Harlequin Superromance December 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: Caught Up in YouThe Ranch She Left BehindA Valley Ridge Christmas

by Beth Andrews

  Someone turned on a large, noisy fan—the din roaring back toward Max and Ellen, even though they had just emerged from the SUV. He felt a small warmth burrow into his hand, and, looking down, saw that Ellen had braided her fingers into his, as she used to do when she was very small.

  His heart twisted. His feisty little girl was afraid.

  “It’s neat, isn’t it?” He pretended not to notice. “I’m glad we got here in time to see how they get the balloon filled up. They’ll fill it with air from that fan, and then they’ll heat the air to make the balloon lift up.”

  Ellen kept walking, but her fingers tightened as they drew closer. He wondered how much reassurance he should offer. He could tell her how thoroughly he’d checked the company out this morning, while she got ready. Air Adventures had been offering flights around here for more than a decade. The pilot had logged thousands of trips, with no incidents at all.

  Licenses, insurances, safety records—it all checked out. But would those details reassure her, as they had him? Or would they just remind her of the dangers?

  “The pilot is named Eagle Ed,” he said, settling for the human interest angle. “They call him that because apparently he feels more at home in the air than on the ground.”

  Ellen glanced up at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Cool, huh?”

  Her grip relaxed slightly, and so did his heart. He wanted to believe he could give her comfort when she needed it—that she trusted him enough to feel safe by his side, no matter what. He’d never felt fear in his life, not until Mexico, and he didn’t want her to feel it, either.

  They’d almost reached the crowd now, and Max began examining people individually, trying to pick out Eagle Ed from the customers and crew. He’d seen the pilot’s picture on the website—not a huge guy, brown hair, a mustache, big smile with white teeth. In the picture, Eagle Ed looked like someone in a 1920’s barbershop quartet.

  He began eliminating people, one by one. Too tall...too muscular...too female... Darn it, Eagle Ed had better not have handed the flight off to another pilot, not now that Max had used him to calm Ellen’s nerves.

  And then his eyes collided with a pair of eyes that stared back at him, round and startled. He was completely unprepared, his mind absorbed with locating a man he recognized, not a woman. And certainly not this woman.

  It was like making sudden eye contact with a deer you were inches away from hitting with your car.

  Recognition slammed into him, and suddenly Ellen’s urgency to be in this field, on this particular flight, became as clear as the morning air around them.

  He was staring into the wide, shocked eyes of the beautiful Penny Wright.

  * * *

  PARADOXICALLY, THE HIGHER the balloon flew, the calmer Penny felt. She wouldn’t have imagined it possible, but by the time they cleared the treetops, she had actually begun to enjoy herself.

  She’d expected to endure the ride in total terror, much as she had on the only other hot air balloon ride she’d ever taken.

  And yet...this time...

  The whole experience seemed completely different. Instead of being scary, it was thrilling and oddly peaceful. Up here, everything seemed quieter, simpler. She could look down and see where cars slid along gray-ribbon roads, where roads met green fields, where fields met silver rivers.

  As she took a deep breath of the clear blue air, she caught Max’s eye.

  He smiled. “Feeling better?”

  Penny nodded, but before she answered she glanced at Ellen. The girl had obviously relaxed, too. Sometime in the past few minutes, she’d let go of her father’s hand and right now was getting a demonstration of the propane tanks from Eagle Ed.

  “Much better,” Penny admitted. She should have known that Max would sense the anxiety she’d tried to mask. “I’m actually enjoying it, which I definitely did not expect. The only other balloon ride I’ve ever taken was such a spectacular failure.”

  He smiled. “Failure? How big a failure? You lived to tell the tale, at least.”

  “Oh, not that kind of failure, thank goodness.” She shook her head, trying to shake off the horror of the memory. “I was the problem, not the balloon.”

  “How so?”

  She thought back. Many of the simple, physical details, like the color of the balloon, the name of the company, the season and where they’d flown, were lost. But she remembered the emotions as if they’d happened yesterday.

  Penny’s father hadn’t ordinarily been tough on her—not as tough as he was on Bree and Ro, anyhow—but when he saw her fear, he’d mocked her mercilessly, repeating everything she said in a high-pitched whine.

  When he drew tears, as he must have known he would, he issued strict orders. No one was to touch Penny until she stopped crying. Her mother hadn’t dared to defy him. But Rowena, who was only eleven, had stepped up and scooped Penny into her arms.

  “She can’t stop crying, you sick bully. Can’t you see that?”

  He hadn’t even looked at Rowena. Without so much as a sound, he’d thrust his arms under Penny’s shoulders, ripping her away. Then he held her up and pretended he was going to drop her over the side.

  The truly crazy part was that his intention wasn’t even to frighten Penny, really. He wanted to control Rowena. And it had worked. Ironically, Penny’s tears ceased instantly, because she was completely frozen with terror. But proud, defiant Rowena had ended up weeping, begging him to stop. She’d promised anything he asked, just to make him put Penny down.

  For months afterward, Rowena had sat up in the barn, plotting horrible deaths for Johnny—and apparently she worked out her fury in those fantasies. But Penny had never quite been the same. She couldn’t sleep alone, because in her dreams she always found herself dangling from clouds, or tree limbs, or cliff edges, her feet blindly churning, trying to find solid ground.

  Just remembering it now made her legs start to shake again slightly. She gripped the side of the box and took another deep breath. “Well, I was terrified, which disgusted my father. I don’t remember much else.”

  He looked quizzical. “Disgust seems pretty intense. How old were you?”

  It had been three days after her sixth birthday. She’d forgotten that part till just now. Johnny had been out of town on the day itself. The balloon idea had been concocted as a late birthday present for Penny.

  She shrugged. “Maybe about six.”

  Max frowned. “You weren’t allowed to be scared at six?”

  “My father didn’t like weakness. He always said we couldn’t be babies, not if we wanted to be ranchers. We needed to grow up.”

  “Right.” Max’s tone was cutting. “Because nothing’s as annoying as an immature first-grader.”

  He smiled, and to her surprise she found herself smiling back. Odd, how soothing it was to hear someone stick up for her, even if it was twenty years too late.

  “It was a long time ago,” she said. “But thanks.”

  Really, she should have forgotten the whole experience and moved on by now. But somehow, that moment of feeling that her father had been willing to jettison her like so much worthless ballast, all because she was a coward...

  It had left something inside her that felt like a permanent stain.

  No—more like a broken place that couldn’t mend. Like a rotted beam, a faulty support that might let her down at any moment if she put too much pressure on the wrong spot.

  A hollow place inside herself, a weak link she couldn’t trust.

  She watched the ground below them receding, and realized how much better you could understand geography, and distances, and the relationship of one ranch to the next, one town to the next, if you weren’t so close to it all.

  Maybe life was like that, too. Maybe someday, when she got enough perspective on it, the events of her chi
ldhood would start to make more sense, too.

  “According to him, we were a trio of useless, hothouse flowers, and we needed to toughen up. That was one of his favorite lines.” She had forgotten that, too. “Given how things turned out, perhaps he had a point.”

  “Like hell.” Max shook his head. “I’m sorry, Penny. But it sounds like your dad was a very sick man.”

  Penny looked at him, struck by the coincidence. Two decades and two worlds apart, he and Rowena had instinctively chosen the same word.

  Sick. And suddenly, as if she’d finally reached the right height to see the big picture, she knew it was true. Her father hadn’t been all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing. He had simply been a very sick man.

  He hadn’t possessed the emotional or mental stability to judge or label anyone.

  Penny wasn’t a “coward,” any more than Rowena was a “bitch.” Any more than Bree was a “fool.” Any more than her mother had been a “dirty slut.” All the labels Johnny Wright had hurled at others, all those judgments he’d passed that they’d carried inside for so long, were lies.

  They were a product only of the delusional rage that festered inside a very, very sick mind.

  And just like that, her memory of those horrifying moments faded. It didn’t go away entirely, but its sharp edges blurred. When she touched the place inside where the phobia lived, she could feel only a dull ache, no worse than a stubbed toe, no longer a knife edge of pain.

  She turned to Max. “Thank you,” she said, her voice vibrating with emotion. “Thank you so much.”

  He looked surprised, but then he smiled.

  “Once again, I don’t know exactly what I did. But...that’s all? Just the words?”

  She knew what he meant, of course.

  Just words? No kiss?

  “Just the words,” she repeated. But she smiled, too, and for a minute the look in his eyes was almost as good as a kiss.

  “Dad.” Ellen suddenly tugged Max’s hand. “I thought it would be...like, windy up here.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  Eagle Ed, who stood in the corner, his hand above his head, holding on to the rope that could send another blast from the burner to the balloon above them if they began to lose altitude, answered her. “Because we’re going with the wind, not into it.”

  “Yeah?” Ellen bit her lower lip, and slowly let her hand drop from Max’s so that she could hold on to the edge of the basket. “Look, Dad! Everything down there looks like toys.”

  Max met Penny’s eyes over his daughter’s head, and they both smiled. Though their temporary intimacy was over, this was good, too. For a minute, it was like being parents together, sharing a milestone in their daughter’s life.

  Parents together? Oh, dear heaven. What was she thinking? Horrified at her own foolishness, and hoping to God he couldn’t read her thoughts, she looked away, pretending to search for the SUV Ellen was pointing to.

  None of this really meant anything, especially not to him. She had been through a catharsis, like some kind of regression therapy in which she’d relived a traumatic childhood moment.

  He had simply been having a conversation that got out of hand—and he didn’t even understand how. This was an artificial intimacy, up here in this small box together, defying the laws of nature.

  And he was just...he just had that kind of smile, the kind that made you feel warm, included, important.

  He was socially graceful, she’d hand him that. Though he obviously had been as surprised as Penny to realize they’d be sharing a balloon ride this morning, he had handled it smoothly.

  As he handled everything. Even their kiss.

  Kisses, she corrected herself. Two kisses.

  She’d be willing to bet he didn’t lie awake, thinking about those kisses. But she did. In fact, that was why she’d accelerated her plan for the balloon ride. She needed to get her mind off her sexy tenant, and back on to her own mission. How better than to tackle one of the really tough risks?

  And now mission and tenant had come together, quite by serendipity. How was that for fate? She hadn’t invited anyone to go with her, not even Bree or Ro, determined not to clutch at any form of safety net.

  But if fate sent her the best of all safety nets, completely unrequested...

  Max, who radiated security. Calm. Competence.

  Max, who had helped her bury an old memory forever.

  Who was she to criticize fate? To heck with the “plan.” She looked at him again and returned the smile, deciding to surrender to destiny and enjoy the good luck. And when she did, something in her stomach went thump.

  It wasn’t just security he added to the experience. It was excitement. Glamor.

  Sex.

  Being up here with him, in this quiet, enchanted otherworld, gave the ride a sense of romance she couldn’t have imagined possible, not after the trauma of her first experience. Yet, there it was. She closed her hand over her stomach, as if she could quiet the suddenly fluttering wings that beat there.

  Luckily, Ellen didn’t seem to register the subtle shift in mood. The little girl shuffled even closer to the edge of the basket, and everyone else adjusted to give her space. Penny and Max ended up shoulder to shoulder, and she shivered as his warmth made its way into her veins.

  “Are you cold?” He touched the collar of his gold suede coat, ready to shrug it off. “Want to borrow my jacket?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just a little excited, I think. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Beautiful.” He wasn’t looking at the landscape stretching out below them, though. He was looking at her. She felt her heart speed up, and the familiar flush—which seemed ever-present when she was with this man—starting to creep up her neck.

  His gaze dropped momentarily, as if registering the flush, then returned to hers. “I take it this is all about checking another item off your Risk-it List?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so.” He glanced once wryly toward Ellen, who had begun asking Eagle Ed another endless stream of questions, which luckily he seemed quite happy to answer. “Any chance that list is...well, made public anywhere?”

  Penny thought a minute, then finally she understood. Of course.

  “On my refrigerator,” she said, lowering her voice. Ellen was still chattering, but it was a very small basket. “I’m pretty sure I even wrote the date and time next to this one.”

  He nodded, smiling. “And the mystery is solved.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling ridiculous for not having figured it out sooner. Lucky coincidence? Sure. “Obviously you got dragged out on a ruse, and—”

  “I don’t mind. I’m just sorry we intruded. I know you were eager to do everything alone.” He raised one eyebrow. “No sisters, no family, no men...”

  She laughed softly. “It’s okay this once. Since I had no idea you were coming, I don’t think I can be accused of reaching for a crutch.”

  And now that she was sharing the experience with him, she couldn’t imagine how lonely and uninspired it would have felt if she had been alone. Her stomach pinched, thinking of that. Maybe this was the real danger of using a crutch. Walking alone seemed so much harder when the crutch was finally gone.

  Overhead, the burner whooshed, emitting a blast of heat. On Penny’s childhood trip, that sound had gone through her like an electric current of fear. She’d been certain they were all going to die a fiery death, falling out of the sky like Icarus.

  But today the blast was just another piece of the magic. The balloon continued its upward climb. The cars below diminished to ants, and the bends and curves of the river looked like cursive letters—as if someone had written across the hills with a silver-glitter pen.

  But the words were in some mysterious language she did
n’t know. She couldn’t tell what their message was supposed to be.

  “Are those all propane tanks? Why do we have so many?” Ellen widened her eyes as a new idea struck her, and tapped Ed’s arm. “Hey, are there any girl pilots?”

  Max grinned at his daughter, who obviously had lost her last shred of anxiety and planned to turn this into a flying lesson. Putting her own irrational mood swings aside, Penny concentrated on the pleasure of seeing Ellen so uninhibited.

  Sometimes the girl looked too self-conscious, as if she worried more about the impression she was making than anything else. She smoothed her hair a lot and pulled at her clothes, which were always a little too tight.

  Not today, though. Today Ellen’s jeans were loose, her sweatshirt well-worn, her hair a windblown mess, and she didn’t even seem to notice it. She was too absorbed in learning the ropes.

  Eagle Ed was clearly getting a kick out of all the questions. Ellen would probably be ready to take her pilot’s test by the time they touched down.

  “Penny, look.” Ellen tugged at Penny’s sleeve suddenly, trying to direct her attention to something she’d spotted outside. “How would you paint that?”

  Penny followed the little girl’s pointing finger. “You mean our shadow?”

  Ellen nodded, raptly focused on watching the outline of their balloon float on the ground below them. It was oddly beautiful, proof that they really were floating up here, defying gravity.

  “It’s so amazing,” Ellen breathed. “But I don’t even know what color you’d use.”

  “Well, let’s see.” Penny moved a few inches forward and bent down, so that the two of them were looking at it from the same angle. “It isn’t really a color, is it? I mean, it’s more like a lack of light on the places it covers.”

  They talked about it for a few minutes, and once again Penny was struck with how easily the child seemed to grasp ideas. She’d never seen anything Ellen drew, so she had no idea whether she had any talent. But she never saw the little girl as happy, or as unaffected, as she was when she talked about art.