Too tired to bend down to retrieve the ice bucket or her shoes, she simply pushed them against the wall with her foot and continued to the stairs. She heard the wait staff clunking around in the kitchen, cleaning up the last of the mess. They would be finished soon and Guillermo would lock up the house. She could forget about Jackson and everything would go back to normal.
No, things wouldn’t return to normal. Because she couldn’t forget Jackson. Not because she wanted to fix him but because he fixed her. He’d shown her in a million little ways that she was strong enough, talented enough to turn the ranch into a top-notch training and rehab center. He made her realize that she did want a partner in her life. Someone to lean on. Someone who would lean on her in return.
She was not going to let Jackson leave her again. She was not going to be the simpering woman who complained that her man left. She was going to find him and together they would figure out how to move forward. Just as soon as she got fifteen minutes of sleep, she promised, anger at Jackson warring with sadness.
Because if he really meant that kiss, he wouldn’t have left the ranch as he so clearly had. She might be fighting a losing battle but she was going to keep fighting. She wouldn’t run this time. Wouldn’t let those old fears take hold again.
She climbed the familiar staircase in the near dark, pausing outside her door for a moment to lay her head against the cool mahogany. Tried to clear her mind of all Jackson thoughts and images so she could get some rest. It didn’t work. Pushing him out of her thoughts was proving to be as difficult as trying to pull him into her life had been. She would be better off to sleep in one of the guest rooms for the night, but she wouldn’t allow that. Sleeping alone in the room she shared with Jackson might be torture but she had to face it.
She opened the door and stopped short. Rose petals were strewn across the floor, leading into her bedroom. Soft music played on the speakers and soft snoring came from the vicinity of her bed. Her heart leapt at the possibility but she ruthlessly ordered herself not to hope. The snoring probably came from a party guest.
Cautiously, she stepped through the sitting room and into the bedroom, closed her eyes, and clenched her hands into fists. Jackson was here. Sleeping comfortably in her room. In her bed. Furiously, she wiped the tears from her eyes. He hadn’t left. He was still here. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
She looked more closely around the room and saw that stupid pile of blankets back on the floor near the sliding doors. She sniffled.
Jackson’s eyes opened at the sound and he stretched, lengthening each muscle in his body before relaxing back onto the bed and smiling at her.
“I thought you’d never toss out those last few stragglers,” he said.
Kathleen gave up trying to stem the flow of tears. Arms hanging limply at her sides she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“We never finished our conversation,” he said, clasping his hands behind his head, “or that kiss.” Long legs crossed at his ankles, he looked perfectly comfortable in her bed. In her life. But why had he disappeared so abruptly before?
Her face flushed. “I don’t mean here, this bedroom, I mean here in general. I thought you’d gone — ”
He shook his head. “Not a chance. I just thought it might be easier not to explain my presence at all than to explain about Puerto Vallarta, the wedding, my leaving and then coming back. That’s a big story, even for a twenty-eight year old playgirl heiress, not necessarily the thing that would scream security to potential investors. You didn’t need that kind of pressure on a night that should relieve all the pressures you’ve ever had.”
“Not all the pressures,” she said, crossing the room to sit on the opposite side of the bed. Brutal honesty was called for at this point, she decided. No holding back. No prettily painted words, just brutal honesty. If Jackson were really back, for good, he needed to know where she stood. “Not the pressure of finding you and losing you like that,” she said, snapping her fingers.
“You didn’t lose me. I just had to see, for myself, that I was ready to stop playing at being the successful, aloof, uncaring man I’ve been and start living a real life. The kind of life that, until I met you, I thought I was already living. I knew within a few hours of being back in New York that the city isn’t where I belong any longer.”
“Then why didn’t you come home?”
He reached across the quilt to take her hand. “Because I also wasn’t certain Texas was the right place. I love you, Kathleen, but I wasn’t at all sure I could have the big, full life without messing it up.”
Her heart thrilled at the words ‘I love you’ but she knew there was more to come. Words that might still push her out of his life. “So you did come here to talk. To really talk,” she said. He nodded. “Well?” she asked when he said nothing more.
“Talking can wait just a little while longer,” he said and pulled her bodily against him. Kathleen pressed her hand against his chest.
“Uh-uh. This,” she said, finger circling over his chest, “is on hold until we talk this all out. Sex has never been our problem, it’s the other stuff that we seem to ignore. So, come on Cowboy, what’s different now than three weeks ago?”
“Everything,” he said, gently tracing his index finger from her temple to her chin, “and absolutely nothing. I haven’t found Maria, in fact I’ve called off the search entirely for a while. Being an unwanted child still matters to me but I’m through making it the center of my life. The truth is, I’ve always pushed people away so they couldn’t push me away first.” He paused, tilted her chin up so they could stare into one another’s eyes. “I still don’t understand how these family connections of yours work — and I’m still not sure I really want to — but over the past few weeks I’ve discovered that I don’t want to be the unattached man I’ve been showing the world for the past ten years. That man was only ever a figment of my imagination, carrying around so much baggage it was a miracle I didn’t sink into the abyss.”
Kathleen leaned her head against his chest as he spoke, caressing one of his hands in her own. Twining their fingers together. “Why?”
He understood the full question without her saying more. “Because it suited my purposes. Playing the aloof, partying playboy kept anyone from asking about my past and reminded me every day why I needed to keep people at a distance. For a long time I was convinced that being abandoned was my fault. That allowing anyone close to me would prove Maria right — that I was nothing but trouble. Unlovable. Plus, the fashion industry is all about image. If they’d known about my past, the foster homes, the lack of family from the beginning it wouldn’t have mattered. But that first lie of omission sealed my fate. I couldn’t let anyone know the truth about my past. The more I told myself that the more I believed it.”
“But you were aloof even in school. There was always a hint of sadness in your expression, unless I happened to catch you in the middle of capturing something with your camera. Taking pictures seemed to me to be the one activity that lifted that cloud of sadness from you. I loved to watch you work back then.”
He shifted, bringing them face to face. “That was the real revelation when I went back to New York. I’d started building the façade before I’d finished high school. The tough boy, the silent artist. There was a part of me that begged to be misunderstood because misunderstood was better than the alternative of everyone knowing I’d spent most of my life in and out of more homes than I could count. But two things happened: the art show and finding you on the Malecon. Working on the showing I realized that hiding in fashion wasn’t an option any longer. I’m tired of photographing beautiful people in beautiful surroundings. I want to show real life.”
“You’ll give up fashion?”
He snorted. “Not entirely, the money is altogether too good. The agency will still focus on fashion shoots, but I’m turning that portion over to one of my partn
ers so I can focus on other opportunities. Art showings, editorial photography. I was about to pack my bags for a desert island someplace when your birthday invitation arrived from Mitchum and I realized if I kept running I’d be an old man, alone and lonely before I turned thirty-five.” He paused but Kathleen only waited. “I’ll always wonder why she did it, but the wondering isn’t as powerful as my need to have a life, a real life, at last. And I’m hoping that real life will begin and end with you, my love. I do love you, Kath, more than anything.”
Kathleen sucked in a breath.
“I don’t come with a pedigree like one of your horses. I don’t even know what a real marriage is,” he said and slid off the bed. Bending on one knee he said, “But if you’ll stand by me, I’ll figure out what a husband should be. Will you marry me, Kathleen, without the haze of alcohol this time?” He pulled a small blue box from his pocket, opened it to reveal the diamond and ruby ring inside. He smiled, winking his left eye at her. “I have a real ring this time around.”
Kathleen held up her hand, showing him the cheap wedding band still encircling her ring finger. “This is the only wedding band I need,” she said. And then snatched the box from his hands. “But I’ll take this one, too. The simple band to remind us how we started and this amazing ring so we’ll never forget the beginning of our real relationship.” She threw her arms around him. “I love you, Jackson Taylor. I think I’ve loved you since that first day you looked through me on the quad at UTEP. I was trying to fix your problems to avoid my own for a while, and that’s a hard habit to break. But now that I’m actually listening to the people around me, Miss Fix-It’s gone into hiding.” She kissed him, putting all the love and hunger she could into the touch of her lips against hers. “I can’t swear that I’ll be able to stop meddling, but I do promise to listen more than I talk.”
“Aah, sweetheart, don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he teased. “You’ll always be Miss Fix-It and the girl talking in the back of the classroom. Just promise you’ll try fixing one problem at a time, okay?”
“Promise,” she said, resting her forehead against his.
Jackson drew back. “I’ll tell you one last secret, Kath, looking through you in school was just an act. Another wall I needed to hide behind because I was desperate to stay far away from anything resembling family. You were the embodiment of family — from your clothes to the visits home every month. I had to keep my distance back then, for my own sanity.”
“You liked me back then!” she said, surprised.
Jackson’s smile twisted into chagrined acceptance. “I was half-way in love with you from the minute you knocked over my tripod on the quad.”
“And now?”
“I think you know how I feel.”
“Tell me again,” she said, pulling him to the bed with her.
“I love you, Kathleen Witte Taylor,” he smiled, nipping kisses along her jaw. “With all my heart.” Another nip, just under her earlobe. “Forever.”
“I love you, too, Jackson.” She sighed against his mouth and her fingers began tracing the contours of his neck and shoulders. After a few minutes she pushed against his chest and sat up.
“One more thing: I don’t care about that pedigree you keep talking about, and I’m as clueless as you when it comes to marriage.” Her arms stole around his neck and she pulled him closer. “But I’ll marry you again, Jackson Taylor. I’ll marry you every day for the rest of my life.”
Chapter Seventeen
Two weeks later, Kathleen had butterflies in her stomach. Again.
She was about to marry Jackson and this time she would remember every single second. She had to be the luckiest woman in the world.
If she could just make it through the day.
Monica bustled around the bedroom, adding a sprig of baby’s breath here or there in Kathleen’s upswept hair. The full skirt of her dress flowed around her as she sat on the high stool so that the silk wouldn’t wrinkle. What seemed like ten pounds of crinoline and underskirts covered the new, pristine, white boots on her feet. Boots that, according to Monica, were so last year that they were new again. Kathleen didn’t care about the fashion statement, she was done with high heels for a while. At least in public.
White silk stockings covered her legs, a garter with blue ribbon hidden on her upper thigh. Sequins and embroidered butterflies decorated the corseted bodice, pushing her breasts in and up and giving her more cleavage than she was completely comfortable with. Imagining the look on Jackson’s face she had told Monica to cinch the bodice a little bit tighter.
Monica pressed a small white Bible in her hands. “It was your mother’s,” she said. “I found it in the attic when I was looking for some old pictures of my mother.” Her mouth twisted. “I was too angry at you at the time to tell you, so I hid it. Can you forgive me?”
Kathleen leaned forward, hugging her sister and ordering herself not to cry. “We were both angry at one another for a long time but it was nobody’s fault. Dad was too busy trying to find his next wife back then to worry about the girls he already had at home. There’s nothing to forgive, sweetie.”
“Just so you know, if I’d found something important to Vanessa I don’t think I’d give it to her. I’m not quite over that bit of anger yet.”
“Don’t be so hard on her. I’m beginning to think she really did love Paul. Maybe refusing to move out of the house was the only way she knew to show him that.”
Monica pulled a face. “That’s a big if, Kath. And today isn’t about Van. It’s about you and Jackson.”
A knock sounded at the door and they both jumped. Nathaniel poked his head around the door. “You girls ready?”
Kathleen took a final look in the mirror, wondering who was the beautiful woman smiling back at her.
Her father shuffled at the door. “Monica, could we have a minute?” he asked. Monica reached up to kiss his cheek and then hurried out the door. “You look beautiful, darlin’,” he said. “As pretty as your mother was, all those years ago.” Tears pricked his eyes. “I, um, wanted to thank you…for letting me walk you down the aisle this afternoon.” When she would have spoken, he held up a hand. “I’ve been an absentee father for a long time and I would have understood if you’d asked your grandfather. Hell, I would have understood if you gave yourself away to Jackson. Since this is a day about making promises, I’m going to make one to you: I’m done with drinking. I have been for a while, but I know you needed to hear me say it. I think, maybe I needed to hear me say it, too.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and quickly handed Kathleen a tissue. “Now don’t ruin your makeup, sweetheart. This is a happy day.”
“And these are happy tears,” she said, fanning her face to dry her eyes. “I don’t want you to promise never to drink. I want you to promise, when the urge hits, to come talk to me or grandfather or even Monica. Okay?”
Her father nodded and took her arm. “Now we’d better hurry or we’ll be late.
• • •
Jackson heard the creaking of the old wagon’s tires on the rutted path long before the buckboard, team of horses, and Kathleen came into view. When they did, he sucked in a breath. Standing beneath the live oaks with the Soddy in the background and ribbons draped from the tree limbs, he felt almost like an actor on a stage.
Nathaniel helped Kathleen down from the wagon as Guillermo began playing the wedding march on his violin. Jackson started breathing hard. Vanessa had been invited but was nowhere to be found this morning. Other than Mitchum, Barney, and a few ranch employees, the meadow was empty and exactly as he and Kathleen wanted it. After waking up married and remembering nothing they wanted only their closest friends and family to share this day with them.
Monica walked sedately down the aisle first and stepped to the side so that Jackson could get the full effect of Kathleen’s dress. His wife, his future, was more bea
utiful than he could ever have imagined. Nathaniel wiped at his eyes every few steps but Kathleen kept marching forward, the white, leather tips of her boots showing her impatience to meet Jackson and the minister beneath the trees.
Finally they arrived. Nathaniel placed Kathleen’s hand in Jackson’s and squeezed them. “Take care of her,” he ordered and Jackson nodded. Nathaniel stepped back to stand with Mitchum and Barney as the minister began talking about the sanctity of marriage and the bonds of love. The night before they said their private vows, promising truth, honesty, and no secrets. This morning they said the more traditional vows before friends and family, beaming at one another.
The minister cleared his throat. “You may now kiss the bride,” he said as Kathleen and Jackson looked sheepishly at one another. How many times had he invited them to kiss to seal their vows before they realized it?
Their lips met, sealing the promise between them. A promise to love first and ask questions later. For the rest of their lives.
Delicious Deception
Tami Lund
Avon, Massachusetts
Copyright © 2015 by Tami Lund.
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.
Published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.
www.crimsonromance.com
ISBN 10: 1-4405-9346-9
Texas Temptation Page 36
