Do You Take This Rebel? (18 page)

“Good, because I have something to tell you, and I need to do it now, before I lose my courage. If you want your freedom, Cassie, I’ll give it to you. Jake will stay with you.”

She stared at him with an expression he couldn’t read, so he plunged on.

“I didn’t give you a choice about marrying me before, so I’m giving you one now. I love you. I want you to stay, but if you want to go, there will be no custody battle.”

There was no mistaking the sheen of tears in her eyes then, and for an instant he was terrified that his gamble wasn’t going to pay off, that she would go.

“You love me?” she said, and there was a note of wonder in her voice.

He shrugged. “Always have. I guess I always will. I just lost sight of that for a time.” He studied her intently. “So, Cassie, will you go or stay? You can have some time to think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it, not even for a second.” A smile blossomed on her face, then spread. “Since I think we’re about to have another baby, it looks like I’d better stay.” She rested her hand protectively on her stomach. “Now I can’t wait to know for sure.”

“And if you aren’t pregnant, will you still stay?”

“Yes, of course, because I love you and this family of ours. I was just beginning to wonder if you were ever going to figure out that we all belong together. I’d pretty much concluded that the media had gotten it all wrong all these years, that you weren’t half as smart as they were always writing.”

“I was smart enough to marry you,” he said. “And to keep you.”

She touched his cheek, her eyes shining. “Love me, Cole. Right here, right now.”

He laughed at the urgency in her voice. “Sweetheart, you have a broken arm, bruised ribs. You were half-frozen when I found you.”

“Then you can warm me up,” she said.

Cole couldn’t resist the invitation. He closed the door to the room, then deliberately turned the lock.
Then he nudged her over in the hospital bed until he could sneak in beside her and love her the way she was meant to be loved, with total concentration and finally, at long last, with his whole heart.

“J
ennifer Davis, what have you been doing? Rolling around in the mud?”

Cassie stared at her four-year-old daughter with dismay. They were having a party in twenty minutes, and Jenny was covered from head to toe in dirt. It was all over her clothes, even in her hair.

“I’ve been baking cakes,” she announced happily. “For Grandma. See.”

Cassie followed the direction of her daughter’s gesture and groaned. There were, indeed, a half dozen “cakes” on the backyard table, each with a candle stuck crookedly into the mud. The vinyl tablecloth was a mess.

“I’m sure Grandma will be thrilled,” she said. “Now get in here and let’s see if we can clean you up.”

Jennifer darted through the door and straight into her
daddy’s arms. Cole scooped her up before he realized the condition she and her clothes were in.

“Sweet heaven, now you need a bath, too,” Cassie said. “What am I going to do? The guests should be here any minute. Mother will be mortified if Dr. Foster finds half of her family looking totally disreputable.”

“I don’t think your mother’s going to be all that worried about a little mud. We’re celebrating the fact that she’s just gotten a clean bill of health after five years. She’s a survivor, Cassie. Nothing else matters.” His grin turned wicked. “Besides, I think the doctor is long past being shocked by anything we do. He’s been asking her to marry him for the past four years. Clearly he’s accepted the whole package.”

Cassie still couldn’t get over her mother’s long-distance courtship with the surgeon in Denver who’d saved her life. It was the happiest she’d seen her mom in years.

Of course, she was still declining his proposal for reasons that eluded all of them. Cassie feared it had something to do with her, though her mother flatly refused to talk about it.

“Take your daughter and get cleaned up,” she ordered Cole. “I’ll try to scrub up the picnic table. And if you can pry Jake away from his computer, I’d appreciate it.”

“Don’t spoil my cakes, Mommy,” Jenny pleaded, eyes bright with tears. “They’re for Grandma.”

Cassie sighed and went outside. A few minutes later her mother and Dr. Foster arrived, followed shortly by Frank Davis and the Calamity Janes. No one seemed the slightest bit dismayed by Jenny’s contribution to the food, least of all Cassie’s mother, who seldom took her gaze away from the doctor, anyway.

“They look blissfully happy, don’t they?” Cassie whispered to Cole.

He grinned. “Not as happy as the two of us, but yes, they do look as if they’re in love.”

“Maybe I should give her a nudge, tell her to marry him.”

“She’s a grown woman. I’m sure she knows her own mind. Maybe our news will help.”

She touched his cheek. “It will certainly reassure her that there are no more bumps in the road for us.”

A few minutes later Cole stood and announced a toast. “First to our mom,” he said. “You’ve proved just what a survivor you are.”

He turned to Cassie. “And to my wife, who is about to make me a father again. Family and friends are what life is all about, and I can’t tell you how grateful we all are to be here together today.”

To Cassie’s dismay her mother looked shaken by the news of the new baby. And Dr. Foster’s expression turned resigned. Cassie crossed the yard and confronted her mother.

“Okay, what is it? You’re not sick again, are you?”

“No, of course not,” her mother said at once. She glanced at the man beside her. “It’s just that we were considering getting married.”

“Mom, that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be happier.”

Her mother shook her head. “No, it’s not possible. You’re having another baby. I have to stay. And what Cole said about family. He’s right. We need to be together.”

“Now, Edna—” the surgeon began.

“Don’t,” her mother said sharply, cutting him off. “This is the way it has to be.”

Cassie exchanged a look with the doctor.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Then I guess we’ll just have to go about this another way. I’ve talked to a few people. I can move my practice to Laramie. I’ll be retiring in a few years, anyway, and this will be a good transition. If need be I can go to Denver and consult if something comes up with one of my patients there.”

Cassie watched her mother’s eyes begin to sparkle.

“You would do that?” Edna said to him. “You would give up your life in Denver?”

He nodded. “I’m a lot like your son-in-law. I know a good woman when I find her, and I’ll do whatever it takes to hang on to her.”

Cole joined them then, his gaze questioning. “A happy ending?”

Cassie looked up at him and nodded. “For all of us,” she whispered. “Definitely a happy ending.”