“Your parents won’t be too happy to have both Hansen kids in the Cody family.”
“I suspect my parents have learned their own lessons the last few months.”
She hesitated, head down, then said, “We have to take care of my mom.”
Jesse lifted her chin with a finger. “It will be my honor to take care of your mother as long as necessary.” With the same finger, he wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “Any other conditions?”
Janie pretended to consider.
He groaned. “You’re killing me, here.”
She put her hands on either side of his face. “Can we always be together for Christmas? And decorate a really big tree?”
“Till death us do part, I swear. Just say yes.”
She released a breath she seemed to have been holding since she was fourteen years old. “Then, yes, Jesse Cody. I will marry you.”
And with those words, their Christmas Eve turned quiet and reverent, just the way it always should be.
Chapter Fourteen
One year later
Jesse stepped into his parents’ house and quietly closed the door behind him. He’d only left an hour ago, but the kid paraphernalia—miniature cars, dump trucks and fire engines, model horses and their tiny riders—scattered over the marble floor had disappeared. Thousands of white lights on the towering Christmas tree in the curve of the staircase twinkled as serenely as if this morning’s predawn orgy of gift-opening and toy-tryouts had never occurred.
He found his brothers gathered in the living room.
“Here comes the groom,” Walker said, raising a sippy cup in Jesse’s direction before handing it to three-and-a-half-year-old Clay, standing between his knees. Father and son wore matching black jeans and dark green Western shirts. Leaning against the arm of Walker’s chair was a stick horse name Silver, Clay’s pride and joy this Christmas.
“That’s a fine pony you got there,” Jesse told the boy. “You put some miles on him this morning, didn’t you?”
With the spout of the cup in his mouth, Clay gave him a big-eyed nod.
Dex sat by the window overlooking Cottonwood Creek, his still-healing leg propped on an ottoman. “Dusty’s outside, trying to coax Matt away from Tinker for the wedding.”
“Doesn’t look likely.” Jesse watched as the son his brothers shared brushed his new pony’s black-and-white coat for what had to be the tenth time. “We might have to bring the pony into the house if we want Dusty and Matt at the ceremony.”
“Mom will love that.”
“Won’t be the first time a horse found its way indoors on this ranch.” J.W. came in from the kitchen, followed by Mark. “Which of you hellions was it that rode straight up the porch steps and through the front door, there at the old house?”
“Not me,” Dex declared. “I’m the good twin.”
Jesse socked him in the shoulder. “It most definitely was you, because Dusty was the one who dared you to do it. The hoof prints are still in the floor.”
“You’ll get your payback,” J.W. said, sinking into his chair by the fire. From the healthy look of him, the past year of surgery and radiation treatments might never have happened. “Those twins of yours are terrors already. Never know where they’ll be crawling to next.”
“I caught Josh in the dog food bin this morning.” Mark stood behind J.W., one arm propped on the mantel.
Jesse nodded. “Daniel had started up the stairs. You can’t take your eyes off those boys for a second.”
“Tell me about it.” Dex wiped a hand over his face. “I’m thinking about chaining them in their cribs, so Josie and I can get some sleep.”
Walker nodded, grinning. “Sleep. Right, that’s what you’re missing most.”
“You would know,” Dex fired back. “You’re the one with the spitfire who’s already walking at nine months.”
“Yeah, but Terri falls asleep on my shoulder just like clockwork every night at nine. Unless she’s sick, she doesn’t wake up again till six.”
“Which means,” Will said, in a whisper everybody could hear, “that we’ll have another baby around here in about…oh, nine months or so.”
Walker only grinned.
“I’m the one who’s sleepless.” Mark gave what looked like an authentic yawn. “Five and a half months is hard work, let me tell you. Nicki’s up every three hours.”
Jesse cocked an eyebrow. “And you’re the one who’s sleepless?”
“Guilt.”
“You’re not kidding.” Walker took the empty sippy cup from Clay and gave him a toy dump truck in its place. “I think there should be a support group on the internet for dads who feel guilty because their wives are the only ones who can soothe the baby.”
“We can tell each other how hard we have it,” Dex suggested.
“Commiserate on the way babies have changed our lives,” Mark added.
“You don’t know what change is,” J.W. said with a grin, “until you’ve got three or four of them all running around at the same time.”
Dusty and Matt had come in the back door just in time to hear the comment.
“Your mom’s upstairs,” he told his son. “She’ll get you into the shower and show you what to wear.” Then he looked around the room. “Pony’s glad for some downstime, if you ask me.”
“Not to mention you.” His twin brother gave him a sympathetic grin.
Dusty, the World Champion Tie Down Roper for the year, dropped onto the couch. “The next hour’s all yours, bro.”
Dex nodded. “But not till after I get some of that wedding cake.”
Jesse smiled as he buttoned the sleeves on his shirt cuffs. The minister should be arriving any minute now—the light dusting of snow that had fallen on the roads last night wouldn’t postpone the ceremony. At exactly three o’clock on this sun-bright Christmas Day, he and Janie Hansen would get married. Finally, and forever.
Paula appeared in the doorway, looking beautiful in a dark green dress and carrying a dark-haired cherub with her mother’s pansy-blue eyes. Seeing her dad, Terri immediately held out her arms.
“Dada,” she said.
“I heard that.” Walker grinned as he took the little girl into his arms. “Her first word.”
“Of course.” Paula stood on tiptoe to kiss her husband’s cheek. “After all, who spoils her the most?”
The doorbell rang—“Home, home on the range…” Every adult in the room rolled their eyes.
Jesse watched as his dad leaned forward to stand up, but Mark put a hand on his shoulder. “Let me get it,” he said quietly. The two men exchanged a look and Mark tightened his hold for a second, then went to answer the door.
A glance at the clock told Jesse that time had stopped. Still twenty minutes until the wedding. Would this afternoon last forever?
Will came to stand beside him. “Nerves?”
“Nope.”
“You must be glad this day has finally come. I know I was.”
Elly had spent the past year working toward another shot at the National Finals. This time, her training paid off with a big win and the title of World Champion Barrel Racer. She’d topped even that achievement, however, by getting married Vegas-style. She and Will and their families had attended the wedding chapel ceremony, complete with an Elvis impersonator singing “Love Me Tender.” Afterward, the annual Cody bash had become a giant wedding reception.
That memory recalled to Jesse something he’d meant to say to his new brother-in-law. “We’re grateful, by the way, to you and Elly for holding off your honeymoon till after today. Janie probably wouldn’t marry me if she couldn’t have my sister as her bridesmaid. It’s been a law, I think, since they were twelve years old.”
“No problem.” Will put a hand on his shoulder. “Europe’s not going anywhere, so this was the place we need ed to be on Christmas Day.”
Dusty stepped up beside them, now cleaned up and dressed in a fancy red shirt and good jeans. “My turn’s next.”
Will gr
inned. “Another one bites the dust?”
“Hell, no. I can’t wait.” Dusty looked toward the room’s entrance. Maryanne and her dad had just arrived. Always dressed with style, today Dusty’s fiancée wore a sophisticated and sexy blue dress that even Jesse could appreciate.
Dusty blew out a long breath. “Man, oh, man. She still takes my breath away. Talk to you boys later.”
He stalked across the room and in front of everybody including the minister, took Maryanne in his arms for a deep kiss. Even the whistles and catcalls from his brothers didn’t break up the embrace until Dusty was good and ready.
Jesse fingered his bolo tie. Ten minutes. At this rate, he’d be an old man before he actually kissed his bride.
But all at once, everything started happening really fast. Josie appeared, carrying a little boy with blond hair and brown eyes—Josh. Right behind her, beautiful in an ice-blue dress, Anne entered with Daniel, the blue-eyed twin. Handing her armful to his father, she came straight to Jesse.
“You look so handsome.” His mom patted his shoulders and straightened the tie he’d played with. Then she touched his cheeks with her fingertips. “Be happy, my son.”
“I am.” He bent to kiss her forehead. “Thanks for helping Janie this past year. You’ll never know how much what you’ve done has meant to both of us.”
Last spring, the severe decline in Abigail Hansen’s health had required round-the-clock care and frequent hospital trips. Though dealing with J.W.’s illness and treatments, Anne had found the strength and time to visit Janie’s mother, supervising her care and treatment in the nursing home and hospital to ensure Mrs. Hansen suffered as little as possible. Abby had passed away in September, peacefully and painlessly, with her children by her side.
Anne kissed his cheek, and let him go, without a reply.
“Let’s take our places,” the minister said. “Jesse, join me at the window, please.”
Shrugging into his brown suit jacket, he took his place beside the smiling clergyman. Mark and J.W. approached.
“See you boys again in a few minutes.” Mark extended a hand. “Congratulations, brother.” His other hand clasped Jesse’s shoulder. “Glad to have you in the family.”
Jesse duplicated the gesture. “Same here, brother.”
J.W. took his place beside Jesse as his best man and offered a handshake in his turn. “You’ll be a good husband,” he said. “I know that and I’m proud of you.”
Jesse gave his dad a hug. “I’m proud of you, too.”
Finally, after what seemed like forever, Janie came down the staircase to stand beside him. She wore a lovely white dress and a cute white cowgirl hat with a short piece of lace like a veil in the back. Her beautiful dark eyes sparkled and her full red lips curved into a gorgeous smile as she repeated the words he’d waited a year to hear.
“I, Janie Hansen, take you, Jesse Cody, to be my lawfully wedded husband.”
Then, at last, he got to kiss her.
Janie whooped at the top of her lungs when he picked her up high in his arms to whirl her around, laughing.
Their brothers and sisters and parents…the whole Cody family…laughed with them, and rejoiced.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7519-9
JESSE: MERRY CHRISTMAS, COWBOY
Copyright © 2010 by Cheryl B. Bacon
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
*At the Carolina Diner
Jesse: Merry Christmas, Cowboy Page 18