Page 91 of The Promise of Jenny Jones
“I care about you, Robert, but right now I’d like to punch you in the mouth.”
His brother’s smile was painful to see. “That’s the difference between us, Ty. You’re a fighter, and I’m not. If it helps any, I’ll feel guilty about my daughter for the rest of my life.”
“Then stay here and be a father to her.”
“I can’t.” Robert lifted a chain from around his neck and dropped Graciela’s gold-locket pin in Ty’s hand. “Give her this after I’ve gone and tell her that I love her. Maybe someday she’ll understand that I loved her enough to give her the best parents to raise her.”
Ty slipped the locket into his pocket. “Is there anything I can say to change your mind?”
“No.”
He nodded in final and reluctant acceptance. “I’d like you to stay until after the wedding. I want you to stand up with me. And Robert, write to Ma occasionally. Let us know that you…” Swallowing, he gripped his brother’s shoulder. “You can always come home. You know that.”
“I know,” They looked into each other’s eyes. “Think of me sometimes. The way it used to be when we were kids, before things got so damned messed up.”
And then Jenny was walking toward them, the promise of heaven shining in her blue eyes, and he forgot everything except the miracle of knowing this splendid woman was his.
Meeting her halfway, he caught her in his arms, then led her around the side of the house into a pool of shadow beside the azaleas and pulled her against his body. “My God, you’re a beautiful hunk of woman.”
Pink bloomed in her cheeks and she laughed, winding her uninjured arm around his neck. “Cowboy, I hope you never believe this, but you’re the only man in the whole world who thinks so.”
“Have you looked in a mirror, darlin’?” He kissed her, a teasing nip at her earlobe that he hoped would drive her crazy with wanting him. “You’ve changed since I first laid eyes on your sorry self. Course the essentials are the same,” he said with a grin, sliding a palm up her side to her breast. Her soft moan sent an aching hunger to stiffen his desire.
She pressed her chin against his and stared into his eyes. “Ty? Sometimes… I just… am I going to make a good wife?”
“There’ll be some rocky periods, I imagine,” he murmured, adjusting her hips against his. “But you’ve got promise, Jenny Jones. I expect you’ll grow into a fine wife. You’ve already learned the most important part.”
She laughed softly, deep in her throat, and closed her eyes as he covered her beautiful strong face with increasingly ardent kisses. Then she caught his hand and cupped it around her breast.
“Do you think anyone would miss us if we rode over to your house?”
She’d learned her lessons well. Now it was she who teased and tormented. “Everyone will miss us,” he said, kissing her eyelids, the corner of her mouth. “This is our party.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes and laughed. Neither of them had ever cared a tinker’s damn about what other people thought.
“I don’t want to wait for San Francisco, cowboy,” she whispered huskily, pressing against him. “I’ve waited long enough for you to get your butt back here and into my bed.”
“I’ll race you to the stables,” he said in a voice hoarse with his need for her. “Last one there has to take my boots off.”
Holding hands and laughing, they ran toward the first stars appearing in the night sky, toward the stables, and toward the promise they had found in each other.
Later he would tell her that Robert was going away and had asked them to start their life together with a six-year-old daughter whom they both loved. He would hold her while she wept with happiness. Right now, all he could think about was being with her.
Jenny. Whispering her name had kept him alive in the desert. She would make the rest of his life worth living. Jenny.
Epilogue
After the wedding, the guests helped move the furniture out of the living room and parlor and pushed the chairs against the walls. Musicians tuned their instruments, sampled the punch, then the dancing began. A hundred smiling guests drifted between the dance floor and the refreshment tables or strolled about the torchlit yard.
Jenny stood beside the parlor archway, watching Graciela waltz in the arms of her handsome new husband, her face pink with happiness, her eyes shining as she gazed up into his adoring dark eyes. They moved to the music, but she doubted either of them heard a note. They saw and heard only each other.
An arm slipped around her waist and she started, then relaxed against Ty’s chest. “I like him very much, don’t you?” she asked softly, smiling as Diego leaned near Graciela’s ear and whispered something that made her blush and laugh and stumble in his arms. Grinning, he caught her, then spun her in a circle, holding her as safe and secure in his arms as he would hold her in their life together.
Ty wrapped his big hands around her waist and rested his chin atop the curls she had so artfully arranged. “She’ll make a fine doctor’s wife,” he commented in a husky voice. “If Diego isn’t careful, she’ll shove him aside and perform all the surgery herself. Do a good job of it, too.”
Jenny laughed, leaning into him. Her gaze skimmed the other dancers, noticing Don Antonio and Ellen, Grizzly Bill and the widow Parker, other neighbors she cared about. But always her gaze returned to Graciela and Diego. How beautiful they were tonight. So young and happy and filled with each other and visions for their future.
“When do you plan to dance with the mother of the bride, cowboy?” The warmth of his chest against her back felt solid and familiar and so damned good. Suddenly she wished the wedding was over and they were upstairs in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms.
