A Christmas Wedding

She almost stayed silent, worried about embarrassing herself in front of the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. But curiosity got the best of her, as it so often did, and she asked, “What are you doing?”

He looked at her, his black eyes carefully blank. “What do you mean?”

“You’re talking to that horse and he’s talking to you.” She watched his eyes go wide in surprise. “And not with your voice. I saw you do it with Majesty earlier.”

He smiled wryly. “No one’s ever noticed before.”

She flushed. Probably because no one had ever studied him as intently as she was. “You look different when you do it. Your eyes go kind of hazy and it’s like you’re not here anymore.”

He nodded. “I can walk with animals. That’s what my grandfather called it. My mother, too.”

She was fascinated. “So, you’re Native American?”

He stiffened and his eyes grew a little wary. “I’m half Cherokee.”

“That’s awesome.” She cleared her throat, nervous under his intense scrutiny. “How does it work?”

He paused for a minute, then smiled as if he understood her curiosity to know everything about him. “I don’t know exactly. One person in each generation of my family has the gift. By the time I was six, everyone knew it was me. I don’t know why I was chosen.”

“Because you won’t abuse it. You’re strong and you hold your power well. But there’s no cruelty in you.” Her hands flew to her mouth almost before she was done speaking. Mama always told her to think before she spoke and she had gotten better at it. Except, it seemed, with Jesse. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“That’s all right.” He eyed her speculatively. “How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“That’s not an answer.” His black eyes pinned her in place, demanded an answer that she didn’t want to give.

“You know things about animals? Things no one else does. Right?”

He nodded. “So what?”

“It’s like that for me, with people. I just know things. Daddy says I’ve got good instincts. Mama says it’s a curse to see so much about others.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t, really. It’s not something I think about. It’s just there, you know?”

“I do, actually.”

“I figured you might.” She smiled at him shyly.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

He nodded as his eyes swept around the stable and out to the land beyond the open door. “What’s your favorite part of the ranch, Desiree?”

Shivers worked their way up and down her spine. No one ever called her by her full name, largely because she hated it. Something about being named after a long-dead great-grandmother had creeped her out from the time she was a little girl, but the way he said it—in that rough satin voice—made her appreciate her name for the first time. She shrugged again. “I don’t know.”

He cocked his head to the left, the look on his face patently disbelieving. “Yes, you do.”

“The training circles.” Desi blurted the truth without stopping to think.

“Why?” His intense concentration made her nervous. He studied her the way he studied the horses, as if he was examining every thought in her head.

“They’re about becoming. No one’s won, no one’s lost. It’s just pure potential. Just a horse and a dream, before reality intrudes.”

His lips turned up slightly at the corners in the first smile she’d seen that reached his eyes. “So you’re a romantic.”

“Aren’t all teenage girls?”

“I don’t know. You’re the first teenage girl I’ve talked to since I was a teenage boy.”

She giggled. “Then you’ve got a lot to learn.”

“I guess I do at that.” Silence reigned for a few moments. Finally he said, “You know, my culture believes strongly in special gifts—strange, inexplicable talents that only a few people have.”

“Obviously. Look at what you can do. People would have to be pretty cynical if they could still doubt that extra-sensory talents exist after witnessing your connection with that horse out there.”

He turned until he was fully facing her. “I wasn’t talking about me.”

“Oh.” She glanced away, blushing despite her best efforts not to. “Then—”

“You understand things you’re too young to know about. You see things others can’t.”

“Yes.”

“So can I ask you a question about that?”

“You mean you haven’t already?”

He laughed. It sounded kind of rusty, as if he’d almost forgotten how. “I’m serious. What do you see when you look at me?”

Too much. She saw too much when she looked at him. She saw the surface—the handsomest, sexiest, most amazing man in the whole world. She saw the brilliant horse trainer, the one who walked in the minds of animals. She saw loneliness, the self-imposed isolation, though she didn’t know why. And clearly, so clearly, she saw what he would be for the Triple H and for her. The future. Her future.

But she couldn’t tell him any of that. Not this man whom she had just met. This man who was too old for her, too serious and too hard by far. So she said simply, “A guy who works for my father.” It was lame, but she didn’t know how else to answer.

She wasn’t ready for him yet and he certainly wasn’t ready for her.

DESI CAME BACK TO herself with a start, turning the pages of the journal as she skimmed through the next few months’ worth of entries. There was nothing much of interest there—at least not for a soon-to-be-divorced woman of forty-nine.

After all, her response to his question had set the tone for the next eighteen months of their relationship. She had chased after him, wanting to spend every waking moment with him and he put up with it, though he never again opened himself up to her. Until one night, when everything between them changed with one random act of violence.

Out of habit, and a need she refused to admit even to herself, Desiree flipped to the seventh entry in the book, one she—and her daughter—knew by heart.

I was seventeen the first time Jesse ever touched me. I mean really touched me, not just a pat on the back or an affectionate ruffle of my hair. It was prom night and I was all dressed up—hot-pink halter dress, skyscraper heels, a new haircut and more makeup on my face than I normally wore in a year. I was uncomfortable, miserable, convinced I would humiliate myself by losing my balance in the five-inch heels and tumbling onto my butt in front of my date and the entire senior class.

I hadn’t wanted to go to the stupid dance, hadn’t wanted to waste time I could spend with Jesse on a stupid high school boy. But Mama had insisted, had finally convinced me that I would regret missing this dance for the rest of my life. She even went so far as to line up my date for me—I think she was afraid I would buck tradition and go by myself. Fear that was, truthfully, well-grounded.