The Last Goodbye (The Women of Independence) (5 page)

The trail narrowed and Danielle pulled
ahead. “Good. In my opinion, the province can only gain from the exposure.”

Grayson chuckled and she looked back at
him. “What?”

“I was just thinking that you’ve
inherited Jake’s business sense.”

Her back stiffened. “And this surprises
you?”

He threw up his hands, even though she
couldn’t see him. “I’m not trying to pick a fight, Danielle.”

They rode in silence for a while.

“Sorry, Grayson” she said finally.

He pulled up alongside. “I really wish
you’d call me Gray.”

She looked into his eyes and for a
moment he thought he saw regret... and longing. Then the moment passed. “No. I
couldn’t do that.”

“Why, Danielle?” The question was little
more than a whisper.

“Because...” She looked everywhere but
at him. “Because I already know you’re going away. So it’s best if I continue
to call you Grayson.” She spoke as if she was trying to convince herself. “You
see, I’ve learned over the years that it’s good not to get too close. That way,
when it comes time for goodbyes, it doesn’t hurt so much.” She turned away, fighting
back the tears that appeared from nowhere. She tried to push them back down,
but was too late; he’d seen, and the look on his face was almost her undoing.
She didn’t want sympathy from Grayson Crawford or anyone else.

“Silverton’s about another mile up
ahead,” she said, her voice tight. She urged Fleet ahead with a touch of her
heels. “I’ll wait for you there.”

* * *

Grayson watched her ride away and kicked
himself for being so transparent. For caring. How had this woman managed to
worm her way under his skin... and so quickly? He allowed his thoughts to dwell
on what little he knew about her. She lived here with her uncle, and it was
obvious that she had a close connection with Esperanza and Enrique, but what
about her parents? Maybe if he was patient, she would tell him her story.

“Come on, Tommy. Let’s go to Silverton.”

He didn’t see her at first when he rode
into the ghost town. Her horse was nowhere to be seen, but Tommy nickered, and
drew an immediate response from Fleet. Between the Saloon and the Dry Goods
store, a row of Cottonwoods rustled in the light breeze; a clear indication
that there must be a stream back there.

“You can let him go. He won’t wander
off.” She was sitting on the raised wooden sidewalk, and she gestured over her
shoulder. “Fleet’s grazing on the grass back there.”

He dismounted and Tommy trotted off to
join Fleet by the stream. Down here in the dust of the street, he was almost
eye to eye with her, and their gazes met and held. Her eyes were still bright, but
she appeared to have herself under control.

“Are you all right?” He had to ask.

She nodded and slid about an inch to her
left. He recognized it as an invitation to sit down.

He studied the buildings as he moved
toward her. Marty and Scott were right; the old mining town was visually
stunning. No wonder the government wanted to turn it into a tourist
destination.

He walked up the low set of steps, sat
beside her and braced his elbows on his knees. “It’s a bad habit,” he said, as
much to himself as to her. “I think it comes from analyzing scripts, and from
looking for hidden meaning in what people say.”

She looked perplexed. “What are you
talking about?”

“I’m trying to apologize for prying into
your affairs.” He spread his hands, palms up. “It’s really none of my
business.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.

“But I
am
curious.”

She looked at him steadily. “When it
comes right down to it, I suppose you see a story in every situation.”

He considered her words for a moment. “Everybody
has a story. I’d like to hear yours.”

She sat silently for several long
moments, then shifted slightly and started to speak.

“I had the best parents in the world.” A
gentle smile played around her lips and she shot him a quick look before
continuing. “We lived down on the water and my father had a Beaver.”

Grayson nodded.

“Daddy used to say that with that plane,
we could go places nobody else had ever been.” She gazed into the distance. “And
he was right. Some of my favourite memories are of the days when Mom would pack
a picnic and we’d go off exploring, knowing that we could land on a lake and have
the whole place to ourselves.”

Her eyes took on a faraway look. “Do you
know what that’s like? Some of the remote lakes back in the hills are so
beautiful they take your breath away. Some of them are deep and dark green, and
some are shallow with sandy bottoms. We’d see all sorts of wildlife. Some days
Daddy would catch fish and we’d clean them and cook them over the campfire.”
Her gaze lingered on the buildings on the far side of the street without really
seeing them. “I guess you could say I had a charmed childhood.”

“Dad made a good living, and in addition
to his normal customers, he flew emergency runs for the air ambulance. Mom
wasn’t a nurse, but she had first aid training and she often went with him. I
learned later from people she’d helped that she was a calming presence on those
flights.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “One day they had a call to fly
out to a remote lake where the wife of a visiting sports fisherman was going
into early labour. Dad knew the lake; he’d flown in there once before, and knew
to watch for the buoy marking a submerged log.” Her hands clenched into fists
and she started to speak quickly. “The investigation showed that the buoy had
shifted; they hit the log and flipped over. They were both knocked unconscious
and they drowned when the plane went down in just twenty feet of water.”

She dropped her head. “It turned out
that the woman wasn’t in labour after all. It was a false alarm.”

Grayson couldn’t hold back an angry
sound. She looked at him, startled for a moment, then continued.

“I was spending the day at Gran’s place,
a bit farther down the lake. She had a big swing out on her verandah, and I
always sat there and waited for them to come back.” Her lips twitched. “Daddy
would always fly past and wag the wings and I’d wave.”

She disappeared into herself for a
moment, and then turned to him. “You know how it is sometimes? You know
something is wrong?”

He nodded.

“Even then, at seven years old, I knew
something was wrong. But there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe it.
You see, we always said goodbye, except for that morning.” She forced a smile
that almost broke Grayson’s heart. “Sounds like something out of a corny movie,
doesn’t it? They’d say ‘I love you,’ and I’d say ‘I love you more.’ It was a
silly ritual, but we did it every time they flew somewhere. Except for that
day; they’d been in such a rush because the woman had been having a difficult
pregnancy and she was in a panic.”

She went still as she relived that day.

“When I saw Uncle Jake pull up, I ran
and hid. Gran has one of those elevated porches. You know the kind, with
lattice around the bottom? That was my hiding spot and I crawled in there. Made
sense, right? If he couldn’t find me, couldn’t tell me the bad news, then it
hadn’t really happened.” She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand and
he offered her a handkerchief.

“For the longest time, I waited for
them, even though I knew they weren’t coming back. For weeks afterward, I’d sit
out on that porch, afraid that I’d miss them. I was also terrified every time
Gran left the house... terrified that she wouldn’t come back. She started
taking me with her.” She frowned. “I don’t remember much about school, except
that I met my best friend that year. We’ve been close ever since.”

“So you were raised by your
grandmother?”

“Yes. Gran and Uncle Jake.” She gave him
a weak smile. “I lived down at the lake with Gran during the school year, and
as soon as school was out I’d come to the ranch to live with Uncle Jake.
Esperanza and Enrique came about that time, but of course I didn’t realize that
their arrival had anything to do with me. I just knew that before long I loved
them as much as I loved living out here.”

“They’ve become family.”

“Oh, yeah. Esperanza doesn’t put up with
any nonsense, and as for Enrique... well... don’t mistreat the horses and
you’ll stay in his good books.”

“You have a lot of loving people in your
life, Danielle.”

“Yes.” Her voice trembled, and she wiped
her hands on her jeans. “And then I met Jason.”

A flicker of jealousy caught Grayson by
surprise.

Her voice turned soft with remembrance.
“I met him on the night of Light Up. That’s a night in late November when Independence
officially turns on the Christmas lights. They make a little festival out of
it.” She nodded to herself. “Allison and Cole met that night, too. They just
got married last year.”

“Wait a minute, how long ago was this?”

“About twelve years.”

“And they just got married?”

She laughed and he found himself wishing
she’d laugh more often. “That story is much too long to tell you now, but at
least it has a happy ending.”

She sobered. “Jason and I hit it off
right away. We were young... seventeen when we met... but there was no doubt in
either of our minds that we were meant to be together.” Her voice took on a
dreamy quality. “Jason filled the hole in my heart when he came along... the
one I didn’t even realize was there. We did absolutely everything together, and
that’s when I got interested in building. I don’t know if you noticed the
drive-in shed on Uncle Jake’s property, but we built that. It was our first
project together, and we learned quite a bit. We even talked about starting up
a business, but then we decided to pay it forward, and went to Central America
to help build a school in a remote village.”

The narration slowed as she recalled
those days. “Being down there was a real eye-opener, I can tell you. Anyway,
Jason was bit by a poisonous snake and the village had just run out of
anti-venom. He died.”

She turned to him, her eyes bleak. “He
didn’t get to say goodbye, either.”

He put his arm around her shoulders,
surprised when she didn’t pull away. She expelled a long breath of air. “So you
can see why I wasn’t too upset when Bryce left. His defection was nothing when
compared with what I’d already been through.”

It took him a moment to catch up with
her train of thought. “The former partner,” he said. “I suppose he didn’t say
goodbye, either.”

She made a sound that was halfway
between a snort and a laugh. “No. Just as well, though. I think I would have
punched him in the nose.”

He gave her a quick squeeze, and then
released her. “Tough, aren’t you?”

She pulled back and looked into his
eyes. “When I need to be.” The air crackled between them and her gaze shifted
to his lips. “Although sometimes I wonder what I’m missing out.”

It was all he could do not to take her
in his arms. But this woman had been through enough, and she was right; he was
leaving when the filming was finished. He stood up, offered her his hand and
pulled her to her feet. “Come on, tough guy. Let’s go check out camera angles.”

They spotted it at the same time. One of
the buildings had been recently re-roofed. The restoration crew had used the
correct materials; metal sheeting that would eventually rust and blend in, but
at the moment, the roof glared in the sunshine.

“Uh oh. That’s not good.” Danielle
groaned.

Grayson tilted his head to one side. “We
can fix this.”

She looked at him expectantly. “What do
you have in mind?”

“We’d need a couple of dry days, but we
could paint a temporary wash of some sort on the metal. Something reddish that
will make it look old and rusted, like the other roofs.” He took a couple of
quick pictures. “We’ll only need it while we shoot and the next time it rains, it’ll
wash off.” He grinned at her. “Are you up for a little deception?”

“Sure.” She studied the roof angle,
already planning. “All the roofs are steep so the snow slides off. I’ll look
into some sort of harness.”

“Okay. We’ll try to give you a couple of
days’ notice as soon as we firm up that part of the shooting schedule.” He
looked around once again. “This is better than I expected, and I hate to leave,
but we’d better get back.”

The horses looked up when they walked
between the buildings to re-claim them. “Can’t say I blame them for wanting to
stay.” Grayson gave her a rueful smile. “This is the last quiet time I’m going
to have for a while.”

Danielle swung up into the saddle. “So
you say, but I’ll bet you thrive on the pressure of making a movie.” She waited
for him to mount, comfortable now in his presence.

“You’re right,” he acknowledged. “But
this short break has been good for me.” He followed her between the buildings,
and they were soon on the trail leading back to the ranch.

“A penny for your thoughts,” she said
after a few minutes.