“Rhonda?” Cole said. “You think Earl might like to be my best man?”
“Nope. He’d hate it, particularly if you make him wear a tux.”
“But he’ll do it anyway, won’t he?”
“Oh, you bet he will, even if I have to get out the shotgun.”
Ginny grinned. “So I suppose you’re going to be taking me back to Cupid’s Little Chapel of Love.”
“Not on your life, sweetheart. Murphy offered us the ranch house. How does that sound?”
Ginny blinked. “What?”
“When I gave him our divorce papers, I told him I was going to do everything I could to get you to marry me again. He expressed extreme doubt that you’d have me, but he said in the event that I got very, very lucky, he’d be willing to host the wedding.”
Host the wedding? Murphy?
“He and I will probably never see eye to eye on everything, Ginny, but it’s going to be okay now.”
Ginny just about started crying again. This day got better and better.
“What’s the fastest you can get a wedding together?” Cole asked.
“Well, I don’t know,” Ginny said, flustered. “If it’s a real wedding, we have to have a minister and a cake, and I have to find something to wear—Oh! And invitations! Of course, I’d like to invite a few people—”
“One week,” Rhonda said.
“One week it is,” Cole said.
One week. That was fast. Way too fast. But then again, the quicker they were married, the quicker Cole would be hers forever.
And in the end, that was all she’d ever wanted.
Later, at home, Ginny pulled from her pocket the crumpled piece of paper that held the phone number of the clinic. Cole had said it didn’t matter, but still she was worried.
“Cole? What if I really am pregnant? Are you really all right with it? However it turns out?”
Cole took her hand. “If it happens that we get that little wedding present, I’ll be the happiest man alive. And if it turns out that we don’t…” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’ll still be the happiest man alive.”
“Then let’s find out.”
Cole smiled and nodded, and Ginny picked up the telephone.
Epilogue
ONE WEEK LATER, Ginny and Cole stood on the veranda of the ranch house, staring at the rolling hills, beautiful even in the starkness of near-winter. The usual cold of early December had forced them to plan an indoor wedding, but to their surprise, the afternoon sun shone so brightly on the veranda that the temperature shot up to an unseasonably warm level for Texas, and they moved the ceremony outdoors.
Cole couldn’t believe how beautiful Ginny looked. Her dress was simple but elegant, tucked at the waist and falling in soft folds to her ankles, with a neckline that dipped just low enough to be a little bit daring. Sweet and sexy at the same time.
Just like Ginny.
He’d worn a tuxedo for the occasion because he’d wanted to do this right, even though he longed for jeans and boots. He wasn’t doing nearly as much longing as Earl was, though. Fortunately, Rhonda kept him in line with an occasional swat on the arm when he fiddled too much with his tie. Loretta and Darlene came, too, as well as Ruby and most of the people from the bank.
Pastor McDonald from the First Baptist Church of Coldwater performed the ceremony, which was a whole lot more traditional than the one they’d had at Cupid’s Little Chapel of Love. They swore him to silence about the real nature of their marriage, because for all anyone except Rhonda, Earl and Murphy knew, they were merely renewing their wedding vows with a more formal ceremony among friends after six blissful months of marriage.
After a short ceremony, complete with a new ring for Ginny, they both said their I do’s and Cole kissed the bride. He needed no persuasion this time except to stop kissing her, which he finally did after extensive throat-clearing from Pastor McDonald.
Afterward, while Ginny was chatting with their guests, Cole stepped to the railing of the veranda and looked out over the acres of pastureland. For all his protest about hating this place, he knew now how much he was going to miss it.
Murphy came up beside him. “You’re a lucky man. But then, surely I don’t have to tell you that.”
“No, Murphy. You don’t.”
“I think maybe I was wrong about a few things.”
“I think maybe you weren’t.”
Murphy looked at him with surprise.
“I never meant to hurt my grandmother. I know I didn’t come back when I should have, and—”
“It’s over. Forget about it.”
“I loved her, Murphy.”
Murphy got a faraway look in his eyes. “So did I, Cole.”
As Cole looked at Murphy, it was as if a shroud slowly fell away and he saw him clearly for the very first time. Memories came flooding back of Murphy and his grandmother, of them laughing, embracing and even kissing when they didn’t know he was watching. He remembered sitting at the kitchen table in the mornings and seeing Murphy come down the back stairs. His grandmother’s face would light up with love, and Murphy would give her a smile in return that said he loved her, too.
Until recently he’d thought of Murphy as nothing but an angry old man. So why did all these other memories come back only now? Where had they been buried all these years?
In a rush of understanding, he knew it wasn’t that Murphy had hated him. It was that he’d loved Edna, so much so he’d go to war with anyone who tried to hurt her. Her death had only intensified that loyalty. He’d been forced both to carry out her wishes and protect her memory, doing everything he could to insure the woman he loved would never be hurt by Cole or anyone else, whether she was in this world or the next.
Now, finally, because of Ginny, Cole understood that kind of love.
Murphy nodded toward Ginny. “What made you finally wise up?”
Cole turned to look at his wife, catching her eye. She smiled, a warm, wonderful smile that was meant only for him.
“It’s the way she looks at me,” he said.
Murphy turned and looked at him, his blue eyes sharp as ever.
“See, Murphy, some men wait their whole lives for a woman to look at them like that. I figured I’d better not let her get away.”
Murphy nodded. “Smart man.”
“It reminds me of the way my grandmother looked at you.”
Murphy’s eyes got a little misty. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her.”
“Maybe we’re both smart men.”
“Maybe we are.”
In that moment, Cole felt the ten years he’d spent so full of anger and resentment slip away like a bad dream at daybreak.
“Why don’t you ask your wife to come over here for a minute?”
Cole wondered what was up. He did as Murphy asked and called to Ginny. She left the guests and came over, sliding into his arms as naturally as if she’d spent a lifetime doing it.
Murphy reached inside his coat pocket, pulled out an envelope and handed it to Cole. Cole opened it, and when he saw what it contained, he was filled with disbelief.
The title to the ranch. In both his name and Ginny’s.
Ginny blinked with surprise. “For us?”
Murphy nodded.
She turned to Cole with a questioning look. He knew what she was wondering, and he didn’t blame her. She was waiting for him to get that look in his eyes again that said he saw dollar signs.
“Ginny?” he said.
“Yes?”
“Do you want—”
“Do I want what?”
Silence.
“The ranch,” Cole said. “I was wondering—”
“What?”
“Ginny? Would you like to stay here?”
She looked at him with astonishment. “Here? On the ranch?”
“Yes.”
“You mean we can keep it? We can actually live here?”
“Only if you want to.”
“Oh, yes
!” She threw her arms around him, practically squeezing the breath out of him. “Yes!”
“Now, I know you wanted to go to college—”
“But I have my new job. I’m learning so much that I don’t want to stop now. Maybe I’ll go to college later, but for now—” she kissed Cole “—this is where I want to stay.”
Then she turned to Murphy. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek, then whispered something in his ear. Murphy smiled a little and whispered something back.
Cole watched Murphy walk away. “So what did you say to him?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Sure it is,” he said with a smile. “We’re married now. For real. Everything’s my business.”
Ginny’s eyes filled with tears. “I said, ‘I told you so.’”
Cole realized just how much Ginny had believed in him all this time, even when he’d done nothing to deserve it, and for a moment he was sick with the feeling of how close he’d come to losing her. He’d never make that kind of mistake again.
“And what did Murphy say to you?”
“He said you’re just the kind of man your grandmother always believed you could be.”
Cole’s throat felt so tight he couldn’t speak. At the same time, though, a peaceful feeling settled over him, a feeling that he’d finally come home where he belonged.
Ginny turned and looked out over the ranch. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Cole said. “I can’t think of a better place to raise our baby.”
He pulled Ginny close, enveloping her in his arms. They’d tell everyone else soon enough. But for right now, it was a secret only they shared.
Cole encouraged their guests to stay the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, basking in the feeling of being surrounded by friends and, in the case of Murphy, family. As much as he wanted to be alone with his wife, for once he was in no hurry.
After all, he and Ginny would be together for the rest of their lives.
The Innocent Virgin
By Carole Mortimer
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER ONE
ABBY stepped into the hot scented bathwater, sat down, and let her shoulders sink beneath the luxurious bubbles, ebony hair secured loosely on top of her head, a glass of champagne in one hand, her mobile phone in the other.
She took a large sip from the former before gently dropping the latter into the water beside her, smiling at the satisfying ‘glug’ it gave before sinking to the bottom without trace. The four-inch layer of bubbles simply closed back over the temporary dent the mobile had made in their formation.
The landline was unplugged, the speaker system from her doorbell in the street downstairs switched off. Nothing and no one was going to disturb this hour of decadence.
She took another sip of the champagne and gazed from the free-standing claw-footed bath at her surroundings. Twelve scented candles were her only illumination and a dreamy smile touched her lips as she looked at her frankly opulent surroundings. The floors and walls were of peach-coloured marble, the glass-sided shower unit that stood at one end of the large room had all its fittings gold-plated; the towels on the racks were a sumptuous peach of the exact shade as the walls and floor. Monty was sitting on the laundry basket, all her bottles of perfume were neatly lined up on the glass shelf beneath the tinted mirror, the bucket of ice containing the bottle of champagne was right beside her, and—
Monty was sitting on the laundry basket!
Her gaze swivelled sharply back to look at him. No, it wasn’t the champagne she had already imbibed; Monty really was sitting on top of the laundry basket, unmoving, those green cat-like eyes unblinking.
Well, of course his eyes were cat-like—he was a cat, after all. A huge white, long-haired Persian, to be exact.
Not that Monty was aware of this himself. Somewhere in his youth someone had forgotten to mention this little fact to him, and now he chose to ignore any reference to his species.
Abby wasn’t to blame for this oversight; Monty had already been a year old when she’d chosen him over the other cats at the animal rescue centre. At least, she had thought she had chosen him; within a very few days of arriving home with him it had become more than obvious that Monty had done the choosing. Someone soft and malleable, he must have decided. Someone still young enough to be moulded into the indulgent, pandering human he needed to make his life completely comfortable. Enter Abby.
‘Well, of course that’s going to change now, Monty, old chap.’ She waved her champagne glass with bravado. ‘No more boiled chicken and salmon for you, I’m afraid,’ she warned him ruefully. ‘From now on you’ll be lucky if I can afford to buy you that tinned food you consider so much beneath your notice!’
Cats, she was sure, weren’t supposed to be able to look at you with scepticism and disdain, and yet that was exactly what Monty was doing at this moment. He had several easily readable expressions, from ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ to the smug ‘Aren’t I lucky to own an accommodating human like Abby?’. At the moment it was definitely the former.
‘It isn’t my fault,’ Abby assured him with another wave of her champagne glass—which definitely needed replenishing, she decided, and did exactly that. ‘It’s that man’s fault.’ She took a huge swallow of her champagne. ‘I mean, whoever thought he would do such a thing?’
She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t cry!
But of course she did, her tears accompanied by huge, heaving sobs.
How could he have done that to her? And on public television, live, in front of millions of viewers.
Oh, God…!
Every time she even thought of that she felt her humiliation all over again.
‘Weeks and weeks—several weeks, anyway,’ she amended tearfully. ‘Well, okay, seven.’ She sniffed inelegantly. ‘All that time I’ve been gently trying to persuade that man to come on my show. Yes, I know you liked him, Monty.’ Her voice rose with indignation on her bland-faced pet’s behalf. ‘So did I,’ she admitted heavily. ‘But if you only knew—if you had only heard—I had no idea, Monty.’ She shuddered. ‘Absolutely none!’ If she had she would never have got out of bed this morning!
In fact, it was worse than that. If she had guessed in any way just how deep her annihilation was going to be this evening she would have taken a one-way trip to Bolivia earlier today and spared herself all the pain.
She had always liked the sound of that name. Bolivia. It sounded so romantic, so mysterious, so different. But, knowing her luck, it was probably nothing like that at all. She had always liked the sound of the so-called Bermuda Triangle too, but no doubt that was just another myth…
She had probably had too much champagne.
‘Okay, okay, so my thoughts are wandering,’ she acknowledged, as Monty seemed to look at her with derision. ‘But if you only knew, Monty.’ She began to cry again, the tears hot on her cheeks. ‘If you had only heard what that man said to me! You would have been shocked, Monty. Shocked!’
Abby had actually passed being shocked where this evening was concerned. She had reached surreal now, able to envisage that whole humiliating experience as if in slow motion—like a reel of film going round and round in the projector.
‘Oh, God, Monty!’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t ever leave this apartment again! I’ll have to barricade the door, put bars on the windows. I daren’t ever go out in public again!’ She took another slurp of her champagne,
the salt of her tears mixing with the bubbly wine. ‘Once our supplies run out, we’ll both simply starve to death!’ she added shakily.
Four months ago it had all looked so promising. As the weather girl for a breakfast television show—an interesting career move, considering she couldn’t tell a cold front from an isobar!—she had been asked to stand in for the female half of the presentation team while the other woman went on maternity leave for several months. She had made a impact, and a well-known producer had approached her with an offer to do six half-hour chat shows, to be shown live the following spring.
The next three months had been a dream come true for Abby—choosing the guests for each week, researching, negotiating the appearance of those guests—and everything had gone well until it had come to the guest she had chosen for her final show.
Max Harding.
Her intention had been to finish the series on a high note. Once the presenter of his own current affairs programme, Max Harding had returned to reporting foreign news and hadn’t appeared in a British studio in two years. Not since he had walked away from his own programme, and the lucrative contract that went with it, after one of his political guests had tried to commit suicide on the live Sunday evening show.
Max Harding’s personal elusiveness since that time, his flat refusal even to discuss the subject, would make him a prime finale, Abby had thought, for her own series of shows.
But she should have known, Abby berated herself now. Should have guessed what his intentions were when he had finally—surprisingly—agreed to be her guest.
‘He meant to hurt and humiliate me, Monty.’ Her voice hardened angrily at the memory. ‘All the time you liked him so much—that I—that we—How could he do that to me, Monty? How could he?’ Her ready tears began to fall again. ‘But I showed him, Monty. In fact, I showed everyone watching as well,’ she remembered with a pained groan. ‘Millions and millions of people sat in their homes and watched as I hit him. Yes, you did hear me correctly; I hit Max Harding—on live television!’
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