The Bartered Bride (The Brides Book 3) (37 page)

Annie returned with a clean spoon in hand and took her place in the chair pulled up to the bed. She leaned forward to offer Gabe a spoonful of cold water.

“I can do it,” he protested, nodding to the cup.

Annie lowered the spoon to her lap, looking hurt for a moment. Then her expression cleared to one of encouragement, and she handed Gabe the cup. When he looked like he was managing to drink by himself, she quickly excused herself and joined Mae.

Jem looked after her thoughtfully, wondering briefly if something was bothering his wife. He only wondered a second, however, before his attention immediately went back to Gabe.

“I’m glad to see you sitting up and drinking by yourself.”

Gabe regarded him over the top of his cup. He drained the cup and handed it to Jem.

“Thank you,” he said simply. “I couldn’t have done it without you. Yesterday, I’d never felt so weak.”

“It comes in waves?” Jem carefully avoided any mention of Creed or the accident with the gun firing.

Gabe nodded. His gaze briefly rested on the cleaned floor.

“Listen, there’s something I want to ask you.” Jem lowered himself onto the chair Annie had vacated. He cleared his throat. “I’ve discussed it with Annie this morning and—we’d like you to come to Seattle with us, if you’d like. We’d like you to join us—me, Annie, and Mae.”

“You want me to come with you?”

“You’d love Seattle. There are mountains and the ocean. More water than you’ve ever seen, I bet. Have you ever seen the ocean?”

Gabe shook his head. He looked a little dazed.

“You’d love it. Maybe someday you could apprentice with me. I’ll be starting a veterinary practice there, eventually. I know you love horses.”

“I can’t,” Gabe said. He opened and closed his mouth. “I just can’t.”

“Your father would never think to look for you there,” Jem assured him, guessing Gabe was worried about his father bringing trouble upon them.

“It’s not that. Well, maybe a little. And it’s not that I don’t want to go with you. I like you. You’ve all helped me so much. I don’t even know how to say thanks. I might even like Seattle. It sounds like quite a place. But—I promised my uncle. And a promise is a promise. He said if I ever needed help to go to him. I feel like that’s what I oughta do.”

Jem placed his hands on his knees. He nodded once and stood, feeling awkward.

“Thank you,” Gabe said, obviously distressed to think Jem might be offended.

“No, Gabe. Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry at all. Just know if you ever need us, you have a place to go,” Jem said, deliberately choosing to echo Gabe’s uncle’s words to him. He smiled at Gabe reassuringly.

In the days that followed, they traveled to Gabe’s uncle’s. Micah Creed told them that his brother had already come and gone. From his description, it must have been just after Gabe went missing. At the time, Micah hadn’t seen Gabe, so he’d been able to tell Creed very convincingly that he hadn’t seen him. As soon as Micah saw Gabe, he immediately made plans to move him to Wyoming and start a new life. Some remote place where his brother wouldn’t think to look.

Jem enlisted Adam Booker’s help in this. Once the young banker learned of Gabe’s predicament, he agreed to spread rumors that Micah had moved south to Texas. Creed might believe it too, since that was where Gabe’s mother was from. It was something. A start.

And the more Jem thought about it, the more it felt like it was time for him and Annie to make a fresh start too.

FORTY-NINE

Jem looked around their simple hotel room in Cheyenne. They’d departed from Micah Creed’s ranch earlier that day, after spending a few days there. They’d traveled north by train and found a quiet place to stay the night. Their bags were still packed, leaning up against the wall beneath the window. Outside, the sky was dark. A soft curtain of white snowflakes fell in the moonlight. The road and boardwalk below were already covered in a thin film of white.

“Feels strange not having Gabe here,” Jem said, hanging his coat and hat on a hook on the wall to dry. He’d thought a lot about Gabe on their journey here. Though Jem had been encouraged with Gabe’s progress, he also knew the boy’s healing would take time. The wounds on the inside would take even longer. And there’d be scars, in more ways than one.

“It does. I miss him,” Annie signed. Her glance strayed to their pile of belongings and her expression shifted to one of homesickness. “I miss Sugar too.”

“I miss Sugar,” Mae said, repeating Annie’s last sign and pouting.

“Ray’s taking good care of her,” Jem said, sharing a glance with Annie and smiling wryly. He’d thought about going back to Castle Ranch, many times, but every time it was like a wall rose up in his mind.

Going
toward
Major Elias Creed with Annie and Mae in tow didn’t set right.

“But I want her,” Mae said, her voice pitching higher and higher. She scrunched up her fists and her chin wobbled, the way it did when she was fixing to cry.

“I have something for you, Mae,” Annie signed quickly.

“You do?” Jem asked, then realized in the same moment that it was Mae’s birthday. And he didn’t have anything to give her. No cake. No gift. He’d plumb forgot with all that was going on.

“What is it?” Mae asked, calming instantly. She even signed the words. She was doing that more and more: copying Annie, understanding more, and now, even signing herself sometimes. Jem guessed she was copying him too, for she spoke whenever she signed.

* * *

Annie quickly retrieved her carpetbag. She reached inside, lifted out the doll she’d made, and brought it to Mae. Her heart gave a nervous little skip as she watched Mae’s face. She wanted so much for her to love it.

“For me?” Mae’s eyes went round, taking the doll into her hands like it was a delicate glass globe.

“For your birthday,” Annie signed, spelling birthday. She glanced at Jem, fearing Mae wouldn’t understand, and he repeated the words aloud.

“It’s my birthday?” Mae still held the doll away from her, as if it might break.

“Happy birthday, lamb,” Jem said. His voice sounded a bit thick to Annie’s ears.

Mae frowned ever-so-slightly at the term of endearment, but never lost her focus on the doll. Her fingers traced over each white cherry blossom and each whimsical honey bee on her doll’s dress.

“So pretty,” she whispered reverently. Then suddenly her eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip stuck out.

Annie looked at Jem, concerned.

“Annie made that from your mama’s dress, didn’t she?” he asked.

Annie held her breath. Had she done the wrong thing by cutting it up? She’d thought Mae would like it. Love it. That it might be a small treasure. A fanciful thought, perhaps. But hadn’t Mae loved that dress? She’d seemed so entranced by this particular fabric that day. It seemed to hold special meaning to her. Maybe, somehow, the little girl had connected that dress to a particular memory of her mother...

Now Annie had ruined it. She’d ruined Mae’s special day too.

Mae just shrugged in response to Jem’s question.

“Now you can have something of Mama’s always.”

That Mae remembered her mother and this dress was astounding on one level. But perhaps it wasn’t that strange. Without realizing, Jem had likely kept her memory fresh by setting Lorelei’s picture out. Other memories—like the dress—maybe those went deeper. Annie certainly had some very strong memories from when she was little. Nothing very happy, but memories of her mother just the same. Little glimpses that had gotten stuck there.

Suddenly, Mae was in her lap, the doll smushed between them as Mae crushed Annie in a hug.

“I love her,” Mae whispered fiercely. “It’s just what I always wanted.”

What she always wanted
, Annie thought, her arms going around Mae. She felt equal parts like crying and giggling. Mae was only three. How could she possibly have anything that she’d
always
wanted?

This delightful girl was
hers
now. Annie might never be the same as Mae’s real mama, but she’d have
this
. Annie held Mae closer and sniffed the sweet scent of her baby-fine curls.

Jem captured her attention with a clearing of his throat.

Thank you
, he signed behind Mae’s back, mouthing the words at the same time.

Annie compressed her lips. She wanted to produce a breezy little smile, but it wouldn’t come. Tears were closer, and she didn’t want to cry. Not on Mae’s birthday. They already didn’t have a cake to celebrate with. She was a bit surprised that Mae hadn’t mentioned that fact yet.

So Annie simply closed her eyes and rested her head against Mae’s. That lasted for less than ten seconds, for Mae scrambled down and hurried over to Jem. She kissed his smooth cheek and patted it approvingly, then scampered off to flop down on her cot with the doll. She lay there chatting happily with it until her eyelids drooped, and within minutes she’d fallen asleep. Perhaps it was the snow. There was a hushed quality about the snowy night. Their little hotel room seemed stuffed with cotton, cozy.

“Should we change her into her nightgown?” Jem mused aloud. He took Annie’s hands in his and tugged her to her feet. Then she was in his arms.

“She’ll be fine,” he answered himself in a higher feminine-sounding voice. “That’s what you wanted to say, right?”

Annie nodded, bemused.

She was even more bemused when he bent his head and kissed her.

* * *

Jem stood in the middle of the hotel room, holding Annie. He’d seen her give that doll to Mae. He’d recognized that fabric. Mae had loved that dress, even as a baby. Seeing it again had shaken something loose inside him. All those good memories they’d had. He’d wiped those all away for too long. It was clear to him now, as if someone had written it on the wall for him to read...he’d been punishing himself for not saving Lorelei.

Could he have saved her?

Looking back, he’d done the best he could with what he’d known.

He wished he could go back and bring her to Colorado Springs, up in the clean air of the Garden of the Gods. She would have liked being home. Maybe she would have rebounded. Maybe a better doctor could have helped her...

Somehow just knowing he would go back and live it all over again helped in some strange way. He’d risk the pain of going through her death again, just for the chance of doing things better.

The thing is
, a small voice of truth whispered through him,
you can’t go back
. You could wish things were different, and you could even resolve to be a better man going forward, but you couldn’t ever go back.

He’d already made that resolution. He’d taken on the task of healing Gabe, and he’d done it without doubting himself. He’d simply done what he could. It felt like he’d fulfilled some inner calling, some voice of the divine. He’d been called forth to help Gabe when he could and however he could, and he’d done it. He healed Gabe’s wounds, kept him from dying.

Had that given him the confidence to enact a plan of escape? Maybe.

Whatever the reason, he’d never felt so free.

Gabe was in a safer place because of him. Not just from Jem’s actions, of course, but he’d played a necessary part.

Jem stroked a hand over his clean-shaven face, marveling at how smooth it was, how he was almost his old self. No, he was more like a
new
man. And he was ready to go home. To Seattle. With Mae and Annie.

Annie shifted restlessly against him, and he let her pull away to look at him. She tilted her head to one side as if trying to peer inside his thoughts.

“I’ve been thinking—” He cleared his throat.

She raised her brows, inviting him to continue.

“It’s a lot—a lot to say, I mean—so this may take a while.”

She nodded, a thoughtful expression crossing her face, not quite worried, but a little hesitant. Perhaps she wasn’t sure if she was ready to hear whatever it was he had to say.

“It’s not bad,” he promised.

She smiled in a similar hesitant fashion, and he supposed he was going to have to prove it to her.

He cleared his throat again, knowing he was going to have to draw down to a place inside him that made him deeply uncomfortable, but it had to be done, he felt, in order for them to go on properly with their lives. For the good of their future. And he wanted a good future with Annie. She deserved it. Mae deserved it. Maybe even he deserved it too.

“I’ve been thinking,” he repeated. “Late at night, in those moments where my mind drifts...and it’s nothing new...but... Well, this is what I realized: Life’s too short not to live it to the full. Life’s too short not to love fully.”

Her eyes widened, but her hands were completely still at her sides, not saying anything.

“I’ve been living in a box, all nailed shut.” Jem made a loose fist and banged it against his thigh. He’d never felt so restless just from having to say something. “I can’t live that way anymore. I can’t do it. It’s time to live. I choose to live. I choose you. And I choose Mae. Family. I choose life.”

She brought her hand up to her heart, perhaps capturing his words to save for later. A romantic notion, but one that seemed to fit.

“I love you,” he said. “I love
you
, Annie.”

She quickly gestured back, making the signs for
I love you
.
I love you, Jem.
He’d never seen anything more beautiful, the way her slim hands moved through the air, making the motions.

“Will you have me? Marry me?” he asked.

“We’re already married.” She let out a little laugh as she signed. Her face was wet with tears. He hoped the good kind. She was smiling too, which he took as a good sign.

“If we had it to do over, would you?”

One simple
yes
. No hesitating now. She was amazing.

“Me too.” He reached into his inside coat pocket and produced an intricately etched gold band that he’d bought when he and Ray had first visited the doctor in Colorado Springs about Gabe. He’d tucked the ring away that day. A ring he hadn’t had the nerve to give to her yet—one he’d been carrying around since before they left Castle Ranch. “In sickness and in health, till death do us part?”

She nodded happily, her lips pressed together, her expression melting a bit, that look of more tears threatening.

Jem kept his words simple and heartfelt. “Me too. In sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer—and whatever else—I take you, till death do us part.” He glanced up at the hotel ceiling.
Please, Lord, not for anytime soon
.

He paused, thinking of the big fancy wedding they’d gone to. The sight of her swirling around the dance floor with Gabe. How happy she’d looked.

“I’m sorry there’s no dancing, no banquet,” he said. “Or lots of folks dressed up to celebrate with us.”

She was already shaking her head before he finished. “That doesn’t matter,” she signed. “I don’t want that. Lots of people.”

“Well, what about Ray and Ben, and Mae?” He glanced at Mae, now flopped on her back, deep asleep. Missing their vows. “All of us, all together? We could plan a proper wedding...”

Whenever and wherever that would be.

She stomped her foot twice, laughing.
No
.

“No waiting,” she added, signing definitively.

He placed the ring on her finger and kissed the palm of her hand quickly, partly out of gratitude, and partly because he could, anytime he wanted to.