She strode over with her tablet, x-ing out the screen that held the recipe she had been following. “Marco Maletti hit the jackpot with these.”
Too late, Wyatt recalled that the photographer had been hired by Hope to keep taking photos during the Laramie Chili Festival to feed to the press. There were pictures of him and Adelaide together, early in the morning, before she’d seen her dad, looking happy and completely wrapped up with each other. More with them both working the festival, in the go-fishing-game booth and the cutting-horse demonstration. Photos of him, with the twins in the kangaroo carrier, taking in the sights. And shots of Adelaide being unexpectedly waylaid in the parking lot of the fairgrounds. Her expression stricken, then happy. Heartbroken. Tense. Worried. Sober. And, as she finally walked away from Paul Smythe, completely devastated.
Clearly she’d been through hell yesterday.
And what had he done?
Added to her misery.
He swore quietly.
“I can see you think you failed Adelaide,” Lucille said gently.
Why sugarcoat the situation? Aware this was just another “test” he had bombed, Wyatt shook his head. “I did.” And his screwup had nothing to do with his learning disabilities. It had to do with his heart.
No wonder Adelaide had run from him.
What was amazing was that she had ever stayed.
“You can still fix this,” his mother said quietly.
Could he?
The larger question—was it fair of him to even try?
All this time he had thought it was Adelaide’s issues keeping them apart. Now he saw it was his.
His cynicism.
His refusal to trust.
Never mind his unwillingness to understand, empathize...and forgive.
Shoulders slumping, he sat on the sofa and buried his head in his hands.
His mother put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “The point is we all make mistakes, son. You bungled it with Adelaide. Your father and I messed up with you. At the time, of course, your father and I both thought we were doing what was right for you, covering up the dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia. Shadowing you to make sure you didn’t make any public mistakes that would have caused you further embarrassment. But now I wonder if maybe he and I were covering up our own inadequacies, rather than what we perceived as your deficiencies.”
Aware he wasn’t the only one recently who had been driven to do some soul-searching, Wyatt listened.
“You see, your dad and I had to really struggle to leave our meager beginnings behind and achieve social and financial success. We didn’t want any of you children to have to fight that hard,” Lucille continued pensively.
“You wanted to protect us, and do everything you could for us because we were your kids. I get that, Mom. Now more than ever because of the twins.”
She nodded, accepting the partial reprieve. “But back then, I worried too much about what other people thought about us,” she admitted, voice quavering. “And not enough about what I felt and knew to be true deep in my heart, which is that academic success is only a small part of a person’s worth.” She paused to look into his eyes. “Courage and grit and determination and kindness and compassion are worth a whole hell of a lot more.”
A surge of emotion rose within him. “I’m glad you feel that way,” Wyatt said gruffly.
Tears blurred his mother’s eyes.
The affection she felt for him deepened her voice. “I loved you all equally. And I still do.” She hugged him fiercely, then drew back to look into his face. Even more sober now. “And if I failed to communicate that, if you feel I somehow loved you less or was any less proud of you—” her voice broke and tears flowed freely down her cheeks “—then I apologize to you with every fiber of my being.” She grasped his shoulders, making sure she had his full attention.
With an unsteady breath, she said, “Don’t make my mistake, Wyatt. Don’t let fear of being hurt drive your actions.” She paused to look into his eyes. “And most important of all, don’t fail to communicate what you really feel, deep in your heart.”
* * *
THANKS TO THE offer from Lucille and Sage to babysit the twins while he cleared his head and figured out the best way to remedy the mess he and Adelaide were in, Wyatt spent the next several hours working with his horses. Decision made, he returned to the Wind River ranch house. And discovered the first glitch in his plan.
He stared at his mom. “Adelaide wants me to meet her in town?” He’d thought she was coming back to the ranch after her errands.
Lucille looked at his disheveled state. “At her home.”
Aware he hadn’t had time to shave and shower yet—and he needed to do both before seeing his wife—he shrugged out of his jacket. Okay, this wasn’t necessarily a bad sign, he told himself. “Am I supposed to bring the twins?”
“No. But don’t worry. Sage and I can continue to babysit this evening.”
“Anything to help you set things right,” Sage said, starry-eyed as ever, looking as emotional as he felt.
Wyatt felt a catch in his throat. What did his suddenly deeply concerned mother and sister know that he didn’t? “Did she say why she wants me there?”
Reluctantly, Lucille admitted, “She wants to talk about how things are going to work with you-all going forward. She thought it would be better to get that ironed out sooner rather than later.”
Damn.
He’d thought—hoped—he would have a little more time before Adelaide went into full dissolution mode and made their relationship officially a thing of the past.
Apparently not.
Which meant he was going to have to do what he loathed most. Admit he was in over his head and ask for help.
He looked at his mother and sister. Aware they had always stood nearby, ready to assist.
Resolved to prove his learning deficiencies didn’t make him any less capable than the rest of his sibs, he’d rarely let them.
It looked like that, too, was about to change.
* * *
ADELAIDE WALKED BACK and forth, a bundle of nerves.
Where was he?
Had Wyatt changed his mind about meeting with her tonight?
What could be keeping him?
A peek outside showed a cold rain beginning to fall.
It wasn’t supposed to last long.
But it added an aura of gloom to the already risky evening.
What if she’d made a mistake? Like Wyatt, assumed too much? What if he didn’t want what she wanted after all?
Headlights swept the front of her house. An engine cut. A door opened, then finally slammed. Footsteps moved across her porch and moments later the doorbell rang.
Heart in her throat, tears pricking behind her eyes, Adelaide smoothed her skirt and headed for the door. Jerking in a breath, she swung it open.
Wyatt stood on her porch. In tweed sport coat, pale blue shirt, pressed jeans, and boots, a black Resistol slanted low across his brow, he looked both solemn and hopeful. And ruggedly handsome as all get-out.
His gaze took in her upswept hair, figure-hugging red knit dress, and heels. She’d worried the care she had taken getting ready might be too much. Apparently it wasn’t.
“You look...amazing...” he said huskily, gazing at her in a way no one ever had before, with breath-stealing tenderness.
A surge of warmth went through her as her eyes tracked his. “So do you.”
He handed her a bouquet of red roses and a heart-shaped satin box of chocolate candy. “These are for you.” His rough-hewn voice was tinged with apology and another more sober emotion she couldn’t identify. “A belated Valentine’s Day.”
Regret poured through her as she thought about how she had pushed him away the evening before, when he�
�d been trying to celebrate their anniversary. “Thank you.” Adelaide swallowed around the sudden dryness of her throat. “I have something for you, too.” Opening the door wider, she ushered him inside. She’d lit a fire in the hearth and set the table for two. A big envelope sat on the entry table. She handed it to him, her heart thudding uncertainly in her chest. “This came for us this afternoon.”
It had seemed like a sign. She hoped he would consider it one, too. She set the flowers and candy on the entry table while he removed the papers inside. His eyes filled just the way hers had when he laid eyes on the document. “The twins’ official birth certificates.”
“You’re now legally their dad.”
A flicker of happiness crossed his face before his expression grew solemn once again. “Thank you for showing this to me.”
Deliberately, she kept her eyes locked with his. “Thank you for impregnating me.”
He chuckled. “Adelaide...”
She lifted a palm. Now that the mood had lightened slightly, she was determined to get this out before either of them screwed up any more. Taking a deep breath, she began, “We’ve never really talked about what went wrong after our night in Aspen. And we need to, Wyatt.”
He looked wary again. “I’m listening.”
She moved closer. “I always regretted not giving us a chance to see if things could have worked when we eloped. So when we met up again in Aspen that night and the sparks lit, I decided to just go with it. And make love. I knew I should have told you that I already had plans to have a baby, and indeed was convinced I was already pregnant. But I didn’t think you’d understand, and I didn’t want to miss the chance to be with you.”
Adelaide watched the regret come into his eyes and rushed on, “I just figured it was a one-night stand. A kind of ‘what if’ for us. But when you seemed to want more than that, I got even more scared. It hurt so much when we split up the first time, I didn’t think I could bear to go through that again, so...” Pain lancing her heart, she continued, “I left you first.”
“And I let you.”
“That was the right thing to do then.” She sucked in a breath, determined to own up to every one of the many mistakes she had made, then suffer the fallout. “I was still in victim mode, still blaming you for everything that had gone wrong between us. Still telling myself that you and I would never have anything long-term because you were never going to be able to forgive me for my past, present and future mistakes. But I’ve realized something, Wyatt.” Her lower lip trembled as she revealed her biggest vulnerability of all. “It’s never been you I needed forgiveness from,” she whispered. “It’s myself. I’m the one who wouldn’t let the past go. Even when I saw you were willing to. I’m the one who couldn’t trust.
“But I can’t do that anymore, Wyatt. I can’t punish myself with fear, or keep the barriers up around my heart. I’m going to accept the mistakes I’ve made, and there have been a lot, and forgive myself, because only then will I be able to go on and make things right.”
Leaning toward her, Wyatt gathered her in his arms and held her close. As she gazed up at him, she saw something she hadn’t expected—understanding.
“You’re not the only one who’s done some soul-searching.” He stroked his thumb across her cheek. Eyes darkening, he confessed, “I was angry when I found out your father had been back in touch and you hadn’t told me. But it wasn’t really your participation in the law-enforcement sting that upset me. Or what your father had done.”
She gripped the solid warmth of his biceps, listening intently.
“I’ve been ticked off because you turned away from me twice when I thought we had it all. In Vegas, and then again in Aspen. This whole time, I’ve been afraid to let us get too close because I was scared if I did that you’d leave me again.”
How well she understood that.
“So this time,” his said, lips thinning ruefully, “I took a page from your playbook, and when I found out you’d been shutting me out, I turned away first. Not because I couldn’t forgive you for everything that had happened in the past, because in truth I had done that long ago. I just wouldn’t admit it. Not to you, not to anyone.”
Adelaide understood that, too.
They’d both feared being vulnerable.
It had been easier to simply stay at war with each other.
He searched her face. “And it wasn’t because I didn’t understand the situation you were in. Or accept that you were doing what you should have done—cooperate with law enforcement and follow their directions to the max. It was because I was scared, now that things had gotten complicated again, that you were going to walk out on me. Again.”
“I’m not going to do that, Wyatt. Ever. I’m going to do what all those long-married couples do, and trust that I love you now as much as I always have, and always will, and show up every day with the kind of love and trust and commitment you and I should have had all along.”
“Darlin’.” His tone left no doubt about what he wanted. He lifted her face to his. Slanting his lips over hers, he kissed her tenderly until she kissed him back just as sweetly. “I love you, too. And I’m as all in now as you are,” he promised gruffly.
He grinned at the tears of happiness slipping down her face, then gently brushed them away. “I want us to have that forever and ever we—and our kids—deserve. Which is why I’m going to do what I was planning to do last night. And—” he got down on one knee, removed a box from his pocket “—propose.” His voice caught, moisture suddenly glittering in his eyes, matching hers.
“Marry me, Adelaide,” he urged huskily. “This time, for all the right reasons.”
A sob catching in her throat, Adelaide pulled him to his feet and took him joyfully into her arms. “Yes, Wyatt. I will!”
Epilogue
Two weeks later
“Your mother wasn’t kidding when she said she was going to spare no expense with her Welcome to the Family party for us,” Adelaide said as Wyatt turned their pickup truck into the lane that led to the Circle H Ranch.
Several hundred vehicles lined both sides of the long tree-lined drive. Cowboys were doubling as valets. On the grounds between the newly renovated ranch house and bunkhouse, a dance floor and bandstand had been put up. Tables and chairs were quickly filling with the denim-clad guests.
Wyatt parked in the spot close to the house that had been reserved for them.
“How do you think Lucille’s going to take our news?” Adelaide asked as they removed the twins from their safety seats.
“What news?” Lucille asked, hurrying to join them. “And what are you two doing in evening wear? I told you this party was Western casual!”
Wyatt and Adelaide exchanged cheeky grins, aware they would both be changing later. “Do you want to tell her or shall I?” she asked.
He figured, given the hell he had put his mother through over the years, this news was his to deliver. “We’re getting married, Mom.”
“You are married!” Lucille huffed. “For ten years now!”
“Yes, but you didn’t get to see it, and back then, we didn’t really mean it. Not the way we do now. So...”
For the first time he could recall, his mother was completely speechless.
Tears glittered in her eyes.
She opened her mouth, tried to speak but no sound came out.
Pressing her hand to her suddenly quivering lips, Lucille hugged them both.
Recovering, she whacked Wyatt lightly on the shoulder. “You should have told me. And you’re ruining my makeup.”
He was beginning to get a little choked up himself. “Isn’t that what weddings are for? Happy tears?” he joked.
Lucille cried all the harder.
Waving off the emotion, she stepped back to admire them both. Adelaide wore a knee-length ivory sheath with
a high collared beaded jacket that made the most of her feminine curves. Wyatt was in a dark gray suit and tie.
“You look gorgeous,” Lucille said, gathering her wits about her. “But we have to get everything organized.”
“Relax, Mom.” Wyatt nodded behind him.
His siblings were all doing their part. Directing everyone to pitch in and move the white folding chairs to the grassy expanse on the other side of the bandstand. A rose-covered arbor, originally meant as a party-picture-taking backdrop, was serving as their altar. Reverend Bleeker, from the community chapel in town, was speaking to Molly and Chance who’d been tapped to serve as their maid of honor and best man.
“So everyone knows?” Lucille asked.
“Just the sibs. The guests are as surprised as you. Speaking of which...” Wyatt nodded at the familiar man in uniform walking toward them.
“Zane!” Lucille cried all the harder at the sight of her youngest, rarely home son. “He’s here, too?”
Zane reached them. He had recovered from the relatively minor mission-related injuries that had plagued him at Christmas, and had gone out on another assignment with his unit. But he was now Stateside again, at least briefly, to his entire family’s delight.
“My most hardheaded, hard-hearted brother finally getting hitched to the woman of his dreams? I couldn’t miss that!” He hugged them all as the band began to play.
“That’s our cue.”
Lucille took Jenny; Zane carried little Jake.
Sage appeared with a bouquet of flowers, and a lapel pin for Wyatt, Nick Monroe by her side, looking surprisingly protective and possessive.
Wyatt took Adelaide’s hand. His family took their seats. Together, they made their way to the satin runner that had been laid out. Paused.
So much had happened over the past month he could hardly believe it, but looking down into his bride’s radiant face, he knew it was true. He and Adelaide had put all the heartache of the past to rest and formed the family they had always wanted.
The Texas Valentine Twins Page 19
