High-Riding Heroes
Page 21
Victoria took another step and was only twelve inches from him. She reached out and touched his cheek, felt the tear roll from the corner of his eye, across her fingers. This man was her uncle. Her father’s brother. Her family. She reached up with both arms and wrapped them around his neck. Tucking her face, she pressed against his chest. She felt it heave as the man fought his own release of emotion, felt the warm, wonderful protectiveness of his embrace. They cried.
Wes swallowed a lump in his throat. Why, that cagey, old codger. By God, he would enjoy having him for an almost father-in-law. And he would be grandfather to Katie and the rest of the kids. The tough, no-shit cowboy had a hard time keeping his own eyes dry.
Buck pulled back and looked at Victoria. “You forgive me then?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Uncle Henry. I only wish you had just called me and told me.”
“So do I. But it just didn’t seem the way and I was afraid you would tell me to keep riding west. This way, if it didn’t work out, well, at least you’d never know.”
She hugged him once more. Growing just a little embarrassed by now, Buck returned the hug and then swung back into the saddle. “You kids get all this straightened out between you. And don’t take long. This town needs your attention.”
With that, he whirled the horse and thundered away, over and down the hill.
Wes walked up and turned Victoria to face him. She cast one more look in the direction Buck had disappeared and then turned back to Wes.
He leaned forward slowly and rested his mouth against hers. Her arms automatically moved to encircle his waist and pull him closer. She deepened the kiss. Now that the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders, she felt invincible.
When they parted, she laughed. Then at his perplexed look, she laughed even harder. “This is unbelievable. The entire thing.”
He swept her up in his arms and twirled her around and around. Tripping, he ended up slamming them both to the wet ground.
As kids will do, they lay there, arms outstretched, watching the sky clear and holding hands. Victoria listened to the drumming of her heart. Her very happy heart.
Wes rolled the words over and over in his mind before he spoke them, all the while wondering why it’s so hard for a man to say them sometimes. It must be because if it didn’t turn out right…if she didn’t give the right answer…Hell. “I want you to marry me, Victoria.”
The thrill of his words jolted through her. Yes, her mind screamed. Yes. Suddenly she felt light. A breeze could carry her away. She felt like laughing and crying some more. Before she could answer, he pulled her to lie in the crook of his arm.
“Old towns like Glory Town always had one thing in common. Do you know what that is?”
She thought a minute, as much as her reeling mind would let her. “No. What?”
“Think. What one thing do you see as a constant in every Western movie you’ve seen?”
He answered for her, because it had been in his mind for so long. “A huge two-story blindingly white house with a big, long wraparound porch towering right at the edge of Main Street.
Sort of higher up and out a ways. Can you picture it?”
She could. “Green shutters at every window and a gabled roof with lots of gingerbread trim everywhere. In the winter, when the streets are covered in snow and all of Glory Town is muffled, smoke would spiral, lazily and heavily scented with kitchen smells that it’s pulling up the chimney. In the summer, you can hear the creak of the porch swing as the couple sits and watches the goings-on.”
It was his picture, too. “It’s our house, Victoria. Big and spacious and room for lots of kids. Katie needs brothers to pick on her and stand by her, dunk her in the mud, and watch over her when her boyfriend brings her home from her first date. And I need you to come home to. To sit with, to look at, to talk to. To love.”
Victoria drifted on the dream. “The rich people. The owners of the bank or the thousands of acres of land lived there.”
“You love me. Being married and having Katie and lots of other kids qualifies us as rich, doesn’t it?”
Her heart soared. “Yes, it does.”
“I want to build that house for you, Victoria. I want us to be that family. Of course, now we have to add a rocker to the porch for Grandpa. I think I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you.”
She sighed, all the broken chips of her life falling into place. “You should have convinced me. We could have saved a lot of heartache.”
“I didn’t know how. And I wanted to be sure that you loved me. You and I have both made some mistakes in the past. We needed the time it took so we were both sure.” He slipped a long stem of lush green grass between his lips.
She rolled and propped herself on his chest. “And now that we are, I feel I should warn you. I’m not an easy person to live with.
I won’t make your life all rose gardens and cherry pie. I won’t stop being independent and active with this town. There’ll be times when you come home that you’ll have to fix dinner for yourself and the kids.”
He rested his hand on her shoulder while he twirled the blade of grass with his tongue. He didn’t want it any other way. “I can cook.”
She punched him and snuggled against his shirt. “I should have known.”
“Is that a ‘Yes, I’ll marry you’?” Tossing the grass aside, his mouth played with hers.
“Can you do laundry?” she asked, enjoying drawing this out as long as possible. Let him squirm a little.
“Sort darks from whites. Hot for towels and cold water for cottons. Bleach and fabric softener.” He nipped her chin. “Never bleach colors and always put…” he kissed her soundly, “my jeans in for the long cycle.”
“Sweep the floor?” she goaded.
“With a broom,” he confirmed.
Harassing him, she went on. “Clean closets?”
“Salvation Army donations.”
“Change the sheets on the bed?”
“In my sleep. In your sleep.” He fitted his warm mouth to hers.
“You’ll do,” she mouthed against his lips.
“I sure will.”
They stood beneath the morning sun in front of the small chapel at the end of the road in Glory Town. The sun glinted off the little steeple and bathed everyone in soft, warm sunlight.
Flowers, mountains of them, lined the sidewalk. Ribbons fluttered in the wind. Tables laden with food waited off to the side for the reception. A fiddle band waited to begin the festivities.
The construction workers erecting the big white house on the edge of town set down their saws and hammers long enough to watch.
Wes’s parents stood near the buckboard that was decorated with crepe paper, flowers, and ribbons. His father put his arms around his mother and pulled her to him for a kiss.
Wes, dressed in his black suit and go-to-hell hat, stood beside Victoria. She was the vision of any man’s dreams. Her dress, yards of long, long white silk, white lace, and tiny pink rose buttons, flowed down her body and onto the dusty walk. The veil framed her face and invited an ethereal aura. She and Katie, who stood between the two of them, clutched bouquets of wildflowers. Buck stood next to Victoria, chest poked out and dressed in his Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
“Dearly beloved. We are all gathered here in the presence of man and God, and Buck,” he grinned, “to join together…”
As the preacher, dressed in 1870s garb, began the ceremony, a horse nickered at the wind. A restless child pulled the trigger on his cap gun and broke off the sidewalk chasing his squealing sister. The sign on the general store creaked as the breeze brought a tumbleweed to bounce down Main Street. A door slammed. A car honked its horn from the distant road. Changed yet unchanged, Glory Town witnessed the joining of two of its permanent residents. It was only the wind, but it could have been a sigh.
Over the scratchy intercom came the sweet strains of “Finest Kind of Lady,” the song Wes had written for Victoria. Katie had insist
ed. It was her contribution to the wedding ceremony. She twisted and squinted up at her daddy and waited as he bent to plant a kiss on her cheek.
Sally blew her nose into a floral handkerchief.
Victoria looked at Wes. It all seemed so picture perfect. Past him she could see the huge, looming frame of their new home. It stood right at the end of the road as Wes had promised. It would be a cheerful, warm house with the sounds of lots of kids and Katie. Katie could ride her tricycle down the hill…
“Well, do you?”
Wes’s words brought her back from her daydreams.
“What?”
Laughter rose over the crowd and drifted on the wind.
“Marry my daddy?” Katie piped in, impatient to get to that big white cake that was waiting on the table.
“That I do, Katie, my girl. I do.”
About the Author
Joey Light is an award winning, internationally published author. Her first computer was a laptop; yes, a college lined notebook and a pen on her lap after her four young sons were fast asleep. Entertained by TV westerns, Ms. Light found she wanted to see more of a female aspect as the good guys chased the bad guys. So she created beautiful, feisty heroines and threw them smack in the middle of the stampede or a jail break. It was all just for fun. Now she writes about contemporary men and women, real only in her mind until she observes someone reading it on the subway. Ms. Light says receiving the first copy of her debut novel was like seeing her child for the first time. She couldn’t stop looking at it, holding it, feeling it, and loving it. Let Joey Light take you away for a while to a place where anything can happen…and does.
Look for these titles by Joey Light
Coming Soon:
Sterling’s Reasons
Blind dates are always destined to end in failure…right?
Heavenly Match
© 2011 Sharon DeVita
When Molly Maguire’s sweet, meddling Aunt Emily fixes Molly up on yet another blind date, Molly is helpless to say no to her. Fearing this will be another disastrous evening, Molly is stunned when the handsome, charming Jonathan Kent shows up and announces he’s her blind date.
The more time Molly and Jonathan spend together, the more they realize how much they have in common. As their relationship deepens, Molly begins to wonder if she can truly trust Jonathan. After a horrendous experience with her ex-fiancé, Molly has been leery of men and their motives.
But, when a crisis threatens to tear Molly, Jonathan and their budding relationship apart, Molly realizes that you can’t have love without trust.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Heavenly Match:
Why, oh why, had she ever let her aunt talk her into this blind date? Molly wondered wildly. Carefully hidden behind a towering plastic fern, she had a clear view of the man. Even though he was halfway across the crowded restaurant, Molly was certain it was him!
Groaning softly, she gratefully accepted a complimentary glass of champagne from a passing waiter before parting the plastic branches for another peek at her date.
Lord, on second glance, it was even worse than she had first thought! Molly desperately downed her champagne. The man was leaning against a far wall, twitching nervously. He was short and bald, with the droopiest eyes this side of a basset hound. His skin was milky white, and apparently he had misplaced his chin, since his fuzzy growth of beard appeared to sprout from somewhere in his neck. What little hair he did have was gray and worn long; it hung limply down the back of his egg-shaped head, grazing the collar of his plaid polyester sports coat.
Molly frowned. What the devil was the matter with his pants? She craned her neck for a better look, and her sapphire eyes widened in horror. Lord, the man had shrunk his pants! The trousers, which were a riotous shade of lime green, stopped just above his ankles to reveal a pair of faded yellow sports socks. At least both his shoes appeared to match, Molly thought, as she grabbed another glass of champagne.
She sighed deeply as her eyes took him in. At least her aunt had been right about one thing: Jonathan Kent, Molly’s blind date, did look exactly like his eighty-five-year-old grandmother!
“Are you hiding, or are you the plant inspector?”
Molly froze. The rich masculine voice was just close enough and soft enough to skate along her nerve endings, jerking her to attention. With as much dignity as she could muster, she pulled her head from between the plastic branches and turned to face the man. Her eyes went directly to the shock of copper hair atop his head. He looks like a fire hydrant, she thought giddily. The fiery curls were combed neatly, but several strands fell across his forehead, giving him a somewhat boyish look.
But this was no boy, Molly realized with a jolt as her eyes traveled to his face. And what a face, she thought dizzily: deep aquamarine eyes, a straight proud nose and a full mouth that was just made for kissing. As her gaze toured the length of him, she became aware of the width of his shoulders and his long lean frame. He towered over her five-foot-three frame, and she wasn’t at all certain the immaculate gray, pin-striped suit he wore wasn’t painted on; it molded his sculptured body perfectly, outlining every muscle, every bulge.
Blushing, Molly pulled her eyes up to a more respectable level. She stiffened. His eyes were doing a little touring of their own. She suddenly wished she had taken her aunt’s advice and left a few buttons open at the neck of her dress. And it certainly wouldn’t have hurt to have let her dark brown hair fall loose to her shoulders. The crisp French braid was fine for work, but somehow, with this man’s eyes on her, the last thing she wanted to look like was a prim and proper kindergarten teacher. Why, oh why, hadn’t she listened to her aunt and advertised her “wares” a little more?
“Are you hiding?” he repeated with a lopsided grin.
“Of course, I’m hiding,” she whispered, lost in his eyes. They were fabulous—tiny flecks of green amid a sea of rich, deep blue.
“Who are you hiding from?” His easy tone was laced with humor.
“Not who,” she corrected. “Whom.”
“Whom?”
“Whom are you hiding from?”
He chuckled softly, then threw up his hands. “I give up. Whom are you hiding from?”
Molly smiled weakly. “I don’t know.”
High-Riding Heroes
Joey Light
After a most unusual inheritance, Victoria Clay is bound for Glory! Glory Town, Oklahoma, that is.
To her shock, Victoria Clay was willed one half of Glory Town, a restored Oklahoma village where tourists gather to experience the excitement of the Wild West. Captivated by the spirit and splendor of the tourist town, Victoria is determined to embrace her new life in the “Old” West.
Wes Cooper resembles the gunslingers that wow the tourists every day—but Wes is the real thing. Hired to teach the men how to shoot and rope and ride, he isn’t going to leave Glory Town until his job is done. Too bad Victoria resents his every decision.
Sparks fly between Victoria and Wes as they battle for control of Glory Town…and the sharp desire that burns between them.
This book was originally published by Kismet in March, 1993.
eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
High-Riding Heroes
Copyright © 2012 by Joey Light
ISBN: 978-1-61921-002-8
Edited by Heather Osborn
Cover by Lyn Taylor
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permi
ssion, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Original Publication by Kismet Publishing: March 1993
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2012
www.samhainpublishing.com
Table of Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
About the Author
Look for these titles by Joey Light
Also Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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