by Susan Fox
“I’ll move here.”
Her eyes widened, staring at his familiar face. She couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. “Here? You, in Caribou Crossing?”
“Don’t you see the boots and Resistol?”
A Resistol, not a Stetson. Again, he’d listened. “I see them. I’m not sure what they mean.”
“Caribou Crossing’s a nice town. You showed me that. I won’t do undercover work anymore.” He scraped his hands through his hair. “I’ll be honest. I don’t know if I can give up police work completely. There’s Miller’s job; I might be able to get that. I’ve passed the sergeant’s exam so I could apply. Or security consulting, private investigation. Jamal and I might even—but that depends on him and Karen.”
No, this had to be a dream. Brooke squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
Jake was still there, looking confused and concerned and sincere.
“Jamal’s going to be moving on,” Jake said. “We did some talking, on our last job. He’s got dreams of a family. He’s going to be a staff sergeant, take a desk job. When you left that message on my machine saying you wouldn’t marry me, it got me thinking. You’re planning to move on with your life. So’s Jamal. Guess it’s time for me too.”
Was this for real? Could she let herself hope? “Jake, you need to be sure. Right now you’re feeling . . . left out, left behind, but—”
“Yeah, but that’s not really it. I haven’t done much thinking about the future. Jamal has. You have. You have an idea what it’s going to look like. When I thought about mine, I couldn’t form a picture. A guy of forty-five, fifty-five doing U/C? A loner whose only home is a dingy apartment, who has no one to share his life with? I want more than that.”
“Oh yes, and you deserve it. But don’t you want a woman your own age? The opportunity to get to know her, then start a family?”
“I want you.” He grabbed her hands again, more firmly this time, like he was determined not to let her pull away. “I do know you, Brooke Kincaid, better than I’ve ever known anyone else. And you’re the one I want to be with.” He leaned forward and peered into her eyes. “You’re like your name, you know. When I’m with you, it’s like I’m sitting beside a gently flowing brook. You bring me peace, deep inside.”
“You’d get bored. Gardening, reading by the fire, riding with Robin . . .”
“Not once she lets me gallop. Or we could always go for a ride on my Harley, or a spin in a little plane.”
The side of her that craved excitement burst out with, “Oh! I’d love that.”
“I know you would. Besides, I bet it’s hard to be bored when there’s a kid around. And when little Nicki or Nick is sleeping, we could find new places to make love.” A quick grin flashed. “There’s one thing I know for sure. I’ll never get bored making love with you, sexy lady.”
His hands gripped hers so hard she could almost feel the bones grinding together. He was nervous. Jake Brannon was afraid she would turn him down.
“I love you, Brooke,” he said softly.
She stared into his eyes long and hard, and knew he meant it.
Her breath coming in quick, shallow pants, she dragged her hands from his and pressed them to her face. She loved this man, and he loved her and wanted to marry her. He’d answered all the objections she’d raised in her mind. And yet she was terrified.
She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, and as her breathing settled she realized her real fear had less to do with Jake than with herself. She forced herself to lower her hands and look at him. “I’ve been married before. I was really bad at it.”
“You were a different person then. And you weren’t married to me.” He flashed her the Jake grin that always made her heart do somersaults. “We make a good team.”
“We make good lovers. We worked well on your case. But marriage is a whole different thing. I was rotten at it.”
“With him. With Mo. With me, you’ll be great.” He gripped her hands again. “Okay, I know we both have some learning to do. You had bad experiences and I had bad role models. But we love each other, we’re smart, and we’ll figure the rest out as we go. Together.”
He smiled and repeated, “Together,” as if he liked the taste of the word on his tongue.
“Together,” she murmured. It really did taste sweet. And exciting.
“Think you can handle it if I’m a cop or a PI? Whatever I do, it’s not going to be completely risk free.”
No, she’d never been able to imagine Jake in a job like accounting. That would be like clipping a wild bird’s wings. “Risk,” she murmured. “Life’s full of risks, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “No avoiding them. Having a baby’s a risk. Getting married’s a risk. Riding a horse is a risk.”
She imagined a lifetime of worrying about Jake, and about their baby. Then she imagined a lifetime without them. “Promise you’ll be careful?”
“Always am. Honest.”
“Mmm. And you’ve got the scars to prove it.”
“I’ll try not to add any more.”
She couldn’t be like Dave, who wanted to wrap his loved ones in cotton wool.
He poked the box that rested on her lap. “You gonna open this? See if you like it?”
She shook her head.
His face went expressionless. “Oh.”
She realized he thought she was turning him down. Quickly she reached up to catch his hand in hers. “Not yet. First there’s something I want to say. I love you, Jake Brannon. I’d be pleased and proud to marry you.”
Slowly his face relaxed, as he took in what she’d said. Then his eyes sparkled, his lips curved. “Well, hell. You’re saying yes.”
“Well, hell, I guess I am.” She grinned at him.
“No swearing around the kid.” He grinned back.
She hated to look away from him but she did, for just a second, to pick up the jeweler’s box. She held it out. “I want you to open it. To put the ring on my finger.”
He flicked the box open and she saw a beautiful multicolored stone surrounded by small diamonds.
“An opal,” she murmured, touching it gently. The stone was greenish blue, with sparks and swirls of other colors: pearly white, fiery red, sparkly gold. Her breath caught. The ring was exquisite.
“It reminded me of you. Of your eyes, kind of, but mostly of what you’re like. Fire and passion, depth and complexity. The saleswoman told me opal is supposed to bring you love, joy, and emotional balance. If you believe in that sort of stuff at all.”
“Love, joy, and emotional balance,” she echoed. “Wow. I can’t think of anything more to wish for.”
She held out her left hand and watched as Jake carefully slid the ring onto her finger. Then she looked up into eyes that held a wealth of emotion. “Oh, Jake. We are going to be good together.”
He nodded. “I know it.”
He stood and tugged her to her feet. She slipped into his arms almost shyly but met his lips eagerly.
She was so engrossed in the kiss that she jumped when a buzzer went off. “Pizza’s ready,” she said.
“Then take it out—and take me to bed.”
Epilogue
Six years later
Jake winced as pain stabbed his side. He reached down and carefully detached his daughter’s fingers. How could a five-year-old girl have such a powerful grip? “Okay, Nicki, we’ll take the Harley. But you’re going to have to fight your mom over who rides pillion.”
It was only since her last birthday that they’d let her ride behind Jake. They’d had to acknowledge that if Nicki could ride a horse on her own, she could probably manage to hang on to her dad on the bike.
“I get pillion,” the girl announced. “Mommy has to carry the brownies, so she gets the sidecar.”
“All right,” Brooke said, coming onto the front porch to join them. “I’ll take the sidecar on the way there, but I get to ride pillion on the way home. You’ll be asleep then anyhow, honey.”
Jak
e grinned, thinking about riding home under a starry sky, with Brooke curved against his back, her arms snug around his waist. “Sounds like a fair deal to me.” His eyes met his wife’s and her wink told him she knew exactly what he was thinking.
He stretched, feeling the summer sun soaking through his T-shirt, smelling the sweet peas in the garden, enjoying the sight of Brooke in shorts and a tank top that matched her eyes. His beautiful, sexy, strong wife. He could hardly remember what his life had been like before he met her. Didn’t even want to remember, because things were so great now.
He reached down to stroke Sunny, who was sitting on the top step. When the cat yawned up at him, he said, “Guard the house. We’ll be late.”
When he and Brooke got married—in her garden, just the way he’d once imagined—they hadn’t wanted to leave the cottage with all its wonderful memories. The Blys had been kind enough to sell them this small piece of the family ranch. Jake had built an addition, so now both Robin and Nicki had their own rooms, he had a home office, and Brooke had a greenhouse. He’d also built a barn to house his and Brooke’s horses and Nicki’s pony. It was home, behind that white picket fence. For the first time in his life, he truly had a home. Like Sunny, the stray cat, when Brooke had taken him in, he’d discovered his domestic side.
He smiled at his wife. “Have we got everything? Bathing suits, long pants, sunscreen, bug dope?” He glanced down at the bundles that littered the porch.
She nodded. “Potato salad, brownies, fruit juice.”
“Water pistols,” Nicki contributed firmly. This summer she and Alex, Evan and Jess’s son, had discovered the joy of squirting water at each other, and at the grown-ups.
“I’ve got them,” Brooke said, “but you have to promise to be careful around Karen and Jamal’s baby.”
When Jake had taken the sergeant position in Caribou Crossing, Jamal had gone to Williams Lake as staff sergeant. Karen had remained at the Caribou Crossing detachment, working with Jake. She and Jamal had married five years ago and bought a house midway between their two places of work.
“Babies are no fun,” Nicki said. “They don’t do anything.”
“You were a baby once,” Jake said. “You did lots. Pooped and peed and spat food all over the place.”
“Daddy! Yuck!” His daughter scowled.
Jake laughed and tousled her hair. “Okay, I admit, you’re more fun now that you can walk and talk, ride a horse, catch a ball, read a book.”
“Robin’ll look after the baby. She likes babies,” Nicki said. “And she’s the best baby-sitter in the world, even for kids who aren’t babies anymore.”
“That she is,” Brooke agreed. “And at the rate she’s growing up, it won’t be all that long before she has a baby of her own.”
“And we’ll be great-grandparents?” Jake gaped at her.
She gaped back. “Oh, my gosh! I hadn’t thought of that.”
“So what would that make me?” Nicki asked. “The baby’s grandmother?”
“Um . . .” Jake said.
“Great-aunt?” Brooke said doubtfully, and then they both began to laugh.
“We do have the strangest family,” she said.
“We have the best family,” he said.
As they strolled down the front walk, their arms laden with bundles, Nicki said, “Mommy, it’s too bad your family isn’t here for the first picnic of the year.”
“We’ll have another picnic when they visit in August,” Brooke assured her.
Jake smiled at her, happy that she and her parents and sister had grown closer, after all the years of separation.
His old Harley, with the sidecar attached, sat polished and gleaming just outside the front gate. Horses were great, but he still loved his bike. He opened the gate and ushered his females through. “Strap on your helmets, ladies,” he ordered, “and let’s get this show on the road.”
Brooke handed him her packages so she could climb into the sidecar, and then he handed them back, taking the opportunity to give her a hug and a kiss.
He got Nicki seated on the back of the bike.
Before climbing on himself, he glanced around and then carefully shut the gate his daughter had left open.
Six years ago, he’d crashed his bike through that white picket fence. Now, each spring, he gave it a fresh coat of paint, and with each stroke counted his blessings.
Author’s Note
I grew up in a city (Victoria, British Columbia) and have lived in both Victoria and Vancouver, so maybe it’s natural that I’ve mostly written about urban settings. However, I’ve also spent a lot of time in the country and I love it, and I was one of the many girls who fell in love with horses as a child and never lost that feeling. So now I figure it’s high time to indulge my adult self with a little country-style romance.
Rather than set the story in a real town, I made up Caribou Crossing. It’s a composite of a number of small towns in the interior of British Columbia. Set along the old Cariboo Wagon Road, it has a gold-mining history and now its economy is based on ranching and tourism. (And if you’re wondering if there’s a typo in the last sentence, no, it’s just one of our weird BC things. The animal is a caribou and the region was named after it, but it’s spelled Cariboo.)
Gentle on My Mind is dear to my heart because the heroine, Brooke Kincaid, is the oldest and the strongest heroine I’ve ever written about—though she doesn’t realize exactly how strong she is until undercover cop Jake Brannon crashes his Harley through her white picket fence. At the age of forty-three, Brooke has survived abuse, bipolar disorder, and alcoholism to transform herself into an upstanding citizen. She has reunited with her son Evan and become part of a loving family, yet she lives a cautious, controlled life. Jake shakes things up, and together they learn that life can be fuller, richer, and more exciting than they’d ever imagined possible.
The previous title in the Caribou Crossing series, Home on the Range, tells the love story of Brooke’s son, Evan, and Jessica, the girl he never managed to forget. I hope you’ll also look for Jessica’s parents’ love story, in the novella Caribou Crossing.
I’d like to thank all the people who helped bring this book to life: Audrey LaFehr and Martin Biro at Kensington; Emily Sylvan Kim at Prospect Agency; and my critique group, Michelle Hancock, Betty Allan, and Nazima Ali.
I love sharing my stories with my readers and I love hearing from you. I write under the pen names Susan Fox, Savanna Fox, and Susan Lyons. You can e-mail me at [email protected] or contact me through my Website at www.susanfox.ca, where you’ll also find excerpts, behind-the-scenes notes, recipes, a monthly contest, my newsletter, and other goodies. You can also find me on Facebook at facebook.com/SusanLyonsFox.
If you enjoyed Gentle on My Mind,
don’t miss Susan Fox’s
HOME ON THE RANGE
A Caribou Crossing Romance
Also includes the full-length prequel novella
Caribou Crossing.
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Chapter One
“You’re out of your frigging mind! You want me to go to a dude ranch?” Evan Kincaid glared across the table at the man who had, until two minutes earlier, been his favorite client.
“Calm down, you’re making a scene.” Gianni Vitale, a stocky, middle-aged man, flung out a hand in an extravagant gesture that encompassed the restaurant. Evan’s gaze followed the hand. At one o’clock on a Thursday, Gramercy Tavern was filled with well-dressed people: businessmen like themselves, shoppers pausing for a break, and tourists gawking at the Robert Kushner murals and elegant décor.
The atmosphere was laden with garlic and gossip, and not a single person was staring at them. Why would they? Two typical Manhattan businessmen in suits and ties?
Evan turned back to Gianni and glared again. “I am not making a scene. And no way in hell am I going to a dude ranch.”
“You’re not list
ening. The Crazy Horse isn’t a working ranch, it’s a resort ranch. You won’t have to play cowboy.”
A ranch was a ranch. “I won’t have to play anything because I’m not going.”
Gianni blew out air. “You’re worse than I was when Elena told me where she’d booked our holiday. But trust me, it’s great. You ride every day and you learn a lot about horses.”
“Ride? No way.” As a boy, growing up in Hicksville, he’d sworn no power in the world would get him up on a horse, and he’d stuck to that vow.
“There’s also a wonderful spa. The facilities and staff are first rate.” Gianni lowered his voice. “The food’s even better than here. You’ll have the time of your life. It’s quite upscale. Upscale rustic.” He took a sip of his dry martini.
“Upscale rustic?” Evan echoed disbelievingly. “Gianni, you don’t have a hope in hell of persuading me.” His client didn’t know Evan had grown up in ranch country and hated it.
Gianni leaned forward, both elbows on the table, and did some glaring of his own. “Evan, you’ve been my investment counselor for five years. When Addison & Carruthers first assigned you to me, I protested—”
Evan’s brows rose. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s true. But Winston Addison told me you were a rising star, and said your style would suit me. It did. Three years ago, when you left A&C to set up your own business, I was your first client.”
It was true. When Evan’s style had diverged too far from A&C’s traditional one, he’d come to an amicable agreement with the partners. An agreement that allowed him to take a few clients with him in exchange for referring appropriate clients to A&C in the future. “I haven’t lost my memory.”
