Winter at Mustang Ridge (26 page)

Instead, he turned and came back toward her, tail wagging.

Damn, damn, damn
. Eyes stinging, she crossed to him, crouched down, and wrapped her arms around his ruff. “You’re a good boy.” Her words were muffled by his fur. “I love you.”

He wriggled and whined, simultaneously trying to lick her face and offer her all his itchy spots. And when she walked over and patted the back deck of the minivan, and said, “Come on, buddy. Back where you belong,” he hopped up, did his two and a half turns, and sank down with a happy sigh, as if all was right with his world.

Well, that made one of them.

Feeling like it was tearing holes in her lungs to breathe, Jenny kissed the top of his head and backed away. “Bye, buddy. Be a good dog.”

His tail thumped.
I’m a Good Dog!

Miranda closed the hatchback, turned to Jenny, and gave her a big hug. “Thank you,” she whispered fiercely. “You don’t know how much this means to them.”

Jenny didn’t argue that one. She just drew away and nodded. “Have a safe trip.” She wanted to tell the woman—this stranger who was taking her Rex away—that he liked his kibble slightly moist and his cookies fresh out of the oven, but she didn’t. He was going back to his old life, his old routine.

So instead, she raised a hand in farewell, and watched as Miranda drove the stuffed-full minivan up the hill leading away from Mustang Ridge.

When the vehicle crested the ridge and disappeared, the silence was deafening.

Swallowing hard, Jenny dug her nails into her palms.

Finally, Gran said, “Have you talked to Nick?”

Ouch
. “No.”

“You should call him.”

“We broke up.” She heard a chorus of indrawn breaths, felt the change in the air. “And, no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Baby . . .” That was her mother, voice full of the sympathy she couldn’t bear right now.

She held up a hand. “I’m okay. Really.” Or she would be, anyway. Eventually.

The sound of an engine came from the main road, growing stronger.

Jenny wheeled around. Had Miranda changed her mind? Had Rex barfed so grandly in the minivan that she wanted to delay things?

But it wasn’t the minivan. It was the Vetmobile.

Any remaining warmth in Jenny’s veins went cool, and from there to a faint churn of nausea as Nick parked and killed the engine. When the driver’s door swung open and he emerged, the others melted away, with her father saying, “We’ll be inside. Give you two some privacy.”

She wanted to tell them not to bother, that she didn’t have anything more to say to Nick. But the words froze in her throat as he approached.

The sunlight picked out the burnished highlights in his hair and the shadows showed in his eyes, which were filled with grief, regret, and the sympathy she had managed to resist coming from the others. She couldn’t resist him, though. Not even now.

When his arms opened, she walked straight into them. When his grip closed on her, she burrowed into the familiar space and scent, the safe place. And when he whispered, “I’m sorry, Jenny. I’m so damn sorry he’s gone,” she burst into tears.

He had been there at the beginning with Rex, so it seemed only right that he was there at the end.

She dug her fingers into his parka and buried her face against his throat, sobbing because everything
hurt
, deep down inside. She didn’t know how much of the pain was from him, how much from Rex, and how much from the growing realization that she couldn’t have everything she wanted, not this time. And that when she left, she would be leaving part of herself behind.

The sobs racked her body, tore at her throat, and twisted her stomach. But Nick just held on to her, stroking her hair and murmuring things like “Easy, there” and “Just breathe” like she was a terrified puppy getting its first shots.

It worked, though. Little by little the great, gulping tears eased and her breathing settled. Her body relaxed some, so the aches overtook the tight spots and she became conscious of a crushing exhaustion. Not so much one that made her want to go to sleep, but rather made her want to pretend that she didn’t exist for an hour or two. Maybe longer. She let go of his coat and patted down the crumpled places. “Thanks. I, uh . . . I guess I needed that.”

“No problem.”

Then, as though she hadn’t spent the last ten minutes clinging to him and soaking his jacket, she stepped back and looked up at him. “What are you doing here?”

A corner of his mouth kicked up, but his dimples stayed hidden, his eyes dark with regret. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Define okay.” There was nothing okay about any of this.

“Yeah. That was about what I figured.”

With the first rush of desperate emotion past, the other stuff filtered back in, making her take another big step away from him and draw her coat tighter around her body. “Well, thanks for coming.” Sort of. She wasn’t sure if seeing him again had made things better or worse.

He cleared his throat. “Do you want to get out of here? Go for a drive or something? Might be better than being around all the memories right now.”

A disbelieving laugh tore at her throat. “No offense, but driving around with you doesn’t count as avoiding memories.” Was it really so easy for him to drop back into the friend zone, or wherever he was? Well, good for him, but she wasn’t playing along. “In fact, thanks for coming by—truly—but I think you should go now.”

He studied her for a moment, expression shuttered. Then he nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

No, you idiot! I want you to hold me while I cry. I want you to tell me over and over again that it’s going to be okay, that those kids love Rex and they’re going to take the very best care of him. And I want you to admit that what happened between us was more than you expected, too. I want you to want me enough to take a stab at staying together, even if it means months of phone sex and Skype. I want
you
, damn it!

Balling her hands at her sides, she repeated, “You should go.” As an afterthought, she added, “Give Cheesepuff a pepperoni from me, will you?” And oh, how it hurt to know she probably wouldn’t see him again.

Nick hesitated, turning toward her as if he were going to hug her again, or go in for a good-bye kiss. But he didn’t. “Okay. But call me if you need anything, Jenny. I mean it. Anything.”

“I will,” she said, but they both knew he didn’t mean the offer any more than she meant the acceptance—because what she needed from him wasn’t something he was willing to give.

She told herself not to watch him walk away, but she did it anyway, even knowing that the others were no doubt spying from the house, both grieving for Rex and debating what they should do to help her. Sure enough, as the Vetmobile disappeared over the hill, her phone rang, Krista’s name flashing on the display.

Jenny answered. “Hey, there. I take it you’ve been briefed?” She was proud that her voice was only a little ragged, the tears barricaded deep inside.

“There’s a ten thirty flight tomorrow out of Laramie. A quick hop to Denver, and you’re on your way south.”

Oh, damn. There went the tears. “I can’t bail on you.”

“You’re not. You’re being good to yourself. And, besides, Mom can cover the last few days. You can be in Belize City in time for a late dinner, back at base camp the day after that.”

Base camp
. The words made Jenny yearn for humid warmth, the color green, and a camera to hide behind. “I wanted to see you, and hear all about the fruity drinks and pool boys.” She tried to keep it light, but the tears made hot tracks down her cheeks. “I can stay, really.”

“Another time. Maybe I’ll even come down and visit you. How does that sound?” Krista’s voice went wry. “With Mom in the office, time off won’t just be an option, it’ll be a necessity.” She paused. “Want me to book your ticket?”

Jenny looked around the cold, white world and felt her heart break. She didn’t want to leave, not like this. Not really at all. She wanted to turn time back a week or two, to one of the many mornings she had awakened in Nick’s arms, roused by Cheesepuff’s insistent “Mmrph?” and treated to Rex’s infectious joy.
You’re awake. Yippee!

“Book the ticket,” she said, and felt her heart rip cleanly in two. “I need to get out of here.”

T
he next morning, Nick headed for his father’s cabin before dawn, on the theory that if the drive didn’t help him work out the mental kinks, a few hours of ice fishing—a mind- and body-numbing hobby if ever there was one—should do the trick.

The cabin was empty when he arrived, but he followed the well-worn path down to the lake, where a thin tendril of smoke threaded from the pipe of his old man’s fishing shack, and Molly lay on a big woven mat in front of the door. Her head came up as he approached, her lips rippling in a silent growl.

“I’m a friend, remember?” He debated pulling off a glove and letting her sniff his hand, but didn’t like the look in her eyes and preferred his hand attached to his wrist. Stopping a safe distance away, he called, “Dad? You want to tell your wolf that I’m a-ok?”

The door swung open. “Nick? That you?”

“You got anyone else likely to call you Dad?”

“Come in, come in. Molly, let him through. He’s a friend.”

The big wolf-dog immediately plopped her head back down and gave a couple of tail thumps.

“Oh, fine. He’s the only one who gets to do the friend password, huh?”

Her unimpressed look said
Yeah. Pretty much
.

“Good dog.” Nick stepped over her, careful not to slip on the ice, because he wasn’t sure her benevolence would extend to being sat on. He was having a bad enough day and didn’t need a bite in the ass to cap things off.

The fishing cabin was roughly the size and shape of a two-hole outhouse, with a pair of folding chairs, a potbelly stove up on a platform in one corner and a couple of shelves on the opposite wall that held snacks, bait, and beer. An auger and a chainsaw sat below the shelves, their handiwork evident in the vaguely oval-shaped hole that had been punched through the foot-thick ice. The air smelled of coffee and fish, and his father had returned to his chair to take up position next to the line he had dangling in the dark, cold water. He had his eyes on Nick, though. When their gazes connected, he said, “You want to talk about it?”

“Can’t a guy just drive up to see his father on his day off?”

“Sure, but why would he want to, when he’s got a lovely woman in his bed?”

“Yeah. That.” Nick scowled at the far shore.

“You and Jenny having problems?”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh?”

“We broke up.”

Instead of sympathy, he got a scowl. “Why the hell did you go and do a fool thing like that?”

“It was going to be over in a few days anyway.”

“How so?”

“She’s got a career, Dad. This was only a vacation for her.” Sort of. “She’ll be back down south by next week.”

“So? You’ve got a computer. And I was reading the other day about this thing called sexting.”

Okay, this was so not helping. “Can we not talk about it right now? I came to fish.”

His old man snorted. “You did not.”

“Give me a flipping pole.”

“I’m using a hand line.”

“That’ll do.” Grimly, Nick fixed on a sinker, baited the hook with a chunk of frozen whatever, and dropped it in, careful not to foul his father’s line. Then he stared at where the line met the water, watching for telltale vibrations.

After a good stretch of chilly silence, his father said, “Coffee?”

“Are you offering me some or putting in your order?”

“Offering. Jeez, you’re touchy.”

“Coffee would be good.” He knocked back his first cup in three deep swallows, got a refill, and sucked back half before he let out a deep, gusty sigh. “Sorry I’m being a prick. She’s hurting, I’m hurting, and the whole situation sucks.”

“So why didn’t you want to keep things going once she left?”

“Do you really need to ask? You were the one who said there was no way I could make it work with Lily.”

“Jenny isn’t Lily.”

“Of course not, but there are more similarities than differences.”

“Are we talking about the women or the situation?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

That earned him a faintly pitying look. “You’re smarter than that, son.”

“Shut up and fish,” Nick said, figuring that would be the end of it. His father had never been big on giving advice in the romance department.

After a few minutes, though, his old man refilled his own coffee, took a sip, and said, “Your mother left me once.”

“She . . .
What?
”

“She left me. We had been married a few years, but she didn’t like Laramie much, or even Wyoming. She missed New England, missed her family, and got it in her head that I should buy into a practice back east. Even found me a couple to choose from.”

Nick stared, not quite comprehending the words that were coming out of his old man’s mouth. “I . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither did I. Wyoming is in my blood, my bones. I didn’t see how I could be happy anywhere else, and I didn’t understand how she could ask me to try. We fought about it, we discussed it, we even tried flipping a coin. But in the end we couldn’t agree—she wanted to go and I wanted to stay. So she went, and I stayed.”

“When was this?”

That got a grin out of his old man. “’Bout ten months before you were born. I lasted two very long weeks before I realized this was more about my pride than anything. So I sucked it up and hopped on a plane.” His teeth flashed. “Got there just as she finished packing to come home, having decided that home wasn’t home unless we were together.”

“In Wyoming.”

“That was how it wound up, sure, but I would’ve stayed there if she had wanted to. The other stuff just didn’t matter if she wasn’t there.” He glanced over. “That’s what I’ve been working on lately, figuring out how to make the other stuff matter without your mother in the picture.”

Nick did some of his own staring into the water, but then shook his head. “You guys were already married. Jenny and I are just getting to know each other.”

“So what’s the harm in continuing the process?” His father wiggled the line experimentally. “Or, to put it another way, what’s the worst that could happen? If the two of you stay in touch and things go sour in a couple of weeks or months, is breaking up then really going to be any worse than what you’re going through now?”

Jenny had asked him something similar and he hadn’t answered her, mostly because his gut said that it would be far worse in a few weeks or months, but his head wasn’t entirely sure why. Now, though, having slept on it, he was able to say, “What we’ve had together here worked perfectly because we both knew that it was just a short-term thing. It was easy.”

“Look, you lost your mom, Lily, and your old life all within a few months of each other. It’s only natural that you’re going to want to be a little careful putting yourself out there again. But if you don’t ever try, you’re going to wind up growing old alone.” His father made a pained face. “With a cat.”

“What’s wrong with falling for someone who wants to marry the local vet and live happily ever after above the clinic?”

“Absolutely nothing. Didn’t you say Ruth wanted to set you up with some locals?”

“Not interested,” Nick said flatly.

“Exactly. You might like small towns, son, but you’re not a small-town boy. That’s not saying you couldn’t find someone else to love, but in my experience, the kind of connection you and Jenny share isn’t something that comes along every day. I think you need to give it some credit, because the way I see it, Lily liked the adventure better with you in it. What if it turns out that Jenny likes you better than the adventure?”

Yeah, but what if she doesn’t?
The thought was instinctive, and came from deep inside, along with a sharp stab of the hurt he’d taken to bed with him, the one he’d awakened with. The one that said he just plain wasn’t
enough
for her.

But that was Lily talking, not Jenny.

Jenny loved his country-vet lifestyle, his zip-tied end table, and his bratty cat. She loved snow days, French Toast, and his mattress-on-a-box-spring bed. Most of all, she loved the guy he was now, not the one he used to be.

At least, she had.

Quivery shock ran through him, then punched him in the gut with the sudden certainty that he was an idiot. An ass. And he was on the verge of throwing away something very special. Yes, the distance thing was an issue. Potentially an insurmountable one. But they wouldn’t ever know if it was solvable unless they tried.

Dropping his handline, he lurched to his feet. “Thanks, Dad. I’ve . . . I gotta get out of here.”

“Go.” His father waved him off. “And don’t step on the wolf!”

•   •   •

By the time Nick rolled through the
WELCOME TO MUSTANG RIDGE
archway a couple of hours later, he still didn’t know what he was going to say to Jenny, but he knew damn well that he wasn’t leaving without seeing her. He got out of the truck and felt a pang at the memory of what had happened here just the day before, and how when he knocked, there wasn’t going to be any skittering claws or a welcoming bark. But while he couldn’t bring Rex back for her, he thought he could make some of the other stuff better. He hoped.

When he knocked, though, and Gran opened the door, her eyebrows rose. “Is something wrong with one of the horses?”

Had he been relegated to just the vet so quickly? He sure hoped this was her way of saying she was on Jenny’s side. “I need to talk to Jenny.”

“Oh, but she already left for the airport!” She glanced over her shoulder at the wall clock. “Her plane takes off in an hour.”

Damn, damn, damn
. There was no way he would make it. But he had to try. “What flight?”

Sixty seconds later, armed with the information, he peeled back out onto the main road while his phone rang through to the cabin. When his father picked up, he skipped the preliminaries and said, “Dad, it’s me. I need a huge favor.”

•   •   •

Jenny’s plane was delayed almost three hours by weather. Normally, that wouldn’t have been a big deal—winter in Wyoming, and all that—but she really wasn’t happy having the extra time to sit and think about everything she was leaving behind.

Not that she regretted the decision—she was dying to get back down south and put her cameras to some serious work, the kind where she didn’t have to think about anything other than the light, the shot, and the action. Her upcoming ten-day trip was seriously going to rock, and being away from Wyoming would be good for her. She would be able to put things into perspective. She hoped.

But the more she sat there, popping Tums and sipping bottled water as the delay edged back yet another half hour and she got close to having to rebook her connection for the second time, she knew—deep down inside, where honesty lived—that this wasn’t like any of the other times she had left home. This time, she wasn’t just heading toward something; she was running away. And this time she was going to desperately miss the people and things she had left behind.

She wasn’t just going to miss Rex and Nick, though those were the two big holes that ate at her gut and had her buying antacids rather than M&Ms at the gift shop opposite her gate. She was also going to miss her parents and grandparents, and she wasn’t going to get to hear all of Krista’s stories from her weeks away. Sure, they would Skype, but it wouldn’t be the same. And she supposed she could keep in touch with Shelby, and maybe even Kitty Cosgrove, but that wouldn’t be the same, either. And, well, yeah, maybe that had been Nick’s point about the futility of trying to keep their relationship going long-distance.

“That doesn’t mean breaking up was the right thing to do.” She said it out loud, even though there wasn’t even a flea poster to talk to. “We could’ve found some kind of a compromise if he had wanted to.”

“Oh, he wants to, all right,” a deep, resonant voice said from directly behind her.

She stiffened, body going hot-cold-hot as footsteps rang on the polished floor and Nick came into view, wearing jeans and a crisp button-down shirt beneath his parka, and his sturdy boots on his feet. It was the luggage that caught her, though, locking her in place.

Over his shoulder was slung the battered knapsack she had seen him wearing in almost all of the Africa photos, and he carried a matching duffel of many-times-washed canvas, wearing faded patches and
MASTERSON
written in big letters in permanent marker. Like he was going somewhere.

She whispered, “What are you doing here?” She didn’t care that her voice shook, considering that she was shaking all over.

“I’m coming with you,” he said simply, then spread his hands away from his body. “That is, if you’ll have me.” It wasn’t quite a question.

“If I . . .” She stopped and closed her eyes.
Don’t freak. Don’t babble.
“What about the clinic?” Krista would kill her if she kidnapped the vet.

“My dad is covering.” He grinned, dimples putting in a brief appearance. “Guess your mom wasn’t the only one ready to come out of retirement.” He set down his duffel and knapsack, sat in the chair she had just vacated, and tugged her down beside him. Turning to face her, he took her hands in his. “I was wrong, Jenny, about so many things.”