Cinderella's Big Sky Groom (18 page)

“You know I will.”

Lynn got into her Blazer and went home. The snow had stopped by then, leaving a few inches of crystalline whiteness layering the yards of the houses she passed, and piled along the curbs in muddy mounds.

At home she found Ross's Mercedes parked in
front of the house—and Trish's little compact waiting in the driveway.

 

She discovered them both sitting in the living room. Neither looked overjoyed at the presence of the other.

Trish announced sourly, “He said you were expecting him. So I went ahead and let him in.” She stood. “Where were you?”

“At the McCallums' house. With Danielle.”

“Danielle. That poor woman. How is she?”

“She's holding up incredibly well. Considering.”

“Thank the Lord for small favors,” Trish declared. She cast a sideways glance at Ross, then spoke to Lynn again. “Walk me to the door?”

“Trish. You don't have to leave.”

Trish only waved a hand at that remark. Lynn followed her to the entrance hall, where Trish leaned close and spoke in a whisper, for Lynn's ears alone. “You're still in love with him. I know that. And you know what? I think he's just crazy over you. I think you better take him back.”

Lynn made a face at her sister and pitched her voice equally low. “A few days ago, you said you hated him.”

Trish shrugged and leaned close again. “He's not my favorite person in the world, I admit it. But hey. If you love him, well, you're my sis and I want you to have him.”

Lynn wished it could be that simple.

Trish seemed to think that it was. “Sometimes, Lynnie, the best way to get what you want is to just go ahead and go after it, you know?”

It was Lynn's turn to shrug. She touched her sis
ter's shoulder fondly. “I was so grateful today, that you were there.”

Now Trish was grinning. “Kept my head pretty good, didn't I?”

“You were terrific.”

“That poor little Sara. Lord, I hope she's all right. How's Mrs. Parchly?”

“She'll get through it. We all will. Somehow.”

“Amen to that.” Trish pulled open the door and paused on the threshold, where she whispered some more. “I mean it. You want that man, you take him. He's a goner. I can see it when he looks at you.” Her green eyes gleamed. “And he does have all that nice money, you know. Now, I'm not saying a girl should marry a man for his money. But all in all, I personally would rather be rich.”

“Get out of here.”

With a wink and a chuckle, Trish went on her way.

Lynn took a minute, standing there in the front hall, to gather her nerve. Then she marched back into the living room, where Ross was waiting.

He'd left his seat at the end of the sofa and wandered over to the old upright piano in the corner. He was studying the cluster of family photographs arranged in a variety of ornate frames on the high-backed lid.

Lynn drew to a halt several feet from him.

He turned to her, and she saw the yearning in his eyes. Her heart rose. Yes, she thought. Say it, Ross. Oh, please, say the words….

But then he only gestured at the photographs. “Your father was a handsome man.”

She contained her disappointment and answered him in kind. “Yes. And a good man, too.”

“Blue eyes. Like yours.”

“That's right.”

“This piano…?”

“My mother's.”

“Do you play?”

“Not as well as my mother did, but I have been known to pound out a tune or two now and then.”

A silence fell. He seemed not to know what to say next.

So she went ahead and challenged, “What is it, Ross? Why are you here?”

He answered too quickly. “I was worried about you.”

“Well, I'm just fine. You can see that.”

He looked doubtful—or maybe it was only that he didn't want to believe her. If he believed her, then to his mind he'd have no reason to linger.

“You've returned my shoe—or at least, I know where it is now.” On the floor of her classroom. Where she'd dropped it when she threw herself into his arms. “And I've just told you, for about the tenth time, that I am fine. There's no real reason for you to stay. Unless you
want
to stay.”

He took a long time to reply. And when he did, his voice was harsh and low. “Damn it. You know what I want.”

“Well, then, why don't you just reach out and take it?”

He closed his eyes, turned his head away.

“Ross. Please…” She took a step toward him.

“No,” he said. “You can do better than someone like me.”

“Oh, Ross. If you'll only—”

He silenced her by raising his hand. “I'd better go now.”

“I'm not
asking
you to go.”

But he wasn't listening. He muttered, “Good night, Lynn.” Then he strode around her and right on out the front door.

She gave him ten minutes. Then she went after him.

T
wenty-six minutes later, she was knocking at his door.

It took him about three more minutes to answer. She forgave him for that. After all, it was a big house.

“What in hell are you doing here?” he growled when he finally opened the door.

“Lovely to see you, too.” And it was, actually. He had switched his boots for moccasins and traded his fine sweater and slacks for a pair of faded jeans and a gray sweatshirt. “You look comfortable.”

“I was getting there.”

“Past tense. You mean, the sight of me has made you
un
comfortable?”

“What do you want, Lynn?”

“I believe we've been through all that. May I come in?”

He didn't budge.

Maybe he needed to hear a few cold, hard facts. She decided to provide them.

“Ross. There is a child I love out there somewhere in this cold winter night. She could be hurt. She could be—God forgive me for saying it—she could be dead. If she's alive, I know she is terrified. Every time I think of her, I want to scream. I want to tear out my hair. And I want to do what you did when you found out your wife was cheating on you. That is to say, I want to throw up.”

He was glowering at her. Lynn didn't let that stop her. “In addition to that lost child, there is a woman alone, without that child,
her
child. And without her husband. With only a sheriff's deputy and a telephone—a telephone that most likely is not ringing—to keep her company tonight.”

A gust of icy wind blew across the wide front deck. Lynn shivered, pulled her coat closer around her. “I told you I was fine. Well, compared to that child and that woman, I am. And I have been thinking. Sara is alone, except for the cold-blooded monsters who took her. And Danielle is alone—because, she said, she's used to being that way. But I don't want to be alone, Ross. I want to be with you.”

Lord, it did look as if, just maybe, she had gotten through to him. He wasn't scowling anymore.

He asked, very quietly, “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I am. Now, would you please let me in? It's cold out here.”

He moved aside. She went straight to the coat closet and hung up her coat. She dropped her purse on the floor. Then she shut the closet door.

He was leaning against the stair rail, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching her.

First things first, she thought. “Did you eat anything?”

“Since when?”

“Oh, let's see. In the past six hours or so?”

“No.”

“Then let's go into the kitchen and see what we can find.”

Twenty minutes later, she slid a mushroom omelet, a big glass of milk and a stack of toast onto the table. She pulled out the nearest chair. “Sit down, please, and eat.”

He grunted in annoyance, but he did sit down. Then he looked up at her skeptically. “What about you?”

“I had a sandwich at Jessica's. I'm fine.” She slid in across from him. “Eat.”

He picked up his fork and dug in.

She leaned her elbows on the table and watched him. “You
were
hungry.”

“Is that an accusation?”

“Not at all.”

She watched him some more. He took a bite, swallowed some milk, then set the glass down. “All right. Whatever's going on in that mind of yours, tell me.”

She confessed, “I do want to talk to you….”

“About what?”

About you and me, she thought. About how I love you—and my baby sister says that you love me.

But they would get to that. Right now, there was something else, something she really had to share with someone. And who better than the man she loved? “I've been thinking.”

He shoveled in another bite of egg, made a questioning sound.

“I never told you this. It just felt too embarrassing, because of our circumstances. But remember that morning, the morning after our…one night together?”

Good thing she wasn't standing; the look that he sent her would have buckled her knees. “I remember.”

“I told you that Winona Cobbs picked me up.”

“So?”

“Well, when she drove up and found me, at the end of your drive out there, she had…a vision, I guess you could call it.”

He raised a dark brow. “A vision.” The flat way he said that told her exactly what he thought of such things.

“Hear me out. Please.”

He studied her for a moment, then shrugged. “Go ahead.”

“They do say that Winona has the sight. She's predicted more than one disaster around these parts—and she's also seen what would happen, how things would work out in the end. Sometimes they even consult her, at the sheriff's office, when—”

“I get the point. Get back to that morning.”

“Yes. All right. She took my red shoe and she—”

“Wait a minute. Your
shoe?
”

“Yes. I was carrying it, since I couldn't find the other one. And she reached out the window of her pickup and took it. She…held it to her chest and she started rocking in her seat, making this humming sound. And then she kind of…chanted. She chanted strange things.”

He demanded, “What things?”

The clock on the mantel chimed. One stroke. Seven-thirty. Lynn closed her eyes, trying to call it all up, the chilly October morning, herself, her feet cut and aching. And Winona, rocking. Chanting…

“She said, ‘What is lost shall be found, in a scattering of dust.”' Lynn opened her eyes, looked at Ross expectantly.

He didn't seem terribly impressed. “And just what should I make of that?”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “My red shoe, that's what.”

“Lynn…”

“No. I mean it. Think about it. My shoe was lost—and then found, ‘in a scattering of dust.' Get it? Your new housekeeper. Dusting.”

His lips flattened out—but at least he restrained himself from rolling his eyes. “What else did Winona say during this
vision
of hers?”

“She said…‘a ring and a lie'—that the lie would bring truth. She said something about ‘them' taking the wrong twin. And that love would return, in…a dark night of fear and misery. She said, ‘The teacher teaches, the prince must learn,' and—”

“Oh, come on. She said that, about the ring? About a teacher, and a prince?”

“I swear to you. She said it.”

“I don't believe—”

“I know you don't.” She didn't let her gaze waver. “And that's the problem—
our
problem, anyway. Isn't it? That you don't believe. That you'll let what went wrong in the past keep you from hoping…from
loving,
right now?”

The look he gave her then made her want to leap from her chair and throw herself into his arms.

She stayed where she was. He pushed his plate away. “Go on. Tell me the rest.”

“All right. There was…something about silence. That there would be silence, a
horrible
silence, when the ‘lost one' came back….”

He stared at her, his jaw set—and his eyes full of doubts.

She wanted to reach out and shake him. “Oh, Ross. Don't you see? The way Jenny and Sara are. Like sisters. Like…twins. And Winona said they would take the ‘wrong' twin. Could that mean they were supposed to take Jenny, somehow, do you think? And Winona did say
when
—when the lost one came back. That means Sara will be returned to us, don't you think?”

“I don't know
what
to think. What else did she say?”

“Only one more thing. That…love was magic. That I should believe in it and it wouldn't let me down.”

He waited, as if he expected her to say something more. When she didn't, he prompted, “That's all?”

“Yes,” she replied, irritation making the word curt. “And I think it's plenty.” She stood. “I should have thought about this,
really
thought about it, earlier. I should have realized—”

“What? What's to realize?”

She experienced the urge to shake him again. “How can you say that, after what I just told you?”

“Lynn, listen. Yes, it does make a strange kind of sense. But are there any real
clues
there, anything solid that would help us find Sara? I'm sorry, but I
don't think so. What you have are predictions, that's all. They don't
lead
anywhere.”

“But—”

“Look. Do you want to call Sterling?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Then the phone's over there, and the phone book's in the top drawer, under the bar.”

Lynn got the number and called the McCallums' house as Ross cleared off his place and put his dishes in the dishwasher.

When she hung up, he was waiting, standing on the other side of the table from her. “Well?”

She wrapped her arms around her middle and slumped against the wall. “Sterling said he'd get one of the deputies to track down Winona right away. He said that at this point, anything was worth a shot.”

His dark eyes were soft right then. “You don't look too happy.”

“Sterling reacted the same way you did. He said that he couldn't see anything really solid there, that it was all pretty vague.” She put both hands against her mouth, then dropped them to her sides. “Oh, Ross. I just can't stop thinking of her…of Sara…out there in the dark somewhere, with those two awful men….”

“Hey.” In five long strides he was around the table and at her side.

“I just…I keep thinking, you know? Keep thinking, What if? What if I'd walked the girls to the multipurpose room myself? Or what if they'd gone five minutes earlier? Or five minutes later? What if—”

He put a finger to her lips and spoke so tenderly. “What ifs won't help. Take my word for it. I know.”

She captured his hand, held it tightly—to her heart.

And he said, “I've been through all the what ifs myself. Over Elana. What if I hadn't said all those ugly things, what if I'd tried to understand, what if I'd opened my damn eyes earlier, back when we were first starting out? What if I'd let myself see that she loved me and needed me and didn't know how to get through to me? What if. What if? It goes around and around. And it also goes nowhere.”

She swallowed. “You have to…let it go.”

“I know. And so do you.”

“But I want to
help.
I want to
do
something.”

“You've done everything you can.”

“It's not enough. There has to be more.”

“Lynn. Listen. You've done a number of things I would have called impossible. You've made peace with that exasperating family of yours. You've found your sister a job that it appears she's actually going to be good at. You've made a man like me start thinking that maybe there's some kind of hope for him, after all.”

“I…I have?”

“You have. But with this. With Sara's disappearance. There is no more you can do. You're going to have to put a little faith in Rafe and Sterling and the deputies.”

“But I—”

He shook his head. “No more buts.”

She stared at him, knowing he was right, and still wishing with all of her heart that he wasn't—at least not about Sara.

And then she couldn't stand it anymore. She let her body sway toward him.

Those strong arms went around her. She sighed,
rested against him. He stroked her hair, cradled her head in the crook of his shoulder. She thought, yes…oh, yes. This is where I was meant to be. Here. In this man's arms.

She looked up at him.

“Better?” he asked.

“A little.”

He traced her brows with a finger, then guided a stray curl off her cheek. “You've done what you could.”

“It's not much.”

“We'll call. In the morning. See what they found out.”

We,
she thought.
We'll call.
That did sound good.

He was smiling. Lord, how she loved that smile of his. “Okay. You've fed me. You've called Sterling and told him all about Winona's predictions. Now what?”

The clock on the mantel chimed the hour then. “Eight o'clock,” she whispered. His lips were so close. She brushed a kiss across them.

His arms tightened around her. He asked again, very low this time, “Now what?”

And she said, “Now, Mr. Garrison, I take you to bed.”