Our Now and Forever (Ardent Springs #2)

by Terri Osburn

  Snow had grown up singing in church, and loved performing, but she didn’t crave the spotlight or carry any deep desire to be a star. She’d simply used her gift to keep from telling her parents that she didn’t want a life like theirs, working her knuckles to the bone for little money and even less respect. When she met Caleb, she’d been earning a few dollars here and there with her voice, but she preferred her day job of working in a Western-wear store engaging with everyday people. To now be selling pieces with history and meaning, and doing it on her own terms, suited Snow perfectly.

  As for her pretentious in-laws, who’d made it clear that she would never be good enough for their boy, Snow’s little shop may not be on par with the McGraw Media empire, but she was her own boss, successful and happy without their stinking money.

  Before her husband reached the middle of the store, Lorelei breezed by the counter saying, “All done. Time to go.” Doing a quick spin, she mouthed the words full report tomorrow, then proceeded toward the exit as if it wasn’t completely obvious why she was leaving in such a hurry.

  Panic sent Snow hopping around the counter to beg her friend to stay, but Lorelei was already waving from the other side of the glass. Around Caleb’s fast-approaching form, Snow saw the open sign swinging back and forth in the door’s window, revealing that Lorelei had essentially closed the store on her way out.

  Snow made a mental note to thank her resident baker the next day.

  Once Caleb reached her, she expected an immediate flurry of unanswerable questions. Instead he said, “Do you need me to wait somewhere while you close up?”

  Patience. Huh.

  “You can sit anywhere you’d like,” she said, thankful for the reprieve, however short it might be. “I need to count the drawer.”

  Caleb nodded, looked around, and dropped his solid frame into a periwinkle-blue chair. The feminine curves of the piece threw his own more masculine form into sharp relief. Yet the white polka-dots propelled the image into comical territory. To her surprise, Snow had to cough to hide the giggle.

  How could she be giggling at a time like this? Her estranged husband—could she call him estranged when he’d had no say in their separation?—sat in her store as if waiting for her to serve tea and crumpets. This was no laughing matter. And yet, she couldn’t wipe the smile from her face.

  “I didn’t expect you to be so happy to see me,” Caleb said, resting an ankle on the opposing knee.

  Snow stuttered as she answered. “I . . . I’m not. I mean . . . You . . . In that chair . . .” Abandoning the effort to explain, she resorted to waving a hand in his general direction.

  Caleb examined the chair beneath him. Looking her way with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “I don’t see any comfortable brown leather, so blue with polka-dots will have to do.”

  His words conjured memories of the first night they’d spent together, when they’d made love in a worn leather chair at his apartment. Heat pooled in Snow’s belly and slowly spread to her extremities. She didn’t need a mirror to know her thoughts were revealed in the redness of her skin. All the moisture seemed to leave her mouth and relocate to her palms.

  Opening the cash drawer with a loud ding, Snow said, “You’ll need to be quiet while I count.” As if she could possibly count money now that her libido was fully awake for the first time in more than a year. She had to fight not to cross the short distance between them.

  Memories of flexing muscles, talented hands, and sapphire eyes assaulted her.

  Ten, twenty, thirty, forty . . . Had Lorelei turned up the heat before she left?

  Snow shook her head, pulled a number out of thin air, and wrote it on her cash sheet.

  Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty . . . Why did he have to wear that same cologne? The scent of pine and man and sex danced in the air, which made no sense at all. No one here was having sex. Nor would they be.

  Snatching the black hat from her head, Snow slammed it onto the counter and wiped her brow on her sleeve.

  “You okay over there?” Caleb asked. His voice even. Unaffected.

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. Taking a deep breath, Snow rolled her shoulders and said, “It’s been a long day is all. I’m tired.”

  “The sooner you get that money counted, the sooner we can get out of here.”

  Right. Wait. Did he say we?

  “I’m finished,” she said, closing the drawer and turning toward the back room.

  Caleb lifted out of the chair. “Where are you going?”

  “My purse is in the back,” Snow answered. He didn’t need to know there was also a back door.

  Once inside the storeroom, Snow pulled the backpack she used as a purse from the bottom drawer of an ancient metal desk, then reached for a trench coat draped over the back of the chair. She was five feet from the rear exit when Caleb caught her.

  “Going somewhere?”

  Freezing in place, Snow managed not to curse aloud. She jammed an arm into the sleeve of her coat as she spun. “I told you. I had to get my purse.”

  “And now you have it,” he said, nodding toward the bag in her hand. “Don’t you think you should lock the front door before you hightail it out the back? Or were you expecting me to lock up before chasing you down? Again.”

  Dropping her bag back on the desk, Snow said, “Let’s get this over with, then.” She only hoped she sounded confident and annoyed rather than scared out of her mind. “Ask your questions.”

  One perfect brow cocked up. “I want to know why you left,” he said as he crossed his arms. “And I want to know when you’re coming home.”

  Caleb almost faltered as the color drained from Snow’s face. The need to pull her close and tell her everything would be okay warred with his determination that she answer for her actions. Vows meant something, even when they’d been spoken in front of a bad Elvis impersonator. At least they did to him. His wife didn’t seem to possess the same conviction.

  With her trench coat hanging off one arm, Snow pulled a chair away from the small table to his right and sat down. “I couldn’t stay,” she said, dropping her head into her hands.

  “Why?” he asked. “Why couldn’t you stay?”

  Shaking her head, she lifted her face, revealing the moisture in her hazel eyes. “We made a mistake, Caleb. The marriage was a mistake.”

  “I disagree.” Caleb leaned his hands on the table. “You never gave it a chance.”

  “When something is that obvious, there’s no reason to drag it out.”

  “So you left,” he said, anger intensified by the hurt that had been prickling his skin like a cactus for eighteen months. “Even if you were right, and we made a mistake, you don’t walk away without a word, Snow. Leaving didn’t solve anything.”

  She threw her hands in the air. “You think I don’t know that? I panicked, okay? I got in the car and I drove and . . . I don’t know.” Snow sighed. “I couldn’t make myself turn around.”

  The resignation and regret in her voice created the thread of hope he needed. Caleb dropped into the empty chair next to her. “This didn’t happen last week. You’ve had a year and a half to make it right. To call or at least tell me where you were.”

  “How?” she asked, her brows drawn together. “How would that phone call have gone? ‘Hey, Caleb, it’s your wife. Remember me?’”

  “That’s a start.” He tried to take her hand, but she pulled away. Caleb dug deep for patience. “Was there someone else?” he asked.

  “What?” Snow jerked back. “You think I left you for another man?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, irritated that she hadn’t given a clear answer. “Did you?”

  Leaning forward, Snow held his gaze. “The last thing I wanted to deal with was another man. I’d made enough mistakes with the one I had. I certainly didn’t want to repeat them with another.”

  There was that wor
d again. Mistakes. “What are you talking about? What mistakes?”

  “This,” Snow shouted, leaping from her seat fast enough to send the metal chair crashing to the floor. “We have nothing in common, Caleb. We’re from two different planets, and I don’t mean that Mars and Venus crap.” She waved a hand between them. “You come from money, I come from nothing. You’re college-educated, and I’m not. You think life is one playdate after another, when I know it’s hard work.”

  Caleb had never seen Snow this passionate about anything. She’d never even raised her voice in all the time they’d been together. Which was one of the reasons he’d been so confused when she disappeared. They hadn’t even had their first fight yet.

  “I have nothing to do with the fact that my family is wealthy. You don’t get to pick which family you’re born into, Snow. And don’t give me that crap about a college education. You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

  The compliment took her by surprise. “Really?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Really. And so I haven’t pinned down a career. I work. I do things. I know life isn’t easy.”

  Shaking her head as if to break a spell, Snow returned to looking agitated. “That doesn’t change the facts.”

  “You mean the fact that we’re married?”

  “That’s a technicality,” she said, dismissing his words.

  Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose. “Pretty big technicality, don’t you think?”

  “One that can be easily fixed.”

  He opened his eyes to see Snow standing before him, hugging herself as if she might break apart otherwise.

  “Are you saying you want a divorce?”

  Lifting one shoulder in a half shrug, she said, “Don’t you?”

  A divorce had never entered his mind. Okay, that was a lie. After six months with no word, he’d agreed to let his mother have the papers drawn up, mostly to stop the nagging. But he never really planned to use them. Not if he could help it.

  “No,” he said. “I want my wife back. Why else would I be here?”

  “But . . .” she started.

  “There is no but, Snow. I made a vow,” he said, pointing to the ring on his finger. “For better or worse. And so did you.” Caleb’s parents may not have faith that he could make a commitment and stick with it, but in this he would prove them wrong. He and Snow would make their marriage work, but Caleb couldn’t do this alone. Marriage required two participants. “You got spooked. Fair enough. So we start over. Come home and we’ll work this out.”

  Snow backed way. “This will never work. That’s proof of it.”

  “What’s proof?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Pulling her coat on the rest of the way, Snow said, “Look around, Caleb. This is a business. My business. I’m not walking away from it.”

  Registering his surroundings for the first time since he’d chased her into the room, Caleb took in the shelves of dusty knickknacks. The cracked vases, water-marked tables, and stacks of faded fabrics. Nothing looked as if it was worth much.

  “You can sell this one and we’ll open another back home,” he said, presenting what he thought was a perfectly reasonable plan.

  “Baton Rouge isn’t my home,” Snow argued. “Ardent Springs might not be my forever home either, but I’ve made a place here. I’ve worked my butt off to build this shop, and I’m not about to hand that over to someone else.”

  Caleb tried not to panic. He wasn’t giving up his wife, and she wasn’t giving up this dinky town. There was only one solution. At least until he could convince her to come home with him.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll live here.”

  Chapter 3

  Snow tilted her head. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me. If this is where you want to live, then I’m good with it.”

  A new panic raced through Snow’s system. Caleb may be Southern, but contrary to what many believed, growing up in the South did not make a person “country.” Snow had grown up in a small town. She was used to the slower pace and nosy neighbors. Her husband lived in cities. With malls and skyscrapers and things to do. Caleb was not the rural type.

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  “Nope,” he said. “Not kidding.”

  Now what was she supposed to do? Their location had not been the only reason their marriage had been a fiasco. There was his father and the hateful words she’d overheard the night she left. Not until her parents came to visit did the McGraw clan, Caleb included, learn that Snow’s father was half black, landing Snow squarely and immediately in the undesirable category.

  After one of the most uncomfortable dinners in the history of family meetings, when he’d assumed Snow was out of earshot, Jackson McGraw had demanded that Caleb get rid of her at once. Her husband’s response had been that a divorce would mean giving Snow half of everything. No, “But I love her.” No, “I won’t give her up.”

  Only that he had to protect the McGraw fortune.

  Staring at the floor, Snow said, “I heard you.”

  “You heard me what?” he asked.

  Pushing the hurt away, she answered, “I heard your response to your father when he declared my mixed blood a taint to your family line.” She looked up in time to see Caleb’s blue eyes flare wide with surprise. “You said a divorce would allow me to take half of everything. You couldn’t jeopardize the McGraw money by divorcing the girl who tricked you into believing she was white.”

  Though the last part had never passed his lips, Snow knew the thought must have crossed his mind. His flip response to his father proved it.

  Caleb ran a hand through his thick hair, glancing to the ceiling as if praying for a plausible excuse.

  “I don’t want your money, Caleb,” she said.

  “I never said you did.” He blew out a breath and added, “I had no idea you heard that conversation, but you need to understand why I said what I did. And the way I said it.”

  “Oh, I understand,” she said, turning her back to her husband. “And I feel the same way. As I said, this marriage was a mistake.”

  “Snow, my father speaks one language, and that’s money. If I’d have made some romantic protest about our marriage, he would have laughed in my face and had lawyers on the phone by morning. The only way to change his mind was to make him believe that a divorce would cost him a substantial amount of money.” The chair rattled as Caleb rose and crossed to stand in front of her, looking Snow in the eye as he continued. “It was the first thing that popped into my head. I’m sorry that you’ve thought all this time that I really meant those words.”

  She wanted to believe him. Staring into his face, she looked for anything that would give him away, that would prove he was manipulating her and only saying what she wanted to hear. But sincerity shone in those blue depths.

  She’d been wrong, but there was no way Snow could have known that. Especially since she’d left instead of sticking around to confront him. But that one overheard conversation wasn’t the only problem with their marriage; it had simply been the breaking point for her. There were still the vast differences in their families and background. Their utter lack of compatibility. And her absolute certainty that she could never fit into Caleb’s world.

  “We’re still too different, and that isn’t going to change in a new ZIP code.”

  In his typical stubborn way, Caleb said, “We aren’t that different.”

  “Yes, we are.” Too many times in their short relationship, Snow had given in to Caleb’s obstinate positivity. His refusal to hear anything he didn’t believe to be true had frustrated her to no end. If she had tried to tell him there were problems, long before that awful last night, he’d have argued that they were fine. End of conversation. Much of the time, talking to her husband felt like talking to a wall.

  “We both like
country music,” he offered, as if stating some arbitrary interest would prove his point.

  “I don’t like football,” Snow rebutted.

  Caleb hesitated. “You don’t like football? But you watched all those games with me.”

  “I was trying to be supportive,” she answered.

  Looking slightly off balance, Caleb said, “That’s fine. A lot of women don’t like sports.”

  Snow lifted one brow. “I didn’t say I don’t like sports. I like to watch tennis. And ice skating.”

  Her husband looked as if she’d set a carton of sour milk on the table. “I’m not sure ice skating qualifies as a sport.”

  “It’s in the Olympics, Caleb.”

  “True,” he conceded. “So we watch different sports. We agree on other things.”

  The man would fight with a stump. “Like what?”

  The twinkle returning to his eye, Caleb stepped closer. “There’s one area where we’re very compatible,” he said.

  Snow held up a hand palm out. “Stop right there, McGraw. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”

  “This is not a mess,” he said, pulling her hand against his chest until she could feel his heartbeat against her skin. “This is a marriage that has been on hiatus for far too long.”

  As his face came down toward hers, Snow’s brain fought to retain control. If her body took over this argument, she’d find herself stripped to her striped socks and moaning on the desktop in a matter of minutes.

  As desperation danced down her spine, inspiration struck.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” she said, marching backward until she was out of his reach. “I’ll give you one month.”

  Caleb’s lips were still puckered as he blinked her way. “What?”

  Snow brushed a curl out of her face, then quickly tucked the shaking hand behind her back. “You can live here with me, in Ardent Springs, until November thirtieth. That gives you exactly one month to prove that we should stay married.”

  Rising to the challenge, as she knew he would, Caleb said, “I doubt it’ll take a month, but I’ll agree to that.”