguised as a hiccup escaped, and Gabriel pulled her tighter to his body.

“Don't get me wrong,” he said. “Even though this is insensitive given the circumstances, I don't want you to go back. Not yet, child or no child. I want to explore this, whatever it is we've started, but it's selfish, I know. So, why go to the expense of flying the boy to Wyoming?”

He didn't want her to go. The knowledge astounded her.

He'd seemed so cavalier about the fling they were having. Easy, breezy, fun, and funny. He'd watch the horse, he'd watch the men, he'd wait for her to visit.

Or maybe that was her self-protective projection of his attitude. They'd never talked at all about the day she would leave. How would she know what he wanted?

“If I'm going to take care of him, Social Services needs to be able to close out his file by saying they believed Rory was going to a safe environment. Since he'll presumably be traveling here with me regularly, they might as well check it out. My friend Samantha can already vouch for my situation in New York.”

“And they'll turn him over to you just like that?”

“That's the system for you. They'll be lucky, space- and funding-wise, to have him off their hands. No other relatives are contesting the will. If I say yes, he's one less problem for them.”

“Do you
want
to say yes?”

She pulled loose from his arms and met his eyes, hot-chocolate brown and just as comforting. “That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?”

She half expected him to continue with practical questions and even more practical reasons she shouldn't be thinking hard about letting Rory come, and she found herself steeling for the onslaught of reason. The truth was, she wanted nothing more than to have Rory come. Where better to see how they could get along than during the last of her vacation, when she didn't have to shuttle him off to school, or day care.

School.

She covered her eyes again as an avalanche of practical difficulties slammed into her. Day care. Health insurance. Sleeping arrangements. The cat. Buying clothing. Living with a child and knowing nothing even remotely about how to deal with one. Dealing with his grief. Dealing with . . .

“Hey,” Gabriel said. “You're shaking like ghosts are chasing you with ice water.”

His voice, filled with gentle humor, slowed her involuntary quaking and pulled a laugh from her.

“Only one ghost—saying she expects me to take care of her son and not screw it up. Oh, Gabe, Rory is an amazing kid, and I have to honor Monique's wishes. But I don't know how to raise a partially grown boy. I can't even deal with people I work with. I was told so unequivocally. How am I going to keep my patience with someone day after day?”

“First of all, you don't
have
to do anything. Your job is to do what's best for Rory. And if that's letting him stay with you, then you don't have to be perfect. No parent is.”

“How are you such an expert?”

“I have parents. My friends have parents. You have one. I've already heard how imperfect your father was—yet, look at you.”

He pushed her back from his embrace and cupped her face in his hands. His cheeks held a slight burn from the wind, his nose was just starting to tip with red, and his hair had been mussed by the breeze. She leaned into his touch.

“Look at me,” she scoffed. “A mess and a half. Nothing in my training prepared me for this.”

“No. But that's not a bad thing. You stay in your safe career track because you don't trust that you can handle things outside of the hospital and your relationships with your patients. But you're so wrong, Amelia. You're a great teacher, a caring sister, a loving daughter, a hell of a kisser . . . ”

“Swell.” She laughed in spite of herself.

“This is my point. Your father didn't mess you up. Your parents together raised a brilliant girl who became a special woman. They didn't know any more when they started than you do now.”

“They started from scratch, though.”

“Not a requirement.”

“So you think I should do this?”

“I can't answer that for you. But I think you should welcome Rory for now. He needs you, and I can tell you need to do this. This doesn't have to be permanent. This isn't about doing something because you owe it to a woman who passed away. It's about doing what's best. You can't know what that is until you give the situation a try.”

She covered his hands on her cheeks with her fingers. “How do you do this whole sensitive guy thing so well?”

“It's what I do all day at work—solve problems, use logic, pretend I'm a therapist.” He laughed.

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Oh, no. Babe, this is most definitely not easy. This is life-changing. But.” He brushed her lips with his. A thrill zipped through her body. “You are a tigress. You can do this.”

For an instant the power of his words filled her, and she believed him. After that, she stared into his eyes, dumbstruck. How had this happened? This man, in just over two weeks, had turned her life into a screenplay by Nora Ephron—or Nora Roberts. She couldn't believe she'd won such a fantastic leading lady role. Couldn't believe she was watching the plot unfold as if it were real. But it wasn't really real. The movie was going to end sooner or later.

And she'd have to go home.

T
HEY DIDN
'
T CANCEL
their date, and to Mia's surprise, they laughed all through dinner. Instead of the fancier Basecamp Grill steakhouse in Wolf Paw Pass, Mia opted for Dottie's Bistro, the homespun diner owned by Dottie French, whose family had been in the Jackson area almost as long as the Crocketts. Mia hadn't been into the restaurant yet this visit, and Dottie greeted her with squeals, hugs, and kisses in a familiar ritual that usually left Mia tolerating it the way a kid tolerated an overly touchy-feely relative. This time the small-town greeting left her warm and glowing. It seemed, having a community around her when she was hurting felt far better than toughing it out alone.

She and Gabriel ate comfort food to go along with the comfort of Dottie's welcome. Gabe, who Dottie claimed was one of her favorite people in the world, ordered meatloaf with a huge side of mashed potatoes and gravy. Mia ordered beef pot pie—full of locally raised beef, vegetables, thick creamy gravy, and delicious calories she didn't even want to estimate.

After regaling her with stories of getting into regular scrapes with his older brother George—and making her stomach ache from laughter on top of stuffing it with dinner, Gabriel ordered bread pudding for dessert. Despite her protests, not a single drop of rich praline topping remained on her plate when she dropped her fork drunkenly onto the table.

“I can't believe this,” she said. “I've been eating like a mustang since I got to Wyoming.”

“It's a night for overindulging. Not that I haven't been eating like a horse myself since I started coming around Paradise Ranch for dinners. Are there nothing but gourmet cooks in your family?”

“Just the triplets, with their bakery-slash-organic-foods restaurants in Denver. They learned most of their mad culinary skills from my mother. Harper cooks, too. Grandma Sadie and I are the only ones who don't do much in the kitchen. The triplets usually cook mean and lean, but it's been a calorie-fest the past two weeks. And now I've eaten as many tonight as in the past ten days combined.”

“We can walk a few off before I take you home. Let's see who's jumping the gun on Christmas decorations.”

“Ugh. Christmas. How will I handle Christmas if I have a small person living with me? What do I know about kids and Santa? Does a ten-year-old still believe in Santa?”

He laughed. “Some do. What about you? Do you believe in Santa?”

She scoffed. “Sure. Why not?”

“I'm serious. Do you have a magical spirit or a totally realistic spirit?”

“Totally realistic. How could you not know that even after the little time you've known me?”

“I think I
do
know. I just don't think you know.”

She pushed her chair back and stood with a groan. Gabriel picked up the bill, which got paid the old-fashioned way by bringing it to a cashier at the front of the restaurant. “Let me help with that.”

“Absolutely not. This is a strictly old-fashioned date. And here's a perfect example. You think you're practical and realistic, but deep down inside, I know you'd love to just let Prince Charming whirl you away for a while.” He winked and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair.

“Oh, I would.” She closed her eyes momentarily and sighed. “Do you know him? Prince Charming? Can you set me up?”

“Oh, nice, Amelia.” He got to her jacket before she did and held it open for her. “As if I'd introduce you to any other Prince Charming.”

“You worried about your competition?”

“Hell yeah.”

She wrapped her arms around his bicep and leaned into him. “You probably don't have to. Worry.”

He snorted his laughter. “Great. Then I
probably
won't.”

He led her to the cash register between the restaurant section and the mountain lodge–themed bar area. It was Friday-night busy, laughter and voices carrying from the solid pine bar and the high-top tables scattered through the space. On the far wall, a large TV screen carried the local news.

“It's so good having you back for a while, Mia.” Dottie finished ringing up the check and Gabriel signed the slip.

“It's been interesting,” Mia said. “Different without Dad.”

“He's sorely missed, I'll tell you that.”

“I'm sure. He loved this place.”

“Friday breakfasts. Almost without fail. I'm so sorry.”

Mia was, too. Especially now in light of what Rory must be going through, she was acutely aware of how much she'd taken her father's omnipresence for granted. Tough, gritty, no-holds-barred Sam Crockett should have been indestructible. Maybe if she'd come back more often, or if she'd spoken to him a little more intimately after she'd gone to school—

She halted her thoughts abruptly. She knew better than to go there. She saw too much guilt in her job, too many “if only I'd dones” to let herself fall into the trap. Everyone had regrets. And, her father hadn't come to her either.

“Everything all right?” Dottie asked. “Sorry to bring up sad memories.”

“Oh. No, no, everything's fine. It's good to think about Dad. Don't stop bringing up memories, Dottie. Truly.”

The older woman smiled, a hint of shine in her eyes. “Sam was a lucky man. He raised a beautiful family. And now,” she scanned Mia's hold on Gabriel's arm, “you're meeting the locals. Can I hope that means you might be staying on with us a while?”

Mia felt the blood rise to her cheeks, and she looked up at Gabriel, surprised to find him unaware of her conversation with Dottie, his eyes focused on something in the bar.

“I'm afraid not,” Mia said. “Gabriel and I are just friends. I have to return to New York in a couple of weeks.”

“Such a shame.” Dottie frowned. “You two look very pretty together.”

Small-town mother hens. Mia shook her finger at Dottie, knowing all too well how gossip in the little town flew. She looked again for Gabriel's reaction, but this time she could see immediately he was frozen in place, staring at the television.

She peered at the flat screen and made out the closed-caption crawl across the bottom. As she realized what the story was about, she squeezed Gabe's arm tighter. Footage of soldiers dodging through an Iraqi city was alternated with a video of a family of six. The text told of a reunion—four family members reunited with a grandmother and an uncle after five years of each thinking the others dead.

She stared, waiting for any sign of names. It couldn't be such a coincidence as to be Gabriel's missing family . . .

The story ended. She hadn't seen most of it, just enough to understand why Gabriel looked shell-shocked.

“Hey,” she said softly. “Tell me you didn't just see a ghost.”

“Oh, I saw plenty of ghosts.” His voice held a touch of grim resignation. “Come on. Let's go.”

She followed without questioning him further, letting his tension and his silence settle around them as they left the cozy bistro for the cold November night. The wind had picked up, and Mia buried her face against Gabe's coat sleeve. He pulled free of her grasp and wrapped his arm fully around her shoulders. “Maybe it's a little chilly for a walk,” he said.

“For a long walk,” she agreed. “But we do need a short one, I think.”

“I'm sorry about that, back in the Bistro.”

“Don't apologize. For a moment I thought maybe you'd seen something about Jibril.”

“No.”

“But you think something like that family's separation happened to Jibril's family. I'm sorry. Seems like tonight is one for unpleasant memories.”

He didn't say anything but squeezed her more tightly. “I do wish I knew where he was.”

“I know. Despite what you've always said.”

“I have something to show you. Then when you heard about Rory, I decided not to. Now I've changed my mind again. That report was a little freaky.”

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, let her go, and reached inside his coat. He pulled out an unaddressed, white, number ten envelope.

“When you told me two weeks ago, the first day you arrived and learned about Jibril, that I shouldn't give up trying to find him, it annoyed the crap out of me. Who were you to tell me what to do about something so personal?”

“I'm sorry. I didn't know I'd annoyed you.”

“Because I didn't tell you. Deep inside, I knew there was truth to what you'd said. Still, I came up with a hundred reasons I wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't try anymore. But then . . . ” He handed her the envelope but wrapped her with his arm and started walking again so she couldn't open it. “I started watching how you solve problems—one after the other. You don't question, you just do. Things like driving eight people across the state to adopt five wild horses would seem Herculean to most people. You planned it and executed it like it was a church picnic. And it's working.”

“Of course it is.”

“You told me about the boy
you'd
met several years ago, and how when he came back into your life you searched out a homeless man and a cat in the heart of New York City and then brought the cat back to your house. Who does that?”

“You do. You did the same thing with a squad of injured men—rescued them from homelessness and helplessness. Gabriel stop talking about me. What's this really about?” She waggled the envelope.

“I contacted the US Embassy in Baghdad. Believe it or not, I know somebody who works there—a friend from the VA in Montana. He actually found the name of someone who appears to be Jibril's great-uncle. If I send him some information and pictures, he will try to contact the man. It took me a long time to decide I wanted to do it.”

“Gabe, that's fantastic!” She stopped him and tugged on his jacket front to get him turned toward her.

“But then you got the news about Rory and his mother. I didn't want to throw all my potential emotional shit at you when you're dealing with something this big in your life. It was one kid too many, you know?”

“That's ridiculous. One isn't any more important than the other.”

He pulled her into a full bear hug. “See? You just go for it, whatever it is that needs going for. I'm acting like the damn girl here.”

“Oh, shut up, you chauvinist.” She drew back enough to cup his cheeks, now cold from the breeze, as they'd been that afternoon by the round pen at the ranch. “You don't ‘go for it' because you survey all the angles first. Then you go into battle mode and fight for the people under your care. I rush in headlong. There's a time and place for both methods. Damn girl, my butt. I'm the damn girl.”

With that she dragged him to her and kissed him, long, hard, sweet and hot. His breath warmed her, and her fingers warmed his face.

“Oh yes, you are definitely the girl.”

“Let's forget about window shopping and go back to the house. Maybe we can commandeer the family room fireplace for ourselves.”

“I dunno.” His eyes shone with relief in the glow of the street lamps and his breath hung in frosty smoke between them. “There are five other women there. I don't see us being alone much.”

“They'd stay away if I asked them to.” She smiled.

“But still, we'd never know when they'd accidently come down the stairs, would we?”

“It would keep us honest.”

“That's what you want? Us to stay honest?”

The question was meant to tease, but she couldn't find a quick retort. What
did
she want? Her life was whirling further out of its normal orbit every minute. Wouldn't a night with Gabe fit right into the craziness? The idea of keeping him with her for an entire night was far from objectionable. In fact, it sounded warm. And safe.

“Yeah,” she said finally. “Isn't honesty the best policy?”

“How about we go home and find out?”

“What about this?” She lifted the envelope again. “It's a letter, right? To your friend?”

“I wanted you to read it before I sent it. I'd almost decided to wait. Then I saw that story on the news and it was eerie—cosmic.”

“My grandma Sadie would say the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

“Well something or someone sure does. What are the odds of seeing that exact story right now?”

“Don't question it. Come on. I'll read the letter in the car.”

She opened the letter before Gabriel had even pulled away from the curb and read silently by the map light above her, painfully aware of his steel-straight and anxious form behind the wheel.

Dear Paul
,

Thank you for your offer to help locate Malik al Hamal. I am enclosing information about the boy, Jibril al Raahim, whom I hope we discover is Malik's great-nephew . . .

The letter continued with a very clear timeline of Gabriel's tour in Baghdad and the years spent with Jibril. Gabe had given all his contact information and made certain his friend Paul knew to reassure the man that he wanted nothing from the family. He only wanted information about the boy's fate the day the city square had been shelled.

“So?” Gabe asked once she'd folded the letter carefully. “Should I send it?”

She set the envelope on her lap and placed her hand on Gabe's tensed thigh muscle, stroking along its length hoping to comfort. “Of course you should. Why are you nervous to try? Finding this potential relative was such a lucky break.”

“Because not knowing might be better than knowing.”

“That's never true,” she said firmly. “We hear that all the time—people didn't come to the doctor soon enough because they didn't want bad news. But how can you move ahead if you don't know the truth?”

“You just keep moving,” he replied. “That's what I did.”

“But did you?” She stilled her hand on his thigh for a moment, but then began to knead gently. “You know that part of your life isn't healed. You fight so hard for everything just to make up for what you think was a mistake. You need to find out one way or another.”