The Forbidden Groom_Texas Titan Romances

by Sarah Gay

  “Am I nothing, Maggie? You can’t tell me you didn’t feel anything when we touched.” He leaned in to her. “When we kissed.”

  “I can forgive you, Cole, but let’s be realistic about this. I thought about moving to Dallas, but after this weekend, I realized I’m not cut out to be an event coordinator. We both know that.”

  “Now you’re lying. Don’t cut yourself short. The events were both a success.” He wanted to ask her how she felt bidding on him, but that would be a conversation for another day.

  “Only because you saved my event,” she countered.

  “I saved your event after I ruined your event. If I hadn’t shown up there, everyone would be raving about your French food right now. And they still will, if you give yourself a chance. Give me a chance, Maggie.”

  “Sorry,” she sighed out her apology as her long, thin fingers wrapped around the steering wheel.

  When they slowed to a stop in front of the hospital, Cole reached his hand to the steering wheel with a desire to run his fingers over hers, but he gave her arm a light squeeze instead and opened the car door. “You have my number if you change your mind.” He jumped out of her sporty jeep with a smile. “Thanks, Margarita.”

  “You’re welcome, Maui.” She blinked her dark eyelashes with a nod. “I wish your father a speedy recovery and you safe travels home.”

  As he sped up the three flights of stairs to the Intensive Care Unit, he smiled at the progress he’d made with Maggie during their three-minute drive. She no longer hated him, in fact, she had laughed and told him she forgave him. He knew winning her heart wouldn’t be easy, but at least he now had a pinch of hope; a hope that, with concerted effort, he’d be able to melt through the many layers of ice to reach her vulnerable and kind heart.

  Cole paced across the slick tile squares of the hospital and into the bright artificial light of the ICU. He ignored the gruff greeting of the hospital staff. They weren’t eager to have another family member in the ICU waiting room, but he ignored their brusque overtones and searched for his father’s room.

  He found his mother at the side of his father’s bed, staring off in the distance in a state of shock. He placed his hand on her shoulder, reaching down to kiss her cheek.

  “Love you, Mom.”

  She woke from her trance with a shiver as she reached up and grasped his hand. “I’m so glad you came to me.” She pulled his hand down and kissed it.

  His mother held his hand into her chest for several minutes as they both stared at his father in silence. His father’s monitoring machines hissed and sputtered like a mistimed game buzzer.

  His mom broke the reverie. “You know,” she said in a hoarse voice, “the last thing he said to me was how proud he was of you, even though you couldn’t make it out for Mother’s Day.” She patted his hand then released it. “I wonder if he knows you’re here now.”

  Cole shook his head. He wanted to believe that his father was proud of him, but why would his father follow up saying he was proud of him with the disparaging comment that he hadn’t come home for Mother’s Day?

  His mother continued to explain to him how the doctors had placed his father in a type of induced hypothermia to protect his brain and vital organs from damage. He would be cooled and sedated for the next twenty-four hours or so while they ran tests and decided the best course of action. The big question on everyone’s mind; why had his heart failed? He ate a healthy diet and exercised on top of his duties on the ranch.

  Cole moved to his father’s side and touched his frigid arm. Although his father’s body had only been cooled by a few degrees, it felt like ice. His mother stood and grabbed another chair from the corner for Cole to sit with her.

  “Thanks, but I didn’t want you to get my chair, Mom.”

  “Nonsense. You will always be my baby, even when you’re an old man.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” He shrugged. “I’ll never be old.”

  His mother sighed out as she looked at Cole’s father. “Pineapple’s friend, Maggie, she was really amazing today. I hope you’ll find someone like that, a strong woman who can save you, save my grandbabies if there’s an emergency.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already chosen for me, Mom,” he ventured, half joking.

  She patted his arm and gave him a challenging smile. “Tell me, has a girl ever refused to go out with you before today?”

  Cole sucked in a breath of surprise. “How did you—”

  “You asked her out in front of the entire family, at least the ones that hadn’t left for hospital from Pineapple’s right away.”

  Cole’s shoulders dropped. “Did they also tell you how Maggie said she doesn’t like me?”

  “Think of it this way, son; less pressure. She’s already seen your selfish, prideful side. Now all you have to do is show her your tender, loving side.”

  That hurt. “Selfish, prideful side, Mom?”

  “We all have a side of us that’s selfish and prideful. We don’t usually allow others to see that side of us until we’ve been dating for a few months, but she’s already seen that very minute side of you, so there’s nowhere to go but up.”

  “And you approve of Maggie?” he questioned with a touch of disbelief.

  “I’ve heard Pineapple talk about how wonderful she is. She brought you back from Dallas to be with us, and she just brought your father back from the dead.” She motioned to Cole’s father on the hospital bed, whistling his slow respirations as his chest rose and fell. “You better be careful,” his mother teased, “or I may start loving her more than you.”

  “What makes you think I came to see her and not you for Mother’s Day?”

  She raised her eyebrows at him, daring him to continue with his lies. “Never underestimate a mother’s intuition. I noticed how you looked at her when you arrived at Pineapple’s just before we pulled out. That’s why I asked you to stay and thank her for saving your father. Did you tell her thank you?”

  Cole leaned back in his seat, crossed his arms, and relived their kiss in his mind. “Yep, I thanked her.” They fell back into the semi-silence of the medical machines.

  The next two days were a blur of CNAs, nurses, doctors, tests, and bad sleep. His father had woken up on the second day and had been in and out of consciousness ever since. Cole had spent the past two nights on a cot next to his father’s bed that was made for a medium-sized dog, not an NFL football player. But he wasn’t complaining, his father had received superior care.

  Cole rubbed the sleep from his eyes and strained to make out the words on his phone’s bright screen. It was the middle of the day, but his mother liked the shades closed and the light off to create an ambiance of rest for her husband.

  His eyes refused to focus, so he gave up on reading the article about his father’s condition, rested his phone in his lap, and closed his eyes. The doctors diagnosed his father with Brugada Syndrome, a condition where the heart’s electrical system was prone to going offline. And if the heart’s electrical system goes offline, the normal rhythm is interrupted, causing seizures, difficulty breathing, or sudden death. The condition, caused by a gene mutation, is often left undiagnosed due to an extremely high mortality rate that is simply explained as heart failure.

  Miraculously, his father’s heart had not been damaged during the episode, but, according to his physicians, another episode could be expected. Before leaving the hospital, his father would go into surgery to have an ICD, implantable cardioverter defibrillator, connected to his heart.

  The light in the room switched on, causing Cole to blink his eyes open and squint. His head ached from the lack of sleep and incessant beeps of the medical monitoring equipment.

  “Cole?” his mother’s voice soothed. “I brought a friend of your father’s to see him.”

  Cole stood and offered his hand to the gentleman dressed in a suit and starchy gray shirt. Cole knew the type. He dealt with those who played wealthy all the time when the Texas Titan owner scheduled the top paid
players to greet the sponsor representatives.

  “Sorry to hear about your father, Cole,” he said, as if Cole’s father had died.

  “Thank you, sir. It’s unfortunate you’ve come while he’s resting. I’m sure he would’ve liked to have said hello.”

  His father sat up, fully awake. “Say hello to who?”

  “Mr. Harrison,” the man said, stepping closer to the hospital bed. “You gave me my first break as a news reporter in Evanston when I covered the mad cow disease scare twenty years back.”

  “I remember,” his father said in his deep, hoarse voice. “Harry Harrison. How could I forget your name? What are you doing now, Harry?”

  “Funny you should ask, because I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?”

  Cole clenched his fists. This guy had come to get information about Cole by way of his father’s heart condition? This guy was low.

  “I own the paper now and thought I’d come in person to see for myself how a man died, yet survived a heart attack that may be hereditary? And how that medical condition may affect his son’s NFL career.”

  “Someone died?” said Cole’s father, fear shaking his voice as he sat up straighter and looked at his wife with concern. “Who died, sweetheart?”

  “You died.” She turned to the reporter. “And obviously this in not the place or time for questions.” She took the reporter’s arm and spoke softly as she escorted him out of the room. “My husband is a middle-aged rancher who eats beef for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He tends to strain his body with the physical obligations of the ranch and overdid it one day which put him in here. Luckily, he’s doing amazing, aside from his temporary short-term memory loss due to the prescription medication.” She patted the reporter on the shoulder, basically pushing him out the door. “So glad to have helped you with your questions.” She shut the door behind him and fell into her seat.

  Cole looked at his mother with amusement. “And I thought I was the only liar in this family.”

  “No one messes with my son and his career,” his mom huffed out.

  With all the drugs in his system, Cole’s father resembled an innocent child lost in a grocery store. “Who’s messing with our son?” his father asked protectively.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Cole’s mother responded with patience as she rubbed her neck. “You won’t remember in another five minutes.”

  “I won’t remember what?” he asked, sending Cole and his mother into a fit of laughter. “Cole, I’m so glad you came for Mother’s Day. Thank you. I love you, son.”

  His father had told him every fifteen minutes for the past three hours how much he loved him. It should have annoyed Cole, but it touched him instead, because every time his father looked him in the eyes and expressed his genuine affection for him, Cole’s love and appreciation for his father grew.

  This proved it: Miracles were real, and he needed one more. He touched his phone. “Call Silver Sanchez.”

  10

  Maggie upped the treadmill to eight miles an hour. Lucky for her, the fire station was equipped with everything she needed to sweat Cole’s face from her mind.

  It had been a quiet day at work, but that meant she had time to think. And considering the only thing she thought about these days was Cole, thinking was dangerous. Good thing Blue wasn’t her fire captain because he’d seen the kiss and the shift change with him yesterday morning had been brutal. The guys knew not to mess with her too much, but the mere knowing look in their eyes brought a heat to her face that she wished she could suppress. The only way she knew how to deal with this strange and unexpected longing for Cole was to run it off on the treadmill and hit the weights hard.

  Maggie’s phone rang through the speakers in her ears. She touched her phone to answer. “Yes?”

  “Maggie. It’s Silver.”

  “Silver. Sorry about not meeting with you before I left town. I needed to get back.”

  “I prefer you to be frank with me, Maggie.”

  Maggie appreciated how Silver called her on it. “I couldn’t face you after I’d messed up both functions.” She pushed the stop button on the treadmill.

  “What are you talking about? Everyone was paired off by the end of the evening at the dating event and we brought in close to twenty thousand dollars for Muscular Dystrophy.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars? How?”

  “For one, turns out the football players who crashed the party that night thought Muscular Dystrophy was a good cause and donated through our online portal the majority of what was brought in. The woman who runs the Dallas Dating site asked me when we could do it again.”

  Maggie coughed at her sudden dry mouth. She took a long sip of the cool water from metal bottle. “I’m speechless.”

  “It gets better. You also drove up the price on Cole’s bid, which meant more money for our veterans.”

  “But you asked me to win that bid, and I didn’t do that.”

  “You’re right. You didn’t. But, in the end, you saved my client money, which brings me to my next offer.”

  “Offer?”

  “We had a guest at the Dallas Dating function who raved about the food that night and how you ran it. He wants you to not only cater a high-profile function at his ranch, but also plan the event down to the floral centerpieces, and by floral centerpieces, I mean edible arrangements or something, this guy has seasonal allergies so no flowers.”

  Maggie knew she shouldn’t even entertain the idea of doing this. She’d already decided not to move to Dallas after her short weekend there, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “When is the function?”

  “In two weeks.”

  Maggie blew out a long breath. “Wait. If they’re asking for the same food, that means they want Mexican food and I don’t know how to cook that.”

  “Got it covered. I’ve already asked my in-laws if you could come help them in their restaurant the week before the event. They love the idea.”

  “Can I give you an answer in a few days?”

  “I’m afraid I need an answer today. This event will also be filmed for a reality TV show, so I need to get someone on this ASAP. And because it’s last minute, the owner of the ranch is paying three times the normal rate. We’re talking thirty thousand dollars for the week, all yours.”

  Maggie grew more excited by the second. She would make in one week what it would normally take her over six months to earn. “And this event will be on TV?”

  “I can guess what you’re thinking, and yes, this could catapult your career into the big leagues. I guess what you need to ask yourself, Maggie, is if this is what you really want to do, where you want to be, and who you want to be with.”

  Did Silver’s comments mean she knew about Cole? “Who I want to be with?”

  “I can’t explain it, but my in-laws fell in love with you. Not just my in-laws, Gracie has been talking about you non-stop. We want you here with us, Maggie.”

  The tones blared through the fire station.

  “Silver, I have to go,” she said, sprinting down the hall, “I’ll have an answer for you tonight. Thank you.”

  Maggie returned to the fire station less than an hour later with down trodden spirits. More times than not, they weren’t able to save someone from cardiac arrest. She sat in meditation, focusing on how she had made a difference by resuscitating Cole’s dad and rescuing that little girl. Thoughts of the young girl bouncing around in her floral dress on a sunny Mother’s Day would be a happy memory to warm Maggie’s soul forever. She could leave firefighting knowing that she had accomplished something significant.

  She plopped down on her bed and flipped her phone in her hands as it turned on. When it was ready, she shot off a text to Silver. “I’ll do it.”

  Maggie stepped out of the airport and into the sauna. Dallas had warmed considerably since she’d been here a few weeks ago. She had asked for heat and holy cow did she get it. She needed to be more specific in what she asked for.

  After
dropping her luggage off at her hotel, she went straight to Los Tios restaurant. At two o’clock in the afternoon, Los Tios only had a few patrons.

  “You must be Maggie,” a stout young man with a similar look to Ace said as he approached her. “I’m Alex. Come on back.”

  Alex led her through the bright red and yellow adobe style restaurant to the cluttered kitchen with clean pans and serving platters piled high on nearly every surface. Ace’s mom, Fabiana, let out an excited cry when her eyes met Maggie’s, causing Maggie to jump.

  “Margarita! I’m so glad you’re back.” Fabiana gave Maggie a hug and kiss on her cheek.

  Surprisingly, Maggie warmed at how Fabiana said her name with a slight roll of her r’s.

  “Thanks for allowing me to come learn from you.”

  Fabiana shook her finger. “Not me.” She motioned to her sister and brother-in-law. “You remember Veronica and Jorge?”

  They tipped their heads and smiled their greeting as they passed ingredients back and forth to each other.

  “Yes,” Maggie responded. “It’s nice to see you again. I hope I can be of some assistance as I learn.”

  Fabiana clapped her hands. “I have complete faith in you. That’s why I’ve decided to spend the afternoons with Gracie and let you work here with Veronica and Jorge. I saw the menu that you’ll be serving at la finca, and we make those dishes every day. In three days you’ll know everything you need to know. But first, you must try Veronica’s special tamales.”

  “Oh, I’m not hungry.”

  Fabiana raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms.

  Maggie repented. “But I would love to try one.”

  Fabiana smiled as she grabbed a tamale wrapped in caramel colored corn husks from a large stock pot and bounced it in her hand as if it were a hot potato straight from the oven. She placed it on a white ceramic plate and handed it to Maggie.

  “Now?” Maggie coughed out.

  Maggie had been starving after her flight and stopped to grab a bite of fast food on her way to Los Tios. She already felt a bit bloated from the salt and grease of the French fries. Now there was an original French food that Americans savored—although the Belgians claimed it as their own culinary invention. Maggie shook her head. She had to strike French food from her mind and focus on Mexican cuisine, at least for the next two weeks.