Once Upon a Groom

Silas asked, “What are you thinking about?”

After a few moments’ reluctance, he answered, “How much Jenny meant to Mom and you.” And how she’d refused to go with him to L.A. That thought still had the power to bring back bitterness and regret.

“I need you to promise me something,” his father entreated in a low, serious voice.

“What?” Zack asked warily.

“With me out of commission, Jenny can’t handle the burden of the Rocky D on her own. She’s taken over even more responsibility the past couple of months with management of the ranch as well as training the horses, but it’s all too big for any one person. So no matter what happens tomorrow, will you stay a month, six weeks, and help her get a handle on whatever has to be done?”

“Dad—”

“I know it’s a lot to ask. I know this isn’t your life. You have big fish to fry. Well, the Rocky D has big fish, too. I know you think I have no right to ask anything of you. That might be true. But Jenny’s going to need some help, and you’re the only one I trust to give her that help.”

If his father had asked for his own benefit, Zack might have been able to turn him down. But the way he’d put it, how could Zack refuse? Still, he had commitments of his own.

Silas continued, “You could set up shop at the Rocky D for a while. There’s plenty of room. You could have your own office in the east wing.” He hesitated. “I have a home theater there now, too.”

The sliding glass doors of Silas’s cubicle opened and a nurse bustled in. “Time’s about up,” she said gently but firmly. “Your father needs his rest.”

Zack knew that was true. He also knew state of mind could make a big difference if his father was to recover. No, he didn’t want to stay. No, he didn’t want to get roped back into a life he’d left behind. No, he didn’t want to be around Jenny and feel that old tug of desire they’d shared.

“Think about it,” his father said.

Zack knew he wouldn’t be able to do much else.

The following morning, Jenny paced the waiting room while Zack worked on his laptop. She didn’t know how he could concentrate with his dad undergoing the heart catheterization. Even during the night as she’d tried to doze on the sofa, she’d caught glimpses of images flickering on the laptop screen where Zack studied them and tapped the computer keys. He hadn’t slept at all.

When he’d returned from seeing his dad last night, he’d been remote and silent. This morning, after visiting Silas again, he’d been the same. Just what was going through his head? Once, so many years ago, she would have known. For the past fifteen years, she hadn’t had a clue. For the gazillionth time, she thought about what might have been if she hadn’t lost their baby. Quickly she shut down those thoughts.

With a long, blown-out breath, Zack closed the lid of the machine, pushed it deeper onto the side table, stood and rolled his shoulders. His muscles rippled under his black T-shirt. Above the waistband of his khakis, she could glimpse just how flat his stomach still was.

“Do you do that often?” she asked, feeling wrinkled and rumpled and not as put together as he had always looked no matter what he wore. The lines around Zack’s eyes were deeper now, but other than that he looked … as charismatic and sexy as ever.

“Work through the night? Oh, yeah. Especially when we’re on deadline.”

“For a movie?”

“For a movie, for an edit, for a casting.” He shrugged. “It’s the nature of the business.”

“Here I thought you lounged in a chaise at the beach most of the time,” she joked.

He gave her a long considering look. His blue eyes were so direct with an intense focus that hadn’t changed. “My life isn’t what it seems from the outside.”

“The outside?” She was genuinely curious.

“What you see and hear. The premieres, the publicity for the movies. It looks as if it isn’t staged, but all of it is.”

“Even those photos of you on the beach?” She wouldn’t mention the drop-dead gorgeous models and actresses he was always photographed with.

“Exactly.”

Pausing only a second, she prodded, “Does Silas know about your real life, or do you only tell him about the outside?”

“Dad hears what he wants to hear.”

“But do you talk about your actual work with him?”

“You probably know how much we talk. It’s mostly about the weather, his horse buyers, if I’ll be nominated for another Oscar.”

“If you made a point of telling him …”

Zack scowled and even that expression was sexy as the corners of his mouth turned down. “You’re not going to be on my back about talking to Dad the whole time I’m here, are you? Because if you are, I’m going to spend most of my time working.”

If he’d intended to frame that bomb of information into his response, she didn’t know. But she surely realized the implication. “The time you’re here? How long will that be?”

“We’ll figure it out after he’s back up here giving orders again.”

“We’re talking about more than a few days?”

“It depends on his condition. I’ll let you know after I speak with his doctor.”

For just a moment, Jenny felt her heart fall. She really didn’t have a right to be here, or to any information. No matter she spent every day with Silas, saw his symptoms develop, and cared deeply that they had. She wasn’t a relative. Zack was his son. She was not Silas’s daughter.

That thought brought to mind the inevitable one of wondering where her own father was right now. Maybe she cared so much about Silas because her own dad didn’t seem to want her to care about him. And she shouldn’t, because he always left … he never stayed. But she did care.

“What are you thinking?” Zack asked, as he crossed to the sofa where she sat. He moved the magazine she had tried to concentrate on, lowered himself beside her, yet not too close.

Did he feel any remnant of the attraction that had rippled between them as teenagers? The attraction she felt now? “I’m not thinking. I’m just worried.”

“Bull. Something was ticking through that pretty head of yours besides worry.”

His attitude both shook and angered her. “You don’t know me anymore, so don’t try to read me like a mentalist at a carnival.”

“So you think I don’t know you?” His voice was lower as he said, “When you’re thinking, little frown lines appear right here.”

He touched the space between her brows and her heart rapped against her ribs.

“But when you’re worrying—” he slid his finger across the side of her mouth “—this dimple disappears and sometimes your lower lip quivers.”

She was mesmerized by the pad of his finger on her skin … trembling from skimming her gaze over the breadth of his shoulders, his beard stubble, the past memories in his eyes.

Grabbing her composure for all she was worth, she straightened her shoulders and leaned back. “You’re making that up.”

“Nope. You haven’t changed all that much. You grew up fast and were always direct, curious and sassy. Give me one way you’re different now than when you came to live at the Rocky D when you were seventeen.”

Instead of an off-the-cuff flip reply, she considered his request. “Now I think before I speak. I hope I’ve learned to have as much patience with people as I’ve always had with horses.”

He smiled and she wished he hadn’t. Zack smiling was almost impossible to resist.

“You think before you speak and have patience with everyone but me.”

She was about to protest, to tell him he was all wrong, but she considered what he’d said. “I guess with you, my good intentions get short-circuited.”

His smile faded. “So tell me what you were thinking.”

Zack had always been determined. Maybe this time she shouldn’t fight his desire to know. “I was thinking I have no official right to be here … to know Silas’s condition. But I’d like to be included.”

The cold detachment she’d sensed in Zack when he’d arrived, dissipated altogether. “Of course you’ll be included. Has anyone told you differently?”

“Oh, no. The staff and doctors have been understanding.”

Zack was studying her as if he knew old insecurities still haunted her. She couldn’t let him see that sometimes they did. Most of all, she couldn’t let him see that she was still attracted to him.

Rising to her feet, she said, “I’m going to get coffee. I’ll bring you a cup.”

“Black,” he told her as he rose, too, and returned to the laptop.

He’d always taken his coffee black, but she wouldn’t let him see she remembered that … along with everything else.

Chapter Two

When Jenny returned to the waiting room with two cups of coffee, Zack wasn’t there. She didn’t know what to think. Had there been news about Silas? She set down the coffee, noticed Zack’s laptop wasn’t on the table and was about to ask for information at the nurses’ desk when he strode into the waiting room, cell phone in his hand.

“Is Silas finished?” she asked.

“Not that I know of. I locked my laptop in the car and went to make a call.” When she glanced at his cell phone, he clipped it onto his belt.

“Business?” she asked, not sure why she was asking. Maybe she just wanted to probe a little.

“Actually, no, it wasn’t.”

“Someone who wondered where you disappeared to?” She knew she shouldn’t be inquiring about this. His life was none of her business, not anymore. Still, she was curious.

Amused, he asked, “You want details?”

“Only if you want to get them off your chest.”

He cast her a wry smile. “No, I don’t think I do.”

She felt the disappointment like a weight. She should have known better. For all she knew, he was dating three different women at once. That was certainly what the tabloids led everyone to believe. One of the most eligible bachelors in L.A. didn’t need to be married or even in a relationship because he was having too much fun. Though from what he’d said last night—

He approached her until he stood close enough to touch. “I left L.A. in a rush. I have lots of loose ends that aren’t tied up.”

Including a relationship with a woman? she wanted to ask, yet didn’t. The one thing she’d learned long ago was never to make the same mistake twice. That was how she’d learned to accept disappointment where her dad was concerned. That was how she’d learned to move on, always looking for a new way to solve a problem, a new way to handle a loss. She’d lost Zack once. She wouldn’t make the mistake of feeling too much for him again. It really was as simple as that. Practice had taught her well. Now she had to just keep her wits about her and pretend that being this near to him didn’t send a tingle of awareness through her body.

Since she couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask anything personal, she forced a smile and inquired, “Do you really have a house in Malibu, a penthouse in L.A. and a condo in Vail?”

“Now where did that come from?” His forehead furrowed but there was a sparkle of curiosity in his eyes.

“I’m just wondering how much of the tabloid stories about you I can believe.”

“Well, at least the real estate I have is one thing they got right. Yes, to all of the above.”

“And you’ve been to every continent?” she pushed.

“I have, for either work or pleasure.”

“You actually vacationed in Antarctica?”

At that, he let out a chuckle. “Yes, I did. Why are you so amazed?”

“Because I can’t imagine why anyone would want to vacation there.”

His blue gaze became more probing. “Jenny, don’t you want to see the world?”

“Why would I? I’m happy here.”

He shook his head as if he couldn’t understand that philosophy at all. “Don’t you want to know how other people live? What work means to them … what gives their lives meaning?”

“Does your curiosity get satisfied in your travels?”

He considered that. “I don’t know. But I always find answers to some unanswered questions I didn’t even know were lurking in my mind. That probably doesn’t make any sense to you.”

She could see he wasn’t talking down to her, but really trying to clarify his point of view. “When I want an answer, I just work at finding it right here. But then I guess that’s why I gentle horses and you make movies.”

“The movie-making might change now.”

“How? Why?”

Suddenly, Zack’s focus shifted from her to the doorway. When she peered around him, she saw Dr. Murphy, Silas’s cardiologist. He looked serious and she couldn’t tell from his expression exactly what had happened.

The cardiac surgeon said, “Zack has signed appropriate forms and instructed me you’re to be kept up-to-date on everything that concerns his father’s condition.”

She murmured to Zack, “Thank you.”

His gaze briefly met hers and she gained a momentary glimpse of the young man she’d once loved. The next moment his attention focused on the cardiologist as he asked, “Good news or bad?”

Although Zack might be a visionary behind the camera, Jenny realized he was a pragmatist, too.

“A little of both. There has been heart muscle damage, which we suspected from the myocardial infarction. But we inserted two stents and with a change in lifestyle, I think he’ll regain his energy and maybe some of the verve he’s lost in the past few months. He’s a lucky man … lucky this happened when someone was with him and fortunate an ambulance got him here as soon as it did. No one is ever happy about life changes they need to make to continue good health, but your father seems like a practical man. I’m hoping with the two of you to help convince him, he’ll see this as a positive life change, not as something he has to dread. I’ll have a nutritionist talk to him before he leaves.”

“Can I sit in?” Jenny asked. “He has a housekeeper and I’d like to relay any information to her. Maybe we can devise meals that he doesn’t think are too boring.”

The doctor smiled. “Diet and exercise will be the two main components of his life changes and …” He motioned to Zack. “Zack told me you’d be a big help with that.”

“What about a cardiac rehab program?” Zack asked.

“I’ll be speaking with your father about that, too. There are a couple of different ways we can handle it. He’ll have to choose what’s right for him.”

“He’ll probably want a private nurse and a home gym,” Zack muttered.

The doctor didn’t look fazed. He just said, “Whatever it takes.”

Jenny knew he was right. She would do whatever it took to keep Silas on the road to good health. Seeing how quickly Zack had responded to her call, she was hopeful he would, too, even if it was only so he could get back to his own life.

“How long do you think it will be until he’s able to do the things he wants to do again?” she asked.

“We’re going to have to see how his recuperation comes along. But if you’re asking in general terms, I’d say four to six weeks at least. Maybe longer until the changes he makes take effect.”

Jenny saw Zack frown and didn’t know what that meant. Would he consider staying in Miners Bluff that long? If so, why? Did he feel she couldn’t handle Silas on her own? Or was he simply worried about his father and didn’t want to admit it?

“I’m going to keep him in CICU for today. Tomorrow, if all goes well, I’ll transition him to an intermediary room. I want to keep an eye on his blood oxygen level. Then we’ll decide what happens next.”

Zack extended his hand to shake the cardiologist’s. “Thank you.”

Jenny did the same, saying, “I wish we weren’t so far from the hospital.”

“Miners Bluff has a superior urgent care center. Don’t hesitate to go there or call me if there are any problems.” The doctor moved toward the door. There he stopped. To Zack he said, “Your dad is a tough customer. It might take both of you to convince him to do what he needs to do.” Then he exited the room, leaving Zack and Jenny alone—each wondering what came next.

Four days later, Jenny stepped through the mahogany French doors to Silas’s parlor, surprised to see Zack cleaning out the cupboard behind the wet bar. “What are you doing?”

Zack didn’t know if this was going to be a fight or not, but he wouldn’t back down from it. He stacked bottles of liquor into a carton. “I’m clearing away temptation. Dad’s resting, I hope?”

They’d driven into Flagstaff together to pick him up when he was discharged. Both wanted to hear what the instructions were for after-care. He was supposed to take it easy for the next week. Zack wasn’t sure that meant the same thing to his father that it meant to him.

He continued to remove bottles from the cabinet and shove them in the box. “I know he doesn’t like staying in one of the guest bedrooms down here, but it’s for his own good. I’ll stay down here, too, then I can keep an eye on him.”

“He can use the intercom system if he needs you.”

Zack stared down into the box so long, Jenny finally asked, “Zack?”

“Sorry. I was remembering … This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this.”

She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

Did he want to get into this with her? Why not? The past didn’t matter anymore. If she didn’t know the gritty details, maybe it was time. “Dad drank and gambled for as far back as I can remember, then he’d come home and fight with Mom. When I was around ten, I got this mistaken impression that if I went through the house and got rid of some of the liquor, that might make a difference. So I’d take out a bottle here, a bottle there and I’d dump them behind the barn. I couldn’t wipe out the whole cupboard, there would’ve been hell to pay. But at least I felt I was doing something.”

He saw the softening in Jenny’s brown eyes and he knew what that meant. It was pity. He certainly didn’t want her pity, not for the boy he’d been, and certainly not for the man he was now. “That taught me one very important lesson,” he added, suddenly realizing exactly why he was telling her this story. “You can’t make a difference in someone’s life unless they want you to.”

She crossed the hunter green and burgundy Persian rug, rounding a suede and leather sofa. “That’s not true, Zack. Don’t tell me you believe that.”

When she stopped in front of the bar, he focused his gaze on her. “Do you think you’ve made a difference in his life?” He knew Jenny had poured everything she was and everything she could have been into Silas and the Rocky D.

“I have made a difference. Because I’ve become a substitute for you.”

This time there was no pity in her eyes but there was something else he couldn’t decipher. That bothered him. He used to understand Jenny so well … why she yearned for bonds she could depend on.

Jenny’s father had done his duty by her when he’d had to. His love had always been the rodeo. Early on, Jenny had had her mom, but had only seen her dad when he came in from the circuit. After that …

Jenny’s mom had suddenly died of a brain aneurysm when Jenny was eight and her father had been devastated. Jenny had known, even though he wasn’t at home that much, that he and her mom had really loved each other. After a year of Jenny taking care of Charlie, rather than Charlie taking care of her, he’d left her with a neighbor more and more, always chasing a rodeo purse and a dream. That’s the way it had been until Jenny had done an internship on the Rocky D the summer before her senior year in high school. She’d loved horses, handled them expertly and calmed them, showing up his father’s best grooms. His mother had started giving her other responsibilities and had let her handle some of the bookwork. When his mom learned her history, she’d asked Jenny if she wanted to live with them her senior year of high school. Charlie had easily agreed, handing off some of the responsibility for his almost-grown child. Jenny became like a daughter to the Deckers.

Zack’s attraction to Jenny and hers to him had revved up the moment she’d set foot on the Rocky D. Zack had known it wouldn’t be fair to start something with her, when he intended to leave Miners Bluff as soon as he could. Jenny, on the other hand, wore her heart on her sleeve, which had made it easy for him to confide in her, go on long walks and rides, become close to her in a way he’d never been close to a girl before. The night of their high school graduation, they’d gone to the all-night party, come home around 3:00 a.m. and climbed up to the hayloft, which had become their private place. They’d been so excited. He’d won the National Young Filmmakers Scholarship and his dad had hired her to be one of his horse trainers and handlers. In that excitement, their threshold of restraint had fallen low. They’d made love in that hayloft. He’d asked her to go with him to L.A. She’d refused. That had been the end of them.

“You didn’t have to be a substitute for anyone,” Zack protested, feeling as if she were blaming him for something about her life, too.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to be here, because I did. But I also realized that after your mother died, Silas gave up on the idea that you’d ever come back.”

Staying in this house again, recollections from that difficult time in Zack’s life pummeled him. As he’d tried to do since he’d returned, he shoved them away. “Even if Mom hadn’t died, I doubt if I would have come back. When she visited me in L.A., she made sure to tell me she was proud—of me, of my work … But have you forgotten that when I left for film school, my father cut me off? He didn’t want to know how the classes were, or what kind of projects I was doing. He didn’t want to know if I was successful. He just didn’t care. He’d planned for me to take his place someday. He blamed her for my absence because she gave me my first video camera.”

Jenny leaned closer, the bar still a barrier between them. “You’re both carrying too many shadows from the past. It’s time to let go of all of it.”

Just a whiff of Jenny’s perfume unsettled Zack and lit fires he’d rather douse. “What about your dad, Jenny? Have you let go of all of it?” He saw immediately that he’d struck home and he shouldn’t have. He shook his head. “I had no right to ask that.”

With a sigh, she leaned away. “Maybe you did. After all, I’m giving you advice.”

With a shrug, he admitted, “I have no advice, not about fathers and their kids.” Closing the top of the carton, he taped it then started filling another.

Finally she said, “I’ve learned something over the years, Zack. I do have to accept reality. Wishing my dad would change only brought me heartache, so I accept him for who he is and don’t expect anything. That way I don’t get hurt.”

Her acceptance of her own father’s shortcomings made him feel like a jerk. He shouldn’t have complained about the childhood he’d had when Jenny’s had been so much worse. Losing her mom as a kid couldn’t have been easy. Staying with a neighbor who really wasn’t interested in babysitting while her father was gone had to have made Jenny feel unwanted.

She proved that as she told him, “After Mom died and I had to stay with Mildred when Dad left for the circuit, I disappeared into the library downtown and learned everything I could about horses … to fill up my life and I guess my heart, too. I didn’t have the guts to come to a place like the Rocky D to learn what I needed to know to become a horse trainer, but I went to smaller ranches, asked if I could help with chores and got paid enough to buy clothes for school. I didn’t care about the money as much as I just wanted to be around the animals, to know more about them. Some of those horses were my best friends until I went to high school and really got to know Mikala and Celeste. Up until then I shied away from the other girls because I felt they made fun of me … and looked down on me. Celeste and I had a lot in common because we were both girls from the wrong side of the tracks. I’m not sure how Mikala hooked up with us, maybe because her mother wasn’t around much when she was growing up. But they became my safety net—they were always there for me. How did you and Dawson and Clay become friends?”