The Rancher's Wedding

by Diana Palmer

  Her face looked stricken as she processed the thought.

  He stared at her, frowning. “What’s wrong?” he asked suddenly.

  Chapter Nine

  Cassie stared into his dark eyes and felt her cheeks flushing. She turned her attention back to the kitten. “I just had a sudden thought,” she replied, and then tried to think of one that might divert him from her guilty expression.

  “Something troubling?” he asked softly.

  She drew in a breath. “Not really. We had a couple of New Yorkers in the restaurant recently,” she added. “They were so glad to escape Benton. I felt sorry for them.”

  “I know what you mean,” he said, relaxing back in his chair. “They can have big-city life, with my blessing. Come eat your cake and drink your coffee, before it gets cold.”

  “Okay.” She put the kitten back with its mother and moved back to the table. “I love cats,” she said. “I’ve always had them. But it wasn’t until I went away to college that I was able to have a dog. Mama didn’t really like them, but she agreed that I needed a watchdog. She was nervous about having me live off campus in a rented house.”

  “You didn’t live in the dorm?” he asked curiously.

  She sighed. “I was afraid I might get put in a coed dorm,” she explained. “I guess I’m a throwback to Victorian times, but I don’t think single men and women sharing a dorm is decent.”

  “I love you,” Bessie said suddenly. “You can come and live with me and I’ll feed you,” she added with a grin.

  Cassie laughed. “Thanks.”

  “So few women these days with that attitude,” she sighed. She gave JL a speaking look. He gave her one back.

  “I’m going to do the wash,” Bessie said. “If you hear a big splash, come and pull me out.”

  “It’s just a heavy-duty washer,” JL repeated. “And it’s not big enough that you can fall in.”

  “What do you know?” she retorted. “You’ve never seen it except from a distance. You’re afraid of it,” she accused with a grin. “Go on. Admit it.”

  “I don’t do laundry,” he said haughtily.

  “Lucky you, that I do,” she replied. “And lucky you, that you don’t have to get grass stains and mud stains and cow poop stains out of your jeans!”

  He gave her a long-suffering look. “I tell you how much I appreciate you, twice a day.”

  She shrugged. “I guess you do. Remember: big splash, come save me.”

  He waved a hand at her.

  Cassie was laughing. “You two,” she said with a tolerant look. “She’s a treasure.”

  “I think so.” He finished his coffee. “Want to see the bottle calves?”

  “Oh, yes!”

  “Finish up and we’ll go.”

  * * *

  The calves were big. She laughed as they bumped her and knocked her off-balance in their eagerness to get close to her.

  “They’re so sweet!” she exclaimed.

  “They’re pretty tame,” he replied. “We all pet them.”

  She smoothed her hand over one’s head. “I could learn to love cattle.”

  “Could you?” he asked with a secretive smile. “I’m going to have a party next weekend. Just a few friends, good food, dancing. Will you come?”

  “Oh, yes,” she agreed at once.

  The smile widened. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Were you? Why?” she asked absently, smoothing her hand over the muzzle of another calf.

  “You’ll find out,” he said. “And I’m not telling.”

  Her eyes were a soft, curious blue. “It’s a secret party?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Special occasion?”

  He pursed his lips. “I’m hoping it will be.”

  “Now I’m very curious!” she laughed.

  “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  She laughed. “Okay.”

  He drove her home after dark. They’d had fun, listening to music and finding that they had similar tastes in it, playing chess—although she pretended that she knew little about it. They even talked about television shows they liked, although his ran to old western movies, biographies, and nature specials. They had a lot in common. Even on tricky issues like politics and religion. She felt more and more at home with him. He didn’t say much, but it was obvious that he was feeling something similar.

  “I have to go to California for a meeting, and then to Dallas again, for another, and then to New Orleans,” he said heavily. “I don’t want to,” he added gently, staring at her intently in the partial light from the house’s porch light. “But business keeps the coffers full, so to speak.”

  “I understand,” she said, not adding that she’d had to travel, too, while she was writing for Warlocks and Warriors.

  He took her hand in his and drew the palm to his lips. “I didn’t plan to get involved with you,” he said softly.

  “I didn’t plan to get involved with you, either,” she confessed. “There are reasons, good reasons, why. We need to talk about them.”

  “Okay. But not now,” he chuckled. “I’m going to be running my legs off for a few days. We’ll talk Saturday, all right? I’ll pick you up about five.” He frowned. “I told everybody semiformal. . . .”

  “I have one good cocktail dress,” she interrupted. “I got it from the thrift shop at the college earlier this year,” she lied. “It’s very nice.”

  He hesitated to say what he was thinking, that if his cousin Cary brought one of those sophisticated women he liked to date, the woman might savage Cassie for a cheap dress. But he didn’t say it. She was proud. He’d have offered to buy her a dress, but he knew already that she’d never accept it. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “You’ll look fine. My pretty girl,” he whispered, and drew her close to kiss her softly, warmly. “I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too,” she whispered back.

  He kissed her again, not softly, with a passion that started fires inside her, that brought her arms hard around his neck, propelled her close, as close as she could get, and yet still not close enough. She moaned under his devouring mouth.

  He came to his senses just as he was sliding his hand inside her jeans. This was not the time or place. He drew back, breathing hard. “We really have to talk, soon,” he said huskily.

  She nodded, her eyes wide and fascinated, her body throbbing.

  “When I get back,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  He touched her cheek gently. “Five, Saturday.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  * * *

  “He’s throwing a party?” her father mused.

  “Yes. He said it was a special occasion, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was,” she added.

  He chuckled. “People in small towns talk. A lot. Sometimes you overhear things they wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Oh? Like what?” she asked as she put dishes of food on the table.

  “Such as the fact that a certain reclusive rancher walked into the local jewelry store and bought a diamond ring.”

  Her heart jumped. So did her hand. She almost upended the gravy boat. “Oh?” she repeated, and felt like a parrot. “For himself?”

  He shook his head and grinned. “It was an engagement ring. Rumors are flying.”

  “Was it JL?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She sat down, hard. “Wow.”

  “So I have a hunch about the reason for that party next Saturday.”

  Her heart lifted. Soared. Crashed. Her face was tragic. “He doesn’t know about us,” she said miserably.

  “You need to tell him the truth,” her father said gently. “I don’t think it will matter. Really I don’t. But he should hear it from you. And soon, just in case anybody local did connect that news broadcast with us.”

  “You haven’t heard anything . . . ?”

  “No. We’re pretty isolated here, and we don’t stick out as famous people. I’d know, if anybo
dy suspected. People are honest and straightforward here. Somebody would say something.”

  She relaxed, just a little. “Okay. I’ll tell him Saturday.”

  He smiled. “It will be all right. I know it will.” He cocked his head. “Can you live in Benton, Colorado, you think?”

  She laughed. “Oh, yes. Even if I went back to writing scripts, I could still go to New York when I need to. He’s not a controlling sort of man. It will be a good life. What about you?” she added.

  “I may go home and put up a fight,” he said solemnly. “Something I should have done before. I was too distraught after your mother’s death to do that.” His face set in hard lines. “Trudy Blaise shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what she’s doing.”

  “Jake will help you expose her,” she said firmly.

  “We’ll see how it works out. Your happiness is the most important thing to me. JL’s a good man. He’ll take care of you.”

  She smiled. “I’ll take care of him, too.”

  * * *

  She went to work, cooked, cleaned, talked to her father, and watched the days go by with maddening slowness. Time stood still, she thought, when you were anticipating something wonderful.

  Her mind was on JL so much that he seemed to be with her all the time. He phoned her at least once a day, just to talk. Sometimes twice a day. She walked around feeling as if her feet weren’t even touching the ground. She’d never really loved a man until now. It was overpowering with its intensity, its sweetness. The idea that she could live with JL, sleep in his arms every night, give him children, made her feel complete, as if she’d been only half a person before.

  That Saturday, she fussed over her one good cocktail dress. Her father overheard her talking to herself and peeked in, chuckling. She had the dress on a hanger and she was picking it to pieces.

  “He’s inviting you over, not the dress,” he emphasized. “If he’d wanted to concentrate on the dress alone, I’m certain that you wouldn’t have been included in the invitation.”

  She laughed helplessly. “You’re right. It’s just, I want everything to be perfect. Mary even gave me the day off, and she had that same secret smile I saw on Agatha’s face. It seems to be an open secret.”

  “I imagine it is,” he replied. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “Two hours to go,” he said.

  She let out a sigh. “I’ve been grinding my teeth all week because time was so slow. Now I’m going to have to hurry to get dressed in time!”

  “That’s life,” her father said dryly, and left her to it.

  He smiled with pure delight when she came into the living room. The cocktail dress fit her nicely, but it was conservative and still in style. Her long red-gold hair was swept up in an exquisitely tricky hairdo that was held in place with jeweled hairpins. Her feet were in dainty black leather high heels with ankle straps. She wore a thick, black, wool crocheted shawl over it because she didn’t have a good coat, and the beautiful fringed jacket JL had brought her wasn’t quite dressy enough for this rig.

  “Will I do?” she asked her father.

  He chuckled. “You certainly will. You remind me so much of your mother’s mother. She wasn’t a redhead, but she had the same grace and poise that you do. Your mother would be proud tonight.”

  She smiled sadly. “I wish . . .”

  He kissed her forehead. “Me too, sweetheart. I hope you have the time of your life tonight. And I won’t expect you early!”

  She laughed and kissed his cheek. “I’m so excited, I can hardly bear it!”

  “I’d wish you luck, but you won’t need it.” He lifted his head and listened. “And I believe your enchanted carriage is coming up the driveway.”

  “Disguised as a pickup truck,” she laughed wickedly.

  He parted the curtains and whistled. “Apparently not.”

  She looked out over his shoulder and caught her breath. “Well!” she said.

  “Unexpected. But not entirely,” he replied, and grinned.

  She walked out the door. JL was getting out the back door of a super-stretch black limousine, its liveried driver holding the door for him. He had a box in his hand. He was wearing evening clothes, no hat, and he looked devastatingly handsome.

  He was doing some looking of his own. Cassie looked beautiful, and very sexy, in the nicest sort of way. He smiled and couldn’t stop.

  “Here,” he said, handing her an orchid. “It’s going to be an enchanted evening, however trite that may sound.”

  “Not trite at all,” she assured him. She took the orchid out of its box and slid it onto her wrist. “I’ll press it in a book, afterward,” she said with breathless delight, and met his eyes. “I’ll keep it forever.”

  His breath caught. She was so real, so innocent, so honest. He couldn’t believe how perfect she was. And she was all his, if he wanted her. He did. He’d never wanted anyone so much, least of all his ex-fiancée.

  “We can talk about that forever thing, after the party,” he said softly. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly. “Shall we go?”

  Her whole face smiled at him. “Let’s.”

  * * *

  It was the sort of gathering she was used to. She’d been to numerous cocktail parties in New York, and she was used to eating in five-star restaurants, sipping champagne, having the most expensive hors d’oeuvres. She mingled with his guests, most of them businessmen who were his friends, and she fit in effortlessly.

  He saw that, and it disturbed him. She was too much at home here. How could a waitress from a small Georgia town feel so comfortable in what was an alien environment?

  Cassie didn’t notice his expression. She was meeting people, socializing as she was used to doing, drawing out people by asking them to talk about themselves. Authors were, by nature, introverts. But she’d had to learn to be outgoing when she started work for the weekly newspaper outside Atlanta. It had been a good preparation for what came afterward.

  JL nursed a whiskey and soda and frowned as Cassie mingled with his guests. One was missing. He was still uncertain about inviting Cary, after the slight run-in his cousin had with Cassie, but he took the chance anyway. Cary was, after all, the only family he had left in the world. It was fitting that he should be here when JL announced his engagement to Cassie. It would also be a way of letting Cary know that he held no grudges about Cary’s part in breaking his former engagement.

  He was growing certain that Cary wouldn’t show up when the man walked in the door with, of all the damned people in the world, JL’s ex-fiancée. He pushed away from the bar, where he’d been leaning, and glared at his cousin with flaming brown eyes. Damn the man!

  Cary approached them with a nervous smile. What had seemed like a neat little stab in the heart to pay his cousin back for taking Cassie away was feeling more like Waterloo. JL glared at him. Cassie, unaware, at first, of who the sophisticated woman with Cary really was, smiled as she joined JL.

  “Hi, Cuz,” Cary said. “Marge was in town on business so I thought I’d bring her along.” He smiled at Cassie. “This is Marge Bailey,” he said. He pursed his lips with a faint glint in his eyes. “JL was engaged to her a few months ago.”

  Cassie felt all the joy and excitement drain out of her with the words. She knew the name. She recognized the woman, and not because she’d been JL’s fiancée. Marge Bailey was in advertising. Cassie had been in a meeting with her and network executives about advertising for Warlocks and Warriors. She felt her stomach drop. So far, Marge hadn’t recognized her. Hopefully, she wouldn’t.

  But even without that unexpected complication, she knew how hard it had been for JL to get over the woman. And here was Cary, throwing her in his face. What a dreadful thing to do! Why was he doing it?

  “Hello, JL,” Marge said with a tight smile, ignoring Cassie.

  “You’re here on business?” JL replied tersely.

  “An advertising campaign for a new client. I was . . .” She stopped and stared at Cassie, recognizing h
er all at once. “My gosh, I know you! My company did the advertising for Warlocks and Warriors! It’s my favorite show! You and I met at a meeting in New York,” she said, stunned. “They were talking about you on a news show a few days ago. Well, it was about your father, of course, but they mentioned that you’d resigned as a writer for Warlocks and Warriors. Now that Frank’s dead, they have to be missing you!”

  JL seemed to turn to stone. His eyes slid around to Cassie. “Writer for Warlocks and Warriors?” he asked with a bite in his deep voice. Like most television viewers, he knew the show. It was in its sixth season, one of the most successful dramas in the history of cable.

  Cassie felt her heart fall to her feet. The jig was up, it seemed. She glanced at Cary and saw the guilt in his face as he averted his eyes. The beautiful woman at his side was more surprised than guilty as she glanced from JL to Cassie. Cary had told her about JL’s new friend and the engagement rumors before they arrived.

  “Surely you knew?” she asked JL. When he didn’t answer, she looked at Cassie. “I can’t imagine how your father thought he’d outrun the scandal, even by coming all the way out here to a small town in Colorado. I read all about the case. He was charged with sexual harassment of several women, of trying to force himself on Trudy Blaise. . . .”

  “He did nothing of the sort,” Cassie said sharply. “Trudy Blaise has played that hand one time too many. After the accusations were made, my mother was hounded to death by the media, by so-called friends on social media as well. The pressure was too much for her. She committed suicide because of Trudy’s lies. People who cause tragedies incur tragedies. Ms. Blaise’s moment is coming,” she added icily. “And it’s coming soon! My father can prove his innocence. His attorney is already working on it.”

  “Your mother committed suicide?!” Marge’s face closed up. “I knew that she died. I didn’t know how. I honestly didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Well . . . this is awkward,” Cary began slowly.

  “Not so awkward for you, I’m sure,” Cassie told him with heat in her tone. Her blue eyes were flashing like lightning in her pale face. “You planned it right down to the last detail, didn’t you?”