by Debra Holt
“I don’t think we have anything further to say to each other. You did your job well. We even had a brief stroll down memory lane. Cliché, I know, but thanks for the memories.” Kaitlyn began to turn away but his hands on her upper arms were faster and pinned her to the spot.
“If I thought it would do any good, I would give you a good shaking. You’re the most infuriating woman I’ve ever met. I didn’t seek you out. You had made it clear over the years by not returning to McKenna Springs that you wanted nothing to do with anyone… with me… ever again. My mistake was in thinking I could do Georgia a favor, bring you home, and let that be it. But I couldn’t leave it at that. No… I had to kiss you.”
The wind picked up along the flat highway and ruffled through Kaitlyn’s hair. Clay’s eyes softened a bit as his fingers loosened their grip. One hand lifted and a finger gently moved a stray strand off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. It was a move that found a softening chink in the armor she was trying to hang on to.
Clay drew a long breath and slowly expelled it. His voice was low and soft, almost a caress as he spoke next.
“I took one look at you when I stepped out of that helicopter and I knew that all the years, and all the speeches I had made to myself about doing the right thing… what was best to do for your sake… to let you get on that bus and not come after you… I realized that I had just been fooling myself. The truth of the matter was you took my heart with you when you left. I’ve been waiting for it to return ever since. It was as if I was in limbo until you came home again. I knew my heart had come back to me in that cabin when we kissed and knew we would have made love if that call hadn’t interrupted. Then I did something that I had never done in my life—I ran away.”
*
Confusion, mixed with a small kernel of hope, started to grow in her heart at his words. As much as she didn’t want to dare open the wounds again, hope wouldn’t be ignored. Kaitlyn felt afraid and hopeful—conflicting emotions with so many names. She was standing on a ledge and he could either push them over the precipice or save both. It had suddenly grown more difficult to breathe. Dare she believe again? All she could do was return his gaze with one of her own, searching for what she had always longed for, yet still afraid she wouldn’t find it again.
“You ran from what?”
Two fingers lifted her chin as his warm honey eyes settled on her with such a depth of emotion filling them as they locked on hers.
“From you.” Clay’s voice was just above a whisper. “I knew I didn’t have the strength in me to watch a second time as you drove away… back to a life that didn’t include me. I was torn by what I wanted to do and what I thought I should do.” He searched her eyes for some sort of sign that he was making sense in trying to explain his feelings to her. She returned his gaze with a steady one. There was nothing to be done but plunge forward.
“So I stayed away from the ranch planning to drink myself into a quiet stupor until a good friend sat me down with some strong coffee and plain talk.”
Kaitlyn didn’t need to be told that the friend was also the same man who had driven Clay to find her. She would forever be thankful to the man but that was for later. Right now, her life was hanging by a slender thread of hope.
“Did you come to any decisions?” she whispered, not daring to even breathe until she heard his answer.
“Yes. It’s time to let go of the past. Time to take the chance and state my case. It’s time to grab hold of the future before I lose the chance forever. But to do that, I have to say some things that are hard to say. I’ve never spoken them aloud before. I realize that for there to be a chance for us, I need to put everything out on the table. Then you make the decision you need to make. I can’t make decisions for you. None of us should have ever done that.”
Kaitlyn looked into the eyes that held both pain and hopefulness and something she did not dare to acknowledge lest it all be a dream. “I’m listening.”
“I let you go all those years ago because I listened to your grandmother tell me it was all for the best. I let my brain override my heart. I thought I was doing the right thing… for you. I knew that what she said rang true enough. If I kept you from following your dreams, I would always worry that the day would come when you would realize that being my wife would not compare with the life you could have had in the bright lights. Then you would resent me and that was something I couldn’t live with. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. I wanted to be selfish and hold on to you. Yet, I knew I couldn’t and still live with myself. However, there has never been a day that has passed that I didn’t regret that decision. I watched you get on that bus that day and my heart broke in half.”
Kaitlyn could not remain silent at that point. She searched his face before she spoke.
“Yet you let me go, and a bare few months later, you married another woman. A woman who was carrying your child… a child conceived even before I left.”
Clay’s face mirrored his surprise and then shock as the light dawned on him. “You believed that was what happened? That explains so much.” His voice held such care as his arms slid around her waist and drew her closer.
“Is that how it seemed to you? Then I can see how you must have hated me. Why you wouldn’t come back here.” He took a deep breath and then let it go. “There are some things I need to explain about myself and Missy.”
Kaitlyn braced herself for whatever might be coming.
“First of all, I went to New York a few months after you left. I was so miserable. I believed that I needed to see you on the stage. I had to see for myself that I had made the right decision. Maybe then, I would find some peace of mind.”
The surprise was evident in Kaitlyn’s eyes as this news was delivered. “You were there in the audience? I knew it. I felt it.”
“You felt it?”
“I remember that all during the play, I had this strange feeling… I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then at curtain call, I was standing there and the feeling was just overwhelming. I searched the faces of the audience that I could see. Then the spotlight moved and I caught a glimpse at the back of the house, a tall figure with a cowboy hat, leaving the auditorium. It was just a brief glimpse and when I looked again, I saw no one. I talked myself into believing I had just imagined it. But it was you. I felt you there. Why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you say something to me?”
He stopped her. “You belonged on that stage, Kat, and you know it’s true. You deserved your shot. But the part of the story that you also need to know is that for me to attend that night, I had to get someone to cover my shifts for me. One of the other deputies, Joshua Allen, volunteered to take them. He and his girl were expecting their first child and the extra money was really needed. So it worked out for the both of us.”
The name was vaguely familiar to Kaitlyn but she let it go as Clay continued.
“Joshua was a really good guy. We met at the academy. You would have liked him. He was engaged to be married to his childhood sweetheart…Missy Faraday.”
Kaitlyn was confused and at a loss at this news.
“As I said, Josh took my place on my patrol. The second night, he was sent out on a domestic disturbance call. It was a couple we had several calls on before. Only this time, the guy met him at the door with a gun. He had shot his wife and then he shot Josh. He was finally caught a week later in Louisiana. Josh never had a chance. He died on scene.” The pain of losing his friend was still evident by the look of anguish that surfaced in the depths of his eyes at the memories. Clay blamed himself. That reality was clear to her.
“And you blame yourself for not being there and on duty. His death wasn’t your fault.” Kaitlyn gently spoke, her gaze holding compassion and so much more. “It was horrible but it was a crime. It could have been any officer that responded.”
Clay slowly shook his head, a rueful set to his mouth. “If I had been there, he wouldn’t have been working that night. So, yes, I did blame myself. And Missy was inconsolable and so lost. He
was her whole world. As I said, they were expecting their first child. She had no family, no one to turn to for anything. She was always a fragile type of person.”
The light of understanding began to dawn on Kaitlyn… a sad, horrible light. “Oh, my. Oh, no. The baby… that baby she was expecting… it was Joshua. Joshua Allen was his biological father.”
“I thought I could do the right thing… somehow make it all up to everyone. You had left and taken my heart with you. I knew there would be no one else that I would ever care about as I had you. I didn’t want any substitutes. And I owed it to Joshua who took my place that night. So I went to Missy with a plan. I would give her and her baby a home. It was my responsibility and something I could do for Josh.”
Clay lifted his head and took a deep breath of the chilly air, seeming to gather strength for what was still to be said.
“Missy grieved for Josh, more than any of us fully realized. Her health wasn’t that great. Joshua came six weeks early. A few minutes after he was born, there was a blood clot and it was over before anyone knew it. Missy never even got to hold her son. I became a father and a mother all at the same time.”
“Joshua is not your biological child. I should have known. Whenever I tried to see something of him in you, I couldn’t. That explains it all. He doesn’t know, does he?”
“No. Someday, when he’s older, I will tell him about his father and what a good man he was. That is only right.”
“You are his father, in all the ways that truly matter.”
Kaitlyn’s heart was breaking for the woman she had never known and for the man and child left behind to live with it all.
Clay looked at her in that moment with so much pent-up, raw emotion and infinite love. “I just wanted you to know why I married. It had nothing to do with loving another woman. There was never anyone else for me but you. From the moment I saw you sitting under that tree in your grandmother’s yard, my heart was yours. And it always will be.”
His arms held her, his eyes searching hers.
“I gave you my heart a long, long time ago, Kat. And I built that house… our house… because I guess, deep down inside, I thought maybe one day, somehow, by some miracle, you might come back home. A person can live on hope for a long time. I found that out. The house was a part of you that I had with me, as silly as that might sound. But I hear that men in love do some silly things. I can tell you that your ghost has walked those halls many a long, lonely night over the years.”
Kaitlyn’s heart lifted as high as the sky. Tears filled her eyes. She raised her hand to softly caress the cheek of the man she had loved over half her life.
“Oh, Clay, you set me free and I came back to you. That means that we’re meant to be.” Her voice was full of the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. Through misty eyes, she gazed up at the face of the man she loved and would love the rest of their days.
“I’ve seen the world, and it’s big and beautiful. I’ve had great applause and the bright lights. Yet, they weren’t my dream.”
“I’m asking… a bit late… but tell me your dream. What did you want all those years ago?”
“The same thing I still want.” It was time to take the biggest leap of her life. To trust Clay Morgan with her heart and her dreams… for the last time. “All I ever wanted was to stay right here in McKenna Springs. To live in our house and have it filled with children and grandchildren. And to love you all the days of my life. What do you think? I’m asking too much?”
“I think it’s a tall order but seems if we both have the same dream, then it has to come true.”
“Think we can make it happen?”
The look in Clay’s eyes engulfed her with all the longing and love she could ever imagine possible. The smile she so loved came into view and widened into the most delicious and devilish of grins.
“I think I’m the ranger for the job. As long as it’s a lifetime assignment.” His voice softened and she felt it all the way to her toes. “Forever and a day. I promise you we will live our dream… together. I love you, my sweet Kat. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Six days? Are you serious? The world took seven. And this has to be perfect.” Angie pointed out, looking up from her note pad. “I’m good, but not that good.”
“Well, six days is all you have,” Clay responded, his arm going around Kaitlyn as they stood in the kitchen. “I’ve waited for twelve years already but my patience is done with. I intend to have this woman in front of a preacher on Saturday, no matter what. Where that takes place is beside the point… church, beach, mountains, barn, JP office. Makes no difference to me.”
A light came on in Kaitlyn’s mind. “I have the perfect place. So you can make yourself scarce now. Go plan the honeymoon.” She planted a kiss on his cheek as she pushed him toward the doorway.
“I require a proper kiss to send me on my way.” Before she knew it, he swung her in his arms and bent her back, locking his lips on hers in a kiss that made Angie try to stifle a giggle.
“I’m still here… hello, you two! We have work to do. Save it for the honeymoon.”
“Honeymoon? Right,” Clay said, bringing Kaitlyn back to her feet. “I have a date at the jewelers too. Have fun ladies.”
“I swear, if this gets anymore syrupy around here, I may overdose on it.”
“What’s Angie overdosing on?” Gran inquired as she and Edie entered the kitchen with a large box and two sacks. They sat them on the counter. Joshua and Seth followed with more sacks.
“The delivery driver was dropping this off on the porch, so I brought it in. Where do you—” Jace Blackhawke barely got the words out.
“Oh my! It’s here. It’s really here! That was fast.” Angie jumped up from her seat, excitement lighting her eyes. “It goes upstairs. Follow me.”
“She meant to add a please in there.” Kaitlyn smiled at the man as he was turning to follow the departing Angie down the hallway. “This wedding has her a little frazzled.”
“I heard that!” Angie responded, already on the stairs but not stopping. “And please and thank you too just in case I forget it later,” she added for the man’s benefit.
She opened the door and stood back for Jace to enter. “Just set it on the bed.”
“It’s an awful fancy box,” he said as he deposited it.
The box took up a good portion of the bottom half of the bed. Its red color contrasted with the cream of the bedspread. The gold script lettering across the top spelled out a single name… Angelina.
“What is Angelina?”
Folding her arms, Angie gave him a long look through narrowed eyes. “Angelina is the name of a designer. That designer would be me.” She dared him to say anything else. “Thank you for bringing the box to my room.”
“You’re welcome… Angelina.”
Angie opened her mouth to respond but closed it again. She had evidently thought better of it.
Kaitlyn had stood by the doorway and now she closed the door behind the departing man. “He’s quite something, that Marshal Blackhawke.”
“He’s something all right. I just haven’t figured out what exactly.” Angie bent to slide the red and gold sash off the box.
“I think he thinks the same about you.”
Angie threw Kaitlyn an unamused glance. “We have more important things to discuss… like if your wedding dress will fit or not.”
She withdrew the lid of the box and Kaitlyn rushed to pull back the tissue paper, drawing in a deep breath as her eyes caught the lace and chiffon confection before her. “Oh my…” She breathed the words out. “The beading work, the lace… I can’t believe you did this for me.”
“I told you a long time ago that I had designed your wedding dress and it was ready whenever you were. Actually, I designed two dresses… one for colder months should you be a December bride and one for warmer months, which you have before you. I just needed you to get a proposal and a date. You took long enough doing it.”
“I think you did just that.” Angie smiled. Reaching over, she began to withdraw the folds of chiffon. “Now let’s try this creation on, shall we?”
*
“You’ve been working mighty hard in here, Joshua,” Seth commented, coming into the rear of the shed where the boy had a workbench all set up for his projects. “Anything I can help with?” Seth didn’t venture further into the room as he sensed that whatever the boy was working on had some sort of surprise factor involved. He stood in the doorway.
The boy gave him a smile and a shake of the head. “No, thank you. I’ve about got it.”
“Well, then, I’ll leave you to it. Edie said to remind you that you’ll be going with your dad and Jace into town right after lunch. You might want to have time to get cleaned up.”
“I’ll be ready.”
After the man had left, Joshua looked at the final letter he had just carved into the wood. A slow, satisfied smile creased his face. He had wanted to do something special for Kaitlyn. He only hoped she would like it. When he told his dad he wanted to do something, to give her something, but he had no idea what to do, his dad had told him to just think with his heart and it would come to him. It had and he had poured his feelings into the carving. Now he needed to find the right time to give it to her.
*
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Gran looked at her granddaughter.
“I couldn’t be any more certain,” Kaitlyn replied, placing an arm around the woman’s shoulders. “This is where it all began for Clay and me. This is where we should say our vows.” They stood under the spreading limbs of the huge pecan tree in Gran’s yard. “Seth will move the swing to the side for the time being. In fact, I want our first wedding photo to be taken with Clay and me sitting in that swing after we’re married. Continuity with the past is what family is all about and this is where we continue our new family into the future.”
“I like that. And I’m looking forward to sitting in that swing with my second grandchild one day.”
