“It’s not me you’re interested in, it’s Norah’s sister. I like you, Colby, don’t get me wrong, but this just isn’t working. We’ve been seeing each other for over a year now, and if we were going to fall in love it would’ve happened before now.”
“We haven’t given it a real chance.” Colby didn’t understand why he was arguing with her when he was in full agreement. Sherry would make some man a wonderful wife. Some other man.
“You’re using me, Colby.”
He had nothing to say in his own defense. He hadn’t realized until she’d said it, but Sherry was right. He had been using her. Not to make Valerie jealous, or in any devious, underhanded way, but in an effort to prove to himself that he could happily live without Valerie.
The experiment had backfired. And now he was alone, wondering how he could have let the only woman he’d ever loved walk out of his life.
“What’s this I hear about you going to Texas?” David Bloomfield asked when Valerie joined him on the front porch following the evening meal. She sat on the top step, her back pressed against the white column while her father rocked in his old chair. She looked at the blooming apple orchard, breathed in the scent of pink and white blossoms perfuming the air. The setting sun cast a golden glow across the sky.
Valerie hadn’t said anything at dinner about returning to Texas, and was surprised that her father was aware of her intentions. She’d sat quietly in her place at the table, pushing the food around her plate and hoping no one would notice she wasn’t eating.
“It’s time for me to go back, Daddy.”
“It hurts, doesn’t it?” he asked, his voice tender.
“A little.” A lot, her heart cried, but it was a cry she’d been ignoring from the moment she left Colby’s home. “Your health’s improved so much,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “You don’t need me around here anymore.”
“Ah, but I do,” her father countered smoothly, continuing to rock. “Colby needs you, too.”
His name went through her like the blade of a sharp sword, and her breath caught at the unexpected pain. Her father was the reason she’d come home, but Colby was the reason she was leaving.
“Love is funny, isn’t it?” she mused, wrapping her arms around her knees the way she had as a young girl.
“You and I are so much alike,” her father said. “Your mother saw it before I did, which I suppose is only natural. I’m proud of you, Valerie, proud of what you’ve managed to accomplish in so short a time, proud of your professionalism. Cassidy’s lucky to have you on his team, and he knows it—otherwise he wouldn’t have promoted you.”
“I’ve got a terrific future with CHIPS.” She said it to remind herself that her life did have purpose. There was somewhere to focus all her energy. Something that would help her forget, give her a reason to go on.
“Your mother’s and my romance wasn’t so easy, either, you know,” her father said, rocking slowly. “She was this pretty young nurse, and I was head over heels in love with her. To my mind, she was lucky to have me. Problem was, she didn’t seem to think so. I was a business success, a millionaire. But none of that impressed your mother.” His smile was wryly nostalgic, his eyes gazing into a long-ago world. “Convincing Grace to marry me was by far the most difficult task I’d faced in years.”
“She didn’t love you?” That was impossible for Valerie to comprehend.
“She loved me, all right, she just didn’t think she’d make me the right kind of wife. I was wealthy, socially prominent and, as you know, your mother was a preacher’s daughter from Oregon. Before I contracted rheumatic fever I was one of the most sought-after bachelors in California, if I do say so myself. But I hadn’t met the woman I wanted to marry until your mother became my nurse.”
How achingly familiar this sounded to Valerie. She’d been content with her own life until she met Colby. Falling in love was the last thing she’d expected when she returned home.
“There were other problems, too,” David went on. “Your mother seemed to think my work habits would kill me, and she wasn’t willing to marry me only to watch me work myself to death.”
“But you solved everything.”
“Eventually.” A wistful look stole over him. “I loved your mother from the first moment I opened my eyes and saw her standing beside my hospital bed. I remember thinking she was an angel, and in some ways she was.” His face shone with the radiance of unending love. “I knew if she’d ever agree to marry me, I was going to have to give up everything I’d worked so hard to achieve. That meant selling my business and finding something new to occupy my time.”
“You did it, though.”
“Not without a lot of deliberation. I’d already made more money than I knew how to spend, but I realized I wasn’t going to be happy retiring before the age of forty. I had to have something to do. It took a couple of years—and Grace’s help—to figure out what that should be.”
Valerie nodded. “I feel the same way. I’d never be happy just sitting at home— I’m too much like you.” The extent of his sacrifice shook her. “How could you have given up everything you’d worked all those years to build?”
“Without your mother my life would’ve been empty. My work didn’t matter anymore. Grace was important, and the life we were going to build together was important. I gave up one life but gained another, one I found far more fulfilling.”
“But didn’t you ever get bored or restless?”
“Some, but not nearly as much as I expected. When we’d been married a year or two, your mother saw I had too much time on my hands and we looked around for something to occupy me, some new interest. That was when we bought the orchard and moved here.” He grinned. “My own Garden of Eden.”
“I don’t think I ever understood how much you’d changed your life to marry Mom.”