Wanted: One Mommy (16 page)

“And then there’s a truly remarkable form of courage,” Jack said, his voice sounding a little hoarse. “The type that only the most selfless of us can claim. It’s the kind of courage that has us putting the needs of others ahead of our own. The recognition that life can change in an instant. Sometimes in ways we expect. Other times in a way that is a total surprise. What I’m trying to say…is that love is the only thing that really matters in this world. When you find it, I advise you to hold on to it with all you’ve got.” Jack stopped again and looked straight at Caroline, before turning once again to the happy couple at the bride and groom’s table. “The way Dutch and my mom have.
I advise you to follow their example and focus on living every moment to the very fullest. Because all any of us really have for certain, is today. And today—” Jack’s voice caught “—Dutch and Patrice are together. They are here as man and wife, bravely showing us what it is to risk all for the love of another.” Caroline couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw tears glistening in Jack’s eyes as he finished, more emotionally than ever. “So let’s raise our glasses in toast, and wish the happy couple the love and happiness they have earned.”

“Y
OU CAN STOP
beaming now,” Sela whispered in Caroline’s ear.

“I can’t help it,” Caroline whispered back, feeling a little overcome with emotion herself. She was about to burst into happy tears as a gust of wind blew through the tent, ruffling the hems of tablecloths, threatening for one tense moment to upset the cake. Luckily, Jericho was right there to steady the table it was standing on. And the near-catastrophe was enough of a momentary distraction to allow Caroline to pull herself together. Caroline swallowed and continued in a low, even voice. “Jack did himself proud just now.”

“And you, from the looks of it, given the way you obviously helped get through to him,” Sela teased.

Caroline grinned as another gust of wind swept over the flat, Texas plains, billowing through the tent and whipping up the hems of the tablecloths. Glasses rattled, a few were tossed onto their sides. Champagne spilled, and behind the bride and groom the wedding piñata swung back and forth in a way all too reminiscent of the “leaping deer” it was purported to be. And yet Caroline remained wildly optimistic about the way the rest of the evening would go.

If Jack could change his mind about Dutch and Patrice’s marriage, surely he could find it in his heart to forgive her? At least, Caroline thought, as she quickly moved to secure the wildly swaying piñata, she hoped that was the case.

“Caroline!” Maddie stopped her en route.

Figuring the piñata could wait—this was definitely more important—Caroline knelt down to hug the little girl. Maddie hugged Caroline back just as warmly, then stated happily, “Bounder and I both want to dance with you tonight!”

That was an interesting prospect, Maddie thought, her spirits rising even more.

“Can we?” Maddie persisted.

Caroline envisioned first Maddie standing on her toes as they swayed to the music, then Bounder, or perhaps both of them at the same time, a dog on her right foot, a little girl on her left. Caroline laughed at the mental image, knowing one way or another they’d figure it out. “Sure.”

“Because you know, next time it will be your time to be the bride,” Maddie said. “And we’ve got to practice!”

Caroline flushed. Much as she might dream it,
that
was getting a little ahead of the game.

Before she could formulate a suitable comeback, however, a third gust of wind swept through the enormous white dinner tent, this one rattling the ceiling of the tent and the poles suspending it, too.

Caroline looked over to see the wedding piñata swinging wildly. She gasped in dismay. Maddie pointed. And Bounder, good dog that she was, leaped up to save the day.

I
T WASN’T A RABBIT
, J
ACK
thought, but it may as well have been one, for all the havoc it caused.

Bounder jumped to her feet and to the shocked laughter
of the guests, raced between the maze of round tables to the long rectangular one that housed the wedding party. Sizing up the situation and “the threat” of her quarry in a millisecond, Bounder reared back on two paws. She leaped with a prima ballerina’s grace, flying through the air and easily clearing the “hurdle” of bride and groom. Still suspended in midair, the golden retriever grabbed the swaying white piñata between her jaws and landed spryly on the ground once more. New gasps of dismay turned to gales of laughter as the dog took off through the opening in the dining tent, taking the candy-filled “deer” along with her.

Caroline was right after Bounder, in hot pursuit.

Waving for everyone else to stay back, Jack ran after Caroline.

His heart racing, he followed the two of them between the rows of chairs where the ceremony had taken place, through another field of brilliantly colored wildflowers, and then back again, to the flower-laced wedding arbor.

Only there, in the safety of the covered haven, partially shielded from the blowing wind, did Bounder finally sink down, the piñata still in her jaws.

“Bounder, no!” Caroline cried, sinking down beside her.

Too late, Jack noted. The side of the piñata had been ripped open.

“It’s chocolate!” Caroline shouted as Jack reached them, too.

And Bounder could not have chocolate, Jack knew.

Jack reached down and put a hand over Bounder’s snout. “Bounder, no,” he told the golden retriever firmly. “That’s poisonous. Chocolate can kill a dog. You have to let go.
Now
, Bounder.”

But Bounder, it seemed, didn’t care what the master
ordered. She wasn’t budging. She lay, the piñata trapped between her two front paws, and clenched firmly in her jaws.

But at least, Jack thought, sinking down to the grass, too, Bounder wasn’t ingesting any of the candy. And indeed, the golden seemed to have given up the idea of further tearing the deer apart, as long as she could lay there, triumphant in the victory of having saved the wedding party from the “danger” of the wildly swinging piñata.

Caroline looked over at Jack.

Still breathing hard, as out of breath as he, she looked…incredible.

Like all the guests there, Jack noted, Caroline had dressed in clothing appropriate for a “Fifth of May” festival of love, marriage and life.

In her case, that meant an off-the-shoulder white blouse that bared all of her shoulders and most of her arms, and a full rainbow-striped skirt that swung out from her hips in an increasingly wide swirl, ending just below the knee. Her feet were clad in stack-heeled espadrilles that were as sexy as they were practical. She wore no jewelry except for a heart-shaped pendant that swung against her breasts and a pair of hoop earrings. Her copper hair was deliciously tousled. Her cheeks pink from exertion. Her eyes were the same brilliant blue of the wildflowers in the fields all around them. She looked beautiful and vulnerable and strong, and he was more taken with her than ever.

Abruptly, Caroline grinned. Her eyes twinkled. “We have got to stop meeting like this,” she said.

O
KAY
, C
AROLINE THOUGHT
, maybe she shouldn’t have made a joke, given the way they had left things between them a few hours ago.

Maybe she should have started with an apology. Or
a heartfelt declaration of love. Or an outright plea for forgiveness.

But as far as Jack was concerned, judging by the sparkle in his eyes, she had done it exactly right.

“Actually…” Jack reached out and took her hand. His eyes darkened with sensual intent. “I think this is exactly how we should meet.” The raw emotion in his voice caused a riptide of feeling in her. He looked over at her, his expression somber. “That is, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. You were right all along.” His callused palm gripped hers. “I should have stayed out of it, let my mother make her own decisions.”

She looked into his silver-gray eyes, knowing this was all-important if they were ever to be truly happy together. “Why didn’t you?” she asked softly. She needed reassurance that their life together wouldn’t be hampered by endless conditions and restrictions. That it would be the joint partnership they both needed and deserved.

He regarded her soberly and she saw the love she felt for him reflected back. “Because it was easier to worry about someone else than to contemplate how afraid I’ve been ever since my dad was taken ill, to commit myself to anything other than the present.”

“But you married, built a business, had a child….” Caroline looked down at Bounder, who was now resting her cheek on her “prize.” With her free hand, she petted the dog’s soft blond head. “You bought a home and got a completely lovable, slightly trouble-prone pup….” Who was as determined as her seven-year-old mistress, it seemed, to bring her and Jack together.

Jack chuckled at the joke and flashed Caroline a crooked smile. “There’s no doubt I thought I was doing fine,” he admitted, shifting position and drawing Caroline closer still. “Until you came along and showed me I wasn’t. I love
my family and our dog, my friends. I would do anything for them. But in the process of holding on to all that, and making sure I didn’t lose anything that I had the way I’d lost my father, I forgot what it was to hold a dream in my heart. To give myself over to something, or in this case someone—” he paused and looked deep into her eyes “—so completely that I would risk everything.”

A thrill swept through her. A smidgen of hope grew deep inside her. “And now you do know how to do that?”

He nodded, all the affection she had ever wanted to see on his face. “I love you, Caroline.” He wrapped both his arms around her. “With all my heart and soul.”

Caroline wreathed both her arms around his neck. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered, reveling in the words she had so wanted to hear. “I love you, too.” She kissed him deeply, tenderly. “So much it scared me. Which is why I made the classic mistake a lot of brides make.”

Jack lifted a quizzical brow.

Luxuriating in the comfort of his warm embrace and the potent resolve on his face, she explained, “Lusting after perfection in a relationship might be admirable, but it’s not practical or advisable. Real life is full of unforeseen complications, unexpected events and hard decisions. To think you and I would agree on everything is ridiculous. But I kept telling myself that I couldn’t be with anyone who didn’t see things exactly as I saw them all the time, because it was easier than putting myself out there again and risking my heart, the way I have risked it with you from the very first moment we met. Which is why—” Caroline took a deep breath and took that giant leap of faith “—I’m about to do something I never thought I would do.” She opened her heart to him all the way, gazed deep into
his eyes, and made the proposal of a lifetime. “I want us to be together, the way we were meant to be. And make each other’s dreams come true.”

One year later
…

“Is this going to be all ours, Mommy?” Maddie asked.

Caroline smiled over at her newly adopted eight-year-old daughter and the beloved family pet that was always at Maddie’s side. Caroline hugged Maddie, then reached down to pet Bounder behind her ears. The golden retriever wagged her tail so ecstatically, she nearly fell over. Maddie giggled and her daddy chuckled. Grinning, too, Caroline turned to look at Jack. Appreciating how handsome he looked, anytime, anywhere, as well as how loved her new husband made her feel, she slipped her hand in his. “What do you think?” she asked him.

Jack studied the ocean from the beach house deck. “It’s definitely a spectacular view of the Gulf,” he murmured, unable to help but be impressed with the five-thousand-square-foot, three-story, hurricane-proof residence on the stretch of private sand.

Together, they all turned back to look at Dutch and Patrice. “But it’s a little much, don’t you think, for a wedding present?”

Looking every bit as healthy, happy and content as they all could have wished, Dutch and Patrice shook their heads.

“We want you to have a place of your own to stay whenever you come visit,” Dutch said.

Patrice smiled and slipped her arm around Dutch’s waist. “All you have to do is say yes.”

Caroline laughed softly and squeezed Jack’s hand. “We seem to be doing a lot of that lately.” And all to good result.

Together, they’d said yes to six months of dating, followed by a six-month engagement and marriage. Caroline had adopted Maddie. And agreed to an addition to the family, in the form of a new puppy and a “little sister” for Bounder.

Patrice was enjoying married life so much she’d been asked to create a new fragrance for “Seniors in Love” for Couture Perfume.

Dutch had been accepted into the clinical trial and the new drug they were testing was indeed a miracle. His kidney disease had been halted in its tracks, the damage to his kidneys reversed. Consequently, Dutch had been taken off dialysis and the transplant list, and was in fact feeling so good these days that he had decided to keep his beachfront properties on South Padre Island, and go back to managing them himself.

Jack had more business than he could handle.

And thanks to the glowing reviews of Patrice and Dutch’s memorable Cinco de Mayo–themed wedding in
Fort Worth
magazine, Caroline had become, just as she wanted, The Hot New Wedding Planner to Hire in both Dallas and Fort Worth. Her former assistant now had a full client list of her own, and Jericho had become the hottest wedding cake designer in the Metroplex.

“So what do you say?” Dutch asked them. “Does this look like it might be a good second home for you—all? A place to come and unwind?”

“It looks like the perfect place,” Jack said. He shook hands with the stepfather he had come to know and love. “Thank you.”

“We really appreciate your generosity,” Caroline said.

Jack turned back to Caroline. He looked her in the eye. She knew what he was thinking. It was the same thing she was thinking.

“Shall we tell them?” he asked.

Without warning, tears of sheer happiness were misting her eyes. Caroline nodded. “Absolutely,” she said in a choked voice.

“I knew it!” Patrice clapped her hands, ecstatic.

“Knew what?” Maddie piped up, perplexed.

Dutch surveyed them all sagely. “I think we’re getting another new addition to the family,” Dutch said.

Maddie’s brows furrowed in consternation. “We can’t have more than one new puppy at a time, Daddy said.”

Jack knelt in front of his daughter. “Then how about a new baby instead?” he asked Maddie gently.

Maddie had to think about that for a second. “Is it going to be a brother or a sister?” she asked.

Caroline and Jack grinned. “We don’t know yet.”

“That’s okay.” Maddie wrinkled her nose. “Because I like both. And this way, I won’t have to decide which one I want.” Maddie hugged Jack, then launched herself into Caroline’s waiting arms and held on tight. She tipped her head back and looked up at Caroline adoringly. “We’ll just be surprised and all find out together. Won’t we, Mommy?”

Her heart swelling with more love and contentment than she ever imagined she could feel, Caroline held her little girl close. “We sure will,” she said thickly, as more hugs and congratulations were exchanged all around, then Pa
trice and Dutch took Maddie and Bounder down to explore the beach.

Once again, Jack and Caroline were alone.

He took her in his arms, stroked her hair, delivered a long, sweet, tender, soul-searching kiss. When at last they came up for air, he looked around once again and murmured, “I can imagine us being very happy here.”

“So can I,” Caroline whispered back. Smiling, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. At last, they all had everything they ever wanted. Life was good indeed.