What a Bride Wants (13 page)

“
This isn’t fear.”

“
I’ll fix it,” he said raggedly. “I
will
neutralize him. Help put him behind bars, and then maybe
he
can get help, I don’t know. And then I aim to come back and court you properly this time. Dinner and the movies. Weekends away somewhere special. Cows. Line dancing. Rodeos. The works.”

Ella li
ked the sound of that. “You can line dance?”

“
You can teach me.”

“
Where would you live?”

“
I haven’t really thought about it yet, but it’s not a problem. I could keep the house on the coast, buy well in Marietta and still have change.” This time Sawyer’s words were for her father. “Sir, I’m not a pauper, whatever my former employment and living arrangements might have suggested. I can provide for your daughter.”

H
er father cleared his throat. “Ella could build here, on the northern side of the ranch, tucked into the shelter of the foothills. We could build a new road out; that way there’d be more privacy for everyone involved.”

“
I’m right here,” Ella said, before they decided to build her a castle. Although…

“
We were just considering options,” said her father.

Sawyer nodded
. “Options.”

First real smile she
’d seen on his face all night. “Your dimples aren’t always going to save you, Sawyer. If I go and get changed into my gown, I don’t want to come back down here to find my future lodgings all organized for me, got it?”

Ella
wanted
input
into those future house plans, dammit.

“
Drink?” her father asked Sawyer pleasantly, pushing a glass toward him.

“
I’m driving. Maybe something soft.”

“
Good thinking,” she murmured. “Save your thirst for all that pink champagne.”

“
Maybe just the one whisky,” she heard Sawyer say as she swept from the room before her smile split her face in two. Sawyer was back. Back with intent, and whether his brother aimed to make trouble or not, Ella wanted
this
Sawyer. The one who stood taller than before, and who looked at her with a world of quiet determination in his eyes. She wanted him just as much, if not more, than she’d wanted the old Sawyer.

And that was saying something.

Ella practically floated to her room and into her closet. She looked at the gown hanging against the wall and hit the ground with a thud. Lisa Renee from the bridal store had assured Ella that pale pink did wonderful things for her complexion and that the cut of this particular gown did amazing things for her figure. The sequins and the feathers, well, they were just for fun. They, too, were pale pink and there weren’t that many of them. They were very discreet – sequins on the bodice, feathers at the hem. Elegant even.

What on earth had possessed her?

By the time Ella had put her makeup on, tried to do something with her hair and shimmied into her gown, she looked like a carnival kewpie doll. Oh, this was bad. Lisa Renee had good taste. Excellent taste. People
relied
on her to have good taste.

Clearly, when Lisa Renee had bought t
his she’d been having a meltdown.

Ella reached for her phone.
Perhaps meltdowns were contagious.

“
I’m looking at my gown and wondering whether
you’re
going to want to go the ball with
me
,” she offered when Sawyer picked up. “Too many feathers. And did I mention the sparkles?”

“
I like sparkles. Did I mention that I’ve booked us a suite at Graff’s Hotel?” he answered. “Two nights. The Valentine’s package.”

“
And what might the Valentine’s package include?”

“
Turndown and chocolates, champagne breakfast in bed, a massage at some stage tomorrow, dinner at the hotel tomorrow night and a pink teddy bear.”

Oh. Well.
So. “I’ll think about it,” she muttered. “Don’t go anywhere.” And hung up.

Still, she hesitated. Fiddl
ed some more with her hair and chose a perfume to dab at her wrists and behind her ears. Lisa Renee had persuaded her to buy pale pink stilettoes to go with the gown. Pale pink stilettoes for a woman who lived on a ranch. Ella let loose a nervous giggle. She was never shopping at Lisa Renee’s again without at least two girlfriends in tow for backup.

At the last minute, she reached for
a black velvet cape that tied at the neck with a black satin ribbon. It suited the gown. Gave it a fairytale air.

It was her mother
’s.

Ella stared at her reflection in the full length mirror and suddenly
all she could see was her mother, a mother who she missed more than ever.

“
You’d like him, Mama. I know you would. I think I love him.”

Yeah, so there was that.

The sound of someone clearing his throat at her door made her whirl around, hand to her hair in nervous anticipation of it being Sawyer and that he’d just overheard her, but it was only her father.

“
Oh, thank God.”

“
I left him nursing a whisky in the study,” her father offered dryly. “I thought you might like to wear these.” He held out a black velvet case and she knew before she even opened it that she would find her mother’s diamond and ruby earrings nestled within. “You look beautiful, Ella Grace.”

“
Really?” She was starting to get a little teary.

“
Really.”

“
He’s a good man, Daddy. This other business with his brother and his family? He needs to go back and fix it. He’ll be stronger for it.”

“
I’m not going to judge the man by the actions of his brother, Ella Grace. I’ll judge him by his actions toward you.”

“
How’s he doing so far?”

“
It could’ve started better.” He gestured toward the jewelry, and his eyes suddenly looked as watery as hers felt. “Take them. Don’t be too long. Your man’s down there climbing the walls waiting for you. I remember that feeling and not with a whole lot of fondness.”

“
I’ll be there.”

Her father left. Ella put her mother
’s jewelry on, repaired her eye makeup and took a deep breath as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. “You with me, Mama? You going to lend me your grace tonight?” Ella nodded. “Good, because I need it.”

She
smoothed her lipstick with her finger, wiped her fingers on a tissue and picked up her little black clutch. “Let’s go get my man.”

Sawyer
didn’t seem to have much to say when he saw her. He looked and looked, but he just didn’t seem to have any words. Then his face lit up with a smile that looked as if it came from within, and Ella felt a corresponding lightness sweep across her body. He liked it.

He liked her.

He cleared his throat, but there were still no words.

“
He likes it,” Samuel T. told her dryly.

“
I really do.” Sawyer had found his voice and it was rough and warm with a flattering thread of awe shot through it.

“
Are you ready to go?” she asked.

“
When you are.”

Ella
kissed her father on the cheek and then moved toward Sawyer. It felt right, moving toward this man with his broad shoulders and his troubled soul. “You look very respectable.” She preferred him naked in front of the fire, but a black dinner suit and tie was an exceptionally fine alternative. “Tailor made?”

“
The rack stuff doesn’t fit. It’s the shoulders.”

“
So I see.” Ella ran an admiring gaze over him, delighted when he colored up just a little. “Are you worried about being recognized at the ball? In relation to your brother, I mean.”

“
Reese knows. And Jason Grey. Jasper Flint might have an inkling by now – he came by the bar the weekend before I left and asked some fairly pointed questions.”

“
Do you
want
people to know who you are?” Ella thought in an important enough question to ask it before they got to the ball. “Who
else
you are?”

“
I’ve never hidden my identity, Ella. I just haven’t always advertised it, because people used to judge me in relation to Richard and I didn’t like it. I daresay I won’t like it any better this time around but it’s still going to happen.”

“
Not around me.”

Sawyer
showed her his second genuine set of dimples for the night. “I can deal. I don’t need protecting.”

“
So you think.”

They left her father to his whisky and headed for Sawyer
’s ride. He’d swapped his battered pickup for a late model Audi fitted with snow tires. It was a beautiful vehicle, but it was going to take some skill getting it off the ranch without getting it stuck. Mind you, he’d somehow driven it in, so maybe there was hope for them yet.

Sawyer drove with a confidence born of great skill. He didn
’t have quite the relationship with speed that Ella had, but given the conditions maybe that was a good thing.

They had valet parking at the Graff Hotel this evening, that was new, and they also had a doorman and an attendant taking coats.
“Promise you won’t laugh,” she murmured, tugging on the ribbon at her neck, the one that held her cape in place. And then the cape was gone and she stood there, revealed, and she hoped to heaven that the ballroom was as extravagantly decorated as she felt.

“
Beautiful,” said the coat attendant, and Sawyer nodded and offered his arm. Ella took it, uncertain of what the evening might bring but determined to not waste one more thought on feathers and the wearing of them. Ella liked feathers. End of story.

How they had managed to fill
the Graff Hotel ballroom full to overflowing with people was anyone’s guess, but they’d done it. The grand old room had kept its sculpted ceiling features and decadent chandeliers, but the down lights had been replaced by thousands of dangling fairy lights and pink and red themed decorations were everywhere. They had a band up on the stage and a podium for the making of announcements. Smack in the middle of the room stood a confectionery table, loaded with Valentine’s Day candies.