“Do they understand that I’m leaving today? They won’t blame me, will they? Even if they think we’re…”
She stopped, as if unsure how to end the sentence, and moved to the window, hugging her elbows.
“Even if they think we’re what?” he asked, aware that his voice sounded like a brisk wind could shatter it.
“I don’t know!” The word ended in a wail and despite the risk to his heart, he took her in his arms. She’d managed to get under his skin and make him feel again. To make him want to…to give love another chance.
“I’m sorry, Red.” She pressed her face into his shoulder. “If I’d have contacted a wildlife rescue once I knew those elk were going to be killed, someone would have recognized that they were endangered caribou. They’d have gotten them to safety. There’d be no trespassing, no stolen truck, no awkward lies for you to deal with now.”
“And we’d have never met. Is that what you want?”
“No!” She raised stricken eyes to his. “Red, how can you say that? I love…the time we’ve spent together.”
“But you don’t trust us. You don’t trust that we’re going to look after the caribou, that no one will rat you out to that Conrad creep, that no one will think twice about what you did.”
Us. He’d said us. Somehow, when he wasn’t looking, he’d become part of the Lutherton community. They’d accepted him, long before he’d even known he wanted them too.
“They’ll blame me for leaving.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Bliss and Des and Blythe and probably a dozen other people he didn’t even know had decided he and Frankie belonged together. But until Frankie herself chose, there was nothing anyone else could do.
“That’s their problem,” he said, speaking around the lump in his throat. “Come on. Might as well get it over with.”
…
Frankie watched Red toy with the bacon on his plate. What was wrong with him? It was tough to get a good read on him, especially since they didn’t know each other very well.
Although he knew parts of her very well indeed.
With a sigh, Zach tossed his napkin onto his plate. “So which one of you wants to tell us about that rig in the ditch?”
Frankie’s pulse, which had just begun to slow, quickened again. Under the table, Red’s hand found her knee.
Zach and Des exchanged glances.
A clock Frankie hadn’t noticed before ticked loudly. “What…rig?” she said.
Zach quirked an eyebrow at her. “You know. The one that miraculously disappeared the instant the road was clear? Same night your car appeared?”
Des laughed, and pushed her chair back from the table. “Seriously? You didn’t think he’d notice? You’re not real familiar with ranchers, are you?”
“I guess not,” said Frankie, faintly.
In a flash, Frankie understood how much of an outsider she was. Red too, but at least he was working at making Lutherton his home.
Only, what if they didn’t take kindly to a sheriff who bent the rules now and then?
“Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer,” she burst out. Words bubbled up uncontrollably. “They played it over and over, yet he wasn’t a reindeer, he was an elk, and after Christmas, they were going to make him into sausage. I was trying to rescue him. What better place than a mustang sanctuary, right? Only there were five of him, not one. And I couldn’t manage Conrad’s truck and then Red found me and said something about grand theft auto and the lights went out and then my reindeer-slash-elk were endangered caribou and everyone wants to know where they came from and if I say, then everyone gets in trouble and my simple plan is all a horrible mess and now I have to go, and even though he’s been so good to me, so kind and sweet, Red might lose his job and maybe you don’t know it but he really likes it here. Don’t blame him. It’s not his fault.”
She stopped. The edges of her world was getting a little blurry. “He wanted to arrest me, he really did. It’s all my fault, not his.”
Fingers, gentle against her cheek.
“Easy, babe. Breathe.”
Sometime during her rant, Red had slipped his arm around her and now he took her chin in his hand and made her look at him. There was nowhere for her eyes to land but on his and once there, he wouldn’t let her look away. Gradually, her heart rate slowed and her vision returned to normal.
“I thought there was drama in my house,” said Blythe. “Piercings and tattoos are nothing compared to this.”
“You and I are going to do the dishes,” said Bliss, hauling Blythe to her feet. “You four,” she pointed at them each in turn. “Go talk by the fire. Red, just tell them what happened, will you?”
Red and Des each took an elbow and propelled Frankie to the couch. She sat down on blankets that were still mussed from the previous night.
“Sorry,” she said faintly.
“¡Mierda!” muttered Des. “Nobody’s mad at you, Frankie. Nobody’s firing the sheriff. Nobody’s making elk-sausage. Red, will you tell us exactly what she’s trying to apologize for, before she hands herself the death penalty?”
…
Red looked closely at Frankie, now leaning back against the couch with her eyes closed. Maybe he’d gotten it wrong. Her little outburst had been mostly about how she didn’t want any fallout to land on him. And, call it imagination, but when she said she had to go, it wasn’t with relief, it was with sorrow.
Quietly and concisely, Red outlined the past few days for Zach and Des, fleshing out the story that Frankie had begun.
“You can’t blame Frankie,” Red heard himself say at the end. “She meant well but she made a mistake.”
“Madame Universe,” Frankie murmured from the couch. “I blame her.”
Zach’s eyebrows rose. “This keeps getting better and better, Red. Now you’re falling on your sword for her?”
“It’s so romantic,” sighed Des. “Wait until I tell Rory and Carson.”
Carson. Red’s stomach ached. “I used his tractor to pull out the rig, and I swear, we didn’t damage a thing.”
A buzzing noise sounded from somewhere.
“Honey!” said Des. “That’s your cell phone! We’ve got service again!”
Zach stood up and moved away to answer it.
“So this Conrad,” said Des. “He put dye in the caribou feed?”
Frankie nodded, still keeping her eyes closed. She wasn’t as pale as before, Red noticed with relief.
“And you,” Des glared at him, “thought she’d get in trouble for rescuing them? You thought Carson, who runs a mustang sanctuary, would be upset with her? For trespassing?”
Red squirmed. “He left me in charge. I just wanted to do the right thing.”
“Well. You’re an idiot.”
“He is not!” Frankie’s eyes opened.
“Whoa.” Now Des’s eyebrows lifted. “Double-teaming me. Interesting.”
Zach returned, a grin on his face. “That was Carson. They took the red-eye. They’ll be home by noon. Turns out he went to school with a couple of the biologists involved with the Selkirk Mountain project. He’s pretty thrilled to have their caribou on his land, in fact, however they got there. He’s gonna call his buddies, figures they’ll be out ASAP to collect them and return them to the old growth forest.”
Red couldn’t find his voice. He looked at Frankie. She blinked back at him.
“Don’t just sit there,” said Zach with a laugh. “We need to get those babies into the corral and it’s an all-hands-on-deck kind of situation. Come on. Let’s go round up some reindeer!”
Corralling the caribou had been a tougher job than Frankie had expected. But between the four of them on snowmobiles they managed to do it. Zach shouted directions, Des helped her and Red follow the caribou, and two great hairy dogs—Mistral plus Chewy, the caramel colored one that came with Zach—dashed among them all.
The caribou, breathing hard, were safely confined to a small fenced area, ready for pickup by the conservation officer. Zach, Des and Blythe had zi
pped off back to Twinridge Ranch, while Bliss had gone inside to prepare the house for the Granger family.
Her reindeer would be okay! She did it! They did it.
So why didn’t she feel like celebrating?
She joined Red where he stood at the fence.
“Glad that’s over,” she said, wiping snow off his face.
“Yeah.”
Was that regret in his voice?
He put an arm around her waist, tugging her against him.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
She followed his gaze, remembering when she’d pointed the same beauty out to him. Miles of white undulated before them, smooth as silk, brittle as glass. In the distance, mountains blended with sky, only the lines of rock and forest breaking up the glittering white.
The air was so pure it hurt, so still you could hear a twig snap a mile away.
A lump rose in her throat. How could she leave this? How could she leave him?
“I’m sorry for everything I put you through, Red.” She laid a hand on his arm. “But I have to tell you, this has been the best Christmas I’ve had in a long time.”
He smiled crookedly. “Me too.”
Slowly they made their way up from the corral. At her car, they stopped.
“I guess I’ll be on my way, then.”
“I guess.” He wiped fresh snow off the hood of her car. “You have all your stuff?”
“I figured I’d leave you the elf costume.” She tried to wink. Failed.
The door to the house slammed and Bliss came down the steps, a basket in her arms.
“A little something to keep your strength up,” she said.
“Thanks, Bliss,” said Frankie. The lump got bigger.
“You sure you can’t convince her to stay, Sheriff?” Bliss frowned at Red.
Frankie saw him swallow, gathering courage to articulate what she herself was afraid to say.
“School’s out for another week,” he said, finally, running his fingers over her hands. “I mean, if you wanted to stay a little longer. Meet Rory and Carson.”
“You’re pathetic,” said Bliss. She shook her head at Red, then turned on her heel. “But you should stay, Frankie. There’s fireworks in town on New Year’s Eve. Everyone comes out. You’re gonna be famous when word gets around about the reindeer you rescued. Kids will be asking for your autograph.”
“You should stay, Frankie,” said Red. “Really.”
That faint buzzing sound was back. They wanted her to stay?
Red wanted her to stay?
Or was he just being polite?
The buzzing sound turned to a hum. The hum came from Red. She recognized the tune.
“Jingle bells, jingle bells,” he sang softly. “Frankie, won’t you stay?”
The porch door opened and Desiree poked her head out, opened her mouth, then closed it and joined Bliss.
“I’m more fun with you here, hon,” he continued, “though I know you’ll make me pay-hey.”
Frankie pressed her knuckles against her mouth, but tears came anyway. The more he sang, the more beautiful he sounded. Even if she could have joined him, she wouldn’t have interrupted his solo for the world.
“Rudolph the bitter sheriff,” he began again, and this time she could hear what it cost him to sing the words, “doesn’t want to be alone.”
“Frankie the lonely teacher,” she whispered, “doesn’t really have a home.”
“Maybe you could,” he whispered back. “With me.”
Anywhere Red was, she thought. That’s where home would be.
“Well, I’m freezing my patootie off out here.” Bliss sniffed loudly from where she and Des were hugging each other on the porch. “Now that the power’s back on, you can even have a proper guest room, with heat and all. Share it, with my blessing, it keeps the laundry down. I’ve got my own suite, so you’ll have your privacy. Lord knows, I put up with a lot of canoodling when Carson and Rory got together.”
“Bliss?” said Red, giving her a meaningful look.
“Oh, of course, of course, I do go on, don’t I?” She turned to the house, hauling Des with her. Before she let the door fall shut behind them, she paused. “This is a good place, Frankie. He’s a good man.”
Red pulled her into his arms.
“We don’t have to decide anything right now,” he said softly. “But I think we’ll both regret it if we don’t at least give us a chance.”
“What’ll you do if I say no,” she asked, her heart beginning to soar. “Arrest me?”
“I’ve still got my handcuffs.” His eyes burned into hers and in them she glimpsed something that hadn’t been there when she first met him.
“I’m serious, Frankie. I might have saved you from freezing to death, but you rescued me, too. I was dying of loneliness and I didn’t even know it.”
Tears shone in his eyes. The guarded cynicism that had been there when they met was gone. In its place was softness, vulnerability.
Hope.
Red began to hum. She recognized the tune—I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In.
“I saw an elf on Christmas Eve, determined, righteous and naive,” he sang softly. “She thawed my heart and made me smile, how will I go on without her?”
Frankie moved closer until their bodies were touching and his warm breath mingled with hers.
“Rudolph the red-haired sheriff,” she began singing back.
But before she could go further, Red grabbed her around the waist and swung her.
“It’s not red, you said it yourself.”
She shrieked, hanging on to him. A hoot sounded from the kitchen window where Bliss was watching.
Red flung out one arm, lifted his face to the heavens, took a deep breath and sang.
“Joy to the world,” he belted out, with such fervor that Frankie couldn’t resist joining him. Before they’d got past the second line, Bliss and Des were singing along and not long after that, Zach, Blythe and even Mistral and Chewy added their voices.
It was the best choir she’d ever been part of.
“Let’s ring in the New Year together,” said Red, just before his lips descended onto hers. “We’ll start there.”
Fireworks, she thought, while she still could.
We’ll have fireworks.
Epilogue
SIX MONTHS LATER…
Spring in Lutherton was a lot different from winter, thought Frankie. And her life was a whole lot different now, too.
Better. In every way.
She looked around the little bungalow that she and Red had bought together. The house that, starting today, was home.
Better than she’d ever imagined.
Bliss huffed as she set the last of Frankie’s boxes onto the counter.
“More of this living together business,” she grumbled. “Why can’t folks just tie the knot, the old-fashioned way?”
Frankie smiled to herself, placing a casual hand on her belly. Bliss was going to get her way, and then some.
Over the winter, she and Red had spent a lot of time going back and forth between Kalispell and Lutherton, but they’d both known from the first day of the New Year that it was only a matter of time until they were together, permanently. And soon, they would be a family.
“Hey, baby,” said Red, coming up behind her and kissing the back of her neck. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough here?”
“Mm, that feels good,” she murmured as he kneaded her shoulder muscles.
“I could use a little of that,” snapped Bliss. “I did all the heavy lifting. And me an old woman, too. I tell you, the things I do for you young—“
She stopped, looked between them, her face running comically between disbelief, joy and back again.
Bliss blinked, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. “Are you…you’re not…oh my heavens, tell me it’s true!”
Frankie smiled and nodded.
Red wrapped his arms over her, bending to rest his chin on her shoulder.
�
�Knocked up like a piñata,” he said, rubbing his whiskers against her soft skin.
“We had a busy winter,” said Frankie.
Bliss enveloped them both in an enormous hug. “I’m so happy! Never mind what I said before about waiting, I didn’t mean it. Love, babies, marriage, I don’t care what order they come in, so long as they get here. Oh, there’s so much to do!”
She kissed them each soundly on the cheek, then ran off.
“I had to do something to convince you to stay,” said Red, his breath warm on her neck. “I was a desperate man.”
Frankie laughed. “You had me the second I heard your voice. Sing to me, Red.”
And he did.
Don’t miss the first three books in Roxanne Snopek’s Three River Ranch series:
THREE RIVER RANCH
To save his ranch, he needs a wife. But can she save his heart?
Needing a fresh start from her two-timing fiancé, Aurora McAllister answers a realtor’s ad for a guesthouse on the beautiful, serene Three River Ranch. She shows up at Three River tired, heartbroken, and with no one but her trusty Labradoodle as a companion.
Cowboy Carson Granger has enough trouble in his life without adding a woman and her dog to the mix. There’s the untamed mustang he’s prepping to release into the wild, not to mention his father’s crazy will, which stipulates that if Carson wants to fully inherit Three River, he’ll need to find a bride. Carson wants nothing to do with love and especially not a marriage of convenience. But he soon realizes Rory, and everything she represents, might just be exactly what he needs.
Sometimes love arrives on your doorstep when you least expect it…
HIS RELUCTANT RANCHER
Can a city girl and country cowboy open up to love?
The last place city girl Desiree Burke expected to find herself was living at and working on a ranch, much less butting heads with the ranch’s sexy cowboy owner, Zach Gamble. But that’s exactly where she ends up after an incident at work leads her to her best friend Rory’s doorstep. Desiree is a gifted physical therapist, and Rory knows exactly where her brand of tough love is needed the most.
Zach’s been through hell and back. A devastating car crash left his brother gone, his father paralyzed, and him with mental scars a mile wide. His survivor guilt alone makes him sure he doesn’t deserve to find love. But as Des works her way into his ranch, his family, and his life, suddenly the last person who belonged there is the only one he believes belongs…with him.
Stranded with a Hero (Entangled Bliss) Page 35