“I told you I’m okay,” she said.
“I’m just going to make sure of it. He didn’t lay a hand on you?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m taking you home with me tonight, just in case. I’m going to watch over you until I find out that Brett’s back in Tulsa.” He kissed her on the forehead. “In fact, I’d like to take you home forever, Annie.”
Tears shone in her eyes. “Really?”
“You and our baby.”
“Our...baby.” A sob escaped her. “Are you sure about this?”
“One hundred percent.”
She rubbed her face with her sweater, wiping her tears. “I had to lie to Brett so he’d doubt this child was his. I thought telling him that the baby was someone else’s would turn him off.”
“I’m sure he’s never coming around again,” he said. “As sure as the sun rises every morning. As sure as I am that I love you and I’m never going to stop loving you.”
“I love you, too, Jared.”
She kissed him again, and when they were done, he skimmed his lips to the corner of her mouth, to the little cove under her ear, to the curve of her neck.
Holding her tighter, he said, “When I walked in, I wanted to kill him. I’m sure Tony felt the same way when...”
He trailed off. Damn, he had a lot to tell her.
“Come here,” he said, taking her hand and bringing her to the sofa, sitting her down with care.
They had a view of her backyard, the Valentine’s Day sun shining down on the place where everything had taken root for them.
“When I walked in,” he said again as he held her hand, “I saw Brett ready to hurt you. It reminded me of Tessa and Tony.”
“How?”
He told her all about what Davis and Violet, then Gran, had related to him this morning. Told her how Tony, aka Sean Mullaney, had definitely been involved with Bugs Moran and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Told her what happened after Tony had met Tessa Hadenfield, and how he had died saving her.
“It turns out that a bad man can turn good,” he said. “Or, maybe I should say that a good man turned bad man can go good.”
Annette kissed him, cutting him off until they both needed to breathe again. She coasted her fingertips down his cheek, his neck, sending fierce vibrations through him.
“Didn’t you say Gran wants you to keep these secrets in your family?” she whispered.
She was smiling, as if she knew what he was going to say to that.
“You are my family, Annie.”
This time, their kiss opened up a new world, one in which the future was theirs.
Slowly, he slid her sweater over her head, her hair spilling out like pale sunshine that would color the rest of his days. He kissed her neck, her collarbone, right on down to the top of her breasts that mounded over her bra.
She moaned as he took his time exploring her, being gentle, undoing the bra and bringing her to longer, lower moans with his mouth on her nipples.
As she lay on her back, arching toward him, he worked off her sweatpants, her panties. He touched her between her legs, sliding his finger between her folds, then into her.
She was being louder now, and he watched her face, his belly tightening at the pleasure he saw there.
Then his clothing was on the floor next to hers, and she was ready for him.
“Come over here,” she said, pulling him to her as he positioned himself carefully over her.
He put a pillow under her back as she rested against the arm of the couch, and he entered her, bringing one of her legs up to his side, opening her wider for him as her moans turned into throaty cries.
Straining, he filled her, just as she filled him, and it was as if time swirled around them, sweeping them to another place.
A place where nothing but sunshine existed, bathing him until it got so hot that he felt as if he were melting.
Liquefying.
Pooling like wax from a burning candle and then hardening again as his body climaxed.
He spilled into her, unable to breathe, unable to do any more than hold her and help her to her own climax with his fingers, his mouth.
His everything.
Timeless, he thought, kissing her again. They were as timeless as any true love.
And just as complete.
Epilogue
Heartbreak Hill’s lonely view of St. Valentine wasn’t as lonely as usual today.
Not with a good deal of the town here, gathered under the spring sun, cheering while Jared Colton took Annette Olsen as his wife.
As the ceremony ended, they kissed amid a shower of rose petals that four-year-old Kristy Flannigan, their flower girl, impulsively tossed into the air.
The first thing Jared did after he hugged his wife to him, whispering “I love you” into her ear, was open his arms so that Gran, their matron of honor, could bring his and Annette’s new daughter to them.
Angelica Colton, who was swaddled in a lacy white blanket, merely pursed her lips and fisted her little hands as he and Annette held her and their guests hooted and hollered some more.
Jared kissed his daughter, loving her baby smell, before Annette did the same. Then they handed her back to Gran so they could take a run down the grassy aisle.
At the end of it, Rita and Conn Flannigan, whom they’d gotten to know well these past few months, met them.
“Congratulations!” they said, hugging the bride and groom.
Rita looked as if her tummy was about to pop, she was so big, and ready to have this baby any minute, it seemed.
Soon, Annette and Jared were surrounded by well-wishers: Annette’s friends from Tulsa, whom she’d been able to invite now that she didn’t have to keep her location a secret from Brett anymore. Aaron Rhodes, the rugged president of the chamber of commerce. Rita’s rancher brother and sister, Nick and Kim. Margery Wilmore and her joyful sobbing. Terry—Annette’s manager—and the rest of the staff from the diner, which had closed for the day. The Chess Nerds were there, too, looking as jovial as could be, and so were a few ex-miners who’d introduced themselves to Jared the past few months, officially welcoming him to St. Valentine.
Davis and Violet Jackson came to the reception circle at the end, after everyone else had retreated to the buffet tables that had already been laid out by the caterers. Jared and Annette hadn’t seen any sense in having everyone wait to celebrate.
Davis shook Jared’s hand. “All the best to you two.”
Annette had just finished hugging Violet, and she went for Davis now. “You two found the best in each other, just like us. I guess that makes us a club of sorts.”
As Violet started to compliment Annette on how svelte she looked in what Annette had described to Jared as a “slim gossamer chiffon gown with cap sleeves,” he and Davis looked on.
“This day wouldn’t have been as happy without your help,” Jared said. “We appreciate all you’ve done.”
Not only had Davis and Violet kept tabs on Brett’s social life in Tulsa, thanks to some journalist contacts there, but there’d been the matter of Tony, too.
“Don’t even mention it,” Davis said.
“You’ve been real stand-up about everything.”
“Hey, The Recorder never publishes stories unless the facts are straight.”
With one glance, Jared saw that Davis meant it. He and Violet had never published what they knew about Tony Amati/Sean Mullaney, and Jared had never broken his vow to Gran about divulging the secrets about Tony and Tessa. Even so, Jared had no doubt that Davis knew there was more to the tale, but St. Valentine was already in the flush without having to exploit Tony. The recent Cowboy Festival had lured more crowds than they’d known what to do with, and it promised to be a lucrative venture for years to come.
Jared had even covered up the holes he’d dug in Annette’s garden, leaving the past where it belonged.
Violet had evidently caught wind of the conversation, and she came to Davis, her hand on her belly.
“I’m actually glad the investigation is over,” she said. “We’re going to need time for ourselves.”
“Are you...?” Annette asked.
Both Davis and Violet nodded, and Davis said, “I guess I’ll be asking Jared for fathering tips.”
After more congratulations all around, Jared stole Annette away, heading for the copse of trees that offered the best view of St. Valentine.
“Alone at last,” he said.
“Not for too long.” Annette held her veil to her head as a gentle wind combed over them, whistling and rustling the spring leaves. “I can’t wait to meet Melissa.”
Jared merely nodded, unable to speak. After Valentine’s Day, when everything had seemed new and possible with Annette at his side, he had gathered his courage and contacted his ex-wife, asking if it would be okay to do more than send money for his daughter every month.
Gradually, he had gotten to know his eleven-year-old over the phone and through email, and she had asked to meet him in Reno, where they’d moved years ago. Jared and Annette had decided to make it a part of their honeymoon, and they would introduce Angelica while they were at it. He would have invited Melissa to the wedding, but Joelle had said it was too soon, and he had respected that.
He nuzzled Annette’s cheek. “Melissa’s going to think the world of you.”
As the wind kept playing around them, it almost felt as if there was another presence here. A superstitious man would’ve thought it was Tony, if the town founder really was buried up here somewhere.
Annette must’ve felt it, too. “I wish they could’ve been as happy in the end as we are.”
“Who knows? Maybe they are.”
Annette got a glint in her blue eyes, and she started plucking petals from her bouquet.
“What’re you doing?”
“Making things right.” She gave a few petals to him, then closed her eyes. “Can’t you see them, Jared? Standing together, watching us, blessing us?”
Yes, he could, now that he’d closed his eyes, too, and put his mind to imagining. He saw Tony dressed in the suit and vest that he wore in most of his old-time pictures in town, with a watch fob hanging from his pocket. And he saw his great-grandma Tessa with a sparkle in her eyes as she linked arms with the love of her life.
When Jared felt a shower of petals come down around him, he realized that Annette had thrown some in the air, just as if Tony and Tessa had gotten married and Jared and Annette were here to cheer them on.
He tossed up his petals, too. A benediction. A cleansing.
For all of them.
In his mind, he saw Tony looking at him with his dark eyes, nodding, acknowledging his great-grandson—a part of something bigger than what Jared had ever dreamed possible.
I finally came home, Tony, he thought. And you’re the one who brought me here.
When he opened his eyes, Tony and Tessa were gone, and he only saw his own bride, Annette, who smiled just before she fell into his arms, squeezing him, loving him.
Yes, he’d finally come home to her arms, Jared thought, embracing her with all the love he’d discovered here in St. Valentine.
And in the woman he would love forever.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt of A Cold Creek Noel by RaeAnne Thayne!
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Chapter One
“Come on, Luke. Come on, buddy. Hang in there.”
Her wipers beat back the sleet and snow as Caidy Bowman drove through the streets of Pine Gulch, Idaho, on a stormy December afternoon. Only a few inches had fallen but the roads were still dangerous, slick as spit. For only a moment, she risked lifting one hand off the steering wheel of her truck and patting the furry shape whimpering on the seat beside her.
“We’re almost there. We’ll get you fixed up, I swear it. Just hang on, bud. A few more minutes. That’s all.”
The young border collie looked at her with a trust she didn’t deserve in his black eyes and she frowned, her guilt as bitter and salty as the solution the snowplows had put down on the roads.
Luke’s injuries were her fault. She should have been watching him. She knew the half-grown pup had a curious streak a mile wide—and a tendency not to listen to her when he had an itch to investigate something.
She was working on that obedience issue and they had made good strides the past few weeks, but one moment of inattention could be disastrous, as the past hour had amply demonstrated. She didn’t know if it was arrogance on her part, thinking her training of him was enough, or just irresponsibility. Either way, she should have kept him far away from Festus’s pen. The bull was ornery as a rattlesnake on a hot skillet and didn’t take kindly to curious young border collies nosing around his turf.
Alerted by Luke’s barking and then the bull’s angry snort, she had raced to old Festus’s pen just in time to watch Luke jig the wrong way and the bull stomp down hard on his haunches with a sickening crunch of bone.
Her hands tightened on the steering wheel and she cursed under her breath as the last light before the vet’s office turned yellow when she was still too far away to gun through it. She was almost tempted to keep going. Even if she were nabbed for running a red light by Pine Gulch’s finest, she could probably talk her way out of a ticket, considering her brother was the police chief and would certainly understand this was an emergency. If she were pulled over, though, it would mean an inevitable delay and she just didn’t have time for that.
The light finally changed and she took off fast, the back tires fishtailing on the icy road. She would just have to trust the salt bags she carried for traction in the bed of the pickup would do the job. Even the four-wheel drive of the truck was useless against black ice.
Finally, she reached the small square building that held the Pine Gulch Veterinary Clinic and pulled the pickup to the side doors where she knew it was only a short transfer inside to the treatment area.
She briefly considered carrying him in by herself, but it had taken the careful efforts of both her and her brother Ridge to slide a blanket under Luke and lift him into the seat of her pickup. They could bring out the stretcher and cart, she decided.
She rubbed Luke’s white neck. “I’m going to go get some help, okay? You just hold tight.”
He made a small whimper of pain and she bit down hard on her lip as her insides clenched with fear. She loved the little guy, even if he was nosy as a crow and even smarter, which was probably why his stubbornness was such a frustration.
He trusted her to take care of him and she refused to let him die.
She hurried to the front door, barely noticing the wind-driven sleet that gouged at her even under her Stetson.
Warm air washed over her when she opened the door, familiar with the scent
of animals and antiseptic mixed in a stomach-churning sort of way with new paint.
“Hey, Caidy.” A woman in green scrubs rushed to the door. “You made good time from the River Bow.”
“Hi, Joni. I may have broken a few traffic laws, but this is an emergency.”
“After you called, I warned Ben you were on your way and what the situation was. He’s been getting ready for you. I’ll let him know you’ve arrived.”
Caidy waited, feeling the weight of each second ticking away. The new vet had only been in town a few weeks and already he had made changes to the clinic. Maybe she was just being contrary, but she had liked things better when Doc Harris ran the place. The whole reception area looked different. The cheerful yellow walls had been painted over with a boring white and the weathered, comfortable, old eighties-era couch and chairs were gone, replaced by modern benches covered in a slate vinyl that probably deflected anything a veterinarian’s patients could leak on it. A display of Christmas gifts appropriate for pets, including a massive stocking filled to the top with toys and a giant rawhide bone that looked as if it came from a dinosaur, hung in one corner.
Most significant, the reception area used to sit out in the open but it was now stuck behind a solid half wall topped with a glass partition.
It made sense to modernize from an efficiency point of view, but she had found the comfortably worn look of the office before more appealing.
Not that she cared about any of that right now, with Luke lying out in her truck, cold and hurt and probably afraid.
She shifted impatiently. Where was the man? Trimming his blasted nails? Only a few moments had passed but every second delay was too much. Just when she was about call out to Joni to see what was taking so long, the door into the treatment area opened and the new vet appeared.
“Where’s the dog?” he asked abruptly, and she had only a vague impression of a frowning dark-haired man in blue scrubs.
The Cowboy's Pregnant Bride (St. Valentine, Texas) Page 18
