A Groom For Gwen

by Jeanne Allan

  Michaels smiled, a smile of intense sweetness. “You talk to yourself, Jakob. The choice is up to you. If you want to go back—” he spread his hands wide “—then go.”

  “For how long?”

  “For the rest of your life. How long that will be...” Michaels shrugged. His wings shimmered in the brilliant light. “I can’t tell you that. I can only tell you what we whisper to every baby. Live. And love.”

  Halfway to the tunnel, Jake remembered his family. He turned. They waved to him, then gradually faded until only a swirling mist marked their leaving. For a moment, Jake wavered. The sound of his name came again. Gwen. At the entrance to the tunnel, Jake stopped. Michaels stood there. “You don’t seem surprised,” Jake said. “Did you know I’d want to go back?”

  “Yes, Jakob. I knew.”

  Michaels’s image blurred until there was no man, no angel, only a glowing cloud of phosphorus. White, yet filled with gold and silver and the colors of the rainbow and all the colors of earth and sky and all the colors that ever were and ever will be. From the center of the light came a quiet laugh. “You see, Jakob, I met Gwen in your hospital room.”

  Jake turned and heard his name. Weaker this time. Gwen needed him. He walked into the tunnel, slowly at first, then faster and faster until he was running harder than he’d ever run in his life.

  She sat quietly at the side of Jake’s bed in intensive care. Hours had passed since he’d come out of surgery. Hospital personnel flowed in and out of the room. Gwen read in their eyes the answers to the questions she feared to ask. Prudence had carried in food fixed by Doris and delivered to town by Tom. Prudence had also brought shoes and clean clothes, but terrified he’d die in her absence, Gwen refused to leave Jake’s side even for the few minutes it would take to clean up and dress.

  With one hand she gripped Jake’s hand as tightly as she dared. Her other hand clutched a picture Crissie had drawn and sent to Jake. The three of them on the Ferris wheel. All the faces, even Gwen’s, wore enormous smiles.

  When they’d first permitted her to see Jake, Gwen had cried. She had no tears left. He lay so still, so lifeless. Initially she’d watched the machines with their fluctuating lines and blinking lights, but she could no longer bear the sight of them. She wouldn’t need a machine to tell her Jake had died. She’d know. Except he wasn’t going to die. She wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t die. She’d never told him she loved him. She couldn’t let him leave her. She wouldn’t let him go.

  “I’m your wife, Jake, your wife. I need you. Crissie - needs you. We love you. Jake, come back to me. Don’t leave me, Jake. Don’t leave. I don’t care about your past, your secrets. I love you, Jake. I need you. Jake, please, come back. Don’t die. Dam you, I won’t let you die. Jake, you have to live. Jake, Crissie and I need you. I love you, Jake. You have to live, Jake, live.”

  The very air in the room stilled. At that instant, she knew. Pain and despair ripped through her. She didn’t have to read the machines to know. Jake had left her. She was alone. She’d call the nurses in a minute. They knew. They were outside watching the machines. She needed a minute to say goodbye. A single tear ran down her cheek. “I loved you, Jake. I loved you and I never told you. I’m so sorry I never told you. Maybe you wouldn’t have cared.”

  Gwen hadn’t seen him come into the room, but a doctor dressed in green operating clothes leaned over Jake. His name tag read “Michaels.” She hadn’t seen him before. Wordlessly Gwen looked at the doctor, willing him to say the words she longed to hear. Willing him to say the words she knew it was too late to say.

  He smiled at her and nodded toward the drawing she held. “She’s quite an artist.”

  The doctor had the kindest eyes Gwen had ever seen. He was reminding her, even if she’d lost Jake, she still had Crissie. Gwen held out the crayon picture. “It was a happy day.”

  “I can see that.” He took the picture in his hand.

  “She loved him. He was so good with her. And with animals. And brave. He saved my life. Not because I’m his wife or because he loved me, but because that’s the kind of man he is. Was. A strong man.”

  “I’m sure Jakob loves you.”

  “Yes, I think he does. I mean, I know he did. He didn’t know it.” She gave a hiccuping laugh. “That sounds silly, doesn’t it? But it’s true. I don’t know her name, but she was stupid. A woman doesn’t throw away a good man like Jake.”

  “You wouldn’t throw him away.”

  “Never. Well, I fired him lots of times, but he never left. I never wanted him to leave.” Gwen smiled ruefully. “I have a temper sometimes.”

  “None of us are perfect”

  “True. Jake wasn’t He was bossy and arrogant, and always thought he knew best.” She ought to leave. Let the doctor do his thing. Talking to him comforted her. She’d leave in a minute. It wouldn’t matter to Jake. Not now. Gwen cleared her throat. “He saved my life.”

  “I know. Now your dreams can come true. Your ranch, a home, the important things.”

  She didn’t question how he knew. The sheriff had been in and out. There was bound to be talk throughout the hospital. “I never had a home,” she said. “We were always moving. I didn’t want that for Crissie, but it doesn’t really matter now. Getting what you want isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Jake would have made a wonderful father.”

  “You love him very much.”

  “Yes.” Her fingers spasmodically twisted in the bedsheet. “I never told him. Can you believe it? Not even on our wedding night. Do you think he knew?” “I’m sure he knows.” The doctor stood back from the bed. “I’m not really supposed to say this, but I think Jakob is going to be just fine.”

  “What did you say?” Gwen managed in a quavering voice. She couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. Jake had died. She’d felt his spirit leave the room. She’d felt the cold, the emptiness. “He’s—he’s going to be all right?”

  The doctor chuckled. “He’ll probably still be bossy and arrogant and think he knows best, but I have a feeling you can handle him.”

  The exquisite relief drained all blood, all sensation from her body. Gwen slumped in her chair, unable to speak, to think. She could barely breathe. Jake still lived. She needed reassurance and opened her mouth to ask again. The doctor had gone.

  Gwen blinked. Maybe she’d dozed off. Maybe no one had been there. She wanted so badly for Jake to live, her imagination had conjured up a doctor to tell her the words she desperately longed to hear. Cautiously, fearfully, she turned her head and cried out when she saw the lines zigging and zagging across the screen. Strange, jagged, precious lines registering Jake’s every heartbeat.

  Jake’s death had been a nightmare, nothing more. No doctor had come in. She’d dreamed the kindly man who hadn’t looked at Jake’s chart or glanced at the machines. He hadn’t checked Jake’s chest. She’d dreamed he’d slowly moved his hands up and down the length of Jake’s body about six inches above the blankets.

  A piece of paper on the other side of Jake’s hospital bed caught her eye. Crissie’s picture. How had it gotten there? She thought of her phantom doctor taking the picture from her and looking at it. No. A stray breeze. While she’d dozed. Her hand had relaxed and a breeze from the ventilator or something had caught the paper and lifted it across the bed.

  Her gaze slowly moved to Jake’s face. She’d swear he had more color. His breathing sounded less labored. She must have noticed those things in her dozed state. Hope crept in to warm the edges of her heart. Treacherous hope.

  Surrendering to exhaustion, she rested her head on the bed beside Jake’s tanned hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. “Damn you, Jake Stoner, don’t give up. Fight. You have to want to live.”

  “Whatever you say, boss lady.”

  Gwen lifted her head. Jake gave her a smile of exquisite beauty. She was wrong. She did have tears left. “I love you,” she whispered.

  He caught a tear running down her cheek. “If you r
eally do, you’ll go on a midnight ride with me wearing what you wore tonight.”

  “A sweat suit?”

  “Without the top.” He wiped away another tear. “I came to for a minute and saw you on Granada. Next time I want to be able to do something about it.”

  She barely blushed. “I’ll ride stark naked if you want.”

  Jake chuckled. “There’s a promise I plan to hold you to, Mrs. Stoner.”

  “Jake.” Gwen grabbed a paper tissue, blew her nose hard, then looked squarely at him. “If you want to move on, I won’t stop you.” She took a deep breath. “There’s just one thing you ought to know. Crissie and I are going with you.”

  Jake contemplated her slicker. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said absently. “You got anything on under that?”

  “No, yes, sweatpants. I mean it, Jake. I don’t care where we go, or how often we move. I was wrong about Crissie needing a place to put down roots. She doesn’t need a building. She needs a home. My mother used to tell me wherever we lived was home, but I didn’t understand then. I do now. A home isn’t four walls and a roof. A home is family. It’s love. I love you, Jake Stoner. If you want to go to Timbuktu, or the ends of the earth, I’m going along. Home is where you are.” Her ringing declaration bounced off the hospital room walls. “Darn you, Jake Stoner, don’t you have anything to say?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, boss lady. I’m letting you lay down the law about that, because I already decided I’m staying. A man doesn’t walk away from the love of a good woman. Not when he loves her.”

  Fresh tears sprang to Gwen’s eyes. “Jake,” she said helplessly.

  He gave her that slow, sexy smile which liquefied her insides. “Now I’ve got a couple of questions. You think there’s a lock on that door?”

  “Why do you need...” She saw the gleam in his eyes. “Jake Stoner, you’re hooked up to a million machines. You start even thinking about what I think you’re thinking about and every nurse in the hospital will rush in here to see why those machines are going haywire.”

  “Well, then, honey,” he drawled, “you better call one of those damned nurses and get me out of here. I want to go home. This is my wedding night.”

  “Your wedding night was last night, and you’re not going anywhere. You were shot.” She lovingly brushed his hair off his forehead. “You said you had a couple of questions. What’s the other one?”

  “How high do you want that damned white picket fence?”

  “Don’t you mean double-dog damned white picket fence?”

  “Listen, honey, pardner doesn’t like it when you use bad words. Didn’t I warn you what was going to happen the next time you said one?”

  She was right about the machines bringing the nurses on the run.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-6311-6

  A GROOM FOR GWEN

  First North American Publication 1998.

  Copyright © 1998 by Barbara Blackman.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Hartequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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