Page 20 of Destined for the Cowboy

And it wasn’t until Nic’s smile widened once more that she realized she’d practically admitted out loud feelings she hadn’t even really admitted to herself.

Driven by a sort of discomfort she’d never felt before, that afternoon she drove out to the cemetery. She didn’t make a habit of visiting David’s grave. For her, he wasn’t there. If she wanted the feel of his spirit she went to the school, and walked around those buildings he’d designed and redesigned. That was where she had the feel of him the most.

She hadn’t done that in a while, she realized now. She hadn’t gone for a couple of months before Jackson and Jeremy had arrived, and she certainly hadn’t gone since they had gotten here four months ago.

Six months. She’d never gone that long without visiting that place. It felt almost disrespectful. Like she didn’t love him anymore because she didn’t need that feeling of being close tohim. But she did love him, she would always love him. She knew that, down deep. So why then was her urge today to go to the cemetery? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t going to fight it.

It hadn’t changed. It was the same quiet, peaceful place it had always been, tucked back between two rises, a quarter mile or so short of the end of this remote drive, where the local shooting range, Lock and Load, was. She couldn’t help thinking of the old, Last Stand ingrained joke about picking that location because the noise wouldn’t bother the neighbors.

She had to focus to find her way, which was odd. She would have thought it would be etched into her memory as if with acid, but she had to think about exactly where his grave was. She supposed that was because this wasn’t where she came to find him.

When she got there, she found a couple of bundles of roses resting against his headstone, one wilted and ready to be disposed of, but one fresher. It did her heart good to realize he was remembered by others in Last Stand, too. She found herself smiling as she mentally greeted the man who had meant so much to her. She knelt down and placed the single large, bright sunflower she’d picked, in acknowledgment of his favorite flower. Useful, he’d always said, being a fan of the seeds. She herself had always preferred the bluebonnets, the symbols of this state she’d come to love so much. She loved the color and shape of them, and the way they exploded to life and carpeted the hills with color every spring.

As usual, however, she didn’t feel David’s presence as she looked at the stone with his name and those dates that were painfully too close together. So she still wasn’t sure why she’d felt so drawn to this place today. Maybe it was because she knew that ceremony was coming up in a few weeks, the ten-year anniversary of the unveiling of the remodel of Creekbend High School. David’s project, which had won both the town’sappreciation and approval and awards both state and national. She appreciated that they wanted to honor both the project and him, but they’d asked her to speak and she was not looking forward to being the center of attention.

With a sigh she finally stood up. This place was so…serene, which she supposed was appropriate. She had, even before David had died, spent time here. In the original section, where the oldest gravesites were, including those of the people who had fallen in the actual Last Stand. Asa Fuhrmann, the man commemorated with the statue in front of the library for his run for ammunition that had saved so many lives but cost him his own, was buried here, his elevated tombstone visible from almost anywhere in the cemetery. Those who survived the battle and stayed were there too, along with other names familiar to anyone who knew Last Stand history.

Out of respect, she always walked through that original section whenever she was here. There was something about the names, and the nearly two-centuries-old markers, that stirred her love of history when she did. Some even made her smile, like that of Jess Highwater, who had stayed and helped establish Last Stand after the battle and ended up owning the saloon, which had occurred when the man who had built it had given it to him with his dying breath. That Jess was the ancestor of both the current proprietor of that same saloon and the current police chief—there had been a Highwater in each profession since that long-ago day—was what amused her, in a delighted, Last Standian sort of way. And she was pretty sure Jess Highwater would be proud of them all.

Her amusement faded when she stepped to the next stone, that of Steven Highwater, whose accidental death had been such a tragedy for the current Highwater family. It had torn them apart, in more ways than one. But they had, in the end, triumphed, and Last Stand was lucky to have them.

A sudden prickling at the back of her neck had her thinking of every story she’d ever read of the haunting of a graveyard, even though she believed in none of it. Still, automatically, she turned her head to look.

While most of her felt a jolt, some part of her wasn’t surprised at all to see Logan standing a few yards away, near Asa Fuhrmann’s marker. For what seemed like a ridiculously long moment they both simply stood there, looking at each other. Neither of them made a move to close the distance between them, as if they were two strangers whose gazes happened to lock rather than two…acquaintances who had enjoyed a delightful excursion just yesterday.

As she looked at him standing there, tall, strong, quiet, respectful with hat in hand, what Nic had told her about that old girlfriend seared through her mind. What a fool that woman was, not to see the pure, quiet value in this man.

She didn’t know what he was thinking as they both stood motionless, but suddenly it was too much, and she started toward him. Almost in the same instant he took a step as well, looking as if he were fighting the urge.

“Nice morning for a visit.” She groaned inwardly even as she said it. The weather? Really?

“I have…a friend buried here. So I usually stop by on Sundays, after the range.”

She hadn’t realized he was a regular at Lock and Load. “How’s Mike?” she asked, knowing the range master, an amiable older veteran, had had some mobility problems lately.

“Better. He’s trying some newer medication that’s easier on his gut, and things are improving.”

She smiled. “No doubt better for him than the handful of aspirin I saw him take one day.”

“Yes. I’m glad he’s got Scott to help now, though.”

She nodded. Scott Parrish was another remarkable Last Stand story, a veteran himself who had opted into the military in lieu of punishment when he’d gotten into trouble—understandable trouble, she’d always thought—as a kid. He’d straightened his life out and come back to both confront the cause of it, his own family, and eventually claim the girl he’d left behind, young Sage Highwater.

Silence fell then, and unlike herself she felt the need to fill it. “I didn’t know you came to the range. I’ve always thought the neighboring locations interesting. It adds a sort of…solemnity to both, I guess.”

He shrugged. “The people lying here fought and died to start this town. I sort of feel it’s up to us to be ready to do the same to protect it.”

Leave it to this man to put it in a way she hadn’t quite thought of. She looked at him for a moment. Remembered what Nic had told her. And said quietly, “And they would be proud to have a man like you stand as they stood.”

He’d been looking at Asa’s stone again, but at her words his gaze shot back to her face. He looked a little shocked, but then a slow smile started, and she suddenly felt as if it were the height of summer, not the first week of May. Warmth flooded her at the sight of that smile, and she only now realized that she’d thought she’d imagined the effect it had on her.

She hadn’t.

Chapter Twelve

He should haveknown. It was a quiet Sunday, her husband was buried here—he shouldn’t have been at all surprised she had come here. She certainly loved her husband enough to do so, even after several years. And, knowing what he now knew about her, he shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d pay a visit to the old guard, as he thought of them, before she left.

Maybe she came here every Sunday, and he’d just missed her before. Because this was his routine, a stop at the range—after a stop at Kolaches Bakery in town for Mike’s favorite cinnamon rolls—a practice session, then some coffee with Mike and Scott, then, on his way back to his isolated, quiet house, a stop here to visit the cemetery. More than once he’d been told it was a morbid habit, but he thought of it as a historical one, since he had no blood family buried here. Or anywhere else, for that matter, that he knew of.

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