by Jeannie Watt
She hadn’t said goodbye.
When he got back to the house he fed Alvin, then disconnected his cell phone from the charger. He dug through his important-papers drawer until he found the business card Madeline had given him a couple days ago, with both her grandmother’s and her assistant’s phone numbers on the back. Which one?
He’d go with the assistant. He entered the number, and a prim male voice answered.
“Is this Connor?” Ty had no idea what the kid’s last name was.
“It is.” Connor whatever-his-last-name-was sounded cautious.
“This is Ty Hopewell. Madeline’s business partner in Nevada?” Ty spoke briskly, matter-of-factly, as if he had no plans to scam the poor guy. “She left for the airport early this morning and I just found something I think she’s going to want. I’ve tried to call, but she’s out of service range.”
“Would you like the mailing address?”
“I’d like to know what time her flight takes off. I may be able to catch her.” He was hoping she was holed up in Reno somewhere and he’d have some time to find her and get a few things off his chest before she jetted out of his life.
“What did she leave behind?” Connor asked warily.
“Her little computer,” Ty said, hoping that a big lie was more believable that a small one.
“Madeline left her netbook?”
“It was at my place. I think she packed the case without looking inside. It’s pretty small and light.”
There was a lengthy pause. Ty swore he could hear his heart beating. “Yeah, I guess I can see that happening,” the kid said.
“I’ll be happy to mail it to her, though.” Ty did a pretty good impression of offhandedness. That seemed to decide the matter.
“I think she’ll want it, if you can get it to her. Her flight leaves at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. It’s a Delta flight.”
“Thanks.”
Okay, that gave him a little time. He dialed Manny Hernandez, the local do-anything guy, and asked if he could feed the next day. Manny agreed, as long as it could be at noon, since he was plowing in the morning.
“No problem,” Ty said, although the cows might not be happy at breakfast being delayed. “I’ll leave a check on the seat of the tractor.”
He hung up and thought for a moment. He’d covered the ranch chores; he knew what time Maddie’s flight left and what airline it was. Now all he needed to do was to find her.
Thank goodness Reno had a smallish airport.
It took Ty exactly half an hour to shower, pack and get into his truck, leaving a dejected Alvin pouting. The collie had plenty of food and a doggy door into the enclosed porch. He was going to have to handle the ranch alone for twenty-four hours.
Ty hadn’t had closure with Skip. He was damned well going to get it with Madeline.
IT WASN’T DIFFICULT to find Madeline at the airport. He simply got there at dawn—feeding time—and waited at the top of the stairs leading to the security gate until she showed up. If anyone had a problem with him loitering there for well over an hour, they never said a word. Christmas carols played in the background, interrupted every now and then by the public service announcements regarding airport safety.
He’d tensed up during the first few songs, but as time went on, he found that he was concentrating so hard on not missing Maddie that the songs that had once given him flashbacks became background noise. He didn’t come close to having to step outside and take a reality break. But Bing Crosby didn’t sing, either. Ty was better, but he wasn’t ready for Bing.As he waited, he considered exactly what he wanted to accomplish with this meeting—better late than never, he figured, because up until now he’d been running on instinct. A public scene? Tears? Acrimony?
No. He wanted to end what they had with some thing more than a note tucked into the door. He might have had his jerk moments, but he deserved more than a note.
Finally, just before seven o’clock, he saw her. She was fighting suitcases, which were strapped to some ridiculous metal rolling frame, onto the escalator.
He waited until she’d pulled the contraption off the escalator before stepping forward and blocking her path.
“Hi, Maddie.”
“Ty.” One single word. Ty. Nothing else. No apology. No explanation. Just wide-eyed guilt.
“I got your note.”
She wheeled her suitcases to the side, getting out of the path of the people trying to leave the escalator.
Her cheeks flushed pink. “I’m sorry for leaving the way I did.”
“Yeah. I figured.”
She inhaled deeply before facing off with him. “So what now, Ty?”
“I imagine you’re going to get on that airplane and fly back home.”
She frowned. “So you came all this way…”
“To say goodbye.”
Her lips parted for a moment and her frown deepened.
“I never got to say goodbye to Skip,” he continued in a low voice. “I wanted to say goodbye to you.”
“Goodbye?” she asked warily.
“See? Wasn’t that easy?” He leaned forward and planted a kiss on the smooth skin of her cheek. “Goodbye, Madeline.”
He was halfway down the escalator when Bing started to croon, “It came upon a midnight clear…”
Ty barely noticed.
MADELINE WAITED UNTIL she hefted her bag off the other side of the security X-ray belt before glancing over her shoulder. Ty was really gone.
Coming after her to say goodbye was quite an effective way of showing exactly how insensitive she’d been, taking off in the early hours of the morning without a word. She’d convinced herself that it was the best thing to do—easier on both of them, since she’d so obviously kicked him in the teeth the night before.She was wrong. It had been cowardly, and she was ashamed of both her behavior and her attempt to justify it to herself. But regardless of how poorly she’d handled the situation, their two worlds were not going to mesh. It would be more like worlds colliding. The matter was done; it had to be done, because there was no place for it to go.
So why the heck did it feel so much like unfinished business?
Madeline tried to fall asleep as soon as the plane took off, since she hadn’t slept much the night before, but no luck. Her seatmate wanted to talk, about grandkids, weddings, her neighbors. Madeline endured politely until she changed planes in Chicago, but by that time she was too wired to sleep.
Connor met her at the airport ten minutes late, wearing pressed khaki pants and a Barbour overcoat, the blond cowlick at the back of his head sticking up as if he’d been running his hand over his hair. Late and dressed up?
“Christmas shopping,” he explained. “I’m helping out some of Eileen’s friends.”
“That’s sweet, Connor.”
He nodded, looking blatantly uncomfortable, and she didn’t think it had anything to do with Christmas shopping.
“What?” she prompted.
“Did you get your netbook?”
“My what?”
“I thought so.”
“What?” Madeline asked again.
“I fell for that cowboy-rancher guy’s ruse. He called to find out what flight you were on, and it was only later that I started to get suspicious.”
Well, that explained how he knew what staircase to stake out.
“It’s all right,” Madeline said, patting Connor’s arm as they went outside. The air was moister in New York. Moister and colder.
“But—” he began to protest.
“No, really. It’s fine. He just wanted to say goodbye.”
Rip her heart out and say goodbye.
MADELINE WAS SO GLAD to see her grandmother, to catch up on family news, to pretend she hadn’t just done the most cowardly thing she could ever remember doing—leaving Ty the way she had. She was glad to slip back into a life where she was grounded and knew what to expect. Glad she had family.
They visited Skip’s grave together on Christmas Eve, then went to ser
vices immediately after. That evening Connor joined them for the raucous Christmas party at the retirement community. Several of her cousins were there, and Madeline spent a lot of time as the center of attention, answering questions about the ranch, which, quite frankly, she didn’t even want to think about. The experience had left her raw and off-kilter.As she ducked a kiss under the mistletoe from her grandmother’s inebriated friend, Mr. Carlton, a retired geophysicist, she thought about Ty. How was he spending Christmas? Alone, as he planned? The thought made her ache.
Hell, everything made her ache, and now she was cursing on the east side of the Mississippi. In her head, anyway.
Yes, she’d known she would miss him, but not to this degree. Hurt as it might, she couldn’t allow emotions to overcome logic. She’d spent years—decades really—building a stable, sensible existence that didn’t transplant well. Not much call for an anthropology professor in the rural West. She had a home, family, a job…maybe…here. Everything she needed was here. Except for Ty. But that need would fade.
She couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if it didn’t.
“Are you sure you don’t want to play?” Connor called from over at the kitchen table, where two of the cousins, plus a retired botanist and another anthropologist, were gearing up for a game of Risk.
“No, thank you,” Madeline called, and Connor made an exaggeratedly perplexed face. She usually did enjoy conquering the world, but not tonight. She could barely handle her own life tonight.
So, while Connor’s group was happily destroying each other’s armies in the dining area, and everyone else was gathered near the food, noshing, Madeline sat on the sofa with Eileen. She sipped red wine that had no effect on her whatsoever, and filled in her grandmother about the operation of the ranch. It was a conversation she hadn’t been looking forward to, and this seemed a good opportunity to get it over with—while there was a bottle of disappointingly ineffective wine nearby.
“I have the figures and the, uh, calendar to show you next time I come.”
“Have you made a decision about selling?” Eileen asked when Madeline was done explaining the general operations.
“I have,” she said. “For now I want to leave things the way they are.” She owed Ty that much.
“So you trust Mr. Hopewell now?”
“Yes,” she replied, staring into the propane fire. She couldn’t find words to explain to her grandmother the complicated relationship between her and Ty. “I learned a lot at the ranch.” The irony of the words made it hard to say them with a straight face. “Enough to know he’s running a decent operation in a tough market.”
“You seem distracted since returning. I thought perhaps your time at the ranch had been unpleasant.”
Madeline pulled her gaze away from the bluish flames to meet her grandmother’s gaze, and said sincerely, “It’s the season, Grandma. And the upcoming hearings.”
Nothing to do with being heartsick about how she’d led a decent guy on, only to dump him on his butt.
She gave her grandmother what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Once I get the hearings over with, I’ll be fine.”
THE HEARING HAD BEEN postponed. Ten days. It was legal according to the university policy manual, and it was also a deliberate move by Dr. Mann in her capacity as department head, to make sure Madeline wouldn’t be able to start spring classes. Madeline was certain of it, and she told Everett her theory when they met for lunch on the day the hearing had originally been scheduled for.
“I agree,” he said matter-of-factly, sipping a glass of zinfandel. Madeline wondered idly what Amuma might do to him. Everett was always under control, and he was one of the few men Madeline knew who could make a receding hairline look sexy. Something about the easy confidence in his very blue eyes…even though she rather preferred dark eyes now. “But we’ll get you reinstated.”“When?” she asked grimly. She pushed her quiche around her plate. Lunch was a bad idea, even if Everett was paying and not billing her for it. “I guess this is what happens when you tell the department head that her policies are shortchanging the students who are paying for an education.
“Bring in more funding to the department and you can say whatever you like.” Everett, who had years of experience handling academic misconduct cases, had discussed this with her more than once. Besides being a thorn in Dr. Mann’s side, Madeline didn’t bring in funding. Her career was too new and she spent more time teaching than researching. Jensen brought tons of grant funding into the department, so of course Dr. Mann wanted Madeline to take the fall. After that, Dr. Jensen could be reprimanded for academic negligence—for not double-checking those pesky permissions—and everything would be fine in the anthropology department. Unless your name was Madeline Blaine.
“Eat, Madeline. You don’t want to look gaunt and worried at the hearing.”
“Fine. I’ll eat,” she said, scooping some of the side salad onto her fork. “But you know what?” She made a small circle with her fork after popping the lettuce in her mouth. “It isn’t so much starting classes that bugs me…it’s being played. I hate that they’re doing this not in the name of finding out what really happened, but because they’re trying to get things back to the status quo with as little impact to Dr. Jensen as possible.”
“This is academia, Madeline. You know the game.”
And maybe that was what she hated. The unspoken rules of the game. He who brought in funding was much more important than she who actually taught—which, unless Madeline was sadly mistaken, was one of the purposes of a college. To teach.
“I don’t know that I want to keep playing by their rules.”
Everett set his glass down on the table. “Who are you?” He smiled as he said it, but he did look slightly mystified.
“Okay. Maybe I don’t want to keep playing by their rules.”
The lawyer settled back in his chair, reaching once more for this glass as he studied her. “Now you sound more like yourself.”
If only she felt like herself.
What was happening to her? Had she lost her focus? Her drive? The stuff that made her so uniquely her?
An hour later she unlocked the door to her apartment and went inside, where she flipped a switch and, ta-da! The lights came on.
No noise, no breakdowns, no fuel. So easy.
For almost a week after coming back from the ranch, she’d forgotten to turn on the lights when she entered a room. Progress.
She barely finished putting away the groceries when her phone rang. A Nevada number. Her heartbeat raced.
Oh, dear heavens. It was him.
“Ty. Hello.” Her heart was thudding so hard it was difficult to say hello in a normal voice.
“Hi, Madeline.” He paused ever so briefly, then said, “I’m calling because I want to make an offer on your half of the ranch.”
Madeline nearly dropped the phone. “How…?” And then she realized “how” was really none of her business. If he’d gotten financing, then he had. She moistened her lips. “This is a surprise.”
“No doubt,” he said coolly. “I can email the offer for you to look over, then you can get back to me.”
“All right,” she said numbly. Impulsively, she added, “How’ve you been?”
The silence that followed her question was significant. Oh, yeah, she’d given up all rights to answers to personal questions when she’d walked out on him. But she stubbornly waited for a response.
“I’ve been fine.”
“Alvin?”
“He’s also fine.”
“Sling Cow?”
“Back in the herd.”
“That’s good news,” Madeline said, forcing a note of enthusiasm into her voice, trying to hear a hint of the old Ty.
“Yeah. Well, if you’d look over the offer, I’d appreciate it. I talked to Kira and she’ll handle the legal aspects of title transfer, etcetera.”
“Sounds like you’ve got the ball rolling.”
“I have. I’ll email you a pdf
copy of the papers as soon as I hang up.”
Madeline closed her eyes, unexpectedly disappointed by his businesslike manner. He hadn’t even asked about the hearings. She had truly burned her bridges with Ty.
TY HUNG UP THE PHONE. Mission accomplished, and he hadn’t given in to Maddie’s awkward attempts at burying the hatchet. He knew what she was doing, trying to bring things back to a friendly level, and he’d probably been a jerk not to play along. But he didn’t want a friendship with her just now. Didn’t know if he could handle it, so he wasn’t going to try.
He went to his kitchen window and stared out over his pastures, watched his cattle eat. The ranch had given him a reason for being for almost two years. Until Madeline.So here he was. Working on forgiving himself and making some headway. He still had moments, but he made it through the holiday season without going into a black funk. He’d even gone to church on Christmas, figuring that was the easiest way to ease back into the community. After the services, he’d stopped at the bar for a drink and people had been…accepting. Not pushy or overly friendly. He’d come close to enjoying himself.
The phone rang in his pocket and he checked the number before picking it up. His dad. Ty had called both his parents on Christmas, and, surprisingly, his father had offered the financial assistance he hadn’t been able to extend two years ago. It seemed that selling his wife’s house in California had left Ty’s dad with a healthy profit—and a deep need to invest in property to avoid taxes.
So now Ty had a way out of owing Madeline, of being tied to her through business and through Skip’s legacy.
The place would be his alone. All Madeline had to do was agree. He saw no reason why she wouldn’t.
He only wished the thought wasn’t so damned depressing.
“THERE ARE SO MANY choices.” Eileen studied the headphone display for a moment before picking up a pair of noise-canceling Bose. She’d finally agreed to try an iPod, primarily because Connor had bought her one for Christmas and now the search for Madeline’s present—acceptable headphones—was on.