If he had to be in Texas, he might as well use his time wisely. He felt pretty good about his goals. "Here we are," he said to Suzy as he pulled up outside the courthouse. The white stone building looked as if it hadn't changed in a hundred years or more. "Last chance to back out."
Suzy looked at him, her eyes big in her face. "I'm not backing out. You're the one with wandering feet."
"I'm changing," he told her, "thanks to you."
"Don't blame it on me," she said, getting out of the truck. "You forget that I've met all of your brothers. Only one of you is able to stay in one place for long."
"I crave excitement," Dane said cheerfully, "and the past few days have brought me more adventure than Tve ever had."
She shook her head. "So says the Texas Ranger."
"Family life is much more exciting than law enforce-
ment, you know," he said, taking her elbow to guide her through the courthouse door. "I could write a book about the Morgans."
'That's what you can do to make money," Suzy said. "Write a screenplay about a father who wants his four sons to love him."
"Doesn't sound like a very exciting movie." Dane steered her toward a door that looked like a records office. "Hello," he said to the elderly woman behind the desk. "We're here to apply for a marriage license."
She looked over her glasses at him. "Suzy?"
"Hello, Mrs. Cole," she said. "Dane, this is Celie Cole."
"Hello." He shook her hand warmly. "Nice to meet you."
Celie smiled at him. "I heard from Cricket. She was checking on the marriage application process in Union Junction County."
"Cricket's getting us organized," Dane said. "She's planning our wedding."
Celie clapped her hands with genuine delight. "I assume I'll get an invitation, Suzy?" Her tone implied that the invitation should already be in the mail.
Suzy blinked, not wanting to say that no one was being invited.
"Carla, Suzy's getting married to Dane Morgan," Celie said before Suzy could stop her. A tall, thin woman came over with a friendly smile on her lace.
"That's great! I bet Josiah is thrilled!" Carla gazed
at both of them benevolently. "He's always wanted a bunch o( little ones out at that place o his.*'
"Yes," Suzy said. "But— M
"Let me give you a his-and-her shower," Celie said. "After everything Mr. Morgan has done for Union Junction, it's the very least I can do."
"Oh, by all means," Carla said. "We couldn't let a Morgan wedding go by without doing our part. Mr. Morgan has been the saving grace of this town with all his generous donations."
Dane shook his head. "Thank you, it's so thoughtful, but we just couldn't—"
"Oh, you must," Celie insisted. "I'd do anything for Josiah, as would most people in this town. Everyone's going to want to help."
Suzy glanced at Dane, not sure what to say. She didn't want to hurt the ladies' feelings, but she hadn't planned on a wedding or a shower.. .and yet, less than the expected fanfare would make people suspicious. To cause gossip about Mr. Morgan and his family after all Josiah had done to repair his reputation didn't seem right.
Apparently, Dane was coming to the same conclusion because he said, "We weren't planning on a large wedding, Mrs. Cole."
"That's right," Suzy said. "In fact. Cricket and Pris-cilla are making the cakes for us."
Celie's eyes lit up. "I would consider it my duty and a way to thank Josiah if you would allow me to host a
very tiny girls-only shower, then, with homemade finger sandwiches and lemonade."
"Yes," Carla said, "we could do a very simple shower, just the girls you worked with at the hospital."
Maybe this was the easy way out. "Well, if it would be very small," Suzy said, trying to think of how devastated the ladies would be when she and Dane didn't stick their marriage out for more than a year. "Very, very simple. Nothing more than lemonade."
Celie and Carla smiled. "Well, and tea and coffee, naturally."
Suzy slowly nodded. "You're very sweet to do this."
"Nonsense," Celie said. "We're delighted to do something for Josiah. I imagine he'll be flying in for the wedding?" she asked Dane.
"We haven't exactly broken the news to him yet," Dane hedged, and Celie squealed.
"Carla, we're almost the first to know!"
"We really just decided this morning," Suzy said, and Carla nodded.
"That explains why you're not wearing an engagement ring," she said.
"We're about to go shopping," Dane said quickly. "We decided to apply for the marriage license first "
Suzy couldn't look at him. She knew he had no money, and the expense of a ring wasn't necessary when they weren't staying together.
"Well, let's get started!" Celie exclaimed, sounding as if" the most prominent couple in Union Junction had
just announced their impending marriage. Til just need
our birth certificates or driver's licenses and we can get started. This is so exciting'*'
Thirty minutes later, when they'd completed the paperwork. Dane could tell his new fiancee was completely rattled as they left the courthouse. Worried, he'd wondercd if Suzy might holt. He hadn't considered the fact that everybody in Union Junction knew Suzy had been unceremoniously dumped by her ex-boyfriend— and the romantic notion she'd suddenly found true love would be too much of a fairy tale for the town's ladies to resist. "Heart-pounding excitement, huh?"
Suzy didn't answer. Dane reached out and took her hand as they crossed the street. "Hey. it wasn't so bad."
"I have a feeling." Suzy said, "that our business merger is being hijacked by the kindest people on earth."
"Nah." he said, "we're still in control. Let's get a ring and then—"
"I vote we don't." she said. "It's not cost-effective. considering the plan."
"On the contrary. The ladies are watching us from the courthouse window, and we don't want anyone to say that we're not the tow n's happiest couple, do w e T
"And in a year, when they think we're the town's most quickly divorced couple r '
Dane knew Suzy was thinking about her daughters' future in Union Junction. He couldn't blame her. "Let's go in and look. Then they'll be satisfied."
"All right."
She sounded as if the spirit of adventure had left her. Dane opened the door and they went inside the jeweler's.
It was a replay of the courthouse incident, with the elderly Mr. Tompkins not only inviting himself to the wedding, but selecting their bands—a very affordable set of white gold rings. Suzy's even had a trail of diamonds along the top that made it sparkle. He wouldn't accept payment—said he'd bill them—and sent them on their way with a lot of hearty good wishes and the request that they say hello to old Josiah for him.
Dane helped Suzy into his truck. "None of this will matter in a few months."
She looked at him from the seat of his truck. He'd hesitated, not closing the door just yet, stealing one last lingering look at her solemn face. She was just so cute, all worried about money, that he almost felt bad that he'd talked her into this plan. But then he remembered how much she wanted the Morgan name for her children and felt better about sharing it with her.
"Don't worry, Suzy," he said softly, catching her hands in his. And then, not caring that plenty of people were watching them with avid and delighted interest, he kissed his new fiancee on the hand, then her lips, just like he'd been wanting to for days.
Chapter Thirteen
Suzy's hrcath caught as Dane kissed her. He took his time with her lips, turning all the anxiety she'd been feeling into a bone-melting promise she welcomed.
The first time he'd kissed her, she'd been annoyed and a little scared.
But now his lips were soft, gentle, searching. Suzy felt herself closing her eyes, leaning forward to receive more of Dane's kiss. Her blood seemed to buzz; her hands slid up his arms.
Then she remembered where she was—on the main street of Union Junction with an au
dience—and she pulled herself away. His eyes sparkled at her, his lips turned up in a teasing quirk.
"If you like being a fiancee this much, imagine how much fun being married will be," he said, and Suzy groaned.
"Could we get home?" she asked. "I'm sure my girls are wondering where I am."
"Not with their aunties Cricket and Priscilla bribing
them with sweets and hugs. I'm sure they're in the best o( hands, but, yes, we'll hit the road." He pulled away from the eurb, waving to each friendly person watching them drive by. "It surprises me that so many people have such warm regard for Pop."
"Josiah's done a lot for many of us." Su/y stared down at her ring, amazed that she wore such a beautiful gift on her finger. She felt guilty accepting it, but Dane had insisted, said it was for the girls, too, and how could she refuse such sentiment? He seemed to mention the girls and their future often, and his concern for them warmed her. Maybe Dane was more like his father than she'd thought.
"Funny what money can do," Dane said, "including turning people's opinions around."
"Josiah never said why you all didn't like each other," Suzy commented carefully.
He shook his head. "He was hard on us. Wanted us to be men. Thought the world beat people down who didn't know how to take care of themselves. And still, we could have stood that, because it was us four boys against him, so we stayed bonded together. But one night—"
He hesitated. Suzy looked at him. "One night?"
"One night we sneaked out. We wanted to see Jack ride in the rodeo. Pop was harder on Jack than the rest of us because he was the oldest. I think Pop wanted Jack to be tough enough to raise us if anything happened to him. This was a long time ago, before Union Junction had grown so much. Basically, we were country kids, far out from the town. Pop didn't have many friends.
Our mother had left when we were young because she was tired of Pop's traveling. She went back home to France. I think it was hard being foreign here, and alone in the country with no other women for companionship." He shrugged. "I don't really know what made her leave. I've always assumed he treated her as roughly as he treated us with his tough love."
"So she left?"
"Yeah. So Jack was supposed to be responsible for us. But he was a kid, too, and he loved the one thing Pop hated, which was rodeo. In Pop's eyes, rodeo was the sin of loafing, ne'er-do-well ill-bred types. This was in the days before sponsorships and a living could be made at it."
Suzy remembered her well-heeled parents attending cocktail parties and dinner balls for charities. She'd been trotted out in various gowns and bows when she was a child to greet the guests before being taken back upstairs by the nanny. Like a doll, she'd enjoyed putting on her shoes and having her hair done high and being introduced as the only daughter of the wealthy Winter-stones. Of course, she'd been a debutante, and an eastern Ivy League education would have followed a summer abroad at Oxford.
But she'd chosen nursing school at the local community college, feeling more comfortable in her own element. She'd met the man she'd fallen in love with, her first love.. .only to have her eyes cruelly opened to discover that the love was one-sided. Her parents had been devastated and humiliated by her pregnancy. An ex-cop or a rodeo
cowboy would never have been her parents' choice for her. "So Jack was independent," she murmured.
"Which drove Pop nuts because he saw Jack throwing away his life on something that paid nothing. But we loved watching him ride. We didn't have the courage to disobey Pop and do it ourselves, but we sure did like watching Jack." He took a deep breath. "But one night we sneaked out to watch him, and there was an accident...we got hit by a driver who shouldn't have been on the road. Pop never forgave Jack for being a bad example. He was so mad at him. It was fury I never saw even in my years in the military or in the Rangers."
"And then what?" Suzy asked, not wanting to cause him more pain but having to know what had driven Josiah and his boys apart.
"We lied to cover for Jack. Said it was each other's idea to go." He shook his head. "We were young, confused, scared for Jack, who was in the hospital after a bad ride. In the end, we all got in so much trouble, we just ran away. I know that sounds cowardly, but Pop had always been pretty hard to live with. We were afraid. That's all there is to it. And we made bad choices."
Suzy hesitated. She couldn't offer any words of consolation or advice because she knew too well what it felt like to earn a parent's scorn. Their judgment destroyed the trust a child felt with their parent, whom they wanted to be able to count on. "I'm sorry," she finally said.
"Don't be," Dane said, his voice hard, "it's all in the past."
And yet it's not, Su/y thought. It's right here in this truck with us, and it's the reason we're saying I do.
Dane took a long timl thinking about whether or not he would call Pop. The conversation would be awkward; there was a lot unsaid between them.
Yet the townspeople had made him think about his father's Feelings, and how much Pop liked Su/y. And so in the end. he decided to call and tell his father they were getting married, for Suzy's sake. He could tell it bothered her that her parents had disowned her, which was probably why she'd appreciated Josiah looking after her and Sandra and Nicole.
And so, if Dane was falling in with his father's plans—at least on the surface—then it would be best for everyone if he let Josiah know he had won. Dane drank a beer, wandered around the barns for a while, and finally forced himself to pull out the phone in his bedroom and place the call.
"Hello?" Josiah barked.
Dane hesitated. Josiah was no smaller a personality when he was a few countries away; Dane could feel himself snapping to attention as soon as he heard his father's voice. "Pop, it's Dane."
"Dane? To what do I owe the honor of this phone call?" Josiah demanded.
So much for pleasantries. "Pop, just wanted to let you know that..." He stopped, fought with his conscience, knowing that Pop would feel vindicated just like with
Gabriel.. .and yet, it wasn't about Pop. This call, and the wedding, was about Suzy. "I'm getting married, Pop."
'To whom, may I ask?" His father's voice was only mildly curious.
"Suzy Winterstone," Dane said.
Josiah chuckled. "Best of luck to you," he said.
That was it? Dane frowned. "Thank you."
"Thank you for calling," Josiah said courteously.
The line went dead. Dane stared at the phone for a moment, somewhat stunned. That was it? He'd agonized over calling his father, hadn't spoken fifty words to him in ten years, and that was all Josiah had to say?
The man was, like everyone had once said, a jackass.
Only he wasn't really called that much anymore. Dane reflected on that, and why it was so difficult to thaw the relationship between Josiah and his boys. "That was anticlimactic," he said to himself.
He went to find Suzy. She was in the kitchen with Priscilla, Cricket and the twins. They were drawing frosting decorations on a piece of paper, presumably planning for cakes.
"Swirls or bows?" Cricket asked Dane.
"Uh—"
The ladies all laughed at his expression.
"That means, don't bother me with the details," Priscilla said. "You look tired, Dane."
Suzy glanced at him, her gaze questioning. "I called Pop," he told her.
"And?"
He shrugged, reached into the fridge for a beer. "He said congratulations, and that I couldn't have picked a finer woman."
"See?" Cricket said. "Josiah's softening up in his old age."
Suzy's eyes widened. She went back to examining patterns on the paper, so Dane slid into a seat and pulled the twins up into his lap. "You girls need a coloring table," he told them. "Someplace where you can sit and color, with tiny seats and a tiny table that's made just for pint-sized arts and crafts. I'm going to build you one."
Suzy glanced up. "They'd love that! Their own little workstation." She beamed at him, and he felt himself puffing up with pride. "I
didn't know you could build things, Dane."
For the first time since meeting Suzy and her girls, Dane felt valuable. He didn't know why he hadn't felt this before, because Suzy seemed to admire him, when she wasn't being shy. But there'd been hero worship in her tone just then, and he'd liked it—this was the first time in his life anyone had ever been amazed by something he could do.
He could feel himself wanting to brag a little, get some more attention from her, and had to fight the urge. "It's not as hard to build a table as it is to bake wedding cakes, I bet."
Priscilla smiled at his efforts to praise them in return. "Suzy, this man is a prince."
Suzy looked at Dane, slowly lowering her eyes. She
Tina Leonard 133
hadn't been so shy when he'd kissed her in Union Junction. In fact, she'd seemed quite eager, unless he was misreading her signals. She peeked up at him again, a soft smile on her face, and that's when Dane knew he wasn't quite the businessman his father was. His heart was definitely getting involved.
Suzy had put the girls to bed, and Cricket and Priscilla were off in their rooms when she heard a knock on her door. She opened it to find Dane standing outside. "Hi." "Hi." He cleared his throat. "Are the girls asleep?" She nodded. "They drifted off without protest." He smiled. "When I called Pop, he didn't seem as surprised as I thought he'd be."
Suzy moved into the room to fold some of Sandra's and Nicole's tiny clothes. "It's hard to surprise your father. He's made a living not letting people catch him off guard"
"But you and my father weren't in cahoots?" She looked at him, not exactly shocked that he'd ask but not pleased at the implications of what he'd said, either. "I would do a lot of things for my children's futures, but drag a man to the altar isn't one of them, obviously, or I'd be married now."
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