Sage Creek (33 page)

“I’ll be right down, Mom. You go ahead, Ivy. I just need a minute.”

She watched as Ivy ran lightly out into the hall and her mother followed, the skirt of her knee-length navy dress rustling.

Alone for one final moment in the bedroom of her youth, she closed her eyes and thought how blessed she was—for this precious life growing inside her, for the man and the daughter awaiting her below.

Just as she was about to start toward the door, her grandmother swept into her room. She wore a tea-length dress of amber silk and dyed-to-match heels, and her white hair was piled high on her head. She was clutching a sheet of paper.

“You never would let me show you The List, dear.”

The List?
Sophie threw her an amused glance. “Isn’t it a bit late for that, Gran? I’ve found my guy and I don’t want any others.” She laughed. “And I definitely don’t want to keep him waiting.”

“In that case, you’d best take a look at this right quick. We’re not leaving this room until you do.” Eyes sparkling, Gran thrust The List toward her.

There was silence downstairs. Everyone was waiting for her to make her appearance. Sophie snatched The List and glanced down at her grandmother’s thin, sloping handwriting.

“Rafe Tanner?”
Her startled gaze flew to her grandmother’s face. “The first name on this list was
Rafe’s
?”

“All along.” Gran smiled smugly. “He was the first one I thought of for you. ’Course you never bothered to look at The List, stubborn woman that you are. You get that from your mother, you know.”

Sophie threw back her head and laughed. She didn’t care if anyone heard her downstairs. She laughed with sheer joy.

“You want me to tell you that you knew best, don’t you, Gran? All right, consider it done. But the most wonderful man in the world is waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.” Sophie bent and brushed a quick kiss on Gran’s cheek, breathing in the familiar scent of gardenias and Pond’s cleansing cream. “So I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until after the ceremony to gloat.”

“Ha. Fair enough.” Her grandmother clasped Sophie’s chin in her hand and smiled into her eyes.

“Go down there, marry Rafe, and be happy, Sophie. If there’s one thing I’ve figured out in all my years, it’s that we need to soak up every drop of joy we can from this life, and give our fair portion back.”

Tears of love glimmered in Sophie’s eyes. “I love you, Gran. And I promise you, I’m going to do exactly that.”

In the living room, Dorothy, the former principal, had taken charge of quieting the guests and efficiently packing them all into the living room and dining room and hallway so as to watch the bride descend the stairs for the ceremony.

“It’s time, Aunt Liss. Two thirty on the dot,” Ivy whispered to Lissie, who was seated beside her on the sofa and taking the words with a double meaning. It was not only time for Sophie to make her entrance, it was almost time for her baby to make its appearance too. She knew it would be soon, and at this moment, Lissie just hoped she made it through the ceremony and reception.

“You okay, babe?” Tommy asked, leaning down toward her, with a glance at her gigantic belly.

“We’re both hanging in there.” Lissie touched a hand to her stomach, bulging beneath her flowing lilac dress.

Beside the mantel, where a cozy fire glowed, Mia was watching for Sophie, her upturned gaze eager and expectant. Karla held her son in her arms as Denny McDonald, in a suit and tie, stood at her side.

Travis Tanner and Jake Tanner flanked their big brother in the hallway as he waited at the stairs for the first glimpse of his bride.

“I’ll bet a hundred bucks that Lissie’s kid’s birthday is the same as your anniversary,” Travis said softly as there was still no sign of Sophie.

“I’ll bet two hundred bucks her water breaks before the ceremony ends,” Jake whispered, a twinkle in his eyes.

“Quiet, you two. Here comes my bride,” Rafe growled as Doug Hartigan, positioned in the living room so that he could see the first glimpse of Sophie at the head of the stairs, began to play “Here Comes the Bride” on his violin.

Rafe didn’t even hear Jake suck in his breath and mutter, “You lucky dog, you,” as Sophie descended the steps. She looked like a luscious angel brought to earth as she smiled straight into Rafe’s eyes.

Nor did he hear Travis’s appreciative intake of breath as his soon-to-be-sister-in-law floated toward them.

“What’d you ever do to deserve
her
?” he asked in a low tone, but the jibe was full of affection for the big brother he’d both worshipped and fought with as a kid.

A moment later Travis’s gaze shifted to Mia Quinn, petite and radiant near the fire. She wasn’t looking at him though; she was watching Sophie with a rapt, happy smile. She hadn’t looked at him once since he arrived, Travis thought, unaccountably irked by this fact. He found himself irked even more because there’d been no chance even to speak with her.

Travis forcibly tore his gaze from Mia and tried to focus on his brother’s gorgeous bride as she placed her hand in Rafe’s at the bottom of the steps.

Can’t blame Mia for not wanting to even look at me,
he thought distractedly.
Not after what I did.

He’d slammed the door shut on the two of them years ago—in high school—and there was no going back. They’d both been kids, too young to know what they were doing. And it hadn’t ended well.

His fault.

It was a lifetime ago,
he reminded himself, but that didn’t explain why he’d felt sucker-punched today at the sight of her in that flirty red dress and those killer black stilettos.

She was insanely sexy. Even sexier now than when they were in high school. But he needed to stop thinking about her. He was a grown man, a federal agent, and he’d come here today for his brother. Rafe and Sophie were about to tie the knot and he hadn’t heard one word so far of the ceremony.

Rafe heard every word. They echoed in his head—love, honor, cherish.
Do you pledge . . . do you take . . . this woman as your wife . . .

Ivy was perched on the edge of the sofa, watching them in her grown-up-looking dress. His brothers were in this room, along with Decker and Leigh, and all of Sophie’s family, and his wranglers, and so many friends.

He drank in the beauty of his Sophie, his heart in his throat. She’d brought light and joy back into his life. Sage Ranch came alive when she was there in a way it hadn’t been since he was a boy. Everything was transformed when he was with her. And he’d never seen her look more beautiful than she did today, right this minute.

As Reverend Kail spread his hands and pronounced them husband and wife, Rafe took her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly to seal the deal.

The room sighed at first as Sophie melted against him, her arms wrapped around his neck, the pale pink ribbons of her simple white bouquet trailing. When the long kiss ended at last, the old ranch house exploded with applause.

“Sophie, your dress is so beautiful,” Ivy sighed later between bites of wedding cake as the three of them sat together at the dining room table. “It’s for sure the prettiest dress I’ve ever seen.”

“Can’t argue with you there,” Rafe agreed. “But don’t ever forget, Ives, it’s not about the dress.”

“Easy for you to say,” his daughter replied, licking her fork.

Sophie laughed. “He’s actually right, Ivy. It’s not about the dress at all.”

“So what’s it about?”

Looking into Rafe’s eyes, Sophie merely smiled.

Rafe clasped both his wife’s hand and his daughter’s. “It’s all about the love, Ives. Nothing but the love.”

“When will we get there? To Sage Ranch?”

The sleepy, but still wary, voice of the boy in the passenger seat broke the silence of the moonless Montana night.

Travis Tanner glanced at his scrawny ten-year-old adopted stepson, then back at the long, empty road leading them to Lonesome Way and his family’s ranch.

The vast darkness of the June night nearly obliterated the peaks of the Crazy Mountains in the distance—but not quite. A few stars gleamed, despite the clouds, illuminating the faint outline of hefty granite peaks spiraling up, dwarfing the road, the trees, and certainly the black Explorer and its two passengers driving down that lonely road.

“Soon,” Travis said quietly. “We’ll be there soon. Another twenty minutes, half hour tops.”

It was almost midnight and Grady had been sleeping since ten o’clock. But now the brown-haired ten-year-old with his mother’s green eyes looked like he was going to be awake for the duration. Awake and uneasy.

“You need a pit stop?” Travis asked as the Explorer sped past a coyote stealing furtively through some brush at the side of the road. “There’s a gas station coming up just outside of Lonesome Way.”

“I’m okay,” Grady mumbled. His voice sounded low, defensive. And just a tad sulky. Which matched the expression on his face ever since Travis had picked him up at Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix yesterday afternoon, after Val plopped him on a plane in LA.

The poor kid didn’t know what to expect, Travis reflected, his jaw tightening. One minute he’d been in LA, in his big, fancy new house with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, cabana, guesthouse, game room, and thirty-seat home theater, and the next he’d been shipped off for the summer with his adoptive father—who was no longer even married to his mother—and was on his way to a remote ranch the kid had been to only once in his life and probably didn’t even remember.

Travis had been stunned when his ex-wife called him, her voice high-pitched and shaking with tension as she yelled that she and her new husband were at the end of their ropes and couldn’t handle Grady anymore, that they needed a break. She’d said Grady had failed some classes at school and would probably need to repeat fifth grade. He hadn’t bothered doing homework, had skipped classes, mouthed off to teachers. Worse, he’d been getting into fights and had even been suspended for the last two weeks of school before summer vacation started.

“Drew’s really angry—and I just can’t take it anymore. The two of them . . . they just don’t . . . Travis, you’re his father legally, and I need you to take him for the summer! I really can’t deal with any of this right now. Drew and I—we’re having a big party here in a week—one hundred guests and I’m at my wit’s end. There’s so much to do, and Grady, he’s so difficult . . . I just can’t handle—”

“I’ll come get him,” Travis had said instantly. Not for Val’s sake, that was for damn sure, but for Grady’s. He’d first met Val’s son when he picked her up for their second date six years ago, when Grady was four years old. Val’s first husband, Kevin, had died of cancer two years before that, when the boy was only a toddler.

The Grady he’d met that night had been a tiny fastmotion machine, a tousle-haired, pug-nosed imp, precocious, funny as hell, and possessing a sweet smile that had burrowed its way into Travis’s heart. A year after he and Val tied the knot, Travis had legally adopted his stepson and had loved being a father to him, even after things went south between him and Val.

But lately he hadn’t been able to spend as much time with his son. His latest investigation with the FBI, the death of his former partner, and Val remarrying some corporate bigwig and moving with him and Grady to LA last year had made visits a lot more difficult to come by.

“I was just leaving for the ranch, Val, but I’ll come to LA first and pick Grady up,” Travis had told her.

“The ranch? You’re going to the ranch?”

He hadn’t bothered explaining that he’d taken an extended leave of absence from the FBI two weeks ago, found someone to rent his house outside of Phoenix, and was headed home to Lonesome Way to take some time, figure things out, and make a new start.