“It’s part of you.” Her voice interrupted their silence.
He exhaled slowly, surprised she understood so intrinsically. “Yes. It always has been.”
“I can tell. It’s in the way you look at the land. I’ve never had anything like that. I envy you.”
Connor recognized the low note of sadness in her words and responded. “What was your childhood like, Alex?”
She stared straight ahead while he gazed at her profile. She was beautiful in such a simple, natural way, and she tried to be strong. But there was something in the wistful turn of her lips that made him sense the pain beneath the surface, and he longed to make it better. It had always been his thing, trying to fix whatever went wrong. But he knew better than most that there were some things you just couldn’t fix—and he’d thought he’d left that protective streak behind.
The smell of fresh-cut hay filled the air around them, familiar and comforting, as she began.
“My parents were historians. We had a house in Ottawa. But we were gone so much…it was more like a base of operations. We traveled a lot.”
She glanced up at him, her smile contrite as magpies chattered in the poplars.
“You said you were alone. Where are they now?”
She stopped, bit down on her lip, and squared her shoulders. “Dead. When I was eighteen they were going on a work trip to Churchill. They were taking a bush plane in…it’s so remote…but the plane never made it.”
So she was utterly alone. Alone like him.
“I’m so sorry, Alex.”
She started walking again. “My parents were smart people, but they thought they were indestructible. They had little insurance. By the time I was done paying estate taxes, my lawyer, and their outstanding bills, there was hardly anything left. The bank took the house and I got an apartment, worked as a waitress.”
She let out a long breath; that was all she was comfortable revealing at this point. They really didn’t know each other well enough for her to reveal the nitty-gritty details. The loneliness. The longing for a normal childhood.
“That’s my life in a nutshell. What about you, Connor? Did you ever want to do anything besides farm?”
He had. As a teenager he’d wanted nothing more than to be a farm vet, and he’d planned out his future like a roadmap. He’d work from Windover, and he and Jim would run the ranch together after Dad retired. And his family had supported that dream. He had taken his science degree and been about to enter vet school when he’d given it up to take sole control of the ranch operations.
“I was going to be a vet.”
Their feet made whispering sounds through the tall grass. “So what happened?”
“I was home from university that summer. Dad had a load of cattle headed for the States, and Mom and Jim decided to go along.”
His voice flattened, sucking out the emotion, making it sound like a news report rather than a life-altering personal event.
“They were a little south of Lethbridge when the wind must have caught the trailer. Someone said it looked like a weird downdraft, but we never knew for sure. Anyway, they went off the road. All three of them were killed.”
His throat bobbed, suddenly tight and painful, and he was unable to go on. But he remembered that day as vividly as if it were yesterday.
He’d driven down himself. Half the cattle were injured, two were dead, and three had to be put down. He still saw the stains of red on the highway, smelled the death there. The cattle could be replaced, but in a single, devastating moment he’d lost his whole family. By the time he’d arrived they’d already been taken to the morgue. In a split second he was Windover. Everything was suddenly empty, like a colorless void. It wasn’t right, working without Jim’s jokes by his side, or his dad’s warm wisdom, or his mother’s nurturing support. They were just…gone. He’d never understood why he’d been the one left behind. Always wondered if he could have somehow prevented it if only he’d gone along. Instead, he’d taken the day and had gone to Sylvan Lake with friends.
His feet had stopped moving, and he was ashamed to discover tears in his eyes. Alex said nothing, just twined her fingers with his and squeezed. He cleared the ball in his throat roughly.
She understood. Their upbringings were diametrically opposite, yet a single moment in each of their lives had devastated them completely. He sighed. She’d been hurt as badly as he had. And he wouldn’t risk being the one to do it to her again. All he’d need would be more guilt.
They turned back, the house visible, rising alone against the sky in the distance.
“I didn’t realize we’d come so far,” Alex remarked, and for a few minutes they pondered the significance of that statement.
Connor changed the subject, away from them and to the much safer topic of the background of the ranch. “This place…I’ve never considered leaving. Even my great-great grandfather stuck it out through a horrible winter. That’s how Windover got its name, you know.”
She left her fingers within his, a link between them on the path. “How?”
“He put up a rough cabin that first year. There was just the two of them, and the story goes that they were almost ready to pack it in when a Chinook blew in, melted most of the snow, and brought instant spring in the middle of March. He called it the wind over the mountains, and when they bought their first livestock it became Windover Farm and later Windover Ranch.”
He had roots that went so deep. How could he ever understand someone who’d been rootless most of her life? She was glad now she hadn’t revealed more than she had. They’d led completely different lives.
“Do you think we can go through with this?” she asked, angling a sideways glance at his profile.
“The wedding, you mean?” Connor nodded. “I think we are both realists. Despite the obvious differences in our situations, our personalities seem to match. Considering the predicament we find ourselves in, it seems like a workable solution. Practical. I know you have your doubts—anyone would—but if you’ll let me show you that you can trust me…”
“Show me?”
The air cooled around them as the sun dipped further behind the mountains. “If at any time in the next few weeks you want out, I’ll take you back to Calgary myself. Take this time, Alex, to find out who I am. To be sure I’ll keep my word.”
“But what happens in the end?” She swallowed. After two days she was already envying him his home, the one she’d always longed for and he’d always had. On one hand she told herself not to get attached to the kind of life she could have here at Windover, because it wasn’t permanent. The other part of her told her to enjoy it, absorb all that she could and save it as a beautiful memory.
“I don’t have all the answers. But, knowing what we know, surely we can part as friends in the end?”
“Do you think it’ll be that easy? Going back to being alone?”
“Do you?”
The house grew closer with each slow step.
The thought of living alone now seemed dull and pointless, even after such a short time. It was a joy to know that someone was coming home at the end of the day. It gave the time she spent a point, a meaning. She’d have her baby when it was over, but who would Connor have?
“Who knows? We’ve both been alone for a long time. Maybe we’ll drive each other crazy and you’ll be glad to be rid of me.” She tried a cocky smile, but