Minutes later Nicolette fixed herself a glass of sweet iced tea with lemon and then headed out the door of the kitchen with the intention of drinking the cold beverage on the patio.
Outside she was quietly fastening the screen door behind her when the voices of her mother and brother floated over to her.
“I really don’t know what’s happened,” Geraldine was saying. “She hasn’t said anything to me.”
Suspecting that the “she” her mother was talking about was her, Nicolette paused in her tracks and listened.
Lex quickly replied, “Well, I’ve never seen her looking so unhappy. It’s got to be that young doctor who’s caused her all this grief. For two cents I’d go look him up and beat the hell out of him.”
“Lex, Lex,” Geraldine scolded with sarcasm. “This isn’t Dodge City.”
“Hell, no! We’re not in Kansas. We’re in Texas, thank God. And down here we take care of our own! I may not be Matt Dillon, but I sure as hell can handle Dr. Garroway.”
Nicolette shook her head while she heard her mother groan with disapproval.
“Really, Lex! In spite of what you think, there are ways other than fists to settle a matter. Besides, this isn’t any of your business. This is Nicolette’s life. Not yours.”
“Mom, do you think I want to see my sister hurt? It kills me to see her acting as though there’s no tomorrow. She’s already carrying around enough of the miserable baggage Bill left her with. Now she’s gone and let another man stab a stake in her heart.”
Was that the way she appeared to her family, Nicolette wondered? As though she was a hopeless judge of men? The idea shocked and angered her. She didn’t want their pity!
Marching across the patio to where Lex and their mother were sitting, Nicolette glanced from one to the other.
“What are you two doing out here discussing me?” she demanded.
Unperturbed by her curt tone, Lex asked, “What are you doing out here eavesdropping?”
“I came out to drink my tea in peace. Instead, I find you two discussing me as though I need to be put away before I hook myself up with another loser!”
“Oh, Nicci,” Geraldine gently admonished. “We don’t think any such thing! We’re only worried about you. We don’t even know if Ridge is your problem. Since you’ve clammed up, we can only guess.”
Embarrassed by her defensive outburst, Nicolette sighed and sank down next to her brother, who was rocking gently back and forth in a cedar glider.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I understand you two care about me. It’s just that—I feel like an idiot for letting this thing with Ridge get me down.”
“What thing?” Lex prodded.
Geraldine looked expectantly at her daughter.
Nicolette sighed again. “We had a big rift a few days back and I left his place. We haven’t spoken since.”
“What sort of rift?” Geraldine asked. “I’m sure it’s something that can be fixed.”
Nicolette glumly shook her head. “I don’t think so. Ridge asked me to marry him. I refused.”
“What! Oh God in heaven, why?” Geraldine asked in dismay.
Lex shoved a hand in the air. “Now just wait a minute, Mom. We all know that you want your babies married and happy. But you need to hear Nicolette’s side of things before you start in on her about this. After all, you just said this was sissy’s business, not ours.”
Geraldine scowled at her son. “I might have known you’d side with your sister. A damn mule couldn’t drag you down the marriage aisle. But maybe that’s a good thing ’cause I doubt any decent woman could put up with you.” She turned her attention back to Nicolette. “And as for you, Nicci, I just don’t understand how much longer you’re going to keep running from your past. I never thought a daughter of mine would end up a coward!”
Sensing they needed to stick together against their mother’s wrath, Nicolette snuggled closer to her brother while he put a comforting arm around her shoulders.
Nicolette said, “You don’t understand, Mother! And neither does Ridge! We have too many years between us. Besides that, we’re both doctors. Our jobs would never allow us to be together.”
Unimpressed with Nicolette’s reasoning, Geraldine looked at her daughter with a bit of disgust. “I’ve heard these arguments from you before. And if that’s the way you felt, why did you get involved with the man in the first place? You knew both of you were doctors!”
Feeling utterly stupid, Nicolette’s chin dropped to her chest. “Of course I did. But I believed—I thought we could be just—I thought we could be together without getting serious.”
“In other words, just have an affair—enjoy the man without any strings or commitments,” Geraldine muttered with distaste, then shook her head as though she couldn’t believe she was discussing her own daughter’s behavior. “Thank goodness Ridge wouldn’t give in to you!”
Nicolette glanced up at her brother for aid and support. “Lex, tell her! Tell her that I just jumped out of a burning skillet and that I don’t want to jump into another one. Marriage to Ridge would be all wrong!”
His gaze gently roamed her face and then his hand smoothed over her dark hair. “Nicci, sweet sissy, the short time you and Ridge were together I’ve never seen you looking happier. I believe you love the man.”
Neither her brother nor her mother could ever know how very much she did love Ridge, Nicolette thought. Even she hadn’t realized the real depth of her feelings until the days without him had begun to slip by and her heart had grown emptier and emptier.
“I do love him, Lex. That’s why it hurts so much to be away from him.”
Across from them, Geraldine spat, “Hell! If you really felt that way about the man, you’d get over there and tell him so! You wouldn’t be sitting here whining about it!”
Lex shot his mother a reproving glance. “Mom, you don’t have to be so rough. Can’t you see she’s hurting?”
Geraldine loved her children greatly. But she was made of strong, sturdy stock and she expected her offspring to be equally as tough. It wasn’t in her to allow anything less.
“I’m not blind, Lex,” Geraldine told him. “And don’t expect me to pat Nicci’s cheek and say, ‘You poor little thing, go ahead and cry and everything will be all right.’ I’ve tried to be easy with her and that hasn’t worked. Besides, that’s not the Ketchum way. It’s not the Saddler way either.” She looked directly at Nicolette. “I’m going to say one thing on the matter and that’s it. The rest is up to you, Nicci. Do you want to hear it?”
The only response Nicolette could give her was a simple nod.
Geraldine leaned forward toward her two offspring. “Love is too precious to throw away. And nothing in this world is perfect. If you think you’re going to find the perfect man with just the right job so that the two of you can have a flawless marriage and dance around on a dreamy cloud, then you might as well roll over and give up right now.”
After she spoke, Geraldine got up from her lawn chair and left the patio. Nicolette turned a torn gaze on her brother.
“I think she’s angry with me,” she murmured with regret.
Lex’s smile was wan. “She loves you and she wants you to be happy. So do I.”
Nicolette let out a long breath. “Do you think she’s right?”
Her brother chuckled. “Let me put it this way, I’ve never seen her when she wasn’t right.”
Nicolette darted a glance at her mother’s retreating back, then stared blindly forward as her mind swam in all directions.
After several long moments she said to herself and to Lex, “I wasn’t expecting Ridge to be perfect.”
“Weren’t you?” he asked softly.
Jerking her head around, she stared wondrously at her brother. “No! I was trying to be logical about things.”
A wan smile touched his lips. “From what I’ve heard, love and logic don’t mix.”
With an agonized groan, Nicolette covered her face with her hands. “A woman has to be careful,” she tried to reason, but her heart was already beating fast, thumping out orders for her to get to her feet and fly to Ridge as swiftly as they could carry her.
“A woman has to take chances,” he countered.
She looked at him for a moment and then leaped up from the swing so suddenly that it swung madly.
“Where are you going?” he called as she hurried toward the house.
“To take a chance!”
Miles away at Ridge’s place, late-evening thunder-clouds were gathering overhead as he and Corey headed to the barn to finish the evening chores.
After church that morning, Ridge had brought the teenager home with him. Since that time the two of them had been removing the rusty, corrugated iron from the roof of the chicken house. They’d stopped only for a light lunch and now they were dirty, hungry and tired.
“Some hamburgers and milkshakes would taste real good right now, don’t you think?” Ridge asked the boy as the two of them stepped into the barn.
“Boy, yeah! And some French fries, too. Or maybe some onion rings. You know how to cook those, Mr. Ridge?”
Since Nicolette had left, Ridge hadn’t done much cooking or eating. The joy of making a meal had left him, and eating was just something to keep his body from collapsing. Nothing about life was the same without her and he realized he’d reached the point where he had to do something about his misery. He couldn’t go on living in that sort of agony.
“No,” he answered Corey. “And I’m not going to cook this evening. We’re going to drive into town and eat in a restaurant. My treat. How would that be?”
Corey paused in the act of opening the door to the feed room and turned an incredulous look on Ridge. “Really? That’d be great! Mom’s at work, so she won’t be around to make supper.”
Suzette, Corey’s mother, was forced to work long hours to support herself and her son. She had no other choice. Yet Ridge could see how much better things would be for the teenager if his mother were more available to him. Corey’s family situation, or lack of one, had set Ridge to thinking about a lot of the things Nicolette had said to him that night before she’d driven away.
Now that he’d had more than enough time to think about it, most of what she’d said had held at least a measure of truth. It would be hard for the two of them to find quality time for each other and for their children. He could admit that. But nothing worthy in life was easy to obtain. He had to believe it could be done. He had to go to Nicolette and convince her that the two of them needed to be together.
During his mother’s visit, Lillian had confessed to Ridge how scared she was to start over. Richard Garroway had stripped away her sense of worth and crushed her ability to trust in herself as a woman and a person. These past few days Ridge had been asking himself if the same held true for Nicolette. Maybe she was simply too scared to let herself try again.
If that was the case, he had to make her see that she could trust him with her heart, her very life.
Pulling his mind back to the task at hand, he told Corey, “I’ll get the feed. You go open the gate and let the horses into the lot. And be careful.”
Nodding, Corey left the cover of the building and Ridge stepped inside the feed room to collect a fifty-pound sack of sweet feed. He was in the process of ripping the top open when, outside the barn, a light flashed and thunder cracked with such a vengeance that Ridge jerked and very nearly toppled the whole contents of the sack onto the floor.
Realizing a storm was about to hit, he propped up the open sack and hurried out of the barn to check on Corey.
The teenager already had the five horses in the lot and was trying to get the gate shut, but the animals were stirred up by the approaching storm and were nudging and pressing Corey tightly against the metal gate.
Sensing that the horses were endangering his buddy, Enoch began to bark loudly and nip at their heels.
“Wave your arms, Corey! Make them get back away from you,” Ridge yelled to the boy as he quickly climbed the fence. “Climb over the gate! Get out of there!”
Corey brandished an arm through the air and managed to drive one horse away. He was attempting to shoo the others to the opposite side of the pen when another streak of lightning lit up the sky. One of the animals reared up in fear and pawed the air. Another one bolted with Enoch barking frantically at his heels. Amid the chaos, the one horse that remained near Corey began to buck.
Ridge didn’t see exactly how it happened, but he saw the flash of a back hoof slicing viciously toward the boy and then heard a sickening thud as it landed in the middle of his chest.
“Corey! Oh, God!”
By the time Ridge got to him, the teenager had already crumpled to the ground with his face buried in the dirt.
“Corey!”
There was no response, and Ridge swiftly but carefully eased the boy onto his back. The moment he saw that Corey wasn’t breathing, fear rushed over him like a blinding wall of water.
A cell phone was in his jeans pocket, but every second was critical. They were too far away for an ambulance rescue, and he didn’t want to waste the few precious moments needed to make the emergency call. Instead he ripped open Corey’s shirt and laid his ear to his chest.
No heart beat. No respiration. Nothing.
Steeling himself against the personal emotions pouring through him, Ridge quickly ordered the doctor in him to take over.
One. Two. Three. He began to count the compressions he made on Corey’s chest, followed by the breaths he blew into the lifeless boy’s mouth and nostrils.
Over and over Ridge pumped and blew and prayed for the boy to show some sort of response. A few feet away he could hear Enoch whining a pitiful wail as though he were begging Ridge to make his little buddy okay again.
My boy! My boy! Breathe for me! Come back to me!
Ridge was growing doubtful and wondering if he should leave Corey long enough to run to the house to search for a stimulant among his stash of emergency medical supplies, when the teenager made a faint gasp for air.
Sending up a silent prayer of thanks, Ridge swiftly placed his ear once again to Corey’s chest. The faint sound of heartbeat was like a heavenly trumpet to his ears.
“That’s it! Hang in there, son! You’re going to be all right.”
With tears of relief glazing his eyes, he jerked out the cell phone and dialed 911.
By the time he’d finished giving the dispatcher his location and the reason of the emergency, rain had begun to fall in earnest and Corey had started to rouse and mumble in a disoriented way.
Ridge picked the boy up in his arms and carried him to the cover of the barn to wait for the ambulance.
After the conversation with her mother and brother, Nicolette didn’t waste time changing clothes. She brushed her hair, grabbed her handbag and jumped in her car. It wasn’t until she was halfway to Ridge’s place that it dawned on her he might be on duty this evening and could perhaps be attending patients at the hospital.
Her cell phone was lying in the console next to her seat, but she’d not programmed the instrument with Ridge’s number. And even if she remembered the set of digits, she wasn’t sure she would call him. Surprise was always best when a woman was planning an attack on a man.
If she didn’t find him at home, she would wait until he returned. Maybe the shock of seeing her again would catch him off guard and give her a chance to explain herself before he ordered her to leave the premises, she thought grimly.
Once she turned off the main highway to head toward Ridge’s small ranch, a tropical deluge began to pour from the sky. Even with her windshield wipers on high speed, she was forced to creep along the road in order to see.
Relief washed over her when she finally spotted Ridge’s turnoff, but she’d hardly had time to ease her death grip on the steering wheel before an emergency vehicle raced out of the little dirt lane and directly in front of her.
Dear God, it was an ambulance coming from Ridge’s place!
Was Ridge inside, she wondered frantically, or had a guest of his become ill?
Torn between following the ambulance or driving to Ridge’s house to see if he might be there, she made a quick decision to do the latter and sped her car down the rough, muddy road until she reached the yard gate.
Enoch was on the porch, but Ridge was nowhere in sight as she raced up the steps and into the house. The dog followed her and continued to whine in a soulful way as she went through the rooms calling Ridge’s name.
“It’s all right, Enoch,” she said with a quick pat to the dog’s head. “I’ll find him and bring him home.”
There was only one place for the ambulance to go and that was the county hospital. With her whole body trembling in fear, Nicolette raced to her car and gunned it back down the dirt lane.
Thankfully, by the time she reached the main highway, the rain had eased and she stepped down on the accelerator as much as she dared with all the water pooled in the ruts of the asphalt.
Even as the miles sped behind her, time seemed to stand still for Nicolette. Emotions, raw and painful, jabbed her from every direction and she realized she hated herself for not seeing Ridge as the man she loved, the very thing she wanted most in her life.
If something had happened to him, if she lost him before she had the chance to tell him how she really felt, she’d never be able to survive, she thought sickly.
At the hospital she parked her vehicle at the emergency entrance and raced inside to the admitting desk.
A nurse that Nicolette was acquainted with was on duty. She practically yelled at the other woman. “Joan, where’s Ridge? What’s happened?”
The tall blonde looked at her with mild confusion. “You mean Dr. Garroway?”
Nicolette’s knees were so mushy she had to grip the edge of the desk to keep herself upright. “Yes! What’s happened to him? What examining room is he in?”
The nurse’s head swung back and forth. “Nothing has happened to Dr. Garroway. He came in with a patient, a young boy.”
Nicolette’s hand flew to her mouth. “Corey! Oh, no!”
Joan glanced at the set of papers she’d been working on. “Yes, that’s his name. I think there was some sort of accident with a horse. Anyway, I believe they’ve already gone up to ICU with him.”
“Thank you!” she called over her shoulder as she took off in a run to the elevator.
Because she was considered a part of the hospital’s medical staff, she didn’t pause in the waiting room but walked straight through to the nurse’s station in the Intensive Care unit.
The head nurse gave her a quick rundown on Corey’s condition, which she described as stable, and promised Nicolette to let her know if there were any changes.
Not wanting to cause any further interruption, Nicolette thanked the nurse and went back to the waiting area, where she practically collapsed on one of the couches. Ridge would have to appear sooner or later. In the meantime, she could only hope and pray that he wouldn’t turn his back on her.
More than an hour passed before Ridge finally stepped into the waiting room. His jeans and boots were covered with dirt and splotches of mud, but he’d apparently changed his shirt for a green scrub. Weariness tugged at his features, and for a moment she feared for Corey’s condition.
“Ridge! How is he?”
Unaware of her presence, he jerked his head in her direction.
“Nicci?” His eyes narrowed on her face. “What are you doing here?”
Swallowing at the lump of nerves in her throat, she left the couch and walked over to him. “I…I went to your house and saw the ambulance leaving. I followed. Is Corey—”
“He’s going to be fine, thank God.” Briefly closing his eyes, he raked a hand through his hair. “There for a while I wasn’t sure, though. His heart stopped completely. I had to do CPR before the ambulance got there.”
“Oh, Ridge,” she said softly. “I can’t imagine the terror you must have felt. Corey is such a sweet boy, and I know how much he means to you.”
His eyes met hers with bleak certainty. “He’s like my son. I don’t know what I would have done if he’d died.”
“How did the accident happen?”
Shaking his head, he said, “The storm was approaching and the horses got shook up from the lightning. One of them bucked and Corey was close enough that a hind hoof slammed him in the chest. The impact was so great it stopped his heart.”
Nicolette had experienced a few ranching injuries herself, so it wasn’t hard to imagine the horror Ridge had experienced when he’d witnessed Corey being kicked by a twelve-hundred-pound horse. “Will there be any permanent damage?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. He’s young and healthy, and his heart has already returned to a normal rhythm. In fact, he’s complaining now for making him stay in the hospital overnight. Especially when I’d promised him a trip into town for a hamburger.”
Relief flooded through her and she smiled. “I’m so glad. What about his mother? Has she been told about the accident?”
He nodded. “Suzette’s in there with him now. You probably saw her come flying through here earlier.” He indicated midchest height. “About this tall, red-headed with lots of freckles.”
“I did see the woman and wondered if she might be Corey’s mother. I’m sure she was in a panic. Were you able to reassure her?”
He wiped a hand over his strained features. “Yes. She’s calm now. In fact, she kept thanking me over and over for saving her son’s life.” The corners of his mouth turned downward. “But I don’t know how she’s going to feel about things once it sinks in that Corey was hurt because of me. She may not want the boy to associate with me anymore.”
Desperate to comfort him, Nicolette placed her hand on his forearm. “Accidents happen, Ridge. Especially when you mix animals and people. I’m sure Corey’s mother understands that. And she must also know that you love the boy.”
Faint surprise flashed in his brown eyes, then softened with gratitude. “At least you realize that I’m a man capable of loving someone other than myself.”
Pain squeezed Nicolette’s heart, causing her fingers to unconsciously tighten on his arm. “Ridge, I—” Shaking her head, her voice lowered as she tried again. “I need to talk to you. Can we go somewhere—” she glanced around at the weary people sitting on chairs and couches as they waited to hear the condition of loved ones “—a little more private?”
Skepticism marked his face as he took her by the shoulder and guided her out of the ICU waiting room. Out in the hallway, he silently urged her to a door with the word Private posted in the middle. After opening it, he gestured for her to precede him into a room that was hardly more than a tiny alcove equipped with a small desk, a sink and a light for viewing X-rays.
Nicolette braced herself as he shut the door behind him and turned to her.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Here we are. No audience.”
From the moment she’d spotted him stepping into the waiting area, her heart had begun to hammer out a tune of hope. But now that the two of them were cocooned together and she was staring at the cool, doubtful expression on his face, her pulse slowed to a fearful crawl.
“I, uh, I suppose you’re wondering what I was doing at your house this evening.”
Nodding, he silently waited for her to continue.
Nicolette swallowed. “I was—hoping to surprise you. Instead I saw the ambulance driving away and I—” Her head fell forward until she was staring at the tile beneath their feet instead of his stern face. “Oh Ridge, Ridge,” she said in a choked voice. “As I raced here to the hospital, I was so afraid. I couldn’t bear to imagine my life without you!”
His hand curled around her arm, and with hopeful anticipation, she slowly lifted her head.
“But what about before, Nicci?” he questioned softly. “Before you thought I might be hurt. You were coming to the house to tell me something?”
Stepping forward, she placed her hands on his chest and marveled at the sense of peace she felt at just touching him.
“Yes,” she answered as she tilted her head back and looked into his brown eyes. “I wanted to tell you that I love you. That I’ve been a fool and an even bigger coward for running away from you—from marriage.”
Incredible joy swept across his face, and as he pulled her into his arms, Nicolette felt such a thrill of pleasure that her head reeled with it. The scent of him, the hard strength of his body and the warm breath caressing her cheek felt like a delicious drink filling up the empty holes inside her.
“Oh, Nicci, Nicci,” he said with a groan against her hair, “I love you so much. I was beginning to think I’d never hear those words from you. What made you change your mind?”
Easing her cheek from the middle of his chest, she looked up at him and smiled through tears of joy. “Mother. She can be a formidable force at times, especially with her children. And let’s just say she shook me up pretty good. She made me see how awful it would be to lose you.” Nicolette cupped her hands against the sides of his face. “Have I anyway, Ridge? Please tell me I’m not too late. Please tell me that you still want to marry me.”
He groaned again, but this time it was a sound of sheer relief. “You’re crazy, Nicci, if you think I’d given up on you. Just before Corey’s accident I was agonizing over what to do about you—about us. I’d decided I would swallow my pride and try once again to change your mind. I just hadn’t figured out yet how I was going to go about doing it.” His head shook back and forth with amazement. “Dear God, I never dreamed you’d be coming to me—like this.”
His arms tightened around her as though he never intended to let her go, and Nicolette felt the scars inside her blow away like dead leaves tossed into the wind. Ridge truly was a heart mender. He’d made her heart whole again, able to love again.
“I couldn’t stay away,” she murmured. “These past couple of weeks without you have been utter hell for me, Ridge. And I—” Her head shook with regret as she looked into his eyes. “Well, now I realize that I’ve handled everything badly. I should have been more open with you from the very start and then maybe—well, maybe you would have understood why I ran from you like a timid little mouse who saw its shadow.”
He stroked her hair, and the love she saw in his eyes was such a wondrous sight that she wanted to weep with joy and relief.
“It doesn’t matter, Nicci. You don’t have to explain.”
“Yes,” she urgently countered, “I do. I need to tell it all to you. I don’t want us to start our life with anything standing in the way. Let me throw this burden away once and for all, Ridge.”
Nodding gravely he said, “All right. I’m listening.”
Easing out of his arms, she turned her back to him as she tried to pull together the words she needed to say. She didn’t know where to begin or how to convey the crushing self-doubt she’d lived with for the past few years. She only knew that she wanted Ridge to see all the fears she’d carried in her heart and why it had made her so hesitant about loving him.
Finally she gathered enough inner strength to face him and speak. “You already know that my marriage to Bill was not an easy one.”
He gave her a single nod.
Clenching her hands in a prayerful clasp, Nicolette went on, “You’ve got to understand that when I married him, I loved him very much. While we were engaged, he was attentive and dedicated to me and appeared to care for me just as much as I did for him. We made plans for the future just like any normal couple does before they walk down the aisle. I had always wanted a family of my own, even more than I’d wanted a medical career. To have a husband and children would be a dream come true for me.”
“But it didn’t come true,” he said grimly.
Pressing fingertips to her drawn forehead, she said, “We were happy at first and I wasn’t too disappointed after a couple of years passed and I still hadn’t gotten pregnant. Being a P.A. I understood that these things sometimes take time. But then another year slipped by and I started getting anxious, especially when the doctors continued to tell me that they could find nothing that would keep me from conceiving.”
Caught by her story now, Ridge’s gaze earnestly searched her face. “What was Bill thinking about all this?”
Nicolette’s features tightened. “Oh, he played the concerned husband. He tried to reassure me that we’d eventually have children and that I just needed to give it more time. But I was beginning to sense that he wasn’t really bothered by the matter. Especially when I suggested we both go for fertility tests and he flatly refused. We had a big row over it and he told me I needed to forget about having babies—that he should be enough to make me happy.”
“Oh, Nicci, I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “You must have felt like he’d deserted you.”
Ridge’s empathy brought a lump to Nicolette’s throat, and she had to look away from him and swallow before she could go on. “Yeah. I realized then that there was a huge gap between us, one that I hadn’t even been aware of. When he told me to forget about having children, the joy went out of me, Ridge. I threw myself into my work to forget and maybe even to pretend that everything was right with my marriage. But it wasn’t.”
To forget. To pretend. Ridge had heard his own mother speak those very words, and suddenly he understood, even more than he had the day of Lillian’s visit, how one person could crush the other’s spirit until nothing was left.
“So your marriage slid downhill,” he said with certainty. “What happened? What finally brought about the divorce?”
She grimaced. “Looking back on it now, I realize I should have gotten out of the marriage earlier, but I kept hoping things would get better, especially if we had a child. I had always considered marriage a sacred vow to God. I didn’t want to give up on it—even through bad times. But Bill finally took that choice out of my hands. He asked for a divorce and confessed that while I was working six days a week at the clinic, neglecting him, he’d been using that time to see other women.”
“Bastard!” Ridge cursed beneath his breath.
Nicolette sighed. “I called him more than that. Especially when he told me he had plans to marry another woman, one much younger than me, who wasn’t married to her job. But the young woman wasn’t the biggest hurt Bill hurled at me. He laughingly told me that all the years I’d been trying to conceive a child, he’d been hiding the fact that he’d had a vasectomy.”
Ridge stared at her in utter disbelief. “Nicci! No!”
Sarcasm twisted her lips. “Oh, yes. It was medically impossible for Bill to have children. He’d lied and led me on all those years. I’ll never understand why. Why he married me in the first place or stayed with me for nearly nine years. I can only think that it was for my money—Sandbur money—because in the end it was obvious that he didn’t love me, and that our goals in life were far, far different.”
Ridge was silent for long moments as he digested everything she’d just told him. Wordlessly he reached for her and enveloped her within the tight circle of his arms.
“I wished you’d told me before, when we first met, Nicci,” he whispered against her cheek. “I might have understood. Instead, I was asking myself if I’d become tangled up with the same sort of woman who’d broken my heart before. Brittany led me to believe she wanted to be my wife. But when she finally saw that I intended to live the simple life, she left as fast as she could.”
Nicolette looked at him with surprise. “You never mentioned that you were engaged before.”
“I didn’t get as far as giving her a ring. I was headed in that direction, but I guess I was much luckier than you. At least Brittany was honest enough to admit that she couldn’t live the sort of life I wanted. That’s more than Bill ever was with you.” He shook his head with regret. “I feel so awful about all those things I said to you that night you left, Nicci. I wish I could take them all back.”
Shaking her head, she tightened her arms around his waist. “We both said awful things. But that’s over, Ridge. Now we’re going to concentrate on loving each other. If we do that, everything else will fall into place, and our home will fill up with babies. Once that happens, I’m going to cut down on my work so that I can devote myself to our children. And you,” she added impishly.
A sexy grin slanted his lips as he turned and quickly locked the door.
His intentions obvious, Nicolette chuckled under her breath. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those kinds of doctors.”
With a hungry growl, he snatched her close and brought his lips against hers. “Only with you, my sweet Nicci. Now and forever.”
Six weeks later the Sandbur was a picture of merriment. Thousands of clear tiny lights were draped through branches of the oak trees and around the portable dance floor erected in the backyard. The scent of beef smoking slowly over mesquite coals filled the warm night, along with the sounds of a live country band twanging out plenty of Texas two-steps. In addition to the Sandbur’s barbecued beef, hundreds of guests were being served from kegs of cold beer and champagne bottles shoved into crushed iced. Loud conversation and laughter competed with the happy sound of music and popping fireworks.
The Fourth of July had already come and gone, but several of the wranglers were out in the open area of the ranch yard setting off firecrackers and Roman candles. After all, the boss lady’s daughter had gotten married to her young handsome doctor. It was a time for celebration.
Earlier that evening, Nicolette and Ridge had exchanged vows in the small church he’d attended since moving to Victoria. The building was equipped with only enough pews to handle a few family members and close friends, and the ceremony itself had been quiet and simple, just the way Nicolette and Ridge had wanted it to be.
Barry Macon had driven down from Houston to serve as Ridge’s best man, while young Corey had been proud to be a groomsman. Mercedes had miraculously managed to obtain enough leave from her military service to fly over from Diego Garcia to act as maid of honor to her sister. And to Ridge and Nicolette’s great surprise, his mother, Lillian, had made the trip to attend her son’s wedding and was even planning on staying a few days with Geraldine.
Roses and candles had dressed up the little country church, but it had been Nicolette in her long ivory dress, her face radiant with love, that had made the ceremony beautiful.
Now as hundreds of guests kicked up their heels at the Sandbur reception, Ridge held his wife tightly as the two of them swayed around the dance floor and dreamed of the Hawaiian honeymoon they would be leaving for in just a few short hours.
Some distance from the dance floor, Cordero stood on the patio, silently taking in the merrymaking as he washed down wedding cake with a glass of beer.
Mercedes fondly wrapped her arm around the back of his waist. “First our cousin Raine. Then your brother, Matt. Now my sister, Nicci,” she said to her cousin with wry speculation. “The mosquitoes around here must be spreading some sort of love fever. You’d better watch out, Cordero. You might get bitten yourself.”
With a mocking laugh, he looked down at her sweet face. “No way! You’re the one who caught the bride’s bouquet. You’re the one who’d better watch out. Some good-looking fly boy might come along and sweep you off your feet.”
Mercedes’s smile was wan as she lifted a fluted glass to her lips. “I don’t believe in that old wedding bouquet tradition.”
“Hmm. Well, I don’t believe all this marrying has been caused by mosquitoes or potions in the water. Our relatives got married because they wanted to. And I don’t want to. So that means I’m safe from the chains of any woman,” Cordero said with smiling confidence. “Besides, I’m not going to be around here long enough to catch anything for the next few days. I’m leaving for New Orleans in the morning.”
Mercedes’s blue eyes turned playful as she studied her cousin’s handsome face. “Oh. Is this a trip for business or pleasure?”
His own eyes twinkling, Cordero let out a wicked little chuckle. “Well now, that all depends. I’m delivering Sandbur horses to a buyer. But it’s always possible that I could run into a sweet little thing along the way.”
Pursing her lips, Mercedes shook her head. “Cordero, are you going to be a rascal the rest of your life?”
Laughing, he grabbed her arm and tugged her toward the dance floor. “Little cousin, I can’t think of one thing to stop me.”