“Everything’s okay, Jace,” Asher was telling his son. “Uncle Wyatt’s just a little...frustrated.”
Wyatt sank down onto the closest couch and dropped his head between his fists. Frustration would have been easy compared to...this.
“Do you need a hug?” Jace asked in a small voice.
Wyatt’s throat burned. “Yeah. Sure.” Any port in a storm, even when it came in the form of his little nephew. He opened his arms and Jace darted in for a quick hug, over and done with far too quickly for Wyatt’s needs.
He watched the boy scurry back to his coloring. “Ash, do you remember the last time you ever hugged Dad?”
His brother considered it. Shook his head. “Can’t say I do.”
“I do,” Wyatt murmured. “He gave me a hug when he promoted me to VP.” The memory was as clear as if it had been yesterday. “Why’d he bring us up to run JMF and then just give it away?”
Asher threw himself down on the couch opposite him. “That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
“Do you think he’s got a good reason?”
Asher studied him. “I’ve always thought he has a reason. Whether or not it measures up to your standard of ‘good’ is another matter.”
It was pretty much the same thing that Sarah-Jane had said. “How do you make a woman love you, Ash?”
His brother’s lips stretched into a humorless smile. “I’m not sure you can. And even if she does love you, unless you figure out how to give her what she needs, it’s not always enough.”
Sarah-Jane had told him, time and time again, what she’d needed. He’d just been too stupid stubborn to listen, thinking that anything to do with Atlanta was only about him.
He pulled out his phone, peered at it for a moment, thinking, then dialed.
“Who you calling?”
“Tanner Redmond.” Their cousin, Jordana, was married to him. “I can’t think of a faster way to get to Atlanta than hiring one of his charter jets.”
* * *
“Go.” Maria swiped her hands in the air as if she were trying to sweep Sarah-Jane right out of the office. “You’re spending too much time inside, niña. We won’t go out of business if you don’t print those orders right this minute. Go out and get yourself some sun. Sit in the park.”
Sarah-Jane didn’t want the park. Didn’t want the sun. She wanted to bury her head in the sand and forget that she’d ever fallen for Wyatt. That he’d offered her everything and she’d tossed it in his face. She wasn’t plain Sarah-Jane. She was just plain stupid Sarah-Jane.
“Wyatt proposed to me yesterday, Maria.” She blurted out the words that she hadn’t even been able to share with Felicity.
Maria’s eyebrows skyrocketed. She clasped her hands together over her heart. “Then why do you look so miserable?”
Because she was. “I turned him down.”
Maria muttered a chanting “ay ay ay,” as she pulled up the other chair and sat down. She folded her hands gently around Sarah-Jane’s. “Do you love him?”
Sarah-Jane nodded.
“Then it will work out, niña.”
“Wyatt doesn’t forgive mistakes easily, Maria.”
“Ah.” She dismissed that with a shake of her head. “He’s a man. Sometimes they don’t learn as quickly as we women.” She squeezed Sarah-Jane’s hands. Where they weren’t callused from knitting needles, they were soft. “I’ve been married to my Jose a very long time. Believe me. I know.”
“You and Jose are perfect for each other.”
“We are,” Maria agreed. “But there have been many days when we most certainly don’t feel like remembering that.” Her eyes sparkled. “And then we do. And we go on. You always go on for someone you love. Even when you may, momentarily, want to strangle them.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Why do you think I learned to knit so long ago? I could pretend I was jabbing him with the needle and not the yarn.” She sat up again, nodding with satisfaction when Sarah-Jane smiled. “There. That’s the smile I know.”
Sarah-Jane didn’t believe Maria’s story about the knitting needles, but she didn’t have to. “Oh, Maria.” She exhaled. “I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t met you. I love you.”
Maria smiled. Patted her cheek. “And I love you, too, niña.” Then she hopped up from her chair, much too spry to be the age she really was. “But go.” She shooed her again with her hands. “Sit in the park. You’ll feel better after some fresh air and sun.”
So Sarah-Jane went. She didn’t have a lunch with her because she hadn’t felt like packing one. Hadn’t felt like eating. She stopped at a drugstore along the way and bought a bottled water and a snack-size package of sunflower seeds in the shells. The birds, she knew, always felt like eating.
She crossed the street and entered the park. She told herself to pick a different bench. To sit by the lake. The birds ate sunflower seeds there just as well. Or by the playground equipment. She even headed that way, but as soon as she heard the giddy, childish screams of the little ones playing there, she thought of Wyatt’s expression the day before. You want children?
She’d almost told him that she wanted his children.
She aimed away from the playground equipment.
Headed for her usual bench.
Silly to think that she’d be able to stay away. Like driving by a car accident and thinking that you won’t even take a single, morbid glance. If the same old man with the cane was there, she’d sit there with him. Offer him a few seeds to throw at the birds. It would be better than shaking his cane at them, at least.
The bench was occupied.
But not by the old man.
The soles of her tennis shoes dragged, slowed against the path. Her chest went tight.
This man was young. And stubborn. With dark gold hair that fell across his forehead and brilliant blue eyes that could see right to the heart of her.
“Wyatt.”
He’d stood the second she spotted him, and he flicked his hand at the bench. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”
Her eyes burned. “Did Maria know you were here?”
The quick tug of his eyebrows over his nose told her he didn’t know what she was talking about. “No. Why?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.” She just sometimes had to wonder if Maria had acquired a magician’s skills at some point in her life.
“Will you sit down?”
It was so clear on his face that he wasn’t certain that she would. And it was unnerving to see him unnerved.
She moved to the bench on wobbly knees and sat. Propped the water bottle on the wood beside her and tore open the bag of seeds, taking care that her shaking fingers didn’t make a mess of it. She pinched some seeds out of the opening and tossed them off to the side. A half dozen birds swooped.
They, at least, were comfortingly predictable.
“Why are you here, Wyatt?”
He didn’t sit down beside her. Just stood there with his hands fisted in the pockets of his faded blue jeans, the soft brown Henley shirt he wore straining across his bunched shoulders. “I brought you lunch.” He nodded toward the neatly folded brown paper sack that was next to her water bottle.
“I’m not really hungry,” she murmured. “But thank you for the thought.”
He looked oddly frustrated. But then he glanced away and she decided she must have imagined it. “How’s Felicity?”
She rolled a seed back and forth between her fingers. “She’s fine. Why?”
“Just asking,” he murmured. Then he pulled one of his hands free and raked it through his hair. “And...you? Are you okay?”
She was dying inside. “Just peachy.” She flipped the seed into the grass and pinched out a few more.
“You were right,” he said abruptly.
Not from any angle that she could discern. From the moment she’d lied about her own name to him until she’d stood out on that beautiful piece of land with him, she’d done
everything all wrong.
“When we first met,” he continued doggedly when she remained silent, “you were a perfect distraction from everything I didn’t want to think about.”
She stared blindly at the cheerful red bag in her hands. She’d known it. But hearing him admit it was like having her skin peeled back.
“It took me a while to face the fact that the reason you were such an effective distraction was because I’d fallen in love with you.”
Her fingers tightened and seeds squeezed out the top of the bag. She looked at up him. “I fell in love with you, too, Wyatt,” she whispered. How easily she’d fallen.
He suddenly sat on the bench next to her, angled so he was facing her.
A few more seeds squeezed out. She absently brushed all of them off her jeans onto the grass.
“I meant what I said, Sarah-Jane. I want to marry you.” That muscle in his jaw worked a few times. “I want to have children with you. Grandchildren.”
Her mouth went dry. She didn’t bother reaching for the water bottle. The only thing that would quench this particular thirst was him.
She went still when his hand moved, thinking that he was going to reach for her, but all he did was pick up the brown-bag lunch he’d brought. Then he set it down again to rub his hand down his thigh. His eyes bored into hers. “I can give you as much time as you need to make up your mind whether you’re willing to take me on, as long as I know you’re going to be with me. Reminding me every time I forget to look for all the shades that exist between black and white. Reminding me that it’s not just the end result that matters, but the journey in between.”
She inhaled and her breath felt jagged.
“I know,” he murmured. “Strange hearing that from me.”
“Everything’s feeling a little strange.”
That muscle worked again. “Strange bad or strange good?”
She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Good.”
He closed his eyes and exhaled. When he opened them again, she realized with shock that they were damp. “Knowing you as I do, however—” his voice was husky “—I know that just saying something doesn’t necessarily convince you of it. You seem to generally need...proof. Proof I’ve definitely been more than willing to provide.”
Her body flushed.
“So,” he continued slowly, softly, “it dawned on me that if I gave you proof that I mean what I say about our future, maybe you’d let me rewind the last few weeks of mistakes I’ve made, and give me a fresh start. This is new for me. But I promise you I’ll improve. And I’ll never leave you again.”
She’d give him anything as long as he didn’t stop loving her. “Wyatt—”
He lifted the brown bag again. “Will you have lunch with me, Sarah-Jane?”
She let out a choked laugh. Blinked at the tears blinding her and took the bag. She opened it, pulled out the paper-wrapped sandwich. As soon as she unwrapped it, another choking laugh caught in her throat. “Peanut butter and jelly.”
“If you’re going to indulge, do it right,” he murmured.
She pressed her hand to her lips, not really caring that tears were sliding down her face and her nose had turned all stuffy and was probably red to boot. “I shouldn’t have told you no yesterday, Wyatt. I—”
“You told me exactly what we both needed.” He pushed off the bench and stood in front of her. He shoved his fists back into his pockets and rocked back and forth on the heels of his battered cowboy boots a few times.
It was wholly bemusing to see him so nervous. “I flew to Atlanta yesterday afternoon,” he finally said.
Her lips parted. The proof, she realized. The proof he’d said she wanted. “You saw your father?”
“In the flesh.” His jaw flexed. “First time in over a month.” He exhaled. Paced a few steps one direction, then the other. “He looked like hell. And he still didn’t offer any explanation about what he’s done. But we talked.”
“Was there anything left to talk about?”
“Plenty, as it happens.” He stopped once more, right in front of her. “Red Rock, for one. He knows I’m not going back to Atlanta. But now he knows my not going back isn’t for the same reason it once was.” He suddenly gestured toward the paper bag. “There’s more in there.”
She hadn’t taken a single bite of the sandwich. The last thing she cared about was food, when every word out of his mouth was making hope take wing inside her. But to satisfy him, she reached back into the bag, felt the square at the bottom, and pulled it out. Only when his gaze flicked away from hers toward her hand did she glance down.
It was a silk-covered ring box.
And her eyes suddenly swam all over again.
Wyatt went down on one knee, scattering the birds that had decided to avail themselves of the sunflower seeds spilling out of her forgotten bag, and took the box from her. He opened it up and pulled out a diamond ring that flashed white fire in the sun. “It wasn’t very long ago that I told my brothers that I’d never be interested in doing the bended knee thing.”
His voice turned gruff and when he took her hand, he was no more steady than she. “And then I danced with you on a bridge in San Antonio. And I sat on this park bench and watched you feed your birds. And the only thing I’m finding myself interested in is kneeling here with you until you promise to give me another chance. The reason why I want to make Red Rock my home is because it is your home. I want to give you everything, Sarah-Jane, because you are everything I need. Will you be my wife?”
She exhaled shakily. Her heart hadn’t turned to shards. How could it when it was overflowing? “I don’t want you kneeling at my feet like the prince in some fairy-tale fantasy,” she said huskily. She leaned toward him, laying her hand along the muscle working in his jaw. “Real life is so much better and I want you beside me. Whether we’re making love or whether we’re arguing. I want you beside me when we’re laughing,” she brushed her thumb over the single, damp trail at the corner of his beautiful, beautiful blue eyes, “or we’re crying. I want to have your babies. And spoil your grandchildren. I want everything, Wyatt. And I want it only with you.” She stood, tugging on him to stand as well, and the peanut butter sandwich fell to the ground. The rest of the sunflower seeds scattered.
Birds flocked down around them, filling the air with the sounds of their frenzied excitement.
“We’re going to have to put a few bird feeders outside our bedroom window, aren’t we?” he murmured.
She smiled slowly and reached up to press her lips against his. “Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll be your wife.”
He covered her lips with his. Then he threw his head back and laughed, and lifted her around the waist and swung her in a circle, causing the birds to take wing as one.
“And, yes,” she laughed with him, loving him so much she was flying higher than any bird ever could. And he was right there with her. Where he always would be. “We are going to need several bird feeders.”
* * * *
Don’t miss the next chapter
in the new Special Edition continuity
THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: SOUTHERN INVASION
Single-minded Michael Fortune comes to Red Rock to talk sense into his crazy cousins—and avoid an irreparable family feud. Romance was not in his plans...until he falls for innocent businesswoman Felicity Thomas! Could an affair with this polar opposite keep this Fortune in Texas—for keeps?
Look for A DATE WITH FORTUNE
by Susan Crosby
On sale February 2013,
wherever Harlequin Books are sold.
* * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of A Cold Creek Noel by RaeAnne Thayne!
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Chapter One
“Come on, Luke. Come on, buddy. Hang in there.”
Her wipers beat back the sleet and snow as Caidy Bowman drove through the streets of Pine Gulch, Idaho, on a stormy December afternoon. Only a few inches had fallen but the roads were still dangerous, slick as spit. For only a moment, she risked lifting one hand off the steering wheel of her truck and patting the furry shape whimpering on the seat beside her.
“We’re almost there. We’ll get you fixed up, I swear it. Just hang on, bud. A few more minutes. That’s all.”
The young border collie looked at her with a trust she didn’t deserve in his black eyes and she frowned, her guilt as bitter and salty as the solution the snowplows had put down on the roads.
Luke’s injuries were her fault. She should have been watching him. She knew the half-grown pup had a curious streak a mile wide—and a tendency not to listen to her when he had an itch to investigate something.
She was working on that obedience issue and they had made good strides the past few weeks, but one moment of inattention could be disastrous, as the past hour had amply demonstrated. She didn’t know if it was arrogance on her part, thinking her training of him was enough, or just irresponsibility. Either way, she should have kept him far away from Festus’s pen. The bull was ornery as a rattlesnake on a hot skillet and didn’t take kindly to curious young border collies nosing around his turf.
Alerted by Luke’s barking and then the bull’s angry snort, she had raced to old Festus’s pen just in time to watch Luke jig the wrong way and the bull stomp down hard on his haunches with a sickening crunch of bone.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she cursed under her breath as the last light before the vet’s office turned yellow when she was still too far away to gun through it. She was almost tempted to keep going. Even if she were nabbed for running a red light by Pine Gulch’s finest, she could probably talk her way out of a ticket, considering her brother was the police chief and would certainly understand this was an emergency. If she were pulled over, though, it would mean an inevitable delay and she just didn’t have time for that.
Her New Year's Fortune Page 20
