The shelter of the shed was behind her, only a few feet away.
Roman was on the other side of the sodden field.
Her mind pulled her toward the safety of the shed.
But her heart tugged her forward.
Defying the lightning, she flew across the pasture.
Roman met her halfway, and as his stallion bore down upon her, he leaned down from the saddle and lifted her into his arms. Holding her securely to his chest, he stopped Secret in the middle of the field.
Theodosia raised her face to the man she loved more with each beat of her pulse. For a long while she could only stare at him, blending the real sight of him with the indelible image she had of him in her mind. The lightning behind him flashed, but the glitter in his eyes flamed far more brightly.
“I believe,” she began softly, watching rain course down his face, “that I have overcome my fear of lightning.”
He slid his hand over her belly, over his child.
His action reminded her of what he wanted from her. Her joy came apart and fell away, like a broken string of pearls. “You came to Templeton,” she murmured, rain splashing her lips, “to tell me again that you want the child.”
He gave a long, slow nod, and continued staring into her eyes. “And to see Senor Madrigal.”
“Senor Madrigal.” She tried to nod, but felt paralyzed. “To buy your ranch. You—you’ll raise the child on your ranch. With all your horses.”
He frowned, then raised his wet brow. “Then you’ve changed your mind about giving my baby to your sister?”
She wanted him to release her so she could run again. Being so close to him while knowing he cared only for their child tormented her.
But if she ran, she would take the child with her. She realized now she could not do such a thing to Roman. She loved him, and no sacrifice she could think of was too great to make for him.
“I am not giving the baby to my sister,” she answered, her chest tight with pain. “I am giving the child to you. And then…” She paused and turned her face into his shoulder. “Then I will sail for Brazil.”
Roman raised her higher, so her eyes were level with his. “And I’ll go with you.”
She stiffened. With shock and confusion. “You’ll go with—”
“I won’t raise my child on a ranch. I’ll raise him or her in Brazil. With monkeys instead of horses.”
Her confusion deepened. “But I just said I would give you—”
“I came to Templeton to tell Senor Madrigal that I no longer want to buy the land. I’ll get all my money back from him.”
She struggled in vain for a shred of understanding. “You’re—you’re giving up your ranch?” she asked incredulously. “But you’ve been working for it for ten years! Why would you give it up?”
He glided his long tanned fingers into her wet gold hair. “Once, not so very long ago, a genius told me something that made no sense to me at the time. Now, though, I understand what she meant. She said that when you love someone, no sacrifice is too great to make.”
Theodosia felt her entire body begin to shake. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes, didn’t dare guess what he would say next.
Roman smiled into her wide rain-dappled eyes. “How could I be content on a horse ranch when the woman I love is in Brazil?”
Her mind spun crazily. She couldn’t think.
But her heart beat steadily. She could feel.
And she felt the warmth of his next words before he even said them.
“I love you, Theodosia.”
A bolt of joy burst through her, more powerful than the sizzle of lightning in the sky.
Roman held her more tightly and spoke a promise into her eyes. “I know I’m not the kind of man you—I didn’t go to school long—you can’t love a man like me because—well, because I don’t have a diploma of any kind. But Theodosia,” he murmured tenderly, “I swear I’ll get one. I’ll learn everything you know. I’ll practice using good word choices. I’ll study the stars, the sun, and plant roots. I’ll learn Latin and Swedish, and I’ll never be roinous, facinorous, or tonitruous again. I’ll try to be everything you want me to be, Theodosia, if that will help you to love me the way I love you.”
His poignant vow made her weep. She reached up and lost sight of her hands as she buried them within the mass of his raven hair. “You already are, Roman, and I already do,” she declared through her tears. “I have loved you since the day I first saw you.”
He crushed her to him, then kissed tears and rain from her face. “Marry me, Theodosia.”
She touched her lips to his and tasted not only her tears, but his as well. “On one condition,” she whispered.
“Anything. God, anything at all.”
She smiled into eyes almost too blue to be true. “I desire to possess the same wisdom you do, Roman,” she murmured with all the love she felt for him. “Therefore I will marry you only if you’ll teach me common sense.”
Remembering all the hundreds of illogical things he’d seen her do and heard her say, he decided it would take an entire lifetime to teach common sense to her.
An entire lifetime. Spent with a woman so beautiful, so wonderful, that he could not understand what good thing he’d done to deserve such a precious gift.
“Agreed, Miss Worth,” he whispered tenderly.
“Then I will marry you, Mr. Montana.”
Smiling a lopsided grin, he leaned down to her. And as his lips met hers, he made a wondrous discovery.
Sacrificing in the name of love was not sacrificing at all.
For in giving one received more than one ever dreamed of having.
Epilogue
Her arms full of freshly picked bluebonnets, Theodosia gazed out over twenty-five thousand acres of the richest grassland the Rio Grande Plains had to offer. In separate fields raced Thoroughbred stallions, the very best from her father’s farm in New York. In other meadows fine Spanish mares grazed along with their beautiful foals.
And riding toward her astride a gray stallion, his long ebony hair spilling about his broad shoulders, was the man who had pulled a castle from the air and planted it on solid ground.
The sight of him never failed to mesmerize her. “Roman,” she whispered into the warm spring breeze.
He stopped Secret before her. “If you don’t quit picking so many bluebonnets, there won’t be a one left in the entire state of Texas, sweetheart.”
She glanced down at the mass of blue-flowered stalks in her arms. “Roman, I will have you know that I have collected thousands of seeds to plant. I would never pick so many flowers without thought to their survival.”
He realized she hadn’t understood that he’d only been teasing her and smiled over her endearing lack of common sense. “Oh, well in that case Texas has nothing to fear. The name Theodosia Montana will go down in history as the woman who saved the bluebonnet from extinction.”
A small head with a mop of black curls upon it poked out from behind him. “How is your research, Mommy? Will Dr. Wallaby be pleased with your findings when he comes to visit us from Brazil?”
She gazed lovingly at her precocious five-year-old daughter, the child she’d once thought would belong to Lillian and Upton. “I suspect Dr. Wallaby will be highly pleased, Genevieve. I have not as yet made the startling discovery he hopes for, but I feel I am at the brink.”
She glanced at the assortment of microscopes, racks of vials and test tubes, and piles of notebooks she’d placed on sturdy wooden tables beneath the towering oak tree. Dr. Wallaby had been ecstatic over her offer to remain in Texas and continue his search for the cure for impotence.
She’d never seen the green jungles of Brazil, and she never would.
But every morning when she opened her eyes, she saw the heaven-blue of Roman’s eyes.
“When will you tell me what discovery you are trying to make, Mommy?” Genevieve asked. She lifted her leg over the saddle and, with her father’s help, slid to the ground.
“Mommy will tell you when you’re older, Genevieve,” Roman answered for Theodosia. “Much older.”
“Mommy will tell you when you’re older, Genevieve,” John the Baptist echoed, waddling amidst the tall grass and patches of bluebonnets. “How is your research, Mommy?”
Genevieve patted the parrot’s soft head. “How long can African grays live, Mommy?”
“About seventy years,” Theodosia replied. “We’ll have John the Baptist for a long while.”
“He really is an astonishing Psittacus erithacus, isn’t he, Papa?” Genevieve asked, turning her startling blue gaze to her father.
Roman grinned. “Maybe so, but he can still be a mimicking, maddening, meddlesome, molting moron when he feels like it,” he said. But his insult was laced with genuine affection for the bird he felt sure would outlive him and go on to aggravate the hell out of future generations of Montanas.
The parrot flapped his right wing. “I suspect Dr. Wallaby will be highly pleased, Genevieve. He really is an astonishing Psittacus erithacus.”
“Genevieve,” Theodosia said, “do you know who is coming to help you celebrate your birthday next month?”
“Who?”
“Aunt Lillian, Uncle Upton, and Cousin Chancellor.”
Genevieve squealed and clapped. “And I’ll teach Chancellor how to track!” she exclaimed. “Poor Chancellor. Living in that big city, he doesn’t have the chance to learn much. I’m becoming as skilled as Papa at tracking now. He hid from me this afternoon, but I remembered everything he taught me and it took me only ten minutes to find him. He was in one of the barns, the one where that mother cat had her kittens. I wish I could take one of the kittens into the house, Mommy. They’re so soft. Soft as my hair ribbons. The satin ones Papa got for me.
“Do you remember when he gave me those ribbons, Mommy?” she continued merrily. “It was when he took me to town. He bought me peppermints that day, too, but they burned my nose when I ate them. I’ve tried to like peppermints, Mommy, but I cannot like them any more than I like green beans. Green beans give me nightmares, just like ghosts do. Do you believe in ghosts, Mommy? Some days come when I believe in them, and some days come when I know they aren’t reed. Could I have one of the kittens in the barn? I would like to save one of them just in case there are ghosts in the barn.”
Theodosia laughed. Her daughter was a master at country chatting and could meander orally right along with the best of them.
“When may I learn to track you like Genevieve, Papa?” another small voice asked.
Roman watched his four-year-old son, Bo, come out from behind Theodosia’s skirts. With his golden hair and huge brown eyes, the child looked just like his beautiful mother.
Bo stuck his thumb in his mouth, sucked it for a moment, then pulled it out. “Mommy told me about the time you tracked John the Baptist, Papa. She said you looked for sand on the grass.”
Roman dismounted and scooped his son into his arms. “I thought you were too interested in Mommy’s bluebonnet studies to take time to learn the art of tracking.”
“I can do both things,” Bo declared firmly, running his small, plump fingers through his father’s long, thick hair. “Yesterday Genevieve taught me to whistle through cracker crumbs.”
“It took him a long time to learn, though,” Genevieve clarified. “He was in a roinous mood, Papa.” Roman laughed, then kissed Bo’s forehead. “Don’t worry about it, son. I’ve been trying to teach your mother how to whistle through cracker crumbs for years, and she still hasn’t learned. As for teaching you to track, I’ll give you your first lesson just as soon as I talk to Mommy.” Gently, he set his son back down on the ground and watched as he and Genevieve scampered toward the pastures to play with the horses.
John the Baptist scooted along behind the children. “He was in a roinous mood, Papa,” he squawked as he scurried through the grass. “Yesterday Genevieve taught me to whistle through cracker crumbs.”
Grinning crookedly, Roman took Theodosia’s arm and led her into the shade of the majestic oak tree.
There she looked up and saw her name carved on the largest branch. Indeed, over the years Roman had chiseled her name into every tree he’d found on his ranch. And every time he performed the tradition, he carried her into the tree and fed her raisin sandwiches.
“If you want, I could test some of that impotence potion you’ve been making,” Roman offered, sliding his hands over the sides of her lush breasts. With a nod of his head, he gestured toward the vials of liquid on the wooden tables. “In a few hours, after it’s had a chance to do what it’s supposed to do, we could sneak up to our room and see just how well it works.”
Theodosia thought of the hours-long lovemaking session they’d enjoyed at dawn. Such early morning pleasures were quite often the start of their days. Roman had sired Genevieve and Bo on two such mornings…
…and in all likelihood, during a beautiful sunrise two months ago, he’d fathered the baby she carried now.
She smiled up at him. “Roman, believe me when I tell you that you’ve no need for even a drop of the remedy for impotence.”
He saw a secret in her smile and two in her gorgeous whiskey eyes. Instantly, he cupped his hand over her lower belly.
Theodosia laid her hand over his. “We’ll have another child in January.”
He held her gaze for a long tender moment. “I love you, Theodosia.”
“And I love you, Roman.”
Pulling her into his arms, he held her close for a long moment and pondered how much she meant to him. And when at last he ended the loving embrace, he touched his lips to hers, then drew his gaze down to the pin at her throat.
He caressed the heart-shaped ruby.
And watched the blaze of sunlight dance over the shimmering heartstrings.
The End
* * *
Steal a Sneak Peek at Rebecca Paisley’s delightful romance Bed of Roses
Coming April 2015!
Pre-Order Bed of Roses
About the Author
Since her debut novel was published, bestselling author Rebecca Paisley has become known for creating her very own unique brand of magic on the page.
She decided early in her career to write the sort of books she wanted to read. Her determination earned her a slot on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list and the Romance Writer's of America Honor Roll. She's been a RITA finalist, won the Romantic Times’ “Lifetime Achievement Award” and “Career Achievement Award,” a Reviewers’ Choice Award for “Historical Romance Fantasy” and a “Best Love and Laughter” Award.
Rebecca currently lives in North Carolina with her menagerie of beloved pets, still believes in magic, and still relies on the “pixie voices in her head” to inspire her as she works on a brand new book.
Visit Rebecca’s website http://www.rebeccapaisley.net
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Amber House Books by Rebecca Paisley
A Basket of Wishes
Heartstrings
Bed of Roses
Moonlight and Magic
A Prince to Call My Own
Happily Forever After
The Barefoot Bride
Diamonds and Dreams
Bed of Roses
Sneak Peek
Can an outlaw princess steal the heart of a reluctant hero?
Sawyer Donovan wasn’t looking for trouble. Fleeing from his shadowed past, he seeks refuge with a group of nuns only to end up attacked by a cougar and dragged back to the lair of a bandit princess caring for a gang of elderly outlaws.
When Zafiro Quintana sends her pet cougar to investigate the threat of danger, the last thing she expects him to return with is a magnificent, muscular, young man with no memory of how he’d come to be naked and helpless under Zafiro’s tender touch.
Zafir
o quickly decides her gorgeous prisoner is the ideal candidate to help whip her grandfather’s gang back into shape. Charmed against his will by the raven-haired beauty and her daffy gang, Sawyer’s thoughts turn from escape to a plan to make Zafiro his captive—the captive of a searing desire she can no longer deny.
In this Sneak Peek at Bed of Roses, Zafiro finds the last thing she is expecting to find within the peaceful walls of a convent—the man of her dreams…
If only she could find the silver cloud to her difficulties, Zafiro mused, lowering her gaze and peering down at the garden below. There she saw rows of newly planted vegetables and a mass of well-shaped rosebushes. The marble statues of various saints sparkled in the sunshine as if just washed, and the white pebble walkway that meandered through the garden was clear of all litter. A huge stack of freshly cut firewood lay piled neatly against the stone wall of the stable, and the sisters’ little swinging gate shone with what could only be a new coat of paint.
Just as she’d noticed in the front yard of the convent, everything Zafiro saw in the garden was clean, tidy, and well done.
In the next moment she learned the reason why.
A man walked out from beneath a canopy of oak trees, his arms full of logs. He was shirtless, a black kerchief knotted around his neck, his tight brown breeches hugging every masculine curve he possessed.
Unnerved by his sudden appearance, Zafiro gasped softly and moved away from the window. A man, she thought, lifting her hand to hold her sapphire. How many years had passed since she’d seen a man younger than fifty?
A man, she thought again. A man with muscle and energy.
And youth.
Heartstrings Page 36
