The Bride Wore Starlight (28 page)

He grabbed her into a kiss, and she dropped her crutches on the couch so she could wrap her arms around his neck.

“I like this,” he said when they parted. “So domestic.”

“And you who says he doesn't do commitment.”

“I don't rescue people and dogs either. That's your department.”

“And don't you forget it. All right, since it's Saturday and I'm sorry I said I'd work, I brought some stuff to make giant chef salads tonight. Ice cream for dessert. You know, to make up for healthy.”

“You are really handy to have around.”

“Don't forget that either.”

She put away her groceries and called on him to carry sandwiches she'd brought for lunch to the living room, but she tugged on his hand before he could pass them out. “Come and sit for a sec. In the interest of a hundred percent honesty in this relationship, I have something I have to tell you. You may not be happy with me.”

“That won't happen.”

She grinned with the barest hint of uncertainly behind the light in her eyes. “Then I'll just spit it out. I contacted your aunt and uncle, and they called me back this morning.”

He went dizzy, blown away with the complete unexpectedness of her announcement. “You did what?”

She planted a solid kiss on his lips. “I know you told me about them in the name of getting to understand each other, but I couldn't make myself believe they were really angry. Or that you were really angry with them.”

“I'm
not
angry. But I know they don't want to be reminded of the son I lost for them. I've never blamed them, Joely; they blamed me.”

“But you miss them. You say Rowan is your only family, but I can see in your eyes that's not true.”

She held his gaze unapologetically, which, for a woman who only days ago might have apologized for breathing wrong, would have been miraculous had this been any other subject. Alec took long minutes fighting his frustration. He'd fallen for this woman, to the point of being ready to take a chance on long term, but this was an area she had no business mucking with. When he'd calmed enough to keep his reply civil, he took her hands.

“I wish you hadn't done that.”

“I know.”

“Then why? I haven't talked to them in a year. Don't think for a second you can compare my family to yours. Hell, we were dysfunctional before I went to Iraq. Before Buzz and I ran off to join the rodeo. My aunt and uncle don't have anything to say to me now.”

“I'm pretty sure you'll find out that's not true.”

“You didn't have the right.” His voice tightened defensively.

“Look.” She set her jaw in the way he found cute when she was mad at him. “I expected you to be annoyed, but I don't expect you to be stupid about this. Maybe your aunt and uncle won't contact you at all. If not you're no worse off. If they do? Well, you're a big boy. You can handle a phone call.”

As if answering a summons, Alec's cell phone rang from the coffee table where he'd left it. He stared at it until Joely picked it up.

“Richard Waverly,” she read off the screen. “Your uncle. Take it.”

His gut lurched, and he shook his head. “This is not a conversation I can have without warning.”

“For crying out loud. Don't be an ass.”

“Don't you dare answer it for me.”

The phone quit. Joely set it down and glared at him. “What the crap, Alec?”

“You don't understand. This isn't something you can fix because you suddenly have a sunny outlook on life. Save that for us.”

“Us? Really? Tell me, what is ‘us'?”

“It's beginning to be the most important thing in my life. You've become a part of me—that's what's important. Leave the past in the past.”

“I feel like I'm part of you, too, Alec. I don't take what we started last weekend lightly or for granted. And I don't make love to you to prove anything. I do it because I have this corny belief we have two of those clichéd souls that were meant to find each other. Because I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“So don't be afraid.”

“I'm not afraid. You've made me the opposite of afraid, Joely.”

“It might not be me you're afraid of, but you are. You're afraid of your aunt and uncle. Of the rodeo. You're afraid of your cousin's ghost, Alec.”

Something hot and fierce flashed within him. He wanted to call it anger, but he couldn't honestly give it that name. It was resentment. It was defensiveness. It was standing there being accused of abusing Buzz's memory—a memory he'd felt so self-righteous about honoring. It was the start of fear. Not of the things she'd listed, but that she might have a point.

No.

She was wrong. She
didn't
understand how things were between him and his aunt and uncle. She couldn't understand how much Buzz had loved the rodeo in a way completely different than Alec had. To Alec riding broncs had been a goal, a challenge, almost a cheater's way of making a living because it had been so much fun, but to Buzz it had been a love affair—a reason to breathe and to fight for. If Buzz couldn't have his love, neither would he. So Alec had made his decision.

“Don't talk to me about my cousin's ghost. You don't get to bring him into this—you have no idea what ghosts I face.”

“Then tell me. Tell me what you see in your dreams at night and why you won't even step foot on the hallowed ground your cousin loved. Tell me why you don't trust me enough to help you after all you've done for me.”

“There's nothing more to tell. I made a promise, and I won't go back on it.”

“Then there's not much of a future for ‘us,' is there?”

“I don't see what this has to do with us.”

“Come on. You just went to enormous effort to get me on that long-distance ride to build up my strength. You nearly lost your dog convincing me I was strong enough to face my fears, get over being an idiot, and ride in the stupid Fourth of July rodeo. But you won't come to support what you've helped create. It's mean.” Her gaze fell, and she hesitated long seconds as if deciding to say more. Finally she bit her lip and drove the knife of guilt deeper into his heart. “And it hurts.”

He'd never experienced bitterness mixed so thoroughly with crushing sadness. “Hurting you is the last thing I want.”

“Then come.”

“Why is it okay that you don't respect a decision
I
made to help me live with what I was dealt?”

“Because you're not living. You're ignoring.”

“Right. It's hard to ignore something you think about every damn day.”

For another long, tense moment she remained silent, staring at the floor again, her face as drawn as a funeral mourner's. Even as he watched, tears filled her eyes.

“I can't do this.”

“Do what?”

“I can't live with this. I can't live with the double standard. You have one set of rules for me and another for you.”

“That's ridiculous.”

“Is it? You've made me clean out every closet, open every wound and cleanse it, and then start fresh. You get to bury a ticking time bomb by pretending it's all in the name of love. You get to be self-righteous and call this all a decision you've made. Well, maybe I've made decisions, too. If I can't have all of you—all your trust, all your secrets, all the skeletons in your closet—I don't want any of it. In order to be whole again, I need all or nothing.”

The words slammed into him like the hot shrapnel from the fiery Humvee. She couldn't be serious. She couldn't really believe his personal decision was something selfish that meant he didn't trust her.

She shook her head when he tried to take her in his arms. “I need to go back to work, Alec.”

“You'll leave in the middle of this?”

“It's not the middle. It's the end.”

“Not for me. We'll work this out at dinner.”

“We probably could. But I think I'm too selfish. All or nothing—I'm not interested in a compromise.”

“You have it all. Damn it. You have it
all.
”

She rose on tip toes and kissed him. Tears had welled over and spilled down her cheeks.

“All but the power to bring you out of the past or help you slay your demons,” she said. “I don't expect any more from you than you do of me, Alec. Someone I thought was a wise man once said to me, ‘don't say you can't, say you can.' Now he's the one saying he can't. I won't go back there.”

She pulled away, but he grasped her hand. “This is ridiculous.”

“You thinking so is one of the reasons I'm leaving.” She picked up her jacket and purse, walked to where Rowan lay, tail thumping like a pedal on a bass drum, and knelt to wrap her arms tightly around the dog's neck. “I love you, gorgeous. Be a good girl and heal fast.”

She passed Alec on her way to the door without touching him, and then turned back with her hand on the knob. “Do me one last favor. Stop your self-pity long enough to call your aunt and uncle back. Leave the past in the past, but don't keep them there. They don't deserve that.”

“They're the ones who shut me out.”

“I know. Do it anyway.”

She left, taking the fragile new meaning he'd found in his world with her. Stunned, he looked around his empty house unable to comprehend what had just happened. How did a person eff-up his life in the course of twenty minutes, just because he didn't want to go the damn rodeo?

I
T TOOK HIM
two hours to realize he couldn't answer his own question. It took him five more to get over being angry over Joely's demand that he call his aunt and uncle.

It took him an entire awful, sleepless night to understand that he couldn't let Joely end their fledgling relationship. In two short months she'd woven her way permanently into his heart, and if he didn't fix something, everything he believed about his inability to love and save the people he loved would be true.

Sunday morning he sat bleary-eyed at his table, praying for the caffeine from his coffee to kick in. His world was still off its axis, but in his long night he had come up with only one concrete piece of knowledge. The first thing to fix was the thing he bucked hardest against. The thing that would do the least good. Nonetheless, he let the coffee work its magic, then he picked up his phone and hit the redial.

His aunt answered on the first ring. “Alec?”

He recognized her hopeful desperation even though he hadn't spoken to her in so very long. She'd clearly been waiting for this call. Guilt stung quick and deep. When had he stopped being the bigger man?

“It's me, Aunt Chris. How are you?”

He got no reply. All he heard was a small choked sob before his uncle picked up the phone.

“Alec? Son? I'm sorry. Chris will be right back. Believe it or not she's so happy to hear your voice I think it plain overwhelmed her. Are you all right?”

“I'm okay, Uncle Rick. I was away when you called. I . . . I'm sorry.”

Finally he
was
sorry. Truly angry-at-himself sorry that it had taken him so long to call even just to hear their voices. Whatever words had been said, whatever the future held, these were his only living relatives. No matter what they needed, he needed them.

“Alec the last thing on God's little green earth is for you to be sorry. I'm really kinda glad your aunt is too choked up to talk. I have some things I've needed to say for a long time and I haven't known how to begin.”

“Rick, no. We don't need to go into the past.”

“Oh, yes, we do. In a big way.”

Alec had expected a cordial call. An obligatory conversation. He'd been willing to accept that, and once he'd heard Rick's voice, he'd even welcomed it. Honest, open feelings, however, were not something for which he had prepared or developed armor. He tightened his voice and tried to brush the looming deep emotions aside. Keep controlled. Tell them all was forgiven. Everything was past and everything was good. That was how he'd get through the call.

“I don't know why,” Alec said. “It's just great to hear your voice.”

“I should have called you long ago.”

“That could be my line just as well.”

Perfunctory. Expected. Good; Alec could work with this. He swallowed and started the next platitude, but his uncle plunged them straight into the fire.

“I can't ever take them back.” For the first time Rick choked up, and Alec's throat closed over a thick, painful lump. “The ugly words, Alec, you'll never unhear them. And I will never truly be able to live with myself for saying them.”

“Don't—”

“Let me finish. Please, son. Then I'll let you talk to your aunt. People say that words blurted in the heat of emotion reflect honest feelings you would normally hold back. I don't think it's true. I believe I would have said something just as awful if Buzz had come back without you. I can't prove that—but I was so damn angry at the war, the military, at Buzz, at you. At myself for not stopping either of you.”

“I know, Uncle Rick. I do know this.” Alec wanted him to stop. He needed time to breathe, and to halt the reopening of wounds that had finally, after three painful years, scabbed over.

“Grief is an ugly thing, Alec. I handled mine about as poorly as a man could by leaving it to fester for so long. It's not enough, but I'm sorry. I didn't ever mean what came out of my mouth.”

It was just an apology. Alec didn't want it to matter or be enough, because if it was, then everything his wall of strength had been built on was gone. He had nothing to brace against, nothing to hold himself accountable for, and no reason to hold onto the stubborn resolve that convinced him he was strong. If he forgave his uncle as simply as this, it would mean Joely was right—he'd been holding part of himself back, and he'd never really healed.

“I love you, Alec. I miss you.”

He felt it. The crumbling of the wall built from isolation and heartache. The hole it left was big but no longer painful.

“Alec?” His aunt came on the line.

“Chris. Is he all right?”

“Darling, he's a big, stubborn mess, but he's smiling. And I love him as much as I love you.”

“I want to talk to him again.”

“Okay. But me first.”

“Wait. I have to ask you, why? Why finally after all this time?”

“That wonderful girlfriend of yours. She's a special lady, Alec. She said she learned about us from you, and she believed you were ready to hear from us.”

“She shouldn't have called.” He fought lamely for the last shred of indignation, but it was useless. The hole in his life was filling rapidly with something warm and grateful and belonging entirely to Joely Crockett.

“You're wrong, Alexander. She got through to your uncle in a way I've never been able to. Convinced him that saying what he's wanted to say for so long wouldn't be useless. Don't ever be angry at her for coming to us.”

“I love you, Aunt Chris,” he said.

“We love you. With all our hearts. We despaired of ever telling you again.”

“I know. I'm sorry. I really am sorry. I should have understood your grief better. Rick's grief better. Please, let me tell him that.”

“He's still composing himself. First we need to talk about your cousin.”

“Oh, I don't think—”

“No interruptions,” she said, the warmth in her smile as audible as her words. “We're going to talk about Buzz and this crazy idea you have that you need to avoid the rodeo because of him. And if you're going to argue with me, then settle back into a comfy chair, because I'm going to keep you on the phone until we come to an agreement.”

In the space of one old-fashioned lecture, his aunt made him laugh. He didn't know why; he was pissed as hell at the new topic and her threat. At the same time, it was hard to stay angry when he'd gotten back a mother, a father, and a woman he loved all in the span of five minutes. He could argue with Aunt Christine until he was blue in the face, but in the end, she was going to talk him into something they both wanted.

“H
AT IN HAND
, literally I see.” Vince opened his back door to Alec two days later, wearing a shit-eating grin Alec would have wiped off his face with a smack upside the head earlier in the week. Instead he simply stared at his friend, who thought Alec had simply come to have a couple of pictures taken, and work out an extravagant introduction for Ghost Pepper's return on the Fourth of July.

“This is going to be pure gold,” Vince added. “Glad you came to your senses.”

“No. I've lost my senses,” Alec said.

“C'mon, man.” Vince led him through the kitchen and into the same dining room where Joely had met him weeks before, and where Alec had been such an asshat. “This'll be great for rodeo, fantastic for your fans, and it won't hurt you either.”

“Well, now? I'm not so sure about that.” Alec half-smiled for the first time. “Truth. I'm not here for a damn picture. You bragged once you could teach a one-legged cowboy to ride a saddle bronc. I'm asking you to make good on that claim.”

Vince's ugly, bearded mug twisted into such utter shock that it made this asinine plan of Alec's almost worth the soul-searching he'd done in order to get here.

“What the hell? Is this the apocalypse? You got inside information about Armageddon?”

“Yeah. I got it from my aunt.”

“Christine!”

“Tough as ever in that way that always made us feel good about being told what buttholes we were. Remember?”

“One of a kind, your aunt.”

“I need to ride that horse. Evidently Buzz is up there raising some kind of holy hell because I'm disrespecting his memory. Don't ask me, please. Chris is also just a little bit of a nut job when it comes to heaven.”

“I remember that, too. And if Buzz is causing holy hell, it's gonna get him kicked the wrong way back through those pearly gates. I'd best get you riding, son.”

Alec patted his cheek firmly with the flat of his hand. “Wipe that smirk off your face or I'm outta here, even if my cousin's eternal fate might suffer.”

“Fine. When do you want to start?”

“You've got a mechanical bucker. Take me out there.”

Vince truly looked as if he'd just matched his lottery ticket to the winning numbers. “Let's go. First you're going to show me every little inch of that peg leg of yours and we're gonna figure out what it can do. Then, by God, we're gonna turn you back into ‘Morr-i-SEE!' ”

Alec hadn't thought about that in a very long time. The name chant the crowd had always bestowed on him before and after a ride.

“I'm not him anymore,” he said as he followed Vince back toward the door. “I'm not looking for or expecting crowd approval. Just get me three seconds on GP and I'll name my first born after you.”

“Shit, what'll you give me if I get you eight?” Vince led him out into the yard.

“I'll kiss you in public.”

Vince sputtered. “Three it is. By the way, where's your girl?”

“That's the other thing.” Alec stopped and grasped him by the arm. “She doesn't know a thing about this, and you're not going to say a word. Not to her and not to anybody. Nobody knows until the announcer tells the crowd in two weeks. That's nonnegotiable.”

“You sure?”

“More than. What's not sure is whether or not I'll actually go through with this insanity. Hell, I might not survive today.”

“Tell you what. You die, I'll kiss you in public before they close the casket.”

“Freak.”

“C'mon, cowboy. Let's go buck you off a fake horsie.”