Chapter Forty-Four

Hannah…

Thanksgiving Day at Jason and Jessica’s with Martha cooking is pretty special. It’s a time filled with laughter and family. I come through for Nick, too. He joins us and starts eating the minute he comes in the door. Roarke’s father even shows up with his new woman on his arm, and watching Roarke’s joy over this surprise is an amazing thing to behold. His dad’s girlfriend, Becca, is lovely, inside and out, with an abundance of red hair.

His father takes one look at my ring and hugs me so tightly, I can’t breathe. “About damn time you two got this thing moving.” He pulls back to look at me, and he looks good, healthy, happy. “When’s the big day?”

“Christmas Eve,” I say. “This just happened. We haven’t even had time to tell anyone.”

“I’ll be here,” he replies, glancing at Roarke. “You bet I will.”

He doesn’t ask about my parents, which sits a little odd with me, but then they’ve been gone a long time, and it seems they left quite bitter. It has to hurt Roarke’s father to be shut out by lifelong friends. It hurts me for him.

By evening, the two of them are on the porch talking for hours on end while I’m in the stables brushing Snowflake. “You’ll have your baby soon, girl,” I say. “If all goes well, we’ll be mamas together.”

I want to call my parents and tell them all my news, but they’re so negative about me being back in Sweetwater that I want to tell them in person. Thankfully, Roarke approves. If they don’t show up to the festival, then we’ll travel to them right away, to give them time to plan for a Sweetwater wedding and a grandbaby.

On the morning of my doctor’s appointment, I step onto the porch to find that deer standing at the bottom of the steps staring at me. It’s a magical moment, truly magical. Roarke joins me, and it doesn’t even dart away. “Hope,” he says, knowing what that deer means to me. “This appointment will be good news.”

It’s the perfect thing to say, but I ruin it by hanging over the porch and throwing up.

“You’re nervous,” Roarke insists. “About the appointment and the festival. That’s making your morning sickness worse.”

This after we’ve been on the road half an hour, and I’ve been talking to Jessica the whole way, only to hang up quickly and make Roarke pull over so I can dry heave on the side of the road. “You know what I read this morning?” Roarke asks.

“That pregnant sick women are emotional and cry a lot? Because I feel like I might cry.”

He smiles. “That sickness is a sign of a healthy pregnancy.” He strokes my cheek. “It’s going to be good news. I feel it.” He squeezes my hand and adds, “Remember the deer, Han.”

A few minutes later, we step into the doctor’s office, and I’m so nervous that my hands shake, and Roarke has to fill out my paperwork for me. It takes me a minute to even remember that I have insurance that I’m now glad I’ve had in place for years. I’m also happy to learn that my records have arrived from my prior doctors. It’s a good half hour later when I’m weighed, poked with a needle, and sitting in a doctor’s office with Roarke by my side. The doctor is a jolly old man, who reminds me of Santa Claus, and who delivers the best gift of all.

“Your chances of conception were next to impossible, but you are, in fact, pregnant,” he says. “Your risks during pregnancy are no different than anyone else’s. Is this good news?”

Roarke stands up next to me where I sit on the table, wraps his arms around me, and leans in close. “It’s amazing news,” he murmurs before kissing me.

The morning of the festival arrives with a rush of famous people in and out of our house and Jason and Jessica’s. It’s craziness, but it’s so much fun, with Christmas decorations on every store and window in the town. The Adeline High School marching band even does an early-morning show in the town square to launch the event. Linda and her team hit the town in time to take lots of photos of the event, and it’s not long before she’s at Jason’s house with all of us, with donuts in hand that Martha immediately throws away. I laugh as Linda complains right up until the moment that Martha hands her a homemade cinnamon roll that she devours. Someone else is at Jason’s house, too. Max the mad catcher, and soon, he and Linda are teaming up to help the town get ready for the scavenger hunt.

Midday, parking lots are filled and so are the streets. There are booths with games for the kids in town and at Jason and Jessica’s ranch. At our place, kids ride horses, visit a petting zoo, and parents watch the action. It’s all-day fun with a choir, baseball players tossing balls with kids, and lots of food that Martha coordinated with care. There are also television cameras that I control with the security I’ve hired, but it’s still a challenge. This little town has a lot of famous people in one tiny place, and it’s almost too much for the media to handle.

By evening, Sweetwater is a twinkling cheerful display of Christmas lights, and the town square awaits the auction and tree lighting, with well-placed heaters that may not even be needed. The temperature is in the seventies, a Texas-style holiday celebration for sure. We have horses with ribbons and holiday saddles, and the ranch is decorated. Nathan and Allison, as well as about another ten more staff members, are present, allowing guests to visit the retired horses. Luke is in charge of the auction, and he even makes up with Roarke, not that they were really fighting in the first place. Everything is perfect, except, of course, my parents’ refusal to join us, but Roarke and I plan to take matters into our own hands. We have plane tickets to leave to visit them in a few days.

I watch as Roarke steps onto a stage in town square that’s decorated with white lights. Tonight he’ll be auctioned off with ten other volunteers, after which the tree will be lit. The auction begins, and Linda cracks me up with her bids on Max. She pays five thousand dollars for him, but I suspect that Max might have donated that money. She hugs me when she wins and rushes to the stage.

Roarke, who isn’t even offering a date, but rather a tour of the ranch and a chance to ride with him, goes for just as high. Ruth also bids on a retired fireman from one town over. She doesn’t win, but the way those two look at each other, I think she’ll get her date anyway.

The auction is just wrapping up when a hand comes down on my arm. I turn in shock to find my father there. “Dad?”

“Come with me right now. We need to talk.”

Fear fills me. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

He doesn’t answer. He bulldozes me through the crowd and to the side of a mustang statue on the opposite side of the town square, where I find my mother. “What’s wrong?” She looks thin and worried, her dark hair in disarray. She grabs my hand. “It’s true. You’re engaged to him.”

“I was coming to surprise you in Pennsylvania to tell you,” I say. “Next week.”

My father steps to her side, and he looks weathered and older than I remember but still fit. He’s not missing meals like my mother. “Roarke’s family drove us into bankruptcy. We’ve been trying to get our property back ever since. And now we can’t. We were informed that it’s being purchased. Roarke and Jason are buying it. He doesn’t want to marry you. You came to town, and you were a threat. He was buying time to get the property.”

My hand instantly goes to my belly, and I feel sick, not figuratively, either. I’m going to be sick.