The Taming of the Bachelor (26 page)
Read The Taming of the Bachelor Online
Authors: Jane Porter
T
hat summer on August 8
th
Marietta celebrated a double Sheenan wedding, with Troy and Taylor inviting Dillon and Paige to share their big day.
It was the perfect solution of how to handle planning a wedding, while selling a house and moving two kids to a different state to get them enrolled in their new schools in time for the new school year.
With a little juggling St. James was able to host both ceremonies at the same time, and then the entire huge wedding party and all the friends and family headed to the dinner dance reception taking place in the Graff’s ballroom.
Carol Bingley had a field day gossiping about the double Sheenan wedding, telling everyone who would listen that the reason Paige and Dillon were rushing into marriage was because Paige was expecting. It wasn’t true, but Carol’s gossip just made Paige and Dillon try that much harder to make a baby.
And in one more intriguing twist that summer, Paige’s house sold over the 4
th
of July weekend after an anonymous buyer agreed to pay the full asking price,
in cash
, and closing within forty-eight hours of the holiday weekend.
She counter-offered, saying the deal could close within forty-eight hours but she’d need thirty days to pack and move. Her counter-offer was accepted, giving her until August 4
th
to pack and be out of the house, which was perfect timing with the wedding.
It wasn’t until the paperwork was executed that she learned the buyer was none other than Troy Sheenan, who’d bought the house for his future wife, and had put the title of the tall narrow Victorian in Taylor’s name, giving his bride-to-be a piece of Marietta history for a wedding present.
The wedding on August 8
th
went off without a hitch. The weather was perfect. The kids were perfect that day, too.
But life wasn’t perfect, and Paige knew it wouldn’t always be smooth sailing in Texas. There would be bumps and mistakes and hurt feelings along the way, but she was ready for this move to Texas, and excited about this new chapter with Dillon.
Thank goodness she was thirty-eight, and had lived enough to know that true love wasn’t flowers and fancy gifts, but kindness, patience, and showing up with a sense of humor, and a grateful heart, every day.
It also helped to have some faith.
Please see the next page for an excerpt from Book 1 in the Taming of the Sheenans series:
Christmas at Copper Mountain
“Y
ou okay, Miss Diekerhoff?”
Turning quickly, potato skins still dripping, Harley blinked back tears as she spotted Brock Sheenan standing by the fireplace, warming his hands.
Brock was a big man. He was tall–six one or two—with broad shoulders, a wide muscular chest, and shaggy black hair.
Harley’s late husband, David, was Portuguese and darkly handsome, but David was always groomed and polished while the Montana rancher seemed disinclined to comb his hair, or bother with a morning shave.
The truth was, Brock Sheenan looked like a pirate, and never more so than now, with tiny snow flakes clinging to his wild hair and shadowed jaw.
“I’m fine,” she said breathlessly, embarrassed. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“The faucet was on.” He rubbed his hands together, the skin red and raw. “You’re not....crying...are you?”
She heard the uncomfortable note in his voice and cringed a little. “No,” she said quickly, straightening and squaring her shoulders as she dumped the potato peels into the garbage. “Everything’s wonderful.”
“So you’re not crying?”
“No,” she repeated crisply, drying her hands. “Just peeling potatoes for dinner.”
Her gaze swept his big frame, seeing the powdered snow still clinging to the hem of his wrangler jeans peeking beneath his leather chaps and white glitter dusting his black brows. His supple leather chaps weren’t for show. It was frigid outside and he’d spent the week in the saddle driving the last herds of cattle from the back country to the valley down below so the cows could take shelter beneath trees. “Can I get you something?”
“You don’t happen to have any coffee left from this morning that you could heat up?”
“I can make a fresh pot,” she said, grabbing the glass carafe to fill it with water. “Want regular or decaf?”
He glanced at the clock mounted on the wall above the door and then out the window where the snow flurries were thickening, making it almost impossible to see the tall pine trees marking one corner of the yard. “Leaded,” he said. “Make it strong, too. It’s going to be a late night for me.”
She added the coffee grounds, and then hit the brew button. “You’re heading back out?”
“I’m going to ride back up as soon as I get something warm in me. Thought I’d take some of the breakfast coffee cake with me. If there was anything left.”
“There is.” She’d already wrapped the remaining slices in foil. He wasn’t one to linger over meals, and he didn’t like asking for snacks between meals, either. If he wanted something now, it meant he wouldn’t be back anytime soon. But it was already after four. It’d be dark within the hour. “It’s snowing hard.”
“I won’t be able to sleep tonight if I don’t do a last check. The boys said we’ve got them all but I keep thinking we’re missing one or two of the young ones. Have to be sure before I call it a night.”
Harley reached into a cupboard for one of the thermoses she sent with Brick on his early mornings. “What time will you want dinner?”
“Don’t know when I’ll be back. Could be fairly late, so just leave a plate in the oven for me. No need for you to stay up.” He bundled his big arms across his even bigger chest, a lock of thick black hair falling down over his forehead to shadow an equally dark eye.
There was nothing friendly or approachable about Brock when he stood like that. His wild black hair, square jaw, and dark piercing gaze that gave him a slightly threatening air, but Harley knew better. Men, even the most dangerous men, were still mortal. They had goals, dreams, needs. They tried, they failed. They made mistakes. Fatal mistakes.
“Any of the boys going with you?” she asked, trying to sound casual as she wrapped a generous wedge of cheddar cheese in foil, and a hunk of the summer sausage he liked, so he’d have something more substantial than coffee cake for his ride.
He shook his head, then dragged a large calloused hand through the glossy black strands in a half-hearted attempt to comb the tangled strands smooth. “No.”
She gave him a swift, troubled look.
He shrugged. “No point in putting the others in harm’s way.”
Her frown deepened. “What if you get into trouble?”
“I won’t.”
She arched her brows.
She ought to be intimidated by this shaggy beast of a man, but she wasn’t. She’d had a husband—a daring, risk taking husband of her own—and his lapse in judgment had cost them all. Dearly.
“It’s dangerous out there,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t go alone.”
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Find out what happens next!
Christmas at Copper Mountain
Book 1: Brock Sheenan’s story
The Tycoon’s Kiss
Book 2: Troy Sheenan’s story
The Kidnapped Christmas Bride
Book 3: Trey Sheenan’s story
The Taming of the Bachelor
Book 4: Dillon Sheenan’s story
––––––––
Home to Me
Book 5: Cormac Sheenan’s story –
coming soon
Please see the next page for an excerpt from Jane Porter’s RITA® winning
Take Me, Cowboy
“I
can’t do it, Jenny. I can’t go through with this.”
The warm dry autumn wind whipped Jenny Wright’s wedding veil up above her shoulders, fine lace grazing her cheek. Having lived the past ten years in Chicago, Jenny had forgotten the wind that whistled from Yellowstone, down through Paradise Valley, turning the ranching valley into a wind tunnel.
The wind snapped and crackled now, the gusts as much a part of Marietta as the iconic peak of Copper Mountain jutting behind the small, sleepy Montana town. Marietta had surged to life in the late 1800’s before nearly dying, when the copper boom proved to be nothing more than a hiccup and all the investors and prospectors packed up and moved away.
It’d been a hundred and twenty some years since then but it was still hard to make a living in Marietta.
It’s why she’d left town as soon as she’d graduated from high school. It’s why she’d been determined to never move back.
She’d only come home for her wedding. Only come home to make her family proud.
Jenny gently plucked the delicate veil from her small diamond and pearl earring before it tore. “I didn’t catch that, honey,” she said, smashing the sudden rush of adrenaline flooding her veins.
No need to panic
, she told herself. It was so windy today, and others might not like the gusts, but the wind had blown all the clouds north, leaving the sky above Marietta a perfect brilliant blue, and the wind had made it hard to hear.
Because for a moment there, it sounded as if Charles said he wouldn’t marry her. But that didn’t make sense. He and his family were here. The guests were here. The minister was here, all in the church waiting.
Waiting.
Her stomach rose and fell. She swallowed hard, fighting a sudden rush of nausea. She hadn’t slept well last night, nervous. Excited.
Excited, she silently insisted. Not terrified. Or sad. She would never be sad. This was the right decision. This was the best decision. It was.
It had to be.
“Can you say that again?” she asked him, fighting her veil and tamping down the horrible rush of adrenaline flooding her veins. “I didn’t hear you, honey.”
He hesitated.
She stared at his mouth, focusing on his lips, not wanting to miss a thing this time.
And looking at his mouth, she tried to feel reassured. Because she knew him. She’d worked for his company for years, first as an administrative assistant in Human Resources, then as a manager, before he’d hand picked her to be his assistant, and then his girl friend. His woman. It hadn’t happened over night. At least the love part.