by Becki Willis
He had noticed a few more gray strands of late, weaving their way through his dark-auburn hair. Maddy claimed they made him look dignified. Megan teased him about going bald, but his thick shock of hair was as full as ever, even dusted with gray. Just shy of forty-three, Brash wanted to believe he was still in his prime.
When Megan saw him, she gave him a sharp once over and, eventually, a thumb’s up. “Looking sharp, Dad. What’s the occasion?”
“Dinner with Maddy’s parents. Are you ready?”
The teen looked down at her stylish but ripped jeans. A cute top and her favorite Sticker Pierce cowboy boots, personally autographed by the legend himself, completed her ensemble. “I may not look it next to you, but I’m ready.”
“You look beautiful, as always,” her father assured her. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed all those boys hanging around you these days. I keep beating them off with a stick, but one day, one of them is bound to get through and ask you out on a date.”
“Da-ad!” Behind her large-framed glasses—red, for the holidays—the teenager rolled her eyes.
“Can’t help it, Meg. I’m not ready for my little girl to be such a gorgeous young woman.”
“You can’t hold back the hands of time, you know.”
“I can try.” He brushed a kiss into her hair as he opened the truck door and helped her inside. “And remember, a gentleman should always open the door for a lady. If a boy doesn’t offer to open your door, don’t bother getting in his car.” He paused and amended his statement. “Come to think of it, you don’t need to be getting into a boy’s car yet, anyway. Ask to ride a bike.”
“Cool! A motorcycle?” Her eyes danced with merriment.
“No! A bicycle. Better yet, a tricycle.”
Megan rolled her eyes again as Brash closed her door and came around to get into the driver’s seat.
“At least these are Bethani’s cool grandparents, and not the stuck-up ones,” Megan remarked as he started the motor. “I don’t look forward to meeting that set.”
Secretly, Brash agreed. He, too, dreaded the day he had to meet Charles and Annette Reynolds. From everything Maddy had told him about her former in-laws, he already had a dismal opinion of them. He doubted they would ever approve of him, not when he was competing with their sainted son. It would be tough enough, gaining Bethani’s approval to marry her mother.
That worry occupied his thoughts as he drove the rest of the way to the Big House.
***
After dinner, Brash managed to get Charlie alone for a talk.
“I know you don’t know me very well, sir, and I know Madison is a grown woman, but I believe in doing things the traditional way. I’d like to ask for your blessing to propose to your daughter.”
Charlie’s blue eyes twinkled as he studied the younger man.
It was true, he didn’t know him well, but everyone knew who Brash deCordova was. He was one of The Sisters’ golden sons. Star athlete and honor student back in the day, professional football player and coach in his first career, now honorable police chief and special investigator for the county. From a father’s point of view, he was the man who put the sparkle back into his daughter’s eyes, perhaps brighter than ever before.
That didn’t mean Charlie Cessna would make it easy for him, however. Normally a confident man, Brash looked particularly vulnerable at the moment. Charlie couldn’t help but tease the lawman.
“And if I don’t give you permission?” Charlie asked.
Brash’s deep voice was steady, yet firm. “With all due respect, sir, I didn’t ask for permission. I asked for your blessing.”
Charlie threw back his blond head and laughed. “I’m just messing with you. You have both! Welcome to the family, son!” he boomed in delight.
Brash couldn’t help but frown. “I plan to surprise her at Christmas, so I’d appreciate you keeping your voice down.”
Charlie looked dutifully chastised. He tiptoed across the room and jovially slapped Brash on the back. In a loud whisper, he repeated, “Welcome to the family, my son! You are the best thing that’s ever happened to my little girl, besides those two kids of hers.”
“I appreciate that, sir. I plan to do everything in my power to always make her happy.”
“I think this calls for a beer, don’t you? Sit down, take a load off, and relax. You look like you could use a cold one ‘bout now.”
Brash wouldn’t argue. He had been more nervous than he thought he would be.
And this was the easy one, he reminded himself.
When Charlie returned with two frosty longnecks, Brash drank half the bottle and made small talk, before working the conversation around to Tom Haskell.
“Yep, I’ve known Tom on and off through the years. I first met him when we were out in Colorado, dealing for casinos. He had hooked up with a gal from here and brought her out to work the faro tables. Allie and I were out there, working blackjack and roulette. They needed a place to stay, so we put them up for a few weeks, until they could find their own place. Years later, we had a brief stint together in the trucking industry. Last time I saw him, he was running books out in Vegas with a new woman by his side.”
“What woman was he with from here?” Brash asked.
Charlie squinted his eyes as he tried to recall her name. “I think her name was Mary.” He took another long swallow of his beer. “She made a play for me one evening, and I tossed her out on her ear. I’ve done a lot of things over the years, some I’m not too proud of. Folks have called me a lot of different things, too, some that I deserved, some that I didn’t. But one thing they have to call me is faithful. It’s the true measure of a man, son.” He leveled Brash a long look. “If a man can’t be faithful to his wife, he’s no man at all.”
“I agree completely. That’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about with me, sir. My first marriage ended in divorce, but it ended in honor. I never betrayed my vows.”
In reply, Charlie tipped his bottle to Brash.
Life lesson over, Charlie continued down memory lane. “Yep, ole Tom always had a thing for gambling,” he said. “I hear after Vegas, he branched out on his own. Ran a big operation back here in Texas. Heard it landed him in Huntsville for a nickel.”
“Should have been fifteen, but he got out early. Good behavior, they called it, even though the prison bars never held him back. Far as I know, he’s still in business.”
“Allie is too innocent for her own good,” Charlie said with a frown. “She sees the good in everyone. Lucky for me, but not always good for her own safety. She can’t see a rotten apple in a barrel, even when they’re stinking up the whole bunch.”
“This Mary gal you mentioned. You remember her last name?”
“Something common, I think. Allie might remember, but as far as I was concerned, she was forgettable, even before that night.”
The women came in from the kitchen, their sleeves damp from doing dishes.
“I kept telling Mom I had a dishwasher—two, in fact—but she insisted on doing the dishes by hand,” Madison laughed.
“You have no idea what a luxury it is, being able to use all that hot, sudsy water. After some of the places we’ve lived, doing dishes by hand here is a real treat.”
“Who would like dessert?” Madison asked. “The Cookie Campaign starts in about ten minutes, but we have time for dessert. Genny left a buttermilk pie.”
“Too bad she and that hunk of a boyfriend of hers couldn’t be here tonight,” Allie said. She was quite open about the harmless little crush she had on Cutter.
“They were having their Fire Department Christmas Party tonight. Dad? Brash? Pie?”
“A double piece, honey,” her father said. “With a big scoop of Bluebell Homemade Vanilla. We can’t get that in Africa, you know.”
“Brash?”
“Uh, I promised Megan I’d take her for a snow cone. They opened for the holidays, you know. Frosty Ice Palace, they’re calling it. I thought the twins might want to go
along.”
“Hey, that sounds good. I might join you.”
“Don’t you need to be here to pass out cookies?”
For once, Charlie was attuned to someone else’s plight. He saw the nervous glint in Brash’s eye and suspected the cause. “Yeah, honey, stay here with your mom and I and help us out. You saw me out there last night. I didn’t know when to shut it off. I need you to keep me on track.”
With a bit of a scowl, Madison agreed. “Well, okay, I guess.”
“I’ll bring you back a surprise,” Brash promised. He brushed a kiss across her lips and was out of the room before she could utter a comeback.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Frosty Ice trailer sat under a canopy of Christmas lights and was surrounded by huge illuminated snowflakes. Christmas music blared from speakers set among a collection of inflatable snowmen. Picnic tables were covered in white to imitate recent snowfall.
If not for the warm temperatures, the atmosphere might have been more convincing.
Brash chose a table as far from the other patrons as possible.
“There’s Tabitha and Penny Jo,” Megan said, waving at her friends. “Can we invite them over?”
“Not just yet. I want to talk to you three for a minute.”
“Uh-oh,” Megan said, rolling her eyes in jest. “I got the rundown earlier. Blake, it is always polite to open the door for a girl. Beth, never get into a guy’s car unless he opens your door for you. The exception is if he drives a souped-up motorcycle.” Her eyes twinkled as she teased her father.
“Excellent points, but that’s not what this is about,” Brash said. He toyed with the crushed ice in his cup. “I wanted to talk to you guys about Christmas.”
“It will be here in five days,” Blake observed smartly.
“Yeah, I heard.” Brash dug his plastic spoon into the ice, watching as red syrup pooled into the hole. His heart bled much the same. This was tougher than he imagined. “The thing is, I, uh, I have a special gift I want to give Maddy. And I want to make sure all of you are okay with it.”
Megan’s eyes glowed as she bounced up and down on the bench in excitement. “It’s a ring, isn’t it?” she guessed. “You’re going to propose to their mom!”
Brash glanced first at Blake, then at his twin sister. “I want to. If I have your blessing.”
“Are you kidding me? Of course it’s okay with us!” Blake answered, his face aglow.
As he and Megan exchanged high fives, Brash noticed that Bethani remained silent. His heart froze in his chest. “Beth?” he managed to ask.
The teen didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“This is so cool, Beth!” Megan insisted. “We’ll be sisters!”
“Maybe,” she mumbled, shrugging one shoulder.
“I love your mother, Bethani,” Brash said, his voice now strong and sure. “And I love you and Blake. I want the five of us to be a family. Megan, you, Blake, your mom, and me.”
“You didn’t stay married the first time,” Bethani pointed out.
Brash made no apologies. “You’re right, I didn’t. Megan and I have talked about this. Her mother and I loved each other, but not in the way a husband and wife should have. We were all wrong for each other, and too young to realize it. If we had stayed married, we would have ended up hating one another. Everyone, including Megan, would have been miserable. As it is, Shannon is married to my best friend, and she’s now one of my closest friends, too. And I will always have a special place in my heart for her. Together, she and I made an amazing daughter.” He smiled indulgently at a misty-eyed Megan before continuing, “Just like your mom will always have a special place in her heart for your father, because he gave her you and Blake. But that’s the cool thing about love. There’s always room for more.”
“How do you know you won’t find room for someone else? Someone instead of my mom?”
“Because I love your mom in a way I’ve never loved anyone else, not even Shannon.”
Bethani looked at her best friend, accusation in her eyes. “How can you let him talk about your mom that way?” she challenged.
“He’s not talking bad about my mom, Beth,” Megan pointed out in a soft voice. “He’s talking pretty wonderful about yours.”
Bethani’s lower lip trembled. “But you’re being disloyal to your mother!”
“No, I’m not. I was still little when they broke up, but I remember the fights. They weren’t happy back then. Now they are. And you aren’t being disloyal to your dad,” she said perceptively, “by giving your blessing to make your mom happy again.”
“It—It feels like it,” Bethani whispered, fighting back tears.
Brash broke in with a firm but gentle voice. “Your dad is gone, Bethani. I’m sorry about that, but it’s the way it is. But I’m here, and I want to make a life with your mom. I’ll be good to her, and I’ll be good to you and Blake. I’ll take care of you the best way I know how, the same way I take care of Megan. I want us to be a family.”
Blake already knew his position. “I’m in. I haven’t seen Mom this happy in a long time. If it’s up to me, we’ll marry you.”
“Thank you, Blake. That means the world to me.” Brash clasped Blake’s hand and held on. After a moment of bonding, he turned back toward the boy’s twin sister. “Bethani? Will you have me?”
Sniffing away tears, she bumped her shoulder into her dark-haired friend. “I always did want a sister,” she admitted. She slowly lifted her eyes to Brash’s. “You can ask her. If she says it’s okay, I guess it’s okay with me, too.”
A weight lifted from Brash’s heart and he let out a boyish whoop. “I gotta admit, you had me sweating there for a minute, young lady,” he said. His stern attitude was a poor cover for his nervousness.
“Yeah, I should have made you sweat it out,” she decided with a calculated look in her eyes. “I could have held out for a pony.”
“You want a pony? I’ll give you a ranch full of them!”
Her eyes lit with intrigue. “That’s right; you do have a ranch, don’t you? With horses and cows and oil wells!”
“Well, it belongs to the entire deCordova family, but yeah, we do have a ranch. You’ll be a part of it now.”
“Wait. We don’t have to move, do we? Because we just moved into the Big House.”
“No, doofus, he’ll move in with us,” Blake chided his sister. “Right, Mr. de?”
Brash laughed. “I don’t know yet. I haven’t gotten that far. First, I have to ask your mom to marry me.”
“You know she’ll say yes.”
“Ooh, do I get my own room at the Big House?” Megan wanted to know.
“You could have the other turret!” Bethani volunteered. At the moment, the turret on the far end from hers served as a hangout lounge for their friends. With Blake’s room on the second floor, she had the third floor to herself.
As the girls made plans to makeover the room, Blake had other things on his mind. “Does this mean I can go fishing out at the ranch whenever I want? Can I have my own horse? Hey, maybe I could show a steer at the 4-H show this year!”
Brash’s laughter rang out in the night air. His heart was full. He had worried for nothing.
Things were going to work out after all.
***
Back at the Big House, a steady stream of cars filed by to view the twinkling Christmas lights and listen to a recorded message. The luckier ones stopped for a bag of cookies.
“Okay, now remember, I want to surprise her,” Brash cautioned the teenagers before they piled from the truck. “No hints.”
“Do happy smiles count?” Megan wanted to know.
“Nah, she’ll just think you’re full of Christmas cheer. Why don’t y’all go relieve your elders and take a turn at handing out cookies?” he suggested.
“You just want to hug on our mom,” Blake teased. “Smooch a little.”
“That, too,” Brash admitted.
Bethani put hands over both her ears. “TMI. I’m glad
y’all’s bedroom will be on a different floor than mine.”
“Mine, too,” Megan giggled. “Come on, let’s go hand out cookies. I see Connor Evans in line!”
Brash parked the truck and watched as the girls raced into the house, giggling and laughing the whole way.
Madison noticed as well and asked about it later, when she and Brash settled in the front parlor with a glass of wine. With the room darkened, they could watch the festivities out on the lawn and enjoy the twinkle of the tree lights. It wasn’t complete privacy, but it was enough to snuggle on the small settee in the shadows.
“I don’t know what was in those snow cones, but the kids certainly came back in high spirits.”
“I’m not sure,” Brash frowned, “but I may have promised Bethani a pony for Christmas.”
“A pony?” Madison hooted.
“Long story. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”
“How about now?”
“How about we use these few moments of privacy and talk about something else?” he suggested, taking her wine glass from her and setting it on the table.
“How about we don’t talk at all?”
“Even better,” he murmured, lowering his mouth to hers. Gathering her close, he kissed her long and deep. “I love you, Madison.”
“I love you, too. Did I tell you how handsome you look tonight?” She lifted her face to whisper in his ear. “And very sexy, I might add.”
“You could wear a feed sack, and still be the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen.”
One kiss led to another, each one deeper and hungrier than the last. “You have no idea how hard it is,” Brash muttered against the long, slender column of her throat, “trying to remain a gentleman, when I want you so badly.”