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Her Cowboy Distraction(27)

By:Carla Cassidy


There were moments he was convinced she loved him back, when he'd seen  something shining from her eyes that filled him with hope, with an  excitement he'd never felt before. He'd felt love in her touch, in the  soft smiles she gifted to him, but none of that mattered.

He hadn't been enough for his wife, and apparently he wasn't enough for Lizzy.

He'd been a fool when he'd married Janice, a fool driven by the desire  to be married and start a family, blinded by lust and fantasy. And, it  appeared he was a fool again for falling in love with Lizzy.

* * *

Lizzy sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window, where the  darkness of night had fallen. Daniel had been unusually quiet during the  afternoon and evening, and she wondered if talking about Janice had  opened old wounds.

The guilt he'd carried for so long was tragic, and she wasn't sure a  simple conversation with her had done anything to really ease it. He  deserved better. He deserved so much more than what he'd gotten from  life, from love, thus far.

Her bruises were slowly fading and she had most of her strength back.  Mary had told her when she'd come to visit the day before that her job  was waiting for her whenever she was ready to come back, but Lizzy  wasn't coming back. In the next two days she intended to be back on the  road again, getting away from Grady Gulch … away from Daniel.

Things had gotten far too complicated here. What had begun as a simple  stop on her bucket list had gone way out of control. Lizzy didn't like  complicated. Easy and breezy, that's the way she liked it, with her  expecting nothing from nobody and depending only on herself.

She needed to get out of Daniel's way so he could start building  something meaningful, something loving and good with the woman he was  meant to be with for the rest of his life.

"Ready for your surprise?" he asked as he appeared in her doorway.

"Definitely, but it's awfully late in the day for surprises."

"The later the better for this surprise," he replied with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes.

She got up from the bed, the pain in her ribs much better and the ache  in her thighs barely discernible. "Okay then, lead me to it." She  suddenly noticed he had a gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.  "What's that for?" she asked in surprise.

For just a moment his eyes took on a hard glint. "I told you I wouldn't  let anyone hurt you again. In order to have your surprise we have to  leave the house." He touched the butt of the gun. "I'm just being  cautious, that's all."

"And I like that about you," she returned with a light smile.

They walked down the stairs and to the back door, and then he turned to  face her. "Your surprise is in the barn. Lizzy, if you feel like you  can't go back in there after what happened to you, then we'll forget the  whole thing." His eyes held a soft concern that whispered tenderness in  her heart.

She thought about it for a minute. "A bad person did something bad to me  in the barn, but that doesn't make the barn a bad place. The barn is a  good place. Molly and all the other horses are there."                       
       
           



       

His gaze of concern changed to one of admiration. "You are an amazingly  strong woman, Lizzy." He grabbed her hand and together they stepped out  of the back door. He locked it behind them and then took her hand once  again as they began to walk across the yard toward the barn.

She could tell as they walked that his attention wasn't solely on her,  but rather on their surroundings. He gazed from right to left, a slight  tension in his body as if he was ready for anything or anyone that might  come out of the darkness as a threat.

When they were within about twenty feet from the structure tension  started to well up inside her and she squeezed Daniel's hand tighter.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Just a little twinge of nerves," she admitted. "It's a beautiful  night." She tried to focus on anything but the memory of what had  happened to her the last time she had been in the barn.

"A perfect clear sky," he agreed. They reached the barn and opened the door and turned on the light.

She hesitated a moment before stepping inside, but she kept her nerves  under control by focusing on the familiar scents and the sounds of the  horses nickering a greeting. She started to walk in the direction of the  horses, but he stopped her.

"We aren't going that way," he said. "Your surprise is up here." He  pointed to a wooden ladder in the corner that led up to the hayloft.

She eyed him with curiosity. "Okay."

The ladder wasn't wide enough to allow them to go up together. "Stay  right behind me," he said as they began to climb. Once they both reached  the loft, he checked it as if making sure nobody else was up there,  then he told her to sit on a bale of hay and he'd be back.

He raced down the ladder, and Lizzy was more curious than she'd ever  been. What was up there that would be considered a surprise? All she  could see were bales of hay stacked here and there.

The lights downstairs went off and sudden terror stopped her heart.  "It's okay, Lizzy," he called quickly, as if he knew she'd be terrified.  "I turned off the lights on purpose." A flashlight beam lit the stairs  and then he was back in the loft, the beam of light a welcomed glow  against the darkness.

"I don't understand," she said.

"I'm hoping you will in a minute. Here, hold this." He handed her the  flashlight as he moved two bales of hay into position and retrieved a  bottle of wine and two glasses from where they must have been hidden  earlier. "Now, move over here next to me."

As she moved to the hay bale right next to where he sat, he popped the  cork on the wine and poured them each a glass. "This is nice," she said  as she took the glass from him. "Nice, but a little bit odd."

He laughed. "Hopefully you won't find it so odd in just a minute." He  sobered. "You told me that one of the things on your bucket list was to  sit on a mountaintop and stargaze. This isn't exactly a mountaintop, but  it provides a pretty good view of the stars. Turn off the flashlight."

She did as he said and the loft was once again plunged into complete  darkness. "I hate to tell you this, Daniel, but I don't see a single  star."

He reached forward and unlatched two doors she hadn't realized were  right in front of her. As they swung outward she gasped at the sight of  the beauty of the night sky.

It was absolute magic. The stars appeared so close she felt that if she  just leaned forward a little bit she could grasp a handful of the  glittering lights.

"Oh, Daniel, it's beautiful." Emotion pressed tight in her chest, emotion she didn't want to examine too closely.

She couldn't believe he'd thought of her bucket list, that he'd arranged  all this specifically for her benefit. He'd given her a mountaintop  right there in Grady Gulch.

She leaned against the hay bale behind her and sipped the wine, her gaze  captured by the astronomical splendor before her. "Do you come up here  often?" She turned to look at him, his features visible by the light of  the moon.

"This is my first time. I was just thinking about your bucket list earlier today and got this idea."

"It was a wonderful idea." Although she kept her focus on the skies, she was aware of his gaze lingering on her.

"Tell me about your childhood, Lizzy. Was it a good one?"

"Good in some ways, not so good in others," she replied. "My dad wasn't  terrific with the child support payments, so financially we always  struggled a bit. But, my mother was a wonderful, caring woman who always  made me feel safe and loved. She could make a picnic of butter  sandwiches seem like an elegant five-star meal."                       
       
           



       

She took another sip of the wine as she thought about her childhood.  "When it comes to my father, I was the cliché child who sat on the stoop  for hours waiting for him to show up because he'd made plans to take me  to the zoo or to see a movie or a hundred other things. I spent a lot  of nights over the years sitting on that stoop. It took me a long time  to finally catch on that he wasn't dependable, that he was never going  to keep a promise made to me."

The pain of the child she had once been resonated through her soul,  making her realize there was still a little wounding there that would  probably never heal. It had taken her a long time to realize the problem  was with him and not that there was something wrong, something bad,  with her.

"I'm sorry," Daniel said simply.

"It's all right. It was a long time ago. Look, there's the Milky Way."