Tempted by the Texan
“I—I have...something...I need to tell you,” she said, sniffing back more tears.
“I’m all ears, darlin’,” he said, feeling happier than he’d ever felt in his entire life. “You can tell me anything.”
“I took a pregnancy test this morning,” she said, causing him to catch his breath.
“And?”
Reaching into her pocket, she handed him a white plastic stick with purple trim on it. The message on the tiny screen had his heart pumping double-time.
Completely dumbfounded, he couldn’t have strung words together if his life depended on it.
“We’re going to have a baby,” Mariah said, looking as if she was unsure how he would take the news.
“I love you, Mariah, and I couldn’t be happier.” Kissing her until they both gasped for breath, he grinned. “In the past few minutes, you’ve given me everything I never thought I would have.”
They held each other for some time before she asked, “When do you want to get married?”
“Is this afternoon too soon?” he teased.
“That would be nice, but there’s a waiting period, and I doubt they would waive that just because you’re impatient,” she said, laughing.
“I’m good with whatever you want, darlin’,” he said, meaning it. “You plan it and I’ll see that it happens.”
“Why don’t we go home, and after you make love to me, we’ll start planning our wedding?” she whispered in his ear.
It felt as though molten lava flowed through his veins at her suggestion. “I like the way you think.”
She gave him a smile that lit the darkest corners of his soul. “Then, take me home, cowboy.”
* * *
Two weeks later, as Jaron stood in front of the fireplace in Sam and Bria’s living room, he checked his watch. His sisters-in-law had insisted that it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding and Mariah had spent the night upstairs in the room where he’d proposed. It seemed like an eternity since he’d held her, and he vowed right then and there that for as long as he lived, he’d never spend another night away from her.
“Getting cold feet, bro?” Nate asked as they faced the rest of the family.
“Not at all.” Jaron grinned. “I’m just looking forward to getting the honeymoon started.”
His brother nodded. “I felt the same way when Jessie and I got married. Did you ever think when we were raising hell out on the rodeo circuit that we’d be happy settling down with one woman and having a bunch of little kids?”
“No, I can’t say that I did,” Jaron answered.
When the beginning notes of “Here Comes the Bride” came from the house audio system, Jaron fixed his gaze on the door that led out into the foyer and waited for Sam to escort the woman of his dreams across the room to join him in front of the pastor. In just a few short minutes, he and Mariah would be husband and wife, and as far as he was concerned it couldn’t happen soon enough.
As Bria walked through the doorway and across the room to stand on the other side of the fireplace, he barely noticed. His eyes were trained on Mariah in her long white wedding gown as Sam walked her toward him. She looked absolutely gorgeous, and he swallowed hard at the thought that a woman so beautiful would fall in love with a dust-covered cowboy like himself.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked, taking her hand from Sam.
“I’ve been waiting all my life for you,” she said, smiling.
“And I’ve been waiting just as long for you,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Let’s make this official.”
* * *
An hour later, as Jaron stood at the bar with his brothers having a drink to toast his and Mariah’s marriage, his gaze kept drifting to his new wife. She owned him heart, body and soul, and he couldn’t have been happier about it.
“Well, now that I’ve won the pool for when Jaron and Mariah would get married and we’ve all joined the club of the blissfully hitched, what are we going to bet on next?” Ryder asked.
“How many kids we’re all going to have?” T.J. asked, grinning.
Lane shook his head. “We wouldn’t know the outcome of that for years.”
“Mariah and I were talking the other day about the Last Chance Ranch and what a difference it made in all of our lives,” Jaron said, watching her and the other women laughing at something one of the kids had done. “What do you think about giving other kids the same chance we had?”