by Liz Isaacson
Belle and Jace paused to exchange a glance.
“He’ll probably be angry,” Megan said, remembering the dark look in his emerald eyes when she’d shown up in the hay barn. “But if I only have three weeks left with him, I don’t want to waste them.”
Belle squealed, and Megan couldn’t read Jace’s expression. But he allowed her to get in the truck and pepper his wife with questions about Landon for the next thirty minutes.
Once on the ranch, though, all of Megan’s confidence evaporated. She wasn’t entirely sure what to say to Landon that wouldn’t drive him further away. And she couldn’t lie and say she loved him. She felt certain she could love him, could live a very happy life with him, if she only had more time.
And she wasn’t sure three weeks was enough, even if she spent every waking moment with Landon. She simply needed more time to figure out her own life, make sure her father had everything in hand to retire, discover who she was without Eric.
“Good luck,” Belle called over her shoulder as she and Jace went up the steps to their front porch. Jace opened the door and waited for Belle to enter first, a look of complete adoration on his face. Megan watched as he put his hand on the small of her back, as his lips curved upward ever so slightly, as he breathed in the scent of her as she passed him.
Megan wanted that love. She faced Landon’s cabin, with his imposing gray truck out front. She wanted that chance at love with Landon. Feeling strong and determined, she strode toward his cabin. He came out the front door before she’d gained the first step, and she came to a halt.
“Megan.” He exhaled and gazed into the distance beyond his front porch. “What are you doin’ here?”
“When are you going to stop asking me that?”
He leaned against the pillar at the top of the steps. “You don’t make any sense. So I guess I’ll keep asking until I can figure you out.”
She smiled and tucked her hands into her skirt pockets. “Good luck with that. I can’t even figure myself out.” She took a deep breath and released it. “Which is why I’m here, I guess.” She started up the steps slowly, giving Landon plenty of time to back away if he wanted to.
He maintained his position, his hat obscuring his face as he lowered his chin to maintain eye contact with her.
She slid her hands around his waist, every cell in her body sighing with relief at the allowed contact. “I don’t want to spend the next three weeks avoiding you. I did it for a few days, and I was miserable.”
His arms came around her, accepting her as she was, and gratitude filled her. “I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching, and thinking, and praying the past week or so. I don’t have everything figured out. Heck, there’s a ton I don’t know how to fix about myself. But I’m trying, and I realized this week that I don’t want to do it alone.”
The brim of his cowboy hat bumped her shoulder as he lowered his mouth to her jaw. “I’m still moving in three weeks.”
“Utah’s not that far,” she whispered, her skin itching to be touched by him, kissed by him. “And we both have phones and computers.”
“Long distance?”
“For a few months. Until my dad is retired and settled. Until….” But she couldn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t want to admit out loud that she didn’t love him, and she wasn’t quite sure how she could fall in love with him when he was so far away.
“I don’t know, Megan.”
“How happy have you been this week?” she asked.
“I’m miserable.” He chuckled, the sad sound vibrating through his chest and into hers. “But I know what God wants me to do, and I know I’ll be happy if I do that.”
“And you can’t wait?”
“Maybe long distance would work.” He released her and stepped back, stuffing his hands in his pockets and shuffling his feet along the wood of the porch.
“I don’t understand why you can’t wait just a few months to move,” she said, her frustration frothing and boiling over. “Before, you said you wanted to see if there could be something between us. You said you didn’t have to move right away.”
“Megan—”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t be all sad and make your voice sound like that.” She shook her head.
“Sound like what?”
“Like you really want to do what I’m suggesting. You don’t. If you did, you’d wait.” She turned and stomped down the steps. “I don’t know why I came out here. You said your mind was made up.” She stopped at the bottom of the steps and peered up at him. “I guess I just can’t know if what you say is true or not.” She spun and marched away. Where she was going, she didn’t know. She didn’t have a car. In her head, she’d imagined them making up, and she’d spend the afternoon in his arms, and he’d drive her home near midnight.
“Hey,” he called after her, his boots making a ruckus on the steps as he flew after her. “That’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” She turned back to him, feeling dangerous and wild. “What’s not fair is claiming you love me in one breath and insisting you’re going to move in three weeks in the next. That’s not fair.” Tears threatened to tumble from her eyes, but she blinked them back. She did not want to cry in front of Landon. Not right now.
His eyes blazed and he threw his hands in the air. “I don’t know what to do!”
“That makes two of us.”
“What do you want from me, Megan?”
“Time,” she practically yelled. She inhaled slowly. “Landon, I want more time with you.” The fight left her body as quickly as it had come. Her chin wobbled. A tear fell. “Please don’t move in three weeks.”
20
Megan couldn’t believe she was standing on the ranch, begging Landon Edmunds not to leave. She’d had a crush on the man for as long as she could remember. She’d promised herself she’d never beg to be with him.
And he still hadn’t said anything. His jaw worked against itself and his fingers kept curling into a fist and then releasing. They seemed locked in a battle of silence. Megan knew she didn’t want to be the first to speak. She didn’t trust herself not to say something that would push him further from her.
Her stomach growled, and the horizon blurred. “I need to go,” she said.
“I’ll drive you back,” he said.
She shook her head, her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Landon, I don’t want you to be nice to me. It….” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “It actually hurts more than you just cutting me loose.”
He took a step toward her. “Do you want me to cut you loose?”
“You know what I want. I just told you.” She fell back a step, then another, in the direction of Belle’s cabin. “Maybe you should figure out what you want, Landon.” She turned, making her steps sure and strong—and commanding herself to not look back at him—until she made it all the way to Belle’s front door.
Even then, she kept her attention forward. Jace opened the door and stepped back. “Megan.” He looked over her shoulder, and Megan didn’t know what he found. She hadn’t heard Landon move, but the man had many and varied talents.
“I was hoping I could join you for lunch,” Megan said, lifting her chin a fraction of an inch.
Belle’s fingers wrapped around the door and pulled it further open. “Megan. Of course you can join us for lunch.”
Megan gave her a grateful smile, stepped past an unyielding Jace, only daring to glance back the way she’d come once she was safely in the house.
She didn’t see Landon.
Landon rode Crossfire hard, getting as far from the ranch epicenter, from Jace’s questioning glare, from Megan, as possible. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought Megan would let him simply walk out of her life.
She’d always pushed him. Always questioned him. Made him admit things he usually didn’t. Sure, she’d stayed away from the church for four days while he worked. But he should’ve known she wouldn’t just let him walk out of her life.
Part of him absolutely adored that about her. Fel
t special that she’d come and fought for him, for them. That she’d kissed him first. That she seemed to know so clearly what she wanted, just not how to get it.
With a start, he pulled up the horse. Both of their sides heaved, and Landon’s hip ached from the hard ride. She knew what she wanted. She just wasn’t sure how to get it.
She wanted more time with him.
She wanted him.
And what did he want? When she’d asked him, he thought he’d be able to answer easily. But watching her walk away had muted his thoughts. Without her, he was miserable. He’d spoken true on that. But without her, he also thought more clearly.
Crossfire snuffled and tossed his head. Landon moved him into a walk, letting the horse go where he wanted to.
Clop, clop, clop.
He wanted Megan.
Clop, clop, clop.
He wanted Utah.
Clop, clop, clop.
How could he have both?
Wait.
He could wait. He’d done it before. Loads of times.
But he was tired of waiting. He was thirty years old, ready to start his own life, his own ranch, get going on his own path.
“So will six more months really set you back that much?”
He knew it wouldn’t. He turned the horse around and set him into a canter. He needed to get back before Megan left the ranch. Just to make sure she would still be there when he got back, he pulled out his phone and texted his sister.
Don’t take Megan back to Gold Valley. I want to drive her into town.
It took a few minutes, but when her reply came back, it made Landon’s heart stop trying to outpace the horse. We just sat down to lunch. You should come on in when you get back. Pork ribs…your favorite!
His mouth watered just thinking about the food—and the woman he’d be able to share it with.
By the time he got Crossfire taken care of, and his hands washed, Landon thought sure lunch had ended. He went to Jace’s anyway, satisfied that his truck still sat out front. He knocked at the same time he opened the door, just as he had when Jace had summoned him to the cabin to meet Megan.
“Hey,” he said, stepping inside and shutting the scorching heat out. He found the three of them still seated at the dining room table. “Oh, good, I didn’t miss lunch. I’m starving.” He could at least pretend like the awkwardness between him and Megan didn’t exist. But, by the way everyone already at the table exchanged glances, Landon couldn’t truly ignore it.
“Okay,” he said, pulling out a chair and tucking himself under the table. “So I acted like an idiot. Can we just eat and not talk about it?”
“We’ve already been eatin’,” Belle said. “Someone ran off on their horse.”
“Someone needed a few minutes to think.” Landon picked up the spoon for the mashed potatoes and dolloped a healthy serving onto his plate.
“Someone’s been gone for more than a few minutes.”
“Crossfire likes to run.” Landon shot his sister a glare that said, Stop it, Belle.
She stopped. Landon’s eyes flitted to Megan, staying long enough to assess whether she’d been crying or not. Didn’t look like it.
“Church looked good today,” Jace commented, and both Megan and Landon swung their attention to him. He glanced between them, his eyes ping-ponging back and forth several times. “I mean, uh.” He cleared his throat. “Belle just got a new account at the community college. Tell ’em about it, honey.”
Once Belle started talking—especially about design—she could carry the conversation by herself. Thankfully.
Landon knew the meal would eventually end. He’d have to face Megan again. They’d have to talk through everything, make decisions. He wished his weren’t so colored by his feelings—especially when she didn’t quite reciprocate those feelings. He coached himself to wait. Hold your horses, and just wait.
The idiom had never hit so close to home before. He literally had to hold his horses if he wanted to hold onto the woman he loved.
He sighed like he was dining alone, and every eye traveled to him. “What?” he asked.
“You just made a noise like you have the worst life on the planet,” Belle said.
“I’m just breathin’.”
“Let the man breathe,” Jace said when Belle opened her mouth to retort. Landon wished Megan would say something. He caught her eye, but she remained quiet. Apparently, she knew how to wait for important things too.
Megan finally excused herself after chocolate cake and two cups of coffee. She had more patience than him, and when she stood and said she should be getting home, he almost knocked the table over in his haste to leap up. “I’ll drive you,” he said after the silverware had stopped clattering against the plates.
“That would be great.” She gave him an easy smile. The conversation had turned to lighter topics once the dessert came out, something Landon had been grateful for.
He hurried to the front door and opened it for Megan, taking a deep drag of her floral scent as she passed. “I’ve noticed you’ve added lemon to your perfume,” he said as he closed the door behind him.
She turned at the top of the stairs. “I love the citrus oils. They’re energetic. They revive me when I don’t feel well.”
“You haven’t been feeling well?” He approached her, almost desperate to say the right things, in the right order.
“Duh.” She leaned into him. “Remember how I said I’d been avoiding you? I didn’t like it.”
He tucked his hand in hers and went with her down the steps. “I’m sorry about…me.”
“You don’t need to be sorry.” She waited until he’d helped her up into his truck. “Did you figure out what you wanted?” She smoothed her skirt so it lay properly over her knees.
Landon tore his gaze from her now-covered skin. “Sort of. I’ll explain on the drive into town.” He joined her in the cab and started up the truck. “I want Utah,” he said as he backed out and straightened onto the gravel road that led to the highway. “But I want you, too.”
She scooted over on the bench seat until her leg pressed against his. She laid her cheek against his bicep. “So do I get more than three more weeks with you?”
“Yes.” His voice came out rough, like old rust on a dead tractor. “Yes,” he said again, stronger. “I was right when I said I didn’t have to move to Utah right away.” He turned onto the paved highway. “Just gonna have to exercise some of that faith you seem to think I have.”
She laughed and snuggled closer. “Good, because I have a lot of meetings at the church this week.”
Landon fought against the question he wanted to ask. But if he was going to see if this could go somewhere, he should be able to ask her anything. “Megan, why are you trying so hard to set up all the community groups?”
“I like doing it.”
“Why?”
She squirmed next to him. “I like creating….”
He gave her a few moments to finish her thought, but she remained silent.
“You like creating…?”
“Are you always this pushy?”
He chuckled. “I learned from the best, because no. Not usually.”
“Remember how I don’t talk about things I don’t want to?”
“I do remember that.” He shifted in his seat. “I think you should get over that.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I like creating a sense of community. A place for people to belong.” She put an inch between them. “I like taking care of other people.”
Landon nodded, wishing he could pull her back into place next to him. “So follow-up question…Are you taking care of yourself?”
Her silence said it all. He dropped one hand from the steering wheel and put it on her knee. “I think you should do that.”
“What if I don’t know how?”
“Like I don’t know how to use my faith? We’ll figure it out, I think.”
“But we get more than three weeks to figure it out.” She curled both
of her hands around his.
“Right,” he confirmed again. “We get more than three weeks to figure it out.”
21
Landon finished the church by the end of the next week, every day punctuated with being able to see Megan, smell her essential oils, speak with her, and kiss her in the privacy of the new balcony.
“Landon,” she whispered on Friday afternoon after his crew had left.
“Hmm?” He traced his lips along her collarbone, his pulse galloping like a herd of wild horses. How he’d thought he could go to Utah without her was a mystery to him. He pressed his lips to the hollow of her neck, then the spot just below her ear. She usually arched into him and slid her fingers through his hair when he did that.
His cowboy hat had been knocked off long ago, and her nails along his scalp sent shivers down his back. He claimed her mouth, deepening the kiss until he thought sure she’d push him away.
He crossed the line where she usually did, and still she kissed him back. Encouraged by her reaction, he tightened his hold on her waist and slid his hands up her back.
She put a breath of space between them, because that was all he’d give her. “Landon.”
He enjoyed the breathless quality of his name in her voice. Wanted to hear her say it like that all the time, every time he kissed her good-morning and each time he kissed her good-night.
“You have somethin’ to say, sweetheart?” He lighted kisses on her forehead, her cheekbones, her lips. Seconds passed before she resisted him again.
“Your phone keeps ringing.”
“So?” He dipped his head to kiss her again.
“It might be important.” She kept her eyes closed as he kissed each of her eyelids. “It’s been going off for a long time.”
“Don’t care.” He tried to kiss her again.
She giggled and pressed herself into a hug. “Will you just check it and then take me to dinner?” Her breath ticked his earlobe, and he’d do anything she asked if she’d whisper it like that.
He stepped back and pulled his phone from his front pocket. He’d missed eight calls and had just as many texts. All from the same person: Shelly.