Dancing in the Moonlight

Viviana frowned and flicked a hand in one of her broad, dismissive gestures. “This is your home. You don’t need to call ahead like...like I run some kind of hotel! You are always welcome, you know that. But why are you here? I thought you were to go to Phoenix when you left the hospital in Washington.”

“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I stayed long enough to pick up my car and pack up my apartment, then I decided to come home. There’s nothing for me in Phoenix anymore.”

There had been once. She had a good life there before her reserve unit had been called up eighteen months ago and sent to Afghanistan. She had a job she loved, as a nurse practitioner in a busy Phoenix E.R., she had a wide circle of friends, she had a fiancé she thought adored her.

Everything had changed in a heartbeat, in one terrible, decimating instant.

Viviana’s expression darkened but suddenly she slapped the palm of her hand against her head. “What am I doing, niña, to make you stand like this? Come. Sit. I will fix you something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry, Mama. I just need sleep.”

“Sí. Sí. We can talk about all this tomorrow.” Viviana’s hands were cool as she pushed a lock of hair away from Maggie’s eyes in a tender gesture that nearly brought her to tears. “Come. You will take my room downstairs.”

Oh, how she was tempted by that offer. Climbing the rest of these stairs right now seemed as insurmountable to her as scaling the Grand Teton without ropes.

She couldn’t give in, though. She had surrendered too much already.

“No. It’s fine. I’ll use my old room.”

“Lena—”

“Mama, I’m fine. I’m not kicking you out of your bed.”

“It’s no trouble for me. Do you not think it would be best?”

If Viviana had the strength, Maggie had no doubt her mother would have picked her up and carried her the short way off the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom.

This was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted her mother in Washington, D.C., through her painful recovery, through the various surgeries and the hours of physical therapy.

It was also one of her biggest worries about coming home.

Viviana would want to coddle. It was who she was, what she did. And though part of Maggie wanted to lean into that comforting embrace, to soak it up, she knew she would find it too easy to surrender to it, to let that tender care surround her, smother her.

She couldn’t. She had to be tough if she was going to figure out how to go on with the rest of her life.

Climbing these steps was a small thing, but it suddenly seemed of vital importance.

“No, Mama. I’m sleeping upstairs.”

Viviana shook her head at her stubborn tone. “You are your father’s daughter, niña.”

She smiled, though she could feel how strained her mouth felt around the edges.

“I will take your things up,” Viviana said, her firm tone attesting to the fact that Maggie’s stubbornness didn’t come only from Abel Cruz.

Maggie decided she was too tired to argue, even if she had the tiniest possibility of winning that particular battle. She turned and started the long, torturous climb.

By the time she reached the last of the sixteen steps, she was shaking and out of breath and felt like those shards of glass she’d imagined earlier were now tipped with hot acid, eating away at her skin.

But she had made it, she thought as she opened to the door to her childhood bedroom, all lavender and cream and dearly familiar.

She was here, she was home, and she would take the rest of her life just like that—one step at a time.

Chapter Two

She woke from dreams of screaming, dark-eyed children and exploding streets and bone-numbing terror to soothing lavender walls and the comforting scent of home.

Sunshine streamed in through the lace curtains, creating delicate filigree patterns on the floor, and she watched them shift and slide for several moments while the worst of the dreams and her morning pain both faded to a dull roar.

Doctors at Walter Reed used to ask if her pain seemed worse first thing in the morning or right before bed. She couldn’t tell much difference. It was always there, a constant miserable presence dogging her like a grim black shadow.

She wanted to think it had started to fade a little in the five months since her injury, but she had a sneaking suspicion she was being overly optimistic.

She sighed, willing away the self-pity. Just once she’d like to wake up and enjoy the morning instead of wallowing in the muck of her screwed-up psyche.

Her shower chair was still down in the Subaru and she wasn’t quite up to running down the stairs and then back up for it—or worse, having to ask her mother to retrieve it for her. She hadn’t been fitted for a shower prosthesis yet, and since she couldn’t very well balance on one foot for the length of time needed, she opted for a bath.

It did the job of keeping her clean but was nowhere near as satisfying as the hot pulse of a shower for chasing away the cobwebs. Climbing out of the tub was always a little tricky, but she managed and dressed quickly, adjusted her prosthesis then headed for the stairs to find her mother.

When she finally made her painstaking way to the ground floor, she found the kitchen empty, but Viviana had left thick, gooey sweet rolls and a note in her precise English. “I must work outside this morning. I will see you at lunch.”

She frowned at the note, surprised. She would have expected her mother to stick close to the house the first day after her arrival, though she felt a little narcissistic for the assumption.

Viviana was probably out in her garden, she thought, tearing off a sticky chunk of cinnamon roll and popping it in her mouth.

Savoring the rich, sweet flavor, she poured a cup of coffee and walked outside with the awkward rolling gait she hadn’t been able to conquer when wearing her prosthesis.

The morning air was sweet and clear, rich with new growth, and she paused for a moment on the front porch to savor it.

Nothing compared to a Rocky Mountain morning in springtime. She had come to love the wild primitiveness of the desert around Phoenix in the dozen years she’d lived there, but this was a different kind of beauty.

The Tetons were still covered with snow—some of it would be year-round—but here at lower elevations everything was green and lush. Her mother’s fruit trees were covered in white blossoms that sent their sweet, seductive scent into the air and the flower beds bloomed with color—masses of spring blossoms in reds and yellows and pinks.

The Luna in spring was the most beautiful place on earth. Why had she forgotten that over the years? She stood for a long time watching birds flit around the gardens and the breeze rustle the new, pale-green leaves of the cottonwood trees along the creek.

Feeling a tentative peace that had been missing inside her for months, she limped down the stairs in search of her mother.

There was no sign of Viviana on the side of the house or in the back where the vegetable beds were tilled and ready for planting.

Maggie frowned. So much for being coddled. She didn’t want her mother to feel like she had to babysit her, but she couldn’t help feeling a little abandoned. Couldn’t Viviana have stuck around at least the first day so they could have had a visit over breakfast?

No matter. She didn’t need entertaining. She would welcome a quiet moment of solitude and reflection, she decided, and headed for the glider rocker on the brick patio.

She settled down with her coffee, determined to enjoy the morning on her own here in the sunshine, surrounded by blossoms.

The ranch wasn’t big, only eight hundred acres. From her spot on the patio she could see the pasture where her mother’s half-dozen horses grazed and the much-larger acreage where two hundred Murray Grey cattle milled around, their unique-colored hides looking soft and silvery in the morning sun.

She shifted her gaze toward the creek 150 yards away that gave this canyon and the Dalton’s ranch their names. This time of year the Cold Creek ran full and high, swollen with spring runoff. Instead of a quiet, peaceful ribbon of water, it churned and boiled.