“You’re wrong about that,” he told her. “I understand—hell, the whole family understands now—what you went through, how it all ended up at this point. No one blames you.”
“I blame me.”
“Well, you shouldn’t. Because I don’t. Kirsten, I’m back, one hundred percent. And I’m not going to walk away from you again. Now I know I told you that before, but I mean it this time. I’ll swear it on my daddy’s grave, if it’ll help you believe in me again—”
“I never stopped believing in you, Adam.”
He glanced down at her as he pulled into Doc’s driveway. “Then give me another chance, Kirsty. Let’s start over. Let’s have that wedding we planned and buy that ranch we wanted. Let’s bring your father home to live with us. I want all those things Cowan stole from us. And I think you do, too. We can have them, Kirsty. All of them. All we have to do is reach out and take them.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. Adam reached up to brush them away. “Say you’ll marry me, honey.”
“You…you really want to marry me? Even after all I’ve done…?”
“I’ve never wanted anything else,” he told her. “Not really. I convinced myself I did, for a while, but that was bull. I love you, Kirsten. I need you. This whole family needs you.”
Her tears were streaming now.
“So will you marry me, Kirsten? Will you be my wife the way you should have been all along?”
“You know I will,” she whispered. “I will.”
Adam leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers. She kissed him back for a moment, and then went limp in his arms. He could taste the salt of tears on his lips. But when he lifted his head away, she was out cold. “Lord help me,” he said. “I sure as hell hope you meant that.”
Then he scooped her up and carried her into Doc’s office.
Epilogue
Kirsten stood in front of a three-way mirror. She hadn’t been able to shut the tears off long enough yet to apply any makeup, and she was thinking she might have to do without it for the ceremony, because the past few days had been one surprise after another.
Besides, she didn’t need it as much anymore. She didn’t have to hide now. Adam knew all her secrets…and he loved her anyway.
He loved her anyway.
When she and Adam had picked her father up in Dallas to bring him home once and for all, her father had told her his own secrets. He’d known all along that her first wedding to Adam had never taken place. That something had gone wrong. He’d just been biding his time in the nursing home, hoping to get his strength back enough to come back to Quinn and find out what had happened to throw his little girl’s life so far off track.
He’d held her while she’d cried. And then the second surprise came. He’d handed her a huge box, gaily wrapped. And she’d opened it up to find the wedding gown—the one she’d left behind, along with all her dreams, over two years ago.
“You saved it?” she’d whispered. “But…but how… when?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he’d said, and hugged her. “I always knew the day would come when you’d need it again. Now, go and put it on. I never got to see you in it the first time you wore it, and I think I’ve waited long enough.”
So had she. The dress still fit, and it felt right. Perfect. Even more now than it had before.
There was a tap on the door to the tiny room at the back of the chapel. “Can I come in yet?” her father asked through the wood.
“Yes, Daddy. Come in.”
He opened the door, and she turned in a rustle of ivory satin. “My, my,” he whispered. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in all my days.” Her father’s blue eyes teared up as he held out his arms, and she rushed into them.
“I’m going to make up for everything, Daddy,” she whispered. “You’re going to be so happy with Adam and me.”
“So long as you’re happy, sweetheart, I will be, too.”
“We all will be,” she promised.
A throat cleared, and she drew back from her father’s embrace to look toward the doorway. Elliot stood there, holding a bouquet and looking drop-dead gorgeous in his tux. “Can I come in? I could come back later….”
“Come in,” Kirsten said.
He did, tugging at his collar. He handed her the bouquet of lilies and orchids, with their draping ivory ribbons. “Adam wanted me to bring this to you…and, uh, to make sure you had everything you needed.”
She lifted her brows. “And to make sure I didn’t forget to show up this time?”
Elliot smiled. “I didn’t say that.”
“No, but I’ll bet he did.”
“He knows you’ll be there, hon. But you know, as best man, I figured I’d double check. There is a back way out of here, after all. I could just picture my brother if you should get abducted by aliens or something, and be late. He’d probably pass out cold.” Elliot was grinning, that infectious, happy smile of his that never failed to ooze charm. “I’ve never seen him so nervous.”
A whole chorus of female voices rose from the hallway, and Kirsten turned in time to see her beautiful sisters-in-law piling into the room. Chelsea was straightening a stray bit of Taylor’s hair, while Taylor smoothed a fold in the hem of Jessi’s dress and Jessi picked a piece of lint from Penny’s shoulder. They all stopped fussing when they looked at Kirsten. They went still, then started talking all at once.
Then they shooed the men out and descended on her in one mass, wielding combs, brushes, makeup and jewelry.
It wasn’t long before she was ready. The organ music swelled from the small chapel, and Kirsten licked her lips. “Oh, gosh,” she whispered. “Okay, here goes.”
Chelsea stood in the doorway and helped little Maria Michele—who’d been walking for only a month now—and Bubba get started. Bubba held the toddler’s hand, obviously feeling like a big strong Brand man already, assisting his little cousin down the aisle.
Chelsea followed. Then Taylor, and then Jessi.
Penny, as maid of honor, went next. Kirsten peered through a crack in the door of the little room at the back of the church and watched her progress. Her father squeezed her hand when her turn came. She squeezed back.
He took her arm, and they started down the aisle. She looked up, saw Adam standing there at the other end, waiting for her, and knew that her life was finally beginning. His eyes met hers. He mouthed, “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered back. “I love you, too.”
Continue reading for an excerpt from the next book in The Texas Brands,
The Outlaw Bride.
The Outlaw Bride: Chapter 1
Quinn, Texas, 1881
Esmeralda Maria Conchita Montoya glared at the smug banker across his desk. “This is not right,” she said, all too aware of the odds against her. She was a woman, she was Mexican, and her accent was as touched by her heritage as was the color of her skin. And this banker was a Brand. Allen Brand, whose entire outlaw family was now squatting on Esmeralda’s land. “My father was tricked. The ranch rightfully belongs to me.”
The banker, handsome and dressed in clothing so new it practically gleamed, checked his pocket watch as if he was bored. He irritated her, looking so suave and elegant and well-bred, not a hair out of place, when she knew perfectly well he was little more than scum.
All the Brands were scum.
“It’s all perfectly legal, little lady,” he drawled. “Right there in front of you in black and white.” He glanced down at the stack of papers he’d placed in front of her, tapped them with a forefinger for emphasis, then lifted his brows and his gaze as one. “You can read, can’t you?”
“Si. I can read. It is all very clear, in black and white, as you say. Your bank made a loan to my father. You gave him three years to pay. There are still six months left.”
“My bank made a loan to your father, and that ranch was his collateral. You do know what collateral is?” She only narrowed her eyes on him. He went on. “And it does say, on page tw
o of this agreement, that I have the right to demand the full amount should your father be unable to meet his quarterly obligations to this bank.”
“You gave him your word that would not happen. He told me so himself.”
The man shrugged, leaning back in his leather chair, arms folded behind his head. “Maybe he lied.”
Esmeralda rose from her chair as if she’d been shot out of it and slammed her palms flat on the gleaming surface of the desk as she leaned towards him. “My father never lied in his life.”
Allen Brand’s brows rose again. He sat straighter in his chair, and she had the satisfaction of seeing the slightest hint of alarm flash in his eyes. He straightened his bolo tie, cleared his throat. “Nonetheless, I’m only bound by what is written in that contract, and there is no promise not to foreclose in there. Only my right to do so, should he be late in meeting his obligation. He did miss his last payment, after all.”
“Because his cattle were rustled on the way to market—by your two outlaw brothers and their gang of cutthroats!”
Again the banker shrugged. “That’s no fault of mine.”
She pounded a fist on his desk so hard that the ornate kerosene lamp that sat there seemed to jump. “Do you think I am stupid, Señor Brand? Eh? You put them up to it. It gave you the excuse you needed to steal my father’s land from him!”
Brand’s gaze dipped to the lower left drawer. She’d noticed it move in that direction several times before, and was sharp enough to realize he likely kept a gun in there. If he reached for it, she would slit his throat before he could thumb the hammer back.
“I did not steal anything.” His well-manicured, callus-free hand inched closer to that drawer. Esmeralda’s own hand—smaller, but quicker, she thought—moved lightly over her skirts, and underneath them she felt the handle of the blade she wore strapped to her thigh.
“I took possession by legal means, and if your father was here, he would tell you so,” Allen Brand went on. “But since he saw fit to go into hiding somewhere, sending his little girl to tend to his affairs—’’
“My father is dead.” She stated it flatly, stepping away from the desk and turning her back on the man, refusing to let him see her pain. But she was not stupid enough to lose sight of him, even then, lest she feel the burn of a coward’s bullet in her back just as her father had. Instead, she paced to the window, as if to look outside. In the thick glass, she kept his reflection in plain sight. She almost hoped he would go for the gun. Her fingers itched to close around the hilt of her blade as she drove it into his gut.
But that would be wrong. With a free hand, she caressed the pendant she wore, and thought of her father and all the things he had taught her. Long ago, when she’d been a little girl, she’d told him she was in love for the first time with a boy she’d known all her life. Eldon Brand. This banker’s youngest brother.
Luis Montoya had just nodded thoughtfully, silent for a long moment, and then he said, “This you must remember, little one. There is nothing more important than family.” She could almost hear his voice again now. “For a woman to love a man, she must love his family, too. And they must love her. For a woman marries not just the man, but his family, as well.”
She remembered nodding slowly. “Si, this I know. You have told me this before.”
“He comes from a bad family, little one,” her father told her seriously. “Once, there was a chance the Brand children would grow up well. But when their parents died, that chance died with them. They did not stick together, but scattered, and most of them—all of them, I fear—went bad. No family.” He shook his head slowly, sadly.
Imagine her beloved father feeling sorry for the bastards who had killed him. Imagine her having ever been attracted to one of them. She shook off the memory, tried to focus on the present. She’d been away from home for a long time, but nothing looked so very different.
The dusty streets of Quinn were busy. Women in long skirts and bonnets carried baskets or tugged children to and fro. Buggies and buckboards passed slowly, raising dust clouds in their wake. A man sat in a chair outside the saloon across the way, his feet propped up on the boardwalk’s rail.
“I…didn’t know your father had died,” the banker said, and for once she thought there might be the ring of truth in his words. Again she fingered the pendant she wore: a small quartz crystal, cut into the shape of a skull by unknown hands, centuries ago. It had been in her family for many, many generations. Some claimed it had magical powers—that it was supposed to restore balance to mankind, to restore its holder to her proper place in the scheme of things. It had been given to her by her father, just before he died.
“Surely your brothers Waylon and Blake told you that one of their filthy gang shot my father when he tried to stop them from stealing his cattle, no?” She turned slowly to study his face.
“I’d heard he was wounded.”
She nodded. “Si. Wounded. He sent for me. Pedro, Father’s most trusted hand, took the fastest horse from our stables and came for me in Mexico. Pedro told me what you and your family had done, and he brought me back home, where I should have been all along. I held my father’s hand as he lay dying of blood poisoning, Señor Brand.”
Allen Brand braced one hand on the back of his chair, his head lowering slightly. “I’m sorry for your loss, Esmeralda.”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am. For heaven’s sakes, I’ve known you since we were both knee-high to a yearling calf. But surely you can see this is over now. Your father is gone, and any claim he thought he had to the ranch is gone with him. You’d best forget about all of this and go back home to Mexico.”
She shook her head. “You have known me so long, and yet you know me so little. I was only visiting my aunt in Mexico. My home is on my father’s ranch, where I was born and raised, Allen Brand. He may be gone, but rest assured I am here. And I am staying here until I avenge my father’s murder and reclaim what is rightfully mine.”
He locked eyes with her. She did not flinch, and it was he who looked away first. “You’ve been away a long time, Esmeralda. Years. Your father sent you south for your own good, you know.”
“Si. I had no mother to help him raise me. He wanted me to have the finer things, to learn to be a lady, to learn manners and wear dresses.”
Allen nodded slowly. “And it looks as if those lessons took. You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman.”
“He also sent me away so that I would be beyond the reach of men like you and your brothers,” she told him. “Do not be fooled by these pretty skirts, Allen Brand. I have not changed so much from the girl who could outrun you, outride you, and outfight you.”
He sighed, lifting a brow and tilting his head. “Maybe you haven’t changed all that much, Esmeralda, but things around here have. You don’t even know what you’re up against.”
“Oh, I know exactly what I’m up against. A liar and a thief. The only difference between you and your outlaw brothers is that you wear a fancy suit, and a quill pen is your weapon. If you refuse to give the land back to me now, I will go to the sheriff and ask him to place Waylon and Blake Brand under arrest for the murder of my father.”
Allen Brand smiled very slowly. “The sheriff’s office is right where it always was,” he said, nodding toward the window that faced the street. “You go right ahead and file those charges.”
“Do you think I will not do it?”
“I don’t care what you do. I’ve tried to be kind to you, Esmeralda, for old times’ sake, but you won’t listen to a thing I tell you. So do what you will. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a business to run.” He strode across the office, opened the door. “Run along, like a good girl.”
“You will be sorry for this, Allen Brand!” She stomped out and slammed the door behind her, marching through the bank and cussing in Spanish all the way. She’d worn her best dress, bought new boots, even captured her wild, unruly mass of black curls beneath a fancy French bonnet. She had thought that if sh
e’d looked like a lady, the way her aunt had taught her, she might be treated with a scrap of respect, perhaps even taken seriously. Instead, she’d been treated like a minor nuisance. But what did she expect from a thieving Brand? They were all alike. They didn’t care about the black-velvet piping that lined the edges of her cropped jacket, or the white blouse with its frilly collar underneath.
She stepped from the boardwalk down into the rutted edge of the street, only to jump back again as she was nearly run down by a careening wagon. “Gol’dern woman! Watch where you’re goin’!” the driver shouted, shaking his fist at her.
She shook her own fist and shrieked back at him in her native tongue. Only to go silent when she felt eyes on her. Every person in town had stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at her vulgar display. And their expressions said what they thought of her. She’d barely been back in town two full days, and already most of the residents knew of her mission. To take her land back from the Brands. Why they all were against her from that moment on, was beyond her. She eyed them all, spat on the ground, picked up her skirts and petticoats, and stomped across the street. There she mounted the boardwalk again and strode right up to the sheriff’s office. But the moment she flung the door open, she understood the banker’s arrogance.
For yet another Brand sat at this desk. His scuffed boots were propped up on the dull, worn wood, and there was a silver star pinned to his chest. The giant, hulking, snake-eyed firstborn of them all, Garrison Brand.
“Well now, if it isn’t that spitfire I hear has come to town for revenge.” His boots clomped to the floor, and he sat straighter in his chair. “No luck at the bank, I take it, Esmeralda? So what brings you to my office?”
Her throat suddenly dry, she rasped, “Y-your… office?”
“That’s right.” He tapped his badge and rose to his full height. Then he walked around the desk to stand close to her, look down at her. He made her feel like an ant on the floor, and he knew it. “We Brands have done all right for ourselves, Esmeralda. We own Quinn, Texas. So you may as well scoot your bronze hide back to the other side of the Rio Grande, honey. You got no business here.”
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