by Linda Turner
Hurt, not sure she could ever say those words again to any man without knowing positively that he loved her, too, she set her jaw stubbornly. “I already did,” she said flatly. “There’s nothing left to say.”
Resentment glittering in her eyes, she glared at him eye-to-eye, and it was all Gavin could do not to smile. Damn, she was something! And she loved him. She could hold the words close to her heart for the rest of her life, but he knew exactly how she felt about him. She’d given herself away countless times with her touch, her kiss, with the incredible way she made love with him. She was right—she didn’t need to say another word. But he did.
“Alyssa is going to be fine,” he assured her huskily. “Do you know why? Because she already loves you, and that could never be a mistake.”
He only meant to reassure her, but he did the exact opposite. Stricken, she looked at him with tears welling in her eyes. “No! Don’t say that!”
He reached for her then because he couldn’t help himself. Because he had to touch her when he told her how much he loved her. “Easy,” he murmured when she gasped as he took her hands and pulled her toward him. “I’m not laying a guilt trip on you, honey. I’m glad she loves you. You’re so good with her—”
“But I’m leaving!”
“Because you love me. No, don’t deny it,” he said quickly when she immediately started to object. “You’re not the type of woman who would ever say that lightly. You do love me. And that’s why you’re really leaving. Because you think you’re the only one who’s in love. But you’re not.”
Suspicious, she grew still in his hold, her eyes searching his. “What are you saying, Gavin? I’m not in the mood for guessing games. If you have something to say, just say it.”
He should have known she’d reduce their entire future to just three little words. She didn’t want diamonds or candlelight or flowery speeches—she just needed the words. “I love you,” he said simply, and felt his heart expand with the words that had been waiting so long to be said. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see what was right in front of my nose, but I was afraid to let anyone get too close. I didn’t want to get hurt again.”
Summer just stared up at him and tried to convince herself she’d misunderstood him. He couldn’t have just said he loved her. Her imagination must have been playing tricks on her, teasing her because she needed so badly to know that he cared.
But his gaze was direct, his heart in his eyes. Desperately wanting to believe him, she couldn’t hold back the sob that rose in her throat. “Please don’t say that just because you know it’s what I want to hear. I don’t think I could bear it.”
“I love you,” he said earnestly. “I would never say that unless I meant it. I love you more than I thought it was possible to love any woman, and I don’t want to lose you.”
Pulling her into his arms, he kissed her as if she was the most precious thing in the world to him, as if he never wanted to let her go, and finally, Summer believed him. He loved her! Joy bubbling up inside her, she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back with all her heart.
When he finally let her up for air, he still didn’t let her go. “If you still want to go to Salt Lake City, then Alyssa and I will go with you. This isn’t a marriage of convenience, Summer. Not anymore. It’s for real.”
Unable to stop smiling, she nodded. “Forever.”
“Damn straight,” he agreed. “I want you to be my wife and Alyssa’s mother and the three of us to be the family we were meant to be.”
That was what she wanted, too, more than anything in the world. Kissing him softly, she said huskily, “Me, too. But we don’t have to go to Utah, you know. You were right—Clarence Bishop is a wonderful doctor, but I never really wanted to change my residency. I just couldn’t stay here any longer, thinking you didn’t love me. It hurt too much.”
“And now?”
A beautiful smile spreading across her face, she melted in his arms. “Now I have everything I want. I’m not going anywhere.”
Epilogue
“By the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Jordan, you may kiss your bride.”
Seated next to Gavin in the crowd of well-wishers that had flocked to the Kincaid ranch for Jordan and Meg’s wedding, Summer watched the bride and groom kiss and grinned when her husband squeezed her hand. Since she and Gavin had admitted their love for each other two weeks ago, life had been so wonderful that sometimes she had to pinch herself just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. If Jordan and Meg were half as much in love as she and Gavin, which Summer was sure they were, they would be the second happiest couple in Whitehorn.
The second the newly married couple ended the kiss, the crowd broke into a rousing cheer and the party began. Immediately swarmed by well-wishers, Jordan and Meg found themselves hugged and kissed by family and friends and people they hardly knew. Laughing, they threw themselves into the festivities.
Unable to stop smiling, Summer looked around for her uncle Garrett and wasn’t surprised to find him observing the proceedings with twinkling eyes. He’d done as he’d promised and arranged the wedding of their dreams for Meg and Jordan, but there was so much more to celebrate than just a wedding. All seven of Garrett’s grandsons, along with the women in their lives, were there, united once again on Kincaid land just as he’d always longed for. From the love and pride in his eyes, it was obvious he relished playing the role of grandfather.
Nudging her husband, Summer said, “Look at Uncle Garrett. He’s in hog heaven.”
Watching his grandsons as they mingled among the guests and got to know each other, Garrett was, in fact, having the time of his life. Family had always meant so much to him, which is why, from the moment he’d learned about his son Larry’s illegitimate children, it had been so important to him to find the boys after Larry’s death and to not only introduce them to their legacy, but to share it with them. The ranch was for them, and he was thrilled that they were all there where they belonged.
The only thing that would have made the day perfect was Elizabeth’s being there, but she’d gotten tied up unexpectedly with a case in Boise and it didn’t look as though she would make it back in time for even the reception. Hiding his disappointment well, Garrett assured himself it was just a temporary separation, but still, he missed her. He stepped outside, enjoying the afternoon sun that warmed the November air.
“You’re a powerful man, Garrett Kincaid, and you don’t even know it. I see all your dreams coming true.”
Turning to face Winona Cobbs, the town psychic, Garrett just barely bit back a smile. Dressed in a bright pink flowing gauze dress and matching turban, Winona had on enough beads to choke a horse, and she gloried in it.
“I don’t know that I’d say I was powerful,” he said dryly, “more like lucky. As for my dreams, they’ve already come true.”
He looked inside toward his grandsons, who had all gathered together for a group picture. Winona didn’t spare them a glance. “You have dreams you haven’t even allowed yourself to dream yet. Those, too, will come true. Because you found a way to break the curse.”
His gaze on Cade, who was tickling his two-year-old half brother, Gabriel, Meg’s son, it was a moment before her words registered. When they did, his eyes snapped to hers. “What are you talking about, Winona?” he asked with a frown.
“The curse your grandmother, Ruth Whitefeather, placed on the ranch when your father was cheated out of his share of the Kincaid land by his half brother Zeke.”
Garrett knew she was referring to the story about his Native American grandmother and how she, in a rage over the fact that her son had been denied his birthright, had called on the power of her Cheyenne heritage to curse the ranch. Because of her, anyone who sought wealth on the Kincaid ranch had found nothing but death, destruction, and unhappiness for decades to come.
“That old woman had powerful magic,” Winona concluded, “and that was her legacy to you. By reuniting the family and bringing Bart’s
great-grandsons back to the land of their ancestors, you have righted a terrible wrong and finally broken the curse.” Pleased, she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the late afternoon sunshine that turned the air golden. “Can’t you feel it? There is an anticipation in the air that wasn’t here in the past.”
Garrett almost told her he didn’t feel anything but the wind. But just as he started to explain that he wasn’t the sensitive type, there was a sudden flutter of wings from the bell tower of the chapel he’d had constructed for Jordan and Meg’s wedding. A split second later a single white dove burst free to soar overhead like an eagle gliding on thermals.
A cynical man would have said that the dove was part of the wedding celebration, provided by the wedding planner to be released at just the right moment and it had broken free before it was supposed to. But he, along with Meg, had planned this wedding right down to the smallest after-dinner mint on the buffet table, and he knew for a fact that there were no doves of any kind included in the festivities.
“See,” Winona said in satisfaction. “There is your sign. And there,” she added, nodding toward a woman who made her way toward them from the parked cars, “is one of your dreams that will come true.”
“Elizabeth!” His blue eyes lighting up at the sight of her and a delighted smile spreading across his strong, tanned features, Garrett stepped toward her, his hands outstretched for hers in welcome. “I’d just about given up on you!”
“I was able to get a postponement until next week,” she said with a grin as she slipped her hands into his. Pretty as a picture in a deep blue silk suit that matched the blue of her eyes, she looked like a girl as the wind tousled her short blondish-gray hair. “Have I missed everything?”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “The reception just started. In fact, Winona was just telling me—”
Turning to include the other woman in the conversation, he smiled crookedly when he saw she was nowhere in sight. “She was here just a second ago,” he told Elizabeth with a shrug. “We had quite an interesting conversation. Remind me to tell you about it later. Right now, let me just look at you. It seems forever since I’ve seen you.”
It had, in fact, been only a few days, and even then, they’d never been out of touch. They talked on the phone every day, regardless of where the other was.
Cocking her head at him, uncaring that they were drawing interested eyes, she flirted with him shamelessly as they entered the ranch house. “Missed me, did you? Maybe I should go away more often.”
“Only if you’ll promise me you’ll always come back,” he retorted, and meant every word.
It still amazed him the unexpected joy she had brought to his life. He and his wife Laura had been happily married for almost fifty years, and when she’d died, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he would spend what was left of his life alone. Then he’d hired the famous Elizabeth Gardener to represent first Emma Stover, then Gavin Nighthawk, and for the first time in God knew how long, Garrett smiled and laughed and actually found himself looking forward to each new day.
On this day when everything was so perfect, he wanted, needed, to tell her what she meant to him. But before he could find the words, the bride stepped up onto the staircase of the ranch house and called everyone’s attention as Jordan rang the old-fashioned dinner bell attached to the wall next to the front door.
Smiling down at the guests, Meg announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I know it’s not proper procedure to throw my bouquet until I’m about to leave, but there’s someone here who needs its magic right now more than I do.” And with no more warning than that, she threw it right at Garrett.
Laughing, he had no choice but to catch it. And suddenly, he didn’t need words to tell Elizabeth what she meant to him. His blue eyes twinkled with a mixture of love and mischief, and he handed the bouquet to her with a courtly bow that brought the glint of tears to her eyes.
All around them, people gasped, most of them only just then realizing that she was there as his date. The whispers started then, the quiet speculation, and it didn’t take an Einstein to figure out that everyone wanted to know about their relationship. His eyes meeting Elizabeth’s, Garrett almost laughed out loud when she slipped her arm through his, uniting them in front of the whole town.
Enough said.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Linda Turner for her contribution to the Montana Mavericks series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6951-8
NIGHTHAWK’S CHILD
Copyright © 2001 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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