Chapter 13 #2
Camellia still felt out of place as they had dinner around a big dining table in the home of Wolf’s parents, Wes and Taylor Brand, on Sky Dancer Ranch, where they raised, boarded, and trained horses.
Willow and her fiancé, Jeremiah, whom she frequently called Gringo, had sat on one side of the table with their nine-year-old Frankie between them.
Camellia and Wolf sat on the other side, with the parents at either end.
Wes and Taylor couldn’t stop looking at Wolf, and Camellia could feel it was making him a little uneasy.
“Earl’s been arrested,” Willow said, “but they moved him to a psych unit until they can get him stabilized.” She’d already filled everyone in on what had happened at Big Bend, keeping the scarier parts to the adults only.
“That’s a national park, which makes his crimes federal.
But a lot will depend on his diagnosis.” She nodded to Camellia.
“I gave them your Detective Simms’ contact info like you asked, told them about his recent girlfriend. ”
“I think his mental health has been declining for a while, and his girlfriend’s death pushed him over the edge,” Camellia said. “I’m glad he’s getting help.”
Wolf said, “Have you spoken to your mom, Camellia?”
“I have. She wants to come down and meet you all.”
“We’d love that,” Taylor said. “She’s up in Hobbsville, you mentioned?”
“For now, but she’s just decided to put the house on the market, so who knows? We’ve both been feeling the lure if greener pastures.”
“Maybe she’ll like it here and want to stay,” Taylor said with a glance at her husband. “Not exactly greener, but it does seem to happen to a lot of folks.”
“Happened to you,” said Wes, sliding his hand across hers on the table.
Camellia looked at Wolf. He was looking back at her. There was so much unresolved between them, and she was dying for some alone time with him. But he needed this time with his family first.
“I really would be happy to go to a hotel,” she said at length, and not for the first time. “You all need time as a family.”
Willow said, “There is no hotel, unless you count the rooms over the saloon. Boarding house is even closed now.”
“Even if you wanted to go, there’s no need,” said her mother, Taylor. “Willow’s cottage has been empty since she and Jeremiah bought a place together. It’s just a little farther along the driveway, and you’re welcome to use it Camellia.”
“That sounds nice,” she replied.
“There’s a bedroom and a hideaway sofa-bed,” Willow said with a knowing look at her brother. “You can both spend the night out there. Process some of this. A lot’s happened today.”
“Oh,” said Taylor, and there was disappointment in her tone, but she tried to cover it. “Yes, sure, that’s a perfect idea. This must be…overwhelming for you, after all you’ve been through.”
“It is a little,” Wolf admitted.
“We’ll pack you up some supplies, bedding and snacks and things,” she said.
“That would be really great.” Wolf spoke softly, watching his birth mother’s face and looking as everyone rose and migrated out onto the front porch.
Camellia said, “We could all have breakfast together though, and spend the morning just…talking.”
They’d done quite a lot of talking already tonight, and Camellia felt like the healing was almost visible to the naked eye.
Taylor brightened. “I’d love that, and I’ll count the hours.
But there’s no need to rush. We have time now.
” She looked at her son. “We lost a lot, but we have time now. I never thought we would.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek, and Wolf’s eyes got wet.
“I’ll see you in the morning, son,” his mother told him.
Then she turned to Camellia, and reaching up, touched her face. “Good night, Camellia. There are no words to thank you for bringing him back to us. I hope you can feel—”
“I can,” she whispered. “I do.”
Wolf
It had been a long, long day.
Wolf was sitting on the small front porch of what his mother had called Willow’s cottage. Willow had texted to let him know Ranger Dan was awake and he was going to be all right.
There were rocking chairs on either side of the small cottage’s front door, and he sat in one of them. Camellia was taking a shower.
The poor thing had offered to go to a hotel so many times he was beginning to feel like his family was holding her against her will. But he didn’t want her to go.
He sat there, feeling the cool, dry air of a West Texas night on his face.
Horses grazed in a nearby meadow, and the scent of horseflesh was on every breeze.
This was Brand land, his father had told him, as far as the eye could see.
And he was a Brand. Wes and Taylor’s ranch butted up against the Texas Brand, where his father had been raised, where cattle still grazed.
From the outside, he’d have thought this family had it easy. But he’d seen the pain in his mother’s eyes when she’d said she was sorry for letting the river take him from her arms. And even though he was okay and had somehow found his way back to her, he didn’t think she’d ever get over it.
He’d carried in the four boxes his parents had packed hastily, bedding, food, bathroom supplies, and so on. There was a digital clock and a card with the internet password on it. He’d already unpacked most of it.
Eventually, he heard the creak of the screen door and felt Camellia’s soft footsteps on the porch. She was barefoot.
He didn’t look up until something cold touched his check. A dewy brown longneck already opened. He took it and sent her a smile. “Do you really want a hotel?” he asked.
“I just didn’t want to get in the way of such a personal time for you.”
He nodded. “I don’t know that I would’ve got through it without you there, though.”
“Really?”
She sounded skeptical, but her back was to him as she walked to the other rocking chair, twisting off her bottle cap on the way.
“You couldn’t tell by how tight I’ve been holding onto you?” he asked.
She smiled, then took a big pull from her bottle.
“I’m glad you stayed, though,” he said. “I wanted…to ask you something.”
“Ask away.” She took another drink.
She was nervous, he thought, and trying to cover it. “Well, before, you said you’d realized something when I was shot. But you never said what. Or maybe you did, but I didn’t hear it, being unconscious and all.”
Nodding slowly, she took a long, thoughtful sip of beer. “What I realized was that I might not want to be ready for a relationship, but I am anyway. Like it or not.”
And he said, “Same.”
“Oh, I see how this is going down. I have to say all the hard stuff and you get to just say same?”
“Ditto?” he asked.
Then he got up, set his beer on the railing, and moved to the front of her chair.
“I’m not ready for a relationship with anyone else but you,” he said, threading his fingers through hers, both hands, and pulling her to her feet.
“But with you,” he went on, “I’m not ready for anything but. I want you in my life.”
“I want that, too,” she whispered.
And he went on, because he was worried. “And I think I want that life to be here, where my family is,” he said.
She smiled, lowering her head. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but when I spoke to Mom, I mentioned that…if things worked out for us, I might end up living in West Texas. That’s why she’s really driving down here after her cruise, to check things out. And she’s gonna love your family.”
“Everybody loves my family, apparently.”
She took a deep breath. “Drew asked if I’d be interested in teaming up with her, hanging up our shingle as PIs together. Says she needs a partner.”
Camellia had really been thinking about this, then. That must mean her feelings were strong. As strong as his? Man, he was starting to feel ten feet tall.
“What will you do here, Wolf?” she asked.
“My father offered to hire me on here at the ranch. I told him my skills are in building. I’ll check some of the local construction crews, I imagine.”
She said, “I thought you died, you know. When he shot you, I thought…”
He caught her chin and tipped it up and kissed her mouth and then kissed it some more. Fire rekindled, having never been banked, and when his mouth slid from hers to her jaw, to her neck, and into that tender hollow just behind her ear, words slid from his lips as if on their own.
“I love you, Camellia Rio. I love you, I love you, I love you, and I waited way too long to say it.” And then he kissed her lips again.
Her mouth curved into a smile against his as she whispered on a sigh, “Same.”