“Michael made a funny face at breakfast and then he smelled like poop.”
Janey noticed C.J.’s Adam’s apple bob when he swallowed. He looked like he wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time.
“Want to go see Daddy ride a bull?” he asked after he’d pulled himself together.
“Bull?” Liam asked. “Yeah!”
An image of C.J. lying under a bull’s deadly hooves flashed through Janey and she had to bite her tongue so she wouldn’t ask him to skip the rodeo.
C.J. set Liam on his feet.
Janey crouched in front of Liam. “I’m sorry about the mistake I made in the swimming pool. Really, really sorry.”
Liam scuffed the toe of his running shoe in the dirt. He wouldn’t look at Janey.
He looked up at his father, though. “Did you spank Janey?”
He shook his head. “We shouldn’t hit people.”
“Still friends?” Janey asked Liam.
Liam nodded, then leaned against her. “Look what I got.”
After admiring the fire truck, she turned Liam toward C.J., who buckled him into his car seat.
Janey took one step toward the Jeep when a hand on her arm stopped her.
She turned around. Hank.
His dark brown eyes with their warm whiskey highlights studied her face. “You okay?”
“Oh, Hank,” she said and threw herself against his chest. “I’m so good.”
Hank wrapped his big arms around her and sighed. She knew he’d been waiting a long time for a hug from her, for the evidence of her happiness.
“You’ve overcome so much.” She felt the vibrations of Hank’s rough voice in her ear against his chest.
“He asked me to marry him.” Her tears dampened his shirt. “I said yes, Hank.”
Hank pushed her away from him to look at her. Her happiness was so intense, she felt like she was glowing.
“You deserve this, darlin’.” He turned. “C.J., you take care of Janey. She’s like a daughter to me.”
“Will do.” C.J. and Hank shook hands.
“Hank,” Janey said. “I’m going to ask my dad to give me away. If he can’t come, will you do it?”
For an answer, he grabbed her to him again and twirled her around until she got dizzy. When he set her down, he had to hold her to steady her. He grinned. Hank had a smile that could light airport runways.
“It would be my honor and pleasure.” He stomped away toward the house and yelled over his shoulder, “I gotta tell Amy.”
C.J. wrapped his arms around Janey and kissed her forehead. “You happy?”
Janey nodded. “Unreasonably happy.”
“Good.” C.J. turned and climbed into the Jeep.
Janey walked to the passenger side and climbed in, her heart so full she couldn’t stop smiling.
“You look the way I feel,” C.J. said.
He started the engine and headed out to the highway.
Liam made car noises in his throat, imitating the Jeep’s engine, and ran his car up and down his leg.
“Let’s go conquer a bull,” C.J. said.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“DO YOU HAVE TO ride a bull?” Janey asked. The thought of him on a bull made her hands sweat. She’d seen photos of the rodeo in Hank’s office. It looked too, too dangerous. “Can’t you just ride some broncs?”
“Bull riding’s where the biggest money is.”“Be careful today, okay?”
“I will. Between you and Liam, I’ve got a lot to come home to.”
He pulled the Jeep into the last parking spot in the shade. Taking his gear out of the back and kissing their cheeks, he left to join the other competitors.
C.J. RAN INTO HIS FATHER outside the competitors’ lockers.
The Reverend looked particularly fire-and-brimstone-ish today.“You’re going to do it.” He said it as a statement, as a foregone conclusion that he’d hoped against hope wouldn’t come true.
“Yeah, I’m riding today.” Maybe because he’d sold the store, or because he was getting married, C.J. wasn’t sure which, he just knew he wanted his father to be as happy as he was. “Listen, Dad, I’m not falling back into my old ways. I’m not going to go nuts again. Don’t worry.”
“I saw you enter with that young woman. Liam is comfortable with her. What’s going on?”
“I’m going to marry her.”
“What?” His father looked shocked and lost at the same time, his mouth open and his eyes vulnerable.
“I asked and she said yes.”
“I don’t know what to think of this,” his father whispered.
C.J. put a hand on his shoulder. “Be happy for me, Dad. Just be happy.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yeah, I really do. I want your blessing, Dad, but with or without it, I’m spending the rest of my life with her.”
He walked away to prepare for his event, hoping to win some big bucks then to quit for good. He wouldn’t need it anymore.
WALTER NEEDED to see Gladys. C.J. had knocked the wind out of him with that news.
He wandered the stands until he found Gladys sitting beside a pretty young woman. When he saw Liam sitting on her lap, he realized it was the Goth girl. Only she wasn’t Goth.Her hair, pulled back into a ponytail, framed a lovely face clear of cosmetics. She looked young and sweet.
She noticed him and her face tightened. This no-longer Goth girl was going to be his daughter-in-law. He couldn’t process it.
“Gladys,” he called, “will you walk with me for a moment?”
She stood and sidled out of the row. Her fresh scent surrounded him as they walked down the steep stairs to the ground. Walter led her outside, away from the crowds and the animals and the charcoal aroma of grilled meat.
When they reached a large maple, Walter took off his jacket and laid it on the ground on the far side of the tree. Gladys sat on the jacket and he sat on the grass beside her.
“Walter, come here. There’s room for both of us on the jacket.”
He settled beside her, very close, and he drew comfort from her warmth.
“You look troubled,” she said. “Is it about C.J. and Janey?”
“How did you know?”
“She just told me a few minutes ago. I think it’s wonderful news. If you want to keep in touch with your son and be able to see any grandbabies they make in the future, you’d better learn to accept Janey.”
“Yes,” he said, quietly, “I’m beginning to see that.”
“She’s a wonderful woman. Walter, everything will be fine.”
She placed a hand on his arm, where it felt light and warm through his shirtsleeve. He covered it with one hand.
“Gladys, I need to talk to someone.”
“Poor Walter,” she said. “All of these years as the minister of your flock you’ve listened to everyone else’s problems, but when you need to unload, who can you turn to?”
A light breeze flowed around them, pulling a few strands of her hair out of place. She smoothed them back down.
“Will you listen to me?” he asked. “I have a confession to make.”
“Of course.”
“I’m not sure that I’m fit to serve as the minister of Ordinary’s flock.”
“Why on earth not?”
“I made a mistake years ago, a big one. Just after I had become reverend of a small church on the other side of the state of Montana.”
He straightened the legs of his pants to keep the creases sharp. “My father was a minister and it was all I’d ever wanted for myself, too. Then I visited a colleague here in Ordinary and met Elaine at a dance.”
He cleared his throat because he was coming to the damning part that might very well drive this lovely woman away from him. “For the next two weeks we saw each other every day. She was beautiful, mercurial and quixotic, and I was besotted.”
Gladys touched his hand, lightly, urging him to go on.
“On my last night in town, I…” He blew out a breath. This was hard. “
I slept with her. She was tempting and impetuous and it was wonderful, everything I’d hoped for, but meant to save for the marriage bed.
“Three months later, she called. We had conceived C.J. that night.”
He rubbed his forehead, afraid to look at Gladys, to see the condemnation on her face that he felt inside. “For the first time in my life, I had disappointed my father, something I had never wanted. I loved and respected him deeply.”
“But everything was okay later? You did marry her.”
“Yes, I did. And I did love her, all of our years together. But I was supposed to be the moral compass of a congregation and I had let them down.
“My friend and I traded parishes. I came here to Ordinary, married Elaine and moved into the rectory. It seemed that, for most of those years, I was constantly reining in both my wife and my son.”
He turned to look at Gladys and found her watching him with compassion.
“Have I shocked you?” he asked.
“Oh, Walter, this isn’t Victorian England. That was only twenty-some-odd years ago. It isn’t a big deal now and it wasn’t as big a deal as you thought it was then.”
“Gladys, I have carried that secret for years.”
“Let your guilt go now, Walter. I strongly doubt it has ever been a secret from the townspeople of Ordinary and they accept you as their moral leader.”
She leaned against him. “Kiss me, Walter.”
He placed his lips on hers and breathed her in. Sweet woman of mine.
She pulled away from him, laughing. “Walter, you are delightfully old-fashioned, but I’d better warn you, this impetuous woman isn’t going to wait for the marriage bed either. Come here, my dear, and kiss me like you mean it.”
THROUGH ALL OF THE EVENTS, while feeding Liam lunch, and taking him to the bathroom, through a half dozen bull rides, Janey worried a hangnail until it bled.
Finally, they announced C.J.’s name. “C. J. Wright on Whirlwind.”Janey chewed on the nail of her forefinger. Be okay. Stay safe.
The bull exploded out of the chute with C.J. on his back.
C.J. jerked back as the bull took off. It looked like the force would tear C.J.’s arm right out of his body.
Janey squealed.
Whirlwind bucked, shooting his hind legs into the air.
C.J. leaned backward and forward, counterbalancing the bull’s violence.
Janey glanced at the digital clock. Only two seconds gone.
“Come on. Come on.”
C.J. held on.
Janey jumped up out of her seat.
Only four seconds gone.
“Come on,” she screamed. Everyone else’s screams drowned out hers.
Fans pounded their boot heels on the wooden stands. Janey’s heart took up the rhythm.
Even from this distance, she could see the veins of the arm that held his bullrope bulge under his skin.
She slapped her hands over her eyes then took them away so she could see.
She wanted to watch. She couldn’t stand to watch.
Her heart pounded, the beat of her pulse roaring in her ears to match the roar of the crowd around her.
Liam squealed.
The damn bull bucked again, C.J. held on and then suddenly it was over. C.J. jumped from Whirlwind’s back to land on his feet and run away from the bull’s flailing hooves.
He laughed and wiped sweat from his face.
Janey had just survived the longest freaking eight seconds of her life and C.J. was laughing?
With a shaking hand, she wiped sweat from her own forehead.
“Damn bull riding,” she whispered.
Liam clapped his hands and shouted. “Damn bull riding!”
Those in the neighboring seats laughed. Janey blushed.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see Daddy.”
She ran down the stairs with Liam on her shoulder, while he giggled at being jounced. When she ran into the back of the stadium, flying past hot-dog vendors and washroom doors and concrete walls, Liam shouted, “I wanna hot dog.”
“Later.”
How the hell did she find out where C.J. was? Where was the back of the stadium?
“Janey!”
Janey spun around. “Amy! How do I find C.J.?”
Amy turned and started back the way she’d come. “Did you see him?” she tossed over her shoulder. “He won the bull riding.”
Janey ran to keep up.
“He did?” She hadn’t heard that over the noise of the crowd. Oh, C.J. would be so happy.
They turned a corner and Janey saw him surrounded by cowboys and cowgirls laughing and slapping his back.
He laughed, too.
Spotting her, he pushed his way through the crowd around him.
He grabbed her and kissed her full on the lips and Janey heard the laughter and the murmuring around her. Guess the cat was out of the bag about their romance.
She’d wanted to hold it close a little longer, so it was just their news, and their family’s.
C.J. came up for air and left his arm across Janey’s shoulders. “Folks, this is the future Mrs. Wright.”
The name was a shock. She hadn’t decided yet if she wanted to keep her own.
People smiled at her, offered congratulations.
When they found a private corner to chat before the award ceremony, Janey said, “I didn’t like watching the bull riding. Are you going to do it again?”
“Nope, I don’t ever have to again. Between you and Liam, I’m living with the best natural high on earth.”
They walked with his arm across her shoulders and their hips touching. C.J. smiled down at her. “I need to work on the ranch. You, too.”
She smiled and nodded. Sure, when she had time around running the shop. Someday soon she’d have to share her ideas for the things she wanted to do at the store. The tiny tables and chairs for children who wanted hot chocolate. The larger cast-iron tables and chairs for the adults who wanted to stop in.
“Hey, where’d you go?” C.J. asked. “You off in dreamland?”
She opened her mouth to tell him her plans, but someone called to him.
“C.J., they need you for the awards. Get over there.”
“Let’s go,” C.J. said, and planted a kiss on her nose and then Liam’s before turning them in the direction of the awards stand.
I’ll tell him tonight.
ON THE DRIVE from the fairgrounds to the supper at the Legion Hall in Ordinary, C.J. was still on that natural high. Liam slept in his car seat.
“After I’ve paid off Gramps’s bills, I’ll purchase cattle, start building the stock for next year. Wait’ll you see the new calves in the spring. Wait’ll Liam sees them. He’ll freak, they’re so cute.”Janey smiled. C.J.’s happiness oozed out of his pores.
So did her own. C.J. was safe after his ride on the bull and didn’t plan to ever do that again. She would have a man and a son to love for the rest of her life, along with whatever children she and C.J. would have.
She glanced up at the darkening sky.
Cheryl, honey, I’m going to make more babies. You watch over them for me, okay?
“I’m going to grow this strain of barley that’s supposed to be really good for cattle. Then I won’t have to import from other states. That will save us a bundle.”
He looked at Janey. In the faint light from the setting sun and the dashboard, his face glowed with health, and happiness and love.
This man was hers.
Life couldn’t get much better than this.
“You’ll be able to help me on the ranch. Just wait until you see a calf being born. It’s a slice of magic.”
“I hope I’m around for one of the births.”
C.J. laughed. “Where else would you be?”
“In the shop,” Janey said. “I can hire someone to help out part-time, but as the owner, I’ll be there most days. Next summer, I’ll re-open on Saturdays.”
“But that’s the biggest news of all. You don’t have
to worry about the shop anymore. You won’t have to work ever again.”
Her lungs constricted. “What are you talking about?”
“Max Golden caught up with me just before I rode. He’s buying the store. You don’t have to worry about it.”
The bottom fell out of her world. “Max? Buying the store?”
“Yeah, isn’t that great? He offered me ten thousand more than you did.”
Her chest hurt and her breathing wouldn’t come properly. “You sold the shop to Max? My shop? How could you?” She scooted against the passenger door to get away from him. “Why the heck does Max want a candy store?”
“For his daughter, Marnie.”
C.J. pulled over onto the side of the road. In the dim light, a frown creased his brow.
He put the Jeep into Park.
“You don’t need to buy the shop anymore. You don’t have to work there. You’ll have a home with me on the ranch.”
“I wasn’t buying it because I had to. I wanted the shop.” A fire burned in her belly. How dare he sell the candy store behind her back?
“It was supposed to be mine,” she said. “You agreed on Friday that I could buy it.”
“Yeah, but you were only doing it for me. Right? So I could have the money?”
“That is so self-centered. I was buying the shop for me, because I adore it and I can still study for my diploma. Couldn’t you tell just by looking at me? You know how much I love working there. It was going to work out perfectly for both of us.”
She turned on him and showed him the full extent of her passion—her anger and her grief and her shock. How could he have done this to her? Another damn betrayal.
Shoving the door open, she jumped out and stumbled on the gravel of the shoulder.
C.J. did the same on his side and ran around the front of the vehicle, the stark glare of the headlights casting their shadows long on the road.
“I didn’t know.”
Janey pushed past him and stormed down the shoulder toward home.
“Stop,” C.J. yelled.
He caught up to her and grabbed her arm. “I said stop.”
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