Love Inspired Historical July 2015 Box Set: The Marriage AgreementCowgirl for KeepsThe Lawman's RedemptionCaptive on the High Seas

by Renee Ryan

  He saw his father. He saw his half brother. He saw his future, if he chose to cling to past wounds and the darkness that came with them. Frowning at his image, he touched his jaw. The same shape as his father’s and his brother’s, the three of them similar on the outside.

  But on the inside, thanks to God’s mercy, Jonathon was a new creation. And he was going to be a father.

  Fanny was carrying his child. Fascinated at the wonder of it, he felt a smile touch his lips. Then it instantly fell away. He’d responded to the news badly. He would make it up to his wife, after he reconciled with his past.

  A light dusting of snow covered the ground. If Fanny was with him she’d point out the sound of the crystals crunching under their feet.

  Just thinking about his wife brought him a moment of calm.

  Fanny had accepted him without question. No condemnation. No judgment. She’d believed in him from the very beginning and had never let the knowledge of his past color her feelings for him. She’d shown him grace and mercy, and he’d failed her, by always holding a portion of himself back, afraid the ugliness of his past would somehow rub off on her.

  He would spend the rest of his life showing her and their children the same unconditional love she’d always shown him.

  But first, he had to deal with his father.

  After being admitted into the house by the judge’s impassive butler, Jonathon was left cooling his heels in the foyer.

  He glanced around, remembering the last time he’d stood in this cavernous hall, when he’d been a boy full of anguish and desperation and lost hope. For a moment, he disappeared in the memory. He’d come seeking help for his mother, but also secretly hoping for acceptance from the man who’d fathered him.

  He’d left empty-handed on both accounts.

  Ever since that day, Jonathon had been trying to prove he was nothing like Joshua Greene, and in the process, had nearly condemned himself to a lonely, loveless life. But then Fanny had come along.

  She’d brought warmth into his life. She’d brought love and chased away the aching loneliness that had always been a part of him.

  He wanted to leave this cold house, to return to his wife and tell her he was blissfully happy with the news of their child. He couldn’t allow himself that luxury. He had unfinished business with his father.

  A shadow oscillated over the marble floor, elongated and then formed into a man. The butler had returned.

  Posture erect, he directed Jonathon to follow him to a long, empty corridor. “He is waiting for you in his private study.”

  Jonathon lifted a questioning eyebrow.

  “It is the room at the end of the hallway on the left.”

  “Thank you.” Minutes later, Jonathon stood before a pair of gleaming ebony doors.

  He nearly changed his mind. What he was about to do would tie him to this man until one of them died. The irony was that he would be tied to him, anyway. They shared the same blood.

  But they didn’t have to share the same legacy.

  Reaching into the pocket of his coat, Jonathon pulled out the photograph of the original Hotel Dupree. A reminder of where you really come from.

  A rush of—something—skittered though him. Guilt, maybe? Regret? For most of his childhood he’d dreamed of having a real home, with a mother and a father to care for him. He’d found those things at Charity House, but had turned his back on them after his fateful visit to this house.

  It still amazed him that neither Marc nor Laney held his youthful rebellion against him. Today, he would do his best to honor them, as a child would honor his parents.

  He entered Joshua Green’s private sanctuary without knocking. The smell of expensive tobacco and freshly polished wood greeted him. His father did not.

  The silver head bent over a stack of papers on the polished surface of the desk did not lift, not even when Jonathon cleared his throat.

  “So you have decided to grace me with your presence.” At last, Greene looked up, a sneer curling his lips. “Yet you stand there glaring at me in silence. Am I to guess at the reason for your visit?”

  The question was typical Joshua Greene, part arrogant superiority, part condescension. If Jonathon hadn’t been studying the hard planes of his father’s face, he might have missed the wariness in the other man’s eyes.

  A part of him wanted to prolong this moment, to wield the power he held over a man who’d filled his youth with nothing but misery. He could even choose to leave, and prevent Greene from ever having what he most desired.

  For years, Jonathon had carried the weight of his father’s rejection inside him. But the Lord had gifted him with a remarkable woman as his wife. Because of Fanny, because of the child she would soon give him, Jonathon had surpassed the need for vengeance. All that was left was one final act of mercy.

  “I have come to make a concession.”

  The judge’s eyes narrowed. Clearly sensing a trick, he carefully pushed himself to his feet. “Very well, go ahead.”

  Now that the time had come, Jonathon needed a moment to gather the words in his head. He moved to stand by the stone hearth. A fire spit and snapped, spreading warmth and a pleasant, smoky aroma through the room.

  He turned and looked once more at Judge Greene.

  For his entire life, Jonathon had told himself he didn’t care what this man thought of him. Finally, it was true. He didn’t care. The past no longer held him captive.

  He was free.

  “I came to say I have no objection to you naming my firstborn son as your heir.”

  Proving the cold, cynical nature of his heart, Greene’s eyes turned hard as flint. “I am assuming you have stipulations.”

  “No stipulations.” Certainty laced Jonathon’s words. “No conditions.”

  An invisible weight lifted from his heart.

  The judge’s grim expression did not change. “The last we spoke, you were determined to prevent this. Why the sudden change of heart?”

  “I am not doing this for you, but for my wife.” His marriage to Fanny would never be whole if Jonathon didn’t release his anger and hatred for this man.

  Forgiveness was hard, and came at a price, but the cost of bitterness was far steeper. “That’s all I came to say.”

  With that, Jonathon left the room, strode down the empty hallway and out the front door.

  *

  Dressed for the day, and dreadfully worried for Jonathon’s welfare, Fanny sat on the overstuffed settee, hugging her knees to her chest. She felt tears forming again. After an hour of crying she would have thought she was through, but obviously not. Weary in both mind and spirit, she felt sorrow tear through her.

  She would never stop loving Jonathon, would never stop thinking of him as her husband and the great love of her life, but she would not force him to stay with her. She would rather let him go than trap him in a marriage he didn’t want.

  He’d said he was happy about the news of their child, but he hadn’t acted happy. In truth, he hadn’t been able to leave the suite fast enough.

  She had no idea what he was doing at his father’s, and that scared her. Sobbing, she buried her face in her hands.

  The sound of a key twisting in the lock had her on her feet in an instant. Not wanting him to know she’d been crying, she swiped furiously at her face. But then she realized there was no reason to hide her emotions from her husband.

  He’d married her. He’d agreed to love her and cherish her through sickness and in health and, she amended silently in her head, at the sight of messy, unpleasant tears.

  The door swung open and—one breath, two—Jonathon entered the foyer. Their eyes met across the room.

  Pocketing the key, he crossed to her.

  “Jonathon,” she breathed.

  He cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. “I love you, Fanny. I should have said it to you on our wedding day and every day thereafter.”

  The words sank past her anguish and settled into the depths of her soul. The
pain and fear in her heart vanished.

  “I love you, too.” She pressed her face into his shoulder. “I’ll never stop loving you.”

  They clung to each other for several minutes, basking in the joy of simply being together. At last. Jonathon guided her to the settee and sat beside her.

  “There’s so much I want to say, starting with I’m sorry. I hurt you, Fanny, and there’s no excuse for that. If you’ll let me, I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you. And our child.”

  Hope blossomed in her heart. “What are you saying?”

  He kissed the palm of her hand. “I deeply regret how I handled your announcement earlier.” He leaned closer, until his lips brushed her ear. “Tell me the news again.”

  The happy light in his eyes when he sat back gave her the courage to speak with a strong, confident voice. “Jonathon, my love, we’re going to have a baby.”

  He let out a hoot of delight, and then yanked her into his arms. “Praise the Lord. You’ve made me a very happy man, Francine Mary Mitchell Hawkins.”

  “You…you are truly pleased about this child?”

  “Overjoyed.” He kissed her tenderly on the lips.

  She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back, fiercely, gleefully, this man she loved with all her heart.

  He pulled away first, only far enough to whisper in her ear once again. “I am here to stay, my precious Fanny. I wish to raise an entire brood of children with you.”

  She believed him. But one thing still needed saying.

  “You’re not your father.” Of all the things she wanted her husband to know, this was the most important. She would keep saying the words, keep reminding him, every day for the rest of their lives if necessary, until he was convinced he was his own man. “You’re nothing like him.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  There was something different in his voice, something she’d missed before this moment, a note she’d never heard before. He sounded freer, easier…liberated.

  Fanny studied Jonathon’s face. He looked as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders. “What exactly happened at Judge Greene’s house this morning?”

  “I’ll tell you everything. But look outside—it’s a beautiful, crisp morning with a light snowfall.” He tugged her toward the door. “Come, my love, join me for a walk and I will reveal all.”

  Laughing, she grabbed her coat and hurried out of the suite with him.

  They strolled through the morning streets of Denver as they had hundreds of times before. All around them, people went about their business. No one paid them any attention.

  Jonathon directed her to the small park where he’d brought her the day after Mrs. Singletary’s ball. That had been when he’d officially started courting her, though she hadn’t realized it at the time.

  As he’d done that day all those months ago, he brushed off the wrought-iron bench and then directed her to sit.

  “I’m happy you came home, Jonathon. However—” she gave him her fiercest glower “—never, ever leave me behind like that again.”

  “No, never again. I’m sorry, Fanny.”

  The look of utter remorse turned her heart to mush. “You’re forgiven.”

  “It’s that simple?”

  She quoted a portion of her favorite Bible verse. “‘Love bears all things and endures all things.’” She smiled. “Of course I forgive you. I forgave you before you boarded the train to San Francisco.”

  “You’re a good woman. You deserve a good man.”

  “I deserve you.”

  Chuckling, he settled in beside her, then pulled her back against his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head.

  They sat that way for several minutes. Fanny broke the silence first. “Will you tell me what happened at Judge Greene’s house this morning?”

  Jonathon drew in a breath. “His power over me has been strong all my life, perhaps stronger than I ever knew. But you taught me that love is stronger.”

  She gave his hand an encouraging squeeze, but said nothing.

  “When you told me you were with child, I knew there was only one way to release his hold over me, over us and our future generations.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything, precisely. I told him…” Jonathon took a deep inhale, blew it out slowly. “I said if he wanted to name our firstborn son as his heir, he would get no objection from me.”

  She gasped at the implication of her husband’s words. Pushing away from him, she twisted on the seat to stare at him. “You really told him that?”

  “I realize I should have run it by you first.” He gave her a repentant grimace. “I would understand if you are angry.”

  “Angry? I’m not angry. I’m proud of you. There are so many ways you could have handled your father’s desire to name our son his heir. But instead of denying him, or threatening him, you gave him exactly what he wanted. You showed him grace.”

  “It was the only way I could break from the past.”

  Tears of happiness formed in her eyes. “Now you are free.”

  “I am free.”

  She threw herself at him.

  He enfolded her in his arms.

  “I love you, Jonathon, now and forever and always.”

  Smiling, he kissed her on the tip of her nose. “I love you, too, Fanny. More than I can ever put into words.”

  The sun chose that moment to split through a seam in the clouds. Fanny lifted her face toward the warmth before glancing once again at her husband. “What do you say we head back to the hotel and begin the rest of our lives as the happily married couple that we are?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “We’re going to have a full, sometimes frantic, mostly happy life together, with at least a half-dozen children underfoot.”

  “Only six?”

  “All right, seven.” He placed his palm flat on her stomach. “But we’ll focus our love on this special blessing first.”

  “Oh yes.” She covered his hand with hers. “This one first.”

  Epilogue

  In a state of barely subdued terror, Jonathon paced outside Fanny’s childhood bedroom on the Flying M ranch. Only moments before, he’d been banished by her mother and the other two women in the room, something to do with his tendency toward overreaction.

  Admittedly, barking at the three women on more than one occasion to make his wife’s pain stop—now—may have played a role in his expulsion.

  He could only wonder what was happening inside that torture chamber disguised as an innocuous bedroom. The walls were thin enough that Jonathon could hear every sharp groan that came from Fanny, could feel every birthing pain that made her cry out in agony.

  He’d never experienced this level of helplessness in his life.

  Although he’d known the trip to her family’s spread—their fifth in so many months—had seemed ill-timed this late in Fanny’s confinement, there was something synergistic about her birthing their first child in the same room where she’d been born.

  A screech of feminine anguish ripped into the unnatural stillness of the hallway. The last shreds of Jonathon’s control snapped.

  He lunged for the door.

  A hand grabbed him by the shirt collar and bodily yanked him back. “That’s it, you’re done.”

  Jonathon strained against the inflexible grip at his neck.

  Hunter pressed his face inches from his. “The expectant father needs to head outside and take a breath of fresh air.”

  Jonathon dug in his heels. “I’m not leaving my wife.”

  “She’s in good hands.” Reese Bennett Jr. spoke the words in his calm, lawyerly voice, which had defused many heated arguments at the negotiation table. “The women know what they’re doing.”

  “That’s a fact.” Cyrus Mitchell agreed with his son-in-law, his shoulder carelessly propped against the wall.

  Jonathon snarled at his fatherin-law. “How can you be so calm?”

  “The
women have been through this countless times before. They haven’t lost a mother or child yet.”

  It was the yet that sent Jonathon breaking free of Hunter’s hold and sailing back toward the door.

  “Enough.” Fanny’s father took charge. “You’re coming with us.”

  He motioned to Hunter and Reese.

  Giving Jonathon no chance to argue, the two men he’d come to think of as brothers dragged him down the stairs and tossed him out into the front yard.

  Jonathon washed out his tight lungs with big, long gulps of air, then attempted to look around. The scenery was breathtaking. The barns were well maintained, the corral well tended. The roaming horses and cattle added to the picture of a large, successful Colorado ranch, as did the Rocky Mountains in the distance.

  No matter how beautiful the setting was, abject terror remained alive inside him, nipping at him like tiny rodent teeth.

  He strode back toward the house.

  Cyrus barred his way. “Cool off, son. You’re no help to your wife in your current state.”

  Shaking with pent-up frustration, Jonathon speared a hand through his hair. “I can’t stand seeing Fanny in this kind of pain.”

  “Understandable.” Fanny’s father clasped a commiserating hand on his shoulder. “But as tough as this is to hear, what’s happening inside that room upstairs is the natural way of things.”

  So everyone kept telling him.

  Jonathon remembered silently scoffing at how the Mitchell brothers had hovered over their expectant wives. Turns out he was the hovering sort, as well.

  Women didn’t always survive pregnancy or childbirth.

  Too overcome with a renewed surge of panic to stand by and helplessly wring his hands, he attempted to pray. But he couldn’t focus his mind properly, so he sent up silent groans and wordless pleas.

  Surely the Lord knew what was happening in that birthing room. Surely He was protecting Fanny and their child.

  Another scream from the second floor sliced through the air. Jonathon broke out in a run.

  Hunter tackled him to the ground, then hopped to his feet lightning quick and pressed his boot on Jonathon’s chest. “Stay down or I’ll make sure you’re out cold for the rest of the day.”