“What did Grandpa say?”
“That you guys were gonna get a divorce and I was gonna stay with you. She said he was wrong.” Worry puckered his brow. “He was wrong, wasn’t he?”
Cole bit back a curse. Given what he’d been thinking when he walked in the door, his father hadn’t been that far off—though only about the divorce. Cole didn’t intend to try to keep Jake. Now was not the time to get into that, though.
“When was that?” he asked instead.
Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. What time is it now?”
“After seven. It’s already dark out.”
“I guess it was about four. I went by Grandpa’s after school for a riding lesson, then he brought me home.”
Three hours? Cole thought, his stomach churning. Why on earth wasn’t she back by now? He grabbed Jake’s phone and called his father.
“Is Cassie there?” he demanded when his father answered.
“Cassie? Why would she be here?”
“Jake thought she might be heading over there.”
“Maybe she just wised up and left you.”
Cole let that pass. The most important thing right now was finding Cassie.
“I’m going out to look for her,” he told his father. “If you give a damn about me or my son, you’ll help.”
“Well, of course I will,” his father said defensively. “The snow’s been coming down awhile now. No telling where she might be. Car could have run off the road.”
But when Cole went outside, Cassie’s car was parked behind the house where it always was. He checked the barn and saw that one of their horses was missing.
He looked up and realized Jake had followed him outside. He was shivering just inside the door of the barn.
“Is she gone?” Jake asked, looking as scared as Cole felt.
“She took one of the horses,” he said. “I’m sure she’s fine. She probably took shelter somewhere when the snow started.”
“Why wouldn’t she have turned around and come back?” Jake asked reasonably. “Or gone on to Grandpa’s?”
He hunkered down in front of Jake. “I don’t know, pal. I need you to do something for me, though. I want you to go inside and call nine-one-one. Tell the sheriff we need some help looking for your mom, okay? Can you do that?”
Jake nodded, his eyes wide.
“Then call your grandmother and ask her to come out here and stay with you.”
“I want to come with you,” Jake protested.
“No, this is more important. You can be the biggest help to your mom by calling the sheriff. Now scoot.”
With one last backward glance, Jake took off for the house. Cole saddled their second horse and rode off in the direction of the Double D. If it had had to snow today, why couldn’t it have been earlier so there would be clear hoofprints for him to follow? Instead he was forced to slow down and guess which way she might have gone.
The temperature had dropped dramatically just since he’d gotten home. If Cassie was out here, injured, she wouldn’t be able to last long. The sense of urgency doubled, even as his progress slowed.
“Come on, Cassie. Where are you? Help me. Give me some sign.”
The distant, distressed whinny of a horse finally drew his attention. His own mount’s ears pricked up.
“Is that Harley?” he murmured, and got a shake of a head and an answering whinny as a response. “Find him then. Let’s find Harley.”
The terrain had grown rockier and slicker. His frustration mounted right along with his anxiety. He had to find Cassie. He damn well didn’t intend to lose her like this.
With a sudden rush of understanding, he realized that he couldn’t lose her at all. What did the decision of a scared eighteen-year-old girl matter? If the decision of a twenty-eight-year-old woman was less understandable, even he could see that it had been driven by a fear just as deep-seated as the one she’d felt years before. Who was he to judge that?
All that mattered, all that had ever mattered, was that he loved her and she loved him. Nothing had ever changed that. They’d just lost their way for a while.
Now he had to find her and tell her that.
A heart-wrenching whinny of an animal in pain cut through the air, closer now, just over the rise, if he wasn’t mistaken. He crested the hill and spotted them, horse and woman, both down, both way too still.
“Don’t die, Cassie,” Cole pleaded as he leaped to the ground and knelt beside her. In its own show of concern his horse edged closer to its disabled stable mate. “Dear God, please don’t let her die.”
He checked her carefully for injuries. The only obvious one was her broken arm, but she’d been here a long time. Could it be there was a more serious problem? He debated the wisdom of moving her, but the chances of anyone else coming upon them here were slim and time was essential. She’d already been out in the bitter cold for way too long.
He bundled her in his jacket, then checked the injured horse. “I’ll get someone in here for you in no time,” he vowed, running his hand over the horse’s trembling flank. “You saved her life, you know. You told me how to find her. I’ll do everything in my power to save yours, too.”
Then he gathered Cassie into his arms and mounted his own horse, heading for home as quickly as the weather permitted. She moaned softly while he rode. She was obviously in pain, but she was alive, and for the moment that was all that mattered. Once he got her to a hospital, he would will her back to life.
The next hour was the longest of his entire life as Cassie fought her way back to him. When her eyes finally blinked open, her gaze wandered around until it locked on his.
“I knew you’d find me,” she whispered hoarsely and then closed her eyes again.
The next time she awoke, Cole was asleep in the chair beside her bed. His eyes snapped open when he felt her fingers against his cheek. Her color was better, her eyes clear.
“How do you feel?”
“Alive,” she said. “And grateful. Every time I tried to move, my arm hurt. I kept fainting.”
He sighed when he met her gaze, then did what he’d vowed to do when he thought she might be lost to him forever.
“Good, because I have something to tell you, and I need to do it now, before I lose my courage. If you want your freedom, Cassie, I’ll give it to you. Jake will stay with you.”
She stared at him with an expression he couldn’t read, so he plunged on.
“I didn’t give you a choice about marrying me before, so I’m giving you one now. I love you. I want you to stay, but if you want to go, there will be no custody battle.”
There was no mistaking the sheen of tears in her eyes then, and for an instant he was terrified that his gamble wasn’t going to pay off, that she would go.
“You love me?” she said, and there was a note of wonder in her voice.
He shrugged. “Always have. I guess I always will. I just lost sight of that for a time.” He studied her intently. “So, Cassie, will you go or stay? You can have some time to think about it.”
“I don’t need to think about it, not even for a second.” A smile blossomed on her face, then spread. “Since I think we’re about to have another baby, it looks like I’d better stay.” She rested her hand protectively on her stomach. “Now I can’t wait to know for sure.”
“And if you aren’t pregnant, will you still stay?”
“Yes, of course, because I love you and this family of ours. I was just beginning to wonder if you were ever going to figure out that we all belong together. I’d pretty much concluded that the media had gotten it all wrong all these years, that you weren’t half as smart as they were always writing.”
“I was smart enough to marry you,” he said. “And to keep you.”
She touched his cheek, her eyes shining. “Love me, Cole. Right here, right now.”
He laughed at the urgency in her voice. “Sweetheart, you have a broken arm, bruised ribs. You were half-frozen when I found you.”
“Then
you can warm me up,” she said.
Cole couldn’t resist the invitation. He closed the door to the room, then deliberately turned the lock. Then he nudged her over in the hospital bed until he could sneak in beside her and love her the way she was meant to be loved, with total concentration and finally, at long last, with his whole heart.
EPILOGUE
“Jennifer Davis, what have you been doing? Rolling around in the mud?”
Cassie stared at her four-year-old daughter with dismay. They were having a party in twenty minutes, and Jenny was covered from head to toe in dirt. It was all over her clothes, even in her hair.
“I’ve been baking cakes,” she announced happily. “For Grandma. See.”
Cassie followed the direction of her daughter’s gesture and groaned. There were, indeed, a half dozen “cakes” on the backyard table, each with a candle stuck crookedly into the mud. The vinyl tablecloth was a mess.
“I’m sure Grandma will be thrilled,” she said. “Now get in here and let’s see if we can clean you up.”
Jennifer darted through the door and straight into her daddy’s arms. Cole scooped her up before he realized the condition she and her clothes were in.
“Sweet heaven, now you need a bath, too,” Cassie said. “What am I going to do? The guests should be here any minute. Mother will be mortified if Dr. Foster finds half of her family looking totally disreputable.”
“I don’t think your mother’s going to be all that worried about a little mud. We’re celebrating the fact that she’s just gotten a clean bill of health after five years. She’s a survivor, Cassie. Nothing else matters.” His grin turned wicked. “Besides, I think the doctor is long past being shocked by anything we do. He’s been asking her to marry him for the past four years. Clearly he’s accepted the whole package.”
Cassie still couldn’t get over her mother’s long-distance courtship with the surgeon in Denver who’d saved her life. It was the happiest she’d seen her mom in years.
Of course, she was still declining his proposal for reasons that eluded all of them. Cassie feared it had something to do with her, though her mother flatly refused to talk about it.
“Take your daughter and get cleaned up,” she ordered Cole. “I’ll try to scrub up the picnic table. And if you can pry Jake away from his computer, I’d appreciate it.”
“Don’t spoil my cakes, Mommy,” Jenny pleaded, eyes bright with tears. “They’re for Grandma.”
Cassie sighed and went outside. A few minutes later her mother and Dr. Foster arrived, followed shortly by Frank Davis and the Calamity Janes. No one seemed the slightest bit dismayed by Jenny’s contribution to the food, least of all Cassie’s mother, who seldom took her gaze away from the doctor, anyway.
“They look blissfully happy, don’t they?” Cassie whispered to Cole.
He grinned. “Not as happy as the two of us, but yes, they do look as if they’re in love.”
“Maybe I should give her a nudge, tell her to marry him.”
“She’s a grown woman. I’m sure she knows her own mind. Maybe our news will help.”
She touched his cheek. “It will certainly reassure her that there are no more bumps in the road for us.”
A few minutes later Cole stood and announced a toast. “First to our mom,” he said. “You’ve proved just what a survivor you are.”
He turned to Cassie. “And to my wife, who is about to make me a father again. Family and friends are what life is all about, and I can’t tell you how grateful we all are to be here together today.”
To Cassie’s dismay her mother looked shaken by the news of the new baby. And Dr. Foster’s expression turned resigned. Cassie crossed the yard and confronted her mother.
“Okay, what is it? You’re not sick again, are you?”
“No, of course not,” her mother said at once. She glanced at the man beside her. “It’s just that we were considering getting married.”
“Mom, that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be happier.”
Her mother shook her head. “No, it’s not possible. You’re having another baby. I have to stay. And what Cole said about family. He’s right. We need to be together.”
“Now, Edna—” the surgeon began.
“Don’t,” her mother said sharply, cutting him off. “This is the way it has to be.”
Cassie exchanged a look with the doctor.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Then I guess we’ll just have to go about this another way. I’ve talked to a few people. I can move my practice to Laramie. I’ll be retiring in a few years, anyway, and this will be a good transition. If need be I can go to Denver and consult if something comes up with one of my patients there.”
Cassie watched her mother’s eyes begin to sparkle.
“You would do that?” Edna said to him. “You would give up your life in Denver?”
He nodded. “I’m a lot like your son-in-law. I know a good woman when I find her, and I’ll do whatever it takes to hang on to her.”
Cole joined them then, his gaze questioning. “A happy ending?”
Cassie looked up at him and nodded. “For all of us,” she whispered. “Definitely a happy ending.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for a special sneak peek at
ONE LAST CHANCE
by #1 New York Times bestselling author
Sherryl Woods.
PROLOGUE
Soul-deep weary, Karen walked into the kitchen at midnight, made herself a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table to face the mail. She mentally weighed the usual stack of bills against the intriguing envelope with its fancy calligraphy.
Even if she hadn’t desperately needed a pick-me-up, she would have opted for setting the bills aside. There were always too many of them at the end of the month and not enough money in the bank. It seemed as if she and Caleb might never get their ranch in the black, might never be in a position to hire the extra help that would save them from doing all of the endless, backbreaking work themselves with only two seasonal men to pitch in.
As late as it was, she had just come in from the barn. Caleb was still out there, trying to save a sick calf. Always at the edge of bankruptcy, they couldn’t afford to lose a single animal. She had seen the stress in his face, heard it in the terse, angry words from a man who’d always been quietly thoughtful and even-tempered.
* * *
She pushed all of that aside as she opened the thick vellum envelope, and removed what turned out to be an invitation to her high school reunion in Winding River, Wyoming, a hundred miles away. Immediately the cares of the day slipped aside. She thought of her lifelong friends, the women who had called themselves the Calamity Janes, thanks to their penchant for heartbreak and mischief gone awry.
This was perfect. A few days with her best friends would give her marriage exactly the boost it needed. It would bring some fun back into their lives. Though Caleb was older and hadn’t gone to school with them, he had grown to enjoy their company as much as she did. And because he was the only husband who’d displayed staying power, they fussed over him in a way that both embarrassed and pleased him.
She was still thinking about catching up with Cassie, Gina, Lauren and Emma, when Caleb finally came in. She studied his face and tried to gauge his mood. Wordlessly he opened the refrigerator and took out a beer, slugging it back as if his throat were parched. Finally he glanced at her, then at the envelope she was holding.
“What’s that?”
“An invitation. My high school class is having its reunion in July.” She beamed at him. “Oh, Caleb, it’s going to be such fun. I’m sure Gina, Lauren and the others will come back. There are going to be all sorts of events, a picnic, a dance, plus the town’s annual fireworks on the Fourth.”
* * *
“And how much is all of this going to cost? An arm and a leg, I imagine.”
His tone dulled her enthusiasm. “Not so much. We can manage it.”
He gestured toward the stack of
bills. “We can’t pay the electric bill. The feed and grain bill is two months overdue—and you want to go to a bunch of fool parties? And where exactly would we stay now that your parents have moved? You planning on driving a hundred miles each way every single day? Motels are expensive.”
“We need this,” she insisted stubbornly. “I’ll find us a place to stay.”
“We need to hang on to every single dollar we can get our hands on, or this time next year we’re going to be worrying about a place to live.”
It was a familiar refrain, and it was Caleb’s greatest fear. Karen knew that and she didn’t take it lightly. It wasn’t just a matter of holding on to the ranch he loved, the ranch that had been in his family for three generations. It wasn’t even a matter of pride. It was a matter of keeping the ranch out of the hands of the man he considered his family’s worst enemy.
* * *
Grady Blackhawk had been after the Hanson ranch for years, the entire time Karen had been with Caleb. She couldn’t recall a week that there hadn’t been some communication from him, some sense that he was circling like a vulture waiting for the ranch to collapse under Caleb’s ineptitude. She didn’t fully understand Grady’s motivation, because Caleb had flatly refused to discuss it. He’d just painted him as the devil incarnate and warned Karen time and again against him.
“Caleb, we’re not going to lose the ranch,” she said, clinging to her patience by a thread. “Not to Grady Blackhawk, not to anyone.”
“I wish to hell I were as sure of that as you are. You want to go to your reunion, go, but leave me out of it. I have more important things to do with my time—like keeping a roof over our heads.”
With that he had stormed out of the house, and she hadn’t seen him again until morning.
She let the subject of the reunion drop, and a few days later, looking sheepish, Caleb apologized and handed her a check to pay for all of the events.
“You’re right. We need this. We’ll see all of your friends, maybe dance a little,” he said, giving her a tired but suggestive wink that reminded her that they had fallen in love on a dance floor.
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