Karen Kirst - The Bachelor's Homecoming

Despite the difficulties, coming home to Gatlinburg would be good for her. He’d make sure of it.

* * *

“I can’t believe you agreed to this.”

Jane didn’t look up from her journal. Tom and Clara would be arriving any minute to pick her up, and she wanted to finish her entry. Expressing her thoughts and feelings on paper helped her make sense of her world.

“What excuse could I possibly have given him, Jess?”

Her twin popped up from the top step and paced the length of the porch, blue paisley skirts swishing with each step. “I don’t know. Chores? Errands? Visiting the sick?”

With a sigh, Jane shut the clothbound book and slipped it and her pencil into the leather satchel at her feet. She started the rocker moving with the tip of her boot. “He’s concerned how Megan will react if he shows up there alone. As her sister and his friend, I’m the obvious choice to accompany him.”

“He’s concerned about Megan.” Jessica snorted. “Of course he is.”

Anguish arrowed through her. “He loved her, Jess. Once you love someone, that never goes away.”

At least, it hadn’t in her experience. How many times had she yearned for the empty hole in her heart to mend? Or be filled with someone else? She’d thought that, with time, Roy would’ve come to mean more to her. “Besides, Tom hasn’t the slightest idea how I feel. In his mind, this is simply an opportunity for me to visit with my sister.”

Jessica knelt before her, halting the rocking motion with her hands on the armrests. Looking into her face was like peering into a mirror.

“I’m worried about you, sis. Not only are you dealing with Roy’s deception, but the return of your infatuation. The hero of your daydreams. The man you haven’t been able to forget.”

“Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

Interest kindled in Jessica’s rounded eyes. “You’re going to confess everything?”

The mere idea had her heart doing palpitations. “Can you honestly picture me doing that?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. If you were to work up your nerve. It’s not a horrible idea.” She snapped her fingers. “I know, I can pretend to be you and do it for you.”

Jane glowered at her twin. The handful of times they’d switched identities as children had been spectacular failures. And they’d gotten punished for their efforts. “Forget it, Jess.”

“Okay. How about flirting with him? Giving him subtle hints that you’re open to a relationship?”

Gently nudging Jessica aside, she pushed to standing and went to the railing. “My plan is to live my life apart from his. After today, I’m going to see to it that our paths rarely cross outside church. I won’t even sit with him during the service.” Not like old times, side by side with Tom and Megan on the wooden pew.

Jessica joined her, retying the shiny blue ribbon that had come loose about her thick mane. “He’ll be included in all the O’Malley events.”

“I can handle it.”

“Has he told you what he’s been up to all this time?”

“Not exactly.”

“You do realize he might be married. Or engaged. Not all men wear wedding bands. Anything could’ve happened in two years.”

Married. The possibility hadn’t occurred to her. Surely he’d been too distraught over Megan to notice other women! Dread and something too much like desperation cut into her. She couldn’t bear the thought, and that frightened her. Because it meant she wasn’t over him. It meant she was right back in the same impossible spot she’d been in when he’d been dreaming of forever with her sister.

Sucking in a shaky breath, Jane stiffened her spine. “Falling back into the same detrimental cycle is not an option. I refuse to waste any more time mooning after a man who doesn’t want me.”

“Good for you.” A wide smile blossomed on Jessica’s face. “Because now that I’m with Lee, I have no intention of letting you become a spinster.”

The longing for a husband and children of her own would have to go unfulfilled until she could successfully slay her hopes concerning Tom Leighton.

“I can’t dwell on the future. I have to focus on one day at a time.” The thudding of horses’ hooves against the hard earth alerted her. “He’s here.”

Retrieving her satchel, she looped it over her shoulder and entered the yard.

Jess followed. “Be strong, sister of mine. I’ll say a prayer for you.”

Tom guided the team to a stop. His motions fluid despite his impressive height, he jumped down and, after advising Clara to remain in the wagon bed, strode across the yard. Neat charcoal-gray trousers encased his long, muscular legs. A button-down shirt the color of spruce trees hugged his fit upper body, the rolled-up sleeves revealing corded forearms lightly dusted with fine hairs. His eyes glowed even brighter than usual. His dark hair hadn’t yet seen a pair of scissors, nor his chiseled jaw a razor. Strange. She’d thought he would’ve cleaned up for this first meeting with Megan. Personally, she preferred the rugged look. She linked her hands behind her back, away from the temptation of that beard, lest she succumb again to the need to touch him.

As he neared, his intense gaze lit on her, and he flashed an endearing smile she felt all the way to her toes.

She pitched her voice low. “Better pray hard, Jess. I’m going to need it.”

* * *

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

Beside him on the high seat, prim and proper and delicately beautiful in her high-collared russet-hued dress, she sat rigid with tension. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the wood.

“I wasn’t sure myself,” she said softly.

“I messed up, Jane. I was so absorbed in my own problems, I didn’t stop to consider your feelings.” If his brother was here, would he be saying the same things? How difficult would it be to come to a place of forgiveness? “I don’t blame you for being angry. Never should’ve asked Josh to keep my whereabouts quiet.”

“No more apologies, okay? What’s done is done.”

Frustrated at his inability to gauge her true state of mind, he dared take her hand. He wished he wasn’t wearing gloves so he could enjoy, however briefly, the soft texture of her skin. “You probably won’t believe me, but you were never far from my thoughts.”

Her gaze lifted from their joined hands to his face, searching, probing for answers. Opening up about what happened wasn’t easy. He’d do it for her sake, though.

“In those first months of trying to get my head on straight, I often asked myself what you’d think about this or that...if you’d appreciate the stark wildness of the land, the unending flatness of it all, a sky so blue it hurt to look at.” He smiled a little. “The ranch hands liked to sit out by the fire at night. There was one guy, Cookie, who played the guitar and sang the worst ditties you’ve ever heard in your life. Made me wish you were there to show them what a talented singer was supposed to sound like.”

Alone on his cot in the bunkhouse, he’d think back to those times he’d drifted off to the sound of her lyrical voice. Picnics with the O’Malley sisters, joined sometimes by Josh and his brothers, had been one of his favorite pastimes. Good food. Great company. When he could eat no more and the sun had lulled him into a sleepy state, he’d lain on a quilt, hat over his face, and listened to Jane’s soft singing as she poured her thoughts into her journal.

Jane didn’t comment. Face angled away, her attention was on the roaring river tumbling over moss-covered boulders and under the wooden bridge they were crossing. The air had a moist twang to it, a pleasant earthiness typical to this area. In the near distance, people bustled up and down Main Street conducting their daily business.