Designs on the Cowboy Page 16

  “Oh, I found them on that table by the chair,” Louise said matter-of-factly.

  Glory put her arms around her grandmother. “Thank you.”

  Louise hugged her close, and then moved away. “You’d better get going. He might decide to call it an early night. He worked pretty hard out here today.”

  Glory nodded and hurried through the shop, out to her car, and was gone. Ten minutes later, she opened the screen door of the porch, wondering how she could explain to Dylan how much the gift of her saddle meant to her. Inside, the kitchen was empty, so she walked down the short hallway to the living room, where a low light was burning in the corner. But no one was in the room, and she wondered if he might have already gone to bed. The thought of waiting until the morning filled her with disappointment, but she tried to cheer herself with the thought that she might get there in time to see his reaction to the gift she’d been working on for weeks and had set up that afternoon.

  Scolding herself for being foolish and thinking she’d simply rush in and thank Dylan for the saddle, she turned to leave. As she started for the door, she heard a noise coming from his office. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of it?

  Turning down the hallway, she called to him. “Dylan? It’s Glory. I came to tell you—”

  “Go away, Glory.”

  From the office doorway, she could see the banker’s lamp casting shadows on the desk, where he sat with his arms crossed, his forehead resting on them. Fear gripped her, and she stepped into the room. “What’s wrong, Dylan?”

  “Just go away.”

  Knowing something wasn’t right, she couldn’t leave him. She had to try to help him. “Dylan, please let me—”

  “What? Help?” He straightened in the chair and raised his head. “You’ve already helped enough.”

  She had no idea what he was talking about, but her heart pounded a warning. “I don’t understand.”

  He turned to look at her. “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” When he moved his arms, she noticed the nearly empty bottle on the desk, along with the half-full glass in his other hand. Disappointment cut through her as she fought back the tears that threatened to fall.

  “You tell me why you did it,” he said, his words slightly slurred as he struggled to his feet and faced her. “All those pictures. Didn’t you wonder why they were in the attic? Don’t you think that if I’d wanted them around to remind me, I’d have left them all over the place?”

  If she thought she’d hurt when he’d called their lovemaking a mistake, the look on his face proved she’d never known real pain. “I didn’t know,” she said in a whisper as she walked toward him. “I had no idea.”

  “Nobody does.”

  Before she reached him, he sank back down on the chair. Knowing in her heart that she had to find a way to help him, she knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers. “You can tell me, Dylan. Whatever it is, you’ll feel better when you talk about what’s hurting you.”

  He shook his head.

  Tears spilled from her eyes. “Look at me, Dylan. Whatever it is, you have to let it go.”

  His head came up and he stared at her with eyes full of agony. “Let it go?” he said, pulling away and standing again. “My parents died because of me. How can I let go of that?”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident.”

  “No. Don’t you see?” He touched a finger to the scar above his eye. “It wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t been on their way into town because I was at the doctor’s office getting my head stitched.”

  “You didn’t get hurt on purpose, Dylan.”

  His face hardened. “I should have gone straight home after the storm went through, but I didn’t. Do you know what I was doing when I hit that tree? I was out mudding with some of the guys. Tearing up the back roads with the farm pickup, after I’d been warned not to. Doc Priller had his assistant call my parents while he put in the stitches because I wasn’t eighteen yet.”

  “You were a kid, Dylan. A kid who, like every other high school boy, did things you shouldn’t have. But it didn’t cause your parents’ accident. You have to believe that.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “It was my fault.”

  Her breath caught at the intensity in his voice. “Let’s go out—”

  “I stood at that accident scene and swore I’d spend the rest of my life making the ranch a success. That’s what they would have wanted me to do. And with Luke’s help, it is a success. But they aren’t here to see it. They aren’t here.”

  With sudden clarity, she understood. “You miss them. It isn’t the guilt. It’s because you lost the people you loved.”

  He turned around and grabbed the glass off the desk. Lifting it to his mouth, he took a drink. “What?” he asked as she watched.

  She stood her ground. “Let’s go outside and get some fresh air. I’ll take the pictures away and we’ll talk.”

  “Nothing to talk about.” He took another drink.

  “That’s not true. I care about you, Dylan. I—” She stopped, not sure if she should continue. The anger was gone and all that was left was her heart. There was nothing more she could do, except tell him.

  She moved closer, until she was standing in front of him, and took the glass from his hand, setting it on the desk. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, Dylan, but it happened. I understand now that those photos are a reminder of the loss of the people you loved, and you’re afraid of getting close to people. Afraid of losing someone again.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  But she did, and she could see the truth in his eyes. “I know about loss, too. Things happen that we don’t expect. Life happens. Death happens.” She paused, and took a breath. “And love happens. Take the risk, Dylan.”

  Realizing she couldn’t get through to him, she turned to leave. In the doorway, she looked back to see him slumped at the desk, his hands wrapped around the glass, and she suddenly understood the reason he’d worked so hard, yet kept to himself.

  “You need to let go of the past, Dylan. You’ll never be able to feel the good things, if you don’t.”

  His answer was a shake of his head, and she walked away.

  Chapter Eleven

  It took Dylan two days to recuperate, then find and pack up all the photos Glory had framed and placed around the house. The entire time, he cussed himself for opening up to her. Somehow, she’d guessed the truth about him. To top it off, he’d told her what he’d been doing that day of the accident, something even his brother and sister didn’t know. Now that he’d shocked Glory with the truth, he was torn between wishing he’d never said anything and feeling relief at having told her. Any crazy, foolish idea he’d even briefly entertained about having a future with her had come to a crashing end. And he’d made sure of it.

  With two large boxes full of framed photos on the floor at his feet, he surveyed the living room. He never would have believed it could look the way it did now. It was as beautiful as Glory. And his mother would have loved it.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to hold off the pain. The guilt over his parents’ accident had always been a buffer, an excuse not to feel the pain of losing his parents. And now he’d intentionally pushed away the woman he loved.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Dylan spun around at the sound of his brother’s voice, nearly tripping over one of the boxes. “Here,” he answered. “I’ve been here.”

  Luke walked into the room from the kitchen. “Is something wrong with your phone? I’ve been calling you since yesterday morning.”

  The day before was still hazy from the hangover, thanks to all he’d had to drink the night before.
He’d never liked lying, but it was his only option. “I’ve been sick,” he said, which wasn’t far from the truth. “I shut it off.”

  Luke’s eyes narrowed as he studied him. “Sorry to hear it, but I wish you’d given me a call to let me know. The vet was out checking on the herd yesterday morning, so I couldn’t come by and check on you. Then I had things to do with Hayley.”

  “I slept most of the day,” Dylan answered, adding to his dishonesty. “It was late last night when I finally crawled out of bed.” At least that much was true, he thought.

  “What’s that?” Luke asked.

  “What’s what?” Dylan saw his brother nod toward the boxes at his feet. “Oh, those. Some pictures.”

  Luke moved closer. “Of what?”

  Dylan shrugged and took a step away. “Us. Pop and Mama. Just old pictures.”

  “Yeah?” Luke leaned down and picked up a picture from one of the boxes, then grabbed another. “Where’d you find these? They weren’t in these frames, were they? Because I kind of remember seeing some of them in an album.”

  “They were in the attic.”

  “So who put them in the frames?”

  “She did.”

  “Glory did?”

  Dylan nodded.

  Smiling, Luke shook his head. “That was real nice of her. If you were smart, you’d—”

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Dylan said before Luke could say things he didn’t want to hear.

  Luke returned the photos to the box, straightened and looked Dylan square in the eye. “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

  “I’ve decided to leave.”

  Luke’s frown was almost menacing. “We’ve gone over this before, and I thought you had it all taken care of this spring. That’s what you told me, remember?”

  Dylan remembered, but none of that mattered now. “I won’t be coming back.”

  “That’s bull—”

  “Maybe you can find somebody who’ll rent the place or whatever, but I can’t stay.”

  “Why not?”

  Dylan couldn’t tell him the truth that Glory had managed to guess, but his brother deserved some kind of explanation. “All this work she did—”

  “She? You mean Glory?”

  “Yeah. All this work and all the changes she made...” He shook his head.

  “I thought you were doing better.”

  “I did, too.” It was true. He’d even gotten to the point of thinking he might someday have a chance at a normal life. A life with Glory, if he was lucky. And then he’d seen all the pictures, and the enormity of what he’d lost had hit him like a sledgehammer. Erin had never understood. No matter how different new paint or new furniture made it look, his parents were still gone.

  “You know,” Luke said, his voice lowered, “I had a hard time living in my house for a while after Kendra left. There were too many memories—a lot of them bad. The marriage had been a mistake, and I had to admit it. Moving somewhere else wasn’t an option. And then a few months later, I realized that Brayden and I were making new memories, and I didn’t think a lot about the old ones.”

  “You were lucky,” Dylan said. “You had Brayden, and now Hayley.”

  Luke put a hand on his shoulder. “You could be lucky, too. Give it a chance. Maybe Glory is the—”

  Dylan pulled away. “No.”

  Luke opened his mouth to speak, but closed it, shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry about this, Luke. I never meant to cause you any trouble.”

  “You’re not trouble! I don’t want you to leave. You’re my brother, and I’m here for you, no matter what.”

  “But I can’t stay here any longer.”

  Nodding, Luke stepped away. “Okay. But don’t close yourself off to the possibility of some other option.”

  “Right.”

  Dylan followed his brother into the kitchen and then to where Luke’s pickup was parked. Nothing was going to be easy, he knew, but at least he believed he was doing the right thing for himself and everybody else involved.

  Luke climbed into the truck, started the engine and then rolled down his window. “I meant to ask you. What’s that thing out by the windbreak?”

  Dylan looked in the direction of the line of trees bordering the far north edge of the yard. “What thing?”

  Luke pointed. “I only caught a glimpse of it, but there’s something out there. Maybe somebody dumped something, but you might want to take a look.”

  Dylan nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  “I’ll see you later?”

  “Sure. I’ll come by your place in a little while.” There was work to do before he could leave. The least he could do was help until then. After that, he knew Luke could handle the ranch on his own.

  After watching Luke drive away, Dylan turned and started for the house, but before he reached it, he remembered he needed to check out whatever was out by the windbreak. After rounding the house, he could see something near the tree line, and he walked toward it. From a distance, it appeared to be large and light colored. Had someone dumped a refrigerator out there? But the closer he got, he realized that it was much larger than that, and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

  As he drew near, his heart began to beat faster. He suspected Glory must have had something to do with it. When he finally came to a stop in front of the octagonal, white gazebo, he had no doubt of that.

  A lump the size of Oklahoma lodged in his throat as he stepped onto the stone base where the gazebo stood. On one of the back posts, he saw what appeared to be a small iron plaque, and he walked closer to read it.

  A Place of Peace and Love

  In Loving Memory of David and Ann Walker

  Leaning against the post, he pressed his head to it, squeezing his eyes shut in hope of stopping the sting of tears. For a moment he couldn’t breathe, and when he finally could, he started to lower himself to the bench that rimmed the entire inside of the gazebo. He was almost seated when he realized there was a piece of paper tucked behind the plaque. With shaking fingers, he carefully removed it.

  It was some time before he could gather the courage to open the note, and even then, his hands shook so badly that he had trouble unfolding it so he could read the handwritten message.

  It’s understandable that your memories of the past are filled with a sadness that many of us will never have to deal with, but you must never think you were the cause of anything bad. You’re too good to have done something to cause anyone harm, even by chance. The ranch has always been your home, as it was your parents and your grandparents and great-grandparents before you. This gazebo, dedicated to the memory of your parents, is a special place, where bad memories are left behind and cannot hurt you, and where good memories can fill your heart. May you someday find the peace you deserve. — Glory

  The words blurred as he thought of what it had taken for her to write the words after the things he’d said to her less than forty-eight hours before. He’d been brutal, when nothing that had happened had been her fault. Somehow he had to find a way to be the man she believed him to be. The man she’d said she loved. He’d find a way to put the past behind him, deal with the loss he would never forget and pay any price for her forgiveness and her love.

  * * *

  “IS THAT your phone ringing again?” Louise asked, stepping into the small office in the shop.

  Glory nodded and tried to focus on the papers in front of her, determined to keep her mind on work, instead of the ringing phone and especially the things that were tearing her apart inside.

  “I’ll get it.” Louise reached for the cell phone. “Ignoring possible clients is no way to run a business.” Staring at the phone in her hand, she pushed a button and then held it to her ear. “Glory Be Antiques and Decorating.”

 
Even though she knew it wasn’t Dylan calling—none of the numerous calls over the past four days had been—Glory still hoped as she listened to her grandmother’s side of the conversation. Somehow, word about her decorating had spread like wildfire throughout the small town. It seemed everyone needed something new done to their home.

  “Oh, I’m sure we can find a time for you tomorrow,” Louise told the caller. With a smile that said she could handle anything, she reached over and pulled the new appointment book toward her. But her smile disappeared, and she glanced at Glory before continuing. “What about five? Is that too late?” The smile reappeared as she listened. “Oh, no, it’s not too late for us. I was thinking it might be late for you.” Nodding, she picked up a pencil from the desk. “Then I’ll put you down for five, Hettie. And thanks so much for thinking of us.”

  Giving the disconnect button an exaggerated punch with her finger, she looked at Glory as if she’d won some kind of prize and set the phone on the desk. “Hettie wants to talk about some ideas for the Commune.”

  Glory closed her eyes. “You saw the schedule, Gram.” Opening them, she tried not to let her frustration get the best of her. “If even half of those people decide to hire me, when do you think I’ll be able to fit in a job at the Commune?”

  Louise gave an indignant sniff. “Hettie Lambert is not only the most influential person in this town, but a dear friend.”

  Too tired to argue, Glory sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry. Of course I’ll be happy to talk with Hettie and do whatever I can.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” Louise sat on the chair across the desk from Glory. “I should be helping more.”

  “I expect it will settle down in a day or two.”

  “Why would it?”

  Glory shrugged. “I don’t know why so many people are calling, although I think Hayley might have something to do with it.”

  “What a sweet girl,” Louise said. “I finally met her in the doctor’s office when I stopped in for a new prescription for my arthritis. She said she would soon be a... Now, what was that word she used?”