Rough Diamonds: Wyoming Tough\Diamond in the Rough (27 page)

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

John nodded toward the far corner, where a coffee urn was half-hidden behind a bouquet of flowers.

Graves grinned. “I hope you have a long and happy life together.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Sassy told him.

“Glad you could make it,” John seconded.

“I brought you a present,” he said unexpectedly. He reached into his pocket and drew out a small package. “Something useful.”

“Thank you,” Sassy said, touched, as she took it from his hand.

He gave John a worldly look, chuckled, and walked off to find coffee.

“What is it, I wonder?” Sassy mused, tearing the paper open.

“Well!” John exclaimed when he saw what was inside.

She peered over his arm and smiled warmly. It was a double set of compact discs of romantic music and classical love themes.

They glanced toward the coffee urn. Graves lifted his cup and toasted them. They laughed and waved.

T
HEY
stayed on the beach in a hotel shaped like one of the traditional Maya pyramids. Sassy lay in John’s strong arms still shivering with her first taste of intimacy, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant as they looked up into his.

“It gets better,” he whispered as his mouth moved lightly over her soft lips. “First times are usually difficult.”

“Difficult?” She propped up on one elbow. “Are we remembering the same first time? Gosh, I thought I was going to die!”

His blue eyes twinkled. “Forgive me. I naturally assumed from all the moaning and whimpering that you were…stop that!” He laughed when she pinched him.

An enthusiastic bout of wrestling followed.

He kissed her into limp submission. “We really must do this again, so that I can get my perspective back,” he suggested. “I’ll pay attention this time.”

She laughed and kissed his broad shoulder. “See that you do,” she replied. She pushed him back into the pillows and followed him down.

“Now don’t be rough with me, I’m fragile,” he protested. “See here, take your hand off that…I’m not that sort of man!”

“Yes, you are,” she chuckled, and put her mouth squarely against his. He was obediently silent for a long time afterward. Except for various involuntary sounds.

They held hands and walked down the beach at sunrise, watching seagulls soar above the incredible shades of blue that were the Gulf of Mexico.

“I never dreamed there were places like this,” Sassy said dreamily. “The sand looks just like sugar.”

“We’ll have to take some postcards back with us. I can’t believe I forgot to pack a digital camera,” he sighed.

“We could buy one at the shop in the lobby,” she suggested. “I have to have at least one picture of you in a bathing suit to put up in our house.”

“Turnabout is fair play,” he teased.

She laughed. “Okay.”

“While we’re at it, we’ll buy presents for everybody.”

“We should get something for Chief Graves.”

“What would you suggest?”

“Something musical.”

He pursed his lips. “We’ll get him one of those wooden kazoos.”

“No! Musical.”

He drew her close. “Musical it is.”

After the honeymoon, they stopped for the weekend at the Callister ranch in Medicine Ridge, where Sassy had time to sit down and get acquainted with John’s sister-in-law, Kasie.

“I was so worried about fitting in here,” Sassy confessed as they walked around the house, where the flowers were blooming in abundance around the huge
swimming pool. “I mean, this is a whole world away from anything I know.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” Kasie said. “I was born in Africa, where my parents were missionaries,” she recalled, going quiet. “They were killed right in front of us, me and my brother, Kantor. We went to live with our aunt in Arizona. Kantor grew up and married and had a little girl. He was doing a courier service by air in Africa when an attack came. He and his family were shot down in his plane and died.” She sat down on one of the benches, her eyes far away. “I never expected to end up like this,” she said, meeting the other girl’s sympathetic gaze. “Gil didn’t even like me at first,” she added, laughing. “He made my life miserable when I first came to work here.”

“He doesn’t look like that sort of man,” Sassy said. “He seems very nice.”

“He can be. But he’d lost his first wife to a riding accident and he didn’t ever want to get married again. He said I came up on his blind side. Of course, he thought I was much too young for him.”

“Just like John,” Sassy sighed. “He thought I was too young for him.” She glanced at Kasie and grinned. “And I was sure that he was much too rich for me.”

Kasie laughed. “I felt that way, too. But you know, it doesn’t have much to do with money. It has to do with feelings and things you have in common.” Her eyes had a dreamy, faraway look. “Sometimes Gil and I just sit and talk, for hours at a time. He’s my best friend, as well as my husband.”

“I feel that way with John,” Sassy said. “He just fits in with my family, as if he’s always known them.”

“Mama Luke took to Gil right away, too.” She noted the curious stare. “Oh, she’s my mother’s sister. She’s a nun.”

“Heavens!”

“My mother was pregnant with me and Kantor and a mercenary soldier saved her life,” she explained. “His name was K.C. Kantor. My twin and I were both named for him.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Sassy said hesitantly, not liking to repeat what she’d heard about the reclusive, crusty millionaire.

“Most of what you’ve heard is probably true,” Kasie laughed, seeing the words in her expression. “But I owe my life to him. He’s a kind man. He would probably have married Mama Luke, if she hadn’t felt called to a religious life.”

“Is he married?”

Kasie frowned. “You know, I heard once that he did get married, to some awful woman, and divorced her right afterward. I don’t know if it’s true. You don’t ask him those sort of questions,” she added.

“I can understand why.”

“Gil’s parents like you,” Kasie said out of the blue.

“They do?” Sassy was astonished. “But I hardly had time to say ten words to them at the wedding!”

“John said considerably more than ten words.” Kasie grinned. “He was singing your praises long before he went back to marry you. Magdalena saw that beautiful shawl you’d packed and John told her you knitted it yourself. She wants to learn how.”

“Yes, John said that, but I thought he was kidding!”

“She’s not. She’ll be in touch, I guarantee. She’ll
turn up at your ranch one of these days with her knitting gear and you’ll have to chase her out with a broom.”

Sassy blushed. “I’d never do that. She’s so beautiful.”

“Yes. She and the boys didn’t even speak before I married Gil. I convinced him to meet them on our honeymoon. He was shocked. You see, they were married very young and had children so early, long before they were ready for them. John and Gil’s uncle took the boys to raise and sort of shut their parents out of their lives. It was a tragedy. They grew up thinking their parents didn’t want them. It wasn’t true. They just didn’t know how to relate to their children, after all those years.”

“I think parents and children need to be together those first few years,” Sassy said.

“I agree wholeheartedly,” Kasie said. She smiled. “Gil and I want children of our own, but we want the girls to feel secure with us first. There’s no rush. We have years and years.”

“The girls seem very happy.”

Kasie nodded. “They’re so much like my own children,” she said softly. “I love them very much. I was heartbroken when Gil sent me home from Nassau and told me not to be here when they got home.”

“What?”

Kasie laughed self-consciously. “We had a rocky romance. I’ll have to tell you all about it one day. But for now, we’d better get back inside. Your husband will get all nervous and insecure if you’re where he can’t see you.”

“He’s a very nice husband.”

“He’s nice, period, like my Gil. We got lucky, for two penniless children, didn’t we?” she asked.

Sassy linked her arm into Kasie’s. “Yes, we did. But we’d both live in line cabins and sew clothes by hand if they asked us to.”

“Isn’t that the truth?” Kasie laughed.

“What were you two talking about for so long?” John asked that night, as Sassy lay close in his arms in bed.

“About what wonderful men we married,” she said drowsily, reaching up to kiss him. “We did, too.”

“Did Kasie tell you about her background?”

“She did. What an amazing story. And she said Gil didn’t like her!”

“He didn’t,” he laughed. “He even fired her. But he realized his mistake in time. She was mysterious and he was determined not to risk his heart again.”

“Sort of like you?” she murmured.

He laughed. “Sort of like me.” He drew her closer and closed his eyes. “We go home tomorrow. Ready to take on a full-time husband, Mrs. Callister?”

“Ready and willing, Mr. Callister,” she murmured, and smiled as she drifted off to sleep.

Several weeks later, Sassy had settled in at the ranch and was making enough knitted and crocheted accessories to make a home of the place. Mrs. Peale had a new companion, a practical nurse named Helen who was middle-aged, sweet, and could cook as well as clean house. She had no family, so Mrs. Peale and Selene filled an empty place in her life. Her charges were very happy with her. Sassy and John found time to visit regularly. They were like lovebirds, though. People rarely saw one without the other. Sassy mused that it was like
they were joined at the hip. John grinned and kissed her for that. It was, indeed, he said happily.

One afternoon, John walked in the back door with Chief Graves, who was grinning from ear to ear.

“We have company,” John told her, pausing to kiss her warmly and pull her close at his side. “He has news.”

“I thought you’d like to know that Mr. Tarleton got five years,” he said pleasantly. “They took him away last Friday. He’s appealing, of course, but it won’t help. He was recorded on DVD agreeing to the terms of the plea bargain. I told you that judge hated sexual assault cases.”

Sassy nodded. “I’m sorry for him,” she said. “I wish he’d learned his lesson the last time, in Wyoming. I guess when you do bad things for a long time, you just keep doing them.”

“Repeat offenders repeat, sometimes,” Graves replied solemnly. “But he’s off the street, where he won’t be hurting other young women.” He pursed his lips. “I also wanted to thank you for the gift you brought back from Mexico. But I’m curious.”

“About what?” she asked.

“How did you know I could play a flute?”

Her eyebrows arched. “You can?” she asked, surprised.

He chuckled. “Maybe she reads minds,” he told John. “Better take good care of her. A woman with that rare gift is worth rubies.”

“You’re telling me,” John replied, smiling down at his wife.

“I’ll get back to town. Take care.”

“You, too,” Sassy said.

He sauntered out to his truck. John turned to Sassy with pursed lips. “So you can read minds, can you?” He
leaned his forehead down against hers and linked his hands behind her. “Think you can tell me what I’m thinking right now?” he teased.

She reached up and whispered in his ear, grinning.

He laughed, picked her up, and stalked down the hall carrying her. She held on tight. Some men’s minds, she thought wickedly, weren’t all that difficult to read after all!

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

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First published in Great Britain 2013
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited, Eton House,
18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

ROUGH DIAMONDS © Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. 2013

Wyoming Tough
© Diana Palmer 2011
Diamond in the Rough
© Diana Palmer 2009

eISBN: 978-1-472-01714-7