Simmer All Night (42 page)

They topped the rise and Cole gazed down upon the bucolic picture of English countryside. Sheep dotted the rolling hillside like cotton puffs and fluffy clouds dappled an amazingly sunny sky. Birds soared and swooped, their songs a source of music on the gentle breeze. A small church sat nestled among a grove of oaks and in the distance, Cole could see the slate roofs of the village.

Jake was already halfway down the hill headed for the church. Cole wasn't too surprised by the apparent destination. After all, it was Sunday morning and the household at Hartsworth often attended services at the church rather than the manor's chapel.

When Jake disappeared around the front of the church, Welby motioned to Cole. "Follow him, if you would. I'll be along in a minute. I believe I have a stone in my shoe."

Cole shrugged, then walked the rest of the distance toward the church. Rounding a corner, he glanced toward the front steps and stopped dead still. "Christina?"

"Hello, Cole."

She stood on the front church steps dressed all in white, and could have been an angel but for the fire glistening in her hair. She looked healthy again and so beautiful she stole his breath.

He cleared his throat. "New Chili Queen clothes, Christina?"

"Mama made them." She twirled in a slow spin that sent the gauzy white skirt swirling about her ankles and the sleeve of the snowy peasant blouse slipping off one shoulder. "Do you like it?"

"You're exquisite."

She dipped into a curtsy that caused her blouse to gape and offered him a glimpse of her breasts. He damned near chewed his tongue. Searching desperately for a distraction, he said, "I went by your room earlier. You weren't there."

"I may have been out walking. I have some things I need to say to you, and I wanted to get the words just right."

"Oh." Cole blew out a breath. Well, he'd been wanting to settle their situation. Why, then, now that the moment had arrived, was his stomach tied in enough knots to moor a sailing ship? What if she rejected his offer of marriage? Would he be able to let her go?

Hell, no. He wasn't letting her go. He didn't care what she said or how long it took. Chrissy Delaney was going to marry him.

She smiled at him and said, "First I want to thank you for standing up for me to my mother. You made us both think about what has been wrong between us and how we might fix it."

A thank you. Well, damn. So much for hoping for a declaration of everlasting love.

"Second," she said, lacing her fingers together. "I want to apologize for doubting you. I allowed my fears to rule my heart, and as a result I treated you in a way you didn't deserve. When Wilcox put me in that tomb and told me I would die, I trusted you to find me, to save my life. I realized then how foolish I had been. If I trusted you with my life, I should certainly trust you with my heart."

"I didn't lie about loving you, Chrissy."

"I know. You are an honorable man, Cole Morgan. I know that you are true to your word. It was wrong of me to question it."

Cole found himself relaxing. Maybe this wouldn't be a fight after all.

She tucked a stray curl back behind her ear and said, "Third, I want to tell you that I love you, now and for always."

He exhaled a breath in a whoosh. "Thank God, Lady Bug. You had me worried there. I—"

"Hush. I'm not through yet."

"Oh, all right."

"Lastly..." she paused, grimaced, drew a deep breath, and started to sing,

There's a Yellow Rose of Texas,

That I am going to see

No other fellow knows her

No other, only me.

She cried so when I left her

It like to break my heart

And if I ever find her

We never more will part.

Before the last note died, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a walnut-sized, apricot-colored habenero pepper. As she brought it to her lips, Cole recalled her claim:
I'll sing "The Yellow Rose of Texas" while eating a habenero pepper
in
front of the church on Sunday morning before I'd marry you, Cole Morgan.

His mouth was just starting to lift into a grin when he remembered the pain one of those peppers had given him the night she'd been crowned Queen of the Chili Queens. "Chrissy, no!"

"I'm good for my word, too, Cole Morgan." Then she popped the pepper into her mouth. Immediately, her eyes began to water and she gasped for breath. Little squeaking sounds of pain emerged from her throat.

At that point, the church doors flew open, and Michael and Sophie Kleberg came bounding down the steps. He held a pitcher and a goblet, she a basket of rolls. "Here's your water, Miss Chrissy," the boy said, filling the glass.

Water sloshed over the goblet's sides as Sophie added, "We put a little holy water in there, too. We figured it's the perfect thing to douse the hellfire of that pepper. Here's Mama's bread. Do you need more than one roll?"

As Chrissy drank thirstily, then took a bite of bread, her brother walked up and withdrew three folded pieces of paper from his coat pocket. "Here, you'll need these. I wasn't sure which one was right, so I brought 'em all. As soon as Chrissy catches her breath, we can get started. Everyone is waiting inside."

The marriage licenses. Cole gazed at his teary-eyed bride and chuckled. "Aren't you just full of surprises, my Lady Bug."

"Will you marry me, Cole Morgan?" she croaked.

He grinned and cocked an eyebrow. Enjoying the moment, he twisted his lips into a thoughtful frown, and scratched behind his ear. "Hmm..." he said finally when he spied impatience glowing through the tears in her eyes. "Will I marry you? Well, Christina, does the Queen of the Chili Queens put hot peppers in her Texas Red?"

Yes was the obvious answer.

The bloom of her brilliant smile made him ache to hold her. Taking her hand, he yanked her against him and took her mouth in a deep, thorough kiss.

It took a minute for his lips to start burning, but when he began to wonder if they'd actually caught fire, he released her and grabbed the water from Michael. He emptied the pitcher in a series of gulps while Christina laughed in a raspy voice. "What's the matter, Morgan? My kiss too hot for you?"

He took her arm, and led her up the steps toward the church's front doors. There, he paused, and waited for the others to enter the sanctuary and take their seats. When he and Christina were alone, he finally answered her question. "Honey, let's just say I hope it's a very short service because I can't wait to get going on the honeymoon. You not only scorched my mouth with that kiss..."—he glanced meaningfully down at his pants—"...you put a jalapeno in my pocket, too."

Mischief kindled in her eyes as she stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss against his cheek. "Don't worry, Morgan. If it gets too hot, I'll blow on it."

The End

Page Forward for more by Geralyn Dawson

Excerpt from

Sizzle All Day

Bad Luck Abroad

Book Two

by

Geralyn Dawson

© 2000, 2011 by Geralyn Dawson Williams

Chapter 1

Scottish Highlands, 1884

Jake Delaney was a man on the run.

From his mother.

"It's embarrassing," he told the small dog sharing the saddle with him. "I'm thirty-four years old. I'm my own man. I've driven cattle from Austin to Wichita. I've fought a gun battle with bandits in the West Texas badlands and won a knife fight with card cheats in a San Antonio whorehouse. I took my first drink when I was ten, loved my first woman at fourteen, and bought my first property at eighteen. I truly believed I had my share of sand."

The dog snorted.

So did Jake. Sand, hell. He'd taken one look at that matchmaking light in his mother's eyes and had run for the hills. The hills of Scotland, that is.

The dog gazed up at him with liquid brown eyes, her long ears flopping in cadence to the horse's gait. She'd been a good, if unexpected, companion on this trip north. Jake liked females who listened well and didn't wear out a man's ears with talk of hair styles and fabrics and fashion.

That's all he'd been hearing of late. He'd spent the past few months escorting his mother around London. Elizabeth Delaney had returned to England after more than twenty years in Texas, thrown herself into the welcoming arms of a blue-blood society, and decided her son needed to follow suit. Literally.

"A bit of wenching is fine, don't get me wrong," he told the dachshund he'd christened Scooter. "But I'm not about to marry one of those simpering English misses. If I did want a wife—which I don't—I'd want a female with some pepper in her. I like heat in my women."

And in the weather, too, he silently added as the dog whined and burrowed her way inside his coat. Here it was the middle of summer, but the day was cold as a dead snake in an ice house. Think of how miserable he'd feel had he made the trip during the winter months. That's when he'd first learned that the missing copy of the Republic of Texas's Declaration of Independence was likely hidden in a castle in the Scottish Highlands, and he'd been elected to go get it.

Jake believed it to be a worthy quest. When the state capitol burned four years ago, Texas's lone copy of the historically significant document was lost to the fire. Recently, research by the Historical Preservation Society in San Antonio confirmed that in 1836, five copies of the Declaration had been penned and sent by courier across Texas in order to inform citizens of the official creation of a new republic. What, then, had happened to the four unaccounted-for copies? The Society had made it their objective to find out. They would locate the lost Declarations and bring them home to the people of Texas.

Jake became involved because at that time, his mother had been an officer in the organization.

Originally, Cole Morgan—Jake's brother-in-every-way-but-blood—had been charged with the task of retrieving the copy rumor had placed in England. Cole's search proved to be quite an adventure, netting him in the end one wife—Jake's sister Chrissy—but no Declaration, only a lead about where to look for it next. Supposedly, a lost copy of the Republic of Texas's Declaration of Independence could be found in the Scottish Highlands, in a place called Rowanclere Castle.