First Time, Forever, page 10
“Pardon? What time is it?” Kathleen took her head out from under the pillow. Mac sat on the edge of her bed, glowering at her. She closed her eyes, thinking not of Mac, but of a star-filled night and a kiss that had changed her whole world.
An ember of desire had been glowing within her. That kiss had fanned it.
Wildfire.
And she had asked for more. Her eminent departure from this town had made her into a woman she didn’t know. Bold. Brazen.
“It’s nine o’clock, Sunday morning. You never sleep in.” This was said accusingly.
“I had trouble falling asleep last night. I think it was after four before I finally dozed off.”
“Why?”
This also had traces of accusation in it. She wasn’t about to tell Mac why. Because the kiss had turned her world on end, and then Evan’s baffling rejection had left her feeling wounded and vulnerable. Despite her best efforts it seemed the distinctly upsetting part was going to happen anyway.
How could it? She was leaving. She made herself repeat it three times. Leaving, leaving, leaving.
“I drank hot chocolate. It has caffeine in it. That probably kept me awake.”
She had never lied to this boy, ever. Well, maybe once. When she had told him she had made that spaghetti just for him, and been nursing a hope, in the back of her heart, that company was coming. Company in cowboy boots and jeans.
Ridiculous. A woman her age nursing hopes.
Especially about Evan Atkins.
Sexy. Young. Sexy. Strong. Sexy. Gorgeous. Sexy.
Even the lawyer had seen how sexy he was.
“Auntie Kathy, what did you do?”
“We went out for dinner in Medicine Hat.”
“What did you eat?”
“I had Caesar salad with prawns.”
“You went out for dinner and had salad?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What did he have?
“A slab of Mr. Stinky. A bull he rode once.”
“Didn’t they have hamburgers on that menu?”
“It was a step up from McDonald’s.”
“Ha. There is no step up from McDonald’s. Do you think Evan would show me how to ride bulls?”
“I hope not!” She pulled her pillow back over her face, a hint that she wanted to be left alone.
“Did you kiss him?”
“Mac!” She peeked out from under the pillow, and said sternly, “I don’t see how that could be any of your business.”
“I’ll bet that means you did. Yuck. Did you go to the movie? I just noticed it’s playing in Medicine Hat. It’s called Six Minutes to Blast Off. Sylvester.”
“We didn’t make it.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll take Jesse and me.”
“Maybe he will, sometime. You know, Mac, I think I’m just going to laze around today. Stay in bed and read a book.”
“This book on your end table?” Mac picked it up and squinted at the title. “A Bride Worth Waiting For?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Ugh. My teacher says these kinds of books are trash.”
“That means your teacher has no respect for women. I’m glad we moved.”
“She was a woman!”
“That makes it even worse.”
“Is this book about kisses?”
“It’s about love and hope. It’s uplifting.”
“That’s all? It sounds kind of boring.”
“It’s true that not one person will be maimed or killed, and no one will save the world from terrorist threats, but when I’m done reading it, I’ll feel happy, and think the world is a nice place to be.”
“Oh.” Mac set the book down as if he had developed a new allergy. “I think I’ll go see if I can catch a snake.”
“What?”
“Just a garter snake, Auntie Kathy. They don’t bite or anything. Can I keep him in my room?”
“No.”
“I think that shows you have no respect for twelve-year-old males.”
“My apologies.”
“I’ll bet kissing is better in that book than it was for real,” Mac said, his parting shot.
She waited for the door to close behind him before she muttered, “I’ll bet it’s not.”
She closed her eyes and thought of muscles and all the other things women liked about men. Crooked smiles, smoldering eyes, lips that tasted like raindrops, low, deep voices, an ability to laugh. Sincerity. Humility. Honesty.
It seemed to her she knew quite a bit more about what women liked about men than she had a week ago, or a month ago, or a year ago, or a lifetime ago.
And she knew something else, but did not know how she knew.
She knew Evan Atkins was going to spend the whole day wondering if she’d meant it, when she said, I would. If I was asked properly. He was going to wonder that even though he had backed away from her kisses.
She wondered why.
She had seen the look in his eyes, after all.
She decided it might have been the garlic.
She was up, stumbling around in her housecoat, when a knock came on the back door. Evan looking fresh and young and like he’d slept beautifully.
“Come in,” she called through the screen.
He did. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Mac called me this morning.”
“Mac called you?”
“He asked me if I’d teach him to ride a bull.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said I was pretty sure you’d kill me if I said yes.”
“That’s correct.”
“Then he asked me if I’d take him and Jesse to that movie. The one you nixed last night.”
“That’s a long way to drive to take some kids to a movie.”
“You get used to driving.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” he asked innocently.
“Like you’ve never seen me before.”
“Well, ma’am, I’ve never seen you in your housecoat before.”
“A treat, I’m sure. Don’t call me ma’am.”
“Kathleen, are you grumpy in the morning, generally?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. How many cowboys does it take to make breakfast?”
“I don’t know.”
“One, if you slice him thin enough.”
“On that friendly note, I’m going to collect those boys and go.”
“Evan?”
He turned and looked at her.
“Thanks for last night. I’ll have dinner ready when you get back. Roast Stinky. No garlic.” Let him contemplate what that meant all day.
“No cowboys, either, I hope.”
“I promise.”
She spent a wonderful afternoon puttering in the garden and making dinner, not giving one thought to the fact she would never harvest that garden. Evan came in with the boys, who had liked the movie very much.
“How did you like it?”
Evan rolled his eyes.
They ate dinner together, laughing and talking, and then Mac unearthed an old foam football in his room and they headed out to play.
She was coerced into being on Mac’s team, and she ran and tackled and ran some more until she was nearly sobbing from exerting herself so much.
She lay down on the grass, and Jesse came and lay beside her, going to sleep.
Evan and Mac continued to run around, until the light faded. Mac declared he was going to have a shower, and Evan joined her on the grass.
“So what’s the proper way?” he asked, not looking at her, touching Jesse’s curls.
She knew instantly what he meant, and her mouth opened, but not a single sound came out.
“Like would it be with roses, and a ring, and down on one knee?”
“No,” she squeaked.
“No?”
“No.”
“It doesn’t make any sense, in some ways. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But in others. In terms of the boys it makes sense.”
“Very practical,” she agreed hollowly.
“And, of course, it would save you a long move.”
“Great.”
“I’m sure you’d find my place a full-time job.”
“Just what every girl dreams of. A full-time job.”
“I guess I’m not doing this very good.”
The silence stretched between them.
“Kathleen?”
“Yes, Evan?”
“Sometimes I’m so lonely I hurt. I don’t think I’m any kind of a prize, but I’m better than I used to be, and I hope to keep improving. I know in Vancouver you’re probably used to suave guys like Roger who make about a million bucks a year and could buy you fur coats and diamonds. Do you like fur coats?”
“Not particularly. I don’t need diamonds, either.”
“What I’m trying to say is that if you want to try this, I promise you I’ll care about you and respect you and look after you. I’ll treat Mac as if he was my own, and I’ll do my best to help you make him into a strong independent man you can be proud of.”
Silence.
“Kathleen?”
Silence.
“Are you crying?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re crying, or yes, you’ll marry me?”
Don’t say yes, she warned herself. She’d had her brief fling with adventure; she’d thrown her hat in with fate when she’d answered that ad.
And it occurred to her it had brought her right here. To this gorgeous man, who had no idea how good his own heart was, asking her to marry him.
How was that for an unexpected twist on life’s highway?
“Well? Yes, you’re crying or yes—”
Once you had been bold, it was nearly impossible to go backward. “Both.”
And he kissed the tears off her cheeks.
Chapter Seven
“Anyone could have seen Dee was all wrong for him,” Ma said, through a mouthful of pins. “Not the kind of girl a boy would take home to his mama. Of course, he didn’t have a mama. That was always the problem.”
Kathleen stared at herself in the mirror as Ma put another pin in the long white gown. For some reason it was in the store’s rather eclectic inventory, and for some reason, it fit Kathleen nearly perfectly. It seemed when there was a plan for you, everything fell into place.
Even so, she had tried to reject the dress when she had first seen it, even though her heart cried for it, even though she could not remember when anything had made her as wistful as the idea of wearing that dress.
“Oh,” Kathleen had said when Ma had hauled it out. “I don’t think that’s what we have in mind. We’ll probably just go to a justice of the peace somewhere and do it quickly and quietly.”
Still, she had reached out and touched the fabric.
“No, you won’t,” Ma had said sternly. “He run off last time. It don’t sit well with folks around here. They’ll be wanting to welcome you to the community.”
“You mean gawk at me. I feel like a mail-order bride. And Ma, I’m far too old for this dress.”
“I think you were a mail-order bride of sorts. I sent you the letter, thinking I knew why, but God knew the real reason. The dress is beautiful on you. Stop this nonsense about your age. Some women age with uncommon grace. I wasn’t one of them. Plump all my life, got worse as I got older. But not you.”
“Evan has that kind of pull with God?” Kathleen said, trying to joke about it. “I just arrived in Hopkins Gulch, Saskatchewan, because a young cowboy needed to get married?”
“Evan? Evan doesn’t need to get married. I think it’s time for you to have some happiness of your own.”
“Happiness,” Kathleen said, and felt that funny, sick twist to her stomach. “I haven’t thought anything through. We don’t know each other.”
“Kathleen, you are one of those rare people who thinks far too much. You could worry a banana out of its peel. Not even have to touch it, just worry on it. For once, you just acted. Maybe it’s a miracle, for Pete’s sake.”
“But—”
“I don’t want any ‘buts’ out of you. From the minute I saw that boy first look at you, I knew why you’d come here. To love him, plain and simple, and to allow someone to love you.”
“Mac loves me,” she wailed, “and he’s terribly upset.”
“Well, that’s your own fault for letting him run your life for so long. You’re not doing him any favors. That lad needs Evan nearly as much as Evan needs you. But Mac’s twelve. Do you expect him to know what’s good for him? He’d eat chocolate bars for breakfast if you let him. He’s not ready to make some decisions—especially your decisions.”
“Ma,” she whispered, looking at the beautiful stranger in the mirror, “I’m scared.”
The dress made everything seem even more like a fairy tale than it already did. The dress was high-collared, the collar and the entire fitted bodice beaded with tiny mock pearls. There were thirty-eight buttons up the back, making it hug her breasts, her tummy, her hips. Then it dipped in a V at the waist and the small of her back, and flared out in a decadent, ridiculous, wonderful waste of fabric.
Pure white…it was something a young woman full of romantic notions and innocence would wear. It was a dress made for a dream. A dress made for a princess.
Innocence, she had in embarrassing abundance, but romantic notions?
She thought of her husband-to-be, and she could feel her face heat up. All right. Maybe she had just a few romantic notions, too.
No wonder she was frightened. She repeated the sentiment, since Ma was busy tucking and pinning and didn’t seem to have heard her the first time.
“I’m scared.”
“Good! If you’re never scared you’re way too comfortable. Real life has some unpredictable moments. It’s waiting to give you some gifts. But every now and then you gotta do something that scares you right off your sofa.”
“I’m marrying Evan Atkins tomorrow,” Kathleen whispered. “Me. He’s too young for me, isn’t he?”
“Kathleen, you get that knot out of your forehead. It spoils the look of the dress entirely. Entirely. He’s not too young for you. That boy was born old. You’ll probably lighten him up some.”
“What do you mean, he was born old?”
“Darling, his mama died when he was just a tyke, and his papa asked him to be a man long before he was ready. He went through a wild stage—you probably would not believe how wild—but I knew he was just looking for what he never had. What he knew in his heart every person is supposed to have.”
“Love,” Kathleen guessed, tears in her eyes.
“You love that man, Kathleen, and you will see miracles happen. And if you let him love you back, your life will take on a richness and a hue you never believed possible. You let him be the man he needs to be. He’s an old-fashioned man. Lots of guys from around these parts are. He’ll want to protect and provide for you. It will be up to you to show him that love, these days, has progressed beyond that. It’s about you helping him to be who he was always meant to be, who he really is in his heart and his soul. Personally I’ve always thought that was a knight of lightness.”
Kathleen gazed down at the little woman at her feet and felt as if she was in the presence of great wisdom. It did feel, for an insane moment, as if reality tilted, and that maybe fate or God had brought her here.
She remembered looking at those stars, awestruck, and feeling them answer her humble question.
Is there a plan for me?
But what if this wasn’t it?
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “how much love has to do with any of this, Ma.”
“Worry line!” Ma reprimanded her. “Stand still. Two more pins. What do you mean by that?”
“He hasn’t. I haven’t. Said it. You know.”
“Good grief. A word is just a word. It represents the thing, it isn’t the thing. I’ve seen young couples that say ‘I love you’ every time they draw a breath. I’m not always convinced.”
Kathleen forced herself to relax, watched the worry line fade from her forehead and practiced a tentative smile.
She stared at herself, astounded. She looked radiant.
Ma looked at her and smiled. “Now that convinces me.”
“Are you going to faint?” Sookie Peters asked him.
Evan glared at him, but it was true, he could feel the blood leaving his face, pooling somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. “It’s too hot out here,” he said, tugging at the stiff white collar that was too tight around his neck.
It was a lie, of course. They were in the shade of the biggest tree in the churchyard. The truth was he was scared out of his mind.
Him, Evan Atkins, who had ridden a bull called Mr. Stinky without his pulse even changing, was so scared he could hardly breathe. Him, Evan Atkins, who had driven cars faster than they were meant to be driven, who had jumped from the peak of a barn roof on a dare, who had challenged his nerves at every available opportunity and walked away laughing, was terrified.
Not that he was about to make a mistake, but that he was unworthy of this woman who had said yes to him. That he didn’t have any of the tools to make this thing work. Other people grew up in families. They had some idea how to do it, what the rules were. But for him this was strange country he was venturing into. Like a pioneer setting out in a covered wagon, having no idea what challenges and terrors lay ahead.
He hadn’t even told her he loved her.
He felt as if he hadn’t known her long enough to say that.
A very good reason not to be making that long walk to the altar in—he consulted his watch—three minutes.
“Sit down,” Sookie suggested.
He did, on the grass, heedless of the suit. The suit was not his idea. Black, short jacket, string tie. At least they’d let him have a cowboy hat.
Word had gone through this town like wildfire that he and Kathleen were getting married. She’d told Ma Watson.
Evan, in his need to be a man worthy of her, had dropped by Sookie’s and apologized for that day he’d threatened him for driving by Kathleen’s house. Somehow, he’d had trouble keeping all his good feelings to himself, and ended up confiding in Sookie he was going to marry her. A mistake.
