Rogue's Reform
Page 23
After a long moment, she turned her attention to the other diners. The faces she was searching for were among those who’d fallen silent to watch her with an expectant air. The old hens, most people called them. They shared a table in the center of the room—Pete Davis and Bill Taylor, whose bones predicted snow, rain, a cold front moving in or a warm spell. Bill’s son Velt, one of the elderly Smith brothers and Max Owens rounded out the group.
As she started across the room, a shiver raced down her spine. She knew without looking that Ethan had finally noticed her. He was watching her, no doubt wondering why she’d come. Please, God, not wishing she would leave. If he was, the next few minutes were going to be the most humiliating of her life.
She stopped at the middle table and looked at each of the men before her gaze settled on Pete. He was grinning as if he knew why she was there and was going to relish every minute of it. “Mr. Davis,” she said softly. “Would you and your friends come with me, please?”
“Why, we’d be delighted, Miss Prescott.” He stood up, gathered his cronies and followed her across the room to the back booth.
By then everyone in the restaurant was watching, their lunches forgotten in front of them. When she stopped at the table, the five old men gathered behind her. Guthrie, Olivia, Easy and Shay all seemed to know, or at least suspect, what was coming. The two women were trying to contain smiles. The two men offered no sympathy for Ethan. Ethan was the only one, she thought, who truly didn’t seem to know what to think.
Pushing her glasses higher onto her nose, she stalled by saying a polite hello to the others. That took all of ten seconds, and then there was nothing to do but face Ethan. “Hello, Ethan.”
“Grace.”
“I—” Her cheeks grew warm. She’d never had such an audience in her life, had never spoken to more than probably four people at one time in her life, and certainly never about anything so important, so personal. But not private. They’d been private for far too long. “I wanted to tell you I like what you did with the nursery.”
He looked confused. “Thanks.”
“I also wanted to tell you that…you were right. That I cared about the wrong things, even if it was for the right reasons. That I was too afraid of the past repeating itself. I was an idiot.”
“He called her an idiot?” Bill Taylor asked loudly.
“Of course he didn’t,” Shay responded, then darted a suspicious look at Ethan. “Did you?”
“No, he didn’t.” Grace glanced at the people behind her, and the people behind them. “The idiot remark was my own, okay?” Turning back, she clasped her hands together, then dried her palms on her jeans before clasping them again. “It was so hard for you to be a James in this town, for me to be a Prescott. I was afraid that it would be even harder for our baby. She’s already stuck with all my problems, and I thought if people knew you were her father, she’d get stuck with yours, too. But that’s not the way it works. Yes, she’ll be a Prescott, but she’ll have things I never had—a mother who loves her, a father who would do anything for her, a family….” She gestured with both hands to include Guthrie and Olivia, Easy and Shay. “If I’d had those things, it would have made a world of difference. I wouldn’t have lived my whole life as ‘poor Grace.’ And with them, she’ll never be ‘poor Annie.”’
“Who’s Annie?” someone behind her asked in a stage whisper. He grunted when someone else, she suspected, poked him with an elbow.
“Her baby,” that someone answered.
“But she hasn’t even had it yet. How can she know it’s a girl?”
“There’s tests.” That was Bill’s ninety-some-year-old voice. “Doctors can tell pert near anything now. I seen it on TV. With that satellite dish, we get all sorts of programs.”
“Hey,” Shay said loudly enough to get their attention. “Grace is doing the talking here, okay?”
She tried to refocus her thoughts, to find the words she needed so badly. Nothing would come, though—no magic. No easy sentiments. No easy anything. “What I’m trying to say is I—I…” Painfully aware of the witnesses she’d deliberately invited, of the lack of privacy she’d deliberately sought, she swallowed hard. This was a mistake, she thought with a sudden panic. The first time a woman said “I love you” to a man shouldn’t be shared with half the town.
Unless she’d treated him the way she’d treated Ethan.
Pete didn’t give her a chance to gather her courage once again. “What she’s trying to say is that she loves you, boy. Ain’t you got nothin’ to say to that?”
“You pushy old man,” a woman said from the back. “She don’t want you saying it for her, and he sure don’t want you saying it. Give her a chance.”
“Aw, she’ll be standin’ here stumblin’ around the subject for the rest of the day,” Velt Taylor scoffed. “Pete’s just givin’ her a little help.”
At some point in the conversation—Ethan wasn’t at all sure when—Easy had moved to stand behind his wife, with his arms around her, leaving the way clear whenever Ethan wanted to stand up and put an end to this. Knowing how hard it was for Grace, he’d been tempted from the beginning. Knowing how important it was for her to finish, he’d kept his seat.
He did put an end to the current bickering. “You’re a nice guy, Pete, but you’re not my type.” Amid the old men’s laughter, he slid across the bench and got to his feet, then looked around the crowd. “I’ve waited a long time—” his gaze returned to Grace and stayed “—all my life for this. The next person interrupts her, we’re taking it outside, and then you’ll have to settle for making your best guesses about what’s said.”
Immediately they quieted down.
“Grace?”
Her fingers nervously worked together. She was embarrassed, uncomfortable, afraid, and yet she gathered the courage to continue. He loved her for it.
“I’ve waited all my life, too,” she said quietly, “and I’ve been scared all that time. Scared of loving, of not being loved in return. Scared of being loved and being left. I was so afraid of losing you that I wound up pushing you away. But alone is no way to live. Our baby deserves better. I deserve better.” She tried to smile, but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “We deserve you. We—I love you, Ethan, and I want you in my life, in our daughter’s life, for as long as I can have you.”
For a moment, he was too choked up to speak, then pure emotion dissolved the lump in his throat and propelled him a step closer to her. “What about my reputation?”
Tears glistened on her lashes as she took a step, too, propelled by a nudge of Pete’s elbow. “A reputation’s just talk. Besides, it’ll provide you with stories to tell our grandchildren on cold winter nights.”
He took the last step and reached for her, the way he’d been aching to do for five unbearable days, drawing her into his embrace. “Why would I want to entertain the grandkids when I could entertain their grandmother instead?” As the last word faded, he kissed her with every bit of sweet, tender emotion he could muster. It was enough to make her knees weak, to make her lean heavily against him and cling to him as if—well, as if she loved him. And she did. Almost as much as he loved her.
“Well?” someone spoke up. “You gonna kiss her all day or ask her to marry you?”
“Yeah. It’s not like you’ve got all the time in the world. You gotta get it done before Alice—”
“Manny,” someone else corrected.
“Annie,” a third one said, then snorted. “What kind of people would name their little baby girl Manny?”
Ethan ended the kiss to take a badly needed breath, then gazed down into Grace’s hazy brown eyes. “You wanna marry me, Gracie?”
“More than anything in the world.”
“Are you prepared to be stuck with me for the rest of our lives?”
“I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
“I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
Looking wide-eyed, innocent and amazingly beautiful, she nodded.
She looked at Pete and the others, then graced Ethan with an incredible smile. “Because if they’re going to gossip about us—and they will—I want them to get the details right.”
Probably for the first time in their lives, the old men looked chastened, but not for long. “Gossip?” Pete echoed, then began shepherding his group back to their table. “Now, why in the world would we want to gossip about them? Two young people in love and about to have a baby… There’s nothing new in that. Happens all the time. It’s just normal.”
And that, Ethan thought as he kissed Grace again, was all either of them had ever wanted to be.
Just normal.
A perfect Oklahoma spring was difficult to come by. The season came late, was often chilly and damp, and gave way too soon to summer’s heat. But the perfect spring day… Those weren’t so rare. There were always a few of them, and the second Sunday of April was one.
It was also one of those nostalgic family days that for too long had been missing from Ethan’s life and, until recently, had never been a part of Grace’s. They’d gone to church that morning, sharing a pew with Guthrie and his family and the Raffertys, and then they’d all driven out to the Harris ranch for dinner. After the meal, Ethan had taken advantage of the warm afternoon to go outside and sit on the porch swing.
The chain creaked with every movement, but it didn’t bother him. It certainly didn’t bother Annie Grace, asleep in his arms. She was a heavy-duty sleeper. Of course, it was easy to sleep well when you wanted for nothing. He’d never felt more rested himself, even with middle-of-the-night feedings.
Last night she hadn’t awakened at the usual time, but he had. He’d gone into her room anyway, just to stand and look at her in the pale moonlight. For such a tiny little creature, the feelings she roused in him were amazingly powerful.
After a time, he’d returned to bed and gazed for a while at his wife. The feelings she aroused were pretty damn powerful, too. He’d never imagined loving someone, needing someone, the way he loved and needed Grace.
She made his life complete.
As if summoned by his thoughts of her, the screen door opened and Grace came out. She was wearing her first after-Annie dress, soft pastels that suited her coloring. The fabric clung to her breasts and her waist, flared over her hips, then ended mid-calf. The first time she’d put it on, she’d gazed at her reflection with such wonder. She’d decided right then that there would be no more baggy, poorly fitted, secondhand clothes for her.
Although there was a baggy deep purple sweater that they both had an extraordinary fondness for.
“Is she asleep?” she asked as she eased onto the swing beside him.
“Of course. She never misses a chance to snooze in my arms.”
“That’s because she feels so safe there.”
He shifted the baby, freeing one arm so he could slide it around her shoulders. “She gets that from her mama.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I feel safe there, too.”
They sat in sweet silence for a while, simply enjoying the day. With the same thought apparently in mind, after a time Guthrie joined them, sitting in one of the two rockers with six-week-old Taylor Vernon Harris napping on his shoulder. Taylor seemed twice Annie Grace’s size, but in Guthrie’s big hands, he looked fragile. In Ethan’s own not-so-big hands, Annie Grace felt fragile, but he would always, always keep her and her mama safe.
In another minute Easy joined them, drawing the other rocker near. Soon after the twins drifted out, Elly bringing a coloring book and Emma carrying a prissy-looking doll. They sprawled on the floor between the rockers and gliders.
After a little more time passed, Ethan looked at Guthrie, then Easy, then all three men turned to the door. As if on cue, the screen door opened and Shay and Olivia joined them. Olivia took the empty space at the other end of the swing, and Shay sat on her husband’s lap.
Gradually Elly became aware of the silence and looked around the group. “Anyone wanna play a game?”
All she got were head shakes.
“Wanna talk?”
More head shakes.
She scrunched up her face. “Well, then, whaddya wanna do?”
“Exactly what we’re doing,” Olivia said with a contented sigh.
“What’s that?”
“Being a family,” Guthrie answered.
“Oh.” Satisfied with the odd reply, Elly returned to her coloring book.
Ethan looked from Annie Grace to Grace, meeting her dark gaze, and they shared a smile. That was all either of them had ever wanted—to be part of a family. He’d looked for it everyplace in the country but the one place where he could find it, and she’d stayed right there, believing she would never find it.
Sometimes he thought it was nothing less than a miracle that they’d managed to meet at exactly the right time. Most of the time, though, he knew it was simpler than that. It was because they were family.
And meant to always be.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1815-4
ROGUE’S REFORM
Copyright © 2000 by Marilyn Pappano
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