The view below was breathtaking. All the ranch was laid out below them. The big ranch house was in the center, and from this distance the lights were beautiful. She could even see the way the light sparkled on the swimming pool. And in the cool, quiet night, she could hear the sound of laughter and music floating up to them.
But for all that she could see and hear people, she felt removed from them. She wasn’t part of them. She was someone from another time and place as she sat on the big horse wearing only a thin bit of cotton over her body, and holding on to this man she didn’t know.
Surreptitiously, she stole a glance up at him.
He was looking at her. He was looking down at her in a way that made the inside of her feel shaky, and she knew that if he kissed her, she’d be lost to him. She’d have no more willpower than a teenage boy in the backseat of a car.
But he didn’t kiss her. Instead, he smiled at her. Not a big, wide grin, but just a little smile, as though to say, “Thanks for coming with me.”
Nor did he speak. Instead, he turned back around, clicked to the horse, and started them down the side of the hill. Ellie settled into her place against his back and watched as the ranch buildings came closer and closer into view.
The trip down took much longer than the trip up. No more wild running along the road. It was as though he didn’t ever want this night or this ride to end.
But it did end. When he halted the horse, Ellie looked up to see that they were right where he’d picked her up, at the back of the little guesthouse.
Part of her wanted to invite him inside with her. Part of her wanted to spend the rest of the night in bed with him.
But another part wanted just what she’d had: and no words.
Smiling to herself, she threw her leg over the saddle and held on to his arm as he lowered her to the ground. As she walked up the steps to the porch, she knew that the moonlight was behind her and that, probably, her nightgown was as transparent as a spider web, and the thought made her heart beat faster.
Once she was on the porch, she turned back to him, but he was already turning away.
Smiling into the darkness, she turned and went inside the house.
Twenty-one
The next morning Ellie awoke feeling as though there was hope for the future. Her therapist had told her that all depression was really just a lack of hope. “Hope goes and everything else slides down the drain,” Jeanne had said.
What was it about attention from a man that could make a woman decide that life wasn’t so bad after all? When Ellie was twenty-one, she’d known that success was what was important in life. She’d left her hometown and run off to big, bad New York City in search of fame and fortune.
But what had happened? The first man to really go after her had made her forget all her dreams. She’d given up all she’d wanted in an attempt to try to make Martin a success. But in the end, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t force him to go after what he said he wanted. She couldn’t prevent him from sabotaging every effort she made to make him a success.
But when Ellie had been given a second chance at success, she’d taken it. She’d walked away from the opportunities given to her that could have made her career as an artist, but she wasn’t going to close the door the second time. Instead, when Daria had called and said they wanted to publish all her books and send her heaps of money, Ellie had said, “What do you want me to do to help?”
In the flurry of excitement that followed, Ellie had tried to make Martin a part of her success, but he’d refused to participate. “If a person does nothing, he can’t take the blame if there’s a failure,” Jeanne had said. “But he can’t take credit for the success either,” Ellie had shot back at her. “Except that he did!”
But in the end, all that success hadn’t changed Ellie. She was still that same starry-eyed girl who could walk away from possible success to follow a man.
“You’re an artist,” Jeanne had said. “A true creator. Whether it’s on canvas with paint or done on a computer, you’re an artist.”
At that Ellie had smiled.
“And, above all else, you’re a romantic,” Jeanne said. “You need romance. Art is romance to you. You couldn’t care less about the money. You want the romance.”
So now, stretching as she got out of bed, Ellie felt better than she had in years. And maybe better than she had in years and years. Last night had been the most romantic encounter she’d ever had in her life.
Yesterday she’d been dying to know who the man was, but not today. Today she thought that if she never saw him again, she’d be all right. In fact, maybe she didn’t want to see him again. Maybe she wanted to crystallize last night in her head and keep it there forever, the way a photograph freezes time.
She took her time dressing in jeans and a cotton shirt with silver buttons, nothing flashy, but she knew that Valerie would know to the penny how much everything she wore cost. She pulled out the gifts for Mark but decided not to take them to the house. For all she knew, most of last night’s guests were still in the house—and all awaiting her.
Ellie forced herself to keep her eyes straight ahead as she walked toward the big house. She wasn’t going to start rubbernecking to search for Mr. Midnight Cowboy.
At the house she started to knock on the door, but it was ajar, so she went inside. Right away she thought that it was a better house during the day than at night. Thanks to some lighting designer, at night the house looked like a theater set. This morning it just looked like a nice country ranch house. Astonishingly big ranch house, but still a home.
As though she’d been beeped, Valerie appeared. She was wearing jeans that had to have been made for her—and if she gained an ounce, she wasn’t going to be able to get into them. It was disgusting to see that she looked better in daylight, in her rich cowgirl clothes, than she did at night in her designer duds.
“We’ve all been waiting for you,” Valerie said.