A Certain Hope. Lenora Worth

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      “Want me to go in with you?” Reed asked, then silently reprimanded himself for offering. He wouldn’t fall back into his old ways. Not this time.

      “No. I have to do this. I mean, he called me home for a reason, and I have to accept that reason.”

      Reed heard the crush of emotion in her voice and, whether out of habit or sympathy, his heart lurched forward, toward her. “It’s tough, seeing him so frail. Just brace yourself.”

      “Okay.” She nodded, turned and walked back by the stone steps to the long wraparound porch, headed for her car. Then she turned back, her shiny gamine curls lifting in the soft breeze. “Will we see you at supper?”

      “Probably not.” He couldn’t find the strength to share a meal with her, not tonight.

      “Guess I’ll see you later then.”

      “Yeah, later.”

      Reed watched from across the fence as she lifted a black leather tote from the car, her every step as elegant and dainty as any fashion plate he’d seen on the evening news. But then, April Maxwell herself was often seen on the evening news. She worked at one of the major design houses in the country—in the world, probably. Reed didn’t know much about haute couture, but he did know a lot of things about April Maxwell.

      His mother and sisters went on and on about how Satire was all the rage both on the runways and on the designer ready-to-wear racks, whatever that meant. April was largely responsible for that, they had explained. Apparently, she’d made a good career out of combining public relations and fashion.

      She was just a bit shallow and misguided in the love and family department. She’d given up both to seek fame and fortune in the big city.

      And he’d stayed here, broke and heartbroken, to mend the fences she’d left behind. Well, he wasn’t broke anymore. And he wasn’t so very heartbroken, either.

      Why, then, did his heart hurt so much at the very sight of her?

      She hurt all over.

      April opened the massive wooden double doors to her childhood home, her heart beating with a fast rhythm from seeing Reed again. He looked better than ever, tall and muscular, his honey-brown hair long on his neck, his hazel-colored cat eyes still un-readable. Reed was a cowboy, born and bred. He was like this land, solid and wise, unyielding and rooted. After all this time, he still had the power to get to her. And she still had regrets she couldn’t even face.

      Before she could delve into those regrets, she heard footsteps coming across the cool brick-tiled entryway, then a peal of laughter.

      “Ah, niña, you are home, sí?”

      April turned to find one of her favorite people in the world standing there with a grin splitting his aged face.

      “Sí, Horaz, I’m home. ¿Como está?”

      “I’m good, very good,” Horaz said, bobbing his head, his thick salt-and-pepper hair not moving an inch.

      “And Flora? How is she?”

      “Flora is fine, just fine. She is cooking up all of your favorites.”

      “That sounds great,” April said, hugging the old man in a warm embrace, the scent of spicy food wafting around them. She wasn’t hungry, but she’d have to hide that from Horaz and Flora Costello. They had been with her family since her father and mother had been married more than thirty years ago. And after her mother’s death when April was in high school, they’d stayed on to take care of her and her father. She loved them both like family and often visited with their three grown children and their families whenever she came home, which was rare these days. The entire Costello clan lived on Maxwell land, in homes they’d built themselves, with help from her father.

      “You look tired, niña,” Horaz said. “Do you want to rest before supper? Your room is ready.”

      April thought of the light, airy room on the second floor, the room with the frilly curtains and wide, paned windows that allowed a dramatic view of the surrounding pasture land and the river beyond. “No, I don’t want to rest right now. I want…I want to see my father.”

      Horaz looked down at the floor. “I will take you to him. Then I will instruct Tomás to bring in the rest of your bags.”

      “Yes, I left them in the trunk of the car.” She handed him the keys. “And how is Tomás? Does he like high school?”

      “He’s on the football team,” Horaz said, grinning again. “My grandson scored two touchdowns in the final big game last fall. We won the championship.”

      “I’m glad to hear it,” April said, remembering her own days of cheerleading and watching Reed play. He’d been a star quarterback in high school and had gone on to play college ball. Then he’d gotten injured in his senior year at Southern Methodist University. After graduating, he had come home to Paris to make a living as a rancher. She had gone on to better things.

      Not so much better, she reminded herself. You gave up Reed for your life in New York. Why now, of all times, did she have to feel such regrets for making that decision?

      “Come,” Horaz said, taking her by the arm to guide her toward the back of the rambling, high-ceilinged house.

      As they passed the stairs, April took in the vast paneled-and-stucco walls of the massive den to the right. The stone fireplace covered most of the far wall, a row of woven baskets adorning the ledge high over it. On the back wall, over a long brown leather couch grouped with two matching comfortable chairs and ottomans, hung a portrait of the Big M’s sweeping pastures with the glistening Red River beyond. Her mother had painted it. The paned doors on either side of the fireplace were thrown open to the porch, a cool afternoon breeze moving through them to bring in the scent of the just-blooming potted geraniums and the centuries-old climbing roses.

      As they neared the rear of the house, April felt the cool breeze turn into a chill and the scent of spring flowers change to the scent of antiseptics and medicine. It was dark down this hall, dark and full of shadows. She shuddered as Horaz guided her to the big master bedroom where the wraparound porch continued on each side, where another huge fireplace dominated one wall, where her mother’s Southwestern-motif paintings hung on either side of the room, and where, in a big bed handmade of heart-of-pine posts and an intricate, lacy wrought-iron headboard that reached to the ceiling, her father lay dying.

      Chapter Two

      The big room was dark, the ceiling-to-floor windows shuttered and covered with the sheer golden drapery April remembered so well. When her mother was alive, those windows had always been open to the sun and the wind. But her mother was gone, as was the warmth of this room.

      It was cold and dark now, a sickroom. The wheelchair in the corner spoke of that sickness, as did the many bottles of pills sitting on the cluttered bedside table. The bed had been rigged with a contraption that helped her weak, frail father get up and down.

      April walked toward the bed, willing herself to be cheerful and upbeat, even though her heart was stabbing with clawlike tenacity against her chest. I won’t cry, she told herself, lifting her chin in stubborn defiance, her breeding and decorum that of generations of strong Maxwell women.

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