The Leaving #2
“Ben…stop.” She inhaled deeply, trying to breathe out the pain in her chest because what he meant was I need you.
“You know how much I love you. I always have. But we’ve talked until we’re blue in the face.
Studying with Duncan Murdock is the chance of a lifetime.
Come with me. I want you by my side. We’ve been through everything together. ”
He made a show of setting his Stetson on that stubborn head of his while keeping Flame’s reins in one hand. “Now that I’ve graduated, I need to step up and give my all to the ranch.”
Here we go… “Yet you’re the only one who feels this way. Your dad has told you over and over again to go. Will has agreed to handle your duties while you’re gone—”
“My brother has plenty on his own plate.” He shook his head, that aggravated shake he gave when he was getting worked up. “Besides, I’m not imposing on anyone by traipsing off to a country on the other side of the world—”
“It’s hardly that far,” she replied dryly.
“To a place where I have no people. No land. No animals. Nothing I know.”
“I know it’s a sacrifice, but you’d have me, Ben.” She pressed the ring to her heart finally. “It’s only a year.”
“Another year after being apart four.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “A year is an eternity on a ranch, and it’s hard enough work without me frittering away my responsibilities.”
“Frittering away… But your family’s given you their blessing to go.” She wanted to strangle him. “They want you—”
“I need meaningful work, Hannah,” he said in a clipped voice, “and there won’t be any of that for me where you’re going.”
“I need it too. Becoming an herbalist will let me help people. Maybe I might even save someone like Sarah.”
His jaw flexed, but he remained as silent as a tomb.
“You aren’t even willing to try.” Dammit, she could hear the break in her voice again as she studied his brooding glare. “For me. For us.”
He walked Flame to her gardening table out back against the side of the house and set her flowers on it. Then he edged back and started pulling in the rope with his work-roughened hands, the hands that had taught her everything there was to know about what a man and a woman could be to each other.
“There are plenty of herbalists who train online.” He looped the rope in circle after circle, going around just like their conversation.
“You have the riches of Wild Mountain at your fingertips. As my grandma Elena wrote, everything you could ever want plant-wise grows there. You’re just like my mother, up and leaving because Sanctuary Springs isn’t enough for you. ”
She inhaled sharply at the slap. “That’s not true!
You know how hard it was to tell my father I’m not going to medical school to become a doctor like him.
Becoming an excellent herbalist is my dream, and I have a chance to be schooled by the best. You were right there when I applied for the scholarship. ”
“I didn’t think you were going to get it.”
“What?”
He gave a troubled wince. “The plan was to finish school and get married.”
Of all the gall… How can he say he loves me when he didn’t even believe in my ability to achieve the scholarship?
“Then you lied to me when you said I should go for it,” she nearly shouted.
“Do you have any idea how many people applied for a full scholarship?” From what Hannah understood, there were about seventy-five applicants, which wasn’t surprising, given that it included room and board.
It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I am so over arguing the same thing, especially given Ben’s mulishness.
He secured the rope to his saddle, giving her a view of his cowboy hat.
She knew what he’d say next, so she spoke first. “And I’m not running away.
” She gripped the windowsill, wondering if she should go downstairs to be on even ground with him.
“Becoming a renowned herbalist is the only way I know to show Dad I’m not squandering his investment in me, both in his practice and for helping pay for college. ”
“Then why is he as against you going as I am?” Ben shot back, gathering his reins.
“Because I’m not going to medical school like he wanted. So you’re both against me. You know how I felt when—” Hannah choked up. Even now, it was so hard to think of her.
“I know, sweetheart, I know.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “Let’s leave it there. Your father is probably listening, like the rest of your neighbors.” She picked up the cowboy boot and hurled it at him. “You chose the least romantic spot in the universe to propose.”
“You were leaving this morning.” He tipped back in the saddle so her boot sailed past him.
“In case your own thickheaded brain isn’t working, having a ring means I’d planned to propose.
Right before you discovered that scholarship, in fact.
I was going to ask you on Wild Mountain under Big Red.
It’s been the place of nearly every big moment for us. ”
Their first official date had been there, a picnic amid the wildflowers under that old ponderosa tree, and then the time when they’d both given themselves to each other, under those stars of theirs.
So many good moments, ones she’d thought were the building blocks to the life they would enjoy. Together. She uncurled her hand and studied the ring, her blood pulsing in her veins. He was the other half of her. He’d always been.
She couldn’t imagine being without him. Maybe she had to make her own offer. “What if I agree to marry you now?”
He lifted his chin a touch higher, his keen eyes searching hers in the soft morning light. “You’d make me the happiest man alive, but I hear the catch coming.”
She wet her lips. “How about I agree to marry you, but I still go to Scotland?”
“No,” he said with a curt shake of his head.
“I agreed to wait until we graduated from college, and that was four long, hard years of being apart. When you agree to marry me, we get hitched right away. I won’t put a ring on your finger and then watch you hightail it out of here to another continent. ”
“That’s not what I’m doing—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know.” He waved an absent hand in her direction. “No need to get all riled up. So I take it that’s a no, then?”
“God, why won’t you listen? You always have. Ben—”
“Stop right there.” He held up his hand as Flame took a few steps backward, tossing her head like she was as mad as Ben. “We’ve done talked ourselves blue. You don’t want to marry me. Fine. I don’t need to hear you say it twice.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Yes, Hannah, it is.” He drilled her with a hurt, angry look as he slapped his thigh. “Keep the ring. I sure don’t need it. I’ve poured my heart out to you, but if you want to throw that away, fine.”
“Ben, stop this.” She leaned farther out the window, holding on to the sill so she wouldn’t pitch forward. “I love you. I want to marry you. In a year. Or today, as long as you realize I still need to go to Scotland. Ben, I am not rejecting you.”
He turned Flame in a circle and looked over his shoulder, pain carved into the hard angles of his rugged face. “Aren’t you? From where I’m sitting, you might as well have tossed aside everything we’ve ever been to each other.”
With that, he kicked Flame into a canter and disappeared from view. She stared after him, clutching the ring. What the actual hell? I knew he was stubborn, but what was that?
Another clip-clop of horse hooves sounded. Will came around the corner of the house from where he must have been waiting and tipped back his tan cowboy hat. “I’ll keep talking to him, Hannah.”
“Why won’t he listen?”
His brother hung forward, heavy in the saddle, looking as exhausted as she. “I shared a womb with him, and I can’t tell you.”
She swiped at the tears falling from her cheeks. Would Ben change his mind once she was gone? “Keep trying to beat some sense into him, will you? But mostly, take care of him for me, Will.”
“You know it…as much as he’ll let me.” He laid his finger to his cowboy hat. “Take good care of yourself.”
He’d been her friend as much growing up as Ben had, until she and Ben had become more. “You too. Tell Ben…that I love him. Better yet, carve it into his creaky old saddle like he did our names on Big Red. Can I give you the ring?”
“You best keep it.” He held up his hand and started backing away on his buttermilk roan. “Let those stars guide you back home to us.”
She watched him ride off. Sinking against the window, she slid down the wall onto the floor, putting her knees up and laying her head on them, fighting tears. How is it possible that after all their years together, Ben can walk away so easily?
Hannah truly hadn’t expected to be heading to Scotland with a shattered heart, but now…there was no other choice.
Ben McAllister just made sure of that.