“I’m not saying anything just yet. And remember
what I’ve told you is a secret. Don’t say a word to anyone.”
“Our lips are sealed,” Kattie said.
A smile tugged at the corners of Jake Madaris’s mouth.
The three of your lips haven’t been sealed since the day you were born,
he wanted to say as he looked at the earnest expressions on their faces. “I’ll talk to you ladies later. My friend Kyle Garwood and his wife Kimara just arrived.”
Jake looked at his watch as he walked off. He knew it wouldn’t be long before every living soul at the party knew that he would be making an announcement about something. His three very talkative nieces would see to it.
I
t was time.
Jake glanced around the room and noticed a number of people were eyeing him expectantly. It seemed his nieces had done a pretty good job of spreading the word that he would be making some sort of an announcement. He gave a discreet nod to his brother Jonathan, who nodded in return before slipping up the stairs unnoticed.
Jake smiled. He was not the type of person to give in to dramatics, but he had to ashamedly admit that he was actually enjoying this. “May I have all of your attention for a minute, please?” he asked the group of people assembled in his living room.
Conversation stopped immediately, and all eyes, those that were not looking at him already, turned in his direction. He took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Other than his men; his brother and sister-in-
law, Jonathan and Marilyn; and his two close friends, Kyle Garwood and Sterling Hamilton and their wives—no one else knew of his relationship with Diamond, let alone the fact that he was married to her. But now that was about to end. He would not be guarding their secret any longer.
“First of all, I want to thank all of you for coming. Someone recently reminded me that it’s been a long time since I’d given a party for my family and friends, and that person was right. It has been a long time. It’s been too long. There’s nothing like getting the people you care about together in one place, especially on an occasion like this when I have news to share with all of you.”
Jake let his gaze move across the room before continuing. “Today I am an extremely happy man, and I want to share the reason for my happiness with all of you.”
From the excited looks on everyone’s faces, he had a feeling that like his niece Traci, they thought he was about to talk profits. Most of them had an invested interest in Whispering Pines and knew that besides being a hardworking rancher, he was also a successful businessman. He was the financial adviser to most of them.
“A year and a half ago something happened to me that I never expected to ever happen again. I met someone and fell in love.”
Everyone stared at him in disbelief. Some people blinked in surprise, others’ mouths dropped open and one or two, like his nephew Clayton, wore a smug “I knew it had something to do with a woman” expression.
Jake could not help but grin at the buzz that went
around the room. He knew that everyone thought the idea of him falling in love was absurd and absolutely ridiculous. No doubt they were also wondering if what he had just told them was true, how in the world had it happen since he spent the majority of his time busting his butt on the ranch.
Before they could recover and ask questions he continued. “After realizing just how much she meant to me, I knew I had to make her a permanent part of my life. And so I did.”
There was a long silence, then his nephew Dex asked, “Just what are you saying, Jake?”
Jake’s gaze moved around the room before coming to rest on Dex. He had a feeling Dex knew the answer to that question, but had wanted him to clarify it for those who didn’t. “What I’m saying is that the reason I invited all of you here was to let you know I got married over a year and a half ago.”
“
You did what!
”
“
Over a year and a half ago?
”
“
Why didn’t you tell us?
”
“
Who did you marry?
”
“
Why did you keep something like that a secret?
”
Jake raised his hand to stop the outburst of questions that started coming at him from every direction. Everyone was talking at once.
“You got married and didn’t let your family know!” his oldest brother Milton roared accusingly. His voice thundered loudly above all the others.
Jake rolled his eyes and shook his head. He wasn’t surprised that the main person who took offense to not knowing about his marriage was his oldest brother, Milton. There was an eighteen-year difference in their
ages, and being the oldest of the brothers, Milton felt it was his God-given right to know everything that went on within the family. And usually he did.
“Yes, but there’s a reason the news of my marriage was kept a secret from everyone. And once I explain things, I’m sure you’ll all understand,” Jake assured them.
“And I’m just as sure that we won’t,” Milton Madaris snorted, his feelings clearly hurt.
“Who did you marry, son?” his mother asked after her initial shock had worn off. Unlike her oldest son, her feelings were not hurt. In fact, she was tickled pink that her baby boy was no longer single. “Where is she? Where’s this woman you’ve kept hidden from us all this time?”
Jake turned toward the stairs. “I’d like to present to all of you, the woman who has made me believe in love again, my wife, Diamond Swain Madaris.”
A sudden mixture of “Wh-wh-what” and “Ohhh” murmured across the room as a beautiful and dazzling Diamond suddenly appeared on the top stair on Jonathan Madaris’s arm. She was dressed in an elegant tea-length cream-colored gown and was a vision that put everyone in a daze. Even Jake was spellbound as he looked at her. A tightness gripped his throat, and his heart thumped in his chest. She was totally and incredibly beautiful.
His Diamond.
He felt so very fortunate, so very blessed to have discovered such a treasure as this diamond. And as long as he lived, he would give thanks to God for bringing her into his life.
Their eyes met and held for the longest time. It was
an automatic gesture on his part to slowly move toward the stairs. His mouth was set in a determined line and his eyes were filled with love when he came to a stop at the bottom stair and stood there. Like everyone else, mesmerized, he looked up at the woman standing next to his brother.
The room went completely silent. Whether it was in awe or in shock, Jake wasn’t sure, nor did he care. The only thing he cared about was the woman returning his stare from under long lashes and who was smiling down at him. He gave her a long look, from the top of her head down to the bottom of her feet. His gaze moved back up again and followed her gown’s tempting neckline and the split that ran down the front.
He swallowed. Breathtaking. She was simply breathtaking. A part of him trembled when she left Jonathan’s side and began slowly walking down the stairs to him. Alone. It was as if she was giving herself to him again, fully and completely. And she was taking it a step further by giving herself to him publicly.
Unable to stand still, he began moving up the stairs to meet her.
They met on the middle stair.
“You are,” he started saying in a voice that was deep and husky, “everything that any man could ever hope for. You are more than I could ever hope for.”
Diamond felt like she couldn’t breathe with Jake’s words. Her heart was beating with the amount of love she felt for him. Her entire body was pinned in place by the intensity of his gaze. He reached out and captured her hand in his and brought it to his lips.
Her body slightly trembled with the emotions that overwhelmed her from his touch. Everyone else in the
room faded in a haze the moment he released her hand and his arms slipped around her and he pulled her to him. She moaned when he captured her mouth in a searing kiss that nearly stole the very breath from her body. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him as the solid rock in her oftentimes-hectic world. Her body was filled with joy. Complete joy.
Ignoring their audience, Jake kissed her more deeply. Holding her tight in his arms he leaned back and lifted her feet off the stair.
“Well, Lordy, look at that. I don’t believe it. Jake got himself a diamond,” Jake heard one of his brothers say from the crowd below.
“And she got herself a Madaris,” one nephew’s wife added proudly.
“And we got a movie star in the family,” a third person, a teenager, piped in.
Catcalls, wild applause, whistles and shouts thundered loudly in the room, but all of that was lost on Jake and Diamond. Neither took them as interruptions. A hard wind could have blown the house down and they would not have noticed. For the moment, nothing else mattered to them but each other.
Their secret love was not a secret any longer.
Jake stood across the room, leaning against the wall, watching while Diamond stood comfortably talking to the women in his family. It was evident that everyone was completely taken with her. She had been so sure his family would not forgive her for holding him to their secret. But she had been wrong.
Together he and Diamond had given his family and close friends the complete story. He knew that after lis
tening to Diamond explain why she had wanted to keep their marriage, their special love, from under the media’s scrutiny, everyone had understood because they knew her fears of what the media would do were justified.
His family had thought it amusing how they had eluded the media by letting them continue to assume that there was more between Diamond and Sterling than friendship. It had been a ruse that had worked until Sterling had gotten married.
Jake was about to walk off, to go claim his wife when he found his way blocked by his nephew Dex.
“You surprised the hell out of us, Jake,” Dex Madaris said as a slow smile touched his lips.
Jake crossed his arms over his chest, and his own lips curved into a grin. “Figured I did. I guess I’ll be thanking Sterling for the rest of my life for sending Diamond to Whispering Pines to rest and relax.”
Dex nodded. “Yep. Just like I’ll always be grateful to you for Caitlin. It was sheer luck that you had to go out of town on business that day, and I’m the one who had to interview her for that summer job here.”
Dex looked across the room at his wife. Like most of the other women present, she stood in a crowd surrounding Diamond. “I think I fell in love with Caitlin the moment I laid eyes on her. I just didn’t know it at the time.” He chuckled. “It took me all of a little over two weeks to find it out, and with a little help from Clayton.”
Jake chuckled, remembering. He looked over at the group when he heard Diamond’s throaty laugh. The rush of sexual desire that made him tremble from just looking at her didn’t surprise him. Only Diamond
could do that to him. “I was a goner the moment Diamond walked off that plane onto Whispering Pines land,” he said to Dex. “Because of Jessie, a city woman was the last person I wanted to be attracted to. But after a mere few days, I came to the stunning realization that my mind was saying one thing but my heart had its own private agenda.”
Dex studied his uncle for a long spell before asking, “So now that chances are high that your secret is going to get leaked to the press, how are you planning on handling the media? You may want to come up with some sort of game plan. None of us were prepared for what happened to Syneda. What the media put her and her father through was totally uncalled for.”
Jake nodded in agreement. “Yes, and I’ve prepared myself. I’m just about ready to deal with anything. I’ve had to put up with a lot of garbage being written about Diamond, and none of it will stop just because she’s married to me. In fact, I’ve got a feeling things will get worse. Everything she’s tried to avoid and protect us from will happen once the secret gets out.”
It wasn’t going to be easy, Jake realized. No doubt the media would not be too happy with them for fooling them these past eighteen months. Some facets of the press felt it was their God-given right to invade people’s privacy. They cared more for profits than they did people’s feelings.
“If you ever need any of us, you know you can call at any time,” Dex said to his uncle. “Hopefully the media frenzy will eventually die down and you and Diamond will be able to have a normal marriage.”
Jake chuckled. “A normal marriage with Diamond is too much to hope for, Dex, as long as she’s in the
spotlight. But I’m determined that whatever we have to go through, whatever we have to endure, will make our love that much stronger and our marriage that much more solid.”
Dex studied his uncle. Jake’s voice held the patience, willfulness and tenderness of a man hopelessly in love; a man who was determined to hold on to what he had, no matter what the cost because he had a woman he felt was well worth it. Dex knew firsthand how that felt.
“If things get too rough around here and the media get the nerve to invade your space, remember your family and that no matter what, we stick together.”
Jake met his nephew’s gaze, proud of the man he had become. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
Jake fought back another yawn. It was time to rescue his wife, yet again. First it had been the women in the Madaris family demanding her time, now it was the men.
Determinedly threading his way through the cluster of men surrounding his wife, he headed straight toward her. Finally reaching her, he came to a stop directly in front of her. “I came for my Diamond,” he said, moments before sweeping her into his arms, ignoring her gasp of surprise and the men’s startled looks.
“Sorry, this conversation is over, guys,” he said, smiling.
Milton Madaris shot his brother a hard glare. “Who says?”
“I do, Milt. It’s late. Besides, whether any of you noticed or not, the party ended hours ago. Good night.” Jake then proceeded to leave the circle of men.
“Wait a minute, Jake,” his brother Lee called out to him. “You can’t leave before your guests. Where’re your manners?”
Jake shot his brothers and nephews a mellow grin. “Upstairs. And if all of you will excuse me, I’m on my way up there to join them.”
He walked a little ways before turning back to the group. “If you leave to return to Houston tonight, do have a safe trip back. If you decide to spend the night, please make yourselves at home. Just don’t disturb me or Diamond. It was hard work planning this party and we’re completely exhausted.”
Jake’s smile widened. Not for one minute did he think any of the men believed he was taking Diamond upstairs so the two of them could rest.