“Dillon,” she called his name, hoping to be heard above the raised voices. He heard her, because moments later he was on the other side of the door she quietly closed.
“Please let him in, Dillon,” she pleaded.
“The devil I will,” he shouted. “You won’t let me in, but you want me to let some damn bandit walk into that room with you? Like hell I will.”
He was frustrated. There was an edge to his voice, a tightness that crept in when things didn’t go his way.
“I love you, Dillon,” she said tenderly.
There was silence on the other side of the door, and then a loud sigh. “You sure do know how to take the wind out of a man’s sails, honey.” His voice was much calmer, if still a little strained. “You know I love you, too, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I guess I can let the son of a bitch in, but he better not be in there too long, or I’ll drag the minister up here and he can marry us where you stand.”
Grace smiled. “Ten minutes. No more.”
Dillon allowed Renzo to enter the room, and the former highwayman opened and closed the door quickly.
Grace couldn’t ask. What if he hadn’t been able to get enough?
But Renzo wore his usual unconcerned grin. “You look fabulous, amiga.”
“Well? Were you able to…” She couldn’t finish.
Renzo held aloft a bulging saddlebag. “Exactly five thousand one hundred and twenty-one dollars. I thought I would not get quite enough, and then a man offered me twenty dollars for the carved box the jewels had been stored in. I held out for forty-one, and the fool paid it.” He grinned mischievously.
“You cut it too close, Renzo. I was afraid….” She couldn’t finish her thought, couldn’t let him know that for a moment she hadn’t trusted him.
His grin widened. “Once a thief, always a thief?”
“I only doubted you a little, when it got so late.”
“I would have been here sooner, but I had to see my little jewel.”
“You stopped to see Abigail before you came here?” Grace asked. She could only smile.
“Sí. I missed her.” He seemed mystified by the very notion.
Dillon stood as still as he could in front of the minister. But his thumb tapped against his thigh, and he unconsciously twisted against his tight collar. Olivia had insisted that he wear a dark suit and a white linen shirt, and she’d polished his boots until they shone. The toe of one of those boots was tapping nervously.
Renzo had appeared moments earlier, a good five minutes before his time was up, and told them that Grace was ready. Billy waited at the bottom of the stairs, and Olivia sat in the single chair. A few of the hands stood to the side and Renzo stood, grinning widely, on the opposite side of the room.
Dillon had wanted music for her, but the moment he saw her he knew he wouldn’t have heard it had there been an orchestra. She walked down the stairs with that same regal air she’d conveyed when he’d first seen her, but now there was a smile on her face.
She’d worn blue, for him. It was the ice blue gown he’d seen her in that night at Abigail’s house, when he’d decided she looked too damn good to share. Grace’s eyes never left him, even as Billy took her arm at the bottom of the staircase and led her to him. He couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face.
What a vision she was, his Grace, dressed in blue and smiling at him as though there weren’t another person in the room, in the world, and carrying in her hands, rather than a bouquet of flowers, the carpetbag she had carried on their trip from New Orleans.
When she stood beside him she set the carpetbag at her feet and placed her hands in his.
The minister began to speak, his deep and sonorous voice echoing through the house. This was a moment Dillon would remember forever. Married in this house, to this woman.
Olivia had begun to cry loudly, a maddeningly frequent occurrence, and Grace turned to the minister. “Could we speed this up?”
The man looked as shocked as Dillon felt. After stalling for hours, she wanted the man to hurry up?
“I beg your pardon?” the minister asked with frown.
“As fast as possible.” Grace lifted her face to him. “Please.”
Dillon nodded his assent.
“Do you, Grace Cavanaugh, take this man as your wedded husband, to—”
“I do,” Grace interrupted.
“Do you, Dillon Becket, take this woman as your wedded wife—”
“I do,” he said with a grin. Short, but memorable.
“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the minister said, barely hiding his dismay. “You may kiss the bride.”
But when he leaned over to kiss her, Grace bent and retrieved the bag.
“Here,” she said, thrusting it at him. “Your wedding present.”
Dillon took the bag from her. It was heavier than he had expected. He needed to kiss her, but she made it a brief caress, drawing away from him. “Hurry, Dillon. We don’t have much time.”
He opened the bag and peered inside. Money. Gold and silver coins and greenbacks, a jumble of it inside the bag. He raised his eyes to Grace. “What is this?”
“Five thousand one hundred and twenty-one dollars,” she said, unable to hide her excitement. “If we hurry we can get to the bank before it closes.”
“How…” Dillon began, but Grace had grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the study.
“I’ll explain while you get the rest.”
It was ten minutes till closing time when they burst into the bank. Plummer’s office was at the far end of the room, and the door was open. Grace was dragging Dillon along, the bag that contained the money Renzo had gotten for her jewels and the rest of Dillon’s cash clasped in her hands. A teller tried to stop them, but they stormed into Seth Plummer’s office.
“Here,” Grace said triumphantly, dropping the bag onto his desk. “Here’s your blasted money.”
Plummer barely raised an eyebrow, and Grace opened the bag, dumping the contents onto the desk.
“Count it,” she ordered.
“I will.” His eyes traveled over her shoulder, and she looked behind her to see a dozen pairs of eyes on the scene in Plummer’s office—tellers and customers, openly curious. She smiled at them all and took Dillon’s hand.
Plummer counted the money, and Grace tried to pace nervously and hold Dillon’s hand at the same time. Her husband was surprisingly calm, as he watched the banker count out the bills and the coins. Once he looked at her and gave her a reassuring smile, and she squeezed his fingers tightly. There was a surprising calmness in those eyes, gray and warm and peaceful. This was a look she had rarely seen in his eyes, and she was glad that she had been the one to put it there.
“You’re short,” Plummer said, snapping at them. “Twenty dollars.”
“That can’t be!” Grace cried. “It’s all there….”
Plummer shrugged his shoulders. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Cavanaugh.”
“Mrs. Becket,” Dillon said coldly, and with slow assurance.
“Mrs. Becket,” Plummer repeated.
Dillon began calmly to gather the bills and lay them in the bag.
“But…can’t you give us a little more time? This is practically all….”
Plummer was shaking his head, and Dillon was picking up stacks of coins and dropping them into the bag, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Don’t worry about it, Grace. Plummer wants the ranch, and he can have it.” He smiled at her. “I have you.”
“But it’s your home.”
Dillon lifted the heavy bag. “This will give us a start somewhere else. It doesn’t matter where we are, Grace.”
“Excuse me.” Renzo breezed into the room with his usual flair, and Dillon rolled his eyes. “I understand there is a problem here?”
“No problem,” Dillon snapped.
Renzo reached into his pocket and withdrew a handful of coins. “I was just making a withdrawal, an
d I heard that you were twenty dollars short. You may have forgotten, but when we first met you were kind enough to make me a loan of…eighty dollars, was it?”
“Ninety,” Dillon corrected him coldly.
Renzo casually flipped a twenty-dollar gold piece onto Plummer’s desk, and ignored the fact that the banker was turning crimson. Then he placed seventy dollars in Dillon’s hands.
Dillon dropped the bag on Plummer’s desk, and as he watched Plummer rifle through his desk drawer for the deed, his smile slowly grew. Grace took his hand and squeezed it, and he twined his fingers through hers.
They left the bank with deed in hand, and ran into Renzo on the sidewalk. He was leaning against a post with a nonchalant air, lighting a cigar.
Dillon faced the man he had insulted and openly hated, and said the words that didn’t ever come easily to him. “Thank you.”
Renzo shrugged casually. “I heard the tellers talking as I closed my account. Plummer palmed a gold piece while you weren’t watching. That’s why you were short.”
“That son of a—”
“You were closing your account?” Grace asked at the same moment Dillon spoke.
“Sí.” Renzo lifted his eyebrows rakishly. “My little jewel has agreed to elope with me. Tonight. I have sold my business for a pittance to the man who owns the general store, as I don’t expect to be back for quite some time.”
“Your little jewel?” Dillon asked.
“Abigail,” Grace whispered, leaning close to her husband.
Renzo left them, flashing a grin and waving dramatically. Grace still thought he and Abigail the most unlikely couple.
She faced Dillon and grabbed the front of his shirt. When she tilted her face up she smiled and stared into his eyes. He was her husband. The Double B was her home. What more could she ask for?
“I don’t know what to say to you, Grace,” Dillon muttered. “Thank you? Not enough. I love you? You know that. What can I say? A man’s not supposed to have everything he wants.”
There was a kind of wonder in his voice that warmed Grace’s heart.
“I don’t see why not.”
Dillon bent his head to kiss her gently, to brush his lips against hers. Abigail’s description had been pretty accurate, she decided. Her knees were wobbly, and her stomach dropped to her toes.
Grace pulled away from Dillon, took his hand, and pulled him toward the stallion that had carried them both to Plummerton. “Take me home, Becket.”
Epilogue
The Double B, 1878
Dillon stood in the doorway, content to watch for a moment as Grace held the jewels he had given her on her lap.
Pearl, five years old and the picture of her mother, sat on one knee, listening solemnly to the story her mother was reading. She was already a beauty, with Grace’s fine features and black hair, and his own gray eyes. Pearl could be as solemn as her father at times, but when she laughed she laughed with all her heart and soul.
Ruby sat on Grace’s other knee, fidgeting as usual, winding one finger through the reddest, unruliest hair Dillon had ever seen. Olivia was almost certain that there was a Becket in his past with hair like Ruby’s. A grandmother of his, though she couldn’t remember much more than that. Ruby had none of Pearl’s serenity, but was possessed of a liveliness that sometimes made Dillon dread the years to come. She had her mother’s bluebonnet eyes, and there were times they shone brighter than Grace’s ever had.
He let his eyes linger on Grace for a moment. He still loved to look at her when she didn’t know she was being watched. He still loved to watch her sleep. They’d been married six years to the day, and she hadn’t changed a bit. Even when he searched for a flaw, he couldn’t find one.
Ruby saw him first, of course, and burst from her mother’s lap like a ball of fire.
“Daddy!” she screamed, throwing herself at him, trusting, knowing that he would catch her. Dillon lifted Ruby, and in another moment Pearl was there, arms raised, and he lifted her as well.
Grace sat serenely, still perched in the wing chair. “How do you expect the girls to learn to read when you constantly interrupt their lessons?” They were the words of a harsh schoolmistress, delivered with a smile and a warm voice.
“I missed you,” Dillon said simply.
“In the middle of the day?”
Pearl rested her head against Dillon’s shoulder, and Ruby tried to jump up and down in his arms.
“Where’s Cav?”
Grace sighed, and finally stood to come to him. “Cavanaugh is asleep, and don’t you dare wake him. He kept me up half the night.”
“I know.”
“The Becket men don’t require much sleep, as a rule, do they?”
Dillon shook his head slowly.
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” Ruby called in conjunction with energetic bursts of her little body. “What does Double B stand for?”
“Becket’s Beauties,” Dillon answered, playing the familiar game.
“That’s us!” Ruby squealed. “What else?”
“Becket’s Bride.”
“That’s Mama,” Pearl said seriously.
“What else?” Ruby asked insistently.
“Becket’s Brood.”
“And that’s all of us,” Grace said, leaning in to give Dillon a quick kiss.
“I have a present for you.” He kissed her briefly once again. “Close your eyes.”
Grace obediently closed her eyes, and so did Pearl, but Ruby was already searching the parlor for her mother’s gift, her eyes probing into every corner.
Dillon whistled loudly, and the sound made Grace cover her ears for a moment, but she didn’t open her eyes.
Billy appeared first, and Lonnie and Lucas were right behind him. They grunted and sweated under the strain of their burden.
Dillon deposited the girls at their mother’s feet and lent a hand.
When everything was ready he went to Grace, taking her hand and leading her to her gift.
“Can I open my eyes now?” she asked patiently.
“No,” Dillon said softly. He sat down and pulled her into his lap. “Not just yet.”
Billy and the hands waited anxiously. Pearl and Ruby clasped their hands and stared at the contraption behind their father with wide eyes.
“I wish I had been able to give this to you six years ago as a wedding present, rather than as an anniversary present today.”
It had taken a few years, but the Double B was back on its feet and better than ever. Now he could give Grace anything…and she asked for nothing.
“Open your eyes.”
Grace did just that, and her eyes widened when she found that Dillon was seated on a piano bench, and a fine piano had been placed against the wall.
“Oh, Dillon.”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him thoroughly. “However did you keep this a secret from me?”
“It wasn’t easy,” he confessed. “I almost told you twice. But I wanted to see your face…like this.”
She was positively glowing, and her eyes danced as she looked the piano over.
“Do you think you remember how to play?”
“Of course I remember,” she said, just slightly insulted.
“Will you play for me every night?”
Grace smiled and nodded.
“Will you teach the girls to play?”
Grace nodded again. “And Cavanaugh, too.”
Dillon made a face, even as he tightened his arms around her. “He’s six months old, honey.”
She assured him that she would wait until he was older—a little older—and Dillon deposited his wife on the padded bench.
There, in the center of the body of the piano, was an intricate carving. The Double B brand, two Bs, back to back.
Becket’s Beauties.
Becket’s Bride.
Becket’s Brood.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any
means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by Linda Winstead Jones
ISBN 978-1-4976-1035-4
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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No Angel's Grace Page 29
