“I don’t need one anymore.”
Alice swung into the saddle as if she’d done so every day of her life. And made him proud.
“You have a good ride, Miss Alice.”
“I can, because you and Sundown taught me again. You’ve got a ma, but you’re mine, too. You can be mine, too.”
Touched Callen patted her knee. “We can be each other’s.”
“I’m Alice. You call me Alice. No more Miss Alice if we can be each other’s.”
“Alice it is.”
With Bodine, she walked the horse through the gate Callen opened.
“We can ride toward the river,” Bodine told her. “We’ll see some cabins, and pretty country, and one of the camps.”
“Camps.”
“It’s called ‘glamping.’ Glamour camping, because it’s really fancy and plush, and we do it up right on the resort. Not like pitching a tent and pulling out a bedroll.”
“Do we have to meet more people?”
“No.” Recognizing her nerves, Bodine tried an easy smile. “I mean, we could go by somebody who’d say hi, but you don’t have to talk to anybody if you don’t want to.”
“I get nervous when I do if I don’t know them. I’m better. I think I’m better.”
“Alice, you’re so much better.”
“I met Carol and Easy.”
“And that’s enough for one day.”
Smiling, Bodine looked over, and saw tears standing in Alice’s eyes. “What is it? What’s wrong? Do you want to go back?”
“No. No. No. I was happy to see you. Happy to see Cal. I get happy to see Chase, and Rory. You’re not mine. You’re not mine. He took my babies away, all my babies. And they’re not my babies now. They’re my babies and not my babies. If Bobby found them, if I found them, they’re not my babies. All grown up, and with another ma. A good ma would never, never tell them about their daddy. I can’t have them back. I’d have to tell them. And they don’t know me. I’m not the mother.”
She let out a shuddering sigh. “I can say it, I can tell you when we’re riding. It hurts in my heart, but it hurts more when I think of telling them. Cal says I’m brave. It’s braver not to look, not to find, not to tell. But it hurts.”
“I can’t even imagine how much.”
“Bobby put the man who shot Cal and Sundown in jail. He’ll put Sir in jail when he finds him. But I have to tell him not to find my babies. I have to tell him that, and protect them.”
“If I ever have a daughter, I’m going to name her Alice.”
Alice gasped, and though tears shimmered in her eyes, they widened with stunned joy. “Alice? For me?”
“For my brave aunt, who’ll get to spoil her.”
“And rock her to sleep?” This time her sigh spoke of pleasure. “I can sing to her. Reenie and I can sing to her. She’ll have a good ma, a good daddy.” Settling, she looked around. “It is pretty country. It feels like home again. Every day it feels more like home again.”
* * *
Whatever crunch it put her in, Bodine deemed it worth the hour or so she spent riding with Alice.
At sunset, she stepped out to check on the photography club holding their annual awards banquet, and was pleased to see the sky didn’t disappoint.
All thirty-eight members worked to capture the brilliance of light and color, the billows and streams. A number of guests there for the first outdoor concert of the season did the same.
Satisfied, she went to check on their headliner, the musicians, ran into Chelsea and Jessica.
“Have the waitstaff light all the candles in about fifteen minutes,” Jessica said. “I want the porches, the patios, the gardens to sparkle as soon as it’s dark. And we need at least two waitstaff circling out here.”
“On my list,” Chelsea assured her.
“I was about to hunt you down, and here you are. Chelsea, did you pick up those samples for the summer setups? The napkins and rings and candles?”
“Yesterday. I left them on your…” She slapped a hand to her face. “Crap! I left them on my kitchen counter. I walked right out without them, and you wanted them today. I’ll run home and get them right now.”
“You’ve got a full list right now. It can wait.”
“I’m sorry, Bo. I know you wanted to look them over, show them to your mother and your grannies, and I just— It won’t take me ten minutes to get them and come back.”
“You’re going to be running around here nonstop in about five minutes,” Jessica reminded her. “I can slip out in about an hour.”