The Color of Forever: Book Two: Forever Cowboys Series

by Whitley, Hope

  “None of them came right out and said I’m just a good lay and nothing more. They voted with their feet. There were a few who seemed sincere in the beginning, but they ended up being all wrong for me for one reason or another.” She looked at Ben earnestly. “Please believe me that I didn’t intend to hurt you. Now I think it’s best if you go.”

  “Samantha—”

  She rose stiffly, her bones feeling fragile and brittle. “Please, Ben, just go.”

  “Okay. Good night, Samantha.”

  She didn’t answer. Ben crossed the yard to his truck and left. As she watched his tail lights disappearing from sight, she said softly, “Goodbye, Ben.”

  Samantha spent a miserable night. What little sleep she managed to get was riddled with those weird dreams involving her sister Maeve. This time Patrick appeared in the dreams, too, Maeve’s husband who had died so tragically, so young.

  She tossed and turned, waking at one point to discover that she was crying … big, fat tear drops that rolled down her face and wet her pillow. Why, oh why did Ben have to go and ruin everything by asking her to marry him? Couldn’t the great sex be enough for him, as it was for her? She hadn’t led him on. Her intentions of going back to the city had been stated right up front and she had given him no reason to suppose she had changed her mind about it. They could have enjoyed it while it lasted and then gone their separate ways with a few good memories of their time together.

  But now that was all ruined. She couldn’t go on sleeping with Ben, knowing how he felt about her and how much more he wanted from her that she couldn’t give.

  Glad to see the sun rise the next morning, Samantha rose from bed and dragged herself into the kitchen to make coffee. She had a killer headache and an awful feeling of melancholy, as though something completely horrible had happened and she would never be happy again.

  Sipping coffee out on the porch, even the gorgeous sunrise wasn’t enough to lift her spirits. Her cell phone rang and she reached in her pocket to answer it, checking first to see who it was and glad to see it was her sister Maeve. She hadn’t talked to Maeve all that much since she had come up here because the signal wasn’t dependable.

  “Sammy, what’s wrong?” Maeve inquired, her voice sharp with concern.

  “Nothing,” Samantha lied. “Everything is fine.”

  “Samantha O’Brien, don’t you lie to me,” her sister replied. “I know you and I can tell something is very wrong. Now spill it!”

  At her sister’s insistence, Samantha began telling her all about the poachers and what had happened. Her sister was horrified, naturally.

  “Then Ben sneaked back to the house and crashed through the front door and it was Pow! Bang! Kaboom!” she said. “I blinked and he had them both cuffed and on the floor. Come to find out he was a Navy SEAL.”

  “That’s like a horror movie!” Maeve exclaimed. “I need to thank Ben personally for saving you. What would I do without my little sister? But, Sammy, I don’t really understand why you refused to let Ben in the house when the bad man told you to. I mean, you were giving up any hope at all of being rescued. You must care a great deal about Ben, to do something like that.”

  “Well, of course we’re friends,” Samantha said.

  “Just friends?” came Maeve’s shrewd rejoinder.

  “Umm … well, not anymore. He came back after locking the poachers up in jail and stayed with me so I wouldn’t be afraid. Then, well, one thing sort of led to another and the next thing you know….”

  “I get the picture,” Maeve said, laughing a little. “You said he was good looking and sexy, so I guess that was inevitable. But that still doesn’t answer my question about why you sent him away and gave up any chance of getting his help. People don’t usually do something so self sacrificing out of plain friendship, Samantha.”

  Samantha was acutely uncomfortable with the direction this conversation was taking. “Ummmm … well, I mean … er … I like him a lot, Maeve. He’s a nice guy,” she stammered, hoping her sister wouldn’t pursue this point.

  “You don’t think the relationship is more than friendship?”

  No such luck, Samantha thought as her sister skewered her with another very pointed question. Maeve wasn’t going to drop it just yet.

  “It won’t be anything else, Maeve,” she answered miserably, knowing what she said

  was true after the way she had rejected Ben’s proposal, “In fact, we aren’t even friends now.”

  “Sam,” Maeve asked her gently, “did he disappear after you slept together? I know

  you’ve had that happen with men a couple of times because you’ve told me. So, is that the deal here?”

  “No. Just the opposite. Ben came back yesterday evening and asked me to marry him. He even had the ring. It looked really old and had a beautiful big diamond. I’ll bet it’s a family heirloom or something, passed down from one generation to the next. But of course I couldn’t accept.”

  “Why not?” Maeve’s voice was gentle but showed she had no intention of letting her younger sister off the hot seat just yet. “What do you mean ‘of course’ you can’t marry Ben, Samantha? Have you gotten married to somebody else since you’ve been out there and neglected to mention it to me?”

  “No! That’s absurd.” Samantha replied indignantly.

  “Then I don’t see why it should be a foregone conclusion that you can’t even consider this man’s proposal. You obviously have very strong feelings for him and they’re reciprocated. Does he have some major flaw or quirk you haven’t told me about? He doesn’t want to wear your underwear does he, like Darren?” she asked, referring to one of Samantha’s relationships that started out promising then went south.

  “No. Nothing like that. Actually, Maeve, Ben is the best man I’ve ever known. He’s kind, gentle and considerate. He’s always a gentleman. He’s smart, too, and funny. He works full time as a Game Warden and also runs a big ranch. And he adores me, for now anyway.”

  “From what you’ve told me about him, I see no reason to automatically assume his feelings would change for you.”

  Samantha hesitated, groping for words to try and explain why she couldn’t marry Ben.

  “We come from two different worlds. His world is here and mine has always been in the city.”

  Her sister had a comeback for that excuse, too. “Marielle grew up in the big city the same as you, Sammy, but she’s adapted beautifully and seems blissfully happy.” Marielle stayed in touch with Maeve, having known her since the was five years old and started kindergarten with Samantha. Maeve had been a friend and confidante for her.

  “You’ve done nothing but rhapsodize about how beautiful it is out there and how much you’ve enjoyed learning something about nature and animals. Just because you’ve spent part of your life here, Sam, it isn’t written in stone that you have to spend the rest of your life here, too.”

  “He wants a family, Maeve. Babies and all of that stuff. It’s just not me. It’s not who I am.”

  “It isn’t who you are at this moment,” her sister said, “but it’s who you would be if you married and had children. You have the biggest heart of anybody I know, Sammy. You’d be a wonderful wife and mother. I’ve delivered babies to women who had the maternal instincts of sharks and been afraid of what kind of childhood those children would have. But I wouldn’t worry about you.”

  Maeve had run into all kinds of women in her midwifery, Samantha knew. She had often privately wondered if her sister had chosen that career path because of her inability to have babies of her own.

  “Maeve, I just can’t marry Ben,” she said resolutely. “It’s not an option so let’s please don’t talk about it anymore.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, then Maeve spoke again, her tone gentle. “Sammy, I was in such a dark place after Patrick was killed and I lost the baby. The grief and sadness, I was submerged in it for a while, and my pain made me selfish and self centered. I let you down badly. I know that
and have suffered for it for years now. I did make a half-hearted effort to get you into counseling but gave up too easily when you didn’t want to go.”

  “I knew you were jealous of Patrick,” she went on, “and how hard it must have been for you to accept him into our little private circle of just you and me. Your feelings were completely natural and normal. You were still just a kid, only a teenager. Believe me, I know what a loving heart you have. You’d have worked past that jealousy and resentment and grown to love and accept Patrick if he had lived. But he didn’t, to my eternal sorrow.”

  “Maeve—” Samantha attempted to interrupt, to stop her sister from feeling any blame at all when she had been everything to Samantha and given so much so unselfishly.

  “No, Samantha, let me finish,” her sister said firmly. “This has needed saying for a long, long time and I’ve been too much of a coward to bring it up. When Patrick died so suddenly, you blamed yourself. You must have felt responsible, as though your jealousy and resentment of Patrick’s presence in our lives was the reason he was taken away from me, as though you willed it to happen. Then I lost the baby and learned I could never have more children.”

  “Now, listen,” she continued. “I’ve been seeing a counselor myself after all these years, trying to make my grief more manageable and I’ve told her all about you, too. I hope you don’t mind. I only wanted to get a professional opinion as to whether my theory about why you kept choosing unsuitable men that you would never marry and why you’ve steadfastly maintained you don’t want children is correct, or not.”

  “Sammy, you have deliberately sabotaged your chances of finding love and marriage and having a family of your own because you feel to blame for why I lost those things. Since I have never been able to even consider falling in love again and remarrying and since I can’t have more children, you’re punishing yourself by not having those things, either.”

  “I cannot emphasize this more strongly. You are not responsible for what happened to Patrick. You didn’t shoot him, Samantha. Some half crazed drug addict robbing that store for money for his next fix took Patrick away from me. Not you. Nor are you in any way to blame for me miscarrying back then or being unable to get pregnant again. None of it was your fault.

  Please, please try to step back and see that you’ve been sacrificing your personal happiness because you’ve felt that if I couldn’t have marriage and babies anymore, you couldn’t either. Sam, you’ve been carrying all that misplaced guilt around for too long, like a sack of stones around your neck. It’s weighing you down. Let go of it now and live the life you deserve to live … happy and loved.”

  Samantha sat quietly and then responded to Maeve’s words.

  “Maeve, I know you mean well. But even if what you say is true, I can’t marry Ben and stay out here. It wouldn’t be fair to him. He’s the sweetest, best man I’ve ever known in my whole life. Don’t you think he deserves someone who is already part of his world? Some girl that could step right in and take up the threads of his life with him, that already knows how to cook and all of that homey stuff? I’ve discovered that I enjoy cooking and I’m learning. But Maeve, it would take a long time for me to be a really good cook and as for all those other housewife-y things, I can’t even fold a fitted sheet.”

  Maeve laughed. “Neither can I, Sammy. I don’t personally know too many women who can. But so what? Do you think your Ben would fall out of love with you if you weren’t a first class chef or didn’t fold the sheets perfectly?”

  “No, but … I just don’t think I’m right for him. He loves me now, I believe that. But in the long run, I should be back in my own natural environment and leave Ben in his.”

  “Samantha O’Brien, I know how stubborn you can be. Once you set your mind to something you can be mulish about changing it. All I’m asking is for you to think about what I’ve said to you today.”

  Maeve sighed. “I hate to even tell you this but I suppose in all fairness, I have to.”

  “Tell me what?” Samantha asked. She hoped it wasn’t anything else that was going to make her do a lot of soul searching because she felt pretty beat up right now and more depressed than she’d ever been in her life. She wasn’t sure how much more she could digest today.

  “The District Attorney’s office called me this morning. That’s why I called you. Tony has been arrested and is in jail, and with the case they’ve made against him will be going away for a long time.”

  Samantha sat quietly for a moment. Tony was no loner a threat to her. She could go home now and resume her old life of endless parties and having fun. She should feel happy. But she didn’t.

  “I see,” she replied. “Okay then, I’ll pack and be on the next flight out. Don’t worry about picking me up at the airport, I’ll get a cab.”

  “Samantha, take a little time to consider everything before you come rushing back!”

  “No, Maeve, this is for the best. A clean break and the sooner the better.”

  Her sister gave up, knowing Samantha well enough to know that it was useless to get her to change her course once she had decided what it would be.

  Sitting next to Marielle as her friend drove her to the airport later that morning, having packed as quickly as possible and booked a flight back to New York from Jackson Hole, Samantha knew she should feel happy to be going back home. But somehow, in just a short period of time, home now meant this beautiful, wild country with its vast spaces and bigger-than-life everything.

  She would miss the breathtaking production nature put on twice a day of brilliantly

  colored sunrises and sunsets. She’d miss seeing the huge, craggy mountains in the distance and the meadows full of flowers and the sweet, clean air perfumed by the evergreen forests. She’d miss Mari, too, and Trey and Bandy and Consuelo.

  And Ben. She’d miss Ben most of all. Her misery deepened as she realized she’d be missing Ben for the rest of her life.

  Marielle sensed that something was wrong with her friend and didn’t try to make small talk or interfere with whatever was going on in Samantha’s head, so they sat in silence as the miles went by.

  Samantha’s thoughts returned again and again to the things Maeve had said this morning. Were they true? Had she felt to blame for her sister losing her husband and baby, never to love again or have other children? Had she been unconsciously punishing herself by denying herself the things she thought she had taken from Maeve?

  She looked out the Jeep’s window at the countryside flashing by, but not seeing it. Her thoughts were far away, focused on her life since Patrick had been killed … on the frenetic life she had lived, rushing from one party to another and one dead-end relationship to another … never slowing down and taking time to think or examine her life too closely.

  Now, Maeve had forced her to do just that by what she had said today.

  Samantha felt a stirring of something deep within, like a small creature was awakening and coming back to life that had been dormant for so long. She felt a loosening in the very core of her being, a letting go, as something long frozen began to thaw.

  She turned to Marielle. “Mari, stop the car! Turn around, I have to go back!”

  Her friend looked at her, surprised. “Did you forget something, Sam?”

  Samantha was smiling even though tears were sliding down her face. “Yes, I forgot something.”

  Marielle was puzzled. What could be so important that Samantha would have them turn around now and go back and why was she smiling and crying at the same time?

  “What?” she asked. “What did you forget?”

  “My heart.”

  Marielle wasn’t sure what Samantha meant by this cryptic answer but she strongly suspected it had something to do with Ben. She hoped so. If ever she had seen a man head over heels in love with a woman, it was Ben. She had been more than half convinced that Samantha had returned his feelings, until she got the phone call asking for a ride to the airport.

  She didn’t lose any time in turning the
Jeep around and going back the way they had come. Soon they were back at Mari’s little house and Samantha was quickly unloading her bags.

  “Do you want some help?” Marielle inquired.

  “No, no, I’ll get it,” Samantha brushed her off, obviously in a hurry to send Marielle on her way.

  “Okay, then,” her friend replied. “Ummm … call me later?”

  Samantha nodded. “I will. Bye now!”

  Marielle hesitated. “Sammy, if I take the jeep back home you’ll be stranded. Don’t you want me to call Trey or Bandy to pick me up?”

  “No,” Samantha said again. “I won’t be stranded. Really, it’s okay. Go on.”

  Marielle shrugged and left. As she drove away, Samantha threw her bags into the house hastily and headed to the barn. She was glad that she had donned casual clothing for her flight, jeans and a tee shirt, since she wouldn’t have to change clothes for what she intended to do.

  After calling the horses in from the pasture, Marielle saddled Taffy and set out across the meadow, taking the shortcut to Ben’s ranch. He had mentioned during dinner last night that he still had a full day of paperwork left to do on the poaching case, so she was almost sure she’d find him at home working on it.

  Shortly thereafter, she was within sight of Ben’s ranch and was happy to see his truck in the driveway. Riding Taffy up to the front door of the big log house, she hitched him to a porch column. Patting him affectionately, she said, “Stand right here, Big Guy, we’ll be going for a ride. I hope.”

  Samantha didn’t have time to ring the doorbell before the front door opened and Ben stepped out, his expression registering his confusion.

  “Samantha? Is everything okay? Trey told me Marielle was taking you to the airport to go back home.”

  She drank in the sight of him, tall and handsome and inexpressibly dear to her. It pierced her heart to see that he looked unhappy, his handsome face strained and his beautiful eyes as dark as thunder clouds.