Issued to the Bride: One Soldier

by Cora Seton

  It hadn’t been hormones.

  On the day Amelia had been struck down, Alice hadn’t wanted to go out riding, but Amelia’s word was law on the ranch. Always had been, even when the General had been home. Alice hadn’t even thought to contradict her when Amelia ordered them all to go out for a ride. They’d always been homeschooled, and riding was gym class. Everyone knew gym class was mandatory.

  They were a quarter mile from the house when a blinding pain had nearly knocked Alice off her horse. She’d cried out and known instantly her mother was in trouble. Wracked with pain and terror, she hadn’t been able to move; Cass had maneuvered her horse as close as she could, leaned over and supported her, while Lena and Jo had streaked home atop their mounts.

  By the time Alice saw Amelia again, the paramedics had arrived. Amelia had lived a couple of days, and Alice had her chance to talk to her in the hospital—

  But that was a long time ago.

  She’d give anything for the chance to talk to her mother today.

  If her dread back then had portended a death, what did it mean now? Was death stalking her family again?

  If so, who was its intended victim?

  A loud knock on the front door made Alice clutch the counter.

  He was here.

  The man the General had sent.

  She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see the future. Couldn’t see anything. Did this dread have to do with the man standing on her front step? Was he wrong for her? Would he hurt her?

  No.

  She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. He wouldn’t hurt her.

  But something else was wrong.

  Alice’s hands shook as she dried them, then reached up to pat her hair. She made herself walk out of the kitchen and down the central hall.

  This was it.

  Taking another deep breath, she opened the door to find a handsome man with sandy brown hair and blue eyes on the other side. He stood at ease like a soldier, hands clasped behind his back, legs spread in a strong, ready stance. There was a rugged duffel bag on the porch to one side of him.

  He was handsome. Oh, so handsome. Alice was unprepared for the desire that surged inside her. How could she feel like this when—

  She gave up trying to understand anything. The universe was unfathomable, even to someone like her. All she could do was meet the day where it met her, and today fate had brought her a man to reckon with.

  That didn’t mean she’d make it easy on him. She fixed him with a steady gaze.

  “I knew it would be you,” she said.

  “I knew you’d say that,” he answered. “I’m Jack. Jack Sanders. The General sent me.”

  “I knew that, too,” she assured him. She didn’t want him to think she was dumb.

  “Do you know what I’m going to say next?” He wasn’t yanking her chain, Alice decided; he was actually curious. Someone had told him about her abilities, that was clear in his challenge.

  Alice was used to that. She shook her head.

  He stepped closer, and suddenly the soldier filled the doorway. His gaze held hers, and she read concern—and a searching hope she couldn’t fathom. He swallowed. Cleared his throat.

  “I’ve got some bad news.”

  Of course. She’d known that. Alice nodded, steeling herself. Whatever came next, it would be hard.

  “The General’s been hurt. He’s coming home.”

  Chapter Two

  ‡

  Beautiful didn’t begin to explain Alice Reed. Jack had been staring at her photo for months, but no likeness could convey the way Alice inhabited her loveliness. She left him breathless with her blue eyes, long ash-blond hair and otherworldly air. For the first time, the phrase “hauntingly beautiful” made sense. Men must be beating a path to this door.

  She’d be aloof, he decided. The kind of woman who set herself above men. How the hell could he get through to a woman like that?

  Did he even want to?

  She stared back at him, assessing him the same way he was assessing her. The news about her father didn’t bring tears to her eyes. She didn’t faint, either. Instead she stood ramrod straight, taking it in.

  “When?” Her clipped tone reminded him of Janet. His adopted mother reacted to news the same way, consuming every bit of information before coming to any conclusion about the matter.

  Jack knew why Alice asked the question. He’d interrogated the other men about every detail they could muster about her. It was Brian who’d told him she blamed herself for leaving the ranch when all of her sisters had already gone. She wanted to know if she was to blame.

  “It’s that superstition they have,” Brian had said. “They think one of them always has to be on Two Willows land. They’ve all been jumpy as cats ever since they broke the rule. They think something’s going to happen to the General.”

  Jack didn’t believe in superstitions, but the Reed women had been right; something had happened to the General. Jack had spent hours at the airport trying to sort through the information coming from abroad. The attack had happened about forty-eight hours ago. The General had been stabilized, then evacuated to Germany right away for surgery.

  Early reports were skimpy on details but made it clear he wouldn’t be returning to active duty anytime soon—if ever.

  Jack hesitated, knowing what he was about to say would change everything, and possibly end any chance he had with the woman standing in front of him. There was no sense holding back, though.

  “Yesterday. Early. No one could tell me the nature of his injuries, but they’re serious.”

  Alice paled.

  “I left the ranch.” Her words were almost a whisper, and she shook her head, as if realizing that wouldn’t make sense to a stranger, but Jack was no stranger, and he knew exactly what she meant.

  “It was an accident,” he assured her automatically. “You didn’t realize the others were gone.” He’d expected tears, not this stillness. It unnerved him.

  “Who told you that?” Something deeper than wariness crept into her face. Something that increased the distance between them, although she didn’t move.

  Jack saw no reason not to tell the truth. “Brian. He was worried about you. He said you took it hard.”

  For the first time, her veneer cracked. She touched the doorframe as if to steady herself, although she hadn’t swayed. “I left the ranch—and now the General’s hurt.”

  “But he’s alive—that’s the main thing, isn’t it?”

  “Tell me everything,” Alice demanded.

  “Maybe you should get your sisters, so I can tell everyone at once.”

  It was a moment before she nodded, but then she hesitated. They still stood in the doorway, icy wind blowing past them into the overheated house. She glanced down at the threshold between them. Jack knew what she was thinking. If she invited him inside, she would let him into her life. She knew what it meant when the General sent a man to Two Willows. When her gaze went beyond him to the snowy darkness outside, he held his breath. People’s eyes tracked where their thoughts did. She was thinking of sending him away.

  “Can I come in?” He edged forward, knowing the farther he made it into the house, the harder it would be for her to send him back outside. Knowing, too, a woman like Alice, raised to be hospitable despite her carefully crafted veneer, would find it hard to say no.

  “Should I let you in?”

  Her question caught him off guard. Jack swallowed. That was direct. It shifted the onus of the conversation back onto him. Strengthened her boundaries. He took in the hall behind her, knowing it led to a warm country kitchen with a bullet-scarred wooden table. Glanced to the left where the formal living room was packed with guests.

  A white cat appeared in the hall, padded toward them and wound around Alice’s legs.

  She bent down absently and picked up the animal, touched noses with the feline, then turned to lean her cheek against the cat’s fur. “Tabitha,” she whispered and closed her eyes. “The General’s hurt.�
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  Jack heard a world of pain in her words, and something shifted in his chest. He was judging her too harshly. Alice wasn’t as immune to the news he’d brought as she pretended. She was simply hiding her feelings in front of a stranger.

  He understood that.

  A sharp breeze wafting through the door brought the age-old smell of cattle and ranch, and something deep inside him tightened with a hunger so cellular he couldn’t even think to fight it. He remembered his home, and the longing he felt was almost a physical thing.

  Tabitha, still in Alice’s arms, turned his way, her golden eyes assessing him. Without thinking, Jack reached out to stroke the cat’s head.

  Alice lifted her gaze, caught his, and they shared a moment acknowledging how much comfort a cat could give when the people around you were causing you pain.

  There was far more to this woman than he’d given her credit for, Jack thought. She wasn’t cold; she was human, and he’d just brought her bad news about her father. What had he expected? A welcome wagon?

  He needed to give Alice a chance.

  Wanted to give her one.

  “Yes,” he said. “You should let me in.”

  Something shifted in her eyes. He saw uncertainty, surprise—

  Hope?

  He took a step over the threshold, and Alice moved aside to make way for him.

  He’d done it. He was inside Two Willows.

  It was a start.

  “You were doing dishes? Why weren’t you with the others?” Jack asked as they made their way to the kitchen. Alice set Tabitha down, and the cat ran lightly up the stairs.

  “How did you know I was doing dishes?” Alice hurried to keep up with Jack, the skirts of her bridesmaid gown rustling. The General was injured. She couldn’t get her thoughts to stop traveling in circles. Meanwhile, Jack kept going. He entered the kitchen and gestured at the stacks of dishes and soapy water, which he couldn’t have seen from the hall.

  “The guys say you ladies always do the dishes after the wedding reception.”

  “The reception isn’t over.”

  “Your skirt is damp where you must have wiped your hands,” he said a bit apologetically.

  Alice looked down. The dampness was hardly visible. But that didn’t matter. The General was coming home—after being gone eleven years.

  Alice couldn’t fathom it.

  At one time he had come home often, of course, but she’d been a little girl then, and she—

  Alice straightened, staring at Jack, remembering why he was really here. “You didn’t come here to tell me about the General.” She wasn’t going to play games with this man. If the General had sent him to be her husband, that needed to be said out loud.

  “You’re right. That’s not the only reason.” Jack had crossed the room to look out the back window for a long moment before he realized she was watching him and turned to her.

  But she’d seen the way he’d focused on the tall green hedges of the maze. Another piece fell into place in her mind. “You’re the one with the drone,” she accused, her temper flaring unexpectedly. “The one always spying. The one so insecure he has to cheat with the hedge maze!” The drone had appeared last summer, coming back daily and hovering over the tall hedges out back until Alice had told Lena to shoot it out of the sky. This was the man the General had sent for her? Someone who was trying to make a mockery of the maze—and the standing stone at its heart?

  Her mother had planted the maze around the stone, which had stood here longer than anyone’s memory. Jack’s idle curiosity was a threat to her mother’s memory, and Alice didn’t take kindly to that.

  “The General sent me to help keep Two Willows safe. All of it. I can’t protect something until I understand it.”

  “There’s no understanding the maze,” she told him. “That’s the point of it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “If you’re looking for sense, you’ve come to the wrong place.” Nothing about Two Willows was normal, least of all her.

  The General was injured. Coming home.

  Jack frowned. “If you can’t understand something, it just means you haven’t tried hard enough. I’m the kind of person who keeps trying until he figures things out.”

  Alice shook her head. Maybe the General had sent the right men for her sisters, but if he thought Jack would suit her, he’d made a major miscalculation.

  Which was almost too bad, because Jack was… hot.

  Not hot enough to marry, though. Not if he thought the whole world could be explained. She didn’t have time for anyone who didn’t believe in her abilities.

  “Look,” Jack said. “The General gave me something to give Lena before he went overseas. Can you get her for me? And everyone else, too.” He showed her a little box, and Alice knew it would contain a locket like the ones the General had given Cass, Sadie and Jo.

  It wasn’t the gift that made Jack require her sisters’ presence in the kitchen, though. It was his news.

  The General was hurt.

  Alice’s heart beat hard as she threaded her way through the crowd to where Lena and Logan stood in front of the fireplace, chatting and laughing with guests. Each of them held a champagne flute in their hand and they looked so happy, Alice hated to intrude.

  Lena spotted her first. She frowned. Set her glass on the mantel. “What is it?”

  “The General—” To Alice’s chagrin, now that she was away from Jack, tears filled her eyes. Her sisters and their husbands were the only ones she trusted enough to share her emotions with. “He’s—”

  Lena grabbed her arm and pulled her back the way Alice had come. “Logan,” she snapped, and he blinked, drawn out of a conversation with one of the local cowboys. “Kitchen. Bring everyone.”

  In a moment the man was all business, and he’d already crossed to grab Brian and Cass by the time Alice and Lena made it back to Jack.

  “Who’s this?” Lena demanded.

  Jack opened his mouth to answer, but Logan burst into the kitchen behind them, followed by the rest of the members of her family. Cass and Brian. Sadie and Connor. Jo and Hunter. “Sanders! You made it!” Logan cried.

  All conversation in the house hushed at his loud exclamation, then picked up again quickly. Alice was glad no one but family had followed them into the room—well, except Wyoming, who was lurking in the doorway. But then, she was pretty much family, too.

  “I see you’ve met Alice.” Logan grinned and clapped Jack on the shoulder. He thought this all was a big joke, didn’t he? Alice burned to think he expected her future was wrapped up and tied with a bow. It wasn’t like that at all.

  She couldn’t explain the next words that came out of her mouth, except to blame them on the hysteria building in her throat. The General had been hurt, and she was sick of fate, sick of foreknowledge and the lack of it, sick of the forces that ran her life no matter what she wanted or tried to do. She was especially sick of men not believing her. Of them thinking they knew better than her.

  The General had sent this man to marry her. Her own damn stupidity was bringing the General home, too. Together, he and Jack would close in on her. Determine her future. Herd her where she was supposed to go.

  To hell with that. She was taking charge.

  “Lena, this is Jack Sanders, the man I’m not going to marry. Jack, this is my sister Lena.” There. Let them stew on that for a while.

  “Not going to marry?” Lena said. “But—”

  “You asked her already?” Logan demanded of Jack. “You just got here. What were you thinking?”

  “You’ve got no sense of timing,” Sadie told him.

  “Alice, are you sure—?” Cass began. Wyoming was fighting a grin. Alice knew Wye thought all of them were stark raving mad but loved them just the same.

  “I’m positive.” Alice crossed her arms, but as she did so, images chased through her mind, coming so quickly she couldn’t stop them. A snowstorm. The hedge maze. Jack touching her cheek. Thayer’s
Jewelers. A ring. Her mother—

  Alice forced the vision from her mind, met Cass’s commiserating look and straightened her shoulders. She had a feeling Cass had guessed the direction her vision had taken.

  “I didn’t ask Alice to marry me. She’s jumping the gun turning me down. She doesn’t have all the facts yet, and as she knows darn well she should wait until she does.”

  Alice pulled back. What was that supposed to mean?

  “What’s the news from USSOCOM?” Logan asked heartily, obviously trying to shift the mood. Jack blinked, as if he’d forgotten why he was here, and a fresh wave of regret washed through Alice. The General was hurt. And she was playing games.

  She opened her mouth to answer but found she couldn’t put the news into words. As the others crowded around, her lungs tightened in her chest. There were too many people in the kitchen. Too much chaos in her mind. Images sped through her brain again, glinting like shattered glass, too sharp and too many to grasp. The General. Desert heat. Drifts of snow. An explosion. A gunshot. Alice couldn’t tell if she was seeing past or future—or both.

  “Alice?” Cass cried as Alice wavered.

  Jack appeared at her shoulder. “Hey, you okay?” When she couldn’t answer, he put an arm around her, steadying her as she fought for air.

  She should have pushed him away, but his strength was somehow comforting. Alice found herself breathing with him, wondering how he’d known she was panicking almost before she did.

  “What’s going on? Are you sick?” Cass asked her.

  “I’m fine—” Alice gasped.

  “It’s my fault,” Jack said. He kept his arm around Alice but faced the others. “I brought bad news.”

  “What is it?” Cass’s sharp tone made Alice wince.

  “The General was wounded in a missile strike,” Jack said bluntly. “He’s alive but injured,” he rushed to add. “I’d imagine he’ll have a long recovery ahead of him, but it could have been worse.”