“A younger man could be…interesting.”
“That may be so, but he only responded to your advertisement because he wants a ranch of his own and assumed, incorrectly, that Montaña del Trueno would be his if we married.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t anything he mentioned in his letter.” She frowned and some of the teasing light that had been in her eyes dimmed. “I’m crossing Mr. Peña off the list as well. A potential husband he is not.” She wrote another note. “Mr. Robicheaux? Have you met him?”
Evie just looked at Lucy then shook her head at the audacity of her niece. “No, Mr. Robicheaux has not arrived at the ranch yet.”
“What about Mr. Ambrose?”
“My God, Lucy, what have you done? Sending all these men here? What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Marry one of them,” she said, rather flippantly in Evie’s opinion, which didn’t help the situation at all. “If you want. Did Mr. Hannigan come?”
“On your wedding day, in fact.” Her face warmed at the mere mention of his name. She averted her eyes and studied the photograph sitting on the desk of Serafina, the children’s grandmother, Savannah in her arms. “He strolled into the yard just after you and Ben left for Serenity. He was quite the surprise.”
“Did you send him packing like you did Mr. Quinn?”
“I didn’t send Mr. Quinn packing. He left of his own accord. Rather quickly, I might add,” she defended herself. “As for Mr. Hannigan, I offered him a job, even though he doesn’t know how to ride, doesn’t have his own horse or saddle. In fact, he didn’t seem to know anything about ranching at all.” She felt Lucy’s intent stare and focused on her once again, even though her heartbeat seemed to pick up its pace. “I will admit that he’s learning and picking things up rather quickly though he hasn’t learned how to ride yet.”
“What did you think of him?”
Evie stiffened. It was one thing to harbor thoughts about Jake in her head. It was another thing to admit to her niece—or anyone else for that matter—that Jake Hannigan made her knees go weak when he smiled. Or that sometimes the look in his eyes made her want to melt into his arms. Or admit that she watched him as he went about his chores and admired his physique. Or that she thought about kissing him and running her fingers through the crisp hair on his chest. Or that?—
“TiaEvie?”
Startled out of her thoughts of the man, she wrestled control of her wayward emotions. “What?”
“You were going to tell me what you thought of Mr. Hannigan.”
Instead of answering her niece, she asked again. “Why did you do this, Lucy?”
“I thought it was time.”
Evie sat heavily on the sofa and stared at her niece.
“You’ve spent the last twenty years taking care of us, sacrificing for us,” Lucy confessed, the light in her luminous dark eyes showing her love. “It’s your turn to live a little, and you always said that once we were all settled, you’d look for your own happiness.” She smiled, trying to look innocent. “I thought I was helping you.”
“I didn’t need this kind of help,mi corazón.” Evie frowned, crossing her arms over her chest, as if trying to ward off any more help. “I’m perfectly capable of finding a husband if I so choose.”
A dark eyebrow rose on Lucy’s forehead and the expression on her face clearly said she didn’t believe her. “Oh? Is that why you’ve been alone all these years? Is that why you pushed Marshal Corwin away? I know he asked you to marry him. I know you said no.”
Evie wasn’t aware anyone had known that Travis had asked her to marry him—or that she had turned him down. It had happened last year, long before Lucy had gotten it her head that she needed to be married. As a result, Evie had lost a good friend. She felt the need to defend herself. “I’ve never been alone, Lucy. I have all of you. And Marshal Corwin is a wonderful man.”
“But he wasn’t the man for you. I understand.” Sympathy crept into her eyes. “It was his profession, wasn’t it? You’ll never fall in love with another lawman.”
“Let me make myself clear,mi amor,” Evie told her. “I’m not interested in marrying just to be married. There’s much more to a marriage. You should know that. You’ve been in love with Ben since you first set eyes on him, and you were what? Six? Seven?And he felt the same, even though he was a few years older. I see the way you look at each other. I feel the love between you. And when he went off to school to get his medical degree, that love didn’t diminish. It grew and flourished, despite the separation. He was always the one for you.”
“Even Hilde found love with Antonio, though she swore up and down and three ways from Sunday that she wasn’t in love with him. Look at them now. Eighteen years later and they still look at each other like there is no one else in the world for them.”
She stopped speaking, stunned. That’s what she wanted—someone to look at her like she was the reason they got up every day, the reason they put one foot in front of the other. “So no, I’m not going to marry someone just to be married.”
“You want someone to sweep you off your feet.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t want someone to sweep me off my feet. I don’t need flowers or candies. I don’t need someone to fill my head with sweet words. Those things aren’t important to me.” That was the truth. She was too practical for that, and yet, that very feeling of being ‘swept off her feet’ seemed to be happening every time she caught sight of Jake Hannigan. No, there were no flowers or candies or whispered words of professed love, but her heart seemed to beat a little faster whenever she caught sight of him, and her stomach felt like it was filled with butterflies.
“If that’s not it, then what do you want? The truth,TiaEvie.” Lucy leaned forward in her seat, the fountain pen in her hand finally still.
“The truth? I want someone to grow old with. Someone to sit on the patio with me and watch the sun set. I want late night conversations about nothing and everything. I want laughter and tears.” She gazed at her niece, her eyes roaming over her lovely face. “I want someone who loves you all like I do. Someonewho knows that family comes first. Someone as committed to Montaña del Trueno as I am.”
