“You can’t be that stupid.” She eyed him for a long moment, then shook her head. “I guess you can.” She started to walk away, but stopped and turned back to him. “She loves you, you know.”
Sam’s gaze moved to where Cheryl sat quietly in the car with her head up staring straight ahead. “She never told me that.”
“Men. Do women have to tell you everything? Cheryl is the bravest and most loyal person I know, and you’re a fool if you let her go.”
She walked down the steps and joined her sister.
His mother laid a hand on his arm. “Are you okay, son?”
“You heard her. I’m a fool.” Sam watched them drive away and swallowed the lump in his throat. “She’s the wrong kind of woman for me. Her career will take her all over the world. She said herself that she doesn’t have time for a family, or children. Yet, today, she risked everything for Lindy and Kayla. She’s the wrong kind of woman in every way, except she’s the only woman who can fill my heart and my life. And I just let her go.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Mom. I just don’t know.”
She reached up and cupped his face between her hands. “You’ll figure it out, Sam. I know you will.”
“I don’t see how you can be so sure.”
“Your mother didn’t raise no fool.”
Chapter Seventeen
Cheryl completed a single pirouette on her left foot and frowned. Dressed in a leotard and toe shoes, she worked out in her sister’s spare bedroom.
“Does it hurt?”
Cheryl looked up and smiled at Angie in the doorway. “Not much, but it’s weak.”
“You should give it a rest.”
“I can’t.” She rose on her toes again. “I have an audition in two weeks, and I need to be ready.”
“Jeff and I are going out to dinner tonight. Why don’t you join us?”
“No, thanks.” Cheryl began another spin.
Angie walked up and stopped her by putting both hands on her shoulders. “If he hasn’t called by now, he isn’t going to.”
Cheryl bowed her head. “I know,” she admitted.
“You can call him. The phone works in both directions.”
The doorbell rang, and Angie frowned at the interruption. She gave her sister a firm shake. “Go back to him or go on with your life, but don’t stay in limbo.”
Cheryl stared at the phone on the bedside table. It had been two weeks, and every day she had hoped for some word from Sam, but she’d heard nothing. Did she dare call him? Her sister was right—she had to go back to him and try again, or get on with her life.
She couldn’t imagine her life without Sam and the girls in it. She had to give it one more chance. She took a deep breath and reached for the phone, but stopped at the sound of her sister’s laughter.
“Well it’s about time,” Angie said. “What took you so long?”
“We’ve been grounded.”
“For two whole weeks.”
“It was really bad!”
“No TV—”
“—or nothin’!”
Cheryl dashed into the room and froze as a wave of happiness spread over her. Sam stood in her sister’s living room, looking nervous and uncertain. When he saw her, that endearing, crooked grin appeared on his handsome face.
The twins stood on either side of him. Kayla held a bouquet of roses she could barely see over, and Lindy held a giant, red, heart-shaped box of chocolates. Bonkers sat in front of them. He wore a bright-red ribbon tied around his neck with the other end firmly knotted to Sam’s wrist.
Sam smiled at her. “You said the next time I wanted to get you to come home with me, I would have to promise you chocolate and roses.”
Tears of happiness stung her eyes as she walked up to him and laid her hands on his chest. “My price has gone up since then, cowboy.”
“Oh? What’ll it take now?”
“I won’t settle for anything less than a cowboy, two kids and a cat.”
“That can be arranged.” He gathered her into his arms and kissed her with such fierce longing, it stole her breath away.
He drew back and studied her face. “When Natalie left me, she left a hole big enough for Harvey to walk though. I didn’t know if I could ever trust my heart to another woman again. Then you came into my life, and before I knew it, you had mended my heart.
“I’ve done a lot of soul searching in the past two weeks. It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust anyone else, it was that I didn’t trust myself. If I had been more open, less worried about getting hurt, you might have been able to confide in me.”
“I’m so sorry, Sam. It was a mistake I’ll never make again. I don’t deserve your love, but I love you with all my heart.”
“You deserve a better man than me. And I’m going to spend a lifetime trying to become that man. I don’t want you to give up ballet,” he said sternly. “You can go anywhere in the world to work as long as you come home to us.”
“Ask her, Daddy,” Lindy urged.
“Yeah, ask her,” Kayla added.
Motioning to them with one hand, he said, “Just wait a minute.”
He looked back at Cheryl. “The girls and I understand we’re going to have to share you. We’re prepared for that. I only hope ballerinas make good money because the airfare back and forth to New York is going to cost us a bundle.”
“Do you think I’m worth it?” she asked with a shy grin.
He pulled her close. “Oh, yes.”
“Ask her, Daddy,” Kayla insisted.
Cheryl forced her face into a serious pose. “Ballerinas don’t make that much money. I think all I’ll be able to afford is the gas to Kansas City and back.”
“What do you mean?”
She smiled broadly. “I have an audition with a ballet company in Kansas City next month.”
She grew serious as she studied his face. “It will mean I’ll be away working—sometimes for weeks at time. It won’t be easy, Sam.”
“I know.” He smoothed her hair with his fingertips. “But it can’t be as hard as life without you. I tried that for the past two weeks. It didn’t work. I’ll support you in anything you want to do.”
“I want to perform for at least another two years, then I want to do something else.”
“Anything. I’ll never stand in your way.”
“I want to teach. I want to start a dance school in Council Grove.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Ask her, Dad.”
“Yeah, ask her.”
Cheryl grinned down at the girls. “Okay, ask me what?”
“To marry him,” Lindy blurted out.
“And be our mother,” Kayla added.
Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Like they said—will you marry me?”
“In a New York minute. I love you, Sam.” She cupped his face and kissed him with all the love she held in her heart.
The twins grinned at each other and winked.
Bonkers began to purr, but no one noticed as he wound the red ribbon around and around their boots and ballet shoes.
In the little dressing room at the back of the stone church on the outskirts of Council Grove, Cheryl Steele planted her hands on her hips. “This veil is crooked. I can’t possibly wear it.”
“Hush,” Angie said. “Come here and let me fix it. There.”
Cheryl turned around. “Well? How do I look?”
“You look…radiant…beautiful…?. I don’t think I can find the right words. Sam is a very lucky man. I hope he knows it.”
A mischievous grin curved Cheryl’s lips. “He does. I tell him every chance I get.”
Angie chuckled. “I’ll bet you do.”
Cheryl reached out and grasped her sister’s hands. “Have I ever thanked you?”
“For what?”
“For pushing me into going back to the ranch that night?”
Angie leaned close. “I’ve never asked, but was it hard for you?”
&
nbsp; “You mean facing the community and telling people who I am? Yes, and no. But with Sam and his family around me, it turned into a healing time.
“Over the past few months so many people have come up to me and talked about Mom. A lot of people felt they let her down. Spousal abuse wasn’t talked about back then. Things have changed. For the better.”
“Do you think they’ll accept Jake?”
“Yes, in time. The sheriff made it known that Jake was the one who solved the theft of Sam’s cattle. There will always be people with prejudices against an ex-con, but there are enough people here who believe he deserves another chance. With Walter Hardin as his outspoken supporter, Jake has a good shot at it.”
“And Doris? I noticed she wasn’t here?”
“Doris and I are trying to mend fences. That may take a while. She wants to shut herself away from the world. I know how that feels, but I haven’t given up on her. Listen to me, I sound like a rancher’s wife already. Mending fences.”
“I knew those New York roots weren’t as deep as you pretended.”
“I guess they weren’t.”
A knock sounded at the door and Angie went to open it. Jake stood on the other side. Cheryl had chosen him to walk her down the aisle. His guitar rested in the front pew. She wasn’t about to get married without his beautiful music as part of the ceremony. He looked at once handsome and uncomfortable in his rented tux.
He cleared his throat and pulled at the collar of his outfit with one finger. “Are you ready?”
Two little girls in matching floor-length lavender dresses pushed in past his legs. “Come on, Cheryl. We’re ready,” they said together. Each one grabbed her hand and tugged.
“Daddy is so nervous.”
“I wish Bonkers could be here.”
“Don’t we look nice?”
“Did you see Aunt Becky’s baby?”
“He’s so cute. Grandma says—”
“—we might get a baby brother, too.”
“Maybe even twins, like us!”
Cheryl let herself be led from the room by the excited pair. At the doorway, she cast a wide-eyed look back at her sister. “What have I gotten myself into?”
Angie laughed softly. “Well, get going and find out.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1295-4
BALANCING ACT
Copyright © 2011 by Patricia Macdonald
Originally published as LOVE THINE ENEMY
© 2006 by Patricia Macdonald
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Balancing Act Page 20