A Cowgirl's Secret(64)
“You can’t be serious?” he asked along with a sarcastic chuckle. “After all I did to make this night perfect, you’re going to ruin it by pitching a hissy fit?”
“Oh—” Yanking off the ring he’d spent hours figuring out how to order online, she took his hand, setting the still-warm platinum band in his palm. “I’ve gone way past hissy into the realm of blind fury. The sooner you get me home, the better.”
“You are home.” Hoping words of reason might help her find her apparently lost sanity, he said, “Our home. You and me, remember? We just made love on the living-room floor. A second time on our new sofa. Are you really going to give up what we share all because I need black-and-white proof you’ll never leave me again?”
“Yes,” she said, voice hollow and cold, “because in the same respect, I need proof that the man I plan to marry trusts me.”
DAISY SPENT THE REMAINDER of the night crying into her bedroom pillows. Thankfully, by the time Luke dropped her at home, everyone in her nosy family was either asleep or, as in the case of her son, engrossed in a movie that had far too many wall-shaking explosions.
How could Luke do this to her? To their son?
Was this a sign that she should chuck it all and return to San Francisco?
Her life had been so much simpler there. Work and Kolt had been her only two concerns. Yes, they’d also been her only loves, but in light of what had just transpired between her and Luke, it wasn’t as though she had anything to salvage in Weed Gulch.
Her bedroom door creaked open, and just like old times, in marched her big brother, Dallas. “What’s with the boo-hooing? After all the work me and a bunch of other guys did, don’t tell me Luke botched his proposal?”
She shook her head and sniffled.
“What’s the problem, then? I saw the ring and the guy’s got style.”
Rolling over to face Dallas, who sat down on the side of her bed, Daisy said, “H-he did give me his ring, and it was the best I’ve ever seen. The night was magic until he—” Still reeling from the shock of Luke’s request, her tears started anew.
“Quit crying and tell me what happened.” Dallas had never been the sappy, overly-emotional type.
After giving her brother the highlights reel on what had ranked right up there as the worst night of her life, Daisy asked, “Now, do you see why I’m so frustrated?”
Sighing, he looked to the ceiling, then back to her. “In a word, no. Now, before you go getting bent out of shape, let me explain. I’ve known Luke a hell of a long time and he’s a good man, Daisy. He wouldn’t have asked this of you unless he was scared. In all the times you two have been together, it’s always been you walking away. Yes, this time I know you mean for your relationship to last forever, but can’t you understand that from Luke’s point of view, there’s no such thing? This document he’s asked for should mean nothing to you—because if you truly never intend to vanish again, you don’t have to worry about losing Kolt.” Squeezing her toes, he added, “Way I see it, it’s a slam dunk for all three of you.”
DAISY WOKE THE NEXT MORNING with Dallas’s words still ringing in her head. She dropped Kolt off for school, and then drove straight to her office. She busied herself reading over a few documents for Barb. She helped a couple with a newborn to write wills. Most of all, she wondered if Dallas was right in that she was taking Luke’s request far too personally.
Yes, it hurt to her core that he could make such a demand, but considering what she’d put him through, wasn’t providing him with this relatively small measure of reassurance the least she could do?
For the next hour, Daisy wrote the most solid, binding child-custody agreement she could. When she finished, she emailed it to a friend who specialized in family law. Once Ally announced that the document was airtight, Daisy took her coat from a brass peg on the wall and set out to retrieve both her man and her ring.
Her throat tightened when she got to Luke’s cabin and found his Jeep and camper were gone. Knowing Dallas cared for Luke’s horses when he was out of town, she tracked down her brother who reported that Luke had left that morning for a job in Wyoming.
“How long’s he going to be?” Daisy asked Dallas.
He sat at his desk, paying bills, and he was in no mood to chat. “I don’t know. He was hoping for only a week, but in his line of work, he never knows. He’d turned it down so he wouldn’t be away so close to Christmas, but once you ran the poor guy’s heart through a meat grinder, he figured he might as well get back out on the road to start paying off your ring. Oh—and he wanted me to ask you to keep Kolt near a phone once he gets home from school.”