Chapter 9

Link waited while Misty said good-bye to Janie, who said, "Good luck, girl," before the woman he hadn't stopped thinking about for even a single second today joined him on the porch.

"You're sick?" he asked.

"No." Misty brushed by him and went down the steps, leaving Link confused and suddenly feeling like this walk to the spot that overlooked the town of Three Rivers was a very bad idea.

He loved the spot on the edge of the lawn of the Ranch House. He'd gone there often as he'd grown up, more and more as he'd approached graduation, with questions about what his future held.

He'd never taken a woman there, and he didn't go with others very often. Sometimes, Uncle Judge came out and handed him a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate, but he never said anything. Just clapped Link on the shoulder, looked down at the quaint, perfect town of Three Rivers, and went back into the house.

Link followed Misty down the steps and caught up to her easily. "Hey, are you okay? We don't have to do anything tonight. I've been up since you called, and?—"

"I have to do this tonight," she said, her legs making long strides though she wasn't a very tall woman. "If I don't do it tonight, I'll never do it, and I just can't stand you not knowing."

"Not knowing what?"

She kept on, and Link wasn't sure if he should just keep up and let this storm inside her blow out, or if he should stop her and make her talk to him right now. He'd never seen her like this when they were dating previously, and Link honestly didn't know if they were dating now.

This is a date, he told himself. They were out together, doing something meaningful to him. It was a date.

He opted for silence as they went down the road. "To your right," he said quietly, reaching for her hand when they came to the T in the road. "This here's my parents' house. I grew up there, for the most part."

Misty relaxed a little. "For the most part? What does that mean?"

"Well." He inhaled through his nose and breathed it all out through his mouth. "I lived in town for the first several years of my life. My momma was a mechanic. She owned that shop right on the southern edge of town. I'm sure you've seen it."

"Yes," Misty said. "Ralf took his truck there once."

"Right." Link hadn't told her about his parents—the man and woman he'd been born to. Their relationship had been casual, and despite him slipping and sliding toward falling in love with her, he hadn't told her too many intimate things.

"Wait. So Bear Glover isn't your father?" Misty looked at him with wide eyes.

"Not biologically, no," Link murmured.

"Where is your biological dad?" She spoke with a touch of harshness in her voice that Link didn't understand.

"I, uh, I'm not sure we should be talking about stuff like this," he said, his own heart turning hard. "I didn't tell you before, because it's not what casual couples talk about."

Misty came to a halt, and she pulled on Link's hand. "Stop and talk to me."

"I am talking to you." Link released her hand and took a couple more steps. He couldn't look at her, and he rolled his neck, trying to find his patience, his self-respect, his dignity. He sighed and finally faced her. "What do you want from me?"

She gazed at him, her emerald eyes firing with passion, with determination, with anger. She lifted her chin and said, "I want more than casual."

Link immediately shook his head. "No," he said, a harsh barking laugh coming out. "No, you can't say stuff like that if you don't mean it." He paced away from her, expecting her girlish laugh, the teasing quality in her tone that told him she was kidding.

It didn't come, and he turned toward her again, his head down, barely looking at her from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat. "You broke my heart, and I can't do it again. So you can't say that stuff if you don't mean it." He watched her fight with herself, and that didn't exactly comfort him. "Do you mean it?"

"I mean it." Misty sounded hoarse. "I have reasons for everything, and that's what I need to tell you. Tonight. If I don't, I'll chicken out, and then we won't be able to try again."

"Is that what we're doing?"

"I'd like to," she said, that chin coming up in defiance again. "Tell me you don't want a second chance, and I'll march right back to the cabin." She pointed back the way they'd come. "Right now."

"I can't say that," he said.

"Good." She eased closer to him. "So you tell me about your dad on the way to this looking spot, and then I'll somehow be brave enough to tell you why we couldn't be together last year."

Link would do anything to be with her again, as her boyfriend, so he drew on the strongest part of himself, said a silent prayer in his heart, and then said aloud, "My parents were killed in a car accident when I was only three years old."

"Lincoln Glover," Misty said, her voice full of air and shock. "No."

He nodded and tugged her along, as she'd stopped walking again. "Yes, Misty. I was born Lincoln Josephs. My aunt Sammy adopted me, because she became my legal guardian according to my parents' wills." He glanced over to her. "I don't really belong to the Glover family."

Their feet crunched down the road. "That's not what I heard at the barn today," Misty finally said. "It was your mom who said, ‘Once a Glover, always a Glover.'"

Link smiled, because that sounded like something his momma would say. "Bear Glover was sweet on my mom. I was eight when they started dating, and they got married pretty quick. We came to live up here then, and we actually lived in the big homestead at the top of the hill."

"I see," Misty said.

"Bear adopted me, and they changed my last name when I was a teenager, because I wanted the same last name as them. I wanted to graduate from high school with the Glover name on my diploma. But I'm not a Glover."

"Link, yes, you are."

She wasn't hearing him. Or rather, she heard him, but she wasn't listening. "I feel like I'm not, though," he said quietly. "I feel like a fraud sometimes. Daddy talks to me about taking over this place, or building me a house of my own here, and to him, of course I belong here." Link sighed out his breath, because he wasn't sure what he was trying to say.

"Anyway." He shook his head as they approached Etta's house. "This is my aunt Etta and uncle August's house. Hailey, that woman I danced with at the wedding? She's their daughter. They have a few other kids too." He told himself to stop talking, but he still said, "She's a twin, and she's got twins. Her twin sister, Aunt Ida, she's got twins too."

"There's a lot of people in your family," she said.

"Don't I know it," Link muttered.

"I have one brother," she said. "It's a little overwhelming being here, actually."

Link tightened his hold on her hand. "I'm sure it is." He cleared his throat and cut a look over to her. "Anyway, that's me. It's not this sordid tale or anything, but I'm not a Glover, at least by blood. I was a Josephs, and then a Benton, and then a Glover."

"Names are just names," she said.

"Names mean a lot in this family." Link looked up into the sky, noting that it had started to bruise a little bit. "The sunset is going to be amazing tonight."

They went past Etta's house and continued down the road toward the Ranch House. "This is where Uncle Judge and Aunt June live," Link said. "We call it the Ranch House. Judge is my daddy's brother. Etta is his cousin. It's all confusing, and most of the time, I barely know how they're related to me." He gave a light chuckle. "And that's more words than I think I've ever spoken on a date, so I'm going to stop now."

Misty didn't even challenge him on the labeling of this walk as a date, and that was when Link realized how serious she'd become. They really hadn't ever had a date like this before. Everything had been laughter and jokes, playfulness and teasing, kissing and flirting.

He led her across the side yard of the house to the benches that sat right on the edge of the grass, before the wildness of the ranch took over. The majority of the ranch sat up on a plateau, and Link smiled as he remembered the earthquake and landslide that had stranded them all up here one Christmas.

Link led Misty around the bench and let her sit down before he eased himself in next to her. "I'm exhausted," he said as he groaned. "Whenever I'm trying to find my way, I come here." He gazed down the hills to the town. "It's Three Rivers from a bird's eye view, and I love it. It allows me to see things the way I imagine God does—from a higher perspective."

"I love that." Misty linked her arm through Link's and leaned her head against his bicep. "Lincoln, I am so sorry for hurting you."

"You've apologized enough."

"You said I broke your heart."

"Yeah, well." He didn't have much more of a defense, and he didn't need to repeat the pathetic truth of his life.

She drew in a breath, and Link found himself praying for her. Begging the Lord to give her the right words, and asking Him to open Link's mind and heart to truly hear what Misty needed to tell him.

"I don't even know where to start," she said. "So I guess I'll just babble on until the words dry up."

Link smiled, but he didn't let any of it show where she could see it. For this was Serious Misty, and he was just getting to know her.

"I have one brother," she said. "He's younger than me, and my daddy left us when I was four and Danny was two. Before I turned ten, my momma had been married three more times." She spoke without much emotion in her voice, but Link felt the pain streaming from her. He could almost see it bleeding out of her, in great waves of red sand.

"Every man was a nightmare," she said. "The first one was cruel, and Danny and I never got enough to eat. The second one took all of our money, and we lost our house, because my mom thought he deserved just one more chance." She scoffed, the bitterness in her voice prevalent.

"The third left when he found out about us, because see, my mother didn't tell him she had two children until they'd gotten married. I learned that I couldn't count on anyone, not even my mother."

"I had no idea," Link whispered.

"Danny and I stayed in the apartment for eleven days before my mom came back," Misty said, and she sounded hollow now. Broken. Link lifted his arm and put it around her, drew her close, tried to tell her she was safe here with him.

"See, my mom had gone with Husband Number Three, because she loved him. Claimed he was The One, and he'd come around. He'd come back and take care of all of us. But he didn't. She came back, but the message had already been delivered. She didn't want me or Danny. We were a burden to her."

"Misty, you're not a burden to anyone."

"Mm." She fell silent, and Link didn't know what to do to fill this quiet. He watched the sunlight glint off the windows on the tall buildings downtown, his eyes adjusting to the light as it continued to fade.

"She changed after that," Misty said next. "She didn't take care of us, and I did everything around the house. Lunches, dinner. I did the best I could with Danny, but he turned to drugs and drinking. I couldn't save him; I could barely keep my own head above water. It was then that I made rules for myself, and they alone kept me from…floating away."

Link didn't want to imagine Misty out there in the ether, being pushed this way and that by any whim or wist of wind. "This is when you decided not to date."

"Yes," she said. "I vowed I would never, ever be dependent on a man for my happiness, to pay my bills, for anything."

Link started to feel hollow too, because all he wanted was to make Misty happy, pay for anything she wanted, be the man who would show her that having a partner in life made things easier, not harder.

"I'm real sorry about your mom."

She curled into his chest. "She's a hoarder. I haven't seen her in years. Barely speak to her." She sniffled and waved her hand in front of her. "And here you are, with family for days, and months, and years, and you talk to all of them. They love you and care about you, and I've got your aunts giving me advice on how to get you back."

She wiped her face, and Link had never seen her cry.

"I want to make this better for you," he murmured.

"You can't," she said.

"Do you think I'm like those men your momma married?"

"No." She wrapped her arms around him even tighter. "Small towns scare me, Lincoln. I felt so trapped growing up. There was no way out. Absolutely none."

"You made it out, sweetheart."

"Danny didn't. He's in prison down in the Coastal Bend."

Link pulled in a deep breath and looked up into the sky. Dear Lord, he thought. I have no idea how to get through this conversation. What do I say here?

I'm sorrysounded so inadequate. It was inadequate.

Misty sat up straight, and Link pulled his arm back. "So you see, I couldn't have you be a serious boyfriend. It had to just be fun, because the thought of actually letting you see the messed up pieces of my life was too scary." She glanced over to him but didn't really look at him.

"I don't do romances," she said. "Because I barely have my life together."

"You're an incredible woman, Misty," he said. "You have an amazing and interesting job. You're a college graduate. A great friend. Your past doesn't define you."

"It definitely makes you into who you are today," she said.

"Yeah, and that person can change into anything she wants." He took her hand again. "Anyone she wants, at any time."

She squeezed his fingers. "You understand why I did what I did last year, though, right? It's really important to me that you understand. I never, ever thought my feelings for you would get so deep, and I certainly never meant to hurt you."

Misty faced him then, and pure agony lived on her face. "I am so, so sorry, and I need you to know that the very idea of being with you scares me. You're so good, Link. Your family is so big and so amazing. I don't like small towns, because I still feel a little trapped here." She swallowed, and Link just wanted to take all the scary things in her life and root them right out.

Just strip them away until she didn't have to think about them or worry over them any longer.

"I am an island," he said. "The only one in my family. I have no one who shares my blood." He lifted her hand to his lips. "You make me feel less alone. When I'm with you, I feel like maybe, just maybe, someone will see me the way they see Mitch or Smiles or my daddy. No one ever sees me, Misty, and you did. You do."

She cradled his face in her hand. "I see you, Lincoln."

"And I'm not like any other man you've ever known," he said with as much force as he dared. He needed her to know there were good men in the world, and that he was one of them. No, he wasn't perfect, but he wasn't here to use her, abandon her, or hurt her.

A tiny smile touched her face. "I know, because you let me dictate everything in our previous relationship."

"I'm weak is what you're saying," he said.

"No." She shook her head.

"Desperate, then."

"Link, you're wonderful."

He looked away, back to the town he loved so much. "Three Rivers has actually doubled in size in the past twenty years," he said after several long moments of silence between them.

"Oh, you're making that up."

Link chuckled. "I am not. Those high rises weren't there when I was a little boy." Heck, only five houses or cabins had existed on the ranch when he'd come to live here as an eight-year-old. Now they had over a dozen, with a new cabin community too.

"I think they're pretty."

"I don't hate them the way some of my uncles do," Link said. "So." He took a deep breath. "Are we really doing this?"

"I think so," she said.

"No," he said, hardly feeling like himself. "That doesn't work for me. I need you to look me in the eye and tell me we're dating again, and that it's okay for us to be serious."

Misty turned toward him, and he caught a flash of fear in her expression. He'd just asked her to break her rules, the ones she'd implemented to keep herself safe for all these years.

And as he pulled his hand away from hers, he had no idea what she'd say next.