With a heavy heart, Lulu went to see her parents at their ranch. They took one look at her face and sat her down with them at the kitchen table. “Tell us what’s going on,” her mom urged gently while her father made them all a pot of coffee.
Pushing away the dreams of what might have been, Lulu knotted her hands in front of her. “Sam and I are still planning to adopt the kids together, but we’re not going to have a wedding on Saturday afternoon after all.” Lulu swallowed around the lump in her throat. “So it would help me out a lot,” she continued, swiping at a tear slipping down her cheek, “if you could help me notify everyone.”
“Of course we’ll help out, honey.” Her dad got out the cream and sugar. Added three mugs to the table. “But...?” He looked at her mom, with the same kind of parental telepathy she and Sam had been sharing.
“...are you sure?” Rachel interjected, handing her a box of tissues.
Wiping away a fresh onslaught of tears, Lulu forced herself to be honest. “I really thought I could do it.” Her heart aching, she paused to look her folks in the eye. “Build on everything I feel for Sam and the kids and marry him strictly as a matter of convenience. But—” she felt the hot sting of shame that she ever could have been so shortsighted “—when we started trying to work on our vows, I realized there was no way we could really do this without it all being a lie. And I couldn’t base our entire relationship on that. Never mind pretend,” she continued thickly, “in front of everyone that it was going to be a real marriage.” Her voice trembled. “When I knew in my heart it was all a sham.”
“And Sam thinks it’s a sham, too?” Her dad brought the carafe over to the table and poured coffee into mugs. Not surprisingly, he was more focused on fixing this problem than consoling her.
Aware she hadn’t a clue what Sam was thinking or feeling, Lulu stuttered, “I...ah...”
“Did he actually say that it was untruthful for him, too?” her attorney-mom asked, in her cross-examination voice.
“No,” Lulu admitted miserably.
“Then what did he say?” Rachel persisted.
Sam’s angry words still reverberating in her mind, Lulu admitted grimly, “That if I couldn’t find some wedding vows that would work for us and go through with the wedding on Saturday, our romantic relationship was off. Permanently this time.”
Her dad shook his head in mute remonstration, for once not taking her side. “Honestly, Lulu. Can you blame the guy?”
“Hey!” Lulu scowled, feeling indignant. To calm herself, she stirred cream and sugar into her coffee and lifted the mug to her lips, breathing in the fragrant steam. “He never once said he loved me. Not this time around, anyway...!” So what choice had she had, no matter what her feelings were? A fraud was a fraud! And that was no example to set for the kids, never mind a foundation to base a marriage on.
“So.” Her mother sighed in regret. “You don’t trust the two of you to be able to sustain a romantic relationship that will go the distance.”
Softly, Lulu admitted this was so.
Her mom studied her over the rim of her mug. “Will you be able to be friends?”
Lulu took another sip, and finally said, albeit a little uneasily, “When the dust clears, I think so.”
Her dad sat down beside her mom. “What about the children?” he asked.
“We still plan to adopt them.”
“Together?” he questioned.
“Yes.”
“Living separately,” he continued to press, “or under one roof?”
Lulu flushed. Aware that hadn’t been completely worked out, but she could assume. “Under one roof, just the way we have been.”
Her mom picked up where her dad left off. “And you have faith this arrangement will work.”
Lulu replied without hesitation. “Yes.”
Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Lulu struggled to find the words that would explain what she knew in the deepest recesses of her soul to be true. She looked both her parents in the eye. “Because that part of our life together just works and works really well. And we never ever disappoint each other in that regard.”
Her mom’s brow furrowed. “And you think not disappointing each other is key.”
Lulu lifted a hand. “Of course.”
“Oh, honey,” Rachel said, getting up to engulf Lulu in a hug. Her dad came around the other side and joined in. “Disappointment is part of life.”
They drew back to face her once again. “The more you love someone, the more likely it is that you will disappoint each other from time to time,” her dad said gently but firmly.
Her mom nodded. “It’s those highs and lows and the ability to weather each storm and come back even stronger, as a couple and a family, that make loving worthwhile.”
Thursday morning, Sam had just dropped the kids off at preschool and returned to his ranch, when a caravan of five pickup trucks and SUVs came up the lane.
All five of Lulu’s brothers got out and walked toward him. None looked the least bit happy.
Sam bit down on an oath. Great. This was all he needed after the week he’d had. With him and Lulu more or less alternating care of the kids when possible, and doing the polite-strangers dance around each other when it wasn’t.
Thus far, they’d manage to keep the boys from picking up on the breech between them, but whenever he and Lulu faced off alone, even for a few minutes, the residual hurt and anger was palpable. To the point they’d more or less taken to completely avoiding each other.
“Told you that you’d be seeing us if you hurt our sister again,” Dan drawled.
This would be comical if he hadn’t spent the entire night nursing a broken heart.
“I didn’t hurt her.” Sam pushed the words through his teeth.
Dan adopted a law officer’s stance. “Then why is she over at Mom and Dad’s ranch, crying her heart out over a potentially canceled wedding?”
Potentially?
Did that mean Lulu was having second thoughts about calling their love affair quits, too? Or just that her folks weren’t willing to let her off the hook?
There was no way to tell without speaking to Lulu about it in person.
Sam glared back at the McCabe posse. He curtailed the urge to put his fist through something, anything. “You’ll have to ask her that, since she’s the one who found it impossible to stand up in front of family and friends and say I do.”
“Then what was she going to say?”
“That was the problem. She couldn’t figure it out. And was apparently tired of trying.”
A contemplative silence fell among the six men.
Chase squinted, his calm, analytical CEO temperament coming to the fore. “I can’t believe she would react that way without a very good reason.”
Well, she had, Sam thought grimly.
“What aren’t either of you telling us?”
A lot of things actually. Like the fact I opened up my heart and soul to her and it still wasn’t enough. Or the fact I still don’t want a divorce, even though Lulu all but came out and admitted in a roundabout way that her only attraction to me is physical.
Looking very much like the chivalrous ex-soldier he was, Matt rubbed the flat of his hand beneath his jaw. “Are you protecting her?”
Yes, Sam thought, I am. Which on the surface wasn’t surprising. Like the McCabes, he had been raised to be a Texas gentleman, too. And gentlemen didn’t tell a woman’s secrets.
Ever. But this went deeper than that. For the first time, he found himself caring about what people thought. Not about him. But about Lulu. He didn’t want anyone thinking less of her because of mistakes they’d both made. So he remained mum.
Jack analyzed the situation with a physician’s empathy. “One thing’s clear. You’re both miserable.”
Sam tried not to hang any hope on that. “That’s kind of hard to believe since she’s been dragging her heels,” he scoffed. “And doing everything possible to show her resistance to renewing our marriage vows, for several weeks now.”
Matt squinted. “Why would she do that?”
Sam shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? She has a real problem with commitment.”
At least to me.
It couldn’t be anything else.
The brothers didn’t believe that any more than he wanted to. “Is she abandoning the kids, too?” Dan asked.
Sam frowned. “No, of course not. She loves those little guys.”
“Then it’s just you that’s the problem?” Cullen taunted.
Actually, Sam thought, even more miserably, I don’t know what the problem is. The two of them clicked. They had always clicked. Until it came time to take their love public in an everlasting way. Then she just started putting up roadblocks even he couldn’t get past.
“Is there a point to all this?” Sam asked with a great deal more patience than he felt.
The five men nodded.
“The fact Lulu is trying to call the wedding off,” Chase said finally, “when it’s clear how crazy she is about you, should point you toward some pretty big deficit in your behavior. And if you’re smart—” he paused meaningfully, to let his words sink in “—you’ll figure out what that is. Pronto.”
Friday afternoon, Lulu had just finished taking care of her lone remaining hive when Sam’s truck turned into her ranch. Her heart pounding, because she wasn’t sure she was quite ready to say all the things she needed to say to him, she drew off her beekeeper’s gloves and veil, stepped outside the apiary gate and began moving toward him.
He walked toward her, too, and as he did, she couldn’t help but admire how good he looked in the usual jeans, boots, chambray work shirt and stone-colored Resistol slanted across his brow. As he neared, the masculine determination she so admired glinted in his gold-flecked eyes.
Her heart thundered in her chest, as her spirits rose and fell, then rose again.
When she reached him, she stripped off her protective suit and hung it over the porch railing, feeling suddenly achingly vulnerable. “I thought we were going to meet up later,” she said with as much feminine cool as she could muster. When she’d had time to clean up and put on something besides an old Texas A&M T-shirt and shorts.
He acknowledged this was so with a dip of his head. “I know what we said before I left to take the kids to preschool.”
“But?” Lulu inhaled the brisk masculine fragrance of his aftershave.
“I didn’t want to waste any more time.”
Funny, she didn’t, either. But would they be able to work it out? The way they hadn’t before?
In that instant, she decided they would.
Taking her by the hand, he led her up the steps to the front porch. Sat down with her in the wooden rocking chairs she’d inherited from her late grandmother and brought his chair around until they were facing each other, knee to knee.
His eyes were full of the things she’d almost been afraid to hope for, his gaze leveled on hers. “I want to start over, Lulu,” he continued, his voice a sexy rumble. His hands tightened protectively on hers. “And this time keep working at it, until we get it right.” He looked at her with so much tenderness she could barely breathe.
Her heart somersaulted in her chest. She drew in a shuddery breath. “You mean that?” she whispered.
He nodded soberly and hauled in a rough breath. Shaking his head in regret, confessed, “I never should have pressured you into staying married to me. Like it was some kind of social contract or means to an end. Because you’re right, Lulu.” He stood and pulled her to her feet. Wrapping his arms around her, he brought her even closer, so they were touching in one long, comforting line. “A real marriage is so much more than that. It’s about promising your whole heart and soul.”
He paused, all the love and commitment she had ever wanted to see shining in his eyes. “It’s about vowing to stay together no matter what for the rest of your lives. And that’s what I want with you, Lulu,” he confessed. “To be with you for the rest of our lives. Because I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I always will.”
Tears of joy and relief blurred her vision. “Oh, Sam,” she said, hugging him tight. “I love you, too.”
He paused to kiss her, demonstrating the depth of his feelings in a most effective way.
She kissed him back, sweetly and tenderly, letting him know she felt the same.
When they finally drew apart, Lulu confessed raggedly, “But I’ve made so many mistakes, too.”
His gaze holding hers, he listened.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat and pushed on. “The biggest one was not letting you know that I never fell out of love with you. Not at the time we broke up. Not during all those years when we were apart.” Her lips curving ruefully, she shifted even closer. “And certainly not the last couple of months.”
His hand slid down her spine, soothing, massaging, giving her the courage to finally convey what was in her heart. “Then why didn’t you want to say that in your vows to me?”
She drew a shuddery breath and clutched at him, reveling in his heat and his strength. “I was so happy, just living with you and the triplets. I was afraid to upset the status quo. Afraid if I told you how I really felt, only to find that you didn’t still love me the way you once had, that it would change things or put too much pressure on us. Somehow ruin things, the way our elopement did.”
He sat down again, pulling her onto his lap. “I take the responsibility for that.” Regret tightened the corners of his lips. “I knew you weren’t ready to marry me at nineteen.”
Looking back reluctantly, she remembered his initial hesitation. Realized, too late, it was a warning she should have heeded. “Then why did you say yes, when I suggested eloping with Peter and Theresa?” she asked curiously.
His mouth twisted in a rueful line. “It was selfishness. I was so damn in love with you, and I was graduating college and about to head back to Laramie. I wanted you with me, even if it wasn’t the right thing for you. And deep down, you knew we were too young to make that kind of lifelong commitment, too.”
“Otherwise I wouldn’t have been so afraid and ashamed to tell everyone we’d gotten hitched.”
A contemplative silence fell while they both came to terms with the past.
“Even so...” She put her hands across the warm, solid wall of his chest. “I shouldn’t have asked you to hide our marriage. Especially when I know now it made you feel like I was ashamed of my feelings for you. I wasn’t. I was just afraid of what people would think...that they’d assume I was being reckless and impulsive again.” She sighed. “And most of all? I was afraid of disappointing you and ruining everything between us. And that I really couldn’t take.”
“We both made mistakes.” The pain in his low tone matched the anguish she’d felt in her heart. “Years ago. And recently, too.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, her brow. “I never should have walked out on you when you told me you didn’t want to go through with our recommitment ceremony. I should have given you all the time you needed.”
Tingles sliding through her head to toe, Lulu called on the perspective she, too, had gained. “I had enough time to figure out what was in my heart.”
His brow lifted.
Feeling the thud of his heart beneath her questing fingertips, she confessed in a tone overflowing with soul-deep affection, “You taught me how to love. How to be vulnerable. And how to risk.”
He grinned with the shared realization that they’d finally found the happiness they’d both been craving.
“And that being the case...” She recited her feelings in an impromptu version of the vows he’d been wanting her to pen, “I pledge my past, my present and my future to you. I promise to be your wife and take you as my husband forevermore. And—” she hitched in a bolstering breath, looking deep into his eyes “—I promise to do everything I can to make you happy, Samuel Kirkland. To give love and accept it in return. Because I do love you,” she finished thickly, knowing she’d never be able to say it enough, “so very, very much...”
Sam’s eyes gleamed. “I love you, too, sweetheart,” he murmured, bending her backward from the waist and bestowing on her the kind of jubilant kiss couples engaged in at the end of their nuptials.
Grinning, he brought her upright. “And as long as we’re speaking about what’s in our hearts... I want to thank you for teaching me what love is and making my life so much happier and brighter than I thought it could ever be. For giving us...and the boys...a future.” Voice rusty, he went down on one knee. “So, if you’ll have me, Lulu McCabe, I vow to love, cherish and protect you for as long as we both shall live.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a diamond engagement ring.
“Oh, I’ll have you, Sam Kirkland!” Tenderness streaming through her, Lulu drew him to his feet. She gave him another long kiss. “For the rest of my life!”
“You know,” Sam teased, when the steamy caress had ended and the ring was on her finger, “our spur of the moment vows were really spectacular.”
And heartfelt, Lulu thought. On both sides. “So much so that I kind of feel married again,” she teased. Even without the wedding rings.
“Really married,” he agreed. Sobering, he went on, “But I still think we should make our union as strong and official as it can be.”
And that meant going public with their commitment.
“I’m with you, cowboy.” Lulu beamed, excited to tell him the rest. “Luckily for us, there’s still a wedding planned for tomorrow at my parent’s ranch.”
He grinned his sexy, mischievous smile that she loved so much. “You didn’t cancel it?”
Lulu wreathed her arms about his shoulders and gazed up at him adoringly. “I couldn’t. Not when I still wanted to spend the rest of my life with you so very much.”
He sifted a hand through her hair, then drawled happily, “Sounds like we’d better get a move on then, darlin’, as I imagine there’s still a lot to do.”
“We’ll handle it,” Lulu told him confidently. “And while we’re at it, we’ll enjoy every moment, every step of the way. Because this time, my love—” she rose on tiptoe to give him another lengthy reunion kiss “—we’re doing it right.”