“You are one bitter man,” Ethan said softly.
“I prefer to think of myself as enlightened. When Amy started talking about love, I didn’t say anything negative. Only when she pushed me against the wall did I tell her how I felt.”
“I’m sure that was the high point of her day.”
“It wasn’t my best moment either!”
“Hell, Gray, how can you say you don’t love Amy? I’ve seen the way you two are together. I’ve seen the way you look at her sometimes when you’re not putting on a show for the rest of the world.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I don’t think you do either.”
“Can’t you be open-minded about this? Amy knows how she feels.”
“She knows how she’s been conditioned to feel by a society obsessed with love. Do you know how many problems are caused by people who think they’re doing the right thing in the name of love?”
“That has nothing to do with your situation, and I think you’d realize it if you’d quit trying so hard to convince yourself you aren’t in love.”
“I don’t need to convince myself of anything. I admire, respect, trust and desire Amy. Why isn’t that enough for her? Hell, why isn’t it enough for you?”
“Because you’re in denial. Amy knows it. I think anyone in town would agree with me. You’re giving reasons why you fell in love, but that’s not the same as admitting you are in love.”
“I am not in love!” The crushing feeling in his chest intensified until he wondered how he continued to breathe. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Maybe the situation had pushed him over the edge.
Ethan shook his head. “Answer this question. What would you do if someone tried to harm Amy?”
“That’s a stupid question and you know it. I’d fight anyone who tried to hurt her in any way.”
“So you care about her?”
“Of course I care about her. Hell, I care about you, although at the moment I can’t understand why.”
Ethan dismissed his sarcasm with a wave of his hand. “You said you desire, respect, trust and admire her. How many other people do you feel that way about?”
“Well, no one at the moment.”
“Face it, Gray. You haven’t felt that way about anyone else since I’ve known you.”
“Okay, so she is special. I never denied that.”
“She’s a special woman who you would do anything to protect, whom you admire, desire, trust, and respect. Face it, man—you are in love.”
“You’re turning my words against me!”
“No, I’m trying to make you see the light. Love isn’t some idealistic aura that spreads around you like magic. It’s an everyday thing, a feeling you get when she walks into the room. It’s the need you have to be with her, even when you have something else that needs to be done. It’s that urge you have to bond with her like no other person, to share private moments and public joys, and yes, even to create a new life that will be the best of you both.”
Ethan walked to the door. “Don’t tell me you’re not in love with Amy. I don’t believe you, and for the sake of your happiness, I hope to God she doesn’t believe you either.”
Gray slumped into a chair by the window, all the fight gone out of him. Ethan couldn’t be right…could he?
Chapter Sixteen
She’d been a fool. Ten times a fool. She’d been so certain that a simple pretend dating situation would be harmless. Then she’d convinced herself that she could make love with Gray without being in love with him. Then she’d thought about losing him, only to realize she was in love with him. And after she told him that she wanted all or nothing, he’d been so appalled that he’d shut her out of his life.
You’re asking too much, he’d said. No, she wasn’t. If she’d never told him how she’d felt, she would be living a lie. Granted, she’d still be by his side, but she would have given herself an ulcer from the tension of holding back her feelings. She couldn’t live like that; she deserved more than half a life with the man she loved.
But dammit, who’d decided being right would hurt so much?
Her father stuck his head in her office. “I’m goin’ to the café for lunch. Would you like to come along?”
And endure the pitiful looks of everyone who’d discovered she and Gray were no longer engaged? “No, thanks Daddy. I’m going to walk over to the house and fix myself a sandwich or something.” And try not to think about what a fool I’ve been.
“Joyce would be mighty glad to see you.”
Amy forced herself to smile. “When are you going to make an honest woman out of her?”
Her father jerked upright and he practically sputtered. Twin spots of color spread from his cheeks to his forehead. “We’ve only been out on a few dates. It’s a little early to be hearin’ church bells.”
His obvious surprise and bluster were a balm to her spirits. She smiled, deciding to push him a little harder. At least one Wheatley should have a successful love life. “Well, neither one of you are getting any younger. I’d get down to business if I were you.”
Her father set his lips in a thin line Amy recognized as bullheadedness. He pulled her door closed before limping ever so slightly to lunch.
As soon as he left, she slumped in her chair. She didn’t want to see any patients today, much less face friends and family. As a medical doctor, she understood the signs of depression, but this felt more like plain old heartache. The kind of ailment she’d read about in books but never experienced before.
The sound of the front door opening and closing drifted into her consciousness, followed by some conversation she couldn’t make out. A walk-in, perhaps, or her father saying goodbye as he left for lunch. She dabbed at her eyes. In either case, she’d better pull herself together. The rest of the day wasn’t going to get any easier.
“No, you can’t barge in and see her.” Amy heard Gladys’ strident voice through the closed door. “Not after you broke her heart.”
Broke her heart? She stood on shaky legs and approached the door to her office, pressing her ear to the small crack between the wood and the facing.
“I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” she heard her father say, “but I’m pretty sure it’s your fault.”
Oh, no. They could only be talking to one person. The one person she couldn’t see. Not yet. Not until she pulled herself together and could look at him without crying over everything she’d ever wanted, but they never had.
She hadn’t even gathered the nerve to return his ring herself.
“I need to talk to her. I tried calling, but that battle-ax of a nurse won’t put me through.” She imagined Gray addressing her father while pointing to Gladys. He didn’t sound like himself at all. The voice she heard through the door was demanding, almost frantic.
He’d tried to call? When? This morning, perhaps. She’d heard the phone ring, but hadn’t paid any attention. All her thoughts had been directed inward, exploring her own grief.
“I’m going into that office one way or another,” Gray said forcefully.
Amy imagined her father, a fit but older man, standing beside Gladys, who could be a bit intimidating. They might be determined, but they were no match for someone of Gray’s age, size and strength. Her hand rested on the knob, torn between wanting to protect her father or her heart.
“Why put her through any more grief?” her father asked. “She told me it was through and I’m takin’ her at her word.”
“Because she thinks I don’t love her!”
“Well, do you?” her father boldly asked.
“Yes! Yes, I love her.” A pause punctuated his announcement, then he said louder, “Amy, do you hear me? I love you.”
Her hand trembled when she opened the door. Standing not six feet away was Gray, flushed and disheveled, his usually neat hair furrowed by fingers of frustration. His leather jacket hung open, revealing a plaid flannel shirt half tucked into jeans. His silvery eyes, normally so calm and cool, were nearly
molten with emotion.
“Gray,” she whispered. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” His gaze devoured her. “Amy…yes.”
Tears pooled in her eyes until the scene before her wavered and blurred. She opened her arms, and then Gray was there, holding her so tight she thought they might fuse into one.
He leaned back enough to look into her eyes, then lowered his head and kissed her. Hard and sweet and demanding, the kiss was everything she’d wanted. Commitment, love, trust and a promise of the future. She slanted her head and kissed him back, telling him everything without saying a word.
Gradually, she heard a sniffle, then a gentle cough. Breaking apart, she looked around Gray’s shoulder at her father and Gladys. “If it’s okay with you, I think I will take my lunch break now,” she said.
“Fine,” he father said. “I didn’t need to go to the café anyway. You take all the time you want.”
“I’ll reschedule anything you need,” Gladys said, her voice vibrating with what Amy hoped was joy.
“Good,” Gray said, “because we have some talking to do and I’m not very good before an audience.”
“Since when,” Amy asked. “You seemed to do pretty well when you proposed in the restaurant in Wimberley.”
“This time it’s for real…and forever.”
Her arms held him tight as tears escaped her eyes and ran down her cheeks, wetting his soft flannel shirt. He didn’t seem to mind. He stroked her hair and held her in return.
Moments passed. The tears stopped, and in their place, an impatience to hear and touch and experience all that Gray wanted to share.
“Let’s go next door to my house.”
“I have a better idea. Let’s go to mine.”
Amy nodded. She turned to her father and Gladys. “Can you handle my patients?”
“For this? Of course we can. Now get on out of here before the two of you embarrass a couple of senior citizens.”
Gladys swatted her father on his arm. “Speak for yourself, you old coot.”
Amy and Gray both laughed as they headed outside. A gleaming silver luxury sports-utility vehicle was parked in front of the clinic.
“The dealer delivered it this morning,” he explained as he opened her door. “I wanted something a little bigger, a little more of a family vehicle.”
“A family?”
“Yeah,” he said, a very uncharacteristic grin on his face. “I think that would be nice, whenever you’re ready.”
Instead of heading toward his house, they set out north. “Where are we going?”
“Back to where this started,” he said, his hands firm on the wheel. “I want to be alone with you at the cabin. Can you wait that long?”
Amy nodded, but she wasn’t sure she could be patient. The drive seemed to take forever. Much of the landscape was unfamiliar because when they’d driven to the cabin from Austin she’d been asleep, and the darkness had obscured any landmarks. Now, in the bright winter sun, the lake gleamed a brilliant blue.
Gray pulled the SUV to a stop in front of the cabin, but Amy didn’t wait for him to come around to her side. She jumped down and met him in front. With a smile, he took her hand. “I would carry you across the threshold, but my doctor would probably tell me that’s bad for my knee.”
“Save it for the honeymoon,” she said, then stopped. “That is, I assume…”
Gray laughed, the joyous sound seeming to reverberate across the low hills surrounding the lake. “Let me do this one my way, okay? No pressure from friends and neighbors, no family expectations, no other reason than the right one.”
“And that is?”
“Inside,” he said, a gleam in his eyes she understood.
He unlocked the door, then kissed her as they crossed the threshold. When she opened her eyes, they were standing in the living room of the modest, cozy cabin where Gray had fixed breakfast for her months before.
He tugged her over to the couch, which was an overstuffed piece covered in a colorful red-and-brown woven throw. Sinking down together, he kissed her again, his hands framing her face. When he pulled back, he smiled. “You are so beautiful.”
“Even a bit tearstained and blotchy?”
“Even then. I assume I’m the cause of the tears, right?”
“There were tears of sorrow, then tears of joy. Both for you.”
“Then I’m sorry and I’m glad,” he said, pushing her hair back from her cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize the truth until sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I’m glad you were willing to listen, that you hadn’t given up on me.”
“I don’t think I could ever give up on you, Gray. I love you.”
He looked deep into her eyes, his expression so intense she breath seemed frozen in her lungs. “I love you too, with all my heart.”
“Oh, Gray,” she whispered, reaching for him, holding him tight once more as though she were afraid he might vanish. He wouldn’t, she knew. Gray was steady and purposeful and he never made commitments lightly. If he said he loved her, she believed him one hundred percent.
“I want us to get married, just like we’d planned, with our family and friends looking on. I want to have a family with you and watch our children grow up in this small town we both love. I want to grow old with you, and love you until I draw my last breath.”
“What made you change your mind?” She had to know, to understand how this man of deep convictions had reversed his thinking so quickly.
“Ethan came to see me. It seems your father recruited him to speak to me, since we’re friends. He basically called me a damned fool because I didn’t recognize what was right before me all along. I loved you, but I was afraid to put a name to it. I was afraid that if I said the word, I was condemning myself to suffer again. I had to let go of the past, of the problems of my first marriage and the bad examples I’d witnessed in my childhood to see the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
“That you and I have many things in common, but we’re two separate people. That we draw strength from each other, yet provide support when we need it. That together we are much better than either of us would be apart.”
“And love?”
“I don’t know how to define it as eloquently as Ethan did when he made me face my past, but now I recognize love for what it is. The feeling I get when I think of you, look at you. The contentment our relationship brings, the joy you give to me every day. I could live without it, but I’d never be happy.”
He framed her face again and looked deep into her soul. “And I want to be happy with you, and make you happy, for all our days. Will you marry me, Dr. Amy Wheatley, in sickness and in health, ’til death us do part?”
“Yes,” she whispered, emotion clogging her voice, stinging her eyes. “A thousand times yes.”
He slipped the emerald-cut diamond back on her finger. “This time, it’s forever.”
THE WEDDING TOOK PLACE on a cloudless day in June, just as Amy had planned, with nearly a hundred of their friends, family and neighbors looking on. Gray stood at the gazebo where the ceremony would occur and looked out over the crowd. His mother and stepfather had dressed as though they were attending a more formal indoor wedding. They must be uncomfortable in the lingering heat of the day, but did their best to appear unfazed by ninety-degree temperatures and persistent, buzzing insects.
His father and his new wife—Gray refused to think of the thirty-something former actress/model as his stepmother—sat one row back, looking considerably more comfortable. His dad wore a pale linen unstructured suit and his wife wore a very short, very sleeveless sheath with high, strappy gold sandals that had gotten stuck in the turf on several occasions. Her high-pitched giggles had caused a few heads to turn in the conservative community of Ranger Springs.
Friends from Dallas, Austin and Gray’s new hometown filled out several rows of folding chairs, along with some business associates. A very pregnant Robin sat on the end of a row so she could dash to the ladies�
�� room as needed. A common occurrence, Ethan had explained with a grin. His beloved aunt, who now lived in Houston, sat beside Robin to keep her company…just in case the baby decided to make an early entrance.
And on the other side, Ambrose Wheatley’s new bride, Joyce, sat next to her husband’s chair, where he would sit after walking his daughter down the aisle. Ambrose and Joyce had surprised everyone by eloping to Las Vegas one day in early May. They didn’t want to interfere with Amy’s wedding, they’d explained, and besides, they weren’t getting any younger. They seemed to get a “big kick” out of the Elvis impersonator conducting their ceremony on the Strip. Amy couldn’t be happier for them.
Thelma sat next to Joyce and Gina Summers. She’d better watch out, or the merry matchmakers would be fixing her up next. Encouraged by their success, they wouldn’t be happy until all the single people in town had found their perfect mates.
The organ music continued to play. Gray shifted as a bead of sweat rolled down his back, well hidden by the gray tuxedo he wore. Wasn’t it time for the ceremony to begin? He was all packed and ready to start the honeymoon—a two-week cruise with a private balcony and a king-size bed. He’d taken a big step and groomed his management team to take over for him. There wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle—with just a few phone calls from him occasionally to make sure his “baby” was running smoothly.
“Do you remember what you said last year?” Ethan asked.
“About what?”
“When I was standing here waiting for Robin to walk down the aisle?”
“Not really,” Gray said. It was the truth; he couldn’t recall the exact words.
“If I remember correctly, I predicted you’d be standing up here one day, and you said something about ‘when pigs fly.’ Well, I’m waiting for the flying pigs.”
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