One Night in Weaver... (15 page)

“How do you
know
all of this stuff?”

Sam’s smile flashed. “I haven’t been walking around in a funk for two weeks.” Her feet pounded. “Get the lead out, Templeton. I’m sure Seth knows, but...” Her voice trailed off and she ran in silence for another half a lap before slowing her pace enough to drop back to Hayley’s. “You think he’ll come back?”

Hayley swiped her arm over her forehead. She was sweating like a fiend, yet Sam looked as if she could keep running forever. “You’re not even sweating,” Hayley whined.

Sam laughed silently. “Put in more than a couple miles twice a week and you could say the same.”

“No, thanks.”

“So, do you?”

“Do I what? Dislike you intensely right now? Yes.”

“Think he’d come back here if he could?”

What little breath she had seemed to leave her completely. “I don’t know. Mrs. Carson didn’t offer a suitcase count this time.”

“I was talking about McGregor. If his case gets tossed altogether.”

Hayley slowed to a stop, leaned over and rubbed the stitch in her side. “I don’t know why he would. He’s got nothing here to come back to.” She peered at her friend through the sweat stinging her eyes. “Why?”

Sam lifted her shoulders. She was still jogging in place, but she didn’t meet Hayley’s eyes. “Just curious.”

“Jason McGregor isn’t exactly tall, rich and temporary.”

Sam’s lips quirked. “I know.” Her feet finally stopped moving. “I was on duty the night he turned himself in.”

“I remember.”

“I just... I don’t know. Something about the guy is sorta sticking with me. You know what I mean?”

Hayley blew out a long breath. “I know exactly what you mean.” She straightened and tucked her arm through Sam’s. “Cinnamon roll. Please. I beg you. And when we’re
sitting,
while I indulge myself in a sweet roll drenched in caramel and pecans, you can tell me all about it.”

“Dr. Templeton is in?”

“Dr. Templeton is in.” They waited while a tractor pulling a load of hay lumbered past. Then they crossed the street, heading for Ruby’s just around the block.

“How’s Vivian’s hunt for the new Templeton estate coming along?”

“How do you think? She hired Beck Ventura as the architect. He’ll probably regret it before the house is built. She keeps changing her mind about what she wants.”

“What does she want?”

“A palace?”

Sam laughed softly. “Where is she going to build?”

“That remains to be seen,” Hayley said. “She wants a piece of land that Squire Clay’s got up for sale but she hasn’t made an offer yet for some reason.” They turned the corner and reached the diner.

“You got new running shoes,” Sam observed. “Just noticed.”

Hayley lifted the drooping leg of her sweatpants to wiggle her hot pink shoe. “Had to. I was careless for thirty seconds and Moose ate my other ones.”

“Bet you’re glad Jane’s back. That house of theirs is to die for, but that puppy? Sounds like he eats everything in sight.”

She immediately thought of Seth. Moose had never tried to chew something he shouldn’t when Seth was around. “I miss him.”

“The dog?”

“Yeah. Him, too.” She followed Sam through the door to the diner and inhaled the heavenly aroma of coffee and cinnamon.

“Well, my friend,” Sam said, “Looks like now’s your chance to tell him.”

“What?”

Sam spread her hands and stepped to one side.

Leaving Hayley standing face-to-face with Seth.

“You shaved,” she breathed and immediately turned hot. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Two long, miserably lonely weeks. And those were the words that came out of her mouth?

His lips tilted in a smile and without the usual blur of dark razor stubble, his dimple fully revealed itself. He rubbed his hand down his jaw, looking vaguely self-conscious. “I did.” His eyes ran over her face. “You look—”

“—sweaty,” she offered quickly. “Running. I’ve been running with, um, with Sam.” And why, oh, why couldn’t she be wearing something presentable like Sam’s body-hugging capris and sports bra, instead of her ancient sweats and a faded UCLA T-shirt with a tear on the hem?

“Good,” he corrected her. “I was going to say you look good.”

She lifted her eyebrows, sticking her fingers through the ripped hem. “I look like something that Moose got hold of.” Seth, however, looked as amazing as always in the simplest of blue jeans and an ARMY T-shirt that hugged his shoulders.

“I’m not looking at the clothes.”

Her stomach lurched. “I—” Her brain seemed frozen. She didn’t know what to say. So all she did was smile weakly and choke out a nervous laugh.

Sam jostled her in the ribs with her elbow. “I’m going to finish my run,” she said, widening her eyes at Hayley almost comically. “I’ll catch up to you later.” She looked at Seth. “Nice to see you back.”

Then she trotted out the diner door.

“I came in for cinnamon rolls.” Hayley forced out the words as if they’d been the ones on her lips all along.

He held up a white paper sack. “So did I.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve got enough to share.”

Something inside her chest leapt. “Okay.” She moistened her lips and glanced around the diner. Every booth, table and counter stool was occupied. “I don’t see anywhere to sit.”

“I know a place.”

She swallowed and preceded him out the door.

“This will do,” he said gruffly the second they were outside the restaurant, and he pushed her against the brick wall, fastening his mouth hungrily over hers.

Her hands fisting in his hair, she kissed him back before she realized what she was doing right there in the middle of Main Street, Weaver, USA. She gasped and shoved him away, pressing the back of her hand to her throbbing lips. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” He was breathing hard. “But at least now you’re not looking at me like you don’t know whether to run and hide or hide and run.” He bent over and scooped up the paper bag that he’d dropped. “How is Vivian?”

Hayley’s legs were trembling and she wished she could blame it on the aborted jog with Sam, but lying to herself had been losing its appeal for a good fourteen days now. “She’s decided to build a house. She’s bringing her old housekeeper out from Pittsburgh, which has Montrose in a tizzy because they don’t get along at all. And why did Mrs. Carson tell me again that you left town?”

In the bright morning sun, Seth’s eyes were a blue gleam between his narrowed lashes. “Because I did.” He pulled her around to the back of Ruby’s, where a table and bench were set up beneath a tree. “Vivian visited me a week ago.”

Hayley started.

“Said a few things that got under my skin.”

“She has a way of doing that,” Hayley said faintly.

“Most importantly, about sometimes needing to go back before you could forward.” His gaze bore into hers. “So I did.” He pulled a folded envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Proof that Marcus killed my father. The original autopsy report was lost a long time ago, but that’s a statement from the medical examiner who signed off on it. He’s retired now but he kept meticulous records. My father didn’t drown. He was dead before he hit the water. The ME confirms there’s no way that the injury was accidental.”

She gaped and sat on the bench with a plop.

He straddled the bench and sat beside her. “I wasn’t wrong. Marcus paid off the DA to avoid prosecution and took the rest of the money he’d gotten for the sale of the business and booked a flight to Mexico.”

“How do you know?”

“With a little help from Hollins-Winword, the DA—he’s retired, too—admitted he’d taken the payoff. He decided confessing to that was less painful in the long run than having us dig through every single one of the cases he didn’t prosecute over his short, uncelebrated career.”

“Seth.” She squeezed his hands. “That’s wonderful. You were right all along.”

“And there’s no statute of limitation on murder. Marcus has already been picked up in Mexico. He’ll be extradited back here to the United States to face charges.”

Hayley’s eyes burned. She twined her arms around his neck. “I’m so glad for you,” she whispered huskily. “You finished your mission.” Before she clung too hard for too long, she sat back.

“I did,” he murmured. “Only because Vivian stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong. She’s not all bad.”

Hayley nodded. “She’s not all good, either.”

“Isn’t that human nature, Dr. Templeton?”

Her lips curved upward in a smile but not for long. She swallowed the knot in her throat. “So what are you going to do now? Go back to Texas?”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing for me in Texas.”

“Won’t you want to be there to see Marcus’s trial?” She thought about Sam’s claim that Jason’s trial might never come to pass. “Surely there will be one, won’t there?”

“Chances are he’ll take a lesser manslaughter plea before it ever gets that far. He’s not going to want to take his chances on a murder conviction in Texas, when there are too many witnesses still around to confirm he was the only one on the boat with my father.” He turned her hand over and pressed his palm against hers. “What I want is here.”

She sank her teeth into the tip of her tongue. “You don’t have to say that. I overreacted about Vivian’s will and...and all that. I was—”

“—panicking.” He cut her off. “I know.” His eyes searched hers. “And I do have to say it. What I
want
is here. Everything I want is here. Because you are here.” He curled his fingers through hers. “I am never going to feel like I’m good enough for you. That’s a fact, Doc, and not one I’m capable of changing. But I’m also not capable of changing the fact that I love you.” His fingers tightened.

The tears in her eyes leaked out. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. It was...cruel.”

He cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb over her tears. “You don’t have what it takes to be cruel, Doc. It’s not in your DNA.” His dimple flashed, quick as lightning in a summer storm and gone just as fast. “But you can fire as straight a verbal shot as anyone I’ve ever known. And I wouldn’t want you any other way.”

“So you’re going to stay in Weaver?”

“I’m going to stay with you.” His eyes searched hers. “Surrender is not a Ranger word.” He took her hand and placed it against his heart. “But I’m surrendering everything I have to you. If you’ll take me.”

Her chest felt as if it would crack. Her lips parted but no words would come.

His thumb brushed down her cheek. “But we’re not gonna live with Vivian. I draw the line at some things, and that’s one of them. And our kids aren’t gonna drive around in Rolls-Royce Phantoms. Not unless they earn ’em themselves.”

“Kids?”

His eyes softened, suddenly filled with that unexpected sweetness that had entranced her from the very beginning. “Do you ever think about it?”

She nodded because her throat was too tight for anything else. “I do,” she managed to croak.

He brushed her mouth with his. “Keep practicing those words, Doc. You can use them when you marry me. If you want to, that is.”

She suddenly laughed through her tears and pulled him close. “I do. I do, I do, I do!”

Epilogue

T
wo months later to the day, they did.

They were married under the round pavilion in the Weaver Community Park.

The same park where she had first seen him.

Hayley wore a white embroidered satin halter dress that hit just above her ankles. Isabella Clay had miraculously produced it in record time, claiming that it had been easy since she still had Hayley’s measurements from the dress she’d worn for Jane’s wedding so recently and the style of the dress was similar. Hayley had a hard time believing the task had been all that easy.

Fortunately, Vivian had insisted on paying for the dress and Hayley knew that her grandmother would have made certain Isabella’s effort was handsomely rewarded.

Seth wore a black suit and white shirt and was happy to eschew the tie when Hayley suggested it. She knew he disliked them. And even though he’d have happily worn it for her, she’d wanted him to be himself. If he’d have wanted to wear jeans and a T-shirt, she wouldn’t have cared.

The wedding wasn’t about what they wore.

It was about the commitment that they were making for the rest of their lives.

Jane and Sam were her attendants. Hayley had told them to wear what they chose.

Sam, practical-minded as ever, wore the same dress she’d worn for Jane’s wedding. And Jane, equally practical, had chosen to wear Hayley’s maid-of-honor dress. She’d had to have it cleaned because there were dirt marks around the hem from the parking lot at Shop-World where Hayley had danced with Seth.

Two of his ranger buddies made it into town in enough time to stand up for him. They looked stunning in their dress uniforms. Which had Sam eyeing them as if they were treats to be devoured but she couldn’t decide between them.

Much to Vivian’s chagrin—because she’d wanted to hire an entire orchestra as befitted any granddaughter of hers—Casey provided the music, playing his violin. And he did so with such perfect beauty that Hayley saw Vivian wipe a tear as she stared fixedly at the man.

Even Seth noticed, murmuring “Is your grandmother crying?” into her ear when she met him in front of the minister after her father had walked her beneath the pavilion.

“It’s the violin music,” she whispered back. “My grandfather used to play.”

Her father had promised not to make a scene with her grandmother. At least not on Hayley’s wedding day. And even now, after the vows and the rings, Carter managed to limit himself to an occasional glare across the invisible aisle separating the picnic tables where everyone sat.

Despite coming together for a wedding, Carter and his brother were keeping very much to one side of the pavilion. Vivian stayed to the other, sharing her table with Montrose and Gretchen. There were other guests, too. Former clients and friends of Hayley’s. Isabella and her husband, Erik, and their adopted son, Murphy. Abby and Sloan McCray. The sheriff and his wife. Even Pam Rasmussen, the sheriff’s dispatcher, who was married to Hayley’s distant cousin.

Vivian and her sons could sit on opposite sides of the aisle, pretending the other side didn’t exist. But there were connective threads webbing out around them whether they liked it or not.

“Do you suppose they’ll ever let the past go?” Seth asked, sliding his arm around Hayley’s waist. The gold band she’d put on his finger only minutes ago gleamed. She kept getting distracted just from looking at it.

He was her husband. She was his wife.

She glanced at her father. He and David had moved near the wedding cake where Casey and Jane were standing. Vivian was cradling Casey’s violin close by. “I don’t know. I’m not worrying about it anymore,” she said. “It’s not up to me to fix them.”

“You’ll never let it go. You’ll always be concerned about the people you love. That’s who you are.”

“Who I am,” she turned into his arms, loving the smile on his face, “is your wife.”

“Dr. Hayley Banyon. You’re sure you want to change your name?”

“Positive.” She dipped her fingertip into his dimple. “I never knew how much I could love someone until I met you.”

“You’re just saying that because you want to get your hands on me.”

She laughed softly. “That’s right, Mr. Banyon. It’s all about the sex. The very, very good sex. Has nothing whatsoever to do with my life having very little meaning unless you’re in it.”

He smiled and ran his fingers over the wedding ring on hers. “I love you, Doc.” He didn’t say it often. But he made sure she knew it every minute of every day.

“I love you.” She kissed him quickly. “Now come on.” She pulled him toward the picnic table, where the wedding cake was laid out on a pretty white cloth. “I’m not refereeing any battles between my father and Vivian, but they’re all standing very close to our wedding cake. That’s a recipe for disaster.”

He chuckled and slid his hand over her back laid bare by the halter dress. “Sure you don’t want to just get the heck out of here while the going’s good?”

She slid him a look. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Are you?” He drew his fingertip along her spine.

She exhaled carefully, feeling heat race through her. “Very.”

His lips tilted wickedly. “Good.” He pulled her the rest of the way toward the cake just as Vivian handed the violin back to Casey.

“I never expected to hear this violin played again,” she was telling him. “Not so beautifully.”

“The only reason it’s playable at all is because you got it fixed for me,” Casey reminded her. “It means a lot to me and my family. It belonged to my grandmother, Sarah. She died a long time before I came along.”

Hayley pressed her head against Seth’s chest behind her and shared a smile with Jane. They both remembered when Jane had brought the broken violin to Vivian for help, even though she’d thought all was lost with Casey.

“I know,” Vivian said in a shaking voice. She sent Hayley a look that seemed filled with apology. “I know the violin belonged to your grandmother. Because it was my first husband who gave it to her.” She turned the violin over and gently stroked the markings on the back. “And my father who gave it to him.”

Casey’s eyebrows pulled together and he let out half a laugh. “Talk about a small world.”

“Not that small.” Vivian swallowed and seemed to brace herself. “You see, my husband Sawyer Templeton was your grandmother’s half-brother, dear. He just didn’t know she existed until shortly after he and I married.”

Hayley sucked in a breath.

Casey’s stunned gaze flicked from Vivian’s face to Hayley’s. “Well, damn,” he finally said, sounding just as dazed as she felt.

Seth’s arms tightened around Hayley’s waist. “Sounds to me like your family tree just got a whole lot bigger.”

“And if I hadn’t...interfered because she was illegitimate and I was afraid of scandal,” Vivian added, “half of everything that came from Templeton Steel would have been hers. Which is something I intend to finally rectify.” She breathed deeply and raised her chin, looking skyward. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m going to get things right.”

“Who’s she talking to?” Hayley’s brother had come up next to them.

“Dear Arthur,” Hayley and Seth said together.

Arch shook his head. “She’s a nut job.”

“She’s Vivian Archer Templeton,” Hayley murmured. “That’s your namesake, brother dear.”

“Still a nut job.” He headed toward Casey, his arm outstretched in greeting. “So. It sounds like we’re cousins...”

* * * * *

Don’t miss these other stories in
New York Times
and
USA TODAY
bestselling author Allison Leigh’s long-running
RETURN TO THE DOUBLE C
series:

THE RANCHER’S DANCE

COURTNEY’S BABY PLAN

A WEAVER PROPOSAL

A WEAVER VOW

A WEAVER BEGINNING

A WEAVER CHRISTMAS GIFT

Available from Harlequin.

Keep reading for an excerpt from
THE BOSS, THE BRIDE & THE BABY
by Judy Duarte.