by Julia London
“See? It’s low,” she heard herself say. “I knew it would be low. Don’t ask me how I know these things—it’s a gift.” She risked a look at him.
Whatever she thought she’d seen was gone from his eyes, just like the other times she’d felt that crazy electricity between them. Okay, so she’d imagined it, good to know. Because Rafe would never look at her like . . . that.
The bigger question rattling around her heart was if maybe she’d wanted him to look at her like that.
Oh Lord, get a grip, Hallie. Talk about rebound.
Her thoughts suddenly annoyed her. She nudged Brutus with her knees. “Let’s go!” she said gaily, and sent him splashing into the shallow river.
Rafe followed, and they rode on to the spring.
When they could just make out the roof of the little house that belonged to Luca’s fiancée, Ella Kendall, in the distance, Rafe pulled up. “Let’s walk from here,” he said. “We can go up on the cliff, remember?”
There was a point above the natural springs that was a bit of a cliff. When they were kids, it was about six feet above the water—a great jumping-off place. But then the springs had gotten clogged with sediment and runoff, and the water had dropped, and it had become a dangerous jump.
Luca was going to bring the springs back to life.
Rafe easily dismounted and then helped Hallie down by grabbing her by the waist as she braced her hands against his shoulder. The moment her feet hit the ground, he dropped his hands and turned away. “The path is muddy,” he said as he tethered the horses to the low branches of a cedar tree. “Watch your step.”
He led the way through the thicket and up the path through cedars that choked out any other vegetation, grabbing her elbow once to help her over a particularly tough spot.
The emerged onto the cliff overhang, a limestone shelf that was big enough for maybe three people to sit.
Hallie used to stand on the edge of the cliff, but today, she was unnerved by the drop she’d once thought nothing of. She sat. Rafe sat beside her in companionable silence, scanning the area around the spring. Luca had begun clearing the land. He said the first step to restoring the ecology was to remove the invasive species from his dedicated acreage. Hallie didn’t know what all that entailed—Luca had definitely explained it at some length, but her eyes tended to glaze over when he talked in such detail—but nevertheless, just by his clearing out what he had so far, she could tell this old spring and the land around it would be beautiful when he finished. A pristine piece of land that looked nearly as it had when God created it—grasslands and native trees and a healthy spring.
But no chickens.
“Where are the chickens?” Hallie asked, craning her neck. She was actually disappointed—she’d never seen a prairie chicken. “Do you think maybe the coyotes got them?”
“Maybe,” Rafe said. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“No,” Hallie admitted. “I’m not sure about anything.”
Rafe glanced at her. “You don’t think Luca was pulling your leg, do you?”
Hallie considered that a moment. “I would say that under any other circumstance that would be a distinct possibility. But he was so damn excited about the chickens.”
Rafe laughed. “The man’s got a vision, all right.”
“He does.” Hallie sighed. “My talented twin.”
Rafe leaned back, stretched his legs long, and propped himself on an elbow. “He’s got a big heart, too.”
That remark made Hallie think of Chris. A heart surgeon. She’d always been a little intimidated by that. Christopher saved lives and she . . . well, she was a failed ballerina with nothing going for her but some serious social connections.
“Have you ever known someone with a talent so far beyond you that it makes you feel inadequate?” she asked.
Rafe gave her a sidelong look. “I think we’re not talking about Luca anymore, are we?”
Hallie flushed at her transparency. “How do you do that?”
“I just know you, Hal, and I know that you’ve always been pretty determined to be on equal footing with Luca, so that’s how I do that.”
“Do you blame me? Grandma has always treated Luca like a king.”
Rafe laughed. “And your dad treated you like a princess, so I’m guessing in the grand scheme of things, you two are even.”
Hallie couldn’t help her smile. “So true. It used to make Nick and Luca so mad. ‘How come she gets to do whatever?’” she said, mimicking her brothers.
“So who are you comparing yourself to?”
She sighed, annoyed that she’d brought it up. “My ex-fiancé. He’s a heart surgeon. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. And?”
“And . . . ?” Hallie made a whirring motion with her wrist to indicate he needed to come along on the thought path. “He’s a heart surgeon.”
Rafe shrugged. “Okay, so he learned some complicated stuff. You could have, too, if you could stand the sight of guts.”
“I can’t.”
“Exactly. But is that his true talent? Learning about hearts?”
“That’s more talent than I’ll ever possess,” Hallie said. “I never said this to anyone, but honestly, I never knew what he saw in me. I mean, you’d think he’d want someone more like . . . him,” she said.
“An ass?”
Hallie laughed. Rafe winked at her and she got that warm, glittery feeling she sometimes experienced around him. He always had her back.
“I meant smart and accomplished.”
“Okay,” Rafe said. “We’re not doing that today. You’re smart and accomplished, too. Give yourself a break, Hallie.”
“You know what I mean,” she said, and drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “I have average intelligence, and I’m not particularly accomplished at anything other than being privileged. I haven’t done anything. Nothing! I’ve flitted from one charity event to the other, either giving away our foundation money or asking for money for a cause.” She shivered. She didn’t know if it was because it was getting colder or if the truth about herself made her feel weak.
“Not true. You were a camp counselor.”
She and Rafe were both camp counselors one year when they were teens, and they’d had a blast with the boy-versus-girl competitions. The kids liked it—but she and Rafe were obsessed with beating each other.
Rafe sat up, shrugged out of his flannel shirt, and draped it around her shoulders without a word. She likewise accepted it without a word and pulled it tightly around her. It was so typical of their friendship—he was the all-around good guy, always looking out for her. Not as exciting as his brother, Rico, maybe, who was always looking for a good time. But solid and dependable. An Army Ranger. A real mensch, as her dad would have said.
His shirt smelled like him. A faint hint of orange and nutmeg. Spicy. Male.
“Do you remember what I said when I called to tell you I was engaged?” she asked.
“Ah . . .” Rafe squinted into the distance, as if trying to recall. “I think you said you’d found someone who was too good for you.”
“Exactly,” she said. “I knew from the beginning that it was improbable.”
“My God, you’re hard on yourself,” Rafe said. “Are you the same woman who told me you were going to mop up San Antonio with my face when I suggested you couldn’t sing?”
Hallie arched a brow. “When did I say that?”
“You were sixteen or seventeen. You were at the pool with your friends. Remember? Someone had a karaoke machine, and you asked me what I thought of your performance of a Maroon 5 song. I told you to stick to dancing.”
Hallie tilted her head back and laughed heartily. “I had forgotten about that! You were obviously deaf to my talent—no one rocks Maroon 5 better than me or Adam Levine.”
“No one destroys Maroon 5 quite like you.”
Hallie could remember the sticky summer night. Rafe had come in from working cattle with the other cowboys. She and Lindsey and Kara watched them riding across a field toward the stables. They were wearing their skimpy bikinis, eating the hot dogs her dad had made them, and when they weren’t performing with the family’s latest gadget—the karaoke machine—they were talking about boys.
Rafe’s brother, Rico, was there, too, now that she thought about it, and when he and Rafe came up from the stables, Rico was all smiles and winks, sneaking sips of beer from behind the barbecue pit. Back then, Hallie didn’t know he had a problem with alcohol—he was like all the teenage boys they knew. But looking back on it, she could see the signs. He was always one of the ones who drank a lot.
But they were all so brazen then, so full of themselves. Such teenagers.
She thought she’d been pretty darn good at singing. She started humming the Maroon 5 tune.
“Don’t,” Rafe warned her.
“Beauty queen of only eighteen, she had some trouble with herself,” she warbled, horribly off-key. But it wasn’t her fault—she didn’t have a karaoke machine out here to help her. “That’s the song ‘She Will Be Loved,’” she informed Rafe.
“I know. And you’re butchering it.”
“He was always there to help her, she always belonged to someone else,” she sang, even louder.
Rafe suddenly swung around and tackled her, pressing his hand lightly against her mouth. “Make it stop,” he said, grinning down at her. Hallie shrieked with laughter. And it happened again—a moment so brief, yet so pyrotechnic, sizzling in her groin. Rafe’s gaze was intense and full of heat.
He abruptly moved his hand and sat up. Hallie did, too, feeling a little light-headed. What was that? What had just happened? That had felt so . . . sexual.
“So anyway,” she said, and gave her head a shake, trying to rid herself of the insane idea that there was an honest spark between them. “Talent. I don’t know if I ever really told you that I flunked out of ballet school,” she blurted. Her admission startled her. She never talked about her experience at the School of American Ballet in New York to anyone—even after twelve years, her humiliation still burned. But it had been so long ago, it hardly seemed worth mentioning. This was the one thing she’d never really told him.
“Flunked out,” he repeated. “How do you flunk out of ballet school?”
Excellent question, sir. “You flunk out if you’re not good enough. They gave me chances because of who my dad was. Chances they never would have given anyone else, trust me.” She shook her head, recalling with vivid clarity when she’d not been invited back after the winter session at the School of American Ballet. The school fed its best dancers into the New York City Ballet, and Hallie had dreamed all her life of being a ballerina with a prestigious company like that.
When she found out she was not invited back, she’d tracked down the director, certain there had been some mistake. But the director very carefully told Hallie that she didn’t have what it took.
“What do you mean?” Hallie had demanded. “I have never missed a class. I practice after hours. I’m so dedicated—”
“Unfortunately, Miss Prince, dedication is not a substitute for raw talent,” the director had said. “I know you’re disappointed, but I need to be honest with you—you simply do not exhibit the level of talent that we can nurture. Perhaps a ballet in your hometown?” she’d suggested.
The worst part of it, Hallie would later discover, was that her parents already knew. The director had taken pains to explain it to the school’s generous benefactor before anyone bothered to explain it to Hallie.
“I’m sorry, Hal,” Rafe said. “I know that’s what you always wanted.”
“It was. It took a long time to face the truth, that I didn’t have the talent to be a prima ballerina, and all the training in the world wasn’t going to miraculously give me that talent either. The best I could ever hope for was the corps. Turns out, I’m a pretty good journeyman.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” he said. “But, Hallie, do you have any idea how much courage it takes for a person to face up to the idea that certain things they believed about themselves may not be true? Most people can’t face it, let alone admit it. And so many people, if they can face the truth, try and numb their feelings. You didn’t do that. You faced it head-on. That’s courage. That’s a big deal.”
“But did I face it? I came home and quit ballet. After high school, I went to college to the dance program there, but I never got the good roles. I quit that, too.” She gave him a crooked, sheepish smile. “And it’s not like I didn’t cry buckets for two years. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the truth about my talent. Maybe choreography, maybe teaching, an instructor told me, and she seemed iffy about that. No, I never really faced it, Rafe. I just quit. I quit, and then I bounced around.” Hallie sighed. She fixed her gaze on his caramel-colored eyes. “Here I go again, dumping all my woes on you. I don’t mean to, it just keeps happening.”
He shook his head.
“I need to say I’m sorry, Rafe. I shouldn’t have subjected you to that last night.”
“It’s really not neces—”
“Don’t say it’s not necessary, because it is,” she said, and caught his wrist. “I mean, come on—I tried to bean you with a shoe.”
“You were way off.”
“I turned into a caricature of a drunk sorority girl when I took a swing at you.”
“Again, not even close.”
“And then to add insult to injury, I almost threw up on you.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, and held up his palm with a grimace. “Seriously. Don’t mention it.”
“I’m just trying to say that I’ve had a moment to reflect . . .” She looked skyward. “Really it’s been more like an entire day of reflection, which may not seem like a lot to you, but trust me, that’s a lot more than I normally allot to self-reflection, and anyway, I really feel awful that you had to babysit me last night. I want to make it up to you.”
He viewed her speculatively for a long moment. “Okay,” he said, and turned the arm that she was holding so that he could hold her wrist, too. “I think I’ve got just the way you can make it up to me.”
Her heart should not have skipped fourteen beats, but it did. “Really?”
“Really. Here’s how: Stop running yourself down. Stop apologizing for being human. Now here comes the tricky part. Stand up.”
“Why?” she asked as he sprang to his feet. He was still holding her arm, and she was still holding his.
“Just do it.”
Hallie pulled herself up with his arm. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around so that she was facing the wind. “Now scream.”
“Scream?”
“Yes, scream. Let it out. Get it out of your system. Let all the frustrations and disappointments and hurt go.”
Hallie laughed nervously. “I don’t know . . . what about the chickens?”
“What chickens?” he asked, sweeping his hand to the area below them. “Come on. Trust me.”
She did trust him. One thousand percent. She took a breath and screamed. Sort of. It felt weird to scream without any terror being present.
“Come on,” Rafe scoffed. “You can do better than that. Remember when Nick fell into that culvert and broke his arm? Now that was a scream.”
“Ooh,” Hallie said with a wince, remembering it all too well. She took a deep breath, and then she screamed as loud as she could. She screamed so hard her eyes felt like they would pop out of her head.
After a minute of her screaming, Rafe stepped up beside her and joined her, although his scream was more of a bellow. He grabbed her hand, and the two of them screamed and bellowed their frustrations until a flock of birds
lifted out of the trees.
“Oh, shit!” Hallie cried, and fell back against Rafe as if she’d been startled. “Was that the chickens?”
He caught her by her shoulders. “Hope not for your sake,” he said, and set her upright on her feet. “So?” He grinned. “Do you feel better?”
“Loads.” She smiled. “Do you?”
“I do. Now promise me you won’t let this dick fiancé of yours assign your worth to you. Promise me only you will do that.”
Hallie groaned.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” He cupped his ear with his hand. “Promise me, Hallie. Stop letting him get under your skin. I don’t care if he is texting you or sliding into your DMs—”
“He is.”
“Stop wasting precious brain cells on him and start thinking about what you’re going to do with your life.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. He was right. He was absolutely right. “I promise.”
“You said it today—you’re turning over a new leaf. Look forward, not backward.”
It was way past time to do exactly that. “Okay. I promise.”
He smiled, pleased with himself.
Hallie cocked her head to one side and looked him over. “Why are you such a good friend to me, Rafe?” she asked. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Are you kidding? After all you’ve done for me?”
“For you?” she asked, confused. “Almost throwing up on you?”
“Remember the care packages you used to send me when I was in Afghanistan?”
“What, you mean the pillow and the socks and the deodorant?” She flicked her wrist. “Hardly the same category.”
“Oh yeah? What about the pictures?”
“Oh,” she said, and looked off a moment, remembering.
“You sent me pictures of home. This ranch. My dad. Rico and Angie. Do you know how much that meant to me?”
She smiled, then laughed softly. “What about the cowboy stress relief doll whose hat came off when you squeezed him?”
He laughed, too. “And the 401(k) coin purse. And the bacon dental floss, and the disposable undies. And my personal favorite, the ‘Fight like a girl’ socks you sent to the whole company.”