Chapter 41
Chapter Forty-One
First thing Willow did after her mom left, was message Dylan to let him know about the baby.
She could still hear his voice on the phone telling her what had happened, remembered the look of relief on his face when she’d arrived.
She wondered how he must have felt having all those Carters in his house. He sure kept his distance.
She put her phone back in her pocket and went in search of her dad. He wasn’t in the barn, but neither was his horse, Bandit, so she saddled up Star, a chestnut mare, and rode out to try and find him.
The sky darkened like it was going to rain, the wind rustled the golden leaves, and the clouds rolled low over the mountain. Willow threw on an old waxed riding jacket that hung on a peg in the barn and was far too big for her. She rode out to the north pasture but couldn’t see any sign of her dad.
She did a loop of the property, pausing at the point where the forest led to the Hawkins ranch, thinking back to that first moment when she’d let Thunder escape and caught a glimpse of Dylan on his land.
She felt like a different person now. Even down to her outfit and her hair, she imagined the looks she’d get if she walked into Cordelia Street Ballet dressed in her shabby oversized jacket with her hair all whipped up from the wind.
She hadn’t felt this earthy wildness since she was a very young child, roaming free on the land.
She turned away, urging Star forward and they made their way back to the house.
It was funny how quickly she was at one with being back in the saddle.
Her body knowing instinctively what to do, her hands curling with an easy lightness around the reins, her senses alert to the horse’s needs.
It was the same as dancing, it was inbuilt in her, the movements repeated so often that they were woven into the fabric of her being.
Up ahead she could see the studio and The Silver Pantry—closed because her mom had gone to the hospital.
It started to rain very lightly, droplets spitting against her coat.
It was only because of the darkening sky that she saw the low light in the window of the studio.
As she approached, she looked around for Bandit and saw him tethered among the pines.
She led Star over and left the two horses together. Then she went around to the studio door, feeling a sudden onset of nerves at the idea of seeing her dad.
She thought of the Hawkins house after Dylan had left to get Logan and Maeve went into terrifyingly serious doctor-mode.
Willow had kept her fingers wrapped around Bella’s, forcing herself to stay unruffled and supportive.
Not show one ounce of fear. And later she had tried to do the same for Logan when he burst in in a panic.
Willow had smiled at him, trying to convey a sense of serenity so that he too would take hold of Bella’s hand and keep her from spiraling into the dark fear that had been on her face when she’d first arrived.
Willow had seen the moment that Logan understood, when his pace went from frantic to steady and his face relaxed and he lifted Bella’s fingers to his lips and told her that whatever happened they would be all right, that it was out of their hands now.
Willow had stood on the porch with her brothers and seen Dylan in the distance taking care of the horses, and she had wanted to thank him for everything he had done for them, but more than that, she found herself thinking that of all the people she would want holding her hand in times of trouble, it would be him.
Standing poised at the door of the studio, she thought maybe little Willow had grown up.
The thought gave her a strange sense of courage.
And rather than bracing ready to fight and defend she found herself settling into that same level-headed calm.
She took a deep breath, felt her shoulders drop, and walked inside.
Her dad was sitting on the piano stool. Hands clasped in front of him, head bent.
He looked up when she came in, hooded eyes familiarly dark and stern.
Her body lurched instinctively but she pushed past the feeling, forced herself to walk steadily forward and say with a forced joviality that felt almost real once she’d started, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. ”
He opened his mouth to say something but stopped and clearly thought better of it. Then he tipped his head and straightening up said, “Now you’ve found me.”
Willow kept the smile. “Yes, I have.” She took a couple of steps forward and, getting his meds out of her pocket, said, “Mom wants you to take your pills.”
He seemed surprised by the everyday practicality. “Thanks,” he said, taking the packet, popping one out and swallowing it then slipping it back in his own pocket.
It was silent for a moment.
Willow found herself hovering around any confrontation. Instead, she said, “Bella had her baby.”
His head jerked up in surprise. “She did?”
Willow nodded. “It was a worry for a while but they’re okay. They’re all at the hospital.”
“That’s good. Your mom with them?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
He gave a curt nod as if he could stand back if he knew Martha had it in hand.
Silence again.
Willow could only hear her heart thumping. She went to say something but didn’t know where to start. Then Emmett stood up, brushed down his shirt and walked over to the window where the spitting rain tapped for attention. “I take it Bob gave that boy a pretty rough time?”
Willow had been expecting him to say something about the way she’d behaved. “Yes,” she said.
Emmett sighed deeply, then turning from the view of the rain back to where she was standing, he said, “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d lost the ranch to Hawkins.” He paused, rubbed his mouth with his hand. “I wonder where we’d be, what we’d be doing.”
It didn’t bear thinking about for Willow, she couldn’t imagine not having Silver Sky to come back to.
“I know it’s stupid, but when your brothers left, I felt that the ranch, the history—our history—it had all let me down.
” He looked up at the wall on the far side of the room.
“Part of me wanted to leave. I know your mother at the time was thinking I deserved to lose it.” He paused as he thought back.
“And then suddenly it wasn’t even a question anymore, Logan paid my debt and Silver Sky was mine again.
” He sat down on the one of the chairs at the side of the room, hands braced on his thighs.
Willow recalled that time so clearly—the doors slamming, the arguments, her mom shouting, her dad stubbornly silent, it was as if a blackness came over the house and seemed to stretch on forever. Only thing Willow could do to escape was dance.
“I think what bothered me most was the feeling of relief.” Emmett looked across at her, his graying brows drawing together in deep lines between his eyes, his mouth turned down in disapproval.
“The ranch was mine again—it wasn’t me of all the generations that would have to say that I lost it.
And I knew then that all my blustering was an act.
” He sat back against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. “I was scared.” He glanced up and smiled wryly as he added, “And I don’t like to feel scared. ”
Willow found herself smiling conspiratorially back, knowing full well that was the truth.
“That fear, that needing to be rescued, that made me more ashamed than any insult Bob Hawkins could throw about the place.”
When Willow looked at him now, he seemed suddenly sad and tired. She went and took a seat next to him.
He turned so he was facing her. “No father wants to be rescued by his children—call me old-fashioned, Willow, but it’s not the order of things.
I didn’t want my little girl to see me scared and failing.
Call it pride, but I didn’t want you to have to tell Logan.
I didn’t want you to have to conspire against me, save me.
” He shook his head, looking down at the floor again as if he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.
“I only told Logan out of love,” Willow said softly, she’d been waiting so many years for this.
“When Bob came and said all that stuff, I didn’t think of it as you failing, I was just scared, too.
” She laughed at the futility of them both hiding the same thing.
“What I thought I had done to help you ended up causing you pain. And I didn’t want that.
” It was hard to put it into words—these feelings that had been wrapped up tight for so long inside her.
“I just wanted my dad back. The one you’d been before the boys left.
The one who built this place. The one who laughed.
The one who loved us. You were strict and you made us work hard but I think we knew it was because you cared about this place, this life.
And when that went, you went, too. All I was trying to do by telling Logan about the debt was to try and somehow bring you back. But it felt like I made it worse.”
Emmett closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Willow.”
But Willow found that she didn’t want him to apologize, she wanted him to listen. “We wanted to save this place because, whether we like to admit it or not, we had good times here—as a family. It’s not just your ranch, Dad. It’s all of ours.”
Emmett scratched his forehead as he thought about it and then he started slowly nodding.
“It has taken me a long time to accept how much this place means to me.” He gestured toward the rain-splattered window out at the view of the pastures and the pines and Starlight Mountain beyond.
Then he looked at Willow and said, “How much you all mean to me.”
Willow leaned across and wrapped her arms around his neck.
She smelled his soap and cologne and the barn, her cheek brushed against the familiar softness of his shirt as she buried her head in the collar of it, and for the first time in years she felt his big hand on her back as he put his arm around her and held her tight.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too, my little Willow,” he replied and kissed her curls.
“Big Willow,” she corrected and he laughed.