by Nora Roberts
“Farley, what have you done? What have you done?”
“Bought a ring for the woman I’m going to marry. Couple more times in and out.”
“Marriage is huge! Huge. We’ve barely dated.”
“We’ve known each other a long time now, and we’ve been sleeping together regular the last little while. I’m in love with you.” In firm strokes he rubbed her back to help her settle. “And if you weren’t in love with me, you wouldn’t have your head between your knees.”
“That’s your gauge of love? That I’m dizzy and short of breath?”
“It’s a good sign. Now, are you ready to sit back up so you can get a look at this ring? Lil helped me pick it out.”
“Lil?” She popped straight up. “She knows about this? Who else?”
“Well, I had to tell Joe and Jenna. They’re my parents in every way that matters. And Ella at the jeweler’s. It’s hard to buy a ring without her knowing about it. That’s all. I wanted to surprise you with it.”
“You did. A lot. But—”
“You like it?”
Maybe some women could have resisted taking a good look, but Tansy wasn’t one of them. “It’s beautiful. It’s, oh, it’s gorgeous. Really. But—”
“Like you. I couldn’t ask you to wear a ring that wasn’t. It’s rose gold. So that makes it a little different. You’re not like anybody else, so I wanted to give you something special.”
“Farley, I can honestly say you’re not like anyone else either.”
“That’s why we suit. You just listen a minute before you say anything. I know how to work, make a decent living. So do you. We’re both doing what we’re good at, and what we like. I think that’s important. This is our place, yours and mine. That’s important, too. But most important is I love you.”
He took her hand and kept his eyes, so clear and serious now, on hers. “No one’s ever going to love you the way I do. Joe and Jenna, they made me a man. Every time I look at you, I know why. What I want most in this world, Tansy, is to build a good life with you, to make you happy every day of it. Or most every day, because you’ll get mad at me sometimes. I want to make a home and a family with you. I think I’d be good at that. I can wait if you’re not ready to wear this. As long as you know.”
“I have all these arguments in my head. Rational, sensible arguments. And when I look at you, when you look at me, they all seem weak. Like excuses. You’re not supposed to be the one, Farley. I don’t know why you are. But you are.”
“Do you love me, Tansy?”
“Farley. I really do.”
“Are you going to marry me?”
“I really am.” She let out a quick, surprised laugh. “Yes, I am.”
She held out her hand. He slipped it on. “It fits.” Her quiet murmur was thick and shaky.
Dazzled, he stared at the ring, then at her. “We’re engaged.”
“Yes.” Now she laughed, full out, and threw her arms around him. “Yes, we are.”
Lil kept the staff working on the other side of the compound as much as possible. She had to shift her own position to keep the picnic table in view when interns led a group around the habitats.
She told herself it wasn’t like spying. She was just . . . keeping an eye on things. And when she saw Tansy go into Farley’s arms she didn’t quite muffle the cheer.
“Sorry, what?” Eric asked.
“Nothing, nothing. Ah, can you make sure everything’s set up for the school group tomorrow morning? In the education center. Take a couple of the other interns along.”
“Sure. Matt’s going to do his exam of the new female tiger this afternoon. I was hoping I could observe. Maybe even assist.”
“If Matt clears it.”
“The word is you’re going to take the barricade down between the enclosures.”
“Yes. When Matt finishes the exam. She’s still caged, Eric. It’s a bigger cage, and it’s clean, it’s safe. Once we take the barrier down, she’ll be free to interact with her own kind, and she’ll be able, when she’s ready, to roam her habitat, walk in the grass, run. Play, I hope.”
“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just rumor. I hate what they did to her. Cleo was different. She was so sleek and arrogant. But this one, she just seemed sad and tired. I guess I feel for her.”
“That’s why you’ve been getting better at your work. Because you feel for them.”
His eyes brightened. “Thanks.”
Was she ever that young? Lil wondered. So that a compliment from an instructor or trainer put that look in her eyes, that spring in her step? She supposed she had been.
But she’d been so focused, so absolutely determined to carve out her route. Not only to reach the goal but to make up for what she’d lost. To make up for Coop.
She drew a breath as she studied the compound. All in all, it had worked out for her. Now it would be her decision, her choice if she wanted to open back up, take back what she’d lost.
She heard the steps on the gravel, slow steps, and whirled to defend. Matt wheeled back so quickly he slid and nearly went down.
“Jesus, Lil!”
“Sorry, sorry.” Had she been braced like that all day? she wondered. “You startled me.”
“Well, you scared five years off my life, so we’re more than even. I want to set up to examine the female tiger.”
“Right. Eric wants to assist.”
“That’s fine.” Matt gave her just the lightest pat on the shoulder. For Matt, Lil knew, it equaled a hug from anyone else.
“There’s a lot of inside work. You could be doing that.”
“He should see me. If he’s watching, if he’s out there, he should see me. See that I’m doing what I always do. It’s about power.” She remembered what Coop had said. “The more I hide, the more power I give him. And hell, Matt,” she added when she saw Farley and Tansy exchange a kiss by his truck. “It’s a really good day.”
“Is it?”
“Wait and see.”
She stuck her hands in her back pockets and strolled toward Tansy as Farley drove away.
Tansy turned, and her shoulders went up and down with a bracing breath as she walked toward Lil.
“You knew.”
“Let me see how it looks on you.” She grabbed Tansy’s hand. “Fabulous. Perfect. I am good. Though he actually picked it himself, unless my mental shove actually worked.”
“It’s why you were babbling this morning. You thought I was talking about Farley asking me to marry him. Not the e-mail.”
“There was momentary confusion,” Lil allowed, “but no babbling.”
“He told me, just now, how he’d planned to ask me last night. He had a bottle of champagne and candles. He was going to set the stage in my apartment.”
“And instead he went to take care of family.”
“Yes, he did.” Tansy’s eyes went damp. “That’s who he is, and that’s one of the reasons this ring’s on my finger. I figured it out. So he’s younger and paler than I am. He’s a good, good man. He’s my man. Lil? I’m going to marry Farley.”
With a laughing hoot Lil grabbed Tansy to dance in a circle.
“What the hell is this?” Matt demanded.
“I told you it was a really good day.”
“So the two of you are yelling and jumping?”
“Yes.” Tansy ran to him, leaped, and nearly knocked him over with a hug. “I’m engaged. Look, look, look at my ring!”
“Very nice.” He eased her back, out of his personal space, and smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Oh! I’ve got to go show Mary. And Lucius. Well, mostly Mary.”
When she ran off, Lil just grinned. “See? A really good day.”
FAMILY CAME FIRST, Lil reminded herself and tried not to worry as she sat at her parents’ dining room table. Her mother wanted—insisted on—a celebrational family dinner, so she was where she should be. With them, and Farley and Tansy, with Lucy and Sam, who’d stood as Farley’s unofficial grandparents.
And, of course, with Coop.
But her mind kept turning back to the refuge. Security system up and running, she reminded herself. Matt and Lucius and two of the interns on-site.
Everything was fine. They were fine, her animals were fine. But if something happened when she wasn’t there . . .
As conversation buzzed around them, Coop leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Stop worrying.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
She lifted her wineglass and made sure she had a smile on her face.
Late summer wedding. She tuned in. And here it was already April, so much to be done. Debates ran on the venue. The farm, the refuge. On the time. Afternoon or evening.
Did he know she wasn’t there? Lil wondered. Would he try to hurt someone just to prove he could?
Under the table, Coop took her hand and squeezed. Not supportive and lover-like, but cut it out.
She kicked him, but pulled herself back. “If I get a vote, it’s for here at the farm, afternoon. That way we can party right through the evening. We’ll close the refuge for the day. There’s more room here, and if we have any sort of bad luck with the weather—”
“Bite your tongue,” Jenna ordered.
“Well, the house is more accommodating than the cabins.”
“Close for the day?” Tansy pushed that single point. “Really?”
“Come on, Tans. It’s not every day my best friend gets married.”
“Oh, boy, we have to shop!” Jenna winked at Lucy. “Dresses, flowers, food, cake.”
“We were thinking to keep it kind of simple,” Farley put in.
To which Joe muttered, “Good luck, son.”
“Simple’s no problem. But simple still has to be pretty and perfect.” Jenna emphasized the point by jabbing a finger in Joe’s arm. “I hope your mother can come out soon, Tansy, so we can put our heads together.”
“There’s no stopping her. She’s called three times since I told her, and already has a stack of bride magazines.”
“We’ll have a girl trip when she comes. Oh, this will be fun! Lucy, we have to have a shopping safari.”
“I’m already there. Jenna, remember the flowers at Wendy Rearder’s daughter’s wedding? We can outdo that.”
“Simple.” Sam rolled his eyes at Farley.
“Before you women get too far along and start talking about releasing a hundred doves and six white horses—”
“Horses.” Jenna interrupted her husband by clapping her hands together in delight. “Oh, we could do a horse and carriage. We could—”
“Just hold on, Jenna. Farley’s looking pale.”
“All he has to do is show up. You leave the rest to us,” Jenna told Farley.
“Meanwhile,” Joe said, pointing a hushing finger at his wife. “Jenna and I talked about some practicalities. Now, the two of you might have something else in mind, or maybe you haven’t thought about it as yet. But Jenna and I want to give you three acres. Room enough for you to build a house, have a place of your own. Close enough to make it easy for both of you to get to work. That is, if you’re planning on staying on here at the farm, Farley, and Tansy’s staying on with Lil.”
Farley stared. “But . . . the land should go to Lil, by rights.”
“Don’t be an ass, Farley,” Lil said.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say or how to say it.”
“It’s something you’ll want to talk to your bride about,” Joe told him. “The land’s yours if you decide you want it. And no hard feelings if you decide you don’t.”
“The bride has something to say.” Tansy rose, went first to Joe, then Jenna, to kiss them both. “Thank you. You’ve treated me like family since Lil and I were roommates in college. Now I am family. I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to have a home here near you, near Lil.” She beamed over at Farley. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”
“I’d say that’s settled.” Joe reached up to close his hand over the one Tansy had on his shoulder. “First chance we get, we’ll go scout out that acreage.”
Too overcome to speak, Farley only nodded. He cleared his throat. “I’m just gonna . . .” He rose, slipped into the kitchen.
“Now we’ve got something interesting to talk about.” Sam rubbed his hands together. “We’ve got a house to build.”
Jenna exchanged a look with Tansy as she got up and followed Farley.
He’d gone straight through and stood on the porch, his hands braced on the rail. The rain Lil had scented that morning pattered the ground, soaked the fields waiting for plowing. He straightened when Jenna laid a hand on his back, then turned and hugged her hard. Hard.
“Ma.”
She made a little sound, weepy pleasure, as she pressed him close. He rarely called her that, and usually with a kind of joking tone when he did. But now that single word said everything. “My sweet boy.”
“I don’t know what to do with all this happy. You used to say ‘Find your happy, Farley, and hold on to it.’ Now I’ve got so much I can’t hold it all. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You just did. Best thanks going.”
“When I was a boy they said I’d never have anything, never amount to anything, never be anything. It was easy to believe them. It was harder to believe what you and Joe told me. Kept telling me. I could be whatever I wanted. I could have whatever I could earn. But you made me believe it.”
“Tansy said she’s the luckiest woman in the world, and she’s pretty damn lucky. But I’m running neck-and-neck. I have both my kids close by. I can watch them make their lives. And I get to plan a wedding.” She drew back, patted his cheeks. “I’m going to be such a pain in the ass.”
His grin came back. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“You say that now. Wait until I’m nagging you brainless. Are you ready to go back? If you’re out here too long Sam and Joe will have designed your house before you get a chance to say whoa.”
“Right now?” He swung an arm around her shoulders. “I’m ready for anything.”
26
Wicked, windy thunderstorms pounded through the night, hammered into the morning. Then it got nasty.
The first rattle of hail spat out like pea gravel, bouncing on the paths, chattering on the rooftops. Well-versed in spring weather, Lil ordered all vehicles that could fit under cover. She maneuvered her own truck through the mud as the golf balls began to ping.
The animals had enough sense to take shelter, but she watched some of the interns racing around, laughing, scooping up handfuls of hail to toss. As if it were a party, she thought, and the slashes of lightning cracking the black sky were just an elaborate light show.
She shook her head as she caught sight of Eric juggling three balls of hail, like a street performer while the cannon fire of thunder boomed.
Someone, she thought, was going to get beaned.
She cursed as a clump the size of a healthy peach slammed into the hood of her truck. Even as she squeezed the truck under the overhang on the storage shed she snarled at the new dent.
Not laughing now, she noted, as interns scrambled for the nearest shelter. There would be more dents and dings, she knew. Shredded plantings and an unholy mess of ice to scrape and shovel. But for now, she was warm and dry and opted to wait it out in the truck.
Until she saw a softball of ice wing into the back of one of the running interns, and pitch her forward into the mud.
“Crap.”
Lil was out and sprinting even as a couple of her other kids rushed to pick up the fallen.
“Get her inside. Inside!” It was like being pelted by an angry baseball team.
She grabbed the girl, half dragged, half carried her to the porch of her own cabin. They arrived wet and filthy, with the girl pale as the ice that battered the compound.
“Are you hurt?”
The girl shook her head, and wheezing, braced her hands on her knees. “Knocked the wind out of me.”
“I bet.” Lil flipped through the jumbled data in her brain to find names for the two of the new crop of interns while thunder roared over the hills like stalking lions. “Just relax. Reed, go in and get Lena some water. Wipe your feet,” she added. For all the good it would do.
“It happened so fast.” Lena shivered, and her eyes stared out of a face smeared with mud. “It was just like little ice chips, then ping-pong balls. And then . . .”
“Welcome to South Dakota. We’ll have Matt take a look at you. Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“Um. No. Just sort of . . . wowed. Thanks, Reed.” She took the water bottle, drank deep. “Scared me. And still.” She looked past Lil to where the ice balls hammered the ground, and a vicious pitchfork of lightning hurled out of the clouds. “Weirdly cool.”
“Remember that when we’re cleaning up. The hail won’t last long.” Already slowing, Lil judged. “Storm’s tracking west now.”
“Really?” Lena blinked at her. “You can tell?”
“The wind’s carrying it. You can use my shower. I’ll lend you some clothes. When it’s over, the rest of you report to the cabin. There’ll be plenty to do. Come on, Lena.”
She took the girl upstairs, gestured toward the bathroom. “You can toss out your clothes. I’ll throw them in the wash.”
“I’m sorry to be so much trouble. Taking a header in a hailstorm wasn’t the way I wanted you to notice me.”
“Sorry?” Lil turned from where she dug fresh jeans and a sweatshirt out of her dresser.
“I just mean we’ve been working mostly with Tansy and Matt since I got here. There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to work with you directly with everything that’s going on.”
“There will be.”
“It’s just that you’re the reason I’m here. The reason I’m studying wildlife biology and conservation.”
“Really?”
“God, that sounds geeky.” Lena sat on the john to drag off her boots. “I saw that documentary on your work here. It was that three-part deal. I was home sick from school and really bored. Channel surfing, you know? And I hit the part about you and the refuge. I missed the other two parts, because—you know—back to school. But I got the DVD, the same one we sell at the gift shop. I got really into what you were doing, and what you said and what you were building here. I thought, That’s what I want to be when I grow up. My mother thought it was great, and that I’d change my mind a dozen times before college. But I didn’t.”