Bridegroom Cowboy
Weekend Write #3

Weekend Writes were a collaborative effort of 10 volunteer eHarlequin community members.
Click on the link above to see the cover I created for this title.

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CHAPTER 10

As he drove down the back roads Baine couldn't help worrying. It was almost completely dark now and he still hadn't found Alyssa. She hadn’t been at either of her old sanctuaries, not the old tree house in the back corner of Mr. Fernandez’s maple orchard nor the small cave out behind the old swimming hole.

Swearing under his breath he turned the truck towards the Dangling R ranch house. Maybe he would have better luck talking to her in the morning, provided Vernon would let him in. He would go over early, Baine decided, early enough to catch her before she had a chance to run or to barricade herself behind an insurmountable wall of King pride. Knowing Alyssa, the latter was the most likely and if that wall went up Baine doubted his ability to tear it down again.

He was pretty sure Alyssa felt something for him but what exactly? He could make her want him that much was obvious. Could he make her love him? That was the real question.

His mind a whirl of questions and worry, Baine turned the truck into the ranch drive. Fatigue washed over him with a vengeance, his brain was addled trying to figure that damn woman out. Getting out of the truck was an effort and he hesitated before opening the kitchen door. He knew his mother would be waiting for him. He didn’t know if he was up to telling her the whole story. Would she think him an idiot for marrying Alyssa in the first place?  

Here it comes he thought. He really didn’t need his mother’s caustic comments on top of everything else. Nor did he want to listen to the lecture he knew was coming but really there was no way to avoid it. It only took about 10 minutes for Baine to realize once more why his mother was one of a kind.

* * *

Alyssa gazed sadly at the rock monument surrounded by wildflowers at the top of a lonely hill.  She trudged up the well-worn path to the simple white gate in the picket fence. No sound broke the stillness as she swung it open on silent hinges and headed for her mother’s final resting place. Loving fingers traced words that eyes full of tears could no longer see - Maureen Rachel King    Beloved wife and mother 1954-1984

“What should I do Mama? I love him but ..” sobs shook her body and tore at her throat as dismay overwhelmed her. “What must he think of me? Scrapping with Melinda like some no good hussy. I don’t know what got in to me. Yes I do Mama. I was jealous that’s what!” 

The vague image that always accompanied thoughts of her mother formed in her minds eye. How strange, she thought, I’ve never seen her so clearly before. Love seemed to glow in the tender gaze and a touch as soft as gossamer floated across her brow. For a long time after Alyssa sat in the grass trying to convince herself that it had been nothing more than a breathe of wind.  Vague memories of her mother surfaced, memories full of sunshine and laughter, of a time when her father wasn’t so taciturn and demanding. Memories of her mother’s soft voice telling her dad that “talking things out took less time and effort than fighting about them” and her father’s laughing reply that “making up was much more fun.”

A memory surface with amazing clarity. When she was about 4 yrs old she had talked her mother into helping her look after an injured baby owl and when its wing had healed she had wanted to keep it. As if it was yesterday, she could hear her mother’s gentle voice telling her “If you love something set it free. If it comes back it is yours, if it doesn’t it never was.”

“Thank you Mama, Thank you!” Jumping to her feet, Alyssa turned quickly then stopped dead. Baine stood just inside the little white gate silently watching her.

His sudden appearance had her so rattled that she forgot every word she had been rehearsing.  “What. . . what are you doing here? How did you find me?”

A sheepish grin spread across his face as he looked down at his boots and mumbled “My Mom told me where to look”

“Your Mom? How would she know?”

“She said that any young woman with man troubles instinctively went to her mother and that this is where she would have come had she been in
your shoes. I’d been searching for you everywhere with no luck. You weren’t at the old maple orchard or at the cave back of the swimming hole. I never even thought to look here”

Alyssa was stunned. How did he know about the orchard? Or the cave?  As a child they had been her sanctuary. When things got rough, she would hide there with one of her many books and dream of a different time and place. Where her Prince Charming would come and rescue her,
Funny how the rescuing hero always had a decided resemblance to Baine.

How many afternoons had she spent curled up in that old tree fort or the back of the cave daydreaming of Baine?

“I think my mom really likes you Lyssa. She told me where to find you and not to come back with out you. And that I had better explain myself properly or I didn’t stand a chance.”

“Stand a chance of what?

“Of convincing you that I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. Lordy Alyssa you’ve got to believe me – Mel means nothing to me, nothing at all.”

“Then why did you kiss her?” Alyssa shoved her hands in her pockets so he wouldn’t see them tremble.

“Kiss her? I never kissed her!”

“At your house. I saw you from the bedroom window.”

Baine’s hand connected with his forehead with a loud * smack *.

“Ahh. . .  Lyssa, that was just to say “Goodbye and thanks for the effort”. She thought she was helping. That’s all it was Honey – I promise.” Holding out his hand in entreaty, Baine moved a couple of steps closer. “ I’ve loved you since Third grade. Pigtails, buckteeth and all.”

“Th. . . th . . . Third grade?” Alyssa stammered “But, but, you always teased me and pulled my hair. Then when we got older and the boys started to chase us girls you were always so distant looking down your nose at me as if I was somehow beneath you.”

“Oh, you were beneath me all right. Just not the way you thought. My God, Alyssa, You’ve been the main attraction of every midnight fantasy I ever had from the time I was 14! Hell, you still are!”

Still unable to quite believe what she was hearing, Alyssa stared hard at Baine’s eyes, trying to fathom the depths. A rising crest of happiness surged within as Baine’s love shone clear and bright. There was no way that look could be faked and Alyssa instinctively moved closer. The pull of everlasting love was one she did not want to resist.

“Baine” his name whispered off her tongue, her heart in her eyes. “You weren’t the only one having fantasies.” Her arms encircled him and her face glowed in the starlight. “I love you more than life itself.”

Baine’s heart took off for the stars as he touched her soft lips in a caress that promised the world. Her heart joined his as she gave that promise right back to him.