10 Ways to Steal Your Lover (10 page)

 
      
No, he probably didn’t. Kane wasn’t the
kind who disappointed anyone. Ever. He always knew what he wanted to be or do
and he went out and did it, with little fanfare or concern. That was how he’d
handled taking over his grandparents’ ranch, shifting it from its focus on
boarding to training. The risk had been huge, but he hadn’t faltered once. He
was still developing his business, growing his clientele, but he was afloat.
That was part of what attracted her to him. Stability seemed to follow him like
a shadow but it ran for the hills whenever she took a step from the set path.

 
      
“When I was a kid, my Mom was just like
all the other moms. Fun and nutty—I mean, hello, she was raised by Rainbow—but
the more advanced his rank, the more obsessed she became with making everything
perfect all the time. I think she had it in her head that she might screw up
somehow and cost him an advancement. Or I could. We had to have the right hair,
the right clothes, the right impression. I always loved school so my grades
weren’t an issue, but any time I wanted to do something that wasn’t perfectly
inside the lines, they both freaked. Most of the time, I backed down because it
just wasn’t worth the fuss, but every now and then…”

 
      
“Every now and then, you followed your
heart.” Kane’s thumb stroked the skin on the back of her hand, gently urging
her closer. She swayed, drawn to him despite all the logic that told her she
shouldn’t be. Logic made no sense between her and Kane. What had happened in
the shower earlier should have proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.

 
      
Her body warmed as she nodded,
remembering the shocking bliss of making love to him there. Not because her
body couldn’t stop, but because she’d chosen to.

 
      
Chosen him. She glanced at him now, her
heart constricting. Because he chose her.

 
      
She leaned her head on his shoulder as
they walked, relaxing against him for just a few moments longer.

 
      
“Following your heart isn’t a crime. Even
if it was, imagine how unhappy, how wrong, your life would be if you didn’t do
it sometimes.”

 
      
She could imagine very easily. Too
easily.

 
      
“My grandparents were married for
sixty-eight years, did I ever tell you that?”

 
      
She nodded, though it had been years
since he’d brought up the couple that had raised him in any way but a fast
reference. She’d never felt it was her place to draw him out either. The most
she knew about them was what she’d gleaned from the trip she and Craig had made
to the ranch for Kane’s grandmother’s funeral.

 
      
Beautiful land, peaceful and well cared
for, with hills and mountains in every direction. The sunsets were what she
thought about most. With the sky a curving blend of golds and purples and
blues, the peaks and valleys an inky black reaching up to the unfurling stars
twinkling above.

 
      
Kane had been virtually silent for the
entire three days they’d visited, but he’d taken her hand at the funeral when
she’d offered it, only letting go to give the eulogy in his rough, almost
broken sounding voice.

 
      
“She always liked to tease him that they
would never have gotten together if he hadn’t run away with her.”

 
      
“Run away?”

 
      
“According to him, he borrowed her.” The
affection in his tone told her how many times he’d heard that word correction.
“When they first met, she wouldn’t give him the time of day. She had plans to
go to college—which was pretty progressive still in 1939. She wanted to get a
business degree and he was a horse rancher who had no interest in seeing more
of the world or changing it in any way other than raising and training good
stock, but he was stuck on her no matter how she put him off. He wrote her
letters when she went to school, though she said she didn’t want him to, she
never returned a single one. For two years, that’s how it went. Him writing,
her pretending she didn’t care.”

 
      
“What happened to change things?” Delilah
asked, twining their fingers together.

 
      
“Pearl Harbor. My grandfather loved the
land, but he felt enlisting was the right thing to do. When he wrote to tell my
grandmother, she left school and came all the way back home to tell him he was
out of his fool mind.”

 
      
“Her words?”

 
      
“Definitely hers.” Kane chuckled. “Gramps
decided when she showed up, that was all the sign he needed. He threw her over
his shoulder and took off with her into the mountains. He didn’t bring her back
until she agreed to marry him.”

 
      
“You know, these days, that’s called
stalking and kidnapping.”

 
      
“But back in ’41, it was romantic.” That finally
got a smile back on his face. Her relief at seeing it said a little more than
she could handle, but she decided to ignore that for now. She’d hurt him with
what she said, no matter that she’d hurt herself as well.

 
      
“Did he still enlist?”

 
      
Kane nodded. “Came home at the end of his
tour with a Silver Star and a bullet in his shoulder that stayed there ‘til the
day he died.” Kane lifted his left hand, showing her the broad gold band. “He
wore this 'til the day he died, too. The two pieces of metal he said he thanked
God for every day. The bullet saved his life and brought him home, but the
ring… His ring was his life.”

 
      
“He must have really loved her.” It
didn’t need saying, but Delilah couldn’t hold the awe back.

 
      
“They had six kids, saw each other
through three of them dying, nearly lost everything a few times and almost died
a few times themselves in all those years, but never once did that love ever
waver. When he died, he left his ring for me. He wanted me to always remember
that love was the most important part of a man’s life. Not his mistakes, not
his successes. Just the simple fact that he was able to truly love someone enough
to share a lifetime with them. He wanted that for me. That’s why I've carried
their rings on a chain around my neck since she died. I wanted that for me
too.” He lifted the hand that held hers, turning it into the light so that the
stones on the rings caught the sun and shone with startling brilliance. Then he
lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them reverently. “I want it with you,
Delilah.”

 
      
Teardrops fell from the edges of her eyes
before she even realized they were filing. “How? How do you know you want me?
What have I ever done that would make you so sure?” She was never sure about
anything, no matter how much she wanted to be. The doubts and the worries that
she was screwing up always plagued her, keeping her from settling on anything.
Not even a major for her unending list of college courses. Her father loved to
point out most people were lawyers and doctors after the amount of time she’d
spent taking odd classes without ever coming close to settling on a goal.

 
      
“I’ve known since the first moment I saw
you and every day after has only made me surer. I see who you are, right down
to your soul. I know you’re the kind of woman who gives of herself, completely.
I know the promises you make mean more to you than the cost. I know that family
is the most important thing to you in the entire world. But most of all, I know
that you feel exactly the same thing I do—we belong together, Del. You’re the
piece of me that’s been missing all my life and I can tell just looking that
I’m the same for you.

 
      
“I never thought I’d have a chance with
you, all because Craig was lucky enough to find you first. I was going to let
you go, if he made you happy. If he was what you wanted. But he wasn’t and he
won’t. Right now, this is the only time I’ll ever have to show you that I’m the
man you need in your life. The man you want. So no matter what happens in that
building over there, I’m not giving up on you, Delilah Anne. I’m not giving up
until you’re mine.”

 
      
She had to shut him up or she was going
to fall to her knees right there on the cracked sidewalk and broken glass of
Richtor Street. So she did the only thing she could and kissed him.

 
      
It wasn’t soft or pretty or even
completely on target, but she knew her entire heart was in it. And when his
arms came around her, his lips seeking before taking control and completely
destroying all of the paltry defenses she had left, she could tell he knew it
too.

 
      
The inside of the Fantasy Wedding Chapel
erased the memory of the dingy exterior as soon as they passed through the cool
rush of air blowing from above the double doors. Stones, mostly polished, still
rough and bumpy, transported them from the hot city to an almost storybook
castle with a single step. Like some kind of medieval great hall, the foyer was
a giant open space, with gleaming dark wood reception bars and pews lining its
walls. Each piece seemed to be hewn out of single pieces of a giant tree.
Beautiful cabinetry housed modern computers, but they stayed mostly out of
sight. Oversize doors with intricate wrought iron trees hung open beneath a
wide arch, leading to three wide hallways.

 
      
Those hallways sparked something in
Kane’s mind, stopping him in his tracks. He recognized the deep red carpet
leading forward to another door with the black metal tree. In his mind, he saw
his own hand reaching for the door, pushing it open to reveal a circular
garden, the center of which held a large gazebo with twinkling lights twined
through it’s every surface.

 
      
“What’d I tell you, Vera? Didn’t I say they’d
be back?”

 
      
Kane turned, pulling Delilah behind him
at the booming voice coming from behind them.

 
      
The white-haired man smiling at them
wasn’t exactly threatening. Oh, he was a beast of a man, tall enough to require
even Kane to look slightly upward, but his danger was offset by the delighted
smile, red nose, bright blue eyes and a bely round enough to be eighteen months
pregnant.

 
      
Vera turned out to be a patient-looking
woman in her forties, closing the door they had obviously just exited. Unlike
the man, who wore simple brown polyester pants and a white shirt doing its best
to contain him, she wore a uniform blazer matching the hall carpet and her dark
hair was pulled back with gold clips on each side.

 
      
Very professional, her smile just the right
shade of approachable. Kane looked back at the man, who seemed to be waiting
for something, his big hands fisted at his...hips?

 
      
“He don’t have a clue who we are,” the
man said to Vera as if it were the funniest thing he’d heard in forever, his
rich laughter setting Kane’s ears ringing. He put his hand out, waiting for a
shake. “I’m the man that married you two.”

 
      
“We were married by Santa Claus?” Delilah
whispered just behind Kane’s ear as he put his hand out in acceptance.

 
      
“Well, mostly married, anyway,” the man
added, letting go of Kane’s hand not even noticing he’d practically punched
Kane in the chest with those words. “Name’s Norman Rouse, friendly neighborhood
JP.”

 
      
“How can you be mostly married?” Delilah
asked. Well, demanded, really, but she still sounded a lot less abrupt than
Kane would have been if he could have coughed out the question.

 
      
“Oh, you know, the legal part has a few
kinks in it, nothing that can’t be fixed in a jiff. My specialty is marrying
the heart and soul, not that you two needed any help in that department. My
daughter Vera here takes care of the legal junk, so you two are gonna owe her
one for messing with her perfect record. Actually, she handles the business
junk too, to be honest.” Norman laughed again. “She’s the one turning this
place around, bit by bit. Anyhow, when you two wandered off, Vera figured you
were just another pair of drunk tourists who didn’t have a clue what you’d
done, but I told her, you two would be back, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

 
      
Kane glanced at Vera, whose cheeks had
turned a darker tinge of pink but she was holding onto that professional smile
with every tooth she had. “How’d you know?”