“You want to stay, for me? You don’t care that I’m a cop, one who’s ten years older than you?”
The uncertainty in his voice, in his face, melted her heart and dissolved her temper. “I love you, Dane.”
Dane’s heart stopped again. “Stacey.” His eyes slid shut in utter relief as he leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers.
“And I think,” she said, “that Ace was right and you love me, too.”
“He was,” he said, peppering kisses across her cheek and down her nose.
Before he could capture her lips, she said, “Good. Then I guess that means if I ask you to marry me, you’ll say yes.”
Dane snapped his head back and stared. “Are you asking me? To marry you?”
Stacey met that deep blue gaze and knew that no matter his answer, she would never love another man. “I am,” she said. “Will you marry me, Dane?”
A slow, deep smile spread across his face. “I’d sort of thought to do the asking myself, but the answer is yes. I’ll marry you. I love you, Stacey Conner Landers.”
At twelve noon that day, Stacey and Dane clasped hands and stepped into Harvey’s Café on Main Street. The entire Wilder clan, except the children and Rachel, who was at home with the new baby, was waiting for them.
The next hour was filled with questions and plans for a big celebration—not only to welcome Dane to the family, but to welcome Stacey as well.
Dane sat through the entire two hours with a grin on his face and a lump in his throat. Never had a man been so blessed.
A few days later Stacey learned that her grandmother was finally home from Atlanta, so she and Dane drove to Cheyenne to tell her they were getting married.
When Gwen Conner learned about all that had happened and that Dane and Stacey were getting married, that the Wilders were not responsible for her husband’s death, that they openly welcomed the Conners as part of their family and had already ordered the headstone to be engraved with Ralph’s name, she broke down and cried.
“But Gran,” Stacey said earnestly, “why the secrecy all these years? Why didn’t you ever come forward and identify Grandad?”
Gwen sighed and wiped her eyes. “I suppose since you’re marrying into the family—and a sheriff, to boot—I should get it all out in the open.”
Stacey shared a look with Dane, then said, “Surely that would be best.”
Gwen was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. They were all seated around her kitchen table. To keep her hands busy, she got up and refilled their coffee cups, then seemed to come to a decision and nodded. “All right.” She took her seat again and wrapped her hands around her mug. “A couple of days after Ralph left to go confront the Wilders, he sent me a big, heavy box. I couldn’t imagine what was in it, so I opened it.”
“Well?” Stacey demanded when her grandmother paused. “What was in it?”
“Twenty thousand dollars in cash.”
Dane nearly choked on a sip of coffee.
“What?” Stacey cried.
“Before I could decide what to do with it, they were plastering his picture all over the television and in the newspapers saying he’d been found dead on the Flying Ace. I could only assume, since he’d never had more than two dimes to rub together, that he’d stolen the money. Maybe from the Wilders themselves for all I knew. I would have returned it, but I never heard any mention of that much cash having been stolen. Ralph wasn’t much, but he’d been my husband for nearly thirty years. I couldn’t stand the thought of his name being forever stained by a robbery. I hid the money. When nobody came looking for it after a few years, I invested it.” She looked at Dane. “I haven’t touched a penny of the principal, and only a little of the interest. If you can find whoever it belongs to, I’ll gladly return it.”
Dane and Stacey stayed that night with her grandmother. When they left the next day to return to Hope Springs, Dane told Gwen not to worry about the money.
“I’ll poke around quietly and see what I can find out,” he promised, “but after all this time, it’s not likely I’ll find anything.”
When they drove away, Stacey hugged Dane’s arm. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For easing her mind. That wasn’t easy for her.” She shook her head. “All my life my family has struggled for money, and she had that all this time, but didn’t consider it hers to use.”
“She’s a special lady.”
“Yes,” Stacey agreed. “She is.”
“So’s her granddaughter.”
Stacey smiled. “Well, now. I think I like the sound of that. Does that mean you’re not going to turn tail and leave me at the altar?”
“The day I leave you at the altar is the day that saying on your pajamas comes true.”
Epilogue
Stacey Conner Landers and Wyatt County Sheriff Dane Powell were married two months later. The ceremony was small, but the reception, held in the high school gymnasium at the insistence of the Wilder women—it was the only place in town large enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to congratulate their sheriff—was huge.
The whole county buzzed about the fact that Ace Wilder gave the bride away, and that Jack Wilder stood as Dane’s best man. Equally fascinating was that the bride was attended by her grandmother, Gwen Conners of Cheyenne, plus Belinda, Lisa, Laurie and Rachel Wilder.
The story of Stacey’s grandfather and their connection to the Wilders, plus the news that Dane was another long-lost son of the late King Wilder, were secrets no longer.
The unexplained twenty thousand dollars, however, remained a private matter. Dane found no report of any large sum of money gone missing back around the time Gwen Conners received the box of cash from Ralph just before he died. As far as Dane was concerned, the money was Gwen’s.
At the wedding reception, attended by more than one hundred well-wishers, Ace Wilder held up his cup of punch and called for quiet.
The room gradually hushed until all eyes were centered on him and the newlyweds at his side.
“A toast,” Ace said, his deep voice carrying the length of the big room. “To the bride and groom, Stacey and Dane, whom we all welcome into our family with great gladness. As you all know, in 1894 a man named John Wilder, a minor baron over from England on an extended hunting trip, sat down one night in Laramie to a game of cards with a Wyoming rancher named Jeremiah Conner. John Wilder won the final hand that night, and with it, the Conner Ranch, which he renamed the Flying Ace. Now, with the joining of Dane, the great-grandson of John Wilder, and Stacey, the great-great-granddaughter of Jeremiah Conner, the circle is met. The separate sagas of the Wilders and the Conners are now forever joined.” He raised his cup high in the air. “Here’s to the bride and groom and the future generations.”
“Here, here!”
A loud cheer rose from the crowd.
Stacey and Dane tapped their cups against each other’s, against Ace’s, and everyone around them, then they drank to Ace’s toast.
Then, with more than a hundred people looking on, Dane turned Stacey into his arms and kissed her. “I love you.”
The crowd roared with approval and good wishes.
On the back side of the snack table, with cake stuck to their faces and fingers, the Wilder children decided the food was good, but everything else was just plain dumb.
“Marriage,” Jason said with all the disgust of a nine-year-old. “You won’t catch me ever getting married.”
Clay, his seven-year-old brother, clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m with you, bro.”
Behind them, Carrie and Amy, their seven-and six-year-old cousins-by-marriage, shared equally devious grins. “Wanna bet?” they said.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4040-7
THE LAST WILDER
Copyright © 2002 by Janis Reams Hudson
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*Wilders of Wyatt County
The Last Wilder Page 20
