That One Night

by Brenda Novak

  “For what? For coming out here?”

  “For Boise.”

  “Are you kidding? There’s nothing to forgive. You’ve made me the happiest man on earth.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t deserve your love, Conner, not after what I did.”

  “I don’t deserve you, either, Laney,” he said. “And that’s the truth. But we’re together, and we’re going to stay together, okay?” He smiled down at her. “I’m just glad,” he whispered, “that mercy is as much a part of the world as justice.”

  * * *

  “YOU’REWHERE?” Rebecca asked.

  Delaney propped up the phone and snuggled closer to Conner, even though it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon.

  “In bed,” she said.

  “With your workaholic husband?”

  “Last I checked, it wasn’t the telephone man.”

  “How are you feeling? Has the cramping gone away?”

  Conner had called Rebecca last night when they’d finally reached the ranch to tell her Dr. Hatcher was meeting them at his office, and she’d shown up there, too.

  “Yeah, the muscle relaxants he gave me are doing the job. The baby and I are going to be fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Delaney had donned Conner’s T-shirt a few minutes earlier to go to the kitchen and bring them both some orange juice, but his hand had already found its way beneath the fabric to caress her belly. “Better than I’ve ever been.”

  “You sound good. Now you know why I’m mad at Buddy for postponing our wedding.”

  “Is it still going to happen in August?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then, it’ll happen soon enough. Sure you don’t want to wait until after the baby’s born?”

  “I’ll come back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Delaney?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You can tell Conner I’m not mad at him anymore.”

  “I’ll pass on the good news,” Delaney said. Then Conner kissed her, and she couldn’t remember later if she’d even said goodbye before she hung up the phone.

  * * *

  CONNER HAD A DIFFICULT TIME keeping his attention on his dinner. “Say it now,” he said, nudging Isaiah under the table with his knee.

  Isaiah looked up at Delaney, who was busy frosting the cake she’d made them for dessert. “Laney, did you remember to feed the bunny today?”

  “The what?” she said, sounding preoccupied.

  “The bunny.”

  She stopped with the frosting. “What bunny?”

  “Haven’t you seen it?”

  Delaney frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s back here.” Isaiah jerked his head toward the door. “Come see.”

  Delaney sent Conner a curious glance, but he shrugged as though he didn’t know what was going on, and Dottie and the others did the same.

  “What’s this all about?” she asked. Her face showing a trace of suspicion, she followed Isaiah into the backyard, and Conner slipped out behind her so he wouldn’t miss her reaction.

  “Oh, my gosh!” she said at her first sight of the fluffy white bunny nibbling a carrot inside the cage that now stood next to the chicken coop. “This is the cutest bunny I’ve ever seen.”

  “It’s for you,” Isaiah said. “It’s a late wedding present.”

  Roy, Grady, Ben and Dottie crowded behind Conner on the back stoop as they all watched Delaney unlatch the door, scoop the little bunny into her hands and rub its soft fur against her cheek. “Isaiah, it’s just what I wanted. How did you know?”

  He grinned. “I didn’t. It’s from Conner. He wouldn’t even let me help him build the cage.”

  Delaney turned and gave Conner a brilliant smile, and he felt his heart melt. She did that to him, unexpectedly. Sometimes he’d look at her, and his spirit would just soar. She was so beautiful, so pregnant, so…his.

  “I love you, Conner Armstrong,” she said, loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  Conner crossed the lawn, put an arm around her and, even with Grady, Ben, Isaiah, Dottie and Roy looking on, lifted her chin with one finger. “I love you, too,” he said, and gave her a kiss.

  “Now beat it,” he growled to the others, who had started to clap.

  EPILOGUE

  CONNER SAT ON HIS HORSE, partway up the mountain, and watched the tractors in the valley below start to grade and level the dirt where the lodge would soon stand. He could hardly believe it was happening. The ground-breaking was a little later than he’d scheduled—he’d run into problems with the engineering of the golf course—but construction was now under way, and if everything went according to plan, they’d have their grand opening in May of the following year.

  He thought about Stephen, Dwight and Jonathan, and grinned. They’d been so skeptical at first, so sure he’d never get this far. They pretended not to care that he was even trying, but he heard bits and pieces of what they said through his mother, and he knew it was driving them crazy that he’d figured out a way to save the ranch. Not only to save it but to make it pay off with such potentially high returns.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the money that bothered them. They had plenty of money. Maybe it was the words of praise his grandfather lavished on his efforts. Either way, Conner didn’t really care. Somehow his uncles and even his past seemed like such a small part of his life now. He had other things to think about, bigger things, like his wife, his baby, his dreams.

  He heard the QuadRunner he’d bought for Delaney—to keep her off a horse until after she had the baby—and turned to see his wife slowly driving up the hill. She was coming to join him for the big moment. It was something they wanted to share.

  “Don’t tell me they’ve already started,” she said, her voice tinged with disappointment as she cut the engine.

  Conner got down from his horse and held out a hand to help her off the squat, four-wheeled motorcycle, admiring the healthy glow the dawn light lent her skin and the bright smile that never failed to reach inside him and tell him the world was good.

  “They just started a few minutes ago,” he said.

  “So I missed it?”

  “You haven’t missed anything. Come see.”

  He took her hand and led her to a better vantage point and together they watched the machinery and men below.

  “It’s going to be great, isn’t it,” she said.

  Conner shifted to stand behind her, slipped his arms around her and locked his hands beneath the bulge of her belly so she could lean against him. “It’s going to be better than great.”

  “Your mother called. She caught me just as I was leaving the house. She wanted to congratulate us on the big day.”

  His mother. She’d been so happy since he’d turned his life around. “Grandpa mentioned she was seeing someone, when I talked to him on the phone last night. Did she say anything about it?”

  Delaney shook her head. “She told me about a trip she’s taking to the Coast, and I doubt she’s going alone, but she didn’t say anything about who might be going with her.”

  “I guess she’ll tell us about him when she’s ready. Grandpa really likes him, so I’m sure he’s a good guy.”

  “She deserves to find love.”

  “Now that she feels I’m on the right course, maybe she will.”

  They stood in silence for several minutes as Conner thought about his mother marrying and living a fuller life. Then he imagined the land before him in its finished state, the lodge filled with vacationers, the golf course buzzing with white golf carts. It was going to be so perfect—

  “Conner?” Delaney said, breaking into his daydream.

  “Hmm?”

  “What if all this doesn’t work out? What if, in five years, we lose everything?”

  “Then, we start over someplace else,” he said.

  “You’re sure? You won’t take it too hard? It’s just land and buildings and money, you know. Those aren’
t the things we need to be happy.”

  He nuzzled her ear. “I know, babe. Don’t worry. I can never lose everything as long as I’ve got you.” He kissed her, only to be interrupted by Roy and Josh.

  “We come all the way out here to enjoy the ground-breaking, and what do we find? The two of you necking like a couple of teenagers.” Roy clicked his tongue and shook his head, but even in the shadow of their hats, Delaney had no trouble making out their smiles.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, don’t miss Brenda Novak’s newest novel in her Silver Springs series,

  UNFORGETTABLE YOU,

  Available soon from MIRA Books. Read on for a sneak peek!

  CHAPTER 1

  Jada Brooks was pushing her brother in his wheelchair at the farmer’s market on the second weekend in June, a Saturday morning that inspired the cliché “picture perfect,” with nothing but blue skies and the usual mild, Southern California weather, when she caught a glimpse of something that made her stop dead in her tracks.

  “What’s wrong?” Atticus twisted around in his seat to look up at her. It’d been thirteen years since he’d been shot, so he was accustomed to the paralysis in his lower body and could propel himself with his arms—he was adept at doing almost everything, including driving now that his truck was properly equipped—but it was more relaxing and easier to stick together in a crowd if she took over. Visiting the market while Maya, Jada’s twelve-year-old daughter, helped her grandmother at the cookie store, was something they’d become accustomed to doing every now and then since Jada had divorced her husband and moved back to town three months ago.

  “I just…” Jada shook her head to clear it of the image that stubbornly remained. Surely, she was wrong about who she thought she’d seen. Maddox Richardson had left town right after she’d gotten pregnant, and there was nothing to draw him back. It wasn’t as if he had family in the area, like she did. The only reason he’d moved to Silver Springs in the first place was because he’d been sent by the courts to attend New Horizons Boys Ranch, a boarding school for troubled teens. And when he left, it was because he’d been enrolled at a different school somewhere else, somewhere she was never even told. After that terrible night, Maddox had essentially been banished at the request and expense of her parents, which hadn’t been an easy thing to accomplish given all the red tape his mother had had to go through in order to accommodate them.

  Whether forcing Maddox to go somewhere else was fair to him was another subject entirely. Jada tried not to think about that. She tried not to think about Maddox at all.

  Too bad she wasn’t more successful at it. So many little things brought him to mind, especially now that she was living where she’d gotten to know him. Someone who slightly resembled him or laughed like him or had the same cerulean blue eyes. Even a particular song or smell could bring him back to her. His life had intersected with hers in a way she would never forget—both for good and bad.

  “Jada?” Atticus prompted.

  She blinked, realizing she’d let her words trail off, but continued to study the crowd around her. Maddox wasn’t there. It must’ve been someone of his general size and shape with the same jet-black hair, but she couldn’t see anyone who resembled him now. Whoever it was had melted back into the crowd jostling around them.

  “It’s nothing.” She forced a smile and started pushing again. She couldn’t mention Maddox’s name to Atticus, regardless.

  “Should we get some kale for our morning smoothies?” Atticus asked.

  He still lived with their mother, had never even been in a serious relationship and talked as though he had no plans for that sort of thing. Although Jada had spent all the years since she’d had Maya in LA, she hadn’t rented a place of her own since returning to Silver Springs, so she and Maya were currently living with her mother, too. She’d been trying to find the right situation to be able to move out, but there weren’t a lot of homes for rent in this artsy, outdoorsy, spiritually focused community, and with her mother sick so often these days, Jada was needed at home.

  It’d be different if her father was still around, but…

  She steered her mind away from Jeremiah. Losing him last year to a stroke when he was only fifty-five had not been easy, especially because she felt she’d let him down so terribly and never had the chance to make it up to him, as she was trying to do with her mother and brother.

  “Sure,” she said about the kale. “Maybe it’ll boost Mom’s immune system. It’s supposed to be really good for you.”

  Pausing in front of the closest stand, she chose a particularly healthy-looking bunch of leafy greens and was just handing the vendor her money when she heard her name.

  She turned to see Tiffany Martinez, a friend she’d gone to school with from fifth grade on, hurrying toward her in a short-sleeved, button-down blouse, sandals and shorts, similar to what she was wearing herself. Because Jada had had a baby just as everyone else was going off to college, her life had taken a completely different course, one that had put her out of sync with the group of friends she’d grown up with. For the first several years after moving to LA, she’d felt overlooked, abandoned, left behind while everyone else went away to college and documented all the fun they had on social media. Watching them on her computer while struggling to raise a child when she was barely more than a child herself had only made that period of her life harder. But Tiffany had always been supportive and remained in touch. And everything was changing now that so many of their other friends were getting married and having children. Jada had been able to reconnect with several who still lived in the area.

  Tiffany would always be her favorite, though. She was also the only one who knew Jada’s most guarded secret.

  “Hey, Tiff.” She put the kale into her reusable tote and hung it on the back of Atticus’s wheelchair. Jada had told Tiffany she was going to the farmer’s market when they spoke on the phone last night, which was what had prompted Tiffany to come, too. Like Jada, she was recently divorced, only she didn’t have any kids, so she was always looking for things to do when she wasn’t working at the regional hospital as a nurse. They would’ve come together—they did a lot together—but Tiffany hadn’t wanted to change the chemistry of Jada’s morning with Atticus. “Glad you made it.”

  “I’ve been here for a while. I was just leaving when…” She tucked her curly red hair behind her ears as her eyes—so green and clear they were almost startling—darted to Atticus, a captive audience in his chair. “When I saw something that… Well, that reminded me of you and made me wonder if you were still here.”

  So Tiffany hadn’t accidentally spotted her and come over to say hello? She’d come looking for her? “What was it?”

  Again, Tiffany glanced uncomfortably at Atticus. “A person actually. Someone we knew a…a while ago.”

  Jada’s heart began to pound as her friend’s behavior connected with the scare she’d had only a few minutes earlier. With the way Tiffany was acting, so flustered and overly aware of Atticus listening in… “Atticus, would you mind grabbing some purple onions while I talk to Tiffany?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Seemingly relieved to escape the girl talk, he rolled away as Jada led Tiffany a few feet in the other direction, just to be safe.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “Why do you look as though the world’s about to come to an end?”

  Tiffany grabbed her forearms. “You don’t know? You haven’t seen him?”

  Suspicion turned to outright fear. “Him? You don’t mean Maddox…”

  “That’s exactly who I mean!”

  Shit. She had seen him. The question was…had he seen her? And why was he in Silver Springs?

  Jada swallowed hard. Had he returned because he’d learned about Maya?

  That couldn’t be, could it? Her family had kept her pregnancy so quiet. She had easily been able to hide her rounding stomach beneath baggy clothes as school came to an end. Her parents had kept her home throughout the summer, her
final trimester, so almost no one saw her looking unmistakably pregnant. And then she moved to LA with her newborn. Other than Tiffany, the few friends she’d kept in contact with over the years, and loosely at that, knew she’d married almost right out of high school, that she had a child and had recently divorced. But they didn’t know exactly when she’d met her husband or had Maya. Most assumed Maya belonged to her ex.

  But if anyone really pressed for details—when and where Maya was born—they could possibly put two and two together…and Jada was afraid Maddox might do exactly that.

  “Are you okay?” Tiffany asked.

  Jada felt dizzy, faint. “Why?” she asked instead of answering. “Why is he back?”

  “I don’t know. But he is. I just saw him.”

  “You’re sure it was him.”

  “Positive. There could be no mistaking Maddox Richardson.”

  Maddox had always stood out, been unique, charismatic, appealing—and sexy as hell. She’d never met a man who could make a woman feel warm and tingly simply by looking at her.

  Tiffany had also known him in school, and she clearly remembered what he was like, as well. She’d been interested in Maddox’s brother, Tobias, who wasn’t as enigmatic and appealing as Maddox but came awfully damn close, despite his terrible reputation and the behavior that had earned it. She’d been at the party that fateful night, too.

  “Did he see you?” Jada asked.

  “He did, but I don’t know if he recognized me. Our eyes connected for a second. Then he looked away and kept moving.”

  He had to have recognized Tiffany. Not many people had her shade of hair and unique, slanted green eyes. So…what did that mean?

  Tiffany bent to adjust her sandal. “Do you think Tobias is out of prison?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “He should be. He only got eight years, and it’s been thirteen.”

  “But my father told me he did something on the inside—got in a fight or found some other trouble—and they extended his sentence. I’m not sure by how much.” That was the last thing her father told her on the subject before he died, and she wasn’t willing to ask her mother, wasn’t willing to go anywhere near the subject with her.