Bonnie: The Secret Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch (Sweet Version) Book 8)

by Merry Farmer

  All of the fight that remained in Rupert left him. He shrugged, throat tightening, hopelessness pressing down on him. “I had to lose.”

  “Why?” George’s frown darkened.

  “Because Bonnie and I made a bet.”

  “A bet?”

  “That if the Wolves won, she’d ditch Bonneville and return to me.”

  George’s face pinched in confusion. “And if the Bears won you’d let her go marry Bonneville?”

  Rupert nodded.

  George hissed something under his breath. “You could have won the bet. What is your problem, man?”

  “I could have won,” Rupert admitted in a grave voice. “But what would I have won?”

  “Bonnie.” George nodded.

  “And she would have lost everything.” He shook his head. “I could never do that to her.”

  “Even though she loves you and you love her?” George growled, his anger clearly rising to the surface again.

  Rupert shifted to face him fully. “You’ve never been in love, have you.”

  “What? What does this have to do with me?”

  “If you had, you’d realize that sometimes loving someone means letting them go. It means thinking of them more than yourself, even if what they want kills you inside.” Heaven help him, but his eyes stung with grief at the statement and his voice grew rough. “If I had won that bet, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. I wasn’t thinking when I made it.” He shook his head, rubbing his forehead. “All I want is what’s best for Bonnie.”

  “Bonneville is not best for Bonnie,” George argued.

  Rupert started forward again. He couldn’t stand to continue the conversation. “Maybe not,” he said over his shoulder to George, “but those girls of hers, the ones she saves, are. If I truly love her, I have to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

  “But that’s—”

  Rupert didn’t hear what George thought that was. He held up a hand to silence him as he walked away to lick his wounds.

  Bonnie swallowed several times to keep her tears and sorrow at bay as she stood by Rex’s side. He made a speech to his players and the few citizens of Haskell who spent their days toadying to him. Bonnie didn’t hear it. She’d heard it all before anyhow. Rex loved the sound of his own voice and loved the adoration of people applauding him. He grinned like a fox about to devour hens as he finished and basked in the praise of his team.

  “And finally,” Rex wrapped things up, “I’d like to just remind you that you’re all invited to celebrate my long-awaited marriage to this gem of femininity, Bonnie.”

  Rex grabbed Bonnie’s hand, crushing it to the point of pain, and yanked her closer to his side. The crowd must have mistaken her wince for a smile. They applauded, and several of Rex’s players cat-called. Vivian and Melinda Bonneville pretended to applaud, but their sneers were truer expressions of their feelings.

  “It’s about time Bonnie and I make things right between us and God,” Rex went on with a leer that made several of the men around him laugh. “Although I hope that once we’re married, Bonnie will be willing to show me all her little tricks.”

  The men guffawed harder. Vivian made a choking sound and turned away. Bonnie usually would have managed a sarcastic smile, but she could barely bring the corners of her lips up now.

  “I’ve no doubt that in nine months’ time,” Rex continued, “we’ll be welcoming a new Bonneville heir into the fold.” He paused, then said, “Maybe eight months,” adding a wink.

  The men laughed. Even a few of their wives tittered sycophantically. Bonnie walked away from it. She was too heartsick to stand there pretending to be proud, too disgusted to downplay Rex’s claim she might already be pregnant. Let the town biddies gossip, she didn’t care anymore.

  Besides, she had work to do. Her wedding would be in two days. A wedding Rupert had as good as walked her down the aisle and given her away for. He’d dropped that catch on purpose. She’d seen it with her own eyes. He’d deliberately lost the game and their bet. She should be relieved, happy. Instead she couldn’t feel any emotion at all. Why would he do that? Why would he just let her go?

  Unless it was because everything she’d railed at him for the last week had finally sunk in. Unless he finally understood. If he did, why did she feel as though she’d lost so much? She’d gotten exactly what she wanted all along. So why did her victory feel so hollow?

  “What was that all about?” Pearl’s question, slightly more high-pitched than usual, pulled her out of her thoughts as she reached the edge of the field.

  Bonnie was surprised to find Lucy standing with her, Dorothy asleep on her shoulder. Lucy was one of Haskell’s finer citizens, and as sweet as she was, she couldn’t generally associate with the likes of Pearl or the rest of Bonnie’s girls.

  “Rex wants the church to be as packed as possible for our wedding,” Bonnie told them, glancing over her shoulder to where Rex was still surrounded by his cronies. “He wants it to be the biggest show Haskell has seen since those traveling actors came through in the spring.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Pearl planted her hands on her hips and frowned.

  Bonnie blinked in surprise at Pearl’s show of emotion, but it was Lucy that said, “Rupert had that catch. He had it easily. He looked over at you at the last minute, then dropped it.”

  The question, or rather the demand for an explanation, was inherent in Lucy’s tone. Bonnie opened her mouth to give her one, but no words came to her lips.

  “I saw the two of you talking before the game,” Lucy reminded her. She adjusted Dorothy in her arms, then added, “I saw the two of you kissing before the game.”

  Bonnie’s cheeks flared with heat. She’d thought—or at least hoped—that no one had seen them. “It was just a kiss.”

  Lucy stared hard at her. “That was not just a kiss. Last time Gideon kissed me like that, we ended up with Dorothy.”

  Any other day, Bonnie would have laughed at that comment. Instead, it filled her with crippling guilt. “It was just a kiss,” she repeated, lowering her eyes.

  “Ooh, I can’t stand this!” Pearl squealed. “You love Rupert. I know it. All the girls know it. The two of you are so in love that it’s making the rest of us loopy.”

  Bonnie raised her brow.

  “It doesn’t make sense to me that two people so obviously in love are pushing each other away,” Lucy huffed in frustration. Dorothy stirred in her arms, so she lowered her voice as she added, “It seems absolutely ludicrous to me that you are still going to pursue this marriage to Rex Bonneville.”

  “You don’t understand,” Bonnie said. She tried to push past her two friends and walk on, but they rushed to keep up.

  “I understand that you think you have some big responsibility to all of us instead of to yourself,” Pearl said. “We’ve been talking about it, and we’ve decided that we refuse to let you go through with this wedding.”

  “It’s not your or the girls’ decision to make,” Bonnie snapped.

  “You deserve love too,” Pearl argued.

  “Yes, you do,” Lucy added. “Whatever other troubles you may have, I’m sure they can be sorted out. Love triumphs over everything.”

  “Love doesn’t trump survival,” Bonnie said. She stopped as they reached the edge of the road and rounded on them. “It doesn’t trump a full stomach, a roof over your head, and the ability to choose who, if anybody, to take to your bed. Trust me. I’ve been to that place where I didn’t have any of those things. I will not go back there again and I will not let anyone else in my care go back there, no matter how much in love I am.”

  “So you admit that you love Rupert Cole?” Lucy asked.

  Pearl bit her lip, cheeks growing pink. She wouldn’t betray Bonnie’s secret, but she also knew that once that divorce decree was filed, the marriage was no more.

  “It doesn’t matter whether I love him or not,” Bonnie sighed, walking on with slower, heavier steps. “I need to marry Rex.”
/>
  “I don’t understand why—”

  “Exactly,” Bonnie cut Lucy off. “You don’t understand. You just have to trust me when I say that sometimes you can’t be selfish, as much as you might want to. You have to think of others before you think of yourself. And you have to face up to mistakes you made a long time ago.” Mistakes like leaving Rupert the first time, getting involved with Rex to begin with, thinking she was stronger than she was, could help more people than she was really able. She’d made so many mistakes in her life that the weight of them suddenly seemed like it would crush her.

  “I still don’t think it’s right,” Pearl muttered as the three of them walked along Elizabeth Street toward the Place. “There has to be something that we can do. If we all banded together…”

  “We already do band together.” The argument was sapping every last bit of energy Bonnie had. She couldn’t bear it anymore. “We’ve done all that we can together. Now I have to take this step on my own.”

  “But—”

  “I need you to trust me when I say this is the only option left,” she cut Pearl off. They’d reached the juncture of Elizabeth and Main Streets. Bonnie stopped to face both of her friends, as if lecturing them. “I created a problem, I need to fix it. My feelings for Rupert Cole, or anyone else, can’t play a part in the decisions I make. You have to believe me when I say that. I wish Rupert all the very best in this world. I…I hope that he finds someone who he can love, someone who deserves him.” It ripped at her soul to say that, but he deserved to be happy. “I’m going to marry Rex on Tuesday, and that’s all there is to it.” She’d deal with the consequences as they came.

  Neither Pearl nor Lucy had a response, so Bonnie nodded to them, then turned and marched across the intersection and up the steps of the porch. She wanted nothing more than to retreat to her own rooms, where she could cry her eyes out in peace.

  As she opened the door, she glanced over her shoulder. Pearl and Lucy stood with their heads together, eyes wide with emotion, whispering furiously. If Bonnie didn’t know any better, she’d think the two were plotting something.

  Chapter 13

  Rupert would have sworn he was in for another sleepless night, but as soon as his head hit the pillow back at The Cattleman Hotel after a gloomy team supper at the saloon, he fell into a heavy sleep. It was a blessing that it was dreamless, otherwise he was certain he would have dreamed of nothing but Bonnie. As it was, he was certain he would dream about nothing but her for the rest of his life.

  When morning finally dawned, he stayed in bed longer than he should have, then got up, washed without shaving, and packed his bags. The sooner he got home to Everland the better. He tried to make himself think of how grateful Skipper would be to have him back at work, about how he and Max and Gordon would laugh about the whole thing at The Gingerbread Man while throwing back a few whiskeys. On second thought, he was convinced he would never laugh again.

  “I’d like to check out,” Rupert mumbled to Gunn at the hotel’s front desk after nothing but coffee for breakfast.

  Gunn blinked at him, his steely, blue-eyed gaze concerned. “Don’t you have your meeting with Howard and Lucy later this morning?”

  “I do.” Rupert sighed, rubbing a hand over his stubbly chin. “But after that, I’d like to catch the next train back to Everland. Apparently there’s only one today, and it leaves just before noon.”

  Gunn studied him with a frown. “Aren’t you expecting your meeting to go well?” He leaned closer across the desk. “I hear Howard was exceptionally impressed with the designs you gave him the other day. You didn’t hear it from me, but he plans to make you an offer.”

  The stirring of excitement in Rupert’s chest at the possibility of a lucrative building contract felt as though it was a million miles away, someone else’s emotions. It rang in the hollowness of his heart, barely making a dent. “That’s nice,” he told Gunn with a faint smile. “I’d still like to check out, though.”

  “If you’re sure,” Gunn said slowly.

  “I am sure,” Rupert snapped back. “I want to go home. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Not at all.” Gunn nodded with regal calm.

  It wasn’t enough to soothe Rupert’s hurt feelings. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this town. Everyone thinks it’s their business to interfere with the lives of strangers.”

  Gunn’s expression turned dangerously flat. “Allow me to correct you. This town harbors a deep concern and care for its citizens. We are more than just a town, we are a community.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not part of it.”

  It took Rupert a few seconds of Gunn’s obvious disapproval to realize the man might not be talking about him. Bonnie was central to Haskell. People like Gunn would be concerned with her happiness, not his.

  He puffed out a breath, shaking his head. He was concerned with her happiness too.

  “Look, Mr. Gunn, I know you all want what’s best for Bonnie,” he said, trying to be more conciliatory. “That’s what I want too. We had a long talk about it yesterday,” sort of, “and I see now that Bonnie’s plan of marrying Bonneville so that she can hold onto her Place is the right thing. Even if it doesn’t make me particularly happy.”

  “Or her?” Gunn questioned, one eyebrow arched.

  “Or her,” Rupert sighed. “I have to respect her choices. If I didn’t, I’d be nothing but a selfish, overbearing fool.”

  Silence followed his speech. Gunn continued to stare at him, not even remotely convinced. Rupert was spared the frustration of having to argue even more for something he didn’t want when Howard and his daughter burst into the lobby.

  “Ah! Mr. Cole! I see you’re ready for our meeting.”

  Rupert had never been more grateful to do business with a loud, boisterous man in his life. He gave Gunn one last look, followed by a shrug. “I’ll check out right after this meeting.”

  Howard had to greet Gunn at length before asking for breakfast and settling himself, Mrs. Faraday, and Rupert in the dining room for the meeting. He then launched into his opinionated account of the baseball game the day before, berating Bonneville for his tactics and doing his best to reassure Rupert that he didn’t hold the loss against him personally, that everyone made a bad play at a crucial moment now and then. Mrs. Faraday stayed silent, frowning, at that statement. Rupert could feel the clock ticking in his head, but nothing he did could get Howard to settle down to business.

  “We’ll be done here in plenty of time for you to catch your train,” he insisted, even as he delayed business until after the pancakes and bacon were served.

  Every minute that Rupert was forced to sit and listen to Howard’s bombast about the game, the town, and his plans for it was like torture. All he wanted to do was go home, and yet, he kept looking out the hotel restaurant’s window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Bonnie. No, dreading the possibility of catching a glimpse of Bonnie. He’d lost her. He had no right to continue to long for her. This was all for her. He strained to hear any sign of a train whistle so that he could make his excuses and flee.

  “And that’s why I want to pay you and your partner ten thousand dollars for the designs and offer you a contract worth five thousand dollars per completed unit.”

  Rupert jerked out of his depressing thoughts, his eyes popping at the figures Howard quoted. “That’s a small fortune.”

  Howard beamed and patted his round stomach. “Of course it is. I only want the finest quality for my town, and in my experience, if you pay people what they’re worth, they’ll not only live up to your expectations, they’ll exceed them.”

  Rupert could only gape. He was in no way worth that much money. But with an income like that, he could do so much to help Bonnie and her girls. What he couldn’t do, however, was enable them to keep their house. Howard’s generous offer was too little too late to fix the destruction Rex Bonneville had wrought.

  “I have to consult with my partner about this,” Rupert replied. Although for money like that,
Skipper was likely to fall all over himself to accept the offer. It would be tricky figuring out how to engage in a contract in Haskell while the primary business was in Everland, but if Rupert spent more time in Haskell, if they hired more men, both for their Everland enterprise and for the Haskell project…

  No, he didn’t think he could face that much time spent working in Haskell with Bonnie married to Bonneville. Even with the friends he’d made in town, it was too much.

  “I have to ask Skipper,” he repeated, deflating.

  “Take all the time you need, my boy.” Howard reached over and thumped his arm. “But I doubt you’ll ever find an offer like this again.”

  “You won’t,” Mrs. Faraday added. The way she had looked at him through the entire meeting clearly had nothing to do with building contracts and housing designs. She was Bonnie’s friend. She probably hated him.

  At last, the first, faint peal of a train whistle sounded in the distance. Rupert stood faster than was polite. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.”

  “Yes, yes, but I hope to hear an answer from you soon.” Howard stood with him and shook his hand.

  Rupert nodded to Mrs. Faraday, then turned to rush out of the room.

  He was halfway across the lobby before he realized Mrs. Faraday had jumped up and chased after him.

  “I can’t let you do it.” She grabbed him by the arm, dug in her heels, and forced him to stop. “I can’t let you run away like this.”

  “What?” Rupert tried to shake her off politely, but she had his arm in a dogged grip.

  “Ohh,” she squealed. “Bonnie is my friend, and it tears me apart to watch the two of you making what could be the worst mistake of your lives.”

  Rupert closed his hand over hers, peeled her fingers away, and set her arm by her side. Trying to be firm without being rude, he looked her in the eye and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Faraday, but this isn’t actually any of your business.”