Chapter Twelve
A
fter two miserable days of trying to cut Danielle out of his heart, Cody finally admitted defeat. After a mere taste of her kisses, the woman owned him outright. She possessed every waking and sleeping minute of his life. He could no more choose to let Danielle walk out of his life than he could choose not to be Mollie's father. There was no changing the fact that he loved her. That was just the way it was.
He swung out of the saddle, tethered Champion to the back of a wagon, and strode purposefully toward Danielle with the intention of setting things right between them. Mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, she was lost in her thoughts. When he stepped in pace beside her, she seemed oblivious to his presence.
Cody cleared his throat and repeated the thought that had been replaying itself over and over in his head. “This is stupid.”
Danielle lifted her head and leveled her cool aqua eyes at him. Giving him her best I-don't-know-what-you'retalking-about look, she kept right on walking.
“Don't pretend that you don't know exactly what I mean,” he continued, lengthening his step to keep up with her. “I can't eat. I can't sleep. I can't get you out of my head!”
Tilting her elegant chin up in the air, Danielle regarded him warily. Was this the same man who just a couple of days ago was espousing the theory of having to be cruel to be kind? At last she had come to terms with the fact that she simply couldn't force her love on a man who refused to accept it. She would not allow herself to pursue a relationship with a man who didn't want her.
Now he was having second thoughts?
From everything Cody had told her, Rachael had been fiercely possessive. As far as Danielle could tell, death had little effect upon the woman's desire to keep Cody entirely to herself. Was it possible that she was finally letting go?
A glimmer of hope penetrated the haze of pain that enveloped her.
Rest assured, Rachael, I'll never run you down. I don't want to compete with what you had with this man. I just want to love him and let him love me back. And I want to be a mother to Mollie. 1 want you to rest peacefully.
“Are you listening to me?”
Danielle's throat was as dry as the prairie. Her heart had been torn apart and stitched back together so many times she didn't think it could possibly be mended again.
She kept on walking.
“I'm hungry, exhausted, completely out of sorts. I've wrestled with this for the past two days, and I want you to stand still and hear me out!”
Danielle stopped in her tracks. She lifted her head to gaze into Cody's eyes and saw the world reflected there.
Her own eyes shimmered with the vulnerability that so endeared her to Cody. For the life of him, she looked as if she were stepping up to the edge of chasm and preparing herself to jump. He reached out to catch her.
“I love you, Danielle. And I need you. I can't imagine life without you.”
She couldn't remember stepping into his arms, but suddenly that was where she found herself, wrapped up all warm and safe and happy, knowing without a doubt that this was where she belonged for the rest of her life.
Only one thing stood in the way of perfect contentment. Something Cody had said. Something most women would be willing to overlook for the chance to marry fame and security.
I'm afraid that if you chose to hook up with me, you'd be playing second fiddle to Rachael's memory for the rest of your life...
Danielle wouldn't go through life as a substitute for his deceased wife. On that account, Cody had been right on. She would not share her bed with a ghost. Not even if it meant losing the man she loved.
“What about Rachael?”
Cody looked at her clearly, steadily. “It's time to let go of the past. Rachael would have wanted me to go on living. You were right. She wasn't a saint. Maybe thinking she was just helped me to get past the pain of losing her. I realize now that she was, on occasion, too possessive, impulsive, even a little selfish. But she was never a petty woman. She wouldn't have wanted me to grieve forever. Rachael would have liked you. I know she would be proud to have you raise Mollie as our daughter.”
As our daughter...
What was that expression about one's cup overflowing? A wild joy rose up inside her. Tears welled over and spilled down her cheeks. She smiled tremulously.
Cody took her flushed, exhilarated face between his palms and rested his gaze there. Just looking at her made his throat ache. No artist had the talent to paint such a face, so beautiful and open and brimming with loveâfor him, for his child. He couldn't believe he'd almost been fool enough to let a second chance at love slip past him. And this time, he knew exactly what he was getting into. This time love wouldn't be fueled by youth's brash tendencies. What he and Danielle were destined to share was a love tempered by seasons and heartache, fired by an inferno of passion that left him fevered and hungry.
He kissed her until her lips were puffy and sore with the wanting of oh, so much more.
“Is it possible to manage two maids of honor or is that against the rules or something?” he whispered into her ear.
Danielle wound her arms around his neck and hugged him for all she was worth. “If that's a proposal, cowboy, the answer is yes. As to the question of proper etiquette, I'm afraid I'm past caring about what Miss Manners has to say about my wedding. We'll just have to ask the girls if they would mind sharing the honor,” she said with the warm, natural smile that Cody was counting on waking up to for the rest of his life.
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It didn't take long to discover that the girls were missing. By the time Cody and Danielle tracked down the note left in Ray Anne's care, a thunderstorm was rumbling ominously in the distance. Dark, heavy-bottomed clouds billowed across a sky that had only moments before been clear and blue.
Lynn penned most of the script in her distinctive flowery scrawl, but both girls had signed boldly beneath the final line. “And we intend to stay âlost' until you two come to your senses...”
The hand squeezing Cody's arm left marks on his skin. “How long do you think they've been gone?” Danielle asked.
“Only about a half hour and in that direction.” Ray Anne pointed.
Clearly uncomfortable being placed in the middle of a family squabble, the girl assured them she had tried in vain to talk her friends out of what she thought was a foolhardy plan.
The roll of thunder echoed across the plains.
Cody's face looked ashen as he turned to Danielle. “Can you ride a horse?” he asked.
Before committing herself to an answer, she demanded to know why.
Cody didn't hesitate. He was thinking about the six inches of rain that had fallen in less than a couple of hours a few years back in Cheyenne. If his memory served him right, a dozen people died in that sudden deluge. It was a little known fact that flash floods were the number one weather-related killer in the United States. A raindrop echoed off the brim of his hat.
“We need to find themâfast.”
The expression he wore left little doubt as to the seriousness of the situation. Reading his fear, Danielle knew she had to be with him. She was not the kind of mother who could sit patiently behind wringing her hands while her man went out alone to rescue their children.
“I can ride,” she assured him.
Although not very well.
Danielle hadn't lied. She merely omitted the fact that it had been years since her father had enrolled her in an equestrian class.
Jagged lightning tore at the sky, touching down not more than a quarter of a mile away. There was no time for quibbling; they quickly mounted up.
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It was unfortunate that Cody and Danielle's reconciliation occurred just moments too late to stop the girls from putting their far-fetched plan into action. Assuming that parental love would supersede any silly squabble, Lynn and Mollie had decided to run away. Not really run away, just duck over the next convenient hill and wait to be rescued by parents who were certain to be so overjoyed at finding them that their anger with one another would quickly dissipate. And thus prompted by their good intentions, nature would take its due course.
As Lynn and Mollie wandered away from the wagon train under the guise of gathering flowers, they joked about earning Cupid badges for their ingenuity.
Their ruse took an urgent turn as the onslaught of heavy rain changed their lighthearted, adventurous tone.
A mere three hills away from the wagon train, two girls huddled beneath a scrub pine, the poor scraggly tree doing little to shield them from the sudden downpour.
“I bet the plan's worked by now. Let's go back,” Lynn urged, her eyes widening as a bolt of lightning shook the ground beneath them.
“I think we'd better just find low ground and wait to be found,” Mollie suggested. Remembering her father's adamant advice about staying put whenever one was lost, she knew he would eventually come looking for them.
Figuring it would be best if their charred remains not be found beneath a tree acting as a lightning rod, the girls ran toward a nearby spot that not only looked promising as protection from the elements but as a lookout for spotting anybody who might be looking for them.
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Danielle's horse tossed his head nervously. The creature instinctively knew better than to be caught out in the middle of a Wyoming storm. The rain hit the dry earth like BB's and ran off before having a chance to penetrate. Visibility was poor as Danielle tried to keep Cody in sight. As he had directed, she had swung out to the left in an attempt to cover more ground.
Such a stupid stunt,
she fumed.
I'll kill them when we find them. I'll hug them both to death...
Her tears mingled with the rain. Surely the girls would not have to give their lives in an attempt to bring their bullheaded parents together.
Though the rain, Danielle was barely able to see a blurred figure waving his hat. Cody had found them.
Low ground proved to be the bottom of a dry gully. An overhanging dirt embankment provided temporary shelter from the rain that by now was coming down in blinding sheets. The girls took turns every five minutes poking their heads above the ravine to search for riders.
Cody caught sight of the cowboy hat he had bought his daughter for Christmas. The wind caught it and carried it up the gully where it landed in the rising torrent rushing toward them. The girls had no way of knowing that the gully washer was coming. The rumbling of the oncoming water could easily be mistaken as the sound of thunder.
Danielle and Cody raced to the ravine. The rain was coming down so hard that it was hard to tell exactly where he had first sighted them. They dismounted at the edge of the embankment.
Looking up the gully, Cody could see the flood coming. It was a dirty, swelling monster intent on devouring everything in its path. The arroyo was filling quickly. He knew that only a foot or two was powerful enough to pick up a vehicle and carry it away. Many a luckless rancher had been swept away by such strong-moving current, his body later found miles away.
Every second counted.
Cody directed Danielle to remain on the bank as he wrapped one end of his rope around Champion's saddle horn and the other around his middle.
The bank was slippery. Once he lost his footing. Cursing, Cody swung beneath the embankment and grabbed hold of Lynn. Desperately she clung to him, and he gave a hard tug to indicate to Danielle that she was to back his horse up.
“You stay put!” he told Mollie. He had visions of this feisty tomboy trying to scramble up the slippery bank and falling deeper into the gully.
A few moments later Lynn was in her mother's arms. Drenched, sobbing, and contrite. Cody didn't have time to enjoy the reunion. An enormous wall of water suddenly appeared a hundred yards above them. Swinging himself over the edge of the embankment again, he went back for Mollie. Despite her instincts to climb to safety, she had followed her father's orders and remained exactly where he had left her. Over the roar of the water, he directed her to grab hold of a tree root protruding from the wall of the gully. She did, and he braced himself as best he could against the strain of the rope and the mud beneath his feet.
Danielle backed Champion up again, then raced back to the edge of the ravine where Cody was lifting his daughter up to safety. Danielle threw herself upon her belly. She reached out a hand to Mollie. Fingers, wet with mud and rain, connected. With a tremendous joint effort, Danielle pulled as Cody pushed Mollie over the embankment. Together Mollie and Danielle rolled away from the edge of the gully.
Cody was just pulling himself to the lip of the bank when the wall of water hit. The rope tied around his waist snapped taut as he went under, and everything turned black.