Long Road Home (6 page)

“And we should rename you Idiot Child,” Sophie shot back.

“Though Zombie Butt would definitely be an original name,” Austin said, fighting back the smile that was trying to get free.

“That B-word has become the word of the day. And yesterday. And for the past month before that,” Heather said. “I totally blame Santa for bringing him that copy of
The Day My Butt Went Psycho
.” She ruffled her son’s red head. “That was followed by
Zombie Butts from Uranus
.”

“Which he’s not allowed to say out loud.” Sophie scowled a warning at her brother, who’d just opened his mouth to blurt it out.

Austin ran the forbidden word through her head, separating the first two letters of the planet’s name from the last four—Ur-Anus—as a young boy might relish saying. Laughing when she figured it out, she glanced over at Heather, who merely rolled her eyes with maternal patience.

“I’ll bet, when we were talking about you wanting a large family while growing up, you never factored in butt books.”

“No,” Heather said emphatically. “I was thinking more along the lines of Dr. Seuss,
Where the Wild Things Are
, and fairy tales.”

“Yuck.” Jack’s freckled face wrinkled up as he stuck his finger in his mouth and made gagging sounds. “Fairy tales are for girls. I like the wild things book,” he allowed. “But I’m too old for it now.” He started to climb on the fence again. “Can I ride him?”

“He’s still too young for riders,” Austin said. “He’s not even a week old. But if you’re very gentle and quiet, you can pat him.” Austin turned toward Sophie. “You, too, if you’d like.”

“Be careful,” Heather warned. “He’s just a baby and you don’t want to upset his mother.”

“I’ll be super careful!” Jack promised.

“And quiet,” Austin repeated.

The seven-year-old made a zipping motion against his lips, then threw away an imaginary key before scrambling over the rails to the other side. Sophie followed with much more decorum.

“He’s so soft.” The girl ran a hand down the side of the foal’s face.

The foal’s mother’s ears pricked up, and she moved a little closer, but having had both children on her back before, she didn’t appear to take them as an immediate threat. “I like his star.”

Sophie traced the white marking between the eyes on the horse’s forehead. “Maybe you could call him Stardust,” she suggested.

“That’s a stupid girl’s name,” Jack hissed in a loud whisper.

“Why don’t we take some time to get to know him a little better before we decide,” Austin suggested diplomatically. “Meanwhile, you both can make up lists of possible names.”

“Okay.” Jack’s attempt at whispering appeared as unnatural as it would have been for Desperado to do jetés across the pasture. “I wanna touch his star like Sophie did.”

“Sure. Just remember to be gentle.”

His sister hefted him up so he could run his fingers, one of which was sporting a Darth Vader Band-Aid, over the star. The mother horse sidestepped slightly, as if realizing the perils presented by an energetic boy.

“Why don’t you two go into the house,” Austin suggested when the heels of his cowboy boots reached the ground again. “Winema’s back and I baked some chocolate chip cookies with your name on them.”

“Yay!” Jack shouted, then immediately put his hands over his mouth. “Sorry,” he mumbled through his fingers.

“That’s okay.” Austin smiled. “His mother knows you’d never hurt him.”

She watched him race toward the kitchen door, with his sister following behind.

“You’re a lucky woman,” she murmured.

“You always see them on their best behavior,” Heather countered. “You’ve never had to deal with a Lego Transformer clogging up your toilet at midnight on Christmas Eve, or the mood swings of a twelve-year-old girl going on thirty-five.”

“I remember that age,” Austin said. “Every single thing seemed life-and-death.”

“And just think, we were ideal adolescents.” Heather’s dry tone made Austin laugh. “Do you remember my mad, crazy crush on Maddox Mann?”

“Only too well.” The skateboard-riding, leather-jacket-wearing, garage-band-guitar-playing eighth grader had been the bad boy of Mountain View Middle School. “I was amazed when he grew up to become a bazillionaire tech mogul.”

“He was named the most likely to either become a rock star or end up in prison.”

“He sort of did both,” Austin pointed out. “Vicariously, anyway.”

His first game had had players gaining levels from garage band to international rock stardom. His second, and the far more popular with players, if not their parents, had involved planning a prison break with rewards for number of days spent before capture. These days, according to the article the
River’s Bend Record
had reprinted from the
Wall Street Journal
, he’d gotten into venture capitalism, of all things.

“He was so hot,” Heather said with a sigh.

“Still is, from what I saw on the cover of
People
in the mercantile.” Unlike most nerd tycoons, he was still wearing the studded black leather, but she guessed the diamond flashing on his earlobe was real these days. “He also just went through a mega
War of the Roses
divorce with his supermodel wife.”

“Which makes me glad that he never even knew I was alive,” Heather said.

“Fortunately, Tom did.”

“Yes.” Another sigh. This one followed by the slow, satisfied smile of a woman who knew she was well loved. “Sometimes it’s hard to believe that we’ve been together all these years.” High school sweethearts, they’d married their freshman year of college, when Heather had gotten pregnant with Sophie.

“It isn’t hard for anyone who knows you guys. You’re pretty much the perfect couple. If you weren’t both so nice, the rest of us would have to hate you.”

Heather laughed. “Maybe I should tell you about the towels Tom leaves on the floor, his inability to return home with everything on the grocery list, and waking up to middle-of-the-night emergency calls because he decided he wanted to be a big-animal vet instead of taking care of dogs and cats. Which don’t require house calls.”

“If those are your only marital problems, I’m looking forward to dancing at your golden anniversary party.”

“I’m fully expecting you and Sophie to plan it. And, giving advance warning, I expect it to be a blowout. I also wouldn’t be averse to a destination celebration. Say, on Maui.”

Which had, Austin knew, been Heather’s dream wedding destination after Marcy Mann, Maddox’s sister, had returned with photos from a family Christmas vacation there when they’d all been in the fourth grade. “You’ve got it.”

“On another topic, I figured out what to do about you and Sawyer.”

“Other than me showing up at his door naked and carrying a plate of double fudge sea salt brownies?”

“While they may admittedly be nearly as good as sex, I seriously doubt you’d need the brownies. But maybe there’s a step in between where you guys are now and that down-the-road scenario. How about the four of us have dinner together Friday night?”

“That’s your anniversary.”

“I know. Which is exactly the point. We can reminisce about the wedding and how you were my bridesmaid and Sawyer was Tom’s best man. And then, how, when Sophie was born, you both stood up in church as godparents, and all the other wonderful times we had together over the years. Before Sawyer screwed up by getting scared by that kiss.”

“You don’t know he was scared.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Heather shook her head. “He emailed Tom that he’d had second thoughts about backing away from the situation.”

Running away had been more like it. “Seriously?”

“Would I lie to my best friend? He told Tom that the day after he got back to Afghanistan, but then there was a terrorist attack at his base, and unsurprisingly, he kind of freaked out and wrote you that
never mind
email right after attending a memorial for the fallen. You know, one of those where the rifle, boots, and helmet make a cross with the dog tags hanging on it.”

“I know them.” Austin didn’t share that she’d had too many nightmares about Sawyer’s name being the one engraved on a set of metal dog tags.

“I suspect it was the first time the idea of mortality really sunk in. He didn’t want to ask you to wait for him to return, then have him get killed on you.”

It made sense. Not for every guy. But it perfectly fit the man who, so many years ago, had passed her that note in class, telling her how sorry he was about her mother leaving and he promised to always be her friend. And had gone on to watch out for her.

“Why did you wait until now to tell me?” Austin wasn’t going to dwell on might-have-beens. But if only she’d known the reasoning behind his backing away from the door they’d opened that day at the hospital, things would have been so different.

“Because you and your dad were in Vegas. I decided to wait until you got back home so we could talk about it in person. Make plans on how you could nudge things back on track and move forward. Unfortunately, my crystal ball failed to tell me that you were going to get shitfaced and marry some cowboy you’d known all of one night.”

“Waking up with the only hangover of my life. And a husband whose name I could barely remember.” Austin had never been much of a drinker. An occasional beer or glass of wine, but that night, after reading Sawyer’s email, she’d gone downstairs to the hotel bar and discovered cosmos. Which had been pretty, sweet tasting, and, she’d discovered the hard way, lethal.

“But that’s in the past.” She shook off regrets she couldn’t do anything about. “My point was that you guys have a romantic weekend planned. You’re going to Ashland to stay in that romantic B&B and see a play—”

“And don’t forget have lots of hot, swing-from-the-chandelier sex that doesn’t involve worrying a kid’s going to walk in or knock on the bedroom door.”

“That too. Although now that you’ve put that chandelier sex in my head, I really do have to hate you.”

“You can have that,” Heather said, turning serious after a rippling laugh. “You and Sawyer. You’re both way overdue.”

Austin couldn’t deny that. When they’d been checking out the inside of the cabin together, she’d felt as if she’d stumbled into a pinball machine and was being bombarded with pheromones.

“Why am I feeling like high school?” she asked. “This reminds me uncomfortably of when Tom had Sawyer ask me if I thought you’d be willing to go steady with him.”

“Right after I asked you to ask Sawyer to ask Tom if he was going to ask me to the Moonlight and Mistletoe Dance,” Heather agreed. “And yes, it does seem freakily familiar, though may I point out that if you two had figured out your feelings back then, we wouldn’t be having to go through this Kabuki theater routine now . . .

“As for our anniversary, we can leave after dinner. It’s only an hour, maybe an hour and a half out of our weekend, and if it gets you two past this stupid emotional roadblock, it’ll be the best present yet. Of course, I expect to be in the wedding.”

“Of course.” Austin waved away the idea of Heather not being her attendant. “If we do end up at the altar.”

“You will.”

“I can’t imagine Tom would be very happy with this idea.”

“He’s all in. Rachel has already agreed to create a fancy dinner at the café for the four of us, after which Tom and I will drive to Ashland and be tangling the sheets by nine. Ten, at the latest. We’ll still have our fantasy anniversary, and then Monday, when we drive up to Portland with Mitzi to get our dresses for Rachel and Cooper’s upcoming wedding, you can tell us all about
your
hot weekend.”

The thought was too, too tempting. But Austin still wasn’t sure. Although her marriage had never been a true one, at least as far as her lying, cheating, stealing ex had been concerned, once she’d awakened that morning and found the cheap gold ring on her left hand, she’d decided that she’d try her best to live up to her vows. Even as she’d had increasing indications that Jace wasn’t living up to that “forsaking all others” clause, she’d wanted to make things work.

At least that’s what she’d tried telling herself.

As it turned out, he hadn’t been the only liar in her marriage. Because from the flood of relief she’d experienced when she received that text saying her husband had found someone else, she realized that she’d been lying to herself.

The national finals were the last rodeo she and her dad had worked before she’d finally gotten him to go to Ryan about his symptoms. While Ryan had suspected PPS, he’d sent them to Portland for extensive tests. From the moment of the diagnosis, everyone and everything else had fallen off her priority list. Which had been easy enough to do with Jace out of the country in Australia.

While her marriage might have been a farce from the beginning, Austin’s divorce was still fresh. She’d already learned what could happen when you impulsively leaped into a relationship.

As happy as she was about Sawyer’s return home, the timing was all wrong. It was too soon. She could be jumping from the proverbial frying pan straight into the fire.

Yet, thinking of fires, her mind reeled backwards to that flaming kiss. Of her arms wrapped around Sawyer’s neck while she strained against him, wanting,
needing
more as their bodies melded hotly. Sawyer’s mouth had claimed hers while his strong hands had streaked down her back, pulling her tight against his aroused body.

“Well?” Heather asked, breaking into the fevered memory.

“Okay,” she said on a rush of breath before she could change her mind. “Let’s go for it.”

6

“I
’M GOING INTO
town to do some shopping,” Winema Clinton said. “Want to come along?”

Buck Merrill dragged his gaze from a rerun of the 2011 NFR bull riding championships. “Why in the blue blazes would I want to go shopping for female doodads?”

“I’m getting groceries. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re getting low.”

Buck made a sound somewhere between a curse and a grunt. Call him sexist, but unless you were talking a chuck wagon out working a roundup, as far as he was concerned, cooking was woman’s work. A thought he’d started keeping to himself after Austin had surprised him by letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that for his information, most of the great chefs of the world were men.