The Cowboy's Valentine

by Donna Alward

  “Like you and your ex?”

  Lacey looked into Kailey’s eyes. “Yeah. Like that.”

  There was a moment of quiet while Kailey considered her next words. But if Lacey was expecting understanding or sympathy, she was way off base.

  “So you’re just giving up?” Kailey sat back in her chair, her lips pursed. “Do you know how hard it had to have been for Quinn to even care about someone again? What he’s been through?”

  “Of course I know!” Lacey bit down on her lip. “You don’t think I’ve thought about it every day? How losing Marie destroyed his life and how incredible it is that he cares for me? You don’t think this hurts?”

  “Then fight for it. If you love him, why can’t you fight for him?”

  “Because I can’t stand to think of the look in his eyes when he tells me he can’t do it anymore. Just thinking about it makes this giant hole open up inside me, Kailey.”

  “And what makes you so sure he will?” Kailey leaned forward, pressing.

  Lacey didn’t know what to say. She was afraid, pure and simple. Afraid of letting Quinn down. Afraid that everything Carter had said to her the day he left would be true. That if she hadn’t fought so hard, maybe she wouldn’t have strangled their marriage to death.

  “Kailey,” she said softly, painfully. “I fought for this for years. I did treatments, surgeries, you name it. I fought for the family I couldn’t have and in the end I drove my husband away. I made him hate me.”

  It was a few seconds before Kailey answered, but then she reached over and touched Lacey’s hand. “Honey, have you considered that you fought for the family, but you forgot to fight for him?”

  She took some time to think about that. Had she been so obsessed with a baby that she’d forgotten about her husband? What if he hadn’t cared about it as much as she had? She’d been so worried about the status of her uterus that she’d forgotten to consider the status of her relationship with Carter.

  She knew how to fight. But what if she’d just been fighting for the wrong things?

  Kailey cleared her throat. “Sweetie, isn’t Quinn worth fighting for? If he’s not, then it’s better this way. But if he is...what the hell are you doing sitting here?”

  “I can’t give him babies,” Lacey reminded her, a catch in her voice.

  “He has Amber. It’s not like you’re telling him he’ll never be a father, and even if it was, don’t you think that when you love someone, you love all of them? Not just the good stuff. What you have to decide is if you trust in him, if you believe in him enough to fight for the two of you. He’s not Carter. You can’t judge all men by the one man who let you down.” Something passed over her face, something Lacey thought looked like pain but it quickly disappeared. Kailey pressed on. “At some point you have to have a little faith.”

  The idea was scary enough that Lacey’s chest started to tighten and it was hard to breathe. She knew how to fight hard. She also knew how to lose, but in the end, would she always look back and regret turning him away?

  That, finally, was the one clear answer. Of course she would.

  “I might have already blown it,” she whispered, cradling her head in her hands. “He’s barely spoken to me since moving out.”

  “Because he’s hurting. Lacey, I saw his face that night at the dance. I saw how it was between you. It’s special. Don’t throw it away out of fear. You were the one who sent him away. You’ve got to be the one to ask him to come back.”

  “How do I do that?”

  Kailey finally smiled at her. “Three little words, sugar. That’s all it takes.”

  * * *

  LACEY WASN’T SURE how to get Quinn alone so they could talk. At his place, Amber would be in the way. At the ranch they ran the risk of being interrupted by Duke or one of the hands, and for this sort of conversation she wanted privacy. Time.

  She finally found an opening when Carrie stopped in for tea on Thursday morning. As they chatted over chocolate chip cookies, Carrie revealed that Jack, one of the hands, was out getting his wisdom teeth pulled and that Quinn was working the horses all on his own this week. Carrie had offered to step in and take up the slack, but Duke was playing protective daddy now that she was starting to show.

  So that was why he’d stayed away and not been in the office all week. Lacey was relieved it wasn’t because he was avoiding her even more. The topic switched to Lacey, however, when Carrie let her know that the lawyer had called and as long as Lacey was running the office part of the ranch, the terms of the will were satisfied. Now she just had to decide if she wanted to stay on at the house or find a smaller place in town. For now, not paying rent was a good option.

  It seemed like Carrie stayed and stayed and talked nonstop. Finally she left and Lacey raced to the bathroom to freshen up. She’d just go down and ask him to come to the house later when he had a break or something. She swiped on some lipstick and tidied her ponytail, swished on some mascara to brighten her eyes just a bit. Satisfied that she was acceptable, she put Ranger in his crate as a precaution against accidents, pulled on a jacket and a pair of boots and made her way to the horse barn.

  The barn was warm and smelled of horses and hay, two scents that Lacey didn’t find that unpleasant. Perhaps the outside of the barn looked a little neglected, but inside it was clean and tidy, with swept concrete floors and nothing piled up or lying around. She found Quinn in a stall, running his hands over the sides of a dappled mare. “Hey, there,” she said softly, not wanting to startle either of them.

  * * *

  QUINN’S HEAD CAME up sharply at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t heard her come in, but only because he’d been lost in thoughts about her again.

  The past few weeks had been so weird. He’d thought by going home he’d be able to get into his old routine again. That it would feel right and this thing with Lacey wouldn’t be so...present. But he’d been very, very wrong. To his surprise, home didn’t quite feel like home. The new paint and floors looked different, the furniture brand-new. The bits and pieces of Marie that had been there were gone, and he realized he’d kept it exactly the same all that time in an effort to hold on to her. Like a shrine. And now it felt like he didn’t belong there anymore.

  He’d been living at home and wishing he was back at Crooked Valley. The only thing he’d been able to sort out for sure was that Lacey needed time and space to sort things out. He hadn’t been able to move on until he was ready, and he wasn’t going to push her, either. The one thing Lacey didn’t expect was for him to stick around, because Carter hadn’t. But Quinn could be a patient man. He hadn’t given up on her yet.

  And now she’d come to him. He kept his voice mellow. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I came to see you. To see if we could talk.”

  “I’m shorthanded today.” He hated to admit it, but there really wasn’t a lot of spare time with Jack being out.

  “I know. That’s why I came to the barn.”

  “I don’t follow.” He stood and gave the mare a pat on the rump. “Good girl. You and the little one are doing fine.”

  The mare was expecting, and he realized that all around Lacey there was evidence of new life and reproduction and it had to be hell on her, especially when she’d wanted it so much.

  “I knew you’d be alone, Quinn. I didn’t want us to be overheard or interrupted. Maybe you can come to the house for a while.”

  “I’ll try, but it might not be until later. I’m handling everything alone with Jack out today, and then I have to go get Amber.” He tapped the mare’s foreleg and she lifted it obligingly for him to examine the frog. He was deliberately playing it cool, but he wasn’t going to be able to hold out for long. She looked so pretty, so nervous standing there fidgeting with her hands, that he really just wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her it was all going to be o
kay.

  * * *

  LACEY KNEW SHE deserved to be put off a bit. She’d been the one to close down any hope of them having a relationship. With nerves tangling over and around in her stomach, she remembered the moment he’d said he was falling in love with her.

  She’d thought it impossible. A disaster...rather than a miracle. She wondered if at any time during her adulthood she’d stop being so blind.

  “Just tell me what you need,” he said.

  Three little words. Perhaps not the three Kailey meant, but they were three that would answer his question.

  “I need you.”

  He straightened, dropping the hoof, the mare forgotten. “What did you say?”

  She wouldn’t cry. She would not. Blinking furiously, she repeated the words, hope pushing against the fear in her heart. “I need you, Quinn. I can’t go on this way. Nothing’s right anymore.”

  He stepped away from the mare and came to the stall door, unlatching it and coming out into the hall, then closing it behind him again. “What are you saying, Lacey?”

  She lifted her chin. “I guess I’m asking if it’s too late for us.”

  If she expected him to fall into her arms, she was mistaken. In fact, she couldn’t read his face at all, and she was suddenly very afraid that she’d missed her opportunity. That it really was too late. And she had no one to blame but herself.

  “You were pretty clear a few weeks ago when you told me we were done. What changed?”

  “I meant it, at the time. I’d spent a lot of energy fighting for what I wanted for years, and I lost. And then when I had something to fight for again, I was too afraid to go after it.”

  “And how did you come by this miraculous revelation?”

  Oh, Lord, he was really holding his ground. She’d hurt him when she’d turned him away, hadn’t she? And he was going to make her work now.

  “Quinn,” she whispered, on the verge of tears.

  “You need to say it,” he said firmly. “You need to, Lace.”

  It was time she rose to the challenge and became the kind of woman he deserved. She looked at him, standing across from her, and knew that he was right. She had to try. The idea of life without him was so utterly and completely empty.

  “Kailey set me straight. She’s a good friend, and happens to be pretty smart.”

  His face softened the tiniest bit. “Yes, she is.”

  And then she took a deep, fortifying breath.

  “The thing is, Quinn, I was so afraid of losing you down the road that I couldn’t bring myself to take a chance on us. And that wasn’t giving either of us nearly enough credit.” She gave a small sniff as emotion threatened to overwhelm her. “I’m miserable without you, Quinn. I miss hearing your voice telling Amber to be quiet in the morning. I miss seeing you across the dinner table. Hearing you laugh at a show on TV or talking about work even though I don’t understand most of what you’re saying. I love you, Quinn. I don’t know how it happened, because you drive me crazy. But when you kiss me I feel alive again and when we made love I knew what it felt like to be home and it scares me to death. Scares me because I want it so much, and it’s so precious and fragile and the very idea of believing in us and then possibly losing you tears me up inside. I’m afraid to have faith, Quinn. But I love you. That I can’t change.”

  She never expected to see tears in his eyes but they were there, glistening at her as she finished her speech. His voice was raw when he replied, still standing a few feet away, not touching her, but reaching her just the same, the way he always seemed to. With his heart.

  “I had faith once, too,” he said hoarsely, “and had it shattered. I didn’t expect to love you, either. And maybe you were right before. Maybe it’s easier for me because losing Marie broke my heart, but I wasn’t left, I don’t know, disillusioned, like you were with Carter. There was no blame to be passed around. Just an empty hole in my life. A cloud hanging over me until you came along and brought the sun with you.”

  “We used to fight all the time.”

  “Not for long.” His lips turned up just a little. “Just enough to flirt without admitting we were doing it.”

  He was right. They’d been playing this mating game from the start.

  “Do you think we can start over?” she asked, unable to keep the thread of uncertainty out of her voice.

  “I’ve been miserable without you,” he admitted. “Amber’s grouchy because she misses you, I’m grouchy because I miss you, nothing seems right. Home just isn’t home anymore, Lacey. It really is where the heart is. And I’m afraid I left my heart with you.”

  For a man who didn’t make pretty speeches, that one was pretty damned good to her mind. But she had to be absolutely sure, get everything out in the open, no surprises.

  “Quinn, you know what I can and can’t offer you. I understand, and want you to be a hundred percent honest.”

  He came forward then, put his hands on her upper arms and squeezed. “It doesn’t matter that you can’t have children. You, me and Amber...we can be a family. I would never, ever turn you away for that, or make you feel that you were somehow lacking. There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing except the fact that you’re too damned stubborn to take a chance. I hope that’s changed.”

  She nodded. “I have to learn to trust again somehow. I figure a good starting point is the man I love. The most admirable man I know.”

  “Don’t let Duke hear you say that,” Quinn replied, but a smile broke out over his face. “God, it’s so good to touch you again.”

  “Kiss me, please? I’m dying to kiss you, Quinn.”

  He needed no other prompting. His arms came around her as he claimed her with a kiss, his lips warm and firm and commanding. By the time they broke it off, she was quite breathless and weak-kneed.

  “So we start over?” he asked hopefully.

  She nodded. “We start over. We could begin with you coming to dinner with Amber tonight. I’ve missed her, too.”

  “I have to make a run home first,” he said. “Say six-ish?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Reluctant to let him go, she stepped into his embrace again, wrapping her arms around his ribs as she pressed her head to his chest, the rough fabric of his jacket against her cheek. “I’m sorry, Quinn. Sorry I was so stupid and scared.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. “You’re here now. We’ll make it work, Lacey. I promise.”

  After several long moments, the mare came to the door of the stall and stuck her head over the door, wondering what the fuss was about. Lacey laughed and Quinn lifted his hand and gave the soft muzzle a rub. “Jealous,” he accused, but the lines around his face had relaxed. Lacey felt like a load had been lifted from her shoulders. That together they could do this thing.

  “I’d better go decide what to make. It sucks cooking for one.” She didn’t want to leave his side but knew he had work to do.

  Besides, this time she knew he’d be back. With Amber and her delightful chatter. The house would be full again—full with the people she loved.

  “Whatever it is, it’ll be delicious. It always is.”

  She went to pull away but he grabbed her hand and yanked her back, quickly enough that she fell into his arms with a laugh. The laugh died, though, when he treated her to a long, lingering kiss that left her wanting all sorts of things that shouldn’t happen in the middle of a horse barn.

  “I love you,” he murmured before letting her go.

  “I love you, too,” she answered.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For the past month, Quinn had been happier than he could ever remember being. But right now, his nerves were completely shot.

  First of all, he’d had to make Amber promise to keep their secret, and he had no faith s
he’d be able to do so. For added security, he’d made the drive into the city and dropped her at his mother’s place, which had required a quick and, he was sure, unsatisfactory explanation.

  Then he’d stopped for flowers...again, in the city, because the only shop in Gibson to carry flowers was the grocery store and wouldn’t that set tongues wagging? A dozen pink roses sat on the truck seat beside him. Right next to a little red envelope and a bottle of champagne.

  He was so out of practice with this stuff.

  Her car was in the driveway. At least that was good, because he wasn’t sure what he would have done if she’d been out. Once he cut the engine, he peeked at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His brows were pulled together, forming a wrinkle at the top of his nose. He relaxed his forehead to erase it, then flicked a hand over his hair, fixing an invisible stray strand. Then he ran his finger under his collar, which felt far too tight, buttoned to the top. The knot in his tie was slightly askew, and he tried to straighten it although it refused to lie perfectly flat.

  He was starting to sweat, so he figured he should get out of the truck and just get on with it.

  It was ten minutes to six. The longer spring days meant that the sun still shone benevolently on the fresh grass that had greened up beautifully after the snow had melted. He left his jacket on the seat as he opened the door and then reached back for his bounty. One step after another, up the few stairs to the porch, where he hesitated.

  The “rules” were that the door was unlocked between eight and six each day. But lately those rules had ceased to matter. He came and went as he pleased, stopping midday to share lunch, for coffee breaks, for dinner and movie dates. And it had been wonderful.

  But it wasn’t enough. So tonight he knocked on the door instead of walking right in. It seemed appropriate.

  Ranger started barking his head off, the sound growing louder as the dog raced through the house to the door. Quinn could hear Lacey’s voice telling him to hush, and then she opened the door.