The Rancher's Dream

“Exactly.” He grinned. “So. Deal?”

It was her favorite shorthand phrase, one she used when she was sick of debating.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes in that sardonic way he knew so well. He felt his shoulders relax. His good friend Red, who could dandle a baby, cook a gourmet meal and still call baloney when he tried to pull a fast one, was back.

“Deal,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Molly and I have some grocery shopping to do.”

* * *

MONDAY MORNING, CRIMSON went to visit Kevin much earlier than usual. The doctors had moved him to Montrose after the first day, which had been presented as a good sign, and she hoped it really meant there was hope.

Belle Garwood, from over at Bell River Ranch, had offered to keep Molly. Because Belle had a newborn baby herself, Crimson hated to impose often, but today, with the big dinner to prepare, she needed the help.

Though Crimson and Grant had both visited Kevin every day since the accident, they never went at the same time. Crimson had picked up a rental car, which made things easier. Even though going separately involved a tremendous amount of driving, especially now that Kevin was in Montrose, it seemed they both preferred it that way.

The schedule wasn’t something they’d discussed much—beyond casually observing that it made sense to take turns. Tag-teaming covered more ground, they’d said. Alternating visits kept watchful eyes in Kevin’s room more of the time.

Grant went in the daytime, mostly, when one of the hands could drive him to Montrose, piggybacking on some errand for the ranch. Crimson went in the late afternoons or early evenings, because it was easier to get a sitter for Molly. If they accidentally overlapped and ran into each other in the parking lot or in the hospital corridors, they never acknowledged that it was awkward.

It was, though.

At home, at the ranch, they’d been able to move past the geyser of sexual chemistry that had sprung up between them that first morning. They’d managed to settle down, even to recapture most of their old comfortable camaraderie. But at the hospital, with Kevin lying there in the dark loneliness of a coma, the memory of that moment seemed to hang over them like a fog of guilt.

This morning the large Montrose hospital was bustling with the usual flurry of early activity. Crimson had bought a colorful balloon to brighten up Kevin’s room, and it bobbed foolishly beside her as she walked past the nurses’ station.

“Cute.” The RN standing at a cart dispensing medications into small cups grinned as she went by. “He’ll love it.”

Crimson smiled back gratefully. She loved the positive energy these wonderful ladies gave off. All of them talked to Kevin as if he could hear them perfectly, so Crimson did the same—even though she didn’t always know exactly what to say.

So many topics were off-limits. Topics like how, just before the accident, she had been on the verge of “breaking up” with him, or whatever you called it when the relationship hadn’t ever quite gotten off the ground in the first place.

You couldn’t Dear John someone in a coma. The fact that Crimson was caught in a romantic no-man’s land was nothing—less than nothing—compared to the trap that held Kevin prisoner in this helpless half-life.

The door to his room stood halfway open, so she pushed lightly and entered, her smile still in place in case, miraculously, he’d opened his eyes and could see it. But he looked exactly the same as he had yesterday. Immobile and terrifyingly remote, as if some tether had been cut, and with every day he drifted farther away from the rest of them.

“I brought you a Donald Duck balloon,” she said brightly, arranging the little cylindrical weight on the windowsill. She tied a bow in the string so the balloon wafted softly at eye level.

“I know you’ll start doing your oh boy, oh boy, oh boy impersonation as soon as you see it.” She pulled the guest chair closer to the bed, sat down and laid her hand lightly on his arm. “But you know what? I’ll be so glad you’re awake I won’t even complain.”

He didn’t respond, of course. The IV continued to plink, and the monitor kept up its electronic hum and rhythmic beep. From just outside the door, voices and footsteps rolled down the hall like waves of energy. But Kevin was utterly silent.

“I wish you could have seen Molly this morning,” she said, refusing to let herself be discouraged. “That front tooth has finally broken through, and she smiles all the time, as if she’s showing it off.”

More silence. But Molly was the one subject Crimson felt comfortable with. No matter how complicated everything else might be, she was certain Kevin would want to know his little girl was all right.

“She’s sleeping better, too. I got one of those teething rings Grant suggested—” She broke off. Just mentioning Grant’s name made her nervous. She didn’t want Kevin to feel he’d been displaced as Molly’s daddy...that she and Grant were the parents now. Even worse, what if some of her new feelings about Grant came through in her voice?

She imagined, sometimes, that even the way she said the syllable was different now. Huskier, leaden with tension and repressed emotions.

“Anyhow, I think there’s less pain once the tooth cuts through. She seems much more cheerful now. And boy, is she eating! When I bought diapers yesterday, I had to get the next size up.”

She chuckled, but the sound echoed eerily in the quiet room, and it felt out of place, like laughing in a church. She wondered why it didn’t sound that way when the nurses did it. Probably because, when a nurse was in here, she didn’t feel so alone.

She didn’t feel so out of her depth.

“Oh! I took a video this morning.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through her pictures until she got to the right one. She pulled it up, hit Play and held the phone in front of Kevin’s face, as if that made sense. As if he might just open his eyes and say, “A video! Great!”

On the phone’s small screen, Molly waved her hands, grinned and let loose peals of giggles and hiccupping laughter. Occasionally, Crimson’s thumb had covered the lens as she struggled to hold the phone out and the baby up simultaneously. It didn’t matter, though. Because of course Kevin did not wake, did not open his eyes, did not show any signs of being happy to hear his baby’s voice.

“Say, I love you, Daddy!” Crimson sounded like a cheerleader, urging Molly. “Say, come home soon, Daddy!”

And then...at the very moment Crimson said, “Come home soon, Daddy,” Kevin’s finger twitched. Crimson dropped the phone to her lap, staring at his hand. Her heart beat rapidly.

Do it again, she willed him. Do it again.

The light in the room changed as the door opened. Crimson looked up, her heart still pounding in her throat. It was Kevin’s new doctor, Elaine Schilling.

“He moved his hand!” Crimson didn’t leave Kevin’s side, didn’t let go of his arm, but she leaned toward the doctor eagerly. Her voice was tight and thin. “I was playing a video for him—a video of his daughter—and his finger moved. I’m sure of it!”

Dr. Schilling paused as she reached into her pocket to pull out the little light she used to check pupil response, an important indicator, Crimson had learned.

“Well...” The woman’s hazel eyes were kind, but her thin, austere face didn’t catch any of Crimson’s eager enthusiasm. “It’s certainly possible. But we must remember a person in Mr. Ellison’s condition may exhibit reflex activities that mimic conscious activities. It’s wise not to read too much into it.”

Crimson stared stupidly, as if she couldn’t understand the doctor’s terminology. But she did understand. It was simple enough. Dr. Schilling was saying the twitch was just some involuntary misfiring of a neuron. She was saying it probably didn’t mean anything, and Crimson shouldn’t hope for a miracle.

But Crimson was hoping. She had to hope. Who could survive without hope?

She couldn’t. She remembered how—almost fourteen months ago, just barely more than a year—she’d kept diving down into the cold, black water of the Indigo River, looking for Clover, telling herself it wasn’t too late. If a passing stranger hadn’t seen her there and jumped in to drag her to shore, she’d have drowned alongside her sister.

In many ways, drowning would have been better than giving up. She couldn’t remember the man’s face, but she’d never forget his voice, saying, “You have to stop now. She’s gone.” The words had fallen on her skin like razor blades.

So she had to keep hoping. She wanted to tell the doctor that, but she didn’t know how to begin. She let her hand fall into her lap. She must have bumped the Play arrow, because suddenly Molly began to laugh again as Crimson again implored her to tell her Daddy to come home soon.

The doctor frowned, a stern but compassionate expression. She clearly thought Crimson had restarted the video deliberately, hoping to prove her point. She hadn’t—truly she hadn’t—but she couldn’t help staring at Kevin’s hand all the same. Maybe...

But this time Kevin lay as still as a wax mannequin.

And suddenly, Crimson’s eyes began to burn. They stung fiercely, as if they’d caught fire from the inside. Was it possible he’d never wake up? That he’d never go home to his baby girl?

As she stared at that lifeless hand, scalding tears spilled over. She bent her head, and the tears fell against Kevin’s skin. He showed no awareness of that, either.

Embarrassed, Crimson stood. The doctor needed to tend to her patient. Crimson was in the way here. She was making a fool of herself. She turned, but she could barely see which direction to walk. Everything was fractured by her tears.

As if she’d called for him, Grant was somehow there. He put his arm around her shoulders and murmured her name. She looked up at him, and even though his face was blurred, she felt a powerful magnetic pull, as if his shoulder was the only place in the world she could rest her head safely right now. The only place she could let these tears fall in peace, without feeling ridiculous or weak. Without exposing all the secrets she’d been hiding for so long.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said gently. His arm steered her toward the door. “Let me take you home.”

She followed him out. But as they exited the dim room and emerged into the bright light of the hospital corridor, all she could think was...

If Kevin actually could still hear, how did it make him feel to hear his best friend call Crimson sweetheart?

CHAPTER FIVE

“I MUST SAY, Campbell, you are a lucky man.” Stefan Hopler shoved his hands into the pockets of his elegant linen khakis as they slowly strolled back to the ranch house from the stables, a full moon lighting their way almost as clearly as high noon.

Grant wondered what Hopler meant exactly—if he meant anything at all. Was it just flattery—to soften him up for bargaining over the horse?

Somehow he didn’t think so. The man’s tone sounded genuine.

And why shouldn’t it be? Hopler didn’t know anything about Grant’s history—he knew nothing about his dead wife, Brenda, or the little girl they’d once had...Jeannie.

Hopler didn’t even know that Grant hadn’t always been a rancher, that once, like Kevin, he’d been a young, ambitious lawyer—and that the career dream had died along with his family.

All Hopler knew was what he’d seen here today. The beautiful acreage of Campbell Ranch, greened by the rain and bejeweled with wildflowers. The renovated stables, the well-trained staff. The extraordinary filly who exuded star power as Barley put her through her paces.

All of that did, indeed, make Grant a lucky man. Even so, he had an irritable feeling Hopler wasn’t talking about any of those things. He’d bet good money Hopler was talking about the gorgeous woman who had just cooked them a gourmet dinner.

Hopler’s date, Elsa, hadn’t made the trip from California with him, after all. In fact, Hopler had broadly hinted that his couple days were over. And Elsa’s absence meant he felt free to compliment Crimson effusively on everything from the Stroganoff to her perfume.

The flirting had been so thick it irritated the heck out of Grant. He’d had to bite his tongue a couple of times to avoid reminding Hopler that he was there to buy a horse, not a girlfriend.

Not that the compliments weren’t deserved. Crimson hadn’t been kidding about giving the man a meal he wouldn’t forget. The food had been almost mystically delicious...and, beyond all that, she had presided over his table with so much wit and charm that by the time she offered them dessert, even Hopler, who was clearly a ladies’ man, had looked a little dazed.

“Thanks,” Grant said now, trying not to sound as tight-lipped as he felt. They’d left Crimson in the ranch house cleaning up after dinner while they walked out to give Hopler one last look at Dawn. He was pretty sure Hopler was ready to close the deal, and he was determined not to spoil it now. “The ranch is a lot of work, but I love it.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean the ranch,” Hopler said, smiling. “No, no, the property is beautiful and your horses are beautiful. But your real treasure is your woman. Is it serious between you?”

For a minute, Grant wanted to say yes. Hell, yes. So back off. He had an irrational urge to stake a Private Property sign on Crimson.

But he remembered her tears, streaming down her cheeks unchecked as she sat vigil beside Kevin’s hospital bed this morning. She was private property, all right. But not his. The Keep Out sign applied to Grant every bit as much as it applied to Hopler.

Besides, she wasn’t the easy-fling type—and Grant didn’t have anything else to offer a woman. His heart had been hollowed out like a melon three years ago, when Brenda and Jeannie died. He’d come to Silverdell almost immediately after, driven by some instinct to carve out a new life. A physical, exhausting, completely different life.

And he’d done all right with that part. The ranch was distracting, the horses rewarding. He was too busy to mourn all day, too tired to grieve all night.

But when it came to things like love and family and forever, he was stuck in a frozen half-life as much as any comatose man in a hospital bed.

“No, we’re not together,” he heard himself saying instead. “She’s a friend. She’s actually dating a buddy of mine. Molly’s father.”

Hopler had met Molly earlier, of course. Crimson had put the baby to bed just before dinner, and miraculously persuaded her to sleep through all three courses.

“Molly’s father.” The man took a minute to digest that. “You mean the one who is in the hospital now?”

Grant nodded. He didn’t like Hopler’s tone. It sounded as if he were weighing his odds, and liked the news that his chief competition was in a coma.

“What time did you say your flight back to LA leaves?” Grant’s bum foot caught on an oak tree root, and he grunted irritably as pain shot up his leg. Thank goodness he didn’t fall. “We probably should talk about Dawn, if you’re interested in buying her.”

Not subtle, he knew, but that was too darn bad. He was tired, and he was hurting, and he wasn’t feeling subtle. He was feeling pissed, actually.

His dislike of Hopler was irrational and unfair—he admitted that. The man seemed perfectly respectable, and naturally Grant had checked him out before inviting him to discuss the horse. His only sins were being too handsome, too rich and too acquisitive.

But damn it. Wasn’t it enough that he planned to take Grant’s best filly away from Campbell Ranch? He had to start auditioning Crimson for a role in his cushy Hollywood life, too?

“Oh, I’m definitely interested,” Hopler said, pausing as they reached the back porch.

Crimson was visible through the kitchen window. She stood at the sink, scrubbing a pot. She bent over her chore, her shoulders working rhythmically and a wisp of hair dangling into her face. Clearly annoyed by it, she pursed her lips and blew upward, trying to make the silky brown curl behave. The curl lifted, but it dropped into the same place no matter how many times she puffed.

Finally, she laughed. Shaking her head, she lifted her sudsy fingers from the dishwater, and tucked the lock behind her ear. When she lowered her hand again, a frothy dollop of suds remained, sparkling on her earlobe.

Grant could almost feel Hopler’s heartbeat quickening.

“Wow.” The man’s voice was reverent, as if he’d stumbled on a unicorn. “Imagine. A woman who looks like that, cooks like that and then laughs while she’s doing the dishes.”

At first, Grant didn’t respond. He found the description offensively reductive. Crimson was so much more than some Stepford paper doll. She was quirkier, more independent, more difficult and mysterious and real.

She was so much more interesting than some misogynistic millionaire’s Donna Reed fantasy.

Hopler sighed. “I honestly didn’t know women like that still existed.”

Grant felt his nerves prickling. “They don’t. She laughs only when she feels like laughing. When she feels bitchy, she cusses like a sailor and breaks the cups. Sometimes she just tells us to do our own damn dishes.”

“Even better,” Hopler said, unperturbed. He turned toward Grant, his expression quizzical. “But remind me again...which one of you is dating her?”

* * *

CRIMSON HAD KNOWN there would be a price to pay for Molly’s long nap during dinner. And sure enough, at about 3:00 a.m. the baby began to squirm and whimper.

Crimson rose quickly, hoping to calm Molly before she began to cry in earnest. She knew Grant needed a good night’s sleep.

She could use one, too—but that didn’t seem likely. Though she’d been lying in bed for several hours, she hadn’t been able to doze off.

The Hopler dinner had been both exciting and disturbing, and her mind was racing. Her thoughts circled restlessly until they tied themselves in knots.

So she was glad of a distraction—and the comforting warmth of the baby’s body against her shoulder. Strange how much companionship an infant could provide.

And funny how not being isolated anymore could make her realize just how horribly lonely she’d been this past year. She’d been born two minutes before Clover, and those were the only two minutes in her life she’d ever been truly alone—until the night Clover died.

She hugged Molly tightly as she moved toward the changing table, which gleamed in the moonlight.

“Hush, honey,” she whispered. “We’ll get a clean diaper and a nice warm bottle.”

Molly subsided, understanding the promise in Crimson’s tone, if not her words. When Crimson laid her back against the cushioned plastic of the changing table, she kicked her feet a couple of times. She found her fingers and began to suck noisily.

Crimson moved quickly. She was learning Molly’s rhythms, and she knew that, after about a minute or so, the baby would realize the fingers provided nothing to fill her tummy, and she’d start to fret angrily, as if someone had tricked her.

She had just finished heating the bottle when Grant appeared in the doorway.

“Hey,” he said, rubbing his fingers across the stubble on his chin. “You must be exhausted. How about if I help with that?”

Her hand went instinctively to her hair, which once again must be sticking out everywhere. All that tossing and turning...she probably looked as if she’d stuck her finger in a light socket.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Sorry we woke you. I was hoping you could get some sleep. I know you’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

He yawned, as if in confirmation, but he moved into the room, anyhow. He wore soft blue-gray sweatpants and a gray T-shirt. His hair was tousled, too.

“I mean it. Let me help. I’m tired of feeling useless. If I sit in the rocker, I can feed her with one arm.”

She hesitated, but he was already arranging himself in the mission-style wooden rocker over by the window. It was a large, manly piece of furniture, beautiful in its simplicity, and terrifically comfortable. When Kevin moved in, Grant had commissioned Jude Calhoun, a local woodworker, to make it to match the bedroom set already in the guest room.

When Crimson had first heard about the handmade rocker, she’d thought it sounded extravagant, especially since Kevin and Molly were obviously temporary guests, and Grant had no need for such a thing. But over the past week she’d learned what a work of genius it was. Quiet, roomy, with great back support and perfectly placed arms that helped support an infant for hours at a stretch.

Almost every night this week, both Crimson and Molly had fallen asleep in that chair.

“Surely she’s in no danger,” Grant said, glancing up at her with a smile that said he knew she doubted his ability to hang on to a squirming baby. “Not if I’m sitting down, and you’re standing guard.”

“Of course she’s not...” But even so she waited, watching him brace his elbow on the rocker’s arm. He let his casted forearm slant down toward his lap. That cast was as hard as a chalky rock, which she knew from bumping into it several times this week. No way Molly would fall asleep on a bed of unforgiving plaster.

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