“I’m not staying with Regan, either.”
Margaret frowned. “You’re not planning on being all the way out at Crooked Creek with Kenzie and Spencer?”
“No,” she agreed. “I’m planning to be all the way out at the Circle G. With Caleb.”
“Oh, Brie.” Her mother shook her head despairingly. “You haven’t hooked up with him again, have you?”
“As it turns out, we’ve always been hooked up,” Brie said. “Caleb and I are still married.”
“I don’t understand... You signed the divorce papers before you went to New York.”
“I did,” Brie confirmed. “But Caleb never did.”
“Ben!” Margaret called out, summoning her husband.
“What is it?” he asked. “Oh, Brie,” he said, when he saw her face on the screen. “How are you, honey?”
“She’s married,” Margaret interjected in response to his question.
“What? You eloped again?”
“No,” Brie spoke up. “Of course not.”
“Apparently she’s still married to Caleb Gilmore,” Margaret explained. “Because he didn’t sign the divorce papers.”
“Is he demanding some kind of financial settlement?” Ben asked. “Does he want money?”
“No,” she said again, rolling her eyes. “Caleb’s not after my money.”
“Maybe she can get an annulment,” Margaret suggested, speaking to her husband as if their daughter’s wishes weren’t a factor to be taken into consideration. Because Brie’s wishes had never been of any concern.
She responded anyway, determined to be heard this time. “I don’t want an annulment.”
“Well, you can’t want to be married to him,” her mother insisted.
“Actually, I can and I do,” she said. “And before you say anything else, you should know that I’m only coming for dinner on Thanksgiving if my husband is invited, too.”
Chapter Fourteen
“I can’t believe you gave them an ultimatum,” Caleb said, when Brie recounted the conversation to him later that night.
“I realized that if I wanted them to respect me as an adult, dammit—I had to show them that I was willing to stand by my choices.”
“You might have asked if I was willing to stand by your choices.” His teasing remark earned him a small smile, but he could tell that she was still upset about the friction with her parents.
“You can sit beside me at the table,” she said. “And be happy that Celeste is doing the cooking.”
“Did you confirm what time the meal will be served?”
“It’s always at one o’clock.”
“So we’ll have lunch with your family and dinner with mine and run screaming into the night afterward,” he said. “Although you won’t be the only Blake at the Gilmore table this year.”
“Ashley’s going to be there?” she guessed.
“And Valerie.”
“It’s still weird to think that my cousin is your half sister.”
“That doesn’t mean that we’re related,” he assured her. “Except by marriage, I mean.”
“Lucky for us,” she noted.
“And our baby.”
She smiled again, as she always did when thinking about their child. And because she was happy at the thought of seeing her baby’s daddy in person very soon.
“You’re getting an early start on your packing,” Lily noted, when she walked by Brie’s room a short while later and saw the suitcase on her bed.
She gestured to the laundry basket on her bed. “It doesn’t make sense to put my clothes in a dresser today only to take them out again two days later.”
Lily nodded. “I understand. It’s all about efficiency and has nothing to do with the fact that you’re excited to spend the holiday with your sexy cowboy.”
“Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t looking forward to seeing Caleb,” she pointed out.
Her friend was chuckling as Grace entered the room with a pair of jeans in her hands. “You left these hanging in the laundry room, and I thought you might want them for your trip.”
Brie added them to her suitcase, then took them out again. “I can barely do the button up now. There’s no way they’ll stay fastened after a turkey dinner.”
“Or two turkey dinners,” her friend teased.
“Yeah,” she sighed, silently acknowledging that wardrobe options were the least of her worries.
“Having second thoughts about a meal with his family?” Lily guessed.
“More about my family,” she admitted. “Because if that doesn’t go well, we might not make it back to the Circle G.”
“It’s going to be fine,” Lily said soothingly.
“Easy for you to say—you’re going to be in Connecticut for the holiday.”
“And you’re going to be cuddling Spencer and Kenzie’s new baby,” Grace said, because she knew that image would soothe her friend’s worries.
“And Jason and Alyssa’s baby, too,” Lily added, naming Brie’s other brother and sister-in-law.
“What? When did that happen?” Grace asked.
“Just a few hours ago,” Brie said.
“And I’m only hearing about this now?”
“You only got home a short while ago.”
“A little girl. Seven pounds ten ounces.” Lily, who had been home when Brie got the call, filled in the details for their roommate. “After only four hours of labor.”
Grace looked at Brie. “Is that true?”
She nodded. “Jason said her water broke at 12:35, just after they finished having lunch, and Lucy was born at 4:38.”
“Impressive,” Grace said. “But you do know that’s not normal, right?”
“I know,” she confirmed. “Regan was in labor twenty-two hours with the twins and Kenzie for fifteen with Owen.” Then she frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Lily asked.
“Nothing, really. I was just thinking about something Caleb said when he came to New York for the ultrasound.
“I mean, I don’t want to be one of those women who suffers with contractions for days before giving birth, but even fifteen hours probably isn’t long enough for Caleb to get here in time for our baby to be born. Anything less is definitely not.”
“Do you really think you’ll still be living here in May?” Grace asked gently.
Her brow furrowed as she glanced from one friend to the other. “Are you planning on kicking me out?”
“Of course not,” Lily assured her.
“Unless we have to,” Grace said.
“I don’t understand. What happened to turning the upstairs office into a nursery?”
“What happened is that we realized we were being selfish,” Lily said.
“I thought you were being supportive,” she said, as she folded her favorite pink sweater into her suitcase.
“I know you’re afraid of risking your heart again,” Grace said. “But Caleb loves you. I don’t think he ever stopped loving you.”
“Then why, in the more than seven years that we were apart, did he never once come to New York to see me? To tell me how he felt? To fight for our relationship?”
“Stupid male pride,” Grace guessed.
“Or maybe he did try to get in touch with you,” Lily suggested. “But he didn’t know where you were living or how to reach you.”
Brie couldn’t deny that was a valid point. “But if it had been important to him, he could have asked my sister to relay a message or forward a letter,” she argued.
“And what if we hadn’t connected in Las Vegas that weekend?” she wondered. “What if Joe had decided to get married a week earlier or a week later? Even a day earlier or later and our paths might never have crossed. How much longer would he have waited to tell me that we were still married?”
“I think it does,” she said stubbornly.
“But you’re the one who left,” Lily pointed out. “Why would he chase after you?”
“To let me know that I was worth chasing after.” She swiped at the tear that spilled onto her cheek.
“Oh, honey. You were eighteen years old. He was barely twenty,” Grace reminded her. “You were both young and stupid—don’t let those mistakes get in the way of your future together now.”
“He loves you,” Lily said, taking up the cause again. “After everything he’s done over the past few months, you can’t honestly doubt that.”
Brie sighed. “I don’t doubt that he loves me, I just don’t know that love is enough to overcome the animosity between our families.”
“Love is everything,” Lily insisted. “And just as important as the fact that he loves you is that you obviously love him, too.
“And you can say whatever you want about your life being here, but everyone in this room knows that your heart is in Haven.”
She closed the lid of her suitcase and zipped it up.
“You’ve always been meticulous about details,” Grace noted. “You check and double-check to ensure you’ve crossed every t and dotted every i.”
“Are we on a new topic now?” Brie wondered aloud.
“No,” Grace said. “We’re pointing out that you left the divorce papers with Caleb but never followed up to make sure he signed them.”
“And in all of the seven years that came after, you never once checked to be sure that the thread you’d left dangling had been tied off,” Lily added.
“Your point?” Brie asked wearily.
“Maybe you never really wanted the divorce,” Grace suggested.
“Because you never stopped loving him,” Lily said again.
* * *
As promised, Caleb was at the airport to pick Brie up when she arrived. And although it was barely two o’clock in the afternoon, she struggled to keep her eyes open as the Jeep turned onto the highway to begin the hour-long journey to Haven. When she lifted a hand to stifle yet another yawn after they’d been on the road only a few minutes, she silently cursed her friends and the echo of their words that had caused her to toss and turn during the past few nights.
Maybe you never really wanted the divorce.
Because you never stopped loving him.
She yawned again, and Caleb assured her that he didn’t mind if she closed her eyes. So she did, and she was asleep before they were ten miles outside Elko. She didn’t wake up again until she heard a click when Caleb released the clasp of her seat belt.
He helped her out of the Jeep, then went to retrieve her suitcase from the back. And she stood for a long moment, just staring at the gorgeous two-story stone-and-timber house with a wide porch wrapped around three sides and huge windows that afforded sweeping views of the gorgeous landscape.
“Caleb, this is...wow.”
He grinned, obviously pleased with her reaction. “I’d hoped you’d like it.”
She followed him to the door, eager and a little apprehensive, too. Because she knew this was what he’d always wanted—his own house on the Circle G. And now that he finally had it, was he really willing to leave it all to be with her?
The front door opened into a wide foyer with natural stone tiles on the floor and textured walls. She kicked off her shoes to explore the rest of the house. The kitchen did not disappoint. The maple cabinets, granite counters and high-end appliances created a space that would entice even the most reluctant cook. The living room boasted a leather sectional facing the enormous flat-screen TV over a river rock fireplace flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out toward the Silver Ridge Mountains in the distance. Off the living room was an office, sparsely decorated with a desk and chair and one short bookcase. There was also what she assumed was a dining room, because it had a ceiling-mounted fixture that seemed designed to cast light over a long table, though the room was currently devoid of furniture.
“Did somebody come in and steal half your stuff while you were out?” she asked.
“Ha ha,” he said. “I’ve got everything I need for right now.”
“Unless you want to host a dinner party.”
“Upstairs is the master bedroom and bath,” he said, choosing to ignore her teasing comment as he carried her suitcase up the second level. “Plus a second bathroom and three more bedrooms. However, as those are currently empty, you’re going to have to bunk with me.”
She sighed, feigning disappointment. “If I must.”
Then she followed him into the master bedroom, and her jaw dropped as she realized he might have blown his entire furniture budget on this room. Possibly on the king-size mission-style platform bed alone.
“Can I go to bed now?” she asked. And without waiting for a response, she fell face-first onto the luxuriously thick slate-blue comforter and let out a blissful sigh.
Caleb chuckled and swatted her gently on the butt. “Get up.”
“But I’m tired,” she protested.
“You shouldn’t be—you slept the whole way from the airport.”
“Not the whole way,” she denied, still refusing to move.
“Okay,” he relented. “You stay here and rest. I’m going to get myself a bowl of ice cream.”
She lifted her head. “Ice cream?”
“You can have a nap now and ice cream later—if there’s any left.”
She pushed herself up off the bed. “I’m not taking any chances.”
She needn’t have worried. There were four different flavors in his freezer. She opted for a scoop of each of cherry chocolate chunk, chocolate chip and rocky road. He had two scoops of chocolate.
She teased him about eating dessert before dinner, but he insisted the ice cream was a pre-dinner snack, because dessert was, by definition, served at the end of a meal. They’d just finished their snack/dessert when a brisk knock sounded on the front door.
While Caleb went to see who was there, Brie put their bowls and spoons in the dishwasher. Then, drawn by the sound of voices in the foyer as much as her own curiosity, she peeked down the hall.
And immediately recognized Caleb’s grandfather.
Born and raised on the Circle G, Jack Gilmore looked every one of his eighty-four years, with deep lines etched into his tanned face and slightly bowed legs that attested to a lifetime in the saddle. But his body was still trim, his hair thick beneath the brim of his Resistol and his mind as sharp as a tack.
“Company?” The old man snorted, obviously in response to something his grandson had said. “You’re too ornery for anyone to come all the way out here to visit with you.”
Brie decided that was the perfect cue to announce her presence. “Hello, Mr. Gilmore.”
Jack snatched his hat off his head. “Brielle. When did you get back into town?”
She glanced at her watch. “About an hour ago.”
The old man’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “Your parents know you’re here?”
“They do,” she confirmed.
Jack’s gaze shifted to Caleb again, his expression worried. “Well, your grandmother wanted me to invite you to dinner tonight, so I’m extending the invitation to both of you.”
“Thanks,” Caleb said. “But we planned a quiet evening to brace ourselves for the chaos tomorrow.”
“You’ve still gotta eat,” his grandfather pointed out. “And it’s pot roast on the menu tonight.”
Caleb looked at Brie.
“Sounds good to me,” she said.
Jack smiled. “I’ll tell Evelyn to set the table for four. Dinner will be ready at six.”
“We’ll be there,” Brie said. “Thank you.”
* * *
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Caleb asked
, as they drove along the access road that bordered the north pasture toward his grandparents’ house.
“How could I resist the pot roast that you’ve told me, a dozen times, is the best thing ever?”
He reached across the console to take her hand and link their fingers together. “Tonight was supposed to be our time,” he reminded her.
“The calm before the storm?”
“Something like that,” he admitted.
“Maybe everyone will be happy for us,” she said, though the hopeful words were contradicted by her doubtful tone.
“And if they’re not, who cares? All that matters is that we’re happy.”
Brie knew he was right. And that as long as she was with Caleb, she would be happy.
She wasn’t even really nervous about sharing a meal with his grandparents. Because although she wasn’t well acquainted with Jack and Evelyn Gilmore, they’d always been pleasant to her. Even before their encounter at the movies when she and Caleb were both still in high school.
Fast Five had finally come to town and Caleb had convinced her that a dark movie theater was the perfect place for their first official date, because they wanted to be together but not be seen together. So they’d snuggled close in the back row, their hands dipping into the same box of popcorn, their mouths sipping from a shared straw. And for the two-and-a-half hours that started with previews of what was “coming soon” and ended with the final credits, Brie had felt as if everything was perfect in her world.
Then they’d walked out of the theater, hand in hand, and almost literally bumped into his grandparents. She’d tried to untangle her fingers from his—because while most people knew that Brie and Caleb were friends, they’d been careful to hide their blossoming romance from their respective and disapproving families, which meant hiding it from everyone else in town for fear that word would get back to their them. But Caleb had held firm as he exchanged pleasantries with his grandparents, who happened to be there for the late showing of the same movie.
For the next several weeks, she’d been on tenterhooks, waiting for the day that her parents found out that she’d been at the theater with Caleb. But as far as she knew, Jack and Evelyn had kept their secret.
One Night with the Cowboy Page 17