by Liz Isaacson
The truth was as far from that as it could get.
“Just puttering around the garden today.”
“Oh, you have a garden?”
“Yes.” Her mother sighed. “In this new place I’m in, it’s mostly xeriscaping. I don’t miss the lawn, that’s for sure. The previous owner had a lot of rose bushes and succulents. I’m just trying to keep everything alive.”
Sophia heard the tone of her mother’s voice, but the words had jumbled together after “In this new place I’m in.”
“You moved?” Sophia asked.
“Yes,” her mom said. “Let’s see, probably six or seven months ago now.” That was it. No other explanation needed.
Sophia definitely needed one. Anger started to build in her chest, and she couldn’t explain it.
“What are you up to?” her mom asked as if they could catch up on the last three or four years in a few sentences.
Patsy touched her forearm, and Sophia turned toward her. Patsy mimed taking in a deep breath and blowing it out, and Sophia copied her.
“I’m still working at Whiskey Mountain Lodge,” she said, getting to her feet. Nervous energy ran through her, and she couldn’t sit still. “And I’m nannying this summer for a professional bull rider. Well, he’s retired now, but he was a pro bull rider. He’s got three little boys, and I take care of them during the day.”
Her voice grew stronger as she paced away from Patsy and toward the front windows. “I like the nannying more than I thought I would. It’s pretty fun.”
“That’s wonderful, dear.”
“Yeah,” Sophia said. “I guess I just wanted to hear your voice.” Emotion clogged her throat, and she pressed her eyes closed as she reached the window. She hadn’t realized how much she missed her mother until that very moment.
She did need to slow down and breathe through the anger. She hardly knew her mom as an adult at all, and she couldn’t judge her until she did.
“I’m seeing someone, Mom,” she said, almost whispering to her faint reflection in the glass. She could see how wide her eyes were, though the color didn’t come through. She’d once thought everything about her to be so plain, but Ames made her feel vibrant and colorful. He made her feel alive.
“What’s his name?” her mom asked.
“Ames Hammond,” Sophia said. “It’s getting serious, and I…I guess I just wanted you to know.”
A lengthy pause followed, and finally, her mother said, “I do want to know, Sophie. Thank you for telling me.”
Sophia nearly broke down at the childhood nickname her mother had used. She’d been called Sophie so much, she’d wondered why her parents had named her Sophia instead.
She nodded, though that gesture didn’t get communicated through phone lines. “Are you seeing anyone?” she asked.
“I’m still with Gabe,” her mom said. “Same man as the last time we talked.”
“We shouldn’t let so much time go between this time and next time,” Sophia said, using just one ounce of bravery. “I miss you, Mom.”
“I miss you too, dear,” she said. “And you’re right. We should definitely not let so much time go by between this call and our next one.”
“What else is the same in your life?” Sophia asked, glad when her mother gave her more than single-word answers. In fact, the conversation lasted almost thirty minutes before Sophia saw Cy and Ames pull up to the house on their motorcycles.
“Mom,” she said. “I have to go, okay? Ames is here, and I want to tell him all about you.”
“Oh, don’t do that,” her mom said with a light laugh. “I’m not very exciting.”
“It was good talking to you, Mom.”
“You too, Sophie. I love you, baby.” Her Southern roots came out in those four words, and Sophia pressed her eyes closed as tears burned in them.
“I love you too, Mom,” she managed to say through her very narrow throat. The call ended just as the back door opened and Cy and Ames entered the house.
“…is all I’m saying,” Ames said.
“I know precisely what you’re saying,” Cy argued back. “And I’m telling you that it won’t work.”
“What won’t work?” Patsy asked behind her, and Sophia turned around to observe the three of them in the kitchen. Cy started to explain about a motorcycle they were building at the shop, but Sophia didn’t really hear him.
Ames had seen her, and he was coming her way, a playful smile on his mouth. “What are you doing here?” He drew her into a hug, and Sophia should’ve giggled and clung to him in the same teasing way he’d spoken to her.
Instead, she clung to him like she needed him to survive, like he was the only thing preventing her from drowning. He realized instantly that something was wrong, and his grip along her waist tightened. “Sophia?” he asked quietly.
“I called my mom,” she whispered, finally letting her first tears fall.
Ames said nothing, and Sophia was glad. She didn’t need him to say anything. She just needed him to hold her, and he was very, very good at that.
“Ames, will you grab Harrison, please? Come on, Warren, we don’t want to be late for your daddy.”
“Daddy,” Warren said, marching toward the front door. “Daddy, daddy, daddy.”
Sophia tried to get Cole’s second shoe on, but it seemed like his two-year-old foot had swollen two sizes. It probably had, because the child had gotten into the freezer that afternoon and eaten through half a carton of ice cream before Sophia had found him.
He was supposed to be down for a nap, and she’d been on the back deck with Warren, where the four-year-old splashed in a blow-up swimming pool. Instead of getting angry, Sophia had scooped the little boy into her arms and taken him out to the pool too. Sure, he’d made the water a little milky, but she’d been able to clean him up in under twenty seconds flat.
Ames had arrived soon after that, and he’d found the carton of ice cream still melting on the kitchen floor. Better him than Marcy, who’d come out of her office an hour later with a frown permanently etched in her face.
She’d said, “I have to go talk to Wyatt. Will you bring the boys to Crispers at six?”
Sophia had barely had time to say yes before the blonde powerhouse was gone. She knew just from being in the house with Marcy and Wyatt that Marcy wasn’t super happy to be in Coral Canyon. She ran a crop-dusting business, and she spent most of the time while Sophia was there on the phone with someone in Texas or on the computer doing the books.
Wyatt sometimes took one or two boys with him to do whatever he was doing that day, and the man was a giant play-baby. He loved to go mountain biking, canoeing, hiking, four-wheeling, and any number of outdoor things. The problem was, he had a bad back, and after his most physical activities, he was laid up in bed for a day or two, with ice packs up and down his back and the baby balanced on his chest.
Today, he’d gone to a boarding stable to “help out,” and Sophia had kept all three kids with her. She loved having the Walker kids around her, and she liked it even more when Ames showed up in the afternoons to help or hang out with her and the kids.
She got to see him interact with the children, and while he wasn’t as bubbly and friendly as Colton was, and he didn’t charm everyone from age two to eight with his charisma the way Cy did. He did laugh with the kids, and play Go Fish with Warren. He held Cole on his lap and cuddled him close when the boy wouldn’t lay down for a nap, and coming up the steps to the loft to find Ames asleep on the couch there, with Cole snoring softly against his chest had been one of the sweetest things Sophia had ever seen.
She’d snapped a quick picture of the two of them, and while Ames was dark in every way, and Cole the complete opposite, they did love each other. Cole had a bit of a devilish streak in him, and that paired well with Ames’s bad boy attitude.
“Let’s put this on in the car,” Sophia said, picking up Cole and tucking the shoe into her purse. “We’re going to be late.” She hurried into the garage, where she found
Ames bent over into the SUV, buckling Harrison into his car seat. She could hear Warren singing at the top of his lungs, so she didn’t have to wonder where he’d gone.
She went around to the other side, already sweating inside this hot garage. She put Cole in his seat and handed him the shoe. “See if you can get this on while we go down the canyon, okay bud?” She smiled at him and strapped him in, then got behind the wheel.
Ames had left the garage, and she stopped next to him as she backed out. “I’m dropping them off at six,” she said. “Then I have to bring the SUV back here and get my sedan. Do you want to go to dinner? Go back to my cabin? I could come to your place.” She didn’t go to his rental house very often, but she’d been a time or two.
“Flo isn’t feeling well,” he said. “I want to keep her home tonight. My place?”
Sophia nodded and said, “See you in an hour or so.”
“Sounds good.” He backed away from the luxury SUV and lifted his hand in a wave. Sophia listened to the three boys babbling in the back seat, but her thoughts focused on Ames. It had been a couple of weeks since she’d called her mom after lunch with her friends. She’d told him about the conversation, and she’d called her mother two more times since then.
She sighed, because it was easier to do that than burst into tears. She couldn’t deny that it hurt that her mother hadn’t called her. Sophia wondered if she really could be the one to initiate contact for the rest of her life. At some point, she knew she’d feel like she was trying to push a relationship onto her mother that her mom simply didn’t want.
The real problem was, she was completely powerless to change her mother.
She was powerless to make time stop moving forward.
She was powerless in her ability to persuade Ames to stay in Coral Canyon. With every day that passed, she felt one day closer to losing her heart—and she was completely powerless to keep it.
She’d already given it to Ames Hammond, and he got to decide what to do with it.
After she dropped off the boys, hugging Warren and Cole and passing them to their parents, Sophia started back to the Walker’s mountain home. Her phone connected to the vehicle via BlueTooth, and she decided she didn’t have to let Ames have all the power.
She tapped to call him, and his voice came over the speakers a moment later. “What’s up, beautiful?”
“Ames,” she said, her thoughts scattering. She looked straight out the windshield, her bravery building beneath her ribcage.
“Sophia?” he asked.
“I’d like to talk about what your plans are,” she said. She wasn’t going to give him her heart and let him decide what to do with it. She wasn’t. She was going to be honest with him and give him all the facts.
As soon as she could figure out how to get the words out of her mouth.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ames could feel the turmoil in Sophia, and they weren’t even in the same room. His heart beat strangely in his chest, but he gave her the silence and time she needed.
“I want to know your plans, because I’m falling—no, I’ve fallen in love with you—and I need to know if you’re going to…well, I need to know what you’re going to do.”
Ames stood up, his pulse positively pouncing in his chest now. Had he heard her correctly? He pulled the phone from his ear and looked at it. Definitely still connected.
She said something, and he hurried to press the phone to his ear. “…still there?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his voice rusty and croaky. “I’m here.” He cleared his throat and looked around the house he’d been renting for a few months now. It didn’t really feel like home, not the way Gray’s house did, or Cy’s.
He’d already talked to Gray about living in his house once his brother took his family back to Ivory Peaks. That piece was in place.
Ames had put in an offer on a parcel of land on the east side of town, where a lot of the flatter farmland was. A generational farmer had passed away, and the children had divided up the land to sell. He’d bought four of the pieces, which should be more than enough to construct the administration building he’d need to run the police dog academy.
He’d been on the phone with Josiah, the man who helped police departments get their dogs. He was willing to help Ames do the same thing.
All of those things had come together, seemingly falling into place as if God Himself was lining up the steps Ames needed to take to finally put his inheritance to good use.
“Well?” Sophia asked, her voice filled with challenge and desperation.
“Are you on your way here?” he asked, turning toward the kitchen.
“I’m going back to Marcy’s.”
“I have something to show you,” he said. “I’ll get it out and have it ready when you get here.”
“Okay,” she said, but she didn’t hang up. “You heard what I said, right?”
I’ve fallen in love with you.
“Yes,” he said, barely able to push the word out. His lips didn’t move or anything. “I heard you.” He couldn’t get himself to say he loved her back. He wasn’t entirely sure he did, and he would not say those words to a woman until he knew. One hundred percent, for sure, absolutely knew he was in love with her.
“Okay. See you in a minute.” She hung up then, and Ames dropped his phone to the couch and strode into the kitchen. He didn’t have to get anything out, because the foam board was right there, lying on the kitchen table. He gazed down at it, seeing his dream come to life right in front of his eyes.
He could practically taste the dust and smell the sunshine. He could hear the dogs barking, and he could see himself in the kennels with them. Sophia would—Ames cut the thought off at the knees.
Of course he’d dreamt of her at his academy. In his mind, everything worked out so well, and the little boys they took care of together in the afternoons would be theirs, not Marcy and Wyatt Walker’s.
Ames sighed and pressed both palms into the table. He dropped his head and said, “Lord, she is a good woman. I do not want to hurt her.” He looked up at the ceiling, noticing a stain in the corner where the roof had likely leaked at some point. He didn’t care about that, because he wouldn’t be living here much longer.
“Please,” he begged. “Please help her open her mind to the possibility of leaving Coral Canyon.”
He didn’t know what else to pray for. He’d told her precious few details about the police dog academy since their argument a couple of weeks ago. She’d called her mother, and that was a huge step in the right direction for her. At the same time, Ames had noticed that she wasn’t any happier. She called her mother, sure, but her mother didn’t call her.
Ames had eyes, and he could read Sophia exceptionally well. He wondered—not for the first time—if he’d pushed her to do something he shouldn’t have.
He just wanted to be able to make a decision without then having to riddle out if it had been the right one or not.
If she still had to get to Marcy’s before heading his way, he likely had time to call his own mother. He retraced his steps to the couch and picked up his phone, quickly dialing his mom.
“Ames, my son,” she said by way of hello.
Just the sound of her voice made Ames smile. “Hey, Mom.”
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Uh, nothing much.” He reached back and ran his fingers through his hair. “Actually, that was a lie, Mom. Sophia just called and said she loved me, and she wants to know my plans.”
His mom sucked in a breath, and Ames knew enough to hold the phone away from his ear. She squealed just after that, and he’d barely saved his eardrum from certain rupture.
“Ames,” she said. “That’s great news. I’m so excited for you.”
“Don’t be excited, Mom,” he said. “I didn’t say it back, and I don’t know what my plans are.” His voice felt heavy in his own ears.
“Ames Bryce Hammond,” she said, and he realized calling his mother had been a mis
take. “How much longer are you going to fight against God?”
“What?” he asked, glancing over as Cocoa jumped up onto the couch beside him. Florence hadn’t moved from her dog bed in the kitchen, and that was unusual. Ames’s worry for her was only overshadowed by the sting in his mother’s question.
“You’ve had your answer for months, son,” she said sternly. “You knew the moment you picked up those dogs.”
“I’ve been working on the academy,” he said, frowning. “It takes longer than you think to buy land. The guy hasn’t even accepted my offer yet.”
“Not that,” she said.
“Then what?” he demanded, his defenses already up.
“You know you’re supposed to be in Coral Canyon.” She sighed, and Ames wanted to as well. Everything inside him was laced too tight though, and he couldn’t. “I don’t like it any more than you do, son, but it’s the truth. Your dad and I will be fine here. Gray and Elise are here, and we actually like Matt Whettstein. He does a wonderful job with the farm, and his kids are polite and kind. They even made Grams a birthday cake, even though it’s not her birthday.”
“I wanted to talk to you about that too,” he said. “I’ve been working on the plan for the big celebration. I haven’t talked to the other brothers yet, but—”
“There’s not going to be a celebration,” his mom said.
Once again, Ames was left with only one reply: “What?”
“Grams hasn’t been feeling well,” Mom said. “Daddy and I—well, we think she’s probably not going to last much longer.”
Ames blinked, trying to make sense of the words. “We should all come home then,” he said, already making a plan to do just that. “I want to say goodbye.”
“You do what you think is right,” Mom said. “I should let the others know.”
“You definitely should,” he said. “Colton will be upset if you don’t. Wes too. Cy. Gray. We all love Grams, Mom.”