Wild Mustang Man

by Carol Grace

  But he did love her. More than he thought possible. Because if this wasn’t love...he didn’t know what was.

  He kissed her over and over, filling his mouth with the taste of her. The little sounds she made in the back of her throat urged him on. Made his heart hammer. He wanted to leave his imprint on her, so she’d remember him—at least for a while. He’d never forget her. He knew that. But her life was exciting, fast paced, filled with people and events. There was no room for him in it There was plenty of room for her in his life, but she’d never be happy there. Never. What if he told her he loved her right now and she turned him down? He would never get over it. What if by some miracle, she married him and he lost her the way he’d lost Molly? No, he couldn’t take that chance.

  Finally, with all the willpower he could muster, he took her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length. She was only a few inches away, but far enough to let him catch his breath...to see the dazed expression in her eyes, her kiss-swollen lips in the moonlight.

  “Good night, Bridget,” he said. Then, before he could change his mind, he turned on his heel and went down the hall to his room.

  Chapter Ten

  Sunrise is a magical time, Bridget thought, scanning the horizon. Even in the city. Watching the sun come up over the Bay from the window of her tiny apartment always filled her with awe. But as she stepped out the front door of the ranch house, in the hush of morning, with the sun peeking over the distant mountains, she felt as if she was witnessing a miracle. For a few moments she forgot her worry about telling Max goodbye, forgot the sad fact that she was leaving for good, forgot her fatigue from staying awake half the night tossing and turning and trying to understand what was happening to her life.

  She walked through the long, lush, dewy grass unaware that her shoes were soaked through. She could see the crew in the distance already setting up to take advantage of the perfect moment. In a few minutes Josh would be on the hill outlined against the sunrise, his horse rearing, its mane tossed in the wind. Right now he was leading his horse out of the barn, his head down, talking softly to the animal. She watched them come toward her, both horse and man unaware of her presence. How she envied Josh’s life here, his peaceful existence, his ability to do what he loved, without pressure, among friends and relatives. Most of all she envied him his son. He looked up, saw Bridget and stopped abruptly.

  “Sleep all right?” he asked gruffly. She felt his gaze rake her body, and self-consciously she smoothed her wrinkled shirt and ran a hand through her tousled hair.

  A shiver ran up her spine. It could have been her wet shoes, but it was more likely the look in his eyes, the hunger she saw there, the out-and-out temptation she recognized because it matched her own. His deep resonant voice alone was all it took to send goose bumps up and down her arms.

  “Great,” she lied, with what she hoped was a perky smile. “How are you?”

  “Couldn’t be better,” he said.

  She doubted that. There were lines etched in his forehead that hadn’t been there yesterday and a tightening in the muscles around his mouth. Memories of the words spoken last night—and the one not spoken—hovered in the air between them. Tension crackled in the air that just a few moments ago had been serene. He tightened his grip on the reins.

  “Well, I guess we’re about ready,” she said, glancing at the crew, fighting off the desire to fasten the buttons on his vest, to straighten the collar of his checkered cotton shirt and run her fingers through his unruly hair. If it had been anyone else, some random male model she’d paid to do the job, she wouldn’t have hesitated. But with Josh she couldn’t trust herself to touch him, even in the name of improving his image. Not even with one little finger. Not after last night. Not ever again.

  He nodded and swung into the saddle so effortlessly she wished she had a picture of that, just that. Not that she’d ever forget how he looked on a horse, as if the animal was an extension of himself, all sinew and grace in motion. She would have enough pictures of Josh Gentry, there’d be one on every bottle of cologne, on every cosmetic counter, billboard, print ad...yes, she’d have no trouble remembering him. Just the opposite. She was going to have trouble forgetting him.

  She couldn’t bear to break the morning silence by yelling orders to the crew, so she waved to them and trusted they’d do what they had to do. By the time she’d trudged up the hill, the silver and pink streaks were fading from the sky, the pale moon was setting and they were folding their tripods.

  The rest of the day went just as smoothly, as the crew went around taking one more round of pictures. “Insurance film,” they called it, just to be sure they had enough.

  “Wouldn’t want to have to come back here,” one of the photographers said after the lunch break.

  “Why not?” Bridget asked with a frown. She was as offended as if he’d insulted her personally. Which was crazy. This wasn’t her home, her ranch, her town. After today she’d never see it again.

  “You know,” he said with a wave at the wide-open spaces that surrounded the ranch. “It’s so...empty. Nothing to do here.”

  Nothing to do but live. A different life, yes, but one that suited the inhabitants of Harmony very well, so well she was half-envious of them. Josh disappeared into the barn with his horse. The crew was packing their gear into their van. Time was running out. Bridget knew she couldn’t put off telling Max she was leaving any longer.

  She walked through the front door as she’d done that very first day. glancing at Molly’s picture on the mantel as she passed, wondering if she’d had a chance to say goodbye to her son. Unlike Molly, Bridget knew nothing about children. Had no idea how to say goodbye or how to tell him she was leaving. She wiped her damp palms on her blue jeans as she walked down the hall. Her feet felt like they were made of lead as she dragged them across the wide-planked floor. Maybe she was making too big a deal out of this. Maybe she was transferring her own feelings onto a five-and-a-half-year-old child.

  Max was sprawled on his stomach on the floor of his room, building a structure of Lego blocks.

  “Hey,” she said, getting down on her knees, “how’re you doing?”

  “Makin’ a motocross,” he said, grabbing a model motorcycle with one hand and pushing it over a Lego-built bridge. “Zoooom,” he yelled, as the toy sailed through the air and crashed into Bridget’s arm.

  “Aaaaaah,” she said, drawing back with mock terror.

  He grinned, showing the gaps between his baby teeth.. “Just like the time I crashed into you the first day you came, remember?” he asked.

  “I remember.” She took a deep breath. “That was the first day, and now today...” Oh, Lord, give her strength to say this. “Today is the last day. I have to go home today.”

  He wrinkled his freckled nose. “Where’s your home?”

  “My home...” She looked around his room, at the beige walls covered with posters and lined with shelves holding his prized and precious belongings. To her, home was a rented apartment. To him and to generations of Gentrys this ranch was home and always would be. He took it for granted. He was too young to realize what a gift that was.

  “My home is in San Francisco,” she continued. “It’s a big city in California. If I leave today in my car I’ll be home tomorrow. That’s how far away it is.”

  “When are you coming back?” he asked solemnly, looking up at her with the trademark Gentry blue eyes.

  She blinked rapidly. She must not cry. She would not cry. “Well...I’m probably not coming back. See, I have a job there. I came here...”

  “I know, you came here to buy a horse. That’s what you said, didn’t you?” he asked, scratching his arm.

  “Yes...no. I didn’t mean that. I meant I came to see your dad about a horse but what I wanted was for him to have his picture taken riding a horse. His horse. That’s what we’ve been doing. Taking pictures. You know because you’ve been helping.”

  “I was a big help, wasn’t I?”

  She smiled and
ruffled his blond hair. “Yes you were. And when I get back, I’m going to send you the pictures. The ones of you and the ones you took. You could pin them on your bulletin board. Would you like that?”

  Instead of the enthusiastic response she expected, he lowered his head and averted her gaze. “I guess so,” he mumbled.

  Oh, no. If he cried, if he even sounded like he might cry, she was going to cry, too. If she wanted to leave with any shred of dignity, she had to leave now. She couldn’t risk hugging him or she might never leave at all.

  “Goodbye, Max,” she said over the lump in her throat She jumped to her feet and ran out the door before either one of them broke down. Walking briskly toward the front door, her eyes blinded with unshed tears, she told herself he’d be fine. He had everything he needed right here. So if she wasn’t crying for Max, who was she crying for?

  She almost ran into Josh on the front steps. She managed a watery smile and backed up onto the porch. “I...we’re almost finished, I guess, so...I said goodbye to Max.”

  “Oh.” That was all he said. But his eyes, such a dark blue they looked almost black, bored into hers. The next question hung in the air, unspoken. What about him? What about saying goodbye to Josh?

  She swallowed hard. “Before I go, I just want to say that I appreciate everything you’ve done. I know you didn’t want to do this, posing for pictures for two days. But I hope it hasn’t been too painful. In any case, you’ll get a check just as soon as—”

  “I didn’t do it for the money,” he said.

  “I know, but...why did you do it?” she asked, leaning against the wooden railing, her forehead etched with faint lines. If she didn’t ask now, she’d never know.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Curious, maybe.” He gave her a long, penetrating look that rattled her so much she had to knot her hands together so they wouldn’t tremble.

  “About Wild Mustang cologne? I’ll send you the first bottle off the production line.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I was curious about you.”

  “You mean what was a nice girl like me doing in the wicked, cutthroat advertising business?” she asked lightly.

  “I mean what was a nice girl like you doing in my bathroom?”

  “Well, now you know.” She told herself this conversation was going nowhere. She told herself to say goodbye and leave. But she just stood there staring down at him from the porch, wishing she knew what to say, wanting to leave, longing to stay, wishing he’d tell her to stay, but knowing he wouldn’t.

  In the end she brushed past him, intensely aware of the heat from his body, the earthy smell of leather mingled with the musky, male scent of Josh Gentry that could never be captured in a bottle. If it could, women would be lined up around the block waiting for a chance to pay fifty dollars an ounce for it. She mumbled incoherently something about being in touch with him. On the way to her car in the driveway, she spoke to the crew about what route to take back to San Francisco or maybe it was about the price of hay. A few minutes later she had no idea what she’d said.

  She drove to town, picked up her belongings, paid the rent and drove away. Watching the town disappear in her rearview mirror, she saw the one-story, sand-colored buildings get smaller until they faded away in the dust, saw the whole town swallowed up as if it had never been there. As if she’d never sat in the diner drinking coffee with Suzy and Tally, or bought clothes for the party at the dry goods store, or made phone calls to the Gentry Ranch from her cell phone standing on the corner.

  It was over. She kept telling herself until the words had burned a pattern in her brain. Over. Over. Over. Until the tears stopped falling. Somewhere around the state line.

  The next week was difficult for Josh. The week after that even more so. He found himself staring out the kitchen window, letting the canned soup boil over on the stove, as he remembered the night he and Max taught Bridget to work a slingshot. Instead of paying bills in his den, he picked up a pad of paper and started a letter to Bridget. There was so much he wanted to say. Things he couldn’t say in person. About how much she’d changed his life. How she’d made him see things in a way he never had before. How she’d made him feel things he never dreamed possible. Explaining that even if he were free to love again, he couldn’t afford to take a chance on losing the woman he loved. It had been too painful last time. It had taken a Herculean effort to get his life back on keel. He’d made that effort for Max’s sake.

  What about Max? He couldn’t afford to lose another mother. This was something Josh had never told Bridget never even consciously thought about before. Because there was no reason to articulate it. It was simply there. He and Max were in no condition to risk their hard-won stability by taking a chance on another woman in their lives. They were better off by themselves. This fact was a part of him, a part of what made him what he was.

  But after he’d scrawled “Dear Bridget” on the paper, he dropped his pen and was lost in a blur of memories. Bridget’s determined expression across the fifty-yard line playing touch football, Bridget at the horse auction, her shoulder pressed against his, Bridget at his father’s birthday party playing horseshoes with his arms around her. Her silky hair, her sizzling kisses. He buried his head in his hands and asked himself what was more risky, to stick to the status quo or to take a chance on happiness so sublime he had to keep pushing it to the back of his mind for fear of doing something crazy.

  He was hard-pressed to answer the inevitable questions from everyone he saw. There was Max’s plaintive, “Why, Dad, why did she have to leave?”

  There was, “How’s Bridget?” from his mother, accompanied with a knowing look.

  There was, “Whaddya hear from Bridget?” from his old classmates.

  He couldn’t go to town without someone stopping him to ask about her. What could he say? I haven’t heard from her, and I’m not going to? No, all he could do was to mumble something about she was fine but very busy and so forth. But how did he know she was fine or that she was busy? He could have called her, of course. He still had the card she’d given him that first day, but he had no excuse for calling. If she was interested in him, she would have called him.

  But there was no call, no message on his answering machine. She was no doubt swept up in the ad campaign for the cologne, or maybe she’d moved on to a new account She was back to her former life, a life that made Harmony look dull. Maybe she was out looking for another symbol, right now, today, as he repaired the fence on his upper pasture in an futile effort to get his mind off Bridget and onto more practical matters.

  Instead, he stood there, with the roll of fence wire lying on the ground, imagining that this time Bridget was looking for a man who looked good in running shoes or who ate cold cereal for breakfast. The idea of her photographing some other guy, a guy who had no five-year-old son, who’d never suffered a heart-breaking loss, who came with no baggage, who was available for a long-term commitment, caused him to grind his teeth in frustration.

  Because this man, whoever he was, would be powerless to resist Bridget’s quirky charm. He’d be bowled over by her honesty, her determination and her kindness. Not to mention those meltingly soft eyes, her determined chin, her kissable lips. And he would be sweeping her off her feet with flattery, plying her with promises. And she would listen, she’d believe, because she was so vulnerable, so lovable, that he himself had fallen in love with her!

  In love with Bridget? He couldn’t be. And yet what other reason could there be for the way he felt? For the way she’d turned his life upside down? For the way she’d come and taken up residence in his heart? He hit his forehead with his fist.

  Maybe he should have tried to sweep her off her feet with compliments. If anything he’d been too honest, about his problems and about his past. He’d scared her away by unloading his whole psyche on her that last night. He’d seen the look in her eyes. Even by moonlight he saw how he’d overwhelmed her with his sad story. What woman wants to hear the sad story of your life? No one. Es
pecially not Bridget

  She’d gone back to her other life just as fast as she could. It was too late to impress her, to win her over. He had no idea how to do that. He and Molly had gotten married because they’d always been in love and were sure they always would be. It was so easy. Now he was out of step. Out of tune. It was over...unless...unless... He picked up his fence wire, hooked it to his saddle and rode back to the ranch. The fencing could wait.

  That night, after Max had fallen asleep, after he’d asked for the hundredth time when Bridget was coming back, Josh went to the living room and took Molly’s high school graduation picture off the mantel. He held it by the frame between his thumb and forefinger, looking at her innocent, youthful face, gazing into her warm brown eyes.

  “Molly,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell you this. Maybe you already know. I’ve fallen in love with someone else. I didn’t think it was possible, but it is. It took me off guard. I fought it off because I was so scared. Scared of loving and losing,” he said, leaning against the back of an upholstered arm chair. “I want you to know that I’ll always treasure the love we shared. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love you, when I didn’t know that someday I’d marry you. It might have been in fifth grade, or maybe even sooner. We grew up together, and I thought, I believed, I’d never love again after you died, but Bridget came along, and I realized there was something missing from my life. And from Max’s life.”

  He paused and imagined that Molly’s sweet smile deepened. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he suddenly felt that she understood, that she really did want him to be happy. That she wanted him to take another chance on happiness.

  “I miss you, Molly,” he said, his throat tightening over a lump the size of a horseshoe. “You were such an important part of my life. You were my rock. My center of gravity. No one will every replace you. No one could ever take your place,” he continued, running a finger over the outline of her face.