Mountain Country Courtship

by Glynna Kaye

  “I admire that about you.”

  “Being stubborn?”

  “Never giving up.”

  But he’d given up on Lillian, hadn’t he? Too scared to risk her discovering the man others had come to know—and rejected.

  She moved to stand by him and took hold of his upper arm. Staring down at her hand—the same soft, gentle hand that reached out to care for her aunt, to comfort Taylor, to touch his face that night in the dark Hideaway parking lot—he didn’t want to hear what she had to say. It was time to move on.

  As if sensing his desire to pull away, her grip tightened, and he reluctantly met her gaze. Those beautiful eyes.

  “Denny,” she said quietly, “believe me when I say I respect you more than any other man I’ve ever known. I admire so much about you, about who you are. Your accomplishments. The way you’ve overcome the challenges life has thrown at you. I have high regard for your integrity and am in awe of your diverse talents and capabilities. My heart tugs every time I see the sensitive way you interact with Aunt Viola—and our dear little Taylor. And, too, when I see how this past week you’ve gradually made room in your heart for your Hunter family, and you’re attempting to build a relationship with your long-estranged father.”

  Denny’s hungering heart swelled at her words, the admiration in her eyes and the approval in her tone. He drank it in, like a man thirsting in the desert who’d stumbled on an oasis, a pool of clear, cold water.

  But then reality hit and he chuckled. “Why is it I hear a ‘but’ coming?”

  “Because it is.” The glow in her eyes dimmed. “I respect you in boundless ways, Denny Hunter. But I have to confess that, sadly, you put more stock in what other people think of you than what God thinks of you. Desiring to earn the respect of others is admirable. But without love...something is missing.”

  He looked away. She wasn’t telling him anything he wasn’t aware of. “As I shared from my former fiancée’s wedding-day text message, I’m not an easy man to love. Even God has His work cut out for Him there.”

  She drew him back to look at her, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I disagree. You’re an easy man to love—and in a very short time, I’ve come to care deeply for you.”

  His heart stilled. Was she implying she’d come to care for him as more than a friend? No, she was speaking as a friend. Wasn’t that what he’d told her he wanted? All he could offer her?

  “But like my niece,” she continued softly, “you slam the door when you sense someone is getting too close. Someone who might see through the protective layers you’ve built around your heart. Who might see into the core of who you are. You fear if you let them in longer than a fleeting moment, they’ll reject you. And that will hurt. So you hold everyone at arm’s length—including, most sadly of all, the God who loves you.”

  Denny stiffened. He had to get out of here. Her words were smothering him. Strangling him. Confusing him.

  He grunted. “Nice theory you have there.”

  “There’s truth in it.”

  Maybe there was. Maybe there wasn’t. But he’d known since he was a boy that love was undependable, ephemeral, doled out to those who deserved it. Who were, by their very nature, lovable.

  But respect? Respect could be earned if you worked hard enough at it. He knew that for a fact. He’d spent a lifetime proving it.

  He glanced out the front window to the porch, where Lillian had transformed it for Barbie Gray’s afternoon wedding with flowers and fluttering ribbons. “Thanks for the pep talk, but I don’t want to keep you any longer. You have a wedding to put on and I’ve got to get going. If I start now, I can get to San Francisco in the wee hours of the morning.”

  “You really are leaving.”

  “The inn’s finished. Nothing to keep me here.”

  He caught the flinch in her eyes. She drew a breath. “Well, then, give me a hug.”

  He opened his arms and she stepped into them as if she belonged, and for a long moment he held her pressed to his heart. Drank in the sweet scent of her. He hated this “just friends” stuff. But their relationship was never meant to be anything more. Even if things would have gone in another direction, he could never ask her to pull up roots that had grown deep in Hunter Ridge. This was her home.

  The home of her heart.

  He couldn’t compete with that.

  The arms that wrapped around his waist gave him a hard, final squeeze. Then she stepped back.

  “Take good care of yourself, Denny.”

  “You, too. Let me know when Taylor returns.”

  “I will.”

  And then, his heart aching, he left the inn, pulling the door soundly shut behind him.

  In the car he turned up the stereo to drown out his turbulent thoughts. But channel after channel flooded the airwaves with a mournful wail of long-lost love. No wonder he used to hate country and western. He switched it off, only to drown in the silence. It seemed like a long drive back to the Hideaway, where he packed up his things and loaded the car.

  He had a box to leave at the Hideaway’s front desk for pickup—something for Lillian. But before he could see to that, he found himself impulsively turning down the graveled lane to his dad’s place on the Hunter property.

  When he knocked, Vickie came to the door. Her tone was welcoming, but her eyes were curious. “Come in, Denny.”

  “Thanks.” He stepped into the living room. “I can’t stay long.”

  Maybe he shouldn’t have come at all. Just texted his goodbyes once he hit the city limits.

  “Why can’t you stay long?” Dad demanded from where he’d stretched out in his recliner, watching TV. “You have time for everybody but your old man.”

  He irritably grabbed the remote and shut off the TV as Vickie motioned for Denny to sit down. He did. Then she silently left the room.

  “I wanted to let you know I’m heading to the Bay Area, then taking a transfer to the Midwest. I don’t know when I’ll be back this way.”

  Maybe never.

  His dad hit the recliner release and sat up straight, his expression perplexed. “You’re leaving? But I thought you and Lillian—”

  Denny waved his dad off. He didn’t want to talk about Lillian. “That’s not working out.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad leaned forward. “I had a front-row seat this past week to how that gal brightens up like a light bulb when you walk into the room. I could say the same about you when she smiles in your direction.”

  “Yeah, well, Aunt Elaine says you and Mother started out that way, too. So it’s better to recognize now that there’s no future for us. Before we sign on the dotted line. Before kids get thrown into the mix.”

  But Taylor had stolen his heart weeks ago. Would he ever see her again?

  A heavy silence filled the room, and Denny longed for a rewind to drive on past the turnoff to his dad’s place and hit the road.

  His father clasped his hands together, his expression earnest. Troubled. “Char and I—we did you wrong, Denny.”

  “That’s water under the bridge.” He didn’t have it in him to listen to his father rail about the long-dead relationship.

  Dad shook his head. “I said both of us did you wrong, Denny. Not just your mother. We were young and selfish and didn’t heed the counsel of those older and wiser—like Viola and your grandma Jo. Looking back, knowing what I now know having been married to Vickie for nearing three decades, I realize we could have made it work if we’d have stopped thinking solely of ourselves. Stopped looking at what we wanted to get out of the relationship rather than what we could give to it. We owe you an apology.”

  Denny shifted uncomfortably, unaccustomed to confessions of wrongdoing coming from his father.

  “It’s better to let things between Lillian and me die a natural death. Eventually she’d recognize what you knew when I was a kid—that
I’m not easy to love.”

  “I never thought that.”

  “You said it.”

  “When?”

  It was as clear in Denny’s mind as if it were yesterday. “You’d taken me fishing the last full day I was here, remember? In that old rattletrap truck of yours. You’d packed us lunches, let me use your best rod and reel and everything. And when we were packing up our gear at the end of the day, that’s when you told me, ‘Son, you’re not an easy kid to love.’”

  Dad shook his head. “You misunderstood.”

  “How?”

  He may have been a kid, but he did understand English. And he wasn’t stupid.

  “I wasn’t saying I didn’t love you, that you weren’t worthy of being loved. That I thought you were unlovable.” Compassion flickered through his father’s eyes, an expression Denny wasn’t accustomed to seeing there. “I was referring to the fact that you didn’t make it easy on anyone who tried to love you.”

  “But—”

  Dad stood to look down at him.

  “You were always throwing up barriers. Backing away. Just as you’d done that day we’d gone fishing and I tried to put my arm around your shoulders.” He mimed the action. “You shook me off like you didn’t want any part of that. Any part of me.”

  Dad shook his head, pain of the memory clearly reflected in the gaze he centered on Denny. “I can’t tell you how many times I tried the week you were here to break down the walls you’d built, but you’d have none of it. So I didn’t force the issue when you told your mother you never wanted to visit me again.”

  Denny stared at his father—searching his eyes, seeking the truth. No way. No way had he misunderstood what his dad had said. It had fit with everything he’d ever known. His mother often saying his dad didn’t have time to come visit him. His mother and stepfather sending him off to a private out-of-state school so they didn’t have to deal with him, their unlovable kid.

  “Den,” Dad said gently, “you’d built walls so high, a mountain climber couldn’t have scaled them. That’s why I was tickled to death to see that little runaway bride somehow managing to dig her way under.”

  Denny’s brain struggled to make sense of what his father was saying. The jumbled pieces slowly came together.

  Had Lillian been right about him?

  “Don’t let her slip away from you, son. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  She’d taken a stand. Trusted God.

  And lost Denny.

  He couldn’t see beyond the fortifications he’d constructed around his heart, choosing instead to retreat into what must be a lonely self-confinement. Isolating himself from God. From others.

  From her.

  What could she have said or done differently that would have convinced him, opened his eyes, his heart?

  She’d lain awake the past several nights going over everything they’d both said that last day. She’d garnered the courage to tell him how deeply she cared for him, yet that didn’t so much as chip his self-protective armor. So determined to remain just friends, he’d flicked off her confession as carelessly as if it had been a ladybug on his sleeve.

  That hurt. And when he said the inn was finished and there was nothing to keep him here?

  She couldn’t make him love her, though. Not the way she wanted to be loved. The way she loved him.

  Savagely she clipped back the now-fading chrysanthemums. Barbie’s wedding had been the last garden event of the season—beautiful in every way. Lillian even had time to speak to Cameron in private to apologize. He’d admitted he’d provoked her into doing what she’d done, but that until offered the job by his former employer, he hadn’t realized he’d been fooling himself about being ready to settle down in his old hometown. Both agreed things had ended for the best. And when his grinning brother later walked by, tucking his fists into his armpits, Cameron had popped him lightly on the back of the head and told him to knock it off.

  Best of all, the Monday after the wedding, Lillian was offered the full-time librarian position. Cameron’s Grandma Gray had capitulated to the recommendation of the other board members.

  But it was now time to winterize the garden. To cut back the perennials that would lie dormant over the long winter ahead, knowing that again in the spring, they’d peep out of their protective mulch of leaves. The hyacinths usually first. Then the daffodils. Irises. Tiny leaves on the trees. As sad as it was for autumn’s bright hues to fade away, ahead lay the promise of springtime.

  A new start.

  But with a heart every bit as barren as the garden would soon become, she couldn’t imagine the dark days and cold, snowy months ahead without Denny’s smile. His laughter. His encouragement. But he’d chosen to leave Hunter Ridge. To leave her.

  “Lillian?”

  She looked up to see Aunt Viola holding the back door open. Eyes twinkling, she looked like she’d explode with secret knowledge.

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  Lillian’s heart leaped.

  Denny.

  He came back.

  Brushing at her wind-tangled hair, she looked down at her stained work clothes. Dirty sneakers. She was a mess.

  But Denny is here.

  Eagerly she got to her feet. “Where—?”

  And then Taylor peeped out from behind her aunt.

  Lillian gasped, her hand flying to her mouth and tears pricking her eyes. She stood frozen, disbelieving. And then she opened her arms and Taylor shot out the door, down the stone path and straight into them.

  “Taylor, oh, Taylor.” She held the girl close, reveling in the arms that clasped around her. That squeezed tight. “You’re back. I can’t believe it. You’re really back.”

  “I’m never ever leaving again, Aunt Lillian.” Taylor gave her another hug. “Mom said.”

  Still embracing the little girl, Lillian again looked to the back door of the inn. Aunt Viola had disappeared. But Annalise stood there on the steps, uncertainty filling her eyes.

  Pulling away, Taylor grasped Lillian’s hand and tugged her across the garden. “Tell her, Mommy, tell her!”

  Annalise met them halfway, holding out her hand to her daughter. “Why don’t you run in and help Aunt Viola fix our lunch?”

  “But you’ll tell her, won’t you?” Taylor’s eyes urged her impatiently.

  Annalise smiled a little sadly. “Don’t worry—I’ll tell her.”

  Taylor hugged Lillian again, then her mother, before skipping to the back door and disappearing inside.

  Lillian folded her arms, assessing her sister. “You’re leaving her here again? After what we just went through?”

  While Taylor’s “never ever leaving” still echoed in her ears, she didn’t dare let her hopes rise due to something that most likely was a misunderstanding on the part of a child.

  “I want to leave her here, Lillian,” Annalise said slowly. “That is, if you still think you want her.”

  Was her sister saying what she thought she was? “She’s always welcome for as long as you’re willing to share her.” Lillian drew a breath as she unfolded her arms, then held out a hand in appeal. “I— Annalise, please believe me when I say I never would have taken her from you against your will. That was never my intention.”

  “You should have, Lil. A long time ago. I’m not cut out to be a parent. Never have been.”

  “You love Taylor. I’ve never doubted that.”

  Her sister shook her head. “Not the kind of love that has a child’s best interests in mind. I’m sorry I acted ugly. Snatched her away from you. I don’t know what got into me. I think it hit me hard when she was so excited about the possibility that she might get to stay permanently with you and that— What is his name?” Her brow wrinkled. “Mister?”

  “Denny, actually.” S
he couldn’t help but smile. “He felt terrible that Taylor must have overheard us talking.”

  And witnessed that near-kiss.

  “I admit when she told me about that conversation I was jealous. Extremely jealous.”

  “Why jealous? I can see why you’d be angry. You had every right to be.”

  “I was jealous because Taylor’s heart is here. With you and Aunt Viola. And with a man she can’t stop talking about. He must really be something, Lil. I’m jealous about that, too.”

  Now probably wasn’t the time to confess he’d walked out on her. She’d let Taylor continue believing he was a hero for now, too. Who knew? Maybe he’d come back to visit her if Lillian could get word to him that her niece had returned.

  “I guess I’m still confused, Annalise, about what this means.”

  “It means, with your permission, I’d like us to explore what needs to be done to give you full legal custody. To adopt her if you want to.”

  “Are you sure?” a stunned Lillian whispered.

  “I’ve had enough time to think it through. I’d been thinking about it before I dropped her off with you in June. I’ve even prayed about it, sis. Isn’t that a hoot?” She gazed at Lillian with love in her eyes. “You’re good with her, Lil. And for her. You and Aunt Viola. Much better than I will ever be.”

  “But you’re her mother. She loves you.”

  “And I love her. That’s why I want to give her a chance at something I never had myself. The care and attention—and love—of a parent who will always be there for her.”

  “Mom and Dad did their best.”

  She gave a little snort. “You think so? Come on. Stop lying to yourself.”

  Had she been deceiving herself? Or with God’s help, had she been able to extend forgiveness that Annalise didn’t yet have the ability to offer?

  “What if I fail? What if I turn out to be no more better of a parent to Taylor than they were to us?”

  “I have no fear of that. But whatever you can give her will run circles around what the two of us got. What I’m capable of giving her. I promise I won’t disappear out of Taylor’s life and leave her feeling abandoned. But I’m not ready to settle down. Not for a long while.” She made a silly face. “But who knows? Maybe eventually I’ll get my act together.”