by Sara Orwig
“Miss Savannah isn’t going to leave us,” Scotty repeated and tossed his magician’s hat into the air. Mike caught it before it could fly across the room and hit something.
“Let’s go see her and you can give her a hug so she’ll know you’re happy that she’s going to marry me and live with us for the rest of our lives.”
Scotty grinned at him and hopped up and down as they headed back to join Lindsay and Savannah.
Mike smiled and let out his breath. This was the reaction he expected, but he was relieved that Scotty approved and liked his decision. Mike felt like jumping up and down with joy also. Lindsay had taken it so well, too, and seemed to realize he was truly happy.
They walked into the family room and Scotty raced to Savannah. “You’re going to stay and never leave us,” he cried, throwing his arms around her neck as she laughed and hugged him.
Mike caught up to him. “Take it easy, Scotty.”
Scotty wriggled and beamed at her. “You’ll be my second mother.”
“Yes, I will, and I’m so happy about it, Scotty. We don’t have to say goodbye.”
Lindsay looked at Mike. “Congratulations. You have Scotty’s full approval, which I knew you would.”
Mike smiled at Savannah.
“Now, when’s a wedding?” Lindsay asked.
Savannah and Mike looked at each other and laughed. “We haven’t even talked about a wedding,” Savannah said.
“We wanted to see you and Scotty before we did anything else,” Mike said. “We’ll tell the others and Savannah’s family now.”
“When will you see my magic tricks?” Scotty asked and the adults laughed.
“Soon, Scotty. We have some calls to make.”
Lindsay stepped closer. “Mike, if you’d like, let’s watch the magic act—it’s short, and I’ll take Scotty home with me for the afternoon or tonight if he wants to stay over. That way you can make your calls undisturbed.”
He glanced at Scotty, who was gazing up at him. “Want to do that, Scotty? We’ll see your magic act and then you go back to Aunt Lindsay’s for a while.”
“Yes,” he replied, smiling at Lindsay.
“Okay, Scotty, we’re ready to see some magic,” Mike said, sitting close to Savannah and taking her hand in his.
Eleven
On the first Saturday of March after a small church ceremony in Dallas with only family and very close friends, a reception was held at a country club. As Savannah danced with Mike, she smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever met so many relatives in one family in my life.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” he said, glancing over her head and seeing one of her brothers gazing back at him. “Your brothers are watching me like two hawks over a rabbit.”
She laughed. “Don’t worry. They’ll love you and they already love Scotty. He’s playing with my nieces and nephews and they are all having fun. He’s the youngest, so they think he is adorable, which he is.”
Mike looked down at her. “Are you okay? If you’re tired, let’s stop dancing.”
“Dr. Nash said I can lead a normal life as long as I don’t do anything too strenuous and I don’t call this slow dance where we’re barely moving strenuous.”
“Save a little strength for later. And speaking of later. I’ve told my family farewell and we’ve told some of your family goodbye. The nanny is here and will go to Lindsay’s ranch to take care of Scotty. I say why don’t we slip out now? We just have to tell Scotty goodbye.”
“Sounds like the best plan.”
“I’ll call Nell and have her and Scotty meet us outside. She’ll manage that without drawing any attention.”
Savannah’s eagerness grew as Mike danced them toward the door, where Lindsay, Wyatt and Destiny were standing.
“Trying to make a quick exit?” Lindsay asked and laughed.
“Yes, we are,” Mike replied. “Don’t you interfere.”
“Don’t worry, she won’t,” Wyatt said. “I’ve been there and done that and I know you want to get in the limo and go.”
“I suppose a farewell hug is out,” Lindsay said.
“If I give you a hug,” Mike said, “everyone in this room will know we’re leaving. How about a hello hug when I return?”
“Deal,” she said, laughing and stepping back. “Nell and I will take good care of Scotty.”
“Thanks, Lindsay,” Mike said.
They turned and left, hurrying around a corner of the building to the waiting limo where Nell stood by Scotty, who was in a tuxedo and black Western boots. He knelt to poke an anthill with a stick.
“Hey, buddy,” Mike said, picking him up. “Tell us goodbye.”
Scotty hugged his dad and kissed his cheek. Mike hugged him and turned to let Savannah hug him and kiss him. Mike set him down, turning to Nell. “Thanks for taking care of him.”
“His aunt Lindsay and I will take very good care of him.”
“I’m sure you will. We’ll see you next week,” Mike said, letting Savannah get into the limo and then climbing in behind her.
In minutes they were on the way to the airport and the private jet owned by Mike and his siblings.
Later that day, they walked out of the villa Mike owned on a Caribbean island.
“Mike, it is beautiful here,” Savannah said, happiness making her giddy and feeling like she floated a few feet above the ground.
“You’re what dazzles me,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Now that it’s over, did you mind a small—relatively so—wedding with relatives and only close friends?”
“It was perfect and plenty big.”
“We can have a bigger reception at a later time if you want.”
“No. We’ve said our vows. We’re married. I’m your wife and I don’t need to do any of that over again on a bigger scale. Mike, I’m so happy. I hope you always are.”
He tightened his arms around her and kissed her. Savannah clung to him, kissing him in return, happiness filling her. She opened her eyes to glance at her hand on his shoulder and her golden heart ring. Leaning back, she waved her hand in front of him.
“Well, you made the old legend about the ring found in the creek come true. You are my true love, Mike, now and forever.”
Smiling, he leaned closer to kiss her again.
* * * * *
If you loved this novel, read more in the
LONE STAR LEGENDS series from
USA TODAY bestselling author Sara Orwig
THE TEXAN’S FORBIDDEN FIANCÉE
A TEXAN IN HER BED
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One
“You actually can go hom
e again,” Sam Wyatt murmured as he stared at the main lodge of his family’s resort. “The question is, will anyone be happy to see you.”
But then, why should they be? He’d left Snow Vista, Utah, two years before, when his twin brother had died. And in walking away, he’d left his family to pick up the pieces strewn in the wake of Jack’s death.
Guilt had forced Sam to leave. Had kept him away. And now, a different kind of guilt had brought him home again. Maybe it was time, he told himself. Time to face the ghosts that haunted this mountain.
The lodge looked the same. Rough-hewn logs, gray, weathered shingles and a wide front porch studded with Adirondack chairs fitted with jewel-toned cushions. The building itself was three stories; the Wyatt family had added that third level as family quarters just a few years ago. Guest rooms crowded the bottom two floors and there were a few cabins on the property as well, offering privacy along with a view that simply couldn’t be beat.
Mostly, though, the tourists who came to ski at Snow Vista stayed in hotels a mile or so down the mountain. The Wyatt resort couldn’t hold them all. A few years ago, Sam and his twin, Jack, had laid out plans for expanding the lodge, adding cabins and building the Wyatt holdings into the go-to place in the Utah mountains. Sam’s parents, Bob and Connie, had been eager to expand, but from the looks of it, any idea of expansion had stopped when Sam left the mountain. But then, a lot of things had stopped, hadn’t they?
His grip tightened on his duffel bag, and briefly Sam wished to hell he could as easily get ahold of the thoughts racing maniacally through his mind. Coming home wouldn’t be easy. But the decision was made. Time to face the past.
“Sam!”
The voice calling his name was familiar. His sister, Kristi, headed right for him, walking in long brisk strides. She wore an electric blue parka and ski pants tucked into black boots trimmed with black fur at the tops. Her big blue eyes were flashing—and not in welcome. But hell, he told himself, he hadn’t been expecting a parade, had he?
“Hi, Kristi.”
“Hi?” She walked right up to him, tilted her head back and met his gaze with narrowed eyes. “That’s the best you’ve got? ‘Hi, Kristi’? After two years?”
He met her anger with cool acceptance. Sam had known what he would face when he came home and there was no time like the present to jump in and get some of it over with. “What would you like me to say?”
She snorted. “It’s a little late to be asking me what I want, isn’t it? If you cared, you would have asked before you left in the first place.”
Hard to argue that point. And his sister’s expression told him it would be pointless to try even if he could. Remembering the way Kristi had once looked up to him and Jack, Sam realized it wasn’t easy to accept that her hero worship phase was over. Of course, he’d pushed that phase over a cliff himself.
But this wasn’t why he’d come home. He wasn’t going to rehash old decisions. He’d done what he had to do back then, just as he was doing today.
“Back then, I would have told you not to go,” Kristi was saying and as she stared up at him, Sam saw a film of tears cover her eyes. She blinked quickly, though, as if determined to keep those tears at bay—for which he was grateful. “You left us. Just walked away. Like none of us mattered to you anymore...”
He blew out a breath, dropped his duffel bag and shoved both hands through his hair. “Of course you mattered. All of you did. Do.”
“Easy to say, isn’t it, Sam?”
Would it do any good to explain that he had thought about calling home all the time?
No, he told himself. Because he hadn’t called. Hadn’t been in touch at all—except for a couple of postcards letting them know where he happened to be at the time—until his mother had found a way to track him down in Switzerland last week.
He still wasn’t sure how she’d found him. But Connie Wyatt was a force to be reckoned with when she had a goal in mind. Probably, she had called every hotel in the city until she’d tracked him down.
“Look, I’m not getting into this with you. Not right now anyway. Not until I’ve seen Dad.” He paused, then asked, “How is he?”
A flicker of fear darted across her eyes, then was swept away in a fresh surge of anger. “Alive. And the doctor says he’s going to be fine. It’s just sad that all it took to get you to come home was Dad having a heart attack.”
This was going great.
Then it seemed her fury drained away as her voice dropped and her gaze shifted from him to the mountain. “It was scary. Mom was a rock, like always, but it was scary. Hearing that it was a warning made it a little better but now it feels like...”
Her words trailed off, but Sam could have finished that sentence for her. A warning simply meant that the family was now watching Bob as if he were a live grenade, waiting to see if he’d explode. Probably driving his father nuts.
“Anyway,” she said, her voice snapping back to knifelike sharpness. “If you’re expecting a big welcome, you’re in for a disappointment. We’re too busy to care.”
“That’s fine by me,” he said, though damned if it didn’t bother him to have his little sister be so dismissive. “I’m not here looking for forgiveness.”
“Why are you here, then?”
He looked into his sister’s eyes. “Because this is where I’m needed.”
“You were needed two years ago, too,” she said, and he heard the hurt in her voice this time.
“Kristi...”
She shook her head, plastered a hard smile on her face and said, “I’ve got a lesson in a few minutes. I’ll talk to you later. If you’re still here.”
With that, she turned and left, headed for one of the bunny runs where inexperienced skiers got their first introduction to the sport. Kristi had been one of the instructors here since she was fourteen. All of the Wyatt kids had grown up on skis, and teaching newbies had been part of the family business.
When she disappeared into the crowd, Sam turned for the main lodge. Well, he’d known when he decided to come home that it wasn’t going to be easy. But then, nothing in the past two years had been easy, had it?
Head down, strides long, he walked toward home a lot slower than he had left it.
* * *
The lodge was as he remembered it.
When he left, the renovations had been almost finished, and now the place looked as though the changes had settled in and claimed their place. The front windows were wider; there were dozens of leather club chairs gathered in conversational groups and huddled in front of the stone hearth where a fire burned brightly.
It might be cold outside, with the wind and snow, but here in the lodge, there was warmth and welcome. He wondered if any of that would extend to him.
He waved to Patrick Hennessey, manning the reception desk, then skirted past the stairs and around the corner to the private elevator to the third floor. Sam took a breath, flipped open the numerical code box and punched in the four numbers he knew so well, half expecting the family to have changed the code after he left. They hadn’t, though, and the door shushed open for him to step inside.
They’d installed the elevator a few years ago when they added the third story. This way, none of their guests accidentally gained access to the family’s space and the Wyatt’s kept their privacy. The short ride ended, the door swished open and Sam was suddenly standing in the family room.
He had time for one brief glance around the familiar surroundings. Framed family photos hung on the cream-colored walls alongside professional shots of the mountain in winter and springtime. Gleaming tables held handcrafted lamps and the low wood table set between twin burgundy leather sofas displayed a selection of magazines and books. Windows framed a wide view of the resort and a river-stone hearth on one wall boasted a fire that crackled and leaped with heat and light.
But it was the two people in the room who caught and held his attention. His mother was curled up in her favorite, floral upholstered chair, an open book on her lap. And his father, Sam saw with a sigh of relief, was sitting in his oversize leather club chair, his booted feet resting on a matching hassock. The flat-screen TV hanging over the fireplace was turned to an old Western movie.
On the long flight from Switzerland and during the time spent traveling from the airport to the lodge, all Sam had been able to think about was his father having a heart attack. Sure, he’d been told that Bob Wyatt was all right and had been released from the hospital. But he hadn’t really allowed himself to believe it until now.
Seeing the big man where he belonged, looking as rugged and larger than life as usual, eased that last, cold knot in the pit of Sam’s stomach.
“Sam!” Connie Wyatt tossed her book onto a side table, jumped to her feet and raced across the room to him. She threaded her arms around him and held on tightly, as if preventing him from vanishing again. “Sam, you’re here.” She tipped her head back to smile up at him. “It’s so good to see you.”
He smiled back at her and realized how much he’d missed her and the rest of the family. For two years, Sam had been a gypsy, traveling from one country to another, chasing the next experience. He’d lived out of the duffel bag he still held tightly and hadn’t looked any further ahead than the next airport or train connection.
He’d done some skiing of course. Sam didn’t compete professionally anymore, but he couldn’t go too long without hitting the slopes. Skiing was in his blood, even when he spent most of his time building his business. Designing ski runs at some of the top resort destinations in the world. The skiwear company he and Jack had begun was thriving as well, and between those two businesses, he’d managed to keep busy enough to not do much thinking.
Now he was here, meeting his father’s studying gaze over the top of his mother’s head. It was both surreal and right.
With a deliberate move, he dropped the duffel bag, then wrapped both arms around his much-shorter mother and gave her a hard hug. “Hi, Mom.”