The three women split up to finish their work for the day. As she aided Sara and the two other older children with their study exercises, her mind was half on what was happening with Jewel, T.J. and Joe in the library where Jewel often met with the children privately.
It came as no surprise to her later that Jewel had not been able to get any other information from them.
It also didn’t surprise her to see T.J., Joe and Sara huddled together by the corral later that afternoon, clearly engaged in some kind of animated conversation. As soon as the rest of the group neared in order to take some rides on Papa’s Poppy, the conversation stopped.
Their actions worried her, but with T.J. grounded for a month due to the speeding and accident, the trio was unlikely to get into trouble anytime soon.
Anytime soon hopefully being long after Jericho had returned from his honeymoon and Fisher had left town.
She knew which Yates brother she could count on to help her and it sure wasn’t Fisher, she thought.
Relative quiet ruled over dinner that night.
T.J. didn’t have much to say about either his discussion with Jewel or what he, Joe and Sara were talking about at the corral.
In truth, she didn’t push too hard for the information. If she did, T.J. would become even more tight-lipped and remind her that she had something she needed to get off her chest as well.
Namely Fisher.
She hadn’t been able to get him out of her mind all day and as she slipped into bed that night, he once again invaded her dreams as if to remind her that she had been about to marry the wrong Yates brother.
A small crowd gathered around the steps of the church. Jewel and Ana. An assortment of Coltons. Jericho and a pregnant Olivia, her rounded belly larger than it had been just a few weeks before. Buck Yates stood beside them, a broad smile on his face.
As she neared the group, she stumbled on something and looked down.
She had stepped on the hem of her dress—her wedding dress.
Confused, she paused and stared back up at the gathering of friends and family, only everyone had disappeared, leaving only two people on the steps—Fisher and T.J.
T.J. looked solemn and too grown-up in his dark blue suit—the suit she had bought for him to wear for her wedding to Fisher.
No, not Fisher.
Jericho, she reminded herself, but as she stared at her son and the man standing next to him, she realized just how much T.J. looked like Fisher, his father.
It was there in the squareness of their jaws and the lean build of their bodies. T.J.’s hair was darker than hers, closer to Fisher’s nearly black hair much like T.J.’s eyes were a mix of Fisher’s green and her brown.
The physical similarities between the two men was undeniable.
She wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. Why others hadn’t seen it over the years. Suddenly, she realized everyone had gone.
Everyone except Fisher who stood there, lethally handsome in his Army uniform. The dark blue of the fabric intensified the green of his eyes while the fit of the jacket lovingly caressed the broad width of his shoulders and leanness of his waist.
She remembered those shoulders, she thought as she took a step toward him and the distance between them vanished.
Suddenly in his arms, she braced her hands against those strong shoulders only they were bare now beneath the palms of her hands much as she was now bare, the wedding dress having evaporated into the ether of her dreams.
His skin was warm against hers as he pressed her to his lean muscled body. A man’s hard body, she thought, recalling the strength of him on the one night they had shared so long ago. Remembering the emotions he had roused that had shaken her to the core of her being.
She met his gaze, her own likely confused as she said, “I’ve never forgotten our one night.”
“Neither have I,” he said and lowered his forehead to rest against hers. His tones soft, he said, “Why did you marry Tim?”
She had loved Tim with all her heart. Loved him in a way that was different from how she felt for Fisher and yet…
She had loved Fisher as well after that night. And because of that emotion, she hadn’t been able to ruin his life when she had heard of his enlistment and excitement to be leaving Esperanza.
At her hesitation, he smiled sadly and said, “Still not talking? You didn’t want to talk after that night either.”
No, she hadn’t wanted to talk. She had wanted to show him how she cared in other ways and so she did that now, rising up the inch or so to press her lips to his.
Fisher groaned like a man in pain at that first touch, but then he answered her kiss, meeting her lips again and again. Tenderly breaching the seam of her mouth with his tongue to taste her. To unite them until every move and breath became as one between them and just kissing wasn’t enough.
He gently lowered her to the ground and the softness of well-worn fabric, smelling like her mama’s detergent, dragged her eyes open.
It was night out and they were lying on a blanket on the overlook, much as they had done eighteen years before.
The sky above them was a deep endless black dotted with hundreds of stars and a bright summer moon that silvered all below as it had so many years earlier.
As she met his gaze, he cupped her cheek and ran his thumb across the moistness his kisses had left behind on her lips.
“I never forgot that night,” he said once again.
“Neither did I,” she admitted and gave herself over to his loving.
Macy bolted upright in bed, breathing heavily. Her body thrummed with unfulfilled desire.
She yanked a shaky hand through her hair, troubled about the dream. Troubled because it had hit too close to home regarding her feelings for Fisher.
No matter how hard she had tried to forget him during the last eighteen years, he had always been with her. In her brain and in her heart.
Tim had known and understood. Had realized that her love for him was strong and true, but that Fisher had touched a part of her that could not be his.
She had admired Tim for that and for claiming T.J. as his. It had allowed both her and Fisher to get on with their lives in the ways that both of them had wanted.
And what about T.J.? the niggling voice of guilt reminded. What about Fisher not knowing he has a child? it lashed out.
Shaking her head as if to clear out that nagging voice, she slipped from bed and walked down the hall to T.J.’s room.
The door was open and as she peered at her sleeping son, the guilt flailed at her repeatedly. T.J.’s features were stamped with Fisher’s, she thought again. If Fisher had stayed in town, or visited more often than during his occasional breaks between tours of duty, she would not have been able to keep her secret for so long.
It made her wonder why the other Yates men hadn’t seen the resemblance, or if they had, why they hadn’t said anything?
With such thoughts dragging at her, she returned to bed only to find sleep was impossible.
Grabbing her romance novel from her nightstand, she read, knowing it would give her the happily-ever-after that she seemed unable to find in her own life.
Fisher sat before the fireplace in his father’s home, staring at the pile of logs ready