The Marriage Pact (Hqn) (26 page)

Jim shifted in the saddle, stood up briefly in the stirrups as if to stretch his legs. “Thing is, we figure we’d rather be in town. ’Specially when winter comes on. Pauline’s the sociable type, and she likes going to church and belonging to book clubs and the like. She’s real taken with Mustang Creek, so I reckon we’ll get ourselves a little house on a quiet street and live like city folks.”

“What about you?” Tripp asked carefully. At least they hadn’t decided to set up housekeeping in some faraway place. “You’ve lived on this ranch your whole life, Jim. It’s your home—”

Jim interrupted with a sigh and a shake of the head. “Son, I’ve got a
new
life now, with Pauline. And I meant it, a while back, when I told you I’ve had my fill of bad winters and sick cattle and all the rest of it. If you don’t want this place, that’s one thing, but I think you do, hard as you’ve worked. And if I’m right, well, the best thing I can imagine would be to see you and Hadleigh turning this old spread into the kind of home it once was and ought to be again.” The old man paused, brooded for a while and then grinned. “You’ll see to that? Make sure I get some grandchildren out of the deal?”

Tripp
did
love the ranch; it was home, pure and simple. Still, he couldn’t see letting Jim just hand it over, especially when he could well afford to pay a fair price. He was about to say that, or something like it, when Jim frowned for real and held up a hand in a familiar bid for silence.

“I may not be rich,” he said, his tone as stern and unyieldingly earnest as his manner, “but I’ve got all I need and then some.
Damn
it, Tripp, a man wants to pass something on to his son—you’ll understand that one day. And I would’ve done the same for a daughter. I’m just hoping you’ll respect my decision, because it isn’t going to change.”

Tripp was silent for a long time, absorbing what his dad had said. He’d heard a version of the speech before, soon after his return to Mustang Creek, but now realized he must not have registered how important this whole living legacy thing really was to Jim.

Sure, there was probably some cussed male pride in the equation, but there was a much deeper meaning beneath that, solid as bedrock. Handing down a ranch that had been in the family for generations, a place he’d worked and prayed and fought to keep, was a declaration on Jim’s part:
You are my son.

He’d said that often, right from the first. And he’d walked his talk, with never a misstep.

Tripp knew in that moment—in fact, he was downright thunderstruck by the insight—that he’d always held something back from Jim, that he’d been afraid to trust so profound a gift, believing it was what it seemed, too good to be true. Just beneath the surface of awareness, he’d considered himself an outsider, well treated but an outsider all the same, somebody who wouldn’t have been there if he wasn’t part of a package deal. He’d been a kid and he’d reasoned like one, concluding that if Jim loved Ellie and wanted to make her his wife, then, like it or not, that meant taking in her boy, too.

Well, damn it, Tripp thought, he wasn’t a kid anymore, so there went that excuse. He was a man now, and he loved a woman, Hadleigh, with his whole being, every breath, every heartbeat. And he knew for sure that if
she’d
already
had a child when they decided to get married—hell, if she’d had a
dozen
—he’d have made room in his heart, just as Jim had done for him.

Because that was what a good man did when he loved a woman. He loved who she was now, and who she would become as the years passed—and he loved the person she’d been before he entered the picture in the first place, if only because being
there
had
inevitably led to being
here.
If he’d found himself with a ready-made family, so much the better.

Jim spoke up, interrupting Tripp’s ruminations. “You gonna give me an answer, son, or you gonna sit there staring at the creek for the rest of the day?”

Tripp had to look away for a moment, though he did manage a hoarse laugh that barely made it past his throat. When he met Jim’s gaze, he was grinning. “All right, old man,” he said. “You win. I’ll take this ranch, and see that it thrives and be damn grateful to you for the rest of my days.” He paused, swallowed. “And not just because you’re handing the place over, either. I’ll make you proud, Dad. I promise.”

Jim pointed an index finger at him and said, poker-faced, “It so happens that I’m already proud—have been since the first time I laid eyes on you—but you see that it stays that way. You know I think mighty highly of Hadleigh. She’s the daughter I never had, till now. You’d better be good to her, because you’ll have me to deal with if you aren’t.”

Tripp turned his horse and rode alongside Jim, so they were facing each other, though pointed in different directions. He put out a hand. “I love that woman way too much to be anything
but
good to her,” he said, his voice catching. “You have my word.”

Jim took the offered hand, and they shook on it. Then Jim reached out, put his arm around Tripp’s neck, and hauled him close enough that their heads knocked together. They both laughed and drew apart, but the old bond between them, formed long ago, still held, stronger than ever.

* * *

D
IFFERENT
DRESS
.

Different man.

Same church and, for the most part, same guests packing the pews, lining the walls and filling the choir loft. Same preacher, too.

Peeking out of the little room just off the sanctuary, Hadleigh wondered if Mr. Deever was wearing overalls under his ministerial robes, in anticipation of the chores awaiting him on his farm. But a second later, her attention was riveted on the man she was about to marry, standing straight and tall next to the altar, with Spence Hogan as his best man.

For the merest fraction of a moment, Hadleigh thought she saw Will, alive and whole and handsome in his dress uniform, in Spence’s place, and she had to swallow back tears. Though she hadn’t seen her, she knew Gram was there, too, sharing in the celebration.

Bex, looking seriously good in her much-maligned bridesmaid’s dress, as Melody did in hers, tugged at the lacy sleeve of Hadleigh’s bridal gown and whispered, “For Pete’s sake, somebody will see you if you aren’t careful!”

“Horrors,” Melody said, with a smile and a roll of the eyes.

“It’s bad luck,” Bex insisted. “Nobody is supposed to see the bride before the ceremony—what if
Tripp
had glanced over here?”

“
We
see the bride,” Melody reasoned. She slipped one arm around Bex’s shoulders and the other around Hadleigh’s. “And she’s beautiful.”

“Don’t,”
Hadleigh pleaded, blinking furiously. “If I cry, my mascara will run.”

“Now that,”
Melody teased, “would qualify as bad luck.”

They stepped apart, and Hadleigh lifted her right hand into a shaft of sunlight. The horse charm dangled, glowing, from her bracelet.

“The marriage pact forever,” she said.

Bex and Melody both reached up, bracelets shining, and they all clasped each other’s hands.

“Forever,” Melody confirmed.

“Or until we’re all married,” Bex said. “Whichever comes first and, sometimes, I think it’ll be ‘forever.’”

Hadleigh leaned in, letting her forehead rest against Bex’s. “Have faith
,”
she whispered with a smile.

“Yeah,” Melody agreed. “What good is a sacred pact if you don’t believe in it?”

Before Bex could answer, there was a light rap at the door, beyond which was a short corridor that led to the church’s small entryway. At Hadleigh’s “come in,” Jim Galloway stuck his still-handsome head into the room and winked at his future daughter-in-law.

“You ready, beautiful lady?” he asked.

Hadleigh smiled back at him. “I’m
ready,” she replied, as Melody and Bex moved in to fuss with her veil and fluff out her copious skirts.

Bex took the bouquets out of their boxes and handed Hadleigh the spill of yellow roses and ribbon and Queen Anne’s lace, assembled by a local woman. She and Melody would carry white carnations, accented with ribbons that matched their dresses.

Jim crooked an arm for Hadleigh, and she took it, feeling a swell of warmth for this man who already regarded her as a daughter. They followed Melody and Bex through the hall, Hadleigh’s dress barely fitting between the walls and making a lovely rustling sound as she moved.

Once they’d gathered in the entry, alongside racks of pamphlets, carefully folded newsletters and collection envelopes, Melody stepped into the wide doorway and, that being the organist’s cue, the music started.

For Hadleigh, everything and everyone seemed surrounded by a warm, golden haze. If this was a dream, she thought, she definitely did not want to wake up—ever.

Melody proceeded up the aisle, with Bex a few paces behind.

Then the first notes of the wedding march sounded, and, leaning on Jim’s arm, Hadleigh stepped onto the threshold of forever.

When the congregation stood, Hadleigh wasn’t looking at them, but
beyond
them, to the place where Tripp stood, waiting for her, that slight grin curving his lips.

Most brides probably remember their weddings in great detail, but that day, Hadleigh was the exception. All she could see was Tripp; even Mr. Deever had become a blur of robe and man and Bible.

Still, she managed to respond when it was her turn.

Did she take this man to be her lawful wedded husband?

She did. Oh, yes, she definitely did!

“Hadleigh?” Mr. Deever prompted, in a whisper.

“I do!” she cried exuberantly, causing a ripple of affectionate laughter to move through the congregation. They’d been a tense group, though Hadleigh wouldn’t realize that until much later, when she watched the recording. They’d relaxed with a collective sigh and a slackening of shoulders only after Mr. Deever got past the does-anyone-object part of the ceremony.

No one did, of course, because everybody in Bliss County believed Tripp and Hadleigh were meant for each other, with the possible exception of Oakley Smyth, who was gracious enough to stay away. Or, in any case, smarter than most people would have given him credit for.

After the minister pronounced the happy couple husband and wife, and Tripp had raised Hadleigh’s veils and kissed her with a thoroughness that would stir up gossip for months to come, the organist struck a triumphant chord.

Tripp, never a slave to tradition, swept his bride right off her feet and carried her down the aisle for the second time in a decade, a man in a hurry.

This
time, though, she was in his arms, not slung over his shoulder.

And she was smiling, eyes brimming with joyous tears, mascara be darned, instead of kicking and yelling in protest.

* * *

T
HE
RECEPTION
,
HELD
in the meeting room of the public library, directly across the street from the church, seemed endless to Tripp. He wanted to be alone with his wife, and that was pretty much all he could think about, which made him wary of standing anywhere but behind a table or any other waist-high object he could find.

He smiled for the pictures.

He and Hadleigh fed each other cake, and they were both feeling so rambunctious that the ritual nearly turned into a food fight.

The first dance was a combination of ecstasy and torment. At least, Tripp was holding Hadleigh in his arms. There was all that dress between them, but he still felt her soft, warm curves as surely as if they’d both been naked.

Finally, it was time to leave, and Tripp didn’t waste a second. He grabbed Hadleigh’s hand and headed straight for the nearest exit, much to the amusement of the guests, who probably planned on dancing till dawn.

Let them eat, drink and be merry.

Tripp had other plans, and they didn’t involve a crowd.

* * *

H
ADLEIGH
LAUGHED
WHEN
her new husband bundled her, billowing dress and all, into the passenger seat of his truck, groped around until he’d located both ends of her seat belt and fastened it.

“This all seems strangely familiar,” she teased. “Are we going to Bad Billy’s?”

Tripp bent his head and nipped playfully at Hadleigh’s lace-covered breast. “Not unless you want to stir up the mother of all scandals,” he drawled, his eyes blazing blue as he looked into her face.

Hadleigh’s decorum, none too sturdy in the first place, completely deserted her. She groaned softly. “I’m all for the stirring up part,” she murmured, flushed, “but let’s keep the scandal to ourselves.”

“Good idea,” Tripp said.

A moment later, he was behind the wheel and they were moving.

They hadn’t planned a honeymoon trip, for the simple reason that they both wanted to spend their wedding night in their bedroom at the ranch house, not in some hotel. Home, after all, was where their story would begin.

Tripp drove like a crazy man, but they didn’t quite make it to the ranch.

Instead, he pulled off onto a side road, parked the truck in a copse of trees and looked over at Hadleigh. “Well, Mrs. Galloway, if you’re willing, I’m about to have you.”

Heat surged through Hadleigh. “I’m ready, Mr. Galloway,” she said.

Tripp got out of the truck, came around to her side, found the snap on her seat belt with some difficulty and lifted her down. They stood facing each other, in cool shadows and pine needles and sweet silence.

Hadleigh turned so her back was to Tripp, and he unfastened what seemed like nine million buttons, which took forever. Finally, though, Hadleigh stepped out of the magnificent dress and faced Tripp again, wearing only her silk petticoat, a delicate camisole with a built-in bra, stockings and garters. She’d slipped out of her shoes the moment she’d gotten into the truck.

Tripp made a strangled sound that thrilled Hadleigh, and, finally, he kissed her.

“My dress,” she reminded him when she could breathe again. She wanted their daughters to wear that gown at
their
weddings, and maybe their daughters’ daughters, too.