by Jane Porter
“These are Summer’s cookie cutters. She gave them to me, said she’d never be able to use them again.” Sophie wiped the flour from her hands and looked up at Ivy. “What shapes should I make next?”
“Santa, stocking, and reindeer.”
“Here, your turn to roll,” Sophie said, handing over the rolling pin. “I’m feeling a little queasy. I need to sit down.”
“You okay?”
“Yes. Just too much coffee on an empty stomach.”
“Let me make you some eggs. Or French toast. I make really good French toast.”
Sophie shook her head. “I’ll just make some plain old toast in a minute. Do the cookies. I’m fine.”
They filled four trays with sugar cookies and as soon as the pumpkin bread came out of the oven, the first pair of cookie sheets went in.
“That pumpkin bread smells so good,” Sophie said. “All those spices, yum.”
“Let’s have a slice,” Ivy said. “It’s always best warm.”
“I guess it won’t hurt if we just have a little bit,” Sophie agreed. “We don’t have to tell anyone.”
“No, we don’t,” Ivy agreed before carefully removing one of the loaves from its baking tin. She used a serrated bread knife to gently cut two slices from the end. “Do you want a bit of butter on yours? That’s how Mom and I liked ours.”
“Why not?”
Ivy served the pumpkin bread on small plates, and sat down at the table with Sophie. She took a nibble, savoring the flavor. Warm, sweet, moist, flavorful. It was good, but it wasn’t quite Mom’s recipe. It was almost a little too sweet and not quite spiced enough. She could have sworn her mom’s had more cinnamon, clove, nutmeg. Maybe even allspice?
“It’s good,” Sophie said, finishing her slice. “Don’t you think?”
“It is good,” Ivy answered, “but I don’t think this is the recipe my mom used. Hers was almost like a gingerbread I think, or just had that lovely rich spiced flavor.”
Sophie crossed the kitchen and retrieved her iPad that was charging next to her cookbooks. “Let’s look up some recipes. Maybe we can figure it out.”
“It’s okay—”
“No, let’s do this. We can make a couple other recipes and see if anything tastes more like hers.”
“We’ll end up with dozens of pumpkin bread at that rate.”
“Great. We’ll throw them in the freezer and Grandad can have pumpkin bread all winter long.”
*
Sam smelled the pumpkin bread before he ever saw it. But then he entered Joe and Sophie’s kitchen and froze. There wasn’t just one loaf of pumpkin bread cooling on the stove. There weren’t two. There were at least nine. Maybe ten. And they’d all been cut at one end, with a slice missing from each.
Ivy sat at the kitchen table with a half-dozen recipes around her. Flour dusted her cheek. There was a small orange blob of pumpkin clinging to her long braid.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Trying to recreate my mom’s famous pumpkin bread.” Ivy collected the printed recipes, stacking them. “Haven’t been successful.”
“But I’m sure you’ve made some good bread.”
“Not good enough. It’s not hers. I want hers.” She looked up at him, eyes dark with pain. “Everyone said it’d get easier with time, but it’s not easier, Sam. It’s worse. I missed her last year but it’s almost unbearable this year. I can still hear her voice in my head. I can see her in the stable. See her at the fence, coaching me. And I turn, thinking maybe I’ll see her, maybe she’ll be there. But she’s not. Of course she’s not.”
He sat down at the table and used his knuckles to wipe the flour from her cheek. “You have so much of her inside of you. You’re smart like her. Strong like her. Kind like her.”
“But it’s not enough. There’s no closure, Sam. She was here, and then she was gone. And I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
“And your memories aren’t enough.”
“No. No. I want her. I want that time I never had with her.” She wiped her eyes. “She told me she was getting better, told me everything looked good. It was all lies. She wasn’t getting better. She was dying.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“How? By telling me lies? By letting me think we’d have so much more time?”
Sam pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap. She let him wrap his arms around her as she buried her face against his neck. He could feel the warm tears fall.
“I was her daughter,” she choked. “And she cheated me. She cheated me of being there and taking care of her. I wanted to care for her. Instead, she dies all alone. It kills me, Sam, to think of her dying without me.”
“It couldn’t have been easy for her, either,” he said, his arms tightening around her. “She was so proud of you, so proud of everything you were accomplishing. She didn’t want you home with her, grieving over her. Your mom didn’t want anyone crying over her. That wasn’t her way.”
“I wasn’t anyone. I was her daughter. Her only child.”
“That would have made it all the harder for her, knowing she was leaving you behind. She wanted you to live your life, not count the hours left in hers.”
Ivy pulled back, her hazel-green eyes shining, her long black lashes wet. “But that’s what I wanted. That’s what I needed. More time with her, not less. And I got less.”
This was the moment. This was the moment to tell her. If he didn’t do it now, she might never forgive him. “Your mom reached out to me. Toward the end.”
“She did this, after we’d broken up?”
He nodded.
“Why?” she said, pain making her voice sharp.
“Because I’d stayed in touch with her.”
She exhaled hard. “After we’d broken up?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
He carefully removed the pumpkin splatter from her braid. “I liked your mom. She was a great lady. A real cowgirl.”
Ivy knocked away a fresh tear before it could fall. “She never told me.” Her voice cracked. “Why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“It was between us.”
“You two had secrets?”
“A few,” he admitted. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, expression grim.
“What?” Ivy demanded.
“Nothing.”
She put her hands on his chest, pleading. “Sam, tell me.”
“I went and saw her a couple times, just to make sure she had everything she needed. I didn’t want her going without, not if I could help her.”
Ivy scrambled off his lap. “You got to see my mom, but I didn’t?”
“Shelby didn’t want you seeing her that way. She was very weak then, very frail.”
“You’re making me hate you.”
His mouth quirked. “That’s nothing new, babe.”
Ivy turned from him to face the stove with the sea of pumpkin breads. “It’s not fair she stayed close to you but pushed me away.”
“She didn’t push you away. She just didn’t let you see her so weak. She must have said a dozen times that she didn’t want you remembering her that way.”
“And yet she was my mom. Not a cowgirl. Not a hero. Not a barrel racing champion. But my mom.” Ivy looked at Sam over her shoulder and then back at the pumpkin bread. “I’ve been trying so hard to recreate her love, to feel her with me, and all I have to show for it are these loaves of pumpkin bread.”
“I bet they’re really good.”
“They’re fine, but they’re not hers. I want her recipe. I want her.” Ivy knocked away more tears. “Oh, Sam, I think I’m losing my mind.”
“Let’s get out of here. Let’s go for a ride.”
“There’s so much snow.”
“The horses would love it. You would, too.” He rose. “I’m going to go saddle Scotch and Charlie. Dress warmly and meet me outside.”
“I don’t know, Sam. I’m worn out.”
�
��Which is exactly why you need to ride.”
*
Ivy didn’t have it in her to argue and so she went upstairs to change, wrapping a thick cashmere scarf around her neck, the ends tucked into her winter coat, with a wool knit cap on her head and leather fur-lined gloves on her hands.
By the time she was dressed, Sam had the horses saddled and they set off down one of the white powder-coated ranch roads, the horses’ hooves muffled by the snow. Sam knew the road well, even though it was hidden, and he led them up the mountain.
The snow was powder soft and the horses sank deep, but as there was no ice, neither horse seemed to mind. Periodically, Ivy would lean forward and pat Scotch’s neck, gratified to see his ears slightly back. He was happy, definitely enjoying this time away from the stable. Ivy wasn’t happy, but at least she was no longer crying, and there was something infinitely comforting about being in the saddle. She was riding before she could run, and she didn’t love just one part of it, but all of it. The motion. The familiar creak of leather. The swish of the horse’s tail.
She bent down and pressed her face to Scotch’s neck, breathing him in. Every horse had its own unique scent. Belle’s smell was probably her favorite, but that was because she was there at Belle’s birth and fiercely bonded with her. However, Scotch was a close second. He was smart and brave, and he loved to be challenged. She loved that about him.
Sam steered them right, through what must have been an opening in a gate, across a pristine pasture to a cluster of pines heavily frosted in white.
Beneath the pines was a large rounded boulder, and Sam stopped here, swinging off Charley to tie the reins to a tree. “Let’s stretch our legs,” he said, reaching into a saddlebag for a thermos and a cup.
“You brought refreshments?” she asked, securing Scotch’s reins.
“Hot chocolate. Grandad made it.”
Just like that Sophie’s throat threatened to seal closed. She blinked, eyes burning. “I think I love him,” she said.
“You can love him. I won’t mind.”
She blinked again and watched as Sam poured hot chocolate in a cup and handed it to her.
“I should have brought marshmallows,” he said.
“That’s okay. I had so many cookies and pumpkin bread I’m kind of sick.”
He smiled and poured himself a cup before capping the cocoa. “Do you mind holding mine?”
“No,” she answered taking his cup.
Sam removed a big woolen blanket from the leather straps on the saddle and then spread the red checkered blanket on the boulder. “Sit. Relax. Let’s enjoy the view.”
She handed him his cocoa and took a seat. It was a stunning view, too. So much white everywhere. Mountains and sky, river and snow. “It’s like being at the North Pole,” she said, wrapping her hands around her cup. “Just need Santa and his reindeer.”
Sam sat down next to her and he used his elbow to nudge her. “I think we’ve found the reindeer,” he said quietly, gesturing to a mature bull elk that had joined them in their frozen winter wonderland.
Ivy’s breath caught in her throat. The elk was standing alert, head up, ears twitching, his impressive antlers stark against the clear winter sky. Little by little, other elk arrived until a massive herd filled the pasture, cautiously picking their way through the deep snow, grazing on whatever grass they could find.
“Beautiful,” Ivy whispered.
Sam nodded.
The elk glanced at the horses but kept their distance. The horses watched them as well for a bit before losing interest.
For the next half hour, Sam and Ivy watched the herd slowly graze their way across the large open field before disappearing from view.
“Wow. That was amazing,” Ivy said. “Really wonderful. Thank you for suggesting we do this. I think sometimes I get into my head too much. I need to get outside more, ride more, do the things that make me feel like Ivy.”
“I agree.”
“And, Sam, you’re right about the Wolf Den. I don’t enjoy working there. I don’t want to spend Christmas there. But I offered to work those days when I thought I’d be alone.”
“But you’re not alone. You have me.”
She reached out and took his hand, sliding her fingers between his. “I don’t hate you.”
“I know, babe.”
Ivy was content to just sit there next to him, holding his hand.
It didn’t matter that her butt was numb and her legs were cold. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t feel her toes. She was with Sam and it was almost Christmas and she felt a strange peace.
“All that unhappiness,” she murmured, “all that pain… and now we’re here.” She looked down at their hands and then up into his face. “I don’t know what we are anymore, but just being with you feels right. I feel like me.”
“If I’d known how unhappy you were—”
“This isn’t about Wes, or being with Wes. It’s about you. How much I missed you. How much I loved you. How much I hurt being away from you. It was awful. I hated it. I hated that we weren’t together… and the feelings were so intense that it…” She swallowed hard. “I felt dead inside.”
He said nothing and she forced herself to continue. “Sam, there are only two people I have ever loved in my life. My mom. And you. I maybe loved you imperfectly, but you were pretty much my sun and moon. And in hindsight, I can see that I was naïve. I didn’t understand that you have to fight for love, as well as protect love. You can’t just take it for granted, or expect it to be easy. I was young and stupid—”
“Not stupid,” he interrupted, “but maybe naive. I think we both were. I think we took the love for granted, not realizing what we had was special, and not easy to replace.”
“It wasn’t, was it?” she murmured.
“No. But that’s because there has only been one woman for me, and that’s you.”
“Crazy,” she whispered. “It’s crazy that I had no idea how strongly you really felt about me.”
Silence stretched, a bittersweet silence that made her stomach burn and her heart ache.
Sam exhaled and kicked at the snow with the heel of his boot. “I realize now that I didn’t say the words enough. I realize I kept my emotions close to my chest. I always have, even as a kid, and I suppose I expected you to know how I felt, based on the things I did for you, based on how I thought I took care of you.”
“Based on how you took care of me,” she repeated huskily.
“Every time I washed your truck, or hitched the trailer, or filled your tank full of gas, I was taking care of you, making sure you were safe, trying to make your life easier. That was all part of how I tried to show my love, but it wasn’t what you wanted, or needed.”
“I never thought of it that way.” Her hands knotted. “I thought those were just basic things. Chores. Like me making you dinner.”
“Which made me feel loved.”
Ivy turned to face him. “But you didn’t say how much you appreciated it, or how good it was—”
“I didn’t know you needed that.”
“I always wanted to hear the appreciation, though. I needed you to say, thank you, babe, for dinner. It was awesome. Or, Ivy, I love you.”
“I did love you.”
“But I needed the words. I needed to feel loved and appreciated.”
“Whereas I don’t need the words. Your company, it was perfect. It was always enough.”
The anger was back, along with the old frustration. Perhaps they really were too different. Perhaps Sam’s idea of love wasn’t hers. “And I desperately need words.”
“If I’d known how much you needed those words, I would have tried harder to share my feelings, and my appreciation.” He paused “I’m trying now. But it’s not easy opening up. You know talking isn’t my forte. And because I might not have the chance to say this again later, let me say now, you’re amazing, Ivy. You were born amazing. I was lucky to be in your world, while it lasted.”
Her eyes stung a
ll over again. It was beyond tragic to her that their relationship hadn’t worked because they hadn’t felt duly loved, when the love was there. She turned to look at him, her Sam, with his strong brow, firm mouth, high, hard cheekbones. She loved everything about his beautiful face and impossible heart.
“And I might not have the chance to do this again later, so let me do this now.” She closed the distance between them, and reached up to clasp his face, her fingers lightly cupping his warm, bristled jaw. She stroked her thumbs over his chin, and then the hollows beneath his cheekbones before gently putting her mouth to his.
He smelled so good, like love, and home.
The feel of his lips on hers made her heart ache. He still felt like hers. He still felt so very right, as if everything good in the world was here, with her.
She kissed him with love, because that was how she felt about him. She kissed him with all her heart because for the first time in years, her heart felt whole, and she felt sane. She kissed him as if her life depended on it, because God knew what the future would bring, and all she knew was that this moment was a moment she desperately needed, a moment she’d craved. The kiss deepened and his arms wrapped around her, holding her tight, holding her close, and it was probably the most beautiful, heartbreaking kiss of her life.
So much love.
So much pain.
So much gratitude.
Far better to have loved Sam, and lost him, than to have never loved him at all.
It seemed like forever before he lifted his head, and when he did, she could barely focus, her pulse thudding, her senses dazed.
“You know, you’re still my Ivy,” he said, his deep voice pitched impossibly low. “You’ll always be my Ivy.”
“And you’ll always be my Sam.” Her chest squeezed, her heart filled with pain. “So where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us in a good place, I think. We have the foundation for a future, but I guess the question is, do we both want the same thing?”
*
Did they want the same thing?
That question went around and around in her head as they rode back to the Wyatt house. The question continued to eat at her as she ate dinner and then lay in bed, staring at the beamed ceiling of her room.