“And you went to school with Grandpa Sebastian.”
“I did. Love at first sight. For him.”
Joely laughed. She’d heard the story many times, but everybody loved the tale of how fourteen-year-old Sebastian Crockett had told everyone who’d listen he was going to marry Sadie Howard and then pursued her for the next seven years until she’d said yes at age nineteen. And how they’d been married for sixty-eight years. And how she’d never looked at another man despite threatening that stubborn old cowboy many times he’d better mind his p’s and q’s or he’d find her keeping time in the house of one of Wolf Paw’s wealthy and powerful.
“But, since Sebastian was one of the richest and most influential landowners in Wyoming, he wasn’t worried. Much. He minded his p’s and q’s most of the time.” She smiled in wistful memory.
“You two were the love story of the century around here,” Joely said. “Even I remember that from when I was a little girl.”
“Don’t know as we were the greatest. We certainly did stay married a good long time.”
Joely sighed. “I hope my sisters have as much luck as you. I wish Mom could have had longer.”
“They were a great love story, too.”
“Nobody really knows why.” Joely frowned. “Dad was so demanding and opinionated.”
“Not like anyone else in his family.” Grandma Sadie smiled again.
“Touché.”
“I’m glad you have a little of his stubbornness. You’ll need it. But I know you’re going to be fine.”
“Well, I’m glad you have faith.”
“You always have to have faith, child.”
Joely didn’t tell her how shaky her faith was most days. It had started crumbling the first time Tim had cheated on her. What was left had turned to shifting sand the day she’d learned her horse died in the car accident.
But she grinned. “Faith. Always. Got it.”
They finished the sheets and blanket. Grandma Sadie put cases on the pillows and then went to the closet where she retrieved a large box Joely had never seen before.
“What’s in there?”
“Something all the women on Paradise Ranch started together the day after your accident. It was for your bed the day you came home. You’re not in your room at Rosecroft where you were headed that day, but you are in your own place. And this is definitely a homecoming.”
Joely lifted the cover off the box and stared at the richly colored, quilted fabrics that greeted her. Hesitantly she stroked the textures and then delved beneath the folded quilt to lift it out. “Oh, Gram, what’s all this?”
“A prayer quilt. Three sections, all made with fervent prayers that have now been answered.”
Joely spread the quilt out on the bed and stared. Deep blues and blacks made up the top two-thirds of the design, dotted with bright whites and yellows that created a stunning starry sky. In one top corner, a handful of coppery bits of fabric formed a faint but discernible horsehead constellation. A horse the color of her shiny, chestnut Penny.
Tears filled her eyes. “Oh, Gram.”
“And every person designed her own animal for you.”
Across the bottom of the quilt, scattered on rolling fabric hills of deep greens, purples, and maroons, were a dozen animals looking up at the sky. In real life few of the creatures would have shared habitats, but it didn’t matter, they all looked realistic and they all fit together like an eclectic family—a horse, a cat, a dog, a cow, an elephant, a kangaroo, a raccoon, a zebra, a penguin, a grizzly bear, an eagle, and a butterfly. Any animal Joely had ever said she loved.
“You love the night sky,” Grandma Sadie said. “I remember finding you asleep on the back porch after you’d snuck out to watch a meteor shower or see the full moon.”
“It’s been a long time since I went stargazing.” Joely stroked the exquisite design, each line of quilt stitching warm beneath her fingertips, as if the love and prayers came through at her touch.
“The animals need no explanation. You were always rescuing some poor bedraggled creature.”
“I was,” Joely said absently. “It’s been a long time since I’ve even had pet. Tim didn’t like animals in the house.”
Grandma Sadie sighed and shook her head. “I’m not even going to comment,” she said, her tone blunt.
“I don’t know why I married him, Gram.” Joely echoed her sigh. “I wasn’t as strong as my sisters were when it came to following dreams. Mine was never firm or decisive enough, and I figured Dad was right. He always told me that being a veterinarian was a great idea, but it would be a waste of time to become an equine vet or an exotic animal vet on a cattle farm. So, I didn’t buck Dad, I found a different dream. Or so I thought. Tim convinced me when we met we’d do such wonderful philanthropic things together.”
“And, you got approval from him,” Grandma said.
“At first. Then he got just as critical as Dad.” She lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry. He was your son, and I know you loved him and miss him. I loved him, too; we all did. We just couldn’t please him.”
Grandma Sadie moved close and stood beside her. She wrapped the top of Joely’s head in a warm embrace and kissed her hair. “I know my son’s faults. I know my own. Your father was never cruel, honey. Iron-willed, yes. But you need to talk to your mama. She’s got insights and strengths you couldn’t see when you were growing up. Your father loved you beyond words. He was just terrible at showing it.”
“I love the quilt. I more than love it. I can feel the love in it.”
“There is a great deal of that. Welcome home. I have been praying it’s a very good and safe place for you.”
For the first time in months Joely didn’t cringe at her grandmother’s blatant spirituality. She turned in her embrace and wrapped her arms around Grandma Sadie’s waist. “I love you.”
“And I you. Start to follow your dreams now.”
Joely nodded against Gram’s soft middle but didn’t say that first she had to find if there were any she could even find.
Joely looked at the beautiful quilt again and decided that if nothing else even went in the room it would be complete. But they found another box in the closet and opened it to find pictures from Joely’s old room at the ranch. She smiled at the memories and planned where to hang them here. At the bottom of the box were a dozen four-by-six sepia-toned photos in vintage frames. She pulled them out one by one and ogled her ancestors from Eli and Brigitte to Sebastian and Sadie to her mother and father.
“These are gorgeous. I haven’t seen these before.”
“I framed them for you. You need your heritage around you.”
Joely set them on her dresser top. “That’s cool.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“Speaking of the past,” Joely said, “I have something for you. What do you know about a man here in town that they call Mayberry?”
Grandma Sadie squinted a moment and then shook her head. “I don’t know anybody with a name like that. Then again, I don’t spend much time here anymore. All my old gossiping friends are long gone. The wages of living too long.”
“Don’t say that!”
“I’m not going anywhere soon,” she said, patting Joely’s arm. “But it’s true there aren’t any of my generation left to speak of.”
“Well, this man was outside the door here two days ago. He’s an odd person—like a super-well-spoken homeless man. He’s older, has a gray ponytail, and said he knows you. I have a note from him.”
“Knows me?”
“Yes. Because you used to babysit him.”
Sadie’s eyes clouded, and she sat on the edge of the bed crooking one finger across her lips in concentration.
“I can’t imagine,” she said. “The only children I watched regularly were the Manterville boys. Trampas and Oliver. Talk about your despicable fathers. Mr. Manterville was loud, opinionated, and mean when he drank, which was most days. They said he liked to lock the boys in the hen house when the
y misbehaved. Mrs. Manterville was a scandalous woman, not because she was mean, but because she smoked.”
Joely snickered. “Wow, how terrible.”
“Oh, my dear, back then it was. Smoking was the province of the men, along with the consuming of liquor. Genteel women wouldn’t be caught dead around whiskey or cigarettes.”
Joely couldn’t help but laugh. It seemed ridiculous today. Health issues aside, smoking and women had come of age long ago, and the thought of a woman being ostracized for having a cigarette was hard to imagine.
“What happened to them?” she asked.
Grandma Sadie hesitated. “They lost their place—almost ten thousand acres—in a notorious poker game that involved your great-grandfather in fact. Mr. Manterville went to prison a few years later; I don’t know what for. Both boys were young teenagers, and they split up and nobody ever heard from them again.”
“That’s amazing,” Joely said. “I’ve never heard any of this.”
Grandma Sadie waved her hand in dismissal. “Interest in that old story died out years ago. Not a soul in Wolf Paw Pass minded one whit that the Manterville family was gone. Life went on better for them not being here.” She laughed in the comforting, wise voice that always blew away fears and spoke of a long future. Joely hugged her.
“The note is in my purse. I’ll go get it.”
“Nonsense. We’ll finish here first. There’ll be plenty of time.”
“I don’t think I like the idea of my family being involved in a scandal around a poker game.”
“Oh, now, every family has skeletons.” Grandma kissed her forehead again and patted her cheek, ending the discussion. “Now. Let’s get the rest of this room put in order. I’m not sure who this man is you met, but we’ll find out.”
Her grandmother was so practical. But, then, she hadn’t lived to be ninety-four by fretting over trivial things. Joely always got the impression Sadie Crockett had been one tough bird.
“What would you ladies like to find out? I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Alec leaned forward into the room, his hands braced on either side of the door frame and his grin advertising every impractical thing Grandma Sadie’s calm, wise presence did not. With dust smeared across one broad shoulder of his dark gray T-shirt and his wheat-gold hair half hanging in his eyes, he looked like devilish fun in the flesh. For the first time since he’d so unceremoniously showed her his prosthetic leg, Joely tried to tell he had it. The only possible indication was that he stood on his right leg and let the prosthetic foot rest behind him. But that could have been any person’s relaxed stance. He really was amazing, carrying furniture, lifting and bending. He’d mastered his changed body in a way she couldn’t fathom.
“Why do you always think someone’s talking about you?” she asked.
“I’m a narcissist. I like attention.”
“Narcissists don’t know that’s what they are,” Joely said. “You’re just arrogant.”
“Okay. Be that as it may, do you ladies want some lunch? Your sister ordered sandwiches and cookies from Dottie’s.”
Joely’s stomach rumbled, and she exchanged a happy look with her grandmother.
“That sounds wonderful.”
Alec entered the bedroom and extended an elbow to her and to Sadie. “Lean on me, girls. I’ll come back for your crutches, Joely.”
Grandma Sadie smiled like a schoolgirl, and Joely shook her head, holding in laughter. The man was incorrigible when it came to forcing his charm on everyone—and she found she couldn’t hold it against him.
The transformation in the rest of the apartment stunned her. Her little kitchen table had been set with brightly colored red and yellow placemats along with a bouquet of yellow, red, and purple tulips. Her living room held the sofa and armchair, a coffee table she recognized from her father’s old study at the ranch, and a television set up in one corner with a noon newscast showing without sound to prove it worked. The bathroom’s items were unpacked and stowed in the cabinet. A full roll of paper filled the holder beside the toilet.
“This is crazy, you guys,” Joely said. “You’ve gone above and beyond.”
“Just tell us if you want something changed around,” Gabe said. “We’ll do whatever you want until you kick us out.”
“Kick you out?” Joely planted a kiss on his cheek. “You can all live here and wait on me. This is awesome.”
Mia gave a snort of laughter. “That service disappeared when you skipped the coming-to-live-at-home stage. This is your deal, sweetie. Order us around now, because once we’re gone . . . ”
“As if I could get rid of you that easily.” Joely hugged her sister and watched their mother climb down a stepstool from her perch on a countertop, where she’d been smoothing paper onto a kitchen cupboard shelf. “You guys will have spies everywhere around here.”
“Maybe.” Her mother nodded. “I admit I’d likely be the organizer of that ring. I’ve been told often enough I worry too much. On the other hand, this is a nice place, Joely. I give it my stamp of approval.”
That made the move official and all but complete. They sat in one amassed troop on the floor, Dottie’s phenomenal sandwiches in hand, joking and chatting. The topics, for once, were not about accidents, or nurses, or losing apartments, but about Skylar’s boyfriend, Nate, about spring calving on the ranch, about riding the fences with four-wheelers and how it was so much easier than covering what felt like a million miles on horseback over three weeks. It was fun to watch Gabe, a rancher only by marriage, turn a little pale at the stories of searching through heat and cold and rain and even snow for downed wire and broken boards on horseback.
Alec fit right in, catching up with Gabe on their friendship and laughing over old stories like only good friends could do. Joely watched Alec surreptitiously, surprised at how easy it was to include him here with her family. She flushed with a strange combination of embarrassment and pleasure the one time he caught her watching, but he didn’t say anything, he simply smiled. The apartment began to feel warm, cozy, and safe. Like home.
The move was a small one by any standards, and it was finished by three o’clock. Joely had a short list of things she needed to purchase, but she’d work on acquiring them over the coming days. Other than that, she had staples in the cupboards, milk, coffee, eggs, and yogurt in the refrigerator, and dinners frozen and ready for the next week thanks to her over-protective family. It was no problem to believe this move had been a brilliant choice, and getting used to living life on her own would be as easy as learning how the microwave worked.
“Can we do something about dinner now?” her mother asked when the last shelf was papered and the last of Joely’s few dishes were put away. “We could order in. Cook for you here. Go out?”
“You know what? I think I’d just like to putter around and get used to the space,” Joely said. “Would that be okay?”
“Of course, sweetheart. Sadie is tired anyway.”
“She worked hard today.”
“It was fun. You can bet she enjoyed it.”
A strange sort of high took over her body as she said good-bye to everyone. It made no sense. Her body, too, dragged with a fatigue she hadn’t felt since the early days of her accident when all she’d wanted to do was sleep. This, however, was the high of excitement. She’d made a decision, stuck to her guns in the face of everyone else’s doubt, and now she had a new apartment. It didn’t even bother her too much that she’d been so beholden to others. Even able-bodied people got their friends together to help them move.
“Are you really going to be okay, then, by your lonesome tonight?”
Alec came out of the bedroom where he’d been adjusting a bifold door that hadn’t slid properly on its track. He had a small toolbox in one hand. The last to leave . . .
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Great.”
And as suddenly as her high had hit, doubts crowded around, peering in on her happiness, telling her that maybe she was
n’t quite ready.
“Are you in a hurry?” She winced. Why had she asked that?
“Only to let my dog out in the next hour or so. Something I can help you with? I’m happy to.”
She stopped herself from making a ditzy-sounding “ummmm” and waved her hand. “No, not at all. You’ve done so much. Just thinking that Mia left a bottle of Moscato in the refrigerator and somebody should christen this place.”
“You want to break the bottle on the front door, or drink what’s inside?” He grinned.
“Gee, uh, let me think.” She smiled back.
“I would be happy to christen the apartment with you, but what you should really have to go along with wine is a good steak.”
“Steak with a fizzy white wine?” She shook her head. “No bueno, muchacho.”
“A wine snob talking about an Italian wine in Spanish. Very talented, Miss Crockett.”
She almost corrected him out of habit. Foster. Mrs. Instead she shuddered. She had to get those papers signed.
“I’m kind of a wine snob. Along with being a whiskey snob.”
“I know you said your dad taught you to drink, but you’re a connoisseur?”
“I know my Scotch.”
“Favorite?”
“Hmm. I’m not too into the super peaty blends. A single malt. The Macallan, maybe, or Speyburn.”
“Jeez. You are a snob. I was going for Wild Turkey or Jim Beam. But I suppose I could match you a Glenlivet.”
“Good choice. Same region of Scotland. But you know what? When it comes right down to it, I’ll drink anything.”
“How’d I get so lucky? Can you hold your liquor?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No. Not like Mia or Grace. Harper, either. I’m done after two or three shots. Or a couple of glasses of wine.”
“I might like to see you a little tipsy.”
“I remember a certain recent wedding . . . ” She grimaced at the memory.
His mouth lifted in a one-sided grin. “You were pretty fun that night. I’d forgotten.”
“Liar. I don’t think you forget anything. Ever.”
The Bride Wore Starlight Page 15