Love Inspired September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Her Montana Twins\Small-Town Billionaire\Stranded with the Rancher (17 page)

Then Mick looked directly at Brody and his heart hurried up.

“Ten dollars,” Brody called out, wanting to get this over and done with.

“I've got ten, do I hear twenty?”

Someone else immediately bid fifteen and Brody was about to bid again, when he felt Ethan catch his arm and lean closer. “You might not want to bid on that one,” he said in a low voice as someone else jumped in. “That's mine.”

Brody laughed then said, “Thanks for the heads-up.” Then he looked at Ethan. “Do you know if Hannah made one?”

“She doesn't know, but Lilibeth and I made one for her.”

“Can you let me know when it comes up?”

Ethan gave him a droll look. “You know this is supposed to be a secret.”

“And you just told me which one you made.”

“Touché. I'll give you a sign,” Ethan said.

“Twenty. I have twenty. Do I get twenty-five for this special picnic lunch?” Mick looked over the crowd. “I'd like to add that this box was made by a man, if that makes any difference.”

This elicited another flurry of bids. Mick got the box up to forty and was about to call it, when he pointed to Faith Shaw, who was talking to Julie and Ryan, holding her hand in the air as if to indicate how tall something was. “Faith Shaw bids forty and sold.”

“What?” Faith called out with a laugh. “I didn't bid on that.”

“Oh, yes you did. And this one, I might add, is a very special lunch. Donated by Ethan Johnson.”

The crowd clapped, turning to look at Ethan, who was waving and smiling, playing along.

“Looks like Ethan will have to be finding Faith to share his lunch with her,” Mick joked. The crowd groaned and then Lilibeth handed Mick another box decorated with pink hearts and stars. Lilibeth scanned the crowd as if looking for someone. Then she caught Brody's eye and she angled her head toward the box just as Ethan dug his elbow in Brody's side.

“This one is Hannah's,” he whispered.

Mick glanced over at Lilibeth, who gave him an innocent smile. “Are you helping along the bidders?” he asked with mock severity.

“No. Not at all,” she said.

“You Shoemaker girls are famous for getting high bids. Is this how it's done?”

Lilibeth held up her hands as if protesting her innocence, but Mick just chuckled and turned back to the crowd. “Okay, this box has the official Shoemaker endorsement. What am I bid? Let's start at twenty.” He easily got twenty, then thirty, then forty.

Brody jumped in at sixty, which caught a few people's attention. In a matter of seconds it was down to him and someone else he didn't recognize. He put in a bid at ninety, a crazy amount for a meal, he told himself, but he wasn't going to lose this. He just hoped Ethan and Lilibeth weren't steering him wrong.

“Ninety-five, do I hear ninety-five?”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Ethan talking to someone, then pointing to him. He chanced a quick sidelong glance and caught Hannah looking at him, her eyes wide as she looked from him to the box that Mick held up in the air.

You can't avoid me now,
Brody thought as Mick called for another bid.

“Going once, going twice—”

“One hundred dollars,” a deep voice called out.

Brody swung his head around, looking for this last-minute entrant. Then he shook his head as Cord Shaw gave him a quick salute, as if to say “top that.”

Well, he would.

“One hundred and twenty,” Brody called back, not waiting for Mick to call out a number.

“One hundred and fifty,” Cord drawled, leaning back against the tree behind him, nudging his hat with a knuckle as if to see Brody better.

“Two hundred,” Brody returned, looking directly at Cord, daring him to go higher.

“I'm thinking this box is important to you, Harcourt. Why is that? Someone special make it?”

“Bid or quit,” Brody said.

“Oh, I'll bid. You're not getting this lunch that easily. Two hundred and fifty.”

“Three hundred.”

He heard a gasp from beside him and turned to see Hannah. “What are you doing?” Her face held a look of puzzlement, but in her eyes he caught a flare of hope.

“Fighting for you,” he said.

“What?”

“Three hundred and fifty,” Cord called out.

“Four hundred.”

“Keep going, Harcourt, and you'll be spending as much as you would on an engagement ring,” Cord said with a smirk.

“That might be coming, too.” The words came out before he could stop himself.

He heard Hannah's faint gasp and chuckles from the crowd and felt a tremble of doubt. Then he looked at Hannah and the hope he thought he had seen in her eyes had grown. She was smiling, her hand on her chest.

“Either you really want that bridge fixed or you really like whoever made that box up,” Cord said. “Five hundred dollars.”

“I'm way beyond
liking
the person who made that lunch,” Brody retorted “Six hundred.” Brody crossed his arms and settled in as gasps were heard around the gathering, then some whistles and hoots of encouragement. He wasn't sure why Cord was playing this game, but it didn't matter. He was seeing it to the end.

Then nothing from Cord, and as Brody glanced over, he caught Cord's wink and then Brody saw Dylan standing beside Cord and Brody knew exactly who had been egging Cord on.

“Sold to Brody Harcourt. Six hundred dollars,” Mick announced with a dramatic wave of his arm.

The crowd applauded with enthusiasm as Mick took the box from Lilibeth. “And the owner of the basket, or box, actually—” Mick opened the box to get the name and for a split second Brody wondered if he had spent an outrageous amount of money on the wrong person. “Hannah Douglas, come up and take your box so you can share it with the winner.”

Hannah shot Brody another surprised look, then made her way through the now-applauding crowd. As she walked up the stairs to the bandstand, Brody caught the flush in her cheeks. But when she took the box and came back down the stairs and walked toward him, he also saw the glow of hope in her eyes.

Chapter Thirteen

“W
here are the twins?” Brody asked as Hannah led him to a secluded spot under a large cottonwood, a ways away from the gathered crowd. She still couldn't believe he had spent that much on her lunch.

“With my parents and my in-laws, I mean David's parents,” she amended. “They're taking them for yet another ride on the carousel. They wanted to treat them and they knew I would be busy with the auction. But Lilibeth said she would take over at the auction, so...” Hannah let her long-winded explanation fade away, feeling suddenly awkward around this surprising man.

“Lucky for me,” he said. He stood beside her, shifting his weight, as if unsure what to say and what to do.

Not that Hannah had any idea, either. When she found out that Lilibeth and Ethan had made a lunch on her behalf, she was a little upset. But when she heard Brody bidding on it, her upset had changed to curious hope.

“So, the deal is that you bid on this basket, we get to eat it together. Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Kind of. Haven't been able to eat much today.”

“Me neither.”

They looked at each other and then Brody finally took the box from her and sat down on the grass.

“Sorry, I don't have a blanket,” she said, smoothing her hands over her jeans, then sitting down beside him, unable to quell the anticipation that sang through her.

He held the box a moment, looking at it. Then he looked over at her. “So. Here we are.”

She nodded, wishing her heart wasn't beating so erratically. She couldn't breathe properly.

Brody opened the box and carefully peeled back the layer of paper covering the food. “Do you have any idea what's in here? Pastor Ethan said you didn't make it.”

“No. The women who were helping Vincente at the GGG did. But I understand that some of the boxes have sandwiches and some have wraps and all of them have some kind of home-baked goodies.”

“Wraps it is,” Brody said, pulling one out, covered in black-and-white-checked paper. “This one looks like chicken and bacon. Is that okay with you?”

She nodded, taking it. She wanted to say something, anything, but wasn't sure where to start. She wondered if she had imagined his crack to Cord about an engagement ring. She certainly wasn't going to ask him about it. They had other ground to cover.

“I need to tell you—”

“I would like to know—”

They both spoke at once. Both stopped at once, then said, “Go ahead” at the same time, which made them both laugh.

“I'll start,” Hannah said, setting her wrap aside and touching Brody's hand as if to create a connection. “I'm sorry I said what I did. I'm sorry I sent you away.”

“I'm sorry, too.” Brody's long, slow sigh created a dull ache in her heart.

He just bid six hundred dollars for your basket,
she reminded herself.
Wait to hear what he has to say.

“It made for a long, hard day,” he continued. He looked over at her and his smile eased away the regret his words caused. “But I'm sorry I didn't stay to talk to you. That I just walked out without looking back.”

“You don't go where you're not wanted.”

Brody released a cynical laugh, then put his wrap down as well, and caught her hands in his. “I'm a proud, foolish kind of guy. I got told that by a good friend. This morning, when you were so worried and upset, I should have stayed. I should have let you be scared and unload and tell me how you felt.” He paused and his words fanned the glimmer of hope she had experienced when he was bidding on her basket. “Then I should have ignored what you said, taken you in my arms and comforted you.”

Hannah tightened her hands on his, unable to say anything.

“I should have just held you and told you that I was okay,” he continued, his words creating a world where happiness was becoming a possibility. “That nothing happened and that I'm a careful guy and that I would take care of myself because I want to take care of you.” Brody fingered her hair away from her face, his eyes holding hers. “I should have fought for you. I shouldn't have let you just push me away.”

“I was so scared,” she admitted, swallowing down a knot of emotion. “Waiting for you was so hard. I was so worried. I couldn't imagine what I would do if something happened to you, so the easiest thing to do, I thought, was not have you at all.”

“I guessed that. And I'm hoping you'll know that I'm not a risk-taker. I'm not the guy that most people seem to think I am. I'm not Book-it Brody anymore.”

“Ethan told me that sometimes people have to leave town to get away from their history and their nickname. You didn't have that chance and neither did I.” She pulled in a long breath, stilling her heart, hardly daring to believe that the man she thought she had sent away for good was sitting across from her, looking into her eyes. Holding her hand. Making her feel the blessed possibilities of a future.

“Part of my history that I can't walk away from, and don't want to, is the fact that I've always cared about you. Ever since the first time I saw you.”

“But you were in high school. Four years older than me.”

“I know. And you were with David.” He released a self-deprecating laugh. “But that didn't stop this crazy heart from falling for you.”

Hannah could only stare at him as his words seeped backward from this moment to that day she saw him for the first time. She and David had been dating for a couple of years when Brody first moved to Jasper Gulch and yet, when she saw Brody, she felt a traitorous kick of her heart. She had brushed aside her reaction as simply one of a young girl to an attractive man. Now she wondered if, at that moment, she sensed that Brody was exactly the right person for her. Just as she had sensed a feeling of coming home when they started spending more time together.

“I've always cared for you,” he said. “And in the past few weeks I've moved beyond that. You need to know that I've fallen in love with you.”

Hannah's heart kicked up a notch and as she held his eyes, she felt it again. That sense of homecoming. That after a long, hard journey she had come to where she should be.

“I love you, too,” she said. “And I'm not just saying that because I feel like I should reciprocate. I am saying it because I truly do.”

Brody caught her by the back of the head and, drawing her to him, pressed a warm, gentle kiss to her lips. She returned it, slipping her arms around his neck. She couldn't get close enough to this man.

Brody murmured her name and then gently drew back, his dark eyes glowing in the gathering dusk. “You may as well know that I want to marry you.”

She wasn't going to cry, she thought, and yet she could feel her eyes fill and her throat thicken. “I want to marry you, too,” she managed to choke out.

Brody kissed her again and then sat back. “I didn't think this would ever happen,” he said.

“Me neither,” she said quietly, catching his free hand in hers and giving him a careful smile. “Especially after what I said to you this morning.”

“I know that you were feeling vulnerable when you said what you did,” he continued. “You've got your kids to think about and yourself to protect. I get that. And if you want, I'll quit my work as a firefighter. I'll walk away from it.”

Hannah could only stare at him. “You would do that?”

“I would. For you and the twins, I would.”

She thought of how she had asked David to reconsider when he told her he was enlisting. She felt unpatriotic, but, at the same time, his unyielding stance had made it even harder for them to discuss the issue as a couple. And then, when he insisted they get married as well, she felt as if she had no say in the relationship. No power.

And now Brody was telling her that he would respect her request. If she asked him.

“You are an amazing man, Brody Harcourt.”

“You think so?” he said, tilting his head as if to see her from another angle.

“I know so.”

“I don't feel like I'm amazing.” Brody sighed once, and Hannah sensed that he had something else he needed to say. “I feel like I could never live up to who and what David was. You need to know that.”

“You don't need to live up to David,” she said, tightening her grip on his hands. “You are who you are. You need to know that I loved him, yes. But the more time I spent with you, the more I realized that what I felt for David was a young, sweet, innocent love. When he left for Afghanistan, truthfully, I felt more sorry for myself than I did for him. I was more selfish then. I didn't really feel married to him.”

“What do you mean?” Brody's voice held a tiny edge, and Hannah cupped his handsome face in her hands and brushed her lips over his forehead. Then she lowered her hands and sat back, as if to give herself some distance for what she had to tell him.

“I was having second thoughts about my relationship with David before he enlisted. I just wasn't sure how to express them. What to say and how to say it. David and I had dated for years and years. He was as much a part of my life, it seemed, as my parents were. I had wanted to marry him when I was in high school. Young love and all that. But he wanted to get a stake together. Save up enough so that we could start our lives properly. It seemed the smart thing to do. Just not the most romantic. We even fought about it and broke up one summer over it, but he talked me into coming back to him. So I did. And then he enlisted and I was so confused. Whatever happened to getting our stake? I found out later that he had lost his job and was worried about our future. He thought the army was the best way to provide for us.”

She stopped there, feeling a beat of faithlessness telling all of this to Brody. And when he squeezed her hand, she sensed he was telling her it was okay to stop. But she looked up at him, shook her hair back, determined to deal with the shadow of David once and for all.

“I thought this was my chance to break up with him. To give myself some breathing space. David had been such a part of my life, I wasn't sure where love ended and habit took over. I wanted some time to analyze how I truly felt. And then he got called up and he proposed. It was so sudden and so unlike him, I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to say no, but the thought of sending him off into battle with my no in his ears seemed so harsh. And then, when his parents started in on me, specifically his mother, I felt so railroaded, so pushed, I just went along because it was the easiest thing to do.”

She stopped there, realizing how shallow she sounded and how small. “I'm sorry. I'm not as amazing as you have been saying I am,” she said, her voice soft.

“Hey. Hey.” Brody tipped her chin up with his knuckle, gazing down into her eyes, his dark ones so full of compassion, so full of love, it made her heart turn over. “You
are
an amazing woman. And selfless. I don't know if anyone else would have done any differently in your place.”

“It's just been hard with everyone thinking he's a hero, and he is, was, but I feel so guilty when I get these sorrowful looks from people. As if being married to David has granted me some special place in society. I only married him because I couldn't see any other way out. And then I got pregnant.” Her voice broke a moment, thinking once again of the anger she felt and right behind it, the guilt that anger always engendered. “I was so upset.” She clung to him as if to assure him. “I love my kids. You know I do.”

Brody pulled her close, stopped her protests with a kiss. “Everyone knows you do. Hannah, don't be so hard on yourself. All those feelings you've told me about are so normal.”

She sniffed and pulled in a slow breath as she laid her head on his shoulder, relishing the protection his arms gave her. The sanctuary. And, even more, the relief of finally releasing what she had held back all this while from her parents and even from her dearest friend, Julie. “I always felt so guilty about it. I felt like I had sullied my marriage vows.”

“You said you loved him,” Brody assured her. “And you did.”

She pulled back and looked at him, tracing his features with her finger. Features of a man who spent his time outside. A man who was a hero in his own right. “I did. But I realized what a shadow that love was compared to how I feel about you.” She traced his slow-release smile and returned it with one of her own. “But my other reality is I have two children from that relationship—”

“It's okay, you know,” he said, pressing a finger on her lips. “It's okay that David is still a part of your life. That will never change. I love your kids like crazy but I also want them to know what an amazing, heroic guy their father was.”

She hesitated again, knowing she had to tell him the rest.

“As well, the Douglases... They are so worried about what would happen if I ever found someone else. We talked this afternoon. I discovered how scared they were that they would lose touch with the twins if I ever got remarried. I want them to stay a part of their lives. I know it creates a complication—”

“They are their grandparents. I know they love them dearly. Of course they will stay a part of the twins' lives.”

His words eased away her final doubts and sealed their relationship.

“
You
are an amazing, heroic man, Brody Harcourt,” she said. “Not reckless at all.”

“Then you'll know I'm not being reckless when I say that I want to marry you. I want to be your husband and I want to be a father to your children. I want them to be my children, too. I want to adopt them. Which, of course, means they'll have a plethora of grandparents. I know my mother and father will be beyond thrilled.”

Hannah didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So she did both. Then she kissed Brody again and again.

“How could a day start so lousy and end so perfect?” she said as she finally pulled back, her hands on his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair.