Delivering Destiny (River's End Ranch Book 23) Read online

  ***

  “You made all this?” Abby surveyed the table, impressed. Bacon and eggs, pancakes, orange juice, hash browns, all arranged on platters and smelling heavenly.

  “Lila said I should help myself, and I decided to take her up on that. It wasn’t hard—all the stuff was already there in the fridge.”

  Abby pulled out a chair and sat down. “I haven’t slept so hard in ages. I might have even gone to another dimension and back.”

  Reggie filled both their glasses with orange juice and then sat down. “She said you were both pretty tired. I’m not surprised.”

  “And what do you think of her?”

  “I think she’s fantastic.”

  Abby grinned. “So do I. Talking to her was like being a little girl again, but seeing it through adult eyes, if that makes any sense at all. And . . . I’m not sure how you’ll feel about this, but I wondered if we could drive down to Fort Collins today and take Lila to see my mom.”

  Reggie nodded. “I’d be fine with that.”

  “You don’t seem at all surprised—she already told you, didn’t she?”

  Reggie chuckled. “She might have let it slip, but I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Now, hurry and eat before your pancakes get rubbery.”

  “I will have no problem wolfing them down—everything smells awesome.”

  After they’d finished eating, Reggie reached across the table and took her hand. “Thank you for asking me to come,” he said. “I feel like I’m seeing sides of you I might have missed any other way, and they’re beautiful.”

  “I have beautiful sides? Which sides? My right or my left?” she asked teasingly. She had no idea why it was so hard for her to accept compliments, and now she was being bombarded with them—first Heidi and now Reggie. It was almost worse than being criticized. At least that she knew how to handle.

  “Your insides and your outsides,” Reggie replied. “So, a question for you.”

  Hopefully, a question that would change the subject. “And an answer! But first, I have to know what the question is.”

  “Why did you dislike me so much when we first met?”

  Hmm. That wasn’t an easy one either. “You’re not going to go easy on me, are you?”

  “Nope. What’s the fun of that?”

  “And you think this is fun?” She shook her head. “Okay, I’ll try to explain it. I have never seen you upset. I’ve never even seen you annoyed. You’re always helpful, you’re always cheerful, and for a person like me who has days when she genuinely thinks she shouldn’t be around other humans, that’s hard to understand. And because I can’t understand it, I don’t know what to do with it.” She used the tines of her fork to draw a swirly pattern in the syrup left on her plate, unsure what to do with her hands or with herself or with anything else. She just felt awkward all over.

  “I do get upset,” Reggie said. “I get upset a lot. And I’m not always cheerful, and I’m not always happy.”

  “When? When you’re all alone in your room at night with the curtains closed? Because I’ve never seen it, and I’ve even heard the staff comment on it. You’re so chill all the time.”

  Reggie smiled, but it was a sad smile, not the one he usually gave. “When my dad died, it took a lot of the wind out of my sails,” he said. “He was involved in every aspect of my life, taught me about books, how to work, the values he believed a man should have. When he got sick, he sat me down and told me that out of all the lessons he could teach me, there was one that was more important than anything else. That was to find the joy in everything. If I had to deal with a cranky customer, find the good in them. If I got a flat tire, look for the possible blessing in it.”

  “That kind of sounds like Pollyanna,” Abby said. She’d never really cared for that movie. It was a little too . . . glad.

  “It does in a way, but it goes deeper than that,” Reggie replied. “It has to do with looking for purpose and understanding that our lives intersect with other people’s lives in a way that’s very real. If I’m angry, and I take it out on someone who might not even know what I’m angry about, I’m allowing the ripple of my anger to go outward and hurt other people. But if I can take it and deal with it and stop it before it travels outward, I’ve helped pull a little bit of the negative out of this world.”

  He said this so calmly and so simply that Abby just had to stare at him for a moment. “That’s beautiful,” she said. “I’ve never thought of it that way.”

  “I hadn’t either until my dad taught me about it,” Reggie said. “And now I see it all around me. Someone smiles at someone else, and before long, everyone is smiling. Or someone says something mean, and pretty soon, everyone’s in a bad mood. If I can take that moment and find the joy in it, and then I pass along the joy instead of the anger, I feel like I’ve made my father proud.”

  “Do you know what I think?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I think I’m very glad that you ignored my darkness and kept throwing light on me.”

  “Oh, Abby, you’ve never been dark. You just needed a chance to shine.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “And that’s how you throw a family reunion.” Abby threw her head back and laughed. Reggie loved that sound. “Did you see the look on my mom’s face when we walked into the diner? And then when she saw Lila? I don’t know how to handle all this joy. It’s oozing out of me and I feel like I need a bucket or something to catch it.”

  “I can pull over and you can ooze on the side of the road if you need to,” Reggie suggested.

  “That’s not what I mean! I mean, I don’t know how to deal with it. Just piles and piles of happy.” She sighed and looked out the window. “Okay, so, it’s how many days until Christmas? Because I don’t think I can wait.”

  “It’s about eight months,” Reggie said, glancing over at her. She had never looked so beautiful. Her happiness radiated off her like a strobe light.

  “I’ll make the reservations for everyone as soon as we get back to the ranch because we all know how fast Christmas rooms get booked up. I wonder if Mom would be happier in the bunkhouse or a cabin. Lila would be happy with wherever. I should have asked them before we left—I’ll call them.”

  “Abby.”

  “Of course, there’s really not a bad place to stay on the ranch—everywhere is spectacular. And—”

  “Abby.”

  He finally got her attention. “Yeah?”

  “I think I’m in love with you.”

  She looked at him for a second, blinking. “You only said that to make me shut up.”

  “Maybe I did. But it’s also true.”

  “This is good to know.” It was quiet in the car for a second. “It would probably be best if you pulled over.”

  “So you can ooze some of that happiness onto the pavement?”

  “No, so I can kiss you. Because I think I love you too.”

  Reggie grinned as he pulled the car to a stop and unhooked his seatbelt. She slid across and was in his arms almost before he knew it.

  “So, you think you love me, huh?” he said after she’d kissed him silly.

  “Yeah, I think I do.”

  “I’m glad we had this little talk.” He put his seatbelt back on and steered the car back onto the freeway that would lead them back to the ranch. “So, something kind of weird happened as I was packing up the car.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I saw this . . . this little thing buzzing around the flowers by the front porch. I thought it was a dragonfly, and I asked Lila about it, and she said it was a fairy. Do you think that’s possible?”

  Abby grinned as she settled back in her seat. “At this point, I think anything’s possible.”

  ***

  When Abby got back to the ranch, she went to the main house to collect the packages UPS had left there while she was gone. There weren’t many, and she could carry them over to the UPS Store without difficulty. There was one package there with her name on it, and for a moment, she forgot w
hat it was. She looked through everything else and sorted it, then cut a slit in the tape on her box and looked inside.

  It was the purple Furby.

  She lifted it out and looked at it, and all of a sudden, she understood. She understood so deeply that she had to take a moment to breathe. Then she pulled out her phone.

  “Jaclyn, it came. And I understand.”

  “What do you understand, child?”

  “Being able to buy myself a Furby means that I have the power to find healing for myself. I don’t have to wait for others to see my needs and meet them. I have that ability now, the ability to find the holes and to do something about them. And I don’t mean that I’m going to buy twelve gatrillion Furbies—I mean the holes that only love and time and forgiveness can fill. That power is mine now.”

  Jaclyn chuckled, a rich, mellow sound. “You phrased that much better than I ever could have, my dear, and the fairies are proud of you. Put that . . . that toy on a shelf where you can see it every day and remind yourself of this. You have all the tools you need. You just need to use them.” She paused. “Oh, and by the way, whatever you said to George, it worked. He hasn’t moved once since you had your little heart to heart.”

  “I’m glad, Jaclyn,” Abby said, smiling as she looked down at her Furby. “I’m so glad I could help.”

  The End

  Would you like a sneak peek at the next book in the River’s End Ranch series, Trusting Tristan by Caroline Lee?

  CHAPTER ONE

  Early May

  “S

  tupid car.” Charley Easton kicked the front driver’s side tire, not really expecting it to do anything helpful besides making her feel better. “Stupid engine.”

  She’d known for a while that her car was on its way out, and would need some serious maintenance soon, but she’d been hoping to eke a few more months out of it, and have it overhauled this fall. But nope, it had to break down today, on her way to Coeur D’Alene for her monthly lunch-and-guilt-tripping date with Dad.

  She wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or not.

  Sighing, Charley slumped against the door of her sedan. Maybe if she saved up enough, she should get a truck like her brother. Like Dad was always telling her to do. For the icy roads, sure, Pops. Didn’t have anything to do with the image he was trying to show the world, of how strong his kids were.

  She snorted, and then pinched the bridge of her nose. There was a headache building behind her eyes, and wasn’t that just a crummy way to spend a beautiful May morning? Well, it was probably better than spending it sitting across from Dad and Bradley at a fancy restaurant, listening to how awesome their lives were and how much of a disappointment she was.

  Of course, at this rate, that lunch meeting wouldn’t happen at all. Dad would surely blame her poor business sense for it. One more thing to add to the list.

  Stupid car. Why did it have to choose now to break down? She’d been driving along, alert and diligent as always, hands at ten and two on the wheel, when the sedan had started jerking. Then some sputtering and coughing noises had come out from the hood, and she’d coasted over to the shoulder just in time for the whole thing to shut down. Opening the hood hadn’t revealed anything obviously wrong—not that she’d know how to recognize anything that was wrong—but the vehicle still wouldn’t turn on. So now she was well and truly stuck out here, outside of cell reception, waiting on the side of the road for someone to drive by.

  It was probably her fault, somehow. Stupid car.

  She sighed and pulled out her standard-issue radio, hoping that maybe Tater or Allan had theirs on and tuned to their regular frequency. But nope, she was too far from the ranch, apparently. Nothing but static met her hails.

  Well, if nothing else, she could continue to call for backup—help, rather—on various channels, and hope that someone nearby had a walkie-talkie tuned to that frequency.

  It took a moment to register the sound that she’d been hearing in the distance. A car was coming. No. She cocked her head to one side, listening and remembering her days on the force and how her partner used to tease her about her ability to recognize all sorts of vehicles by the sounds they made. That was before he was promoted, of course. They were always promoted.

  It was a motorcycle. A sports model? It wasn’t until it came into view in the distance, the single rider leaning not-as-low over the handgrips as she would’ve thought, that she realized it was a sports-touring model.

  Wow. She snorted again, laughing at her own mistake. Good thing Dad wasn’t around to see you screw up that I.D. This day was just getting better and better, wasn’t it?

  The motorcycle slowed as it approached—which was good, because the rider had to be going twenty over the speed limit, at least—and Charley forced herself to straighten. It pulled up behind her car on the shoulder and its loud engine cut off.

  She wasn’t sure if she was glad for the intervention or not. Sure, she needed help, but in her experience, motorcyclists were the type who liked bucking the rules. She didn’t have a lot of use or respect for trouble-makers, and wasn’t too eager to meet one.

  Until the rider took his helmet off and tucked it under his arm with a smile. Then she decided that maybe she could be eager about this man.

  His brown hair was a few shades darker than her own—and only a little shorter than her own cropped ‘do—and when he smiled his cheeks made his eyes squint and a dimple appear on his left cheek. Wow. Who knew that she liked dimples so much?

  Charley knew that she was staring, but couldn’t help herself. He was really handsome. Like, really really handsome. He was wearing a black leather jacket, dirty jeans and cowboy boots, and Charley was surprised that her tongue wasn’t lolling out of her mouth.

  She worked at River’s End Ranch, and was surrounded by good-looking men all the time, but this one… Wow. There was just something about him, about his smile…

  He was still looking at her. “Uh…hello?”

  That gorgeous smile was faltering. For the first time, Charley noticed that his teeth weren’t straight. Neither was his nose, for that matter. It had a bump in the middle like it had been broken at some point. She mentally shrugged and decided that it didn’t matter; neither crooked teeth nor a crooked nose made this man any less attractive when he smiled, and wasn’t that a surprise to someone who liked to alphabetize her spices and color-code her condiment shelf?

  He cleared his throat, the smile fading entirely to a look of concern. “Lady, are you all right?”

  Charley blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Gah, way to sound like an idiot.

  “Well, you’ve been staring at me for the last thirty seconds. I thought maybe you were concussed or something.”

  Concussed? He was just lucky she hadn’t started drooling. That would’ve made her seem perfectly normal, huh? “I’m fine. Fine. How are you?” She winced. Now he definitely thought she was an idiot.

  But no, his smile returned. Was he laughing at her? “I’m fine too, thanks. It’s a nice day for a ride.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet it is. Finally started to warm up.”

  “Perfect biking weather.”

  “Definitely.” Like she had any idea. She didn’t even ride with the windows down. It wasn’t safe, according to Dad.

  “Sooo…” He shifted and put the helmet on the seat behind him. “We just going to stand her making small talk all day, or what? You need some help?”

  Her shoulders slumped once more. Great, now she looked even stupider. “Yeah, thanks.” She turned her attention to the open hood of her car. “I don’t know a lot about how cars work, and this one…uh…doesn’t.”

  “I do.” He swung one long leg over the bike and walked up beside her.

  “Work?” she blurted, flustered.

  “Know how cars work,” he drawled, and she felt her headache begin to pound again.

  What was it about a cute smile that turned her into a bumbling fool?

  Oh, and a cute rear end, apparentl
y. The stranger leaned into her car’s hood and started fiddling around in there, and Charley found herself staring at his butt. Whoops. She forced her gaze away, towards the towering trees beside the road, but it went creeping back towards his rear end.

  She swallowed, irritated at herself, and made herself step up beside him by the car. “So…any chance you know what’s wrong?”

  He was twisting things and poking things and lifting sticks covered in goopy things. “Nothing, that I can see. Hold on.” He spent another few minutes looking under the hood, and then he muttered, “I wonder if…” and got down on the ground and scooted under the car.

  Feeling silly, staring down at the stranger’s boots, Charley squatted beside him, trying to see what he was peering at. “Any ideas?”

  “I dunno.” There was a clang that didn’t sound good, but what did she know? “Everything looks fine, actually.” Another clang, and then he cursed.

  Charley found herself blushing, embarrassed by his curse. He rode a motorcycle, wore jeans that were very ready for a washing, and cursed? Since when had she been interested in bad boys? Since never, that’s when. She liked clean-cut and wholesome men who she could take to church and then bring home to introduce to Dad.

  Dad, who hadn’t liked any of the other men she’d introduced him to. Maybe it was time that she start being interested in someone totally different.

  Like the cutie who was now wiggling his way out from under her car, a smudge of dirt—or something automotive—on his cheek where it hadn’t been before. Charley resisted the urge to wipe it off.

  “So, what’s the diagnosis?”

  He stared at her for a minute, and then grunted slightly. It wasn’t rude, exactly. More like he was thinking of something else.

  He slid into the driver’s seat and tried to turn the ignition over, listening to the sounds the car made. Charley thought she did an admirable job of not wincing at the thought of those dirty jeans against her pristine upholstery. He’s trying to help you, Easton!

  Suddenly, he cursed under his breath and whipped his head around to peer at her under lowered lids. What was he thinking? He climbed out of the car and hurried over to the gas cap. When he opened it, he did something arcane—sniffing, tapping, listening—and then straightened with a chuckle. The tense concentration of his expression eased, and Charley found herself smiling along with him.