“You should have told her who you were before you married her, son,” Hargett told Brady later the same day, when Brady went to see Hargett at the country inn where he was staying.
“I think I figured that out already, Dad,” Brady said with no small trace of irony in his low voice. Not leveling with Kelsey had been the biggest mistake of his life. He took off his hat and sat down opposite his dad, in one of the wing chairs before the fireplace. “Not that it matters, anyway.”
Hargett’s eyes narrowed in concern. He gathered the business papers he had been studying when Brady got there, then put them aside. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
Brady’s jaw tightened as he thought about what his wife had said to him. Feeling more restless and discontent than ever, he shoved a hand through his hair. “Kelsey’s decided to move on to greener pastures.”
“And you’re just going to let her go?” Hargett asked, disbelief etched in the craggy lines of his face.
Brady didn’t see what choice he had. He was hardly going to hog-tie his wife to keep her by his side. Right now, that seemed like the only way he could keep Kelsey. Ten to one, she was booting his belongings out of the house and onto the porch right now.
“So you’re just another in a string of guys that have passed through her life,” Hargett guessed.
Brady nodded, silently telling himself he would get over this. “Right.”
“Bull.” Hargett got up and went to the mini-bar in the corner of the room. He got out two bottles of Lone Star beer, handed one to Brady and twisted off the cap on his own. “I saw the way that wife of yours looked at you, the way she threw herself in front of you to protect you, when she thought I was there to do you harm. That gal loves you, son.”
Brady twisted off the cap on his beer and sat with it cradled in his hand. “Whether she does or not is immaterial,” he countered, the icy chill of the glass seeping through to his palm. “She doesn’t want to stay with me.”
Hargett took a long, thirsty drink. Regret colored his eyes an even darker hue. “Don’t make the same mistake I made with your mother.”
Brady paused with the bottle halfway to his mouth and put it back down without taking a drink. “What are you talking about?”
Hargett wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Your mother was convinced I didn’t love her, not the way I should. Instead of making sure she knew how much she meant to me, I told her if she wanted to go she should go. And darn it all if she didn’t up and do just that. I should have gone after her. But I didn’t,” Hargett emphasized in a brusque tone with an even blunter look, “because I was too stubborn and proud. I figured in time she’d come to her senses and come back to you and to me. Next thing I knew—” Hargett shook his head, recalling “—I had divorce papers in my hand. And sole custody of you.”
Some of the old hurt and confusion came back to hit Brady, full blast. “If she had loved us, she wouldn’t have left us, Dad,” Brady said bitterly. If she hadn’t left, she might not have moved to California and died in that multicar pileup on the interstate when Brady was five.
“And maybe your mother was just scared,” Hargett countered in a calm, compassionate way that let Brady know his father had at last put the past to rest the way it should have been retired, years ago. “Maybe if your mother and I had just tried, we could have worked things out,” Hargett said evenly. “The point is, I used my battalion of lawyers and made it impossible for her to come back. I boxed her in, the same way I boxed you in with the terms of the trust. And she died, thinking what I wanted her to think, that you and I were much better off without her, than with her. When it simply wasn’t true.”
Brady swallowed. “You’re saying she might have wanted to come back to us?”
Hargett shrugged. “I’m saying I don’t know. I never gave us a chance to find that out. And now it’s too late. We can’t go back and fix things with her, or give you the mother you should have had all those years. But there are business and financial matters that can be put to rights and that’s why I came to see you this morning. I wanted to talk to you about that deal we made when you left nearly two years ago.”
Brady looked his father straight in the eye. As long as they were speaking what was in their hearts, he figured he had to tell his dad this, too. “I don’t care about my inheritance, Dad. I never have. All I’ve ever wanted was to be my own man, same as you.”
“And you’ve done that,” Hargett replied, with no small amount of pride in his voice. “Which is what I came to tell you this morning. I talked to my lawyers. I’m giving you your inheritance, free and clear. No more terms, no more restrictions. It’s yours to do with what you wish.”
Brady studied his father. This was a big change, one that had been long in coming. It also meant he had finally proved himself to his father. “No more pressure to come back to work for Anderson Oil?” he asked.
Hargett shook his head as he clamped an affectionate hand on Brady’s shoulder. His eyes were serious. “I’ve put the idea of the two of us working side by side away. I realize now you don’t have the passion for it that I do, and it takes real passion to run a company or build up a ranch. I want you to follow your dreams, son. I want you to follow your heart.”
“I WANT TO THANK YOU,” Patricia Weatherby said when she caught up with Kelsey at the ranch late that afternoon. She cast a curious glance at the stack of Brady’s shirts draped over a porch chair. “I talked to Rafe Marshall a little while ago. He explained everything and we’re going to try it again tomorrow night.”
Kelsey moved a stack of Brady’s blue jeans so Patricia could sit down. “Are you going back to the Gilded Lily?” she asked.
“No, we figure that place is jinxed as far as the two of us are concerned. We want to do something more our style, so we’re going to go to the Armadillo and have chili dogs and sodas and play putt-putt golf. I think it’ll be a lot of fun and so does Rafe. He is such a nice man, Kelsey.”
“I’ve always thought so.” Kelsey moved a box of Brady’s belongings off a chair and sat down, too. She looked at Patricia seriously. “I’m glad you’re giving him another chance.”
The corners of Patricia’s lips curved up ruefully. “I almost didn’t, you know. My experience with Cal, Molly’s father, left me pretty gun-shy when it came to men.”
Kelsey nodded and sighed. She knew that feeling. Given what she had just been through with Brady, the way he had turned her heart upside down and then stomped on it, she didn’t think she’d ever love again. Not after the way he had heartlessly used her, all so he could collect his inheritance. Not that she wouldn’t have helped him had he been straight with her. She would have. It was the fact that he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth, about the trust or his father, that really stuck in her craw.
Patricia continued sadly, shaking her head, “I was such a fool, Kelsey.”
“Been there and done that, too,” Kelsey said. She couldn’t believe the way she had opened herself up to Brady, only to have it all thrown right back in her face.
“Cal kept promising me he would get a divorce and marry me.”
“But then didn’t,” Kelsey said, recounting what she already knew.
Patricia nodded grimly. “He said his wife wouldn’t give him a divorce, and he couldn’t leave his other kids. He had five back in Louisiana. So I just let it go. I was just so desperate to give Molly the father she wanted and needed, that I let Cal talk me into believing we could have a family life in Houston without really being married or him actually getting divorced. He traveled back and forth between the places all the time, anyway, for work. I convinced myself the legalities didn’t matter as long as Molly was happy and had a father to love her. When he died, without having made provisions for us, I was devastated.”
“Why didn’t you fight to keep the house you were living in, and the car Cal had leased for you?” Kelsey asked curiously.
Patricia frowned. “I thought about it, but I knew it would involve years of legal wrangling, a lot of money for lawyers. Plus, Cal’s family was very powerful and well-connected. They had threatened to drag both Molly and me through the mud if we contested the will and made a claim on Cal’s estate, and I didn’t want Molly to have to go through that. So instead I decided to start over and make a new life for us and we ended up here.”
Kelsey knew Patricia wasn’t confiding all this to her now, just for the heck of it. “You’re trying to tell me something, aren’t you?” Kelsey guessed after a moment.
Patricia nodded. “I loved a man who was so wealthy, who had such a sense of his own entitlement, he didn’t care who he hurt or who he lied to as long as he made sure all of his needs were met. Brady’s not like that.”
Kelsey sighed. She studied the look on Patricia’s face. “You heard he’s an Anderson Oil Company heir, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Everyone in town has. He’s been telling people himself, and walking around introducing Hargett Anderson as his dad.”
Kelsey paused to digest that bit of news. “That’s good. I’m glad they’ve worked out whatever the difficulty between them was.” She wanted Brady to be close to his father.
“Which leaves only one problem,” Patricia said as Dani drove up, parked her car and got out. “The difficulty between you and Brady, whatever that is.”
“My thought exactly,” Dani Chamberlain said, coming up on the porch to join them. “I heard the news about who Brady is, and wondered how you were taking the news.” Dani looked at the belongings stacked on the front porch. “Guess this answers my question.”
Kelsey cleared a place beside her, so the pregnant Dani could sit down. “You know how fickle I am,” Kelsey said, doing her best to make light of the situation.
“You stopped being fickle the day you hooked up with Brady,” Dani argued.
Kelsey lifted a brow.
“Think about it,” Dani continued. “You said you wanted to be a rancher last summer. You did that. You’ve overcome tremendous odds and a lot of family dissension to make this place a success and you’ve done that. And through it all, Brady has been by your side, first as your friend and the person who shared your same dreams, then as your partner, and finally as your husband.”
“He only married me and went into partnership with me because he wanted to get his inheritance. And he had to own a ranch, and make a success of it, to do that.”
“Hogwash,” Dani said. “He could have gotten Wade McCabe, or even Travis McCabe, to help him there. He went into partnership with you because he wanted to be with you, period. I’m not saying he didn’t make mistakes along the way. From what I’ve been able to see, you both did that. But he never stopped loving you or caring about you, and he still does, otherwise he wouldn’t be driving up the lane now.”
Kelsey’s heart skipped a beat as she followed Dani’s gaze. Sure enough, Brady was driving up the lane in his pickup truck. And he wasn’t wasting any time about it, either.
Abruptly, she wished she had never taken all of Brady’s belongings and carried them down to the porch. But she had, and it was too late to rectify it.
Her heart in her throat, she watched as he parked his truck so it wasn’t blocking anyone else’s vehicle, and climbed out. His eyes locked with hers, he kept right on coming, not stopping until he was just in front of her. He tipped his hat at Patricia and Dani. “Ladies, good to see you, but I need to talk to my wife.”
Patricia and Dani nodded. Both looked at Brady and Kelsey as if wishing them luck on working things out, then headed off to their respective vehicles. Kelsey waited until they had both driven away, before she said, “Uh, about your stuff—”
He eyed her thoughtfully. “Looks like you have been doing some rearranging.”
Wasn’t that the understatement of the year, considering everything he had left in the house was now sitting on the front porch, while everything she owned was still inside. “A little,” Kelsey confirmed. “But I’m not finished yet.” If things went the way she hoped, she’d be putting it all back, pronto.
“I would hope not,” Brady said, in the same crisp, matter-of-fact tone he always used when they talked about ranch business. “But we’ll get to that in a minute. Right now I’ve got something more important to say.” He paused and looked her straight in the eye. “I was wrong not to tell you about the terms of my inheritance, Kelse. And I swear on everything that’s good and right in this world that I will never do anything like that again, because there’s no room in any true partnership for secrets. In addition—”
Kelsey studied the documents he handed her. “You paid off the mortgage to the ranch?” That, she hadn’t expected.
Brady nodded, and continued gruffly, “As well as what we owed Wade McCabe. My father gave me the money he had set aside for me, free and clear.”
Kelsey swallowed. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to make up with her, or break up. She only knew that the financial reasons that had existed for Brady to be with her no longer were in play. Knowing whatever happened, whatever he said, she wasn’t letting him go without a fight, and a victory, Kelsey said cautiously, “Obviously, you have a plan here—”
“Don’t I always?” Brady shot her a rueful, sidelong grin as he sat down beside her. He took her hand in his and let both rest on his thigh. “I may as well tell you straight out,” he continued with a seriousness that made her heart turn somersaults in her chest. “I think we made a mistake, Kelse, getting married the way we did, pretending to everyone else it was a love match so we could get the money, while we were telling ourselves it was a strictly business arrangement. I’ve come to the conclusion that circumventing the truth or doing anything in halfway measures is never a good idea, no matter what the reason.”
“I have to agree with you there. We should have been honest with each other from the get-go. ’Cause if I had been…” Kelsey said, taking a deep breath and getting to her feet. Brady stood, too. She grasped his hands in hers before continuing determinedly, “I would have told you that I’ve been in love with you, almost from the first day we met. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
Brady’s midnight-blue eyes took on an even darker hue as he swept her into his arms. “But you’re ready to admit it now?”
“With all my heart,” Kelsey confirmed, wreathing her arms around him. Going up on tiptoe, she clung to him tightly, and Brady lowered his head and delivered a long, soul-searching kiss that left them both breathless and shaking.
“Well, that’s good, darling,” Brady said when the languorous caress finally came to a halt, “because I’m head over heels in love with you, too.” He tenderly cupped her face in his hands. “Which brings me to what I came here to say,” he whispered with all the romance and the love she had ever wanted. “I think we ought to do more than just stay married, Kelse,” he told her hoarsely. “I think we ought to get married all over again. Only this time,” he continued firmly, “we’re going to do it right. In front of all our family and friends.”
“KELSEY, WILL YOU PLEASE stand still?” Jenna demanded as she put the finishing touches on Kelsey’s wedding gown. “You’re going to be walking down the aisle in five minutes and you’ve still got two buttons undone.”
“Not to mention the fact we haven’t given her something old, something borrowed, something blue or something new,” Meg continued as six-year-old Alexandra smiled shyly and presented her Aunt Kelsey with an antique gold heart to wear around her neck.
“And here is something borrowed—” Meg gave Kelsey the white handkerchief she had tucked into her sleeve on the day she married Luke.
Dani handed Kelsey a satin garter. “Something blue—”
“And the something new,” Jenna said, kneeling and helping Kelsey slip on a pair of brand new white leather cowgirl boots, made especially for that day.
“Looks like I’m all set.” Kelsey beamed at her three sisters and her niece. Outside, in the chapel, the organ began the strains of the wedding march. It was time.
“Nervous?” Jenna asked.
Kelsey shook her head. “With Brady out there, waiting for me? Not one bit.” She knew she could handle anything as long as the two of them were together.
Hugs and kisses were exchanged all around, and then Alexandra picked up her basket and proceeded out into the vestibule and into the church, strewing flowers all along the way. The pregnant Dani was next, followed by Jenna, and then Meg. Finally, it was Kelsey’s turn. John McCabe held out his arm and walked her down the aisle.
Kelsey’s heart and eyes were brimming as John officially gave her away, in her father’s stead, and Brady took her hand in his. Together, they turned to face the minister and spoke what was in their hearts. “I, Kelsey, take thee, Brady, to have and to hold from this day forward….”
“For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part,” Brady said, fitting the ring on her finger.
When the minister pronounced them man and wife, and Brady took her in his arms and kissed her, the whole church erupted in soft oohs and aahs, then rambunctious applause. And the celebrating continued well into the night, at the reception John and Lilah gave them at the McCabe ranch.
“Well, you did it,” Meg Lockhart told John and Lilah admiringly as the guests kicked up their heels. “You helped all four of your sons find the ultimate happiness with the loves of their lives, and now all four of us Lockhart women, and your nephew Sam McCabe, have made the leap into matrimony, too.”
John and Lilah looked over at Sam McCabe and Kate Marten, who were busy enjoying the reception with their five sons, too.
“I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to manage it,” Lilah McCabe admitted with a relieved smile.
“But we did,” John announced happily as he wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and tenderly kissed her cheek. “And now they’re all settling down, right here in Laramie, and building families of their own.”
“And we’re happier than we’ve ever been,” Meg added honestly as she looked at John and Lilah, who were still beaming proudly as any parents over their accomplishment. Gratitude filled her heart, as she looked at them soberly. She knew she was speaking for all of them as she continued, “I don’t think any of us realize how much we had missed being near each other, until we moved back here, and were together again. But as good as that was, being close to family and old friends, in the community where we grew up, there was still something missing—for all of us.”
“And that was the kind of love you only get from the person you’re destined to marry,” Lilah guessed.
Meg nodded. “Thanks for being there, to guide us through the rough spots,” she said.
“Our pleasure.” John grinned and gave Meg a hug.
“And for the record,” Lilah added, leaning over to kiss and hug Meg, too, “we’ll continue to be here for all of you girls, whenever, however you need us. Because that’s what family is for.”
On the dance floor that had been erected on the lawn, Brady tugged Kelsey even closer, luxuriating in the feeling of holding his new bride in his arms on the beautiful Indian summer night. “Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?” he murmured, the soft surrender of her body against his like a balm to his soul.
Kelsey blushed, looking even prettier in her white satin gown, with her cinnamon-red hair swept up on top of her head. “Only about a thousand times,” she admitted.
And the way she looked at him then, with a combination of lust and love and tenderness, had him feeling like the luckiest man alive. “Have I told you how much I love you?” he asked, even softer.
Kelsey nodded, her emerald-green eyes darkening seriously. “I love you, too, cowboy,” she whispered throatily, “so very much.”
Brady tightened his hold on her possessively, knowing she was making all his dreams come true. “Our lives are just starting now. And as good as things are,” and they were incredibly good, Brady amended silently, “they’re only going to get better.”
Kelsey nodded her agreement as she rose on tiptoe and kissed him, with all the passion in her heart. “I can’t wait.”