A Light at Winter’s End

by Julia London

  “Great,” she sighed, and put aside her guitar to clean it up. She picked up the pieces and wiped up the tea, but decided, after considering the wood floor, that she really should mop. While she was at it, she’d mop the kitchen floor too. In the utility room, she opened the closet where her mother had kept the vacuum and mops and remembered that she’d thrown out the old mop head. But her mother had always kept a stack of them. Right, the storage closet on the porch. Holly went outside to check that closet.

  She opened the door to the closet … and took a step back. There were definitely mop heads there, and bottles of bleach and laundry detergent. But there was also a litter of wine bottles. Most were empty, some partially empty, and all of them tossed haphazardly into the closet.

  She stared at the bottles. It seemed absurd to her that they were here. Her mother had hated alcohol, having lived under the thumb of an alcoholic father Holly had never known. Was it hereditary? Had Hannah inherited some alcoholic gene?

  However it had happened, Holly felt a little ill at discovering the evidence of her sister’s addiction. The smell was overwhelming. Had Hannah driven all the way out here just to drink? And if she had, what had she done with Mason?

  The Shania Twain ring tone of her cell phone startled her; she shut the closet door and ran inside to grab it up off the breakfast bar before the song woke Mason. “Hello?”

  “Holly. This is Wyatt Clark,” said a masculine voice with a slight drawl.

  Holly was surprised to hear from him, but even more surprised by how sexy his voice was on the phone. It took a moment for her to gather her wits.

  “Your neighbor,” he added, as if he thought her silence indicated that she didn’t know who he was.

  “Yes, yes, of course! I’m just … How are you, Wyatt?”

  “Good, thanks. As it turns out, I’m going to have Gracie this weekend. I thought maybe you could bring Mason over on Saturday.”

  His invitation, so unexpected, gave her an absurd little rush. “That’s great. Thank you! Should I bring anything?”

  “Just the boy,” he said.

  “Are you sure? I could make something.”

  “Well … maybe some of those cookies.”

  Holly grinned. “You’ll be doing me a favor by taking them off my hands. What time?”

  “Two,” he said. “Gracie will have had her nap.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  He gave her directions to his house and Holly hung up, ridiculously pleased that he’d invited them. She thought about his smile, how it made him look so attractive. A developer! Who would have guessed it? She wondered how often he saw his ex-wife and what their relationship was like now. Actually, she was thinking a lot about Wyatt Clark, which was a little surprising in and of itself, because a week or so ago she had thought he was about as enticing as a fence post. Holly was smiling at that when she went back outside, but her smile faded as she began to clean the wine bottles from the porch closet, counting them as she did.

  Chapter Eleven

  Macy was late.

  She’d called and left a message on Wyatt’s cell while he’d been out feeding the horses, something about a llama needing medicine. She showed up at his place around one thirty on Saturday.

  “Hey!” she said cheerfully as she climbed out of her Jeep. She was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a turtle-neck sweater under which he could see the swell of her pregnancy beginning to show. Her hair was clipped back, away from her face. She looked to him like the spokesperson for the benefits of fresh air and sunshine, and his heart clenched a little.

  “I am sooo sorry we’re late,” she said, stepping backward to the door to the backseat. “I told Finn I don’t want any more llamas. It seems like there is something wrong with them all the time.” She opened the door and ducked in to get Grace. A moment later she emerged holding Wyatt’s daughter, and he could feel his smile all the way down to the tips of his toes. “Hey, baby girl,” he said.

  Gracie frowned at him and looked away, over her mother’s shoulder. She’d obviously been sleeping—the neck of her clothing was wet from drool. Macy had dressed her in a pretty little pink dress with bloomers, an outfit that was inappropriate for a ranch. He had some overalls he’d put her in just as soon as Macy left, and then he’d take that bow from her head and pull her hair back in a ponytail so it would stay out of her eyes.

  “She’s had her nap,” Macy said. “But she’s probably hungry.”

  “Come here,” Wyatt said, reaching for his daughter. Grace stretched her arms out to him. When Wyatt took her from Macy, Grace laid her head on his shoulder.

  Macy dipped into the backseat again and retrieved a Hello Kitty overnight bag. She smiled at her daughter and brushed a wisp of hair from Grace’s eyes. “She has a new toy in her bag,” she announced, smiling proudly at Grace. “A doggie. She likes to sleep with it.”

  Wyatt didn’t tell her that when Grace was with him, she got to sleep with the real McCoy. Milo liked nothing better than a wet diaper and wouldn’t think of sleeping anywhere but by her side. “Noted,” he said.

  Macy put her hands on her waist and peered up at him. “You look tired. What have you been up to?” she asked, as if they were nothing more than old friends. High school acquaintances, college classmates. Not husband and wife once. There was a time she’d known him better than anyone else.

  “I’ve been mending fences,” he said.

  She eyed him skeptically. “Are you sleeping?”

  “Macy—”

  “I can’t help it,” she said with an apologetic smile. “You know I worry about you, Wy. You’re all alone out here. You could fall off your horse and break your neck, and who would know?”

  “I’m not going to fall off my horse,” he said, and despised the urge he had to touch her face just now.

  She looked past him, then bent to her right and peered around him. “Wow,” she said, looking around. “You’ve really cleaned the place up. Is that a pergola?”

  “I’ve done a little.” So he had mowed and trimmed the shrubbery. What was the big deal? “Yes, that is a pergola. I needed some shade.”

  “So, are you finally going to renovate this place and then sell it for a bajillion dollars?”

  “Maybe.”

  She grinned at him. “You know, I wish you’d get into town more. People ask me about you all the time.”

  He just bet they did. Gee, Macy, do you ever see that pathetic second-place finisher? “You and Jesse Wheeler both missed your calling at being social directors,” he said, and shifted Grace to his waist. “Da da da da,” she said, and put her hand in his pocket.

  “Jesse Wheeler?” Macy said, peering up at him now. “What’s he got to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. He likes to think the world doesn’t turn unless he’s doing the cranking. And he’s doing some work around here for me.”

  “You’re kidding!” Macy cried, and laughed. “Jesse Wheeler, what else?” She laughed again, and then nodded her approval. “Good move, Wyatt. You and Jesse will do each other a huge favor. He’ll be here to haul you in if you fall off your horse, and you will keep him out of Laru’s bed.”

  Laru Freidenburg was Macy’s aunt. She was a good-looking woman in her late forties with an appetite, and it wasn’t for food.

  “Emma says they’re an item again,” Macy added. “But you know how Emma is—very good about imagining things and stating them as fact.”

  Emma was Macy’s younger sister, and Wyatt knew exactly how she was. He knew everything about Macy and her family—he’d made them his family, so happy to be part of one. He was an only child whose parents spent their time traveling the country in an RV. They’d been older when they had him, and while his father had been a rancher, most of Wyatt’s childhood memories were filled with quiet evenings reading books and the scent of Bengay permeating everything. Macy’s family had been alive and full of laughter, in spite of their own troubles, and yes, he knew how Emma was.

  “Bye-bye,” Grace sa
id, and squirmed, wanting down.

  Wyatt put her down. “Well, now that you can rest easy that someone will find my carcass—”

  “All right,” Macy said. “I’m going, I’m going.”

  But as she turned away, the sound of another car caught their attention. A little red car was driving entirely too fast up the road to his house. Great. She was early.

  “Who is that?” Macy asked curiously. When Wyatt didn’t answer, she looked back at him.

  “A friend.”

  “A friend? What friend?”

  “My neighbor. Look, Macy, if you don’t mind—”

  It was too late. The red car was practically screeching to a halt in the drive, and Macy was walking toward it, her curiosity aroused. When she saw the woman inside, Macy turned around fully, her eyes wide and bright. “Seriously?”

  “Go home, Macy,” Wyatt said. “Seriously.”

  But Macy was grinning at him. “Are you kidding? I’m not going anywhere till I meet her.”

  “It’s none of your business,” Wyatt said.

  “Oh, I know,” she eagerly agreed as Holly got out of her car.

  Holly looked at the two of them uncertainly. “Ah … hi.”

  “Hi,” Wyatt said. She looked good. She’d worn jeans, too, the tight-leg type that rode low on her hips. She had on a long-sleeve shirt with some artsy design of crosses tucked in to her jeans and belted with a vintage-looking leather belt. She wasn’t wearing boots but some funky blue sneakers.

  “Well, hello,” Macy said, as if she were Wyatt’s mother, and walked forward, her smile big. “I’m Macy Lockhart.”

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Holly Fisher, and I … I need to get a baby out of the backseat.”

  “Please!” Macy said, and gestured with both hands to the car. When Holly dipped into the backseat, Macy twisted around and beamed at Wyatt, then mouthed the word Cute.

  Go home—Wyatt mouthed right back at her.

  “Baby,” Grace said, grabbing on to her mother’s leg and looking up at her. “Baby.”

  “That’s right, honey, it’s another baby,” Macy said as Holly hauled Mason out of the backseat.

  “So, who is this little guy?” Macy asked brightly, and tickled Mason’s belly. Mason did not look amused. “He’s adorable!”

  “Thank you,” Holly said, smiling proudly. “This is Mason, and he’s here for his play date.”

  “Oh, a play date,” Macy said, looking meaningfully at Wyatt. “Grace will love that.”

  Grace would have no idea she was involved in a play date, Wyatt figured. Fourteen-month-old kids were more interested in themselves than in others.

  “Baby,” Grace said, pointing up at Mason. Mason leaned over Holly’s arm to take a good look at Grace.

  “So … where did you two meet?” Macy tried to sound casual, but Wyatt knew she was about to bust with excitement. He knew she’d never stopped caring for him—was no longer in love with him, maybe, but she cared—and she had made it known on more than one occasion that she hoped he would meet someone and get past their ill-fated marriage.

  But Wyatt didn’t need his ex-wife vetting his play dates. “Good-bye, Macy,” he said, moving next to her and touching her elbow with one hand as he pointed to her car with the other. “Don’t you have a llama that needs attention?”

  “No, I really—”

  “Yes you do,” he said firmly.

  “Okay, all right, I’m leaving,” Macy said cheerfully. “Call me when you are ready for me to pick up Grace. Very nice to meet you, Holly.”

  “You too,” Holly said.

  Macy kissed Grace good-bye and climbed into her Jeep. She backed away from the house and started down the long drive to the county road. Holly and Wyatt watched her drive away. When the Jeep had dipped out of sight, Holly looked at Wyatt.

  “Ex-wife,” he said.

  “So I gathered.” She gave him a sympathetic smile but then looked at Grace, who was crouching down to pull some grass from the yard. “So this is Grace!” she said excitedly, and squatted beside her, putting Mason on his feet. The little soldier’s balance had improved greatly in the few days since Wyatt had seen him, and he took several steps before he, too, crouched down to help Grace pull grass.

  “I like your house,” Holly said.

  Wyatt didn’t, not today. Today, as he looked at it through Macy’s eyes, he could see just how much work it needed. “I am making some improvements,” he said. He was glad that he and Jesse had at least finished the pergola.

  “Hey, I brought cookies,” Holly said. Mason had begun to crawl toward the drive, and Holly skipped behind him to pick him up before he reached the gravel.

  “I’ll get them,” Wyatt said.

  “In the back!” she called after him as he walked to her car, and chased after Grace, who, Wyatt noted with a smile, had already pulled the bow from her hair and let it drop in the yard. He opened the door to Holly’s backseat and saw a box filled almost to the brim with some of the thickest chocolate chip cookies he’d ever seen. There were dozens, and he idly wondered how long it took to whip up a batch or twelve of them. He grabbed the box and the diaper bag, and as he was removing himself from her little car, he noticed the guitar case in the front seat.

  With the diaper bag slung over his shoulder and the cookies balanced in one hand, Wyatt bent down and picked up Grace. “Come on in,” he said to Holly.

  She followed him inside with Mason, through the open garage door and the utility room and into the kitchen. Wyatt put the cookies down on the stained Formica counter, which was peeling in one corner. He could guess what she was thinking about the place; he’d cleaned it up, but there was no disguising the fact that it was terribly outdated.

  He had an electric stove he’d used maybe twice. There was a brand-new microwave on the kitchen counter next to the old white fridge, which looked more green than white under the harsh glare of the fluorescent lighting overhead. In the breakfast nook was his table with the condiments he could not live without.

  Holly looked around. “Well,” she said, smiling easily. “You can certainly tell a man lives here.”

  “How’s that?” he asked as he deposited Grace on the floor and watched her totter off.

  “Not a lot of furniture,” she said, putting Mason down as well. “Not a lot of kitchen stuff.”

  Holly walked around the kitchen bar and into the living room. Wyatt had a big leather lounger in front of a small TV, and an old couch that had once been in his office on which he occasionally took a Sunday afternoon nap while watching football. He really had no room for more than one to sit comfortably, a fact that Jesse had complained about recently. Wyatt had no inclination to get seating for Jesse, but he found himself wishing he had a nice chair for Holly to sit on.

  If she was bothered by it, he couldn’t detect it. She looked out the sliding glass door. “Oh, wow, that’s a great view.”

  It was definitely a great view: miles of raw land looking out over the rolling hills of the Hill Country. He’d put in a flagstone patio and the pergola, and this week, he’d finally gotten that chiminea. There had only been one rusted metal lawn chair until last night, when Jesse, in a snit, dragged the other one from the barn, helped himself to Wyatt’s beer, then proceeded to wax ineloquently about the sorry economy of Cedar Springs.

  “There’s one thing I wish I had at the homestead,” Holly said, folding her arms as she looked out the sliding glass door.

  “The what?”

  “The homestead.” She laughed. “I always thought that sounded like we just drove into town and staked a claim. But that is what my parents and grandparents always called our ranch, and the name stuck. And that old house doesn’t have a view of anything but cows.”

  “Would you like a beer?” he asked and opened his fridge. There was nothing in it but some butter, some eggs, a twelve-pack of Fat Tire ale, and a fruit-and-cheese plate he’d picked up at the local grocery. He showed her a bottle of Fat Tire, and Holly grinned with delight.
r />   “My favorite,” Holly said. “How did you know?”

  Well, now, there was a mark on the pro side of the pros-and-cons chart—a woman who appreciated a good beer.

  Mason and Grace were at the couch, standing side by side, banging on the cushions. Wyatt figured the allure of that wouldn’t last too long and grabbed the beers and the box of cookies and pointed to the back porch. “We can sit out there. There’s enough to keep them occupied but not much trouble for them to get into.”

  “Great idea,” Holly said.

  “I’m going to put Gracie into something a little more ranch-friendly,” he said. “If you don’t mind …” He handed her the cookies and beer, fumbling a little, his hands catching hers to keep from spilling things.

  “We’ll meet you outside. Come on, Mase,” she said cheerfully.

  When Wyatt and Grace returned a few minutes later, Grace was dressed in corduroy overalls and a plain white T-shirt, her hair in a little ponytail. Holly and Mason were examining the underside of a rock with Milo’s eager assistance. Grace squealed when she saw Milo and tottered forward to join them. Her cries of delight caught Mason’s attention, and he started toward her, taking two or three steps before falling and bending over double in order to get up and try again.

  “He’s walking pretty well,” Wyatt observed.

  Milo happily rolled onto his side, his tail beating the ground, sniffing the babies as they alternately pounded him and grabbed his fur.

  “Aren’t you a little worried about the dog?” Holly asked, wincing when Grace caught Milo’s ear and pulled hard enough to make him squeal.

  Wyatt shrugged. “I figure if he doesn’t like it, he’s smart enough to get free of them. Would you like to sit?”

  “Thanks.” She followed him to the lawn chairs. “I’m so happy Mason actually gets to play with another kid,” she said as she took a seat. “I read that socialization is so important at this age.”