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She was just a bit shallow and misguided in the love and family department. She’d given up both to seek fame and fortune in the big city.
And he’d stayed here, broke and heartbroken, to mend the fences she’d left behind. Well, he wasn’t broke anymore. And he wasn’t so very heartbroken, either.
Why, then, did his heart hurt so much at the very sight of her?
She hurt all over.
April opened the massive wooden double doors to her childhood home, her heart beating with a fast rhythm from seeing Reed again. He looked better than ever, tall and muscular, his honey-brown hair long on his neck, his hazel-colored cat eyes still un-readable. Reed was a cowboy, born and bred. He was like this land, solid and wise, unyielding and rooted. After all this time, he still had the power to get to her. And she still had regrets she couldn’t even face.
Before she could delve into those regrets, she heard footsteps coming across the cool brick-tiled entryway, then a peal of laughter.
“Ah, niña, you are home, sí?”
April turned to find one of her favorite people in the world standing there with a grin splitting his aged face.
“Sí, Horaz, I’m home. ¿Como está?”
“I’m good, very good,” Horaz said, bobbing his head, his thick salt-and-pepper hair not moving an inch.
“And Flora? How is she?”
“Flora is fine, just fine. She is cooking up all of your favorites.”
“That sounds great,” April said, hugging the old man in a warm embrace, the scent of spicy food wafting around them. She wasn’t hungry, but she’d have to hide that from Horaz and Flora Costello. They had been with her family since her father and mother had been married more than thirty years ago. And after her mother’s death when April was in high school, they’d stayed on to take care of her and her father. She loved them both like family and often visited with their three grown children and their families whenever she came home, which was rare these days. The entire Costello clan lived on Maxwell land, in homes they’d built themselves, with help from her father.
“You look tired, niña,” Horaz said. “Do you want to rest before supper? Your room is ready.”
April thought of the light, airy room on the second floor, the room with the frilly curtains and wide, paned windows that allowed a dramatic view of the surrounding pasture land and the river beyond. “No, I don’t want to rest right now. I want…I want to see my father.”
Horaz looked down at the floor. “I will take you to him. Then I will instruct Tomás to bring in the rest of your bags.”
“Yes, I left them in the trunk of the car.” She handed him the keys. “And how is Tomás? Does he like high school?”
“He’s on the football team,” Horaz said, grinning again. “My grandson scored two touchdowns in the final big game last fall. We won the championship.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” April said, remembering her own days of cheerleading and watching Reed play. He’d been a star quarterback in high school and had gone on to play college ball. Then he’d gotten injured in his senior year at Southern Methodist University. After graduating, he had come home to Paris to make a living as a rancher. She had gone on to better things.
Not so much better, she reminded herself. You gave up Reed for your life in New York. Why now, of all times, did she have to feel such regrets for making that decision?
“Come,” Horaz said, taking her by the arm to guide her toward the back of the rambling, high-ceilinged house.
As they passed the stairs, April took in the vast paneled-and-stucco walls of the massive den to the right. The stone fireplace covered most of the far wall, a row of woven baskets adorning the ledge high over it. On the back wall, over a long brown leather couch grouped with two matching comfortable chairs and ottomans, hung a portrait of the Big M’s sweeping pastures with the glistening Red River beyond. Her mother had painted it. The paned doors on either side of the fireplace were thrown open to the porch, a cool afternoon breeze moving through them to bring in the scent of the just-blooming potted geraniums and the centuries-old climbing roses.
As they neared the rear of the house, April felt the cool breeze turn into a chill and the scent of spring flowers change to the scent of antiseptics and medicine. It was dark down this hall, dark and full of shadows. She shuddered as Horaz guided her to the big master bedroom where the wraparound porch continued on each side, where another huge fireplace dominated one wall, where her mother’s Southwestern-motif paintings hung on either side of the room, and where, in a big bed handmade of heart-of-pine posts and an intricate, lacy wrought-iron headboard that reached to the ceiling, her father lay dying.
Chapter Two
The big room was dark, the ceiling-to-floor windows shuttered and covered with the sheer golden drapery April remembered so well. When her mother was alive, those windows had always been open to the sun and the wind. But her mother was gone, as was the warmth of this room.
It was cold and dark now, a sickroom. The wheelchair in the corner spoke of that sickness, as did the many bottles of pills sitting on the cluttered bedside table. The bed had been rigged with a contraption that helped her weak, frail father get up and down.
April walked toward the bed, willing herself to be cheerful and upbeat, even though her heart was stabbing with clawlike tenacity against her chest. I won’t cry, she told herself, lifting her chin in stubborn defiance, her breeding and decorum that of generations of strong Maxwell women.
“Daddy?” she called as she neared the big bed in the corner. “It’s me, Daddy. April.”
A thin, withered hand reached out into the muted light. “Is that my girl?”
April felt the hot tears at the back of her eyes. Pushing and fighting at them, she took a deep breath and stepped to the bedside, Horaz hovering near in case she needed him. “Yes, I’m here. I made it home.”
“Celia.” The whispered name brought a smile to his face. “I knew you’d come back to me.”
April gasped and brought a hand to her mouth. He thought she was her mother! Swallowing the lump in her throat, she said, “No, Daddy. It’s April. April…”
Horaz touched her arm. “He doesn’t always recognize people these days. He has grown worse over the last week.”
April couldn’t stop the tears then. “I…I’m here now, Daddy. It’s April. I’m April.”
Her thin father, once a big, strapping man, lifted his drooping eyes and looked straight into her face. For a minute, recognition seemed to clarify things for him. “April, sweetheart. When’d you get home?”
“I just now arrived,” she said, sniffing back tears as she briskly wiped her face. “I should have been here sooner, Daddy.”
He waved his hand in the air, then let it fall down on the blue blanket. “No matter. You’re here now. Got to make things right. You and Reed. Don’t leave too soon.”
“What?” April leaned forward, touching his warm brow. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. I’m going to stay right here until you’re well again.”
He smiled, then closed his eyes. “I won’t be well again, honey.”
“Yes, you will,” she said, but in her heart she knew he was right. Her father was dying. She knew it now, even though she’d tried to deny it since the day the family doctor had called and told her Stuart Maxwell had taken a turn for the worse. The years of drinking and smoking had finally taken their toll on her tough-skinned father. His lungs and liver were completely destroyed by disease and abuse. And it was too late to fix them now.
Too late to fix so many things.
April sat with her father until the sun slipped behind the treeline to the west. She sat and held his hand, speaking to him softly at times about her life in New York, about how she enjoyed living with Summer and Autumn in their loft apartment in Tribeca. About how much she appreciated his allowing her to have wings, his understanding that she needed to be out on her own in order to see how precious it was to have a place to call home.
Stuart slept through most of her confessions and revelations. But every now and then, he would smile or frown; every now and then he would squeeze her fingers in his, some of the old strength seeming to pour through his tired old veins.
April sat and cried silently as she remembered how beautiful her mother had been. Her parents had been so in love, so perfectly matched. The rancher oilman and the beautiful, dark-haired free-spirited artist. Her father had come from generations of tough Texas oilmen, larger-than-life men who ruled their empires with steely determination and macho power. Her mother had come from a long line of Hispanic nobility, a line that traced its roots from Texas all the way back to Mexico City. They’d met when Stuart had gone to Santa Fe to buy horses. He’d come home with several beautiful Criollo working horses, and one very fiery beauty who was also a temperamental artist.
In spite of her mother’s temper and artistic eccentricities, it had been a match made in heaven—until the day her mother had boarded their private jet for a gallery opening in Santa Fe. The jet had crashed just after takeoff from the small regional airport a few miles up the road. There were no survivors.
No survivors. Her father had died that day, too, April decided. His vibrant, hard-living spirit had died. He’d always been a rounder, but her devout mother had kept his wild streak at bay for many years. That ended the day they buried Celia Maxwell.
And now, as April looked at the skeletal man lying in this bed, she knew her father had drunk himself to an early grave so he could be with her mother.
“Don’t leave me, Daddy,” April whispered, tears again brimming in her eyes.
Then she remembered the day six years ago that Stuart had told his daughter the same thing. “Don’t leave me, sugar. Stay here with your tired old daddy. I won’t have anyone left if you go.”
But then he’d laughed and told her to get going. “There’s a big ol’world out there and I reckon you need to see it. But just remember where home is.”
So she’d gone on to New York, too eager to start her new career and be with her cousins to see that her father was lonely. Too caught up in her own dreams to see that Reed and her daddy both wanted her to stay.
I lost them both, she thought now. I lost them both. And now, I’ll be the one left all alone.
As dusk turned into night, April sat and cried for all that she had given up, her prayers seeming hollow and unheeded as she listened to her father’s shallow breathing and confused whispers.
Reed found her there by the bed at around midnight. Horaz had called him, concerned for April’s well-being.
“Mr. Reed, I’m sorry to wake you so late, but you need to come to the hacienda right away. Miss April, she won’t come out of his room. She is very tired, but she stays. I tell her a nurse is here to sit, but she refuses to leave the room.”
She’s still stubborn, Reed thought as he walked into the dark room, his eyes adjusting to the dim glow from a night-light in the bathroom. Still stubborn, still proud, and hurting right now, he reminded himself. He’d have to use some gentle persuasion.
“April,” he said, his voice a low whisper.
At first he thought she might be asleep, the way she was sitting with her head back against the blue-and-gold-patterned brocade wing chair. But at the sound of his voice, she raised her head, her eyes widening at the sight of him standing there over her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, confusion warring with daring in her eyes.
“Horaz called me. He’s worried about you. He said you didn’t eat supper.”
“I’m not hungry,” she responded, her eyes going to her sleeping father.
“Okay.” He stood silent for a few minutes, then said, “The nurse is waiting. She has to check his pulse and administer his medication.”
“She can do that around me.”
“Yes, she can, but she also sits with him through the night. That’s her job. And she’s ready to relieve you.”
April whirled then, her eyes flaring hot and dark in the muted light from the other room. “No, that’s my job. That should have been my job all along, but I didn’t take it on, did I? I…I stayed away, when I should have been here—”
“That’s it,” Reed said, hauling her to her feet with two gentle hands on her arms. “You need a break.”
“No,” she replied, pulling away. “I’m fine.”
“You need something to eat and a good night’s sleep,” he said, his tone soft but firm.
“You don’t have the right to tell me what I need,” she reminded him, her words clipped and breathless.
“No, I don’t. But we’ve got enough on our hands around here without you falling sick on us, too,” he reminded her. “Did you come home to help or to wallow in self-pity?”
She tried to slap him, but Reed could see she was so exhausted that it had mostly been for show. Without a word, he lifted her up into his arms and stomped out of the room, motioning with his head for the hovering nurse to go in and do her duty.
“Put me down,” April said, the words echoing out over the still, dark house as she struggled against Reed’s grip.
“I will, in the kitchen, where Flora left you some soup and bread. And you will eat it.”
“Still bossing me around,” she retorted, her eyes flashing. But as he moved through the big house with her, she stopped struggling. Her head fell against the cotton of his T-shirt, causing Reed to pull in a sharp breath. She felt so warm, so soft, so vulnerable there against him, that he wanted to sit down and hold her tight forever.
Instead, he dropped her in a comfortable, puffy-cushioned chair in the breakfast room, then told her, “Stay.”
She did, dropping her head on the glass-topped table, her hands in her hair.
“I’m going to heat your soup.”
“I can’t eat.”
“You need to try.”
She didn’t argue with that, thankfully.
Soon he had a nice bowl of tortilla soup in front of her, along with a tall glass of Flora’s famous spiced tea and some corn bread.
Reed sat down at the table, his own tea full of ice and lemon. “Eat.”
She glared over at him, but picked up the spoon and took a few sips of soup. Reed broke off some of the tender corn bread and handed it to her. “Chew this.”
April took the crusty bread and nibbled at it, then dropped it on her plate. “I’m done.”
“You eat like a bird.”
“I can’t eat,” she said, the words dropping between them. “I can’t—”
“You can’t bear to see him like that? Well, welcome to the club. I’ve watched him wasting away for the last year now. And I feel just as helpless as you do.”
She didn’t answer, but he saw the glistening of tears trailing down her face.
Letting out a breath of regret, Reed went on one knee beside her chair, his hand reaching up to her face to wipe at tears. “I’m sorry, April. Sorry you have to see him like this. But…he wants to die at home. And he wanted you to be here.”
She bobbed her head, leaning against his hand until Reed gave in and pulled her into his arms. Falling on both knees, he held her as she cried there at the table.
Held her, and condemned himself for doing so.
Because he’d missed holding her. Missed her so much.
And because he knew this was a mistake.
But right now, he also knew they both needed someone to hold.
“It’s hard to believe my mother’s been dead twelve years,” April said later. After she’d cried and cried, Reed had tried to lighten things by telling her he was getting a crick in his neck, holding her in such an awkward position, him on his knees with her leaning down from her chair.
They had moved to the den and were now sitting on the buttery-soft leather couch, staring into the light of a single candle burning in a huge crystal hurricane lamp on the coffee table.
Reed nodded. “It’s also hard to believe that each of those years brought your father down a little bit more. It was like watching granite start to break and fall away.”
“Granite isn’t supposed to break,” she said as she leaned her head back against the cushiony couch, her voice sounding raw and husky from crying.
“Exactly.” Reed propped his booted foot on the hammered metal of the massive table. “But he did break. He just never got over losing her.”
“And then I left him, too.”
