Her Mountain Sanctuary

by Jeannie Watt

  “I was going to tell you thank you for being here.” He scooped up the carrots and celery she’d unpacked and carried them to the fridge. When he turned back, she was staring at him.

  “I thought maybe I could cook with those now. Make a stew.”

  He pulled the carrots and celery out of the fridge, even though cooking was the last thing on his agenda, and she pulled out an onion and potatoes from the bag. “Do you have flour? If not, we can have more of a soup than a stew.”

  “I have flour.”

  Faith pulled out a wrapped package of meat and set it on the counter. Even though her movements were fluid and she was chatting away, Drew sensed her tension, saw how tight her jaw muscles were, how stiffly she held her shoulders. She was as tense as he was. “Any news about Pete?”

  “He’s in surgery.”

  “I hope it goes well.” She started to unwrap the meat, but Drew put his hand over hers, startling her. Her gaze met his, wide and questioning, but he didn’t say a word as he led her away from the kitchen to the leather sofa. He eased the sleeping cats aside to make room for them to sit. The cats were stubborn, so he didn’t get a lot of room, but he guided her down next to him, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close to his chest. It’d been a long time since something had felt so damned right.

  “I missed you so much,” she muttered against his shirt.

  Drew stroked her hair, held her, kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want to ruin this moment. Then he felt her pull in a jerky breath and knew he had to say something. “About tonight—”

  Faith pulled herself upright, put her hand on his chest and looked him dead in the eye. “I’m not leaving. Not if Maddie is staying with you. If something happens—”

  He cut off her words with a kiss. A deep kiss, in which he did his best to communicate how damned fortunate he was to have her. To love her. To have another chance. When he pulled back, Faith stared up at him with a bemused frown.

  “We’re going to work out some coping strategies.”

  Her eyes went wide, then narrowed, as if she didn’t quite believe him. So he explained. “I don’t want to keep living like this. I feel like I keep dodging one bullet after another. I need to learn to deflect.” He cupped the back of her head, brought his forehead down to touch hers in an intimate gesture. “I was operating out of fear. Fear of losing something else. It felt inevitable, so I beat it to the punch.”

  “You walked.”

  “I...” He cleared his throat. “I know that loss is a given, and there will be more. But avoiding relationships isn’t protecting me. It’s ruining me. If you’re willing to give this a try... I totally understand that it might not work. I’d rather try than not.”

  She slid her hand up behind his neck, kissed him. “If Maddie’s staying, so am I. I’ll sleep on the sofa—unless Maddie is going to sleep there.”

  “She wants to sleep in her room.”

  The phone rang and Drew kept his arm around Faith as he answered it. “Yeah.”

  He listened as Cara gave him an update on Pete, who’d just come out of surgery.

  “He’s doing better than they expected,” Cara said. “How’s Maddie?”

  “She’s doing okay.”

  “Have you made arrangements for her to stay with Shayla?”

  “She’s staying here.” Drew said quietly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah. I think we can work through this.”

  “I don’t want Maddie traumatized.”

  “Faith is staying, too. Sleeping on the sofa. I think we’ll do okay.”

  “Call me tomorrow morning. Let me know how it went.”

  Drew smiled a little. “I will, Mama Bear.”

  After he hung up the phone, he leaned his head against the sofa cushions, only to bring it up again as Maddie made an ahem noise from the loft. “Can I come down, or do you guys need a minute?”

  Drew started to pull his arm away from Faith, when Maddie waved her hand. “It’s okay. Was that about Uncle Pete?”

  “He’s going to be fine. They said he’s a tough old bird.”

  Maddie broke into a smile and started down the ladder. “But I still get to stay, right?”

  Drew nodded. “And if you don’t mind, Faith is going to stay, too. Just in case.”

  Maddie gave a casual shrug and moved past them to inspect the stew ingredients. “Are we cooking?”

  Faith got to her feet. “Now that Pete is all right, yes. I think we should start cooking.” Drew ran a hand down the side of her thigh as Maddie pulled a package of Oreos out of the half-full grocery bag, then got to his feet.

  “Yes. Let’s start cooking.”

  * * *

  THE CABIN HADN’T felt so warm and alive since he and Lissa had spent their weekends here years ago, plotting out their future. He’d thought his wife had been the sole source of the warmth, but now he understood that it was also love and togetherness that had made the place feel so special. A sense of family.

  “The cat woke you up?” Maddie asked as she mixed the dry ingredients for corn bread.

  “Twice. It probably won’t happen every time.”

  “When it doesn’t, we’ll deal,” Maddie said, sounding very much like Faith.

  “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “I read up on it. The dreamer may appear to be awake while dreaming. Allow the dreamer time to recover after he wakes up for real.” Faith and Drew exchanged glances. “Challenges make you strong, Dad.”

  Then he was approaching superhero status.

  After the corn bread was ready to put in the oven and the stew was close to done, they went out to the shop. They brought in the twin bed that was still wrapped in plastic and carried it into Maddie’s room. Drew hadn’t thought to buy twin sheets, so Faith and Maddie made the bed with his extra set, tucking them tight around the smaller mattress.

  Cara called as they were dishing up the stew. Pete would be home in two days—one day earlier than expected.

  “Tell Uncle Pete I’m thinking about him,” Maddie called.

  “Did you hear that?” Drew asked Cara.

  “Yes. And if this works...her staying with you...well, we’ll miss her, but we’ll be happy that you guys are a family again.”

  “Thanks, Cara.”

  A family. Drew settled a hand on the middle of Faith’s back and she smiled over at him, but he could read the edge of tension there. They would all be a little tense until they met their first nightmare challenge.

  “You know these things don’t happen like clockwork,” he said after they’d eaten and settled back in the living room. Maddie was watching a video on her tablet and Faith was curled up on the sofa next to him. “It could be weeks.”

  “Then I’ll sleep on your sofa for weeks, or for as long as Maddie’s here.”

  Maddie pulled off her headphones. “You better plan to sleep on that sofa for the next five years, because I’m moving into my room. Sully can sleep with me.” She slid the headphones back into place and went back to her movie.

  “I’m not going to ask for a five-year commitment,” Drew said in a low voice close to her ear and his hand settled on her knee. “But a few nights would help. At least until Pete comes home.”

  She touched his face. “We’ll take it day by day, challenge by challenge.”

  He shot Maddie a look, then dropped his head to give Faith a quick kiss, wishing he could do so much more. Maddie kept her eyes on the screen, but damned if she wasn’t smiling when he looked at her again.

  Maybe, just maybe, this would all work out—and didn’t that feel better than assuming it wouldn’t, as he’d automatically done before?

  * * *

  THEY’D TALKED ABOUT the nightmares for so long—almost two weeks—that when the first one happened, it felt as if they were performing
a fire drill. Early intervention was the key. If Drew wasn’t too deeply into the dream, Faith would wake him, as the mother cat had done. If he was already thrashing about, she’d stay clear and let the nightmare play out.

  Mama Cat had been out hunting the first time Faith heard him stirring in his sleep. She climbed the ladder and, because he wasn’t yet fighting or lashing out, took him by the shoulder, said his name and gave a shake before quickly moving back in case he was deeper into the dream than she thought. Drew jerked upright, blinking into the darkness, then collapsed back onto the bed, sucking in air.

  “You okay?” he asked a few seconds later, still staring up at the ceiling.

  Faith came closer and he reached for her. She was glad he didn’t know how hard her heart was racing as he pulled her down to the bed, wrapped his strong arms around her. “Yeah,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Edgy...but not decimated.”

  She nodded against his chest, then because she was afraid she wouldn’t leave if she didn’t leave soon, she kissed him and made her way back to the ladder.

  A door opened behind her as she descended into the living room. “Is everything okay?” Maddie asked from the across the room.

  “Yeah, Mads,” Drew called. “Everything is okay.”

  “Good. Then maybe you guys can get married.” She stepped back into her room, closing the door behind her.

  “She doesn’t sound traumatized,” Faith said weakly.

  Even though Maddie had told Drew earlier in the summer that she wasn’t ready for a new mom, she’d seemed to appreciate the fact that Faith spent every night at the cabin, which meant she could stay at the cabin in her new room. Faith had become her safety net, and, as the days passed, her confidante. Faith had learned about Shayla and the cute kid who’d moved in next door. The terrible possibility that Maddie might get Old Man Taggert for math, because he flunked everybody, and a shy invitation to help her shop for school clothes.

  “No. That didn’t sound like trauma.” Drew exhaled, then he said, “Maybe you can come back up here...just for a while.”

  Faith didn’t need another invitation. She climbed the ladder to the loft, settled on the edge of Drew’s bed. He pulled her into his arms and even with the blankets between them, she could feel how much he wanted her as she nestled against him. “I’m not going to jump the gun, ask you to marry me, but maybe we can work in that direction. You know...think about it.”

  “Or I could say yes.”

  He stilled. “Or you could say yes.”

  She propped a forearm on his solid chest so she could see his face. “These are not normal circumstances, Drew. We are not normal people—but we’re becoming pretty good at working out coping strategies.”

  He pulled her onto him, kissed her passionately. “This is my favorite coping strategy so far.”

  “Sex or becoming a family?”

  “Family. Sex is a close second.”

  She smiled against his lips. “You’re sure about that?”

  “Never been surer of anything in my life.”

  Six months later

  “I DON’T KNOW.” Faith smiled at her husband-to-be. “A horseback wedding sounds like fun to me.”

  Maddie made an expansive gesture with both hands. “We can put flowers around the horse’s necks and Faith can wear cowgirl boots under her dress. You can both wear cowboy hats, and Faith can have a veil come off the back of hers.”

  Maddie looked at Drew, then Faith, then Drew again.

  “Uh-uh,” Drew said.

  Maddie rolled her eyes to the sky. “Come on, Dad. Loosen up.”

  “I’m loose, Maddie.” He let out a breath, looked over at Faith for backup.

  She gave a small shrug. She didn’t care how they got married or where. She just wanted to be able to sleep with her man in the new master bedroom he’d managed to frame in before the snow fell. They’d spent the winter finishing the room on the inside and completing the rest of Lissa’s planned cabin renovations—putting a larger window in the living room, a spiral staircase up to the loft, redoing the bare-bones bathroom.

  It’d been a good winter in the cabin. And she’d only been snowed in once, thanks to Drew’s plow, and when that happened, she’d called Penny, who’d told her that Debra wasn’t making it to work either, because the trip across town on unplowed streets was too fraught with peril for her.

  As for the nightmares...they still happened. And every now and again, neither Faith nor Mama Cat managed to wake Drew in time to stave off the terror. But the dreams were fewer and further between, and the important thing was that Maddie seemed able to take them in stride. The once-a-week family therapy was helping them all cope a little better.

  “Fine. Horseback wedding,” Drew muttered.

  “It’ll just be you and me and Maddie and Pete and Cara,” Faith told him. Pete was almost fully recovered, and even though Cara had gone through withdrawals when Maddie had moved to the cabin, finding herself pregnant—despite being told she couldn’t have kids—had helped ease the burden. Now Maddie was looking very much forward to a baby cousin, and Cara was over the moon as she turned Maddie’s old room into a nursery.

  “Maybe we should go whole hog and have it at a rodeo,” Drew suggested.

  Maddie’s eyes went wide and both Faith and Drew started shaking their heads. “Kidding, Mads. I was only kidding.”

  “But you’re not kidding about the horseback wedding.”

  “I’m not closing my mind.”

  Maddie grinned and flipped back the cover of her tablet. “There are a ton of ideas on Pinterest.”

  “Great,” Drew said.

  Faith hooked her hand under his arm and led him to the door. “We’ll be back in a few minutes, Maddie. I want to talk about the new horse corrals and barn.”

  “Take your time,” Maddie called back absently.

  What she really wanted to do was to get her hands on her man. Once they were outside and around the corner of the house, she took Drew’s face in her hands and kissed him. Hard. He wrapped his arms around her, bracing his back against the building as he lifted her off her feet, kissed her back.

  “You know I love you when I agree to a strange wedding.”

  “It’s for Maddie.”

  “And me. And you.” He set her back on the ground, bent to touch his forehead to hers. “Here’s to the future, my love.”

  She lifted her chin and met his lips. “To the future.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from PRACTICING PARENTHOOD by Cara Lockwood.

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  Practicing Parenthood

  by Cara Lockwood

  PROLOGUE

  COLLIN BAPTISTA SLID through the metal detectors at the Lee County courthouse, grateful for the cool air-conditioning that fought off the humid air of southwest Florida. He grabbed his keys and wallet from the conveyor belt and nodded at Joyce, the armed guard who wore her hair in tight braids. She was a regular, like all the staff he saw almost daily at the courthouse.

  “Looking good today,” she told him, her eyes sliding down the length of the new dark suit that fit him like a glove, a splurge he’d allowed himself after winning that high-profile murder trial last month. He patted the top of his thick black hair, courtesy of his Filipino mother, a contrast to his green eyes and the lopsided, roguish smile from his Irish dad. Collin was anything but boy-next-door, but he could command a courtroom with persuasive arguments alone, one of the many reasons he hadn’t lost a case in two years working as a prosecutor for the state attorney’s office.

  Still, he felt nerves dance in the pit of his stomach, but they had nothing to do with the hearing this morning, which was a routine case—a drunk driver who’d smashed his car into a tree but thankfully hadn’t hurt anyone. Yet. Collin planned to take the driver’s license to teach him a lesson. That was an open-and-shut case, something he could do with his eyes closed. The man’s blood alcohol had been three times the legal limit. No, what made him anxious was the thought of seeing Madison Reddy again.

  Madison. Her dark thick hair, her light brown nearly hazel eyes... The curves that simply didn’t quit. Her father’s family had immigrated from India, her mother’s side was from Scotland. She was biracial like he was, and the only woman he knew of who could make an off-the-rack gray suit and sturdy heels look almost pornographic. He’d been haunted by her eyes for a year, and even more so now since they’d fallen into her bed two months ago after happy hour gone wrong.

  Or, he thought, very, very right.

  Collin walked through the courtroom and found he was early; no one sat at the defense table. He felt a tug of disappointment. He’d wanted every extra minute before or after the hearing to see her. That she wasn’t waiting for him left him feeling a little empty.