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“We’ll handle it,” I growled.
“Try not to kill him in the street…or at all, please.”
Beau chuckled darkly.
Lawson smiled.
My mind drifted to Caleb’s snake of a mother.
Chapter Twenty-One
Valerie
“Mom,Ican’t—”
“Yes, you can, my darling girl.”
I braced my hand on the counter and bent my head as tears stung the back of my eyes. Denver left about an hour ago, and I just sat there stunned, dazed, and confused. After digging in my bags, and putting on another sundress, I heard the door open.
Caleb called out for me, and my soul liked that: a child’s voice echoing through this big, beautiful home calling out for me. I’d met him in the middle of the stairs, and I was stunned when his little arms wrapped around me, as much as they could. Instinctively, my hands went to the back of his head, holding him to me.
Then, he looked up and said, “Dad said you were leaving. I’m glad you didn’t.”
Now, I was standing in the kitchen while that precious little boy read the secondHarry Potterbook in the swing on the front porch.
“Mom—”
“You have to live, Vallie,” she said softly.
My bottom lip trembled. “But not without you.”
“Valerie,” she breathed.
“I can’t just stay here and leave you behind—that’s—that’s…Mom, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
A soft laugh came through the other end of the phone. “My prayers are being answered, that’s what.”
“What?” I asked, wiping my eyes and straightening.
“I’ve been praying for something to come along for you, something that will draw you in and hold onto you tight.”
I looked out the window again. There was a breeze, the tops of the trees in the distance rustling as the mountains stood tall and proud in the background. After Caleb got settled on the porch, I got Mom on the phone and told her everything—well, almost everything.
I told her that I was set to leave, that Denver came rushing up to me on his horse and kissed me. I told her he wanted me to stay. I did not, in fact, tell her that he pressed me up against the door and made my body come alive while calling me “Enchantress.”
No,thatI would keep to myself.
“Mom…”
“Live, Valerie.”
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.
“Tell me about him,” she offered, a smile clear in her voice.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
Because if I did, my heart would do the talking. My heart would tell her that this man was one of a kind. That this man, this cowboy, made me feel things that I never thought I would get the chance to.
