“For what?” Thompson asked. “I didn’t see anything. Get this piece of garbage back to jail, boys,” he ordered. “Looks like he’s got more of his uncle in him than his daddy,” the chief added. He smiled when he saw Maggie sink against Jonah. “You can come in tomorrow to press charges,” he said. “We’ll see ourselves out. Be sure to lock the door.” He glanced toward the man his officers were taking out between them. “Never know what can come slithering in when you least expect it.”
With that, Thompson closed the door behind him.
Chapter 19
“You know, I was really starting to doubt that this day would ever get here,” Maggie confided to her older sister.
She and Bellamy were looking themselves over in the full-length mirror one last time. The wedding ceremony was only minutes away from beginning.
Maggie found that she was really nervous for Bellamy. It surprised her that the latter looked like calmness personified.
“I know what you mean, what with first the hurricane, then the flood, it felt as if we were never going to find an island of time to have this ceremony in front of our family and friends,” Bellamy agreed, adjusting her headpiece. It seemed a little lopsided to her.
Maggie was about to add the prison riot and James showing up at Jonah’s cabin with his gun to that list, but then decided that, at least for now, she would keep those things to herself. There was no point in possibly ruining Bell’s day with talk of what might have happened if things had gone badly. What counted was that they hadn’t happened.
And more importantly, what mattered was that they were all finally gathered here to see her sister and Jonah’s brother exchange their vows in front of all their loved ones.
Maggie’s eyes met her sister’s in the full-length mirror that had had been brought into this small room just for this occasion.
“I really wish that Mom and Dad had lived to see this,” Maggie told her.
Bellamy’s eyes became misty. “Yes, me, too,” she agreed quietly.
Maggie squeezed her sister’s hand, silently offering support.
“They’ve got a front row seat in heaven, watching over you. And if you ask me, I think they’re going to be crazy about their new son-in-law,” she confided.
Bellamy smiled. “I think so, too. All I know is that I’m glad you’re here.”
“And Donovan,” Maggie reminded her, tongue in cheek. “Don’t forget Donovan.”
“No,” Bellamy said with a wistful, faraway tone, “I’m certainly not about to forget Donovan,” she told her sister with a laugh.
“Hey, how’s it going in here?” Rae Lemmon asked, sticking her head into the room. Her expression looked resigned as she took a look at Maggie. “Well, maybe I should drop out of the wedding party.”
“Wait, what?” Bellamy cried. “Why?” Her calm exterior instantly threatened to crumble. At this point, she couldn’t bear the idea of facing even a thimbleful of stress, much less anything else. She just wasn’t up to it.
“Well, we’re supposed to be co–maids of honor and I don’t look anywhere near as good as Miss Beauty Contest Winner over there,” Rae said, jerking a thumb in Maggie’s direction. “Compared to Maggie, I look like one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters,” Rae complained. “Or a least the plain one.”
“You think that’s something—how would you like to have grown up with her? People would take one look at Maggie and then they would look at me again and ask, ‘What happened to you? Were you adopted?’”
Having been a beauty contest winner had its downside, but Maggie had never become vain about those so-called “crowns” she had won. She had never been that shallow.
“Stop it, both of you,” she ordered. “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and as far as I’m concerned, both of you are gorgeous. Besides, I hate to be the one to tell you this, Rae, but nobody’s going to be looking at either of us. Every eye in the place is going to be looking at the bride here.” Maggie gestured toward Bellamy. “Thinking how beautiful she looks.”
“Terrific, now you’ve finally made me nervous,” Bellamy complained.
Maggie gave Bellamy a quick hug, taking care not to wrinkle her sister’s wedding gown. “There’s nothing to be nervous about, Bell. You are going to be marrying the love of your life. Just remember to say ‘I do’ when the Reverend feeds you the line and everything will be just great.”
Overwhelmed for a moment, Maggie hugged Bellamy again, this time harder. “You look just beautiful, Bell,” she whispered. “Really.” Releasing her sister, Maggie stepped back and looked at Rae. “Is everybody ready?”
Rae nodded. “Quick,” she urged, “let’s do this before anything else happens.”
Maggie laughed. “Amen to that,” she told her sister’s best friend. Turning toward Bellamy, she said, “C’mon, big sister.” Maggie gathered up her sister’s long train. “Let’s get you married.”
Taking a deep breath, Bellamy smoothed down the sides of her gown and nodded.
Maggie cocked her head, listening. The beginning strains of The Wedding March could be heard echoing through the air.
“And there’s the music, right on cue,” Maggie commented.
Rae opened the door and all three of them filed out of the small back room.
* * *
“I can’t believe she’s really married,” Maggie said again. She had lost count of how many times she had voiced that thought.
They were all at the reception. Dinner had been served and eaten, although some of the slow eaters were still at it.
Despite everything the town had just gone through, somehow they had managed to put together a band to play at Bellamy and Donovan’s reception. Hearing the music somehow made everything seem brighter and hopeful.
Taking advantage of having a live band there, Maggie had gone up to Jonah and asked him to dance. She was actually prepared to have to drag him onto the small dance floor, but to her surprise, Jonah had gone along with her willingly.
The first dance was a relatively fast number, but the next one was slow. It felt perfect to have his arms around her.
“I don’t think either one of them quite believe it, either,” Jonah said, nodding toward the bride and groom, who were also on the floor, dancing.
“I guess it’s going to take some time to sink in,” Maggie commented. And then she turned her attention back to her partner. He had really surprised her. “You dance well.”
Jonah laughed at the stunned expression on her face. “You were expecting me to trip over my own feet, weren’t you?”
“Well, not exactly that,” Maggie quickly corrected. “But, well, you’re a Cowboy Hero, you spend all your time looking for lost people and rescuing them,” she explained. “That doesn’t exactly leave much time over for any dancing.”
“Sure it does,” he told her with a straight face. “My team and I do a little victory dance every time we find someone.”
“You don’t have to make fun of me,” she told him, although she had to admit that probably from his point of view, she did have it coming.
“Oh, but it’s so much fun to do that,” Jonah confessed—just before he stole a quick kiss.
The slow song they were dancing to ended, but another one quickly started, taking its place. Because it felt so utterly right to be holding her like this, Jonah just continued dancing with Maggie.
“You know I’m just kidding, right?” he asked her. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Maggie’s feelings.
She lifted her shoulders in a quick, fleeting shrug. “Everyone’s got to have a hobby, I guess.”
That made him think. “Well, if we’re going to be talking about hobbies, I guess this is the right time to tell you that I’ve been thinking about taking up a new one,” he told her.
Listening, she wasn’t sure just where he was going with this. “Oh?”
“Yes.” Now that he had gotten started, he was determined to push through this, even though he felt as if his gut was tying itself up in knots. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now and unless you have any objections—”
“Me?” Maggie cut in, confused. “Why would I have any objections to your new hobby?” she asked.
He looked down into her face. “Because my new hobby is you.”
Maggie stopped dancing. “Excuse me?”
“I said my new hobby is yo—”
She shook her head, waving away the rest of his sentence. “I heard what you said, but how can I be your new hobby?”
“Because,” he continued, smiling into her face, his courage growing, “I intend to learn every little thing there is to know about you.” he told her.
He still wasn’t being clear, Maggie thought. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because,” he told her, playing with a stray lock that had worked its way out of her carefully arranged hairstyle, “I think that a husband should know everything about his wife.”
To say that she was stunned was a colossal understatement.
“Wait, hold it,” Maggie cried.
Grabbing his hand she led him away from the small area that had been designated for dancing and drew him over to the far side of the rec center, away from all the other wedding guests.
Only when they had finally gotten clear of everyone did Maggie let go of his hand and turn around to face him. “Did you just miss a step? Because I know that I did.”
His expression never changed. “I thought we were dancing very well.”
“I’m not talking about dancing together,” she insisted, feeling disoriented, not to mention more than a little confused.
“But I am,” Jonah told her, then added very seriously, “I am talking about dancing together for the rest of our lives.”
“Wait,” Maggie ordered, putting her hand on his chest as if to underscore the instruction she had just managed to utter. Her pulse was racing so fast, she was certain he could detect it. “Back up here.”
Maggie felt as if she was having a total out-of-body experience, which, considering everything else she had been through recently, didn’t really surprise her as much as it should have.
But maybe she was just reading too much into this. Maybe there was another meaning entirely to what Jonah was saying to her, but if there was, for the life of her, she couldn’t find it.
“Are you asking me to marry you?” she questioned Jonah very slowly, afraid that she had gotten her signals crossed somehow. She watched his face to see if he would suddenly start to laugh.
But he didn’t.
There it was, he thought. There was the question. The answer could either make him or break him entirely, not to mention that the wrong answer would suck up his soul.
But now that it was out on the table between them like this, there was no running from it, no stalling to buy more time so that when Maggie finally gave him her answer, it was the one that he was hoping to hear.
“Well, Colton?” she pressed, waiting for him to answer her. “Are you?”
“In my own halting, totally mixed-up way, yes,” he answered. “But in my defense, I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve never asked a woman to marry you before?” Maggie asked incredulously.
How could someone as handsome as Jonah have gotten to this stage of his life without asking someone to marry him? It didn’t seem possible—unless he wanted to be a bachelor forever.
“No,” he admitted, “I never have. And before you ask me why, it’s because I never found anyone I wanted to ask, never found anyone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with—until now,” he said, cupping her cheek for a moment. His eyes all but made love to her as he looked deeply into hers.
Maggie stared at him, afraid to believe what she was hearing. “You mean me?” she asked haltingly.
“Of course I mean you. Unless,” Jonah qualified as it occurred to him that maybe she hadn’t already said yes because she didn’t want to, “the reason you haven’t said yes is because you’re trying to find a way to turn me down.”
“After that prison riot and then coming home to find yourself looking down the barrel of my ex-husband’s gun, I’m surprised you even want to talk to me, much less marry me,” she told him.
“Oh, trust me, I want to do much more than that to you,” he told her. She still hadn’t said what he was waiting to hear. Taking a deep breath, Jonah resigned himself to the disappointment that was coming. “But if you’d rather I just walked away and left you alone, I will.”
Maggie could only stare at him as she shook her head. “Amazing.”
Jonah didn’t understand what she was saying. “What is?”
“That a man like you who is so incredibly clever that you can pick up a trace of a clue at fifty paces can be so unbelievably thickheaded when it comes to seeing what is blatantly right in front of you,” she marveled.
It just made her love Jonah that much more, she thought.
“And what is it that’s right in front of me?” he asked Maggie, afraid that he was going to get it all wrong after all.
She turned her face up to his. “Me, Jonah, Me. I love you, you big dummy.”
Relieved beyond belief, Jonah smiled into her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her waist. In the background, there was another song beginning to play, but he remained where he was, in the recesses of the rec center, content to be there with his girl in his arms.
“Good answer,” he told her just before lowering his mouth to hers.
Lord, but he could get lost in that kiss of hers, Jonah thought. But this wasn’t the time or the place to let that happen. He owed it to his brother to stay here for at least a large part of the reception even though every fiber of his being was begging him to just sweep Maggie up in his arms and go home with her. To make love with her until there was nothing left of either one of them but desire.
He was torn between duty and desire.
Maggie drew her lips back, afraid that with any more provocation, she was going to forget where she was and allow her crumbling barriers to just fall to the ground without an ounce of care.
But there were things that had to be settled. She couldn’t just let all this happen blindly.
“Where are we going to live?” she asked him. She felt his arms tightening around her.
“Here.” And then he explained why he’d changed his mind. “Your sister’s here. My family’s here. It only makes sense to put roots down here.”
She wasn’t going to let herself rejoice until she was absolutely sure he knew what he was doing—and why. “But what about your job in Austin?”
“After that hurricane and that flood, my organization is going to need an outpost here. There’s no reason why I can’t get transferred to Whisperwood,” he told her.
“And what about making your name apart from the Colton name?” she asked. He had been pretty adamant about that.
Jonah shrugged as if that no longer mattered. “I did that. There’s no point in proving myself over and over again. You have any more details to get in the way?” he asked her.
Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled. “None that I can think of.”
“Good. Then it’s settled,” he declared. “Except for just one thing,” he reminded her.
“Oh?” She looked at him, a little confused. “What’s that?”
“You haven’t given me an answer.”
“Maybe because you haven’t actually come out and asked me that question,” she countered.
“All right, let’s do this the right way.” Before she could ask him what the right way was, Jonah dropped down to one knee, took her hand and said, “Magnolia Reeves, will you marry me?”
“Yes, but if you ever call me Magnolia again,” she warned him
with feeling, “the wedding is off.”
He rose to his feet, still holding her hand. “Duly noted,” he said, pulling her back into his arms.
It was the last thing he said for a while. He had been raised right and knew it wasn’t polite to talk when his lips were otherwise occupied.
Epilogue
“I guess you must feel really relieved to finally be able to give your sister a proper burial, Chief,” Mitch Cameron, one of Thompson’s longtime police officers said. Cameron had come by to check with his superior before he called it a day and left the police station.
“Not as relieved as you might think, Cameron,” Thompson answered. He’d been going through old paper files for the better part of the day. “Whoever killed my baby sister is still out there. The bastard needs to be made to pay for his crime.”
Trying to comfort the chief, Cameron said, “You never know—maybe the guy’s dead. That’s always a possibility,” he added hopefully.
But the chief shook his head. “My gut tells me he’s still out there, Cameron. And,” he added grimly, “I don’t think that Emmeline was his only victim.”
Cameron looked at the stack of files on the chief’s desk. “Is that why you’ve been going through all those old missing persons case files?”
“Missing women case files,” Thompson corrected. That same hunch that told him the killer was still out there also told him that the killer had a type.
“Maybe the way he buried your sister, mummifying her body and burying her deep in the earth, shows that he regretted what he did,” Cameron suggested, watching the chief’s face for a reaction.
“Or maybe he just didn’t want her body found by a cadaver dog,” the chief countered.
Cameron laughed dryly. There was no humor in his laugh. “You sure aren’t giving this guy any points, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” Thompson all but growled at his officer. “You have anything else you want to say?” he asked, indicating that if he didn’t, then Cameron should leave.
Cameron lingered by the door. “Just that I’m sorry about your sister, Chief.”
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