I ease the door open. “Owen?”
Walking inside, I find an empty living room. Except for a white piece of paper taped to the floor—with my name on it.
Frowning, I pick it up and turn it over.
GO CHECK THE REFRIGERATOR.
“Owen?” I call again.
Still no response.
I follow his directive and wander into the kitchen area, opening the fridge.
And smile.
There on the top shelf is a bottle of white wine with another note brandishing my name.
I pluck this note off and read.
BRING THE WINE AND RETURN TO THE LODGE KITCHEN.
What is this boy up to? The bottle under my arm, I trudge back to the lodge. The lights are on, but Elizabeth is suspiciously nowhere to be seen when I step into the kitchen.
But on the counter sits a beautiful bouquet of wildflowers, a gorgeous mix of purples and reds and yellows, tied together with a big burlap bow. Laughing, I lift them to my nose and sniff. A card falls out.
HOP IN YOUR TRUCK IF YOU WISH.
JOIN ME FOR DINNER AT A PLACE WE LIKE TO FISH.
At this rate, I’m never going to be able to get Owen Jackson out of my system. And who would want to?
Some way, some how, we’re going to make this work. There is no way I’m letting this guy go.
I set the flowers and wine on the seat beside me and buckle up in the truck. Lights on bright, I drive carefully down a dirt road, stopping only to open and close a gate like a pro, then jostle across an empty pasture to the pond where Owen taught me to fish.
If my heart weren’t tethered inside my body, it would surely float away. I rest my hand over my chest, just in case.
Because there on the bank, overlooking the pond is Owen’s truck. His lights shine a spotlight on a table and chairs a few feet away. Owen stands next to it all, hands in his pockets, those full lips curved, and the way he’s looking at me has me wanting to write some poetry of my own.
I barely get the truck in park before I bail out, flowers and wine in each hand.
“What have you done?” My bewildered laugh fills the country air. And what are you doing to me?
Owen pulls out a seat as bluegrass music plays quietly from his truck. “A little candle lit dinner.” He glances about the table. “Except battery operated candles.” He shrugs. “We’re under a burn ban.”
“Owen, it’s beautiful. The flowers, the wine, the table.” I shake my head in wonder. I can’t stop staring at it all—at him. I go up on tiptoe and give him a kiss. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
He pulls me to him, deepening the kiss, making my head whirl. “I haven’t seen you all day.”
I press my lips to his chin. “I guess now I know why you weren’t at dinner.”
“You smell amazing.”
“Spaghetti,” I say. “I wear it well.”
His smile is crooked and adorably hesitant. “Ever had a date by a pond?”
“No,” I say. “Those Manhattan girls have no idea what they’re missing.”
He gestures to a chair. “Let’s take care of that bottle of wine.”
I sit down, watching as Owen pulls out his trusty pocketknife capable of dismantling a bomb or slicing a piece of twine. He flips out the corkscrew utensil and makes quick work of unsealing the bottle. He fills two glass goblets then sits down himself.
“To a beautiful night.” He holds up his glass, his eyes on me. “And a beautiful girl.” He clinks his goblet to mine and takes a sip. “What are you looking at?”
“You. I like you very much, Owen Jackson.”
“You’re just saying that because I brought fried chicken.”
“I’ll admit your sexy quotient is incredibly high right now.” I take a drink, letting the sweet Moscato slide across my tongue.
The table is set with real plates and silverware, as well as cloth napkins. Fluffy biscuits sit in a basket right next to a plate of golden, fried chicken. A small mound of potatoes occupy a blue dish, and white gravy stands watch nearby. I spy coleslaw and bacon-laced green beans.
I take another sip. “Did you make this yourself?”
Owen loads my plate, filling it with more food than I can ever eat. “I wanted to impress you.” He adds some more potatoes. “Not give you food poisoning.”
Under a canopy of stars, we eat and talk between laughter and refills of wine. It’s all I can do not to pull out my phone and take a hundred photos because I want to capture this moment forever, lock it in my mind and never forget it. I know I’m experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime memory in the making. A dinner date beneath the moon, a man who looks at me like I’m all he could ever want, and this pressing reality that my summer is little more than a week from being over.
An hour later we lay in the back of Owen’s truck on a pallet of soft blankets. I’m curled into his side, and we try to pick Cassiopeia from the thousands of sparkling stars above.
“Don’t you wonder what your mom was like as a kid?” Owen asks.
My hand stills its roaming path on his chest. “I think I have a pretty good idea. She talked about her childhood a lot.”
Owen runs his fingers along my back. “Mitchell has lots of stories. She sounds like she was a spitfire.”
“I guess it would be nice to hear about Mom from her own parent sometime.”
“He even has pictures,” Owen says. “I know he’d be glad to show you.”
I lift my head and study him. “Did you bring me out here to sweet-talk me into having a heart to heart with Mitchell?”
“No,” he says. “But it is on my mind a lot.”
Though I’m weary of the conversation, it’s hard to be angry at Owen’s intentions. “I love that you have such a big heart.”
“But. . . ?”
“But I need some more time to think about this Mitchell thing, okay?”
Owen smiles. He knows my resistance is weakening. “I actually brought you out here to just be with you.” He gently pulls me down for a kiss. “And to talk to you about next week.”
“No.” I want to stay in my romantic bubble where summer never ends and life makes me smile and I’m right here with Owen. “I don’t want to even think about that.”
“My agenda for that day says I’m to drop you off at the airport.”
That wonderful dinner now sits heavy on my stomach. “It seemed so far away when I got here.”
His arm around me tightens. “Long-distance relationships are really hard.”
“Pretty much impossible.”
His gaze softens. “Guess we’ll be an exception.”
My relief is headier than the wine. “We’ll show everyone how it’s done.”
Owen kisses my forehead. “Where was this can-do attitude when I tried to get you to ride Mustang Sally last week?”
“Mustang Sally has a death wish for black-headed girls who frequently smell like bacon.”
“My favorite kind of girl.”
We lapse into a contented silence, watching the glittery sky. My words are hushed by the beauty around me and the sad pull of my thoughts.
“Owen?”
“Yes?”
I close my eyes and smile. “Let’s stay like this forever.”
Chapter Seventeen
Two days until my time on the ranch is over.
Less than forty-eight hours left to spend with Owen.
I reach into the oven in the lodge kitchen and take out a spiral ham. Using a recipe Mom had claimed was her own mother’s, I had basted the ham with brown sugar, pineapple, and a few ingredients of my own. The scent fills the kitchen as the fading sunlight pours in through the windows, and I move on to slicing potatoes.
“Ham, fried potatoes, and some sort of pie,” Owen had said last night as we’d walked downtown Sugar Creek with ice cream. “That’s Mitchell’s idea of the perfect meal.”
So that’s what we would have tonight. The other guests would dine on homemade pizzas and salads, but I invited
Mitchell and Owen to a dinner for just the three of us afterward at the main house.
Yep. I’m taking that step. Reaching out to my grandfather in the way I communicated best—food.
I open the refrigerator and take out a chocolate cheesecake I made yesterday. Without bothering with a plate, I grab a fork and sneak out a few bites. The dark chocolate ganache makes me sigh in happiness, but even that is short lived.
I was leaving the ranch. Returning to New York.
This thought requires three more bites.
On the bright side, no more waking up while the rest of the world still slept, no more cooking meals for people who wanted hamburgers and hotdogs over my gourmet offerings, and no more working days so long there wasn’t a makeup product created to cover up the fatigue.
But it also meant no more going out to check cattle with Owen, sitting beside him in the truck, his hand on my knee. No more late nights in his cabin, kissing and laughing until we both fell asleep.
And no more Mitchell, the man I still didn’t know, but who offered me a job when my summer plans derailed.
Joss, Sydney, and Darby have been my family, especially after my mom died. They’d laughed with me, cried with me. They’d come into my life when we were all awkward, giggly ten year olds, having no idea how much we’d truly need each other. But our lives are changing, taking us in different directions. Mitchell is my only blood family, a connection to my mom and my history.
So tonight, with the bolstering presence of Owen, Mitchell and I would talk. And if that failed, I would just eat more cheesecake.
“Got any left for me?” Elizabeth enters the kitchen, her usual cute blonde self in a school t-shirt and shorts that show off her tan legs.
“Don’t you have the afternoon off?”
“I’m on my way out. I had to finish up some paperwork for Mitchell.” She hands me an envelope. “For you.”
“What is it?” I rip into it and find a check. “Five hundred dollars?”
Elizabeth grins. “For catering the barn warming.”
“I can’t take this.”
“You have to—the boss said. Besides, he would’ve paid a caterer anyway. Might as well keep it in the family.”
I stare at the check in my hands as the tears press against my eyes. “This is kind of a big deal.” I can use this for books next semester, to go back to Washington to meet my best friends, or to buy a plane ticket for a fall break in Sugar Creek.
“I get it.” And she does. Elizabeth is my sister in scraping to get by and having to work for everything you have. “Don’t spend it all on cheap booze and lottery tickets.” She gives me a quick hug. “Mitchell’s up at the blue barn if you want to thank him.”
After seeing to my food and packing up some chocolate chip cookies to go, I go find Dolly Parton. “I’ll miss you, too, girl.” I give the hood a little pat before jumping in and rambling down the dirt road. I drive by the horse training area and wave at the families gathered there for a lesson. Next week there will be thirty new guests.
And I’ll be gone.
The July heat sears through my shirt, and the only breeze stirring is an atomically hot one. I make a right down a well-worn path and spot two familiar trucks. Grabbing the foil-covered plate of chocolate chip cookies, I hop out, my new boots swishing through the grass.
Cows gather in the nearby field and two birds give chase over a giant oak. This place has become just a little piece of heaven.
With a smile on my lips, I enter the barn, inhaling that now familiar scent of hay and animal. Following muffled voices, I make my way toward a row of stalls. The guys are going to love these cookies. I even added pecans just for—
“You need to tell her.”
My entire body freezes at the sound of Owen’s voice.
“She deserves to know,” he says.
“Why?” Mitchell asks. “So she’ll have something else to hate me for?”
“Maybe at first, but she’ll understand.”
Tell me what? I inch forward to the edge of the third stall, close enough to hear, but still out of sight.
“You think she’s not going to figure it all out? You think she’s not going to eventually piece it together—the scholarship, the dorm, the funeral?”
I lean into the wall, my knees turning to liquid. Suddenly gravity can’t hold me, and I fight to stay upright.
“Her college won’t say a word,” Mitchell says. “I donate too much money for them to screw that up.”
I press my hand to my heart, wondering if it’s still beating. My grandfather’s words echo in my pounding head, denial screaming within me. Surely he hadn’t bought my way into the university. Hadn’t I earned that?
But the truth is right there.
All this time I’d been such a fool.
My college scholarship has been a lie. I’ve been so arrogantly proud of that. I’d gotten into my top choice of schools, gotten into the culinary program. And it was all a lie.
“Avery needs to hear about her mother,” Owen says. “From you.”
“What about her?” I step in the stall, my pulse skittering triple-time. Owen and Mitchell stare wide-eyed like two thieves caught in the act. “What about my mother?”
“Avery—” Owen steps toward me.
“Don’t.” I hold out my hands to stop him. “Don’t touch me.”
“Avery,” he repeats, his voice so full of pathetic compassion.
“Is that all you can say?” The barn magnifies my voice. “Because it sounds to me like there’s a lot more you should be telling me.” I turn to Mitchell. “Isn’t that right?”
His eyes briefly lower to the dirt floor before returning to mine. “What do you want to know?” Mitchell asks calmly. Always so unflappable. “I’ve tried talking to you dozens of times, and you wouldn’t listen.”
“You were going to talk to me about my mom. But you had no intention of telling me you’ve been bankrolling my life.” Tears cling to my eyelashes. “Why? Why would you do that?”
“Because I love you. You’re my grandchild. You may not know me, but I’ve kept up with you your entire life.”
“You’ve bought my entire life.” I direct my anger toward Owen. “And you knew, didn’t you? How many times did I talk about college and my life, and you kept his secret?”
“I wanted to tell you,” Owen says.
“But you didn’t. Because Mitchell Crawford said not to. And what Mitchell wants, he gets. It’s the very thing my mom tried to move away from.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Owen says. “Your mother—”
“That’s enough.” Mitchell’s voice slices through Owen’s words like a whip.
“What about my mom, Grandpa? What else is there I don’t know?”
Mitchell crosses to me, his mouth grim. “I loved your mother. I would’ve done anything for her. Yes, I blew up when she told me she was pregnant.”
“And you disowned her.”
“For all of one day. I went to her boyfriend’s apartment to talk to her, to bring her back home, to tell her I’d support her no matter what. But they were already gone. That’s when I hired someone to track her down. I called, sent letters. I even showed up at her job. And when they’d move, I’d just find her again. But she didn’t want anything to do with me.”
My chest shudders as I try and catch my breath. “I don’t believe you.”
“Why would I lie about this?”
“Nothing in my life has been the truth. You let me live so many lies, so you’ll pardon me if I have trouble accepting your word.”
“All I ever wanted to do was help you and your mother.”
“With money.”
“I would’ve preferred a relationship, to be a family,” Mitchell says. “But your mother wasn’t interested.”
“I’m sure it angered you that she didn’t want your money.”
“But she did,” Owen says. “You said she worked two jobs, and you were poor, but Mitchell sent her money for years.”
But Owen won’t be quieted. “I saw the checks myself when I was a kid. Mailed out on a regular basis.”
I shake my head in denial. “She couldn’t have cashed them.” All those years of struggle. There was no way.
But Mitchell only watches me in silence.
“Did she cash them?” I yell.
His nod is almost imperceptible. “Yes.”
I open my mouth to ask where the money went.
But the horrible answer hits me before I do. And with it, comes shame.
The two husbands. The idiots she dated. The trips they took, the things she said they bought her. The new cars they drove.
She’d given it all away, floundered it in her vain attempt to get them to love her. To get them to stay.
But what about me?
I close my eyes as hot tears track down my face.
“Your mother loved you.” Owen slowly walks toward me. “No matter how she spent Mitchell’s money.”
“Well, it wasn’t on me.” I rub my hand across my dripping nose and glare daggers at my grandfather. “Unlike her, I don’t need your financial support. I don’t need anything from you. Do you have any idea—do either of you have any idea—how humiliated I am? To learn that everything I thought I’d achieved on my own was just my grandfather coming along behind me and paying people off?”
“You got into that college all on your own,” Mitchell says.
“I’ll never believe that.” My laugh is brittle as a fall leaf. “It was such a long shot when I applied, and I believed my grades and my interview had just wowed them. But it was you, wasn’t it?”
“I might’ve talked to some people, but you earned it, Avery. I didn’t give the school money until you got accepted. I didn’t want you to struggle anymore than you already had. How could I live with myself when I sit here with all this money, and my granddaughter can’t afford one single class at the school of her choice?”
“That’s not how it works!” I smack the wall with my hand. “I want to make it on my own. Not be some ranch heiress. Those people at the college must laugh when they see me coming, when they hand over that refund check every semester. Look at her, she thinks her scholarship is bigger than her tuition.”
Wild Heart Summer Page 9