Cowboy for Keeps (15 page)

Chance placed a hand on his shoulder. “I see it. But I also hear it and see evidence in the concern you’re showing her. God puts people into our lives when we need them. It seems to me He’s placed you and Amanda in each other’s paths at this specific time because it’s the right time. Be patient and be there for her like she’s been there for you. You’re almost back to being yourself because of her care. You can do the same for her. Help her know that this emptiness she’s feeling can be filled with God’s grace if she’d let it. He’s the ultimate comforter and loves her. He’ll use this for good, too, if she can let Him. You need to pray about it and then follow God’s lead. God doesn’t steer us wrong if we can hear His voice when He speaks.”

Wyatt stared out into the near darkness, his heart heavy. “But what if I don’t feel like I’m hearing God these days?”

“Then wait. Pray and study God’s word while you wait, and be patient with yourself. You’ll grow during that time. Meanwhile, Amanda needs to know that she isn’t less of a woman and that God has made her the way she is for a reason. His love for her is abundant, and though her fiancé forsook her, God never will.
Sometimes
He’s quiet because it draws us to seek Him more. He hasn’t forsaken you, either, Wyatt. In trials and tribulations God pulls us back to Him. He wants us to rely on Him and not ourselves.”

Wyatt closed his eyes and thought about that. It was so simple. So obvious. “That’s me.” Unable to be still, he walked toward the outside.

Chance fell into step beside him. “It’s all of us sometime or other.”

“Yeah, but I’ve been doing it for so long I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I’d begun to think I was invincible. That all I’ve accomplished was by my own merit and not God’s.” That was what had been eating at him with crashing the plane. “How can I fix that?” He stopped outside.

Chance smiled easily. “Simple, Wyatt. You’ve acknowledged it, now just ask God to forgive you and start fresh. The Bible says that when we confess our sins, God forgets it as far as the east is from the west. You believe that, don’t you?”

He nodded. “What if I’m not the one to help her? Maybe she should talk to you. You’re the preacher.”

“He sent you. You’re the right man for the job. Go back and talk to her. God will lead you.” Chance laid his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “I’ll pray for you both.”

“Thanks. I’ll need it.”

With that said, Chance walked back toward the house, pure cowboy swagger. If God put people into our lives when we needed them, Wyatt knew there was no mistake in the timing of Chance showing up in the barn. Amanda would be glad to know God had kept him off the horse, he thought as he climbed back into her SUV.

He paused at the cattle guard and stared at the sunset’s lingering glow, bowed his head and asked God to forgive him. He prayed God would show him the way to help Amanda…and also the way to win her heart.

A
manda was waiting on the front porch when she saw headlights winding toward her across the dark pasture. She’d started feeling guilty for not having made certain that Wyatt had gotten inside safely. Yes, he was getting around better and better, but still, he was her patient and she should have walked him to his door. Instead she’d let her emotions—her personal life—interfere with her work.

The last thing she’d expected to find when she’d come to check on him was that her SUV would be gone.

What was he thinking? She headed toward him the minute he pulled to a stop. She had every intention of setting him straight on the issue of driving, but the minute he closed the door she could see something was wrong. He looked nervous in the moonlight.

It was a look she’d never seen on him before.

“Wyatt, is something wrong?” She stopped at the edge of the stagecoach house. He walked steadily toward her and stopped only inches from her. Amanda automatically reached out and touched his arm. As if her touch would calm him. The last thing she needed to do was reach out to Wyatt. But it was becoming an impossibility. He knew everything about her. Her darkest fears and her deepest sorrows. They were connected, and despite everything she’d told him, she’d realized when she’d walked away from him that talking to him had helped her. “Why did you take the car? You aren’t ready to drive.”

“It doesn’t matter. I needed to think. I’m not sure how to approach this, but I can’t let you go to sleep tonight without telling you how beautiful you are inside and out.” His eyes burned fierce in the starlight.

“God did not make a mistake when He made you, or when He allowed everything in your life to happen to you. I’ve prayed all the way back from the barn for God to lead me on this. I’ve told myself now isn’t the time, but here it is, Amanda.”

Holding her captive with his gaze, he stepped up and took her face between his hands. Their warmth seeped into her. “I love you. I love you just the way you are and can only pray that you might someday fall in love with me and let me show you how wonderful you are.”

Amanda had gone still when he’d touched her and now on the “I love you” part, joy filled her… Her heart lifted in her chest with a lightness she had never felt. But then reality hit her like an arrow to a balloon.

“No.” She took a step back.

“Yes.” Wyatt held on, stepping with her. “I’m just giving you warning that I do love you. It may scare you. It may terrify you, and after all you’ve been through, you have every right to feel that way. But, Amanda Hathaway, I’m a very patient man when I need to be. And I’m very determined, as you well know. So hold on to your hat because I want you for keeps. And I’m going to actively seek to win your heart from this moment forward.”

Amanda didn’t know what to say. “I’m not going there, Wyatt. I can’t—”

“What, risking your heart on someone who truly does love you? Here in Mule Hollow we call that chicken. And there is nothing about you that is chicken.”

“Wyatt—” She broke from his tender hands, backing away, only to back straight into the logs of the stagecoach house. Trapped, she was forced to look into his eyes, her heart breaking. “I have nothing to offer you.
Nothing.
Don’t you get that?” She looked down at the ground. Didn’t he see the truth?

Wyatt took her face in between his hands once more and tilted her head. He stared deeply into her eyes. “I’ve realized ever so slowly, getting to know you, and as I fell for you, that you hold the key to every dream and aspiration I will ever have. God didn’t put us into each other’s lives for no reason, Amanda. You are all that I could ever want, and I thank God for sending you into my life when He did.”

Amanda felt tears rising as her heart swelled. Her spirit felt buffeted by strong winds, one moment elation, the next desolation. She wanted to run and she wanted to cling to Wyatt and ask him to repeat everything he’d just said. Her locked knees let her do neither one.

Then without warning, Wyatt lowered his head to hers and kissed her. Long and slow. Her insides burned with longing of hopes and dreams long lost.

“I want to marry you,” he whispered against her lips.

She gasped. “Don’t—”

He pulled back; his arms that had wrapped around her and drawn her into the shelter of his body held her tightly against him. His heart pounded against hers…and she wondered if he could hear the thunder of her blood.

“I love you, Amanda. And I wasn’t lying when I said I’m patient. I’m just letting you know this is where I stand and I’m praying you fall in love with me.”

She swallowed the words she so wanted to say to him.
I love you, too.
“It would never work.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t give you children. You need a little boy who looks like you to sit at Sam’s beside you on the bar stool ordering the best food in the world.”

“I can have a son with you who can do that if he wants to.”

“No—”

“Yes. Amanda, you are a whole and complete woman. God is in you and that makes you whole. The emptiness you feel can be filled with the grace and peace of God if you’ll just let it. I did that tonight. I let go of all the anger I’d been feeling—most of it you’d already helped me let go of by just being here and working with me and inspiring me. But I let it go and am going to rethink my life goals. I’m just trying to get you to see that you have to do the same. Face that you are who you are and you are beautiful in every way. Nothing about you is lacking in my eyes or God’s. A child out there somewhere desperately needs you to love him or her, or for that matter, a houseful of them. And in my mind I’m the man who God wants to stand there beside you loving them. Please tell me there is a possibility that you could love me back.”

Amanda couldn’t speak. He had just offered her the world. God was offering her the delights of her heart.

“Just so you know, I’ve made another decision tonight. This place where we are standing has been home to six generations of my family. The Turners belong here, Amanda. I want to raise my children—our children—here on Turner land. I’m going to open a small law office in town where I can practice and also do some consulting work for my firm.
And
I thought, if you do fall in love with me and become my wife, that you could head up a pro bono division working to get amputees the therapy they need for the time that they need it.”

Amanda felt a trail of tears spill out of her eyes. He’d thought of all of this. “Oh, Wyatt. You make it all seem so easy.”

He smiled that crooked, wonderful, curl-her-toes smile. “All you have to do is say that you love me.”

Amanda’s heart felt like it might burst. She hesitated for a moment, inhaled deeply and then wrapped her arms around his neck. She couldn’t stop herself. For a woman who’d had to fight for every step forward since she was fourteen, all the fight drained from her and she simply did and said what was in her heart…. “I love you.”

Wyatt closed his eyes and lifted his face toward heaven. “Thank you, God. Thank you.” And then he kissed her.

And Amanda felt God’s smile and it filled every dark spot inside of her with hope and light, and she felt whole.

It was the most wonderful feeling she’d ever experienced.

“Y
ou boys want a barbecue plate?” Applegate asked, waving a sausage link from behind a long table that he, Sam and Stanley were manning.

Wyatt stood in the yard of the stagecoach house, where tents had been set up for his wedding to Amanda. They’d thrown a regular party to celebrate. Across the way, he caught Amanda smiling at him. She looked beautiful in her white dress, and to him she was the most radiant woman God had ever created. There was no other like her.

“Save one for me, will you?” he said, inching toward her.

“Will do. Chance, how ’bout you?”

“Thanks, App. I’d appreciate it if you’d store a plate back for me, too.”

App’s bushy brows crinkled like a caterpillar inching across the floor. “You ever thank about movin’ home, Chance? That rodeo’ns got ta be gettin’ old. We need a good preacher. Jest ask Wyatt, he knows what kind a lazy preachin’ we been hearin’ since Pastor Allen had ta retar.”

Chance grimaced. “I’m sorry y’all are havin’ a hard time, sir. But until the good Lord brings me back, I’ll be out there on the circuit. I’ll keep praying that the Lord sends the right man to y’all. He’s got him out there, you can be assured of that. It’ll just be in His timing that he gets here. Be patient and give the ones that come a prayerful consideration.”

App grunted, fiddling with his hearing aid. “It ain’t as easy as you thank.”

Wyatt felt for the town. He knew Applegate wanted what was best for the town. He was grumpy because he missed Pastor Allen, who’d been there for a while but had to leave when his wife became ill and needed to be closer to the doctors who were taking care of her. Change was hard. While he wasn’t sure if all the pastors who’d come in were as bad as the one that he’d heard that first Sunday he’d gone to church, they hadn’t been right, either. “When the right man shows up, God will lead y’all and you’ll know,” he offered, and Chance agreed. Honestly, he’d like it if Chance felt called to Mule Hollow, but Wyatt didn’t see that happening anytime soon. Chance
was
doing what he was called to do.

Stanley, who’d been busy cutting up brisket on the table behind App, brought a new trayful to App’s table. “The question is will we survive till he gets here!” Stanley boomed over the music.

“You’ll survive,” Wyatt said, distracted by his bride as she started his way.

“God’s timing is perfect, I’m proof of that,” he said. He left the others to their discussion and met Amanda in the center of the tent. She walked into his open arms.

“Have I told you how blessed I feel today?” he asked, kissing her temple and holding her tightly.

“Me, too,” she whispered against his ear. “God is good, isn’t He?”

Wyatt leaned his head back, feeling humbled by God’s goodness. “God is great. He sent me you, and I can’t wait to see the plans He has for us as a family.”

Dear Reader,

As always, I’m thrilled when you decide to spend time with me and the gang in Mule Hollow! Thank you so much for letting me entertain you for a few hours. I’ve loved coming up with all the different men in the MEN OF MULE HOLLOW series, and I knew when I introduced the Turner men in the first book,
Lone Star Cinderella,
that I was going to have fun telling their stories. Creating Wyatt was a challenge, and I couldn’t wait to write his story.

You see, I’m a bit like Wyatt when it comes to being an overachiever…and being stubborn. I think I’m Superwoman and I hold myself up to an unrealistic level just as Wyatt sort of thought he was a superman. God had to show me this past year that sometimes I can rely on myself too much when what I need to do is rely on Him. I wanted to create a character who had to be taught this same lesson, and so I took Wyatt out of his comfort zone and threw him into uncharted waters when he found himself helpless. God says that when we are weak He is strong. I have found this is true, and Wyatt also found this is true. If you are trying to handle too much by yourself I pray that you will reevaluate, relax and let God help you and give you strength. He is waiting. And in doing this you will give Him the glory He deserves since it is He and not ourselves who deserves our high praise!

I love to hear from readers! You can reach me at P.O. Box 1125, Madisonville, Texas, or debraclopton.com. I hope until I see you again that you live, laugh and do give God the glory.

P.S. I have a book in the fun new ALASKAN BRIDE RUSH continuity,
Yukon Cowboy,
coming out in October, and then watch for the last of the MEN OF MULE HOLLOW series,
Yuletide Cowboy,
coming in December. Chance, the rodeo preacher, comes home to Mule Hollow. He meets a resident of the local women’s shelter and her twin boys as they move into their own place just in time for Christmas.