The Ranch She Left Behind (32 page)

“To stay out of each other’s arms?”

“Yes. We had a plan, and we couldn’t quite stick to it. We had a moment of weakness. That doesn’t mean we failed. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s true. You haven’t failed until you quit trying. And, with Ellen, you’ll never quit trying.” She smiled. “I don’t want to quit trying, either. I’m really making progress with my list. Did you notice I went straight for the hardest one?”

Of course he’d noticed. He even understood why. She’d needed a challenge, a victory, so that the defeat they’d suffered didn’t break her.

Which made this whole disaster his fault.

Somehow, he rallied a smile of his own. “Absolutely. The rafting counts, even if it ends with a hospital stay. So that makes eight out of twelve, right?”

She lifted one shoulder, then winced again. “It’s not quite that simple. I took your suggestion, and I made some adjustments. You maybe noticed that I didn’t ever get that tattoo.”

He let his gaze drop to her hip, where she’d planned to put the tiny bluebird. The bluebird of happiness.

“Yes,” he said. “I noticed everything.”

Someone knocked on the door.

“One minute,” Penny called out, her voice thin. But Max knew their time alone was almost over.

“I’ll never forget a single thing about those hours,” he said with a sudden urgency, as if he might never see her again. “I don’t know how, exactly, but you set me free that night. I haven’t had any more dreams about Mexico. And somehow I don’t think I ever will.”

“That would make me happy,” she said. Her eyes welled with tears. “I would like to believe that, when we look back on all this—”

The door swung open. Max turned, feeling as if he might growl right back at Rowena this time, but it wasn’t either of Penny’s sisters. It was a nurse, rolling a silver stand from which a bag of clear liquid hung, refracting the light from the overhead fixture.

“Sorry, but we’re going to need privacy,” the nurse said. He was young and chipper and clearly unaware of the tension swirling around the room on perfumed waves of roses and lilies and sweet peas.

Grudgingly, Max let go of Penny’s hand.

Her tears had begun to slide down her cheeks. “Friends?” she asked.

“Friends,” he said, and as he heard the syllable echo through the sterile room, he wasn’t sure that the entire English language possessed a more melancholy word.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“
W
HAT
DO
YOU
mean, you don’t know how to get to Montrose?” Ellen sat on the back porch, which had been painted gold by the setting sun, and glared at Alec. “I thought you knew how to do anything.”

“Well, I don’t know how to get to Montrose. So just forget about it. It’s too far.”

Alec was in almost as bad a mood as Ellen, but she understood that. Penny was like his aunt, a real member of his family. For Ellen, Penny was just a friend—and not even an old friend. Most people wouldn’t understand why she was so upset right now. Even Ellen herself didn’t fully understand it.

All she knew was that if anything happened to Penny she wouldn’t be able to stand it.

“It sucks not to know what’s going on,” Alec said. “But they’ll let us know when they’re sure she’s okay.” He patted his pocket, frowned, then stood and patted his jeans pockets, too. “Oh, crudbucket! I don’t have my phone.”

Ellen almost fell off the deck. “You don’t have your
phone?
All these hours you’ve been here, and you don’t have your
phone?
She could be dead by now, and we wouldn’t even know it!”

He huffed, clearly offended. “Well, you were so panicky when you called. You acted like it was the end of the world if I didn’t get here ASAP. So I did. Give me your phone. I’ll call Dad and ask.”

But, to her horror, Ellen had begun to cry. She had been strung so tightly for about three hours now, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She had to see Penny. She had to see her dad. She had to tell them how sorry she was.

“Ellen, don’t do that!” Alec’s eyes were big. He looked as if he might run away if she didn’t stop crying, but she just couldn’t.

She plopped down on the deck and put her head in her hands. She still had paint all over them, and her clothes, too, from the little fit she’d thrown when her dad left for Montrose.

Why hadn’t she been able to tell him the truth? Why hadn’t she been able to say how awful she felt? She should have begged him to take her with him. If Penny died before she could apologize…

“If she dies
at all
I’ll die, too!” Ellen wailed, and it was as if she was crying for Penny and her mother, and for the way she’d been mean to her dad, all at the same time. And she was crying for herself, too, because she was so stupid that no one would ever love her again.

Penny maybe could have loved her, someday. She liked her a lot, or she had, before Ellen acted so awful. But now Penny was going to die, just like her mother….

“Noooo! She
can’t
die!”

“I’m going to go get Mrs. B.” Alec stood, but he hovered nervously next to Ellen. Getting Mrs. B was a major step, and he clearly didn’t want to take it. “Come on, stop crying. I’ve got some Tootsie Rolls.”

She didn’t let up a bit.

“Come on, Ellen. You’re scaring me.”

“I don’t
care!
” She glared at him, even though he looked like someone she saw from under water. “You said you could sneak away to anywhere.
Anywhere!
But you were just talking big. Just like about the earrings.”

“Hey.” Alec stiffened huffily, halfway through unwrapping a candy. “We had a deal. You weren’t going to mention the earrings anymore.”

“I don’t
care
about the earrings!” God, why were boys so dense? “Can’t you see that if Penny dies, she’ll die thinking I hated her?”

“Well, you
were
pretty nasty.” Alec shrugged his shoulders. “That’s how it works if you say mean things. You always regret it. My dad says, treat everybody like it might be the last time you ever see them.”

“I
hate
you,” she said, because she knew he was right.

Alec stepped back, widening his eyes and holding up his hands in a way that was all kinds of sarcastic. “There? See what I mean? What if I fell off the deck right now and broke my neck?”

She looked at him, sniffing like crazy because she didn’t have a tissue. She hadn’t cried this hard ever before, even when her mother died.

“How can you be so calm? Don’t you even care whether she dies or not?”

“Of course I’d care, if she were going to die. But she isn’t.”

Ellen sniffed again. “How do you know that?”

“Dunno. I just do. Maybe because my dad didn’t seem scared enough when he left.”

Ellen made an angry sound and stood up. “That’s not a real reason.”

“Yeah?” Alec popped his candy into his mouth. “Just wait and see, then.”

Ellen put her forehead against the back wall of the kitchen and just kept crying. She wasn’t wailing anymore, but this felt worse. Wailing was like a call out to somebody, like your parents, to come and help you, to come and make things right.

This was the kind of crying you did when there was no one to call. When no one could fix the mess you’d made.

Suddenly the kitchen door opened. She jerked up, not wanting Mrs. Biggars to see her. She couldn’t bring herself to explain any of this to Mrs. B.

But it was her dad. He stood in the doorway, looking from her to Alec. Ellen dug her fists against her heart, because it was beating so fast. She hadn’t noticed that the shadows were taking over the porch. She couldn’t really see his face all that well.

Why didn’t he say something? That couldn’t be a good sign. Even Alec looked worried, watching Ellen’s dad.

Then Ellen remembered what she’d acted like when her dad left. No wonder he wasn’t saying anything. He probably didn’t know who he was looking at—his nasty, selfish daughter, or Ellen.

“Daddy,” she said, and the minute the word was out of her mouth she began to cry again. “Daddy, I’m sorry!”

She hesitated, wondering if it was too late to be forgiven. But her father sank to his knees and held out his arms. She ran into them without even worrying what Alec would think.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. And then again. Over and over, into his shirt. She felt as if she could say it a hundred times, and it still wouldn’t be enough. She’d done so many mean things over the past year.

He held on to her, his hands patting her hair, the way he used to do when she was a little girl. He was silent, and amazingly, so was Alec. Had he run away?

But she didn’t turn around to see. She felt melded to her father’s chest. She’d forgotten how strong and solid he was and how safe she felt with his arms around her.

Dad let her go on until her throat was sore from trying to cry and trying to talk at the same time. Then he nudged her an inch or two away, so that he could look into her face.

His face was so gentle-looking. She thought about Penny’s father, throwing her canary against the wall, and wondered how she could ever have taken her nice father for granted. She’d been very angry at him, but she’d never been afraid of him a single day in her life. Not even the day she almost got arrested.

He smiled, using his thumbs to brush away her tears.

“Penny is going to be fine,” he said, as if he had known all along why she was really crying. “She got pretty bunged up. Her arm is broken, and she’s got stitches everywhere. But she’s going to be just fine.”

Alec, who apparently had not sneaked away, made a crowing sound. “Told you,” he said. But he sounded relieved.

She gave him a dirty look that was really not mad or anything, then turned back to her dad. “Are you completely sure?”

“Completely. I talked to her, and I talked to her family. I even talked to her doctor. She’s going to stay in the hospital overnight, and then she’s going to stay with her family at Bell River for a while, just till she’s all healed up.”

A heavy rock seemed to sink through Ellen’s chest. “She’s not coming back here?”

Dad looked sad, too, as if he knew about the rock. “Not for a while.”

“Then how am I going to tell her I’m sorry? How am I going to tell her that I don’t hate her?”

Dad put his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t you?”

She shook her head, then bowed it. She felt horribly ashamed, and for the first time she understood the expression “hanging your head.” She didn’t really like to look into Dad’s sad eyes right now.

“No,” she said. Finally, she looked up. “I love her. You love her, too, don’t you?”

He stood, though he kept his hands on her shoulders. He looked at Alec, and then he flicked a quick glance toward Penny’s side of the house, which was dark, like a tomb. Ellen shivered, thinking about that expression, and being so glad it wasn’t an expression she would ever have to really use.

“Yes,” he said, finally, looking back at Ellen. “I love her, too.”

“Aw, man.” Alec looked at Ellen. “You really made a big cowboy hash out of this one, didn’t you? I mean, I screwed things up when I tried to set my dad up with my math teacher, but at least I didn’t chase Rowena away.”

“Shut up,” she said. Then she remembered she was going to try to be nicer to everyone—to treat people as if this might be the last time she ever saw them. Even Alec. “I mean, please don’t say things that just make me feel worse. Help me try to fix it.”

Alec unwrapped another candy and straddled the railing as if it were a horse. “Well, I guess you could ride over there with your dad, and you could tell her you’re sorry you were such a nasty little frog dropping.”

Her father made a strange noise, and Ellen put her hands on her hips. “Alec!’

He swallowed his candy and wrinkled his nose. “Sorry. That’s what the cowboys say. Dad says I have to be careful, imitating them, because although they’re quite colorful they are sometimes inappropriate.”

He took on a very precise, lecturing adult tone when he repeated his father’s words. “But Rowena says if the shoe fits….”

“Could we, Dad?” Ellen’s heart sped up. “Could we go and let me tell her I’m sorry? I could tell her that I don’t hate her, that I really love her. You could tell her, too.”

A pair of lights pierced the navy blue evening, and Ellen held her breath. Even though she knew Penny wasn’t coming home tonight, seeing a car come up the driveway made her hope.

“I’m leaving, Mr. Thorpe!”

Her heart fell. It was just Mrs. B’s ride. Her father called back something polite, and then they stood silently for a minute, watching the headlights back up and pull away again.

“I can’t do that,” her dad said, as if they were continuing their conversation without any interruption. “I’m very glad you care about her, and I’m glad that you don’t mind that I care about her, too. But just because it’s okay with us doesn’t mean it’s okay with her.”

A huge void seemed to open up before Ellen’s feet. “Do you mean she doesn’t love you?”

“I don’t know whether she does or not. I couldn’t ask her. I wasn’t free to, when I thought it would make you very unhappy. What you need always comes first, and she understands that.”

The earth steadied a bit beneath Ellen’s feet. “I bet she does,” she said. “I’m sure she does.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Alec said. “Sometimes ladies only like movie stars, like Brad Pitt.”

“That’s stupid.” Ellen felt as if Alec had insulted her dad. “Why shouldn’t Penny love my dad? He’s just as handsome as your dad, and Rowena fell in love with him, right?”

“Hey.” Her dad looked as if he were caught halfway between wanting to laugh, and wanting to sit down and be really, really sad. “First of all, it’s not always about how pretty or handsome a person is. But also, there’s an even bigger reason I can’t talk to Penny about love right now.”

“What reason?”

He took a deep breath, the kind he always started with when he thought he had to explain something that was too grown-up for her to understand. “In a way, she’s asked me not to. She wants to have some time being on her own. She wants to learn to live alone, and to find out who she really is and what she wants out of life.” He smiled, that same sad smile. “She even has a list—”