Cathy Thacker - The Bride Said, 'Finally!'

Jake stood and helped Clara with her chair. He wrapped his arm around the older woman’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “Give Lisa and Randall our love. Let me know if there’s anything they need.”

Clara hugged Jake back. “I will. Bye, precious.” Clara knelt down to give Alexandra a hug and a kiss.

“Can I see your new grandbaby after it’s borned?” Alex asked.

Clara smiled. “You sure can.” She said goodbye to Jenna then was off.

Silence fell over the playroom. Suddenly, no one was much in the mood for a tea party. But that was okay with Jake. He looked over at Alex. “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Alex perked up immediately. “You do?”

“It’s on the back porch.” Jake smiled at his daughter, but did nothing to give away the nature of the surprise. “Want to see?”

Alex vaulted out of her chair and wobbled over to him on her high heels. “Can I wear my dress-up clothes?”

Jake frowned. Now that Alex was actually wearing something feminine, even if only for dress-up purposes, he hated to have her take it off. But given what he had on the porch, there was no helping it. “I think you better take them off for this,” he said.

“Okay.” Alex sighed, clearly disappointed, but not about to give up her surprise for the sake of arguing. She ripped off hat, gloves, scarf and high heels, but hesitated at the long double strand of pearls—which looked a little ludicrous with her jeans, T-shirt, and buckskin vest. She looked over at Jenna hopefully. “Can I keep these?”

“Sure,” Jenna said, smiling, as she too took off her tiara and stole and excess jewelry.

“Thank you,” Alex promised sincerely, giving Jenna an admiring look. “I’ll take good care of them. I won’t lose them or anything.”

Jenna reached over to squeeze Alex’s shoulders. “I know you won’t, sweetheart.”

Jake waited for Alex to put on her boots. “Ready?”

Alex nodded. She took his hand, glanced over at Jenna. “You come, too, Jenna.”

Jake nodded, seconding the invitation with a frank, sexy look.

Obviously curious, Jenna followed as Jake took his daughter’s hand in one of his, Jenna’s in the other, and led the way downstairs, past the dining room, through the kitchen and onto the large and homey screened-in back porch.

To Jake’s amusement, at first Jenna—like Alex—saw nothing amiss. Both scanned the rough-hewn furniture with red plaid cushions, the abundance of green, leafy plants and blooming geraniums, the Navajo rugs strewn across the cool cement floor and the ceiling fan whirring overhead. Then they heard it. The quick, frantic scampering of little feet. A yelp. A howl. A hiss. Alex and Jenna barely had time to draw surprised breaths before they caught sight of a fast-moving bundle of butterscotch fur and a pair of lively dark brown eyes. And an even faster bundle of gray fur. Both dashing past in a blur.

“Daddy, you did it!” Alex exclaimed, clapping her hands together with all the delight Jake had expected.

Jenna turned to Jake. “Did you ever!” she agreed dryly.

“You look…surprised,” Jake said, a little irked Jenna didn’t look more impressed by what he had done. To his relief, his daughter, however, had no such reservations. Alexandra was already down on the floor, tumbling around with the cutest golden retriever puppy Jake had ever seen while her fluffy gray-and-white-striped kitten watched from a distance.

Jenna paused and bit her lip. “I am.”

Jake edged closer, until their arms were almost touching. “Because…?”

Jenna shifted slightly, her shoulder brushing the curve of his biceps. “You got her a kitten and a puppy.”

Jake shrugged, unable to see what the big deal was, and for whatever reason Jenna did seem to think this was a big deal. “I didn’t want her out hunting down snakes and I thought this would keep her busy.”

Jenna knit her brows together. “It’ll do that, all right,” she drawled, the hint of bemusement in her clear blue eyes.

Jake refused to feel inferior just because he had never been allowed to have any pets as a kid. Whereas Jenna, who’d grown up on a ranch, had nurtured an abundance of them.

“Just out of curiosity, Jake…” Jenna clasped a soft, slender hand around his upper arm and tugged him out of earshot. She backed him up against the exterior limestone wall that separated the porch from the interior of the house. “Have you ever house-trained a puppy?”

“No,” Jake said uneasily, unable to help thinking how pretty Jenna looked in her two piece turquoise cotton dress, with its loose, cropped blouse and long flowing skirt. “But how hard can it be?”

In response, Jenna just shook her head. And sighed—loudly. Her high, perfect breasts rising and falling against the demure button front of her blouse. “Did you at least get their shots?”

Jake’s eyes traced the glimpse of creamy skin visible in the open collar of her blouse. He liked the way the armholes were cut on it, dipping in slightly to reveal Jenna’s slender shoulders and pretty upper arms. “Uh, actually we have an appointment to do that at five, at the Laramie Animal Clinic. I thought we could run by the warehouse, take a quick look, then go straight to the vet’s office and the pet-supply store from there.”

“We,” Jenna repeated, lifting a skeptical brow and planting both hands on her hips.

Jake gestured off-handedly. “Well, I would have asked Clara to help with the pets.” And hoped like heck Jenna, a real animal lover if there ever was one, would volunteer to help out some, too. “But since Clara had to go off to Laramie Community Hospital to see her new grandbaby born…” Jake shrugged, to show there was no way he could have foreseen Lisa going into labor a good two weeks early.

Jenna blinked in surprise. “Clara’s married daughter lives here in Laramie, too?”

Jake realized they hadn’t covered that earlier. He nodded. “It’s one of the reasons we moved here. So Clara could be close to her daughter and son-in-law. She’s been with us since Alex was an infant and has rearranged her life on more than one occasion on our account. I thought it was time we did the same for her.”

Jenna studied him with a mixture of blatant approval and suspicion. “What were the other reasons?” she asked warily.

That was easy, Jake thought, relaxing all the more. He smiled down at Jenna, said softly, “My happiest memories of growing up were all here. I thought it’d be a good place to bring up Alex, too.”

Before Jenna could respond, Alex ran up to him. “Daddy, my new kitty is hiding behind the sofa and she won’t come out.”

“She’s probably just shy,” Jake said as the puppy began to bark. He glanced at his watch. “I think we better get these animals rounded up in their carriers.”

“Why?” Alex asked, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out the high-pitched noise. Smiling, Jenna knelt and scooped up the puppy, cradling him close to her chest. To everyone’s relief, the frantic barking stopped immediately.

Briefly, Jake explained what they had to do next, which was take both kitten and puppy to the vet for their vaccinations and exams, and then go by the grocery store to pick up pet food and other essentials.

“In that case, maybe we should reschedule looking at the warehouse and do that tomorrow morning,” Jenna said as she continued to pet Alex’s new puppy with gentle, loving strokes. She buried her face in the puppy’s fur, looking as ecstatic as Alex to have access to such a cute and cuddly animal. Jenna pressed a kiss to the puppy’s head and was promptly rewarded with a slurpy lick on the chin. “Given everything else we have to do this afternoon and evening,” she continued.