“I’ll take care of him.” Jon twirled his hat in his hands, his nerves stretched piano-wire tight. “Sorry this happened to you, Dec.”
“Me too.”
The season was almost complete, and riders and personnel typically headed back to jobs, homes, and families, only to gather again when the new season began. Two years before, when he’d left at the end of the season, Jon had taken a job training mustangs for a rancher in Tennessee. That was how he’d met Ciana. Following the rodeo was a vagabond lifestyle, one he had once coveted. “Where you going when they release you?”
“Back to Montana. Got a double-wide and a grazing pasture for my horse.”
“Need some help driving home?” The finals were in three weeks, and Jon was in the running for prize money, but he’d walk away if Dec needed him.
“No,” Dec said, with finality. “I’ll go home, have a long rest, then start all over again come spring. It’s the only life I know.”
Jon didn’t miss the sound of resignation in Dec’s voice. “You can retire.”
“No pension plan,” Dec said with a grin. Then he sobered. “I have something to say to you, Jon. May as well say my piece before you skip out or they take away my joy juice.”
“Say it.”
Declan drove his gaze into Jon’s like a light saber. “Take a good hard look at me, because this could be your future. You’re a good rider, but all that bucking and being tossed takes a toll on a man. Sooner or later, your body can’t take it anymore. For that matter, neither can your brain … all that jarring around ain’t good. I’ve been twenty-five years on the circuit. Long time, and nothing much to show for it.” Dec shifted, and in spite of the morphine pump, he groaned. “Three broken ribs,” he explained. “My story ain’t pretty. Been divorced twice, and somewhere out there, I have a fourteen-year-old girl I haven’t seen in years. This ain’t a lifestyle, Jon Mercer. It’s a sentence.”
“What’s your point?”
“Don’t end up like me. Growing old with nothing but a horse and saddle to your name. I know you have someone you care about.”
Jon stiffened. “It’s complicated.”
“Things between men and women always are, but that don’t keep it from being worthwhile. Wish I’d tried a little harder, especially with my daughter’s mother. She was a good woman. And I was a fool to walk away.” Dec lowered the bed so that he was lying flat, pushed the button on the infusion pump beside his bed that would deliver the measured dose of morphine he needed. “Now get of here. I’m going to float off.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Jon backed to the door and moved quickly down the hall to the hospital’s bank of elevators. Deep in thought, he waited for the doors to open, moved and shaken by Dec’s sobering message. Don’t end up like me.…
Hours later, Jon sat alone in the fairground stands. That day these bleachers had been filled with cheering, adoring fans. Now all was quiet. Without the noise and smells of horses and leather and sweat, the whole place felt desolate and lonely. Although it was late, he hadn’t been able to sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about Ciana. From that first night he’d laid eyes on her until the day he’d driven away, he’d been unable to get the girl off his mind and out of his system. When he closed his eyes, he could conjure up the heady scent of her—a blend of strawberries and fresh-mown grass. A girl who loved horses, the rich dirt of farmland; a woman with a fierce spirit to protect her friends, her family name, her land, her dreams. Strong-willed, hot-tempered, but also soft and sensuous. She was the real deal.
He remembered the night she come to him when he’d had to put down his horse. He’d been drunk. And sick with hurt. But then Ciana was there in his room, holding his hand, all kindness and concern. And when he’d lost control and taken her into his arms— The memory swamped him with the need to hold her one more time.
He leaned back on his elbows, stared up at thousands of stars spilling across the heavens. He spun his memory back to the day he’d left, to how he’d kissed her and how she’d returned his kiss. Hungry, passionate … final? When he thought about it now, there had been nothing final in that kiss. Nothing was finished between them. Not a damn thing.
All at once a meteor blazed a trail across the arc of the sky. Mesmerized by the streak of white fire, Jon sat straighter. Wasn’t seeing a falling star supposed to be a good omen? If so, he’d just watched a magnificent one!
Thoughtfully he stared at the star-studded canopy, suddenly very sure of what he wanted and what he was going to do about it. After the finals, he’d load up his horse and gear, return to Texas to see his mother and grandparents. Granddad was in poor health, and Jon needed to visit with his family while the man who had helped shape his character was still alive. But afterward, he was heading straight to Tennessee. He’d ask Bill for another job, and if he wasn’t hired there, he’d find work around the area.
He would go back for the one thing worth giving up his rodeo lifestyle for, the one thing worth fighting for, worth wanting. Ciana. Jon grinned, and aloud, with no one to hear but the stars, said, “Get ready, because I’m coming for you, Ciana Beauchamp.”
And this time he wouldn’t walk away from the fight to keep her—regardless of past mistakes and the pain that separated them. He loved her. Loved her! And he was determined to win her.
Come hell or high water.
Turn the page for an excerpt from
This inspirational novel in the vein of Eat, Pray, Love is set in Tennessee horse country, as well as the historic cities and picturesque countryside of Italy. As the story unfolds, three girls, recently graduated from high school, plan the next phase of their lives while dealing with complicated issues. Author Lurlene McDaniel subtly explores the many types of love—including love for one’s family and friends and intimate love—and the sacrifices the girls face.
Excerpt copyright © 2013 by Lurlene McDaniel. Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
Something was wrong.
Ciana Beauchamp bolted upright in bed, her heart pounding and fear closing off her throat. What had she heard that had awakened her out of a sound sleep? Something was wrong. The noise came again, from outside, in the distance. She heard the horses locked in the stables neighing in alarm.
Her bedside clock read 2:00 a.m. The horses should be asleep. What was spooking them? She tossed off her covers and fumbled around for her jeans, which she had discarded in a heap on her floor before she had fallen into bed that night. Ciana tugged the cold denim on over her pajama bottoms, grabbed an old sweatshirt, and padded to her door. She opened it carefully, stepped into the hall, and listened for sounds from her mother’s room at the far end of the hall. She heard Alice Faye snoring and knew that the horses’ distress hadn’t disturbed her mother. But then, how could it have? When Alice Faye fell into bed dead drunk every night, she could sleep through anything.
Ciana hurried through the house, through the kitchen, and into the mudroom. There she pulled out her work boots from beneath the old timber bench where she’d stashed them after feeding the horses and locking down the house for the night. She removed a rain slicker from a peg beside the door, slipped it on, and reached for the doorknob. She hesitated, then turned, opened a cabinet door, and took out the doublebarreled shotgun. No telling what she might run into—a marauding coyote, a rabid raccoon, something more dangerous. She opened the cabinet over the bench and took down a box of shells and quickly loaded the pump shotgun. She went out the door, moving quickly, stepping through puddles left from yesterday’s cold April rain. Her boots made a sucking sound.
The closer she got to the stables, the louder the shuffling of the two horses in their stalls. She squinted as she approached the door and saw that it was standing ajar. Fear prickled up her spine. No animal except the two-legged variety could have unlatched the door.
She stood still for a moment, taking deep breaths to slow her heartbeat. She
missed her grandmother with an ache that made her knees weak. Olivia should have been handling this, just as she’d handled all the Beauchamp family issues over the years.
Suck it up! Ciana told herself. Olivia couldn’t help. The ball was in Ciana’s court now.
She eased inside carefully, knowing that the hinges needed oiling and their squeaking would give her away. Another thing to put on her to-do list. The scent of her caused the horses to calm somewhat. Still, Firecracker, her favorite riding horse, snorted and moved against the side of the stall, making the old boards creak. She commanded silently, Don’t give me away.
She stood stock-still, listening for noise. Shuffling sounds came from the tack room. She heard the lid lifting on the oak chest where blankets were kept and heard the thump of a saddle as it hit the floor. Her heart squeezed as she remembered Granddad Charles’s antique Mexican saddle with the sterling silver trim. Whoever was inside could steal it. The tack room needed a better lock. Maybe the whole barn needed a security system. There was so much for her to do. Too much.
Ciana swallowed against the lump in her throat formed partly from fear and partly from being overwhelmed. She stole to the door and saw a candle flickering and a man kneeling in front of the trunk, tossing out the contents, his back to her. The guy had lit the way for her and presented a broad target.
The shotgun had grown heavy in Ciana’s hands. She’d shot it many times growing up and knew the damage it could do. But she’d never aimed it at a human being before. “Don’t ever raise a gun unless you’re prepared to use it.” Olivia’s words came back to Ciana. Was she prepared to shoot? What if the man was high on meth? She’d heard stories that such people could charge like raging bulls. She raised the gun, pumped it, and with a bravado that came from holding the weapon, said, “What are you doing in my barn?”
The man spun, but the unmistakable sound of the shells being chambered kept him on his knees. The whites of his eyes were glowing in the light of the candle. “Don’t shoot. Please.”
Emboldened by his fear, Ciana aimed at his chest, her hands rock steady. “You stealing from me?”
He stared wide-eyed at the twin barrels. “Please, I’ll go.”
Now she had a dilemma. Fumble for a phone and call the cops? What phone? She fumbled for her cell and realized she’d left it in her bedroom. Let him run? He was a thief. “Cops in this part of Tennessee don’t prosecute landowners for defending their property, you know.” That wasn’t quite true, since the man had no weapon she could see, but she wanted to keep him very afraid.
The man was shaking all over. “You empty out anything you’ve already put in your pockets,” she commanded, nudging the gun toward his open coat.
He hurriedly obeyed, dropping a handful of coins she kept in a mason jar on the old scarred desk against the wall. He dropped matches and a few candle stubs. Had he been planning to burn her barn before he left, trapping her helpless horses and sentencing them to certain death? The thought focused her anger, melting away all fear. “I should shoot you!”
“No, no, please!”
She stood her ground for a minute, then finally backed out of the doorway and motioned with the barrel of the gun for the vagrant to stand and exit the small room. She stood far back, out of reach but with the gun still aimed at him. “Don’t you ever set foot on my property again,” she said in as menacing a voice as she could muster. “Because I will shoot you dead.” She motioned with the barrel of the gun. “Now get out!” The man seemed frozen to the ground. “I said, out!”
He didn’t need another prod. He sprinted through the barn door like a squirrel chased by a fox. Ciana took a deep breath and lowered the shotgun, for it had grown unbearably heavy in her suddenly trembling hands. She figured she should call the police and report what had happened, but she realized she couldn’t cope with waiting for them to get out to the farm and fill out a report. She went to the stalls to calm the restless horses. She gave each a cup of oats, picked up the gun, and returned to the house.
She scraped off her boots in the mudroom, rehung her slicker, removed the shells from the shotgun and shoved them into her jeans pocket, and took the gun with her to her room. Once inside, she leaned against the wall, her legs rubbery, too quivery to hold her up. She sank to the floor, grasping the gun in her lap. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Olivia was supposed to be in charge. Ever since Ciana had been six and her father and grandfather had died in the crash of Granddad’s single-engine Cessna, Olivia had been the backbone of the family. She had taken care of Bellmeade, the family farmland that traced its origins to before the Civil War.
No more.
Dementia and old-age frailty had claimed Ciana’s beloved grandmother. She was in a continuous-care facility in downtown Windemere, fifteen miles away. As for Alice Faye, Olivia’s daughter, well, she lived inside a gin bottle, unwilling and unable to take the reins. Ciana longed to talk to her friends, Arie and Eden, but it was almost three in the morning. She couldn’t call them now.
Ciana began to weep as the tension of the night’s confrontation began to leak out of her body. She might have killed or severely wounded the intruder. She muffled her sobs with her fist, her shoulders shaking hard with each racking breath. Just weeks before high school graduation, everything had fallen on her shoulders—the farm, the debt, caring for her mother and grandmother. It was all hers.
And she was only eighteen years old.
Turn the page for an excerpt from
Ciana Beauchamp hasn’t seen or heard from Jon Mercer in months. Until now. He’s back in Windemere to see her. Deep down Ciana is filled with joy and relief. She’s never stopped loving him. It’s proof of Jon’s love that he has returned, but what will their future be?
When tragedy strikes, almost no one in town is left unscathed. Tragedy has a way of bringing people together, but it can also tear them apart. Ciana can hardly face her choices, but she knows she must, and there are now people who she can turn to if only she is willing.
Excerpt copyright © 2014 by Lurlene McDaniel. Published by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
Alone horse and rider stood at the top of Bellmeade’s long tree-lined driveway. Ciana Beauchamp had noticed the duo as she passed a window inside her house but hadn’t paid them much mind. Horseback riders often passed her property on the road fronting her land. Yet this pair had been motionless at the entrance for a while.
She couldn’t see them clearly. Gloom from the darkening sky had gathered from the west, promising autumn rain. Plus she’d been in a funk all day. It was October twenty-fourth. It would have been Arie Winslow’s twentieth birthday. If she had lived.
Her friend, Eden McLauren, had gone into town, and her mother, Alice Faye, was banging around in the kitchen. The final harvest was completed, and Ciana should have felt peaceful satisfaction, but she didn’t. She was sad, on edge, with the horse and rider adding to her tension.
She’d thought about Arie all day, remembering the trip to Italy with Arie and Eden the summer before, remembering the good times, glossing over the hurts. She missed Arie sometimes as much now as she had on the day she fled her earthly life. What she wouldn’t give to see her, talk to her one more time.
Through the window, Ciana saw the horse stamp, growing restless. She squinted, trying to see the rider more clearly. Exasperated, she stepped out onto the wraparound veranda of the old Victorian house. The rider urged his mount forward and the horse came up the drive under tight rein, almost as if it knew where it was going. The rider, a man, sat tall in the saddle, and as he drew nearer, she saw that the horse was a buckskin, toffee tan with a black mane and tail. Ciana’s heartbeat quickened, and her breath pressed like a weight inside her breast.
At the front steps, the cowboy removed his hat and hung it on the horn of the saddle. He slid
off the horse, grabbed a leather bag, and laid it on the top step. Ripe red apples rolled from the pouch, stopping at her feet. “Here’s a gift,” Jon Mercer said.
Ciana’s chin trembled. She was almost overwhelmed by the sight of him and the gesture, but she kept her composure, squared her shoulders, and asked, “Who told you about the apples?”
“Arie. It was one of her favorite stories about your grandparents. She said it was how Charles came to court Olivia. Fresh apples were all he had to offer.”
Ciana saw instantly that Arie had shared the story in a final act of kindness, when she had realized the truth about Ciana and Jon. “Arie died in April,” Ciana said stoically, feeling old resentments toward Jon rise.
“Abbie let me know. I had asked her to call when … after it was over.”
Ciana felt slighted that Jon had asked Eric’s wife and Arie’s brother. “She was my best friend. I would have let you know if you’d asked me.”
“I know. But I asked her instead. Thought we needed the space.” His horse, Caramel, once Arie’s horse, wandered to the grassy lawn and began to graze. “How’s Eden?”
Ciana needed space, all right. “She lives here now with me and Mom. Some changes around here too. I’ve taken in horses to board for their owners. I don’t have an empty stall for Caramel.” She added the last to let him know he couldn’t just walk back into her life or her heart without explanations, and certainly not without permission.
“I talked to Bill on my way from Texas. He’ll let me crash at his bunkhouse and board Caramel.”
Ciana glanced up at the sky and the gathering rain-filled clouds. “Well, you might want to head back before the rains come. They look to be gully-washers.”
Jon propped his boot against the bottom porch step. “Not until you tell me if you meant it.”