It was such a simple thought, but one whose truth had escaped him until that moment, the fact that he and his mother had been a real family. He’d always thought of them couched in the terms that other people tossed his way. Illegitimate. White trash. Dysfunctional. An abandoned woman and child. Even after his mother had married Derek, people still didn’t look at them as a real family. No doubt they thought that Derek had done both him and his mother a favor. His stepfather hadn’t been a demonstrative man, and so people hadn’t been privy to the quiet love he’d reserved for Rebecca and her son. They’d made up their collective mind about Rebecca years earlier and, in the small community of the academy, nothing of any consequence had happened to change it.
Ace had been just as close-minded as everyone else.
“We were a family,” he said, feeling something burst inside him. “But we didn’t talk about that kind of thing. We never used the word family the way you do. The way you demonstrate its importance. All the time I did have a real and whole family, even though I didn’t know it. Thank you for reminding me of that.” He only wished he could have realized it while his mother was still alive.
Crystal’s eyes were shining. She reached out and touched Ace’s hand, then linked her fingers with his in the briefest of unions. “She knows.” And he marveled that she could know his thoughts.
“You’d better go feed Bert,” she told her son, giving him a pat on the behind. “He’s going to want his breakfast soon.”
“Yeah,” Timmy said, his eyes round. “And he’s going to want his rock, too. I better find it.”
Crystal and Ace exchanged confused glances.
“His rock?” Ace asked.
“The one you throwed at that man. I been putting sticks and grass and rocks in with Bert. So it feels more like the outside. More like a home. That was Bert’s rock, but it’s okay if I can’t find it again. You and me needed it more than he did.”
“Yes, we did,” Ace said, remembering his desperation when Branson Hines had threatened to steal Timmy away forever. “Tell Bert thank-you, and if you can’t find his rock, I’ll help you. Or we’ll find another one.”
But as Timmy nodded and toddled off, Ace looked at Crystal and saw that her smile had disappeared. “Don’t make promises to him you can’t keep,” she whispered. “It’s morning.”
Yes, morning. The day he was going away. Leaving Crystal. Leaving his heart. His family.
She’d wanted him to have a family, the one he’d thought he’d never had. She’d taught him that people in families that had been broken didn’t have to live broken lives. They didn’t have to be bound by the past or by a sense of injustice.
He’d spent his whole life wanting things he couldn’t have and trying to hide this desperate desire. He hadn’t wanted to be weak. He’d done his best to break free of needing anything or anyone.
But he knew without a doubt that he had never wanted or needed anything as badly as he wanted Crystal Bennett.
And he didn’t care who knew his weakness.
Some things were more important than fear or anger or distrust or past injustices. Some things could make all those things look puny and insignificant in comparison. Things like love, hope, family.
All things that Crystal Bennett represented. Things she’d wanted him to have.
He smiled at her and moved closer, bringing his hand up to cup her neck. “It’s a beautiful morning, isn’t it, sunshine?” he asked.
Her eyes opened wide as he leaned close to taste her. And then he was kissing her and her eyes were closed, her arms around him.
“Ace?” she asked, her voice shaking when he let her go. “What’s wrong?”
He stroked his thumb over the velvet of her cheek. “Maybe you should ask me what’s right.”
She tipped her head, clearly confused. “Okay, what’s right?”
“This.” He dipped his head and kissed her lips softly, sweetly, swiftly. “You. Alive. Well. Healthy. This morning, when I stood there between you and Branson, and I thought he might take Timmy or hurt you, or both, I knew what it was to face losing everything important. All my life I thought I was missing something important, and maybe I was, but that something was something I’d never known, anyway. It was an illusion, a daydream, something that had become larger than life and not quite real, because of not having it and having had years to embellish it. But you and Timmy, you’re real. This time I knew what I was going to lose, and it practically killed me to think of it. So yes, for this moment everything’s right and beautiful. You’re here, safe and alive and beside me.”
She took a step closer, bringing herself up against him. Her cheek rested on his chest, her hands clutched the front of his shirt. She breathed in his scent and then turned her head, rose on her toes and touched her lips to his neck. “I was afraid, too,” she admitted.
“Of course you were.”
“No.” Her fingers gripped the cotton of his shirt more tightly. “I don’t mean just about Timmy or even myself. To tell the truth I didn’t have time to think about myself. My mind was going crazy for Timmy, but somewhere deep inside I knew you weren’t going to let Branson take him and I was afraid… Branson is crazed. I think he would have tried to kill you if you made him angry enough, and I’ve heard that anger can make a man strong. If he had hurt you…”
She let her words trail off. She gazed up at him, her eyes swimming with tears. Then she smiled. “I’m so happy you’re much smarter than he is. I’m so very glad you came to town, Ace, and that I got the chance to know you.”
“I want the chance to know you better.” The ragged words felt as if they had been ripped from him involuntarily, as if he couldn’t help saying them. “I want you to let me love you. I want you for my own, but…”
The look on her face was resigned. She’d heard that before, or something like it. From other men, ones who’d hurt her.
He shook his head, then said, “Don’t look that way. I’ve never told you anything I didn’t mean. I want the chance to know you better.” Forever, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t do that. Not yet. “I have a few things to take care of, though. Will you…will you wait?”
He hated to ask that of her. It wasn’t fair when he wasn’t even sure what he was planning.
She nodded tightly. “Where are you going?”
That was a very good question. He’d figure it out real soon, he hoped.
“I’m not leaving Mission Creek, if that’s what you mean,” he whispered, giving her a quick hard kiss. “And I plan to be back before the sun is much higher in the sky if I’m lucky.”
“And if you’re not?”
He ran his hand lightly along her jaw. “If I’m not, look for me, anyway. I’ll tell Timmy goodbye for now.”
And then he turned and walked out the door when all he wanted to do was fold her into his arms and stay with her all morning.
Crystal watched Ace go, his back broad and strong, his stride long and full of purpose. Another man walking away from her, but he had asked her to wait.
Was there really any reason for him to stay? Any reason for her to believe that this time things would end the right way, the happy way?
Only that this man was Ace, not just any man.
Some people might say that the very fact that the man was Ace was reason enough not to trust him to return. Even he had been telling her for several weeks now that he was leaving. Even he had told her that he wasn’t a man who wanted to fit in or have the things most people wanted.
Yet the memory of his risking his life for Timmy and her filled her up. The catch in his voice when he’d said he wanted to get to know her better wouldn’t let her go. Not that it mattered whether waiting for him or believing him was right or wrong. She loved him completely, without rhyme or reason or end, and nothing was going to change that. Not even Ace.
She waited. She put the house in order. She cleaned up Timmy and she put on her nicest dress, a pearl-colored sheath. Then she did what women have done through the ages. She stood at the windo
w and waited for the man who held her heart.
When he finally drove up, it was all she could do not to run out the door and throw herself into his arms.
As it was, he had barely knocked on the door before she opened it.
She had expected him to smile, expected him to tease or to kiss her. Instead, he stood there looking as if he was going to a hanging.
“Ace?”
“Nerves,” he said. “I’ve…I’ve set things in motion that can’t be taken back.” He took her hand, started to lead her out the door. Then he stopped. He cupped one hand around the back of her neck and kissed her long and hard. “For courage,” he told her. “Would you go get Timmy? We’re going for a ride.”
She did as he asked, but when they exited her house, she noticed that the car in the drive wasn’t the one he’d been driving lately.
“You stopped at work?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, but this isn’t a Mission Creek. It’s a Lone Star.”
When he turned onto the road that led to Carson Ranch, she stared at him.
“No promises,” he said. “No idea what’s going to happen, either. I called all of them and asked if this was okay. All except Ford.”
She didn’t have to ask what he was doing. She didn’t exactly know, but it didn’t matter. He was doing something.
“This has to be for you, Ace,” she whispered, touching his sleeve.
He glanced at her. “It is, in part. It’s also for us.”
“I don’t need you to do this if it’s too hard.”
He looked at her again and gave her a sad smile. “I need to do this, and everything that matters is probably hard.”
She smiled at him then. He took one hand off the wheel and touched her hand. She took it and kissed his fingers, then she drew a breath.
“I love you, Ace,” she said simply.
The car nearly swerved off the road and missed the turnoff for Carson Ranch. Ace grabbed the wheel with both hands, made the turn and drove slowly down the drive, pulling to a stop in front of the massive house.
Then he turned to her, leaned over and kissed her full on the lips. “What in the world did I ever do to deserve you in my life? You are the most amazing woman, Crystal Bennett. I was a fool to ever think that I could spend even one day with you and not love you. When this is over—” he looked at the massive house “—well, it’s just not going to be over. Not between you and me. Not by a long shot, darlin’.”
Her heart filled. It overflowed. “I love when you call me darlin’,” she said.
He turned to her then, one brow raised.
She shrugged. “I didn’t want you to know, because it affects me so much, but I shiver when you say it. But only when you say it. Only you.”
He kissed her slowly, reverently. And then he kissed her again. “We’re going to have a lot of talking to do real soon, darlin’. And a lot of kissing, too.”
With that, he climbed from the car and moved around to the other side to help her and Timmy out.
“I’ll hold you to that,” she said as hope began to build in her heart. She looked at Ace and saw that he was staring at her as if he wanted to devour her, but then he looked at the house again.
And everything hopeful in his face froze.
“Let’s get this done,” he said.
She followed him up to the door. There was, she knew, a lot riding on what happened in this house. Ace was a proud man. He wouldn’t take a woman to wife if he considered himself a failure.
If anyone beyond these doors made him feel that way, she was going to tear them limb from limb, Carson or no Carson.
Crystal moved close to Ace’s side and tucked her hand against his side.
Two minutes later Ace stepped over the threshold of the Carson family home for the first time. The room was richly furnished, open, airy, large, befitting a family as old and wealthy and powerful as the Carsons. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the row of Carsons facing him. The ones he’d called. And the woman and child at his side.
He looked down at Crystal, straight into those trusting hazel eyes. Just looking at her gave him strength, made him feel taller.
“Maybe Timmy would like something to eat,” he suggested, and looked at Grace. Within seconds the older woman had hugged Timmy and called the housekeeper, who took the little boy into the kitchen.
Ace waited until he knew Timmy was gone and busy. Then he took a deep breath and looked straight into Flynt’s eyes. And then into Matt’s, Fiona’s, Cara’s, Grace’s. One by one he acknowledged each.
They waited. A bit nervously, it seemed to him. Which was ridiculous, of course. They weren’t the ones who’d been thickheaded. He was. He was the one who had to try to make things right.
“I just wanted to tell all of you a few things that I need to get off my chest,” he began slowly. “You may have heard this already, but early this morning a man came into Crystal’s house and tried to take Timmy away. He tried to hurt him and Crystal, and I learned a few important things in that moment. I learned that maybe the past doesn’t matter much if you have a future. I…well, I decided that I want to have a future. Here in Mission Creek. No more looking backward, no more placing blame, no running from the good things that have been staring me in the face, the people who’ve reached out to me.”
He made the mistake of looking at Grace just then, saw the tear tracking down her cheek, and his throat filled. He swallowed hard. He looked up at the ceiling, praying for the strength to go on without breaking down, and hoping for the words to convey what he needed them to know. “I can’t tell you— What I mean is, Branson Hines tried to take the two people I value most in the world, the woman and child I love. The sheriff tells me Hines is most likely going to the maximum-security prison in Lubbock. Real soon, too. I’m glad he’s going to be off the streets. The women and children of this town can be safe now. I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve come to think of this town as my…my home.”
Blindly he reached out. Crystal caught his fingers and held on. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. He loved that he could do that, reach out for her and have her be there. Just touching her hand felt right. It balanced him and helped him to continue.
Ace looked up then and stared straight into Matt’s eyes.
“You don’t have to do this, big brother,” Matt said.
Ace contemplated that for a moment. “No, you’re wrong about that. I need to do this, and I want to. You’re all a part of this town. You’ve gone out of your way for me, done more than I had any right to expect. I gave you grief and yet you held out your hands. That means a lot to me. So I want you to know that this morning I bought a piece of land just outside town. It’s the first bit of land I’ve ever owned or wanted to own. So I guess I wanted you to know that I’m planning on staying in Mission Creek. After the way I’ve behaved to all of you, I realize that it might be a problem for the Carsons having me here. I’ve done my best to embarrass you and to steal your family’s business. That was unworthy. I apologize for that. And I apologize for being so ungracious when you offered me hospitality. I only hope that…” He cleared his throat and swallowed. He tried looking at Fiona and saw that she was leaning forward as if hanging on his every word. Cara was smiling at him as if he’d never done anything wrong. Matt and Flynt were actually starting to grin.
Ace took a deep breath. “I hope that you’ll find a way to forgive me someday,” he continued haltingly. He cleared his throat again. “I just wanted to let you know that I intend to keep a lower profile from here on out. I owe you that much. And I want to thank you for allowing me to come to your home to say these things and for giving me the chance to—”
But he didn’t get the chance to say another word. Grace suddenly rushed toward him and threw her arms around him. “You don’t owe us a thing. Not a thing. We’re just so glad you’re here. At last. At last you’ve come home,” she said, and Ace’s eyes filled with tears. He didn’t hesitate; he wrapped his arms around her, too.<
br />
“I’m not even related to you. Not really,” he said, his voice breaking.
“Who says you’re not? Just let anyone try.” She turned toward her children with a warning glance.
Ace looked up and saw that Flynt and Matt were grinning broadly now, Fiona, too. Cara was looking a bit misty-eyed.
“Ma’s always right, you know, Ace,” Fiona said. “Don’t even try to argue. Just…welcome home, big brother.” Then Matt and Flynt were pounding him on the back, and Cara was hugging him and all of them were making plans to find him a room at the ranch now that he was staying.
Amidst all this, footsteps sounded in the next room.
Ace looked up and saw his father waiting in the doorway. Like a stranger. An outsider.
Glancing down at Crystal, Ace gazed into her eyes and saw a woman who didn’t care if he sold cars or dug ditches or owned oil wells. She didn’t care if he knew who his parents were or not. He saw a woman who loved him, a woman he would love for eternity, and he gathered strength just from looking at her. Then he stepped away until he was standing on his own.
“I thought you should know that I’m planning on staying in Mission Creek,” he told Ford. “But I wanted you to know that I’m not doing this to make you uncomfortable or to exact some kind of revenge. I’m staying because—” his glance strayed to Crystal again and he smiled “—because I’ve found something important here. So I hope it doesn’t disturb you to know that I’ll be living my life in the same town as you. I’ll do my best to stay clear of you if that’s what you want. I’m done with living in the past. You hurt my mother, but maybe she wouldn’t have found my stepfather if things hadn’t happened as they had. I wouldn’t have known him. They wouldn’t have shared a wonderful love. I wouldn’t have all these brothers and sisters who come in and buy cars they don’t need,” he said, grinning at his half siblings. “I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know what would have happened if you’d stayed with her, but I’m through wondering and wanting things that can’t be, and regretting. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be around.” Then he gathered all his courage; he risked everything he’d always thought he could never risk.
Her Sweet Talkin' Man Page 18