Lilac Wedding in Dry Creek

At those words, Cat’s world flipped over. At first she thought he wasn’t going to meet her eyes, but then he looked at her squarely and she saw the tumult of emotions in them. For a wild moment, she wondered if maybe she and Jake had a chance to go back in time and be together again.

“I wouldn’t try to push myself into your lives. I promise,” he said after a moment. “I just—well, if you were closer I wouldn’t worry about the two of you so much.”

“Oh.” Cat felt all of her wild imaginings fall back to earth with a thud. She had somehow forgotten how responsible Jake felt for everything and everyone. Of course, he would want to do his duty by her and Lara. She just knew that love was a far cry from duty, and she had searched for love her whole life.

She needed to remember she had come here for Lara. Her own feelings didn’t matter.

She looked down at her daughter. Cat needed to be strong for her.

Dear Reader,

It’s spring again and, if you’re like me, that signals a time for new hope. Something stirs in each of us when we see new green shoots of grass or plants come to life after a hard winter. On the family farm where I grew up in Montana, my mother had lilac bushes and, if my sisters and I left our bedroom window open at night, we went to sleep with the fragrance of the bushes all around us. Maybe that’s why spring, in my mind, always smells like lilacs.

I’m sure you have similar memories and I hope this book will remind you that new beginnings are still possible—whether it’s in a relationship or some other place that is broken in your life. Remember all things are possible with God’s help.

If you have a minute, I’d love to hear from you. Just contact me through my website at www.janettronstad.com. In the meantime, God bless you and keep you.

Sincerely,

Lilac Wedding

in Dry Creek

Janet Tronstad

www.millsandboon.co.uk

If thou canst believe,

all things are possible to him that believeth.

—Mark 9:23

This book is dedicated to my friend, David White,

with love and affection.

Chapter One

Distant thunder rumbled as Jake Stone lifted his duffel bag onto his shoulder, closed his door and started walking down the hall toward the lobby of the Starling Hotel. It was a rainy day in March and he didn’t look forward to the long drive north to Dry Creek, Montana—especially because once he got there his older brother would start pressing him even harder to move back to the ranch, settle down and get married.

Jake refused to marry some poor woman just to stop his brother from nagging him to death. The Stone boys had bad history when it came to family life, even if his brother chose to ignore it. As for moving back to Dry Creek, Jake had decided years ago that this nondescript hotel near the Las Vegas airport was home enough for him.

He entered the lobby and glanced over to where the owner of the place stood behind the counter.

“Well, don’t you look fine?” Gray stubble showed on Max Holden’s weathered face, but his eyes were lively as he looked up. “Going home to Dry Creek for your brother’s wedding is doing you good already.”

Jake stopped and ran a finger around the collar of his new white shirt so he could breathe easier.

“Got some stamps?” He finished walking over to the counter, dropped his duffel bag to the floor and reached into the back pocket of his jeans, pulling out an envelope and handing it to the other man.

Jake didn’t like to talk about the wedding. His brother was wrong if he thought getting married would change who he was in the eyes of their small hometown. Not that Jake blamed anyone for how they felt about the Stone family. Everyone knew about the years of physical abuse out at their ranch. All of the family secrets had been laid bare when his father was murdered and his mother had gone to trial for doing the crime. People naturally had wondered if the sons were more like their father or their mother. Neither answer had been good back then.

Max took the long, white envelope from Jake and weighed it in his hand. “I figure two stamps should do it.” Then he glanced down at the writing on the front. “I hope this Cathy Barker appreciates all the letters you send. Who is she, anyway?”

So much time had passed since Jake heard someone speak the woman’s name that he hadn’t expected the jolt that went through him. Max had never questioned the envelopes before.

Secrets had destroyed Jake’s family as surely as his father’s alcoholism. If his mother had confided in their neighbors, then they might have understood what was happening. And she might not have served a ten-year prison term before anyone realized she was innocent and had only confessed to protect her teenage sons from facing suspicion.

“We used to call her Cat,” Jake began and forced himself to set forth the whole story. “I don’t know how she feels or even if she gets the letters. I put my return address on every one, but she never writes back.”

At that bit of information, Max’s jaw dropped along with the envelope.

“You mean to tell me, all these years you’ve been stuffing those letters with cash—and don’t think I don’t know what’s in there—then asking me to mail them like they were your last will and testament. And you don’t even know whether or not they’re getting through to her.”

Rain continued to pound against the windows as Jake tried to think of an answer that didn’t make him seem like a half wit. Nothing came to mind. It sounded foolish to admit that it eased his worries to send her money.

“You’re sure about sending this?” Max asked as he looked down at the envelope now resting on his counter. “What if you have another dry spell? You might not always be winning at the poker tables like you have been. And, there’s a lot of money in there.”

Jake glanced over his shoulder. The lobby was empty. But, through the main windows, he could see the figure of a woman walking down the street toward the motel, trying to hold a black umbrella open in front of her against the wind. As near as he could tell, it looked as if she was rolling a big suitcase behind her. He had only a few minutes before she got here.

Jake turned back to Max. He’d have to talk fast. “If I keep my expenses like they are now, I have enough money in the bank to last me a hundred and fifteen years. I don’t plan on living nearly that long, and Cat might need something today. She’s a friend from the youth home—you know, the place where they sent me and my youngest brother when they shipped my mother off to prison and my older brother joined the rodeo circuit. No one there will ever give me Cat’s address, but they always promise to forward the letters for me.”

Jake had never strung so many words together in his life and he was starting to regret it.

Max cleared his throat and nodded. “I know how it is. There are guys from Vietnam I’d send my last dollar to if they needed it. You go through something like that with someone, you never forget them.”

Jake nodded. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to bare his soul after all.

Then the door clicked open behind him and the wind blew cold air inside, making the back of his neck shiver. He didn’t turn to see who was there. The anxious frown on Max’s face was enough to scare the woman away without him adding to it. Thinking of Cat always unnerved him.

“Mommy?” The voice of a young girl sounded uncertain behind him.

He’d been mistaken in thinking it was a suitcase beside the woman, Jake realized. He was usually more observant, but the rain on the windows had made it difficult to see. Still, he didn’t turn around. He figured a woman with any sense would be shepherding her little one out of the Starling about now. One good look at the run-down hotel would be all it would take to give a mother with a young child second thoughts about staying there. The place had heart, but the color from the linoleum had faded away to nothing over the years. He should give Max some money to replace the linoleum with carpet. Jake had the money to give and Max had been good to him over the years.

“Can I help you?” Max finally asked as he looked past Jake. He must have expected the woman to be gone by now, too. “Our business is mostly by the month. There’s a nice family motel around the corner and down a block, though. It’s a little more expensive, but they’ve got a small pool. Ask for the spring special and they’ll treat you right.”

“I am looking for 3762 Morgan Street,” the woman said. “I think it must be a house or an apartment. I didn’t see any numbers outside your place and I wondered if you’d know how close I am.”

Jake lost all feeling in his body before she got to the street name. He knew that voice as well as he knew his own.

“You got a package or something?” Max asked, suddenly cautious.

“I’m looking for a man. Jake Stone. He lives there.”

Max gave a start and his bulging eyes went to Jake as if he was waiting for some signal as to what he should say to the woman.

Jake would have been happy to oblige, but something had happened in his brain and everything was going in slow motion. It sounded as though the woman’s words were coming from a great distance. He needed to sit down, but he couldn’t move. His boots kept him rooted to the place where he stood.

“My name’s Cat—I mean, Cathy Barker. If you know where I could find the address, I’d appreciate it very much if you’d point me in the right direction. I had planned to take a taxi from the airport, but none of them had a child’s safety seat so I just left our luggage in the claim section and we started to walk. They said it wasn’t far when they told me how to find the street.”

Max’s face turned a little purple at her flow of words.

“You’re …” He started to sputter and then stopped. Finally, he pointed. “That’s him. This is the address right here.”

Everything was silent for a moment.

“Jake?”

The hesitation in the woman’s voice brought Jake to his senses. He didn’t want to stand with his back to her like a fake statue, not when Cat might just be passing through and only wanted to say hello. He bluffed at the poker tables in one casino or another almost every night. He should be able to school his face into some semblance of normalcy and turn around and greet his old friend.

“Mommy, is that him?” the girl asked.

Jake felt his breath catch in his throat. He forced his lips to stretch into a smile as he turned around.

There she was. Cat. She hadn’t changed a bit, he thought, as she stared up at him, her green eyes growing large and her delicate face turning pale. Her chin still jutted out as if she expected a fight, but her golden-brown hair had been blown around enough to show she didn’t even have the strength to battle the wind on her own. And that was before the rain had plastered every strand of hair to the side of her head. He’d always protected her and he felt like doing it now.

“I …” Cat started to say something, but stopped.

“Mommy?” The small voice grew more incessant and worried. Jake glanced down and saw that the girl had a plastic, gold tiara clamped onto her damp blond hair. She wasn’t much taller than the stool behind Max’s counter and her pink cheeks made her look like a cherub in some old European painting. She had gold glitter sticking on her shoes, too, in spite of the rain. Jake was going to say something to soothe her, but then she reached for her mother’s hand.

He looked up in time to see Cat’s eyes start to close. If he hadn’t stepped over to catch her, she would have drifted all the way to the floor. As it was, she didn’t weigh more than a feather when he lifted her in his arms. He wanted to ask when the last time was that she’d eaten a decent meal. He hadn’t seen her for five years and she certainly hadn’t gained an ounce in all that time. He wondered what she had spent all of the money he mailed her on. It certainly hadn’t been food, not when she’d just fainted the way she had.

Jake caught the subtle scent of lilacs as he looked down. He’d presented Cat with a whole case of lilac soap for her eighteenth birthday.

“Mommy?” the girl said again, but this time the word had an edge to it, as though she was frightened.

Cat’s little girl stared up at him, expecting something.

“It’ll be all right,” he assured her. “Your mother just needs to eat something.”

He remembered Cat had fainted a time or two when she first came to the youth home. The nurse said it was because she hadn’t eaten then, too.

The child nodded. Her curls were starting to bounce, but her blue eyes still watched him closely. It seemed she didn’t quite trust him, even if she wasn’t withdrawing from him. She reached up to steady her tiara, not saying anything.

He stepped past the girl and carried Cat over to the sofa. He laid her down on the vinyl sofa, arranging her head so it rested on one sofa arm while her feet curved up on the other one. The upholstery creaked softly as it adjusted to her being there.

Cat had run away from the youth home the day after he gave her the lilac soap, taking every one of the bars with her. She must be almost twenty-three now. She was only a few months younger than him.

He reached for her face, hoping to bring her back. “Cat?”

Her skin was wet and cold from being outside, but he felt his fingers tingle where they touched her. He took his Stetson off and set it on the back of the sofa. Then he leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. It wasn’t proper, but he couldn’t help himself. This was Cat.

“Are you a prince?” Suddenly the girl was beside him. She sounded suspicious and she moved even closer, as though she wanted to be sure she could see everything he did.

Jake leaned back and looked over at her in surprise. “A what?”

He’d been called many things in his life, but never that.

The girl’s tiara was crooked by now, but she didn’t seem to notice. “In Sleeping Beauty, the prince kisses the princess and she wakes up.”

“I don’t think …”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’re not doing it right. Kiss her again so her eyes open.”

Jake looked back down at Cat. Her daughter had a point. The first kiss certainly hadn’t moved any mountains.

“On the lips,” the girl instructed him as he started toward her mother’s forehead. “It has to be on the lips for it to work. It says so in my book.”

Who was he to argue with an expert? Especially one who had a book to back her up.

Cat felt Jake’s lips brush hers, but she couldn’t rouse herself enough to respond. She’d had that dream so many times, and it never turned out to be real. Only, now her heart was racing and she felt the chill of the vinyl sofa under her and the gentleness of his hand when he caressed her cheek. Everything else was a kaleidoscope of colors, but maybe it wasn’t just her imagination this time. She’d taken her heart medication this morning, hadn’t she? She tried to remember and the moment started to come back. She’d flown from Minneapolis with her daughter, Lara, because time had become so important and the bus would have taken too long.

Had she heard Lara talking about a prince? The first thing Lara had packed in her suitcase was the book of fairy tales she’d received at Christmas. She loved those stories. It was the thought of her daughter that made Cat fight all the way back to awareness. Everything she did these days had to be about Lara.

Jake’s hand rested against her face. She hated to move because he might take his hand away. But she willed her eyes to open. She saw Jake frowning down on her, his black eyes almost setting off sparks, he was looking at her so intently. She blinked and he came into focus. Yes, he was even more handsome—and fierce—than she recalled.

No wonder Lara thought he was a prince. His thick black hair was styled back, longer than she remembered it. And far more sophisticated than it had been at the youth home. He’d spent some money on having it cut. His face had been thinner back then, too. Now it was filled out with all the muscles and power of a man in his prime. He still had what he called his “Cherokee nose,” inherited from his Native American grandfather. Jake wasn’t the lanky teenager who’d been her gallant defender in the home, but she would have recognized him anywhere. His eyes gave him away. No one looked at her like Jake did. He saw inside of her.

She wondered for the first time if she would have come here even without Lara. She was suddenly glad to see him just in case the heart surgery didn’t go well. He’d been the best friend she’d ever had and she wanted to remember his face forever.

“Could I have something to drink?” she whispered.

Then she closed her eyes. She didn’t fear the possibility of death, but she did fear what would happen to Lara without her. Before she left Minneapolis, she’d had a conversation with the chaplain at the hospital where she hoped to have her surgery. The man had led her back to the God she’d known briefly as a young girl.

Her faith helped her accept what was happening. Her heart was defective and had been since she was born. It’s just that now it was critical that something be done. The doctors wanted to do surgery right away, even though she might not survive it. Finally, she told them all that everything would need to wait until she got her daughter settled.

She opened her eyes and saw a new face looking down at her. The older man from the counter was now standing next to Jake.

“I have coffee right here,” he said as he handed a cup to Jake. “I can get her something stronger than coffee if I need to. But it’s supposed to wake people up so I figure …”

Cat wasn’t used to strangers worrying about her and she wanted to tell the older man that she appreciated his concern, but it was too much effort.

“Just water,” she managed to say. She should take one of the heart pills the doctor had given her, if she could find a way to take it without alarming either of the men. She wasn’t ready to tell Jake everything yet. Let him get to know Lara a little first. She had to believe that, if he spent enough time with her daughter, he would be willing to take care of her if needed. She had no one else to ask and she couldn’t let Lara go into the foster-care system. Jake would understand that.

“I’ll be right back.” The older man rushed away to get her what she needed.

Cat felt Lara’s hand on her arm and looked over to see that her daughter had squeezed in front of where Jake was kneeling. Everything about her was pale next to the blackness of his hair and the light brown color of his forehead, but they looked good together. As though they belonged. Cat put her own hand over her daughter’s.

“I’m fine, pumpkin.” The words were hard to form, but she kept working at it. “I just need to catch my breath.”

Lara smiled, her blue eyes dancing in quiet delight.

“He kissed you,” she whispered, a little too loud to be private. “I saw everything, and then you woke up. Just like in Sleeping Beauty.”

“Ahhh,” Cat murmured as she reached out and touched her daughter’s cheek. “Maybe it’s not quite the same. Sleeping Beauty is a story.”

She had no strength to continue. They’d already had this discussion, anyway. Lara insisted on believing her fairy tales were real no matter what Cat said.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Jake suddenly said as he reached toward his pocket—probably for a cell phone. “In case this isn’t just hunger.”

He was looking at her with a dozen questions in his eyes. None of which she wanted to answer.

“I’ll be fine,” Cat repeated, this time looking away from her daughter and facing him squarely. She willed him to believe her.

“You can be fine in an ambulance, too,” he said as he held his cell phone and started to dial.

She shook her head. Then she reached out a hand and motioned for him to move over slightly and draw closer so she could whisper and only he would hear. “I just need to rest a minute. And I don’t want to scare Lara.”

She didn’t need a doctor to tell her what she already knew.

“She’s not worried,” Jake murmured, and then his lips actually curved up slightly. “She thinks I’m her private prince, here to do her bidding, anyway. Like some genie in a bottle.”

Cat smiled. She put her hand on his shoulder and felt the dampness of his shirt. “I got you all wet.”

She could also feel the warmth of his skin through the shirt.

“It’s okay.”

She noticed then that his face was damp, too. She must have flung rain drops everywhere. Odd that his hair was dry. His eyes were searching hers. He always did take his responsibilities to heart. Poor Jake. She wondered if he’d rescued any more damsels in distress after she’d left the home. She had meant to spare him that.

He leaned down farther until he was almost near enough to kiss her again. Her mouth felt suddenly dry and she wished so many things were different in her life. She hadn’t been a particularly good damsel for him to rescue years ago, but now she was hopeless. She had far too many problems for any white knight to solve. And this one deserved better.

Just then the other man came back with a bottle of water, and Jake pulled away.

“I have a refrigerator in the storeroom so I can keep things cold,” the man said, not seeming to notice the tension in the air. “I have a microwave, too, if you’d rather have hot water.”

“Maybe later,” she said. “I have some crackers in my purse and I could …”

She saw Jake scowl and start to rise.

“Cold water is perfect now, though.” Cat braced her arms so she could push herself up into a sitting position on the couch. Then she reached for the water. “That’s just what I need.”

“What you need is a big steak and a baked potato,” Jake muttered. By now he was standing and glowering down at her. “When did you eat last? And I don’t mean crackers.”

She had forgotten how it was with Jake. He liked to rescue damsels, but he was opinionated as he did it. She didn’t have energy to challenge him now, though. “I had something on the airplane coming out here.”

“Pretzels, I suppose. They’re not any better.”

Cat leaned her head back and took a drink. At least Jake believed it was hunger that had made her faint. That would satisfy him for a while. Give her time to think. She hadn’t quite expected the surge of tenderness that struck her when he was so close. She hoped it wouldn’t make it more difficult to ask him what she needed to when the time came.

“You’re here on a stopover then?” He hesitated. For a moment he looked vulnerable. “How long do you have?”

“As much time as you have to spare.”

The tension left his eyes. “Well, when you finish with that water, I’m going to see about getting you something to eat, then. I’m surprised that wind didn’t blow you away out there.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble.” Even as she said it, she knew it was too late for her to be anything but that. She just hoped she didn’t disrupt his life too much.

“What does Lara like to eat?” he asked, turning to leave but not yet stepping away.

“She eats almost anything except peas.” Cat was glad the conversation wasn’t about her anymore.