The Bride Wore Denim

by Lizbeth Selvig

  “Hey, sis,” Harper said. “I hear you summoned your minions.” She reached Joely’s side and took her hand. “We’re here. What can we do for you?”

  It would take a long time before Joely’s face looked anything like it had two weeks earlier. Scrapes and rough scabs cover most of her forehead and cheeks. One eye still opened only half way, and the hazel of both irises paled behind swollen purple, red, and yellow skin. Her jaw had been wired back into place, and when she spoke it was sibilantly through partially clenched teeth. Her hair had been carefully washed, but the honeyed tresses that hung below the skull cap of bandaging held none of its normal luster and lay against the hospital linen as limp and drained of fire as the rest of her body.

  She turned her head slowly toward them.

  “Thank you for watching over me, all of you.” She’d learned to form her consonants behind her teeth, and they were stiff and slow.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Harper kissed her cheek. “What else would we do?”

  “I don’t want you to think you have to come all the time. I don’t really need minions.”

  “Yeah? Well too bad.” Harper grinned. “We live to serve.”

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about,” Joely closed her eyes. “I’ve had a lot of time to think and to ask questions, and I’ve accepted the fact that I’m never going to be fully whole and functional like I was before.”

  “Don’t be silly! It’s only been a couple of weeks. You’re going to be perfectly fine. Tell her, Mia.”

  “I know I’ll be fine.” Joely opened her eyes again. “But I won’t walk normally or have full coordination. There may even be some brain injury that leaves motor skills impaired.”

  Harper searched for Mia’s assurance, but her smile was faint.

  “I don’t blow smoke up peoples’ butts,” she said. “That doesn’t help anything.”

  “A little wouldn’t hurt,” Harper murmured.

  Mia firmed her lips and shot her a don’t-be-a-child look. “I won’t sugarcoat things for you, Joely. The nerve damage to your leg is serious, and a traumatic brain injury diagnosis is far from an exact science. It is possible you won’t gain full use of your leg. It’s possible you’ll have to relearn some motor skills. But. It is also possible, with all the new techniques and therapies they’re pioneering here at this very hospital, you’ll recover almost a hundred percent. I’d say the odds are not that bad. You’ll just have to work hard.”

  “And I intend to. But in the meantime I’ve made a decision. I think we need to go back to your plan for Paradise Ranch. We need to sell it and all move on. I can’t handle running it. I don’t want to. I refuse to require others to do the work for me.”

  Cole’s breath caught in his throat.

  He’d spent enough time looking over the ranch finances with Joely to know that, with some sacrifices, good planning, and little help from above, they had a shot at keeping Paradise afloat. And if they did work with Mountain Pacific, within a year things could be looking downright positive. In his head, he’d already put his plan into action. He’d only been waiting for Joely to recover enough that she could start talking shop in the hospital.

  She couldn’t pull the plug now.

  “Joely, honey,” he said. “Being in a place like this, after what happened and with the kinds of injuries you have, is bound to be depressing. Don’t you think it’s the situation talking? You love the ranch.”

  Her green-brown eyes filled with sadness. “I know all that. I even know I’m depressed. But that’s the key—I know. I’m not talking through anger or despair; I’m talking reality. I know I can’t run Paradise; I think I knew that even when I first offered to try. Of course I don’t want it to leave the family, but sometimes reality slaps you in the face and tells you to use your head instead of your heart.”

  “Oh, Joely.” Harper pulled a chair next to the bed and sat as close to her sister as she could, holding Joely’s hand in both of hers. “Don’t make this decision now. Give it until you’re out of the hospital.”

  “You don’t really have that much time. There are bills coming due in November and December that creditors won’t wait for. The lumber yard, the balloon payment on the barn that’s now ten years old—they’ve already extended that three times. You know all this, Cole.”

  “I do. And the beef shipment looks good this time—better than our estimate. I’ve got a little bit saved I can lend the ranch until spring.”

  Now where had that come from? His savings were sacrosanct. His living expenses—and two recent trips to Chicago—were all he’d taken from it. He’d never considered using his money to pay someone else to hang onto the property he wanted to buy with his money.

  It made a backward kind of sense. He supposed.

  “I wish it were enough for you to just buy the place outright.” Joely sighed and closed her eyes again. This was the most talking she’d done since the accident. “You’ve got the vision for Paradise Ranch, Cole. I saw that in those weeks we worked on books. But I don’t have vision or strength.”

  “I wish I could buy it, too.” Cole’s words tangled surprisingly with a tide of emotion. The very real possibility that the ranch was slipping away was like having a noose draped over his neck. He’d never had this suffocating despair over Paradise before—he’d always seen an option for saving it. But with Joely’s pronouncement, his brain froze. Not a single solution came to him. The Crocket girls had ordained this moment the day each of them had walked away.

  “There’s a lot for all of us to talk about.” Mia broke the silence that had fallen. “I believe you don’t want to take on the ranch, Jo-Jo, and I do understand. We’ll tell the triplets and see what they think.”

  “But you’re the one who insisted we should sell.” Joely made the reminder in a flat, uncaring tone.

  “I did. Maybe it would be best. But . . . ” Mia shrugged. “We’ve come this far. It feels like we owe Paradise at least another family meeting.”

  MIA STAYED WITH Joely when Harper and Cole said good-bye so they could get to Skylar.

  “Thank you,” Harper whispered to Amelia when they hugged. “You said everything right.”

  “It’s the truth, that’s all. Say hello to Skylar. Tell her to get better.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  “So what do you think is the next step?” Cole asked when they were out of the room. “We’ve come this far. I hate seeing Joely give up.”

  “We’ll talk to the rest of the girls.” Harper shrugged.

  “You still think you have to go back tonight?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  He looked askance. “Even in light of this? Don’t you think it’s time to finally work out the ranch’s future? We . . . ” He stopped to correct himself. “You keep kicking the can down the road.”

  “I have a commitment to fulfill,” she said, letting his arm go. “And the reason for not fulfilling it no longer exists. Since nobody is going to buy Paradise Ranch in the seven weeks left to Christmas, I say we keep kicking until then.”

  Cole felt a little like he was the embodiment of that can.

  “Look.” He tried one more tactic. “Cecelia doesn’t have to know everything’s finished here. At least not yet. What if I’m not ready to let you go?”

  She smiled. “I’m not thrilled about leaving you, either, but if I’m not honest about my promises, then I’m not much of a role model for the kid I’m about to go see. I made a big arrogant speech about respect to her mother. I have to learn to keep my priorities straight.”

  “I agree. But don’t you feel like the emergency with Paradise is just as big a deal as the one with Skylar?”

  “No.”

  The one word cut him to the quick. “Wait. Let me understand. You’re on the ‘we should sell’ side now?”

  She place both hands on his chest. “I’m not. But I don’t know what to think either. This is all like a freak storm—it roared in out of nowhere, and it’s blowing everything around so
hard and so fast that I’m lost. We all are. I don’t want to talk about the ranch right now. Let the storm pass first.”

  Reluctantly he opened the car door for her and watched her slip in. All he knew was somebody had to start talking about the ranch pretty damn soon.

  “You know,” she said, once he was behind the wheel. “There could be a silver lining in all of this. If we sold the ranch, you could come to Chicago with no strings. Easy-peasy happily ever after.”

  “That’s your idea of a solution?”

  “Why so shocked? In a way, it’s perfect.”

  “Oh really?” A huge block of anger broke free inside him, like an ice floe after a ship had hit an iceberg. “And what about the work I’ve put into this the past few weeks? No, years actually. What about my dreams for the future?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I must be remembering incorrectly. What happened to you deciding you’d follow me anywhere?”

  He stopped, his anger refreshed at her attempt to call him on his own words. “Don’t turn that around. Of course I’ll follow you, but I didn’t think you’d truly ask me to give up my legacy. Is it okay for one person to sacrifice everything?”

  He felt like that was honestly what she was suggesting he do. It seemed unbelievable, after all the emotion she’d expended on oil, back-to-the-past cattle roundups, and figuring things out with Mia. Now they’d flipped positions like two politicians, and he was caught in the fallout. He loved her stubborn hide, but the stones in his gut felt like betrayal.

  “And if I stay here, I’m not sacrificing everything?” she asked.

  “You can’t bring your brushes and paints here?”

  She looked like he’d struck her, and he resented that, too. Wasn’t it the truth? Couldn’t she paint anywhere?

  “Look,” she said before he could say more. “Nobody should have to sacrifice everything, but it seems like both people should be willing to and neither of us is willing. Clearly. This is precisely why I’ve said all along a relationship like this doesn’t work. It sorts out priorities pretty fast, doesn’t it?”

  “Clearly yours is Chicago.”

  “Clearly yours is getting the Double Diamond back.”

  “What do you really want, Harper? I’ve asked you before.”

  “I want to be who I am. Not who my father wanted me to be.”

  “And have you gotten anywhere close to that independence?”

  “I’m getting dang close.”

  “Then by God you’d better stay the course until you’re all the way there. Nothing more to say.” He turned the ignition key, feeling for the first time since the death of his mother that he could weep for something about to be irrevocably lost. He headed out of the parking lot a little too fast.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “YOU CAME!”

  Skylar’s bullfrog voice and follow-up cough didn’t stop her from sounding like she’d won the lottery when Harper walked into her hospital room, with a mask over her nose and mouth and worry zipping through her veins. Only when she bent to the sick girl and got a forceful bear hug did she believe the child was going to be all right.

  “I am so glad to see you,” Harper said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Skylar replied. “Mom said you came all the way from Chicago.”

  “We all do crazy things when we’re upset.”

  “I’m supposed to say I’m sorry.” Skylar stared up at Harper, and Cole behind her, with wide eyes in a pale face that sported two brightly flushed cheek spots. “I’m sorry I got sick and made everyone worry.”

  “Well, that’s something.” Harper wanted to be angry with Skylar, but she identified too strongly with her anger. The whole world was frustrating at the moment. Harper would have run off to a pup tent in the wilderness if she could have.”

  “I know everyone’s mad at me, but I don’t care,” Skylar croaked. “I knew I would get in trouble for this, and I already told my dad he could punish me however he wants. I only wanted them to be mad enough to listen to me.”

  “I actually know that, Skylar. I ran away for the very same reasons you did. Truth be told, you did it a little smarter than I did. I ran away for years instead of days.”

  “But you came back.”

  “Not to stay.”

  “You’re going away again?”

  “I have to go back to Chicago tonight.”

  “Tonight? But I won’t get to see you. I wanted to show you some sketches.”

  “I’d love to see them. I’ll plan to stay longer next time.”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  Skylar covered her eyes with the backs of both hands and held them there until it was clear she was hiding. To Harper’s dismay, a tiny rivulet of water dripped past the barrier and coursed across Skylar’s temple.

  “Sweetie, sweetie, don’t cry. You’ll only feel worse.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “But that’s why things seem so bad and sad right now. You feel lousy. And just because you did kind of what you set out to do, doesn’t mean you forgive your mom for taking away the prize for your painting. You will forgive her, but it still feels bad right now.”

  She uncovered her wet eyes. “See. You’re the only one who gets it. Nobody else does.”

  “Lots of people get it. They do. But I remember feeling exactly like this when I was your age.”

  “Really?”

  “My dad used to hide my sketchbooks so I’d focus on what he thought were the right things.”

  “Am I, like, your long lost kid or something?”

  Harper laughed. “No. An adopted sister, maybe. This just means there are a lot of misunderstood people in the world. So, we have to learn not to run away but to stand up for ourselves and still be respectful. I wasn’t very good at it. Your mom has reasons for what she decided. Talk to her about them.”

  “But that’s the thing. I did. She already changed her mind.”

  Harper sat upright, confused. “She did?”

  “She said they can hang the picture, but there have to be rules. They can put my name with it and say I’m a local artist. But I can’t have my picture or my age with it.”

  Harper’s immediate instinct was to rant that while Melanie had come close, she’d missed the mark. But she waited for her pulse to calm and reason to kick in.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  “It’s a big change for her. She still doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get that I wasn’t thinking about sex or something stupid when I was painting the picture. She thinks the worst all the time. But, I guess I kind of won my point.”

  “You did,” Harper conceded. “But don’t you go thinking you can do stupid stuff every time you want your way. This was a pretty dangerous thing you did. If Nate hadn’t remembered what you said about wanting to climb the mountain on your own, we might not have found you in time.”

  “I know.” Her voice got small and tired. “I was scared. I couldn’t make myself walk or anything. And Asta came and found me, too. I left her at home, but she didn’t stay.”

  “Really? That’s pretty incredible.”

  “Yeah,” she whispered.

  “From now on promise me you’ll talk to your mom. Show her why she should respect you. Do what I never did while my dad was alive.”

  “Okay.”

  “And.” Harper winked over her mask. “There’s Nate. He likes you in case you haven’t figured it out.”

  “He was here already.” The fever spots on her cheeks deepened.

  “Having a trustworthy boyfriend and showing how you can be trustworthy, too, will help your mom a lot in the, you know, worrying-about-sex department.”

  “I can’t date until I’m sixteen.”

  “I’ll bet they’d let him come and visit. Or paint with you sometime.”

  The thoughtfulness in her face proved how much she liked the idea. She glanced at Cole.

  “Are you going back with her to Chicago?”

  Harper swore Cole grimaced. “Not this t
ime,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to leave right now. Lots of things are happening here, and Harper has too much work to do.”

  She read his tone and wanted to smack him.

  “Are you painting lots?” Skylar asked.

  “I am. And meeting lots of people who want to share what I paint. I’m lucky to have the chance to visit with them. That’s where I’m going tonight—to a gathering I promised to attend.”

  “You should go with her,” Skylar said to Cole.

  “No. We learned that Joely is going to be away from working at the ranch for quite a long time. That means somebody has to help figure things out here.”

  “Are you going to sell the ranch?”

  Cole took a step back. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Everyone thinks I’m a kid, but I’m not. I understand what my grandpa is talking about with my dad. I know what’s happening with the money and the bills. Kind of. Everyone is worried.”

  “Yeah they are,” he agreed. “But it’s more complicated than deciding to sell the ranch. Nobody thinks about that lightly. There might not . . . ” He hesitated and then shrugged. “You’ll hear sooner or later. There might not be any other way.”

  “There’s always a way.” Skylar’s croaking was deepening, but she struggled to a partial sit and studied the two of them as if she were the only adult in the room.

  “Are you two mad at each other?”

  Harper tried to find last ditch camaraderie in Cole’s eyes, but he only gave her a helpless look. Skylar’s eyes darkened as she waited.

  “We have some differences of opinion,” she said. “That’s not really being mad.”

  “I don’t know. I think you’re pretty mad at me,” Cole said.

  “That’s not appropriate here.”

  “That’s what I mean.” Skylar’s voice was now a squeak. “You think I’m too dumb to be honest with. You forgot that I saw you kiss each other. Do you think I can’t tell when you’re mad?”