Forever A Hero. Linda Miller Lael

hand, thumbed away a tear she hadn’t known was there.

      Kelly couldn’t speak. The ordinary world felt thick around her, as though she’d been caught in a mudslide, or quicksand, and might be sucked under at any moment.

      Reflex made her grasp Mace’s shoulders, hold on for dear life.

      He covered her hands with his own.

      “Are you okay?”

      “Um, I think so,” Kelly murmured, loosening her grasp on Mace by degrees as she settled back into herself. There were so many questions she wanted to ask—had he felt the power of that kiss, the way she had, or was it just another flirtation to him, soon to be forgotten? And if he had felt it, what did it mean?

      “If that was too much, too soon...”

      “No,” Kelly said so quickly that heat stained her cheeks. Then, again, more slowly, “No.”

      Mace drew Kelly close, kissed the top of her head. “This might be a good time to show you the vineyard,” he said.

      Kelly allowed herself to lean into him, just a little. To rest against the hard width of his chest, listen to the steady thud-thud-thud of his heart.

      It had been so long since she’d taken shelter in a man’s arms, felt safe there.

      “This would be a very good time to see the vineyard,” she said with laugh.

      They left the winery then, neither one saying a word, and after Mace had punched in another code to lock the doors, they headed for the leafy rows, the vines rimmed in the last fierce light of the day.

      Mace didn’t hold her hand as he had before, but their arms brushed against each other at intervals.

      Kelly had that strange, otherworldly feeling again, although it wasn’t urgent, like before, when Mace had kissed her. She wondered if she’d bumped her head, after all, when her rental car went off the road, and done something to her brain, something the scans hadn’t picked up.

      They walked along the rows in comfortable silence, and Kelly reveled in the scents of leaves and fertile dirt and ripening fruit. She’d visited so many other vineyards, in so many other places, but, strangely, this one seemed all new.

      Maybe, she thought, it wasn’t the vineyard that made her want to put down roots right here in this rich soil and simply grow, like the plants all around her, to blossom in spring, flourish in the summer heat, bear fruit in the fall, stand leafless and vulnerable in the winter snow.

      It was a crazy, whimsical idea, completely unlike her.

      If this strange mood continued, she decided, she’d follow Dr. Draper’s advice and seek medical help.

      In the meantime, though, she intended to savor the experience.

      * * *

      “STAY FOR SUPPER?” Mace asked when he and Kelly got back to the main house. This time, he’d taken the road instead of the cattle trail. Twilight was settling over the countryside by then, and the inside lights shone in that way that always made him feel a strange, soft mixture of joy and sorrow, as if he were homesick for a place he’d never really left.

      He’d half expected Kelly to make a dash for her car the instant he’d parked the truck, but she didn’t move. Neither did he; he just sat behind the wheel, listening to the engine tick as it cooled, and waited.

      “Why not?” she replied quietly.

      Okay, so it wasn’t wild enthusiasm. But she’d agreed to stay, and that was enough.

      For now.

      “Let’s go inside, then,” he said. “Before Harry comes out and drags us to the table.”

      “You’re sure I won’t be imposing?”

      “Imposing? You heard my mother—Harry’s been cooking for hours.”

      She smiled at him, opened her door before he could open it for her.

      She looked down at her jeans and T-shirt, then up at the house, and seemed to withdraw slightly, as though reconsidering. “Please tell me your family doesn’t dress up for dinner,” she said.

      Mace felt a brief ache behind his breastbone, but he smiled. “Are you serious? This is a ranch.”

      Kelly eyed the house again. “Some ranch,” she remarked. “That house looks like something out of Gone with the Wind.”

      “It’s home,” Mace said casually. “You expected the Ponderosa?”

      She laughed softly. “Maybe I did,” she said. “It’s not exactly what you’d call rustic, this place. On the other hand, it seems to belong here.”

      Mace nodded, resting one hand on the small of Kelly’s back, glad she didn’t pull away. The gesture was automatic, bred into him, like opening doors and pulling out chairs and taking off his hat in the presence of a lady.

      “There’s a story,” he said as they mounted the steps to the porch.

      Her face was eager in the glow of the outside light. “Tell me.”

      “When my great-great-grandfather—I forget how many greats—settled this ranch and made himself a little money running cattle and mining, he went back East to find a wife. He found her in Savannah, living in what remained of her family’s old plantation house, after Sherman and his men left half the state of Georgia in ashes. She wasn’t in love with him, not at first, anyway, and he didn’t figure he had a chance with her, poor though she was, given that she was a true lady and he was a cowpoke from someplace west of nowhere. He proposed, thinking she’d refuse, and she hauled off and said yes. They got married and headed over here, by railroad, then stagecoach, then covered wagon. Legend has it she never complained, either along the way or once she got a look at the ranch and his cabin. By the end of that first winter, as the story goes, they were in love. They roughed it for a few years, started a family, and when he began to make real money, they drew up the plans together and gradually expanded this place, made it as much like the house she’d left behind as they could.”

      Kelly’s eyes shone. “That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

      Mace gave a reasonable facsimile of a courtly bow as he opened the door. “Welcome to the Mustang Creek version of Tara,” he said.

      The inside of the Carson house, it turned out, was even more impressive than the outside. The furnishings were an eclectic blend of old and new, everything fitting together to make a home, gracious but somehow rustic, too.

      Kelly heard laughter somewhere nearby as Mace showed her to a powder room off the massive kitchen, where she could wash up. When she’d finished, he was waiting for her, looking freshly scrubbed.

      He offered her his arm and must have sensed that she was nervous, despite her effort to hide the fact. “Nobody bites,” he whispered.

      Kelly had been in grand houses before, of course, attended elegant affairs, exchanged small talk with the rich and famous. This, like the vineyard, was different. Mainly, she supposed, because Mace Carson lived here.

      He escorted her into a spacious dining room, into the boisterous heart of his family.

      Much to Kelly’s relief, Mace had been telling the truth when he said the others wouldn’t be dressed up. Blythe had changed clothes since leaving the winery, but she’d chosen black jeans, a blue cotton blouse and sandals, and she looked elegant as well as casual.

      Mace introduced her to his eldest brother, Slater, a successful documentary filmmaker, and his wife, Grace, who managed the resort where Kelly was staying. Then she met Drake, another brother, and his wife, Luce. Both couples had young children, already in bed.

      Finally, she met Harry, a tall, angular woman with kind gray eyes. She was the only woman in the room wearing a dress; Grace and Luce, like their mother-in-law, sported jeans and blouses. Luce was barefoot.

      “Now