A Bravo Homecoming (13 page)

Aleta smiled. A
real
smile. “Perfect.”

Sam hung her head and made a low sound of pure misery. “You say that now, but wait until you talk to her. She will drive you insane. And it’s not like you even need her help.”

“But, honey,
she
needs to help, to be involved. You can see that, can’t you?”

Sam grunted. Even if it was unfeminine. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

“And it’s great. Because this way she and I will get to know each other a little. And she’ll be a part of the wedding. And she’ll feel better about everything.”

“You make it sound so…simple and clear.”

“But it’s not—not to you, and probably not to your mom. I understand that. My mother is gone now. But she and I…we had our issues, believe me. It’s the first love, between a mother and her child. Sometimes it’s a very painful love.”

“Oh, Aleta. She said that I hate her. I
don’t.
”

“I know. You told me. That first day you and Travis arrived at the ranch, remember?”

“I just… I never really thought that she even cared. But I guess she did.”

Aleta touched Sam’s hair, a light, fond touch—there and then gone. “That’s important. For you to know that.”

“So why doesn’t it make me feel any better? I just feel…confused.” And about a lot more than just her mother, if the truth were told.

“Big changes are stressful. Even good changes. It will be fine. You’ll see.”

Sam took Aleta’s soft, beautifully manicured hand. “Thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“You are more than welcome. And you are not to worry. Your mom and I will get together and talk and she’ll choose the things she wants to do. Maybe the dinner menu—or any of the wedding weekend meals. There will be several. We haven’t firmed those up yet. What does she enjoy doing?”

“Um, knitting. Sewing. Scrapbooking. Baking. She loves to make those novelty cakes. Cakes shaped like guitars, a bunch of cupcakes arranged to look like a bear or a giraffe or a giant flower….” She’d made Sam an oil derrick birthday cake once, with chocolate syrup for crude oil. That had been the weekend when the twins snickered every time she got near them.

Aleta squeezed her shoulder. “See? There are lots of possibilities for her to choose from. This is wonderful.”

“Oh, Aleta. You say that now….”

“I say it because it’s true. She loves you and she wants to help and that’s what matters.”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”

Aleta picked up the plate of cookies. “Now have a cookie and let me have your mother’s number. I’ll give her a call.”

Aleta really was a wonder. She got Sam’s mom working on some special surprise. Evidently, her mom was pleased with whatever it was she had in the works. She called Sam later that night and said what a sweet woman Aleta was and how she and Walt and the twins were really looking forward to their Texas visit, to meeting Travis and his family and being there for Samantha’s special day.

Disaster averted, thanks to Aleta.

Friday, Aleta came out to the ranch and they discussed the wedding dinner.

After two hours of talking about menus and place cards and centerpieces, Sam crossed her eyes and pretended to fall against the couch cushions in a dead faint. “Any more wedding talk and I swear it will be the end of me.”

Aleta laughed. “Well, that’s fine because we’re good to go. I have what I need from you and you don’t have to hear the word
wedding
for at least the next week.”

“Hah. Can I get that in writing?”

Aleta sent her sly glance. “Well, there may be an occasional
mention
of flowers or table arrangements…”

“See? I knew you didn’t really mean it.” Sam sat up straight. “But if we are pretty much on top of things, I was planning to take a few days at my place in San Diego before I meet Travis in Houston….”

“Well, then, go.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m adamant. Go.”

The next morning, Sam flew to San Diego International.

She was at her beach condo by noon—well, okay, her
near
-the-beach condo. From her living room window, if she squinted, it was just possible to see a tiny slice of the blue Pacific between a pair of luxury high-rises.

The beach wasn’t far away, however. She could get there on foot from her front door. That afternoon she walked barefoot along the shore for over two hours. Then she went back to the condo and started packing. Travis called at seven. They talked until ten.

The next day, she walked for three hours and had the rest of her packing done by dark. She poured a glass of wine and went out onto her tiny balcony—and wished she was in Houston, with Travis at the town house.

She’d had some vague idea that being at her place, on her own, by the beach, would clear away the wispy, wimpy feelings, make her more like herself again.

But it didn’t. Not really. Being alone only made her ache all the harder for Travis, made her feel itchy and uncomfortable in her own skin.

When he called an hour later, she told him she would be there, with him, the next day.

He met her at the airport, by the baggage carousel. She ran to his arms and kissed him until she felt like her lips might fall off. It was a serious get-a-room kiss. And when they finally stepped apart, both gasping for air, he grabbed her suitcase in one hand and her arm in the other and hustled her out to where he had a limo waiting.

They went straight to his place, where they fell into bed together and didn’t get up until dinnertime.

The next day was Tuesday. He went off for his last day at STOI. His town house was stacked with boxes. He’d been working hard, getting himself packed for the move to San Antonio.

She spent the day filling more boxes with his things. And she spent the night in his arms.

They flew back to San Antonio the next day and headed for the ranch, where they would be staying until they got their own place. Thursday, they started looking for a house—which they found on Friday. They made an offer that afternoon.

By Monday, after a couple of counteroffers, they signed the contract. They would be moving in the first week in January.

When they left the Realtor’s office, Travis kissed her and headed off to BravoCorp for his first day in the family business. Sam watched him walk away from her and wished she had a job to go to.

She went back to the ranch and got on the internet and signed up for three online accounting classes that would start in the second week of January. That should keep her busy—or it would when January finally rolled around.

Getting that edgy-under-the-skin feeling, she wrapped the presents she’d bought on Black Friday. Once the wrapping was done, she carried all the ones for the Bravos down to put under the giant tree that Mercy and Aleta had put up in the living room. On one of the lower branches, she also hung the Betty Boop ornament she’d bought that day in Fredericksburg.

Mercy gave her some priority-mail boxes and she put the presents that had to be mailed in those, and addressed them. Most were for her mom and her mom’s family. There was also one for Ted and one for Keisha. She sent that to the P.O. box they kept in Tucson. And finally, there were the suspenders for Jonathan. She slipped a note in the box, inviting him to the wedding.

No, she didn’t really expect him to come. But still. It seemed only right that he should be there if he could make it.

Mercy, a large animal vet, was going through nearby Kerrville on her way to treat some farmer’s sick goat. She took Sam’s packages to mail.

After Mercy left, Sam put on jeans and some old work boots she’d brought back from her condo and went out to the stables. Once she convinced Luke that she really wanted to pitch in, he put her to work mucking out stalls. Just like old times, back on the ranch in South Dakota. She broke a nail in the process.

Jonathan would not have approved.

For the rest of the week, she spent a few hours in the stables every day. Luke seemed happy to have her help and she got along with the hands just fine. It was better—
she
was better—when she kept busy.

That last week before the wedding, which seemed to drag by in some respects, was gone in an instant.

Her dad and Keisha arrived Thursday evening. They rolled up in the Winnebago at a little before dinnertime. She’d been watching for them and ran out to greet them.

Her dad emerged, wearing Wranglers, rawhide boots, a straw cowboy hat and a plaid Western shirt, his belly hanging over his belt buckle, his laugh booming out. “There’s my baby girl…”

“Dad!” She ran to him. Still laughing, he enfolded her in his beefy arms. He smelled of the cheap cigarettes he wouldn’t stop smoking and his laughter seemed to shake the world.

When he stopped squeezing the breath out of her, he took her arms and held her away from him. “Will you look at you?” He let out a long, piercing wolf whistle. “Hotter’n a firecracker. It’s a whole new Sam.”

She smiled up at him. “Dad, glad you could make it.”

Travis was right behind her. “Ted, how you been?”

Her dad reached for Travis’s hand. “Been messin’ with my baby, have you? Didn’t I warn you about that?”

Travis laughed. He’d always liked her dad and had never been the least put off by the loud laugh and booming voice—let alone the towering size. “What can I say? Guilty. And really, really happy about it.”

“Well, as long as you’re marryin’ her, I guess I’ll have to let you live.”

Sam caught sight of Keisha then. Her dad’s girlfriend was just stepping down from the motor home. As usual, she had her red hair in tight cornrows. She wore a long, baggy dress with a bulky gray sweater that looked like she’d stolen it from some absentminded professor, suede elbow patches and all.

Keisha smiled wide, showing the cute gap between her two front teeth. “Sam! Hey! Wow! Look at you! You are lookin’
good!
” Somehow, everything Keisha said sounded like it had an exclamation point after it. She was the most enthusiastic person Sam had ever known.

“Hey, Keisha. Thanks. It’s good to see you.” Even with the baggy dress and sweater, Sam could see that Keisha’s belly was bigger than Ted’s. She went and gave Keisha a hug, felt the bulge of the younger woman’s stomach pressing into hers.

Yep. Definitely. Her dad’s girlfriend was pregnant.

Her dad was laughing again. “Surprise! You’re getting a little brother or sister, baby girl. Me and Keisha are expecting the first week in March.”

“I
know
he’s brought fireworks,” Sam said between clenched teeth later that night, when she and Travis were alone.

Travis sat next to her on the bed checking his investments on his laptop. “You know your dad. One of a kind.”

She elbowed him in the ribs. Hard. “When he sets them off in the middle of the night and then burns down the stables sneaking a smoke, you won’t be so thrilled with his rugged individualism—and what was he thinking? He’s almost sixty. He smokes too much. They live in a frickin’ motor home. And, true, Keisha’s about the nicest, happiest person on the planet, but she’s never seemed much like the motherly type.”

“She’s a good woman. She’ll manage. And maybe they’re planning on settling down.”

“Yeah. Right. When porcupines get Visa cards.”

Travis laughed and put his laptop on the night table. Then he hauled her close and kissed her until she almost forgot that her dad and his girlfriend would soon be giving her another half sibling young enough to be her own child.

When he lifted his mouth from hers, she gained several IQ points and remembered all the things that were bothering her. “And tomorrow, my mother and
her
family are coming.”

He took both her wrists and pinned them to the bed beside her head. “It’s terrific that they’re coming.”

“The twins will be following me from room to room, snickering behind their hands.”

“No, they won’t.”

“Yes, they will. Secretly, they’ve always believed I was really a man.”

“But I’ll be there. To attest to your womanhood with a wide, happy and very satisfied grin on my face.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Sam. Relax, will you? You’re way too tense about everything.”

“I am. It’s true. I’m a nervous wreck. Me. Sam Jaworski. Who could arm wrestle half the roughnecks on the
Deepwater Venture
and win two out of three. What’s happening to me?”

He bent close, nipped her earlobe. “You’re getting married.”

“Yeah. Whoever thought
that
would happen? Not my family, that’s for sure.”

He grazed her chin with his teeth. “Let me take your mind off your problems….” He kissed her breast right through her silk shirt and lacy bra.

She moaned and tried to pull free of his grip. “Let go of my wrists, will you?”

“Not until you promise you won’t say another word all night about your dad or your mom or anyone in your family.” He kissed her other breast.

For a long time.

Finally, sighing, she whispered, “My family? What family?”

“That’s the spirit.”

But he still didn’t let go of her wrists. Not for several minutes. Not until she was enthusiastically begging him for more.

The Carlsons arrived at ten-thirty the next morning.

At her first sight of the new Sam, Dina said, “Huh? Puh-lease. No way.”

Mila didn’t say anything that Sam could hear. But she did whisper something behind her hand.

Their mother burst into tears. “Oh, Samantha. You’re beautiful. Oh, Samantha. I never knew….”

Walt, looking slightly befuddled as always behind the heavy black frames of his glasses, said, “Ahem, well. Samantha. What a nice surprise.” Sam wasn’t sure if he meant the changes in her—or that she’d finally found someone willing to marry her.

Sam introduced them to Travis. He said how happy he was to meet them at last. He actually seemed to mean it. He shook Walt’s hand, kissed her mother on the cheek and gave each of the Terrible Twins a warm and welcoming smile. Really, he was a prince in the truest sense of the word.