Wildflower Redemption Read online

  Wildflower Redemption

  Leslie P. García

  Avon, Massachusetts

  This edition published by

  Crimson Romance

  an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

  10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

  Blue Ash, Ohio 45242

  www.crimsonromance.com

  Copyright © 2013 by Leslie P. García

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-7469-3

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7469-6

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-7470-7

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-7470-2

  Cover art © istock.com/shannonforehand

  Dedication

  Wildflower Redemption is a romance, but romance doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Romance leads to love, becomes intermingled with love, can’t truly be separated from love. And family has always been the best part of love in my life. So this book is dedicated to my nine incredible grandchildren, who are living reminders of their parents’ childhoods yet are their own people: Hermione, Tiari, Athena, Daniel (our Jr.), JC, Gia, Caroline, Ryan, and Neo, my much loved kaleidoscope of kids.

  Acknowledgments

  I’ve written since I was six, literally, even receiving my first check for my work as a first grader, and thus decided some time ago that I pretty much knew exactly what I was doing.

  There’s nothing like a third book to erase all the vanity in a writer’s soul. Writing is a journey, and I don’t always know where I’m going.

  So to my sister Victoria M. Potter, thanks for your technical knowledge and for always being on the other end of a phone or internet connection to advise, console, and correct at a moment’s notice. I’m unfair to you, but also extremely grateful. Hope that helps a little.

  To Tara Gelsomino, executive editor at Crimson Romance, thanks for the opportunity to tell Aaron and Luz’s story. Faith is a precious gift.

  To Julie Sturgeon, thanks for tying up loose ends and being the go-to person when I’m not sure what I still need to get done.

  And to my development editor Jess Verdi—I’m not sure how to thank you, because your keen eyes and your understanding of what I wanted Wildflower Redemption to be makes the book work on every level. Thank you for the hours you spent on a story I very much wanted to tell.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  About the Author

  More from This Author

  Also Available

  Chapter One

  Aaron Estes stood at the window, one hand pulling back the drapes to clear his view. Outside, clouds hovered along the horizon, but he doubted it would rain.

  Someone from town— Ross something? —had stopped by earlier and offered to do work. The handyman had scoffed at the chance of rain. “Always cloudy,” he’d grumbled. “Never rains.”

  Aaron had shrugged and told the man politely that he didn’t need help. And he didn’t—at least, not physical help. Spiritual help, maybe, mental health—the kind of health that comes with peace and contentment. The kind of health he’d probably never find again. He closed his eyes and listened for any sound of six-year-old Chloe waking, but heard only silence. Unwelcome memories tried to push in, and he pressed his lids tighter against his face, unwilling to give in again to the pain.

  The memories came anyway: the loud, angry words of a marriage shattering. The cheery morning greeting from the one thing he and Stella still shared—a tiny, precious miracle of motion and light.

  Chloe’s loud kiss and plaintive complaint when her mother tried to leave without kissing Aaron goodbye hovered near the surface. He could still feel Chloe’s huge kiss on his cheeks, hear the petulance in her voice when her mother tried to step around them.

  “Mommy, you forgot Daddy’s kiss.” Stella pecked him on the cheek, and Chloe tugged on her mom’s blouse.

  “Mommy, don’t be silly. Mommies kiss daddies on the mouth.”

  With lips so tight he could feel her anger, Stella stood on tiptoe and touched her mouth to his. Then he watched as Chloe grabbed her mother’s hand, delighted that she was playing mom today, not cop. To Chloe, the world was a game, and everyone in it, players.

  He closed his eyes, but the burning didn’t go away, so he went back to staring blindly outside. There were no daffodils here, as there were in Alabama, but he heard that just miles north spring came in on carpets of bluebonnets and waves of flaming Indian paintbrush. All the locals raved about the Texas wildflowers. They said he should go see them, but he knew he couldn’t.

  The scene he’d rushed to just over a year ago crowded in: the hysteria, the cop cars with their flashing red and blue lights; the crumpled body of a child, an injured teacher being wheeled toward an ambulance; and an officer who knew Stella pulling him aside. She’d taken a bullet for a kid, the officer told him. Unfaithful, maybe, arrogant often—but nobody doubted Stella Estes’s courage.

  The tears rolled down his cheeks and he wiped them away with the back of his hand, trying not to remember that there’d been blood on the daffodils the day the world ended.

  • • •

  Luz Wilkinson tugged on the girth again and nudged Pompom’s belly with a knee. “Let it out, girl,” she urged. The little pinto sighed heavily and turned around to nose Luz just as the cell phone in her pocket went off. Her horses would have shied at the sudden blast of sound, and the other ponies would have lifted their heads and pricked their ears. Pompom stood there with that complete lack of interest that indicated absolute lack of intelligence.

  Frowning over the pony’s deficiencies, Luz fished the phone out and hit the button to silence it. She didn’t recognize the number. She hoped it wasn’t a bill collector, but knew that it probably was.

  “Hello?”

  “Uh…hi. Is this Eden Acres?”

  “Yes.” Luz scratched Pompom’s ear while she tried to connect a physical image with the deep, masculine voice. She often toyed with visualizing strangers from their phone calls, and almost always was wrong. Silence pricked her into awareness. Perhaps the caller expected someone more enthusiastic, more helpful. Someone who could offer more than one word answers…

  “May I help you?” she prodded when he didn’t go on.

  Another long pause, then came the abrupt questions: “I heard you have therapy horses? And ponies?”

  Luz hesitated. Sometimes children from a group foster home came out to ride, and occasionally a counselor who worked with troubled children recommended exposing them to riding. But therapy? She wouldn’t go that far.

  “We have horses and ponies,” she said carefully. “But who told you we have therapy horses?”

  “Esmeralda Salinas,” the voice said, no longer hesitant.

  Luz wrinkled her nose, picturing the elegant redheaded sc
hool guidance counselor with her neat suits and perpetual pep. Living in this tiny community, they’d crossed paths several times. They didn’t much like each other, but Esmeralda loved horses. That was usually a sterling quality, but this time, Luz’s main yardstick for measuring “good folks” didn’t hold water, because the counselor struck her as conceited, plastic, and sneaky. Although they avoided each other as much as possible, she boarded the woman’s pricey Appaloosa. Undoubtedly Esmeralda would have liked finer stomping grounds for the horse and herself, but no one else boarded horses in this arid, dying community. Very few still owned livestock.

  Nevertheless, Luz was surprised that the counselor had referred any male new to town. The director of the children’s group home was an elderly woman, and the other referrals were long-time residents, parents in established relationships, but Esmeralda sending a guy her way? He was not single, then, apparently.

  “You’re Ms. Wilkinson?” Doubt tinged the deep voice. She’d confused the caller. Didn’t matter. Confusion was a constant companion these days.

  “Yes,” she replied. One word again. He could state his business or not. She didn’t care.

  “Ms. Wilkinson, I need to talk to you about riding lessons for my little girl, Chloe. Or maybe—” Another brief pause, as if he wasn’t sure what he wanted. “Maybe even buying a pony. I need advice on what would be best.”

  He was a client then. She should be happier than she was. She pasted a smile on her face, hoping it would make her voice warmer, more caring. “Great. Advice is what we do best.” Quick questions confirmed he knew how to find Eden Acres, and she clicked the phone off and returned it to her pocket. She realized, a little late, that asking the man’s name might have been both friendlier and more professional.

  “Screw it,” she muttered with unusual ire. “Professional never worked for me, anyway. Come on, old lady. Some kid might actually get a pony ride today.”

  Half an hour later Luz was feeding the menagerie when she heard tires on the gravel drive. She called the motley collection of rescued animals her menagerie, because it took too long to go into the species, circumstances, and problems she dealt with trying to feed and shelter them day to day. Candy, the burro, butted her as she turned away, and the kitten with no name left its feeding dish to run away from some unseen menace, almost tripping her. She wiped her hands on the sides of her jeans and shut the door separating the odd animals from the handful of horses that were both her treasures and bread-earners.

  By the time she made it outside, a dark-haired, broad-shouldered man was leaning against an SUV, frowning. He wore long sleeves and a tie, hardly south Texas pony-buying attire. But she wasn’t expecting anyone else.

  She walked over and held out her hand. “I’m Luz Wilkinson. Welcome to Eden Acres. Are you—?”

  “Aaron Estes.” He shook her hand briefly, and then cast another look around the premises. Not disapproving, exactly, she thought. It was more a look of disappointment.

  “Why don’t we go into the office?” she suggested. “It’s cooler.” And it was well decorated with new paint and shelves of her mother’s trophies, recently polished.

  They walked into the barn. The half-open stall doors caught his attention. He pointed at one of the horses. “Pretty. Yours?”

  “No.” She shook her head, and paused to pet the broad blaze of white running down the mare’s face. “This is Domatrix. One of my boarders.”

  “Doma—isn’t this Esmeralda’s horse?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact.” She leaned against the stall door, slanting a glance at him, surprised that Esmeralda had apparently described Domatrix in detail to a man new in town. No wonder Aaron Estes hadn’t flinched at the name, even shortened as it seemed to be. Then again…she thought of the tall, regal redhead and the dearth of men in Rose Creek. A man with a daughter likely meant a married man. That would lessen Esmeralda’s interest. Wouldn’t it? She pushed away from the mare’s stall, and he followed the remaining few feet to the office. She waved a hand at the chairs and took her own place behind the small, bare desk.

  “So tell me how I can help,” she invited.

  He looked down for a minute at his hands before looking at her. When he did finally lift his eyes, she could see why Esmeralda had pounced. The man’s perfect features and startling green eyes would stop traffic in lots of places, let alone this one-horse, one-eligible-man town.

  “My little girl—Chloe—needs a hobby. Something she’ll like that’s safe.”

  Luz studied him, perplexed. Somehow the pieces of the big, attractive man across the desk didn’t add up. She supposed she was using stereotypes, but he seemed too hesitant and unsure for his own body. Not as if he was uncomfortable in his own skin, maybe, but almost as if he were fearful of something.

  She puzzled over the discomfort he seemed to feel, trying to figure out his connection to Esme. He wasn’t family; the Rose Creek gossips knew everyone and every relative, no matter how far flung. The counselor had aging parents and a half-brother down in Laredo. A friend? She discarded that. Esmeralda didn’t work weekends, and if he were a friend, she would be here. So the relationship had to be professional. Maybe the daughter he’d mentioned was Esmeralda’s client?

  “‘Safe as opposed to bike riding or playing with dolls? Or safe, fun, and a perfect springtime activity—I’m not sure I know what you mean by safe,” Luz admitted. “Riding has risks—the same as pretty much everything.”

  Aaron Estes growled something that sounded profane and hunched forward over the desk, his face tight. “Don’t you think I know that?” After a moment, his face muscles eased into smoother lines. His lips twitched, as if they’d known how to smile, but forgotten. “I’m not as weird as I seem. Just a tad nervous and overprotective.”

  “But you’re not in denial,” she observed. “That’s got to be good.” She smiled. “So, tell me about your Chloe.”

  Pure, absolute love washed across his face. His lips remembered how to smile and he straightened in his chair. “Chloe’s my life,” he said simply.

  Luz returned the smile, but prodded gently for more insight. “How old is she? Does she like horses? Has she ridden before?”

  “Six, yes, and no.”

  Luz blinked, trying to understand the simple, one-word answers. Saw the dimples appear, and then deepen in Aaron Estes’ cheeks. She’d always had a weakness for dimples, dammit! Was he one-upping her? “So, is this payback, or do you always keep things so short and simple?”

  He actually chuckled. It was a short little rumble of laughter, but a chuckle.

  “Payback, definitely. I was nervous enough about calling and you were anything but friendly.”

  She thought back on her hesitation to answer the phone, how she’d focused on the pinto rather than concentrating on encouraging conversation. He had her pegged, but she didn’t care. Wouldn’t. She needed customers, but wasn’t in the market for relationships of any kind. And professional? She allowed herself a quick mental shrug. She no longer had a profession. She’d been a teacher, and a good one. She’d surrounded herself with kids and poured energy and love into their lives. Then she’d lost it all, including her daughter Lily. Not her daughter, she reminded herself: Brian’s daughter, given to her as one more false promise. Now she rescued discarded animals when she could, and was going broke doing it.

  So she pounced on something he said. “You were nervous? About asking if we had ponies?” Slight derision might have crept into her words, because he flinched and drew away again.

  “Not about ponies.” He paused, looking for the right words. “We don’t know each other. Esmeralda recommended riding as a form of therapy.” He shrugged. “Telling a stranger your kid has problems is hard.”

  Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. “I owe you an apology—of course it is.” She stood up abruptly, annoyed with herself. “Guess it’s attack a stranger day—I’m just not sure why. Would you like to look at Rumbles? She would be the pony Chloe would work with first.”
<
br />   “Sure.” He got up too, ignoring her apology, and stretched. Outside the office, one of the horses whinnied, and another kicked at the stall. The pungent scents of the stable reminded her it was time to muck stalls—again. Already. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw his nose wrinkle.

  “Do you even like horses?” she asked, curious.

  He slanted a glance down at her and shrugged. “Don’t know. Haven’t been around them. Not really an animal person.”

  Before Luz could murmur a response, he stopped, turning towards her and holding his hands out in apology. “Not that I don’t like them, exactly. I used to travel, and before that—well, I just wasn’t raised around them.”

  “Okay.” Luz gave him her own shrug. “So I guess Chloe’s mom will be the main go-between here?”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, and the nervous tension he’d shown in the beginning visibly tightened his body. “Chloe’s mom,” he said through clenched teeth, “is dead.”

  Chapter Two

  Amazing what a few bumps in the road could do to you. Luz slipped into the turquoise blouse and frowned at her image in the mirror. When had she become…like this? She was dour and suspicious of everyone. She’d given in to pain—but she wasn’t alone in that. Some drank, some slept around. Some stepped off high bridges. She shuddered. Some threw their kids off high bridges, too. But her husband hadn’t done that. No, Brian hadn’t taken his life. He’d ruined hers.

  The phone rang, startling her. She looked at it blankly for a moment then reached for it, but it quit ringing. A quick glance showed her the caller. Aaron Estes. A tiny part of her wanted to smile. He’d called her twice, preparing himself for Chloe’s first visit. Somehow she suspected the little girl would take to riding better than her father took to just the idea.

  She grabbed her ball cap and pulled it down over hair that she wished she’d combed more carefully and headed for the door. Not at a jog, exactly, but not dawdling. She wanted to meet Chloe. She hoped she wouldn’t be as awkward with the child as she had when Aaron had told her of his wife’s death. She’d stared up at him, muttered an incomprehensible word of sympathy, and more or less avoided any further discussion of the situation. How did you talk to a stranger about his wife’s death? Or to a child about the loss of a mother?