Chapter Seventeen

M onday morning, Blake wrote The End on his Timmy, the Superhero Comes Home book. He leaned back from his laptop with a sigh. That left revisions, which, strangely enough, was his favorite part of writing.

He could hear Timmy stirring, so after sending his agent a copy of the draft, he closed his laptop and went to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Today was the day he planned to turn his dad’s restored truck over to his brothers. If that didn’t do the trick to make his amends with Jonas and Nathan, then Blake didn’t know what would. What was worse was that here he was trying to repair his relationship with his brothers and he couldn’t get Nathan’s girl off his mind.

He and Timmy ate the French toast Blake had fixed while his boy had dressed for the day. When they finished cleaning up after themselves, he asked. “Are you ready?”

Timmy nodded, excitement lighting up his eyes. Coming to the ranch had been so good for the boy.

Blake grabbed the bag of ribbon he’d bought the day before and off they went. The truck was already clean, inside and out. All they had to do was add the final touch and then park the vehicle by the porch.

He’d been out early to let the horses go into the pasture. They could clean out the stalls after he turned the truck over to his brothers. He looked around for Andee and Reece on their way through the barn. It was so surprising how much he’d gotten used to the twins being underfoot when he was taking care of the horses.

He didn’t see them on the way to the shed. He frowned. That wasn’t right. They were usually in the barn right behind him. What else didn’t feel right was not seeing Malorie the last two days. Yes, he’d been doing his best to keep his distance, but that didn’t mean he never wanted to see the woman again. Maybe she had the twins giving the guesthouse a good cleaning that morning.

He attached a big bow to the passenger-side windshield wiper. Timmy strapped himself in. Blake started the engine.

Parking in front of the house, he texted his brothers. “Come out to the porch.”

It wasn’t until he looked in the rearview mirror that he noticed an unfamiliar red sedan parked next to Malorie’s Bronco. He hadn’t heard the car come down the driveway.

Jonas and Nathan stepped out of the house. Still trying to figure out why there was a new vehicle in the drive, Blake waited for them on the lower step.

“What’s this?” Nathan, leaning on his crutches, asked and not in his usual cranky tone.

Curiosity about the sedan forgotten, Blake was instantly suspicious at his brother’s calm question. But it was Timmy who climbed the stairs to stand between his uncles and who took the question literally. “It’s Grandpa’s truck. It’s for amends.”

“Amends?” Nathan questioned.

Timmy stood taller. Blake couldn’t stop the kid, and anyway, what did it matter? It was time he laid his cards on the table. The truck was a major step. There would be no more hiding.

“It means fixing a mistake.” Timmy enlightened his uncles. “Right, Dad?”

Blake looked at Nathan, then Jonas. “That’s exactly right.”

They all turned to look at the truck. It looked better than the night he had wrapped it around the tree out in the far pasture.

“It looks good,” Nathan said, surprising Blake.

“Excuse me, please,” a soft voice said behind them.

Blake backed to the side, pulling Timmy with him, and let an older woman pass. She looked to be in her fifties, maybe. Gray hair. Shorter than Malorie.

She stopped next to Nathan. “As soon as I unpack, I’ll take your vitals and lay out your meds.”

“Nurse Ingram,” Jonas made the introductions. “This is our brother, Blake Lohmen. At the moment, he’s in charge of the ranch and taking care of the horses. And this is his son, Timmy.”

Confused, Blake held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you.” I think.

“Same. You can call me Rena,” she said briskly with a ghost of a smile at Timmy, then continued to the guesthouse.

Blake watched her disappear into the garden. “Who is she?”

Nathan sat on the bench and leaned his crutches on the wall of the house. It was Jonas who answered. “She’s taking over for Malorie.”

“Why?”

His brothers exchanged a look Blake couldn’t interpret. But again, it was Jonas who explained, sort of. “Malorie and the twins are going back to Oregon.”

“Why?” Blake asked again, panic surging through him.

Carrying luggage, Malorie and the twins came out of the guesthouse. Rena had her arms full of grocery bags.

“You’ll have to ask Malorie,” Jonas said almost too lightly.

Blake studied Nathan, trying to gauge his brother’s feelings. He wasn’t sure what he saw there, but it wasn’t a good thing that she had packed her bags and was leaving and taking the kids too.

Timmy bounded down the porch steps and walked fast until he stood next to Andee and Reece.

Since Nathan didn’t seem to be in a hurry to stop her, Blake said, “Okay, I will.” He slowly walked over to her Bronco. He’d always thought it suited her. On the newer side. Sleek. Dependable looking. A soft, comfortable gray. “Can I help you load up?”

“I think we’ve got it covered,” she said, without meeting his gaze.

He knew the answer, but he had to ask, “Where are you going?”

“To Ashland.”

“What about Nathan?” Surely, he wasn’t wrong about her. She wouldn’t walk away from her responsibilities without a good reason.

After putting her luggage in the back of the Bronco, she straightened and finally faced him. “He’ll be okay. He’s healing and getting around better. Rena will take good care of him.”

She gave Timmy a brief hug, one that didn’t have the boy squirming to get out of the close contact, then turned to him and gave Blake an unexpected hug and kiss on the cheek that had his arms circling her waist.

In that moment, he knew. He’d come home.

But Malorie didn’t stay. She left the warmth of his arms and closed the back of the Bronco. “Let’s go kids.” And said to Rena. “I’ll text you when we get to Ashland.”

Feeling the most powerless he’d felt since Tina’s passing, all Blake could do was watch her buckle up, check on the kids to make sure they did the same, and after waving at Rena and his brothers, take off.

As Rena disappeared into the guesthouse, presumably to unpack, Blake followed Timmy, who trailed Jonas and Nathan back into the house, and plunked himself into one of the living room chairs. All he could think about was how good Malorie had felt in his arms and how empty they felt now. Why was she leaving?

Timmy came to stand by his chair. “Can I go look at the horses?”

“Sure.” He looked up at his son. Timmy was starting to grow. He might even get to be taller than Blake when he was done. “Don’t wander off.”

“I won’t.” Shuffling his feet, his chin lowering to his chest, Timmy went outside.

Nathan hadn’t even tried to stop Malorie. Blake didn’t understand. Was his brother crazy? If she liked him as much as she appeared to like Nathan, there was no way in the world that he would let her go.

He got up and after checking that Timmy was on this side of the fenced-in pasture, he followed his brothers to the kitchen table. He sat down and confronted Nathan. “Why didn’t you stop her?”

“Why didn’t you?” Nathan threw back at him, seemingly undisturbed that his girlfriend had just left, taking her kids and belongings with her.

“You love her.” Blake remembered every word of their conversation in the barn.

“I thought I did for a while—” Nathan took the cola Jonas handed him. “But it turns out, we’re just friends.”

“Just friends?” Blake didn’t want to believe it, but a spark ignited in his chest, anyway.

“Friends,” Nathan repeated firmly. “I’ll bet you can—”

Jonas sat catty-corner from Nathan and bumped his elbow. Turning to Blake, he said, “ You love her.”

Of course he did, but Blake was stunned Jonas had come to that same conclusion. He didn’t want to talk about it and since he had both of his brothers here, there was no time like the present to bring up the ledger error he still couldn’t reconcile. “I’ve been working on the ranch’s book and there seems to be an error in the accounting five years back. Do either of you know about that?”

“I probably made a math error. You know I was never very good at numbers.” Nathan shrugged. “Now, come on. You love Malorie, don’t you?”

When he didn’t confirm or deny it, Jonas gave him his sternest look. “Don’t be an idiot, Blake.”

“All right. I’m in love with her.” He glanced at Nathan, who was watching him squirm with too much enjoyment. “I’m crazy in love with her, but she’s going back to Oregon. She doesn’t feel the same way.”

“Have you asked her about that?” Jonas leaned back in his chair. “Or told her how you feel?”

“Well, no. I thought she liked Nathan.” Blake felt like he’d spun on the corner of a race track too fast, with his brothers close on his tail end.

Nathan shook his head. “I hope she does like me, but not in the way that you mean, brother.” He studied Blake closely. “Listen. I know we’ve had our differences, and I wasn’t happy when you first came back, but Jonas and I have been talking. We’re family, and I think it would be good if you and Timmy decided to relocate here to the ranch. If you want, we can build you a house on the back forty, up against the mountains. And we can talk about all those things you want to do.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“We’re very serious,” Jonas said. “Timmy and you, too, need to be around family. We shouldn’t have told you to leave and never come back. That was my bad. I was young and stupid.”

Forgetting about his accounting problem, Blake got up and paced from one end of the table to the other. He stopped in front of Nathan and held out his hand. “If you mean it, I’ll take you up on that offer of a house on the back forty.”

“I mean it.” Nathan shook hands. “Now go get your girl. I can’t believe you’re hanging out with the two of us while she’s getting away.”

Jonas stood and shook Blake’s hand, a smile spreading across his face. “I heard her tell Nurse Rena that she was stopping in Strawberry Ridge on her way out of town. Lunch, I think she said, and then the bookstore. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, you’d better get going if you want to catch her.”

“I’m taking Timmy with me.” Blake didn’t waste a minute, even after he saw the smiles Jonas and Nathan gave each other. He didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t care.

Grabbing Timmy on the way to his Jeep, he drove as fast as he dared without driving like a maniac. He went straight to The Book Lovers Hideaway and there she was. She was in line to pay for Andee’s and Reece’s books.

“There they are,” Timmy said at the same time. They both jumped out of the vehicle.

Malorie didn’t see them until he was standing at her elbow. He breathed her in, barely restraining himself from pulling her into a tight hug right next to his racing heart.

She looked up at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s something I want to tell you.” He turned to the kids, who were talking a mile a minute while Timmy stood by with a smile that reached his eyes. “Hey, kiddo, why don’t you go find a book to take home with you?”

Home. It sounded too good to be true.

He’d told Timmy that the Triple L was going to be their new place on the way into Strawberry Ridge and asked if that was okay. Timmy was all in.

While the kids scattered into the bookshelves, Blake took Malorie’s hand and gently pulled her to the side of the store. “You can’t leave. Can I talk you into staying in Strawberry Ridge instead of moving back to Oregon?”

“But—” she started, then, “Why?”

“I love you, Malorie Harper.” He didn’t give her a chance to draw back, but instead, flattened her hand on his chest so she could feel the truth of his words in the beat of his heart. “I love you with every fiber of my being.” The tension in her beautiful face eased. “If you go back to Oregon, I don’t think the long-distance thing is going to work. I want to marry you. And wake up next to you every morning. And spend every day for the rest of my life with you. I want to share popcorn with you and watch movies as a family at least three times a week—”

She leaned into him and put her fingers across his lips. “I love you too. I’m not going back to Ashland to stay permanently. We’re selling the house and getting everything ready to move to Strawberry Ridge. Jonas’s friend Sloane is helping us find a house, and when Nathan is all healed, I have a job at the hospital.”

“You’re staying in Strawberry Ridge.” He had to hear her say it again.

“We are staying in Strawberry Ridge.” She leaned closer until there was little breathing room between them. “I love you with my whole heart, Blake Lohmen. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without you.”

“Timmy and I are moving to Strawberry Ridge too.” He pulled her a fraction of an inch closer. “My heart is all yours. Will you marry us—me and Timmy?”

“Oh, yes.” She pressed her lips to his in a promise that rocked Blake to the soles of his feet. He wrapped her in his arms and took their kiss deeper, making a promise of his own that their love would last a lifetime.

In the background, he heard the kids’ cheers. Pulling Malorie to his side, his arm draped around her waist, he opened the other to gather Andee, Reece, and Timmy close.

“Malorie and I are getting married.” Feeling like his heart had come home and was bursting with happiness, he asked them, “Are you guys good with that?”

“Yes!!!” all three shouted, practically jumping up and down in their excitement.

Even Timmy.

The End