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“I think that’s a perfect plan,” she said.
“I’m hoping that you two succeed,” her father said. “But we’ll be ready anytime you need us. Just call.”
Sully’s mother fussed with one of her diamond studs. “I’ll get Rose’s bedroom ready at our condo. Just in case.”
“Please, no more remarks like that,” Lisa said, standing. “You must know that we’ll do our best to raise Rose.”
Sully’s mother nodded. “You are absolutely right, Lisa. I apologize.”
“Thank you,” Lisa said, relaxing a little. “I know that you all have Rose’s best interest at heart.”
Lisa held the precious letter in her hand. Now that the sun was shining, she decided that she’d like to read it in Carol’s beautiful garden in the backyard, where the spring flowers were blooming.
Carol always had a green thumb and had spent hours digging in the dirt.
Lisa would much rather skim the clouds in a jet than garden.
“I think we’re done here,” Mr. Randolph said. “I’ll let you get back to your guests.”
Lisa made her way through the crowd of people gathered in the house. Mrs. Turner and some helpers were busy refilling the buffet and picking up the discarded paper plates and plastic forks.
As she walked by the gathering around the buffet table, Lisa pasted on a smile, thanking people for coming and for paying their respects. They were a friendly crowd, and Lisa had a pang of regret that she hadn’t made friends with any of her own neighbors in Atlanta, but it was near impossible considering her lifestyle.
She made her way out to the backyard to the garden. Sitting down on a concrete bench, she smiled at the little purple resin door in the tulip garden that said, “Carol’s Garden. Fairies enter here.”
Taking a deep breath, she inhaled the mix of floral scents—daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. That was the part of living in the city that she missed most—the spring flowers that bloomed after the snow. Soon the bulbs would die out and the perennials would bloom, and Carol’s garden would be a riot of color and different scents.
Could she possibly keep up Carol’s garden? She didn’t know a weed from a potential flower.
Could she be a good mother to Rose? She didn’t know that, either.
She stared at the back of the huge Victorian, admiring the turrets and the porches that jutted out. It had more rooms than most B&Bs, and she knew that Carol and Rick had wanted more children to fill those rooms.
Looking to her right, she saw a big statue of some goddess—maybe Athena, maybe not. Lisa didn’t know her goddesses, but this one was emptying water from some kind of pitcher into a concrete pool.
Currently, Sully was roping Athena. He twirled a rope over his head, then he’d let it loose and it would fly, catching under Athena’s breasts and above the pitcher. Every now and then, he’d stop and stare off into the distance, as if he were thinking.
He roped over and over again and stared, until finally he shook his head and walked over to where she was sitting.
“Mind if I sit down?” he asked, loosening his tie and undoing the first few buttons of his shirt. He tossed the rope on the ground.
“Are you done roping?” she asked.
“I always rope when I think.”
She moved over to give him room on the bench. “I’ve been thinking, too.”
“We have some decisions to make,” he said.
“No kidding. Maybe I should learn to rope, too, so I can sort things out.”
Sully raised a perfect black eyebrow. “I’ll teach you. It’s good therapy.”
Why did he have to have eyelashes like paintbrushes? In contrast, she was pale and had to glob on mascara and eyebrow pencil to show that she even had lashes and brows.
His blue eyes met her dark green ones. “First of all, do you think we can work together? I mean, we don’t even like each other. Rose will sense that.”
He certainly believed in laying his cards on the table, didn’t he?
Taking a deep breath, he continued. “We are two adults. And we both love Rose. And there’s no way I want her raised by my parents. They’re too controlling, especially my father. He always treated Rick and me like army privates. I can’t see him with a little girl.”
“I don’t want her raised by mine, either. They’re not controlling enough,” Lisa said. “And we don’t want her in a foster home with strangers. So we’re all she’s got.”
“Poor kid.” Sully smiled, and his eyes twinkled.
Lisa could understand why the buckle bunnies fell at his feet. The cowboy could be charming when he wanted to be.
“Yeah, poor kid,” she agreed.
They shared a smile, and Lisa couldn’t believe how much they’d agreed on in one sitting, unlike their past history.
Suddenly, Lisa’s smile faded and tears cascaded down her cheeks—not for herself, but for Carol and Rick, who’d never see their little girl grow up. And for Rose, of course, who’d never know her parents.
Sully hesitantly reached for her hand, and she didn’t have the strength to move it away. She appreciated the gesture. When his hand closed over hers, she could feel his strength, his warmth. For a brief moment, she felt confident that they’d do okay.
“I really don’t want her to have to do a six-month split between her grandparents,” he said again. “It’d be too disruptive on top of everything.”
“I agree, Sully. No way.”
“So we’re going to have to make this work, Lisa.”
“I know. And I’m scared.”
“I’m not scared of a crazy, two-thousand-pound bull with horns the size of baseball bats, but I’m damn scared of raising a little girl.”
“I’ve seen Rose with you. You’re great with her. And she adores you.” All her negative feelings about him aside, it was the truth.
“Back atcha.” He shook his head. “But I’m not the kind of guy who can stay in one place for any length of time.”
“Neither am I,” Lisa said. “And we can’t live in your motor home, and my apartment in Atlanta wouldn’t work. Carol and Rick wanted Rose raised in this house.”
“I know. Rose needs—” He gestured to the huge house. “This white elephant.”
“How are we going to earn a living?” Lisa asked. “I know that we have some money coming in from Carol and Rick, but that’s Rose’s money.”
“We’re going to have to work something out. I’m really close to winning the Finals this year in Vegas. I need to compete.”
Vegas? That was the other side of the country from New York.
“But it’s only April, and the PBR Finals are in November,” she said, remembering the announcements on TV when she’d watched him ride.
“How do you know that?” he asked. “Do you watch me?”
“Of course not!” she lied. “I must have seen the Finals advertised somewhere.”
For some reason, she actually looked forward to the weekend when the bull riding, and Sully, would be on TV. If she was flying, she taped it, and she would never admit that she screamed for him to ride his bull for eight seconds.
Why? She didn’t know. On one occasion, it crossed her mind that she might be secretly attracted to Sully, but she quickly dismissed that. She just liked the sport. It was … different. Sully was a minor celebrity who she knew, and he was just someone to cheer for.
“We can worry about Las Vegas later,” Lisa said.
“No, we can’t. I have to compete to stay high in the rankings to have a chance at winning in Vegas. I have to work the circuit,” he said, his right leg bouncing like a nervous tick. “And that means traveling to all the events. By my calculations, there are seventeen left. That’s about four a month, with the summer off.”
“And I’m going to have to fly, Sully. I need to fly.”
He tightened the grip on her hand. “Shall we tell the lawyer that we’re not ready yet?” He looked at her with those damn blue eyes.
“That might be the truth, but we can’t do that,” she said. “And somehow I think Mr. Randolph knows that we don’t have the lifestyle to be parents. He’s going to be making surprise visits.”
“I know.”
Lisa sighed. “But besides our jobs, you never liked me, and I never liked you. You are a party animal, and—”
“And you’re a drag,” he finished.
She raised an eyebrow. “If you’re referring to Rose’s christening when you got a keg and you persuaded all the men to watch football, play cards and smoke cigars, then, yes, I’m a bore.”
“And you certainly speak your mind,” he added.
“I certainly do, especially when someone acts like a jerk. Let me remind you about Rick’s bachelor party,” she said.
“Please don’t. I still haven’t recovered yet—”
“And then there’s the time—”
“When you were such a snob, and—” Sully suddenly stopped. “This isn’t the time or the place, Lisa.”
“I know.”
They sat in silence for a while, until Lisa held up the envelope with the letter her sister and Rick had written. “You know, other than our parents, we were Carol and Rick’s only alternative. We’re their only siblings. At least on my side, we don’t have any close relatives.”
“My side, either,” Sully said.
“See? They had no other choice. Still, I can’t bring myself to open the letter yet.”
She tried to hand the envelope to him, but he held his hands up like a traffic cop.
“You’ll open it when you’re ready,” he said. “Then we’ll read it together.”
How did cowboy get so smart?
“We love Rose.” He met her gaze, and for a nanosecond, she got lost in the depths of his eyes. “And that’s why we can put our differences aside and do this.”
Lisa looked down and thought.
We’re just too different, but as long as Sully’s willing to try, so am I.
Chapter Two
“I want my mommy and daddy,” Rose said, tears swimming in her eyes. “I don’t want them to be in heaven. I want them right here.”
The pure-white cat, Snowball, who was curled up beside Rose, stared at the little girl’s face. Molly, a small, black, short-haired mutt, looked at her from the floor.
Lisa smiled. She’d never had pets growing up, but Snowball and Molly must have sensed Rose’s duress. They hadn’t left the little girl’s side for very long since her parents had died.
Lisa sat on the sofa, on the other side of Rose, her arms around the girl’s slight shoulders. Grandparents Sullivan and Phillips had all left for the airport this morning, and the house was blissfully silent.
Lisa had been reading Rose a book, and things were going well until Rose closed the book, her bottom lip quivering. “I don’t want them to be in heaven.”
“Your mommy and daddy are thinking of you all the time, just like you think of them,” Lisa said, hugging her niece closer to her.
She wished she could think of something more soothing to say to Rose, but she missed her sister so very much. She couldn’t even think about never talking to her again, never hearing her laugh. She wished her faith was strong enough for her to believe that someday they’d see each other again—somehow.
“They’re watching you from heaven, sweetie, and they love you very much. Just like I love you and Uncle Sully loves you. And don’t forget all your grandparents. They love you, too.”
She wiped Rose’s tears with a tissue and had her blow her nose. Molly rested her chin on Rose’s leg, and Rose reached down to pet the dog, then opened the book and started turning the pages, pointing to objects in the pictures and identifying them.
Lisa let her mind wander. It was hard to believe that a week had gone by since she and Sully had moved into Carol and Rick’s house. She hoped that someday the big Victorian would feel like her own home—well, hers and Sully’s and Rose’s.
Because she hadn’t gone back to Atlanta yet to get all her clothes, she’d been doing countless loads of laundry from what she’d brought in her suitcase. It had crossed her mind that she could borrow a couple of Carol’s tees and maybe a pair of shorts until she could go shopping, but she just couldn’t do it, couldn’t go into the master bedroom.
So she’d closed the door.
Sully had moved some of his clothes into a bedroom opposite hers on the first floor, but Lisa knew that he often sneaked out at night and wandered—out to his motor home, out on the front porch or the back porch, back in again. It was impossible not to hear him open the creaky doors and his boots clunk on the wooden floor as she lay awake nights, not able to sleep.
“Why don’t you read to me, Rose? You know the story.”
Rose wiped her nose on her sleeve and moved the book to her lap. Lisa smiled as her niece made up a story of a bunny going to the market and buying vegetables for a party he was having with his other woodland friends.
But Lisa barely heard Rose, thinking instead of how she should have gone to the grocery store or sent Sully and Rose with a list.
Sully didn’t mind doing errands. Matter of fact, he and Rose had a routine that he called their “walk around.” They’d drive to the village of Salmon Falls, park the van and have breakfast at Salmon Falls Diner. Rose would have cereal with a banana or, if she felt adventurous, she’d have a pancake.
Then it’d be off to the drugstore, the post office, the grocery store—wherever she’d sent them on errands—and they’d stop at the playground on the Village Square, where Rose would play. Sully called it her “swing and sing” time because she would make up songs and sing them as she swung.
She wondered who looked forward to their walk arounds more, Sully or Rose.
The walk arounds had started when the grandparents had become overwhelming, which was their second day here. Sully had pulled Lisa aside and told her that Rose needed a break from their constant hovering and trying to outdo one another. He said that he’d take Rose out to run errands for her.
