“Shoot. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I want to make you a proposition.”
“Oh really? And what would that be?”
Dinner and some stargazing.
“I want you to listen to me before you jump in.”
Cocking her head to the side, her eyes narrowed. “Sounds a little sketchy.”
Morgan sat beside her. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, about being afraid of going back in the water. And also that you may have made a mistake when you left.”
She inhaled a shaky breath and looked away.
“Jolie, I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t want to get into whether your leaving was a mistake or not. I’ve moved forward—things change.” Her shoulders stiffened. “But what I do know is that you’ve never shied away from a challenge. Fear has never defined you. If you don’t get back in that water, I think you will regret it for the rest of your life. And you can’t live with regret like that.”
Jolie blinked several times, looking solemnly at him. “You know, it was fear of regret that drove me to leave all those years ago.”
“Yeah,” he forced himself to say. “And I understand that now. I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t hurt back then. But you did what you had to do. And now you have to do it again.”
She looked at her hands and then into the distance before finally looking back at him. This evasiveness wasn’t like her, which gave him more insight into what the accident must have done to her.
“I’ve been thinking. Soul-searching. I’m not sure I want to continue kayaking.”
“That’s just fear and you know it,” he said. “What about the guys? They are going to hound you until you teach them, you know.”
She bit her lower lip, thinking. “I can’t talk to them about the accident.”
“All the more reason to just get back in the water and do it. Where’s the girl I knew?”
She gave a humorless laugh. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’m not that girl anymore, Morgan. I’m almost twenty-eight years old.”
“I’ve noticed.” Oh yes, he had. “Look, you couldn’t have kept up your competitive edge if you didn’t still have the drive that you had before.”
“Maybe I don’t have that edge or that drive anymore. Maybe that’s the problem. Did you think of that?”
“I don’t believe it,” he said gruffly, not liking the defeat he was hearing. “Not you.”
She stared at him unsmiling. Seconds ticked by.
He fought off the urge to pull her into his arms and tell her that he would keep her safe. “Here’s my proposition,” he said instead.
A furrow appeared between her brows. “Shoot.”
“I take you to the river and we work on your getting back in the water. No one has to know. We can get you over this hump and on with your life.”
“Why are you doing this?” Anger tinged her words.
“So you can help the boys. And get back to the life you love.”
Her eyes flashed. “You just won’t believe—”
“No, I won’t, Jolie,” he snapped, losing patience. “You’re afraid. And I don’t want you here just because you’re afraid.”
Now he’d done it. The truth was out and he couldn’t pull it back. Well, so be it.
She stiffened. “I see.” She stood up and paced a few feet away from him. With her hands on her hips, she kept her back to him as she contemplated her situation. Finally, she swung around about as angry as a wildcat. “I’ll do it, for the boys. I’ll show them that letting fear keep you down isn’t what we do. That God will help overcome. I just hope He gets with this program soon.”
“That’s okay with me.” He knew she was still hot at him but holding it in check.
“So, when does this start?” Her hand was on her hip, her chest heaving with anger.
Feeling drained, he stood. “How about tomorrow afternoon? The boys have chores after school, so that’s a good time to get away. I’ll pick you up around four, if that works for you.”
“Fine.” Jaw clenched, she turned and stalked back across the pasture.
That was his cue—the conversation was over. She was not happy with him, but at this point, he didn’t care. He was doing what needed to be done. Because the sooner she got back in the water, the sooner she got out of here. And the sooner she got out of here, the better it would be for both of them.
Chapter Twelve
The sound of the rushing water set Jolie’s nerves on end. Before the accident, it had made her adrenaline pump and her energy level skyrocket. Now she was terrified by the sound, and by the thought of stepping into the swirling water and climbing into her kayak.
She’d had to push her anger at Morgan aside this morning so she could teach class. But last night she’d fumed at the high-handed attitude he’d had when making this proposition. For him to assume he knew what was best for her was irritating beyond comprehension—he didn’t have a clue.
Okay, to be fair, he was right about the fact that the boys would hound her until she was forced to tell them the truth, and she didn’t want to admit she was afraid. Especially not to Sammy—what a hypocrite she would be. So that was why she’d finally agreed to do this.
Before the accident, Jolie had really been afraid only once in her life, and that had been the day she’d handed Morgan back his engagement ring and driven away from him. God had given her the strength to do that—to reach for something more in her life, to dare to go beyond the boundaries of what was comfortable.
God was going to have to give her the strength to do the same here.
Only, right now she felt nothing except the cold edge of panic. Palms as wet as if she’d been dipping them in the river, her heart racing with anxiety, she marched down the path behind Morgan.
What am I doing? The question echoed in her mind.
Fighting came the answer, pricking at her like a thorn.
Jolie hadn’t faced the possibility that her real reason for taking a break from kayaking was fear—it was easier to make it about needing to set things straight with Morgan. But the idea that Morgan could be right about her fear bothered her. More than she wanted to admit.
She was scared spitless, as Chili Crump would say. Both he and Drewbaker had fought in two wars and yet they both said crawling off in that yellow banana she rode over waterfalls would scare them spitless.
Long ago she’d thought they were just teasing her. Now she understood exactly what they’d meant.
“Are you all right?”
Morgan stopped a few feet ahead of her. She hadn’t even realized she’d halted in her tracks until he’d turned around.
They were on their way to the spot where he’d first taught her to kayak.
“I’m fine,” she lied, catching up to him.
It wasn’t as if she was the first person this had ever happened to. Her friend Rita had gotten tangled upside down a couple of years ago and hadn’t come back to the sport yet. She was a ski instructor in Colorado and guiding white river rafting expeditions in Tennessee. At least she was able to get on the water in an eight-man raft. Jolie hadn’t so much as gotten her big toe back in the water.
“You don’t look fine,” Morgan said gently, studying her face.
So much for his not seeing her terror. Tears were welling way down deep, threatening to surface.
“Come on, talk to me, Jolie. Tell me what you feel. It didn’t used to be hard for you to talk to me.”
“I’m fine.” She passed him on the trail. “I really am.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. Her heart pounded, threatening to explode.
“No, you’re not,” he snapped, storming toward her, eyes blazing.
“Morgan McDermott.” She swung around, glaring at him. “Stop telling me how I feel.” Ang
ry at herself for being a wimp, and at him for forcing her to do this, she lashed out. “How dare you!”
Tramping down the path, she could practically feel Morgan breathing down her neck. Despite her defiant spirit, her steps faltered the closer she came to the water, and her knees weakened. Her mouth went dry and her stomach hollowed out.
Crazy. This is crazy...and embarrassing. When she came to a sudden halt, Morgan slammed into her.
Grasping her arms, he kept her upright on the steep incline. His touch tempted her to throw herself into his arms, to bury herself in the security she knew she would find there.
Instead she forced herself to continue toward the sound of rushing water.
You don’t have to do this! the wimp inside cried out to her.
Right. She was finished with kayaking anyway, wasn’t she? Teaching full-time was the new plan. So she didn’t have to be bullied into this. Panic gripped her like a choke hold and she spun, intent on fleeing.
Instead she found herself pressed against Morgan’s hard chest, looking up into his dark eyes so full of concern.
“Whoa, take it easy,” he urged, his tone softer than she’d ever believed possible.
Shaking her head, she backed away from him as though he was a hot frying pan.... The rest of the saying slipped her mind as his hands wrapped around her arms and his calm eyes searched hers.
She had to tell herself to breathe or she’d have suffocated right there as Morgan gazed into her very soul. “I—” Breathe. “I’m going back. I don’t need to do this. It’s ridiculous.” The rush of the river seemed to get louder. She pulled away, trying to free herself from his grasp, but he held on tightly.
“Jolie, you can do this. Come on, babe. You can.” His voice was full of compassion. “I know what happened to you must have been horrifying. But I also know you, Jolie. You can overcome this.”
Swallowing cotton, she shook her head. Humiliation was the worst. Blinking fast, she fought off tears. Please, no crying! She hadn’t cried at all since the accident—she’d held it at bay, even at its worst. Now a tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
The tenderness on Morgan’s face made things worse. The pad of his thumb brushing the salty drop aside did her in as the tears she’d refused to cry for so long began to spill from her eyes, one by one.
“Don’t cry, Jolie,” Morgan said tenderly.
“I’m not,” she denied.
His eyes twinkled but he didn’t laugh. “Whatever you say.”
She dropped her head to his chest and flat-out lost it.
* * *
If Morgan hadn’t already figured out the seriousness of Jolie’s situation, he clearly knew it now. Jolie wasn’t a crier. He’d seen her get dragged and stomped by steers that would make a man cry, and she’d only gotten mad. She might look delicate, but she was cut from tough stuff. The fact that her sobs were soaking his shirt and her shoulders trembled in his hands shook him to his core.
“I’m sorry, sugar. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He gently placed his hand on her head and stroked the length of her silky strands. “You don’t have to do this today.”
As she rested her head on his chest, he was certain she could feel his heart thundering away.
“No,” she said in between sobs. “You’re right, I need to do this, but as mad as it makes me...I can’t...seem to make the last step into the water. I can’t even make it to the water.” Her eyes sought his. “I honestly think I’ll pass out before I get my toe in the water. Isn’t that a twist?”
Even though the last words were an attempt at humor, there was nothing funny about the situation. “If you make progress every day, it will happen.”
“What will? Me passing out?” She attempted a grin.
He didn’t. “No. You’ll eventually get in the water, and then get in the kayak...”
She took a deep breath, finally getting a handle on her tears. She nodded, the hint of a smile still quivering on her lips. Morgan’s heart stopped and every cell in his body went on alert as he stared down at her. She blinked—once, twice—and her lips parted. He felt her heart quicken against his own.
“Morgan.” It was a mere whisper and it drew him like honey as he lowered his mouth to hers.
Instantly the years slipped away and it was just like it used to be between them. He hugged her close, wanting to feel the warmth of her against him. When her arms slipped up and around his neck his knees nearly crumpled beneath him.
Trouble. The tiny word wedged its way into his head.
This was supposed to be all about getting her back in the water so she could leave to pursue her passion, passion that wasn’t for him.
She will leave. She has to.
Pulling away, he heaved a breath as they stared at each other. The world slowly tilted back into place. “Are you feeling better?” he croaked.
A twinkle lit her eyes and he was glad he’d helped put it there, if nothing else.
“How could I not be?”
He found himself pushing her hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering, sliding down to her nape. She trembled at his touch and it took every ounce of his strength not to lower his lips to hers again.
“We’d better get back. We’ll do this again tomorrow if you want—I mean, we’ll try to get you in the water. Not—” He shut his mouth before he said anything else.
“Yes, you’re right. If I’m ever going to be able to look at myself in the mirror again, I need to be able to conquer this. Tomorrow is a deal.”
“No, wait. We’re taking the boys out to build fence right after you let them loose tomorrow. I forgot.” Understandable that he’d forget—his brain was fuzzy after kissing Jolie.
“Sure,” she said, moving a step away from him. “I remember the boys mentioning that. They asked me to come along. I told them I graduated from fence building a long time ago.”
Morgan chuckled, seeing that just the idea of not having to get in the water tomorrow was a relief to her. “You never thought you’d be back here teaching, either.”
“True. But believe me when I tell you that stringing barbed wire in hundred-degree weather is not on my bucket list.”
He wanted to ask her if kissing him again was. Afraid of her answer, he kept his mouth shut.
They headed back down the trail, and he talked sense into himself the whole way while clanging warning bells continued to go off in his head. They’d kissed once, and based on the way he’d reacted, he knew it could never happen again. Because if it did, he was a goner for sure.
Chapter Thirteen
“Aw shucks, Jolie, do we have to learn to cook?”
Jolie had to fight the urge to scoop B.J. up in a big hug. “Cooking is a skill that even boys need to learn.”
“We’d rather be ridin’ and ropin’,” Sammy groaned, trudging along beside B.J. They were trailing the rest of the boys, making their way across the pasture toward the chow hall.
“You’ll both live. Nana, Ms. Jo and Mabel are excited to teach you. I want you two to be nice to them and appreciative of the time they’re spending to do this for you.”
Sammy squinted up at her in the sunlight. “You been tellin’ me not to lie, Jolie. If I tell them I’m likin’ it, then that’d be a big fat lie.”
Jolie almost fell over in a heap of laughter.
“Me, too,” B.J. added. “I ain’t but eight. Don’t that make me too young to fiddle with a stove?”
Anything to get out of cooking or baking.
“Believe me when I tell you that you will be well supervised.” Both boys’ frowns practically dragged in the dirt under their feet.
Nana was holding the door open for them when they finally got to the chow hall. “Well, boys, glad you could join us,” she said, a grin in her voice.
“Do we have t
o do this, Nana?” Sammy asked, as if he was going to get a different response from the one Jolie had already given him.
“Yes, you sure do, little man. And by the time we get through today, I bet you’ll both be the fried egg kings.”
“Eggs,” Sammy said in dismay. “You mean we ain’t even cookin’ cookies?”
“‘Aren’t’ cooking,” Jolie corrected. She was his teacher after all.
Nana hooted. “You’re cooking pies after you learn to cook something that’ll actually put nutrition in your system.”
Meeting Nana’s laughing eyes, Jolie shook her head in dismay. “The other guys seemed excited about coming. I thought that was a little surprising, but these two, they take the cake.”
Nana hustled them along toward the kitchen. “The other boys have been through this before and know we have a good time in the kitchen. These two ruffians weren’t here last year.”
Jolie thought back to when she’d gone to school on Sunrise Ranch. “We didn’t cook when I was here.”
Nana dipped her chin. “Randolph wouldn’t hear of it. Thought it was for girls. That man.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes as if to say he’d been stuck in the dark ages. “I’ve since changed his mind. I convinced him that many of these boys might have to cook for themselves one day and need to know the basics. And, well, then he saw firsthand with his boys. Not a one of my grandsons has a wife to cook for him yet and I had to help them all out with what goes on in a kitchen. You’d have thought those handsome cowboys had two left hands when it came to knowing the first thing about working a kitchen.”
Jolie got a comical image in her head of Morgan elbow-deep in dishes with pots overflowing and the stove on fire. “I struggled a bit myself when I went off to college.” She chuckled. “My poor mom didn’t think I was ever going to eat anything except cereal and power bars.”
The gloom hanging over Sammy’s and Jake’s heads was almost visible as they trudged into the kitchen several steps ahead of Nana.
“What in the world is wrong with you two?” Ms. Jo demanded in her no-nonsense voice, a twinkle in her eye. She had her fist on her hip, her gray head cocked to the side and a get-your-attitude-straight look on her face. Jolie grinned.
Her Unforgettable Cowboy Page 11