“Being with you and the children is an entirely new experience for my father and me. I hate to say it, but for a long time, we’d rarely noticed the beauty around us. The children are somehow altering the way we see things, giving us a new and fresh perspective.”
She smiled up at him, light shining in her eyes, and he couldn’t help but touch her. He placed her arm through his and took her on a path that led them to a cave, one he’d always enjoyed playing in as a child. Well, to be honest, a cave he’d enjoyed playing in until he’d realized that playtime was unproductive.
The two of them walked in silence while he thought about his life, thought about what was to come. There was so much he needed to say to this woman, and yet he was reluctant to do anything right then except hold on to her arm and attempt to see things through her eyes.
When Whitney gasped a few minutes later as a herd of deer passed by, his cold heart leapt a bit in his chest.
“Surely you see deer in Oregon,” he said with a scoffing sort of laugh.
“Oh, yes, of course I do. But these bucks are huge and so close.” And she also laughed, but in a different way, as the deer looked at them fearlessly.
“There’s no hunting allowed in this area,” Liam told her. “The animals aren’t afraid of humans. And they definitely reproduce.”
“I’m not against hunting, at least when it’s done for food or for other good reasons, but I just couldn’t be the one to pull the trigger,” Whitney said. “Deer are just too majestic — and then, of course, there’s Bambi. And his poor mother.”
“We should have brought some hay in our pockets, Whitney. They most likely would have wandered over and taken it from you.” As soon as the sentence was out, Liam was questioning who in the hell he was. He didn’t make statements like that, didn’t stroll down paths and feed hay to wild animals.
“That would have been amazing.”
“Next time we’ll remember.” He gave up. His mouth obviously had a mind of its own right now. But even he knew what it really wanted to be doing.
“I don’t know if there will be a next time. I’m leaving soon,” she said, and gave a sad sigh.
Those words didn’t make Liam happy, but why should he care? He shouldn’t. That was the short answer. She hadn’t said, “We’re leaving soon,” so maybe she understood what was going to happen with the children.
But because he was in some sort of internal turmoil — he didn’t want to analyze it — he used a bit more force than necessary when he tugged on her arm. He wanted to show her his cave.
“I’m taking you to a place that has very special meaning to me,” he said as they reached the end of the trail.
“Oh, Liam, this is spectacular,” she said as she gazed at what seemed like a giant cavern.
“Beware,” he told her.
“Why?”
“My great-great-grandfather blocked this off at one time. The cave is rumored to have magical powers and was always a favorite place for all the Felton children to hide out or play in.”
“Magical powers?”
“I’m just telling you the story. I don’t in any way believe in such things,” he made sure to inform her. “I’m definitely not a romantic.”
And yet he was finding it difficult not to believe in magic. A break in the clouds let the sun shine directly down upon her, causing her hair to glow and her eyes to light up even more. Was she a Good Witch of the West? Or a reincarnation of Glinda? Yeah, sure.
“I’m relieved to hear you say that. The order of the world might change if superbusinessman Liam Felton believed in something so silly as magic.”
Though she was joking with him, her words stung just a bit. No, he didn’t believe in things that weren’t there. No. He couldn’t do that. So he decided to carry on with his story.
“Here’s the family tragedy. My great-great-grandfather’s oldest son came out here the night before his eighteenth birthday. He was to be made a partner in the company the next day. But he was never seen again.”
“How do you know he didn’t just run away?”
“About half a mile inside the cave, blood was found, along with his jacket and the satchel he carried his art supplies in. He loved painting more than anything else, or so I’ve been told.”
“Maybe that was all a setup. Maybe he just didn’t know how to tell his father what he really wanted out of life, and he went on to be an artist.”
“No. That’s ridiculous. It couldn’t have happened that way,” he told her, though his mind was reeling.
“I think the story is far more romantic that way.”