Marrying Molly

by Christine Rimmer

  There was a hell of a lot of information on a marriage license, Tate found himself thinking. Given that his father had filled at least some of the boxes with true information, there would definitely be enough on the document in front of him to find out for certain if the wild things his mother had written in that diary of hers might be true.

  Tate leaned back in his chair and stared off toward the far wall. As he stared, he pondered.

  Deep things. Scary things. Things he never would have admitted he'd ever considered in the past.

  Things like how, just possibly, Molly was right about him being kind of screwed up on the subject of his father and his mother and what the hell really went on there.

  Things like how, maybe, he had more of Ol' Tuck in him than he liked to think.

  Things like how he never should have told her she had to marry him or go.

  About then, at the very time he finally fully ad-mittedthat he had been a blind, stupid fool, the alarm box, fixed by a puzzled representative of the alarm company the day before, started blaring.

  Figuring it had to be an intruder, Tate bent down to get his .38.

  But before he got the lock open, Miranda trotted by the door, hurrying in from the back of the house. A moment later, the alarm quit bleating and he heard Tucker say, "Thanks, Miranda. I hate that damn thing."

  Miranda murmured something and passed Tate's line of sight a second time, headed back the way she'd come. Tate heard scrabbling noises and then Tucker's puppy appeared in the doorway. It dropped to a sitting position, whined once and then panted with enthusiasm, floppy pink tongue hanging out.

  Tate was actually considering calling it over when Tucker finally came to the door and scooped it up. "Hey, big brother. Got someone I want you to meet."

  Tucker stepped aside and Tate saw the guy with him. A tall guy, dark-eyed and broad-shouldered. Lean. Handsome, in a fine-featured kind of way. A stranger.

  And yet, there was something familiar about him. Something in the set of the eyes and the shape of the face, in the full-lipped, sensual mouth.

  It came to Tate. The guy looked a little like Tucker—and a little like the man Tate saw when he looked in the mirror.

  By then, Tate was figuring it out.

  It was only icing on the cake when Tucker said, "Meet our half brother, Marsh."

  Tate might have been facing some tough facts about who he was and what was wrong with him. But he still had enough of OF Tuck in him to need at least a little confirmation.

  He asked the stranger, "Do you know your father's middle name?"

  Marsh nodded. "Phelan."

  Tate looked at his father's name on the license in front of him: Blake Phelan Bravo.

  It was enough. He stood and came around the desk, hand outstretched, to greet the half brother he'd never known he had.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Friday morning at ten, Molly had Emmie Lusk before her in the styling chair. After much agonizing and discussion, Emmie had decided to go from warm sable-brown to ash blonde.

  Molly knew it was a mistake. Emmie's yellowish skin tone was going to look downright jaundiced with a bunch of ash-yellow hair all around it. She'd tried to steer Emmie to the warmer blond shades, at least. Emmie wouldn't be steered. And in the end, as a successful businesswoman, Molly understood that a service was a service and the customer had a right to get what she was willing to pay for.

  In this case, for the chance to look like she'd come down with hepatitis B.

  Molly was trying to focus on the bright side. Once she saw how awful the color was on her, Emmie would want a redo. And Molly would provide it, charging the usual rate. Win/win, as they say...

  Win/win, Molly thought bleakly as she brushed on the color solution after lifting out the sable. Life was just a series of opportunities for everybody to get what they wanted, now wasn't it?

  Hardly.

  Tate, she thought, as she did about a thousand times every day. And, just like every other time, her stomach felt tight and there was an aching around her heart.

  She was getting very close to doing what she'd never thought she'd do, because living this way, without him, well—it just hurt too much. So she was working up the courage to give it one more shot, though she knew that a man like Tate would never give second chances once he'd drawn the line.

  Too bad. She was going to try, anyway. She was going to go see him, and she was going to tell him—

  Molly never finished that particular thought. Because right in the middle of it, the bell rang over the door, and there he was.

  Tate! Her heart raced faster and her hands started shaking.

  "Tate," she whispered, and carefully set down the bowl of color solution and the solution brush. "Elise, honey, take over for me here," Molly said to one of the other stylists.

  "Now, wait a minute," snapped Emmie. "I don't want just anyone fooling with my hair."

  "Don't you worry, Emmie," Molly replied, taking off her Latex gloves and tossing them aside. "Elise'll fix you up fine..."

  Whatever Emmie said next, Molly didn't hear it. She heard nothing, saw nothing, but the tall, broad-shouldered man who'd just come in the door.

  Tate had looked over. He saw that she saw him. "Molly," he whispered. He spoke too softly for her to hear it, but she saw his lips form her name.

  And she whispered back, "Oh, Tate..."

  It was right about then that she registered the fact that he had someone with him, someone tall, dark-haired and broad-shouldered, just like Tate. The man wasn't as blunt-featured as Tate, but still, it seemed to Molly, there was a faint resemblance.

  Her feet were moving, carrying her toward Tate. And Tate was walking straight toward her. He said, loud and clear that time, "Molly, I'd like you to meet my brother, Marsh Bravo."

  And that was when she knew—that was when she allowed herself to believe that, just maybe, they would be all right.

  They drove to the ranch house, the three of them: Molly, Tate and Tate's long-lost half brother. There was so much Molly needed to know and the proof, Tate said, was back at the house. That was fine with Molly. There was altogether too much gaping and whispering going on at the Cut, anyway.

  By tomorrow, word about Marsh Bravo would be all over town—and about how Tate had come to get Molly, as well. Molly accepted that folks would talk. It was how things were when you lived in the Junction.

  At the ranch house, Miranda had put out a mid-morning snack. They sat around the table in the breakfast room and Marsh and Tate showed her the proof of who their father had really been—the marriage license that matched up with what his mother had written and with what Marsh knew about the man who'd fathered both of them. Marsh said there were other brothers, three of them, in Nevada, just as Penelope had written. Marsh said he'd met them. Then-names were Aaron, Cade and Will.

  "And I'll bet," Marsh said to Tate, "that as time goes by, we're going to find out that you and Tucker and I and our Nevada half brothers aren't the only ones. Your mother wrote that he mentioned he had other families around the country. And I believe it. Our father lived in the rundown shack out in the woods where I grew up for thirty years. But he wasn't home much, you know? When I was a kid, he would be gone for weeks—sometimes even months—at a time. Nobody knew where he went when he took off. So there could be more of us. Knowing my father, I'd lay odds there are." Marsh had a wife and kids in Oklahoma. He said he hoped that soon his family would have a chance to meet his Texas brothers.

  Eventually, Tucker came in with his new puppy, Fargo. Molly held the adorable funny-looking little critter and let him lick her face and Tate pretended he didn't approve.

  "Oh, you know you want to hold him, too," she teased.

  "Keep that damn dog away from me," he commanded.

  Molly only laughed. She knew that sometime, when he thought no one was looking, he'd be reaching out to give Fargo a scratch behind his big, floppy ear.

  "Come with me," he said quietly, a little bit later, when Tucker had taken Ma
rsh out for a look around the property. He held out his hand.

  Molly laid hers in it, the familiar rush of joy and heat bursting all through her just from his touch.

  He led her upstairs, down the landing, and into the room that had been his mother's. Everything was just as she'd left it that awful day almost a week ago.

  "This way." He pulled her into the big, bright, empty room that his mother had once called her studio. And right there, in the middle of the scratched, paint-spotted floor, he fell to his knees. "Molly..." He had to pause, to clear his throat.

  She looked down at his beloved face and she ached for him. For a big, strong, handsome, rich guy, he sure did look scared. She reached down, put her hand against the side of his dear face. He caught it, pressed his lips to it.

  "Molly," he said, his voice husky with emotion. "In the time you been gone, I've had to come to grips with a few things. The brother you just met is one of them, the truth about my father is another. The fact that it's damn likely my father had another wife already when he married my mother.... Molly, those are things that have rocked the foundation of the man I thought I was.

  "But the biggest thing I learned, the most important thing, is the bald truth that I never should have pushed you into a corner ihe way I did. I was wrong to do that and, Molly, if you'll give me another chance, I will never do such a thing to you again.

  Because, Molly, it's finally gotten clear to me that I can live without doing the right thing and marrying you easier than I can live without you. So, if you can't see your way clear to take my ring and my name, well, I hope you'll just stay with me, Molly. I hope in whatever way you can, you'll be mine. Because, damn it, I love you. My life is pure misery without you. You are the woman I want for the rest of my life. And however I can have you, I'll take you that way."

  Molly found that her legs didn't want to hold her up there, so high above him. She let them bend. Slowly she sank to her knees with him.

  "Molly?" he asked in a reverent whisper, his face full of hope and the beginnings of joy.

  To Molly, right then, it seemed that the room grew brighter still. A golden, warm and magical light suffused it. Her eyes had teared up. Everything looked soft and bright and blurry.

  "Oh, Tate. You mean it? You love me?"

  Tate muttered something. Even as close as she was, with her hand in his, she couldn't make it out. But she was pretty sure it was a swearword. He demanded gruffly. "Are you trying to tell me you didn't know?"

  She pulled his hand close and kissed his knuckles. "Well, Tate, you never said it."

  He gaped. "I should have? I should have said it?" Too moved to speak right then, she sniffed and nodded. "Damn it, Molly. Why didn't you just tell me so?"

  She laughed and the laugh kind of caught on a happy sob. "Oh, Tate. I didn't know how bad I wanted to hear it—not till you said it. Besides, it only really counts if you think it up yourself. And, Tate?"

  He touched her shoulder, lightly stroked her hair. "Yeah?"

  "Well, Tate. I love you, too. With all my heart and body and soul. I have loved you forever, I realize that now. Though the last thing I thought I'd ever do was admit it to you—or to myself."

  "Forever?" His expression said that was a very long time.

  She nodded. "Since I was a little girl, and I'm not kidding. I'd see you in town and my heart would just... Oh, Tate. There are no words. And you never noticed me. Not until I ran for mayor."

  "I never thought I'd say it, but your running for mayor was the best damn thing that ever happened to me."

  "Oh, Tate. For me, too. And, Tate?" She kissed his hand again and then tucked it up close, against her heart. "I would be so honored. And so happy, if...well, if you would, um..."

  "Molly," he said. He looked stricken, poleaxed, punched in the gut—as if he didn't quite dare to believe.

  And she said it, she asked him, somehow she managed it. "Tate. Please marry me. Be my husband. Let me be your wife. Let's...make a life together, as a family, with our babies. Oh, Tate. Will you do that? Will you marry me? Please?"

  "Molly," he said again, and he reached for her. She swayed against him. His big arms closed around her. "Molly, Molly, Molly..." He bestowed a rain of kisses on her upturned face.

  "Is that a yes?" she dared to ask.

  "Yes," he growled.

  And then he kissed her, long and deep.

  They were married a week and a day later, on the last Saturday in August, out in Emigration Park, just as Dixie and Ray had done. Molly had both her mother and her grandmother for her attendants. Tate had Tucker for his best man. Marsh and his family came down from Norman and just about every citizen of Tate's Junction was there. No one wanted to miss the moment when Tate Bravo finally got Molly O'Dare to say "I do."

  There was a deep and awestruck silence when the moment came at last.

  Pastor Partridge asked, "Molly O'Dare, do you take this man, Tate Bravo, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to love, honor and cherish him, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?"

  Molly didn't falter. She looked up into the waiting eyes of the only man for her and she answered, "I do. Forever and ever. Tate Bravo, I do."

  *****

  Special edition

  Coming in November to

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  The fifth book in the exciting continuity

  Dark secrets. Old lies. New loves.

  THE MARRIAGE ACT

  (Silhouette Special Edition #1646) by

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  Plain-Jane accountant Linda Mailer had never done anything shocking in her life—until she had a one-night stand with a sexy detective and found herself pregnant!

  Then she discovered that her anonymous Romeo was none other than Tyler Carlton, the man spearheading the investigation of her beleaguered boss, Walter Parks. Tyler wanted to give his child a real family, and convinced Linda to marry him. Their passion sparked in close quarters, but Linda was wary of Tyler's motives and afraid of losing her heart Was he using her to get to Walter—or had they found the true love they'd both longed for?

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  Right instructor Billie Van Horn's sexy good looks and charming personality blew Prince Jefri away from the moment he met her. Their mutual love bumed hot, but when the Prince was suddenly presented with an arranged marriage, Jefri found himself unable to love the woman he had or have the woman he loved. Could Jefri successfully trade tradition for true love?

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  When Lonnie Corteen agreed to search for his best friend's long-lost sister, he found the beautiful Katherine McBride pregnant, alone and in no mood to have her heart trampled on again. But Lonnie wanted to reunite her family—and become a part of it.

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