The Rancher's Dream

“Oh! I took a video this morning.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through her pictures until she got to the right one. She pulled it up, hit Play and held the phone in front of Kevin’s face, as if that made sense. As if he might just open his eyes and say, “A video! Great!”

On the phone’s small screen, Molly waved her hands, grinned and let loose peals of giggles and hiccupping laughter. Occasionally, Crimson’s thumb had covered the lens as she struggled to hold the phone out and the baby up simultaneously. It didn’t matter, though. Because of course Kevin did not wake, did not open his eyes, did not show any signs of being happy to hear his baby’s voice.

“Say, I love you, Daddy!” Crimson sounded like a cheerleader, urging Molly. “Say, come home soon, Daddy!”

And then...at the very moment Crimson said, “Come home soon, Daddy,” Kevin’s finger twitched. Crimson dropped the phone to her lap, staring at his hand. Her heart beat rapidly.

Do it again, she willed him. Do it again.

The light in the room changed as the door opened. Crimson looked up, her heart still pounding in her throat. It was Kevin’s new doctor, Elaine Schilling.

“He moved his hand!” Crimson didn’t leave Kevin’s side, didn’t let go of his arm, but she leaned toward the doctor eagerly. Her voice was tight and thin. “I was playing a video for him—a video of his daughter—and his finger moved. I’m sure of it!”

Dr. Schilling paused as she reached into her pocket to pull out the little light she used to check pupil response, an important indicator, Crimson had learned.

“Well...” The woman’s hazel eyes were kind, but her thin, austere face didn’t catch any of Crimson’s eager enthusiasm. “It’s certainly possible. But we must remember a person in Mr. Ellison’s condition may exhibit reflex activities that mimic conscious activities. It’s wise not to read too much into it.”

Crimson stared stupidly, as if she couldn’t understand the doctor’s terminology. But she did understand. It was simple enough. Dr. Schilling was saying the twitch was just some involuntary misfiring of a neuron. She was saying it probably didn’t mean anything, and Crimson shouldn’t hope for a miracle.

But Crimson was hoping. She had to hope. Who could survive without hope?

She couldn’t. She remembered how—almost fourteen months ago, just barely more than a year—she’d kept diving down into the cold, black water of the Indigo River, looking for Clover, telling herself it wasn’t too late. If a passing stranger hadn’t seen her there and jumped in to drag her to shore, she’d have drowned alongside her sister.

In many ways, drowning would have been better than giving up. She couldn’t remember the man’s face, but she’d never forget his voice, saying, “You have to stop now. She’s gone.” The words had fallen on her skin like razor blades.

So she had to keep hoping. She wanted to tell the doctor that, but she didn’t know how to begin. She let her hand fall into her lap. She must have bumped the Play arrow, because suddenly Molly began to laugh again as Crimson again implored her to tell her Daddy to come home soon.

The doctor frowned, a stern but compassionate expression. She clearly thought Crimson had restarted the video deliberately, hoping to prove her point. She hadn’t—truly she hadn’t—but she couldn’t help staring at Kevin’s hand all the same. Maybe...

But this time Kevin lay as still as a wax mannequin.

And suddenly, Crimson’s eyes began to burn. They stung fiercely, as if they’d caught fire from the inside. Was it possible he’d never wake up? That he’d never go home to his baby girl?

As she stared at that lifeless hand, scalding tears spilled over. She bent her head, and the tears fell against Kevin’s skin. He showed no awareness of that, either.

Embarrassed, Crimson stood. The doctor needed to tend to her patient. Crimson was in the way here. She was making a fool of herself. She turned, but she could barely see which direction to walk. Everything was fractured by her tears.

As if she’d called for him, Grant was somehow there. He put his arm around her shoulders and murmured her name. She looked up at him, and even though his face was blurred, she felt a powerful magnetic pull, as if his shoulder was the only place in the world she could rest her head safely right now. The only place she could let these tears fall in peace, without feeling ridiculous or weak. Without exposing all the secrets she’d been hiding for so long.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said gently. His arm steered her toward the door. “Let me take you home.”

She followed him out. But as they exited the dim room and emerged into the bright light of the hospital corridor, all she could think was...

If Kevin actually could still hear, how did it make him feel to hear his best friend call Crimson sweetheart?

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_3ef94b2d-8ed3-59ad-827e-fc56afb46f41)

“I MUST SAY, Campbell, you are a lucky man.” Stefan Hopler shoved his hands into the pockets of his elegant linen khakis as they slowly strolled back to the ranch house from the stables, a full moon lighting their way almost as clearly as high noon.

Grant wondered what Hopler meant exactly—if he meant anything at all. Was it just flattery—to soften him up for bargaining over the horse?

Somehow he didn’t think so. The man’s tone sounded genuine.

And why shouldn’t it be? Hopler didn’t know anything about Grant’s history—he knew nothing about his dead wife, Brenda, or the little girl they’d once had...Jeannie.

Hopler didn’t even know that Grant hadn’t always been a rancher, that once, like Kevin, he’d been a young, ambitious lawyer—and that the career dream had died along with his family.

All Hopler knew was what he’d seen here today. The beautiful acreage of Campbell Ranch, greened by the rain and bejeweled with wildflowers. The renovated stables, the well-trained staff. The extraordinary filly who exuded star power as Barley put her through her paces.

All of that did, indeed, make Grant a lucky man. Even so, he had an irritable feeling Hopler wasn’t talking about any of those things. He’d bet good money Hopler was talking about the gorgeous woman who had just cooked them a gourmet dinner.

Hopler’s date, Elsa, hadn’t made the trip from California with him, after all. In fact, Hopler had broadly hinted that his couple days were over. And Elsa’s absence meant he felt free to compliment Crimson effusively on everything from the Stroganoff to her perfume.

The flirting had been so thick it irritated the heck out of Grant. He’d had to bite his tongue a couple of times to avoid reminding Hopler that he was there to buy a horse, not a girlfriend.

Not that the compliments weren’t deserved. Crimson hadn’t been kidding about giving the man a meal he wouldn’t forget. The food had been almost mystically delicious...and, beyond all that, she had presided over his table with so much wit and charm that by the time she offered them dessert, even Hopler, who was clearly a ladies’ man, had looked a little dazed.

“Thanks,” Grant said now, trying not to sound as tight-lipped as he felt. They’d left Crimson in the ranch house cleaning up after dinner while they walked out to give Hopler one last look at Dawn. He was pretty sure Hopler was ready to close the deal, and he was determined not to spoil it now. “The ranch is a lot of work, but I love it.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean the ranch,” Hopler said, smiling. “No, no, the property is beautiful and your horses are beautiful. But your real treasure is your woman. Is it serious between you?”

For a minute, Grant wanted to say yes. Hell, yes. So back off. He had an irrational urge to stake a Private Property sign on Crimson.

But he remembered her tears, streaming down her cheeks unchecked as she sat vigil beside Kevin’s hospital bed this morning. She was private property, all right. But not his. The Keep Out sign applied to Grant every bit as much as it applied to Hopler.

Besides, she wasn’t the easy-fling type—and Grant didn’t have anything else to offer a woman. His heart had been hollowed out like a melon three years ago, when Brenda and Jeannie died. He’d come to Silverdell almost immediately after, driven by some instinct to carve out a new life. A physical, exhausting, completely different life.

And he’d done all right with that part. The ranch was distracting, the horses rewarding. He was too busy to mourn all day, too tired to grieve all night.

But when it came to things like love and family and forever, he was stuck in a frozen half-life as much as any comatose man in a hospital bed.

“No, we’re not together,” he heard himself saying instead. “She’s a friend. She’s actually dating a buddy of mine. Molly’s father.”

Hopler had met Molly earlier, of course. Crimson had put the baby to bed just before dinner, and miraculously persuaded her to sleep through all three courses.

“Molly’s father.” The man took a minute to digest that. “You mean the one who is in the hospital now?”

Grant nodded. He didn’t like Hopler’s tone. It sounded as if he were weighing his odds, and liked the news that his chief competition was in a coma.

“What time did you say your flight back to LA leaves?” Grant’s bum foot caught on an oak tree root, and he grunted irritably as pain shot up his leg. Thank goodness he didn’t fall. “We probably should talk about Dawn, if you’re interested in buying her.”

Not subtle, he knew, but that was too darn bad. He was tired, and he was hurting, and he wasn’t feeling subtle. He was feeling pissed, actually.

His dislike of Hopler was irrational and unfair—he admitted that. The man seemed perfectly respectable, and naturally Grant had checked him out before inviting him to discuss the horse. His only sins were being too handsome, too rich and too acquisitive.

But damn it. Wasn’t it enough that he planned to take Grant’s best filly away from Campbell Ranch? He had to start auditioning Crimson for a role in his cushy Hollywood life, too?

“Oh, I’m definitely interested,” Hopler said, pausing as they reached the back porch.