A Bride for Jericho Bravo
Page 17
Which was really, really dumb. Not to mention hopeless. There was no way that Jericho was going to suddenly change his mind about telling her to get lost. She dropped the underwear into the smaller of the two open suitcases and marched out into the living area.
It wasn’t Jericho.
It was Mark.
Mark, right there at her door, in San Antonio, looking like any girl’s dream of the perfect man, lean and tall, with dark hair and eyes to match. He wore a casual button-down shirt and jeans just faded enough to look worn, although she knew they weren’t. He always paid a fortune for his clothes—jeans included. And he never wore anything that was over a year or two old.
He saw her through the glass of the door, and his lips formed her name. She could see in his eyes how much he had missed her, how deeply he regretted letting her go. She knew he really did want her back, wanted to marry her, wanted to give her the commitment she’d always been missing from him. At last.
And it was at that moment, as she met Mark’s dark eyes for the first time in weeks, that all the pieces of her own internal puzzle fell into place. She saw Mark—and she knew. She understood completely. She saw at last the secret of her heart, the one she had been keeping from everyone.
Including herself.
She went to the door and pulled it wide. “Hey.”
“Hey. Your sister said you were staying back here.”
She stepped out of the doorway and ushered him in.
Chapter Fourteen
Jericho sat in the whip three doors down from Ash and Tessa’s house.
He stared at the back end of the probably rented Cadillac as the good-looking, pulled-together guy got out of it. The guy went up the front walk and rang the bell. A moment later, the door opened wide and he went in.
Jericho knew who the guy was. Mark. The idiot had finally wised up and come to reclaim what he’d so unbelievably thrown away six weeks ago.
Time to get the hell out. Jericho knew that. He never should have turned onto this street today in the first place. After all, he was supposed to be doing the right damn thing.
But the right thing wasn’t working for him. The right thing had kept him awake the night before. That day in the front office, when they were giving her the goodbye cake, the right thing was the last thing on his mind. He’d only wanted to grab her and never let go.
The right thing, impossibly, was starting to seem more and more like the wrong thing. He kept remembering that she’d said she really wanted to stay. That she’d seemed to mean it.
That when she left town, she would be taking his heart with her.
Where, when it all shook out, was the sense in that?
He kept thinking about what Gus had said to him the other day in the coffee shop. That he was being stupid again. He kept thinking, what if Gus was right?
It started to get clear to him that what he’d done by calling it off with her was way too much like a repeat performance of what he’d done a decade ago. He’d told the family not to visit him inside. He’d refused to see Gus or to read Karen’s letters. They had lost Karen and he hadn’t been there for that. He should have been there for that, in spirit if not in the flesh. Karen had deserved that. And so had Gus.
And the family…
He had tried his damnedest to lose his own family. He’d rejected them to punish himself. He’d sent them away and told them not to come around.
Yeah, years later, he got them back again. But what about those years he refused them? That had been so damn stupid. To throw away all those years he could have been with them.
Just like he was throwing Marnie away. Tossing her back to the guy who had dumped her.
How could he be so damn stupid? All over again.
He got out of the whip. He walked fast along the sidewalk and up the driveway, with no real clarity on what he was going to do. Just that he wasn’t going to let her go with her ex, not until she knew that he didn’t want her to go.
That he loved her. That she was the woman he hadn’t even known he’d been waiting for for most of his life.
He was almost to the guesthouse when the door opened. The handsome ex came out, Marnie with him.
Marnie hugged the guy. And then he turned and started toward Jericho. He paused on the walk when they faced each other.
The ex had that look, the one that said he’d lost everything he had tried so damn hard to get back. The ex gave him a nod. Jericho nodded in response.
And that was it. The guy walked on by.
Jericho didn’t turn to watch him leave. Marnie had seen him. And he had eyes only for her.
She held out her arms when reached her.
He needed no more encouragement. He grabbed her and held on tight. “You didn’t go with him…”
“No. Never. I told you I wouldn’t. And he understands now. I guess he just needed to hear me say it to his face.”
“I should have believed you.”
“Yes, you should have. I want to be mad at you for being such a fool. But somehow, I just can’t. I…Oh, Jericho. You came back…”
His throat felt like it had a lump the size of Texas in it. He gulped it down. “I never should have left. I thought…it was right, to let you go.”
“It was wrong. So wrong…”
“I know. I see that. I know.”
She slid her hands up between them, rested her palms against his heart. In her blue eyes, he saw everything. All he’d ever wanted. The two of them. The future. The love he had almost let get away. “I love you,” she said. “I knew it when I saw Mark again, that you were the one for me. The man I could make a life with. The right man for me.”
“You have no idea how good it is to hear that. Marnie, I’ve been so stupid.”
“Oh, yeah.” She was nodding. “You have.”
He took her hand. “I have more to say. But first, I need to show you something. I need to be certain that you understand.”
She looked vaguely alarmed but didn’t argue. Or ask any questions. She only nodded.
He turned and started back down the walk, holding firmly to her hand. She followed without hesitation.
He drove her to a neighborhood not far from SA Choppers, a neighborhood that was a little rundown, some of the yards overgrown. He parked in front of his own house, which was gray with white trim.
“Nothing fancy,” he said.
She looked at him like he’d just handed her the world. “Your house. It’s your house.”
“Come on.”
They got out and went through the chain-link gate and up the cracked sidewalk. He unlocked the front door and guided her inside ahead of him.
She walked through the empty rooms, her footsteps light and quick on the scuffed hardwood floors. He stayed close behind her.
When she stopped and turned to him, he confessed, “I’ve got a bedroll. A plastic bowl and a spoon, for cereal in the morning. A coffeemaker, an old stove and a fridge. But you can see there’s no furniture. And it’s a long way from Olmos Park. Not to mention, Santa Barbara.”
A tear spilled over her lower lid and dribbled down her cheek. He gently smudged it away with his thumb.
“If I was in it for the furniture,” she said, “I would have stayed with Mark.”
He framed her beautiful face in his two rough hands. “Are you sure? You need to be really, really sure.”
“I have never been so sure about anything. I want this, I want it with you. I love you. With all my heart. I want to spend my life riding at your side.”
And finally, he dared to say the words. “There’s no one else for me. You’re the one, Marnie Jones. I love you.”
With a glad cry, she lifted her arms to him. He gathered her in and he kissed her, a kiss that whispered of forever. A kiss to join two wild, hopeful hearts.
They were married one week later, in an open field, up at the cabin. Gus was best man and Tessa was matron of honor. All the Bravos were there and a large number of Joneses as well. Patrick Jones gave his daughter
away with a proud smile and a tear in his eye.
Marnie’s Grandpa Oggie raised the first toast at the outdoor party after the ceremony. “To our Marnie, who drove all the way to Texas to find what she was lookin’ for. And to Jericho, who had the good sense to be here waitin’ when she arrived.”
Everyone started clapping. Marnie’s wild younger brothers even lit off a couple of illegal firecrackers, which caused Patrick to swear he would tan their hides.
Oggie raised his glass again. “Here’s to Jericho and his bride. And above all, here’s to love, which is the closest thing to heaven we get here on Earth.”
Everyone was quiet then. And a robin’s song rose, sweet and high, from a nearby oak branch. Jericho pulled Marnie close.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“And I love you. So much. Forever.”
It was right, between them. It was good. She was exactly what he’d always wanted, always needed. The road ahead was theirs now. Forever belonged to the two of them, together. He’d found his way home, at last.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-5000-4
A BRIDE FOR JERICHO BRAVO
Copyright © 2010 by Christine Rimmer
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