“WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?” Brad grumbled, stomping past Kate. “I got lipsticked and perfumed by the girls, that’s what!”
No joke, Kate thought, noting Brad, literally reeking of a nauseating mixture of perfumes, had been covered from head to toe with all colors of lipstick. She followed him to the kitchen. “Why would they do that?” she asked as Brad marched over to the sink and began splashing water on his face, making a mess all over the floor and counter, and doing little to get the color off his face.
“How would I know?” Brad scrubbed a dishtowel across his face, then bent to look at his reflection in the stainless-steel side of the toaster. He groaned, realizing all he’d done was make more of a mess of his face. “What’s wrong with this stuff? It isn’t coming off at all!”
“You’re going to need a face cream to remove it. I’ll go get some. Just wait here.” Kate dashed down the hall, past the laundry room and into her bedroom suite. Returning moments later with tissues and a jar of facial cleanser, she handed both over to Brad.
“Is this stuff going to come out of my clothes?” Brad asked anxiously.
Kate nodded. “I’ll show you how to take care of it.”
“Just in case it happens again.” Riley ribbed his brother mercilessly, chuckling.
Brad stopped painting his face with cleanser to glare at Riley.
Kate gave Riley a look, wordlessly telling him to cool it. “Because proper laundering techniques are something every successful bachelor needs to know,” Kate corrected, playing peacemaker as she sank onto a kitchen stool. “Now start at the beginning and tell me what happened.”
“Well, Brad had three dates tonight with three different girls,” Riley began, raiding the fridge.
“Wait a minute. What did you have to do with any of this?” Kate asked Riley.
Riley grinned mischievously. “I helped him end a couple of them. I also ran interference for him when necessary, ’cause there are always glitches whenever you’re doing anything this complicated, and I’m pretty good at thinking on my feet. Besides—” Riley shrugged “—this was a good way for Brad to show me how it’s done ’cause I’m going to be dating in a year or so, too.”
Kate shook her head, wondering where these guys came up with these lame-brained ideas.
“It’s not like the dates were at the same time,” Brad complained, anticipating what Kate was about to say as he tissued off the cream on his face. “I scheduled them one right after another.”
“But the girls didn’t like that,” Kate presumed dryly as Riley dumped salsa and Velveeta cheese into a bowl, and put it into the microwave to heat.
“I guess not,” Brad replied sarcastically. “Because all three of them—Rose Aldridge, Anna Lisa Kennerly and Martina Wilson—jumped me behind the Armadillo putt-putt golf course and went at it. By the time I could come up for air, it was too late. I looked and smelled like this.”
“Well, I hate to say it,” Kate said sternly as Riley got the chili con queso dip out of the microwave, stirred it together and poured it on some crispy tortilla chips, “but you probably brought this on yourself, Brad, by messing with those girls’ feelings in the first place.”
“Hey! I didn’t do anything to them,” Brad protested as Riley got out two bottles of root beer and shoved one at Brad.
Kate looked at Brad sternly. “Rose and Martina and Anna Lisa probably feel like you led them on. And they were trying to teach you a lesson to not do it again.”
Brad plucked at his lipstick-smeared shirt in disgust. “Couldn’t they just have refused to date me?”
Kate watched him rub off most of the makeup and the gobs of cleanser. “I suspect that’s coming, too,” she said mildly.
“Great,” Brad said, frowning all the more.
“Well, as fun as this has been, I’ve had enough entertainment for one evening.” Riley handed over what was left of the chips and queso to his brother. “I’m going on to bed.” Yawning, he exited the kitchen.
Brad grabbed the snack and a soda and started to walk off, too. Kate put a hand on his shoulder. “We still need to talk.” Technically, Sam should be doing it. But since he wasn’t here, and she was the one in charge, it fell to her. Sighing unenthusiastically, Brad shot Kate a look and sat. “Why do you want more than one date a night?” Kate asked matter-of-factly.
Brad shrugged and kicked back in his chair. Abruptly appearing as confident in his ability to attract girls as Brad Pitt or Robert Redford, he munched on a handful of tortilla chips. “If you date one girl and then she leaves you, you’re screwed. But if you have another girlfriend already waiting in the wings, it doesn’t matter if she leaves you because you can just go on to the next one.”
“What do you think your mom would’ve thought about the way you’ve been behaving?” Kate asked after a moment.
A mixture of grief and guilt flashed across Brad’s face. Self-consciously he turned his glance away and admitted in a low, rueful tone, “She probably would have told me to treat the girls the way I wanted them to treat me. She was always big on the Golden Rule.” Silence fell between them. Kate kept looking at Brad. Finally he looked back at her, too. “You want me to apologize to those girls, don’t you?” Brad asked reluctantly.
“It’s up to you.” Kate shrugged, knowing Brad was old enough to make his own decisions about this, and then live with the consequences. “Just remember. Laramie is a small town. There’s only a finite number of girls to date in the first place. You don’t want to alienate them all with your Casanova antics. You live here now.”
Brad let out a long, weary breath. “All right.” He pushed to his feet with a great deal of drama. “I’ll start making the rounds with my apologies tomorrow. Meanwhile—” he lifted his arm to his face and sniffed deeply of the nauseating mixture of perfumes “—I have got to take a shower.”
SAM LOOKED FOR KATE the moment he walked into the house that night. She was in her bedroom suite. The door was open. She was dressed in shorts and a loose-fitting cotton shirt that ended just above her navel. She had kicked off her sandals and was stripping the sheets off her bed. He paused in the doorway, not wanting to intrude, knowing they had to talk. Unable to help but appreciate how pretty she looked, even when she was obviously dead tired, he lounged in the doorway and waited until she looked up. “Did you give Will permission to go jogging?”
“Yes. “She paused, the conflict she’d felt about that on her face. She met his glance, one adult to another. “I wasn’t sure what to do, so I let him go.”
Sam knew, in her position, he would have been hard pressed not to do the same. If Will was going to play football, he needed to be in the best possible physical shape. “How long was he gone?”
Kate gathered the sheets into a ball and tossed them into the laundry basket at the foot of the bed. “About two hours,” she said.
“Twice the normal time.”
Kate nodded. As she leaned across the bed to grab the pillows, her blouse rode up, giving him an unwanted glimpse of her midriff. Straightening, she turned to look at him. “I would’ve gone out to look for him but I couldn’t leave Kev. He was asleep. And then there was a small crisis with Brad and Riley.” Briefly she explained how his second oldest son had come to receive a modern, female version of tarring and feathering. “Anyway,” Kate continued as she removed the cases from the pillows, “by the time I got done dealing with that, Will was slipping back in.”
“I know.” Sam frowned, thinking about the unsatisfactory nature of their too short conversation, and the nagging feeling that Will was still as defiant as ever, beneath his surface cooperation. “I just talked to him for a minute out in the driveway.”
Still holding a pillow clasped in front of her like a shield, Kate paused and bit her lip. “Was I wrong to let him go?” She searched Sam’s eyes. “Do you think he was up to something tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Sam sighed. “When my limo turned onto the street next to this one, there was a car full of teenagers. It sped off pretty quickly. When we got a little closer to the house, I saw Will jogging up the driveway.”
Kate lifted a speculative brow. “Coincidence?”
Sam shrugged. He didn’t want to accuse Will unfairly any more than he wanted either himself or Kate to be played for fools. And like it or not, since they were both working to keep watch over his kids at the moment, he and Kate had to cooperate and share information over things such as this in the same way that he and Ellie used to. “Will’d obviously been running. He was drenched in sweat. But he also smelled like he had just used a heck of a lot of peppermint breath spray and I’ve never known Will to use breath spray before a run.”
“You’re sure it was the spray and not a mint?”
Sam nodded grimly, remembering. “I saw the little aerosol can in his hand.” He had used it and tucked it into the pocket of his shorts just as Sam caught up with him.
“You don’t think he was drinking, do you?”
Sam sighed. Again, he just didn’t know. Times like this made him think he was not cut out to be a single parent and never would be. “Will looked and acted sober.”
“But you’re still worried about him, aren’t you?” Kate said, shooting him a concerned look as she grabbed a clean pillow-case and slipped it onto her pillow.
“Yeah, I am,” Sam said.
“Then that makes two of us,” Kate said. She shook her head and sat on the edge of her bed, her bare feet tangled in the rumpled blankets on the floor. “Especially since a lot of this is my fault.”
“Why would you think that?” Sam asked.
Kate sighed and shoved a hand through the mussed layers of her hair. “I haven’t been able to establish any real rapport with Will. Plus, I really mishandled the situation today with him and Amanda.”
Sam knew she was wrong to be beating herself up over that. She’d been shocked as hell to find Will with a girl on his bed. So had he. “You didn’t know what you’d be walking in on.” He stepped a little farther into her room.
“True, but…” Kate’s voice dropped to a whisper and she stared at the floor.
“But what?” Sam moved closer yet. He had no clue what she was trying to say.
Kate jumped up from her perch at the end of the bed and grabbed one of the clean folded sheets. She went back to making the bed. “The truth is,” she said with difficulty after a moment, “Will was right. I do try to mother everyone. It’s one of the reasons I left my job as a high school counselor.” Still avoiding Sam’s eyes, she shook her head. “Sometimes kids need a friend or someone to look up to, not a stranger trying to act like a parent. And despite all the training and classes I’ve had in that area, I just couldn’t do it, not with any degree of authenticity.” She paused and looked up at Sam, before continuing honestly. “And I never could understand how teens could even think about going to bed with someone without first being in love with them. But some of them do.” Kate gestured helplessly, her frustration about that evident, before she went back to fitting the contoured sheet on the bed. “Anyway, I knew that if I couldn’t be as compassionate and understanding as the kids needed me to be, then I needed to get out of that job…so I did.”
Sam thought back to his conversation with Mike Marten. Kate may be a grown woman, but she’s still an innocent in so many ways…. Aware he didn’t really want to see that aspect of Kate change or see her become jaded, Sam asked, “Does your dad know that’s why you left?”
Kate let out a brief, self-conscious laugh. “Mercy, no.” She pressed a hand to her breasts. “What would make you think that?”
Sam figured Kate had enough problems without realizing that her dad was still running around trying to insulate her on that score. “Nothing,” he lied. “I just wondered. I know he wants you back at the high school…”
“Well, it’s not going to happen.” Kate shook out a second sheet and added it to the bed. “I don’t belong there,” she said stubbornly, her mind made up about that much. “I’m a lot more comfortable dealing with people who need help overcoming grief. I’ve been there, lived it. I understand what a profound effect the death of a family member can have on a family. Whereas when it comes to teens and sex, I don’t have a clue what that’s about.” Kate turned to Sam, incensed. “Can you imagine? I mean—” Kate took back the question as soon as it was out there. “Well, you and Ellie—”
“Had to get married,” Sam supplied, having mercy on the fumbling Kate.
Kate flushed in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“But you were thinking it,” Sam said.
A silence fell between them that Sam had no idea how to bridge.
“Well, now I feel even worse,” Kate said after a moment.
“Why?”
Kate shook her head. “I just shouldn’t have been so shocked. I shouldn’t have been at such a loss as to the appropriate way to handle the situation with Will. I am an adult and a trained counselor, after all. And yet at the same time, the two of them have only had a few dates. For them to behave in such a reckless manner… I certainly never felt like that in high school—”
“But you were dating Craig then, weren’t you?” Sam interrupted.
“Yes. But it was literally years before—” Kate broke off and started again. “All we did in high school was kiss good-night at the door. He was very respectful of me. That was one of the things I liked about Craig. That he didn’t push me to have sex with him at any early age.”
Sam found that hard to understand. Was Craig dead? Kate was a knockout. He and Ellie had always had passion. Maybe too much physical passion at an early age, but it had been one of their strongest bonds nevertheless. It was the one thing that had sustained them, even during the periods when the other aspects of their relationship hadn’t been so great. Sam couldn’t imagine marrying someone without that to build on.
“I was just surprised to see such passion in kids as young as Will and Amanda,” Kate continued hastily. “And I handled it badly as a result. And in doing so, I made my relationship with Will—which wasn’t all that great to begin with since we’ve established virtually no rapport between us—all the more strained. Now he’s angry at me and he blames me for his being grounded. I guess I’m just afraid I’ve made the situation with Will worse, and that wasn’t my intention.” Kate picked up the clothes basket, and walked past Sam, out into the hall.
Sam followed Kate into the laundry room and watched as Kate stuffed sheets into the washer. “Don’t kid yourself, Kate. Will would be having a hard time regardless of who was here taking care of him. He’s seventeen. He’s anxious to get out and be on his own. And he’s sowing some wild oats.”
Kate paused in the act of measuring out detergent. “I have to tell you, Sam, I think it’s more than that,” she said heavily.
“And I have to tell you, Kate” Sam said, his tone just as flat and meaningful, “I think you’re overreacting.”
KATE WENT TO BED soon after that, and so did Sam.
By all rights, Kate should have been exhausted, after the day from hell in his household. He certainly was, and he hadn’t even been home for most of it. But that night, Sam noted reluctantly, Kate Marten didn’t seem to sleep much at all. The sounds started at three in the morning. The clink of a glass in the sink. The soft pad of footsteps across the kitchen floor. At four, he heard the hum of the washer again and later still, the rhythmic, rolling thud of the clothes dryer. At four-thirty, the opening and closing of the refrigerator door. At five-thirty, the aroma of coffee drifted up to the second floor.
Sam told himself it wasn’t his business if Kate decided to forfeit her rest. But when he heard the back door open and shut at just a little before six, he knew he had to investigate. He found her in the backyard, kneeling next to the flower beds as the first pink light of dawn streaked the Texas sky behind her. She wore a loose-fitting denim work shirt over a snug-fitting T-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Her hair was braided and she looked younger than she was with no makeup.
“What are you doing up?” Kate said when she saw Sam standing there in a pair of jersey running shorts and a T-shirt.
“I might ask the same question of you.” He sat on the porch step and began to pull on his socks and shoes. He figured as long as he was up, he might as well go for a run.
Kate rubbed her forehead with the back of one leather gardening glove, leaving a streak of dirt across her skin. “The flower bed needed weeding.”
Sam knew it was a helluva lot more than that depriving her of sleep. “This isn’t necessary, you know.” He looked at Kate sternly. “You can call the garden center and have them send someone out to do it.”
“I don’t mind.” Kate pursed her lips together stubbornly as she plucked out weeds and tossed them into a pail. “It relaxes me.”
“I can see that,” Sam said.
“Really.” Kate continued weeding with a vengeance and refused to meet his gaze. “I’m fine.”
Sam could go off on his run and pretend he had never noticed her out here. But something in the defiant set of her shoulders, the troubled line of her lips, had him moving closer, instead of away. He stood and crossed to her side. Wary of waking the boys sleeping inside, he hunkered down beside her and asked quietly, “What’s wrong?”
Kate lifted her chin and speared him with a haughty look. “What makes you think something is wrong?”
Sam nodded at her hand. “Maybe the fact you just yanked that flower out by the roots?”
Kate looked down and gasped at the geranium clutched in her hand. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, her cheeks pinkening with embarrassment. “I’ll just…put it back.” She set it down gently and patted the dirt around it.
Sam put his hand on her wrist. It wasn’t the flower he was concerned about. And now that the question was out there, he wasn’t going to let it go unanswered, no matter how reluctant Ms. Kate Marten was to confide in him. “I repeat. What’s wrong?”
Kate withdrew her wrist from his grip and sat back on her heels. Abruptly she looked as belligerent as Will on a bad day. “Nothing that concerns you.”
Figuring this was going to take a while, he sat beside her in the damp, dew-covered grass. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what’s going on with you, or what had you walking the floor all night.”
Kate’s jaw set as she weeded in silence.
“Is this about what Will said yesterday or about Kevin?” Sam continued when she didn’t reply.
Kate met his eyes, looking at him with utmost sincerity. “I never, ever should have lost track of Kevin. I can’t believe…” She blew out an uneasy breath. “Well, suffice it to say I’m terribly ashamed about that and I’ll never let it happen again.”
Aware he’d been so furious and upset he’d never really given her a chance to explain, Sam moved closer yet. “What exactly did happen there by the way?”
Kate sighed, suddenly looking as disappointed in herself as he had been with her. “I got a little too caught up in my wedding plans.”
Sam studied her, not sure why he felt so protective of her, just knowing he did. “You’ve been caught up in planning your nuptials ever since you moved in last weekend, and it never interfered with your ability to take care of Kev or any of the other kids. What was different about yesterday?”
“You’re very perceptive, aren’t you?”
When I want to be, yeah, I am. And right now although Sam didn’t begin to comprehend why it should be so, he wanted to understand what was going on with Kate. “You don’t run a successful business without being able to pick up on subtle shifts such as this.”
Kate rolled her eyes. “You’re a pain in the butt, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” Sam said, noting that Kate had grown into a much more complicated woman than he thought. “Back to yesterday….” he prompted, determined to have his questions answered.
“I was nervous about my meeting with Reverend Baxter. I didn’t really want to go because Craig wasn’t going to be there.”
“Makes sense,” Sam sympathized. He didn’t understand why they’d gone ahead with the meeting, either. “Especially with Craig coming home next weekend.”
“Yes, well…” Kate’s voice trailed off in exasperation. “When I got there, I found they had fixed that by setting up a conference call with Craig and his base chaplain.”
Sam nodded, impressed. “That was pretty smart.”
“I just wish…” Kate stopped, bit her lip.
“What?” Sam asked, amazed at how pretty Kate could manage to look on so little sleep, with a smudge of dirt across her forehead.
Kate bent over the flower bed and went back to weeding with a vengeance. “Well, it just didn’t go very well, that’s all.”
Figuring he was going to have to tease it out of her, Sam grinned. “Why not? Don’t tell me he still refused to set a wedding date.”
“As a matter of fact,” Kate said, finding no humor in the situation at all as she met Sam’s probing gaze. “Craig refused to do just that, even after my mother, Reverend Baxter, and his chaplain at the base in Italy all urged him to do so over the phone.”
“But not you?”
“I knew it was a lost cause.” Kate yanked off her gloves, stood, and marched back over to the steps, where she had left a bottle of water. “I’ve been after him to do that for weeks now, so we could start solidifying some of the wedding plans. At least book the church and find out what caterers and reception halls are available, but he wants to wait and do it together, when he gets home, and I know how stubborn he can be once he makes up his mind about something.”
No matter how it inconveniences everyone else, obviously, Sam thought resentfully, knowing Kate didn’t deserve that. No woman did.
“Needless to say,” Kate continued, uncapping the bottle and drinking deeply of the icy water, “my humiliation didn’t end there.”
“It didn’t.”
“Of course not.” Kate paced, her unbuttoned work shirt flying open as she moved. “Craig refused to participate in a mutual testament of our love, too.” Kate explained to Sam what Reverend Baxter had in mind.
“That doesn’t sound so tough,” he said when she had finished. What bride or groom couldn’t relate some funny or tender anecdote about the person they were about to wed? Usually, people who had been together as long as Kate and Craig had tons of stories about each other.
“It really shouldn’t be difficult at all,” Kate agreed. “Especially when he could easily choose a poem or a part of a poem, or even a line or two from a popular movie if it summed up what he felt about me—us.”
“But he didn’t agree with any of those options,” Sam concluded after a moment.
“Nope.” Kate’s eyes radiated the depth of her disappointment. “He said he loved me and beyond that there was nothing else to say.”
Sam was no gushing romantic himself, but he thought where Kate was concerned there should be plenty else to say, especially for a guy who professed to be so head over heels in love with her he was going to make her his wife. Sam didn’t love Kate. Hell, he was still just getting to know the woman Kate had become. And yet he could think of a dozen things Craig could talk about right off the bat. Her incredible pluck and courage, for instance. Her selflessness. Her compassion. The light in her eyes. The breathtaking nature of her beauty, inside and out. The way she had devoted herself to Craig, her patience in waiting for him while he’d gone off to the academy to pursue his dreams, and completed his pilot training. And that was just for starters.
Realizing abruptly that Kate was waiting for—wanting—his reaction to all this, Sam asked, “What do you want to do?”
Kate shrugged, looking hurt all over again, as she recapped her water bottle and set it aside. “It’s not really up to me.”
Yes, Sam thought as every protective instinct in him rose to the fore, it was. This was Pete Marten’s kid sister they were talking about. The person who, though not quite yet successful, was doing everything in her power to help him and his boys put their lives back together, at great personal cost and sacrifice to herself.
“I can’t exactly twist his arm,” Kate continued miserably.
Sam didn’t understand why Kate, who was such a feisty woman in her own right, would let Craig push her around this way. Not about to let her continue to make excuses, for Craig or herself, Sam looked at Kate steadily. “Pretend it is up to you. Pretend the decision about this one aspect of your wedding rests solely in your lap. What would you do, Kate?”
Kate sighed and dropped down next to Sam again. “I liked Reverend Baxter’s suggestion. I’d like to say the traditional vows but also incorporate something personal of our own into the ceremony, too.”
“So why don’t you do that?” Sam persisted, encouraging Kate in the same way that he knew both Pete…and Ellie would have done. “If that’s really what you want, why don’t you just go after it?” The same way, he added silently, you went after me and the boys when you were determined to help us.
“You don’t understand. It’s not that easy.” Kate clasped her hands together in her lap and looked down at them. “Craig has never been one to discuss his feelings. His parents are very reserved people. They don’t express emotion in their family. They get along. I mean, they never fight. But they’re also sort of formal. Growing up like that, Craig’s not very comfortable in overt displays of emotion and affection. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel things. He just doesn’t show it.”
If you say so. In her zeal to make everything okay, it sounded to Sam as though Kate was rationalizing. Under the circumstances, he wasn’t sure it was such a good thing.
Kate studied the look on his face and asked curiously, “What was your actual wedding ceremony like? I know you and Ellie eloped, but…I don’t know much beyond that.”
“We went to J.P. Randall’s Bait and Tackle Shop.”
“Your cousin Shane McCabe and his wife Greta got married there, didn’t they?”
“Yep.”
“Ellie went for that?”
Sam tried to not think about the disappointed look on Ellie’s face as they’d entered the little store the day after she’d turned eighteen. “As much as anyone can, I guess, considering it’s just a little grocery store that sells food and supplies to travelers and fishermen.”
“Was it exciting, eloping like that?”
Nerve-racking had been more like it, Sam thought. “We were worried about getting caught. We just wanted to get it over with and get out of there.”
Kate’s face fell as she went back to working on the flower beds. “That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
“It wasn’t, especially when compared to the big wedding Ellie had always dreamed about,” Sam admitted reluctantly. But he’d made it up to her later, every way he could.
“You didn’t have a honeymoon, either, did you?”
Sam shook his head. “Couldn’t afford it. We lived with her parents that summer, and both of us worked two jobs, and saved our money before heading off to Austin in the fall.”
“She helped put you through college, didn’t she?”
Sam nodded. “She baby-sat for other kids as well as our own the whole time I was in school. I worked full-time, too, in addition to being a student. Those were hectic years.”
“But good ones,” Kate observed. “I mean, it was all worth it to you both in the end. The sacrifices you made, all the time apart. You were happy.”
Was she talking about him and Ellie now? Sam wondered, studying Kate’s hopeful, idealistic expression. Or was she really thinking about her and Craig? “Yes,” Sam said, glossing over all the tough times early in his marriage. “It was.”
Finished with the weeding, Kate took off her gardening gloves and sighed. “I’m sure it will be for Craig and me, too.” Her lips formed a rueful smile. “What happened yesterday was probably nothing. I am likely just having a case of the pre-wedding jitters. Craig, too. Once we’re together again, everything will be fine. Meanwhile, I just need to calm down, be happy I’ve finally found my wedding dress—”
“You’re going to wear the one I saw you in yesterday?”
“Yes. You did like it, didn’t you? I mean, I’ve made the right decision, haven’t I? Buying that one?”
“Oh, yeah,” Sam said. Even as angry as he had been with her yesterday—and he had been plenty furious—he hadn’t been able to help but notice how stunningly gorgeous she looked. How delicate and feminine and womanly. She was going to be one beautiful bride, and probably an equally devoted and understanding wife. He just hoped Craig Farrell appreciated her the way she deserved to be appreciated. Right now it did not sound to him as if that were the case.
SAM WENT BACK to California on Monday morning. Because he wasn’t due to return from his business trip until the following Sunday or Monday and Kate was due to pick Craig up at the airport on Friday evening, they had had to make other arrangements for the boys during her weekend off.
Fortunately, Jackson and Lacey McCabe, who were staying out at the McCabe Ranch while John and Lilah were away, volunteered to take the boys for the weekend. Sam had been quick to approve the plan. Though Will didn’t want to go—he wanted to stay in town with his friends, but since there was going to be no one to supervise him and he was still grounded—Sam made him go out to the ranch, anyway. Brad and Riley hadn’t cared one way or the other—neither had had much of a social life since Brad had been lipsticked and perfumed. Kevin and Lewis, however, had been delighted to have the chance to ride horses and swim as much as they wanted.
By the time Kate’s mother stopped by Sam’s on Thursday evening to plan Craig’s welcome home party, everything was all set. The only thing Kate had to worry about was her nerves. She wanted everything to go perfectly, and so, it appeared as Joyce went over her list with Kate, did Joyce. “We want you to have Craig at our house by three Saturday afternoon.”
Kate smiled as she thought about the romantic reunion to come. “I promise we’ll leave Dallas in plenty of time to get here, Mom.”
“Do you think fajitas will be all right for the main course?”
Kate hesitated, knowing that could easily cause a problem. “Maybe we shouldn’t have something that spicy, Mom. Maybe we should have something blander.”
Joyce stared at Kate in surprise. “But Craig loves Tex-Mex! And you know that’s the one thing he doesn’t get when he is overseas.”
“I know…” Kate hedged, feeling guiltier than ever about not telling her mother about her father’s episode of acute indigestion the week before. “But he’ll have traveled a long way and—”
“Your major has a cast-iron stomach and you know it, Kate.” Joyce put down her pen and sat back in her chair. She folded her arms in front of her. “What’s really going on here, Kate?”
Like it or not, for the sake of her father’s stomach, Kate was going to have to fess up. “It’s Dad,” Kate conceded reluctantly. “He’s having indigestion again.”
Joyce began to look every bit as upset as Gus had predicted she would be. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried, hurt.
Kate clasped her mother’s hand, wordlessly imploring her to calm down. “Because I didn’t want you to worry, and there wasn’t anything we could do until he’d seen the doctor, anyway.”
“When is that going to be?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.” Kate would have preferred her father see their new family doctor much sooner, but he had refused. And knowing she was lucky to have him go to their family doctor at all, she had finally backed off.
“Well, he must not be having much trouble,” Joyce said finally, thinking hard. “Because he ate chili rellenos last night, and Cajun-style blackened redfish earlier in the week, and didn’t seem to have any problem whatsoever.”
Kate sighed her relief. Maybe her dad was right. “Well, maybe it was just a single case of way too spicy enchiladas and too much Texas heat, then. But just to be on the safe side,” Kate proceeded cautiously, “maybe we should have grilled chicken for Craig’s homecoming bash.”
“Good idea.” Joyce crossed out and added several things to her list. “I’ll just have to rethink all the side dishes.”
Kate’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t think about this.” She had been so busy concentrating on the romantic aspects of Craig’s homecoming, she hadn’t given much thought to the practical.
“No problem,” Joyce said, taking the abrupt change of menu in stride. “I haven’t done my grocery shopping yet. And even if I had…well, nothing is too much trouble for Craig.” Joyce smiled warmly. “You know how much we love him.”
That, Kate did.
“Speaking of which, darling, you really have to do a better job of getting Craig to be more enthusiastic about the wedding arrangements. As soon as the two of you get that date set—and I want that done before you two return to Laramie on Saturday so we can announce it straight off at the party and get a church and reception hall booked—I want you to work on your personal testaments or vows. Reverend Baxter needs to know what they’re going to be so the three of you can figure out how to best incorporate whatever it is you’re going to say to each other into the ceremony.”
Kate tensed. While she appreciated her mother’s enthusiasm, there were times when her mom was a little too gung-ho about all the wedding details. “Craig hasn’t agreed to that yet, Mom, and he may not.”
“But you want to do this, don’t you?”
“Well, yes.” Kate thought it would be lovely and romantic and really make their marriage ceremony very personal and unique if Craig would say something sweet and romantic in front of everyone.
“Then tell Craig that!” Joyce ordered bluntly.
Kate flushed, embarrassed. “I don’t want to argue with him, Mom. He’s only going to be here for a few days.” Even though Kate secretly still held out hope, she didn’t honestly think there was much chance of getting Craig to change his mind about this. If he didn’t want to do something, she thought on a resigned sigh, he usually didn’t do it.
“Who said anything about arguing with him?” Joyce retorted coyly, putting down her pen. “I want you to persuade him.”
Kate sighed. Her mother could lay on the charm thicker than molasses, but the Southern belle thing had never been Kate’s way of dealing with whatever life threw her way. She supposed she was more like her father that way. She just liked to flat-out say what was on her mind and be done with it. She was also like her mother, though, in that she didn’t like a lot of conflict in her personal life. Which left her between a rock and a hard place, because there was no way she was going to please everyone under the circumstances, least of all herself. “And if Craig won’t be persuaded, then what?” Kate asked, exasperated.
Joyce frowned, clearly irritated Kate wasn’t getting the message. “Now you listen to me, Kate. Marriage requires a lot of compromise. But it also involves getting what you need and want out of a relationship. If Craig hasn’t given you what you want in regard to this wedding, it’s because you haven’t articulated just how vitally important his input and enthusiasm is to making this wedding as perfect and wonderful as you both deserve for it to be.”
Kate bristled as she realized where this conversation with her mother—who avoided domestic conflict at all costs—was going. “You’re saying Craig’s uncooperative attitude last Saturday during that conference call was all my fault?”
Joyce sighed and tried again, more sweetly this time. “I’m saying you have to try harder to bring you and Craig closer together in all regards. Now is no time for you to be at odds with each other over anything, large or small.”
But I am trying, Kate thought, frustrated her mother couldn’t see it. That was why she’d spent all that money and gone to all the trouble to have a very sexy dress made for Craig’s homecoming. Because for once, she wanted Craig to react the way men who’d been separated from the loves of their lives did in all the romantic movies. She wanted Craig to be so overcome with love and lust the moment he saw her he could hardly stand it. She wanted their first night together to feel like a preview to the wonderful honeymoon they were going to have in just a few months. She wanted to feel sure she was doing the right thing in marrying her high school and college sweetheart, and know in her heart that it wasn’t just habit or fear of ending up alone that was keeping them together after all these years.