Epilogue

Today was the day. Jenna checked her teal button-down shirt for the fifth time, tugging it to straighten out any wrinkles. She didn’t have a full- length mirror, so she hoped her black jeans fit okay.

She looked over her shoulder. “How’s it look back there, BB?”

Butterball smiled up at her and wagged his tail, so he must approve. Either that or he had gas.

The sound of the dog farting filled her bedroom. Guess that answered that question. Before the smell could kill her, she grabbed up her black straw cowboy hat and exited the room. The sound of Butterball’s nails hitting the wood floor behind her made it clear he wasn’t happy with the stink either.

It had been a few days since she, Logan, and Charlotte had been rushed off to the hospital. They had kept Charlotte overnight for observation. She’d wanted to stay with Logan, but he forced he to go home, making Trace drive her.

She hadn’t seen him since then, but he’d kept her updated via phone. Charlotte was released two days ago. The same day she released Snowy from her care, making sure Mrs. Thompson understood the kitty was on borrowed time. When she asked if Jenna liked the card, she had to admit she hadn’t opened it yet.

She brought it home that day, but where did she put it? She should open it now while she nervously waited for Logan to pick her up. When he asked her to go to the jail with him to meet with Kylie, she’d been thrilled, but they still had unfinished business to discuss.

Shuffling through the mail she’d left on her kitchen table, she found the card. It was in a purple envelope and had a rose scent to it just like Mrs. Thompson. On the front of the card was a picture of a bouquet of roses and the words “Thank you.” She opened it up and a check fell on to the table. It couldn’t be the bill payment because they hadn’t tallied it up yet. Confused, she picked up the check. “Holy fudge.”

It was made out to her for $10,000 dollars. She couldn’t accept that. She opened the card again and read the note. Because you believed when no one else did. You deserve this. Below the card’s written thank you greeting was a post script. Don’t even think about not accepting this.

But she couldn’t accept it. It was one thing for a grateful rancher to throw an extra $100 her way, but this was too much. She slipped the check back into the card when she noticed something written in the memo section. I have plenty more where that came from.

She laughed. She still didn’t plan to accept it, but it was tempting. With that kind of money, she could put a down payment on a new truck and have payments she could afford. No, she couldn’t. But what if she upset Mrs. Thompson? Darn it. She’d ask Connie what she should do. That woman knew the pulse of the town. The last thing she needed was people not coming to her because she made someone angry. She tucked the check and card into her medical bag to bring to the office.

Butterball barked and waddled toward the door. She glanced out the window to see Logan’s truck pulling to a stop. “Okay BB, you need to go out and do your business because I’m leaving you home alone this evening. Think you can handle that?”

He plopped his butt down in front of the door, wagged his tail and barked. “Yes, you can go out, but you’ll need to stay in tonight. I don’t want you struggling to breathe out there.” Opening the door, her dog pulled his butt up and lumbered outside, first stopping to greet Logan before disappearing around the corner.

She caught her breath as Logan strode toward the door wearing black jeans but sporting a blue dress shirt that made his shoulders look broader and brought out the blue in his hazel eyes.

“Hi.” He took off his cowboy hat and stepped in. “Are you ready?”

She closed the door and faced him, not sure exactly how to start. “I—”

Logan cupped the back of her head and kissed her, his tongue exploring her mouth like he’d forgotten what she tasted like.

He tasted of mint and male and she loved it. A light, clean-scented cologne washed over her and she practically purred.

When he released her mouth, he leaned his forehead against hers. “I missed you.”

She laid her left hand on the right side of his waist. “I missed you, too.”

He stood straight and pulled her against him. Though he no longer wore the sling, she knew he was still healing. They stood for a few moments, just holding each other and it felt wonderful. So much so, that it made her more reluctant to broach the subject of their last quarrel.

She finally forced herself to move back a little and look up at him. “Logan, we need to talk.”

He groaned. “I’m learning to hate those words.”

She cocked her head. “Why? You don’t like talking?”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m better with doing.”

She nodded and stepped away before she was tempted to ask him to do exactly what his gaze promised he wanted to do. “I know you don’t agree with me about Charlotte being allowed to know her mother, but your dismissal of me because of it is not acceptable.”

“But that’s a non-issue. We now know that Kylie isn’t Charlotte’s mother. She’s some blood relation which is why we are going to see her.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “First, since Kylie is a blood relative, that means she knows where Charlotte’s mother is. Second, just because she didn’t turn out to be Charlotte’s mother, doesn’t mean we have nothing to discuss.”

He leaned his good shoulder against the wall. “Right. So talk.”

He was not going to make this easy. “Since Kylie knows where Charlotte’s mother is and since said mother may show up on your doorstep someday, we need to discuss the real possibility of Charlotte wanting to know her mother.”

“If that day happens, I’ll decide whether the woman is an appropriate influence for my daughter. Next.”

She shook her head. “Logan, it’s not that simple.” He opened his mouth and she held up her hand. “No, it isn’t. What you propose is exactly what my father did to me and my sister.”

She had his attention now. Maybe her decision to share this piece of her past was the right approach. She never talked about it, but if it helped her future, she had to. “My mom lived here.” She gestured to the right which led to the kitchen and living room. “We were a happy family until I turned seven. I don’t even remember what time of year it was, but I know it wasn’t scorching hot. My dad sent my mother away.”

She tried to gather her thoughts to keep them logical and on topic, but the subject hurt, especially because her mom could well be out there somewhere and her father refused to tell her anything. That hurt on a whole other level.

Logan remained silent, watching her.

She took a deep breath. “To this day, I don’t know what my mother did to deserve being thrown out, but I do know that I was devastated. She used to brush my hair, tell me stories, help me choose my clothes, play dolls with me. But then one day my dad decided she didn’t deserve to be in my life anymore. As you put it, she was a bad influence.”

Jenna couldn’t look at Logan without tears forming so she stared at the front door. She had to get through this. “I didn’t just miss her. It felt like a piece of my heart was torn out and buried in the desert somewhere. Every little-girl moment was tarnished by the fact I didn’t have my mom to share it with.”

She took a deep breath to loosen her tightening chest as the memories flooded her with heartache. “I avoided my prom because my mom couldn’t help me pick out my dress or see me in it. When I won an award or a good grade, I could only tell my dad. I actually envied my classmates who had divorced parents because not only did they have two parents to talk to and share with, but many had four since their parents remarried other people. Some of my classmates had questionable moms, but they had one. I didn’t.”

She finally looked at him. “That’s why I feel like I do. That’s why I think that Charlotte should be allowed to know her mother. It had nothing to do with supporting you or not supporting you. We are two different people with two difference life experiences and we need to accept that we won’t always agree. That doesn’t mean we love each other any less.”

Logan pulled away from the wall and grasped her by the shoulders. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I was so caught up in my own self-pity that I couldn’t see. Even now, when you wanted to discuss this, I was still so sure I could have it my way and only my way.” He moved his hand to her cheek and brushed his thumb across it. “I do know that I’ll probably do it again if we disagree, but don’t let me. Promise me you won’t let me push you away.”

Darn. She hadn’t expected that. “I promise.”

He smiled. “I was going to wait to give you this when we returned, but, well, I’d like you to have it now.” He held out an envelope.

Oh, she hoped he wasn’t giving her money, too. That would make everything awkward. Hesitantly, she opened the envelope. There were two pieces of paper folded separately. Slowly, she opened the first one and stared at the computer generated medical terms.

She looked at him in confusion. “These are your STD and HIV results. I’m very happy that they are all negative, but why are you giving them to me?”

“You told me outside the Black Mustang that you would only consider a relationship with me if I got tested and proved to you I don’t carry any sexual diseases and if I wrote down what I wanted from you.”

Her heart lurched into her throat. She’d said that in anger and their relationship had changed significantly since then. She cleared her throat but her voice still came out scratchy. “I’m not sure—”

“Please. Open it.”

She tried to read his face, but she could only tell one thing. He was tense about what was in the note. “Okay.” She pulled out the second piece of paper and unfolded it.

WILL YOU MARRY ME?

She snapped her head up in shock, only to find him bending one knee to kneel as he held out an open jewelry box with a simple solitaire diamond ring shining against white satin.

“Oh, my God. Are you sure?”

He chuckled. “What do you think?”

She stared into his eyes, which seemed to dance with mirth.

“Come on, Jenna. Please say you’ll make me the happiest man on Earth.”

Joy burst within her and she nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Yes. Oh yes!”

Logan jumped up with a shout and hugged her tight, lifting her off her feet. “Ouch.” He put her down quickly. “Damn ribs.”

She smiled though her tears. “That’s okay, I needed to breathe anyway.”

“Let me have your hand.”

She gave him her left hand and watched as he slid the ring onto her finger. “It’s beautiful. It’s exactly my style.”

He straightened. “That’s what I thought. I’ve always liked that you are straight forward. This reminded me of you.”

She’d grown up thinking she wasn’t girly enough, but if he liked her the way she was, she wasn’t going to complain. “I love you, Logan.”

“I love you, too. Now give me a kiss, Miss Fiancé.”

As his lips touched hers, she wrapped her arms around his neck and put all that she felt for him in her kiss. In turn, he made her feel cherished and loved.

A bark from outside reminded her of their appointment. She broke away. “I guess we have to go, huh?”

He kept his arms around her. “Yes, but at least now we get to go as an official couple.”

“I like that.” She couldn’t stop looking at him, his love for her shining in his eyes.

Another bark sounded outside, and she grimaced. “I better let Butterball in, so we can go.”

He finally dropped his arms and stepped back. “Yes, or I’m apt to pick you up and carry you to your bedroom.” He looked both right and left. “Wherever it is.”

She chuckled as she pulled the door open and Butterball trotted inside. “Don’t you want to know?”

He donned his cowboy hat. “That’s something I plan to have figured out by tomorrow morning. Now let’s get this over with.” He held his arm out for her and she walked out, her step lighter than it had been in years.

~~*~~

“Okay, I don’t want to spoil our celebration or our dinner with the full story, so let’s get this over with.” Gram set her oven mitts on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest.

Logan didn’t dare grin. It was so like his grandmother to take charge.

Jenna elbowed him in his right side. “That means you’re on.”

He raised his eyebrows at her to show her he was well aware of that fact. Standing, he looked at everyone around the table, which was his grandmother, Trace and Whisper, Cole and Lacey, Dillon, Jenna and the center of the story, his daughter. “I can tell you that Kylie isn’t the psycho criminal we all feared. In fact,—,” he looked at his daughter for a moment before returning to his announcement. “She’s Charlotte’s aunt.”

Dillon frowned. “With a relative like that, who needs enemies?”

Everyone nodded including Whisper. “Relatives are the worst enemies. Will Charlotte be in danger from this woman again?”

Trace took Whisper’s hand. “Not all relatives are like yours.”

Logan nodded at Trace’s statement since he’d met Whisper’s relatives and understood her concern. “Kylie is not a real criminal. That’s why she didn’t drive away in Whisper’s truck with Charlotte when she had the chance. She stayed to help Jenna.”

Jenna spoke up. “Kylie was able to tell us about Justine, Charlotte’s mom.”

Everyone at the table stilled.

Logan continued. “As it turns out, I was a last fling, so to speak, for Justine. Her doctor suspected she had cancer so he took a biopsy. Scared and lonely, she went to Jed’s bar in Catalina where she met me. Kylie said Justine wanted to feel alive by having a fun time, just in case the biopsy came back positive. So she came on to me, and back then I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Charlotte was conceived that night.”

Logan cracked the knuckles on his left hand.

“Logan Williams, stop that.”

He froze at his grandmother’s words and dropped his hands. “Sorry. It’s an odd feeling to know that I was the second to last joy a woman had.”

Jenna’s hand found his, and he squeezed. She was his rock at the jail as he learned of Charlotte’s mother’s fate and she was his rock now.

“Justine was told she had cancer just days later and was offered a number of options for treatment. It took her a while to decide and when she did, she was asked if she was pregnant. Kylie says her sister couldn’t say for sure she wasn’t so the hospital made her take a test. When she discovered she was pregnant, she refused all therapies. She wanted to deliver a healthy baby before starting any treatment.”

Jenna addressed them all. “Charlotte was born perfect, but the cancer had spread in Justine.”

He looked at his daughter again as she munched on a cracker. “Justine nursed Charlotte as long as she could then told Kylie to leave the baby with me because she said she was confidant I would take care of her.” Logan swallowed against the lump in his throat. The reality was still too new to not be affected by it.

Jenna stood up next to him and held his arm with both her hands. “When Kylie found herself out of a job, and an illegal one at that, she decided to pose as Charlotte’s mom and get Logan to marry her because if he could provide for a baby, she figured he could provide for a wife.”

“Where was she going then when she took Charlotte?” Cole’s question was one they had asked her directly.

Logan faced his cousin. “That was actually my fault. I told Kylie that I wouldn’t marry her and that I had retained a lawyer. She panicked because she had seen the DNA test results in the hall. She knew what they said without looking at them, so she took them and Charlotte in the hopes I would give chase. She planned to go to Las Vegas where she expected to seduce me into eloping with her.”

Trace laughed at the absurdity while Cole just shook his head. Lacey sighed. “I’m sorry that little Charlotte won’t know her mother. I guess that means the rest of us women will just have to make up for it.”

Logan’s heart filled as every woman at the table agreed.

“I’ll teach her to shoot.” Whisper’s statement caught him off guard.

“I’ll teach her to ride.” Gram said it like it would be law.

Lacey clapped her hands. “I’ll help her pick out which clothes to buy.”

The excitement was catchy and soon they were all talking about how they would be part of his daughter’s life. He sank down in his seat, overwhelmed by the support.

Jenna leaned in to him and whispered. “I’ll love her like she was my own.”

At her declaration, he pulled his arm away and wrapped it around her shoulders, but couldn’t look at her. If he did, he’d start bawling like a baby.

“Kissie, da-da! Kissie!” Ah, his daughter to the rescue.

He leaned toward Charlotte and gave her a big kiss on the cheek. She squealed then banged on her tray.

His grandmother took that as a sign to start dinner and they were soon enjoying her Mexican spiced pork ribs. Amongst the talking and laughter, he was constantly aware of Jenna next to him.

After finishing off three homemade chocolate chip cookies, he rose and lifted his daughter out of her high chair.

“Teddy.” She frantically looked over his shoulder as she reached behind him. “Da-da, teddy!”

He turned around and took the cowboy teddy off the shelf and handed it to her. Her anxious face quickly relaxed into a big smile as she clutched it to her chest. He turned back to the table and offered his hand to Jenna. “Come walk with me.”

She smiled up at him and took his hand, filling his heart with peace. He led her through the house and outside. As they passed the north corral, Cyclone snorted and trotted over.

Jenna stopped and waited for him to approach. When he reached the fence, he lowered his head and butted her shoulder. “Hey, big guy. Are you liking your new home? Pretty sweet deal, isn’t?”

The horse stepped closer, letting her stroke his neck.

“He really likes you.” Charlotte kept silent as the large head lifted over the fence. He didn’t blame her since just the horse’s head was bigger than she was.

“I like him, too. I would love to ride him. We’re you able to use him with a harness?”

“You ride?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, I ride. My sister and I each had a horse growing up. That’s what the barn was for. Sugar, my sister’s horse, died young, but Spice reached twenty-two. He was hard to lose because I knew enough about veterinary medicine to know there was nothing I could do.”

Logan moved to Cyclone’s other side and patted the horse to show Charlotte there was nothing to be afraid of. “We were able to put a harness on him with no problems. He enjoyed pulling the wagon. Maybe after my ribs heal, we can take him out for a ride. I’m sure Black Jack wouldn’t mind.”

She stopped patting the horse and gave him a heart-stopping smile. “I would love that. I haven’t ridden in years. It’s hard to believe because I’m around them so much, but it’s always for medical reasons, not for pleasure.”

His gut did a summersault at the look of happiness on her face. He would ask Cole if he could give Cyclone to Jenna. She may be small, but he had a feeling she and the big horse were made for each other. “Then we’ll plan on it.”

“Mine horzie. Mine horzie, da-da.” Charlotte swung her arm out toward the south corral, her cowboy teddy flailing in the evening air.

Jenna laughed. “Sorry, Cyclone. We need to go say hi to some of your friends.” She patted the horse one last time and walked toward the south corral.

Logan grinned. Cyclone followed Jenna along his side of the fence until she had gone beyond the corral. There he stood watching her. Logan set his daughter down on her feet and held her hands.

She took her little steps with gusto. Jenna turned to see where they were and immediately crouched down. “Look, Charlotte. It’s your horsey.” She pointed to the pony standing next to Macy.

The Sonoran desert sky was splashing oranges and pinks over the earth, giving everything a warm glow. Jenna, in particular, seemed especially beautiful to him. Maybe it was the shirt she wore that matched her eyes. Or maybe he was just seeing everything through rose colored glasses tonight.

His daughter started pulling him forward, so he let go to see what would happen. She took one step on her own and fell back on her bottom. He sighed. It would happen one day. He started to bend over to pick her up when she pushed herself up to a standing position again.

He stared in surprise.

“Want to see your horsey?” Jenna’s voice was encouraging.

Charlotte continued to stand unsteadily. She lifted her hand and opened and closed it. “Mine horzie.”

“Yes, he’s your horsey. Come see him.”

Logan held his breath as Charlotte took a step and remained upright. Then she took another. She took one more step, teetered and fell back on her bottom.

Logan swooped her up into his arms. “Good girl! You walked!”

Charlotte smiled, but was far more interested in her horse and stretched her hand out toward the corral where Jenna now stood, her eyes misty with excitement.

He strode toward his soon-to-be wife, his daughter in his arm and happiness filling his soul. When they stood next to Jenna, he pulled his gaze from hers and spoke to his daughter. “Where’s Charlotte’s Horse?”

“You can’t keep calling him Charlotte’s Horse. It sounds like a children’s story.”

He frowned. “It does?”

Jenna shook her head in disbelief. “For girls and boys who actually read, yes. Have you given any thought to his name?”

He set his daughter’s diapered rump on top of the fence rail, his good arm wrapped around her. She looked like a little farmer in her purple overalls. “I’m going to let Charlotte name him.”

Jenna’s eyes softened at his statement. She was the first one to appreciate his sentiment and that made it worth all the ribbing he’d received from his brother and cousins over the last week.

“Horzie!” Charlotte’s yell caught the colt’s attention and he looked over.

Logan clicked his tongue and the little horse moved toward them hesitantly to investigate.

Charlotte looked back at him, a huge smile on her face.

He bent his head to whisper. “Shh, you don’t want to scare him.”

His daughter pressed her finger against her lips and blew. Jenna covered her mouth to stop the laugh Logan was sure would have escaped.

He clicked his tongue again, and the colt’s curiosity got the best of him. He stepped close. His tongue flicked out and licked Charlotte’s shoe. The expression of wonder on her face as she snapped her head around to look at Logan made his throat close.

She turned back to the colt and the two stared at each other.

Jenna’s soft voice caught the attention of both. “Charlotte, this little horsey was very lucky he had your daddy helping him when he was born.”

“I think he was more lucky you were there.”

“Lucky horzie.” Charlotte smiled. “Mine Lucky.”

Logan chuckled despite the twinge in his side. “I think she just named the horse.”

“She did?”

“Yes. His name is now Lucky. Thank you for helping her.”

She stepped up next to him. “I look forward to helping her with everything a little girl needs from her mother.”

“How about me? I have needs to. Like right now I need a kiss.”

She moved around him to his left side and stepped up onto the bottom rail.

He wrapped his arm about her loosely as she kissed him. In that simple kiss was a promise of forever.

His luck had most definitely changed.

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