Sam and Tyler leaned on the porch rail, while Randy sat cross-legged at Jenny’s feet, with Faith by his side. His brother Jake leaned against the house, his eyes focused on Faith’s sister Hope, who was sitting with Colt’s sister Frannie on the wooden swing Jake had hung by ropes from the porch rafters that afternoon.
There was a lot of laughter and joking, everyone careful to keep the mood light. No one had spoken the “C” word all afternoon. No one had mentioned the desperate disease that had brought them together.
“I can’t thank you all enough,” Jenny said for the umpteenth time. “This was a wonderful surprise.”
“You should have told us sooner,” Sam said curtly.
Jenny stopped rocking. It got so quiet Colt could hear the single fly buzzing around the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate. He put a hand on Jenny’s shoulder and squeezed.
I’m here, love. You’re not alone.
She smiled gratefully at him over her shoulder, then met Sam’s embittered gaze. “I thought I could spare you this pain,” she said. “I was wrong. Please forgive me.”
“We can’t get back the two years you stole from us,” Sam said.
Jenny arched a brow. “I’ve been right here, Sam.”
“But I didn’t know—I would have come—” Sam lifted his hat, forked his fingers through his hair, then resettled the Stetson low on his brow. “What are we supposed to do now?”
“What you’ve always done,” Jenny said. “Be there when I need you.”
Once the subject had been opened, it seemed there were others who needed to speak.
“When will you get the results of the biopsy?” Tyler asked.
“On Monday.”
“What about the wedding? Is that on or off?” James asked.
Jenny reached up and laid her hand over Colt’s, which still rested on her shoulder. She smiled and said, “The wedding is on.”
“On Saturday? Before you know the results?” Sam asked, staring hard at Colt.
“On Saturday,” Colt confirmed.
“Which reminds me, I have a wedding dress to finish,” Colt’s mother said, rising from her rocker.
“I’ve got some errands to run,” Jake said. “Can I give anybody a lift anywhere?”
“I need a ride into town,” Hope said, jumping up from the swing.
“If you’re driving Hope into town, can you take me and Faith, too?” Randy said, rising and then helping Faith to stand.
“Why not?” Jake said. “Anybody else? I’ve got one of the vans.”
Everyone else had their own transportation. In a matter of minutes, the porch was empty except for Colt and Jenny. “Come sit with me on the swing,” he said, taking her hand and helping her out of the rocker.
As Colt sat down on the hanging swing and lifted Jenny into his lap, she slid her arms around his neck and laid her head in the crook of his shoulder. He could feel her warm breath against his throat.
He set the swing in motion with the toe of his boot, and they sat without speaking and watched the sunset. The sky was streaked with bright yellows and rosy pinks, and the sun looked like an orange ball as it began its descent beyond the horizon.
“All we need to make this picture-perfect is a dog at your feet,” Jenny murmured.
“That can be arranged,” Colt said as his lips curved in a smile.
A jet broke the sound barrier, and Colt looked up, knowing he wouldn’t be able to see it, but searching the sky anyway.
“Will you miss it very much?” Jenny said quietly.
“Flying? Sure. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t. But life is about choices, Jenny. Being with you is the right choice for me.”
“What if—”
“You want to play that game? All right. What if I get bucked off my horse tomorrow and break my neck? What if we get abducted by aliens? What if—”
Jenny giggled. “Abducted by aliens?”
“What if the cancer does come back?” he said seriously. “It won’t change anything. I plan to treasure every moment I have with you—however many there are.”
He felt her kiss his throat, then his chin, then the side of his mouth. He turned his head and blindly found her mouth with his. He felt her moist breath against his flesh as she whispered, “I have the irresistible urge to kiss you silly. Will you please take me to bed?”
Living life to the fullest, Colt mused as he lifted Jenny and carried her into the house, definitely had its compensations.
AS RANDY HELPED FAITH INTO THE back seat of the van, Hope jumped into the front with Jake. Randy shot a glance at Faith to see whether she thought he ought to try to do something to get Hope to sit in back with them. She gave a slight shake of her head, and he slid into the back seat with her.
As they headed toward town, the silence in the front seat was palpable.
“How about some music?” Hope said finally, turning on the radio.
Jake glanced at her, then aimed his eyes back at the road without speaking.
Randy was grateful for the noise, because it meant he could talk to Faith in the back seat without being overheard. “Does Hope really have something to do in town? Or is she just trying to get Jake alone?”
“Do you really have an errand?” Faith countered. “Or do you just want to get me alone?”
Randy grinned and slid his hand along her jeans from her knee upward along her inner thigh until she reached over to clamp a hand over his to stop him. “I definitely want to get you alone,” he said. “But I actually have an errand in town. I promised I’d pick up some white ribbon for Jenny. Now, answer my question.”
Faith removed his hand and set it on his own thigh, then laid her hand on the inside of his thigh close enough to his zipper to cause serious repercussions. She shot him a mischievous sideways look from beneath lowered lashes. “My suggestion is that you mind your own business. I plan to keep you so well occupied that you won’t have time to worry about what’s going on between Hope and Jake.”
Randy made a strangled sound in his throat as Faith’s hand brushed tantalizingly across his erection and disappeared back onto her own side of the seat. “That sounds fair,” he said.
For the rest of the ride into town, Randy wasn’t aware of anything except Faith’s teasing touches, her impish glances, the intimate promises she was making that he hoped she planned to keep. He responded with caresses of his own and heated glances and a whispered question. “When?”
He saw her cheeks pinken, and knew she’d heard him. “We can slip away during your sister’s wedding reception. My parents won’t miss me for a few hours during all the celebration.”
“Will you let me see your other hand? I mean, without the prosthesis?”
Her mouth flattened into an unhappy line. “You may not like what you see. Is it really necessary?”
He took her hand in his, caressing the normal fingers. His mind had conjured up an image of deformity beneath her prosthesis that he was sure couldn’t be worse than the real thing. “You take it off at night, when you go to bed, don’t you?” he asked.
She nodded.
“If we’re going to spend our lives together, I figure I better get used to how you look without it.”
“Maybe you won’t want to be with me anymore after you see me without it.”
He was surprised that Faith was able to state her fear so clearly and succinctly. If he could accept the hook and the plastic arm, he didn’t think real flesh and bone—no matter how malformed—could make him reject her. But he knew words alone weren’t likely to assuage her fear. “You’ll just have to take that chance,” he said at last. “Unless you want to break up right now.”
He watched myriad emotions—doubt, fear, hope—flicker across her face as she evaluated the risk, and balanced the possible reward. Like Colt did with Jenny, he realized. Balancing the risk of losing her against the joy of loving her. As Faith must balance the risk of trusting him against the joy of being fully loved.
“All right,” she said a
t last. “I’ll let you see my hand. But only if you promise—”
He squeezed her trembling hand to cut her off and said, “It’ll be all right, Faith. Believe me. It won’t make a difference.”
He only hoped he was right.
JAKE WAS ANGRY. HOPE RECOGNIZED the signs. The vertical lines on either side of his mouth became more pronounced because his jaw was clamped, and his eyes narrowed to slits. There was an overall look of tautness to his body—shoulders, hands, hips—that suggested a tiger ready to leap.
She knew she shouldn’t have invited herself along. She knew Jake didn’t want her around. She also knew he didn’t want her around because he was tempted by her presence, like a beast in rut responding to the relentless call of nature.
Hope let her gaze roam over Jake and saw his nostrils flare as her eyes touched what her hands could not. She wondered whether she ought to push him into something irrevocable. Like taking her virginity.
He would marry her then. She was sure of it. But would he love her? She didn’t want him without his love. She knew that much. But she was running out of time. Why, oh, why, had he gotten engaged to Miss Carter? She wouldn’t feel this desperation if he hadn’t forced her hand. She knew in her bones that they belonged together, and she didn’t intend to lose him to another woman.
When they arrived in town, Hope was surprised that Jake volunteered to drop off Randy and Faith first after setting a time to pick them up again. She offered a reassuring smile in response to Faith’s anxious look as she and Jake drove away.
“You haven’t asked where I want to be let off,” she said when Jake had driven half the length of the main street in town without stopping.
He shot her a look filled with scorn. “Don’t insult my intelligence. You haven’t got any errands to run. But I do. So sit there like a good little girl and be still.”
It was the little girl that did it. It was a flash point with her and always would be, because it diminished who she was, which was more than the sum of her age. She began to unbutton her blouse right there, driving down Main Street.
Jake glanced in her direction and nearly had an accident. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking my clothes off?”
“Do you want to get me arrested?”
“I’m not a minor, Jake. We’re two consenting adults.”
“I’m engaged. I’m promised to another woman.”
“Not once word of this gets around,” she said, glancing at the passersby who gawked in through the window as she pulled her shirt off her shoulders, leaving her wearing only a peach-colored bra.
Jake swore under his breath and gunned the engine, heading for the old, abandoned railroad depot on the outskirts of town. He braked to a halt in front of the depot and turned to glare at her. She saw the flicker of heat as he glimpsed the fullness of her breasts above her bra.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not a little girl, Jake. I don’t know what I have to do to prove it to you.”
“I’m not going to marry you, Hope. You’re not what I want. I want someone who can share my memories of the world, someone who’s lived a little.”
“I can catch up,” she said desperately.
He shook his head. “No, little girl. You can’t.”
Hope felt her chin quivering and gritted her teeth to try to keep it still. “So you’re going to marry Miss Carter?”
“Yes, I’m going to marry her. Put your blouse back on, Hope.”
She grabbed her shirt and tried to get it on, but the long sleeves were inside out, and her hands were shaking too badly to straighten it.
She heard Jake swear before he scooted across the bench seat, pulled the shirt from her hands and began to pull the sleeves right-side out. He held the shirt for her while she slipped her arms into it. Her cheek brushed against his as she was straightening. She turned her head and discovered his mouth only a breath from her own. Their eyes caught and held.
She wasn’t sure who moved first, but an instant later their mouths were meshed, and his tongue was inside searching, teasing, tasting. He was rough and reckless, his hands cupping her breasts as a guttural groan was wrenched from his very marrow. His mouth ravaged hers as his hands demanded a response.
She couldn’t catch up. He was moving too fast.
And then he was gone. Out the opposite door. She scrambled after him, pausing in the driver’s seat when she spied him leaning against the van, his palms flat against the metal, his head down, his chest heaving.
He stood and faced her. “That was my fault,” he said. “I…” His eyes were full of pain and regret. “You’re formidable, Hope. I’ll grant you that. Somewhere out there is a very lucky young man.”
“I want you,” she cried.
“I belong to someone else.”
“You’re only marrying Miss Carter because you don’t think you can have me. But you can,” Hope insisted. “There’s nothing stopping us from being together except your own stubborn bias against my age.”
“Your youth,” he corrected.
She snorted. “Eighteen years isn’t that much. Lots of men marry younger women.”
“You need to go to college. You need to find out what you want to do with your life. Maybe you’ll decide you want more out of life than simply being some rancher’s wife. If I were to marry you now, the day might come when you decided marriage to me wasn’t fulfilling enough, that you needed to go find yourself.”
“Is that what happened with your first wife?” Hope asked, her eyes wide.
“I’ve seen it happen,” Jake said without answering her question directly. “You’re too young to know what you’d be giving up, Hope. Go to school. Get an education. Find out what you want to do with your life.”
“If I do that, if I go to college, will you wait for me?”
She saw the struggle before he answered, “In four years I’ll be forty. I—”
“Wait for me,” she said, stepping out of the van. “Don’t marry Miss Carter. Promise you’ll wait for me.”
“I can’t promise anything, Hope. There’s another person in this equation you’re not considering. I’ve proposed to another woman, and she’s said yes. Unless Amanda breaks the engagement, I’m honor-bound to marry her.”
“Even if you don’t love her?”
“Who says I don’t?”
The shock of his words held Hope speechless. “How could you love her and want me like you do?”
He shoved a frustrated hand through his hair. “I respect and admire her. And she loves me. We can have a good life together.”
“You don’t love her,” Hope said accusingly.
“I don’t know what I feel anymore,” he retorted. “You’ve got me so damned confused—”
“Wait for me,” Hope said. “There are such things as long engagements.”
“That wouldn’t be fair to Amanda,” Jake said stubbornly.
“It is if you don’t love her. Don’t you think she’ll notice? Don’t you think she’ll miss being loved?”
Jake stared at the ground, then back at her. “I’ll go this far,” he said. “I won’t press her to get married. But I’m not going to walk away if she sets a date.”
“Thank you, Jake. At least that gives me a chance.”
Jake shook his head. “I’ll say this much. Life with you would never be boring.”
Hope laughed. “I hope I get a chance to prove that to you someday.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“STAND STILL, JENNY, OR I’LL NEVER GET ALL these buttons done up,” Rebecca said.
Jenny looked at herself in the oval standing mirror in the corner of her bedroom, hardly able to believe that she was the beautiful woman reflected there. She looked like Cinderella, ready for the ball, except her dress was white, instead of pink. She’d pieced the dress together herself, but Colt’s mother had finished it, adding lace and ribbons and seed pearls like one of Cinderella’s mice.
The satin
gown had a wide boat neck, open almost to her shoulders, with long sleeves that tapered to the wrist. The bodice was fitted to the waist with a wide skirt belling out below. A narrow train decorated with tiny seed pearls began where the last cloth buttons ended in back and trailed several feet behind her.
Jenny reached up to adjust the net veil, held in place by a circlet of fresh white daisies, and brushed at a stray wisp of hair at her temple that had escaped the knot of golden curls at her crown. “Are you done yet?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Rebecca said.
“Whatever made you decide to put thirty-two buttons down the back instead of using a zipper?”
Rebecca smiled. “I was thinking of my son.”
Jenny’s brows lowered in confusion. “I don’t understand. A zipper would make it easier for him to get me out of this dress in a hurry.”
Rebecca’s smile became a grin. “I know. But think how much his anticipation will have built by the time he gets the last button undone.”
“If his patience lasts that long,” Jenny said with a laugh.
Rebecca joined her laughter. “There. All done.” She put her hands on Jenny’s shoulders and looked at their side-by-side faces reflected in the mirror. “My son loves you, Jenny. I’m only beginning to understand how much. I wish you both all the joy that love can bring. I’m sorry your mother isn’t here to see you today. I know she’d be very proud of all you’ve accomplished.”
Jenny felt the sting in her nose and the tickle at the back of her throat. “Thank you, Mrs. Whitelaw.”
“I wish you’d call me Rebecca. Or Mom, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Jenny turned and hugged Colt’s mother. “I’ve missed having a mom. It’ll be good to have one again.”
Rebecca levered Jenny to arm’s length and looked her over. “You’re beautiful, Jenny, inside and out. I wish you much happiness with my son.”
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