A Rancher’s Surrender
Page 26
He got to Jillian’s side at the same time as Steven. Silver eased out of the way. Wade took Jillian’s hand, felt as though he could walk on water when she looked at him, her eyes brimming with love.
“Miss Matthews.”
“Mr. Garvey.”
“My wife tells me what you did for Jacob today.” He drew an uneven breath. “Thank you. Thank you for protecting my boy.”
“He’s worth protecting. I like Jacob very much. You’re both very lucky to have such a wonderful son.”
Clearly overtaken by emotion, Steven nodded. His clothes were sooty, as though he’d been closer to the fire than he should have been. But then Wade knew if his ranch were going up in flames, he’d try everything he could to save it.
“Well, I just wanted to give my thanks,” he finally managed.
His wife dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. He put an arm around her shoulders and turned to leave.
“Mr. Garvey? I’m sorry for your feed mill. If I—”
He held up a hand. “I had a bone to pick with what you did and was more than happy to get anybody I could on my side. I never meant you physical harm, Miss Matthews, and I’m ashamed you were hurt because I encouraged a man like Harvey Black.”
“Harvey Black was evil. I understand that what he did, he did of his own accord. I don’t hold you accountable.”
Wade hadn’t noticed until then that they’d gathered a following. The sudden silence should have given it away. They all watched to see what Steven would do next.
“Then you’re a bigger person than I am, Miss Matthews.” He held out his hand. “Marietta is lucky to have you.”
Epilogue
“I hate the waiting,” Wade said from his post at the kitchen window. He had both hands braced on the countertop as he stared through the window to the barn across the yard. His guts were in knots. He rubbed the tight muscles; his gaze fixed on the open barn door, the golden light that spilled from it and the two people sitting just outside its entrance.
James came to Wade’s side, peered out the window. “Jillian and Scott haven’t moved. Hope mustn’t be foaling yet.”
Wade closed his eyes, prayed this would be over soon. And he prayed that by the end of it they’d have a filly. A filly between Hope and Whiskey would be a good solid step in starting his and Scott’s horse breeding program.
It had taken a while to get to this point. When he’d first mentioned to Jillian the possibility of breeding Hope to Whiskey, he’d thought they’d wait until late spring to breed her. With gestation being almost a year, a spring foal would be bigger and stronger and more prepared for a harsh Montana winter than one born late summer. But once he’d voiced his idea, Jillian had leapt on it. They had a brand new barn; the foal would be sheltered from the worst of it.
Then, with an impish smile, she’d reminded him he would be marrying a vet who’d be around to closely monitor things. Of course she’d also told Scott who’d told James and Eileen and even Annabelle and soon everyone was excited and encouraging him to take the leap of faith.
And so, in the midst of planning their own wedding, considering Scott’s offer to partner in the ranch and preparing to move his mother and James into Jillian’s house, he’d given in. And he’d been thrilled when Jillian confirmed Hope was pregnant.
Since then they’d had their own fall wedding and he’d never felt so complete as he had when James had placed Jillian’s hand in his. The one dark shadow had been that Jillian’s mother’s already frail health had taken a turn for the worst and neither she nor her sister Katie had been able to make the journey west.
But Jillian hadn’t let it get her down and, truthfully, she hadn’t had time to wallow in the fact that she had none of her own family at her wedding. With most of the town having witnessed her sacrifice to save Jacob, she’d had enough work to keep her busy.
And he’d had time to do some thinking.
Knowing it wasn’t only a two-man partnership he was considering, he’d sought Jillian’s opinion. Like she had with Hope, she’d encouraged him to accept Scott’s offer right away but in that Wade had held firm. Until they climbed out of debt, at least some, he wasn’t bringing Scott into it. He’d felt bad enough bringing Jillian into it.
And again, she’d grinned at him, reminded him that with the town’s acceptance of her, with her work, there would be more money coming into the ranch. And so, surely but slowly, they had climbed their way up. They weren’t in the clear, but he was no longer drowning in debt. It had taken almost a year but he’d finally accepted Scott’s offer and the three of them were legally partners in the Triple P ranch. When Wade had offered to change the name of the ranch to include Scott he’d refused.
Wade pressed his hand against his stomach. God, he hoped Scott didn’t come to regret everything he’d done to help Wade.
“Why don’t you come play cards with us,” James said of the game he and his ma were playing with Annabelle. “Jillian will let us know when the foal is here.”
“I can’t.” He drew a deep breath as Jillian took her turn into the barn. She’d been going in every twenty minutes and from his position he could see her stop well away from the stall. She got in close enough to see her horse, make sure the mare didn’t need her, and backed away quietly.
Pride filled him as she crept back outside, waved to him that all was right. She’d been keeping an eye on Hope these last few weeks, as it was the mare’s first foal. She’d kept her close, tended to her like a mother over a child, ensuring she had the best food, the best care. She’d been the first to notice that Hope seemed uncomfortable, that she kept getting up and down, that she wasn’t interested in her food. They’d moved her into the barn right away and she and Scott had taken their posts outside the door ever since.
James clapped Wade on the shoulder. “Hope’s in good hands.”
“I know. It’s just”—he shook his head—“so much is riding on this foal.”
“It’ll be fine. Besides, if there’s a problem, you won’t have to wait for the vet to get here like last time.”
Wade turned, met James’s smile with one of his own. “That was some night.”
“Yeah, you got a wife because of that night, and Eileen and I got a house.”
“James, it’s your turn,” his ma said.
As James went to take his turn, his ma took her place at her son’s side.
“How’re they doing?”
“Nothing’s changed. This waiting is going to kill me.”
She chuckled, kissed his cheek. “Reminds me of when Annabelle was born. You were the same then, too. As I imagine you’ll be when you and Jillian decide to give me another grandchild.”
Wade smiled. He’d been considering doing exactly that. He looked at Annabelle, her dark hair so much like her mother’s. He hoped his next child would also be blessed to have its mother’s coloring.
He kissed his ma’s cheek. “We’ll just have to see about that.”
“In the meantime,” she said, smiling as she looked out the window, “looks like I’ll have to be happy with a foal.”
Wade’s head spun round. Scott was waving from the barn. Wade rushed for the door as the sound of chairs scraping the floor rang behind him. They were a crazy group racing across the yard.
“Slow down, for God’s sake, you don’t want to scare them to death,” Scott admonished, though his eyes glowed as bright as the lanterns.
With Scott leading the way, they crept into the barn. Hope was still down. Jillian was rubbing her hand over the foal’s nose, but the sac had broken clean and the foal appeared to be fine.
“Congratulations,” she said looking at him, then Scott, “you have yourselves your first filly.”
Wade’s eyes drank in the sight of the filly and damn if Scott hadn’t been right. She was a beauty, exactly what their horse ranch needed.
Wade shifted his gaze to his wife. Jillian sat beside her horse, praising Hope for a job well done. Her face shone with happiness. Her eyes filled
with love.
At times like these he couldn’t believe he’d been foolish enough to think she shouldn’t be a doctor. Not when he only had to look at her to see she was doing exactly what she was meant to be doing.
She turned her face to his, held out her hand to him.
Heart full, he took her hand, knelt at her side, knowing to the depths of his soul they were both exactly where they were meant to be.
The End
If you enjoyed A Rancher’s Surrender, you’ll love the next books in…
The Frontier Montana series
Book 1: A Ranchers’ Surrender
Book 2: A Cowboy’s Temptation
Book 3: A Sheriff’s Passion
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Read more by Michelle Beattie
The Sam Steele series
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About the Author
Award-winning author Michelle Beattie began writing in 1995, almost immediately after returning from her honeymoon. It took 12 long years but she achieved her dream of seeing her name on the cover of a book when she sold her novel, What A Pirate Desires, in 2007. Since then she’s written and published several more historical novels as well a contemporary. Her pirate books have sold in several languages, been reviewed in Publisher’s Weekly and Romantic Times. Two of her independent self-published works went on to win the Reader’s Choice Silken Sands Self-Published Star Contest.
When Michelle isn’t writing she enjoys playing golf, reading, walking her dog, travelling and sitting outside enjoying the peace of country life. Michelle comes from a large family and treasures her brothers and sister as well as the dozens of aunts, uncles and cousins she’s proud to call family. She lives outside a tiny town in east-central Alberta, Canada with her husband, two teenage daughters and their dog, Ty.
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