Home to Hope Mountain (Harlequin Superromance) (24 page)

“Would you like some coffee, Don?” Hayley offered.

“No, thanks. We’d just as soon be back in our own beds. I’ll leave you to it.” Don climbed into the truck with the rest of the crew, then they headed off.

“Zoe was smoking, not Summer,” Hayley corrected quietly as they walked back to the house.

Adam waved that off angrily. Inside the kitchen he rounded on her. “What I want to know is why you took my daughter to a doctor to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases and didn’t tell me.”

Hayley’s jaw tensed. “I couldn’t—not and keep her trust. How much did she tell you?”

“Everything. About being with Steve the night of the bushfires and him taking Bailey. Jeez, Hayley, didn’t you think I had a right to know these things?”

“I urged her to tell you. And now she has, finally. That in itself is a huge step forward in her recovery.”

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” he said sarcastically. “And birth control pills. She’s fourteen, for God’s sake.”

“I didn’t know about the pills. She told me she wanted to just be friends with Steve. I agreed that was best considering her age. It’s hard to imagine her asking the doctor for them.”

“She says the doctor gave her the pills because her periods are irregular. She told you everything else. Why wouldn’t she tell you that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she worried I wouldn’t believe her when she said she wasn’t going to have sex again.”

Adam winced. “Please don’t use that word in connection with my little girl.”

“She’s not a little girl anymore. You need to believe her and trust her.”

“Why didn’t she tell
me
these things?” There was a world of hurt and baffled anger in his voice.

“She loves you so much, Adam, even if she doesn’t show it. She is desperate for your approval. She was afraid you’d think badly of her. Afraid you wouldn’t love her—that maybe you’d leave her.” Adam just stared at Hayley, bewildered and still angry. “Please try to understand. She hasn’t loved herself very much these past months. Be kind to her.”

Suddenly Hayley was exhausted. In the space of a few hours she’d gone from euphoria over making love to Adam to a scary flatness. He’d
sort of
asked her to consider a future with him, but sort of
not,
as if he was hedging his bets. He wanted to have his cake and eat it, too. If things didn’t work out between them, then at least he would have his career and his big promotion. And now he was blaming her for siding with Summer against him when she’d only done what was right and respected the patient’s confidences.

When they’d gone up to his room earlier in the evening she’d imagined them cuddling till morning, maybe making love more than once, and becoming intimate in word, deed and feeling. Now they almost seemed further apart than the day they’d met.

“I’m going to bed, too,” she said. “In my own room.”

Adam rubbed a hand tiredly over the back of his neck. “That’s probably a good idea.”

Hayley gave him a brief, cool kiss on the cheek and left the room. She waited for him to catch up and give her a warmer embrace. She expected him to, all the way up the stairs. But when she got to the top and turned to look back, he was staring out the darkened window, looking very much alone.

As she felt alone. By the time she undressed she was shivering, and not from the cold. A delayed reaction to the fire. Her experiences that night mingled with the fires of a year ago in flashes of orange flame and banked terror.

She crawled into a hot shower, but even the steaming spray couldn’t warm her. She’d done it again, fallen in love with a man who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give her his all. Only this time it was worse, because she’d believed in Adam and thought he was different.

At first she hadn’t dared to hope he would stay. Then he seemed to make attempts to become part of the community. Making love had shown her how deep and strong her feelings were for him. Of course she’d hoped he also loved Hope Mountain. She’d wanted him to be happy here and naively thought that all he had to do was get to know the place to feel its special beauty.

But his pie-in-the-sky version of the future had a feeling of unreality about it—gone a year or two, back every few weeks. He’d have one foot in each country, committed to neither. Whereas she lived with both feet firmly planted in Hope Mountain. Why should she take a chance on him when he wasn’t taking a chance on her?

Maybe Adam was right. They both had baggage weighing them down. Both were afraid to take a risk. She was afraid and she freely admitted it.

Adam wasn’t the same as Leif, she knew that. But she was still the same woman who wanted a home, family and a loving husband. What she didn’t want was to be so desperate that she submerged herself and her own needs for a facsimile of those things. She wanted the real thing.

It was time she went back to her own home. It might only be a garage, but it was hers. She knew who she was there.

* * *

A
DAM
WOKE
TO
the sound of horse hooves clopping on gravel below his window. He rubbed his gritty eyes and sat up in bed, blinking away the cobwebs and trying to shrug off the pervading sense of gloom that had dogged his uneasy sleep.

It all flooded back. Hayley’s lukewarm response to his proposal. The fire. Finding out his daughter had had sex at the age of thirteen. And now she was taking birth control pills. Even though the reason wasn’t that she was planning on having more sex, as a father it was hard for him to accept. He felt as if he’d missed out on her childhood, and now it was too late.

She’d sobbed in his arms last night. He’d held her close, murmuring reassuring words, torn between anger, frustration, guilt and an aching love. It cut him to the quick to think Summer was so afraid of disappointing him that she’d buried her pain, buried it so deeply she’d become emotionally sick. He’d forgiven her, of course. He would forgive her anything—she was his daughter.

Now, hopefully, she could forgive herself.

All that hadn’t stopped him from taking out his frustrations and guilt on Hayley.

A horse whickered. He got up and went to the window. Placid old Bo was wearing a bridle and a long lead clipped onto his saddle. Hayley was attaching the other end of the lead to Asha’s halter. While Adam watched, she headed back to the paddock and brought out Sergeant and Major.

She was leaving, and taking her horses with her.

He yanked on his jeans and ran downstairs shirtless and barefoot, hopping over the gravel drive. “Where are you going?”

Her glance held a flash of something indecipherable before she turned away to clip Sergeant’s rope onto a saddle ring. “Home. I’ll leave Blaze and Jewel here for now, if you don’t mind. I talked to Summer this morning and she’s happy to take care of them. The grass has grown at my place while I’ve been gone, and I can supplement that with hay.”

Adam didn’t give a damn about the horses right now. “What about us? What we talked about last night—the future, everything?”

Hayley walked Major around to the other side and attached his rope to another saddle ring. Sergeant, Major and Asha were now tied to the back of Bo’s saddle, strung out in a fan. “I need time to think about what I want, Adam. And from the sound of your plans, I’ll have plenty of time to do just that. When you know what you want, then maybe we can talk again.”

“You can’t expect me to give up my dream job to sit up here on a mountain, twiddling my thumbs.”

“No one’s asking you to do that.”

“So what’s the problem exactly?”

“If I have to tell you, you won’t get it.”

“Try me. You owe me that much.”

Hayley busied herself checking Bo’s girth strap. Finally she looked up at him, troubled. “Do you love me? You never once mentioned that. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to marry me or manage my business.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably, aware of the gravel digging into the soles of his bare feet. “Yes, it’s true I offered to finance your rebuilding. What is that if not an expression of love and commitment?”

“Is it?” She gave him a sad smile. “You’re very generous, but I wonder if your offer wasn’t your way of easing out of a relationship you’re not ready for. When your marriage broke down you bought Timbertop for Diane to live in, away from you. You’re a good man. You find ways of letting people down easily.”

“No, that’s not true.” Was it? “I do...love you. I’m just not sure yet if we’ve got what it takes to make a life together. What’s the harm in taking things slowly?”

“No harm.” She led Bo a few steps forward, taking up the slack on the ropes attached to the other horses. “That’s why I’m going back to my home. While you figure things out I’m going to get on with my life.”

“But, I assumed you’d stay here and we would figure it out together....” He was floundering. “Didn’t you enjoy last night? I mean, until the fire.”

Hayley rested a hand lightly on his chest. It felt as if she was touching him for the last time. Her bright blue eyes were huge and shiny. “It was the best night of my life. You’re not the problem, Adam. You’re strong, honorable and kind. The truth is, I’m not as brave as everyone thinks I am. I’m afraid of getting hurt again.”

She stood on her toes and brushed his lips with hers. Then, as if she couldn’t help herself, she opened her mouth for a passionate but brief kiss that tortured him with the knowledge of all he was losing. All
they
were losing.

He tried to tighten the embrace but she slipped out of his arms, turned away and vaulted onto Bo’s broad back. “Thank you for everything, Adam. Goodbye.”

With a cluck and a dig of her heels, she urged Bo into motion and whistled for Shane. Asha, Sergeant and Major surged forward. Adam jumped back, out of the way, swearing as his tender feet landed on the sharp rocks.

Hands clenching with impotence and frustration, he stood and watched as Hayley walked out of his life. She was right; he hadn’t offered her anything except maybes.

Hayley deserved a man right here, right now. That was something he’d never been very good at. He was a dreamer, always building toward a future but never living in the present. It was how he’d gotten as far as he had in his career—continually striving to catch the carrot dangling ever out of reach.

When the last horse’s twitching tail disappeared behind a bend in the driveway, Adam limped inside the house.

Hayley wasn’t a carrot, but she was definitely out of reach. And he wasn’t going to give up striving for her.

He got Summer and Zoe out of bed to help him clean up the barn. When Zoe’s mother came to pick her up, Zoe confessed again, shedding new tears. Her mother had given her little comfort and fully supported Adam’s wish that the girls not be allowed to see each other for two weeks. That set off more tears from Zoe and a token protest from Summer, but the punishment was fair and they knew it.

Now, hands on his hips, Adam scraped a boot toe across the charred floor and surveyed the damage to the barn. Summer was in the box stall brushing Jewel. It was all fixable, and he could do most of the work himself. Carpentry would give him something to do instead of brooding over Hayley’s sudden departure.

“Summer, come here and hold the end of this tape measure.”

She ducked through the door and grabbed the end of the tape. “Why did Hayley leave?”

Adam noted the measurement and moved to the other wall. “It was time. Her pasture has recovered and she wants to be in her own home.”

“It’s a garage,” Summer said bluntly. “Why would she live there when she can be in a house with us? Did you guys have a fight? You better not be mad at her for taking me to the doctor. I didn’t tell her about the pills because I know she’s uncomfortable keeping stuff from you and I didn’t want to add to the secrets.”

“It’s not about you,” Adam said. “She didn’t like my plans for the future.”

“What plans? Are you selling Timbertop?” Summer asked, agitated. “You said you’d wait until school was over. But I thought that if you and Hayley got married or something, we’d stay in Hope Mountain.”

Adam tucked away his pencil and notebook. He’d hoped he and Hayley could tell Summer together what the next few years would look like. But that wasn’t happening, and he could no longer put off talking to Summer. “Let’s sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.”

They perched on the metal box containing sacks of oats and grain. “Firstly, I’ve let you down and I want to make it up to you. You are so important to me. Hayley said you were afraid I wouldn’t love you if you did bad things. That’s not true. I might be angry and disappointed, but I would never stop loving you and I would never leave you. Do you believe me?”

Moisture filled Summer’s eyes. She nodded mutely.

Adam gave her a hug and just held her for a moment. Then he eased away. “I’ve got exciting news.”

He told her about the offer to head up the Shanghai office. How he’d been working toward this his whole life and now that he had the opportunity he couldn’t pass it up.

“I don’t get it. You’d rather go live in China than be married to Hayley? You chose work over her?” Summer’s voice rose. “You did that with Mom, too, so she went and found someone else.”

“It wasn’t quite that simple. Your mother and I had other differences. Hayley and I are both goal-oriented and hard workers. She understands. Over time, we’d get to know each other and figure out if we’d work out long-term.”

“Did you even ask her to marry you?”

“We’ve both been through difficult relationships. We need to take it slowly. I told Hayley I’d be back for periods of time and she could visit Shanghai whenever she wanted.” He put his arm around Summer’s shoulder. “It’s up to you whether you live in Sydney with your mother or with me, but I hope you choose me.”

Summer jumped up, shrugging off his arm. “If it was up to me I’d live here in Hope Mountain with Hayley.”

“That’s not going to happen, sweetheart. I’m sure she’ll be happy for you to visit.”

“You’re an idiot, Dad.” Tears spurted from her eyes. “You say you want to spend time with me. And I can tell you really like Hayley. But instead of just being with us, you’re running away to China. No job is more important than people. I’m only a kid and even I know that. What are you afraid of?”