The Bachelor's Brighton Valley Bride (Return to Brighton Valley)
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Was that why he’d kept his identity a secret? To keep everyone from hitting him up for donations?
Megan hated to admit it, but she almost felt sorry for the guy.
“Okay, kids, let’s get this stuff home and we’ll come back for the fireworks.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Cindy said. “The parking lots are already full. They’re having a concert in the park beforehand, and people brought picnic baskets and plan to stay. You should probably leave your truck here and get over to the park so you can find a good spot.”
Megan thanked the Carpenters and sent them on their way. After securing everything in the truck, she dug around for one of the old quilts she used as a tablecloth from her booth display. She put Lisa in charge of finding the jackets and gave Tyler some cash to go over to the Kiwanis Club’s food booth to buy them some homemade fried chicken and biscuits for a picnic dinner.
By the time they made it to the park, they had to step around a sea of blankets and folding chairs and small children before they could find a small square of grass to claim.
Megan sent the kids after lemonade from the stand with the smallest line while she unpacked their food. She’d just spread everything out when they returned—with an extra cup and an extra guest.
Clay.
“Look who’s here,” Lisa said, nearly spilling her lemonade in her excitement. “It’s Mr. Johnson. I mean Peyton. I mean...” She bit down on her lip and gazed up at him. “What’s your name again?”
“Maybe we should just all start over. Let me introduce myself. I’m Clay Jenkins. And I’d really like for you to call me Clay instead of Mr. Jenkins.”
He looked better than ever, wearing jeans and boots and a dark blue T-shirt. She’d never seen him so casual before and if she hadn’t known better, she’d think that he looked just like any other Brighton Valley local—one who was drop dead gorgeous, of course.
“Down in front,” someone yelled at Clay, who was standing up, blocking the stage from the view of the people behind them.
“Please.” Megan gestured toward the quilt. “Do you want to join us?”
“Thanks.” As he knelt, she rearranged the food to make space for him.
“Here, Mom.” Tyler handed her two cups. “Can you watch our drinks while we head over to see Mrs. Caroline and Sheriff Sam?”
“Don’t you guys want to eat?” Megan asked, wishing they wouldn’t leave her alone with the man who still made her pulse beat like crazy.
“Nah,” Lisa said. “We had corn dogs earlier. And Mrs. Caroline said she and the sheriff would buy us cotton candy if we came and sat with them.”
The kids took off running before Megan could even give them permission to go.
So that was the way of things. Her older friends had plotted to get her and Clay alone—and it had worked.
“I heard about your jam deal,” Clay said. “Congratulations.”
She’d told only the kids and Caroline, so she wasn’t sure where he’d heard it. But that was what happened in small towns. People talked, and news spread like warm butter. “It was just an offer. And I really don’t know any of the details yet.”
If things were different, if Clay and she... Well, she’d love to take him to Dallas with her to that meeting. As it was, she’d have to go alone. Either way, she’d have an attorney look over the paperwork before she signed anything. She was a long way from having a “jam deal.”
When it seemed as though there was nothing else to say—other than bringing up his big lie—she moved on to a safer topic. “The band is really good.”
“Uh-huh.” He shifted so that they were side by side and could both watch the lead singer.
“Almost too good,” she added.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s a classic-rock cover band. Normally, most of the bands that play at these local events are strictly country and western. Plus, I’ve never seen a band with this much talent play in Brighton Valley. It’s almost as though someone with connections arranged for it....” She let her comment hang in the air.
“What can I say? I’ve developed a strong hankering for classic-rock music. It reminds me of you.”
Apparently, he’d also developed a hankering for using words like hankering.
She was touched by his gesture, but that didn’t mean he planned to stick around.
He glanced her way, and the lift of her eyebrow must have conveyed her doubts to him, because he reached for her hand.
She flinched from his touch, from the warmth, from the sizzle, but she didn’t pull away.
“Seriously, Megan. I’m sorry for not telling you who I was sooner and I’m sorry that Todd ‘A-hole’ Redding was a jerk, and that he did a real number on you in the trust department.”
“You’re right about Todd. He came across as a nice guy, but he wasn’t.”
“I never thought of him as nice. Remember when I told you that I’d been bullied? Todd was the quarterback who made my life miserable in high school. So when I heard that he was your ex-husband, I was stunned—to say the least.”
“Is that why you withdrew from me after we came home from Houston?”
“Yes, in part. And also because you told me how you felt about liars, when I was just about to confess that I’d deceived you. I’m not very good when it comes to communicating.”
“I thought you regretted making love.”
Clay reached for her hand. “Are you serious? Not for a single moment. I never regretted that.”
So he hadn’t been ready to ditch her, to toss her aside?
“I may have deceived you about my true identity, Megan. But I’m not a liar. And I’m not Todd. I love you. And I love the kids. I want us to be a family.”
Now she was the one who was stunned. He loved her?
“Ever since the first day I arrived in town and saw you cleaning the apartment while singing that Fleetwood Mac song, I haven’t been able to get you off my mind.”
“You got all that from a Fleetwood Mac song?” Megan knew her response sounded silly, but he’d surprised her once again, and with her emotions buzzing, it was all she could get out.
“No, I got it from spending time with you and with the kids and with all the people in Brighton Valley. You made me look at my past and put that lonely and awkward geek to rest once and for all. You also made me look at my future and the fact that the only future I want is one with you and the kids in it.”
“But what about Geekon and your business and your condo and your jets and all that? You can’t really mean to give that all up just to move to some farm in Brighton Valley with us.”
“First of all, it’s not just some farm. It’s where I want to be. Secondly, I’d give everything up if it meant I could be with you. There are some things that money can’t buy—like love and a real home.”
Megan’s heart swelled to the breaking point, and tears welled in her eyes until they overflowed.
Clay cupped her face, and his thumbs brushed her cheeks, drying her tears. “I’m not going anywhere. And I’ll wait forever, if that’s what it takes, for you to realize that the man you see right now is the man that I really am—the man that I’ll always be. And the man who loves you.”
A loud pop sounded overhead and the sky lit up as people around them oohed and aahed. But Megan couldn’t look at anything other than the man who was now kneeling before her.
“Marry me, Megan. I love you, and I’ll spend every day o
f the rest of our lives proving it to you.”
As the sky erupted in a blaze of brilliant sparks and bangs, Megan got to her knees and nodded yes. Then she wrapped her arms around Clay’s neck. “I love you, too.”
Then they kissed deeply and passionately for all of Brighton Valley to see—a bonus to the fireworks show.
When the display ended and the band started back up, laughter bubbled up inside her, bursting forth. She’d never been happier, freer to love and be loved.
“Besides,” Clay said with the confidence of a man who had just won his woman’s heart, “it’s not like I’m giving up anything. In case you haven’t noticed—” he nodded toward the band on stage “—I can afford to fly in almost everything I need right here to Brighton Valley.”
“Hmm,” she said. “What are you doing on Monday?”
“I can clear my calendar. What do you need?”
“I have my first business meeting in Dallas, and I’m a little nervous about going by myself. I’d like someone to sit with me. Not to do the negotiating, mind you. But to have my back and to make sure I don’t give away the farm—so to speak.”
“You bet, honey. I’ll even fly you to Dallas. I’ll be your coach or your executive assistant or your man Friday. Whatever you want, whatever you need, just say the word.”
Before she could utter a response, Lisa and Tyler ran up to their blanket.
“Are you friends again?” Lisa asked. “Did you both say sorry and make up?”
“You don’t kiss someone like that if you didn’t,” said Tyler.
“We’re better than friends,” Megan said.
“What’s better than that?” Lisa asked.
Clay turned to the kids. “I just asked your mom to marry me. But I should ask how you guys feel about that, too, because I’d like to join your family—if you don’t mind. And that would make me your stepfather.”
“No way,” Tyler said.
Megan turned to her son, who’d once thought Clay hung the moon. What was he possibly going to object to?
“We don’t want you to be our stepdad,” the boy said. “We want you to be our dad. And we want to be your kids.”
Clay burst into a grin. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
As the kids plopped down beside them, Megan threw her arms around Clay’s neck and kissed him again with all the love in her heart, just as another boom went off, framing them with a colorful burst of fireworks.
Epilogue
It was a perfect day for an outdoor wedding, and no expense had been spared. Even the weather, which could be a little unpredictable in the fall, had cooperated, sending a nearly cloudless sky and temperatures in the mid-seventies.
A landscaper had laid sod last week near the orchard, where a party rental company had set up a gazebo, white covered chairs for the ceremony, and a bandstand, a dance floor, and tables and chairs for the reception. They’d also kept a florist and a caterer busy, as well as happy.
Megan, her mom and Zoe, who’d all worked hard on the decorations, were pleased with the way it had turned out. And so was Clay. He supposed you could say it had all the trappings for an elegant yet down-home wedding. And that it was where country charm met sophistication, which was good, because that was how their guest list read.
They’d invited his closest employees, like Zoe and others he wanted to be there. And then there were important business associates he thought they should include.
He didn’t have any family, but Megan did—her three brothers, their wives and children, plus relatives of her stepfather, Darrel. There were also the Brighton Valley locals they couldn’t leave out, like Sheriff Sam and Caroline; Sally the waitress; Mayor Ray Mendez and his wife, Catherine; Rick and Mallory Martinez; Hank and Marie Lazaro. Even the Franco sisters received an invitation.
They’d tried to keep the number down, but they’d still invited over two hundred people, and hardly anyone had declined.
Clay had surprised Megan’s mother and stepfather by purchasing them a house in one of the new developments near Wexler, where they had RV parking for their motor home. Of course, the couple had been thrilled to hear of the wedding and to learn they’d be able to have the dream house they’d wanted but thought they could never afford on their fixed incomes.
They’d said they would start the long drive back to Brighton Valley, but Clay had told them not to bother. Instead he sent the corporate jet to pick them up in Yellowstone and bring them to Houston. Afterward he’d send them back the same way.
In the meantime, he’d offered to buy the farm from Megan’s mother at more than the fair market price, which would provide her with a little nest egg.
Once the property was in Megan’s name, she would be able to expand the orchard and add any upgrades she wanted to the house. After the deal she’d made with Fowler Markets, she was going to need a bigger kitchen—industrial size, he suspected, because his soon-to-be wife had a better business head on her shoulders than he or the Fowler people had guessed.
She’d asked him to attend that meeting in early July, but she’d really needed only his moral support. In reality, she’d known her product and the value of it. And she’d held firm on the price and hadn’t let them take advantage of her.
He did step in afterward and insist that she use his legal team to approve the contract before she signed it, and she’d been grateful for that.
She might refer to herself as a rube at times, just as he might think of himself as a geek—but they were both so much more than what met the eye. And together they made one hell of a team.
Now here they were, ready to start their lives together. Not just husband and wife but a family.
Dressed in a brand-new designer tuxedo, Clay stood near the gazebo, the orchard in the background. To his left, wearing a matching tuxedo, was his best man—and the only choice he possibly could make to take that position. Tyler had been thrilled to be asked and hadn’t stopped grinning.
Clay suspected he was as happy to be getting a dad as Clay was to be getting a son.
As the music began, Lisa headed down the aisle wearing a peach-colored bridesmaid dress. It had taken her mother a lot of cajoling to get her to wear something “girlish,” but once she’d agreed, the tomboy had actually gotten into the whole wedding thing. She’d even gone so far as to let the hairdresser style her hair just like her mother’s.
The chords on the music shifted, and as the bridal march began, Megan started down the aisle between their seated guests.
If Clay had thought she was beautiful before, she was even more so today. Her cream-colored gown, a strapless vintage lace, fit her as though it had been made just for her. But then again, it had. Clay had asked Zoe to make sure she got exactly the gown she wanted, even if the designer had to make it personally.
Megan could have been a cover girl for a bridal magazine, with that mass of red curls piled up in an elegant swirl and a smile that turned Clay every which way but loose. His heart swelled to the point that he had to be standing an inch above the ground.
As Darrel Randall, Megan’s stepfather, handed her off to him, her dazzling smile nearly struck him blind.
Fortunately, he’d asked Pastor Skinner to keep the ceremony short and sweet. And within minutes they were saying their vows.
“You may kiss the bride,” the pastor said.
Clay took Megan in his arms and brushed his lips on hers. Had another kiss tasted as sweet? Had another promise meant so much?
When it was over, they turned to face their guests, and Pastor Skinner said, “May I be the first to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Clay Jenkins.”
Their guests, all 217 of them, clapped and cheered as Clay led his bride down the aisle to start their n
ew lives as man and wife.
“I love you,” she said. “You’ve made me the happiest woman in the world.”
“Not as happy as you and the kids have made me.” Then he bent and kissed her softly yet thoroughly, letting her know that the geek in him had merged into the man—and that he’d finally found the one place in the world where he truly belonged now and forever.
* * * * *
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RETURN TO BRIGHTON VALLEY
Joe Wilcox came to Brighton Valley for the sole purpose of delivering a letter to Chloe Dawson, the woman he believes was responsible for his Marine buddy’s death. But an accident results in amnesia, and Joe no longer knows why he’s in the one town he swore he’d never step foot in again. As Christmas approaches, a romance begins to blossom! But will it last when his memories return?
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