Issued to the Bride: One Soldier

by Cora Seton

  “Wanted to get a word in with you before my day starts. Got another update from my associates out East.”

  From Tennessee, Jack thought. This had to do with the attacks on the ranch.

  “I knew you were busy with the wedding yesterday, so I saved the news, but when I heard about the General, I knew I’d better come fill you in. Ron Cooper died about a week ago. So did Duke Manson, who we’ve learned headed the organization that’s been targeting Two Willows.”

  Jack straightened. “Do you think that’s the end of it?”

  “No,” Cab said bluntly. “I don’t. Paul Ramsey and Beau Ellis are still out there somewhere. We don’t know who’s going to fill Manson’s shoes, but someone will. That someone’s probably coming after you.” He turned to Jack. “Heard you’re a whiz with surveillance.”

  “That’s right. I’ll be installing a security system. General’s orders.”

  “Good to know.”

  When Cab was gone, Jack and the other men walked on to the barn.

  “I’ll get that surveillance system up ASAP,” Jack told Brian, Connor and Hunter. “Motion detectors, cameras. We’ll be able to keep an eye on everything from our command center.”

  “This is a big ranch,” Hunter pointed out.

  “It’ll be a big surveillance system,” Jack assured him. “Twenty-four/seven coverage of the whole damn ranch.”

  “The whole ranch?” Connor guffawed. “Just don’t bug the bathrooms. A man’s got to have a little privacy.”

  “Or the bedrooms,” Hunter put in. “Already punched one guy out for trying to film Jo.”

  Jack brought the conversation back from going too far astray. “Just figure if you’re outside, you’re being watched.”

  Brian scratched his head. “Not sure if I like that.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you like it. All that matters is we catch this guy—before he does any harm to Two Willows.”

  No one could argue with that.

  “Since the General is coming home, does that mean we can all leave the ranch?” Jo asked suddenly. Alice’s sisters had appeared in her workshop mid-morning, except Lena, of course, whom Alice hoped was already lounging on a hot beach—or maybe still in bed with her brand-new husband. Wyoming was perched on one of the worktables, playing with a scrap of silk. She glanced up at their conversation but didn’t say anything. She knew all about their superstition.

  “Do you want to leave the ranch?” Alice asked. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t asked herself the same question. They’d already broken their mother’s promise, and the General had already paid the price. What else could happen?

  “You agreed to stay,” Cass reminded her. “We all did.”

  She was right. Alice went back to work, joining a rosette to the peach-colored gown she was working on with tiny stitches. They’d made their promise in front of the standing stone in the hedge maze the day that they’d all mistakenly left the ranch at once. At the time Alice had thought she was the only one wrestling with the decision. If she wanted to advance her career, she’d have to be willing to travel.

  Her hunches, as usual, were of no help whatsoever. She got flashes of sewing elaborate costumes, but nothing concrete. When she tried to picture the movie itself, her vision gave her as little information as Landon’s emails did.

  She turned at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. It had to be one of the men. Was everyone going to spend the morning in her workshop? She needed to get these dresses done.

  “It’s too early for lunch,” Cass called out as Jack came into the studio.

  “I know. Just giving you a head’s up. I’ll be installing a—”

  “Surveillance system,” Alice finished for him, a vision taking over her sight. Drones. Cameras. Sensors. “You’d better not surveil my maze.”

  “Our maze,” Cass said.

  Wyoming lifted a brow but didn’t say a word. Alice had a feeling their antics often amused her.

  “What’s in the maze?” Jack challenged her.

  “Why don’t you go find out?” She folded her arms over her chest.

  He hesitated, and she suppressed a smile. Was he afraid he couldn’t make it through there? Afraid to make a fool of himself by not being able to find its center without cheating first?

  She had another flash—he didn’t like not knowing. Because not knowing was dangerous.

  Alice faltered.

  Jack had known danger before.

  A second later she was scoffing at herself. Of course he’d known danger. He was in the military. Special Forces, she guessed.

  But what she’d felt was different. Personal. What had happened to him?

  “Well?” she asked again, but her bravado was sinking fast. “Why don’t you go find out?”

  “Fine. I will.”

  Going in blind. If there was one thing Jack hated, it was proceeding without a plan. What made him a good analytics officer was the fact that he always had all the information, always factored in everything that could go wrong and always stuck to the objectives, no matter what the heat of battle threw at him.

  At least, he had until his last mission.

  In his mind he could see Lila’s dark eyes, her watchful expression, her small form waiting in the back room of a compound in Afghanistan, as if she’d already tallied up her chances and decided she had none.

  Jack knew sometimes you had to go rogue. Break the rules. But he still didn’t like it.

  He had no idea how Alice had managed to block his drone from flying over the hedge maze when he’d been trying so hard to see inside it. He’d managed to hire a local kid, who was short on cash and long on time, to operate the drone remotely and fly it over Two Willows. He’d been able to map out every square acre of the property, except for the square that comprised the maze.

  Brian, Connor and the others had all told him about Alice’s hunches and the way she foretold the future sometimes. They were trained, competent men who shouldn’t have been the kind to believe in fairy tales. He’d looked into the matter further and managed to find other people in Chance Creek willing to talk about Alice. They, too, believed in her abilities.

  It wasn’t until he’d watched the footage from the drone, seen it approach the maze again and again and be stopped each time by some invisible, implacable force, that he began to wonder if more was going on.

  He wished he knew what the General thought about Alice and her abilities. People apparently had believed Amelia could tell the future, too. In fact, many said she’d been far better at it than Alice was. Did Amelia Reed have more to her story than people were saying? Was she involved in the intelligence community somehow? Had she used the claim that she never left Two Willows to cover up for some secret life?

  Jack shook his head. He couldn’t square that with what he’d experienced with Janet. Ask anyone about Amelia, and you’d get a litany of praise about her gentle ways, her devotion to her family and her herbal cures. Janet had never been able to cultivate that kind of cover. She’d barely been home.

  Still, even if Amelia wasn’t secretly a spy, Alice had somehow managed to jam the drone. He wanted to know how. It had nothing to do with psychic abilities, though. He was sure of that.

  Hell, if either woman could really see the future, a good soldier like the General would have reported their capabilities to the military. Wouldn’t that be a coup?

  “Well?” Alice challenged him.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Fine. I don’t have time for this, just so you know.”

  “We’ll be quick.”

  “That’s our cue, ladies,” Cass said. “Time to get back to work.”

  Everyone put on their outer gear and trooped outside. Jack was afraid all the women would follow them to the maze, but Cass ushered Sadie, Jo and Wyoming into the house. He was happy to be alone with Alice finally, despite their showdown. Sunlight was glinting off the snow. The evergreen hedge maze loomed tall above them, its green walls so high that you couldn’t even see into t
hem from the upstairs windows of the house. Alice led the way to an entrance into the broad green expanse and gestured for him to go forward.

  “You’re the one who knows the way to the center,” he told her.

  “You’re the one with the drones,” she replied sweetly.

  “Which you managed to prevent from flying over the maze. How did you do that, anyway?” He didn’t really expect her to answer.

  She simply shrugged and stepped through the opening into the maze. Jack relaxed a bit; he’d been afraid she’d leave him to take the lead and would laugh at him as he blundered through it, taking all the wrong turns. Not a great start to a relationship.

  Jack shoved his hands in his pockets as the idea of a relationship with Alice solidified in his mind in a way it hadn’t previously. Alice had turned out to be far more compelling than he’d expected. They were all wrong for each other. That didn’t stop him from wanting to know more about her.

  Alice turned back, waiting for him, watching him through beautiful, inscrutable eyes, and he wondered what was going on in her mind. Last night she had announced she wouldn’t marry him. Was there anything he could do to change her mind?

  He wanted to change her mind, he decided. Wanted at least to spend enough time with her that they both could make a sensible decision about their future.

  “Are you coming?” she asked, watching him curiously.

  Was he? He had the feeling that when he crossed the boundary into the maze, his life would change. If he stayed where he was, he might be single forever. He remembered Lila again, the way she’d shot from his arms to run to her parents when he’d delivered her safely home. The way her family had swallowed her with hugs and kisses, had burst into song and dance, had celebrated her return all night long. Her entire village had rallied around her. They’d rallied around him, too, but he was an outsider, a stranger, and in that moment he’d realized he’d been an outsider and a stranger since he was seven. He didn’t have a village.

  He wanted a village.

  “I’ll show you the way,” Alice said. “We always show people the way.” She smiled, and Jack’s throat went dry. When she held out her hand, he stepped forward to take it gratefully.

  And the entrance to the maze disappeared.

  “Jack!” Alice stared at the wall of green where Jack had been a moment before. He had been about to take her hand, and for one minute she’d forgotten all the disasters that had befallen her lately. Her father’s injuries, his imminent return home, the loss of the time she needed to finish her gowns. For that moment Jack had just been a man, a visitor to the ranch. Someone to spend time with. Someone to get to know.

  “Alice?”

  Alice breathed a sigh of relief. He was still there, which meant that she was still… here… too. But the maze—it had shifted somehow.

  How was that even possible?

  A chill tingled down her spine as she remembered coming across Cass exiting the maze several months ago and having the strangest feeling that her sister had come back from somewhere very far away. Cass had run through the maze, upset to her core, and had gotten… lost. She hadn’t been able to explain what had happened to her.

  Alice reached out and ran a hand over the stiff branches of the hedge. It felt real. She was still at Two Willows.

  “Alice, what just happened?” Jack called.

  “Can you see it, too? The hedge?”

  “Of course I can see it. Come on, open up. I’m not buying this mumbo jumbo stuff for a minute.”

  Alice looked around her. She didn’t know how to open it. The maze was blocking him out and keeping her in.

  Her throat tightened. Keeping her in, like usual. She loved her home, loved her ranch, but this was the story of her life. She was hemmed in by the people in her life, the glimpses she got of the future—by the ranch and her responsibility to it. Where was the spontaneity—the fun—in that?

  Suddenly, she needed to get out of the maze. “There must be an opening somewhere,” she called back through the hedge. “I’m going to find it.”

  She hurried along the snowy path, turned and turned again, but in every direction the outer walls remained unbroken. She travelled all the way to the center of the maze, stood glaring up at the standing stone for a long minute, but resisted the urge to place her hands on it and ask the obvious question. Fate thought it could dictate everything, but she was sick of that. She traced her way back out, following familiar corridors she’d walked in, run down countless times during her life. “I can push my way through, you know,” she said out loud, but even as she spoke the words she knew she wouldn’t. That was one of the unwritten rules. Her mother had planted this maze. She wasn’t ready to turn her back on Amelia and damage it by forcing her way through.

  “Alice?” Jack called. “Come on. Stop playing games.”

  “I’m not! I can’t find an opening anywhere,” she called back. “The maze doesn’t want you in here. Probably because you tried to cheat,” she added.

  “You just said you and your sisters show everyone the way to the center. So what’s the big deal?”

  Alice wasn’t sure, but somehow it was a big deal. Peering into the heart of the maze was like peering into Amelia’s heart. He didn’t just get to fly over and see everything all at once.

  “I’m not doing this,” she repeated. “It’s the maze. It’s not going to let you in.”

  “And you can’t get out, either,” he pointed out. “So I’m going to stand right here until you open it again.”

  “Jack!” He wasn’t listening to her.

  “I’m a lot more determined than you give me credit for. You think you can run me off this ranch with a little hocus-pocus and a lot of attitude?”

  “Attitude?” This wasn’t attitude. This was… Alice didn’t know what it was. This was the way things worked at Two Willows.

  “You can’t keep me out of there forever.” She could hear the frustration in his voice, and while his words should have annoyed her—and did—his tone somehow endeared him to her. He was a man. Human. And he wanted to be in the maze with her.

  She got a glimpse of them holding hands. Jack leaning down and kissing her. A surge of desire swept through her, surprising Alice with its strength. It had been a long time since she’d wanted a man’s touch.

  “I’m not trying to keep you out, but I think… I think for now you have to go away,” she said reluctantly. “I don’t think it’s going to open again if it means giving you the chance to get in.”

  “I could just shove my way through it.”

  “Don’t!” Alice caught herself. He’d think she’d lost her mind. “Don’t push through it, Jack. This is a slow-growing hedge. You’ll break branches and ruin it.” She didn’t add she wasn’t sure what it would do to him if he tried.

  “If you want me to leave Two Willows so badly, just say so.”

  Alice stepped forward. “It’s not that,” she heard herself say.

  “Then what is it?” He sounded closer. Right on the other side of the hedge.

  What did the maze want? That was obvious. “You have to have a little faith. I’m not lying to you, Jack. About anything.” She wasn’t sure he’d heard. It was quiet for a long time.

  “How can I believe you when what you’re saying is impossible?”

  Alice chuckled. That was the question, wasn’t it? “Welcome to my world. Just go back to the house for a minute, okay?”

  She thought she heard him sigh. Would he leave Two Willows? Why did she hope he’d stay?

  “Will you come back to the house, too?” Jack asked.

  Alice touched her gloved hand to the wall of the hedge again, knowing Jack was on the other side of it. “Yes, I’ll be right there.”

  Chapter Five

  ‡

  “So? What did you think of the standing stone?” Cass asked when Jack met up with her in the kitchen. She was peering into the refrigerator at all of the leftover food from the wedding. None of the other women were in sight, and the r
est of the men were still at their chores. No one had noticed Alice slamming the maze’s door in his face, so to speak.

  Just when he’d thought he was making progress, she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested.

  Although she’d sounded almost apologetic at the end.

  Jack shrugged. “It’s a stone,” he said gruffly.

  He couldn’t forget the way Alice had held out her hand and the way his heart had lifted as he stepped forward to take it. To be denied that contact, that connection with her, frustrated him more than he could say. He hadn’t pegged Alice as the kind of woman to torment a man. He’d seen plenty of cruelty in his career, sucked it up and kept moving without a second thought, but that outstretched hand just before she’d slammed the door in his face had cut him to the quick.

  Would she come back to the house? He didn’t want to turn around and see. Instead, he busied himself hanging up his winter things.

  “It’s a pretty special stone,” Cass said.

  The door opened again, and Alice came inside. Jack straightened, turned and caught her eye. She lifted her brows, and he knew what question she meant to ask. Had he told Cass?

  He shook his head no. She might want to play games, but he wasn’t interested. Wasn’t going to be the butt of her jokes.

  Cass shut the refrigerator. “I’m going downstairs. I won’t need to cook for a week with all those leftovers, which is good because Wye and I are cleaning this house from the bottom up.” She headed for the basement. A moment later they could hear her talking to Wye.

  Alice faced Jack. “I’ve never seen it do that before,” she told him. “The maze.”

  Was that supposed to make him feel better—or worse? Jack shook his head impatiently. “The maze didn’t do anything. You did. Message received, Alice.”

  She sucked in a breath. “You think I’m lying?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I’m going to town. Should be some deliveries there for me. Gear I ordered for the surveillance system. You may not want me here, but I’ve still got a job to do.”