by Lori Wilde
His heart zinged and he raised a hand to knock.
“Wait, wait.”
“What is it?”
“How do I look?” She twirled for him, her little red wool skirt flaring out around her legs encased in the cowboy boots he’d bought for her. She wore matching red tights and a red and white striped shirt. She looked like a red-hot candy cane. Lickable and delicious.
“Gorgeous.”
“Be honest.”
“Like a red oak in autumn. You’ll steal the show.”
“Is my hem too short?”
“It’s perfect. You’re perfect. Don’t worry.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not walking into a roomful of strangers.”
He reached out to take her hand. “Just be yourself. Never fear, I’ve got your back, Little Bit.”
That’s when Joe realized he meant it. He’d protect her, no matter what.
Joe had her back.
There was no time to process what he’d said. The door opened. Joe introduced her to the two smiling, gray-haired people welcoming her in, ushering her over the threshold, pulling her into hearty hugs. First Frank Daniels, and then his wife, Margo.
“Come in, come in.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Let me take your coat.”
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“Fruitcake, how lovely. Frank, look, Corsicana fruitcake, my favorite. Thank you, Mariah.”
The odd familiarity of Thanksgiving dinner with strangers enveloped her in a sharp-edged embrace. She’d spent her childhood watching other families’ celebrations as her mother waited on them. It had been an unusual upbringing that made her easily adaptable, but at the same time made her feel peculiarly unreal. As if everything was staged, an act for show. The ability had served her well, but she couldn’t shake the sensation that other people experienced the world in a more honest and complete way.
The living room was filled with people she didn’t know. Joe took her by the hand and introduced her around the cozy room. A fire crackled in the fireplace. On the flat-screen TV mounted over the mantel, the Dallas Cowboys tussled with the Washington Redskins.
She met Joe’s oldest brother, Chase, the surgeon, and his wife, Zoey, who was also a doctor. Chase was taller than Joe and stockier. Zoey was exotic, with almond eyes, a French accent, and fabulous collarbones shown off in a scoop-neck sweater. They had a toddler son named Garrett. Someone mentioned that Joe’s other brother, Rick, was out in the backyard.
Mariah shook hands with Kimber, Joe’s sister, and her boyfriend, Dane, who was a cutter like Joe. There was also Meg, the youngest Daniels. Both sisters were fine-boned, with chestnut hair and crooked grins that made Mariah feel especially welcomed.
Next, Joe took her to the kitchen, where she saw Ila Brackeen leaning against the counter talking with an elderly woman who was even shorter than Mariah. The woman stood stirring a pan of something on the stove.
“You know Ila.” Joe nodded.
Ila raised a hand, gave a curt “Hey.”
“And this,” Joe said, putting his arm around the elderly woman, “is my grandmother Daisy Daniels, but we all just call her Gamma.”
The tiny woman eyed Mariah speculatively as if she could see straight through her. She might be in her eighties, but her black eyes were razor sharp. She looked from Joe to Mariah and back again. Mariah fancied the little old lady knew exactly what she’d done with her grandson.
“Joe,” Ila said, snagging his elbow. “Your brother Rick needs help outside frying the turkey. C’mon.”
Joe opened his mouth to respond, but before he got anything out, Ila dragged him out the back door, leaving Mariah to fend for herself with Gamma.
“Taste this,” Gamma Daniels said, extending a spoon toward Mariah’s mouth.
“What is it?”
“Just taste it.”
Mariah eyed the concoction. It looked like cranberry sauce. Innocent enough. Right?
“What? You afraid it’s poisoned?” Gamma narrowed her eyes.
“No, no.” Mariah took a bit. Mmm, it was the best cranberry— Suddenly, her mouth ignited, it was all she could do to swallow it down instead of spitting it out. “What is that?”
“My specialty, hellfire cranberry sauce,” Gamma bragged. “Here you go.” She extended a glass of water to Mariah that apparently she had at the ready. “Cranberries, orange zest, and habanero peppers. It was my husband’s favorite thing about Thanksgiving, God rest Lloyd’s soul.”
Eyes watering, mouth aflame, Mariah gulped the glass of water. “What did he die from? A seared esophagus?”
The sadistic senior citizen chuckled, nodded to herself. “Yep, it’s a good batch.”
“Great.” Mariah coughed.
“So,” Gamma said, turning to eye her. “You’re the one who’s put a smile back on my grandson’s face. Good for you.”
Mariah didn’t know how to respond so she simply nodded, smiled. “Joe’s a nice guy, Mrs. Daniels.”
“Call me Gamma.” She reached over to squeeze Mariah’s hand. “From what Joe has said about you, I feel as if I know you already.”
“Uh-oh,” Mariah teased. “That sounds ominous.”
“It’s all good, I assure you. Even when he’s grumbling about you.”
“He grumbles about me?”
“In the same breath that he’s singing your praises. You’ve impressed him.”
He’d talked about her to his grandmother? She wasn’t accustomed to being knocked off balance, but everything about Joe had her careening from one emotion to another. Luckily, she was adept at schooling her features. She took another sip of water to calm her blistering tongue.
“I can see I’ve embarrassed you,” Gamma said. “That wasn’t my intention. We’re an unruly gang, so jump right in and don’t let anyone run you over. Especially Ila.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Mariah smiled.
“You’re going to be just fine.” Gamma slipped an arm around her waist. “As long as you don’t break Joey’s heart.”
Suddenly, the warm welcome turned slippery. Fitting in here was conditional. Love Joe or get out. Mariah cleared her throat. “You don’t have to worry about that, Mrs. Daniels. Joe and I are just friends.”
“Does Joe know that?”
“Absolutely.” Okay, maybe she wasn’t being totally honest.
Gamma looked skeptical. “He may look all tough and blustery, our Joey, but he’s got a fragile heart. He loves so easily and so deeply. He’s a one-woman man. If he loves you, it’s for keeps. Trouble is, he believes you only get one shot at love.”
Yes, she knew that. She’d seen the Becca shrine. “Admirable,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.
Gamma gave her an odd look. “You’ve never been loved like that, have you?”
Considering that her own father had run out on her, was it any wonder she kept men at arm’s length? “No,” Mariah murmured.
“Well, hold on with both hands. When a Daniels man loves you, you’re one hundred percent loved. Just make damn sure you love him back.”
“Joe’s not in love with me.” She laughed. It was a shaky sound.
“Hmm,” Gamma said.
“Hmm what?”
“I guess it’s for the best that you’re not in love with him then.”
Fear winnowed through her veins. She wasn’t prepared for this. These feelings. Her reaction. She might not be in love with him, but she was falling fast, and here was Gamma telling her she better slam on the brakes. “Why’s that?”
“Cutting, horses, his work means everything to him. If you can’t share that with him the way Becca did, well . . .” Gamma trailed off. “Let’s just say you both deserve to be happy, and Joe shouldn’t have to choose between the woman he loves and the work that burns in his blood.”
Ila pulled Joe around the side of the house before he even got a chance to say hello to his brother Rick, who was lounging in a chaise beside the turkey f
ryer, with a beer in his hand and a fire extinguisher by his side. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
“There’s not a problem with the turkey?”
“No.” Ila frowned. “Keep up. It was a ploy to get you outside.”
“Okay, I’m outside. What’s the matter?”
Ila paced in front of him. “I’ve got to ask you something important.”
“Shoot.”
She wrung her hands. Which wasn’t like Ila at all. She wasn’t a hand wringer. Something was different about her. “Hey, you cut your hair.”
She stopped pacing and stared at him with such sadness that it hurt. “Over a month ago, Joe.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t notice,” he said. Becca used to get really irritated if he didn’t notice when she changed her hair or bought new clothes. “That was selfish of me.”
She gnawed at her thumbnail.
He reached out, took her by the shoulders. “Hey, what’s up? You know you can tell me anything.”
Ila stared him in the eyes, steely as always. At least that was normal. “Can I really?”
“Sure. Of course. You know that. We’ve been friends forever.”
She paused. “Do you remember that time when we were sixteen and I kissed you under the bleachers at the Fourth of July rodeo?”
Joe paused. He’d totally put that out of his mind. They’d been drinking Boone’s Farm Wild Raspberry and he’d assumed the kiss had been nothing more than a product of too much cheap wine.
“Do you?” she pushed.
Joe had a feeling he was about to fail some important test. “Vaguely.”
She swallowed so loud he could hear it. Her pupils constricted. “That’s what I thought,” she whispered.
“Ila, what is this all about?”
“You’re with her, with her, aren’t you?”
“Mariah?”
“No, Mrs. Santa Claus.” Ila’s breathing came in short rasps. “Of course Mariah.”
“If you think I’m trying to replace Becca, don’t worry. Becca will always have a special place in my heart. She was my wife and I loved her, but Mariah . . .” His voice softened as he thought about Mariah. The woman who’d made his torn-up, dormant soul bloom again. A smile tilted his lips. “Mariah makes me feel whole in a way I’ve never felt before. Not even when I was married to Becca. Me and Becca . . . well . . . we were a lot alike and that’s not a bad thing, but I’ve discovered—”
“You’re in love with her,” Ila said flatly.
Joe splayed a hand to the back of his neck. “I—”
“No.” Ila cut him off, plastered her palms over her ears. “Don’t answer that. I don’t want to hear that.”
Just then the back door snapped shut and they both looked up to see Cordy striding across the yard toward them, looking like one of storm-chasing Rick’s tornado-brewing clouds.
“Ila,” Cordy hollered, “could I have a word with you?”
“No,” Ila said.
“What’s going on?” Joe asked.
“Clueless,” Ila muttered.
“None of your damn business,” Cordy snapped.
Joe stepped back. His easygoing employee had never spoken to him like that. “I just wanted to help.”
“You can’t help,” Ila and Cordy yelled at him in unison.
“Okay.” Joe raised his palms in a gesture of surrender.
“You better go check on the woman you came with,” Cordy said. “I think Mariah’s losing ground with your Gamma.”
“Don’t tell me she gave Mariah hellfire cranberry sauce.”
“She’s your Gamma, you figure it out,” Cordy said.
He should never have left Mariah alone with Gamma. “I hope you two get things sorted out,” Joe said, and then hightailed it to the kitchen to save Mariah while she still had her taste buds intact.
Ila would never have imagined that five-foot-eight-with-his-cowboy-boots-on Cordy could look like a ten-foot, fire-breathing dragon.
“What were you doing out here with him?” Cordy challenged.
“He’s my brother-in-law, I can talk to him if I want to talk to him.”
Cordy clenched his jaw so tight the muscles under his ear twitched. “I thought we had this settled.”
“You can’t go busting into jealousy every time I talk to Joe.”
“It’s been over a month, Ila. I thought we were building something—”
“We’ve been sleeping together. That’s all.”
Cordy looked as if he’d been slapped hard across the face. “You still haven’t accepted the fact that I’m your destiny, not Joe.”
Ila rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe in that destiny crap.”
“You don’t believe in us?” His voice cracked and he looked like she’d shot an arrow straight through his heart.
“As a couple?” Ila shook her head, felt mean and selfish and guilty. “Not really.”
“I see I’ve got my work cut out for me.” Cordy hardened his chin.
“Cordy, you can’t make me love you.”
“And you can’t make Joe love you.”
Ila stared at him. Cordy looked so earnest. Her gut lurched. She knew Joe was lost to her. He was in love with Mariah. She could see it on him even if he wasn’t ready to admit it. She had to let go of her unrequited love. It wasn’t fair to anyone. Not to Joe, not to Mariah, not to Cordy. Not to her.
“But you know what?” Cordy said. “I deserve better than being your rebound guy. I’m not settling for second best. I love you, Ila, but I’m not going to beg. I’ve got too much dignity for that. You want Joe? Go get him.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” Ila was surprised by the sharp pinprick to her gut.
“I am.”
“Cordy,” she said, sudden panic rising inside her.
But he’d already gone, slamming back into the house and leaving Ila feeling more confused than she’d ever felt in her life.
The Daniels clan sat around the dinner table, and immediately after Joe’s father said grace over the meal, the conversation went to the futurity as everyone dived into the food. They passed plates around the table family-style.
Mariah had watched big extended families having Thanksgiving dinner over the years, but she’d never belonged to such a group. She’d always been the outsider trying to fit in. Everyone was warm and friendly. Joe, who was sitting across the table, winked at her.
How nice it would be to fit in here. It was something she’d always longed for, but feared could never exist for her. A place where she belonged.
The whole time Joe was talking horses and cutting and the futurity with his father and Dane.
He sounded so much like her father. Love of horses shone in his eyes, and she thought about what Gamma had said. She wanted to let herself go, to follow her heart, but she was so afraid of ending up with a younger version of her dad. Unable to love anyone as much as he loved horses.
“Where’s Ila?” Margo asked.
“She left,” Rick said. “Pass the potatoes, Gamma.”
“Want some hellfire sauce?” Gamma asked to the room at large.
“No!” everyone chorused.
“Why did Ila leave?” Margo asked, taking the hellfire sauce off the table.
“She and Cordy had a fight,” Rick supplied.
“Ila’s seeing Cordy?”
“Not anymore. Their fight was as interesting as a thunderstorm.”
“They’ll get back together,” Gamma predicted. “Ila’s in love with him, she just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Gamma claims to be psychic,” Kimber explained to Mariah.
“No claiming to it. I am psychic. Didn’t I predict there was a new woman coming into Joe’s life? Who knew it was gonna be Dutch’s little Flaxey.”
Flaxey.
It felt strange that these people knew more about her father than she did. Knew that he’d called her Flaxey.
Then Gamma was off, talking about Dutch and how much she missed him, and the rest of the family was
soon chiming in. She knew they were trying to make her feel welcome, but hearing all these things she never knew about her father only made her feel more distant from him than ever.
But she smiled and ate turkey and pretended to fit in, and all she could feel was the fear that none of this wonderful life, this wonderful family could be real.
Chapter Eighteen
A cutter’s gotta do what a cutter’s gotta do.
—Dutch Callahan
The futurity took up all of Joe’s time, and while he wanted to be with Mariah, planning Prissy and Paul’s wedding took up all her time. In spite of Joe being distracted by Mariah, Dutch’s horse was smoking the competition, winning event after event. Joe was more certain than ever that the stallion was going to take the Triple Crown Futurity. The only other horse and rider who came close were Lee Turpin and his horse Dancer.
He wished Mariah didn’t have to work so hard. That she could be there to watch him. To see her father’s horse excel time and time again. She’d promised to go to the remaining events after the wedding was over. Part of him hated being away from her for so much time, but another part of him was relieved. It gave him some cooling-off time. He’d been rattled by his growing feelings ever since they’d watched Sleepless in Seattle.
He was falling in love with her, but he still had the fear that it was simply because she reminded him of Becca. Especially after she’d confessed to him that she wore a mask whenever she was around people, doing whatever it took to fit in. Was she just trying to fit in here in Jubilee? Or did her heart really belong in Chicago? He didn’t want her to settle for anything less than what she truly deserved.
In the end, he decided to put it out of his mind and just ride Miracle to the win. Once the Triple Crown Futurity was behind him, once the wedding was behind Mariah, they’d both have a chance to examine things more closely and see if they truly had what it took to make their relationship work.
On the day of Prissy and Paul’s wedding, Mariah was surprised by how calm she felt. She’d never been this calm about a wedding, but everything seemed to fall into place.
Thanks to Joe, his hands, and the Jubilee Cutters Co-op, the chapel was finished on time and looked resplendent in simple elegance with a cowboy stained-glass window. The barn had been converted into a reception hall large enough to hold two hundred guests comfortably.
