After suffering through first Susan’s and then Molly’s disappearances, Will’s sympathies were all with the Colemans. He had had just enough of a taste of it to realize how devastating such grief could be.
He returned the phone to his pocket and went to stand beside the bed. Molly was hooked to an IV line. Her arms, bare beneath the short sleeves of the green hospital gown, lay limply across the neatly tucked beige blanket. Her coffee-brown hair formed a tangled halo around her face and her skin was nearly as pale as the white sheets. Her lips were parted as she breathed in and out, their usually rosy color blanched to a soft pink. Her lashes lay in dark crescents against her cheeks. Her breasts rose and fell in gentle rhythm beneath the bedclothes.
Will curled his fingers around her limp hand. To his surprise, her eyes opened and she looked at him.
“Will,” she said, and smiled. Will realized in that instant that he loved her as he had never loved anyone else in his life. Then her eyes closed, and she was asleep again.
Will stood holding her hand for a long time.
55
By eleven o’clock that night everyone had left the farmhouse except the five Ballards and Will. Susan and Molly had been released from the hospital at about 2:00 p.m. Susan had been kept over the previous night for observation, although, as one doctor said, there seemed to be nothing wrong with her that a good meal and a night’s sleep wouldn’t cure. Molly was treated for shock, got a topical antibiotic on her scalp and a Band-Aid on her forehead, and received five stitches below her ear. The doctor who stitched her up told her that if the knife had gone a quarter of an inch deeper, she would have died.
Tyler Wyland had died. In that last instant, when he had started to cut Molly’s throat, Will had blown off the top of his head.
But Molly refused to think about that. She lay on the couch in her I don’t do morning! nightshirt, cozily wrapped in a quilt, her head on a pillow, watching the end of Speed. Will sat on the floor in front of her, leaning back against the couch, his knees bent, his arms resting on his knees. Susan was curled up at Molly’s feet, while Sam and Mike sprawled on the floor and Ashley claimed the recliner. Pork Chop, as was his habit, snoozed in front of the kitchen door.
It was a cozy family scene, with all the Ballards in nightclothes and Will in sweats. Molly glanced from one engrossed face to the other and felt her heart swell with happiness and relief. Thank you, God, she prayed as she had a million times since waking up in the hospital. The only fly in the ointment was that Will was not family; he would be flying back to Chicago on Monday.
But just for tonight, Molly wasn’t going to think about that.
The closing credits of the movie rolled across the screen. Will stood up and turned off the TV.
“Bed,” he said.
“It’s Saturday,” Mike protested, rolling onto his back and sitting up.
“Yeah, it’s not late!” Sam seconded.
Ashley yawned, and got to her feet.
“I’m tired,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Sam.
“Me too,” Susan said, uncurling herself from the couch and giving Sam a monitory look. “Come on, Sam.”
“There’s no way …” Mike began heatedly, then met Will’s gaze. As Will’s back was to her, Molly couldn’t see his expression, but Mike broke off in mid-gripe and rolled to his feet. “Okay.”
Molly watched in astonishment as her siblings, with hardly another grumble among them, trooped from the room.
“How did you do that?” she asked Will, impressed.
“They obviously know the voice of authority when they hear it,” he said, coming to stand over her. “How do you feel?”
“Great, considering,” Molly said, smiling up at him. He looked very serious suddenly, and she wondered what he was thinking. She reached out and caught his hand, giving it a little tug to encourage him to sit on the edge of the couch.
“You scared the life out of me, you know,” he said, resisting. “When I realized you were nowhere to be found, I nearly had a heart attack.”
“I didn’t know you cared,” Molly teased, batting her eyelashes at him flirtatiously.
“I do,” Will answered, unsmiling. “Too damn much.”
His voice was grim, and Molly’s eyes widened on his face.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, releasing his hand and sitting up. Will looked down at her, opened his mouth, closed it again, and took a quick turn about the room.
“What is it?” Molly asked, thoroughly alarmed.
Will came back to stand in front of her. Molly saw that twin flags of red had risen to stain his cheekbones.
“Molly,” he said, then paused. “I’m no good at this.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re leaving tomorrow?” A sinking feeling hit Molly’s stomach at the thought. He had promised to stay through the weekend, but something must have come up. His son, perhaps, or work. She didn’t want him to go. Not tomorrow, not Monday, not ever. But of course he would. She had been foolish to allow herself to pretend, as she had for the last few hours, that he was hers.
Without answering, Will sat down on the couch beside her. Picking up her hand, he held it in both of his, running his thumb over her knuckles. His gaze was intent. He took a deep breath.
“Hell,” he said, “I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”
Molly stared at him, dumbfounded.
“What?” she squeaked.
“You heard me.” The red spread to the tips of his ears.
“You’re proposing?”
“Yes.” His voice was gruff.
Molly looked at him, at the hard handsome face and strong neck and broad shoulders, at the long-fingered bronze-skinned hands holding her own pale one, at the short blond hair and intent blue eyes.
“Yes,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“Hooray!” That particular yell came from Sam, but all four of her siblings burst into the room, shouting and clapping.
Will, in the act of kissing her, lifted his head. “I told you guys I needed privacy for this,” he growled.
“Hey, man, we gave you privacy,” Mike said, grinning. “And she said yes!”
“I knew she would,” Ashley chimed in, her face pink with excitement. Sitting with her arms looped around Will’s neck and his arms around her waist, Molly grinned at her sister.
“It’s not over,” Will said. “Go to bed.”
“But Molly said yes!” Susan came to stand beside them, looking enraptured. Clad in a pale blue nightgown with a ruffle around the throat and hem, Susan was so excited she couldn’t stand still.
Sam was right behind Susan. “Do you have to kiss when you get engaged?” he asked, sounding revolted as he eyed the entwined pair.
“That’s the whole point, stupid,” Mike said, nudging him. “They want to kiss. Or they wouldn’t want to get married.”
“Gross,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“Would you please go to bed?” Will ground out.
“Come on, people,” Ashley said, putting one hand on Susan’s shoulder and the other on Sam’s, “Now that we know the outcome, let’s leave them alone.”
“Thank you, Ashley,” Will said.
“Good night, guys,” Molly called after them, smiling, as Ashley herded the twins from the room and Mike trailed after them. When they were gone, she looked up at Will.
“I’m kind of a package deal,” she said apologetically.
“I know.” He grinned at her. “That’s why I asked them what they thought about the idea first. They were all for it.”
“You asked them?”
“Today at the hospital. They knew I was going to pop the question tonight. How do you think I got them to go to bed after the movie?”
“They like you,” Molly said, smiling at him. “I like you.”
“You like me?” Will asked.
“No,” Molly corrected herself. “I love you. Truly. Madly. Deeply.”
“I love you t
oo,” Will said, and kissed her again.
56
November 20, 1995
It was Monday. Will spent most of the day tying up loose ends. He had come to the conclusion that moving his new family to Chicago was a bad idea. The kids had already experienced enough upheaval in their young lives to last them a lifetime, and picturing Mike in the big city with its accompanying temptations was enough to make him shudder. He would sell his house in Chicago, buy a new one down here, and start a new life to go with it.
Accordingly, when he called in he told Hallum that he was going to put in for a transfer to the Lexington office.
Hallum greeted his announcement with a hoot of laughter.
“Elly May landed you, did she?” he asked over the phone. “The office was taking bets about whether she would.”
“Something like that,” Will answered, refusing to sound annoyed. If he did, he knew he’d be kidded for the rest of his life.
“Matthews is retiring at the end of January,” Hallum continued. “With me to recommend you, I think you can be pretty sure of getting his job.”
It was that easy. Will was promised a promotion to go with his new family and his new life, and vowed to develop a liking for the smell of manure if it killed him.
He was just getting into his car with Molly that afternoon when a Federal Express truck pulled into the driveway. They were on their way to pick up the kids from school, after which all six of them were going to troop down to the county courthouse to apply for the marriage license. The ceremony itself would be performed the following Saturday. Kevin, Will’s parents, and Debbie’s parents would be flying down on Thursday, and the list of friends and neighbors Molly wanted to invite made Will shake his head.
But hey, a man only got married twice.
Will accepted the manila envelope from the FedEx driver, turning it over in his hands. It was from the Chicago office, and it contained a note and a tape.
The note said simply “Congratulations!” above the scrawled signatures of his fellow agents.
The tape was more of a mystery. Play me was written on its white casing in pencil. Will eyed it suspiciously as he got into the car.
“What is it?” Molly asked, smiling at him.
“I have no idea. I’m not even sure I want to know.” He kissed her mouth, turned on the ignition, and inserted the tape into the tape deck.
A song blared out. Will listened to the Bureau’s finest bellowing cheerfully off-key, and began to laugh.
Green acres is the place to be /
Farm living is the life for me /
Land juttin’ out so far and wide /
Keep Chicago, just give me that countryside!
This book is dedicated, as always, with love to my
sons, Peter and Christopher, and my husband, Doug.
It also commemorates the births of my niece, Samantha
Spicer, on February 28, 1994, and my nephew, Austin
Johnson, on February 24, 1995.
Special Preview
from the Karen Robards title
HEARTBREAKER
Now available from Dell
Her butt hurt.
Lynn Nelson stifled a groan and rubbed the offending body part with both hands. Not that the impromptu massage did much good. The ache did not abate.
Realizing how peculiar her actions must look, Lynn dropped her hands and cast an embarrassed glance around to see if anyone was watching. Her fellow vacationers—a group of twenty fourteen- and fifteen-year-old girls, two teachers, and two other parent chaperons like herself—all seemed to be going merrily about the business of setting up camp for the night. Nary a watcher in sight. Nor a fellow butt-rubber, either.
Did they all have buns of steel?
Apparently. No one else seemed to be walking around as if they’d had a corncob shoved up where the sun don’t shine. No one else even limped.
“Did you find what was bothering him yet?” The speaker was a wiry, twenty-something pony wrangler whose name Lynn thought was Tim. Dressed in jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat, Tim looked every inch at home on the range. Which, Lynn had already guessed, was the idea.
“Not yet.” Lynn cast a loathing look at the cause of her misery—a shaggy mountain pony named Hero—and retrieved the metal pick from the ground where she had stuck it moments before while she attended to more pressing needs. Grabbing the beast around the foreleg as Tim had shown her earlier, Lynn tried to pry a muddy hoof off the ground.
What must have been a thousand pounds of sweaty, stinky horse leaned companionably against her. Its rotten-grass breath whooshed past her cheek.
Pee-yuu. Lynn remembered why she hated horses.
“Get off, you,” she muttered, shoving the animal with her shoulder, and was rewarded by a soft nicker and even more of its weight.
Though she pulled with all her strength, the hoof didn’t budge.
“Here.” Grinning, Tim moved to help her, picking up the hoof with no trouble at all and handing it to her.
“Thanks.” If her tone was sour, Lynn couldn’t help it. She felt sour. And sore.
Bent almost double, straddling a hairy, muddy animal leg, Lynn once again stabbed her pick into the mud- (she hoped) packed hoof that was clamped between her knees.
Hero leaned against her. Lynn contemplated horse-icide.
“Dig in there a little deeper and I bet you’ll find a rock,” Tim said.
You’ll learn to take care of your own horse, the brochure advertising the trip had promised.
Remembering, Lynn thought, whoopee.
Another dig, and the mess in the hoof popped free. A rock, as predicted, packed in with a dark substance too malodorous to be mud. Yuck.
“Good job.” Tim gave her an approving pat (or maybe whack was a better word) on the shoulder. Losing her balance, Lynn staggered backward, dropping both hoof and pick. The pony stomped its foot, snorted loudly, and turned its head to look at her. If the animal had been human, Lynn would have sworn it snickered.
“Oh, sorry,” Tim said, his amusement obvious as he retrieved the pick. “We’ll make a horsewoman out of you yet, you’ll see.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Here, give him this and he’ll love you forever.”
“Lucky me.” Under Tim’s supervision, Lynn clumsily fastened a feed bag around Hero’s head. The pony twitched its ears at her, and began to eat.
“Now pat him,” Tim directed. Patting was not Lynn’s first choice of things to do to the mangy beast, but she swallowed her less civilized impulses and complied. Hero’s hairy hide felt rough beneath her hand. Turning it palm up, she looked down in distaste at the dirt and the reddish-brown hairs left clinging to her fingers.
“Good job.” With a nod Tim moved on down the line of the tied string of ponies.
Dismissed at last, Lynn pushed her fist hard against the aching small of her back and tried not to dwell on the fact that this was only the second day of a ten-day-long wilderness “vacation.” And tried not to rub her butt again, either.
What had possessed her to come?
Rory, Lynn acknowledged, tottering toward one of the small camp fires that was supposed to provide protection from the no-see-ums. (Hah!) Her fourteen-year-old daughter had not asked her to be part of this freshman-class trip. On the contrary, Rory had groaned when Lynn told her she had volunteered. But Lynn felt Rory needed her. And she needed time with Rory, to shore up a relationship that lately felt as if it were coming apart at the seams.
Anyway, the promotional literature advertising the trip had made it seem educational, fun, and the experience of a lifetime, all rolled up together in one all-inclusive package deal.
So she had taken two weeks off from work—her first real vacation in three years—and here she was, on the side of some godforsaken mountain in the High Wilderness area of Utah’s Uinta Range, tagging along on a teenage girl’s horseback-riding fantasy trip.
The question was, was she having fun yet?
The answer
was an emphatic “no!”
Lynn collapsed on a bale of hay placed near the camp fire for just that purpose, and tried to look on the bright side of things: indulging Rory’s love of the outdoors was at least preferable to dealing with her escalating boy-craziness. This trip, the reward for her daughter’s sticking out a whole year at Collegiate, an exclusive girls-only academy, had cost the earth, but it was thankfully male-free.
Except for the guides. Six of them, all male. All attractive. Of course. That was the way life worked. She should have expected it.
Just as she should have expected her new riding boots to pinch, her butt to ache, her nose to be sunburned despite lashings of sunscreen and the wide-brimmed cowboy hat she had worn all day, and her skin—even where it didn’t show—to feel that it needed a Dustbuster taken to it to remove the grit.
She hated horseback riding.
Lynn shifted position, winced, and rubbed the knuckles of her clenched fists hard against her jean-clad thighs. She felt she was getting charley horses in every muscle she possessed below the waist.
“This might help.” The man hunkering down beside her—yes, hunkering was the right word, men really did hunker down in Utah, she had discovered—held out a flattish gold can.
“Doc Grandview’s Horse Liniment” was scrawled in black letters across the top. Yeah, right, Lynn thought. When even the salve she was offered looked as if it could have belonged to Wyatt Earp, Lynn’s skepticism was aroused. Everything about this trip from the outfitters themselves to the flies that buzzed around the horses’ ears would have been right at home in the Old West. Lynn’s verdict was, too touristy for words.
“Was I that obvious?” Lynn managed a smile nonetheless, accepting the can and turning it over in her hand. Owen Feldman was part owner, with his younger brother, of Adventure, Inc., the outfitters who had arranged and were guiding the trip. Owen was tall, broad shouldered, and lean hipped, with close-cropped tobacco-brown hair, a craggy, square-jawed face, and baby blues to die for. Maybe a couple of years older than her own age of thirty-five, Owen was, the brochure had promised, a born and bred Utahn, with all the classic Utah virtues including competence, confidence, and utter reliability—a real cowboy.
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