Texas Christmas Bride: The Gallaghers of Sweetgrass Springs Book 6 (8 page)

A
fterward, when Veronica left to get back to her greenhouses, Jackson headed for the kitchen at Scarlett’s request. He winked as he passed Penny.

Love looked good on her twin. It softened the tense, ragged edges Jackson had arrived in town with.

She smiled at her brother and blew him a kiss.

He nodded and smiled back, but she could see a strain she didn’t understand, and she worried. She’d talk to him about it, first chance. Maybe there was something she could do to help. He was carrying a lot on those broad shoulders.

“Penny for your thoughts,” said Bridger from behind her, sliding his arms around her waist. “Pun intended.”

She turned to him, newly aware of how easily this could be lost. “I love you. And you know I want us to be together, right? But I don’t want a double wedding. Is that awful?”

“You should be the star of your own show, Legs. It’s okay, really.”

She could see it in his eyes, though, the longing to make their relationship official. To settle down. He’d never had that.

“Stop worrying,” he said. “I’m okay. I don’t care what Shirley thinks. I’m not in love with Shirley.”

“It would be easier, though. Shirley’s simple.”

Bridger hooted. “Shirley is a busybody with a Machiavellian mind for gossip and intrigue.” He kissed her forehead. “Ditch the frown. I like my bluetooth-addicted, stiletto-wearing cook just fine.” He glanced down. “I thought you seemed shorter. What happened?”

“My feet hurt.”

“So you’re cooking in red cowboy boots? Most folks who have to be on their feet all day at work wear something with more support.”

“I cook with style, country boy.”

“You do everything with style, Shark Girl. Want to go off in the corner and neck?” He pressed his mouth to her throat and had her moaning.

“Good goshomighty, have you two no shame?” Rissa hollered.

“Get your own hottie,” Penny shouted right back.

“Funny about that,” her sister retorted. “Mackey, where are you?”

“Penny, may I have a word with you?” Joyce Walden asked, Linda Vise beside her.

Uh-oh
. “I’m helping at the cafe. I can’t come to quilting.”

Joyce smiled. “We’re not going to kidnap you. We only want your help with something. We’d like to make a quilt for Veronica and Jackson.”

“I thought you weren’t going to kidnap me.”

“I suspect you’ll want to help when you hear what we’re planning.” Earlene Dorsa, Ruth Sudduth, Linda Johnson, Ceci Sinnwell and Melba Sykes joined them.

“What?”

“We each have pieces in our fabric stashes that were used in quilts we did with your mother, but we’d like something of hers to put in it. It would be a double wedding ring quilt.”

“Do you have time to do that before the wedding?”

“It’s going to be tight. Mary wouldn’t mind us piecing it on the machine—we couldn’t possibly finish in time, otherwise—but we must quilt it by hand, as she would want.”

“So what do you need from me?”

“We would like you to quilt at least a little section in honor of your mother. She would have wanted this.”

She would have. “All right.”

“But first we need you to find us fabric from something of hers.”

Penny went still. When her mother died, they’d all been so grief-stricken. She barely remembered some of her mother’s friends coming over to help pack things up. Rissa had been inconsolable. Had unpacked some of the boxes as quickly as they’d filled until Dad had made her let the women work. Remembering that period was painful still. “I have no idea if anything was even kept.”

“We boxed up her fabric stash for you girls,” Jane Shurtleff said. “I’m sure it’s there somewhere.”

“Really?” What else of her mother’s might still be at the ranch?

And why hadn’t she thought to ask until now?

Jackson’s battles with their father had escalated after their mother’s death. Then the accident. Penny had been trying to help out, to cook, to be their mother’s substitute while keeping up her schoolwork—

Then Jackson had vanished.

She’d consoled a terrified, heartbroken Clary.

But she’d left for freshman orientation the week after graduation. She’d hardly ever returned home.

“Will you look, please? And could you do it right away, you and Rissa? This would mean a lot to your mother.”

It would. Of that, Penny had no doubt.
Oh, Mama
.

“I’ll go to the ranch right now,” she promised.

At the Star Bar G, she found her father first. “Daddy, what happened to Mother’s things?”

Nothing was more guaranteed to make the man freeze up. “Why do you want to know?”

She explained about the quilt, regretting that it clearly caused him pain, even after all these years.

“There are boxes in the attic,” he said gruffly. “I’ve never opened them. I…couldn’t.” He cleared his throat and glanced away.

She thought about losing Bridger, as unformed and newborn as their love was, and she comprehended in a whole new way the blow her mother’s loss would have been to her dad. She barely knew Bridger in comparison, but she would never get over losing him, the light he cast, the safety he granted, the humor and warmth he’d brought into her life.

Her mother had been their beacon. Their shining light.

“I’m sorry,” she said to her father. “I didn’t understand until now what you must have gone through.”

Her father’s gaze whipped to hers, surprisingly vulnerable. “Your mama was everything.” He cleared his throat again. “Damn sure too good for me.”

“She loved you so much.” She saw his head turn toward her like a flower to sunlight. As if he needed to hear this.

“I wasn’t good enough to her. Or for her.”

“She thought you were.”

“You were a child.”

But Penny knew she was right. “Remember how she’d tease you and say
oh, you
, then flutter her hand like this?” Penny demonstrated something she’d seen a thousand times in her life, her mother’s gentle remonstration, her flirting reprimand when he tried to scandalize her. There had been humor between them. No one else could make her father laugh, really, not the way Mama had.

His smile was soft and sad. “She tried to make a better man of me.” He heaved a sigh. “She wouldn’t be proud of how I handled her children.” He shook his bowed head.

“We’ve all fallen in love now. Maybe we can’t know exactly how it was with the two of you, but when I think of how I would feel if Bridger—” The very notion sent a shaft of terror through her.

“You never get over it,” her father said quietly. “The hole your mama left…but I still should have done better.” His head rose, his gaze sharpening. “So what’s the holdup with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t try to fake me out, Princess. You were never any good at it. A blind man could see how eager Bridger is to marry you. He’s a good guy. What’s your problem?”

Penny shook her head slowly. “I don’t—” She met her father’s eyes, wishing her mother were here. She’d know what to do. “I love him Daddy, I really do.” She shrugged. “Anyway, it’s Jackson’s turn now. I am not going to compete with that. He and Veronica have lost too much time together. He wants this to be special, and I’m not horning in on it.”

“Want your own spotlight, Princess?”

“No!” She shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure what’s the right thing to do. This is so important to Bridger, but I’ll never be his Suzy Homemaker.”

“Pretty sure he’s not asking you to.”

“You’re right. It’s just—” She exhaled. “There’s an awful lot of emotion swirling around right now, Daddy. I quit letting myself get all emotional a long time ago.”

Her father snorted. “You are not pulling the wool over my eyes. You’ve always felt a lot behind that ice princess mask you wore. You just don’t like making yourself vulnerable. You count on being in control.”

“You know me too well. I’m working on it, but…I wish I were more like Mama.”

“You are, Princess. You only thought you didn’t want to be. I didn’t give your mama much of a life here, working so hard to help me make this place profitable, raising you kids, keeping all of us happy… She deserved better.”

“She always said she was right where she wanted to be.”

His gaze was surprisingly open. “You think that’s true?” He seemed to really want to know.

“I do. Sure, her life required a lot of hard work, but Mama was all about love, and she had a whole batch of us to love, didn’t she?”

“Spread it to everyone she possibly could,” he agreed.

Just then the school bus lumbered to a stop, and Eric raced off. “Grandpa! Guess what happened today?”

Her father turned with a smile. “I’m betting you’re gonna tell me, aren’t you?”

“I sure am.” Eric started running toward them. “Hi, Aunt Penny!”

The boy had blossomed, and they’d all marveled at the relationship between her father and Rissa’s adopted son. “Hey, yourself. Have a good day at school?”

“Yeah!” Then he deflated. “’Cept for stupid English. Who cares about verbs and nouns? I know how to speak English just fine.”

She slapped a hand over her heart. “Words are my life. You’re stabbing me straight in the heart, young man. Anyway, how am I going to make you into a world-class shark lawyer if you don’t learn grammar?”

“I’m gonna be a SEAL, remember? Like my dad.” Every time Eric said the words
dad
or
mom
or
grandpa
, it was as though he’d uttered something holy.

“I thought you were going to train horses like your mom.”

“After I’m a SEAL,” he said patiently, as though she were a little thick.

She chuckled. “I’m pretty sure even SEALs care about grammar. They learn other languages, too, you know.”

His little nose wrinkled. “Oh, maaaan.
Two
sets of nouns and verbs and junk?”

Her father laughed and ruffled Eric’s hair. “Maybe a cookie would help, you think? Celia made some just a little while ago.”

The housekeeper Celia’s daughter Samantha caught up then. “Eric, I made a ninety-eight on my grammar test.”

“And you still can’t be a SEAL,” he taunted. “’Cause you’re a stupid ole girl.”

“I can so, any day now. Mackey told me. Mackey! Where are you?” She took off running in search of the man who had just poked his head out of the barn.

“Dad, tell her,” Eric called out. “I can be a SEAL right now, but she can’t, right?”

Mackey grinned, shaking his head. “Dude, what I have I told you about that?”

“Maybe I’d best go help out,” her father said, clearly eager to be with Eric. “You need anything else, Princess?”

“No, thanks. I’ll just go look in the attic.”

“Your sister might want to help.”

“I can see she’s busy with a horse right now, but would you ask her to join me when she can?”

“Sure will.” His step was lighter and more eager than she’d seen it in years as he left.

We’re not who we were without you, Mama. But maybe we’re gonna be okay after all
.

Scarlett glanced out toward Ian as he stood, straight and tall, in the dining room, listening to what was probably yet one more person expecting him to perform miracles in some way. He was the go-to man in Sweetgrass, the mayor who refused to accept a title but performed the work nonetheless. If Nana was the heart of Sweetgrass, Ian was its protector. Its get-it-done man. Everyone knew that he would not rest until a problem was fixed, and it was part of his power that he cared nothing for status or position. Ian didn’t posture or need acclaim; he needed things to get done. Needed to solve problems.