The Bride Wore Red Boots (13 page)

“Are you sure? It adds half an hour each way.” And yet, she thought, she'd get to spend an extra half hour with him.

“Don't ask again.” He admonished her. “Do you need to stop by the hospital first?”

“I'd like to pick up my suitcase from the car. But that adds another—”

He stopped her with a tsking sound favored by grandmothers around the world. “What did I tell you? Close your eyes, put your head back, and enjoy the ride. I'll have you and your suitcase home in no time.”

She hesitated only a moment then did exactly as she'd been told. For a few blissful moments she was in a fairy tale, being whisked ever further from the person she really was. She didn't recognize this woman who wasn't annoyed by being ordered around, however kindly the orders were intended. She tried to figure out if Gabe was acting differently this visit, or if she was just so numb from the long, long day that she could ignore him.

Her body relaxed into the Jeep's comfortable bucket seat but then, rather than drift further into the sweet dream, her real-life memories returned. Slowly they grew and expanded, gobbling up the pleasant fantasy existence. By the time they reached her mother's car in the hospital parking lot, she moved like a robot and retrieved her suitcase in silence.

Gabriel didn't fill that silence with questions or even concerns. He let her stay quiet and uncommunicative. For the first time since her dreadful failure of a conversation with Mason Thomas she allowed his words to play through her head. “A leadership position requires more than superior surgical skills . . . You haven't gotten high marks on getting along with your fellow docs . . . This is just a postponement so you can take some more time to work on the floor and perfect your skills . . . It's an area you need some more time to develop.”

For the first time since Mason had handed her a tissue in his office, tears stung behind her closed eyes. She hadn't failed at anything she'd put her mind to doing since she'd lost the spelling bee to Meg McPherson in seventh grade. It was like her father had always told her—“Your brain wasn't built for failure, Amelia. You come from stock that knows how to make success happen.”

She did know how to make it happen—her resume was proof positive. And the rub was, this failure wasn't her failure—it was based on a difference of philosophy: What was more important, patient care or managing inflated, and therefore fragile, egos? Inflated egos needed to be deflated—she still believed that. And yet, she was the one who'd had her dream skewered with back-stabbing scalpels.

“Hey. You okay?”

Gabriel's voice finally interrupted the silence, and as she surfaced from her trance, she heard the little squeak of unhappiness she'd let slip. Hastily she straightened in the seat and blinked her eyes to clear them.

“I'm fine,” she said, too quickly. “I'm awfully tired. Must be half-dreaming.”

“You never said what changed in your schedule to allow your trip. You must have had to do some fancy scrambling.”

She supposed she had, since she'd taken only eighteen hours to set everything in order. Mason had casually reassigned and rescheduled her surgeries and smoothed the way for four weeks off. It was another prick to her ego that he'd accomplished it so easily. She hadn't told a soul.

“A change in the schedule,” she said, dismissing his query.

“Lucky for us.”

Her emotions finally cycled around to annoyance. What she wanted to do was tell him to drive, go back to saying nothing, and stop trying to schmooze her. Instead she was the one who said nothing as they continued toward Paradise Ranch.

The scenery would normally have been obscured by the dark, but tonight the landscape, almost as far as she could see into the rolling hills that led toward the Teton mountain range, shone with silver-edged shadows and the blue-white light of a full moon. Harper, the painter, would have been able to capture the light perfectly on a canvas, but Mia could only stare mesmerized as the moonlight turned rugged Wyoming hills into ethereal beauties.

The movement in the distance happened so subtly Mia dismissed it at first as just more distant shadows. But then, yards and yards away, several animal shapes broke from a single dark mass, and Mia caught her breath.

“It can't be,” she whispered.

“What?”

“Pull over! At the overlook just ahead. Would you? Please?”

She had to be making it up. She craned her neck as Gabriel swung the yellow Jeep off the road and aimed its nose out over the rolling valley.

“What are we looking at?”

“Turn your lights off,” she said, still whispering, although even if she was right, whispering didn't make a bit of difference. “Straight ahead. Past that knoll.”

She pointed, leaning left and peering through the windshield. Gabe leaned right so he could follow the line of her finger. His head bumped softly against hers.

“Sorry.”

“S'okay.” She watched a moment more and then the shapes defined themselves. One, two three, four . . . she counted to nine. “There!”

“Are those?”

“Mustangs!”

Every dour, angry thought fled as the equine shapes fanned out. Running! Her heart thrummed like rain on a rooftop, and her breath quickened until she officially grew light-headed. She hadn't seen mustangs in fifteen years. She'd been gone, of course, but in addition, nowadays the horses stayed north nearer the Montana border or south in the Buttes. Cattle ranchers had made sure they'd been driven off of grazing lands, her own father chief among the mustang detractors. The sight of this small band was like a gift of miraculous healing—to the land, to her sore heart.

“I've never seen wild horses,” he said.

“So rare around here.” Her voice continued to emerge in a reverent whisper. Tears formed again, but this time they had nothing to do with failure. This welcome home was simply overwhelming.

“This is the damnedest thing.”

“I know.”

“No. I mean, weird. I've never thought about mustangs in my life, and it was just the other day I happened upon your sister Joely watching a documentary about something she called a Mustang Makeover. She was almost depressed about these horses, but this time, with you, it might as well be a heard of unicorns.”

She turned to find his nose just inches from hers. The stubble of his beard was so close she could count the stiff, sexy hairs even in the dim interior of the Jeep. She swallowed, forgetting the horses for a long, dry-mouthed second. He smiled. “You didn't strike me as a unicorns and rainbows kind of girl,” he said.

His breath was sweet and hot, and he smelled of warm skin and his wool coat. She forced a slow breath and turned to look back out the window. “Every girl turns into a unicorns and rainbow believer when wild mustangs show up.”

The herd had stopped running and now stood about two hundred yards distant, some grazing, some with heads up like statues gazing in their direction.

“What does it mean that they're here?”

“They've wandered from their sanctuary and nobody has rounded them up yet.”

“Someone will round them up?”

“Ranchers don't like them. They compete for grazing space with cattle.”

“Really? There are, what, a dozen of them? How can that hurt?”

His words elicited a smile. “In my opinion, exactly. Especially nowadays. A few generations ago there were a lot more horses and the land was more stressed. It's an old fight.”

“Aren't they protected?”

“To a certain extent. The herds are culled and their numbers controlled with yearly roundups and drives. You can adopt a mustang from the Bureau of Land Management. That's how a lot of people get horses to train for the makeovers. My sisters and I used to get one or two and turn them into cow ponies.”

“Joely said you were a good horse trainer.”

“I guess I was.” She thought back to the days when she'd been the one to guide Joely, the bleeding heart, into toughness and Harper, the dreamer into focus. “I was the practical one. I didn't care how pretty the horse was or how big. I watched its gaits and its heart.”

“Ever sensible.”

“We never won a makeover competition, but we came close every year. Consistency—that's what my dad said we were after.”

“Could you still do it?”

She dared to turn back to him. His eyes twinkled, but his question was sincere.

“Other than the fact that I don't have a hundred days in a row to work on a horse, yeah. I think I could.”

“Cool.”

The simple word unattached to any expectation or questions, suffused with warmth. It
was
cool. She'd once had a life
filled
with strange, cool things.

“Can we just watch them a little while?” She leaned forward and crossed her arms on the dashboard. “They'll disappear tonight and chances of seeing them again are small. I'm sure it's just a transient band.” She looked at him again. “I mean, if you can. I'm keeping you, sorry.”

“No. You're not. It's fine. Hang on.”

He left the Jeep and went to the back of the vehicle. A moment later he opened her door, two large, plaid wool blankets in his arms. “This Jeep has a tough old hood,” he said “Let's get up off the ground and lose the reflections of the windshield.”

She wasn't quite sure how to react. He'd switched gears so many times tonight, this was just one of many quick changes in attitude, aspect, and activity he'd performed. She exited the car and followed two steps to stand beside the front wheel.

“Step on the running board and then on top of the tire. Let me know if you need a boost.”

“I've got it,” she said in a low voice, and looked over her shoulder at him as she climbed the side of his Jeep.

He grinned. “I'm gonna hand it to you, Doc. You've been a pretty great sport tonight. Considering how tired you must be, another little adventure like this is a fun surprise. Meet you up top.”

She blinked and he was gone. Mere seconds later he was kneeling on the hood and extending his hand. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “Did you just fly up there?”

“Yup. C'mon.”

Their palms met, and his thumb hooked around hers, solidifying his grasp. With smooth, easy power, he helped her over the fender, and she sat nimbly, letting him release her hand only after he sat as well. Deftly he folded one of his blankets lengthwise and laid it against the junction of the windshield and the hood, covering the wipers. The second one he shook out and spread across their legs.

“This'll give us a few extra minutes out here in the cold,” he said.

“So prepared,” she teased.

“You grew up in these mountains. You know what the weather is like around here. I've learned the hard way over six years to be prepared.”

She was glad for her heavy jacket, which, although not a full-fledged parka, had kept her plenty warm through the past two New York City winters. The Wyoming night was still, but a bite in the November air nipped her cheeks and had her pulling the edge of the blanket up to her chin. The hood beneath her seat radiated warmth from the engine. When she leaned gingerly back against the windshield Gabriel did the same, and his arm aligned with her as they snuggled, accidentally but pleasurably, together adding more warmth to the chilly night.

“They're still watching us,” he whispered.

She focused into the platinum-etched night and found the herd. Five or six horses still faced the Jeep and its humans, and the others grazed peacefully. Somehow, climbing around and clattering on the car hadn't spooked the little band.

“I needed this so badly,” she said with a sigh, but the moment the words were out she regretted the dejection she'd hadn't filtered from her voice. Purposefully, she brightened. “But, then, who doesn't? Everyone should see this.”

“Everyone,” he agreed. “Some of those guys you helped tonight—they should see this. The one who most recently got home left Afghanistan nearly ten months ago, and I still don't think he believes there are truly peaceful places left in the world. Everything is a fight to him.”

“Which one?” she asked.

“Brewster, the injured one.”

“The angry one.”

“Yes. But I don't think even he could be angry in a spot like this. Look at those beauties—they don't know an IED from an Iraqi school boy—all they care about is pure life and living.”

“I don't know. They struggle to survive, too.” Something prickled through the night air, something electric between her, Gabriel, and the wild horses that made her as bold as the stallion allowing his band to stand so bravely close to potential enemies. “Iraqi school boy,” she said. “The boy in the pictures at your house is more important than you let on.”

He stiffened, and she didn't try to coax him out of the reaction. The worst thing he could do would be to get angry or ignore her, and there wouldn't be much new in that. But he did neither. Instead he inclined his head slightly toward hers. “This trip. You didn't just decide to change your schedule for your sister.”

The prickling in the air increased until it felt as if it came from her face, heating everything around her with embarrassment. She'd dreaded telling anyone how badly she'd blown her much-touted master plan. Now here she was, faced with lying to save face or telling the truth to the only person in Wyoming she'd fantasized would one day acknowledge her success and expertise.

“I lost the job,” she said in a rush.

The words only stung a moment before a strange new sensation flowed through her veins from the touch of his hand taking hers. He wrapped his fingers around her hers and squeezed.

“That's okay,” he said quietly. “I lost the boy.”

L
OST THE BOY
?

Gabe could not believe he'd uttered those words to anyone, let alone Amelia Crockett. She had gone over his head like a tattling kindergartner when she'd been unimpressed with his actions in the past. How much of a disaster would his reputation be once she wheedled this whole story out of him? And she would.

And yet . . . His pulse slowed and his immediate panic dissipated. This was the woman who'd just counseled one of his men to lie if he had to—the Amelia Crockett he didn't yet have figured out. Somewhere in the midst of their mutual admissions to one another he'd taken her hand, and she hadn't pulled it away. Out in the distance stood some of the most amazing creatures he'd ever seen. The combination of all that had pulled a confession out of him as easily as a dose of sodium pentothal. Or a unicorn's spell.

Damn
.

He tried to free his hand, but she gripped it in both of hers with sudden, surprising tenacity. “Tell me,” she said. “It's okay. The story will never leave this spot. Tell me about losing a boy.”

Hearing the words come back at him, he winced. It wasn't as if he'd never told the story—he'd gone through his own months of denying that he'd needed help all those years ago after returning from Iraq, just as his guys were going through it now. He'd finally submitted to counseling, finally learned to accept that the incident wasn't his fault, finally allowed himself to move ahead with his life. But his out-of-the-blue declaration that he'd lost Jibril, and his reaction to Amelia's request now, proved he'd never truly let himself off the hook.

“Jibril al Raahim,” he said, “the boy you saw in the pictures, was exactly who I said he was—a kid who lived just outside the Green Zone in Baghdad where I was stationed for three tours. He was also a kind of self-appointed sidekick the last eighteen months I was there. I,” he hesitated only a moment and forged ahead. “I stretched more than a few rules when it came to Jib.”

“Did he have a family? Or was he the equivalent of homeless? What was his story?” Amelia's questions held all the intensity of a digging journalist and yet carried a note of genuine interest.

“He had a large family: seven siblings, uncles and aunts, a loving mother, and a very strict father who was a good man. I met them all. But Jibril had a fascination for all things American, and I showed him everything he wanted to see. By the time I figured out he was a little parasite, he'd gotten his pincers into me, and I'd taken a liking to him.”

“What's wrong with that?” Amelia asked.

“We were supposed to be friendly and helpful and ‘make friends' with the locals, but we weren't supposed to adopt them. Jibril, though . . . do you know what his name means in Arabic?” She shook her head. “Archangel of Allah. The Angel Gabriel. He had my name and vice versa. He believed that meant we were brothers.”

“I find that heartwarming.” She smiled.

“Yeah. Well, in the end, his family didn't. First he begged me to teach him English. Then he wanted to know about baseball and baseball cards. Pretty soon it was the music the soldiers listened to. I didn't take all of this seriously enough. To me it was harmless fun, a few hours here and there. Until the last day I saw him.”

A familiar squeeze started in his chest, the one that made it a little harder to breathe. He'd learned not to fight it.

“I'm sorry.” Amelia's apology surprised him. “I shouldn't have made you tell this story. It sounds like it has a bad ending.”

“That's just it.” He gave a helpless shrug. “I don't know. One morning he brought ten friends, brothers, and cousins to a sandy old neighborhood park so I could teach them all how to play baseball. We never knew when IEDs would turn up, and we certainly didn't know about the one an insurgent had placed in a trash can in the park. It went off right behind our makeshift third base while I and one of my squad buddies were chasing after a well-hit ball.”

“Oh, God, the kids.” Amelia squeezed his hand more tightly.

“Four children were killed—that's what we knew for certain. None of the ones we saw were in the group playing with us. They were just watching. As best we could tell, our group scattered. In the chaos, the smoke, the fires, we searched but when we couldn't find them, we assumed they were all right. Our job at that point was to secure the scene, so we had to finish working. Hours later, I went looking for Jibril but he was nowhere to be found, nor was his family. Their house was abandoned.”

“How is that possible?”

“It's a question that's haunted me for eight years. According to neighbors, Jibril and a cousin died, and their grieving families snatched them from the scene so the evil Americans couldn't touch them. They buried the boys, shunned the town because the military was based there, and they left within hours.

“According to others, though, Jibril didn't die, but his parents were angry, specifically with me, because I'd seduced him. They spirited him away so I couldn't find him. I looked for him and his family for months but never found a trace. I had to believe he was alive because nobody was angry enough to tell my superior officers that he wasn't. Iraqi parents mourn their children very hard, and they will lay blame on the murderer of their sons.”

“But you don't truly know to this day if he lived or died?”

“That's right. I lost him.”

“I'm sure you're right, Gabe. You'd have known if he'd died.”

“The thing is, even if he didn't it was my fault his family moved away—left their life and everything they knew. All because I insisted on getting too close.”

“You could look for him now. Have you ever tried?”

“I think about it all the time, but why would I do that? I caused him enough trouble.”

“Or, maybe you gave him some culture and understanding he's never forgotten.”

He turned his head against the windshield and looked at her. She'd done the same and was staring back at him, her eyes sincere gray pools in the moonlit darkness. She still clasped his hand, and what amazed him was how secure it made him feel. He'd forgotten about tingles or first touches or the weird madness/magic of the night. He'd never considered that he might have done the kid any favors. He didn't consider it now. But she was a hell of a woman for suggesting it.

“Believe me, over the years I've learned that I got a lot more from him than I ever could have given. I thought he was clinging to me, but it was really me trying to turn him into a piece of home.”

“Come on,” she chided him gently. “That sounds wrong on the face of it. There's a lot more to your story than what you've told me.”

“Of course—eighteen months of complicated story. But you've got the gist of it.”

He turned his head forward again and placed his right hand behind his head. A quick glance assured him the mustangs still grazed within sight.

“Enough about me,” he said. “Your turn. Spill it about the job.”

He tried to make light of the heavy atmosphere, and she gave a smile that made a better grimace.

“There's not much to tell. I fully expected to get the job. Everyone who pointed me to it, helped me prepare for it, and had anything to do with hiring for it, knew exactly what my goals and plans were. I was the best qualified and the only logical choice. And they gave it to a second-year resident.”

The matter-of-factness that seeped slowly into her voice as she spoke turned her tone into the one he remembered from months before—harder, more defensive, perhaps slightly entitled. But he knew her better now, and although it was no more than a guess, he believed something other than ego and self-importance fueled these bouts.

“I'm really sorry, Amelia. That sucks. What reason did they give?”

She seemed surprised by his sympathy. One hollow laugh filled the space between them.

“I'm bad with people,” she said.

The blunt answer honestly took him by surprise. “Well, that's a load of bull crap.”

“Or not.”

“Look what you just did for me—for my guys. That's not the act of someone who's bad with people.”

“I'm fine with patients.” Her voice only wound tighter.

“Weren't you fine with Perry Landon? I know you were. He's done nothing but sing your praises. He's not a patient. Who told you this pile of nonsense?”

“No nonsense, Gabriel. No couched words or euphemisms. You know it's true—I don't have time for hospital politics or kissing up to people. You know I can be difficult. I don't make excuses, though, and I don't happen to think it was a valid reason to keep me from the job. Nonetheless, I didn't get it and, further, it was suggested I needed to use a month of built-up vacation time. Me being here isn't heroic. It's my equivalent to being sent to the corner to think about what I've done.”

“What you've
done
is be very heroic to your people in Wyoming over the last twelve hours. Maybe you just don't like New Yorkers.”

“After eight years? They're practically my people.”

“I don't know. I think your people are right here.”

They both settled back again, explanations as complete as they were going to be for the moment, secrets safe in the dark. They unclasped hands, the need for immediate comfort past, and for the next fifteen minutes they watched the mustangs wander as they grazed, moving farther away, ever in search of fresh forage. The Jeep's hood had long since cooled beneath them, and the air chilled as the time crept toward ten o'clock. Amelia pulled the blanket more tightly to her chin. Gabe expected to feel her shiver next. Instead, a small, delicate stomach rumble emanated from beneath the plaid wool. She giggled.

“Sorry.”

“Man!” Understanding dawned. “We never ate dinner.”

“I haven't been remotely hungry, but I've kept you from eating as well.”

“Believe me, if I'd thought of it nothing would have stopped me. I'm not one to miss meals voluntarily.”

“Proof of what a weird day this has been.” At last the shiver he'd awaited sent a quiver through her body. “I guess it's time to head on,” she said. “I'm not on my own here—there are people actually waiting for me.”

“You need dinner first?”

“If I know anything about home, there'll be food all over the place. You're welcome to come in and scrounge with me.”

“Oh, I couldn't impose on your family.”

“You couldn't impose if you tried—I hear them talking about you, St. Gabriel. C'mon. I am hungry now, but I don't want to head back the other direction just to find a restaurant.”

Gabriel had never been to Paradise Ranch. He'd heard tales of the enormous, fifty-thousand-acre spread and the influence its owners had once had in the area—like the fictitious Ponderosa spread of the old
Bonanza
television show. Today it was still one of the largest ranches in Wyoming, but modern ranching techniques now available to any rancher and an economy that favored nobody, made Paradise less of a powerhouse and more a revered old dynasty.

Gabe had done his homework when he'd become a patient advocate for the two injured Crockett women. Since Samuel Crockett, the last male heir to the ranch, had died just the past August, his six daughters shared ownership of Paradise. But only Harper and her fiancé had agreed to stay and make a go of the operation. Rumor had it that Sam had left the ranch in shaky financial condition and the future was still iffy.

Of course, he knew better than to base anything on rumor. And knowing the Crocketts as he was beginning to, he didn't think he'd bet against any of them.

He leaned forward over the steering wheel and peered curiously out the windshield as he turned into the Paradise driveway and approached the main house. The massive log home they came upon definitely did justice to the ranch's reputation, and it did its best to intimidate him. A massive porch, the full length of the house, stretched across the front. To the left of an imposing oak door were three full-sized picture windows, to the right was another. Two large gables jutted from the roof, and a massive addition grew from the left side of the main house. To a kid from a small city in Nebraska, this was a full-fledged mansion.

“Impressive,” he said quietly.

“Yeah.” Her voice had a muted quality to it, as if the sight of the house intimidated her, too, which made no sense, of course.

“You okay?”

“I usually feel zero nostalgia coming here. It's not actually the house I grew up in—except for the last couple of years of high school. It feels warmer tonight, though. Based on how this day and night have gone, that shouldn't surprise me, should it?”

“You're tired.”

“I am that.”

Windows glowed like a Terry Redlin painting as Amelia led him up the front porch steps and to the huge door. She reached for the handle, and the door sprang open before she touched it.

“Mia!” In seconds she was enveloped in a huge hug from one of the triplets. Gabe looked past them and met Harper's eyes. Behind her stood her fiancé, Cole Wainwright, much more relaxed and comfortable than he appeared when visiting the hospital. “We wondered where you'd gone. I'm so glad you're back safely.”

“I was in good hands.” Amelia pulled free and smiled back at Gabriel.

His pulse hiccupped like a school boy's.

“Gabe?” Grace noticed him and danced forward to offer the same warm hug. “This is a great surprise.”

“Come in,” Harper said. “Close the door and get warm. It's nice to see you, Gabe. How'd you get taxi duty all the way out here?”

“It seemed silly to make anyone run back to get your mother in the middle of the night. I already had Amelia in the car, and this pays her back for the favor she did for me.”

“Trading favors. How modern. And awfully quick, you two.” Another triplet appeared and raised her eyebrows. From the innuendo, he assumed it was Raquel. Grace wasn't one to leave the straight and narrow.