A Rugged Ranchin' Dad

Her eyes opened and Stone looked into the violet-blue depths. The tip of her pink tongue slid out to lick her pale lips. “Stone,” she said as she felt around her shoulder area with her free hand, frowning up at him in bewilderment.

“What is it, sweetheart? Does it hurt?” The pounding of his heart seemed to reverberate until the floor shook beneath his feet.

“Didn’t I get my wings? Did they get crushed when I fell?”

There was a moment of hushed silence. Stone looked from his wife to the doctor.

“Your wife’s had a severe blow to the head, Mr. Tyler,” the doctor said quietly. “Give her some time.”

Stone swallowed nervously, his gaze moving raggedly over Dahlia’s face. Her head was bandaged, her blond hair spread out on the pillow. She was small anyway, but in the hospital bed she looked smaller and more helpless than he’d ever seen her.

“Stone.” Her voice was only half a whisper. “What happened to my ticket?”

“Your ticket?” he asked.

“The ticket for my wings and halo. Basil gave it to me before he sent me back to earth.” Her deep blue eyes, the color of the innermost part of a pansy, were fixed on him as she smiled. “He sent me back to help you,” she said clearly, and then her eyes fluttered closed.

“Doc—” Stone felt full-scale panic wash over him.

“Mrs. Tyler’s merely asleep.” The doctor’s voice was calm and reassuring.

But Stone felt anything but calm and reassured.

Apparently his wife believed she was an angel.

A week later, Stone signed all the necessary papers in order to take Dahlia out of the hospital and back to Lemon Falls and the ranch. According to the doctors, Dahlia was healthy enough to go home—even if she did still think she was an angel.

Stone turned as the nurse wheeled Dahlia out of her room. The woman smiled reassuringly at him. Different nurse, but the same smile of reassurance, he thought in exasperation.

“You ready?” he said to Dahlia, hoping she couldn’t see how uneasy he felt. “I put your suitcase in the car.”

She nodded, her blue gaze never leaving his.

He noticed how she sat quietly, without fidgeting. He wondered if Dahlia truly was strong enough to go home, or if her current demeanor was what the doctors meant by possible changes in her behavior.

As Stone guided his Ford Explorer through the heavy traffic in San Antonio, he kept stealing glances at his wife. Dahlia continued to sit quietly beside him, her hands folded primly in her lap. What was she thinking about? he wondered.

She’d always been so full of fire and energy and life, her excitement at the promise of each new day contagious to all those around her, and a positive influence even at the blackest of times.

But Stone barely recognized the subdued woman sitting beside him now, the woman she’d become this past week.

For days now, he had avoided the subject of angels with Dahlia. And he’d constantly reassured the rest of the family that all she needed was some rest. But this morning he had his doubts.

“You okay?” he asked her, as they drove out of the city. “We can stop—”

“I just want to go home and be with my baby.” Her voice was soft as it cut into his words. And his heart.

Stone’s breath caught in his throat. Had she forgotten? Didn’t she know that Brooke was—

“How is Field?” she asked slowly. “Really: How was he this morning?”

Stone was filled with sudden relief. She was talking about his son, not their daughter. Though Field was not Dahlia’s biological child, she’d been his mother for most of his life.

Stone stole another glance at her. The heavy bandages had been removed from her head this morning, replaced by a much smaller one. Dahlia’s hair, its shades of blond as varied as a Texas prairie, was pulled back in a ponytail, the soft bangs hiding most of the dressing.

But she looked so pale, he noticed with a sharp tug of guilt.

“He sounded okay when I talked to him on the phone,” Dahlia continued. “But Field keeps things bottled up inside.”

Like you.

That was one of the accusations she’d hurled at him before her accident, Stone remembered. And it was still between them, as solid and unrelenting as though the words had been carved in rock.

Dahlia turned in her seat and fixed him with her luminous, violet-blue gaze. “He told me you’d been reading and discussing The Three Musketeers with him before bed. That’s wonderful.”

“I always talk about books with him. What’s so wonderful about it?” Stone was more curious than defensive. He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at her.

“You haven’t done that in a long time.”

Their gazes mingled.

Stone abruptly tore his gaze away. He inhaled and exhaled quickly. He’d been halfway hoping that Dahlia’s memory—the part that had to do with his so-called rejection of Field—wouldn’t return.

“He needs you, Stone.” Her voice was gentle. “He needs his father now more than ever.”

“He’s got me.”

“But for how long?”

Stone shook his head slightly. He had no intention of rehashing old arguments. This was one discussion that’d had most of the tread worn off it already.

“Have you changed your mind about sending Field away?”

“We don’t need to talk about this now.” Stone tightened his grip on the steering wheel and kept his eyes on the road ahead.

Dahlia’s hand stole over to touch his, and he felt the warmth, the softness, of her fingers. Slowly, carefully, some half-forgotten feelings stumbled to life. His heart started to race like a freight train, blood rushing through him, giving him life and energy and this fierce awareness of the woman sitting next to him.

He gently squeezed her hand and held it on the seat between them. If only...

“Have you changed your mind?” she repeated.

And the moment shattered like superfine crystal.

It left Stone with a broken, empty feeling inside, and a sense of having something so very close within his grasp sliding free. He wanted to give her the world. He’d lay down his own life for her. But he couldn’t give Dahlia anything close to what she wanted from him.

“Damn it, Dahlia.” His voice was low and rough with emotion. “You make it sound as though I’m sending him away as some sort of punishment. It’s a good school,” he insisted for perhaps the one millionth time.

“He loves it on the ranch.” Still the same gentle voice.