His Winter Rose and Apple Blossom Bride (32 page)

Finally they stopped at the edge of a clearing. Michael climbed off his bike, motioned with one finger across his lips for them to be quiet. He took Tati’s hand. Ashley followed as he led them to the base of a tree and pulled on something. A rope ladder cascaded down.

He helped Tati up the first rung, waited till she’d climbed all the way, then motioned for Ashley to go next.

They were standing beneath some kind of a platform. Obviously they were going to sit up there. But why? She frowned at him.

“You wanted to see wild animals. If we’re very quiet we may see a bear or two today. A friend of mine told me about a big brown mother that’s been bringing her cubs here to eat the berries.” His words brushed against her ear so softly she doubted Tati heard a thing. “Wait. I’ll get your backpack. We can’t leave any food down here.”

He retrieved the pack and the blankets, passed them up, then swiftly followed Ashley up the ladder. Tati, who’d obviously been there before and knew the rules, stood quietly as she waited for him to prepare their seats. Then she snuggled into her father’s lap.

It wasn’t just a platform. It was a sort of box with a wide window that offered a perfect view of the clearing. The roof extended to give protection from the elements, the plywood sides kept out the wind. They could sit up here and observe without being observed.

“Look!”

Ashley followed his pointing finger, saw a big brown bear ambling out of the woods beyond. Twigs and branches snapped under her massive paws but she paid them no mind. Her attention was on a bush loaded with dark purple berries.

“Babies!” Tati’s gasp burst out as two chubby cubs twice her size followed their mother.

Mama Bear paused a moment, glanced around as if to check on their safety, then went back to eating the berries, joined seconds later by her greedy children.

The animals were fascinating to Ashley who’d never experienced them in a setting like this, perched up high with no fear for her safety. It wasn’t until the cubs moved away and began tumbling on the ground that she noticed a gray shadow lurking behind the trees.

Without thinking she grabbed Michael’s arm, pointed.

“Yes, I’ve been watching him,” he murmured. “He’s checking out the cubs. He’s downwind, so that Mama can’t smell him yet.”

The cougar remained crouched, frozen in position. Ashley’s nerves stretched tautly as she waited for something to happen. A memory flickered, her father’s quiet voice.
She was only eight, no contest for a hungry cougar.

A child had been attacked on the outskirts of Serenity Bay one year, causing an uproar in town. Search parties had combed the hills trying to find the cat and put it down before it claimed another victim. But Ashley couldn’t recall whether or not the cougar had been found.

Suddenly the cat moved—just slightly, but it was enough to alert the cubs’ mother. She swung around, tilted back on her hind legs and let out a yowl of anger. Her giant paws, claws extended, swiped through the air as the cubs darted behind her.

Tatiana’s eyes grew huge as she watched the drama before them. For her sake Ashley hoped the cat would leave.

It didn’t. Not immediately. But after prowling the edge of the glade, the cougar finally slunk away. Shortly after that the bears left, too.

Silence fell.

“Not a bad afternoon’s entertainment,” Mick murmured in her ear some time later. “You can let go now, if you want. Or do you need a hug?” His eyes twinkled with teasing.

Ashley blushed, realizing that had she gripped his arm at some point during the melée and was still clinging to him as if he were her life preserver.

“Sorry.” She released him and moved back.

“Don’t be. About the hug—”

She shook her head, reprimanding him visually. “I’m fine, Michael. But thank you for offering.”

“Not a problem.”

His gaze held hers, transmitting an unspoken message that only emphasized the zap of connection she always felt humming between them. The knowledge that he’d read her so easily brought back her blush.

Tati scrambled upright. “Are we going home now, Daddy?”

“I think it’s time. It will be dark in a couple of hours.” He gathered up his blankets and Ashley’s backpack, climbed down the ladder then waited for them to follow.

Once they were all on the ground, he returned the ladder to its hidden position and walked beside Ashley to the quads with Tati skipping ahead.

“Amazing, isn’t it? God’s creatures cohabiting with one another, working out the parameters of their relationships. It always makes me wonder why we humans, who are supposed to be the brains on this earth, can’t find a better way to live together.”

“Maybe it’s because we don’t all go by the same rules,” she murmured as she scanned their surroundings. Shadows, movements, branches swaying—she felt as if a thousand hidden eyes were watching.

“Ashley?” His hand on her arm made her jump.

“Sorry.” She faked a smile. “Guess I’m a little nervous.”

“There’s no need to be. We’re perfectly safe. The cougar is gone. I doubt he’d attack a group of three anyway.”

“There were three bears,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but he didn’t attack and even if he had, he would have waited till he’d isolated one of the cubs from its mother, not taken on all three.”

She frowned as he stored his blankets in the box of his four-wheeler. “You sound very knowledgeable.”

“My father liked to hunt. He taught me to shoot, but after a while he tired of the killing and preferred to take pictures. He’d take me with him to spend a day snapping shots of animals that he sold for postcards. I learned a lot about animal habits, reactions and interactions from those trips with him.”

“I would have been terrified to be there with only a camera for defense.”

“Animals sense fear, Ashley. If you ever come face-to-face with a bear, don’t turn your back or run.”

“If my legs would work that’d be my first instinct.”

“No.” He grasped her shoulders. “You stand your ground, face them and yell at them to go away. If challenged, most of the time an animal will back down unless it’s hurt or starving. But if you turn away or run they know you’re afraid and they’ll attack because they sense a weakness.”

“Sounds like some people I’ve met,” she muttered darkly, easing out of his grasp.

“In a way, I think it is a reflection of life. You can’t get anywhere if you’re afraid to take a risk.” Michael’s attention seemed focused on some distant feature. “My dad taught me a lot about life during those hours together. Remembering is what helped me after he died.”

“I know what you mean. I have some good memories of when my father taught me to swim. No way he was going to live beside a lake with a kid who couldn’t keep herself afloat for at least a little while.” Ashley smiled, but couldn’t shake the sense that someone, or something, was watching them.

Michael touched her arm, waited till her gaze met his. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure I can explain it.”

He nodded. “You need to figure out what’s causing this fear and try to get past it.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” She gave him a half smile that was less than heartfelt. “Don’t fuss about me, Michael. It’s just a silly case of nerves, probably a result of living in the noisy city. I’ll get over it. Or I’ll leave here and return to my habitat and it won’t matter.”

She could tell he didn’t buy it, but he said no more except to call Tati from her exploration of the denuded berry bushes. The ride home seemed shorter to Ashley. With every mile she lost a little of her jitteriness and relaxed.

By the time they reached his house, Tatiana was noticeably weary. Michael had left meat stewing in a slow cooker and he insisted Ashley share it. Tati fell asleep at the table, her head drooping onto the side of her plate. A pang of sadness echoed inside Ashley at the soft little whisper of “Mommy” when Michael picked her up.

“I’ll just be a minute tucking her in,” he said. “Don’t rush away.”

Ashley cleared the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher and stored the remaining food, noting that none of them had seemed very hungry even though they’d been out in the fresh air all day.

After setting the kettle to boil, she wandered into the living room to peer at the row of snapshots he’d lined up on a coffee table. They were all unposed shots of Tati. Mick had caught her happy little smile as she carved a pumpkin, the way the tip of her tongue stuck out when she concentrated on skating, her saucy stance, hands clamped on her hips as she glared at another little girl who looked equally determined. Ashley guessed that was Wanda.

“What do you think?”

“I think that if you want to give up teaching you could probably make a good living doing portraits of kids. These are perfect.”

“Easy subject,” he said, moving to stand beside her.

“Yes, she is.” She turned, but his hand on her arm stopped her. “I should get home.” She glanced at him, meeting his stare.

“Ashley, you know there’s something there between us. Every time I talk to you, every time I get within a hundred feet of you, it’s as if I can feel you pulling me toward you. And we both know it’s more than friendship.” He reached up, drew a strand of hair from her eyes. His voice dropped to a husky drawl.

“When I’m supposed to be teaching, I’m thinking about you. When I’m reading Tati a story about one of her fairy princesses, I think of you, how your cheek curves, how your hair looks with the light sparkling on it.” He leaned closer, touched her lips with his thumb. “You have to feel it, too.”

“I do feel it.” The whisper slipped out in spite of her determination to remain silent. “I don’t want to, but I do.”

“You don’t want to? Why not?” Understanding dawned; he frowned. “It’s because I was married. Because I have Tati?”

“It’s because you’re dangerous,” she corrected, wishing she’d never made that stupid comment to Piper.

“Dangerous—me?” He blinked. A quirky smile tugged at his mouth. “Don’t you like to play with fire?”

He was teasing but Ashley was deadly serious.

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t do danger, Michael. In fact, I run as far the other way as I can.”

“Why?” His fingers moved to brush against her cheek and into her hair.

“Because I’m afraid.”

“Of what?” he asked on a whisper. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No, you’re not,” she agreed softly, stepping back so his hands dropped away. “Because I won’t let you. I c-can’t.”

Moments stretched between them as he struggled to decipher her meaning. Finally he motioned to the armchair.

“Will you explain that to me, please?”

Ashley perched on the edge of the cushion, wishing she’d gone straight home. But she was as bad as he was—she dreamed about Michael, thought about Michael, imagined Michael.

It would have to stop.

“You’re a kind, generous man who deserves to have love and happiness in his life, but I can’t be more than your friend, Michael.”

He studied her, brow furrowed. “Okay. Can you tell me why?”

“I don’t know.” It was so hard to put into words. “I’m not...normal.”

“Agreed.” He smiled at her glare. “Go on.”

“I’ve been engaged twice.”

“Ashley, I don’t care about your past.”

“But you have to. Because it’s made me who I am now. It’s the reason—” she stopped, regrouped. “I was engaged to a man who was a good friend. I’d known him a long time. I wanted that marriage, wanted it badly. I’d planned my life around being married to him. Then I found out he was in love with someone else, that he was afraid to tell me about her.”

“That sounds cowardly.”

“It wasn’t.” She smiled. “It was decent and honorable and very kind of him to believe he had to honor his commitment to me. But it was wrong and I knew it. I broke our engagement off immediately, told him I wanted him to marry the woman he loved, that I intended to be there for his wedding. And I was.”

“That took guts.” He kept watching her. “Then you were engaged a second time?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “Not such a decent and honorable choice this time. I think I knew I’d made a mistake almost immediately but the accident forced me to accept that marriage between us would not work.”

He waited and when she said no more, he hunkered down in front of her, clasped her hands in his. “Why did you tell me that, Ashley?”

“So you’d understand.”

“Understand that you’d been hurt? That you’d made mistakes. That’s part of life.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She stared into his clear brown eyes and prayed for help.

“What
did
you mean?”

“I’m a coward, Michael. I’m afraid of life. I hung on to Parker even though I knew he didn’t love me because I was afraid that if I didn’t marry him, I’d be left alone. With him I was protected. I didn’t have to fear.”

“But you figured out it was wrong. You corrected your mistake.”

“No, I didn’t.” She sighed, wishing—but it had to be said. “I latched on to Kent, ignored all the warning signs and told myself somebody was better than nobody. I lent him money, I covered for him, I even lied for him.” She hung her head in shame.

“Because you loved him.”

She raised her head, met his gaze. “No. Because I
needed
him. As long as I was with him, I wasn’t alone. It took a car accident to force me to realize that Kent didn’t want
me.
He wanted what he thought he could get from me and he was willing to do anything to get it—even put me in danger.”

“What he could get from you?” He looked confused.

“My grandfather left me money. A lot of money. Kent wanted it.”

“So you dumped him. Good.” He grimaced. “I’ve made mistakes, too.”

“I’m not talking about mistakes.” She rose, stepped away from him. “I came to Serenity Bay to heal. Well, in order to really heal what’s inside, I’m realizing that I have to learn how to face life without fear.”

“You’re afraid a relationship between us will turn you into that needy person again, is that it?”

“That’s part of it,” she admitted softly. “The other part is that you have to be here for your daughter. She needs stability and that comes first. I understand that, I admire that about you and there’s no way I would ask or even want you to change that. Tatiana belongs with you.”