By the time Jake got the table into the house and across to the office, he was surprised that Liberty had actually managed to push the large desk up against the wall under the back window. She looked at him as he propped the folded table against the office doorjamb. “Oh, good, you got it in.”
“How did you get the desk moved? It has to weigh a ton.”
“It has coasters under each leg,” she said. “Also, I do some design work, and I move a lot of furniture when I’m staging finished properties. I’m no weakling.”
He nodded. “The phone, did you check it?”
“Dead as a doornail,” he saw her say. “Not that I know how a doornail can die.” She sat down in the computer chair. “I blew it while we were in Cody.”
“What are you talking about?”
She shrugged. “I really needed to call Roger and my parents, but I didn’t even think about it while we had phone service. Roger doesn’t know if I made it here safely or not. And his mother must be going nuts not being able to contact me.”
“His mother?”
She shrugged. “She’s very interested in our wedding, and she needs to check in with me all the time. She emails and texts constantly.”
“Wow, that could be trouble,” he said with a mock frown.
“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “No, not at all. I’m just busy, you know, and I have my own ideas of how I want my wedding to be.”
“Well, the phone might be working soon,” he said.
That was met with her saying, “Or maybe we’ll be snowed in before they get it working again. We won’t be able to reach anyone then.” She stood abruptly. “The snow’s not very deep yet. I’ll drive down to the end of the county road to find a signal and call them.”
He almost thought he’d read that wrong. “You’ll what?”
“That’s where I lost the signal before, and that’s not far. I won’t be long,” she said, and walked out of the office. He followed her to the entry where she was putting on her boots. As she reached for her jacket, she looked up at him. “Just give me your keys for the truck, please.”
“That can’t happen,” he said bluntly, astounded that the person who’d argued he was reckless was thinking of doing something herself that might not end well. “I thought you were all cautious and careful. Now you want to go out in the snow and just hope you make it back?”
She stood and put on her jacket, grinning up at him. “I’m not jumping off a garage roof. I’m going a short distance down the road. I promised my parents and Roger I’d call or text. I don’t want them worried.”
“So you’d rather break an ankle, figuratively speaking, than a promise?”
“I’ve never broken one bone, and I keep my word.” She passed that off. “But never mind, I’ll take my Jeep. It works now.”
He could admit he was rash and daring at times, but she was just plain stubborn and frustrating. He couldn’t let her leave alone, and he wouldn’t. “No, if you’re determined to go, you can drive my truck. It’s been prepped for this kind of weather.”
“That’s why I asked to use it,” she said, and held out her hand to him. “The keys, please?”
He was tired, but he was going for a ride. He put on his jacket and boots, then headed for the door, and he knew she’d be right behind him. She was. He went out and got into the passenger side of the truck, and she slipped in behind the wheel. When she was set with the pillows behind her and her seat belt on, he turned and held out the key fob.
“Couldn’t you have given this to me in the house?” she asked as she started the engine.
“Could have, but I have a bad character flaw,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t suffer fools easily.”
“Fools?” she asked, making sure he could read her lips. “I’m not the one who tried to fly.”
He actually laughed at that. “We’re even,” he said, then he held out his hand. “Give me your phone so you can drive. I’ll watch for the signal.”
“Oh, sure.” She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and handed it to Jake.
Liberty drove slowly as she neared the boulders, which were starting to look like giant snowballs. Jake spoke again. “You’ve never driven in the snow like this, have you?”
She stopped before going onto the county road. “No,” she admitted.
Jake looked down at the phone. “If you have any trouble driving, I’ll take over. I’m feeling fine.”
She tapped his arm, and he glanced at her. “You promised you wouldn’t drive.”
“No, I never promised that.”
As surely as the sun set in the west, Liberty didn’t let up. “It was unstated, but I assumed that you agreed because you admitted you shouldn’t be driving.” She kept those green eyes on him and made no attempt to drive farther.
“I don’t plan on driving before I leave here on my own, and I’ll let you know when that’s going to happen. Now, enough of that.” He wanted to get something straight with Liberty, because he knew it could end up being a battle if he didn’t settle it now. “We have to agree that we’re only going as far as the highway. The snow’s coming down harder, and driving will only get worse. So if there’s still no signal at the highway, we head back. Agreed?” She bit her bottom lip, and he knew she was going to argue. He had to set a hard and fast quitting spot. “Or do we turn around and go back now?”
She hesitated, then she nodded. “Okay, okay.”
He had to be sure. “Okay, what?”
“If there’s no signal by the time we reach the highway, I’ll turn the truck around and come back.”
He wanted to laugh at the touch of frustration in those green eyes. He’d been right to get it settled. Liberty had told him she kept her word, and now she’d given it to him, however reluctantly. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, and turned to look down at her phone.
“No signal,” Jake said when they finally got close to the entrance of the highway. He looked at Liberty as she stopped the truck and reached to take her phone from him.
She looked at the screen for herself. For a moment, he thought she was going to throw the phone out the window. Then she looked up at him. “Shoot, what a failure,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“I guess you had to try.”
“I just don’t want everyone worried about me, you know. Roger and my mom and dad. I hate them being concerned when they don’t have to be.”
“Stop beating yourself up, and let’s turn around and head back,” he said, wanting to stop this conversation right here.
She handed him her phone. “I’ll go closer to the highway where it gets wider and do a U-turn.”
He felt her warmth still trapped in the phone’s plastic cover. As she approached the entrance and started to make the U-turn, Jake saw the signal icon flash. One bar. “Go very slowly as you turn,” he said and kept his eyes on the icon as she inched forward. Another bar appeared. “Stop,” he said as calmly as he could and reached to put on the emergency flashers. “We have two bars. Stay right here and try your calls. I’ll keep my eyes open for any cars coming this way.”
Liberty reached for her phone, then quickly dialed a number. Jake saw the screen flash, then she sat back in the seat and held the phone up about a foot from her face, obviously making a video call. He could almost make out the head and shoulders of the person on the call with her, but the angle distorted it. All he knew was, Liberty was smiling as he turned away to watch the empty highway.
After a few minutes, he was getting uneasy just sitting in the middle of the highway entrance and turned back to Liberty, hoping she was almost finished. But she’d shifted to have her back against the door, and he could see what she was saying. “I really miss you and can’t wait for you to get here.” She paused. “I already have our Christmas tree ready to decorate.”
Jake looked toward the highway again and couldn’t see any cars through the snow in either direction. When Liberty tapped his arm, he thought she was done. She wasn’t. She was holding her phone out with the screen toward him a foot from his face. He looked past it to see her say, “Roger wants to talk to you.”
Jake focused on the screen. Roger was a man with dark eyes, dark hair and a short beard. The expression on his tanned face was serious. “Hi, there,” Jake said.
Roger sat with his back to a long window that showed thin light spreading over a barren landscape “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but I need you to do me a big favor.” Roger didn’t wait for a response. “It sounds remote and rough out there. I need you to watch out for Libby for me. I’ll make it worth your while. Just name your price.”
Jake couldn’t believe the man was actually offering to pay him to babysit Liberty. “I don’t want your money.”
“Good man. Put Libby back on.”
That was that. Jake looked at Liberty, who wasn’t smiling now. She reached for her phone and looked at the screen. “Roger, I told you I’m fine here.” There was a pause, then she nodded. “I know you love me. I love you, and I’ll be okay.”
The man had said something else, and Liberty almost rolled her eyes. “No, I won’t.” A pause, then she said, “Miss you, too. See you soon.”
She finally looked at Jake as she lowered her phone. “I apologize for Roger. He feels bad that I’m here on my own, but his work is so important. My work, laying out a floor plan, isn’t even in the same universe as getting clean water to people to keep them from sickness or death. He’ll get here as soon as he can.”
She was explaining way too much about the man. “Let’s get back to the house,” Jake said. He was nervous just sitting there as the truck collected more and more snow on its surface.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll just text my parents.”
* * *
LIBBY WISHED SHE’D never insisted on driving in the snow to call Roger. If she hadn’t been so distracted by Jake and Sarge when they were making the trip to and from Cody, she would have made the call and maybe it would’ve gone better. Now she felt disappointed and embarrassed that Roger would actually offer money to Jake to look after her.
Roger was still trying to figure out when he could leave to come here, and he wasn’t certain about it at all. On top of that, his mother was anxious to speak to her. He’d asked Libby to make sure she called her soon since she’d been ignoring her emails and texts. Libby had hedged by saying they had to get back to the house. But he’d expect that call to his mother soon. She felt unsettled and not relieved at all to have contacted Roger, and the longer they’d talked, the more uneasy she felt. Things didn’t feel right, and she didn’t have a clue what to do to change that until Roger was with her in person.
Thankfully, Jake was silent all the way back to the house and didn’t mention Roger’s offer while Libby drove and tried to settle her nerves. Wedding jitters. That was it, she decided, but she couldn’t shy away from the fact that the call she’d thought would excite her hadn’t. She didn’t feel reassured after speaking with him and only felt more pressure to please his mother. The call had been rushed and shorter than she’d needed, with nothing she’d hoped for.
The snow was still falling, the wind was growing and daylight was being blotted out. Libby breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the boulders caught in the harsh glare of the headlights. She turned onto the barely visible drive up to the house, then stopped by her snow-topped Jeep. Leaving the truck idling, she turned in her seat toward Jake. “You said we need to put the Jeep and truck into the garage, but what about the packages in the lockbox back there?”
“I’ll get them inside before we go down to the garage.” But he didn’t make a move to get out. “Where did you say your fiancé is now?”
“Western Africa, a village in Mali, below the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Roger’s doing preliminary layouts and plans for a linked water purification system.”
“How long has he been over there?”
“He’d been there three months when he got word of another project in that area that had finally been accepted, so he had to stay longer. Once, he was gone for seven months on-site.”
“Were you two together then?”
“No, I met him two years ago when he came back to Seattle for a major fundraiser. They were moving the foundation offices into a building in the downtown area. I was doing the plans for redesigning and repurposing the existing available spaces to accommodate their needs.”
“So he comes back for business and fundraisers?”
“Yes, of course.” She felt defensive and found herself almost lying when she added, “He’ll be back here for Christmas, then we’ll head to Seattle after the New Year and finalize the plans for our wedding in March.”
“Will he be around for the honeymoon or is he going off to Timbuktu while you worry about calling him?” Jake asked. Even a bit of a smile from him didn’t soften his sarcasm.
She didn’t like what he was saying at all. “I’m sorry Roger was rude to you, but he’s really a very good man, and he’s doing a very good thing for the world. He’s never been to Timbuktu, but if he thought they needed him, he’d be there.”
He studied her intently for an uncomfortable moment, then seemed to shrug it off. “Sorry, I’m no expert on relationships at all. I keep my distance, but I just get the feeling that you think what you do is less important than what Roger does.”
She answered that quickly. “Roger saves lives.”
She watched him take a deep breath, then he spoke. “I think that what you’re doing with this land, with this ranch, for all the boys who will come here, might just be saving some lives, too,” he said. “Think about the value of your own work.”
With that, he turned away and got out into the wind and snow. She hesitated, his words touching her. She knew the ranch would be important to the kids, but she’d never thought of it as life or death, just a break from their lives for a week in the summer. Then Jake had said that to her. It stunned her that he saw that so clearly and she just now faced it. For some reason her eyes burned with tears. She swiped at her face and got out into the bitter cold. Jake already had the storage box open and was pulling out plastic bags. He handed her several, then picked up the rest and followed her inside.
After the security box was emptied and the bags left in the great room by the Christmas tree, Jake and Libby went back out and drove the vehicles down to the garage and secured them. As they headed back to the house, a fierce gust of wind hit Libby and literally knocked her into Jake. He caught her, making sure she was steady, then shifted his grip on her to put his arm around her shoulders. “Hold on,” he said, and they headed up to the house. He never let go of her as he kept himself between her and the storm, and she felt almost safe in the wind for the first time she could remember.
Finally, they were in the house, out of their jackets and boots, and despite the heat from the furnace, Jake made a new fire in the hearth. Libby curled up in one of the chairs and watched him, his words coming back to her. Roger praised her work, saying how good she was at it, but he’d never suggested he thought the work itself was truly important. In fact, his mother had some idea she’d be working at their foundation after they married. She’d been ignoring that, but now it made her more unsettled.
She had to clear things up with his mother soon, but not over the phone. When she and Roger were back in Seattle, she was going to sit down with Gwyneth and explain what she wanted her wedding to be and what she’d be doing after the marriage. She could compromise on some things, but she wasn’t quitting her job or having half of Seattle at the wedding. She was nervous about that talk, but she had to do it. She would. When Jake stood and turned from the hearth, he looked at her and asked, “What now? It’s been a full day.”
“I think I’ll just s
it here and enjoy the fire for a bit. What’s the altitude here?”
“Five thousand feet, give or take,” he said.
“I usually never think about going to bed this early, but I’ll be ready tonight.”
He moved the chair by her, then he sat down and leaned back. He took his time pushing the sleeves of his black thermal shirt up over his forearms and stretched his feet out in front of him. He finally looked at her again. “About what I said in the car. I just wanted to make sure you know how grateful we all are that you’re doing what you’re doing here. Sometimes life-and-death actions can come in all forms. You’re making a difference you might never know about, but you are.”
Libby was touched by his words. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me. I can only imagine how Roger feels helping so many people with what he does.”
“You’re right. What he does is a good thing that helps many people. But what if one of the boys who comes here for camp finds what he needs to keep going? What if he actually makes a life in this world instead of being written off? How important is that?”
She couldn’t take her eyes off Jake as he spoke, and his words touched her again. She knew from Seth that Jake had been one of those boys who’d made an exceptional life for himself after leaving here. “It would mean everything to me. I hope that happens on some level for every boy who comes out here.”
“That’s what you’re making possible, touching one life at a time with this project. Because of you, kids could be changed forever.”
She knew how things could change the path of a foster child. She knew what it meant to have one gesture from another human being make all the difference. It certainly had for her, and she was where she was now only because of that gesture by her adoptive parents, the Connors. “What happened here that changed you?” she asked, really wanting to know.
He narrowed his eyes as he shifted and rested his hands on his stomach. “Nothing and everything, but it all came down to Sarge and Maggie. They did it one kid at time.” He exhaled. “I was one of those kids, a boy so damaged I was written off by everyone… except Maggie and Sarge. They never gave up. Not once, and they guided me toward a life I’d never dreamed of. That’s what you can do with the camp.”
Harlequin Heartwarming December 2020 Box Set Page 56