Orchard Valley Grooms

  “You don’t belong here.”

  “That’s better.” She gulped. “But still not good enough. Haven’t you ever heard of being cruel to be kind? Just make sure you mean what you say, because this is the only chance you’ll have.” Her voice broke. “You don’t even have to promise to marry me. Just ask me to stay.”

  “No!” It was shouted at her, as though something had snapped inside him. “You want me to be cruel, is that what it takes? Does it have to come to this? You’re an intelligent woman, or so I assumed, but this…this performance is ridiculous. I owe you nothing. You want me to tell you to go? Then go. You don’t need my permission.” He stormed to the other side of the room and held open the door for her. “Go back to Texas, Valerie. Marry your cowboy.”

  Stunned, she was afraid to move, afraid her legs would no longer support her. She nodded. She moved shakily past him.

  “Goodbye,” she whispered and then, unable to resist, brushed her fingertips down the side of his face. When she looked back at this moment, there would be no regrets. She’d offered him everything she had to give, and he was turning her away. There was nothing more she could do.

  Colby glanced at his hands, the very hands he used to save lives, and saw they were trembling with the force of an emotion so strong it was all he could do not to smash them into a concrete wall.

  When Valerie left, he’d been furious. He would have preferred it if she’d packed her bags and quietly disappeared. That was what he’d envisioned. Not this dreadful scene. Not dragging out their emotions, prolonging the pain.

  It shouldn’t have been so difficult for him. This wasn’t a new decision, but one he’d made long before he’d ever kissed her, long before he’d held her in his arms and comforted her.

  The phone rang and he seized it, grateful for the reprieve from his thoughts. “Hello,” he snapped, not meaning to sound so impatient.

  “Colby, is this a bad time?”

  “Sherry…of course not. I was just thinking…” He let the rest fade.

  “I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to make our dinner tonight, after all.”

  How sweet she sounded, Colby mused. Why couldn’t he feel for her the things he felt for Valerie Bloomfield? Heaven knew he’d tried in the past few days. He’d done whatever he could think of to spark their interest in each other, but to no avail.

  “My aunt Janice arrived and my parents asked me to take her over to my brother’s place,” Sherry explained. “I hope this isn’t inconvenient for you.”

  “No problem.” He heard something else in her voice, a hesitancy, a disappointment, but he chose not to question it.

  “Colby.”

  “Yes?” The irritation was back, but it wasn’t Sherry who’d angered him. It was his own lack of feeling for her. This past week, he’d spent four evenings with her. He’d held her and kissed her, and each time her kisses had left him cold and untouched.

  “I don’t mean to be tactless, but I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

  Her words shocked him. “Why not?” he asked, although he knew the reasons and didn’t blame her.

  “It’s not me you’re interested in, it’s Norah’s sister. I like you, Colby, don’t get me wrong, but this just isn’t working. We’ve been seeing each other for over a year now, and if we were going to fall in love it would’ve happened before now.”

  “We haven’t given it a real chance.” Colby didn’t understand why he was arguing with her when he was in full agreement. Sherry would make some man a wonderful wife. Some other man.

  “You’re using me, Colby.”

  He had nothing to say in his own defense. He hadn’t realized until she’d said it, but Sherry was right. He had been using her. Not to make Valerie jealous, or in any devious, underhanded way, but in an effort to prove to himself that he could happily live without Valerie.

  The experiment had backfired. And now he was alone, wondering how he could have let the only woman he’d ever loved walk out of his life.

  “What’s this I hear about you going to Texas?” David Bloomfield asked when Valerie joined him on the front porch following the evening meal. She sat on the top step, her back pressed against the white column while her father rocked in his old chair. She looked at the blooming apple orchard, breathed in the scent of pink and white blossoms perfuming the air. The setting sun cast a golden glow across the sky.

  Valerie hadn’t said anything at dinner about returning to Texas, and was surprised that her father was aware of her intentions. She’d sat quietly in her place at the table, pushing the food around her plate and hoping no one would notice she wasn’t eating.

  “It’s time for me to go back, Daddy.”

  “It hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked, his voice tender.

  “A little.” A lot, her heart cried, but it was a cry she’d been ignoring from the moment she left Colby’s home. “Your health’s improved so much,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “You don’t need me around here anymore.”

  “Ah, but I do,” her father countered smoothly, continuing to rock. “Colby needs you, too.”

  His name went through her like the blade of a sharp sword, and her breath caught at the unexpected pain. Her father was the reason she’d come home, but Colby was the reason she was leaving.

  “Love is funny, isn’t it?” she mused, wrapping her arms around her knees the way she had as a young girl.

  “You and I are so much alike,” her father said. “Your mother saw it before I did, which I suppose is only natural. I’m proud of you, Valerie, proud of what you’ve managed to accomplish in so short a time, proud of your professionalism. Cassidy’s lucky to have you on his team, and he knows it—otherwise he wouldn’t have promoted you.”

  “I’ve got a terrific future with CHIPS.” She said it to remind herself that her life did have purpose. There was somewhere to focus all her energy. Something that would help her forget, give her a reason to go on.

  “Your mother’s and my romance wasn’t so easy, either, you know,” her father said, rocking slowly. “She was this pretty young nurse, and I was head over heels in love with her. To my mind, she was lucky to have me. Problem was, she didn’t seem to think so. I was a business success, a millionaire. But none of that impressed your mother.” His smile was wryly nostalgic, his eyes gazing into a long-ago world. “Convincing Grace to marry me was by far the most difficult task I’d faced in years.”

  “She didn’t love you?” That was impossible for Valerie to comprehend.

  “She loved me, all right, she just didn’t think she’d make me the right kind of wife. I was wealthy, socially prominent and, as you know, your mother was a preacher’s daughter from Oregon. Before I contracted rheumatic fever I was one of the most sought-after bachelors in California, if I do say so myself. But I hadn’t met the woman I wanted to marry until your mother became my nurse.”

  How achingly familiar this sounded to Valerie. She’d been content with her own life until she met Colby. Falling in love was the last thing she’d expected when she returned home.

  “There were other problems, too,” David went on. “Your mother seemed to think my work habits would kill me, and she wasn’t willing to marry me only to watch me work myself to death.”

  “But you solved everything.”

  “Eventually.” A wistful look stole over him. “I loved your mother from the first moment I opened my eyes and saw her standing beside my hospital bed. I remember thinking she was an angel, and in some ways she was.” His face shone with the radiance of unending love. “I knew if she’d ever agree to marry me, I was going to have to give up everything I’d worked so hard to achieve. That meant selling my business and finding something new to occupy my time.”

  “You did it, though.”

  “Not without a lot of deliberation. I’d already made more money than I knew how to spend, but I realized I wasn’t going to be happy retiring before the age of forty. I had to have something to do. It took a couple of years—and Gra
ce’s help—to figure out what that should be.”

  Valerie nodded. “I feel the same way. I’d never be happy just sitting at home— I’m too much like you.” The extent of his sacrifice shook her. “How could you have given up everything you’d worked all those years to build?”

  “Without your mother my life would’ve been empty. My work didn’t matter anymore. Grace was important, and the life we were going to build together was important. I gave up one life but gained another, one I found far more fulfilling.”

  “But didn’t you ever get bored or restless?”

  “Some, but not nearly as much as I expected. When we’d been married a year or two, your mother saw I had too much time on my hands and we looked around for something to occupy me, some new interest. That was when we bought the orchard and moved here.” He grinned. “My own Garden of Eden.”

  “I don’t think I ever understood how much you’d changed your life to marry Mom.”

  “It was a sacrifice, and at the time it seemed like a huge one, but as the years passed, I realized she’d been right. I would’ve killed myself if I’d continued in business. Your mother brought balance into my life, the same way Colby will bring balance into yours.”

  She allowed a moment to pass before she spoke. “I’m not marrying Colby, Dad. I wish I could tell you I was, and that we were going to seek the same happiness you found with Mom, but it isn’t going to happen.”

  It was as if she hadn’t said a word. “You’ll be so good for him, Valerie. He loves you now, and you love him, but what you feel for each other doesn’t even begin to approach the love you’ll experience over the years, especially after the children arrive.”

  “Dad, you’re not listening to me.” He seemed to be in a dream world that shut out reality. She had to make him stop, had to pull him out of the fantasy.

  “He needs you, too, you know, even more than you need him. Colby’s lived alone too many years. Only recently has he recognized how much he wants a woman in his life.”

  “He doesn’t want me.”

  Her father closed his eyes and smiled. “You don’t truly believe that, do you? He wants you so much it’s eating him alive.”

  She lacked the strength to argue with her father, not after her confrontation with Colby earlier in the day. Nor did she have the energy to explain what had passed between them. In her mind, it was over. She’d told him she wouldn’t look back and she meant it. She’d swallowed her pride and gone to him and he’d cast her out of his life.

  She didn’t hate him for being cruel; she’d asked for that. Nor had she made it easy for him to reject her. But he’d done it.

  David sipped his coffee, and his smile grew even more serene. “You have such happiness awaiting you, Valerie. This problem with my heart is a perfect example of good coming out of bad. My attack was what brought you racing home. Heaven only knows how long it would’ve been before you met Colby if it weren’t for this bum heart of mine.”

  Valerie reached for her own mug of coffee and took a sip. “You want anything else before I go inside?”

  “So soon? It’s not even dark.”

  “I have a lot to do.”

  “Are you going to think about what I said?”

  She hated to disappoint him, hated to disillusion a romantic old man whose judgment was clouded by thirty years of loving one woman.

  “I’ll think about it,” Valerie promised, but it was a lie. She intended to push every thought, every memory of Colby completely from her mind. That was the only way she’d be able to function. She got slowly to her feet.

  “Good.” He nodded, still smiling. “Stay with me, then. There’s no need for you to hurry inside.”

  Valerie hesitated. This conversation was becoming decidedly uncomfortable. Despite her father’s illusions, she had to face what had happened between her and Colby, accept it as truth and get on with her life. Pining away for him would solve nothing. And listening to her father only added to the pain.

  “I need to do a few things before I leave.” The excuse was weak, but it was all she could think of.

  “There’s plenty of time. Sit with me a spell. Relax.”

  “Dad…please.”

  “I want to tell you something important.”

  “What is it, Dad?” she asked with a sigh.

  “I know for a fact that you’re going to marry Colby,” he said, smiling up at her, his eyes bright and clear. “Your mother promised me.”

  Nine

  “Dad,” Valerie said, suppressing the urge to argue with him. “If it’s about your dream, I don’t think—”

  “It was more than a dream! I was dead. I told you—ask Colby if you don’t believe me. I crossed over into the valley of shadows. Your mother was waiting for me there and she wasn’t pleased. No, sir. She was downright irritated with me. Said it wasn’t my time yet, and I was coming home much too early.”

  “I’m sure this seemed very real to you—”

  “It was real.” His voice had grown louder. “Now you sit down and listen, because what I’m about to tell you happened as surely as I live and breathe.”

  Trapped, Valerie did as her father asked, lowering herself to the top porch step. “All right, Dad, I’ll listen.”

  “Good.” He smiled down at her, apparently appeased. “I’ve missed your mother, and I didn’t want to continue living in this world without her. She told me my thinking was all wrong. She promised me the years I have left will be full and happy ones, with nothing like the loneliness I’ve endured since she’s been gone.”

  “Of course they will.” Valerie didn’t put much stock in this near-death experience of her father’s, but he believed it and that was the important thing.

  “Problem was, I didn’t much care about my life back here,” he went on, almost as if he hadn’t heard Valerie. “I was with Grace, and that was where I wanted to be. As far as I was concerned, I wasn’t going back.”

  Valerie was familiar with her father’s stubbornness; she’d inherited a streak of it herself.

  “Your mother told me there was a reason for me to return. To tell you the truth, I’d already decided I wasn’t going to let her talk me into it. She was darn good at that, you know. She’d drag me into the most outlandish things and make me think it was my idea.”

  Her father was grinning as he spoke, his eyes twinkling with a rare joy.

  “That was when she told me about you girls. Your mother and I were standing by a small lake.” He frowned, evidently trying to remember each detail of his experience. “She asked me to look into the water. I thought it was an unusual request, considering the discussion we were having.”

  “What did you see?” Valerie was picturing trout and maybe some bass, knowing how much her father enjoyed lazing away a summer afternoon fishing.

  “I saw the future.”

  “The future?” This sounded like something out of a science fiction novel.

  “You heard me,” he said irritably. “The water was like a window and I could look into the years ahead. I saw you and your sisters, and you know what? It was the most beautiful scene I could ever have imagined. So much joy, so much laughter and love. I couldn’t stop looking, couldn’t stop smiling. There were my precious daughters, all so happy, all so blessed with love, the same way your mother and I had been.”

  “It sounds lovely, Dad.” Her father had undergone traumatic surgery and just barely survived. If he believed in this dream, if he maintained he’d actually spoken to her mother, then Valerie couldn’t bring herself to disillusion him. Nor did she want to argue. Especially not now, when her own emotions had taken such a beating.

  “I remember every single moment of that meeting with your mother. I didn’t see a single angel, though. I don’t mind telling you, that was a bit of a disappointment. Nor did I hear anyone playing the harp.”

  Valerie hid a smile.

  “You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”

  “About angels?”

  “No,” he
returned impatiently. “About you and Colby. He’s the one I saw you with, Val. You had three beautiful children.”

  “Dad, why now?” At his quizzical gaze, she elaborated. “Why are you trying so hard to convince me to marry Colby? After the surgery, you seemed to have given up the idea. What happened to change your mind?”

  “You did.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re both so darned stubborn. I hadn’t counted on that.”

  “But you apologized for the matchmaking, remember?”

  “Of course I remember. I gave it up on Grace’s advice, but only because I felt you two wouldn’t need any help from me. But I quickly found out you need my help more than ever. That’s why I talked about Cassidy so much. To get you thinking about what you really wanted. And to make Colby a little jealous. Face it, Val. Eventually you’re going to marry him.”

  “Dad, please, I know you want to believe this, but it just isn’t going to happen.” Without realizing what he was doing, her own father was making everything so much more painful.

  “Don’t you understand, child? Colby loves you, and you love him, and you’re going to have a wonderful life together. Naturally there’ll be ups and downs, but there are in any marriage.”

  “I’m not marrying Colby,” she said from between gritted teeth. “For heaven’s sake, I only met him a few weeks ago!”

  “You think I’m an old man whose elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top, but you’re wrong.” He gave her a lazy smile. “I know what I saw. All I’m asking is that you be patient with Colby and patient with yourself. Just don’t do anything foolish.”

  “Like what?”

  “Going back to Texas. You belong here in Orchard Valley now. It’s where you’re going to raise your children and where Colby’s going to continue his practice.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “For what?”

  Valerie stood, her chest aching with the effort to breathe normally. She felt so empty, so alone. More than anything, she wanted to believe her father’s dream, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.