The Bride Said, 'Finally!'. Cathy Thacker Gillen

perturbed by the interruption, Jake glanced at his watch and frowned. “She’s early.”

      Like that matters! Jenna thought, incensed.

      Unable to believe his audacity, never mind his lack of consideration for her feelings, Jenna turned to Jake furiously. “You are so out of here,” she said just as the driver alighted from the truck. To Jenna’s amazement, it wasn’t some glamorous young babe Jake was dating, but a plump, pleasant-looking woman in her mid to late fifties, wearing jeans, boots and blue denim work shirt. She had a straw cowgirl hat pulled over wild salt-and-pepper curls and a red bandana tied around her neck. She walked to the rear door on the passenger side. Realizing this woman was only the chauffeur, Jenna began to frown again.

      Jake moved between Jenna and the window, adeptly blocking her view. He tugged her behind a three-mannequin display of evening wear in the boutique window. Meanwhile, though the chauffeur had opened the passenger door and was holding it wide, no one was getting out.

      “Look, I’m begging you,” Jake said urgently. He clamped both his hands on Jenna’s shoulders and held her there in front of him when she would have bolted. “Alex’s been through a really rough time. When she saw your designs on TV she fell in love with them. I promised her I’d get you to design her some dresses, just for her. Exactly what she wants. Down to the very last detail.”

      Finding his request more unbelievable than ever, Jenna snapped at him, “So break the promise. That’s certainly not anything you’ve hesitated to do before.”

      Reminded of the heartless way he had betrayed her in the past, he showed a moment’s regret. Then, recovering, he went on matter-of-factly. “It’s not that simple, Jenna.”

      Jenna scoffed again. “It is to me. Besides, I have confidence in you,” she continued sweetly, favoring him with a long, withering look. “You’ll think of something, Jake. You always have.”

      The driver turned to Jake and lifted her hands in exasperation. Jake nodded his understanding signaling the driver to wait.

      “I’ll double your usual fee,” Jake said urgently, fastening his attention on Jenna once again.

      Jenna shook her head, thinking, This man really needs to have his head examined. “No!”

      “Triple.”

      Jenna rolled her eyes. “You must really be desperate.”

      Jake muttered, lifting one hand from her shoulder and, rubbing the back of his neck. “You have no idea how much.”

      Jenna wasn’t sure whether to tell Jake what she really thought of him, or just pity him. “Find some other ex-girlfriend to torture,” she said in a low, bored tone.

      Jake dropped his other hand, stepped back. Where he had gripped her shoulders, Jenna continued to tingle warmly. Too warmly.

      “There is no one else,” he said, dispirited.

      Looking into his mesmerizing silver-gray eyes, still feeling the awareness that shimmered through her at his touch, Jenna could almost—almost—believe that. Which only proved that once a fool, always a fool, she reprimanded herself. “No one else who knows how to operate a sewing machine, you mean,” she replied archly.

      Without warning, the limo driver snapped to attention once again. Sensing something was about to happen, Jake and Jenna both looked in the direction of the car. Seconds later, Jake’s “lady” vaulted out, clutching what looked to be a squirming bullfrog in both hands. She was muddy, unkempt, with a baseball hat planted backwards on her head, covering a mop of long and tangled strawberry blond hair that obviously hadn’t seen a brush all day. Olive-green overalls and a dingy T-shirt, several sizes too big, hung from her slender figure. She wore pink-rimmed sunglasses, high-topped basketball sneakers. A backpack in the form of a monkey was slung over one shoulder. Relief and amusement—and irritation at Jake for not having explained further—flowed through Jenna in equal quantities, making her want to deck him all over again.

      “This is the lady in your life?” Jenna asked, guessing the little girl’s age to be about five or six.

      “The one and only,” Jake smiled as the little scamp marched toward him. Jake turned to Jenna, sexy mischief in his eyes. “What did you think I meant?”

      Too late, Jenna realized it had been a test, to see if she still had feelings for him, and she had failed. Hardening her heart against any further involvement with him, she said, “I don’t design children’s clothing, either.”

      Outside, the chauffeur waved cheerfully at Jenna, gestured to Jake she’d be back in a minute, then took off down the street after she ushered the child toward the shop.

      “I was hoping you’d make an exception for Alexandra, here,” Jake continued as the child sidled up to him for a one-armed hug.

      “That’s okay, Daddy.” Alexandra leaned against Jake’s side, her head resting against his waist. “I didn’t want any dresses anyway. And stop calling me Alexandra. You know I only wanta be called Alex.” Carefully transferring the frog to one hand, she grabbed onto the sleeve of Jake’s casual black blazer with the other and tugged fiercely. “Let’s go, Daddy.”

      His eyes still on Jenna, Jake shook his head. “Not yet, honey. I’ve got business to do.”

      The pout that formed on Alexandra’s pretty face was immediate—and potent. “You’ve been doing business all day,” she grumbled as the frog leapt from her hand and hopped across the floor of the shop. “I want to go to the ranch house now,” she repeated stubbornly. Racing after her frog, she called over her shoulder, “It’s brand-new. Daddy built it just for us, so I’d have somewhere I could play outside, and have horsies and dogs and cats and stuff. Only I don’t have none yet.”

      Jenna looked at Jake, too surprised by his revelations to be concerned with the amphibian escapee. “I didn’t think your family was summering here anymore.” They had stopped at the time of Jake and Jenna’s failed elopement.

      “My folks don’t, although they keep the ranch for an investment and loan out the house to friends from time to time.”

      “Then why would you build a place here, if you no longer have family vacationing in the area?”

      Jake shrugged. “I loved coming to Laramie when I was a kid.” He shot a glance at Alex, who had throw off her monkey backpack and pink sunglasses and was hopping around after her frog, well out of earshot. “I figured Alex would love it, too.”

      Jenna smiled, unable to resist a dig after the way his family’s snobbish attitudes had hurt her. “Are you sure that’s wise? Laramie is a great place. Friendly. Warm. Caring. Intimate. But on the social register—well, we really can’t compare with your native Dallas now, can we?” She looked at him steadily, daring him to claim otherwise.

      Jake stared back, regarding her with the same steady intensity. “I never thought you’d be a snob.”

      “Me?”

      “Okay, reverse snob,” Jake amended.

      Before they could continue their discussion, Alex’s chauffeur stepped into the shop. Jake turned to the older woman, affection etched on his face. It was, Jenna noted curiously, a feeling that was returned. “Jenna,” Jake said warmly, “this is Clara, our housekeeper, the lady who keeps us all sane. Clara, I’d like you to meet Jenna Lockhart, the lady I’ve been telling you and Alex about.”

      “I heard you two knew each other as kids,” Clara said.

      Jenna nodded. “We used to see each other every summer. But that ended a long time ago. We haven’t seen each other since.”

      Jake gave Jenna a look that said: “And it’s a loss to us both.”

      Jenna gave Jake a look that said: “Speak for yourself.”

      Alex popped up from behind the sales counter. She waved the bullfrog in the air. “Hey, everybody, I got him!”