The Bride Wore Starlight

by Lizbeth Selvig

  Mayberry started down the walk. Joely looked at Alec, his own confusion and slight amusement mirrored in her eyes.

  “Do you have a real name?” she asked.

  “Mayberry actually does fine,” he replied, and continued down the walk.

  “But . . . ” Joely shrugged in bewilderment. “How do you know my grandmother?”

  “She used to babysit me.”

  With that bombshell he continued moving smartly away on his scuffed, white running shoes. If they hadn’t just spoken to him and seen the character lines etching his face, Alec wouldn’t have known he was an elderly man.

  Joely turned to him. “What on earth was that?”

  Alec waggled his head, equally mystified. “Talk about a character. You have no idea who he is?”

  “Not a clue. Seems like someone with an official town nickname would be known to everyone. Then again—I was away for years and incarcerated for the past three-fourths of one. What would I know?”

  “Thought maybe you’d remember him from when you were a kid.”

  “He wasn’t here when I was growing up.”

  “Well, let’s hope he is truly who he says he is—not that it helps overly much. I don’t honestly know a thing about him. Which leads me to the next point. Why are people so careless as to tell a stranger where you’ll be living?”

  “He could have found me a hundred ways. This is Wolf Paw Pass—by this time next week everyone will know what I have for breakfast.”

  “It’s not safe.”

  “It’s safe.”

  He liked that she thought so. And he hated that she thought so. Arguing would be pointless. He’d just have to keep an eye out on her behalf for a while. Joely was a puzzle, too. In their short time together he’d seen her as both a lost woman who seemed determined to wallow in self-pity and a stubborn little spitfire who forged ahead without thinking. This was definitely the latter.

  She let the topic of the mysterious Mayberry go and made her way to the porch stoop. She took it alone, placing her crutch tips deliberately, her concentration obvious. She went to the front door of the apartment and peered through a sidelight before taking the key out of her pocket. “Want to come in?”

  She unlocked the door and he followed her inside. Tan carpeting had been freshly cleaned in the living room they entered. Straight ahead lay the kitchen with appliances and a small eating area. To the right of the living room was a hallway leading to a decent bathroom and two small bedrooms.

  “Seems nice,” he said.

  “I think it’ll be fine.”

  He leaned against a wall near the front door and crossed his arms casually over his chest. “Can I ask a question? I don’t want you to think I’m criticizing, because I think this is great.”

  “Okay. What?”

  “Why not just go back to the ranch? You’re jumping from despair over having to move because your support staff will be gone, to living completely alone. Wouldn’t there have been a happy medium?”

  She hung on the padded arm rests of the crutches and lifted her chin slightly. “Honestly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You.

  “What?” His heart dropped a little. Encouragement was all he’d intended—not dictating a life change. He didn’t want to be responsible for this. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know what you meant. This is because of one simple thing you asked me: why did I think I needed a nurse at my beck and call? Then you proceeded to show me the answer is that I don’t. And just so you’re clear, that’s me hating to admit you were right. Unfortunately after that I had two choices, neither of which I wanted. I could live alone or live with my hovering sisters.”

  “You don’t like people hovering?”

  “The truth is I don’t know what I like. That’s why I finally decided to try this. It might be a complete disaster, but I can’t stay where I am. So I signed a month’s lease. I can survive that long.”

  “I knew I spotted a little spark of bravery in there.” He pointed at her heart and smiled, hoping to see the spark shine in her eyes.

  “It’s not bravery.” There wasn’t a spark, but the glowing ember of latent excitement he did see satisfied him. “It’s confusion mixed with stubbornness. I want to be where people don’t know me. I still figure people will feel sorry for me and want to help but not because they think they know what I feel. I know. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “You’ll figure it out. For the record, though? I don’t know you, but I don’t feel sorry for you either.”

  “I knew that within three seconds of meeting you.” She almost smirked.

  “So where does that leave me?”

  “Locking up and taking me to Ina’s, I guess.”

  “Good enough.”

  Ina’s mini scones and ice cream were phenomenal—awful nutritionally but a great breakfast dessert if all a person cared about was contented indulgence.

  They talked about nothing—the most relaxed nothing Alec had ever experienced. He told her about buying his house. She told him about the house in California. She liked chocolate. He preferred salt. They both liked animals. They both liked movies, but she hated death and violence, and he liked the Kill Bill duo. Still, she admitted, she couldn’t help watching Die Hard for Bruce Willis, and he admitted to having a soft spot for Disney. He’d never tried so hard not to impress someone only to end up being impressed himself. Joely was no diva ditz. She was reasoned and funny and smart. They didn’t talk about their injuries or their accidents. She didn’t bring up the impending divorce, and he didn’t talk about the rodeo. There was plenty of other nothing to discuss.

  After the scones were long gone, Alec sat back in his red-and-white-striped booth seat and absently rubbed his knee just above the socket of his prosthetic. He normally paid little attention to it during the day, unless something particularly stressful made it chafe, but today it sobered him. He was fine, but what was he really doing playing the all-knowing expert for Joely Crockett? She was lovely. She was fun. She might need a mentor. But he was really the blind leading the blind. In a support group or system, like the one Gabe had set up, two injured people wouldn’t be a cliché. But he and Joely kind of were. One limping body attracted to another.

  “Oh my gosh, how did we spend ninety minutes here?” Joely straightened in her seat and stared at him like a shocked rabbit. “I need to get back to Mia—she’s doing all my work for me.”

  “Easy conversation,” he said, condensing his musings into one simplified observation. “That old time flies thing.”

  “It was good,” she said. “And I’m no longer fuming about Tim. Thanks.”

  “Have you decided what to do about his papers? Are you going to take them to a lawyer?”

  “Yeah, about that.” She lowered her eyes. “Admission time. I already have. I just didn’t want to tell him. I can fight for spousal maintenance, but I wouldn’t get much if anything after just four years of marriage. The house was his before we got married. And, the other thing is—if insurance money comes through from the accident, I don’t want him to have any future claim on it. I have every intention of handing him the papers. I just didn’t want to do it because he stood there and demanded them.”

  “I wish there was something I could do.”

  “That’s nice of you. There’s nothing to be done. I’m not sad about the divorce. I’m mad because he’s getting off like the wounded player. It’s the sense of injustice. I’ll be glad when it’s done.”

  “So, don’t tell him all this. Make him go home and wait for the papers like a good little boy—it’ll be something novel for him. That’s the impression I got.”

  She laughed humorlessly. “He’s not evil. He’s just rich. Some rich people make their lives about getting what they want. I got used to being rich, too. But it was totally fake.”

  Alec’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he frowned. He’d taken the morning off after Mia had called him to ask for his help with Joely. It was only ten thirty, so
nobody from the company would be checking on him.

  “You can get it,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  He pulled out the phone and checked the number. His heart sank. Vince again. He hadn’t had long enough yet to think up excuses for ignoring his harebrained rodeo ideas.

  “I’ll wait,” he said, his voice tight.

  “Ooh. Sounds like someone you should talk to and get the conversation over with.”

  “An old buddy. The same way Heidi What’s-her-name is your old buddy.”

  “Oh dear. Well, fine then. You have my permission to ignore him.” Her smile blossomed, and he laughed.

  He was stuffing the phone back into his pocket when the text message notification sounded. He frowned again and pushed the button to view the message.

  I know you’re ignoring me, but check this out. Just caught him doing this right in the pasture. Tell me it doesn’t give you chills of longing.

  Alec couldn’t resist torturing himself. He scrolled to the attached picture and caught his breath—shocked at the effect seeing the animal had on him. Beads of micro-sweat broke out on his forehead.

  “Day-umn.” The curse whistled almost silently through his teeth.

  “Something wrong?” Joely asked.

  “A ghost from the past,” he replied. “Albeit a beautiful one.”

  “Oh? Well now, I think since you’ve met my past and we found a not-dead-body together, I should get to see this ghost.” She held out her hand and wiggled her fingers for the phone.

  “That’s failed logic,” he replied. “Those two things aren’t related to each other, so they don’t follow into me handing over anything.”

  “They’re both traumas. C’mon, let me look at her.” She grinned so impishly he had to give in.

  “Well, it’s a him,” he said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  He gave her the phone and the picture of Ghost Pepper caught mid-buck. The horse looked as good as ever. Alec hated the adrenaline pumping through his body. Had it been the adrenaline of excitement, he’d have embraced it. This, however, was nothing but dread.

  Joely turned immediately into the equivalent of a little girl who’d been handed a panda baby or a bunny and squealed in delight. “Oh my gosh. What a gorgeous horse!”

  “He is that.”

  “Is he yours?”

  “Hardly. He’s the prettiest, sweetest-tempered horse you’ll ever meet, until you put anything heavier than a packet of sugar on his back. Then he’ll start with this—twist and rage like he’s trying to kick out the gates of Hades.”

  “This gorgeous thing is a bronc?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he sure is.”

  “But you clearly know him. Did you ever ride him?”

  There it was—the question that was going to drag him for the second time that week into territory he never visited.

  “A very long time ago I tried.”

  “Tell me about him!”

  “How about when we have more time? You said you needed to get back.”

  Her gaze went straight through to the most hidden parts of his brain. He could feel her reading the secrets there.

  “I know a brush-off when I hear one,” she said. “But I say, it’s a ten minute drive home. There’s time.”

  “There’s no story.” The surprise of seeing the old horse had sent him into a spin as effective as the ones that had spun him to the ground years before. “I never did get eight seconds on this crazy bastard. He had most of our numbers. There were a very few over the years who figured him out, but not many. He remains the top bronc even after fifteen years. It was just a surprise to learn he was still around.”

  For a moment she appeared ready to question his story. Instead she sank back and handed him his phone. “What breed is he? Appy?”

  “Appy mustang. Bred to buck. He came from great bucking stock himself, but unfortunately, his babies haven’t lived up to his reputation—they all get his gentle side.”

  Focusing on the horse made the conversation slightly easier. It took the spotlight off his former career.

  “Who sent the picture?”

  “That old friend whose call I ignored. He’s keeping him at his place west of Teton Village and wants me to come for some sort of sick reunion. In fact, he talked me into giving him a couple old pictures he remembered of spectacular falls for promo at the rodeo this summer. ‘Ghost Pepper is back.’ I said he could have them if he kept my name off the bills.”

  “Oh, but how cool would that be to have you be his spokesperson? Think of the crowds.”

  “Nope.” He didn’t know how to shut her down without being rude. “That’s not going to happen, so stop right there. I’m no poster boy for retired cowboys. They’ll just turn it into a sideshow. I don’t do sideshows.”

  He didn’t know whether it was it was his tone or some note of warning in his voice, but Joely backed off.

  “Fair enough. Are you going to go visit the horse?”

  “I have to bring Vince the pictures, but I had no plans to see the horse. Why?”

  She shrugged. “I thought maybe I could come along.”

  The thought stopped his negative thoughts cold. “Really?”

  “Sorry, that was presumptuous. I just like pretty horses.” Her words slowed and she shrugged. “It’s probably not such a good idea.”

  “No.” His mind raced in a new direction. “No, I think maybe it’s a very good idea.”

  The words tumbled out before he could censor them. He didn’t mind seeing the horse. It was Vince who concerned him. The guy should have been a traveling snake oil salesman. He could, it seemed, sell rodeo to a one-legged cowboy.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Vince wants the pictures by Saturday. You could be my buffer between him and his screwball ideas. In exchange I’ll help you move on Friday.”

  “Sure,” she said. “But don’t you have, like, a job?”

  Her bright mood made Alec’s unwilling step into the world he’d left behind slightly more palatable. On the other hand, he was letting her pretty face influence him, and he needed to start watching out for that. All he’d wanted to do when he met her was get her to think about taking a few baby steps away from her wallowing. Today she’d taken a couple of kangaroo leaps and was dragging him along.

  “I do have a job. But they like me. They won’t mind if I take a personal day.”

  “A husband, a homeless body, a saddle bronc, a lot of empty calories, and a handsome guy to help move my worldly possessions. It’s not even noon and I’m exhausted.” Her laugh was the most carefree sound he’d ever heard from her.

  It buoyed him, which was a good thing because, suddenly, the realization she was about to get involved with Vince and that saddle bronc, made him the one who wanted to go home and have a big old wallow.

  Chapter Ten

  TRUE TO HIS promise, Alec came along with half the population of Paradise Ranch—her mother, Mia and Gabe, Skylar Thorson, and even Grandma Sadie—to help carry in boxes and unpack them in the tiny new apartment. With so many bodies, they made fairly short work of the job. The men muscled in the large furniture—bed, kitchen table, the sofas and chairs—Skylar unpacked bathroom boxes, Mia and their mother worked in the kitchen, and Grandma Sadie made it her job to get the bedroom set up.

  Joely found her grandmother starting to shake out sheets onto the bed, her movements still coordinated and efficient even at her age. Grandma was a wonder. She could be elegant as Madison Avenue or the consummate ranch wife, as she was today with soft, worn jeans and a plaid shirt rolled at the sleeves. Her hands were slightly gnarled with arthritis, but they weren’t crippled. Her shoulders stooped a little more each year, but she could still stand almost to her full five-foot-five-inch height when she tried. She rested more and drank a little less alcohol than she once had, but she still took a one-mile walk every day and could knit and crochet blue ribbon-winning sweaters, doilies, and blankets in the wink of an eye. Joely fully intended for her to live another twen
ty years and become the oldest woman in the world.

  “Hi, Grandma.” Joely swung into the room on her crutches and made her way to the opposite side of the bed. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”

  “Nonsense.” Her grandmother smoothed the surface wrinkles from the bottom sheet she’d just fitted to the mattress. “I’m not much good with heavy things anymore, but I always could make a mean bed.”

  “I know. You taught every one of us.” Joely smiled. “To this day I’m the pickiest bed-maker I know.”

  “Then my life had been a success.” Grandma Sadie chuckled and set the folded top sheet on the mattress to start opening it. “How are you doing, child?”

  “Other than feeling hounded by my mother and sister to still consider coming back to the ranch? I’m fine.”

  “They mean well.”

  “I know. And it’s not fair to say they’re hounding me. Mom just keeps finding disgusting—her words—corners in the kitchen and is taking boiling water to the shelving, all the while telling me I wouldn’t have to live in someone else’s dirt if I just came back to my old room. Mia is obsessed with me being close enough so she can help me.”

  “But you’re happy with this choice?”

  “Do you want to know the truth? I’m doing it because I dug my heels in, and now I’m too stubborn to change my mind. I only signed a month’s lease. I can leave if I want to. But don’t tell them that.”

  Grandma nodded as if she approved. “I think it’s good for you. I do.”

  “Thanks, Gram. You and Alec.”

  “He’s a nice boy.”

  “He is. He’s also annoying and pushy though.”

  “A little like your grandfather. More like your great-grandfather.”

  “Grandpa Sebastian and Great-Grandpa Eli. I’ve always loved the stories about Eli. He was a strong, smart man.”

  “Hmmm.” Grandma Sadie adjusted the sheet and Joely propped her crutches against a wall behind her, then balanced on one leg to help. “He was smart. Cagey with a head for business deals.”

  “You knew him when you were a little girl, right?”

  “We moved to the area when I was twelve,” she said. “Wolf Paw Pass was nothing more than a stopover watering hole for cattle drives through Jackson Hole. Jackson town was not a whole lot bigger.”