by Peggy Webb
“You must be the Bear.”
Jim Standing Bear knew Sarah Sloan had not come to his house to give him hope; she’d come to offer him pity. Jim’s scowl deepened. What had he been thinking of, leaving his hiding place, exposing himself to the raw emotions of a woman?
“Yes,” he finally replied.
“I’m your new neighbor,” Sarah said. “I apologize for coming over uninvited, but you haven’t been coming to your rooftop, and I was worried that something might have happened.”
Sarah looked straight into his eyes. He searched her face and saw not one shred of pity.
Still, Jim couldn’t unbend. Wouldn’t unbend. Embattled warriors never gave an inch. That’s how he saw himself now. Though at the moment he couldn’t have said whether his battle was with his wheelchair or the merciless attraction that was turning his blood to fire.
Retreat was out of the question. Attack was his only option.
“As you can see, something did happen.”
Dear Reader,
While every romance holds the promise of sweeping readers away with a rugged alpha male or a charismatic cowboy, this month we want to take a closer look at the women who fall in love with our favorite heroes.
“Heroines need to be strong,” says Sherryl Woods, author of more than fifty novels. “Readers look for a woman who can stand up to the hero—and stand up to life.” Sherryl’s book A Love Beyond Words features a special heroine who lost her hearing but became stronger because of it. “A heroine needs to triumph over fear or adversity.”
Kate Stockwell faces the fear of knowing she cannot bear her own child in Allison Leigh’s Her Unforgettable Fiancé, the next installment in the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS miniseries. And an accident forces Josie Scott, Susan Mallery’s LONE STAR CANYON heroine in Wife in Disguise, to take stock of her life and find a second chance….
In Peggy Webb’s Standing Bear’s Surrender, Sarah Sloan must choose between loyalty and true love! In Separate Bedrooms…? by Carole Halston, Cara LaCroix is faced with fulfilling her grandmother’s final wish—marriage! And Kirsten Laurence needs the help of the man who broke her heart years ago in Laurie Campbell’s Home at Last.
“A heroine is a real role model,” Sherryl says. And in Special Edition, we aim for every heroine to be a woman we can all admire. Here’s to strong women and many more emotionally satisfying reads from Silhouette Special Edition!
Karen Taylor Richman
Senior Editor
Standing Bear’s Surrender
PEGGY WEBB
This book is dedicated to my editors at Silhouette, who encourage, applaud, sympathize, run interference and in general make me a better writer. Tara, Karen and Janet, this one’s for you.
Acknowledgments: To Olivia and Alex for pulling the cow out of the ditch. To Ruth Ann for putting salve on her wounds.
And to my children and grandchildren for loving support.
Always.
Books by Peggy Webb
Silhouette Special Edition
Summer Hawk #1300
Warrior’s Embrace #1323
Gray Wolf’s Woman #1347
Standing Bear’s Surrender #1384
Silhouette Intimate Moments
13 Royal Street #447
Silhouette Romance
When Joanna Smiles #645
A Gift for Tenderness #681
Harvey’s Missing #712
Venus DeMolly #735
Tiger Lady #785
Beloved Stranger #824
Angel at Large #867
PEGGY WEBB
and her two chocolate Labs live in a hundred-year-old house not far from the farm where she grew up. “A farm is a wonderful place for dreaming,” she says. “I used to sit in the hayloft and dream of being a writer.” Now, with two grown children and more than forty-five romance novels to her credit, the former English teacher confesses she’s still a hopeless romantic and loves to create the happy endings her readers love so well.
When she isn’t writing, she can be found at her piano playing blues and jazz or in one of her gardens planting flowers. A believer in the idea that a person should never stand still, Peggy recently taught herself carpentry.
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Prologue
The storm blew up suddenly out of the Gulf, whipping sheets of rain across I-10, rain so hard and so thick Jim could barely see a foot in front of his headlights. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel of his black Jaguar convertible.
“Don’t let me down now, baby.”
Talking to his mode of transportation was not new to Jim. He did it every day in the cockpit of the F/A-18 Hornet, sometimes in English, sometimes in the ancient tongue of his Sioux ancestors.
His comrades in the elite precision flight demonstration team, the Blue Angels, often teased him about it. Especially Chuck, who had given him the nickname that stuck—the Bear, short for Jim Standing Bear.
“Hey, Bear,” he’d say. “Put a little of that Sioux voodoo on my plane. I think I’m gonna need it today.”
There was an easy camaraderie among Blue Angels, for all of them had one thing in common—they lived to fly. There was also a strong bond of trust. The maneuvers they did in the Hornets were extremely dangerous. There was no room for mistakes. Miscalculation meant death.
That’s why he and Chuck and the rest of the gang were extremely careful. Always.
Until tonight.
Tonight Jim Standing Bear didn’t have the luxury of caution. If he didn’t show up at his engagement party in Mobile, Bethany Lawrence would kill him. It was that simple.
He sensed the eighteen-wheeler before he saw its headlights. It was a monstrous shape in the rain, bearing down on him too fast.
“Slow down, fool.” The words were barely out of Jim’s mouth when the driver of the rig pulled into the passing lane, his trailer rocking with too much speed and not enough traction.
Jim saw what was going to happen to him. In the split second before the rig smashed into his Jag, he saw his situation: a small car with the Bay on one side and the rig on the other. He was trapped.
The impact flung his car against the railing. Metal ground against metal. Jim’s last conscious thought was a prayer that the railing would hold.
Then his car broke apart, and Jim Standing Bear with it.
Pain so intense he could hardly bear it. Blinding lights. Footsteps day and night. Rubber soles squeaking against tile. Tubes and needles. Brain fogged. Drifting. For days on end. Drifting.
“Welcome back to the world.”
His brother Ben was standing over him, looking haggard and too thin.
“What happened to you?” Jim said. “You look like hell.”
“Listen to the man. Hooked up to IVs and worried about his baby brother.” Ben clasped Jim’s hand.
“That hurts like hell. Every damned inch of me hurts.”
The fog that had obscured his brain for days had finally lifted, and it all came back: the rainy night, the drunk driver, the crash.
“I made it.” It was a simple statement that showed nothing of Jim’s feelings, nothing of the wonder…and the dread.
Men didn’t walk away from crashes of
that nature unscathed.
“Yes, pal, you made it.”
Jim could read his baby brother like a book. “Spit it out. What’s my condition?”
“You’re doing great for somebody whose car looks like a squashed tuna can.”
“If you can’t do better than that, you’re going to make one hell of a lousy doctor.”
“Your left side took the biggest beating.”
Jim listened while Ben described in detail the broken bones, the fractures and contusions, the concussion, the ruptured spleen. He listened while his brother told of the procedures to repair the damage.
But mostly he watched his brother’s face. And a cold fear unlike any he’d ever known gripped Jim.
“My legs. You didn’t mention my legs.”
“The doctors say the surgery was very successful.”
“Be specific. And don’t soft-peddal.”
His brother described the exact placement of pins and the physical therapy he would need.
“You’ll be walking again before you know it.”
Jim closed his eyes to hide his private hell. He would never fly his F/A-18 Hornet again. The G forces were so great that grown men in less than top-notch physical condition had been known to pass out.
Life as he knew it was over.
“Where’s Bethany? I want to see Bethany.”
“She’s not here right now, Jim.”
“Call her. Tell her I want to see her.”
“I can’t. She’s in New York. With her folks.”
“In New York?”
“Yeah, pal. I guess the pressure got to her. She’ll be back. I’m sure of it.”
Jim was too tired to wonder at Ben’s last statement. A nurse came into the room with another round of painkillers, and Jim closed his eyes and drifted into blessed oblivion.
The first person he saw when the fog lifted again was his fiancée, looking even more beautiful than he remembered.
“Hello, gorgeous.” Jim said.
“Jim.” She stood two feet away, twisting her engagement ring on her finger. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been run through a sausage grinder. How are you holding up, darling?”
Bethany winced. “Jim, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Say those things. I can’t…I can’t…” She covered her face with her hands and began to sob.
Jim wanted to comfort her, but she was still out of his reach. All he could do was hold out his hand.
“Come here, kiddo.”
“I can’t Jim. I can’t do this.” She twisted the ring off her finger and laid it in his outstretched hand. “I can’t be married to a cripple.”
She flew out of the room as if demons chased her. And Jim supposed they did. The demons of uncertainty and inconvenience. If there was anything Bethany Lawrence hated it was inconvenience.
After the door shut behind her, Jim remembered that the tears hadn’t even streaked her makeup. Bethany always did believe in waterproof mascara.
The ring, a two-carat emerald-cut diamond, was a painful reminder of everything Jim had lost—his fiancée, his career, his future. Jim clenched his hand into a fist to hide the ring, then closed his eyes and prayed for the blessed oblivion of sleep.
Chapter One
Ben set the new telescope firmly in place on the rooftop garden of Jim’s house that overlooked Pensacola Bay, then defied Jim to protest with one of his I’m-talking-scalps looks.
“What am I supposed to do with that damned thing?” Jim asked.
“Study the stars.” Ben focused the telescope and took a peek at the sky. “Get your butt over here and take a look before I come over there and drag you over.”
“You and what navy?”
Their sparring was good-natured and natural. Humor was a coping mechanism they’d learned growing up in the orphanage.
Jim maneuvered his wheelchair to the telescope and focused on the sky, even though rain clouds obscured all but a few stars. He could feel Ben watching him. He shoved the telescope aside and turned to his brother.
“Go ahead. Say it.”
“All right, I will. It’s been six months. Why don’t you get out of that chair and walk?”
“I’ll give you one word: crackup.”
“The orthopedic surgeon tells me there’s no physical reason you can’t walk, Jim.”
“Are you saying I’m a damned emotional cripple?” Jim said, then quick remorse slashed him. He softened his tone.
“Go on, Ben, get out of here. Go to the movies, have a drink down at Trader Bill’s, pick up a girl.”
Jim turned back to the telescope. “I’ll be good. See. I promise to sit up here and look through this thing for two hours if you’ll just get out of the house. Is it a deal?”
“Deal. And don’t you cheat. I’ll expect a full report when I get back.” Ben left, whistling.
Jim wouldn’t think of cheating. He owed his brother. Ben had stayed out of medical school the fall semester after Jim’s accident, and would have stayed out the spring semester, as well, if Jim hadn’t made him go back.
He swiveled the telescope idly, adjusted focus, not seeing anything except darkening clouds. Then he saw it, a tiny pinpoint of light. He would report the star in complete detail to Ben. Suddenly his mouth went dry and sweat beaded his face. The pinpoint of light was not a star: it was the lights on a Skyhawk, going into Pensacola Air Base for a landing.
Jim shoved the telescope away with clenched fists. The feeling of loss made him weak, and he gripped the arms of his chair, remembering.
“You don’t need the chair, Jim,” his doctor had said.
“Then why am I in it? Why won’t my legs move?”
“An educated guess. You can’t fly so you can’t walk.”
The roar of jets came to him, the heart-in-throat moment of lifting toward the sky, and suddenly… He owned the universe. That’s how it had been. That’s how it would never be again.
Blindly he looked next door, down into a brick-enclosed garden. Anywhere except up.
Gradually he became aware of the ancient walls, the tangled growth and the empty fountain presided over by an angel with a broken wing. All of it was illuminated by floodlights.
The house had been empty for months. New neighbors must have moved in. Of course, the brick wall hid the garden from view except from his rooftop. And this was the first time he’d been up here since his accident. Six months, to be exact.
Idly he trained his telescope into the garden, focusing on the angel. She was life-sized, perfectly proportioned, her bare feet and stone legs covered with lichen. The broken wing gave her a rakish quality, as if she might know things other angels didn’t know, as if she had rather be off playing pranks instead of flying around guarding mere mortals.
Jim rubbed his hands over his face. Fatigue always caught him unaware. He used to take his body for granted. He ran six miles a day without thinking, did a hundred pushups without breaking a sweat, swam without thought of the powerful legs that propelled him through the water. He’d always been an athlete.
Until the accident took that away, along with his career, his fiancée, and everything else that mattered.
Everything except his brother.
Jim put his eye to the lens of the telescope. The angel’s face looked different. Softer. Gentler. He rubbed his eyes once more. Maybe his vision was blurring. Since the accident, sometimes it did.
He looked through the scope once more, and that’s when he saw the angel move.
This was no angel. This was a flesh-and-blood woman. And not merely moving. She was dancing.
Feeling guilty as if he’d been caught spying, Jim shoved back from the telescope.
He could still see the woman in the garden. She wore something white and soft looking, a summer dress or perhaps a gown. And even though it was early March and the rain clouds threatened, her arms were bare. She was going to get wet. Not that it mattered. Certainly not to Jim.
Who was t
he man she was dancing with? A husband? A father? A brother? Why had he let her come out into the rainy night without a wrap? The clouds that had been gathering all evening released their burden, and rain began to fall softly on the earth.
The woman turned her face upward to the rain, and against his will Jim found himself focusing on her through his telescope. Every line in her body conveyed a vibrancy that mesmerized. And she was laughing.
Over the past few months he’d almost forgotten how to laugh. Instead he’d learned despair in all its guises.
Her laughter drifted over the garden wall like bells, like music, and something in him yearned toward the distant sound.
Round and round she twirled as if she were dancing in the ballroom of a fancy hotel instead of across the broken brick pathways of a tangled garden. It was the waltz. Jim used to dance it often. Back when he could.
Mesmerized, Jim focused the telescope on her once more. He couldn’t help himself. Blame it on the night. Blame it on the rain. Blame it on a miracle: the first faint stirrings of interest he’d had since his accident.
The woman’s hair was dark brown, straight and as sleek as the pelt of an otter. Her arms were slender and pale. Obviously she was not the kind of woman who worshipped the sun. Probably the only time she bared her arms was in the cool of the evening, long after the burning sun had vanished.
What in the world was she doing in Florida? Why was she dancing alone in an overgrown garden? And who was the man at her side?
Jim started to focus on the man, then shoved the telescope away. What was the matter with him? He was no damned voyeur.
Still, something kept drawing him back to the woman. Curiosity? His own loneliness manifesting itself in a morbid fashion? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he couldn’t leave the rooftop as long as the woman was in the garden, dancing in the rain.
