by Nina Crespo
Wendy grinned. “Do too.” Forgetting about his injuries, she smacked him near his side and he winced. “Oops, sorry.”
“Wendy, stop picking on your brother,” their father mocked an admonishing frown as he stared at her. “And you—” he pointed to Scott “—put down that glass. No alcohol with pain meds.”
“Yes, sir,” Scott and Wendy answered, both feigning obedience before they looked at each other and laughed. It was like old times when they were kids getting each other into trouble and keeping each other out of it.
Over the next few days his dad, Theresa and Wendy doted on him, doing his laundry, cooking meals, cutting the lawn. As usual Wendy harassed him and beat everyone at poker, video games and Monopoly. And he enjoyed having them there. Being a family.
The day his father, Theresa and Wendy were flying home, Scott sat with his father on the back deck that morning. He drank a glass of mango and pineapple juice—he wasn’t drinking caffeine because of the headaches he’d been getting since the accident—while his father enjoyed a cup of coffee.
Scott sipped from his glass. They’d been there only seven days, but the time they’d spent with each other had felt like months of fresh air he’d needed to breathe and feel somewhat renewed again. He’d miss them.
His father looked over at him. “So what’s next for you?”
“Not much until the knee heals up. After that, I haven’t committed to anything yet. Kyle, one of the stunt coordinators I worked with, wants to talk to me about an opportunity.”
“Sounds like you’re going to have a lot of time on your hands.” His father drank from his mug. “Are you going to see Rina again? Theresa and I really liked her.”
This was the first time he’d had to answer the question. “No. I’m not seeing her anymore. We broke up.” He drank from his glass, washing down the confession. Suddenly, the juice tasted less sweet.
“Mind if I ask why?”
“Only if you tell me why you’re so curious.”
His father shrugged. “You looked happy with her.”
“I was, but...” He released a long exhale, searching for an explanation. “Me getting hurt, I could see that it brought up some bad memories for her. So rather than putting her through that, I ended it.”
“Rina told you what happened was affecting her that way?”
“She didn’t have to. I know how Rina’s past affected her. She told me.”
His father gave him a puzzled look. “Let me get this straight. She told you about her past, and you assumed she was too weak to handle what happened to you now so you made the decision that the two of you should break up.”
No. Wait. His father had it all wrong. “I didn’t say she was weak. Rina’s one of the strongest, smartest women I ever met.”
“Then why did you treat her like she wasn’t?”
Scott opened his mouth to object and shut it. That’s exactly what he’d done.
His father released a low chuckle. “Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re not the first man to make that mistake. As someone who’s done it more than a few times, four to be exact, can I give you some advice?”
Relationship guidance from his father—that was a thing Scott hadn’t envisioned in his future. He’d also never imagined that someone like Rina would enter his life or that she would have the ability to stop him in his tracks with just a smile.
He’d always valued his solitude and lack of attachment to anyone, but now he just felt lonely. Especially without her. If anything his father said might help him understand what to do, he’d listen.
Scott set his glass on a metal side table. “Go ahead.”
“First, remember the lesson you just learned—never assume you know what a woman is thinking or what she wants. Two, realize that you making that assumption points to something that you need to work on in yourself.” His father looked him in the eye. “And three, if you really care about Rina, confront whatever went wrong between you head on and fix it. And don’t wait until it’s too late to apologize to her.”
Scott saw his father’s conviction. This time with Theresa, his father wasn’t searching for something. He’d found it. “So you learned all of that this time around?”
“With a lot of help from Theresa.” His father winked. “And the months of premarital counseling we went through.”
His dad really was serious about this marriage. “I can’t lie, Dad. When Wendy said you’d finally found ‘the one’ I was skeptical. But she was right.”
“No. Theresa’s not the one.”
“She’s not? You just said she was, not in those words but that’s what you meant, isn’t it?”
His father shook his head. “Saying you found ‘the one’ means you’re expecting them to be perfect and that’s a lot of pressure to put on someone you love. ‘The one’ in a relationship is you, being all in, and doing what it takes to work things out.”
That evening after his family left, Scott drank ice water and watched the sunset on the deck. Even though the chair beside him was now empty, what his dad had said to him that morning remained. Why had he made assumptions about what Rina could handle? The truth sitting inside of him was as clear as the water in his glass. I love her. Those three words scared him more than any stunt he’d ever faced. He’d expected Rina to be perfect, and when she’d fallen short in his eyes when he’d gotten hurt, he’d made her the problem and used those assumptions as an excuse to walk away. Yeah, he’d really messed up.
Scott rested his head back on the chair. He’d never had to navigate this before because he’d been in only short-term relationships. There was no “all in” like his father had mentioned in that type of situation. And there also wasn’t the possibility of loss because nothing had to be invested. Going “all in” with Rina, if she gave him that chance, would mean he’d have to face the possibility he could lose her in any number of ways just as easily as she could lose him...and there might not be anything that he could do to stop it. But what he could do was put in the work, face the harder choices and make every moment they shared together mean something.
Scott took a sip from his glass and allowed it all to sink in with the ice water settling inside of him. The flip side of that—not having Rina in his life—felt just as cold. He wanted her warmth, her touch as the first thing he woke up to every morning and her face as the last thing he saw when he closed his eyes at night. He wanted to paint walls, lay tiles and fix leaky faucets with her in a place they called their own. And someday, maybe kids, tiny replicas of him and her, who they’d watch grow into their own independence. He wanted “all in” with Rina, and what came with it, more than he wanted his next breath. But by leaving had he lost her completely?
Chapter Thirty-Five
Two weeks later
Rina dug the garden trowel into the dirt. When the hole was deep and wide enough, she removed the pink hydrangea, roots and all, from the black plastic pot and set it in the space she’d made for it. More hydrangeas, dwarf spruces and boxwoods were in the plant bed in front of the tan-and-salmon brick trim on the bottom of the two-story white clapboard house. Once the plant was firmly settled into the ground, she stood, stripped off her gardening gloves and walked to the front lawn to check her work.
A mirror arrangement of plants sat on the other side of the stairs leading up to the porch.
Blue sky and clouds reflected in the windows on the bottom level of the house and the two windows on the top level below the pitched-roof attic space. A light breeze filled with the scents of rich earth, green and sunshine washed over her, and she breathed it in. This was the first of many wonderful mornings to come in her new home.
After gathering up her garden tools and gloves in the blue bucket, Rina carried them down the side lawn to the small shed toward the back. Dennis had said the space with wood storage cabinets and a tiled floor had been one of his wife’s favorite places. As R
ina stood at the utility sink nestled into the beige L-counter, gazing out the window overlooking the back lawn, she could feel the love and contentment Dennis and Nancy had experienced there, just like she could in the house. It was soaked into every brick, beam and stud. It gave her hope. What was that saying she’d read in a book a long time ago? As long as the rootstock remains, good will continue to flourish? She was counting on it.
Rina walked through the side door of the house and into a hallway leading to the kitchen. The contractors were arriving that afternoon giving her a few hours of peace. She laid her phone on the beige marble counter over the wood cabinets that had been recently installed. The appliances she’d picked out would arrive tomorrow. Hands tucked into the back pockets of her jeans, she strolled through an archway into the living room where the old drywall was being taken down and new Sheetrock was being installed.
Time rolled back to her and Scott working in her bathroom, laughing as they put up the drywall and tiles. So many times since she’d purchased the house, she’d thought of him, wondering what his opinion would be on something involving the remodel. What would he think of her modern spa-like bathroom? How badly would he have teased her about it taking four tries to get the right shade of sunny yellow for her bedroom—not too bright, but with a softness that absorbed the natural light? If he were still in her life, would they have lingered in bed in the mornings with his needed coffee and her required moment of silence watching the sunrise?
A longing for him rose and she took in a breath, filling the raw hollow space in her chest. Where was he? In Hollywood or some other place on the globe, jumping from a tall building or flying out of one? Reluctantly, Rina let the image of Scott disappear and focused on the house. She would make this space hers, and little by little, fill it with the good memories to come.
Her phone rang and she retrieved it from the kitchen. Zurie. They checked in with each other at least twice a week now, in person or on the phone. It was still a work in progress, but the unspoken ground rules seemed to be working. No prying or judgmental conversations, just a brief chat about what was going on in their day-to-day.
Rina answered on the third ring. “Hi.”
“Hey, are you busy this morning? Tristan and I were talking about what to do with the new barn once filming the movie is over. We could use a third opinion.”
Including her in decisions about Tillbridge was also entering more in their conversations. Rina rested a hip against the counter. “I thought he wanted to turn it into stalls for Tillbridge or family-owned horses?”
“Maybe. But we’d still like to explore more ideas. Can you come by in about an hour so we can talk about it?”
“Sure, but it might be a little more than an hour. I was digging around outside. I have to get cleaned up.”
“Okay. We’ll meet you at the barn when you get here.”
Rina double-checked the calendar on her phone for what time the movers were coming by her apartment. They were picking up the packed boxes of pictures and memorabilia she’d stored in the guest room later that morning. She, Zurie and Tristan had decided to install glass cases in the hallway outside the Pasture Lane Restaurant. Now the Tillbridge family history of horses and their decades-long legacy of competition as cowboys and cowgirls would be shared.
Close to an hour later, dressed in a fresh T-shirt and jeans, Rina pulled into the half-full parking lot in back of the stable. The film crew and cast, along with the bulk of set security had moved to the other side of the property where the new indoor arena was located.
In front of her, the paddock adjoining the stable was empty, but three horses looked out from the back of their closed stalls. Farther down, a groomsman and a trainer spoke to a dozen or so people settled at the picnic tables in the seating area. Most likely they were guests being briefed for a trail ride.
Rina walked toward the pasture on the other side of the parking lot. As she trekked across the mown grass, the memory of Scott flying out of the barn and running into her started to play through her mind. His face. His easy smile. The way he’d held on to her and the sheet pan of desserts. She stopped the flow of images and the sense of bittersweetness wrapping around her heart. You’re embracing the future not the past. Remember?
As she approached the barn, a soft whinny caught her attention. Was it coming from inside the barn? Just as she was about to peek inside, she saw the white-paneled temporary horse stall. Showdown looked out over the center railing.
“Hey, handsome.” Showdown snorted a greeting as she gave him a rub. “I would have brought an apple if I would have known you were here. Why aren’t you in the stable or with the other set horses?”
“Because I bought him.”
She looked over her shoulder and her heart tripped. Scott. He was a little leaner since the last time she’d seen him, but his chest and shoulders were still impressive in a cream-colored shirt with pushed-up sleeves. Faded jeans hugged his muscular thighs. When he’d left weeks ago, medication had dulled his green eyes, but now they were clear in the sunlight, and trained on her.
Reasons for his presence, from working on the film again to the one she tamped down as impossible, battled for precedence in her mind. But why buy a horse that was finicky about who rode him? “You bought Showdown.” She faced him. “Why?”
“Because he’s tired of traveling around and coming back to an empty place. It took him a while to realize it, but he’s ready to call one spot home with the one that means more to him than anyone else.” Scott stopped in front of her. “But he messed up in a big way. And whether or not he gets what he wants depends on one thing.”
Scott was talking about himself, but Rina controlled the hope expanding inside of her. “What?”
“If the one that means more to him than anyone else can forgive him.” Scott lightly stroked her cheek. “I made assumptions I shouldn’t have. I thought seeing me in the hospital brought up too many bad memories for you. In my profession, accidents can happen. I couldn’t deal with the thought of putting you through seeing me that way again.”
“If I couldn’t have handled the risk, I never would have gotten involved with you.”
“I know. I should have had more faith in you and not walked away. I’m sorry. But if you take me back, I’ll make up for it. I’m all in on doing whatever it takes for us to be together.”
Rina closed her eyes, part of her wondering if she was imagining his words and his touch. She wanted to forgive him. But she’d let herself wrongly believe what Scott wanted before he’d left. If he was back at Tillbridge, he might just want a short-term thing, but she couldn’t do that with him. She needed more. “What do you think we have?”
The warmth from his mouth hovered over hers as Scott spoke. “A shot at forever.” He curved his hands around her waist. “I didn’t always believe in it, but I do now.”
Rina opened her eyes and looked directly into his. “Why?”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
Telling him she felt the same was lost in Scott’s kiss. Happiness welled inside of her along with the need to tell him everything. Her hopes. Her dreams. Her mistakes. Scott couldn’t take all the blame. She pulled slightly away from him and rested her hands on his chest. “When you were in the hospital, I didn’t come to you right away, because I was afraid of losing you. I should have been up front with you, too.”
“I know you were scared. So was I. That’s why I told myself that it was best to spare you from whatever you were feeling instead of giving you a chance to cope with it. But the truth is, when I saw the fear in your eyes, all I could see was you leaving me, if not then, sometime in the future. I was scared of losing you. Losing us.”
Rina cupped his cheek. “I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”
Tired of being ignored, Showdown gave a snort and a full body shake before turning away from them.
They both laughed.
&
nbsp; Scott tipped his head toward Showdown. “He’s yours by the way. I bought him for you.”
“Thank you.” Having Scott and Showdown back in her life was almost too much to absorb all at once. “I’m surprised you were able to convince Frank to part with him.”
“The way you two have bonded, it was obvious where Showdown belonged. And I hope you’re prepared to see me a lot more often. Kyle scoped out some land outside of Bolan. He’s thinking about opening a stunt training school and wants me to join him in some capacity, an instructor, maybe even as a part owner. I said yes.”
“If that makes you happy, but I’m not expecting you to give up your career for me. You have your passion and I have mine.” He was about to become the first person to know what was on her business horizon. “My online store opens in five months. Pies for now, and later on, recipe kits and branded items.”
Scott’s grin widened as he picked her up in a hug. “I’m proud of you.” He set her down and kissed her. “I’m going to love tempting people with your desserts. They’re coming with me everywhere I go.”
She liked the sound of that and having him around more. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m so glad you ran me over and smashed my blueberry pies.”
“Almost ran you over. And like I said. It was my greatest stunt ever.”
“You’re still sticking with that, huh?”
“Yep. And it will always be the greatest.” His smile lit up the love in his eyes and touched her heart. “Because it gave me you.”
* * *
Don’t miss Zurie’s story, coming in February 2020 from Harlequin Special Edition!
And Tristan’s story, The Cowboy’s Claim, is available now wherever Harlequin Special Edition books and ebooks are sold.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Texas Proud by Diana Palmer.
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