by Cara Colter
For a while after Houston had gone, she had thought she would die. Literally, Molly had thought she would curl up in a ball in a corner somewhere in her apartment and die.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
Baldy needed her.
And then one day she went to Sunshine and Lollipops to do a routine visit for a report that needed to be filled out for a grant.
All the children, every single one of them, were wearing new shoes.
“An anonymous donor,” one of the staff told her. “A whole truckload of them arrived.”
Something in Molly had become alert, as if she was reaching for an answer that she couldn’t quite grasp.
The next day there had been an excited message on her answering machine.
“Miss Michaels, it’s Carmen Sanchez.” Tears, Spanish mixed with English, more tears. “I got a scholarship. I don’t know how. I never even applied for one.”
And that feeling of alertness inside Molly had grown. And then, when the second call came, from another one of the girls who had written a letter for Prom Dreams, the alertness sighed within her, knowing.
And with that knowing had come a revelation: she had always known the truth about Houston Whitford.
It was her own truth that she had not been so sure of.
Even though he would never admit it, she could clearly see he understood love at a level that she had missed.
It didn’t rip down. It didn’t tear apart. It didn’t wallow in self-pity. It didn’t curl up in a corner and die.
Those who had been lucky enough to know it gave back. They danced with life. They embraced everything: heartbreak, too. They never stopped believing good could come from bad.
She had told him that love could heal all things.
But then she had not lived it. Not believed it. Not ever embraced it as her own truth.
Now she was going to do just that. She was going to be made better by the fact, that ever so briefly, she had known the touch and the grace and the glory of loving. She was going to take that and give it to a world that had always waited for her to see.
Herself.
So, she watched with a full heart as the light faded over the Napa Valley. She felt as if the radiance within her matched the golden sun.
Headlights were moving up the hill toward the bed and breakfast where she was staying, and she watched them pierce the growing blackness, marveled at how something so simple could be so beautiful, marveled at how a loving heart could see.
The car pulled into the parking lot, below her perch, and she watched as a man got out.
In the fading light and at this distance, the man looked amazingly like Houston, that dark shock of hair, the way he carried himself with such masculine confidence, grace.
Of course, who didn’t look like Houston? Every dark haired stranger made her heart beat faster. At first, in her curl-up-in-the-corner phase, she had hated that. But as she came to embrace the truth about herself, she didn’t anymore.
It was a reminder that she had been given a gift from him. And when she saw someone who reminded her of him now, she allowed herself to tenderly explore what she felt, and send a silent blessing to him.
To love him in a way that was pure because it wished only the best for him and asked for nothing in return.
It wasn’t the same as not expecting enough of someone like Chuck, because really getting tangled with someone like Chuck meant you had not expected enough of yourself!
The man disappeared inside the main door far below the patio she sat on, and Molly allowed the beating of her heart to return to normal. She took another sip of wine, watched the vineyards turn to dusky gold as the light faded from the sky.
“Hello.”
She turned and looked at him, felt the stillness inside her, the knowing. That love was more powerful than he was, than his formidable desire to fight against it.
“Hello,” she said softly, back.
“Surprised to see me?”
“Not really,” she said.
He frowned at her. “You made yourself damnably hard to find, if you were expecting me.”
She smiled.
“Miss Viv was worried that you were having an Internet affair.”
“And you? Were you worried about that?”
“Impossible,” he whispered.
“Then why did you come?”
He sighed and took the chair across from her. “Because I couldn’t not come.”
They sat there silently for a moment.
“The feathers look good on you,” he said after a while.
“Thank you.”
“Where’s Baldy?”
“I left him with a neighbor.”
“Oh.”
Again the silence fell. She noticed it was comfortable. Full, somehow.
“I owe you an apology,” he said.
“No,” she said, “you don’t. I learned more from you walking away than I could have ever learned from you staying.”
He frowned. “That’s not what I was going to apologize for. We both know you’re better off without me.”
We do?
“No, I wanted to apologize for bringing you to the old neighborhood that night. And then for losing it on that guy, the mugger. For not being able to stop. I might have killed him if you hadn’t stopped me.”
She chuckled, and he glared at her.
“It’s not funny.”
“Of course it’s funny, Houston. I weigh a hundred and thirteen pounds. And I could have stopped you? Don’t be ridiculous. You stopped yourself.”
“I’m trying to tell you something important.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I come from chaos,” he said. “And violence. That is my legacy. And I am not visiting them on you.”
“Why?” she asked softly.
He glared at her.
“Why are you so afraid to visit your legacy on me?”
“Because I love you, damn it!” The admission was hoarse with held in emotion.
“Ah,” she said softly, her whole world filling with a light that put the gold of the Napa Valley sunset to shame. “And you’re afraid you would hurt me?”
“Yes.”
“You told me you hit a boy in high school once.”
“True,” he said tautly.
“And then what, fourteen or fifteen years later you hit another person? Who was attacking you?”
“I didn’t feel like he was attacking me. I felt as though he was attacking you.”
“And so defending me, putting your body between me and that threat, taking care of it, that was a bad thing? A pattern?”
“I lost control.”
She would have laughed out loud at how ludicrous that assessment of himself was, except she saw what he was doing. He was trying to convince himself to climb back on that horse and ride away from her, back to those lonely places.
The thing was, she wasn’t letting him ride off alone. That’s all there was to it. Somewhere, somehow, this incredible man had lost a sense of who he really was.
But she saw him so clearly. It was as if she held his truth. And no matter what was in it for her, she was leading him back to it. Because suddenly, she understood that’s what love did.
“He had a knife, Houston. He was huge. Don’t you think you did what you had to do?”
“Overkill,” he said. “Inexcusable.”
“I’m not buying it, Houston.”
He looked her full in the face.
“You’re afraid of loving me.”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“You’re afraid I will let you down, just like every other person who should have loved you has let you down.”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“You’re afraid you will let yourself down. That love will make you do something crazy that you will regret forever.”
“Yes,” he said absolutely.
“There is a place,” she said ever so softly, “where you do not have to be afraid anymore,
Houston. Never again.”
He looked at her. His eyes begged for it to be true.
She opened her arms.
And he came into them. She reached up and touched his cheek, with reverence, with the tender welcome of a woman who could see right to her gunslinger’s soul. She could feel the strong beat of his good, good heart.
“You are a good man, Houston Whitford. A man with the courage to take every single hard thing life has handed you and rise above it.”
He didn’t speak, just nestled his head against her breast, and he sighed with the surrender of a man who had found his way down from the high and lonely places.
Over the next few days, they gave themselves over to exploring the glory of the Napa Valley.
They took the wine train. They went for long walks. They drove for miles exploring the country. They stopped at little tucked away restaurants and vineyards, book shops and antique stores. They whiled away sun-filled afternoons sipping wine, holding hands, looking at each other, letting comfortable silences fall.
They laughed until their sides hurt, they talked until their voices were hoarse.
Molly remembered the day she had first met him, looking at herself in that wedding dress, and yearning for all the things it had made her feel: a longing for love, souls joined, laughter shared, long conversations. Lonely no more.
It was their final morning in California when he told her he had a surprise for her. It was so early in the morning it was still dark when he piled her into the car and drove the mazes of those twisting roads to a field.
Where a hot air balloon was anchored, gorgeous, standing against the muted colors of early morning.
It seemed to pull against its ropes, its brilliant stripes of color—purple, red, green, yellow—straining to join the cobalt-blue of the sky.
She walked toward it, her hand in Houston’s, ready for this adventure. Eager to embrace it. She let Houston help her into the basket.
As the pilot unleashed the ropes and they floated upward to join the sky, she leaned back into Houston.
“I have waited all my life for this,” Molly whispered.
“For a ride in a hot air balloon?”
“No, Houston,” she said softly.
For this feeling—of being whole and alive. In fact, it had nothing to do with the balloon ride and everything to do with love. Over the last few days, it had seeped into her with every breath she took that held Houston’s scent.
The hot air heater roared, and the balloon surged upward. The balloon lifted higher as the sun began to rise and drench the vineyards and hillsides in liquid gold. They floated through a pure sky, the world soaked in misty pinks and corals below them.
“Houston, look,” she breathed of the view. “It’s wonderful. It is better than any dream I ever dreamed.”
She glanced at him when he didn’t respond. “Is something wrong?”
“I was wondering—” he said, and then he stopped and looked away. He cleared his throat, uncharacteristically awkward.
“What?” she asked, growing concerned.
“Would you like some cheese?”
He produced a basket with an amazing array of cheese, croissants warm from the oven.
“Thank you,” she said. “Um, this is good. Aren’t you going to have some?”
He was working on uncorking a bottle of wine.
It was way too early for wine. She didn’t care. She took a glass from him, sipped it, met his eyes.
“Houston, what is wrong with you?”
“Um, look, I was wondering—” he stopped, took a sudden interest in the scenery. “What’s that?” he demanded of the pilot.
The pilot named the winery.
“Are you afraid of heights?” she breathed. This man, nervous, uptight, was not her Houston!
“No, just afraid.”
Only a few days ago he wouldn’t have admitted fear to her if he’d been dropped into a bear den covered in honey. She eyed him, amazed at his awkwardness. He was now staring at his feet. He glanced up at her.
“I told you,” she reminded him gently, “that there is a place where you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”
“What if I told you I wanted to be in that place, with you, forever?”
His eyes met hers, and suddenly he wasn’t fumbling at all.
In a voice as steady as his eyes, he said, “I was wondering if you would consider spending the rest of your life with me.”
Her mouth fell open, and tears gathered behind her eyes. “Houston,” she breathed.
“Damn. I forgot. Hang on.” He let go of her hand, fished through the pocket of the windbreaker he had worn, fell to one knee. He held a ring out to her. The diamonds turned to fire as the rays of the rising sun caught on their facets.
“Molly Michaels, I love you. Desperately. Completely. With every beat of my heart and with every breath that I take. I love you,” he said, his voice suddenly his own, strong and sure, a man who had always known exactly what he wanted. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said. Simply. Softly. No one word had ever felt so right in her entire life.
It was yes to him, but also yes to herself. It was yes to life, in all its uncertainty. It was yes to disappointments being healed, yes to taking a chance, yes to being fully alive, yes to coming awake after sleeping.
And then they were in each other’s arms. Houston’s lips welcomed her.
Their kiss celebrated, not the miracle of a balloon rising hundreds of feet above the earth, defying gravity, but the absolute miracle of love.
He kissed her again with tenderness that knew her. And just like that they were both home.
At long last, after being lost for so long, and alone for so long, they had both found their way home.
EPILOGUE
HOUSTON WHITFORD sat on the bench in Central Park feeling the spring sunshine warm him, his face lifted to it.
The park was quiet.
Peripherally he was aware of Molly and his father coming back down the park path toward him. They had wandered off together to admire the beds of tulips that his father, the gardener, loved so much.
Houston focused on them, his father so changed, becoming more shrunken and frail every day. Molly’s arm and his father’s were linked, her head bent toward her beloved “Hughie” as she listened to something he was telling her.
Houston saw her smile, saw his father glance at her, the older man’s gaze astounded and filled with wonder as if he could not believe how his daughter-in-law had accepted him into her life.
This is what Houston had learned about love: it could not heal all things.
For instance, it could not heal the cancer that ate at his father. It could not heal the fact that he woke from his frequent sleeps with tears of regret sliding down his face.
Love, powerful as it was, could not change the scar left on a nose broken by a father’s fury, or the other scars not quite as visible.
No, love could not heal all things.
But it could heal some things. And most days, that was enough. More than enough.
Once, his father had looked at Molly, and said sadly, “That’s the woman your mother could have been had I been a better man.”
“Maybe,” Houston had said gently, feeling that wondrous thing that was called forgiveness. “Or maybe I’m the man you could have been if she had been a better woman.”
Now, the baby carriage that Houston had taken charge of while Molly took his father to look at the tulips vibrated beneath where his fingertips rested on the handle, prewail warning. Then his daughter was fully awake, screaming, the carriage rattling as her legs and arms began to flail with fury.
Like her mother in so many ways, he thought with tender amusement, redheaded and bad-tempered.
At the sound of the cry, Houston’s father quickened his steps on the path, breaking free of Molly’s arm in his hurry to get to the baby.
He arrived, panting alarmingly from the small exertion. He peered at the baby and every ha
rd crease his life and prison had put in his face seemed to melt. He put his finger in the carriage, and the baby latched on to it with her surprisingly strong little fist.
“There, there,” his father crooned, “Pappy’s here.”
The baby went silent, and then cooed, suddenly all charm.
For a suspended moment, it seemed all of them—his father, Molly, the baby, Houston himself—were caught in a radiance of light that was dazzling.
“I lived long enough to see this,” his father said, his voice hoarse with astonishment and gratitude, his finger held completely captive by the baby.
“A good thing,” Houston said quietly.
“No. More. A miracle,” his father, a man who had probably never known the inside of a church, and who had likely shaken his fist at God nearly every waking moment of every day of his life, whispered.
Houston felt Molly settle on the bench beside him, rest her head on his shoulder, nestle into him with the comfort of a woman who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was loved and cherished above all things.
“How’s my Woman-of-the-Year?” he asked.
“Oh, stop,” she said, but kissed his cheek.
She had taken Second Chances to the next level, beyond what anyone had ever seen for it, or dreamed for it. He liked to think his love helped her juggle so many different roles, all of them with seeming effortlessness, all of them infused with her great joy and enthusiasm for life.
Houston put his arm around her, pulled her in closer to him, touched his lips to her forehead.
His father was watching him, his eyes went back to Molly and then rested on Houston, satisfied, content, full.
“A miracle,” he said again.
“Yes, it is,” Houston, a man who had once doubted miracles, agreed.
All of it. Life. Love. The power of forgiveness. A place to call home. All of it was a miracle, so sacred a man could not even contemplate it without his heart nearly bursting inside his chest.
“Yes,” he repeated quietly. “It is.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4818-6
RESCUED IN A WEDDING DRESS
First North American Publication 2010.
Copyright © 2010 by Cara Colter.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.