“We could have been. We could have had a good life, a great life—”
“How? With you on the road? Movie after movie, always setting out, going on location, playing the lead against another Hollywood ingenue?”
His mouth tightened and deep grooves shaped his lips while finer lines creased his eyes. “So this isn’t really about Joy, is it? It was never as much Joy as your own insecurity.”
Alexandra just looked at him, eyes dry, head throbbing, heart in pieces.
“I’ve spent the past months analyzing what the hell happened,” he added. “And I never really understood where it fell apart or why it had to. I loved you. I would have done anything for you—”
“You chose Joy over me!”
“I chose to stand by Joy while she struggled with a brutal disease that could have destroyed her career the same way it destroyed her marriage.”
“But you should have stood by me.”
His expression turned furious. “I did. I’m here. I contested the divorce.” He slugged his fist against the door frame. “Why are you so bloody insecure? Because that’s the real issue, isn’t it? It’s not me making films or traveling and going on location, but you’re afraid of other women. You’re so afraid I’ll fall for another woman that you’re shutting me out, not even giving us a chance to succeed.”
Her eyes opened wide. Her stomach rose, up into her throat.
My God, he knew her. He knew her too well.
He knew exactly what she was afraid of, and that knowledge knocked her off balance.
With trembling fingers Alexandra pushed her mug across her desk. She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t face him now. “It would kill me if I found out through the newspapers or tabloids that you’d found someone else. And, Wolf, it’d happen. Sooner or later. It’s bound to happen—”
“Why?”
“Because I’m ordinary. I’m not like you.”
She felt rather than heard him leave. And his abrupt departure created an even more violent loss than what she’d felt before.
Alexandra was still sitting numbly at her desk when her phone rang. Dazed, she picked it up.
Her brother Troy was at the other end of the line. “Alexandra, Dad’s had a heart attack. Please come home.”
Troy sent his jet for her and she boarded the plane in Burbank, at the executive terminal there. It was a two-and-a-half-hour flight to Bozeman, Montana, and her oldest brother, Brock, was waiting for her at the Bozeman airport to drive her to the hospital where her father was in ICU.
Brock wrapped her in a huge bear hug and kissed her cheek. “We’ve missed you, little girl,” he said, stepping back to look her over.
She nodded around the lump in her throat. “I’ve missed you, too.” Alexandra pushed a long wave of hair back from her face. “How’s Dad?”
Brock shrugged as he lifted her bag. “As good as can be hoped.”
She knew from Brock’s tone that Dad wasn’t doing well. They were walking to Brock’s truck now and she had to practically run to keep up with his long strides. “And the kids?” she asked, referring to his children, fraternal twins Molly and Mack.
“They’ll be thrilled to see you.” He shot her a hard look. “You know, it was hard for them losing you and their mom so close together.”
“Brock, they were babies when I left. And you weren’t even living at the ranch anymore. You and Amy had your own place then.”
He shrugged again. “I’m just saying.”
She knew what he was saying. He wasn’t any different from Troy or Trey or Dillon or Cormac. She was the girl in the family. It had been her responsibility to keep things together. And Alexandra hadn’t wanted that responsibility. She was the youngest. She hardly even knew who she was, and being the only woman nearly smothered her at times.
At the hospital, Alexandra leaned over her father’s bed. He had an oxygen tent around him and tubes and wires running every which way. “Daddy,” she whispered, covering his hand with hers. “Daddy, I’m here.”
For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her, but then his eyes briefly opened and he looked at her for a second. “Good,” he sighed heavily. “I’m glad you’re home.”
Alexandra sat by his side until twilight, when Dillon, the youngest of her brothers, appeared and told her Brock was waiting downstairs to take her back to the ranch. “I’ll stay with Dad until midnight. That’s when Cormac will come,” he added, giving her a quick hug and a peck on the forehead. “Now go see your niece and nephew. They’re desperate to see Aunt Alex.”
Brock wasn’t the only one in the truck. Molly and Mack were there, too, and they wiggled like puppies as she climbed in the passenger seat.
“How’s Grandpa?” Molly asked, big-eyed in the backseat. “Is he talking yet?”
Alexandra managed a small smile. “Not a lot yet, but he knows we’re there.”
It was a forty-minute drive back to the ranch and dark by the time they reached the two-story stone-and-wood house. Cormac was waiting on the front steps when the truck appeared in the long, dusty drive.
As Alexandra stepped from the truck, he scooped her in another Shanahan death-grip hug. The Shanahans were Black Irish, all tall, dark and rugged, but Cormac was the exception. He was the only blonde one in the batch, and it was Cormac her friends all used to have crushes on.
The housekeeper had dinner waiting. And after dinner, with six-year-old Molly sitting on her lap, Alexandra played Mack—Cormac’s namesake—in a game of checkers. Mack at six could already trounce her, and like a true Shanahan, he crowed with pleasure. Molly looked at Alexandra and made a face. “Boys,” she said with six-year-old disgust.
Alexandra winked. “I agree.”
After she read to the kids and put them to bed, she returned downstairs and walked in on a conversation she obviously wasn’t supposed to hear as Cormac and Brock both went quiet.
“What?” she said, looking from one to the other. “What’s wrong? Is it Dad? Has he gotten worse?”
Cormac shook his head. “No. Dad’s stable. It’s Wolf.” He hesitated. “He’s on the way.”
Alexandra’s forehead furrowed. Wolf? On his way here? To the ranch? “That’s a mistake. How did you hear this? Who told you? Was this in a paper or something?”
“I just talked to him on the phone,” Brock said. “He called to check on Dad.”
Alexandra couldn’t believe it. She looked from Brock to Cormac. “But that doesn’t mean he’s coming here.”
Brock shrugged. “He said he was.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at her more closely. “Why? Is there a problem? Wolf said everything was all patched up.”
“All patched up?” Alexandra felt like weeping with frustration. “That’s what he said?”
“That’s what he said.”
In her old bedroom, Alexandra tried dialing Wolf’s cell number, but he didn’t pick up. Each time she called she got his voice mail. “Wolf,” she said on the fifth call, “it’s Alexandra. Brock said you’re coming here. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Please call me back.”
But he didn’t call back, and Alexandra knew that was not good.
She was still sitting on her bed in the dark, clutching her phone, when Brock knocked on the door on his way to bed.
“Did you reach him?” Brock asked gruffly, standing in her bedroom door.
“No.” She cleared her throat. She didn’t want him to know she’d been crying. “I just kept getting his voice mail.”
“He might already be on his way.”
That’s exactly what she was afraid of.
“You’re lucky,” her brother said bluntly. “He still cares about you. He wouldn’t be coming here if he didn’t.”
“It’s not that easy,” she answered, feeling defensive.
“That’s pride talking, little girl. It’s time you did some forgiving and forgetting. He’s just a man, and all men make mistakes.”
Chilled on the inside, s
he wrapped her arms around her knees, trying to get warm. “But he’s not just any man. He’s a star, a huge star, and gorgeous. And I’m nothing like him and I can’t keep up with him or compete with the women who throw themselves at him—”
“So you’re just going to quit your marriage? Just like that?” A contemptuous note had entered his voice.
“It hurts!” She blinked back fresh tears. “And being afraid and worried hurts, too. I hate that feeling. I hate not knowing—”
“But you do know. You know he loves you and you know he wants to be married to you. And, little girl, I hate to disappoint you, but there are no real guarantees in life. There’s just our hearts and our hopes and learning to live one day at a time.” His voice dropped, roughened. “If I’d known Amy was going to die two years after our wedding, do you think I would have married her? If I’d known we’d have two babies who would grow up without a mother, do you think I would have conceived them?”