Tate studied her hand before looking up. “When I tell her I love you, she’ll like you. She’s already guessed, anyway.”
Jodie gazed at him. “She’s already guessed?”
Tate nodded, smiling slightly.
“And she didn’t tell you not to?”
“No. She knows better. And she doesn’t dislike you. She just doesn’t know you.”
“It’s because I’m a Parker. But I can’t help that. I am what I am, Tate! What is it she has against us?”
Tate ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not that exactly, either. It’s more...Jodie, when my dad was killed, my mother and I had to work our tails off to maintain a decent life. She’s resentful of people who have it easy, I guess. People who don’t have to work hard for what they have.”
“The Parkers do work hard! I used to be ashamed of that!” She shook her head. “I probably was the spoiled little brat you thought me to be. I was ashamed because all my friends’ families got to play with their expensive toys. They showed horses or went to gallery openings or were members of country clubs in their respective towns. They only came to their ranches on weekends or in the summer. And we were stuck here all the time.” She paused. “Rafe works as hard as any cowhand, probably harder. Aunt Mae did, too, until she got too old. LeRoy keeps all the ranch machinery running, and Thomas does all the ranch carpentry. My dad...well, my dad is at Aunt Mae’s beck and call at all hours, and that, believe me, is a tough job. Everyone does something. Shannon does the histories, Harriet writes children’s books—”
“What about you? Are you going to find somethin’ to do or do you have...other plans?”
Jodie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Are you going to stay on the ranch? Or go off back to Europe somewhere?”
Jodie tried to pull her hand free. How could he ask that when she thought...Oh, God, she hadn’t made another mistake of planning ahead too far, had she? Rio had disappointed her; surely Tate wouldn’t, too!
“I’m only askin’,” Tate continued, “because I’m not gonna be here myself.” He stood up, drawing her gaze with him.
Jodie’s heart skipped some beats. What was he trying to tell her?
“I’ve accepted a position with my old supervisor from Dallas. He’s heading up a task force that will have state-wide enforcement power, and he’s asked me to be a part of it. I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s somethin’ I really want to do.”
“Where...where will you be? Dallas?” Jodie asked quietly, her throat tight with dread.
“There or Austin. I’m not sure.”
“When?”
“I talked with Drew Winslow last night—he’s my old supervisor. I have six weeks. I’ve already handed in my notice to the county.”
Tate was leaving? Again? Jodie remembered the last time he’d left West Texas, first to go to school, then to the police force in Dallas. “Will it be dangerous?” she breathed. She’d worried about him before, on an unconscious level she was only now recognizing. But after today, she’d be petrified!
“Not any more than here, maybe less.” He squatted down in front of her and reclaimed her lifeless hand. “Jodie, I don’t have time for a personal life on this job. Like I said, I’m on call twenty-four hours a day—I’m surprised I haven’t gotten a call since I’ve been with you! One could come at any second and I’d have to leave. With the task force, I’d have regular time off. At least, the time off I’d have I could pretty well count on. I couldn’t ask you to be a part of the mess here, ask you to leave your family. Not when I was rarely home. But as part of the task force—”
Jodie’s gaze lifted.
“—as part of the task force, I could. Now I don’t wanna rush you. This thing between you and me has come up pretty sudden. I don’t want you to feel obligated in any—”
Jodie placed her fingers over his mouth.
He continued talking. “Just because we...you know, in there...” He indicated the bedroom.
As he’d done earlier at the fair, she substituted her lips, kissing him long and hard so he knew she meant it. “Just say the word and I’ll be there,” she said, smiling.
“What about your family?” Tate asked. “How will they feel about me? I’m the outsider, a town person.”
“My family doesn’t care about that. It’s what’s inside that counts. The makeup of a person. And you, Tate, would pass any test. They already like you and respect you. Aunt Mae thinks you’re ‘such a nice boy.’ And Harriet thinks you’re a hunk. And Rafe said you’re as good a sheriff as the county’s ever had.”
Tate smiled. “Then I’m in, but it’s a little different when I’m wantin’ to marry one of the clan.”
Jodie grew still. “Marry?” she repeated.
Tate frowned. “What did you think I was talkin’ about all this time? Us shackin’ up together?”
“Well, I—”
“If it makes a difference, if you don’t want to do it...well, that’s okay, too. I’ll take you any way I can get you, Jodie. Any way at all.”
The telephone rang and Tate went to answer it. When he came back he said simply, “I’m needed.”
Jodie started to stand up.
“Wait there. I have to change,” he said. “I won’t be a minute. Then I’ll run you back to your car.”
“It’s not out of your way?” she asked.
“Where I’m headin’ is just down the road.”
He disappeared into his bedroom and seconds later Jodie followed him.
He’d already changed into his uniform pants and was just donning his tan shirt when she entered the room. He turned at her footstep, a little smile on his lips. “Are you plannin’ on makin’ me late?” he asked.
Jodie slipped her arms around his naked torso. It was so wonderful to be free to touch him, to claim him for her own. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked sweetly.
“What?” he asked, his arms coming around her, as well.
“The answer. It’s yes,” she said.
It took him a second to make the connection, then his smile grew brilliant. “You mean it?” he asked.
“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”
“When? Where?” He glanced in frustration at his half-donned shirt. “Dammit, Jodie, I have to go! I can’t—”
She smiled. “I understand. I only wanted you to know.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his forehead, then stepped back. But Tate wasn’t satisfied with that.
“C’mere,” he growled, and spent the next few precious moments cementing their betrothal with a proper kiss.
After that he let her go and she laughingly helped him finish dressing. His tie was a little askew, his badge not perfectly centered. But he didn’t seem to mind.
Then they hurried out the front door—although not as fast as they’d hurried in.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JODIE HAD WANTED a big wedding ever since Shannon and Rafe had gotten married. The bigger the better, she remembered herself saying. But not now. All she wanted now was to marry Tate quietly and for them to get started building a life together.
Mae had been shocked at the news of their engagement. “But, Jodie, you just got back!” she’d exclaimed. “Are you sure you aren’t just jumping into this, too? I know you’ve changed recently, but doesn’t that mean it’s much too soon for you to be making another big change? And Tate Connelly! I like him, he’s a fine young man, but I had no idea...”
“If you truly love each other, you can wait,” Harriet had advised. “You want to be sure, Jodie, for both your sakes.”
“Give it some time,” Shannon had agreed. “Rafe and I waited over six months, and I don’t regret it, even though at the time it was hard.”
Even Christine counseled, “You want to be sure.”
But Jodie was sure. And she grew surer by the day. She wasn’t jumping into this in order to jump away from something else. For the first time in years she knew exactly what she wanted. And because of that she had an i
nner serenity that, in the end, even Mae couldn’t ignore.
Jodie gazed at herself in the full-length cheval mirror. She was in a short dress of white satin, frilled at the neck and cuffs with lace. She wore matching shoes and a bridal wreath of tiny white silk flowers. Her hair, a little longer now and freshly styled, was like a bright flame in contrast. She wondered what Tate would think.
She gazed at herself for another long moment, then slowly undressed. Tomorrow she would become Mrs. Tate Connelly. She’d be giving up the Parker name. The prospect wasn’t as welcome as it once would have been. In fact, she did it now with a certain sadness. She’d come late to an appreciation of her heritage, but despite her tardiness it was something she would always treasure. Jodie Connelly. Jodie and Tate Connelly. She loved the sound of it, even as she loved Tate.
It was beyond her understanding how she could ever have thought she loved anyone else. Or that she’d spent a year away in Europe, searching. Searching for what? Exactly what she’d found with Tate. All she’d had to do was come home.
A light tapping sounded on her door as she secured the last button on her pajamas. The dress had been carefully hung on her closet door.
Her father came in, glanced at her, then at the dress. “You been practicing?” he asked, grinning.
“I love putting it on.”
Gib moved aimlessly about the room, looking at this and that she’d yet to pack. Almost everything was off her walls, and almost everything else had been put in boxes to be sent on to her new home. He ended up at the dress again. “You, ah, don’t regret havin’ a small wedding, do you? I mean, I remember the last big one. Rafe and Shannon’s.” He shook his head good-humoredly. “Now that was somethin’! Everyone was here—all the relatives. All the neighbors. The governor even came, didn’t he? Or he sent a gift.”
“I think he sent a gift.”
“That’s Mae’s long reach. Wonder what it’s like for everybody in the state capital now that she’s slowed down. A lot fewer notes that it bums their fingers to read. A lot fewer irate visits.” He glanced at her. “I suppose you’ve noticed she uses the phone more often now. Used to hate it, but she’s finally come around. Saved me a few trips, I can tell you.”
Jodie sensed why her father was there. And it wasn’t to reminisce about Mae or even Rafe and Shannon’s wedding. She crossed over to him and hugged him tightly. “I’m going to miss you, Daddy,” she said quietly, emotionally.
Jodie and her father had grown much closer in the past two months. She saw him as more of a whole person now, from the perspective of her own adulthood. He wasn’t the ineffective bumbler that she, to her shame, had once considered him. They’d taken tiny steps toward understanding before, but not gone far enough. Not to where they were now.
Gib patted her back as he returned her hug. Then he wiped his eyes. “That goes double for me, little girl.”
She smiled up at him. “Austin isn’t all that far away.”
“I know.”
“We’ll come for a visit every month. I promise.”
“Tate’ll take good care of you,” Gib said, more to assure himself than to assure her. Jodie didn’t need convincing.
“He will. Like I’ll take good care of him.” Her eyes fell on the drawing of her mother, which she’d framed and hung on the wall beside the long mirror. She went to get it and brought it to her father. “Why don’t you keep this?” she said quietly. “It’s been with you all these years. And...and I don’t need it anymore.”
Gib studied it. “She was so beautiful—just like you.”
Jodie wanted to pull him from the past. She grinned and asked, “Are you ready to walk me down the aisle tomorrow?”
Gib answered in true Texas fashion, “Sure. You bet.”
“At least it’s a short aisle—only to the front of Aunt Mae’s living room.”
Her father laughed. “You shoulda seen Mae today. You‘d’ve thought the Queen herself was comin’! She was runnin’ poor ol’ Axel ragged, gettin’ this and that, makin’ sure all the rented chairs were properly placed. All I can tell you is those flowers better arrive on time tomorrow mornin’ or there’s gonna be a florist in Del Norte who’ll regret the day he was born.”
“I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“Harriet and Shannon are tryin’ to make her settle down, but she’s like a stubborn horse that’s taken the bit in its mouth. She’s gonna do it her way or else!”
“She’s having fun. You know Aunt Mae.”
Her father tilted his head. “You notice how she’s taken a new lease on life? Got more energy. Gotten feistier again. For a while there I started to wonder. Then—It happened about the time you got engaged to Tate. You know, for a woman who never had one herself, she sure seems to like weddings.”
“Maybe that’s why she likes them so much,” Jodie said softly.
Gib nodded. “You might be right.”
Once her father left, Jodie moved about the room, seeing to a few last-minute details, then climbed into bed.
She and Tate had agreed not to be with each other tonight. To keep to tradition. She would see him tomorrow for the first time in Mae’s living room, where together, gathered in front of their families and a few friends, they would exchange their vows.
She wondered what he was doing now. If he was thinking of her.
A COUPLE OF HIS OFF-DUTY deputies threw Tate a small bachelor party at the Watering Hole. Jack was there, as was Mark Lovell. They laughed together and told off-color jokes and drank a beer or two, then broke up.
Tate dropped Jack off at his new place—which was Tate’s old place—and Tate continued on to his mother’s. She’d requested he spend the night with her and he’d agreed.
Emma was still up when he let himself inside. She was playing solitaire at the kitchen table in her lightweight robe and fuzzy slippers, just as she used to do when he was a teenager.
He went over to kiss her cheek, just as he also used to do. “Waitin’ up?” he asked.
She patted his hand on her shoulder. “My very last time,” she said.
He hooked a foot around the leg of a chair and settled into place beside her. “Who’s winnin’?” he teased.
“The deck is,” she retorted, and pushed the cards away. Then she looked at him for a long moment. “I guess you know what you’re doin’ for sure, hmm?”
Tate met her gaze steadily. “I love her, Mom.”
“And she says she loves you.”
“She does love me.”
Emma considered for another long moment, then said, “I wasn’t very happy when I heard about this, you know that. A Parker...mrrying into our family! Who‘d’ve believed it? But you’re good enough for ’em, Tate. You’re more than good enough!”
“They couldn’t be nicer to me, Mom. Even ol’ Mae. She even seems happy now that she’s gotten used to the idea.”
“Because you’re from town?” Emma demanded, sensing a slight.
“Because she wasn’t sure Jodie was ready to settle down. Now she is. Jodie’s convinced her.”
His mother shifted in her chair. “She’s been nice to me, too, I have to admit.”
Tate smiled fondly. “With reason, I’d say, but then, I’m prejudiced. I think you’re the world’s finest mom!”
“Flattery will get you out of all kinds of trouble—but you already know that.”
“It never used to get me out of trouble when I was a boy.”
“It took you growin’ up to know how to use it.” A brief silence ensued, then his mother said, “I’d like to give you a special present. I know you and Jodie aren’t going to need a lot, because Jodie has her own money and you’ll be getting good pay on your new job. But, I thought—if Jodie would like it, too—I’d give you the quilt my great-grandmother handed down to me. She won all kinds of prizes for it and it’s so very pretty. She made it as her wedding present for your great-grandfather.” She waved off Tate’s protest. “I don’t have any use for it anymore. I’d rather give it
to you. That is, unless you think Jodie wouldn’t like it.”
“I’m sure she’d like it! You know the locket she wears? It was Mae’s when she was a child. The Parkers set a lot of store on family traditions.”
“I didn’t think Jodie did. I thought she used most of her energy trying not to be a Parker.”
“That was before. Not now.”
“Well, now she’s gonna be a Connelly,” Emma said firmly.
Tate smiled. “Yes, she is.”
“It’ll be hard thinkin’ of you with a wife,” Emma admitted. “I still remember you as that tiny little thing your daddy and I were afraid to hold after you were born. We thought we’d break you.” She paused. “Your daddy would be so proud of you, Tate. You know that.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so. Come here. Give your ol’ mom a hug, then get yourself off to bed. Tomorrow’s gonna be a big day for everyone.”
Tate did as his mother requested and added a warm kiss. His mother had always done her best by him. Raised him to the best of her ability. He would be forever grateful.
Minutes later he was stretched out on the bed in the spare room, his hands clasped behind his head as he stared at the darkened ceiling. Tomorrow he was going to marry Jodie.
Then five glorious days in Hawaii—somewhere neither of them had ever been before—and two days to set up their apartment in Austin before he had to report for duty with Drew Winslow.
It was as if some kind of lucky star had hovered over him sprinkling magic into his life.
Jodie...his wife.
When he drifted off to sleep, Tate was smiling.
“JODIE! YOU LOOK...” Shannon stood back, admiring the bride-to-be. Harriet hovered nearby, while Christine continued to fluff and smooth and fuss with the dress.
“Perfect,” Christine finished for her.
They were in an upstairs bedroom at Mae’s house. For the past ten minutes they’d heard family and friends assembling.
“Is Daddy ready?” Jodie asked in a mild panic, having remained calm until that moment.
Harriet peeked into the hall. “He’s here. At the top of the stairs. And he looks so handsome I almost didn’t recognize him.”
Texas Lawman Page 23
