by Cora Seton
As he talked, Alice fought to get her emotions under control. She wasn’t a clingy woman, but right now she was struggling to stay on her feet. The room was dipping and swaying, the blood rushing in her ears as she imagined the blast that took down the General—
It could have been worse. Jack’s words echoed in her mind. It could have been deadly, that’s what he meant. She could have lost her father—
Darkness clouded her vision.
“Woah, you’d better sit down.” Jack lifted her suddenly, as if she weighed nothing. Alice, startled, could only link her arms around his neck and hold on. His jacket was rough under her cheek. He smelled of soap and something masculine. The muscles of his arms supported her as if he was used to carrying women around from place to place.
He set her down on one of the chairs, and Lena moved swiftly to prop open the back door, letting in an icy breeze. Cass fetched her a glass of water.
“You okay?” Jo asked, crouching beside her.
This was the explanation for her dread. She’d known something bad was going to happen; she just hadn’t been able to pinpoint it. Of course the General had been injured—she’d left the ranch without making sure any of the others were home.
“You don’t know what kind of injuries the General has sustained?” Cass asked Jack.
Jack shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“He’s coming here?” Lena asked.
Jack nodded. “Eventually. I’ll help you get ready for him.”
Lena turned to Logan. “We can’t leave—”
“Of course you can. Go to the Bahamas. Relax and recharge,” Cass said. Alice, taking another sip of water and setting the glass down on the table, agreed with her; Lena deserved her honeymoon.
“From the sound of it, it’ll take some time before the General is transferred stateside,” Jack said. “Plenty of time for you two to go on your honeymoon.”
So there was at least a week before the General came home, Alice thought, relaxing a little. Her vision cleared and her breathing slowed. Lena and Logan weren’t due back until next Sunday.
Lena nodded. “I can’t picture him here.”
“I can’t picture you in the Bahamas,” Alice told her, trying to break the tension. This was Lena’s wedding. She didn’t deserve this kind of drama. “Have you ever relaxed a day in your life?”
“Nope.” Lena grinned, but her smile quickly faltered. She pulled herself together. “Is he really going to be okay?” she asked Jack.
“The General? He’s a tough old goat. His wounds will heal.”
Alice couldn’t help exchanging a look with her sisters. The General’s physical wounds would heal, but what about his emotional ones? The pain that had kept him away from his home for so many years?
She had a feeling Jack was right; the General would come home, but would he stay?
She had no idea.
“We need to look to our guests,” Cass said suddenly. “We need to end this wedding on a positive note. No talk of the General until after. Logan, dance with your bride.”
Logan jumped into action, but Lena hesitated.
“Go on,” Jack urged her. “As soon as I hear about the General’s progress, I’ll pass it on. I don’t think there’s going to be any more news tonight.”
“Do it for your guests,” Alice told Lena, but she hoped her sister could manage to enjoy the dance herself.
Lena and Logan headed for the living room, and a minute later a jaunty pop song started up. Alice wondered if Cass’s ban would work. She had no doubt news of the General’s injuries would spread fast. Speculation about what would happen next would spread even faster.
In the past few months she and her sisters had finally taken their true place in town, entering into relationships with other folks after an upbringing that kept them mostly on the ranch. Still, people were curious about the Reeds. How could they not be? In a sleepy town like Chance Creek, gossip ruled supreme.
“Hey,” Jack said softly, bending down and taking her hand. “How about we go join them?”
The touch of his fingers fired off a trace of awareness through her body. As much as she didn’t want to react to the man, Jack stirred her senses. He was handsome. Alert. Assured. “I don’t—”
“Come on. You love dancing.”
He didn’t give her a chance to say no. She let him pull her up and lead her into the living room, but that last phrase kept running through her head. What did Jack mean by that? Did he think she loved dancing because lots of young women did? Or did he know she loved dancing—
The way he’d known she was doing dishes when he arrived.
Did he get hunches, too?
A frisson of cold, then heat surged up and down her spine. Was Jack psychic?
She nearly pulled away, but when Jack swept her into his arms and tugged her in tight against his body, Alice forgot everything else. Images cascaded through her brain one after the other, almost too quickly to comprehend. Reverend Halpern standing at an altar, Jack standing close by, waiting. A starry night. A ring on her finger. Jack’s mouth on hers—
Was her future sealed already? Did she have to marry him?
When Alice pushed him away, several other couples turned toward them. Jack came after her. Caught her hand.
“Alice.”
She took a deep breath, aware of everyone looking. Aware Lena’s happiness was already on thin ice.
“Easy,” Jack murmured. He drew her into the circle of his arms but held them apart, as if they were in junior high at their first dance. “We can take it slow.”
Alice laughed, but tears stung her eyes again. Slow? If that vision was to be trusted, it was already a done deal. The same fate that never told her the important things—like when her mother might have a stroke or the General might be struck by a missile—had just made it clear what her future held. Jack would be her husband, no matter what she wanted.
Jack slowed, although he didn’t stop. He bent closer. When he spoke, his voice was far gentler than it had been so far.
“I’m sorry I brought such upsetting news. I’m glad to meet you. I should have said that before.”
Alice looked up. “Why?”
“Because I’m beginning to think you’re not the woman I thought you were at all.”
Hell, why had he said that? He was losing his touch, Jack thought. You didn’t give information like that to the enemy; not if you didn’t want them to—
He stopped. Enemy? Alice wasn’t the enemy.
At least, she shouldn’t be.
Alice’s eyes widened. “What kind of woman did you think I was?”
Jack shifted his hands, appreciating the feel of a woman in his arms. It had been a while. “The kind who holds back.”
Alice thought this over. “I do hold back. Not everyone is to be trusted.”
“Too true.” Jack chuckled. “Come on, let’s just dance for a bit. We’ve got to start somewhere if we’re going to get to know each other.” He tugged her a little closer, until she was back in the circle of his arms. He could just about feel her mind working overtime, though. He was right, she was just like him. She was analyzing what he’d said. Trying to find the patterns that explained him, the same way he sought for order in a chaotic world.
She wasn’t the cold fish he’d expected, though. Neither was she haughty. Beneath her beauty there was fire, but you only got to see it if Alice trusted you.
Jack realized he wanted to earn her trust.
Nestled against his chest, she was soft and more entrancing than he cared to admit. His body was stirring in anticipation of getting closer to her. He’d spent half a year at USSOCOM unsure about his future. Keeping to himself.
Maybe a bit too much to himself.
When Alice relaxed against him, he murmured, “That’s more like it,” but when she chuckled softly, he went on high alert. “What?”
“The General and his matchmaking. Do they teach that in the Army?”
“They didn’t teach it to
me.”
“Did you have to audition for the part?”
“Which part?” He slowed down again.
“The part of my husband.”
Jack’s gut tightened. That simple sentence told him he hadn’t made as much progress as he’d thought. She’d already drawn the battle lines between them. “Not quite.”
“How’d you get it, then?”
“You really want to know?” He began to move again, and Alice fell in with his rhythm as if they’d done this many times before.
“I asked, didn’t I?”
He supposed she had. Jack chose his words carefully. “I did the right thing, instead of the thing I was supposed to do.”
Alice thought that over. “So the General’s criteria for my husband was that he had to be a renegade?”
Jack laughed out loud, making people turn toward them again. “Pretty much,” he murmured against her ear and allowed himself to enjoy the rest of the dance.
Lena and Logan left early, Lena still protesting that they should stay, although from what he knew of Reed family history, she resented the General even more than her sisters, so it wasn’t an overwhelming desire to see the man that prompted her concern. “The General had better not steal the ranch back from me while I’m gone,” she kept saying as Logan ushered her into the taxi that would take them to the airport. Jack knew she’d waited years to run the cattle operation her way, and she was adamant no one else could do it as well.
“You’ll be home before he is,” Jack assured her, although he had no idea if that was true. Logan whisked her away, and the celebration broke up soon after. When Jack found his way into the kitchen again, the women were cleaning up.
“Where is the General going to sleep when he gets here?” Cass exclaimed suddenly.
“His bedroom,” Jo answered, then slowed her motions as she finished drying a plate. She turned to her sister, and Cass shook her head.
“It’s full of Mom’s stuff. He won’t want to see that.”
“If his injuries are serious, he won’t be taking those stairs, anyway,” Jack said. “Do you have a room on the first floor?”
Cass frowned. “It’ll have to be his office, I guess. But there’s so much furniture in there, we’ll never fit a bed.”
“We can swap it with the furniture from your parents’ bedroom,” Brian said. He turned to the other men. “Let’s get to it.”
“Now?” Connor asked.
“No time like the present. There’s too many of us to all fit in the kitchen.” He sent Jack a significant look, and Jack got the message: give the women some time alone to process the news.
Jo and Alice collected all the champagne flutes and dessert plates from the living room and brought them into the kitchen. The tables and chairs they’d used for the dinner had already been folded up and stacked out in the carriage house. Alice grabbed a broom and started sweeping the room.
Jack followed Brian and Connor upstairs, but when they entered the master bedroom, they both stopped. Connor gave a low whistle. The room was as tidy as a hotel room, every surface dusted, but its cleanliness couldn’t cover the disused feeling that emanated from it.
“When do you think is the last time anyone slept here?” Connor asked.
“Eleven years ago.” Jack was certain he was right. By all accounts, the General hadn’t set foot on the ranch again since Alice’s mother’s death. “It’s a shrine,” he went on. Alice and her sisters must have left it exactly as it stood that day. He wasn’t sure it was right to move anything, and he didn’t know what he would have done if Cass hadn’t come into the room, too.
“It’s okay,” she said. “You can move the bed down.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” It was a stupid thing to say eleven years late, but Jack still felt compelled to say it.
“Thank you. My mother is still as real to me as she ever was. It’s a good idea putting the General downstairs. He never wanted to come home. I’m not sure how he’d stand seeing this.”
“Coming home might be the first step to healing.”
“Maybe.” She slipped out.
“Let’s get going,” Connor said, and Jack moved to help him. He was relieved when they maneuvered the mattress out of the room. He could breathe better out here in the hall. “When I said yes to this gig, I never thought about the fact the General would be my father-in-law.”
“Can’t say I did, either.”
“Still worth it,” Connor added with a grin. “Wouldn’t trade my life here for anything.”
Jack’s chest constricted. He wanted to feel that, too, but Alice had already refused him—before he’d gotten the chance to propose. Not an auspicious beginning.
“Lena took me aside before she left and made me promise not to let the General take over,” Alice told Cass when her sister came downstairs again. “I was sure she’d make that taxi turn around before they even made it down the driveway. She’s positive the General only got hurt as an excuse to come and take control.”
“That’s not true,” Cass reproved her.
“It’s what she said.”
“I’m glad it’s November,” Sadie said. “He won’t be able to see the gardens. I know they’re nothing like they were when Mom was here.”
“I just can’t imagine how I’m going to run the house with him underfoot. We’ve barely talked in years. It’ll be like living with a stranger,” Cass added.
“A stranger who thinks he owns the place,” Jo said darkly.
“Well, in his defense, he does,” Cass pointed out.
“He gave up his right to call the shots here a long time ago,” Alice said. “He must know that.”
“He just sent you a husband.” Sadie lifted her hands. “There’s no telling what he thinks he’s allowed to do.”
Alice’s phone vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out. “It’s Landon Clark.” She shushed everyone else and answered it. In all the excitement she hadn’t thought about the movie producer all night, and she certainly hadn’t expected to hear from him this late, although this wasn’t the first time he’d called at an unusual hour. He tended to check in once or twice a week.
“Alice? How are those costumes going?”
“Just about done.” She slipped out of the kitchen and ran lightly up the stairs to her room, flattening her back against the wall as several of the men, including Jack, carried a box spring past her. In her room, Tabitha was curled on her bed. “My sister’s wedding was today,” she reminded him. “I planned to finish my gowns in the next few days, but I might have to push that back. I’ll still have them done in plenty of time before your arrival, of course.” Landon wasn’t due to come see the costumes for several more weeks.
“What’s the hitch in your plans?” Below the courteous question, Alice caught a thread of displeasure, and her grip tightened on the phone. She wanted this commission so badly she could taste it. Landon was new to the movie industry, but he was intent on bursting onto the scene with a blockbuster hit. He’d scored big with cryptocurrency, or so he’d told her—Alice wasn’t entirely sure what that was—and now he was pursuing his real dream. The script he’d optioned was a Civil War drama with a cast of thousands, and it called for scores of historically accurate costumes, which was where Alice came in. He’d invited her to apply for the position of lead costume designer and had given her an ample allowance with which to create the three ball gowns to showcase her skills.
It was all highly irregular.
Alice was thrilled.
The Civil War meant hoopskirts. Alice loved hoopskirts. The sheer audacity of them fired up her imagination. She’d spent weeks designing the dresses and was almost done sewing them—
“The General. My… father,” she clarified. How strange to use a term she hadn’t spoken in years. “He’s been wounded in action. He’s coming home in a few days, and we need to get ready.” Surely he’d understand that.
Landon didn’t answer, and the silence stretched out so long she would have thoug
ht he’d hung up if she hadn’t been able to hear him breathing on the other end of the line. “I see,” Landon said finally. “The thing is, Alice, my plans have changed, too. I’ve had to move up my visit.”
“To when?” Alice’s stomach twisted. This couldn’t be happening.
“Saturday.”
Alice did the math. “You’re coming here… in seven days?” She paced across the room and peered out into the darkness at the carriage house across the way, which contained her studio. “You weren’t supposed to come for another three weeks!”
“Alice, I hope you weren’t waiting until the last minute. That doesn’t bode well—”
“Of course not,” she rushed to say. “The gowns are done except for some detail work,” she lied, “but… my sister just got married. And like I said, my father’s been injured—”
A long pause greeted her explanation, and Alice braced for another lecture on professionalism. What did Landon care about the General?
“What day does he arrive?” Landon asked finally.
“I’m not sure. Next week, maybe.” She really had no idea.
“Then that’s settled. Saturday it is. I’ll be there and gone before you know it, and you can give your father your full attention when he arrives. Don’t you think that’s best?”
“I… guess so.” She couldn’t lose this chance, but she’d have to work 24/7 to finish off the gowns. So be it, she told herself. No wonder she’d felt doomed. First her father’s injuries. Now this. “What time will you be arriving?”
“Around noon.”
“Then I’ll be ready by noon on Saturday,” she said resolutely. “Where will you be staying?”
“In town. I’ll send you all the details.”
Just like that, he was gone, leaving Alice to stare out her bedroom window. Landon Clark in Chance Creek?
A swooping feeling made Alice clutch the back of her desk chair as images filled her mind. The General. Shouting. Gunfire.
The vision cleared, leaving Alice slightly ill. She closed her eyes and forced her breathing to slow down. The General was in Germany. He was safe, she reminded herself. Still, the last thing she needed was for Landon to come now.
Opportunity knocked when it knocked, though. Time to get out to her studio and get to work.