by Wendy Warren
Damned shame that none of it was real.
Probably fewer than thirty seconds rolled by, during which Dean remained calm and charitably patient, but a quiet murmur arose in the peanut gallery. “Did she hear him?” someone whispered.
She knew she should respond immediately, but…
This could be my last—and best—proposal. I should at least know what I feel.
Gratitude. She felt grateful that he’d wrapped their child—and her, as well—in a gauzy fairy tale, for the time being anyway. Maybe it wasn’t very forthright or very modern, and perhaps Oprah would frown, but she’d rather have people gossip about her whirlwind courtship than her one-night stand.
Besides gratitude, she felt…affection, actually. Dean Kingsley had taken this entire situation better than most men would have. He was kind. And he had integrity.
And besides gratitude and affection, there was that feeling of lust that kept cropping up, especially when she looked at his ears. It was weird, her reaction to those ears, but he had longish earlobes. Longish earlobes that had felt velvety when she’d nibbled on them back in December. There was something about long lobes that said stability. You could grow old with them.
For an instant an image slashed across her mind. Two old people, one with curly gray hair and one with long ears, sitting on the porch of a sweet two-story house with dormers, a stone chimney and a birdhouse they’d made themselves hanging from the branch of an oak tree. The old couple laughed as they reminisced….
“Remember when Montana told the neighbor boy she had a magic hat that made people fly, and they climbed onto the roof to test it out?”
“Remember how Nate used to sit under the oak tree with Buster and tell that old dog all his secrets?”
Oh, my gosh, they even had an old dog….
There was a for-sale sign on the front lawn, because now that it was just the two of them, they were moving to something smaller. Their new place still had a formal dining room, though—she’d insisted on that—for big family Thanksgivings and Christmases. And on the wall of their new living room they intended to hang a photo of the house that had held their family so sweetly during the growing-up years….
Swallowed tears put a lump in Rosemary’s throat.
She looked at Dean, so calm, so steady, and her foolish heart began to hope.
What if she was getting one more chance at forever? Maybe…just maybe…this time—
Hic.
Oh, no.
Hic-hic. Oh, holy heaven. She slapped a hand to her breast-bone. Her worst case of hiccups yet began the assault on her diaphragm. Hic-hic-hic.
“Rosie?” Dean’s expression, previously the picture of forbearance, began to exhibit some tension. “You all right?”
Her eyes bugged at Dean. Poor Dean. This was not a proper response at all. “I’m fine—” Hic. “Ow. Maybe a little water—” Hic-hic. Ohhh, why did she eat the whole bread pudding? Every hiccup felt like a blender churning the contents of her stomach.
“Push under her ribs, once. Hard,” Josef instructed as Dean stood.
“That’s for choking.” Annette slapped her husband’s arm. “She should suck on a hard candy while drinking a glass of water with one tablespoon of cider vinegar. I’ll get it.”
Rosemary groaned. “No—” Hic-hic.
Dean put a hand on her shoulder. It was warm and comforting. “Is another massage in order?” he whispered, a brow hooked.
She hiccuped in his face.
“Have her jump up and down on one leg and—”
“She should sing the national anthem while—”
“Put your fingers in your ears and hold your breath for a full minute.”
Pelted by advice, Rosemary’s head began to ache as much as her stomach. Only the hand on her shoulder provided relief, and she wanted to lean into it, to rest against the body in front of her. She was tired. All the worries and uncertainty and secrecy of the past few weeks had been exhausting. Was Dean exhausted? Her eyes met his. He cocked his head.
Oh, Dean. Poor, poor Dean. He had publicly proposed and earned a spate of hiccups in response. She looked for the ring in his free hand, prepared to give him the public acceptance he deserved. He really was a gentleman, a decent person, a—
Hic!
A glass of water was lifted to her lips. Dean again. Gratefully, she took long, breath-stealing gulps and then waited a moment. Calm. There. Now please let that be the end of it. She pushed the glass aside. Where was the ring?
“Dean.” She focused on his eyes. Kind and, yes, honest eyes. “Dean, I—”
Abruptly, droplets of sweat popped onto her forehead and above her upper lip and then…pretty much everywhere else very quickly. Rosemary had a sudden mental image of the food in her stomach looking like dozens of crazed beavers building a dam against white water. Her hands went round her middle.
Hold on, Rosemary. Just hold on. The man deserves a proper response.
“Dean.” She shoved a smile to her lips. “I…I… Uh-oh.”
The restroom was on the main level of the restaurant, ten steps up from the cellar.
Rosemary wasted no time. She made a run for it, leaving behind a roomful of spectators and Dean, who doubtless would remember this moment for the rest of his days.
It looked as if the second proposal she’d received in her life was going to be even harder to put a spin on than the first.
“Rosemary, it’s Dean. I’m coming in.”
Too busy to argue, Rosemary continued giving up her dinner as Dean entered the women’s room. Unoccupied save for the pathetic barfing pregnant woman, the bathroom was not, alas, as soundproof as Rosemary would have wished. She heard the clinking of china and glasses and the hum of the diners. Then, directly behind her, came Dean’s softly uttered swear.
“Aw, Rosie…”
He held her hair, stroked her back then brought her a moist paper towel. Any embarrassment Rosemary might have suffered dissipated beneath the quilt of comforting murmurs and Dean’s immensely soothing back rub.
Who knew how many minutes passed before he asked, “Is it always this bad?”
Rosemary shook her head, dabbing her brow with the towel as she leaned against the sink. “Days aren’t great, but I stick to crackers and toast so I can’t get too sick.” Folding the damp paper, she tossed it in the trash. “Nights are usually fine.”
“Unless you’re proposed to?” His voice was rich with irony, but devoid of anger.
“Oh, my. You really are a nice man,” she said softly, surprising a wince out of him.
“Rosie—”
“No, truly. I…I can see that, and I’m sorry I’ve made things so difficult.”
“Rosie, I need—”
“I accept your proposal.” She made a face. “Obviously I accept it. I mean, we planned it, but…you didn’t have to do it this way, with so much thoughtfulness, and I appreciate it.”
“Yeah. Ro—”
“Unless, of course, you want to rescind it after all this.” She laughed, but became acutely aware that every part of her, every tiny little part of her, hoped he would say, Hell no, I’m not rescinding anything.
Good golly crackers, she truly was starting to believe in him. Maybe she’d begun to believe in him a while ago, and that accounted for the nerves—
“Oh, my gosh,” she realized suddenly. “I’m not hiccuping.” She blinked at the realization, waiting to be sure. “They’re gone. I’m accepting a marriage proposal to a genuinely nice man, and I’m not hiccuping!” The hope she’d squashed so ruthlessly began to peek through her season of disillusionment, like the sun finding it’s way through a break in the clouds.
Dean arched a brow. “This is progress, I take it?”
She nodded and whispered, “This is progress.”
Some expression she couldn’t identify lingered until at last his gaze cleared to azure blue. He reached a hand into his coat pocket.
In the modest but homey ladies’ room of the Honeyford Inn, Dean pr
oposed to Rosemary again, without the bended knee and tender words this time (they really did need to get out of the bathroom), yet Rosemary felt more content accepting him than she’d ever imagined she could be.
Slipping the ring on her finger, he said, “I guessed at the size. And the gemstone.”
She ought to have protested a ring so costly, particularly when theirs was a union with start-stop dates. If the marriage ended—when the marriage ended—she would give the ring back to him, but for now, after upchucking at his first attempt to formally propose, Rosemary was determined to be gracious. “I think rubies are lovely. So different.”
“We began differently.” He held her hand, the low lights making the heart-shaped stone glow warmly. “Maybe we’ll end on an up note.”
Or, Rosemary thought for the first time, shocked when she didn’t freak out at the thought, maybe we won’t end at all.
They exited the restroom together, and Rosemary was stunned to find a group of people from the cellar waiting for them, plus most of the upstairs diners turned their way to see what the fuss was about.
“Isn’t that the new librarian?”
“Really? Was she drinking?”
“So did she say yes or no?” asked one of the women from the cellar. “I didn’t hear.”
Rosemary felt her left hand clasped and squeezed. She glanced up.
Dean smiled, just for her. His upstage eye closed in a private wink. Then, turning toward the dining room, he raised their hands for everyone to see. The ruby ring drew wide-eyed stares. And a gasp from Annette.
“You’re looking at the luckiest man in the world,” he said.
Annette’s sweet face crumpled as she burst into happy tears. She and Josef embraced. “In our restaurant,” he blubbered, patting his wife’s back.
Applause erupted from the small crowd gathered outside the bathroom and “Congratulations!” echoed around the dining room.
Rosemary couldn’t help it: she started to cry, too…because everyone was so sweet, and because Dean sounded so sincere and because, if only in this moment, she was able to set aside the facts surrounding her engagement and focus on the feelings. And what she felt—even if it would only be for this one moment—was like the world’s luckiest woman.
Chapter Eleven
“You’re playing with fire.”
Fletcher leaned against the outer wall of a horse stall, eating his pecan roll while Dean viciously stabbed clean hay with a pitchfork.
“I know it,” Dean growled, spreading the straw around the interior of the stall. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Fletcher shrugged. “If you know it then why are you here shoveling hay instead of coming clean about the will with Rosemary? And what is it about my ranch chores that attract you when you’re hiding out? Not that I’m complaining.” Lifting a red Honey Bea’s travel mug, he took a long pull of coffee.
“I need the physical outlet.” Dean pushed the words through gritted teeth. “I can’t release tension counting pills.”
“Understandable.” Fletcher swirled the coffee inside the mug. “According to Claire, half the town is babbling about your engagement. Very romantic and all that crap. You might have been better off keeping things private if you’re not going to tell Rosemary the truth. Keep things a little more low-key to spare her feelings in the long run.”
“Thanks for the tip, Dr. Phil.” Dean took another ferocious stab at the hay. “How many people know about the will?”
“Aside from you and me?” Fletcher popped the rest of the pecan roll in his mouth and thought. “Claire, of course. Gwen.”
Dean nodded. Their father’s mistress was the mayor of Honeyford and the executor of Victor’s will. Fortunately, Gwen was also an eminently reasonable woman. She believed the marriage codicil to be a huge mistake. Although she loved Honeyford and had numerous plans to bring more revenue to the often-struggling town, she did not want to feather Honeyford’s nest with Fletcher or Dean’s inheritance. She’d sold Pine Road Ranch back to Fletcher for a dollar.
Dean stopped working and backhanded sweat off his brow. “I approached Gwen about buying the building on Main if I default on the will. She thinks she’ll get resistance from the city council. You were right—Doug Thorpe’s been badgering the city to buy up stores and find lessees with upscale businesses. He’s not going to go for a low-cost, bilingual medical clinic.”
Fletcher nodded. “So why aren’t you telling Rosemary the truth? That inheriting the building is going to benefit people who sorely need a medical clinic.”
Dean sighed, feeling out of touch with himself for perhaps the first time in his life. “I planned to. The morning after I proposed. After I made it clear to the town how I feel about her, so there won’t be any question about why we’re marrying.” Fletcher would understand that. He had been bound and determined not to allow any demeaning gossip to affect his wife on account of the blasted will. “I was going to tell her about the will and the clinic and then let her know that I’m going to forfeit the building, because I don’t want that hanging over our heads for the next two years. I want to make this marriage work. I need this family to work.”
“So what happened?” Fletcher asked.
“I got a letter.” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. He was working on a forty-eight-hour headache ibuprofen hadn’t been able to touch. “From a doctor who wants to help open and then work in the clinic.”
“I didn’t know you’d started recruiting already.”
“I haven’t,” Dean said. “I’ve been working on grants. She found out about it from an aunt who knows Alberto.”
“She. The doc is a woman?”
“Esmeralda Duran. Her mother is Guatemalan. Father’s Spanish. Esmeralda trained as an EMT then went to UC Irvine for her medical degree. She’s coming off two years of volunteer work in Guatemala.”
“Speaks Spanish then.”
“Fluently. Wrote eloquently about how she wants to support the community not only with medical aid, but also education. She heard about Clinica Adelina from an aunt who lives in the area. The aunt heard about it from Alberto.”
Fletcher whistled. “Perfect. But if you default on the will…”
“I’ll have no building. I’ve got a real-estate agent combing the area for something suitable.”
“But you’ll have to buy the building or pay rent.”
“Right. It’ll be a setback, not one I’m sure we can conquer soon. How do I tell Alberto the plans are on hold, indefinitely? And how do I turn away a doctor who can make it all come together?”
“By keeping your mouth shut, getting married to the mother of your child and hoping she’ll understand when the truth comes out?”
Grimacing, Dean nodded slowly. “That might be my plan,” he admitted.
Fletcher wagged his head. “Poor dumb, love-struck bastard. I mean that in a good way.” He swirled the coffee in his mug, his expression changing from something almost affectionate to a thoughtful frown. “All these years I’ve never asked you…what was it like for you, growing up with Jule as a stepmother?” His mouth quirked ironically. “And me as a brother? That must have scared you off starting a family. At least a little.”
The question caught Dean by surprise. Though they shared the same father, he and Fletcher had been born to vastly different mothers. Victor Kingsley had married twice in his life—first Dean’s mother, by all accounts a gentle and gracious woman who had died from cancer when Dean was only five, and then Jule, a far more flamboyant, mercurial and, ultimately, troubled young woman.
“I thought the early years were good,” Dean said carefully. “Until Jule’s bipolar disorder got really out of hand, there were some happy times for all of us. But I’ve never blamed her, Fletch—or you—for the problems.”
Fletcher nodded. “Well, thanks for that. The problems, though…the fights and the separations…they make you wonder whether you can do it differently, don’t they? Victor wasn’t the greatest role model when it came to open lin
es of communication. I’ve had nights when I’ve woken up in full panic, wondering if I can give my kids a decent childhood, wondering whether I even know what that looks like.”
Perspiration that had zilch to do with physical activity covered Dean’s brow. He had an abrupt urge to bolt, leaving the stall—and the conversation—unfinished.
“You seem to be doing a good job,” he told his brother. “The boys are happy. And you’re already your daughter’s hero.”
The cowboy who had once seemed impervious to a vulnerable moment began to look slightly green. “Yeah, that’s now. I just thank God for Claire. She straightens me out when I start to stress.”
“Well, this is great. Two grown men panicked over relationships.”
“You want to email Dr. Phil?”
“Nope.”
Dean shook his head. He was so screwed. Smitten by a woman—utterly, thoroughly smitten—for the first time in his life. About to become a husband and, in a few months, a father. Beneath the fear, he was excited about all of it, yet he couldn’t get to know Rosemary—or rely on her for support—because of this thing, this lie, hanging over them. In addition to his headache, he’d been nursing serious nausea all day and wondered if he was experiencing sympathetic morning sickness or simple guilt.
“I’m forfeiting the building. I have to. I can’t explain this to Rosemary in a way that will make sense.”
“You mean you can’t explain it in a way that won’t make her think she’s marrying into a family of lunatics.”
On even the worst days of his life, Dean had been able to calm his mind and his body, to keep his reactions sane and focused. Millie, who’d worked at King’s since Dean was a kid, had once told him he would never need a blood-pressure pill. It appeared those days were gone; he felt as if the pressure in his body were going to pop his head off like a cork.
Smacking his fist again the stall, he said, “I need the kind of chance we’d have if this were a normal relationship.”
“Kingsleys don’t do normal.”
“I do.”
“You gave it the old college try,” Fletcher agreed. “But you were alone. Try to do ‘normal’ now that you’re alive below the neck.”
