James Bravo's Shotgun Bride

by Christine Rimmer

  But for him it was different. Somewhere in the past few weeks, he’d gone way beyond just having a great time playing house with her. At first, he’d only tried not to think about it ending.

  And now?

  Now he loved it so much with her, he thought about the end all the time. Dreaded it. Hated it.

  The bald truth was that he never wanted it to end. He wanted to keep on being Addie’s husband for the rest of their lives.

  Chapter Ten

  The days were zipping by much too fast, Addie thought. Her marriage would be over in no time.

  And James wasn’t making it easy to think about letting him go. He was too good to her. Sometimes she wondered how she’d ever gotten along without him.

  Which was downright ridiculous. She’d made it twenty-six years, after all, without depending on any man—well, except for her grandfather, when she was small. She could take care of herself and her coming baby just fine on her own.

  Still, it was lovely having James around. He just had a natural tendency to pick up any slack, to help out whenever or wherever he might be needed.

  Most mornings, he got up before dawn with her and helped her with the horses. He said that, growing up, he’d spent a lot of time out at the McKellans’ ranch with Walker and his brother, Ryan, so he’d learned early to ride and to take care of horses. He claimed it made him feel useful to help her feed and groom them.

  And the afternoons he got home early from town, he would show up at the shed where she made her scarecrows. He would haul in the bales of straw she needed for stuffing, or go digging through the boxes of old clothes she kept handy, trying to find the shirt she wanted or the perfect hat.

  Sometimes she would look at him and feel that warm, expanding sensation inside her chest. She knew that feeling, the one that in the past had led inevitably to her saying I love you.

  Well, she wouldn’t say it this time. Those three little words were a great big jinx for her and her poor heart. She just needed not to say them and things would be fine.

  Levi was doing really well. He grumbled and griped, but Lola just smiled and made him do his exercises and eat the heart-healthy foods Addie cooked.

  Little by little, Lola had reduced his pain meds. He complained that his chest bone was killing him. That every breath he took, every time he coughed, every breathing exercise she put him through, every workout session—all of it was agony. She replied that agony was part of getting well and the pain meds only delayed the process, not to mention the dangers of addiction and constipation.

  Addie and James both tried not to laugh when Lola got to the part about constipation. Levi would always get huffy and mutter that he damn well didn’t want to talk about his bowels.

  And Lola would come right back with “And we don’t have to talk about your bowels, because we have your pain medication under control.”

  “What’s this we, woman? I’ve got nothin’ under control. You’re the one who runs everything around here.”

  “Which is as it should be because I am your nurse, hired to see that you take care of yourself.”

  “I don’t want to argue with you. It makes my chest hurt.”

  “Then stop. And come with me. We’ll take a walk around the house...”

  And he would mutter and swear, but he would get up from his fancy bed and take that walk with her, Moose falling in behind them, wagging his tail as they went.

  Two weeks after the engagement party at McKellan’s, Addie and James took Rory’s new scarecrow out to the Bar N. Addie had gone all out with a blue denim jumper over a floral-patterned blouse. The flour-sack face had blue eyes, puckered red lips and pink cheeks with freckles. From yellow yarn, Addie had fashioned a wig with a long braid down the back. She’d added a wide straw hat with a big silk peony stuck in the band. As a final touch, she’d looped several long strands of fake pearls around the broomstick neck.

  Rory loved it. They put it up in her garden and she said it was about the cutest scarecrow she’d ever seen.

  The day was warm and sunny. Addie had packed lunch for four and suggested a picnic. Rory and Walker said they were in. So they tacked up four of the Bar N horses and set out toward the mountains, following the trails on the edge of the national forest. Eventually, they chose a spot in a sunny meadow just starting to green up now that the snow had melted. They spread their blanket and shared lunch.

  Rory really was a great person, Addie thought, not the least pretentious. You’d never peg her as a princess if you didn’t already know that she was the youngest daughter of the sovereign princess of Montedoro. The Bravo-Calabrettis were not strictly royal, Rory explained. They were princes, and that meant they claimed a throne but not a crown.

  To be royal, somehow, there had to be a crown involved. Addie didn’t really get all that and said so.

  Rory laughed. “Most people don’t. Go ahead. Call us royal if you must.” She went on to describe a little of what it had been like to grow up in the world-famous Prince’s Palace perched high on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

  That following Monday, the last one in April, Addie got a package from Carmen in the mail. Dev had printed up the pictures of Addie and James’s wedding. Carm had mounted them in an old-fashioned wedding album. Addie turned back the fancy padded white cover and there she was with James, both of them in their wedding best, holding hands by Levi’s hospital bed in front of the pastor. Just the sight of that first picture tore her heart in two. Tears clogged her throat and a choked sob escaped her.

  No. She was not going to break down crying like some hopeless romantic fool.

  She slammed that cover shut and carried it straight upstairs, where she stuck it in the hall linen closet under a stack of towels. If she looked at even one more picture of her and James’s wedding day, she knew she’d end up bawling like a baby.

  Time was passing way too quickly. In less than a week, it would be May. In two weeks or so, Lola would be leaving. Levi’s health improved daily. He took long walks outside now, him and Lola and Moose. It wouldn’t be long before he had no more need for a nurse.

  And her marriage to James? They’d agreed it would last two months. As of now, they were more than halfway there. Before they knew it, she would have to let him go.

  The next day, when she went grocery shopping in town, she bought a pretty Hallmark thank-you card. She scribbled a little note inside to Dev and Carm, saying how great PawPaw was doing and how much she loved the wedding album—no, she did not mention that she’d glanced at only the first picture and then stuck the thing away in the linen closet to keep herself from collapsing in a crying jag. Some things her sister and her brother-in-law just didn’t need to know.

  Three days later, she got the certificate of marriage in the mail. She carried it right upstairs, stuck it in the wedding album and then hid the album back in the stack of towels in the dark. Yes, it was foolish to get so emotional over some pictures and a marriage license. And she felt a little guilty that she didn’t mention either to James. He would probably need the license to file for their divorce. And he might get a kick out of seeing the pictures.

  Too bad. She just couldn’t bear to have to deal with those pictures. And the sight of the marriage license made her heart hurt.

  Carm called a little later that day, before James got home from the office. Addie was able to thank her sister again for the album without worrying that James might hear what she said and ask questions later.

  “You sound weepy,” Carm said. She’d always had an annoying way of knowing when Addie got the blues.

  “Uh-uh,” Addie replied. “I’m not weepy in the least.”

  “Is it James?”

  “Didn’t I just say there’s nothing wrong?”

  “Yeah, and you’re lying. Is it about James?”

  “James is the best there is.�
�� He really was. “I’m crazy about him and he treats me like a queen.” All true, if not the whole story.

  Carm bought it. “Oh, honey. I’m so glad your marriage is going so well. See? I told you that there really are good guys out there, that you just hadn’t found the one for you yet. And now you know what I was talking about. You’re a good match, you and James.”

  More guilt on her shoulders. She’d never exactly told Carm that she and James had agreed to stay together for a set period of time.

  And she really didn’t feel up to discussing it now. Yes, putting it off was cowardly of her. Too bad. She’d do it later, after James had moved out. “James and I are getting along great.” That part was true, at least.

  “PawPaw making you miserable?”

  “Nope. He’s getting better every day. His chest still hurts and he complains about it constantly, but that’s to be expected. Lola takes good care of him and he adores her. When she’s not here, he has Daniel to look after him. I hardly have to do a thing.”

  “Hormones, then, right? Don’t you have an ultrasound coming up?”

  Addie ignored the first question and went with the second. “I do. A week from tomorrow, as a matter of fact.”

  “Feeling okay physically?”

  “Carm, will you give it up? I mean it. I’m fine.”

  They talked a little longer, about how good business was at Dev’s sporting goods store, about how Addie’s niece and nephew, Tammy and Ian, were both doing well at school. After that, Addie said goodbye and ran to Levi’s room to tell him that Carm was on the phone. He picked up his bedroom extension and Addie returned to the kitchen, where she got to work on dinner.

  Faintly, from the master suite, she heard her grandfather’s chortling laugh. The sound cheered her. He really was getting well and her life was back on track.

  It wouldn’t be easy, giving up James. But for now, she would just keep moving forward and try not to dwell on what the future would bring.

  James got home half an hour later. He came straight to the kitchen, where she was putting zucchini, tomatoes and onions on to steam.

  “There you are.” He slid one arm around her waist and smoothed her hair out of his way with his free hand. Heaven, the heat and strength of him at her back, the feel of that hard arm wrapped around her. Then he bent close and kissed the side of her neck. He whispered, “You are the most delicious woman.” And then he nibbled a line of kisses downward toward the crook of her shoulder, setting off lovely flares of sensation as he went.

  She put all her dark thoughts of losing him away and let out a low laugh. “Delicious, am I?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  A silly giggle escaped her. “Don’t ruin your dinner now.”

  “How about if I just make you my dinner?” He turned her around. She put her hands against his broad chest, looked up into those dark-rimmed blue eyes and couldn’t help wishing that things could be different, that their marriage could be what Carm and PawPaw believed it to be: real and lasting, true and strong.

  It could be, chided a voice her head. Possibly. If you’ll just step up and ask for it. If you’ll only put your heart on the line one more time.

  Oh, she wanted to do that so bad that she could taste the longing on her tongue, a sweet taste, but bitter, too.

  Because she had stepped up before. And encountered only heartbreak every time.

  But James...

  James is different, nothing like the others.

  He bent close and kissed her.

  Yes. Perfect. Nobody kissed the way James kissed.

  But hadn’t she thought the same of Eddie’s kisses, back in high school? And Randy’s and Donnie’s, too?

  Wasn’t she, really, something of a love junkie? She got addicted so easily, and then she crashed and burned.

  He kissed her again. She could have stood there in that kitchen and kissed him for hours. Or better yet, grabbed his hand and led him upstairs, where they could lock themselves in her bedroom and do more than just kissing.

  But PawPaw needed his low-fat, nutritious dinner. And the vegetables weren’t going to steam themselves.

  She kissed him once more and said, “Have a beer and let me get this dinner on.”

  He took a cold one from the fridge and set the table for the four of them. “I talked to Elise today,” he said as he set the plates around.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Great, she says. I don’t know if I believe her. She told me that she and Tracy had a long heart-to-heart.” He went to the flatware drawer and counted out the knives and forks and spoons, then carried the silverware to the table and started setting it out at each place. “Tracy said she’s never been happy in the catering business. She wants to go into the master’s program in molecular biology at the University of Washington.”

  “Whoa.” Addie put on her oven mitts and checked the pork roast. Done. Careful not to spill the drippings, she eased the roasting pan onto the top of the stove, shut the oven door and turned it off. “Molecular biology? Tracy? Where’d that come from?”

  “Tracy’s always been something of a science whiz. But she and Elise are pretty much joined at the hip, and have been since they were in diapers. My mother and Tracy’s mother were best friends. Tracy was eleven when her mom and dad died. She moved in with us. She and Elise were constantly together, a unit, closer than twins. Elise leads, Tracy follows.”

  “Not anymore, apparently.”

  “Elise says she wants Tracy to be happy and that she’s fine reopening Bravo Catering on her own.”

  Fine. It was a word Addie had been using way too much lately. I’m fine and it’s all fine, when really it wasn’t. She wasn’t. In reality, she was spinning in circles emotionally, longing to tell James what was in her heart, knowing from hard experience that telling a guy how she felt about him was a bad, bad idea.

  He said, “Elise and Tracy have both found apartments. It’s official—they’re moving out of the condo on the first of May. I don’t really get that, why they had to scramble to get new places. I told them they could have the condo for as long as they wanted.”

  “I know.” She set the mitts on the counter. “You did what you could. But you know how it goes. People do what they feel they have to do.”

  He’d finished setting the table. He picked up his beer, took a sip, set it down at his place and went to her at the stove. “So, how was your day?”

  “Uneventful.” Except that our marriage certificate came and I hid it in the closet with the wedding album you will never see. And then I lied to Carm and told her that everything was just fine.

  Some hint of her uncertainty and heartache must have shown in her face. He frowned down at her. “You okay?”

  She smiled up at him as though she hadn’t a care in the world. “I am fine.”

  His frown disappeared. “You certainly are.” He bent close for another quick kiss, after which she sent him to tell Levi and Lola that dinner would be ready in ten.

  * * *

  Addie was sitting on the front step, her arm around Moose, when James got home from the office the next day. He knew instantly from the haunted look in her amber eyes that something had happened.

  He got out and went to her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Sit with me?”

  He dropped to the step next to her. Moose got up from her other side, went around and plopped down next to him.

  He scratched the dog behind the ears and asked again, “What’s the matter, Addie Anne?”

  She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I got a call from Brandon’s lawyer in Denver a couple of hours ago. He wants me to come to his office on Monday at ten. He wouldn’t tell me what it’s about, just said he’d explain everything then.” A small groan escaped her. “Why is it that bill collectors and lawyer
s and doctors with bad news always get in touch on Friday afternoon to let you know about scary stuff you can do nothing about over the weekend?”

  He smoothed a hand down her hair. “Just consider this...”

  “What?”

  “Could be that it’s good news.”

  “James, he called on Friday afternoon. Didn’t I just explain to you that no good calls come in on Friday afternoon?”

  He hooked his arm around her hip and snugged her up nice and close. She’d been working with her scarecrows. She smelled sweetly of the fabric softener she used on the flour sacks she stuffed to make the scarecrow heads. “I’ll drive you.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath and looked up at him, big eyes soft and grateful. “Would you?”

  “Try to talk me out of it.” He brushed a kiss between her eyebrows.

  “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I mean, how bad can it be? I did kind of worry that maybe there was some problem with the insurance.”

  He remembered that Brandon Hall had set the Kenwrights up with a trust to pay hefty health insurance bills for the next several decades. He shook his head. “If there was an insurance issue, you’d hear either from the insurance company denying a claim or from the hospital letting you know that they haven’t been paid.”

  “I got the first statement. It all looks good—the bills are enormous, but all of PawPaw’s care is being covered, including Lola, who is totally worth the big bucks she’s getting.”

  “So, then, don’t worry. Whatever it is, we’re going to find out on Monday. Maybe Brandon left you something more than the insurance.”

  “No. He left it all to a foundation he established to help kids like he used to be, kids with acute medical conditions growing up in foster care.”

  “Hey.” He wrapped his arm around her neck and used his thumb to tip up her chin. “Do not—” he pressed a kiss on those plump lips “—worry.”