by Lori Wilde
How tempting it would be to accept his generous offer! To fling herself into his arms and confess everything. But once he discovered the truth, that she had planned and schemed her way onto the ranch, the love shinning in his eyes would wither and die.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
“I think I do.” His fingers rubbed her skin in a smoothing circle. “I get it. You need more from me than empty promises of what might one day be. You need a commitment.”
“Oh, Brodie.” She opened her mouth to tell him no, to beg him not to say what was on his mind, but it was too late.
Brodie took a deep breath and spoke the words that Deannie had been waiting to hear from the moment she stepped into his headlights on the roadside. The words that would offer her everything she’d ever wanted. The words she had no willpower to reject.
“I love you, Deannie McCellan, and I want to marry you.”
And then Deannie said, “Yes,” because she loved him too.
BRODIE WAITED AT THE ALTAR. He wore sharply creased black denim jeans and brand-new black boots under a black tuxedo jacket and white shirt. The stiff collar closed tighter around his throat, cutting off his oxygen supply.
The pianist had played the wedding march three times. The guests were shifting in their seats, craning their necks and staring expectantly at the staircase.
Kenny, appearing nervous and uncomfortable, waited beside him. At the back of the room, Angel nibbled on a white rose petal plucked from her wicker basket, and Buster, a white satin pillow clutched between his fists, wriggled impatiently.
The minister, Bible open in his palms, cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows.
Brodie shot a look at Emma. She shrugged and telegraphed him a helpless expression.
Deannie will stand me up. The thought flashed through his mind and sent a spiked stab angling through his gut. No. Not that. Anything but that.
A hush settled over the small crowd. The clock over the mantel ticked loudly, expectantly. Brodie felt the blood drain from his body. The room grew suddenly boiling as every eye in the place rested upon him.
“Perhaps,” the minister whispered, “you should go check on the bride.”
Nodding, Brodie moved as if on automatic pilot. He turned, walked past his family and friends, and marched up the stairs. Without even looking, he knew what he would find when he reached the bedroom he and Deannie were supposed to share as man and wife.
Still, the reality of that empty room slammed him like a sucker punch to the solar plexus.
The window hung open; the screen was missing, and the curtain flapped in the breeze. The room smelled of her perfume. Like a fragrant magnolia in full bloom, but she was nowhere in sight.
“Deannie?” Brodie said, even though he knew there would be no sweet reply.
Why?
That word reverberated in his brain, and he had no answer. Why, Deannie, why?
He stepped to the window and stared out at the cars below. Her battered old sedan sat hemmed in by visitors’ vehicles. If she’d run, she’d done it on foot.
His stomach burned; his chest squeezed; his pulse turned as thready as an unspooling ribbon.
No.
He trod the carpet, pacing, fighting the fog enveloping his mind. His boot connected with something.
An earring.
Tiny, white, delicate.
Brodie dropped to his knees, scooped up the earring, and cupped it in his hands. It looked so incongruous, that petite white pearl contrasting with his large callused palms.
He almost broke down at that moment. The hollow ache deep inside his soul that had started as a boy when he could never win his father’s affections widened into a yawning chasm. In Deannie, he’d thought he’d found what he’d lost with his mother’s death—someone to love him, truly, honestly, unconditionally.
What did her departure mean? Had she gotten cold feet? Was she scared of marriage and commitment? Or had his greatest fear come to pass—she’d never really loved him to begin with.
Crouching beside the open window, Brodie ran a hand through his hair and tried to think. There had to be an explanation. Deannie wouldn’t change her mind so quickly without a damned good reason.
But what?
He recalled that night he’d asked her to be his bride. The memory rose bittersweet and prophetic in his mind. He should have known something was very wrong, something that lurked deep within her psyche. She had been trying to leave him even then.
When he’d spied her sneaking out to her car, duffel bag in her hand, his spirits had sunk to his feet. Without thinking, without planning, without rehearsing his words, he’d intercepted Deannie.
She had accepted his proposal willingly, throwing herself into his arms with unbridled emotion. At that moment, any doubts he’d harbored about their relationship had vanished. He no longer feared that she wanted him just for his ranch and his money. When he’d crushed her to his chest, felt her heart beating against his, he hadn’t faltered. Asking her to marry him had come as easily as breathing.
And the ensuing weeks before the wedding had been pure heaven. They’d been so close. Laughing, talking, sharing, spending every free moment together. The single area that caused him concern was Deannie’s continued reluctance to discuss her past. Every time he mentioned his childhood and encouraged her to open up about hers, she skirted the issue by changing the subject or giving him one-word replies. Since then she’d otherwise been cheerful and bubbly, and he’d dropped the issue, but now he realized he should have pushed.
“Brodie?” Kenny stood in the doorway, his hands clasped. “Are you okay, little brother?”
“She’s gone,” Brodie replied, the hard little pearl earring cold in his fist. “Deannie ran out on me.”
Kenny walked over and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Brodie swallowed hard. “The hell of it is, I don’t even know why she stood me up. I thought we were so happy. These past few months have been paradise. We never fought. We got along great. I guess I should have known it was too good to be true.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ve got to find her.” Brodie rose to his feet. “She couldn’t have gotten far. Her car’s still here.”
“What about your truck?”
Brodie peered out the window and spotted his pickup parked under the carport where he’d left it. “No. There’s the truck.”
“You think she just took off walking?”
“I don’t know what to think. Maybe she’s hiding right here in the house, waiting for everyone to leave.”
“Nah,” Kenny went to the window. “Screen’s on the ground; there are bootprints in the dirt. Deannie jumped out this window.”
The image wrenched—Deannie, so desperate to get away from him she would leap from a second-story bedroom in her wedding gown.
“Hey, didn’t I see Ranger saddled in the corral earlier?”
Brodie nodded. “Could be. Rory took him out to exercise him.”
“Well, I hate to alarm you, but he’s gone.”
Just like Deannie.
“You think she left on the horse?” Brodie asked his brother.
“Yep.”
“What’s going on?” Emma appeared in the doorway. “The crowd’s getting restless. Where’s Deannie?”
“Gone,” Brodie said sadly.
Emma frowned and tapped the face of her watch. “I talked to her not fifteen minutes ago. Where could she be?”
Brodie pivoted on his heels to face his sister-in-law. “How did she act? What did she say?”
“She acted nervous, like all brides. I tried to reassure her,” Emma said. “I told her love was worth all the ups and downs.”
She looked at her husband with adoring eyes. Kenny walked over and slipped his arm around her waist.
“I’ve got to find her,” Brodie said.
Brodie was halfway down the stairs before he remembered he had a roomful of guests assembled. All eyes t
urned his way. Brodie took a deep breath. He didn’t have time for them. He had to find Deannie and sort this out.
Through a blur, Brodie surveyed his friends and family. Angel was curled up in one corner, fast asleep, her thumb in her mouth. Buster had undone his tie and was busily working on his shoes. The minister had taken a seat and was leafing through the Bible. The ranch hands focused industriously on the carpet.
Obviously, his face gave him away, for the crowd immediately broke into a speculative hum the minute they saw him. Just as Brodie opened his mouth to tell everyone to go home, the front door swung inward, and Matilda Jennings burst across the threshold, her iron-gray hair in wild disarray, a sheaf of papers clutched in her hand.
“Stop the wedding!” his former housekeeper shouted. “I have proof the bride’s a fraud!”
15
Deannie rode like hellhounds were snarling at her heels. Ranger galloped across the rough terrain, his hooves skimming over rocks and cactus and tumbleweed. Deannie crouched low in the saddle, her train billowing behind her, pristine as a sail.
It’s over.
The tenderness, the compassion, the understanding that had begun as a ruse but quickly turned to love, lost to her forever. She had deceived Brodie in the worst way possible. Then, because she was a coward, as surely as her father had been when he’d faced Rafe Trueblood that awful night so long ago, she’d compounded it by accepting his proposal and planning a wedding.
By leaving Brodie at the altar, Deannie had humiliated him in front of his friends and family. How much kinder it would have been to refuse him on the Fourth of July when he’d proposed, instead of letting herself float along on a river of denial.
She had told herself that everything would be all right. That their love could conquer anything. Anything except marrying him under false pretenses.
Brodie deserved someone who would love him freely, unconditionally, with no ulterior motives. For, deep inside her soul, Deannie couldn’t say for sure if she’d fallen in love with Brodie the man, or Brodie, owner of Willow Creek Ranch.
A hundred different miseries washed over her in unrelenting waves. Deannie swallowed back salty tears. Her nose was stuffed up, and she knew her eyes were red and puffy from crying and riding into the arid wind.
She hadn’t consciously headed for the log cabin, her heart magnetized by the past. Some part of her was still looking for answers, still hoping to discover who she really was.
Ranger was breathing hard as she slowed him to a trot and scaled the creek bed. Twilight shadows pushed the sun from the sky, and it was pitch-black by the time Deannie wheeled the horse into the yard.
Confused and hurting, she tumbled down off the gelding’s back and headed for the small sanctuary. Here, she could rest and inspect her life. Since her thirst for revenge had evaporated and she would never own Willow Creek, she needed to find a new purpose for being. Preferably an unselfish purpose that would make up for her grievous errors.
Fumbling with the knob, Deannie finally ripped the door open and staggered inside, her vision blinded by tears. She flicked on the lights and, blinking, glanced around the room.
It was a far cry from the disheveled mess that had greeted her the day she and Brodie had cleaned the cabin together. The memory of that day, not so very long ago, snared in her imagination and refused to leave.
She could see him as vividly as if he were standing before her now, looking sumptuous in those fire-engine red briefs. The contours of his well-proportioned fanny coaxing her, the outline of his broad shoulders enticing her, his rugged outdoorsy scent wrapping around her senses and refusing to let go.
“Brodie.” Deannie gulped and closed her eyes, willing away the erotic vision. How long before she forgot the taste of his mouth, the feel of his skin, the sound of his voice, low, deep, and tender?
Opening her eyes, she listlessly wandered through the house, taking in the changes. The bedrooms were immaculately clean and neatly organized. Odds and ends had been stored in boxes and their contents clearly labeled. Books. Material. Christmas decorations. Dishes. Linens. Mama’s personal things. Rafe’s papers.
Deannie’s fingers lingered over that box, and she sucked in her breath, surprised to shake at the thought of thumbing through the personal papers of the man she hated.
Not really knowing why, she lifted the box from the stack and carried it over to the bed. Pushing her bridal veil from her face, she settled down on the covers and removed the box lid.
The contents smelled of cigar smoke and whiskey. Deannie crinkled her nose, and a sudden jolt of sadness knifed through her. She and Brodie had so much in common. Both with fathers who’d taken the wrong paths in life, both afraid to trust, to let down their guards, both seeking security and stability in the land that meant so much to them.
Deannie leafed through the papers. Doctor bills, bank statements, a lavender-scented birthday card signed “All my love, Melinda.” She kept digging, not really sure why she was looking.
A final notice from a collection agency postmarked the year Rafe had won the ranch from Gil, a faded photograph of Willow Creek taken from the road, and a letter addressed to her father but never mailed.
Deannie’s hands trembled so furiously she dropped the letter, and it sailed to the floor. Bending over, she reclaimed it and ripped open the sealed envelope. Dated three weeks before her father had killed himself.
Dear Gil,
I got a confession to make. I ain’t proud of what I did, but I did it for a good reason. I don’t know if you’ll understand, and I’m damned sure you won’t forgive me, but I got to clear my conscience and tell you what’s on my mind. I’m dying and I want to set the record straight. Remember that night you lost Willow Creek? Hell, what am I saying? How could you forget losing your home? Well, truth is, I cheated. I pulled that ace of spades out of my sleeve. I was desperate, and desperate men do desperate things. See, I was about to go to jail for writing hot checks to feed my family. The judge told me if I could prove I had a permanent residence and gainful employment, then he’d give me probation. Plus, Melinda was fixing to leave me. She’d finally had enough of living in shacks and puttin’ up with my bad habits. I know it’s no excuse.
I put you and your girl on the street to cover my tail. I’m sorry for it now and wish to hell I hadn’t done it, but I did. I got some money, and I’d like to send you a little. It won’t make up for nothing, but maybe your girl can use it to go to college or something.
The letter was signed simply, Rafe Trueblood.
Enclosed was a cashier’s check for twenty-five thousand dollars.
Deannie stared at the letter as the words sank in. In the last months of his life, Rafe Trueblood had been seeking forgiveness. And yet, he hadn’t mailed it. Why not? Had he heard about her father’s suicide and decided his debt was paid?
A well-worn deck of playing cards with a rubber band wrapped around it lay at the bottom of the box, and Deannie just knew those were the cards Rafe had used to steal Willow Creek from her father.
In that instant, all her old anger came rushing back. It oozed through her, hot and vicious, as she tasted raw bitterness. She picked up the cards and hurled them against the wall.
Panting, she kicked at the bed and howled her rage. She howled for her missing childhood, for the home she’d given up, for the father who’d slipped away from her forever.
But most of all, she howled over losing Brodie.
Deannie gritted her teeth in agony and twisted the skirt of her wedding gown in her fists; she heard the material rip, but she no longer cared.
How dare Rafe Trueblood steal everything from her! If he hadn’t already been dead, she could have strangled him with her bare hands in that black moment. How many lives had that awful man destroyed? His wife’s, her father’s, Brodie’s. Her own.
“Rafe Trueblood, you lying, conniving, thieving, cheating, son of a…” she swore.
Her chest heaved. Her breath whistled in through her teeth. Her body shuddered. Ha
tred, that comfortable old emotion, boiled up inside Deannie, embracing her like a friend.
No! A part of her shouted. The part of her that over the past few months had learned to let go of hatred and replace it with love.
Then just as quickly as it came, her anger disappeared, dissipating in the aftermath of her adrenaline surge. What was the point? Getting mad would change nothing. Seeking revenge had only made things worse. For the first time in fifteen years, Deanna Rene Hollis saw the past with clear, unbiased eyes.
All this time wasted holding a grudge. Yes, she’d suffered a great injustice. Yes, life wasn’t fair. But retaliation solved nothing. It only lowered her to Rafe’s level. Did she want to end up like the gambler, old and sick, alienated from his family, ostracized by his community, reaching out in the last days of his life with no one to heed his pathetic pleas for forgiveness?
Even if Rafe had cheated, her father had been as much to blame. No one had forced him to drink; no one had held a gun to his head and told him to gamble his homestead on the turn of a card game.
All these years she’d been seeking a monster to hold accountable for her woes. Rafe had not been a good person, but he was only human. Sure, his motives were shady, but the man had his reasons for his behavior. Beneath that bravado, hidden by booze and a glib attitude, had lurked a sad, lonely man unable to live up to his responsibilities.
Holding on to hate would not bring her father back. It would not erase the pain she had suffered, nor would it absolve her of the hurt she’d caused Brodie. She’d been wrong to hold him accountable for his father’s actions. He was no more answerable for Rafe than she’d been for Gil.
She would forgive Rafe for what he had done those many years ago, all the while hoping and praying that someday Brodie could find it in his heart to forgive her for lying to him and leaving him standing alone at the altar. It was the only thing that gave Deannie any comfort. The only thing she had to hold on to.
“DEANNIE MCCELLAN, YOUR WIFE-TO-BE…” Matilda cackled maliciously, “…is none other than the daughter of Gilbert Hollis, the man from whom your father won Willow Creek in a poker game.”
