Three river ranch, p.8
Three River Ranch, page 8
“I’m not normally a gentleman, I promise, but you’re in a delicate condition…not to mention the dress and heels, and that first step is a doozy.”
“All right,” she said with a smile. “I’ll let it go this time. As long as we split the check.”
“Deal.” He gave her an exaggerated courtly bow, followed by a leering eyebrow-waggle. “Anything for a dame with great legs.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Rory, but beneath the blush, she was smiling.
…
She looked, thought Carson, like a hungry mustang, dancing back and forth, trying to decide if it was safe to approach the hayrack.
“I’d order a bottle of the Australian Shiraz, in honor of your Austra-labra-poo,” Carson said, “but I don’t want to drink it all myself.”
“Go ahead, I don’t mind,” she said.
“I’m betting,” Carson replied, “you don’t want to drive standard in heels, either, so unless you want to stay the night in Chinook, I’ll stick with sparkling water.”
“You could have one glass,” Rory argued weakly, as the waiter handed her the virgin crantini she’d ordered. Candlelight glinted on the sparkling crystal, adding licks of flame to the rich color.
Carson shook his head at her, lifting his glass to hers in a toast. “I don’t think so. Cheers, Rory. To new beginnings. And to Junior, in there.”
As soon as the words left his lips, he could have bitten off his tongue. Rory started and her hand shook enough that the cranberry juice slopped over the rim. She hadn’t talked much about her pregnancy, and he didn’t want to ask, but he’d have to soon. Surely there were…arrangements to be made. Weren’t there?
“Your new life, I mean. Starting over.” He was grasping at straws, when what he needed to do was look down, step away, no sudden movements. And for God’s sake, stop talking. He set his glass on the table, leaned back, and looked out the window, willing her to calm down.
“Cheers,” she said finally, her voice hoarse. She cleared her throat. “Ignore me. I just haven’t talked much about…Junior. And the whole date thing has me a bit freaked out.” She took a deep breath, reached across the table, and touched his hand. “Actually, I’m a mess. Sorry.”
The feather-light weight of her fingers burned through his sleeve like a brand, like electricity, moving from skin to blood to brain to groin. He hated to admit it, but his old friend Zach was right. This woman had triggered something in him that he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Something even more than desire was sizzling at the forefront.
But his father had made it impossible for Carson to look at a woman for her own sake. It was too complicated. Derek Granger had lassoed marriage and commerce into a tight knot, and Carson would not give in.
He and Rory could be friends. Nothing more.
“It’s okay.” He shifted in his seat, casually pulling his arm back, willing the heat away from his lap. “We should talk about something else. Tell me about your life in Billings. What did you do there?”
Her face changed then. It reminded him of his mare, the first time she’d caught wind of the wild herd. Memory and hope flooding energy into a frightened, empty place.
“Technically, I’m a speech therapist, but my work changes with every patient. I do some hospital work. Lots in the school setting, with special-needs kids, mostly autism, a few Down syndrome kids.” Her smile softened. “Most teachers don’t know what to do with them.”
“And you did?”
She shrugged. “My little sister was autistic. I guess I learned from her. I always figured I’d be a teacher, but when I started college, this seemed a more natural fit for me.”
Carson hesitated. “You said ‘was.’ Does that mean…?”
She focused on her glass, nodding. “We lost her eight years ago. She was fourteen and I was seventeen. Our family was already sort of…broken. That finished it off. It’s okay.” Rory spoke quickly, seeming to anticipate his words of condolence. “I’ve worked through all the stages of grief. I’ll always miss her, and losing her changed my life, but I’m okay.”
“Are you?” He looked at her over the top of his glass.
“Might not look like it.” Her smile was a little lopsided, and her eyes shone, but no tears fell. “But yeah. As much as I can be, anyway.”
The waiter arrived with their orders, chicken and lamb souvlaki, dolmas, spanakopita, hummus and pita, and enormous salads loaded with olives and feta.
“This looks amazing,” Rory said, spearing a tomato chunk dripping with dressing. “You may have to roll me out of here after all this.”
“I doubt that. You could stand a few good meals, I’d say,” Carson said, looking at the angle of her shoulder as it peeked out beneath the crimson wrap. “Are you always this thin?”
Rory quickly pulled the fabric close, covering herself. “I’m not thin. I just don’t like cooking for one.”
Her face had closed again, and Carson mentally kicked himself. He scrambled around for another subject of conversation.
“Sorry. If it’s any consolation, your ex sounds like a real piece of work.”
Rory smiled, then took another sip of her drink. “David and I lived together for a year, but to be honest, I ate alone most nights even before we called it quits. I should have known. I guess I just didn’t want to admit I’d made a mistake.”
Carson knew all about that. “So,” he said, “what made you decide to breed Aussie-poodle-dors? Instead of beagles or collies or something with a normal name?”
She arched an eyebrow at him over a fork loaded with pastry-wrapped spinach and cheese. “I believe I explained earlier why multigenerational Australian labradoodles are in such high demand as assistance dogs, especially for autistic children. Now that I’m…” She hesitated. “…on hiatus, I thought I’d try to breed a litter of puppies for a service dog organization.”
Carson frowned. “But you’ll go back to work, won’t you? I mean, after the baby. Don’t you miss it?”
“Yeah, but that bridge is burned. David’s in hospital administration.” She sighed. “But I do miss it. I miss the kids, and I miss Des. My friend, Desiree Burke, another special-needs teacher. She’s actually a physiotherapist but so many disabilities require crossover skills.” Her voice was soft, woven through with a thread of yearning.
“Why don’t you apply at the hospital in Chinook?”
“Maybe.” He reached for his glass and took a sip. She was so skittish, so alone. But he couldn’t force her to trust him.
Hell, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to get involved. Women, he’d discovered, had a way of harboring secret boxes better left unopened. The man who rips off the packing tape does so at his own risk.
“You’re not eating your share of the dolmas.” He held up the plate, looking questioningly at her. “Help yourself.”
She put one onto her plate, breathed in the aroma appreciatively, then cut into it. “Smells delicious.”
Carson noticed that her hands still trembled slightly and she hadn’t eaten as much as he’d expected. Was she just really worried about the dog? Or was she that nervous with him?
Her jerk of a boyfriend had done a real number on her, in that case.
“I hope Mistral’s okay,” she said with an apologetic smile. “I can’t help but worry. She’s an amazing dog, but she’s a first-time mom.”
“I’m sure Bliss will check on her. She’ll be fine.” He nudged the food toward Rory again, but she waved it away.
“Ultrasound showed six babies. That’s six families that could be changed, a few years from now.”
“They really make that much of a difference?”
“A dog like Mistral might have saved my sister’s life,” she said emphatically. Then, “Sorry,” she added, seeing the confusion on his face. “But I know you don’t understand what life is like for families affected by this condition. Autistic kids often have other problems, like eating and sleep disorders. They might be extremely sensitive to particular stimuli, such as certain sounds, scents, or textures. Many of them hate being touched. They may be almost impossible to communicate with, or they may have a certain level of verbal ability.”
Carson looked at her, his food forgotten, uncertain of how he was supposed to respond, but sure that a response was expected.
“It must have been rough,” he said, finally.
“Rough?” Rory’s voice held defeat and frustration. “From the day my sister was born, my mother didn’t sleep more than a couple hours at a stretch, interrupted each night by Lesley’s screaming fits. Mom had to make special food that wouldn’t set off Lesley’s allergies. No nubbly textured pajamas, no Berber carpet, no radio, no air freshener. No unlocked doors, no artificial flavoring, no riding in the car without special restraints.” She looked around her. “No eating in restaurants, that’s for sure. Lesley might start screaming and throwing things. But no babysitters could handle her, either, so my parents couldn’t ever go out. They split up a year after my sister was diagnosed, but the marriage had died long before that.”
She was building up to something, and Carson had a feeling it wasn’t good. He couldn’t imagine abandoning a woman like this, someone who’d been through so much and come out stronger, a survivor. He wanted to wrap his arms around her thin shoulders and protect her.
“Mom and I were barely keeping it together after Dad left,” she continued. “We couldn’t afford the intensive therapy that autistic children need to develop functional skills. We could barely afford groceries. She was exhausted all the time. My grades were suffering. Dad didn’t want anything to do with Lesley, and I can’t blame him. It was hard enough for me and Mom and we knew how to handle her. On his own, he didn’t stand a chance. But my mom, well, it left her with the entire burden.”
“Except for what landed on you.”
Rory looked up at Carson’s words, pulled out of her memories. “Yeah, I guess I grew up fast.”
“How did she die?” Carson kept his voice low, his tone unchanging so as not to break her train of thought. She obviously needed to get this out in the open. He didn’t see the connection with her dog, or why she’d left teaching, but perhaps she’d get to that.
“Mom and I took Lesley out on a picnic,” she said at last. “We wanted to do something normal, you know? Like other families. An ordinary picnic at the park, a blanket, sandwiches, juice boxes, a couple of kites.”
“Sounds nice.”
“It was.” Her face twisted and she closed her eyes. “Then Lesley got away from us. She ran out the park gates onto the main road and got hit by a car. She died on the scene.”
“Rory,” breathed Carson, reaching for her hand. She gripped it like a lifesaver and continued, her voice stripped of emotion.
“Of course, since I could run faster than my mom, I got to her first.”
Rory stopped, took a deep breath, shook her head slightly as if trying to displace the images that had flooded to the forefront.
“Mom never got over it, so I was pretty much on my own from then on. I graduated the next year, went to college on a scholarship, and decided to spend my life learning how to help families like ours.”
“More sacrifice?” Carson kept watching her, and she kept avoiding his eyes. “Sounds like you’d already lost most of your childhood.”
“No.” Her denial had the ring of truth rather than a refusal to face reality. “I loved Lesley. So did Mom. Dad probably did, too, in his way. But we didn’t know enough about how to be with her. And I wanted to know. So I was determined to learn as much as I could about autism.” She picked up her water glass and took a sip, watching the candlelight scatter through the crystal onto the polished wood tabletop. “The first time I saw an autistic child with a service dog, I knew right away that something like that would have changed everything. Might have even saved our family.”
“A dog?”
“Seems incredible, but it’s true. The dog and the boy were tethered to each other when they were outside the house. A sixty-pound kid can’t run away when he’s attached to a sixty-pound dog. If only we’d known.”
“So the dogs are trained to keep close to the kids. What else can they do?” Carson knew that there were many kinds of animal-assisted therapy, but he hadn’t heard of dogs for autistic kids before now.
“Oh, tons,” she said, leaning forward, her eyes shining. “Little things. Like, sleeping in bed with the kids. This boy’s mother told me that he slept through the night, all night, the first day they had the dog. Do you have any idea how huge that is?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.” She was passionate and articulate and he wanted her to keep talking, so he could listen to the music of her voice.
“Chronic exhaustion is one of the hardest parts of raising an autistic child. The fear of them escaping is another. The dogs act as some kind of, I don’t know, conduit or displacement object. The children project their anxiety onto the animal, and are able to cope better as a result. Fewer meltdowns, shorter in duration, and less intense.”
“Sounds like every special-needs kid should have one.” No wonder she was breeding them now.
“Your lips to God’s ears. It’s pretty amazing to watch. The dog senses when his boy is getting overwhelmed and he alerts the mother. He comes to get the mother inside the house if the boy does something unusual. Don’t forget, autism is not a lack of intelligence; it’s a processing and communication disorder. Perhaps the dogs help the kids because they understand them. We don’t really know. But we do know that it works.”
Carson sat back and pushed his plate to the side. He’d finished his meal long ago, as had Rory, but the waitstaff had been loath to interrupt them. Now that she’d stopped for breath, they swooped in, armed with dessert menus, to remove their dishes.
“Oh, nothing more for me,” Rory said, looking at her watch, a flush creeping up her face again. “I went on a bit, didn’t I? I’m sorry.” She made a face. “I haven’t talked about Lesley in years.”
When the bill arrived, they split it down the middle, as agreed. It seemed important to her that this not be seen as a date, and Carson didn’t argue. It wasn’t a date. But as he watched the headlights slice through the night on the ride home, Rory nodding along to the music in the seat beside him, Carson felt that somehow, when he wasn’t paying attention, it had become one.
Chapter Nine
Guilt. That’s what it was, Rory decided drowsily. The warm air inside Carson’s truck would have lulled her to sleep before they reached the ranch, especially when combined with a full stomach, but something nagged at the edge of her consciousness, refusing to let her relax.
She hadn’t talked about Lesley for a long time, and the reason was simple: it was her fault Lesley was dead. No matter how Des or her mother had tried to convince her otherwise, Rory knew the truth. Their mother had asked Rory to take Lesley for a walk while she set out their picnic lunch. Rory had done so, but had not watched the child closely enough.
In the dark of night, while she waited for sleep to come, she still felt her fingers grasping toward a thin arm, and catching only flickering cotton as the girl dashed beyond her reach. She could still hear the scream of rubber on asphalt, the sickening thud of the impact, the momentary hush before pandemonium broke out.
Rory shifted in her seat, sweat breaking out on her brow.
“You okay?” Carson looked over at her. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I’m fine.” Rory turned her head to the window, preferring to focus on the deep black outside rather than his probing eyes. “It’s just… I think I ate too much.”
“Right.” Carson’s voice was heavy with skepticism.
She sighed and shifted, putting a hand to her abdomen, wondering if she’d ever feel normal again.
“What?” Carson said. “Rory? Is something wrong?”
She turned her face away from him, feeling the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “Nothing’s wrong.”
His eyes dropped to the hand she kept pressed to her belly and she heard a quick intake of air.
“Is it the baby?” He pulled to the side of the road. “I can get you to the emergency room in ten minutes.”
“No, no, it’s not that,” she said, her voice soft but definite. “I’m not due for almost two months.”
He was quiet for a few minutes, then spoke all in a rush.
“Listen, Rory, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but…are you sure you’ll be okay doing this on your own? Having a baby, I mean.”
“Do I want the baby? Is that what you’re asking?” She turned to look at him now, his face hidden from sight except for the brief illumination from the headlights of passing cars. His jaw was tight, his forehead furrowed. “Yes. I want it. And, in case all men wonder the same thing, I’ll tell you what I told David: yes. It’s his.”
Her voice cracked and she turned back to the window, closed her eyes, and pressed her forehead against the cool glass.
…
As Rory huddled in the corner of the passenger seat, he heard her sniff. He sighed and resumed driving. Despite his intention not to get involved in her minefield-laden life, he found himself drawn to her.
“I should have known better,” she said quietly. “But I kept trying to make it work. When I told him I was pregnant, he insisted it couldn’t be his. He accused me of trying to trap him. Said I was on my own. No way he was paying child support for someone else’s kid. He gave me a fair price for my half of the house; I guess I should be grateful for that.”
Carson hissed through his teeth. “Yeah. What a hero.”
He could hear Laura’s words as clearly as if she were in the truck with them. My body, my choice. Denying his right to have a say in the existence of his own child.
And this man, Rory’s fiancé, had been offered that opportunity and had thrown it away, had refused to accept this incredible gift that she could just as easily have not told him about.
“So that’s my story.” Her voice was hoarse with unshed tears. “Can we change the subject, please?”
