He chuckled. “Life is beautiful.”
It is with you, she said inside her heart.
He looked down on her. “You’re beautiful.”
“You’re daft,” she said, using the Aussie word for crazy.
“You once told me you’d come with me on walkabout. Do you still want to do that?”
“That was a while ago. I—I mean, yes, I’d like to see the world with you, but just now, I have to go home.” The feeling was suddenly intense.
He took a deep breath. “I want to come with you. I can’t just let you go away from me, Eden. Do you think Ciana would let me camp on her property? Maybe in the barn you told me about? I can work.”
Eden’s heart thumped with the sudden uptick of the unexpected, like a box found under the Christmas tree after all the other presents were opened. “You’d come to America? With me?”
“I’ll need a visa. Can apply for it soon as we get back to Sydney.” He pushed her bangs off her forehead.
“But a walkabout takes time. You can’t see the States in only a few months.”
“We’ll worry about that part when I get there. We can be together, that’s what’s important. We’ll figure out the future.”
Brimming tears smudged the stars above him until they melted into glitter. “Ciana will welcome you. I know she will. And you can meet Jon and Alice Faye, all the horses—”
He pressed his fingertips to her lips. “I take that as a yes.”
She wiggled her arms up from the warmth of the bag and hugged his neck, laughing. “Yes. Yes. A hundred times yes!” Her mind started racing. “Soon as we get to your house, I’ll email Ciana.” A week in the outback had completely cut Eden off from communications. “It’s still yesterday in Tennessee. I can’t get used to this time difference.”
“And you don’t mind sleeping out here tonight, roughing it?”
“Not with all those stars watching over us.”
He kissed her, drew back, cupped her face in his palm. “I love you, Eden. And tonight I want to make love to you, here under the stars of my country. And when we get to America, I want to make love to you under those stars too.”
She gave her answer wordlessly by partially unzipping the sleeping bag to make room for their bodies to move more freely together. “Don’t forget about the moon,” she whispered, parting her lips to receive his kiss. “Shouldn’t the moon have equal time?”
Ten thousand miles away from New South Wales, Australia, Ciana drove home on a narrow, dark county road toward Bellmeade, a line of trees on her left, open fields on her right. She could tell that her left headlight was burned out, but because it was so late, she pretty much had the road to herself and wasn’t concerned about oncoming traffic. The moon flirted with moving night clouds. She’d been at Abbie’s baby shower, and was still basking in the party’s glow, where it had seemed as if every woman from the expansive family of relatives had been stuffed into the church’s basement.
The room had been decorated with balloons and banners, and tables had overflowed with gifts. All kinds of appetizers—savory, hot, chewy, spicy-sweet—had been spread across banquet tables, along with cake and cream puffs and fruit for dipping in a small fountain dripping warm chocolate. On a beverage table sat containers of coffee, sweet tea, and punch.
For a minute, after walking in, Ciana had keenly felt Arie’s absence, but Patricia quickly pulled her into the circle of friendship and spoke freely about her daughter. “She would have loved this. It is a night for happiness.”
Abbie wore a coral-colored linen dress, her big belly protruding. She grumbled about being the size of a heifer, but she looked radiant. She also announced a long-held secret—she and Eric were having a boy. He would be named Aaron, the closest they could come to Arie’s name, which they would have chosen if the baby had been a girl.
“So much for offering Abbie my old dollhouse,” Ciana said as she drove the dark road. Maybe she could donate it to the Pediatric Oncology floor where Arie had volunteered and taught art classes. It had been good to be around Arie’s extended family, good to laugh and share stories, and keep her mind off her problems. The sudden glare of headlights almost blinded her in the rearview mirror.
Behind her she saw another truck coming at her fast. It was dark colored, a bar of hunting lights mounted across the top of the cab, and riding on oversized tires. Irritated at the driver’s lack of consideration, she stepped on her accelerator, but her old truck couldn’t deliver the speed she needed to outdistance the one behind her. The truck drew closer. Her pulse shot up, and irritation gave way to concern. She tapped her brakes, hoping to signal the driver to go around her. But he didn’t slow. If anything, he came faster. She moved onto the shoulder of the road, half on, half off the asphalt. The shoulder jarred and shook her truck, rattled her teeth, forced her to fight to keep her steering wheel straight.
She honked her horn. The truck didn’t pass, didn’t back off. Fear wedged in her throat, gave way to panic as she realized that the driver wanted to force her off the road. Desperately, she glanced right, saw empty fields flying past with ravines trenched into rain runoff gullies, and telephone poles evenly spaced. If she hit a pole, the front end of her truck would cave. If she went into a gully, she could flip.
Ciana felt the truck behind tap her bumper, making her jerk forward, almost causing her to lose her grip on her steering wheel. Her bumper was hit a second time. She couldn’t hold on much longer, dodging poles and gullies at this breakneck speed. She gritted her teeth.
Another quick glance ahead and to her right. She saw an upcoming turnoff and a closed gate, an entrance to a field for farm equipment. Driving through the gate would destroy her truck, but she would also avoid a ravine, spread the impact across the grille, and instantly slow her speed. With sudden determination, Ciana turned the wheel and drove onto the turnoff, letting the other truck shoot past her. With her hand on the handle of the door, she lay as far down across the seat as her seat belt allowed and struck the gate. With an earsplitting sound of metal on metal, her truck hurtled through the steel barrier, and with a momentum that shoved most of her engine into the cab. The truck stopped with a lurch. The heat of the engine scorched her legs. She gasped for breath, tasted metal-tinged smoke. Her mind screamed, Get out!
She somehow struggled out of her seat belt, tumbled through the door she’d thrown open and torn off its hinges by the impact, rolled across the ground. She panted, her lungs on fire, lay back against the hard cold dirt. Ciana knew she was hurt, and she was alone. She closed her eyes and lost consciousness.
Ciana was sitting up in the ER, on an exam table, her midsection tightly wrapped, and wearing a gown that gaped in the back, when her mother and Jon barreled behind the curtain. “Hey, you can’t barge in here,” a doctor barked. But there was no stopping her visitors.
“I’m okay,” Ciana said, bursting into tears. She put her arms around Jon’s neck.
“What happened?” She heard raw fear in Jon’s voice.
“I’m doing an exam here,” the doctor interrupted crossly.
“When you didn’t come home …,” Jon said. She winced with the pressure of his arms on her sides and he quickly drew back.
Alice Faye stepped forward, her face pasty white, and peered into Ciana’s eyes. “Oh my God, honey …”
“I’m all right, Mom.” She was woozy from the pain medication the doctor had given her, and she was shaking from cold and from shock.
“How’d she get here?” Jon asked the doctor.
“Ambulance brought her in. Some farmer found her in his field about four a.m. He called 911, stayed with her until the paramedics arrived.”
She was in an emergency clinic attached to a small hospital on the outskirts of Windemere, near the interstate. The ER was tiny and, except for Ciana, without patients.
“I think my truck’s totaled,” Ciana mumbled, still dazed, and unable to let go of Jon.
“How bad is my daughter hurt?” Alice Faye turned to the do
ctor.
The doctor’s demeanor became patient and compassionate. “Just got her X-rays and scans. There’s a broken rib that I’ve wrapped, and some burns on her arms, but she was wearing boots, and they protected her legs. Some cuts, already stitched, and she’s going to bruise and be pretty sore from head to toe. But all in all, I’d say she’s pretty lucky. No organs damaged. I’ve given her a shot of antibiotics and pain meds. I’d like to check her in overnight for observation.”
Together Alice Faye and Jon said “Okay” at the same time that Ciana said “No way.” She looked at their anxious faces. “I want to go home.”
“It’s just observation,” the doctor said. “You blacked out. Have a good night and I’ll sign you out in the morning.”
Ciana struggled to scoot off the table.
Jon stopped her. “Whoa. Don’t be stubborn. Do what the doc says.”
“Mom, my clothes are over there.” She pointed to the things she’d been wearing.
“Ciana—” Alice Faye started.
“I will walk out naked if I have to.”
The doc exchanged glances with Jon and her mother. “I can’t hold her against her will. And she seems capable of making her own choices.”
Jon flashed her an angry look, but he nodded.
“I’ll write her a pain prescription, and you can take her home. She should see her regular doctor in a couple of days, or”—he turned to Ciana—“or sooner if you have abdominal swelling or serious pain.”
“I’ll make sure she does,” Alice Faye said, wiping her eyes on a tissue handed over by a nurse.
Ciana started off the table, but the doctor stopped her. “Not so fast.”
“You said I could go.” Waves of nausea washed over her.
“Nurse, bring a wheelchair.”
“I can walk,” Ciana started, holding the gown closed behind her, but another look from Jon silenced her.
The nurse rolled a wheelchair over and Ciana was helped into it. She knew she couldn’t manage by herself at the moment. She felt battered and no longer up to arguing.
The woman settled Ciana in the chair, handed Alice Faye a paper sack with Ciana’s torn and filthy clothes, too damaged to be re-worn, so she had to wear the hospital-issue gown home. The nurse pushed the chair to the door.
Jon jogged ahead and brought Alice Faye’s Lincoln to the entrance and to a stop in front of the chair. With help, Ciana eased into the backseat. Jon leaned over her, snapped her seat belt, stole a kiss, brought her back to herself. She was safe now. The pain meds were working their magic. She felt numb and floaty. She leaned into the seat. “Happy to ride in this old tank,” she said, drifting on the current of the drugs.
“That old truck of yours needed to be gotten rid of years ago.” Alice Faye’s voice quavered.
Ciana was glad her mother was blaming the truck. Jon caught her eyes in the rearview mirror. His look was dark as thunder, and questioning. She shook her head slightly to say Not now. And so silently she shared with him that what had happened had not been an accident.
Later that day, the sheriff showed up with a deputy and took Ciana’s statement about her wreck. She was groggy on pain pills but was determined to answer his questions. Trouble was, she couldn’t help much with the investigation. She could only describe the truck as “big and black,” but was unable to give either a make or model. “I never saw the driver either. I was too busy trying to get out of his way.”
The sheriff filled out a report as she spoke, prodded her for details, but she wasn’t able to tell him more. Finally, he closed his notebook and said, “If anything else comes to you, call me. You handled things real smart, Ciana. This could have ended a whole lot different.”
Once he left, she drifted off to sleep and dreamed of a large, dark beast chasing her, trying to devour her. When she woke, Alice Faye brought her lunch on a tray, offered to feed her. Ciana declined. “Mom, I’ll be okay. How’s Jon doing?”
He had visited her first thing after breakfast, still livid. He’d eased onto her bed, gathered her into his arms, held her, rocked her gently, then left the room without a word.
“Upset. We’re both crazy upset,” Alice Faye said, answering Ciana’s question.
In spite of the mellowing effect of the pain pills, Ciana felt anxious. “Where is he?”
“Working the horses now, but he went out to the field earlier, to the scene.” Her mother’s eyes went shiny with unshed tears. “This has gone too far. I’m not dumb, Ciana. I see what’s happened around here. The fences. Now your accident. Someone’s trying to run us off Bellmeade. It isn’t right. I know I wanted to sell, but I never expected things to go this way. I never thought it would come to—to hurting you.”
“Mom … we don’t know for sure. I don’t know why—”
“What other reason could there be for you to crash? Someone’s trying to scare you … us … away. Most everyone’s on board for Hastings’s project. You’re the holdout, Ciana. And so they came after you.”
Ciana dropped her gaze because the naked pain on her mother’s face had put her on the verge of tears. “We can’t let this get to us. This is our land, and no one’s going to chase us off it.”
“Right,” Alice Faye said, her chin high. “They won’t.”
And just like that, Ciana realized that their wills had merged. They were of one mind about keeping their land, no longer a house divided.
When it was time for supper, Ciana wanted to come to the kitchen, but neither Alice Faye nor Jon would allow it. So Jon carried both his and Ciana’s plates into her room while she remained in bed. “I feel silly,” she grumbled, but not without some gratitude. She hurt all over.
He ignored her complaint, looked around, and in his best drawl, said, “Never thought I’d be invited into your bedroom. I know I just barged in this morning, but I had to see you, make sure you were really here.”
She gave a little laugh, groaned because it pressed against her ribs. “Would have given you a tour if you’d asked.”
“I wouldn’t have trusted myself to tour and leave.”
She found having Jon in her bedroom incredibly sexy. Not that she could offer to do anything about it just now.
He dragged a chair to her bedside, set the tray across her lap. “You look wonderful.”
“I’ve seen a mirror, cowboy. I know what I look like, and ‘wonderful’ is a huge exaggeration.”
“You’re alive. That’s what’s wonderful.” He set his own tray on his lap. “I saw your truck. Sheriff had what’s left of it towed to impound. Maybe a paint sample from the other truck is on the bumper. That could help pin down a brand.”
“Is my poor blue beast toast?”
He nodded. “I can’t believe you walked away from it.”
“Rolled away like a ball,” she said for clarification, and pushed her fork through the gravy on her mashed potatoes. She had no appetite. “I was afraid it might blow up.”
Jon’s face darkened. “When I catch up to the guy, he’ll be toast.”
“Not sure he’ll ever be caught. Probably part of the same gang that’s breaking our fences.”
Jon blew out a lungful of air. “Let’s drop it for now.”
He ate, and while he did, she nibbled a few bites. “And I’ve lost my truck too. That really burns me. I’ve had that truck—”
“Way too long.” Jon completed her sentence with a wry smile. “Sort of a piece of junk, you know.”
“It was running,” she said defensively. “Now I have nothing to drive except Mom’s Lincoln and my tractor.”
He grinned. “You can drive my truck.”
“I accept your offer.” She knew he’d worked all day without much sleep, so she let him eat in peace. When he was finished, he set his tray on the floor. She poked her tray. “I’m through. Tell Mom it was delicious, but it hurts to chew.”
He set her tray beside his, scooted onto her mattress, and facing her, took her hand. “I don’t know what I would have done if—”
br /> The anguish in his voice and on his face stabbed at her heart. “But I’m all right. Really. I’ll be out there plowing up the fields real soon and planting a new crop.” Spring alfalfa was generally planted anywhere between early March and May. “I’m going to put in a field of corn too. And then there’s the garden out back.”
“I get it. You can’t keep a good girl down.” He started to stand, but she caught his hand.
“And you’re going to train horses here.”
“What?”
The words had slipped out, and until that moment she hadn’t realized she’d even been harboring such an idea. But now that she’d said them, resolve set in, and she knew it was what she wanted. She didn’t want Jon to leave, try to buy other land for a business, or decide to return to the rodeo circuit. “You heard me. This place is going to pay off, and you’re going to be a part of it.”
He shook his head. “This is your land. Not mine.”
“But I can do whatever I want with it. And I want you to get some of those mustangs and train them, and sell them, just like you did for Bill Pickins.”
“How’s that help you?” He looked somewhat amused.
“I’ll take a cut of your profits,” she said, realizing she was acting on pure emotion with no clue about his business. “I—I mean, if you want to work out the details, we can.”
He studied her. “We’ll talk when the drugs wear off.”
Fighting sudden exhaustion, she closed her eyes and rested against her pillow. When she opened her eyes, he was still staring at her, his look so tender that an intense physical desire stirred inside her. “I have a lot of boo-boos, cowboy.”
“Maybe I should kiss them.” He leaned forward, brushed his lips against her forehead, just above the stitches over her eyebrow.
She held up her arm where there was an abrasion. “Hurts here too.”