by Diana Palmer
* * *
J.C. STOOD OUTSIDE in blowing snow, grinding his teeth. Now what? He could go to the reverend’s house and demand to see Colie, but that would be unwise. He’d caused the poor man enough trouble already, by living openly with his only daughter. He wasn’t religious himself, but he knew how religious people looked at immoral conduct. It couldn’t have been easy for the pastor to get in the pulpit and talk against sex outside marriage when his daughter was living with a man and everybody knew.
He couldn’t track Rod down in Jackson Hole. He’d have to wait until the man came home and catch him.
He was frustrated. He needed to find Colie. Where the hell was she? Then he remembered. He checked his watch. She’d be on her lunch hour. He hadn’t gone near the cafeteria since they broke up, but he got into his SUV and drove there.
He looked around inside the crowded place, but there was no Colie. However, her coworker, Lucy, was having a salad and coffee alone at a table.
He pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Where’s Colie?” he asked abruptly.
Lucy paused with her fork in midair and just stared at him.
“Her father won’t let me speak to her. I can’t find her brother.” He was frustrated and irritated, and his voice reflected it. “Where is she?”
She put the fork down. “I don’t know, J.C.,” she said, but she averted her eyes.
“Yes, you do,” he returned. “You can’t lie to me, Lucy. I was a police officer for two years. I know a lie when I see one.”
She looked up and drew in a breath. “She made me promise I wouldn’t tell you,” she said after a minute.
“Is she in Catelow?”
She didn’t answer.
“I need to talk to her,” he said shortly. “I never even gave her a chance to defend herself...”
“Yes, I know,” she said, her tone icy. “You put her on the porch of your cabin with her belongings and closed the door. You put her outside like a dog that had misbehaved.”
He had the grace not to protest the accusation. He couldn’t. She was telling the truth.
He traced a pattern on the back of the chair he was straddling, his heart heavy, his mind busy.
“I did,” he confessed after a minute. “I lost my temper. Rod came to meet me at the airport and told me...” He hesitated. He looked up. “Is she really pregnant?”
Lucy’s face closed up. “That’s no longer any of your business. Colie’s gone, J.C. You might as well get used to it.”
“Gone where?”
“I told you...”
“For God’s sake, is it mine?” he ground out, his pale gray eyes lancing into hers. “Is she carrying my child?”
Her face grew hard. “What do you care?” she asked. “You told her you never wanted a child. So you won’t be having one.”
He looked confused. His regrets were plain on his face. “I made some mistakes.”
“You made a lot.”
He nodded. “I want to make things right, if I can,” he said quietly. “I’ve messed up pretty badly.” He managed a faint smile. “But Colie doesn’t hold grudges. She’ll forgive me.”
She lowered her eyes. She didn’t say anything.
The silence was revealing. He felt something cold touch him, inside. “Is she in Wyoming?” he asked quietly.
She shook her head.
He drew in a long breath. “Will you ask her if you can tell me where she is?” he tried another tack. “Just that.”
She looked up. Her expression was no longer hostile. It was sad. “It’s too late, J.C.,” she said after a minute.
“What do you mean, it’s too late?” he returned.
“You can’t say anything, do anything, that will make it up to her. Not now. It won’t matter if I ask her. She’d just say no, anyway.”
“Why are you so certain of that?” he demanded.
“Well, it’s like this,” she began, hesitating.
He felt cold inside. Empty. He felt a sense of premonition that was stronger than anything he’d ever experienced.
“Just tell me,” he said.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “She won’t talk to you because she’s married, J.C.”
He just sat there. His face paled under its olive tan. His pale, silver eyes looked blank. “She’s what?”
“She’s married,” Lucy replied. She got up with her tray. “I’m sorry. That’s what I meant, when I said it was too late. You can’t go back, J.C. Life doesn’t come with a reset button.”
She turned and walked away.
* * *
MARRIED. COLIE WAS MARRIED. She was pregnant and her child wouldn’t have a name. Her father would be even more humiliated in the pulpit with an unwed mother, who was his own child, sitting in a pew in his church.
Colie knew that. She was already guilty that she’d caused him so much pain. J.C. knew it, even if she’d never put it into words.
So she’d found someone and gotten married, to give her child a name. She’d put herself beyond J.C.’s reach, and she’d done it deliberately.
He got up like a sleepwalker and went outside to the SUV. He stood in the ice-cold wind, with snow blowing around him, and never felt a thing. Colie was gone forever. He’d thrown her away, like a used shoe. He would never have her in his life again. Never have that tenderness, that nurturing, that he’d craved even when he’d resented it.
Colie was gone, and it was his fault. Gone, with a child that might be his own child; a child who would grow up thinking another man was its father. A child he’d never know.
He knew what it was to be without a father. He’d left his behind at the age of ten. He’d blamed him for all the misery of the years in between. Now he was doing the same thing to a child that might be his.
Not quite. Colie had a husband. Hopefully, he’d treat her better than J.C. had. Did the man know she was pregnant? He dismissed that thought at once. Of course he knew. Colie wouldn’t lie, even about that.
He’d never misjudged anyone so badly in his whole life. He was ashamed, eaten up with guilt. His hot temper had cost him the one person in his adult life who genuinely loved him. Perhaps he’d done it deliberately, if subconsciously. He expected people to betray him. He didn’t trust anyone.
He should have trusted Colie. He should have gone after her, while there was still time to fix things.
Now, he was going to be alone for the rest of his life. As he got into the SUV and drove away, he thought that probably he deserved what he’d gotten. He probably deserved all of it.
CHAPTER NINE
J.C. DROVE BACK to the ranch without seeing anything along the way. He knocked at the front door. Delsey let him in.
“Hi, J.C.,” she began.
“Ren in?” he interrupted her. He looked like a man who’d tried to swallow a watermelon whole.
“Yes, in the study...”
“Thanks.” He cut her off and strode off toward the den.
Ren looked up when his security chief walked in and closed the door behind him.
“Did you know that she was married?” he asked shortly.
Ren’s thick, dark eyebrows arched toward his hairline. “Excuse me?”
“Colie. Did you know she was married?”
Ren’s lips fell open. “Colie’s married?” he exclaimed. “When? To whom...?”
J.C. sank into a chair. “I don’t know. Lucy told me. I was trying to find Colie. Her father just put the phone down without answering. Rod’s out of town. There wasn’t anybody else to ask...” He swallowed, hard. “Married!” he exclaimed. His olive complexion had actually gone pale.
Ren knew what the other man was going through. He’d also misjudged a woman, but fortunately he came to his senses in time not to lose Merrie. “I’m
sorry,” he said.
J.C.’s pale gray eyes were tormented. “I don’t know why she’d do that!”
Ren hesitated for a few seconds. Then he leaned forward, both hands on the desk locked together. “J.C., she was pregnant,” he said gently. “Probably she felt her father had endured enough gossip already, without having to get up in the pulpit with a pregnant but unmarried daughter in the congregation.”
J.C. closed his eyes on a wave of sickness. It was what he’d thought himself. The reverend had endured some painful gossip already, he knew, and he’d helped cause it. He’d done a lot of damage to a man who’d only ever tried to help people.
Colie was pregnant. Was it his child? Now he’d never know. She was gone. Out of reach forever. Married! Why hadn’t he realized it was what she was most likely to do, out of guilt and shame.
But who had she married? Nobody locally had mentioned anything about a wedding. No, he thought. She’d never stay in Catelow, or anywhere nearby. She’d have gone away somewhere, someplace that people didn’t know her, didn’t know that she’d lived with J.C. and he’d thrown her out of his life. Someplace where she’d found someone who married her, to give her child a name.
What if it was his own child? He’d never see it, never know it. And it was his own fault. He felt the pain all the way to his soul. He’d never been so wrong about a human being in his whole life. He’d thrown Colie away, called her names, accused her of lying, ridiculed the way she was in bed.
“Sometimes, we dig our own graves long before we die,” he said out of the blue.
Ren, who didn’t know what the other man had been thinking, only nodded.
* * *
COLIE WAS NERVOUS her first couple of weeks on the job in Darby Howland’s law office. Her cousin Annie had assured her that he wanted her there, and was sure she was going to be an asset. Colie was less than confident.
She was all too aware of her condition, although the pregnancy was in such early stages that it didn’t really show yet. She owed Mr. Howland a great debt for being so kind to a total stranger. But she wasn’t sure how he would react when she told him her true circumstances. She’d made sure Annie hadn’t spoken of it to anyone. She didn’t want to start out in Jacobsville, Texas, with everybody knowing what she’d done.
But it wasn’t like that at all. Mr. Howland was tall and lanky, with thick silver-sprinkled black hair. He had dark eyes, an olive complexion and a deep, carrying voice. He never seemed to stop smiling.
She answered the phone, took dictation, fielded appointments, did everything that was asked of her without a complaint. The office ran smoothly. It was very much like the office she’d left behind in Catelow.
She was especially fond of the big boss, who headed the three-attorney firm. Mr. Howland was the kindest man she’d ever worked for. But the longer she put off telling him the truth about her circumstances, the harder it got. She knew she looked guilty. He seemed to sense that something was wrong. So at the end of her second week in Jacobsville, he called her into his office, closed the door and turned off his cell phone.
“Let’s get the unpleasant things out of the way first, shall we?” he asked, motioning her to a seat in front of his huge oak desk after he’d closed the door. “You look like a fugitive anticipating an arrest warrant,” he added with faint humor. “Want to just tell me about it?”
Colie sighed. “Mr. Howland, I should have let Annie tell you...”
He just smiled. “Go on, Colie.”
She hesitated.
“Oh, I see.” He smiled as he sat down, wincing with the action. He drew in a long breath. “All right, we’ll put your unpleasant things off a bit. The main unpleasant thing doesn’t concern you. It concerns me.” He locked his hands together on the desk. “I’m dying.”
She caught her breath. Even though Annie had told her he had cancer, she hadn’t registered that it was a death sentence. So many kinds of cancer could be successfully treated these days.
“Sorry. That was rather stark,” he added, smiling sadly. “You see, I have a very rare cancer. It’s multiple myeloma. I had a backache that wouldn’t go away, but I thought it was arthritis. I was diagnosed with that in my twenties. So I didn’t go to my doctor. Eventually, it showed up in tests, but by then, it was too late for much to be done.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said helplessly.
He smiled. “I was married. She was the only woman in my life from sixth grade onward. We couldn’t have children, but we had each other. It was such an idyllic marriage that, after I lost her, I never wanted anyone else. When I die, I’ll see her again. That’s why it’s not so bad.” He grimaced. “Well, the pain gets pretty bad. But in this case, it isn’t the journey, it’s the destination, if you know what I mean.”
“I see.” She thought about losing J.C. That had been like a death. She mourned him. If he’d really died, and she was facing life without him, death wouldn’t be such a terrifying thing. Even though he’d hurt her, love couldn’t be killed, apparently.
He cocked his head. His dark eyes narrowed. “You were thinking about another sort of unpleasant thing. May I know what it is?”
She drew in a long breath. “I got involved with a man back home. I loved him...more than anything in the world. So when he asked me to move in with him, I did. My father is a minister and it’s a small town. It was scandalous,” she said with a sad smile. “But the worst was yet to come. He didn’t want children and we had an accident. So I’m pregnant and he doesn’t think it’s his. He tossed me out on my ear. I couldn’t shame my father even more by becoming an unwed mother in his congregation. My cousins Annie and Ty said I could come live with them and they knew about a job here, at your office.” She looked down at her feet. “So I guess I should spare us both any more unpleasantness and just leave. I was going to invent a dead husband...”
“Why don’t you just marry me instead?”
Her lips fell open. She stared at him numbly. “What?”
He shrugged. “I don’t want a real marriage. I don’t think you do, either. But you’re going to have a child and you need a husband.” He smiled from ear to ear. “God, I love kids! I never could have one with Mary, but I can help you with yours, for whatever time I’ve got left.”
Tears ran down her cheeks like rain down a window. “But...you don’t know me...”
“Annie told me everything,” he confided. “Don’t be mad at her. Her father and I were best friends for years. We don’t have secrets. Besides, I’m a lawyer. We’re trained not to tell what we know.”
She managed a smile as she dashed at tears. “I was trained that way, too. I worked for a wonderful firm of lawyers back in Catelow.”
“I know. I phoned them. They said everyone in the office was crying in their beer. You were much appreciated.”
She flushed. “Wow.”
“You’ll be appreciated here, as well. We’ll get a license tomorrow and get a minister to do the honors.”
“Everyone will think you’ve lost your mind,” she pointed out. “We just met week before last.”
“What the hell,” he chuckled. “They’ll feed on the gossip for months. It will be nice gossip. Jacobsville is a kind town, and I don’t say that lightly. We have people who live here who’ve committed all sorts of crimes and came back into society. Nobody chastises them for it. They’ve paid their debts. We also have one of the most famous counterterrorism schools on earth in Jacobs County, run by a former mercenary named Eb Scott. See? All sorts of interesting people live here. I forgot to mention that our police chief is a former government assassin and our sheriff is married to the daughter of one of the most notorious drug lords on the continent.”
She just sat, gaping.
“It’s a very colorful town,” he added with a big grin. “So a quick marriage between two strangers isn’t even going to raise eyeb
rows. Not much, at least.”
“What a fascinating place to live!”
“That’s what I’ve always thought.” He scowled. “One thing, though. Are you certain that the father of your child won’t change his mind and come after you?”
She smiled. It was a sad and wistful smile. “He said he never wanted to see me again. He said the child I’m carrying isn’t his. He said...” She hesitated. “He said a lot of things that I can’t forget. He’s basically a loner. He doesn’t want a family. So, no. There’s no chance he’d come after me.” She looked up. “I’m even glad. I’d go crawling back to him on my knees through broken glass.” She laughed, but her voice broke. “I loved him so much. I had no pride at all.”
“I loved Mary like that,” the man said quietly. “I love her still. She echoes through my life every day, every hour, every minute. I lost her three years ago, but it seems like yesterday. They say time helps. The hell it does.”
She nodded. “A wound that deep doesn’t heal, I think.”
He leaned forward. “So. Going to marry me? I snore, but you won’t mind, because you’ll have a nice bedroom all to yourself. I have to have chemo and radiation periodically, so I’m sick a lot. You’d have to live with that, too.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said gently. “J.C. got really sick with flu and I nursed him, even when he threw up.”
His expression softened. “You looked like that kind of woman,” he said softly. “I’ll bet total strangers sit down and tell you their most horrible secrets.”
She laughed out loud. “Well, yes, they do. Some of them are really embarrassing. I just listen and don’t say anything.”
“I imagine your father’s good at that, too. You’d better call him and tell him about this incredibly impetuous thing you’re about to do.”
She nodded. “I’ll call him tonight.” She grimaced. “I don’t own a lot of dresses. Does it have to be a wedding gown?”
“Of course not. Get married in blue jeans for all I care,” he chuckled. “I’ll wear a suit, but only because I always wear one to work.”