The Bride Wore Red Boots (27 page)

“Have you heard anything?” She held her breath.

“No.”

“Oh! Oh, I'm sorry.”

Dead silence filled the cabin. She could hear him breathing. Almost hear their hearts beating.

“Why do you want to push me back to New York?”

“I don't.”

“You must; you never asked me to stay. Do you even
want
me to stay?”

He grabbed her with all his old forcefulness. With a deep-diving thrill from her heart to her stomach, she watched his eyes blaze to life, and with it came a little bit of hope. His mouth crushed hers with heat and passion and the hot, angry taste of him. She poured her feelings back to him, delving, fighting, pleading, until at last he gentled. He cupped her face and worked his jaw, his tongue, his body into the kiss. She groaned when one hand dropped to her breast and kneaded through all the layers—more erotic than if he'd mined through the fabric to find her skin. She pushed into his touch. She sent her own hand slipping around to his seat and pulled him to her, thrusting forward to meet him. He moaned and pulled away.

“You said I didn't fight for us. You're wrong, Amelia. I fought harder than anything I've fought for in my life. The trouble is, I fought myself. I've tried to be everything I'm not—selfish, superficial, wounded, sorry, unsure. I didn't want you to think I'm any of those things. But guess what? I'm all of them.”

“That couldn't be further from the truth.”

“Stop. It is the truth, and I'm done blowing smoke up everyone's ass. I'm superficial, Mia. I want it all. I want stuff. Things like a home, and bikes in the yard, and messes in the kitchen, and fences, and mortgages to pay for it all.

“And I'm wounded. I'm angry that I lost Jibril. I haven't forgiven myself, and I'm tired of pretending I haven't. I'm not stoic and happy and healed. Damn it, I'm not. But I will be. Someday. You're the only one who's ever made me take even two steps in that direction.

“And finally? I am selfish, Mia. I'm damn selfish. You asked if I want you here. You bet your kids, dogs, and stupid new ponies I do. More than anything. I can't tell you how pissed off I was that you wanted to go back to New York more than you wanted to stay with me. Hell, I'm still pissed off. And I'm not sorry. Because it's honest—the first honest thing I've felt since falling in love with you. So go and get your dream. But I'm no longer going to even pretend to be happy about it.”

Mia sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit down to keep tears and laughter from giving her away too quickly. She looked deeply into Gabe's face without saying a word. He didn't flinch. No defiance shone in his eyes. Clear, unapologetic, uncensored Gabriel Harrison looked back at her, and all she saw was truth and love.

“So ask me.”

He didn't hesitate. “Stay here. I don't want you to go back. I don't want Rory to go back. I want you to live here where your home is.”

“That's good to know,” she said quietly. “Because I turned down the job.”

“L
OOK
! T
HERE
'
S
G
RAND
Teton!” Mia laughed as Rory popped out of his half-slumber in the back seat of the new Silverado, Gabe's pride and joy, and pressed his nose against the window. He'd learned his Wyoming geography well.

“Not far, now,” Gabe said. “Ready to be home?”

After three weeks in New York and five days each way on the road, they were all ready to be home. Pulling the loaded U-Haul trailer, filled with the contents of Mia's condo, across country, had thoroughly broken in the Chevy, the newest addition to the fleet of Paradise Ranch work vehicles.

“I'm ready to see Jack. And Panda. And Buster.”

Buster. The fuzz ball of a black lab-slash-something-something-and-maybe-a-little shepherd mutt Rory had begged to bring home when a school mate's dog had birthed surprise puppies. He was named for the New York Buster, who now had a full-time job in Queens and an address where Rory could send mail.

“Do you think Harper has taught him not to chew since we've been gone?” Mia asked.

The dog was almost two months old. He wouldn't be done chewing for another two years.

“Doubt it,” Rory said, and Mia laughed.

She reached for Gabe's hand and gestured out the window to the wild, rolling hills between the highway and the national park. A sheen of pale green graced the undulating landscape and the mountains in the distance wore caps of snow that had shrunk considerably since Gabe and Mia had left with Rory the first week of March. “Look how gorgeous Wyoming is in April. It actually looks like spring.”

“There was a reason I moved out here,” he said and squeezed her fingers. “What do you think, Rory? Still don't regret moving away from New York?”

“Not for a New York minute.” He repeated the phrase he'd learned during their whirlwind trip.

The landscape wound past, and Mia's contentment, which she wouldn't have guessed could get any higher, rose with every familiar landmark. The job at the VA with Perry Landon was hers starting in May, the hours far less than what she'd endured—because now she looked at her old life as an endurance run she'd mistaken for success—in New York; Harper and Cole had set a wedding date for mid-May, six weeks away; and Joely was finally making progress in rehab. Mia loved being home to witness all of it.

She didn't immediately notice when Gabe pulled off the highway and swung the truck and trailer easily onto a flat overlook out of sight of the road.

“Recognize this?” Gabe asked.

“Of course.” She smiled. “Where we watched those mustangs that night back in November. The ones that started it all. But, why?”

“We need to have a few things understood by the time we get home,” he said. “I have a couple things to ask you.”

“What?” Rory asked. “Do you want to finally get a horse, too?”

“Yeah!” Mia laughed. Gabe had stubbornly refused to get his own horse until, as he put it, he knew it was the right moment—whatever that meant. “You want to ask Santa for a pony.”

“In April?” Gabe asked. “That makes no sense. I'll tell you what makes sense. Come on. Out of the truck. Stretch the legs a sec.”

“We're almost home—”

He cut her short with a finger to her lips. “Just get out.”

They made their way around a grassy hillock, and Mia gazed out across the rolling hills. Closing her eyes, she remembered the tiny band of mustangs that truly had led to everything.

“The guys asked me to make a proposal,” he began.

Her heart lurched. “Proposal?”

“Sorry, their kind of proposal. They want to start another program at the ranch—one where more injured vets can come and work with horses—either temporarily or to try and adopt a mustang like they did. They've got it all planned—a private enterprise, not funded by the VA. I promised I'd plant the seed of the idea. What do you think?”

She laughed.

“I think it's got great potential. It's a wonderful idea, and I'd like to hear their details. And,” she kissed him, “I think you could have asked me that in the truck.”

“That, yes. But not this. This is
my
new proposal.”

She stared, her heart leaped again, higher this time, and pounded harder as Gabe dug into his jacket pocket, produced a small white box, and sank to one knee in front of her. Rory's mouth popped open, and he flew to Gabe's side, peering into the box as he flipped it open.

“Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay!” Rory hopped in place with each exclamation and then vaulted onto Gabe's back, hugging him around the neck.

“Amelia Crockett, will you marry me?” Gabe made a choking sound and grinned.

She burst into tears.

“Mia?” Rory asked, turning worried eyes on her. She nodded at him and, grinning and snuffling, held up a hand to show she was okay. She couldn't remember ever being so stereotypically female as to actually erupt into crying, but Gabe had shattered the last walls that existed in her heart. “What's wrong with her?” Rory swiveled his head and beseeched Gabe.

“She's happy. I think.”

“Wow. That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.” He grinned with relief.

“Yes.” She managed the word at last. “It might be dumb, but yes.”

“Yes what?” Gabe asked, teasing.

“Yes, I'm happy. Yes, yes, yes, I'll marry you.”

With a whoop only a ten-year-old boy could produce, Rory released his neck hold on Gabe and spread his arms, preparing to zoom off like a plane. Gabe snared his hand and stopped him midtakeoff. “Wait. I'm not done with you, kid.”

He stood and then squatted directly in front of him. “I have a question for you, too. Rory Beltane, I'd like to know if, when I marry Mia, who I know is your favorite person in the world, you would also let me be your dad.”

Rory stood still as the rocks and mountains surrounding them, his zooming wings temporarily grounded. He nodded somberly, and then he burst into tears.

“See?” Mia squatted beside him, too, and reached for Gabe, capturing Rory in their embrace. “This crying thing? It's not so dumb after all, is it?”

“I . . . I'll have a dad.”

“The best one.” It was an easy promise.

“If Gabe is my dad . . . Will you be my mom?”

Tears welled anew and Mia swallowed, gaining time to find her composure. “I'll never be the same as your real mom,” she said. “You'll always remember her, and she'll be your guardian angel up in heaven until you see her again. But, yes, I would like to be your mom here on Earth. If you want that, too.”

Rory's tears were gone by the time his hug confirmed that he definitely wanted it, too.

They let him loose then, and he revved his happily screechy engine and zoomed off toward the open grasslands, a little wild mustang, finally free and safe.

“What a way to start,” Gabe said, sliding his arms around Mia and pulling her close. “I might be crazy. We're probably all crazy. But instant family feels pretty right to me.”

“Incredibly right,” she agreed, holding up her hand and inspecting the glittering circlet on her finger with awe.

“Can you handle one more piece of news?”

She drew back. “Good or bad?”

“Bad?” he asked. “Really? You think I'd follow all this with bad news?”

She laughed. “This all seems like it could be puffed away like dandelion seeds if I'm not careful to stay asleep. I'm sure something's going to start blowing on my good dream any second.”

“You're not dreaming.”

Stepping back, he pulled a square-folded paper from his back jeans pocket. He bit a lip and stood a moment. “Harper texted me that an envelope came from the embassy in Iraq four days ago. I asked her to open it.”

“Oh, Gabe.” Her breath caught in her throat.

“Then I asked her to e-mail me what she found. I printed it at the hotel we were at night before last. She sent me these three sheets.”

He handed her the papers and she unfolded them carefully. The top was a brief, one line letter on US Embassy letterhead.

“Dear Gabe,” Mia read. “Success can be sweet. Paul.”

She looked up, her breathing coming with even more difficulty. Gabe nodded, urging her to keep going. She turned to the second sheet, a much longer typed page.

“Dear Gabriel Harrison. Today has been one of the best days of my life. I heard that you are alive and living in Wyoming in the United States of America. I hope you remember me. I am Jibril al . . . ”

Her hand dropped to her side and, for the third time in twenty minutes, tears made it impossible to speak. She covered her mouth and lifted her eyes to Gabe's. He took the papers and turned the letter from Jibril over. From the back, the photo of a bright, brown-eyed young man with thick black hair and a confident smile, stared out at her.

“That's . . .?”

“Jibril. His parents and aunts and uncles swept him and his cousins away that day before the chaos ended. They told the children all the soldiers were killed, and then they escaped as a family from the city. They didn't want any more contact with us because we were too dangerous. And they didn't let anyone know who could tell us the truth. This uncle just happened to move back to Baghdad a couple of years ago.”

There were no words to say that matched the feeling in Mia's heart or the look on Gabriel's face.

“You didn't tell me.” She kissed him.

“I had this planned.” He looked around them and lifted her hand with the ring to his lips. “This was more important, and finding Jibril had nothing to do with it. If you said yes, I knew I had the best engagement present ever.”

“Wait. If I said yes? You had doubts?”

“A class clown never knows if people really like him, or just like his silly clown nose.”

“I hate clown noses.”

“Nah, you don't. You just say that. I know for a fact now, because you said yes.”

“I did. But tell me about Jibril.”

“I guess there are more pictures at home. We can learn more when we get there. But he's eighteen. He's going to school in Canada, because he couldn't get into the United States back when he applied. He's since gotten a visitor's visa, and he hopes to parlay that into a student visa. He wants to go to Northwestern in Chicago and study journalism.”

“Oh, Gabe, you could maybe meet him sometime.”

Gabe nodded. “Maybe.”

She hugged him, the warmth in her chest spreading until she thought it might explode like fireworks. She'd never had to deal with so much emotional bursting in her life.

“Maybe he can be here for the wedding, although there might not be time.” Gabe gave her one more crooked, secretive smile.

“Ummm, not time?”

“Read the last page.”

It was a handwritten note from Harper, scanned and sent along with the rest of the e-mail.

Dear Mia and Gabe,

Now that your family is complete (for the moment), I have a very personal wish. You and I have had our sibling moments, Mia, but I love you second only to Cole. You are the big sister I've always cherished. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, too. Please, consider sharing our wedding day. I want us to be brides together. The start of a new Paradise dynasty. Of course it's up to Gabe, as well. But I pray with all my heart you'll twist his arm until he says yes.

I love you both. Congrats on Rory and Jibril.

Harpo

She didn't cry this time. She couldn't for the disbelief that blew every other emotion out of the water.

“That's only six weeks away,” she said. “Wait. How did she even know?”

“I asked her permission, along with your mother and your grandmother. They all stood in for your dad. You don't have to decide right now. She knows it's our wedding.”

“Yes,” she said again. “If you want to.”

“I want to tomorrow.” He grinned. “I'll marry you here and now.”

“Do it. Marry me now. Just us and God's mysterious ways.”

He looked down at her feet. “Only if you go get those lucky red boots out of your suitcase. This isn't something a guy wants to leave to chance.”

“You are a clown, you clown.” She laughed. “There's no chance involved. This is love. Perfect, fast-acting, forever love.”

His lips devoured hers and lightning drove through her, hot, fast-acting, forever. Perfect.

“I do,” she murmured.

 

Keep reading for a look at the first book in Lizbeth Selvig's

Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys series,

THE BRIDE WORE DENIM

When Harper Lee Crockett returns home to Paradise Ranch, Wyoming, the last thing she expects is to fall head-over-heels in lust for Cole, childhood neighbor and her older sister's former longtime boyfriend. The spirited and artistic Crockett sister has finally learned to resist her craziest impulses, but this latest trip home and Cole's rough and tough appeal might be too much for her fading self-control.

Cole Wainwright has long been fascinated by the sister who has always stood out from the crowd. His relationship with Amelia, the eldest Crockett sister, wasn't as perfect as it seemed, and with Harper back in town, he sees everything he'd been missing. Cole knows they have no future together—he's tied to the land and she's created a successful life in the big city—but neither of them can escape their growing attraction or inconvenient feelings.

As Harper struggles to come to grips with new family responsibilities and her forbidden feelings for Cole, she must decide whether to listen to her head or to give her heart what it wants.

Now Available from Avon Impulse!