Texas Redeemed (34 page)

“Sully Joe said she quit and asked to be paid in cash right away so she could get out of this ‘dusty hellhole of a town.’ There’s nothing left for her here.”

Is there anything left for you in Night Sky?
Valerie couldn’t say the words because she wasn’t prepared either to hear him say no or list all the reasons that didn’t include her. So instead she said, “Lucy wanted to know whether we’d be all right.”

Peyton retreated just a sliver, but it felt like he’d just put a mile between them. “I don’t have the answer to that. Not now. Neither do you.” Then he handed her the Coke, turned and strode away.

F
REEDOM HAD A
unique sound, scent, taste, feel. Peyton curled his fingers over the handlebars and inched up the wide-shouldered Harley cruiser’s speed as it fired down the open road on the periphery of town. The sleek black-and-silver motorcycle roared in his ears, the moonlight and occasional streetlight reflected off the metal. Leaving this place years ago had saved him. Would it do the same now?

He drove—picking up speed, putting miles behind him … but not much perspective. And then he knew exactly where to go.

As the engine purred to silence, Peyton dismounted the motorcycle fully expecting to be turned away at this hour.

But Fatima Aturro opened the door to Bueno Eats in her housecoat, offering an understanding smile. “You need the gym. My husband said you’d be back.”

Diego appeared behind his wife with a kitten coffee mug. “First one I could find,” he said, handing off the mug so he could yank on a zippered sweatshirt. “Get to bed,
mi amor.
I’ve got it from here.”

An hour later, Peyton was alone in the gym and wired with adrenaline, and stood wrapping his hands for the speed bag when he heard the door open. Wryly he muttered with a glance over his shoulder, “Taken up an interest in training?”

Jasper entered, his footsteps quiet, his arms crossed over his dark vest. “Not quite. I called your cell—”

“Phone’s off.” Peyton wanted to take stance and start punching, but the man deserved his attention and respect. He finished wrapping and patted his face with a towel. “So you came looking for me.”

“I went to Bull’s-Eye first.”

Peyton couldn’t help being amused at the picture of spotless, buttoned-up Jasper taking a stool at Two-Bit Tony’s bar and turning up a Miller Genuine Draft. “Well, here I am.”

“Mister Peyton, you once told me the butler sees all. I see that you love Valerie and Lucy.”

Of course he did. That love was as vital to him as the blood in his veins. “Valerie had countless chances to come clean. She didn’t.”

“That applies to your daughter, too. If there’s one thing they have in common, it’s their love for you.”

“Your point?”

“A con’s a con, and it burns to be made a fool, but is it fair to see Lucy as a victim and Valerie as an accomplice? Are you sure it’s over because she made a bad decision out of concern for you?”

“My mother said she and Valerie were cut from the same cloth.”

“Do you believe that?”

Peyton shook his head, hooked the towel over his neck and went over to the speed bag. “Never. But I was a real asshole, Jasper. Think she’d forgive that?”

“Consider forgiving yourself.” Jasper came over, reached up and stilled the bag. “As for Valerie—” he hitched his chin toward the open doorway, where she stood backlit by the soft outdoor lights “—I think she already has.”

W
HY DID
I
go along with this?
Valerie hadn’t wanted to blindside Peyton, but after Lucy’s plot to bring them together at Memorial hadn’t panned out, the girl had recruited the one man who had a chance of getting through to them.

Word was Peyton had taken time off at the hospital, but Jasper had driven her there anyway to check. Sully Joe recalled seeing him filling up his Harley at the gas station. Then at Bull’s-Eye, Wayne Beaudine had hunched over the pool table, calculating his next shot, and hollered out over the noise that Peyton was probably “sweatin’ it out” at Aturro’s gym.

Peyton’s fists uncurled and he dropped his hands when he saw her. He wasn’t dressed to train, in a tee shirt and jeans, with his leather jacket and helmet on a weight bench. And it was later than late. Coming here had been impromptu, a restless, last-minute choice.

“This is for you.” She came over, held up the scrapbook their daughter had insisted she give to Peyton. “From Lucy.”

He unwrapped his hands, took the scrapbook wordlessly and they stood stock still.

Didn’t he feel it, too? That invisible pull that was tugging them toward each other though neither moved their feet?

“Go on,” she said to Jasper. “I’m okay here.”

Peyton’s eyes were hot and hard as they searched hers. “I almost left.”

“You didn’t, though. That’s what matters. You chose to stay.”

“For you and our daughter. But Valerie, I hurt you. I’m destructive.”

She poked the scrapbook. “The man in
this book
is who you are.”

The cover displayed a tree with apples bearing the names of his twin daughters—and a few blank apples. Inside, the beautiful pages highlighted his history and family in Night Sky and his aid work. There was even a page devoted to Pisces and her litter of kittens, which, when he saw it, brought a soft chuckle that curled around Valerie like a ribbon.

Closing the scrapbook, he was total seriousness and intensity. “Why didn’t you apologize for sending my mother out of town and keeping it from me?”

“I’m not sorry for wanting to protect you. It’s the
way
I did it that’s messed up.”

“Same here. When I left I thought you’d be better off with Sam Burgess … or anyone who wasn’t me.”

“We were completely off the mark, then.” She set the scrapbook aside. “Looking at this book, it’s all so simple. Lucy was right when she said that grownups just make things complicated. It wasn’t fair to give you that ultimatum—Doctors Without Borders or your family. You’re a hero. How could I take that from you?”

“No—”

“Yes, damn it. A hero. One who’s mulish and impulsive and hotheaded, and who can piss me off like nobody else.”

“And one who lied,” he ground out. “When I said I didn’t love you.”

Valerie felt the hurt and disappointment and mistrust liquefy, and stinging tears rolled down her face like tiny licks of heat. She didn’t think, just sprang, and he caught her with one hand splayed under her butt and the other gripping her nape. Her Aerosmith “Dream On” tee shirt was riding up her back and her heel had struck the back of his thigh, but neither cared. They were messy and wild together, and oh, God, she’d missed this. “I knew it,” she whispered as she brought down her mouth on his, drinking in his regret … filling him with her hope. “Even when you denied it, I knew better.”

When Diego Aturro came in to lock up, Peyton put on his jacket and secured the scrapbook in one of the motorcycle’s saddlebags. Once he got on, he brought her close. “Validation? Forgiveness? A place to belong? Everything I was looking for, or didn’t think I deserved—I had it, with you. When we get to the ranch, it’s up to you whether I spend the rest of my life sorry for not seeing it from the start, or spend the rest of the night making it up to you.”

Valerie threw her leg over the seat and pressed her front to his back … her lips to his ear … and his body tightened. “Rev that engine. And let’s go home.”

T
HIS WAS WHAT
she’d been waiting for. Valerie sank to the edge of the precipice of the Crest, relaxed her shoulders and breathed. It was here—untouchable beauty, purity, the surrealistic view of mountain meeting sky.

There was still a vestige of winter in the evening air, which she had expected when she’d decided to tackle the Crest during the first April weekend for her spring climb. By the time summer rolled around, she’d be itching to see the night sky from this mountain again. All around her darkness drifted over foothills and treetops, but in the pale yellow arrival of dawn she would see once again the vista of jagged limestone and talc and spurts of wild grass as she descended to her truck on the gravel auto touring road.

For now, with the gibbous moon high and seeming close enough to touch, Valerie dangled her feet over the cliff, leaned back on her elbows and was contented.

The stars came out of hiding as darkness continued to fall like spilled ink. They twinkled in their constellations, glorious clusters, and traces of silver-gray clouds swirled around them.

This spectacle had saved a man’s life.

She reclined on her sleeping bag, imagining the stars’ glittery residue drifting down on her. The wind whispered, and after a while she thought it called her name.

Valerie sat up, her senses sharpened. There it was again, the faraway sound of her name on a breeze …

No, it came from several feet below.

Grabbing her flashlight, she picked her way down for a better vantage point and moved the beam until she spotted a man’s darkened form.

She nearly dropped the flashlight down the mountainside. “Peyton!”

“Stay there,” he said on a labored grunt. “I’m coming up.”

It didn’t make sense that he could be here, on the Crest of all places, now. In fact, he was supposed to be on assignment in Asia for at least another week.

“Turn around,” she said, nervous to see him ascend the mountain that was a magnificent thing of a thousand dangers to anyone trekking alone at night. “I’ll meet you on the road.”

“No.”

And she waited, her heart drumming fast. His muscles flexed under a tee shirt darkened with sweat; his face was hardened with tenacity and grit. He was rumpled, fatigued. He was
hers.

One last steep step brought them together, and she pocketed the flashlight and clutched his shoulders, bunching the fabric of his shirt between her fingers. “This is insane! You told me you didn’t want to die from falling off a mountain, but you do something like this?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t come all this way to stop here.” He peered up, then gave her a smile that arrowed straight to her core. “Come with me to the top.”

They crossed the rise of massive rock, and when they reached the peak, Peyton set down his backpack and moved in a slow circle, his face tipped toward the star-spattered sky. “It’s like this is where heaven and earth meet.” He sank to his knees and raised his fingers, taken in by the mirage that the moon and stars and sky could be touched with just the lift of a hand. “And it’s just you and me, Valerie.”

She came up behind him and bent to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “Kiss me. Then tell me why you’re here instead of on solid ground.”

Peyton turned and she threaded her fingers through his hair as his hot, firm mouth found hers. Rapture swirled, instant, electric. Then he pulled away and she was more than a little sorry.

“My assignment ended early. I went to the ranch first, hoping to surprise you and Lucy, but you were both gone.”

“Luce’s spending the night at the Carews’ farm.” It made her smile to think that both Lucy and Sarah had started to miss the animals they’d traded, and reversing that trade had been the glue that mended their cracked friendship.

“Dinah told me where you were. She gave me a checklist of things to pack, saying if I was going to do a stupid thing I might as well be smart about it.” As he spoke, he unzipped the backpack and retrieved from the interior compartment a sheer pouch secured with a piece of twine. “We’re exclusive. In love. In a relationship.”

“Dating.”

“Then we should make it official.” Peyton untied the twine and carefully extracted a tiny object from the pouch. She aimed the flashlight and could see it was a delicate Oriental ring—a simple silver band with an opaque green stone in its center. “It’s jade. I bought it in China on the way to the airport. Couldn’t stop thinking about how good you’d make it look.”

Valerie set the flashlight down and slipped the ring onto her finger. It was a bit loose, but she didn’t care. “You hiked up a mountain to give me a ring. It’s possibly the craziest thing anyone in this town’s ever done.”

He dragged his lips up her neck to her ear. “Adventurous sounds much better.”

“If there’ll be more
adventures
like this …” she sank into his solid embrace, laughing softly “… then I should get to work carving our initials into a tree.”

Peyton lowered her onto the sleeping bag, and Valerie grinned up at the expanse of the lustrous night. “From here, I’ve got the best view.”

“Actually—,” his stare swept her like a loving, heated caress, as she pulled him down to her “—I do.”

- T
HE
E
ND
-

A special thanks to my agent and her assistant,
who stuck by me through it all –
You’re my superheroes!

A shout-out to Eleni Caminis,
whose faith in my story is truly amazing.

A note of appreciation to my editors –
Your guidance is priceless.

And finally,
XOXO to my parents.
Thank you for Nashville—it was a happy time in my life.
And thank you for giving me the space
I needed to figure out who I wanted to be.