The Texas SEAL's Surprise--A Clean Romance

by Cari Lynn Webb

  “Aunt Esther was quite the chef and the entertainer. Her door was always open, any time.” Nora opened and closed a drawer as if packing the memory away. “Let’s see. What else do you need to know? You’ll need to buy mattresses for the beds. We can remove any furniture you don’t want. I’m sorry for the hodgepodge of antiques in here.”

  Abby wasn’t. The two cousins had removed several heirloom pieces to put in their own homes, at their aunt’s urging, then replaced those pieces. Abby adored the mismatched furniture and eclectic collection. Renting a furnished home also worked with her budget. “It’s perfect.”

  “You can paint and certainly make it your own.” Nora tapped her chin as if checking off her list of details to pass on to Abby.

  “I’ll take it,” Abby blurted.

  Tess frowned and shook her head at Abby.

  “I thought it over. I really did.” Abby lifted one shoulder. “And I want to live here.”

  Nora laughed. “You don’t even know the rent.”

  “What is it?” Abby clasped her hands together, hoping she could afford the house. Now that she’d seen it and could see herself living here, she desperately wanted it.

  Nora rattled off a number. Tess’s mouth dropped open.

  Abby blinked and gaped at the woman. Surely, Nora had missed a zero or two on that amount. “Are you sure that’s correct?”

  “Our family is happy knowing this house is in good hands. That it’ll be treated well.” Nora set her hand on the wall as if touching a friend. “It’s a home that needs a family.”

  That was exactly what Abby was building. She touched her stomach. “When can I sign the lease?”

  Nora and Abby arranged to meet on Monday at the bank where Nora worked. Abby would sign the rental agreement, put down her deposit and get the keys to her new home. She could begin moving in any time after that.

  Tess and Abby grabbed pizza slices for lunch at the White Olive Pizza Shop. Tess headed for the general store, while Abby returned to her office.

  Abby dropped into her chair, and the cardboard box caught her attention. She picked it up, noticed her name written in bold letters. The handwriting was vaguely familiar.

  The box was taped and secure, unlike most of the ones in Tess’s store. Abby sliced it open with a pair of scissors and gasped. A letter was taped to whatever was wrapped inside. And this time, she recognized the handwriting on the envelope. It was her Grandpa Harlan’s, part cursive, part print. Her hands shook.

  She unfolded the letter, rested it carefully on her desk. The date in the corner of the paper was the same month her grandparents had packed up the general store and moved north. Abby brushed at the tears leaking from her eyes.

  Dear sweet Abigail,

  Abby leaned back to keep the letter safe and dry. She couldn’t contain all the tears for how much she still missed her grandparents. For the bittersweet surprise of this gift. Here was one more letter when she’d thought they had stopped forever.

  Your grandmother and I wanted you to have the enclosed. We always believed we’d pass it along when the time was right. If you’re reading this letter, then the time must be right.

  Inside is an antique quill and ink set. I’d venture that many generations used it in the general store, but I can’t count that far back. I never was good at math—that’s one of your grandmother’s many skills.

  Find someone that complements you, Abigail. Someone who encourages your strengths, accepts your weaknesses and never tries to change you.

  Back to the quill and ink set, suffice it to say your ancestors wrote their life stories with this set. Now, my dear, it’s your turn. Be fearless. Be bold. And if the ink spills—and it will—never be too afraid to grab a new page and start again.

  Lastly, if you’ve found yourself in Three Springs, and your grandmother and I sincerely hope you have, ask Boone Bradley and Sam Sloan about the McKenzie sisters and the Herring Gang. But keep in mind, the legend’s not a treasure-hunt story so much as a love story, which reminds us that only with love are we truly rich. Don’t believe me? Ask your grandma. Or your parents. Never be afraid to risk it all for true love. I promise you won’t regret it.

  Now, sweet Abigail, I must close this letter so you can write your own story. Make it a good one. Make yourself proud.

  With love past the stars and back,

  Grandpa Harlan

  Abby reread the letter, cried for twice as long and then unwrapped the gift from her grandparents. There were two ink wells, a rocking blotter, a sanding jar and several dip-style pens with feathers or wooden handles that fit into a stand. Abby arranged everything on her desk and researched on the internet where to buy ink.

  All the while, her grandfather’s letter remained open on her desk. And all the while, his words stirred inside her. Never be afraid to risk it all.

  Abby’s ex hadn’t fought for her. Hadn’t really risked anything for their relationship. Abby stilled and turned one of the feather pens over in her hand. Every coin has two sides, Abby. You have to have both to be complete. After all, there’s no value in a one-sided coin. But she hadn’t risked either in her past relationships. She hadn’t fought, but she had to fight this time. She had to risk it all like her grandfather advised. Because Wes was the one. Her true love. And she had a love story to live.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  WES JUMPED OUT of his truck and hurried toward Boone’s house. Boone had called just after sunrise and told Wes that he had a bit of pain he wanted to talk to Wes about. In person. Then he’d hung up. Wes had yanked on his jeans, a wrinkled T-shirt and his boots before racing to his truck and making it to Boone’s in less than five.

  His truck still hot, Wes climbed the porch stairs and pulled up before he barreled into Boone. A fully dressed, hair-brushed and boots-polished Boone. Wes searched the old cowboy’s face, taking in his good color and his straight posture. Wes’s heart finally started to slow.

  “Come on in.” Boone opened the front door and motioned Wes inside. “Got your favorite biscuits, gravy and bacon ready and waitin’.”

  “If you’re having pain, we should contact the doctor.” Wes went inside and glanced over his shoulder at what appeared to be a healthy Boone. “We should head to the hospital.”

  “Don’t need a hospital for this pain.” Boone set his hand on Wes’s shoulder and guided him through the family room toward the kitchen.

  Wes entered the kitchen and paused. Sam, Carter and Evan sat at the table. Each one dressed, hair brushed, and most likely teeth brushed too. Wes had omitted that part in his rush to get to Boone’s place. He skipped his gaze around the table. “What’s going on?”

  “Now, listen up, son.” Boone pulled out the chair at the end of the table and pointed to it. A silent command for Wes to sit down and pay attention. Boone continued. “You’ve been moping for a week. I’m tired of it. They’re tired of it. You’ve got to be tired of it yourself.”

  “I haven’t been moping.” Moping implied he still cared. Still wanted Abby. Moping implied he’d been replaying their conversation. Rethinking every word he’d uttered. Moping implied he wasn’t perfectly happy with the outcome.

  Why couldn’t he be satisfied? He’d gotten exactly what he’d wanted. Wes dropped into the chair and crossed his arms over his chest and the ache that wouldn’t go away.

  “Well, you’ve certainly been hiding.” Boone walked to the stove, picked up a plate of homemade biscuits and scooped thick gravy over the top. The loaded plate he set in front of Wes. “Hiding in your office. In the barn. Can’t deny that.”

  The others nodded. Wes concentrated on his favorite breakfast and stuffed a large bite into his mouth. The faster he ate, the sooner he could escape. Go back to hiding. The problem was there was nowhere to hide from himself. Or the pain.

  “I’ve had heart surgery, and Wes looks more heartsick than me.” Boone opened the ref
rigerator, took out a milk carton and filled a tall glass on the counter.

  “Lovesick.” Sam squinted at Wes. “The boy is lovesick.”

  Love. The bite of biscuit stuck to the top of Wes’s mouth like sandpaper. The gravy clogged his throat. Wes wasn’t lovesick. A person had to be in love to suffer like that. He set his fork on his plate and concentrated on swallowing and breathing.

  “You love the woman, Wes.” Boone set a glass of chocolate milk beside him, thumped him on the back and sat at the other end of the table. “No use denying what’s more than plain to all of us.”

  Wes chugged the chocolate milk. Avoided looking at his friends. Tried to clear his throat. Nothing dislodged Boone’s words.

  “Love is what makes life worth living.” Sam picked up a slice of bacon from the platter in the center of the table and pointed it at Evan, then Carter. “Would do you two some good to try it.”

  Carter grabbed a piece of bacon and held up his hands. “I’m here for Wes. This isn’t about me.”

  “Me either.” Evan grabbed his coffee mug and stood up to refill it from the pot on the stove.

  The attention off him for a moment, Wes worked to remove the last of the biscuit from the top of his mouth. And return himself to rights. Except he hadn’t felt right since Abby had walked out of his life. He hadn’t realized his life hadn’t been right until she’d barged into it on a backcountry road.

  He concentrated on his plate of food. Life should be more like breakfast. Nothing complicated about biscuits and gravy. If the ingredients were kept fresh and simple, it turned out delicious every time. There was nothing simple about his feelings for Abby.

  “Being left at the altar was a gift, Evan.” Boone sipped his own coffee and considered the man. “You’ll come to see that in time.”

  “That’s right, it was.” Sam smoothed his white beard into place. “Son, you can’t give up on a chicken because of one bad egg. Same as you can’t give up on love.”

  “Can we get back to Wes?” Evan sat and poured enough sugar for ten cups into his coffee mug. “He’s the lovesick one here.”

  “I’m good.” His plate was half-finished. And he was almost feeling like himself again, that one part inside him that felt like a gaping hole aside. “Let’s talk about Evan some more.”

  “You wouldn’t know good if it stomped on you like a bull.” Boone curved his hands around his mug. His thick eyebrows pulled together. “You were good with Abby. Now you’re just...”

  “Mopey.” Carter bit into his bacon and chewed, then aimed an apologetic grin at Wes. “Sorry. It’s true.”

  “Maybe I’m just tired.” Wes aimed his fork at his own face. “This could just be my tired, overworked face.”

  Boone’s burst of laughter was abrupt and brief. “Work energizes you. Always has. You’re one of the most hardworking people I know. You ain’t tired.”

  “It’s his lovesick face.” Sam’s head shifted back and forth. Sympathy thick in his words as if he’d declared Wes’s condition was never going away.

  Not this again. Wes stabbed his fork into a fluffy biscuit. “What if I am lovesick? Whose business is it?”

  “Ours.” Boone spread his arm over the table and circled his hand in a sweeping motion to include everyone seated there. “This right here is family. When one of us is hurting, we all hurt.”

  Carter nodded. Evan too.

  Family. Wes sat back and spun his fork in his hand. These were his friends. Mentors. Peers. They looked out for each other. Looked after each other. No questions asked. Something shifted and settled inside him. They were family. Wes’s family. His appetite returned. He stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth. “Whatever you want to call it, lovesick or tired, it’ll pass. I’m handling it.”

  “Look, I let you handle that issue with your brother.” Boone eyed Wes. His gaze wisdom-aged and assessing. “Don’t think you’re the only one who knows things around here.”

  Wes drank his chocolate milk, washed down the bacon and his surprise. “You never mentioned you knew about my brother.”

  “A man is entitled to his business.” Boone brushed biscuit crumbs from the table onto his hand, then set them on a napkin. “I let you have yours.”

  Wes wiped a napkin across his mouth and crumpled it lightly in his fist. If that was true, they could move on from their conversation now. They could let Wes deal with his business of being lovesick on his own terms. “What about now?”

  “That’s simple.” Boone leaned forward. Humor and affection crinkled the lines around his eyes. “I love you too much to mind my own business now.”

  There it was again. Love. Everything kept circling back to it. He supposed because love was the core. The foundation. And the truth that had been tracking him for the past week like a golden eagle locked on its prey. Wes loved everyone seated at the table. But the truth he finally stopped running from was something even deeper. Something precious. Something that he’d been missing. He was in love. In love with Abby.

  “I said love. And nothing happened.” Boone shifted his perceptive gaze from Wes to Evan to Carter. “Sam and I don’t fear the word or the feeling.”

  Sam cradled one of his hands inside the other as if he recalled holding his wife’s hand. His words wistful. “Not in the least.”

  He might’ve accepted the truth. Admitted he loved Abby. But he was still twitchy. Wes tossed the napkin on his empty plate. “It’s not love I fear.”

  “What do you fear?” Carter’s expression was somber. His tone serious. A marked contrast to his usual amused approach to life.

  “Not being good enough for her.” Wes tossed his fear into the center of the table and clutched his empty milk glass.

  “Is this about your lost inheritance?” Boone scratched his chin.

  Wes flexed his fingers around the glass. He should’ve known Boone would have the details. He should’ve shared them with Boone. Trusted him. That’s what families did.

  The older man continued. “You do realize that money can’t buy character. Honor. Respect. Values.”

  “You already possess all those things.” Evan stacked his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair. “Money or not.”

  Wes was letting go of his anger toward his brother. Knew it served no real purpose and changed nothing. Perhaps one day, he’d seek to understand the whys behind it all. But before then, apologies had to be given and accepted, including his own to his brother. That was for later. There was an important apology to give to Abby first. Yet more of those fears surfaced.

  Wes studied the bottom of his glass. “What if I can’t stick?” Same as his father couldn’t stick. The same as his brother.

  “Your father wasn’t the man you are.” A heat infused Boone’s words. An intensity Wes hadn’t heard before. Boone added, “Don’t compare yourself to him. Ever.”

  “You already have stuck.” Carter tapped his fist against Wes’s shoulder. “Look around town to see all you’ve done.”

  “And if you need more proof, Abby put together a presentation for you.” Evan hitched his thumb toward the counter and the folder resting there. “It’s nauseatingly glowing and full of flattering things and all about you, my friend.”

  “Abby was in on this?” He shouldn’t have been surprised. She was a fighter. He had to fight too.

  “Family, Wes.” Boone’s voice was matter-of-fact. “We’re all in on it.”

  “But you have to move. I have no land for the rescues.” How could Wes make it all right? For his family. Boone had received word that the property was being sold to the land developers in a lucrative deal. He had thirty days to vacate.

  “I have an idea about a sanctuary,” Carter offered.

  “It’s a solid one.” Sam tipped his coffee mug at Wes. “But you have to get the girl.”

  “I chased her away.” Wes scrubbed his palms over his fac
e. “Hurt her pretty bad.”

  “That you did.” Boone chuckled at the frown Wes aimed at him but added, “I never said love was easy and pain-free.”

  “Now you have to make it right.” Evan tapped his coffee mug against Wes’s milk glass.

  “How do I do that, exactly?” Wes heard the panic in his own voice. He was out of his league here.

  “I was left at the altar, remember?” Evan held up his hands. “Don’t look at me.”

  “Boone and I got our ladies to the altar.” Sam slapped his palm on the table and laughed. Boone joined in.

  Wes ignored the two chuckling older cowboys and looked at Carter.

  Carter rubbed his hand through his hair, tousling the ends. “Can’t say I’ve ever been in love like you. At least, I haven’t wanted to win my exes back.”

  “This is not helping.” Wes rose and picked up his plate. He was restless and uneasy. He’d lost Abby once. He couldn’t lose her again completely. “What am I going to do?”

  He rinsed off his plate and set it in the dishwasher. A simple apology wasn’t going to cut it. Sorry, Abby. I was stupid. Lost my common sense there for a minute. It’s back now. Can you forgive me?

  “You have to do something big,” Evan suggested. “Over-the-top romantic.”

  “Like an outdoor wedding. With an arch made of rare roses flown in from all around the country.” Carter lifted his eyebrows at Evan. “That was one romantic wedding you’d planned.”

  “And it failed.” Evan’s mouth thinned. “Let’s keep that off the list.”

  “You have to show her you love her.” Boone drummed his fingers against the table. “Give her more than words.”

  A wedding wasn’t what Abby wanted now. Wes could see one. That was for later. Abby wanted roots more than anything. And Wes had to prove he had roots. That he wanted roots with her. He smiled. The real first smile in days. He dried his hands on the dish towel and glanced at Carter. “I’ve got an idea. But first, Carter, what’s this about a sanctuary?”