“And your father?”
“Dinner at the hotel was his idea. Said he owed you.”
“For what?”
“You’ll have to ask him. Maybe for saving his daughter’s life. And his.”
“Kate, where is this leading? I’ve told you I can’t stay in Three Bridges. And you’ve seen what kind of life I live.”
“If things were different, would you want this to lead somewhere? Because I’ve got to know. I need to know at least that.”
He was weakening. He could feel it in his heart, in his soul. He shouldn’t tempt fate when there was no future for them, but he couldn’t fight it--her--any longer. He closed the distance between them and tilted her chin. He wouldn’t lie to her. “If things were different, yes. But they aren’t.”
“Different, as in, I was willing to go with you? Maybe help you start planning for that horse ranch you were talking about? Have your babies?”
His heart thudded. “Your father--”
“I’ll hate to leave him; I won’t deny it. But I can’t let you go without me. Not again, Cole. Don’t make me.”
A single tear slid down her face. Cole fought the urge to kiss it away.
She took a deep breath. “I know you don’t think so. But I do love you.”
Something inside him melted and pooled low in his belly at those words.
Maybe you’ve got to love yourself before you can believe someone loves you.
“Cole.” Merlin Hobson, the ramrod at the Tyler ranch, ambled over and patted Cole’s back. “Great job with those rustlers. And Parrish. Every rancher in three counties is going to be grateful. Can’t wait for the trial.”
Cole blinked, feeling like he’d just come back to reality. “Thanks, Merlin.”
“You staying for it?” he asked, looking from Cole to Kate and then back to Cole. “I could use a man like you. Handy with a horse and a gun.”
Cole shook his head.
“Guess I interrupted something.” Merlin took a long look at Kate before returning his gaze to Cole. “Thanks again.”
Merlin was out of earshot before Kate spoke. “If you can’t stay, I understand, even if I think you’re wrong about the town. But take me with you.”
Cole closed his eyes, wanting to believe what he was hearing, what she was telling him. She’d seen what he was, what his life was really like. And she wasn’t running. She was standing firm. Could she go with him and start a new life elsewhere without regret? Did he even have a right to ask that of her? The pulse in his neck kicked up a notch.
“You’d be giving up too much, Kate.”
She shook her head. “No. Only if you leave without me would I be giving up too much. I had no choice last time. Give me the choice and let me make mine. Don’t you care for me? Can’t you try to love me?”
Love her? Hell, he’d been trying to convince himself for five years it wasn’t love he felt for her. But the moment that bullet had sailed towards them he could no longer deny the truth. He did love her. And he wanted to have the right to love her, protect her, honor her.
Maybe he’d underestimated her. She’d been brave earlier. And tough. She hadn’t panicked. Not when the bullets were flying. Not when he’d placed the gun in her hand. Not when he’d questioned the rustler. She was made of sterner stuff than he’d imagined.
And he loved her.
“I was planning on leaving tomorrow. I can wait a day though.”
“To do what, Cole?” She was staring back at him with the longing of a stray looking for a home.
He took a deep breath before taking the plunge.
“To marry you. In front of the whole town. If you’re sure, Kate.”
A smile broke like sunrise on her face as she threw herself into his arms. She felt warm, soft, and all woman. All his.
“Say it,” she whispered as she nuzzled his ear. “Please say it.”
He held her tightly against his body, loving the feel of her. Wondering if this was truly happening. “I love you, Kate.”
Her lips were pressed to his in an instant and he was kissing her senseless right there in the middle of Three Bridges. To the beat of his desperate heart, he tasted her again and again.
When he stopped, they were both gasping for air.
“I’m going to be a compromised woman kissing you like this in the middle of town. Just like I planned.” Her slanted smile was full of promise.
Cole hugged her closer. “Then I guess I’ll just have to marry you, Kate Flanders.”
Chapter 8
It was a week before the wedding could take place. After all, inviting the whole town meant a lot of cooking. Her father had asked Cole to stay at the house, but he’d refused, bunking instead at Adele Jones’ hotel, telling Kate he didn’t know if he’d be able to control himself with her only a few steps away and mere days away from being his wife. And he wanted things done properly.
Mary, with help from Kate, Lizzie, and the hotel’s cook, had made enough for a true feast, which was to be served outdoors, weather permitting, or in the barn if weather didn’t. They’d awoken to beautiful blue skies, as if Nature was blessing the day.
The menu began with Consommé a la Nelson and continued with salmon fillets, roast fowl, country ham, roast lamb, and pressed beef; sides of succotash and green beans almandine; desserts of chocolate meringues, and a three-tiered vanilla wedding cake with butter cream icing and delicate pink sugar rosebuds for accent.
In her bedroom, Kate donned the pink figured silk she’d worn last year to one of the balls in Olympia, part of her father’s efforts to attract the eye of marriageable prospects, one of whom was the now-disgraced Jake Parrish. She’d loved the dress, hated the ball. She’d have preferred to get married in a new dress, but there wasn’t time. And it wasn’t worth delaying the event given that she wanted to be married to Cole Turner more than anything.
Lizzie Morgan shook her blonde upswept curls. “I remember that ball as if it was yesterday. I was so jealous of the attention Jake paid you, even though you did deserve it if just for how lovely you looked in this dress.”
“Oh, Lizzie. I am sorry about how this turned out with Jake. I know how sweet you were on him.” Kate had tried, unsuccessfully, to warn Lizzie off Jake, but hadn’t tried too hard, given how everyone had done the same to her with regard to Cole. Unfortunately for Lizzie and fortunately for her, everyone had been wrong about both men.
Lizzie clasped her hands in front of her. She wore a light blue satin gown with an enormous bustle, a dress Kate knew her friend had bought intending to wear it to the next ball in Olympia, hoping to finally catch Jake’s eye. Lizzie, a storekeeper’s daughter, had never had the kind of wealth that attracted Jake’s notice. Maybe now Lizzie would be open to other prospects.
“You told me so. I wouldn’t listen. I don’t know how I am going to be able to judge a man’s character without you here to help me.” She shook her head again. “Must you go, Kate? Can’t you talk some sense into Cole? He’s a hero in this town now.”
Kate sighed. “Actually, I think Cole has talked sense into me. Too many people know his history. Some will forgive, few will forget. He can take it. I can take it. But he’s thinking about our children. And I’m thinking about him. He deserves a fresh start. Lord knows, he’s earned it. And I’ve finally convinced him I’m strong enough to help him.” And maybe, given time, he could recover those parts of his soul he’d lost, God willing.
Lizzie’s smile was full of mischief. “So have you started on that part, yet? Making babies?”
“Lizzie Morgan!” Kate exclaimed, feigning shock. They had talked enough about what it would be like to be with a man, as young women are prone to do. “Not yet, but it hasn’t been without my trying. My soon-to-be husband seems to have embraced propriety at the most awkward time. Seems he intends to marry me first.”
“Is this the same Cole Turner who kissed you silly in the middle of town?”
Kate felt her cheeks heat in the most pleasant way.
&n
bsp; “Too late to blush about it now, Kate. Those who saw you two spread the tale fast enough.” Lizzie chuckled. “It’s good you announced the wedding that night at the hotel or people would have been sure you’d started things without them.”
Kate couldn’t help but smile. She was a happy bride.
* * *
Cole’s chest tightened as he turned from the church altar to face the beauty of a woman, dressed in a pink confection of spun sugar, who had deigned to marry him, a gun-toting drifter with no good prospects. He’d be calling on that bank in Seattle soon and heading out for Idaho Territory to make his way as a horse rancher. That was the plan, at least. No more going after bad men. No more killing. That had been the promise he’d made to himself and God for having Kate in his life.
As he stared at her, panic set in. How had he allowed her to hitch her pristine wagon to his soiled and dirty one?
Then she smiled. A beautiful, big, broad smile that filled her face and his heart.
In the pews, every person was looking at her—and it was a lot of people. She’d declared that she would marry him before the whole town and darn if she hadn’t invited every last citizen of it. While he didn’t recognize most of the folks, he did recognize Mary, the sheriff, Matt Tyler and his wife, Merlin Hobson, Charlie Pritchard, and Ted from the saloon among the crowd. Even Polly and some of the saloon girls were sitting in the back rows to bear witness to the marriage of a low-down bounty hunter from a disgraced family and the town’s most prominent jewel.
But Cole wasn’t marrying some town princess; he was marrying his childhood sweetheart, his best friend, the one person who saw the good in him more than anyone else ever had except maybe his mother. The person who believed in him even though he was afraid to believe in himself; who saw in him a kernel of the man he so wanted to be.
That man did honest work, was someone kids looked up to instead of backed away from, was someone people respected for integrity, his work ethic, and for doing the right thing. A man who was worthy of the woman standing at the back of the church looking at him as if the sun rose and the moon set on his say-so. A woman strong and determined, with more resolve than he’d given her credit for. The woman he’d always loved and always would. He could admit that now.
The piano man from the Red Bull started to play the Wedding March on the organ at the far side of the altar. Everyone rose. Cole felt the heat under the collar of the new suit he’d bought special for the occasion; the first suit he’d ever bought. He’d always wondered if his first suit wouldn’t be the one bought for his funeral, and here it was for his wedding day.
This was it, he realized, as Kate took the first step down the aisle, her hand resting on her father’s arm. The beginning of the rest of his life. And he was going to make it a good one, for her sake.
Pride swelled Kate’s heart as she took a step down the aisle while staring into the eyes of the man she was finally going to marry. The man she loved.
Cole was dressed in a Sunday-go-to-meeting suit that fitted his broad shoulders and long legs like it had been made for him. He’d never looked more handsome, and that was saying something. With his head bare, his thick blonde hair combed so just a lock dangled over his forehead, and his eyes full of hope and promise, he looked like the boy she’d fallen in love with all those years ago. A boy with dreams for a better life. A boy who’d grown up quickly, but hadn’t yet lost his belief in a future. And yet, Cole Turner was all man. No denying that.
Gazing at his familiar face, she felt his strength, his hopes, and, most importantly, his love pouring over her like water over the falls.
“He loves you, honey,” her father whispered into her ear.
“I know,” she whispered back.
And now everyone would know it, too. Including Cole. For hadn’t he been the hardest to convince?
* The End*
A word about the author…
Anne Carrole has been creating stories since she first wondered where Sally was running to in those early reader books. Besides reading and writing romances, you might find Anne researching western history, at a rodeo, watching football, in the garden, or on the tennis court. Married to her own urban cowboy, she’s the mother of a teenage cowgirl. She’s also a founder of the historical western romance fan page www.facebook.com/lovewesternromances.com.
She loves hearing from readers. You can friend, follow, or find Anne on:
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Web: http://www.annecarrole.com
Other Titles:
Falling for a Cowboy
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Table of Contents
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Saving Cole Turner Page 7
