A Cowboy, a Bride & a Wedding Vow

by Shirley Rogers

  He turned the key, and the engine roared to life. With deft movements he pulled out of his parking spot and they left the airport in silence.

  “Whew,” Catherine sighed, running her fingers through her damp hair. “I should have thought to bring a raincoat.” The pointless statement served to cut the tension in the air.

  “It rained all the way here. The weatherman says we’re in for a few days of it.”

  Jake turned onto the highway in the direction of the ranch, sloshing through standing water on the road. It had started raining during the night. He hadn’t wanted to admit to Catherine that he’d picked her up from the airport because he’d been worried about her driving through the downpour.

  That was a part of Jake’s character that he couldn’t change. He was used to handling things. Regardless of his feelings of betrayal and resentment, he would have been worried, knowing that Catherine was making her way to his ranch through poor weather on her own.

  Jake told himself to keep his concentration on his driving. Unwillingly his thoughts shifted to the woman riding beside him. He hadn’t figured on it being so hard to see Catherine again. He’d told himself that a lot of time had passed, that she wouldn’t look like the young woman he’d fallen in love with.

  And she didn’t. That was a fact. If anything, she was more beautiful. He hadn’t expected that, hadn’t wanted to admit even to himself that he’d wondered about her since last night, but he had.

  Jake stole a glance at Catherine, then quickly looked back at the highway, and his heart pumped just a little faster. The soft, musky scent of her perfume filled the inside of the truck.

  Jake shook his head to dispel thoughts of how good Catherine looked to him, how good she smelled. She wasn’t here to see him. She was here only because of Matthew.

  Their son.

  A tight coil of irritation swept through Jake every time he thought about the fact that he had a twelve-year-old son. He had to take a deep breath to quell the anger simmering inside him.

  He’d never thought that Catherine had the power to hurt him, but he’d been wrong. Hadn’t Maxine taught him a hard lesson? This time he wouldn’t be so gullible. He would think with his head instead of his libido.

  They traveled for a few more minutes when Jake spoke. His deep voice cut through the stark silence.

  “The ranch is west of Crockett, which is a little farther down the road. It shouldn’t take too long to get there.”

  Catherine nodded.

  Obviously she was worried, if the way she was twisting her hands together was an indication. Jake told himself that he didn’t care. Catherine wasn’t his problem. She had no one to blame for this mess but herself. No, he wasn’t about to feel sorry for her. Or attracted to her, he reminded himself.

  “Did you tell Matthew that I was coming for him?” she asked. Her gaze landed on Jake and stayed there.

  “He knows,” Jake answered, not revealing that he and Matthew had discussed his mother’s arrival in detail. Catherine was in for a surprise. Jake was torn between warning her and letting her face her son’s determination on her own. He decided to say nothing. He didn’t owe her a thing. She was the one who’d betrayed him. She was the one who hadn’t told him he had a son.

  “He’s never done anything like this before.” Catherine’s voice quavered, and she gripped her upper arms with her hands. “I want you to know that he’s a good boy.”

  Jake nodded slightly, but said nothing. He could think of a hundred things he wanted to say to Catherine, none of them particularly kind at the moment. He figured he was better off holding his tongue, at least until he came to grips with her deceit.

  Catherine turned to look in Jake’s direction, studying his profile as he stared straight ahead at the road. Her heart twisted painfully. The resemblance between father and son was striking, so much so that she couldn’t have denied the truth if she’d wanted to. He had his father’s height and build. No doubt her son would grow to look even more like Jake as the years passed.

  Curiosity made her gaze drift to his strong hands gripping the steering wheel. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. She had no idea of whether he was married or if he had other children. The fact that a ring was missing from his finger meant nothing. She supposed ranch work was hard and even sometimes dangerous. It was possible that he was married and didn’t wear a ring. Catherine couldn’t help but wonder.

  “He’s a good student in school,” she said when he didn’t reply.

  Jake glanced at her briefly, seeming unwilling to make small talk. Finally he offered, “He seems to be a nice kid.”

  It was meant as a passing comment, rather than a compliment of her parenting skills. Catherine’s carriage stiffened. Jake’s hostility rankled her. It was his fault that he didn’t know his son. He was the one who had left and never contacted her. “Look, I know this is an awkward situation.”

  That afforded her a hard look before he once again turned his attention to his driving and the rain pelting the windshield.

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  Jake couldn’t begin to tell Catherine how hard this was. Finding out he had a son had floored him. Learning that Catherine was Matt’s mother was another huge shock. He hadn’t thought he would ever see her again, or that she’d be so beautiful when he did. Or that he’d be so tempted to touch her.

  He didn’t like the way she affected him. He didn’t like the familiar tug on his heart every time he looked at her. He opted to try to find out as much about her as he could, information that could prove to be useful to him in the future.

  “Do you have other children?”

  The personal question startled her. “No. I’ve never married. Matthew is my only child,” she admitted.

  Jake nodded casually, but her answer surprised him. Catherine was a lovely woman. He couldn’t believe that some man hadn’t snatched her up. Then he remembered that Matthew had mentioned his mother was getting married and that was the reason he’d run away from home. The boy had felt in the way. Jake wondered why.

  “Matthew tells me that you’re getting married, though,” he commented, unable to stifle his curiosity.

  “Matthew has been quite talkative,” Catherine answered, neither confirming nor denying her relationship with Douglas. They’d talked about marriage, but she wasn’t going to discuss her personal life with Jake.

  “He said he didn’t want to be in your way.”

  Catherine drew in a quick breath as her fingers touched her lips. “What?”

  Jake glanced at her and saw raw pain register in her eyes. “He’s upset and unhappy.” It sounded like an accusation.

  “He hasn’t said a word to me. Until a month or so ago, I thought everything was fine.” Catherine knew that Matthew didn’t adore Douglas, but she’d thought they’d gotten along fine. She was surprised that her son had shared his innermost feelings with a stranger, be it his long-lost father or not.

  “What happened then?” Jake questioned, wanting to know exactly where Matt was coming from. If Catherine had been a bad mother, it wasn’t apparent.

  Jake made the admission to himself grudgingly. No, he couldn’t find fault with Matt’s upbringing, except for the fact that he’d been able to slip away from his home unnoticed and travel miles away on his own.

  Catherine shrugged her shoulders. “It’s really nothing I can put my finger on. We didn’t have a big argument or anything like that.” She wished she could go back and relive the past, search for signs in her son that would have warned her of Matthew’s rash decision to find his father.

  “Matthew’s always been a little quiet, so I didn’t really notice a big change in his behavior.”

  “Something must have happened to upset him,” Jake commented.

  Catherine thought about it a moment. Suddenly a sinking feeling pulled at her chest and her heart ached. How could she not have realized? That was about the time she’d told Matthew that she and Douglas had discussed getting married.

  When s
he’d brought the subject up, she hadn’t thought the news would be a surprise to Matthew or that he would have this kind of reaction to it. She’d dated Douglas for almost a year. Matthew seemed to like him. When she’d asked how he felt about her getting married, Matthew had shrugged and said it was okay with him. To Catherine it had been a typical adolescent response.

  “I talked with him about the possibility of my marrying Douglas,” she finally said, hating to make the admission to Jake.

  “Douglas?” Jake repeated, and his brow arched curiously.

  Catherine flashed Jake a look, then glanced away, noticing that the rain had slackened a bit. “We’ve been friends for about a year, and I thought Matthew liked him. He’s never given me any reason to suspect that he didn’t,” she assured Jake. Actually Matthew and Douglas seemed to get along. Catherine wondered if that had been planned on her son’s part for her sake.

  Though she did care for Douglas, she knew she wasn’t wildly in love with him. But love had hurt her terribly once, and she had held back from giving her heart to another man. It didn’t bother her that Douglas wasn’t a particularly affectionate man. He had his interests, and Catherine had her own. She’d wanted Matthew to have a father figure to look up to.

  How could she have been so wrong? she wondered now.

  “Except by running away.” The words sounded like an accusation. Jake didn’t apologize.

  Hurt etched Catherine’s expression. “You’re right,” she admitted. Tears stung her eyes. “I should have seen that Matthew wasn’t happy. I don’t know how I missed it.”

  Jake hadn’t meant to make her cry, and he didn’t like feeling sorry for her. He had needed to distance himself from thinking about her feelings and he’d struck out automatically. “What do you plan to do now?” he asked, his voice gruff.

  “I have to talk to Matthew before I decide anything,” Catherine said, knowing there was no way she could marry Douglas. Her son was the most important thing in her life.

  “What about you?” she asked, letting her gaze rest on Jake’s ring-free hand as she sniffed back tears. He raised a dark-brown eyebrow. “Are you married?”

  “No,” Jake admitted, then added, “The timing was never right.” He thought again of Maxine, how she’d reacted to his inability to father a child. She’d taught him a hard lesson. Bitterness swept through him. Over the years he’d had his share of women, but he hadn’t been tempted to offer any of them more than a few months of his time and attention.

  He glanced at Catie. Despite what she’d done, he did feel a sense of gratitude that he’d fathered Matthew before the accident. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to admit to her that he had nothing to offer a woman, that he was unable to give a woman a child.

  “Did you ever go back to school?” Catherine asked, pondering his answer. He was handsome, apparently successful and probably pleasant when he wasn’t around her. The fact that he’d never married seemed strange to her.

  Jake shook his head. “No. I had my hands full. First I had to be sure that my family had a roof over their heads and food to eat. Then there was the ranch to contend with. It was heavily mortgaged. I briefly thought of selling it and getting a job, but I couldn’t. The ranch has been in the family for more years than I can count.”

  It sounded as if he’d sacrificed everything for his brothers and sister. A touch of sorrow filled Catherine’s heart as she thought of such heavy responsibilities given to such a young man. Unfortunately, she told herself, she was one of the things that he’d sacrificed.

  She’d thought she was over what had happened between them years ago. Matthew’s recent actions, however, had dredged up old, painful memories. Memories that Catherine would have preferred not facing again.

  “This is Crockett,” Jake informed Catherine as they passed through a small town. “It’s grown a lot in the last year.” He indicated the new Wal-Mart, as well as a modern motel and a small shopping center. The rain let up slightly as Jake took a turn and headed up a paved road. “We’ll be at the ranch in a few minutes.”

  Catherine nodded and tried to get a grip on her emotions. She didn’t want Matthew to see her upset. Right now all she wanted was to put her arms around him and hug him tight.

  “I’ll warn you that we have a houseful. My brother Ryder is married and lives at the ranch with his wife and twin daughters. His wife, Ashley, is expecting another baby in six months.”

  Catherine noticed Jake’s eyes soften when he spoke of his family and felt envious. Her father and mother had turned her away. She had hoped that over the years she would have heard from her younger sisters, but they hadn’t answered any of her letters. Eventually she’d quit trying to contact them. She could only take a certain amount of rejection.

  Jake watched Catherine’s expression. She was quiet, listening to him without comment. He wondered what her life had been like. Had she had help with Matthew? He remembered her father was a preacher. Though he’d never met the man, Catie had said he was a rigid disciplinarian. Jake figured it must have been hard for her to tell her parents about her pregnancy. He was sorry about that. If he’d have known, he would have been there for her. He wondered if she knew that.

  “I remember that you often talked about your brothers,” she answered. “You have a younger sister, too, don’t you?”

  Jake nodded his head. “Yeah. Deke, my youngest brother, is away right now on the rodeo circuit. My little sister, Lynn, lives here also,” he informed her.

  “How little is she?” Catherine asked. Thinking back, Lynn had been a little girl when Catherine and Jake were in college.

  A wry expression crossed Jake’s features. “Not so little anymore. She’s nineteen.”

  “That is quite a houseful,” Catherine commented, wondering where all the years had gone. Jake seemed happy when talking about his siblings. “You’re lucky to be so close to your family.”

  “I’ve always thought so.” Jake didn’t look at her as the car passed under the large wood-and-iron sign indicating they were on the Bar M ranch and nearing his house.

  Catherine’s teeth sank into her bottom lip. Now that they had arrived, she was even more anxious to see Matthew. Jake pulled up in front of a large ranch-style house and turned off the motor. He kept his hands on the wheel a moment longer, then turned in his seat.

  “Family is the most important thing to me,” he stated.

  Something in the way he said the words made Catherine wince. Worry etched her brow.

  Jake gave her an accusatory look. “Now I have a son that I knew nothing about. He’s part of my family.”

  His words shook her to her very core. He was telling her that now that he knew about Matthew, he wasn’t going to just forget that his son existed.

  Oh, Matthew, Catherine thought. What kind of Pandora’s box did you open?

  Four

  They’d arrived at the ranch at an opportune moment. The rain had almost stopped, Catherine noticed, but thick gray clouds in the overcast sky threatened more of a downpour. Jake got out of the vehicle and opened the back door to retrieve her bag. By the time he was around the opposite side of the car, she had her door open. Catherine got out and stepped away from him. As Jake turned to close the door, she ran a hand through her hair to smooth it, then surveyed her surroundings.

  The McCall ranch was expansive, impressive to even one of novice knowledge of ranch life and all it entailed. There were several outbuildings—a large structure that housed ranch vehicles and equipment, and what she assumed were lodgings for employees.

  As they drove in, she’d seen hundreds of cows in pastures and horses grazing in several fenced areas.

  Catherine turned back toward Jake, who was watching her. She just as quickly looked away. “This is quite an operation,” she commented, sounding impressed. “I can imagine why it takes your whole family to keep it going.”

  “There’s always something to be done,” he agreed, his tone matter-of-fact and not necessarily inviting further conversation.
>
  Catherine looked around her, rubbing her hand against her thigh. Where was Matthew? she wondered, wanting to see her son.

  “Let’s go inside,” Jake suggested, apparently reading her expression. “Watch your step,” he said, indicating the rain-soft mud beside her. She’d already started to move, and Jake grabbed hold of her arm to save her from stepping right into a mud hole.

  The action brought her back toward him, and Catherine found herself pressed against his body. His arm slipped around her to steady her. She lifted her face automatically and suddenly couldn’t breathe. Jake’s gaze raked her face, and in that moment Catherine wanted to press herself closer, to soak up his strength and warmth.

  Jake didn’t seem too pleased by their predicament. After a moment he moved away from her yet still held her arm. Catherine regained her footing, but her equilibrium had taken a beating. She felt a little dizzy and shook her head, trying to get her bearings.

  “Thank you,” she muttered. The brief contact between them had shaken her, and she didn’t like it a bit. Without seeming ungracious, she pulled free of his grasp and stepped around the mud.

  Jake walked beside her, and she noticed that he kept his distance. She wondered if he’d felt the same sense of longing that had attacked her in those few moments their bodies had touched.

  The steps led to what looked like a newly constructed wooden porch. It was wide and wrapped around the expansive house. A large swing was suspended from hinges attached to the roof.

  Jake glanced her way and said, “Ashley loves the outdoors. She was raised in the city, but I’ve never seen anyone take to country living the way she has. We had the porch constructed so she and Ryder could swing the twins. Sometimes it’s the only thing that will calm them when they’re fussy.”

  Catherine managed a smile. Jake had told her his twin nieces were adorable and warned her that they had the ability to steal hearts. She tried to imagine Jake holding an infant and comforting it. She couldn’t bring a gentle image of him to mind. To her he was abrasive and distant.