Cathy Gillen - The Bride Said, 'Finally!'

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!”

“Well, nice meeting you all, but as you can see I’m closing my shop for the day.”

“Goody! Did you hear that, Mr. Froggie? We get to go to the ranch!” With a wave at Jenna, Alex darted back out the door.

“Nice meetin’ you!” Clara said, waving as she headed out the door after Alex.

Jake frowned at his daughter, who was already climbing back in the truck. “This probably isn’t a good time for us to talk,” he conceded with a frown.

Jenna breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad you finally realize that.”

“We need to go to dinner together,” Jake said firmly.

Jenna’s eyes widened. Determined not to put herself in an emotionally vulnerable position with him again, she scoffed derisively. “In your dreams!”

Jake’s eyes darkened with legendary confidence. “I’ll be by to get you around eight o’clock,” he promised as she stalked away from him.

Jenna concentrated on putting the Closed sign on the front door. Then opened it and held it wide for him. “Don’t hold your breath,” she muttered sweetly as she waved him toward the exit.

But clearly, Jake was counting on getting his way. As always. “Wear something casual,” Jake advised as he sauntered toward the door. “I want you to be comfortable.” He gave her a smile that reached his eyes. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“THE NERVE of that man!” Meg Lockhart fumed short minutes later at the emergency meeting of all four Lockhart sisters. Having come straight from work, she was still in her nurse’s uniform.

“I’ll say!” Kelsey agreed with a snort of disgust as they all gathered around the dining table in Jenna’s apartment above her Main Street boutique. Kelsey put down the stack of catalogs of ranch gear she’d brought in with her, pushed back her cowgirl hat and pulled up a chair.

“To come around after all these years, acting as if nothing much at all had happened!” The happily married Dani shook her head in a reproach too deep for words. A movie critic by profession, she liked drama and excitement as much as anyone, but this was too much—even for her!

Dani leaned toward Jenna urgently. “I mean, I know how much you loved him once, Jenna. But for him to think—after all this time, no less!—that you would still be carrying a torch for him…How foolish is that?”

Pretty foolish, Jenna thought, aware it was uncomfortably close to the truth. As much as she hated to admit it, no man had ever come close, before or since, to engendering the passionate emotions in her that Jake Remington, captain of J&R Industries, did.

All four sisters sipped iced tea with lemon, their heads bent together thoughtfully.

“Actually, I think the smartest thing would be for you to go on that date,” Meg decided after a moment as she took the pins out of her long auburn hair and shook it out.

Everyone turned to Meg—the oldest and most responsible of them all—in shock. Meg regarded them determinedly but saved her advice, which came straight from the heart, for Jenna. “You need to prove to him once and for all that you are so over him it isn’t funny,” Meg told Jenna sternly. “Let him wine and dine you and even pull out all the stops if that’s what he wants to do. Just play along with nary a word of protest and let him go for it. And then—” Meg paused and raised a cautioning hand “—when he’s expended his full bag of rich-boy tricks, let him know straight out there’s no going back to the way things were when you were teenagers. Let him know it’s over, once and for all.”