Forever Mine
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Jennifer Mikels
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Chapter 1
“Mom, you’re frowning.”
Abby Dennison brought forth a smile for her son’s sake. On the passenger seat beside her, he’d been chattering about the ranch, about seeing cattle and horses. She’d listened absently, her mind troubled ever since she and Austin had landed at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix. Until minutes ago, the drive to Sam McShane’s ranch for the wedding between him and her aunt had been ordinary. Along with nightfall, rain had begun. Now it pounded at the ground.
“Boy, it’s raining harder, Mom.”
She gripped the steering wheel and kept her eyes on the beam of light before her. She’d heard anxiousness in his voice. “The angels are bowling again,” she said lightly about the rumble of thunder.
“How far do we have to go?” It amazed her that he hadn’t asked that question before this. At seven, he tended to run out of patience quickly.
“Not far.” She spoke louder, to be heard over the rain hammering a beat on the roof of the car. She might have stayed in Phoenix for the night if she’d had an idea of a storm brewing. But monsoons swept abruptly through the desert in late August, and she’d already been on the interstate when the rain had started. “Want to sing?” she asked, hoping to distract him from the thunder and lightning.
“What song?”
She started singing a popular country song that was played so often on the radio that Austin knew all the words.
Another rumble of thunder, this one directly over them, made Abby gasp. This trip definitely wasn’t starting out well. But then, she’d worried about returning to the ranch ever since her aunt’s phone call six months ago.
An exuberant and optimistic woman, Laura Gallagher had sounded more cheerful than usual when she’d announced that she was marrying Sam McShane in the summer. Seeing Sam was no problem, but how would it be to be near Jack again? Abby wondered.
“Whoa!” Austin yelled.
Abby saw fingers of lightning stab at the peak of a distant mountain.
“Did you see that, Mom?”
“Yes, I saw it.” The storm could have waited until they’d reached the lodge. Getting caught in a rainstorm on a busy street in Boston meant inconvenience and being late to arrive somewhere. In Arizona, danger always lurked nearby when the rain drenched the dry ground and filled sandy washes, and water overflowed onto the roads.
“Mom, should I call Sam uncle after he marries Aunt Laura?”
“That’s up to you. Do you want to?”
“I don’t know yet.” He shifted topics in the same breath. “Aunt Laura said he’s a rodeo champion.”
“No, Sam isn’t.” Abby peered hard to see through a sheet of rain. “His son, Jack, is.”
As lightning lit the dark two-lane road, Austin strained against the seat belt and leaned forward to peer out the rain-splattered window. “How come you know them?”
“I used to work at their ranch.” Eight years ago, needing money for her last semester of college, she’d grabbed a plane in Houston and had taken a summer job waiting on tables at Sam’s dude ranch. She viewed that as the most adventurous thing she’d ever done in her life. At first, she’d had difficulty dealing with the dust and the heat, and had almost quit the job. But the people had made her want to stay. She’d liked everyone she’d met, especially the owner’s son.
“Don’t you like it here anymore, Mom?”
His question alerted Abby to the frown she was wearing again. “I like it.” Before she left, she’d loved the country living, would have been content to stay there the rest of her life. “Sometimes it’s sad to come back to a place you’ve been, a place you have memories of.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not the same as it was before,” she offered as an explanation.
His eyebrows bunched, an indication her adult logic made no sense to him.
“I worked there and made friends with other people who worked there,” she said. “Some of them are gone. That makes me sad.” She’d asked Sam about Lili Gentry, a thin, sharp-tongued woman who’d been in charge of the dining-room kitchen, and she’d learned that Lili had died five years ago. The woman had been tough, a taskmaster to work for, but fair, and caring.
“There are cowboys there, huh?” he asked, the excitement in his voice raising a level.
One cowboy in particular. “Yes.” Slowing the rental car, she negotiated a turn onto the dirt road that paralleled a stream.
Headlights projected a narrow tunnel of light. Thunder rumbled in the distance. A crack of lightning resounded a second before it snapped at the ground. A downpour raged. As rain blocked her from seeing the road, she flicked on her signal lights and eased the car onto the narrow shoulder. She didn’t need to land in the ditch. Only a fool kept driving.
“Are we stopping here?”
“It’s getting too hard to drive, Austin.” In her rearview mirror, she saw the dim headlights of another vehicle, a truck, judging by the height of the beams, stopping behind them.
Abby squinted out the side window at streams of rain running down the glass and scanned the inky darkness, trying to determine how far they were from the ranch. If she had a clear view, she’d be able to see the white adobe buildings with their red tile rooftops. To one side of the three-story main lodge were several cottages and a motel-style building with half a dozen rooms.
The last time she’d seen the ranch, several guests had been strolling along the flagstone walkway that led to the pool, and beyond that the golf course, while other guests had lingered near the corral to wait for horses. Those were the images she remembered of the Double M. But her memories were wrapped around Jack McShane. Always Jack.
She heard the slam of the truck door and fixed her stare on the side mirror. She saw no one, then like an apparition, the hazy outline of a man appeared at the end of her car.
“Mom, are we scared?”
Sound confident, she reminded herself. She slanted a smile at him. “Not at all.” No doubt one of the ranch hands had braked behind her.
Austin looked unconvinced. “Okay.”
During the time she’d answered him, the man’s feet had eaten up the ground. Peripherally, she saw him beside her before he rapped on the window, before she inched down her window to talk to him.
“Are you okay?”
Abby stared, simply stared. Breath lodged in her throat. She wasn’t ready for this moment. Tall, broad-shouldered, he stood beside her car with rain dripping from the brim of his Stetson. She knew the face with its high cheekbones and strong, square jaw as well as her own. She’d hoped she would feel nothing, but felt reluctant to make contact with the piercing blue eyes that used to melt her. “Hi, Jack.”
“Abby?”
She drew a deep breath. During the passing years, she’d convinced herself that she never wanted to see him again. He’d been the love of her life, her first love, the man she’d lost her innocence to, the man who’d owned her heart—the man who’d dumped her.
She met his eyes now, eyes that appeared dark, shadowed by the mantle of night and the hat’s brim. He squinted as if he was trying to see her better. Then he bent forward to peer into the car, see past her, and she realized he was staring at Austin. Could he tell? she wondered.
“Let’s get you out of the rain. I’ll lead in the truck and keep you on the road,” he said, making eye contact with her again. “All you have to do is follow my taillights to stay out of the ditch.”
A temptation coursed through her to U-turn, hop a plane, go home. Silly actions. He meant nothing to her anymore. She was simply nervous, worried she’d reveal a secret she’d harbored for eight years.
“Mom, who was that?”
Abby marshaled her thoughts back to the moment. Your father. “That’s Jack McShane, Sam’s son.” That was all Austin needed to know. More explanation would have made no sense.
She waited until Jack eased his truck from the shoulder, then followed, staying close to the taillights of the horse trailer. She supposed this was the easiest way for this meeting to happen.
She hadn’t known what she’d expected. She’d been hurt rather than angry years ago. He’d left the ranch suddenly one night, left her without even a goodbye. In retrospect, she knew it was her own fault for having expected too much. He’d never lied to her, never made promises. He’d told her no marriage. Marriage and kids usually went hand in hand. He’d wanted neither. But young, foolish, she’d thought he would change his mind.
On the road ahead of her, he passed through the wooden archway that announced the Double M Ranch. As the brake lights on the horse trailer flashed, Abby stopped her car. Out the opened window, he arm-signaled her to go straight to the lodge. He turned right.
“Where’s he going, Mom?”
“To the stables.” To the place where your father kissed me for the first time.
“There’s Aunt Laura,” Austin yelled when the buildings were visible.
Standing on the well-lit porch, her aunt, a trim, petite woman in her mid-fifties, was dressed in jeans and a western shirt and a Stetson. She looked so much like Abby’s mother had that Abby felt a small twinge of grief return. It was almost as if she were looking at her mother instead of her aunt Before Austin unbuckled his seat belt, she’d scurried down the steps with an umbrella. The next few moments included a rush of hugs from her aunt and Sam.
“How’s my best boy?” Laura asked, enveloping Austin in her arms.
His face scrunched against her body with her exuberant hug, he raised his eyes to her and gave her his best smile. “Aunt Laura, can I ride a horse?”
Glowing, her blond hair shining beneath the porch light, Laura looked elated. “Of course you can,” she assured him without a moment’s hesitation.
Abby decided to take charge. “We’ll see.” She didn’t need mind-reading abilities to guess that her aunt planned to indulge Austin during the next two weeks.
“I’m glad you both came,” Sam said, trailing them with the luggage. Tall and barrel-chested, he wasn’t a handsome man, but he had an infectious laugh and a compelling smile that reached warm blue eyes. “It’s great seeing you again. A lot has changed since you were here before.” Lovingly he looked at her aunt “I’ve got you to thank for that.”
Abby saw the depth of pleasure in his face. Last Christmas, when she and Austin had left Boston to spend the holiday with her aunt in Houston, they’d gone to a horse auction and had run into Sam. Abby had introduced him to her aunt. And Cupid had taken over.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun.” Sam touched Austin’s shoulder to let him know he was part of that “we.” “And we’ll have to find you a hat real soon.”
Austin looked thrilled, flashing a smile that revealed a missing tooth. “Mom, he means a cowboy hat for me.”
“Absolutely.” Laura draped an arm around Austin’s slim shoulder and urged him toward the door. “I’ll show you to your rooms.”
Inside, everything looked as Abby remembered it. They crossed the massive timbered lobby with its wood-beamed cathedral ceiling and plank flooring. Above a flagstone fireplace hung an enormous Indian weave. Grouped near a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a view of the desert and the distant mountains were soft, cushiony, western-style sofas. To the left were several round wooden tables with captain’s chairs that circled a piano.
“Abby, you are happy for me, aren’t you?” Laura asked softly.
Abby couldn’t have been happier. She’d always liked Sam. In fact, she’d envisioned him as her father-in-law eight years ago. “Of course I am.”
Their arms hooked, they climbed the heavy oak staircase to the second floor.
When they reached the hall, Sam was opening a door. “I hope you like your rooms,” he said to Abby.
Warm and welcoming, the room was large and cream-colored with a glass door that opened onto a terrace. Like the living-room section, the adjacent bedroom had whitewashed furniture. It contained a king-size bed, a writing desk, a chest of drawers and another chair. An adjoining door on the opposite side of the suite led to another bedroom, similarly furnished.
Austin sat on the bed, and bounced only once as Abby sent him a quick look.
“This is lovely,” Abby assured Sam, returning to the living room and touching the sofa with its dark blue and tan Southwestern design.
“I’ll see both of you later then.” Instead of looking at them, Sam glanced toward the window. “It’s still raining.”
“Now, don’t worry.” Abby’s aunt patted Sam’s forearm. “I’m sure he’s fine. We thought Jack would be here by now,” she explained.
“He is here,” Abby said. “He stopped on the road to lead us in. He’s probably at the stables.”
Relief softened the lines in Sam’s face. “Good. I’ll go find him.” In passing, he let his hand touch Laura’s.
Abby’s aunt waited only until the door closed behind him and they were alone. “He worried Jack might not come.”
“Why?”
“They aren’t as close as they used to be.”
Since that night? Abby wondered. Ray, the ranch foreman, had told her Jack had left. He’d had a fight with Sam and left. No one knew why. “Did Sam tell you what happened?” she asked Laura, feeling sad for them. Because her own father had been absent from most of her life, she’d envied Jack’s close relationship with his father.
Laura whisked past her to close the curtain. “Actually, no.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Yes, but I will not be meddlesome. Whatever’s wrong is between them, Abby.”
Abby wouldn’t have backed off so easily. If she were about to marry someone, she’d want to know why a strain existed in his relationship with his son. Maybe one of them should find out, she decided.
“You aren’t sorry you came, are you?” Laura asked.
Seeing the distress in her aunt’s pale blue eyes, Abby offered her a quick assurance. “I’m honored to be your maid of honor.”
“Abigail, no diversions.” She grabbed Abby’s hands. “We haven’t discussed this, but I have to ask. Are you really all right about seeing Jack again?” Laura asked in a low voice, with a glance in Austin’s direction to be certain he couldn’t hear.
“I’m fine.” She had to be. She’d have to be around him for the next two weeks.
“I thought you might feel uncomfortable.” Her aunt’s fair eyebrows knit. “You’ve said very little to me about Jack, but I know he was important to you once.”
“That was a long time ago, Aunt Laura.” She mustered up her most convincing smile. “I was still in college, twenty-one.”
“Yes, I know.” Her eyes searched Abby’s face as if she was trying to read the truth in her words. If she’d wanted to say something to her niece about Austin, she didn’t as he bounded into the room. “I’ll let you get settled in.”
Abby maintained her smile until the door shut. Behind her, she heard the theme song of a Disney movie coming from the television. With Austin occupied for the moment, she sank to the closest chair to relax. The tension she’d come here with had intensified.
If she closed her eyes, if she let her mind wander, she could still feel the caress of Jack’s hands when the headiness of lovemaking had enveloped them. From the first moment he’d directed that blue gaze at her on a warm May evening when she’d met him at the airport, she’d known he was the one for her. Then the next day, he’d strolled into the ranch dining room where she’d been waiting on tables. Every girl working at the ranch had ogled him. Handsome, fun, rich, he’d had a reputation for winning in rodeos and with the ladies.
She’d tried not to act silly, dreamy-eyed, about the tanned cowboy with the tousled brown hair, but he’d flashed that smile of white, even teeth at her. She’d smiled back, then had gone on working.
Friends had gathered around her when she entered the kitchen for her orders. He’d smiled at her, they’d gushed with youthful giddiness. It took effort, but Abby had managed to act indifferent. Plates in hands, she’d reentered the dining room. He’d still been there, still smiling, still staring at her.
That had been the beginning. They’d been inseparable during the next four months. On the night he’d taken off without a goodbye, without a look back, he’d made it clear that he’d never loved her. But she’d foolishly loved him with all her heart. She’d cried, as if mourning a death.
“Mom?”
That one word snapped her back to reality, a reminder that she wasn’t that giddy young girl who’d let emotion lead her. Mothers needed to keep their feet firmly planted.
“Mom, I left my comic books in the car,” Austin said with a little whine. “Can I go get them?”
“I’ll get them.” Rather than unpack her umbrella for a run to the car, she dug her windbreaker from a suitcase. “I’m going to lock the door. You know the rule.”
His eyes fixed on the television screen and the men chasing the dozens of dalmatians, he spoke by rote. “Don’t open the door for anyone but you or Aunt Laura.”
So he was home again, Jack mused as he moved Roper into one of the stable stalls. Each time he’d come to the ranch or telephoned, he’d felt less anger. He and Sam had reached an understanding. They were congenial, though they would never be friends like before, and Jack would never work side by side with him or live on this ranch in the barn he’d called home. At eighteen, wanting independence, he’d moved into the original barn. The building had undergone enough changes to make it a home and for the next two weeks he’d lived there again.
After giving the horse feed, he turned to leave. Even in the shadowed light, he could see Sam waiting just inside, by the opened doors.
“Abby said you were here.” With Jack’s approach, the older man went on, “I’m glad you’re home.” His eyes narrowed to slits as if trying to see something more clearly. “We were beginning to worry. Roads get impassable during storms.”
Abby. His mind still hung on the image of her, those dark eyes lacking the sparkle he’d remembered in them years ago. “I left Ogden later than I’d planned.”
“Did you win?”
Jack nodded and moved closer to view the rain plummeting onto the dirt. “It was a small rodeo.”
A frown suddenly crinkled deeper lines into Sam’s tanned, weathered face. “I wanted you to know that I’m glad you could come home.” He started to touch Jack’s shoulder, then stopped himself. Instead, he dropped his arm to his side and tucked his hand in his pants pocket.
Jack squinted as much at him as against the wind blowing rain at his face. A polite way of saying, I’m glad you didn’t refuse. “You’re getting married. I’d be a lousy excuse for a son if I didn’t come home for the wedding.”
His father’s head bobbed. “You’ll like Laura.”
Jack didn’t doubt that. He recalled Abby talking about her aunt with warm affection.
“I’ll never know what she sees in me,” Sam said, “but she’s told me that she’s crazy about me.” When he talked about Laura, he carried an air of joy, as if he’d won a lottery, one that had nothing to do with money. He was a man in love. Sixty-one years old and glowing from love. “I know rodeo life keeps you on the go. You’ve been busy with endorsements and public appearances. You said you did a television commercial, didn’t you?”
Quit trying so hard, Sam, Jack wanted to say. “Yeah. For jeans.” World champions were in demand. Next year, if he lost the title to someone else, no one would care what he was wearing. Jack gave him a token smile and deliberately shifted conversation away from himself. “You said business is good.”
The ranch catered to city slickers intent on experiencing life on a ranch without losing the creature comforts of a four-star establishment complete with a swimming pool, tennis court, golf course and room service. But the Double M remained a working ranch, as well, with several hundred cattle, an ornery bull named Duncan and a stable of horses.
“The ranch keeps me too busy.” Sam removed his Stetson and ran fingers through his cropped hair. “I could use help.”
It was an indirect way of asking Jack to stay. Sam would never ask him outright to retire from rodeo.
Appearing embarrassed by his own words, Sam shrugged. “I’ll see you at the lodge.”
Maybe it would always be like this, Jack mused. Conversations filled with tension, words being carefully chosen, a lack of affection. He knew nothing would ever be the same.
With Abby, either, he reflected. Sam was responsible for that, too. If it hadn’t been for Sam, he and Abby would be together.
Oh, hell, that wasn’t true. He would never have been with her. He’d been footloose, chasing a dream. He wasn’t sure she’d have wanted the life he was offering. But if it hadn’t been for Sam, he wouldn’t have left her that night, and he wouldn’t have hurt her.
Abby stepped outside to the chill of the evening air but no rain. She shrugged into her windbreaker on the way to the car, and scanned the darkness.
Beyond the stables stood Sam’s two-story, white farmhouse where her aunt was staying. Lights shone in several of its windows and in those at the ranch foreman’s cottage. But unlike Sam’s and Ray Guerny’s homes, the renovated barn nearby that was Jack’s home was dark.
In the distance, a coyote howled. When she’d left years ago, she never thought she’d be back, would hear that sound again. She still found it ironic that she’d lost love with one McShane male, but her aunt had found it with another.
At the car, she bent over and searched beneath the pillow and blanket in the back seat. She found Austin’s pack of bubble gum and a sketching toy. Wedged between the seat was a candy wrapper. Gathering the trash, she spotted the comic books under the front seat. Neatness wasn’t her son’s strongest trait.
She relocked the car door, then headed back toward the lodge. She’d always been a clean freak, even as a little girl. But then, her possessions had been few. Most of her childhood, she’d lived out of a suitcase. That life-style hadn’t allowed for much clutter.
“It’s been a long time, Abby.”
She jerked to a stop, her heartbeat quickening. As she slowly faced him, Jack stepped out of the shadows. He was close enough to reach out, to touch her.
“You’re looking good.”
It’s over. Mentally she said the words like a mantra. This chapter in your life closed long ago, she reminded herself. “Thank you. How are you?”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d talk to me.” Jack studied her. That was the truth. Leaving her as he had had been inexcusable. Though nearly a decade had passed, he’d been prepared for her bitterness when they met again.
Before leaving Boston, Abby had vowed that he’d never know how hurt she’d been. “That was eight years ago. I heard you’re a celebrity now.” How often had he told her that he was going to be a world champion? “You got what you wanted.”
He’d wanted her. And he’d wanted rodeo. Logic had told him that he couldn’t have both. “I guess.” He’d been so tired earlier. He’d been driving since seven that morning from just the other side of the Utah border. When the rain had begun, he’d considered stopping somewhere for the night, but he’d been pulling the horse trailer, and he’d known that Roper would rest easier in a stable stall, so he’d kept going. Now he was glad he had. The tiredness had lifted because of her. He stuck a hand in his jeans pocket to keep from touching one of the soft silky strands framing her heart-shaped face. “The boy in the car—”
Abby raised her chin. “He’s my son.” Our son. Years ago, she’d buried her secret with long-distance phone calls to a ranch co-worker. Abby had fed her information about another man, needing the phantom lover to explain her pregnancy so no one at the ranch would guess the truth—would know she was pregnant with Jack’s baby.
Earlier, when Jack had been moving Roper from the trailer to a stall, he’d watched her hug her aunt, noticed the boy, dark-haired, slim and tall like Abby. “What’s his name?”
“Austin,” Abby answered.
Several weeks after they’d gone their separate ways, he’d heard gossip that she’d already found another guy. Pride had demanded he not give a damn that she’d gotten over him so easily. But it had hurt. A lot.
He’d been told by Sam that there wasn’t a husband. He guessed the boy’s father had promised all she wanted, then let her down, too.
“I have to go back in.” That wasn’t a lie. She’d been gone from Austin longer than she felt comfortable with.
As shadows danced across her face, he couldn’t stop himself from saying what he was thinking. “You look beautiful.” An understatement, he mused. Reed-slim, she was dressed in snug-fitting jeans and a pale green T-shirt. She’d cut her reddish, straight hair to a shorter style that still brushed her shoulders but curved in layers toward her face. He stared into the darkness of her brown eyes, remembered them hooded, warm with passion. “I guess we’ll have plenty of time to talk. You’ll be here, what? Two weeks?”
“About that long. I should go, Jack.” Abby climbed one step. Two people, once intimate, couldn’t pretend to be only acquaintances, could they?
“Abby?”
He held her still with a word. In a small show of nerves, she lost her grip on her car keys. Breathe, she told herself, desperately trying to relax as she faced him.
Jack closed the distance between them, then bent over for the keys she’d just dropped. He smelled her perfume, a faint springy scent, a fragrance she’d always worn. Earlier, when he’d stood beside her car, he’d gotten a whiff of her perfume through the cracked window. In an instant, a memory of her dabbing several drops at the base of her neck had flashed back at him. “Here.”
She looked down as he pressed her car keys into her hand. “Thank you.”
“I’m glad to see you again,” he said, and meant it. Of all the things he’d done in his life, he’d regretted most the way he’d left her.
What could she say? He smiled and she felt a twinge of panic because the young girl the one who loved him, seemed so near. She stared a moment longer at the soft blue eyes, eyes that warmed her with a look, then she turned around and climbed the steps, not looking back. Years ago, she’d loved him, and he’d left her. With their son’s comic books rolled and tightly gripped in her hand, she vowed not to forget that.
