by Nicole Helm
Jack thought about the way she’d leaned into him before her sisters had surrounded her. The way she hadn’t ever just cut him off or even told him to back off. The fear in her eyes when she’d told him over and over it was just pretend.
Why would she be afraid of love unless she thought she didn’t deserve it—not that she didn’t want it. “I’m not going anywhere,” Jack finally responded.
Maybe he could never get through to Rose. Maybe she would never believe the depth of his feelings or how much he believed in her, but he would make that his new mission in life. Rose and loving Rose was his new goal, his new everything. He would pour all he had into it, because love wasn’t like being a Navy SEAL or even building a foundation. He could keep failing at it until he decided to stop trying or until he died. No bomb or lack of money could eradicate what he felt.
And he wasn’t alone. She wasn’t alone. There was a small army of people here tonight ready to fight to make sure she stayed, to make sure she understood.
He’d never had to worry if he was loved, if he deserved to be loved, and he would do anything and everything to make sure Rose and their baby felt the same from here on out.
* * *
Rose didn’t know what she felt except emptied out. Her sisters were here. They’d all fallen to their knees, but they were holding her in this little heap on the ground, and somehow it started to fill up that empty feeling, smooth out all those jagged edges that had always existed inside her.
“Don’t let him win, Rose,” Billie whispered.
“That’s my mantra,” Elsie said. “Whenever I’m down on myself. When I feel like a failure or nothing is going right, I tell myself he doesn’t get to win. I won’t let him win.”
“Mom always said I was like him,” Rose whispered. Hell, if it was confession day, she might as well get them all out. “He’d say it too.”
“We are nothing like them. You’re ready to sell your bar that you love, leave town, and give your kid the best life you could imagine. You were so very wrong to think that was the answer, but that’s not them. They kept us there in that hell and made sure no one could help. You are trying to do all the right things,” Delia said.
“I wanted to protect everyone from me. From what I am.”
“We know who and what you are, Rose Rogers,” Steph said. “You kept us going after Dad kicked Delia out.”
“And you were the one who came up with plan to get Dad in jail without risking the rest of us,” Elsie added.
“You helped Caleb get me out of jail,” Delia said. “You’ve always been the bravest out of all of us.”
Rose started sobbing anew with that one. She didn’t know how to believe or accept what her sisters were telling her. It was the opposite of everything she’d told herself for so long, and yet it was their truth. How they’d seen things.
“If you hate yourself, he wins. Mom wins. If you don’t believe you can overcome the little they gave us in order to be an amazing mother, they win. Now, if it’s that you don’t want to be a mother, that’s one thing.” Delia squeezed her arm. “If you think you can’t, I know you’re wrong. I’ve seen you with Sunny and Lissa and Kate. Those girls all adore you, and you’re good and kind and patient with them. You are capable of so much more than you’re giving yourself credit for. You’re letting them warp you, but I won’t let them. I won’t let you. You are good and brave and strong. No one’s supposed to be perfect, Rose. Not a one of us is. We get to choose who we want to be though. We make choices every day, good and bad, right and wrong.”
“And if you don’t believe you are one of the best sisters in the world, then they’ve won too. When I think work is too hard, I think about all you’ve built. All you did,” Billie said.
“I want to be just like you,” Steph added. “The way you and Delia have chosen to stay here in Blue Valley and face our past every day. That’s true strength.”
Rose looked around at all her sisters, and as much as that horrible voice inside her head whispered she was just like Dad and Mom, she remembered Vivian sitting in her bar saying Rose could be better if she simply chose it.
With her sisters surrounding her, reminding her, she thought maybe…maybe she could. They thought she was strong, but Delia was all heart and grit, and Elsie was so smart, Billie good and kind, and Steph was so vibrant. They all had these wonderful things about themselves, and mostly she wanted to be like all of them. Bundle it up and find a way to be good. For them.
“I started seeing a psychiatrist,” Elsie said, looking at the ground. “I was having nightmares. I couldn’t sleep, and I have these panic attacks. I was about to lose my job, and my boss suggested I see a professional. It helped. It really did.”
“I got in a fight with my roommate, and we had to go meet with a counselor,” Steph muttered. “Somehow it turned into talking about Dad. I’m going to keep talking to her. I still feel jumbled up, but it feels like a good step.”
Rose thought about Jack and his talking—not just to a therapist, but to everyone. He was this strong, proud former Navy SEAL, and he went and saw a therapist without embarrassment, without worrying that it would somehow make him less.
There was nothing less about Jack Armstrong. She looked over at him standing next to Caleb, looking determined. Oh so very determined.
“He’s hot,” Steph said, earning her a laugh from a couple of the sisters.
“Agreed,” Billie added. “Super hot.”
“He was a Navy SEAL,” Rose managed to croak out.
“Get out!”
“No, he really was. Scars and everything.”
“I’m in love,” Steph breathed.
“I think the question is, is Rose in love?” Delia murmured.
Rose nodded. “Yeah, I am. He’s so good,” she whispered. “Upstanding and decent, and he comes from this totally normal family.” She swallowed against all the you are not good enough for him feelings. “Well, aside from his brother sleeping with his fiancée when Jack was deployed.”
That comment earned a lot of screeching indignation from her sisters, and even more of that empty feeling inside Rose filled up.
“Believe it or not, love isn’t only giving the best of yourself to someone,” Delia said, her eyes on her husband. “It’s trusting them with your whole self. It’s being a team. Sometimes it’s really hard, and you don’t put your best foot forward, and they don’t put theirs forward either, but you’re a unit.
“You love each other, and you love your kids, and you want what’s best for everyone, and sometimes you fail spectacularly, but you help each other up and dust each other off and try again. The only thing running away does is hurt everyone. You. Us. Him. Everyone. It’s not the great sacrifice you’ve made it in your head. It’s just wrong.”
“I just… I’m afraid.” Which was very hard to admit for a girl who’d learned to hide her fears since she could remember. “I don’t want him to love me if I don’t deserve it. I don’t want to mess up our kid.”
“We all worry we’ll mess up our kids,” Delia said gently. “And I think we all worry at times that we’re not enough for the people we love. But…you know when Sunny was born, I was convinced I’d do it all wrong. I think Caleb and I were both convinced of that. But we held each other’s hands, and we talked. To each other. To Dan and Mel. To Summer and Thack. We had all these people who wanted us to succeed. And you have so many people who want that for you.”
“But—”
“No, you don’t get any buts right now,” Delia said firmly. “You’re part of this. This family stitched together from all these disparate pieces. You don’t have a choice. You’re ours. Everyone here loves you, including that Navy SEAL over there, and love makes us better. Makes us stronger. We’ll never be perfect, but when you’re willing to open up and give and receive it, you get to the hard times, and someone holds your hand. And you get to celebrate t
he good times with all this love. That’s the point of love—it’s the point of family. Get each other through. Celebrate when you can. Hold each other up, and then let us hold you up when you’re falling.”
“Don’t run away from us, Rose. Please. We’re finally getting to the good stuff,” Steph said, leaning her head against Rose’s shoulder.
Maybe Rose was weak or maybe she was just very well loved, because she didn’t want to run away anymore. She wanted all those things Delia had described. She wanted to be stronger and more whole. She wanted her sisters around her when things were awful, and she wanted Jack holding her hand. She wanted to celebrate with all of them, over and over again.
“I won’t go anywhere,” she said on a shaky exhale. “Not without talking to all of you first. I promise,” she said more firmly.
“Thank God,” Delia said. “Now can we stand? I think I’m about to hurl.”
They all got to their feet, a tangle of arms and tears.
“For the record,” Delia said, glancing at Jack, “Summer made the phone call to Jack, not any of us.”
“Well, as Summer didn’t know Jack existed, you had something to do with it.”
“I may have spilled the Jack beans. I may have thought her plan to call him was a good one.” Delia smiled and pulled her into a hug. “If you thought I was nosy before, I am going to be such a hard-ass on you now. Anytime I think you’re even a little bit mopey, I’m camping myself out at your door or sending someone to do it for me.”
“Okay,” Rose said, holding on tight.
Delia pulled away and looked her in the eye. “I expect the same from you. Deal?”
“Deal.” Rose tried to blink back even more tears, but apparently it was just a night for uninterrupted crying. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“All of this. All of before. I feel like you’ve been cleaning up after me through a million bad decisions.”
“Think about the good decisions, because you’ve made a hell of a lot of good ones.” Delia smiled, looking back at Caleb, Jack, Summer, and Dan. “I’ll get everyone out of here, and you patch things up with your Navy SEAL.”
Rose bit her lip and looked at Jack. “I don’t know how.”
“Start with love.” Delia gave her one last squeeze, and then everyone was dispersing, climbing into trucks and driving away.
Then it was just her and Jack, and she had to somehow make up for all this.
“Well, I didn’t punch any of your brothers-in-law, so I’m still a step ahead of you in the family drama department,” he said in some faraway voice she couldn’t read.
“I think you’ll probably always win that.” Somehow they were standing in front of this house that, in her brain, had become theirs, the pond where she’d maybe fallen a little bit in love with him. This place that had been so important from the start.
And she didn’t know what to say, but she should have known Jack would.
He reached out and touched her cheek. “I love you, Rose. I’m pissed you were planning on leaving without telling me, but my God, I love you so much. I was trying to give you space and not tell you, but that’s over now. Every day, every second, I want you to know how much I love you.”
“I’m probably going to need the reminder,” she managed to whisper.
“Your sisters convince you to stay?”
She took a deep breath and stepped into him, let herself lean against him, rely on him to hold her up. “All of you convinced me to stay.”
His arms wrapped around her, strong and sure. And he loved her, this wonderful man.
“I am afraid of you, because I don’t think I deserve this.”
“I know a really great therapist you can talk to about that.”
She managed a watery laugh. “I’m going to need one, I think.” She looked up at him. Her sisters thought she was strong. Brave. She knew he thought she was too, so maybe she could be.
“I don’t need one for this though. I love you, Jack. I love you so much, and that scares me. I am not promising that this is going to be easy in any way, shape, or form, because I have a lot of work to do. But I love you, and I want to raise this baby with you.”
“Are you proposing?”
“No. Not yet. I need to put some time in on myself, but…we’re in this together, right? You and me. A team.”
“I like the sound of that,” he said, cupping her face with his big, rough hands. He glanced at the house behind her. “We should live here, don’t you think?”
She looked back at the dilapidated house bathed in moonlight. “It’s a shit hole, Jack.”
“We’ll fix that right up. We’ve got, what? Almost nine months?”
“I think it’ll take a miracle.”
Jack looked down at her. “I think I believe in miracles now. What about you?”
She swallowed. “Maybe I do,” she whispered. Jack Armstrong was a miracle. This baby was a miracle. And the fact that Rose Rogers had survived and come out on the other side to be here, right here, with the man she loved?
Yeah, that was definitely a miracle.
Epilogue
Three Months Later
Jack frowned at the clouds above the house. Snow was threatening, and once the snow started, getting the house done was going to be more and more of a challenge.
He wanted it livable for him and Rose by Christmas, livable for Baby by the time he or she made an appearance in the spring. Gabe and Alex seemed dubious, but they’d been working as much as they could on it. Becca had even suggested they push back taking veteran applications and formally opening Revival until next year, so she and Alex could have their Christmas wedding, and Jack and Rose could have their Christmas move-in.
Everyone had agreed. It seemed right somehow to get settled in their own lives, so that, when Revival officially opened, all their focus could be poured into the foundation.
Gabe stomped out of the house, grumbling about something. Rose followed, grinning.
“Your woman is driving me crazy, Jack,” Gabe yelled.
“Good,” Jack called back. “You work extra hard when you’re driven crazy.”
Gabe muttered something, probably swearing. “I’m going to the ranch to grab lunch and check on the horses. Alex is coming out this afternoon to see if he can fix the plumbing issue, because I can’t figure the thing out. You may have to pay a plumber.”
Jack nodded as Gabe climbed in his truck. “Thanks.”
Gabe flipped him off and drove away as Rose came to stand next to Jack.
He placed his hand over the slight rounding of Rose’s stomach. No one could tell yet, not with her heavy coat on, but he saw it every morning. It wasn’t much, but actually starting to see the change in her was amazing, made it feel more real somehow that they’d created a life together.
“I know what I want for Christmas,” she said, surveying the house and the snowflakes that were beginning to fall.
“Christmas is two months away,” Jack returned, pulling the hood on her coat up over her head.
“Do you want to know what it is or not?”
“Okay.”
She kept her eyes on the house, but her mouth curved in that sharp smile he’d never have enough of. “An engagement ring.”
He glanced down at her smug face. “You’re telling me when to propose?”
“Yes. I’ll let you pick out the ring though.”
“How generous of you,” he replied dryly even as he smiled. Finally. Two months seemed like an eternity, but a little less of an eternity than he’d been certain he’d have to wait.
“We don’t want to steal any of Alex and Becca’s wedding thunder, but Delia’s due in February, so I can’t steal baby thunder. I want a ring on my finger before our baby comes. So Christmas seems like a good in-between time.”
“I’ll mark it in my c
alendar, Queen Rose. And when, pray tell, will we be actually getting married?”
“Summer,” she said firmly. “Right in front of the pond. Maybe at night.”
He slid his arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. “Hard to argue with that. No naked swimming though.”
“Hey, we weren’t totally naked.”
“Fully clothed weddings only,” he said firmly.
When she tipped her head up to look at him, she was grinning. This beautiful woman, a partner in life, impending parenthood, love.
“I love you,” he murmured, because he had kept his word. He said it to her multiple times a day. Over and over again, and even though she’d settled into it, he liked saying it.
“I know,” she returned smugly, but she reached out a gloved hand and rubbed it over his beard. “I love you too.”
“You’re not talking to the beard, are you?”
“Not in this particular moment,” she replied faux seriously.
He leaned down to kiss her, but she pushed her hand to his chest. “Gabe should meet somebody before we get engaged,” she said, frowning. “I don’t want him to feel lonely or left out.”
“Finding Gabe anyone is going to take a Christmas miracle.”
Rose smiled up at him. “We believe in those, remember?”
“Yes, we do,” he murmured, and he pressed his mouth to hers as the snow fell down around them.
Maybe there were more miracles ahead.
Please enjoy this sneak peek of
Caught Up in a Cowboy by Jennie Marts
THIS COWBOY PLAYS TO WIN
Rockford James was raised as a tried-and-true cowboy in a town crazy about ice hockey. Rock is as hot on the ice as he is on a horse, and the NHL snapped him up. Now, injuries have temporarily benched him. Body and pride wounded, he returns to his hometown ranch to find that a lot has changed. The one thing that hasn’t? His feelings for Quinn, his high school sweetheart and girl next door.
Quinn Rivers had no choice but to get over Rock after he left. Teenaged and heartbroken, she had a rebound one-night stand that ended in single motherhood. Now that Rock’s back—and clamoring for a second chance—Quinn will do anything to avoid getting caught up in this oh-so-tempting cowboy…