The Cowboy Takes a Bride (28 page)

“So . . .” Mariah gulped. “It’s just you and me.”

“Yes.”

“Alone.”

Their gazes locked.

Unnerved, Mariah was the first to break the stare. “What is that heavenly smell?”

“Chicken soup. I put it in the Crock-Pot last night.”

“I’m starving.”

“How about oatmeal and cinnamon toast for breakfast? We can have the soup for lunch.”

“You can cook?”

“My mother believed a man should be able to make his own meals. She taught all us kids to cook. My dad taught my sisters how to change the oil in their cars.”

“Smart parents.” Mariah weaved on her feet.

“Hey.” Joe rushed to cover the distance between them. “You’re still shaky as a newborn fawn. C’mon, I’ll get you set up on the couch.”

He took her by the hand, guided her into the living room, and installed her on the wide leather couch. He covered her with a lap blanket decorated with stampeding horses, turned on the TV, put the remote control and a box of tissues within her reach. “Now, you snuggle in while I tend to breakfast.”

After breakfast, Joe built a fire in the fireplace. Outside, heavy rains lashed against the windows. He paced back and forth in front of the window, a caged lion anxious for escape.

She had to wonder if he was restless because of being stuck here with her.

“Relax. Come sit.” She patted the spot on the sofa beside her.

He eased down, keeping a cushion between them.

“Got any games we could play?” she asked.

“We’ve got dominoes. It was Bec—” He stopped.

“Dominoes would be great,” Mariah said brightly, putting a big smile on her face. He should be able to say Becca’s name without feeling awkward. The woman had been his wife. Nothing would ever change that fact. Still, it made Mariah feel . . .
lonely
. Joe’s heart was still twined up with his dead wife. She didn’t know what to say about it, so she didn’t say anything.

They played dominoes with the smell of chicken soup in the air and the warm crackle of mesquite wood burning in the fireplace and the sound of relentless wind and driving rain pounding against the house. Lightning flashed. Thunder snapped like gunfire.

After ten games, they were tied five to five. Evenly matched.

“Do you feel up for hot chocolate?” he asked.

“Hot chocolate sounds great. You keep spoiling me like this and I’ll never want to go back to my cabin.”

“I could make us some popcorn too. See if there’s any good movies on TV.”

“You are the host with the most,” she said.

A few minutes later, Joe was back on the couch with her, two mugs of hot chocolate and a big bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of them. Joe took over the remote control, flipping from channel to channel.

He zoomed past Tom Hanks standing at a gravesite.

“Sleepless in Seattle
! My favorite movie. Go back, go back.”

Joe flipped the channel back to the opening credits of
Sleepless in Seattle.

It was only when Tom Hanks’s character told his son, Jonah, that they didn’t ask why, that it fully dawned on Mariah that the movie was about a man who’d lost his beloved wife.

To Mariah, this quintessential romance was a tale of fate, destiny, two people who were meant to be together. She’d never given the fact that Hanks’s character, Sam, was a widower much thought. Yes, widower status was what made Sam so appealing, but now, here with Joe, all Mariah could think about was that Joe had suffered the way the Tom Hanks character was suffering. When Becca had died, he had lost his true north, his romantic compass, and now here was this movie rubbing his nose in it.

Mariah gulped. “That’s okay. You can change the channel. I’ve seen this show a hundred times.”

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” Joe asked. “Watching this show with me because it’s about a widower?”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Does it make
you
uncomfortable?”

Joe drew in a breath so deep she heard it from her side of the couch. “This movie is about a widower’s struggle to come to terms with his wife’s death?”

“You’ve never seen it?”

“Bits and pieces. Not the whole thing.”

“That’s partially what it’s about. It’s also about acceptance and how you never really know where you belong until you accept circumstances for the way they are rather than what you wish they were.”

“Then let’s watch it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hey, maybe Tom can give me some tips.”

“Okay,” she said. “But feel free to change the channel if anything bothers you.”

At first, the tension in the room was palpable, but as the movie went along, Mariah could feel Joe relaxing. Maybe when the show was over he would be able to talk to her about Becca. The trouble was she didn’t really want to hear about her, but if talking could help Joe move on with his life, she’d listen.

Finally, they fell into a companionable silence, watching the Tom Hanks character keep himself walled off, watching Meg Ryan become engaged to the wrong man simply because she was so desperate for love.

Am I that desperate?
Was she trying to make herself fall in love with Joe?

Mariah slid a glance over at him, and she was surprised to find him glancing back. Their gazes hit, sparked, shot away like marbles bouncing off each other.

She wondered what he was feeling. Heck, she wondered what
she
was feeling. Joe was a special guy and she enjoyed being with him, but he’d been cut to the bone by the loss of his wife. Was it stupid to think he could ever love anyone as much as he’d loved Becca? She couldn’t replace his wife, didn’t want to replace her. But she couldn’t deny her growing feelings for him.

They both reached for a handful of popcorn at the same time, their knuckles grazing as they dug in. Instantly, the tension was back, but it was a different kind of tension this time.

Sexual tension. Blistering and tight.

Mariah quickly moved her hand, focused on the TV screen. It was the part where Annie walked right past Sam in the airport and he feels
something,
even though he doesn’t know her. When Sam mutters to himself, “God, she’s beautiful,” and tries to follow Annie, it was one of those magical movie moments that took Mariah’s breath.

But no matter how hard she tried to concentrate on the story, every nerve ending of her body sang with awareness of the man sitting beside her. The sexy man who compelled her the same way Sam compelled Annie. He’d suffered so much. All she wanted to do was take the pain away.

She fisted her hands against her thighs clad in the pink lounging pajamas that had once belonged to his wife. Her throat constricted. Her shoulders tightened. Restlessly, she wriggled her toes inside the thick woolen socks. She could feel the heat radiating off Joe’s body. Or maybe her fever was back. She certainly felt . . . unlike herself.

The television station cut to commercial. Joe muted the noise.

“They could have gotten together much sooner if Annie had just realized that she was settling instead of holding out for the magic of true love. And if Sam would have let go of the idea that it wasn’t possible to have two great loves in one lifetime,” Mariah babbled, simply to fill the silence, punctuated only by the sound of driving rain.

“Then there wouldn’t have been a movie,” Joe pointed out.

Mariah sighed. “Such pain they both suffered.”

“Foolish Annie,” he said. “Blind Sam. Luckily they had Jonah or they would never have met.”

“All great matches need a Jonah to facilitate things I suppose,” Mariah said. “How did you and Becca meet?”

Joe shrugged. “We knew each other all our lives. We both grew up right here in Jubilee. But it wasn’t until I saw her competing at an out-of-town rodeo that she really caught my eye. Before that, I had my head so deep into bull riding that I didn’t pay any attention to anything else. The men were all over Becca and I thought,
I’ve got to make her mine or lose out forever
.”

“How long were you married?”

“Just two years. She’s been gone as long as we were married.”

“We don’t have to talk about her . . .” Mariah paused. “Unless you want to.”

“You don’t want to hear about my heartbreak.”

“I do,” she said, and reached out to put a hand on his forearm. “But only if you’re comfortable talking about her with me.”

“Sam had an advantage,” Joe said, nodding at the actors on the television screen and turning the volume back up. “He got to tell Annie his history over a radio call-in show. It’s much harder face-to-face.”

They fell silent again.

Later in the movie when Annie and Sam looked across the road at each other in that moment of recognition, Joe reached across the couch and took Mariah’s hand.

The gesture stilled her breathing.

“This is a good movie,” he said softly when it was over. “Gives a lonely guy hope.”

Her heart jumped.
Thump-thump.

He squeezed her fingers. “Sam hung on to his grief for too long.”

“Everyone grieves at their own pace.”

“Yes,” he said, “but if you keep holding on to what’s gone, you miss out on what’s right in front of you.”

She tilted her head, afraid to hope, but wanting to so badly.

Joe leaned in closer.

Mariah held her breath.

His lips brushed hers, soft and sweet. It was a languid kiss with no expectations or promises. Just pure and simple. His lips against hers. Then he pulled back, said nothing else, but kept holding her hand.

“You know,” she said, feeling the need to say something, anything to center the sudden dizziness spinning her head. “The fictional call-in show featured in the movie really does exist in Chicago.”

“No kidding?”

“I used to listen to it when I’d get down about my own life. It helped me feel like I wasn’t alone. That other people were out there who felt the same way I did.”

“Is the show still on the air?”

“Yes. It’s called
Midnight with Dr. Dana
. It’s only satellite radio now.”

“I’m assuming it comes on at midnight.”

“That’s when most people need to talk. In the middle of the night. Alone and hurting, having a crisis of faith.”

“Did you ever call in?”

“No, but I wanted to. After I lost my job.”

“Do you think it was odd the way Annie fell for Sam simply over what he said on the radio? I mean she’d never seen him. He could have been a toad.”

“I don’t think that it would have mattered to Annie. She fell in love with who Sam was inside, not what he looked like. They shared the same values, even if they had opposing beliefs about love.”

“Opposing beliefs? I didn’t pick up on that.”

“Sure, Sam believed you only got one shot at happiness. Annie loved everyone. Even people that didn’t deserve her love like Walter. She had a tendency to sell herself short. Sam on the other hand, wanted lightning to strike. He believed in grand love or nothing at all.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“I’ve seen the movie a lot. It really resonates with me.”

“Why is that?” He rubbed his thumb over the backs of her knuckles.

“I think it’s the message of hope. That you truly can have a second chance at happiness.”

He snorted.

“There you go. Disbelieving, just like Sam.”

“I’m not saying I don’t believe in love. Just that it’s hard to put your heart back in the vise again when you already had it cracked like a walnut.”

Mariah smiled. “But cracks are how the light gets in.”

He looked startled. “That’s insightful.”

“Can’t take credit. I heard it in a song somewhere.”

“But you remembered it. Points for that.”

She touched his shoulder. “Tell me about her.”

Joe clenched his fists, his face was unreadable but he couldn’t hide the tension in his jaw. Mariah had always been able to read people easily. She’d grown up watching for cues, looking for signs from others that told her how to behave in order to get along in a world that wasn’t her own. She’d learned well. Excelled at pretending to be something she wasn’t. Toe the line. Do what’s expected of you if you want to be of value.

Mariah swallowed against the emotions pushing inside her. Emotions she didn’t quite understand. Her impulse was to wrap her arms around Joe and tell him that she was so sorry he’d lost his beloved.

“I . . . I have trouble talking about her.”

“Maybe that’s the problem,” she ventured, even though the cautious side of her that had shot her to success was screaming at her to just let things lie. It was none of her business. And yet, as impossible as it might seem, she couldn’t just leave well enough alone. “You’re keeping all your emotions jammed up inside you. If you talked, let them out, maybe you could let go.”