by Nora Roberts
“Me too.” Willa tightened her grip, clung. “Call.”
“I will, I will. God, wear some lipstick once in a while, will you? And use that lotion I left you on your hands before they turn into leather.”
“I love you.”
“Oh, God, I’ve got to go.” Weeping, Tess stumbled toward the rig. “Go castrate a cow or something.”
“I was on my way.” With a little hitching breath, Willa took out her bandanna and blew her nose as the rig rumbled away. “ ‘Bye, Hollywood.”
T ESS WAS SURE SHE’D GOTTEN HOLD OF HERSELF BY THE time she’d checked her bags in the terminal. An hour-long cry was good enough for anyone, she thought, and Nate had been considerate enough to let her indulge in it.
“You don’t have to come to the gate.” But she kept his hand clutched in hers.
“I don’t mind.”
“You’ll keep in touch.”
“You know I will.”
“Maybe you’ll fly in for a weekend, let me show you around.”
“I could do that.”
Well, he was certainly making it easy, she thought. It was all so easy. The year was up, she had what she wanted. Now it was back to her life. The way she wanted.
“You’ll keep me up with the gossip. Fill me in on Lily and Willa. I’m going to miss them like crazy.”
She looked around, busy people coming and going, and wished desperately for her usual excitement at the prospect of getting into the air and flying.
“I don’t want you to wait.” She made herself look up at him. Into those patient eyes. “We’ve already said good-bye. This only makes it harder.”
“It can’t be any harder.” He put his hands on her shoulders, ran them down her arms, up again. “I love you, Tess. You’re the first and last for me. Stay. Marry me.”
“Nate, I . . .” Love you too, she thought. Oh, God. “I have to go. You know I do. My work, my career. This was only temporary. We both knew that.”
“Things change.” Because he could read her feelings on her face, he shook her gently. “You can’t look me in the eye and tell me you’re not in love with me, Tess. Every time you start to say you’re not, you look away and don’t say anything.”
“I have to go. I’ll miss my plane.” She broke away, turned, and fled.
She knew what she was doing. Exactly what she was doing. She rushed past gate after gate telling herself that. How was she supposed to live on a horse ranch in Montana? She had her career to think of. Her laptop bumped against her hip. She had a new screenplay to start, a novel to work on. She belonged in LA.
Swearing, she spun around and ran back, pushing through other people who rushed in the opposite direction. “Nate!” She saw his hat, on the downward glide of the escalator, and doubled her pace. “Nate, wait a minute.”
He was already at the bottom when she clambered her way down. Out of breath, she stood in front of him, a hand pressed to her speeding heart. She looked into his eyes. “I’m not in love with you,” she said without a blink, watched his eyes narrow. “See that, smart guy? I can look right at you and lie.”
And with a laugh, she jumped into his arms. “Oh, what the hell. I can work anywhere.”
He kissed her, set her on her feet again. “Okay. Let’s go home.”
“My bags.”
“They’ll come back.”
She looked over her shoulder and said a spiritual good-bye to LA. “You don’t seem very surprised.”
“I’m not.” He scooped her out the door, then up into his arms and into a wild circle. “I’m patient.”
B EN FOUND WILLA RUNNING WIRE ALONG THE FENCE line that separated Three Rocks from Mercy. It made him realize he should have been doing the same. Still, he dismounted, strolled over to her. “Need a hand?”
“No, I’ve got it.”
“I was wondering how Ham was getting on.”
“He’s cranky as a constipated bear. I’d say he’s coming along fine.”
“Good. Let me do that for you.”
“I know how to run fence.”
“Just let me do it for you.” He yanked the wire from her.
Stepping back, she set her hands on her hips. “You’ve been coming around here a lot, wanting to do things for me. It’s got to stop.”
“Why?”
“You’ve got your own land to worry about. I can run Mercy.”
“Run every damn thing,” he muttered.
“The term of the will’s done, Ben. You don’t have to check things over around here anymore.”
His eyes weren’t friendly when they flickered under the brim of his hat. “You think that’s all there is to it?”
“I don’t know. You haven’t been interested in much else lately.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What it says. You haven’t exactly been a regular visitor in my bed the last few weeks.”
“I’ve been occupied.”
“Well, now I’m occupied, so go run your own wire.”
He braced his legs apart much as she’d braced her own and faced her between the fence posts. “This line’s as much mine as yours.”
“Then you should’ve been checking it, same as me.”
He tossed the wire down between them, like a boundary between them, between their land. “Okay, you want to know what’s going on with me, I’ll tell you.” He tugged two thin gold hoops out of his pocket and shoved them into her hand.
“Oh.” She frowned down at them. “I’d forgotten about them.”
“I haven’t.” He’d kept them—God knew why, when every time he looked at them he relived the night, the dark, the fear. And each time he looked at them he wondered if he’d have found her in time if she hadn’t been smart enough, strong enough, to leave a trail.
“So, you found my earrings.” She tucked them in her own pocket.
“Yeah, I found them. And I climbed up that ridge listening to him screaming at you. Saw him holding a knife to your throat. Watched a line of blood run down your skin where he nicked you.”
Instinctively she pressed her hand to her throat. There were times when she could still feel it there, the keen point of the knife her father had put in a killer’s hand.
“It’s done,” she told him. “I don’t much like going back there.”
“I go back there plenty. I can see that flash of lightning, your eyes in that flash of lightning when you knew what I was going to do. When you trusted me to do it.”
She hadn’t closed her eyes, he remembered. She’d kept them open, level, watching as he squeezed the trigger.
“I put a bullet in a man about six inches from your face. It’s given me some bad moments.”
“I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand, but dropped her own when he pulled back, stayed on his own land. “You killed someone for me. I can see how that would change your feelings.”
“That’s not it. Well, maybe it is. Maybe that’s what did it.” He turned away, paced, looked up at the sky. “Maybe it was always there anyway.”
“All right, then.” She was grateful his back was to her so he couldn’t see the way she had to squeeze her eyes tight, bite down on her lip to keep from weeping. “I understand, and I’m grateful. There’s no need to make this hard on either of us.”
“Hard, hell, that doesn’t come close.” He tucked his hands in his back pockets and contemplated the long line of fence. It was all that separated them, he mused, those thin lines of barb-edged wire. “You’ve been underfoot and causing me frustration most all of my life.”
“You’re on my land,” she shot back, wounded. “Who’s under whose feet?”
“I guess I know you better than most. I know your flaws well enough. You’ve got a bundle of them. Ornery, mean-tempered, exasperating. You’ve got brains, but your guts get in the way of them half the time. But knowing the flaws is half the battle.”
She kicked him, hard enough to make him stumble into his own horse. He picked up the hat she’d knocked off his head, b
rushed it over the leg of his jeans as he turned. “Now I could wrestle you down for that, and it’d probably turn into something else.”
“Just try it.”
“You see, that’s the damnedest thing.” He shook a finger at her. “That look right there, the one you’re wearing on your face right now. When I think it through, that’s the one that did it to me.”
“Did what?”
“Had me falling in love with you.”
She dropped the hammer she’d picked up to hit him with. “In what?”
“I figure you heard me the first time. You got ears like a damn alley cat.” He scratched his chin, settled his hat back into place. “I think you’re going to have to marry me, Willa. I don’t see a way around it. And I tell you, I’ve been looking.”
“Is that so?” She bent down, picked up the hammer again, and tapped it against her palm. “Have you?”
“Yeah.” He eyed the hammer, grinned. He didn’t think she’d use it. Or if she tried, he figured he’d be quick enough to avoid a concussion. “I’d have found one if there’d been a way. You know”—he started toward her, circling—“I used to think I wanted you to distraction because you were so contrary. Then when I had you, I decided I still wanted you because I didn’t know how long I’d keep you.”
“Keep coming on,” she said coolly, “and you’ll have a dent in your big head.”
He kept coming on. “Then it kept creeping up on me, why no one ever pulled at me the way you do. Ever made me miss them five minutes after I walked out the door the way you do. When you weren’t safe, I was crazy. Now that you are, I figure the only way to handle things is to marry you.”
“That’s your idea of a proposal?”
“You’ve never had better. And with your prickly attitude, you won’t get better.” He timed it, grabbed the hammer out of her hand, and tossed it over the fence. “No point in saying no, Will. I’ve got my mind set on it.”
“That’s what I’m saying.” She crossed her arms. “Until I get better.”
He sighed, heavily. He’d been afraid it would come to this. “All right, then. I love you. I want you to marry me. I don’t want to live my life without you. Will that do?”
“It’s some better.” Her heart was so full she was surprised it wasn’t spilling over. “Where’s the ring?”
“Ring? For God’s sake, Will, I don’t carry a ring around with me riding fence.” Perplexed, he pushed back his hat. “You never wear rings anyway.”
“I’ll wear the one you give me.”
He opened his mouth to complain, shut it again, and grinned. “Is that a fact?”
“That’s a fact. Damn, Ben, what took you so long?” She stepped over the wire and into his arms.