Love Finds You in Valentine, Nebraska

by Irene Brand

  Since the day Kennedy had asked him if he would let her research his biological parents, the thought had entered his mind occasionally. At that time, he was totally against it, but now he wasn’t so sure it wouldn’t be a good idea. But why find out now when they were already making plans to marry? If his past did come back to haunt him sometime, they would have to deal with it then. He wasn’t sure he would ever mention it to Kennedy again. She knew all the skeletons in his life.

  If she was content to take him as he was, why should it bother him?

  Once his plane landed in Omaha, he telephoned Kennedy while he waited in the parking garage for his truck to be brought to him.

  “I’m back in Nebraska,” he said. “The plane arrived on time, and I’m ready to leave the airport.”

  “Be careful on the drive home and call me when you get there, please,” Kennedy said warmly.

  “I will. Love you,” he said, and his heart swelled when he said it. Who would have thought that such a change could have taken place in his life in less than a week?

  “Love you, too,” she said. “Bye.”

  The drive to the Circle Cross passed quickly—or so it seemed to Derek as he contemplated his dreams for the ranch. Having his name on the deed was a small matter. He would never make any changes without discussing them with Kennedy, although he figured she would give him free rein as she always had. He would like to provide better quarters for the men who worked on the ranch. He knew that Sam wanted to get married, and Derek thought he would build a comfortable home for him and his bride.

  When he drove into the ranch yard, Wilson barked, jumped off the porch, and ran circles around the truck once Derek turned off the engine. When he stepped out of the cab, the dog put his front paws on Derek’s waist and barked a welcome into his face. Derek rubbed the dog’s head.

  “No, I didn’t bring her with me,” he said. “But cheer up, old buddy; she’ll be here in a few months.”

  “Welcome home, son,” June called from the porch. Although there was love shining from her snappy eyes, Derek also noted anxiety. He hadn’t told his mother about the deed he’d received from Kennedy or why he’d decided on a quick trip to Los Angeles. Doubtless she’d worried about him all the time he was gone.

  Derek ran up the steps, picked up his diminutive mother, and whirled her around and around. “Derek!” June shouted. “You’re making me dizzy. What’s come over you?”

  “I’m in love,” he said.

  “So? I’ve known that for weeks. How’s Kennedy?”

  “She’s lost her mind,” he joked. “She’s going to marry me.”

  “Praise the Lord!” June said. “God made you for one another, but I was beginning to think you’d never see it.” Suddenly serious, Derek settled his mother on her feet. “I’m not good enough for her, Mom. I shouldn’t have agreed to it, but I love her. And for some strange reason, she loves me back.”

  “Tell me all about it,” she said. “Who else knows?”

  “You’re the first to know. Kennedy will e-mail announcements about our engagement to the Midland News and the World Herald, but she wanted to be sure you knew about it first.”

  “When will you be married?”

  “We haven’t decided. She has to settle her affairs in California before she can move to Nebraska. She intends to be here no later than Christmas.”

  “Let’s have a prayer together, son. God has been gracious to both of us.”

  Derek didn’t hesitate to kneel beside his mother. He knew it was only by the grace of God that he had come to this moment.

  Only occasionally did sadness creep in as Kennedy laid her plans to leave California. Rosita wept constantly for the first two days after Derek left and she learned of their plans. Understanding how Rosita felt, Kennedy was patient with her at first, but finally she said, “Rosita, stop it! I know this is a big change in your life as well as mine, but don’t you want me to be happy?”

  Sniffing, the housekeeper said, “Yes, but why can’t you marry Steve and be happy here in California? He’s a good man.”

  “I agree, but I don’t love him.”

  “I agree, but I don’t love him.”

  “Then your man ought to move here.”

  Knowing it was impossible for Rosita to realize how miserable Derek would be in a city, Kennedy didn’t try to explain. “It isn’t going to happen that way, so you’ll have to accept it. I’ve arranged with Mr. Talbot to buy a home for you near your daughter, and you’ll have a trust fund to provide for your needs as long as you live. And I’ll pay your way to visit us in Nebraska once every year. Please don’t carry on like this and make me feel guilty.” Rosita took the scolding in good grace and settled down to help Kennedy make arrangements to move and close the house.

  June’s happiness over their proposed marriage had balanced out Rosita’s sorrow.

  She called Kennedy immediately after Derek had returned to the ranch and said, “There’s no one else on earth I’d rather have for a daughter than you.” Tears misted Kennedy’s eyes, and her voice trembled when she said jokingly, “And how do you know I’m not marrying Derek to have you for my mother?”

  “Derek says you’re moving to Nebraska, so I suppose you’ll be living at Riverside.”

  “Yes. It seems the logical place to live,” Kennedy said.

  “I’ll enjoy having my grandchildren close by,” June said.

  Happily, Kennedy said, “We haven’t talked about children yet, but I hope to oblige you. I still can’t believe it’s true. Be sure to let me know when the notice is printed in the paper, and get some extra copies for me. It will take a lot of people by surprise, I suspect.” June chuckled. “Frankly, it may cause more talk than when your mother and father got married. Your grandfather may disinherit you, too.”

  “Oh, he did that long ago. But I’m not so sure he will object. The one time I’ve talked with him, he made complimentary remarks about Derek. But it doesn’t matter what he thinks.”

  “I know, Kennedy, but I wish you could make up with him. He’s your closest relative. Besides, he’s an old man—and a lonely one, I suspect.”

  “I may be ready for that. I’m so much in love now that I can even love my enemies. I won’t make the first move, though,” Kennedy said belligerently. With a soft chuckle, June said good-bye.

  Tony was the first person to contact her after the notice of their engagement was printed in the local paper. Kennedy was pleased to hear from him.

  After expressing his best wishes and his approval, he said, “I’ll admit I wasn’t completely surprised, as I observed you together when we hosted the kids from Omaha—but I didn’t realize it had gone so far. He’s a good man, Kennedy, and he deserves to have somebody like you. I told Matti, and she’ll be calling you. The newspaper notice indicated that you’ll be making your home at Riverside after the wedding.”

  “Yes, I’m selling the house in California. I intend to move to Valentine before winter. I liked Cherry County in the summer, but I’m not sure I can deal with your blizzards.”

  “Oh, it’s not bad to be snowed in for a few days. People around here know how to prepare for the bad weather.”

  “I’ve already made arrangements with a Realtor to list my home. In the meantime, I’ve got to sort out the things I want to bring with me. Pray for me, Tony. It’s going to be a break with the past.”

  “You and Derek are both in my prayers.”

  When Matti called to rejoice with Kennedy that she had found with Derek the kind of love Matti shared with Tony, she asked Kennedy when they were getting married.

  “We haven’t settled on a date yet. I’m getting my affairs in order so I can leave, and it’s not going as fast as I’d hoped. Now that Derek and I have decided to get married, I can hardly bear being away from him.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m working in Omaha longer than I expected to, but my resignation is for the first of December. Tony has found a small, furnished apartment for me in Valentine until we get ma
rried. Now I don’t know if I should mention this, and don’t hesitate to say no if you want to, but you know that Tony and I are getting married on Valentine’s Day. Why don’t you and Derek get married when we do?” For a moment Kennedy was speechless. “But we’re expecting Tony to perform our wedding,” she said hesitantly. “Who would we get if we had a double wedding?”

  “Tony has asked his good friend Daniel Trent, who pastors a church in St. Louis, to marry us.” Giggling slightly, she continued, “You probably wonder why I’d wait almost six months to marry Tony, but it’s a childhood dream of mine. My parents were married on February 14, and I always thought I’d like to be, too. It will be really romantic.”

  “Well, this is all so sudden. I’ll have to think about it and see what Derek thinks. We’ve planned to get married as soon as I move to Valentine, but it would be cool to have a double wedding. Let me talk to Derek and see what he thinks.”

  The first day of February Kennedy wakened slowly, stretching in the luxury of her bed at Riverside, hardly believing that she’d returned to Nebraska more than two months ago in time to spend Christmas with Derek and June. She widened her eyes in the darkened room and looked around. It was only six o’clock, but she didn’t think she could go back to sleep. The date on the clock face reminded her that it was the first of February.

  She couldn’t believe she had been back in Nebraska for two months and that within two weeks, she and Derek would be married. Although he had wanted to get married as soon as she moved to Cherry County, Derek, too, thought a double wedding would be a cool idea. After waiting all summer, they decided that two more months wouldn’t matter, especially when they could see each other every day. Lying in bed with her eyes closed once again, the activities of the past three months passed through Kennedy’s mind like a programmed DVD.

  The sale of her home in California had happened more quickly than Kennedy had anticipated, though at first it seemed to take an interminable amount of time.

  Within two weeks after the house had been listed, she had a buyer—a newly married couple who had asked to buy the house furnished. But Kennedy had reserved special items to bring to Riverside—her father’s desk, her mother’s cedar chest, and the dining room suite that her parents had bought when they moved to California. After she gathered all of her personal keepsakes, including her toys and baby bed, she contacted a moving company and arranged for the items to be taken to the Circle Cross.

  Her car was only a year old, so Kennedy decided to bring it with her to Nebraska. She’d been uncertain about driving from Los Angeles to Nebraska alone, and when she talked to Derek about it, he said, “I’ll fly out and drive home with you. We’re ready for winter at the ranch, and the men can handle everything until we get here.”

  “Oh, I’d love to have you do that. Why don’t you bring June with you, and if you have time, we can sightsee on the way to Valentine?”

  “That’s a neat idea, my love. She hasn’t been on a plane or seen much of the country, and she would like that.”

  “That’s a neat idea, my love. She hasn’t been on a plane or seen much of the country, and she would like that.”

  “I intended to load the car with my computer and other items I won’t trust to a moving van, but since you’re coming, we can rent a small U-Haul trailer for those things. My car isn’t very big, as you know, but there’s enough room for the three of us.

  Kennedy remembered keenly her sorrow at leaving her home and Derek’s tenderness and concern for her. Holding his hand had made it easier to walk out the door for the last time.

  Her furniture hadn’t been delivered for a week after she returned to Valentine, and during that time, she and June had removed some of the furniture in Riverside, which she replaced with items from her California home. They had replaced the double bed she’d slept in all summer with a new king-sized bed.

  While she had been in California, Miranda had taken another job. With Smith Blaine in trouble up to his neck because of his embezzlement and Lazaro returned to federal prison, Derek wouldn’t have objected to her living alone. But Kennedy persuaded Matti to give up her furnished apartment and live with her at Riverside until they were married.

  Before she left California, Kennedy had arranged for Mr. Talbot to study the legal pros and cons of turning the West Eighty into a conference center. Meanwhile, Matti was spearheading a feasibility study to assess the future of such a facility in rural Nebraska. The results of Mr. Talbot’s and Matti’s efforts would determine if she continued her plans to remodel the building on the West Eighty into a conference center.

  Kennedy stretched again when she heard Matti walking around upstairs and, rather than getting up, turned her thoughts to their wedding plans. Because neither Matti nor Kennedy had parents or siblings to give them away as traditionally happened, the couples had decided on a private ceremony. Their only guests would be Tony’s parents, his siblings and their families, June, and Rebecca, the mother of Daniel Trent, Tony’s friend who would marry them.

  Kennedy had insisted on an open reception at the nearby Holiday Inn, and considering the large population of Blaines and Morgans in Cherry County, the caterers were preparing for more than two hundred people. The guests would be received in the lobby of the hotel, and a sitdown dinner would be provided for everyone in the large dining area of the hotel.

  “Are you awake yet?” Matti asked, as she entered the room with a cup of coffee in each hand.

  Kennedy sat up in bed and put a pillow behind her back. “Not wide awake,” she answered, “but the coffee will help.” She took one of the cups, and Matti sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed.

  “Only two more weeks,” Matti said, “and we’ll both be married. It’s hard for me to believe even now that, after all those long miserable years, Tony will be my husband.”

  “Has the wait been worth it?”

  “I wouldn’t want to live through those years again, but I’m sure that Tony and I will cherish being together even more because of the years we were separated. I thank God that I didn’t marry someone else.”

  “Did you have many offers?”

  “No, and there was only one guy whom I even considered, but when he asked to marry me, I couldn’t. I’d dated him for over a year. I felt guilty about leading him on, for he really loved me, but I knew I’d never love anyone except Tony.”

  “I didn’t have any serious relationships,” Kennedy confided, “but one man I’d known for several years proposed to me a few weeks before I came to the Circle Cross. One look at Derek took care of that.”

  Kennedy took the last sip of coffee and threw back the covers. “Enough of this. We’ve got two showers coming up this week and a final trip to Lincoln for the last fittings on our wedding dresses. Besides, Derek keeps talking about the annual Bull Bash. I have a feeling I’m going to attend whether or not I want to go,” Kennedy said. “Isn’t that a few days before our wedding?”

  “Yes, on Saturday,” Matti answered. “Everyone turns out for that event—there’s something for everyone.”

  “Derek wants to buy some more registered stock, and he says the Bull Bash is the place to see what’s available. As the wife of a rancher, I’ll be expected to go along.”

  “Then you’d better stop by Young’s Western Wear and buy some long johns and a heavy coat,” Matti said, smiling widely. “If Derek is like most ranchers, he’ll look at every animal along the street, and I’ve heard that there are a lot of them.” Kennedy kept her phone beside her bed, for since her return to Riverside, Derek had always called her as soon as he’d eaten his breakfast. His call on Bull Bash day awakened her, and as she rolled over to pick up the phone, she noticed that it wasn’t good daylight yet.

  “Good morning, sweetheart,” he said. The tenderness in his voice stirred her senses. “Sorry if I woke you up, but I have problems.” Kennedy wakened quickly. “Oh, no! What’s wrong?”

  “Several of our horses broke out of the corral last night, and we have to round them up.
”

  “Can’t you wait until tomorrow to do that?” she wailed. “You don’t want to miss the Bull Bash.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to lose the horses, either. Although the weather is supposed to be good, blizzards can pop up quickly in Cherry County, and I won’t take any chances.”

  “Derek, if some emergency happens at the Circle Cross on Valentine’s Day, are you going to miss our wedding?” Laughing, he said, “No, I promise you, I’ll be standing at the altar right on time that day. If there’s an emergency, the men can take care of it.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, I promise. Sam and I are going after the horses, but Al and Joel will be in Valentine. You can ride into town with Mom.”

  “But she’s going to be busy helping in the church’s food booth, and so is Matti. I’ll drive.”

  “Maybe we’ll find the horses in a hurry and I can come to town for part of the fun.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Disappointed, Kennedy drove into Valentine alone, completely surprised at the crowded town. Was there anyone in Cherry County besides Derek and Sam who hadn’t shown up for the Bull Bash? Her first stop was at Young’s Western Wear, where she bought a heavy hoodie and a pair of woolen gloves. Then, mingling with the crowd, she went to the art show at the library, where she listened to a cowboy poet reading his original poetry. The Sandhills Piece Maker’s Quilt Guild had a wide variety of small quilts, wall hangings, and table runners in one of the stores, and she bought several of them.

  When Derek hadn’t come by midafternoon, Kennedy encountered Al walking among the livestock pens.

  “Al, do you know what kind of bull Derek would like to buy for the Circle Cross?”