by B. J Daniels
That, Jesse thought, Amanda could believe. But for those few days before the wedding, Amanda seemed to enjoy the closeness she and her father shared. Like a lull before a storm, Jesse thought.
One night over a glass of brandy in his study, J.B. told them about the night he went to see Roxie, the night Jesse was born. He saw Frank leaving in his car. Even thought he heard a baby cry. But he’d been too upset over Billy’s death to understand what he’d seen, what it meant.
Like everyone else, J.B. had believed the baby died at birth. That Roxie had gone into premature labor after hearing about Billy’s death and because of complications, lost not only her baby, but later her will to live.
J.B. often held his granddaughter and seemed to take great pleasure in having the house full of life. Sometimes Jesse would catch him watching his daughter and granddaughter, a sadness in his gaze.
Even Eunice and Malcolm treated Jesse as if he was family. Consuela cried a lot, her happiness running over, as she made wonderful meals and raced about waiting on them as if they were royalty.
“Amanda and I will be leaving right after the wedding,” Jesse reminded J.B. Amanda didn’t want her baby raised behind fences and bars. She desperately wanted that normal life that Jesse had promised her. And Jesse planned on it beginning right after they were married.
J.B. had only nodded. It was obvious he didn’t want to lose his daughter, but maybe part of him realized he already had.
Jesse took Amanda up to meet his parents the day after their return to the Crowe estate. Amanda took to them instantly and they her, just as he’d expected.
“You made a huge hit with my folks,” Jesse told her on the way home.
“They are wonderful.”
“They sure loved you and Susannah. As soon as we get married, they’ll be expecting us to have more children. What do you think?”
She’d smiled. “I think we should start working on it soon. I’ve always liked the idea of a lot of kids, close in age. I can’t believe I’ve finally gotten the large family I’ve always dreamed of. Your brothers and sisters are great.”
He’d laughed. “We’ll see how great you think they are when you see them every holiday and every birthday and every—”
She interrupted him with a kiss. “I can’t wait.”
“Soon,” he’d promised and he’d seen something in her gaze…. She knew, he thought. She knew he’d made a deal with her father.
And he knew that when J.B. went back to business as usual, Amanda would wash her hands of her father once and for all. And maybe, like him, she knew it was just a matter of time.
But she never said anything. Nor he.
He’d had a long talk with his parents about what he’d found out in Red River. They had never known who his real parents were but had always feared they might be people who would come after Jesse some day.
He loved Marie and Pete McCall even more now, knowing that they had adopted him, knowing what they had gone through all those years, worrying about the biological parents possibly showing up one day.
He and Amanda had also visited the governor and his wife a few times in Austin. Jesse told him about Brice and the other cops who’d come after them that night, unsure just who the cops worked for, and Jesse’s suspicions about his boss. Kincaid had promised to look into it. He’d also offered Jesse a job on a special government task force, making it clear that he still planned to shut down organized crime in Texas.
While he’d heard from his daughter Diana and she was safe and swore she hadn’t been kidnapped by J. B. Crowe, Kincaid wasn’t sure if he could make the wedding or not. Jesse understood.
* * *
ON THE BIG DAY, when all the wedding preparations had been made and the Crowe compound had changed more dramatically than even J. B. Crowe himself had appeared to, J.B. called Jesse down to his study.
“I want you to have this,” J.B. said, handing Jesse the heart and chain that Billy Kincaid had worn until his death.
Jesse put the two odd shaped hearts together for the first time. They formed a perfect small heart of solid gold. “Thank you, J.B. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”
The older man had nodded awkwardly. “Promise me you’ll look after my girls.”
“I promise,” Jesse said.
Outside music played on the large lawn and a crowd began to gather. Dressed in his tuxedo, Jesse went down to stand at the altar with his two brothers as attendants, and wait for his bride. He held the heart in his pocket, balled in his palm, a reminder of the past—and his hopes for the future.
Then he saw Amanda coming behind the long line of bridesmaids, three of them his sisters. She took his breath away.
His beautiful bride appeared at the end of the long runway with J.B. by her side. Jesse wanted to remember J.B. this way, he thought. A father escorting his only daughter down the aisle.
When they reached Jesse, J.B. handed Amanda to him, a warning look in his eye.
“Make my daughter happy,” J.B. whispered.
“I’m sure going to try.”
When the preacher finally pronounced them man and wife, Jesse lifted Amanda’s veil and kissed his bride, then he pulled the heart and gold chain from his pocket and held it out to her. Tears welled in her eyes as she slipped it over her head, the two hearts finally united.
“Forever,” he said, against all odds. And as he and Amanda walked down the aisle, he had the strangest feeling that Billy and Roxie were watching. And that they heartily approved.
* * * * *
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SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
The kidnapping of the McGraw twins devastated this ranching family. Twenty-five years later, when a true crime writer investigates, will the family be able to endure the truth?
Read on for a sneak preview of
DARK HORSE,
the first book in a new series from
New York Times bestselling author B.J. Daniels,
WHITEHORSE, MONTANA: THE MCGRAW KIDNAPPING
“I want to ask you about your babies,” Nikki said. “Oakley and Jesse Rose?” Was it her imagination or did the woman clutch the dolls even harder to her thin chest?
“What happened the night they disappeared?” Did Nikki really expect an answer? She could hope, couldn’t she? Mostly, she needed to hear the sound of her voice in this claustrophobic room.
The rocking had a hypnotic effect, like being pulled down a rabbit hole.
“Everyone outside this room believes you had something to do with it. You and Nate Corwin.” No response, no reaction to the name. “Was he your lover?”
She moved closer, catching the decaying scent that rose from the rocking chair as if the woman was already dead. “I don’t believe it’s true. But I think you might know who kidnapped your babies,” she whispered.
The speculation at the time was that the kidnapping had been an inside job. Marianne had been suffering from postpartum depression. The nanny had said that Mrs. McGraw was having trouble bonding with the babies and that she’d been afraid to leave Marianne alone with them.
And, of course, there’d been Marianne’s secret lover—the man who everyone believed had helped her kidnap her own children. He’d been implicated because of a shovel found in the stables with his bloody fingerprints on it—along with fresh soil—even though no fresh graves had been found.
“Was Nate Corwin involved, Marianne?” The court had decided that Marianne McGraw couldn’t have acted alone. To get both babies out the second-story window, she would have needed an accomplice.
“Did my father help you?”
There was no sign that the woman even heard her, let alone recognized her alleged lover’s name. And if the woman had answered, Nikki knew she would have jumped out of her skin.
She checked to make sure Tess wasn’t watching as she snapped a photo of the woman in the rocker. The flash lit the room for an instant and made a snap sound. As she started to take another, she thought she heard a low growling sound coming from the rocker.
She hurriedly took another photo, though hesitantly, as the growling sound seemed to grow louder. Her eye on the viewfinder, she was still focused on the woman in the rocker when Marianne McGraw seemed to rock forward as if lurching from her chair.
A shriek escaped her before she could pull down the camera. She had closed her eyes and thrown herself back, slamming into the wall. Pain raced up one shoulder. She stifled a scream as she waited for the feel of the woman’s clawlike fingers on her throat.
But Marianne McGraw hadn’t moved. It had only been a trick of the light. And yet, Nikki noticed something different about the woman.
Marianne was smiling.
Don’t miss
DARK HORSE by B.J. Daniels,
available August 2017 wherever
Harlequin Intrigue® books and ebooks are sold.
www.Harlequin.com
Copyright © 2017 by Barbara Heinlein
ISBN-13: 978-1-488-03001-7
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