Then Kayla appeared and everyone else faded away.
He’d meant what he’d said when he’d told her she would look beautiful in whatever she was wearing, but in the white dress with her hair pinned up and a pair of familiar earrings dangling from her lobes, she was absolutely stunning.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her while they exchanged their vows, and he didn’t want to. A few short weeks earlier, he could not have imagined that he would be married before the end of the year—certainly and not be happy about it. But as Kayla returned his promise to love, honor and cherish “till death do us part,” he realized that he was finally where he belonged. It didn’t matter if they were in Rust Creek Falls or Thunder Canyon or even Timbuktu—what mattered was that they were together.
Finally, the minister invited the groom to kiss his bride.
Trey lowered his head to hers, pausing before his lips touched hers to whisper, “I love you, Mrs. Strickland.”
“And I love you, Mr. Strickland,” she whispered back.
He smiled and then—finally—he kissed his wife for the first time.
* * *
After that, flutes of champagne and sparkling grape juice were passed around so that guests could toast the newlyweds. Kayla surprised everyone by offering a toast of her own.
“I just want to thank our families and friends who have gathered here today—on very short notice—to celebrate this occasion with us. Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year but now for even more reasons. Because of Trey, I got everything I wanted this year—and more.
“But if I could have one more wish come true, it would be that all of our siblings and cousins and friends will someday be as lucky to share the same love and happiness that I’ve found with Trey.”
Of course, there were many more toasts after that, and everyone wanted to kiss the bride and congratulate the groom. Trey didn’t really mind, but he was anxious to be alone with Kayla, and it seemed like forever before they managed to extricate themselves from the crowd to head back to his room at the boarding house.
“Why do I feel like I’m returning to the scene of the crime?” Kayla asked, after Trey had parked his truck and came around to the passenger side to help her out.
“Maybe because you’re whispering and tiptoeing,” he suggested.
“I feel guilty,” she acknowledged.
“Why would you feel guilty?”
“Because we violated your grandparents’ rule prohibiting overnight visitors.”
“That was five months ago,” he reminded her. “Now we’re lawfully married and there’s no reason to feel guilty.”
“I guess it’s going to take me a little while to get used to that fact.”
“You’ve got the rest of your life—the rest of our lives,” he amended, unlocking the door to his room.
“I’m looking forward to every single day of it.”
“Me, too,” he said. “And I promise you, now that my ring is on your finger, if you ever try to sneak out in the middle of the night again, I will go after you.”
“I guess I didn’t handle that very well, did I?”
“You might have saved us some confusion and a lot of lost time if you hadn’t disappeared before the sun came up.”
“I’m not going anywhere this time,” she assured him.
“You won’t have a chance—I’m not going to let you out of my arms tonight.”
She smiled. “Is that a promise?”
“That is very definitely a promise.”
His gaze skimmed over her, slowly, appreciatively, from the top of her head to the toes of the shoes that peeked out beneath the hem of her gown. “Your sister made a good call on this dress,” he said. “You look fabulous in it, but I suspect you’re going to look even better out of it.”
“I’m five-and-a-half months pregnant,” she reminded him.
“I know.”
“I’ve gained twelve pounds now.”
He framed her face in his hands. “You were beautiful in July, you’re beautiful now, and you’ll be just as beautiful in April when you can’t see your swollen ankles, and even more so when we’re celebrating our fiftieth anniversary,” he said sincerely.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?”
“You got drunk on Homer’s punch.” He turned her around and began to unfasten the buttons of her dress.
She laughed softly. “I wasn’t drunk. I was in love. I’ve been in love with you since the day you climbed the big maple tree behind my parents’ house to retrieve my favorite doll that Derek had thrown into the top branches.”
“I can’t say I loved you then,” he admitted. “But I love you now. For now and forever.”
Her heart sighed with contentment—and then Trey swore under his breath.
She glanced over her shoulder.
“I changed my mind about this dress,” he grumbled. “How many damn buttons are on this thing?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Kristen did it up for me.”
He struggled for a few more minutes, then finally had the back opened up enough that he could push the dress off her shoulders and over her hips. He quickly stripped away her undergarments and dispensed with his own attire in record time.
Then he slowed everything down. His lips were patient, his hands gentle, as he aroused her tenderly and very thoroughly. When she was ready for him—almost begging for him—he finally, and again slowly, eased into her. The pressure built inside her the same way—slowly, but steadily, inexorably guiding her toward the culmination of pleasure.
She was close...so close. But she needed something more than what he was giving her, more than soft touches and gentle strokes.
“Trey, please. I need—”
He brushed his lips against hers. “I know.”
But he didn’t, because he continued at the same leisurely pace, and while it felt good—really good—it wasn’t enough. She bit back a whimper of frustration as the pleasure continued to build inside her, gentle rolling waves of sensation that teased her with the promise of more.
And then, just when she thought that promise was beyond her reach, her body imploded, shattering into a million little pieces that scattered like stars into the far reaches of the galaxy before they drifted back to earth. Slowly.
It was a long time later before they were both able to breathe normally again, before Trey summoned the energy to tuck her close against him.
“Wow,” she said softly.
With her head nestled against his shoulder, she couldn’t see his face, but she heard the smile in his voice when he said, “I never thought I’d say this—but I think I’m going to have to thank Homer Gilmore for spiking the wedding punch.”
“Maybe we should name our baby after him,” Kayla suggested.
“I think we should stick to saying thanks,” Trey countered.
She laughed softly. “Okay—we’ll do that.”
“Did you have any thoughts about names?”
“No, I’ve tried not to think too far ahead.”
“It isn’t so far now,” he pointed out. “Less than four months.”
She shifted so that she was on her side, facing him. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner, that you missed out on so much.”
“I won’t miss out next time.”
Though she was touched by the confident assurance in his voice, she wanted to enjoy the present with him before scheduling their future. “Could we have this baby before you start planning for the next one?”
“Of course,” he agreed. “But I do think we should practice our baby-making technique.”
“Again?”
He shrugged. “We missed a lot of months together—and they do say practice makes perfect.”
She lift
ed her arms to his shoulders and drew him down to her. “In that case, we should definitely practice.”
Epilogue
When Trey returned to their room at the boarding house, he found his wife exactly where he’d left her: sitting at the desk, staring at the screen of her laptop computer.
“Are you still working on that?”
“Just finishing up.”
He set down the tray of fruit and cheese he’d snagged from the kitchen along with the two crystal flute glasses he’d borrowed from his grandparents’ cabinet, then reached into the mini-fridge for the bottle of nonalcoholic champagne he’d purchased for the occasion. “That’s what you said half an hour ago.”
“But now it’s true,” she told him, turning the computer so that he could see the screen.
His brows lifted. “You’re giving me a sneak peek?”
“I want an unbiased second opinion before I send it to my editor.”
“Then you shouldn’t ask me,” he pointed out. “How can I be unbiased about anything written by the woman I love?”
She smiled, as she always did when he told her he loved her. “True, but I want you to read it, anyway.”
He stood behind her chair, his hands on her shoulders, as he read her last column for the Rust Creek newspaper.
RUST CREEK RAMBLINGS: OUT WITH THE OLD,
IN WITH THE NEW (YEAR) & MISCELLANEOUS OTHER THINGS
2015 was an eventful year for the residents of Rust Creek Falls. In addition to the usual weddings and funerals, engagements and reunions, there was the mystery of the wedding punch served at the Fourth of July nuptials of Braden Traub and Jennifer MacCallum. A mystery that was finally solved when Homer Gilmore confessed to spiking the punch with his homemade moonshine in an effort to help the lonely residents of our fair town find their bliss. On many accounts, he succeeded.
As the hours count down and the dawn of a New Year draws ever closer, one cannot help but wonder what events will make headlines in the months ahead. I’ll look forward to reading about them rather than writing them myself, as I’m leaving Rust Creek Falls to make my home in Thunder Canyon with my new husband and the family we’re going to have together. But don’t worry, loyal readers, there is a new Rambler already in your midst, already keeping an ear to the ground and a notepad in hand.
Happy New Year to All!
Your (former) Rust Creek Rambler,
Kayla Dalton Strickland
“You put your name on it,” Trey noted with surprise.
His wife nodded. “I thought it was time for the people of Rust Creek Falls to learn the identity of the Rambler.”
“You mean that you wanted them to know your sister wasn’t responsible for the column,” he guessed.
“That, too,” she agreed.
“Are you going to miss it?”
She shook her head. “I had a lot of fun with it, but I’m more than ready to move on, to focus on being a wife and—very soon—a mother.”
“No regrets about leaving Rust Creek Falls?”
“None,” she assured him. “Besides, Thunder Canyon isn’t really that far away, and we’ll come back to visit whenever we can.”
“I’m sure we’ll be pressured to come back even more often,” Trey said. “Especially after the baby is born.”
“And no doubt there will be a convoy from Rust Creek Falls to Thunder Canyon as soon as our families hear that the baby is on his way.”
“You’re probably right.”
She clicked SEND to submit her final edition of “Ramblings” to the newspaper, then shut down the computer.
As Trey handed her a glass of nonalcoholic champagne, she could hear the rest of the family and boarding house guests talking and laughing in the main parlor.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go downstairs to ring in the New Year with your cousins and your grandparents?”
“I’m sure,” he said. “I want to celebrate our first New Year together with my bride.”
“But what if I want to wear a sparkly crown and blow one of those noisy horns?”
He picked up a sparkly crown—pilfered from the box of party stuff his grandmother had amassed for the celebration—and settled it on her head. Then he handed her a noisemaker.
“Once again, you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”
“I tried.” He touched his lips to hers. “I love you, Kayla.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
He pulled back. “What did I do? Why are you crying?”
She managed to laugh at his panicked tone. “Sorry—I’m pregnant and hormonal, and I’m crying because I’m happier than I ever thought possible.”
Trey wrapped his arms around her. “That’s lucky for us then, because I feel the same way—well, except for the pregnant, hormonal and crying parts.”
Kayla laughed again, and as the guests downstairs began their countdown to midnight, she and Trey celebrated the birth of the New Year in their own way.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from WYOMING RUGGED by Diana Palmer.
SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM
When oilman Blair Coleman and the much younger Niki Ashton fall for one another, can the two overcome tragedy to find forever in each other’s arms?
Read on for a sneak preview of
WYOMING RUGGED,
the latest WYOMING MEN tale from New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer.
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Wyoming Rugged
by Diana Palmer
SHE SIGHED. HE WAS very handsome. She loved the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. She loved the strong, chiseled lines of his wide mouth, the high cheekbones, the thick black wavy hair around his leonine face. His chest was a work of art in itself. She had to force herself not to look at it too much. It was broad and muscular, under a thick mat of curling black hair that ran down to the waistband of his silk pajamas. Apparently, he didn’t like jackets, because he never wore one with the bottoms. His arms were muscular, without being overly so. He would have delighted an artist.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” he wondered aloud.
“That an artist would love painting you,” she blurted out, and then flushed then cleared her throat. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
He lifted both eyebrows. “Miss Ashton,” he scoffed, “you aren’t by any chance flirting with me, are you?”
“Mr. Coleman, the thought never crossed my mind!”
“Don’t obsess over me,” he said firmly, but his eyes were still twinkling. “I’m a married man.”
She sighed. “Yes, thank goodness.”
His eyebrows lifted in a silent question.
“Well, if you weren’t married, I’d probably disgrace myself. Imagine, trying to ravish a sick man in bed because I’m obsessing over the way he looks without a shirt!”
He burst out laughing. “Go away, you bad girl.”
Her own eyes twinkled. “I’ll banish myself to the kitchen and make lovely things for you to eat.”
“I’ll look
forward to that.”
She smiled and left him.
He looked after her with conflicting emotions. He had a wife. Sadly, one who was a disappointment in almost every way; a cold woman who took and took without a thought of giving anything back. He’d married her thinking she was the image of his mother. Elise had seemed very different while they were dating. But the minute the ring was on her finger, she was off on her travels, spending more and more of his money, linking up with old friends whom she paid to travel with her. She was never home. In fact, she made a point of avoiding her husband as much as possible.
This really was the last straw, though, ignoring him when he was ill. It had cut him to the quick to have Todd and Niki see the emptiness of their relationship. He wasn’t that sick. It was the principle of the thing. Well, he had some thinking to do when he left the Ashtons, didn’t he?
* * *
CHRISTMAS DAY WAS BOISTEROUS. Niki and Edna and three other women took turns putting food on the table for an unending succession of people who worked for the Ashtons. Most were cowboys, but several were executives from Todd’s oil corporation.
Niki liked them all, but she was especially fond of their children. She dreamed of having a child of her own one day. She spent hours in department stores, ogling the baby things.
She got down on the carpet with the children around the Christmas tree, oohing and aahing over the presents as they opened them. One little girl who was six years old got a Barbie doll with a holiday theme. The child cried when she opened the gaily wrapped package.
“Lisa, what’s wrong, baby?” Niki cooed, drawing her into her lap.
“Daddy never buys me dolls, and I love dolls so much, Niki,” she whispered. “Thank you!” She kissed Niki and held on tight.
“You should tell him that you like dolls, sweetheart,” Niki said, hugging her close.
“I did. He bought me a big yellow truck.”
“A what?”
Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick! Page 19