by Webb, Peggy
"Concussion. Cracked ribs. His ribs are going to be sore, and he's a little addled right now. Don't be alarmed if the confusion lasts awhile, but your boy is going to be as good as new."
"I could kiss you," Ann said, and she did.
"Best payment I've had all day."
"When can we see him?" Pete said.
"As soon as he gets settled into his room. We're going to keep him overnight for observation."
o0o
Colt was in jail and furthermore somebody had taken his clothes and left him in a ridiculous gown that barely covered his butt. And he was raging mad.
The only good thing was that they'd let his Uncle Pete visit him, and he'd brought a beautiful woman who was vaguely familiar. Annie, he'd heard Pete call her.
"You tell that warden I want my clothes," he told Uncle Pete.
"I'll go tell him right now." Pete winked at Annie, then strolled from the room.
"Are you comfortable?" Annie said.
She smoothed the sheet over his chest and fiddled with his pillow. He had no idea what she was doing in the jail, but she smelled so good and looked so great it almost made his incarceration worthwhile.
"Haven't we met somewhere before?" he said.
"We've met."
"I thought so."
She touched him lightly on the cheek, and he reacted to her in an embarrassingly personal way. If he hadn't been in that stupid gown, he might have done something about it.
"What are you doing here?" he said.
"Taking care of you."
"I can see that. I mean what are you in for?"
"Colt, don't you know me?"
"You're Annie."
"That's right. And what else?"
"You smell good." He grinned at her.
Uncle Pete came back in empty-handed, Colt noticed. He'd have to go have a talk with the warden himself. He threw back his covers, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, but a dizzy spell sent him reeling backward.
"Whoa there." Uncle Pete pulled the covers back over him. "You won't be going anywhere for a while."
He didn't argue. His ribs felt like somebody had taken a sledgehammer to them, and his head didn't feel all that good either.
"Just rest." Annie put a cool hand on his brow, and it felt so good, he covered her hand to hold it there.
He was just drifting into sleep, when he remembered what had been bothering him for the last few minutes. He sat up and glared at Uncle Pete.
"I'm not going to the dentist, and that's final."
o0o
Pete went home to take care of the horses, but Ann insisted on staying with Colt. She kept her vigil in a chair beside his bed.
"Can we bring you a cot for tonight?" the nurse said.
"No, thank you. I'll be fine right here." Ann wasn't about to leave his side. She wanted to be close enough to touch him.
As the moon tracked across the sky she watched the rise and fall of his breathing and occasionally felt the steady thrum of his pulse, anxious for any signs of change.
What if the doctors were wrong? What if he'd suffered some kind of irreversible brain damage?
Exhausted, she closed her eyes, but visions of the accident on the polo field came to her, and she jerked herself awake. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead, then kissed him softly.
"Don't stay away too long, my love. I'm bereft without you."
The hospital's night sounds drifted through the door—soft swish of rubber-soled shoes on polished linoleum, the rattle of a cart, discreet tapping on doors, the distant ring of the telephone. Ann nodded off, her head fading to her chest, then jerked herself awake.
Finally, mindful of Colt's bandaged chest, she laid her head on the side of his bed and slept.
o0o
His hand in her hair woke her.
"Annie? What did the doctor say about me? I can't seem to remember."
"Colt! You know who I am."
He cupped her cheek with one hand. "Aren't you the same beautiful woman who promised to marry me?"
"I was scared to death. I thought I'd lost you."
"Come here." He pressed her head onto his chest and stroked her hair. "Better?"
"Yes. Much better."
There was a long silence as both of them thought how close they'd come to losing their dream.
"Annie . . . unless you're sentimentally attached to June, what would you say about a winter wedding?"
"I would say you'd better hurry and get completely well then, because I don't fancy taking a beat-up man to my wedding bed."
"If it weren't for an audience outside the door, I'd show you what a beat-up man can do."
She laughed. "Promises, promises."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
They were married on Christmas Eve. A cold front hit Fairhope, and wedding guests bundled into winter coats and complained about the forty-degree weather as they gathered at the small white church for the evening ceremony. The night was clear, the sky hill of stars. One star in particular stood out, and some folks remarked that it must be the star that led the wise men to the Christ child.
But Annie and Colt knew better. For one thing, the star was in the wrong side of the sky. For another, two unusually bright stars hung in the winter-black sky— but only one of them was as big as a baseball.
The organ pealed, and Annie walked down the aisle in the white Victorian gown Charlotte Ann Harris had planned to wear for her marriage to Anthony Chance. In front of the altar was the man who had waited two lifetimes to be with her.
Joy sang through her as she took his hand.
"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to unite this man and this woman in holy wedlock," the minister said, beginning the ceremony.
And when Colt slid a band encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds on her finger, and she heard the miraculous words, "I now pronounce you man and wife," Ann knew that at last she'd truly come home.
o0o
Pete hosted a reception at the ranch. Ann's mother, Lisa, who had flown in from Paris with her husband Charlie Chastain, had argued for a country club affair, but Pete stood his ground. He wasn't about to give over to somebody who didn't have the good grace to show up until everything was done except the shouting, and he told her so.
Colt and Annie watched as Lisa and Pete circled each other like gladiators in a Roman arena.
"Do you think they'll ever make peace?" she said.
"You can count on it." He kissed his bride's hand. "When the first grandchild comes, they'll be in cahoots up to their eyebrows, both of them trying to tell us what to do."
"Speaking of babies . . ." Eyes gleaming with mischief, she stood on tiptoe and whispered something in his ear.
"What? Practice again? With a party going on?"
"Of course, if you'd rather dance—"
Annie never got to finish her sentence. Colt scooped her up and strode toward the door.
"If you're going to throw that bouquet, now's the time, Annie."
She tossed it straight toward Margaret, who was decked out in Gilly's pearls and a velvet hat Gilly had brought from Paris, and who had spent the first hour of the reception eyeing Pete and the last hour trying to work up her courage to flirt with him.
Rice pelted over them as they waved good-bye to friends and relatives. Though the word was out that they would honeymoon off the coast of Maine, Colt and Annie drove straight to Windchime House.
It was hauntingly beautiful in the winter darkness. A full moon illuminated the stately white columns and transformed the fanlight over the front door to sparkling crystal. Moss swayed, ghostlike from the live oak trees, and a single star perched on top of the magnolia tree as if it had been put there by the hand of an angel.
They stood hand in hand and viewed the house that had been built for love.
"Welcome home, my darling," Annie whispered.
Colt cradled her in his arms and carried her across the threshold. A shining path lay on the staircase, and as they ascended Annie's
wedding gown looked like moonbeams.
Annie's bedroom was at the top of the landing on the left, her wrought-iron bed visible through the open door. Colt strode to the opposite side of the hallway and pushed open the door.
Through the wide French windows was the magnolia tree and a sweeping view of the bay. A comfortable tuxedo sofa and plush velvet chairs made an inviting sitting area, and opposite stood Charlotte Ann Harris's antique desk. But the centerpiece of the room was the bed, draped in white.
The hush in the room was almost sacred. Colt set Annie’s feet on the floor, and they stood hand in hand looking at the veiled bed.
"That bed has been waiting a long time," Annie said.
Colt squeezed her hand. "So have we."
They glanced at each other, and words were not necessary. Colt took one end of the sheeting, Annie took the other, and slowly they unveiled the bed.
Annie ran her hand over the intricately carved roses, the intertwined vines, the exquisite leaves.
"It's so beautiful," she said.
"So are you, Mrs. Butler."
Colt lit candles around the room, then lifted her onto the bed. Her white gown billowed around her like foam on the sea. He knelt above her and bracketed her shoulders with his hands.
"I have loved you since the first time I ever laid eyes on you, and I will love you forever."
"And I love you," she whispered, reaching for him. "Forever and always."
The buttons on her antique wedding gown were tiny and hard to unfasten, but Colt didn't hurry. He had a lifetime and beyond to love this woman.
He peeled her gown away by inches, christening each bit of exposed flesh with lips and tongue. His touch electrified her, and she arched upward. She wove her fingers through his hair and murmured to some ancient inner rhythm as he began to make love to her.
Fragmented, she ripped open his shirt, shoved aside his pants, seeking the magic that would make her whole.
The moon turned her body to silver, and he was the flame tempering it white-hot. With the ancient bedposts standing sentinel, the lovers branded each other, knowing that no matter what the future brought, they belonged together for all eternity.
o0o
Much later, wrapped in her husband's arms, Annie said, "Do you think Charlotte Ann and Anthony know?"
Colt turned his face to the window, and seeing the brightness at the top of the magnolia tree, he smiled.
"They know," he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Spring burst upon Fairhope with an ostentatious display of color that shamed the rest of the country. Forsythia dripped yellow starflowers onto the greening grass; azaleas mushroomed in shades ranging from frothy pink to deep purple; hawthorn rouged itself with tiny red blooms; the redbuds vied for attention with flower-laden branches. And everywhere dogwood flowered.
Margaret stood at the window of Annie's studio in Windchime House, admiring spring's show.
"It's enough to make a body feel young again." She turned from the window, her cheeks glowing with natural color as if she'd made her own prediction come true.
"It's a time of birth and renewal," Annie agreed. Sitting at her wheel, her hands covered with clay, she gave a secret smile.
"Ann, there's something I've been wanting to ask you for two weeks, and I've just now got up the courage."
The bond they'd forged when Ann came to Fairhope to close up Gilly's estate had become stronger over the months, almost as strong as the one between Gilly and Margaret.
"You can ask me anything or tell me anything, Margaret. You know that."
"You don't know how much that means to me, how much you mean to me. Your aunt Gilly would be so proud of you." Margaret pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and blew her nose.
"I just wish she had lived to see your wedding, and you and Colt living in this house, and all."
"Maybe she did," Annie said softly.
Margaret moved closer to the wheel so she could watch the work in progress. When she'd first started paying neighborly visits to Windchime House, Annie would stop in the middle of whatever she was doing to entertain. But Margaret had protested vigorously, saying the best entertainment she knew of was watching Annie shape clay into works of art.
"What's that going to be?" Margaret said.
"A surprise for Colt . . . and you'll be the first to see."
Margaret looked as if she'd been named Citizen of the Year.
"Where is he, by the way?"
"Gone to Kentucky to bring back a polo pony."
"Don't you worry, after what happened?"
"Never. My life is too full of wonderful things for worry. Besides, I would never try to deprive Colt of something that makes him so happy."
Annie turned the wheel, shaping the clay, and Margaret watched for a while, then cleared her throat. Annie smiled. That was a signal that Margaret was getting ready to say what was really on her mind.
"If I was to go into Mobile to a symphony concert, what do you think I ought to wear?"
"Anything goes nowadays. You can dress for comfort or style. Either way is acceptable."
"If I dress for style, what do you think would be the most stylish on me? Truthfully, now. I don't want to look like some old biddy trying to look half her age."
"How about that lovely black sheath you have, with pearls?"
"Don't you think black makes me look a tad old?"
It wasn't like Margaret to fidget and fuss so over something as simple as going to the symphony. What was going on?
"Wear that lovely red linen suit, then. Everybody looks younger in red."
"Don't you think a suit is a little too severe?" Margaret drew her compact out of her purse, inspected her hair, and tucked a stray strand into her bun. "Maybe you could help me buy a nice cocktail dress. In blue."
"Of course I will. Margaret, is there something you're not telling me?"
"Somebody is taking me to the concert. Somebody I want to impress."
"Would this be somebody I know?" While she waited for Margaret to get up the nerve to answer, Annie shut down the power and took her piece off the wheel.
"Pete," Margaret said, then looked anxious. “You don’t think he’s too young for me?’”
“Of course not.” Picturing the grizzled Pete being called young, Annie hid her laughter as she wiped her muddy hand. Then she hugged Margaret. "That's the best news I've had in a long time."
"Speaking of news . . ." Margaret inspected Annie's newest piece of greenware. "Is that a baby's cup?"
"Yes."
They hugged once more, then Margaret let out a yelp. "Would you look a yonder! I thought he was in Kentucky."
Annie raced to the window. Pulling into the yard was Colt Butler, driving a yellow flatbed truck loaded with roses.
"That man," Annie said. "He's wonderfully, beautifully mad."
Margaret picked up her purse and started to the door.
"You don't have to go, do you?"
"I may not know much, but I know when two's company and three's a crowd."
o0o
Colt parked the truck under the magnolia tree, next to the rose beds that had been destroyed in Hurricane Bethany. Margaret came down the front steps as he barreled out of the truck and he waved.
"How's it going, Margaret?"
"Never better."
She drove off, and he went inside whistling.
Annie was at the top of the stairs, and he took them two at a time and scooped her up.
"What would you say, Mrs. Butler, if I told you that I have a rainbow under the magnolia tree?"
"Under the tree?"
Her smile was the most radiant thing he'd ever seen, and he felt as if he were ten feet tall.
"That's right, Mrs. B. Under the tree. It's a wonder to behold. Would you like to see for yourself?"
"Absolutely."
He started down the stairs then stopped on the fifth stair. "Wait, am I forgetting something?"
She smelled like roses, and he couldn't c
arry out the game any longer. He crushed his mouth over hers, and they stayed on the fifth stair for a very long time.
"There now," he said. "That's better."
She wove her hands in his hair. "Welcome home, darling."
He started down the stairs once more, but stopped on the fourth, third, second, and first stairs to repeat the welcoming process.
"At this rate, I'll never see that rainbow."
"Are you complaining?"
"No, bragging. Do you intend to carry me all the way?"
"All the way." Three days away from her felt like forever, and he had a lot of catching up to do.
He hurried through the doorway, then down the porch steps and around the corner of the flatbed truck. She gasped with pure pleasure.
"There's the rainbow, Annie. What do you think?"
The truck was loaded with pots, and in those pots were roses of every color and kind.
"I think you're the most wonderful man alive. Oh, Colt, you knew how much I missed the roses."
"You like them, then?" The question was rhetorical. Her face glowed as if she'd been set loose in heaven.
"I adore them!"
He set her down, and she raced around the truck, counting pots and exclaiming over the varieties.
"Colt . . . fifty-nine rosebushes."
"You missed one."
He leaned over her and plucked a potted rose from behind a white English hybrid tea. Tight buds covered the bush, but at the top a single rose bloomed, as blue as Colt Butler's eyes.
A vision flashed before them—a windswept hill, a sea bright with sun diamonds, and two people waltzing in front of a newly built house. Paints lay on the grass beside them, and the woman's dress fluttered and soared like the wings of a dozen white doves.
In an instant the image vanished, and Colt plucked the single blue rose and tucked it behind Annie's ear.
"You remembered," she whispered.
Too full to speak, he nodded. Then he got a shovel, and wrapping his arms around her from behind, they turned the first bit of earth in what would soon be the finest rose garden in the city.
And when the blue rose was in the ground, Colt turned Annie in his arms.
"This calls for a celebration," he said.
"Any ideas?"
