Country Bride

by Debbie Macomber

  He couldn’t believe he was actually saying this but the words tumbled out anyway. “We can visit him if you want. But you’re going to have to promise to work hard on getting better.”

  “I want to...now,” she said. His heart ached all over again that she had carried the weight of that guilt inside her, allowing it to hinder her efforts at rehabilitation.

  “I know you will.”

  She gave him a half smile and closed her eyes again. When he was certain she had slipped fully back into sleep this time, he released her hand and leaned back in the chair, listening to the low whir of the IV pump and the hum of the other equipment in the room.

  He supposed he must have drifted off into that half sleep that was usually all he could manage here in the hospital. Some time later, the quiet whoosh of the door opening pierced through his subconscious. Assuming it was one of the nurses or aides making their frequent trips in to check vital statistics, he didn’t bother to open his eyes until the soft scent of wildflowers drifted to him over the astringent hospital scents.

  He opened his eyes to find Evie standing just inside the door. She was still dressed in that formal shirt, skirt and jacket she’d worn in court, as if she hadn’t made it home to change, and she carried a couple of woven bags.

  Their gazes met and Brodie straightened in his chair, stunned at the soft, healing peace seeping through him. How did just the sight of her do that, center and calm him so instantly? He probably ought to be a little freaked out by it but all he could manage was sheer happiness that she was there.

  “I’m sorry I woke you.” She pitched her voice low with a sideways glance to the still-sleeping Taryn. “When I came in and found you asleep, I thought I would just drop a few things off along with a quick note. Uh, your mother sent a change of clothing and I thought maybe you might be hungry so I had Dermot at the café pack a couple of sandwiches for you.”

  His stomach grumbled on cue and he remembered he hadn’t eaten since before court that morning and it was now past seven. Yeah, he was hungry, but mostly he just wanted to wrap her in his arms and hold on.

  He forced himself to focus on the food. “That sounds fantastic. I could eat about a half dozen of Dermot’s sandwiches right about now.”

  “I’m not sure he loaded a half dozen in there,” she said with a rueful smile, holding out the bag to him. “It should be enough to get you started, anyway. I believe he said something about chips and a slice of pie, so you should be set.”

  “Thank you.” He had so many other things he wanted to say to her, words that had chased themselves around his head for the last week, and especially today in court as she had shared her steady strength when he needed it most.

  “How is she?” Evie asked.

  “Good. Sleepy. The docs want to be extracautious to make sure she’s not suddenly entering into a seizure cycle, so they’re watching her carefully. By all indications, I think we’ll be going home tomorrow.”

  “I hope so.” She moved closer to the bed that dominated the room, gazing down at Taryn with deep tenderness in her eyes.

  His heart ached all over again. She loved his daughter. It was clear on her features. Despite all the pain and loss of her own life, Evie was still willing to open her heart to a wounded girl who needed her desperately. She had given up the dog she loved because she simply wanted to help Taryn heal.

  Was it any wonder he was crazy in love with this woman?

  The realization just about knocked him back on the uncomfortable vinyl of the hospital chair.

  He was in love with Evaline Blanchard. For the generous way she loved his daughter, yes, but for so many other reasons.

  She made him laugh when life seemed deadly serious. He’d never realized how very much he needed those light and sweet moments until Evie had come along.

  She had a way of seeing the good in everyone. Just look at how she had reached out to Charlie when everyone else in town was ready to stone the kid.

  Most of all, she centered him. That part made no sense on the surface. Evie wasn’t a calming person. All that vibrant life, the colorful beads, the passion and heat. He didn’t understand why but when he was with her, the chaos in his head seemed to quiet.

  He needed her in his life, like he needed the mountains and sunshine, and he damn well wasn’t going to give her up without a fight.

  “I could use some air,” he said gruffly. Too gruffly, apparently. She gave him a concerned look.

  “Would you like me to stay here with Taryn?”

  “I’d like you to come with me.” He was screwing this up, nervous around a woman for the first time since he was about fifteen years old. “I would enjoy the company. Would you like to take a walk with me downstairs to the meditation garden? There are a few tables there where I can eat this delicious dinner you brought me.”

  “Is it all right to leave her?”

  “I doubt she’ll wake for a while. She’s pretty out of it. I told her if I wasn’t here when she woke up, I’d only stepped out to grab something to eat. I’ll leave the door open so the nurses can hear her.”

  Taryn didn’t awake even after he picked up the nurses’ call button and arranged it in reach of her most functional hand. After a quick stop at the nurses’ station to let them know he was leaving for a while and to make sure they had his cell number if they needed to reach him, Brodie led the way to the elevator.

  “I guess you heard about how things shook out with Charlie’s sentencing,” she said as they entered the waiting car.

  He didn’t want to talk about Charlie. He wanted to talk about how crazy he was about her and demand she tell him what steps he would have to tackle to keep her in their lives. “Katherine told me about it earlier when she called to check on Taryn.”

  “Are you angry? Only a year in youth corrections. It must seem far too little to you.”

  He was silent as the elevator reached the ground floor and the doors whirred open. “I think Judge Kawa made the right call,” he said and was a little surprised he meant the words.

  He didn’t want to see Charlie go to adult prison. Justice had to be paid somehow, but along with justice could come a little mercy for a kid who had made stupid mistakes along the way and should have withstood the pressure of his friends.

  Evie didn’t move from the elevator, only gazed at him with an unguarded expression, soft and warm. That expression gave him hope that maybe the hurdles weren’t quite as high as he’d feared. “I think so, too.”

  When they didn’t move out of the elevator, the doors started to close again and Brodie thrust an arm through to open them again and tugged Evie out of the car to the foyer of the hospital.

  “This is lovely,” she said when they reached the garden, full of softly rippling waterfalls, a gurgling steam, overhanging trees and fall-blooming flowers. She inhaled deeply, no doubt breathing in the autumn air, so different from the antiseptic hospital smells.

  “Okay, I have to get this out and then we can sit down and you can eat your lunch,” she said, a hint of nervousness in her voice that piqued his curiosity.

  He wasn’t hungry anymore. Right now he only wanted to drop the lunch she’d brought him into the dirt, wrap her in his arms and hold on tight.

  “Get what out?”

  She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “I owe you an apology. Or at least an explanation.”

  “For speaking today at Charlie’s hearing? I should apologize for being upset about it. I ought to have expected you to do nothing less, Evie. That’s the kind of person you are.”

  It’s one of the reasons I love you with everything inside me.

  “No. Not that. Though I am sorry about that, too. It was wrong to blindside you that way. You deserved a little advance warning, at least.”

  She drew in a breath and let it out on a sigh. “What I meant i
s that I’m sorry I freaked out during Taryn’s seizure.”

  “Did you freak out? As I recall, you were the voice of calm and composure through the whole thing while everyone else was panicking. I don’t want to think what would have happened if you hadn’t been there, Evie. We would have been a mess.”

  “Good. I’m glad you couldn’t tell. I guess I was only freaking out on the inside, then.”

  “Why? You certainly acted like you’ve had plenty experience with seizures, as terrifying as they can be.”

  She gazed at the stars overhead, then back at him. “I... It hit a little close to home, that’s all. Cassie stopped breathing in her sleep during a seizure. I was so afraid for Taryn.”

  He stared at her, overwhelmed and awed and completely in love with her. Despite what must have been petrifying fear that history would repeat itself, she had stepped up to do everything necessary to care for Taryn during the seizure, to ensure his daughter was as safe as possible.

  He couldn’t help it. He dropped his lunch on the bench and reached for her. She settled into his arms with a sigh and an easing of her tension, as if she’d been waiting just as he had for this fragile connection between them.

  “I thought I was doing so well,” she murmured, her cheek against his chest. “Most of the time I am, but once in a while, it still feels as if somebody came along and swept my legs out from under me. I miss her.”

  “I know. I know, sweetheart.” He smoothed a hand down her hair and tucked an errant strand behind her ear. She didn’t weep, only shuddered out a breath or two, her arms clasped tightly around his waist.

  “You didn’t show your fear, Evie. That’s the sign of true courage, you know. You feel the fear but you do it anyway. You don’t owe me an apology at all. If there’s anything in arrears here, it’s all on our side. I owe you so much. Everything. Not just for today, for being that calm voice of strength and peace in the middle of the chaos. But for the last month. You gave me hope again, Evie. Do you have any idea what a precious gift that has been?”

  She swallowed and gave him a tremulous smile and he gave in to the inevitable. He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers in a slow, easy kiss that shook him to the core.

  He loved this woman. Holding her here in this quiet garden while the night air drifted around them and the stars sparkled overhead only reinforced that he loved her and he refused to let her go.

  * * *

  The sheer sweetness of Brodie’s mouth easing across hers, the tenderness of his hands against her face, took her breath away and she could do nothing but stand there soaking up the sweetness of the moment.

  “I needed this.” Brodie’s voice was low, rough. “From the moment you walked into Taryn’s room, all I’ve been able to think about is that if I could only hold you again, everything would seem better.”

  The tears she had been fighting since walking out into this quiet garden spilled free and one slid down her cheek. It was the perfect thing to say, especially coming from this very serious, sometimes gruff man. She tightened her arms around him, her heart aching with love for him.

  She loved this man. Nothing else seemed important, not the differences between them or her fear of pushing him away or the huge, terrifying risk she would have to take to open her heart completely to him and to Taryn.

  This was real and right and she loved him with everything inside her. She couldn’t go back to her safe and prudent existence before he and his daughter had thrust themselves into her life. She thought she had found tranquility in Hope’s Crossing, a place to quiet the roar of pain after Cassie’s death, but she suddenly realized with stark clarity she had been fooling herself. She had merely woven a cocoon around herself to keep out anything that might threaten her false peace.

  Until that evening a month ago when Brodie had burst into her life, she had been hanging there, suspended and safe but in limbo, unable to truly move on to the next stage of her life until she burst out of her protective layers and reentered the cold, sometimes scary world.

  “And I have to tell you,” Brodie said with another of those soul-shattering kisses while she was still trying to deal with that stunning discovery, “you say you fell apart back in the courtroom during the seizure. From my point of view, Evie, you were a sea of calm and serenity. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

  Evie blinked, thinking she must have misheard him. Did he really just say the L-word? She opened her eyes and found him watching her with a tenderness that made her catch her breath at the same time it sent heat seeping into every cold place inside of her.

  “I know you said you’re not interested in a relationship with me.” His voice sounded rough. “Consider this fair warning. I’m not a man who backs down when I find something I want, especially when that something is the one woman in the world who brings me happiness and peace, who quiets the chaos. I love you and I need your laughter and the...the joy that surrounds you in my life. I’m telling you right now, I’ll do anything I have to in order to change your mind about giving us a chance.”

  His arms tightened around her as if he were bracing for her to yank away from him and start spouting arguments and objections. Instead she gave him a tremulous smile, certain tears must be trickling down her cheeks. “Okay.”

  He stared and eased away a hairsbreadth. “Okay, what?”

  “Okay. You’ve convinced me.”

  Wary confusion clouded the blue of his eyes in the moonlight. “Just like that?”

  She laughed, wondering if it sounded as shaky to him as it did to her. She loved this man. He was good and honorable, hardworking and devoted to his daughter’s care. Strong and decent. How could she not love him?

  “The truth is, I was already convinced. My heart has been for a while now, though it took the rest of me some time to catch up. I love you, Brodie. You are...everything to me. You and Taryn. I can’t imagine going back to the way things were a month ago without both of you in my life. I don’t want to go back.”

  He stared at her, his eyes stunned, then a fierce joy ignited in his expression.

  “Evie,” he said, her name a soft caress, and kissed her again. She settled into it, her heart lighter than it had been in...forever. They kissed for a long time there in the garden, where the busy sounds of a big-city hospital seemed muted and distant.

  She couldn’t believe the joy bubbling through her after the tumultuous day. It was surreal, almost. Things had seemed so bleak and dark after the ambulance had driven away with Taryn and now here she was, wrapped in the arms of the man she loved and looking at a future that suddenly seemed brighter and more precious than the loveliest beads at String Fever.

  “I’d better go check on Taryn,” he finally said, his voice threaded with regret.

  “You never ate your sandwich,” she said with a little laugh.

  “Funny. Food doesn’t seem very important right now.” He smiled and kissed her forehead and everything inside her melted. She thought he had smiled more in the last half hour than she’d seen him smile all month. Because of her. She made him happy, and was there any more powerful gift a man could give a woman?

  “I’ll eat upstairs in Taryn’s room.”

  “I can stay for a while if you’d like.”

  He smiled yet again. “I would love nothing more.”

  “Do you think Taryn will be okay with...this?” Evie asked. “Us?”

  He laughed. “I think she’ll be ecstatic. Stephanie is great and everything and she’s doing a good job but Taryn has missed you. I also think there’s a certain goofy-looking dog who will be over the moon at the chance to have you back in our lives.”

  “I’ve missed him, too.”

  “Speaking of which, I have to tell you, I couldn’t believe it when I came home from my business trip and found Jacques happily ensconced in my house.”

&
nbsp; She could feel pink heat her cheeks. “Yeah, I probably should have talked to you first before thrusting a big decision like adding an animal companion to your family on you like that. It just seemed right at the moment.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Evie. You love that dog. How could you give him to Taryn like that?”

  She thought of the first few nights without Jacques in her apartment and how she had wanted to curl up into the fetal position and cry herself to sleep. “Her need was greater than mine,” she said simply.

  He gazed down at her, his eyes a warm and tender blue. “Is it any wonder I’m crazy about you?” he murmured.

  She kissed him, her arms tight around his neck. “It may sound corny and clichéd or like some kind of New Age mumbo jumbo but I’ve learned the gifts you give away always come back to you somehow. Call it karma or kismet or whatever you want, but they do.”

  “So you’re saying your dog brought us together?” he said with a laugh.

  A dog and a courageous girl and a terrible tragedy that had changed dozens of lives in unexpected ways. Including hers.

  “Stranger things have happened,” she said.

  “Well, I don’t call it karma or kismet or fate,” he said, his mouth warm and sweet on hers. “I just call it perfect.”

  She couldn’t have agreed more.

  Epilogue

  The second annual Giving Hope Day dawned bright and sunny.

  Evie finished loading her toolbox and the dozens of paintbrushes and paint trays she had purchased over the past few weeks into the back of the SUV and paused for a moment to gaze up at the pure blue of an early Colorado June morning. Though a few high clouds drifted across the sky, she would keep her fingers crossed that the twenty-percent chance of showers the weather forecasters were predicting would be completely overpowered by the eighty percent chance of sunshine.

  After all the work she and the rest of the bead store regulars had put into making the massive town-wide volunteer service effort even more of a success than the first one, Evie didn’t want to see storm clouds ruin everything. In another hour, hundreds of Hope’s Crossing residents would be gathering at the town community center in town to receive their assignments for the day—everything from litter cleanup in the canyon to painting the picnic tables at the park to helping some of the town’s senior citizens with early summer yard cleanup. She was going to keep her fingers crossed those clouds stayed high and dry.