Gina’s heart pounded and she thought of Trent. God, how she loved him, more than was respectable, more than any sane woman should care for a man. Gina, the woman who had vowed to never let a man close to her, to never trust someone who wasn’t steadfast, true and dedicated. She’d been looking for the boy next door, a man she could depend on, not a self-serving man like the father who had left her mother with two children to raise. And then she’d foolishly fallen for a maverick oilman, a loner, a rogue who lived his life his own way.
A lump formed in her throat and she steadfastly swallowed it back. Well, it did no good to wallow or cry over a man like Trent Remmington. No, she’d just have to make it on her own. She’d managed to take care of herself up to now; she was certain she could be both mother and father to her child.
The trees gave way to the meadow where she and Trent had nearly made love over a week earlier. Her heart wrenched and again the tears started to flow. Two pheasants flew across the mare’s path. Wings whirred, feathers swirled. The horse broke stride and stumbled. Gina pitched forward. Her heart flew to her throat.
She held on to the reins.
Spooked, the mare reared and Gina was thrown back. Then the palomino, as if branded by hot iron, shot forward. “No!” The creek loomed closer. Hoof beats thundered in her eardrums.
Oh, God, no! Gina tried to right herself, but couldn’t. She scrabbled for the saddle horn, her head hanging down near the horse’s shoulder, her ponytail touching the ground, her right foot caught in the stirrup.
“Whoa!” she cried. “Stop, oh, please—”
She felt the mare’s muscles bunch, heard the rush of water.
“Please…no!” The horse sprang, beneath her the creek roared, swift water splashing and tumbling over stones as it cut downhill. The saddle shifted and Gina screamed. Hooves hit the far bank, then scrambled. Dust flew. Her head hit the dirt. Pain ripped up from Gina’s hip and exploded in her brain. She screamed and her foot slipped out of her boot.
Thud! She hit the ground hard, every bone rattling in her body. Pain ricocheted up her spine. For a second she was conscious, the darkening sky swirling above her, the ground tilting. She felt something deep within her rend…a warm wetness slide down her jeans.
The baby! Oh, please God, not the baby! Anything else, but please, please, keep this precious baby alive…
Somewhere she heard the sound of a horse neighing and the barking of a dog, and then as she struggled to find her feet, she felt the warm comfort of darkness seduce her, the blackness at the corners of her vision closing in. Then with a sigh and a profound sadness over her loss, she let out a plaintive moan, wrapped her arms around her body and fell back onto the cushion of grass.
“What do you mean, she’s not here?” Trent demanded when Garrett gave him the news that Gina wasn’t in the ranch house. Hot, tired, and out of sorts from a whirlwind trip, he’d barely gotten out of the rental car when he’d spied Garrett eyeing the workmen assembling the indoor arena.
“She went off riding earlier this afternoon and hasn’t come back yet.” Garrett ran a gloved hand along the corner of a two-by-four.
“What time was that?”
“Four, maybe five hours ago.” Garrett was chewing on a blade of dry grass. Studying Trent, he shifted the blade from one side of his mouth to the other. “I’m a little worried since she didn’t come back for dinner, but I figure she’s had a lot on her mind and needs some time alone.” His blue eyes were flatly assessing. “I figure she’ll be back soon.”
Trent wasn’t in the mood to wait. He’d done enough of that in the past couple of days. And the times he’d tried to call the ranch all of the lines had been busy with his half brothers either on the phone or the Internet. “I think I’ll go looking for her. If I miss her and if she shows up back here, don’t let her go anywhere.”
“You think I could stop her?”
“You could damn well try.” Trent wasn’t in the mood for nonsense. He’d spent the better part of the past forty-eight hours kicking himself up one side and down the other for being such a fool. He’d slept maybe three hours in total and was in one bear of a mood, but the ring in his pocket eased his mind. Wherever he found Gina, he was going to tell her how much she meant to him, that pregnant or not, he wanted her for his wife, that he couldn’t bear to think of a future without her.
He saddled the roan gelding he’d claimed for his use and took off through the hills. Dusk was lengthening the shadows of the surrounding trees and the sky had taken on a lavender hue.
In his peripheral vision Trent spied the lone white stallion, the solitary horse he’d thought was so like himself. “Not anymore,” he vowed as his gelding stretched out, eating up the ground, racing as if against the wind.
“Hey!” He heard Blake’s voice and looked over his shoulder. His brother was jogging out of the ranch house and had stopped to talk to Garrett. Another fence he had to mend, Trent thought with a scowl. He saw Blake start for the stables, then turned his attention to the hills. Yep, this place wouldn’t be a bad spot to raise a family and it was a middle ground, not Texas and surely not Southern California. Both he and Gina could work from here, take life a little slower and watch their child grow. At the thought of the baby, Trent’s chest swelled.
He might not have had exemplary male role models in his life, but there was no reason to think he couldn’t be a damned good father. The best. He urged the roan into the woods and up the familiar trail that wound through the pines to the meadow where he and Gina had nearly made love. For a reason he couldn’t fathom he felt she was there, and the need to see her again, to touch her, to hold her, to promise to love her for all eternity, pounded through his blood.
“Come on, come on,” he said urgently, suddenly anxious to find her. The trees gave way and he spied the horse. A smile broke out on his lips and he nearly laughed until he realized the saddle was askew, twisted around the mare’s belly.
His gut twisted.
Where was Gina?
He kicked the gelding, spurred him into the field, and his eyes swept the hillside where sunlight was fading fast and the first stars of twilight were beginning to glow.
Then he saw her. Crumpled on the grass, blood at her head, her skin a pasty white. His heart froze, but he kicked the roan and rode like a bat out of hell, jumping down from the saddle before the horse had time to stop.
“Gina! Oh, God, Gina!” Rushing to her side, his blood thundering through his head, he dropped to his knees. “Gina, oh, love…please, please…” His throat tightened and he tried to think. She was breathing, her pulse still strong. The wound on her head was shallow, the blood beginning to crust.
“Gina, can you hear me?” he whispered, his arms surrounding her. “Oh, baby, hang on. I’ll take care of you.”
“W-what?” Her eyelids fluttered open and eyes as green as a spring meadow stared into his. “Trent?”
“Shh.” Tears filled his eyes. “You’ll be all right. I’ll get help.”
“W-what happened?” she asked, wincing as she moved.
“Stay still. Shh.” He pressed his lips to her dirt-smudged and bloody forehead. “You’ll be fine.”
“But…” She struggled with a memory and then he saw the fear slash through her eyes. “The baby…”
“Will be fine.”
“I don’t know…I don’t think…” And then she was gone again, her eyes closing as he held her to him and noticed the stain on her jeans, the dark red splash that marred the denim.
“It’ll be all right,” he promised. And if we can’t save this one, we’ll have others. A dozen if you want. He lifted her into his arms and gently carried her toward his horse. Somehow he’d get her down the hillside and he’d do it quick if he had to carry her every step of the way himself.
“Trent!” Blake’s voice rang across the hills and he looked up to find his brother astride the damned white stallion. He was off the horse in an instant. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
/> “Lay her down so I can examine her and go get help,” Blake ordered.
“I can’t leave her.”
“Like hell, Trent. I’m the doctor, remember. Now go on and get help. She needs to get to a hospital. See if they’ve got life flight or something.”
Trent was astride his horse and racing down the hillside at a dead gallop. His blood ran cold in his veins and his teeth ground together in a jaw tense with determination. He wasn’t going to lose Gina now, not when he’d finally found her.
There were voices…so many voices… Gina awoke in the hospital, on a narrow bed covered with soft green sheets. Her head felt as if it had been cracked open and her entire body ached. She winced against the fluorescent light and expected to find a doctor examining her. Instead she found herself staring directly into Trent Remmington’s worried eyes.
He blinked against a sheen of tears and managed a smile. “I knew you’d make it,” he said, though the crack in his voice belied his words. “You’re just too tough to let go that easy.”
“Am I?” She felt anything but tough at this moment in time.
“Where am I?”
“The Whitehorn Memorial Hospital.”
But there was something wrong, something more, a heaviness and sense of doom she carried in her heart. Then she remembered. “The…the baby?”
“Is fine,” Trent assured her. “But I’m not certain about the kid’s father. He nearly fell into a million pieces.” His throat worked and she felt the sting of tears when she saw the love and raw pain in his eyes. “Everything’s going to be fine,” he said gruffly. “The doctor said you should make it to term…well, if you follow his instructions.”
“I will,” she vowed, relieved.
“Good.” Trent took her hand in his, frowned at the sight of the IV buried in the back of her wrist. “He also said the best thing for you to do is to marry me.”
“What?” she said, then realized it was a joke. “The man must have brutal sense of humor.”
Trent winced visibly. “Look, I know what you think about me, and believe me, I understand, but I’d already decided I loved you, needed you and wanted you and…Oh, hell—” he swallowed hard and looked her straight in the eye “—that I couldn’t live without you. I went to Houston to straighten things out at the company and—”
“Shh.” Blinding pain cut through her heart. “You don’t have to do this. Or say anything. Just because I had an accident and nearly lost the baby doesn’t mean you’re obligated or—oh!” She gasped as his lips crashed down on hers and he kissed the very breath from her lungs.
When he lifted his head, tears sheened his eyes. “I want to marry you, damn it. Do you hear me. I want to be your husband and the baby’s father and even… God, even if you’d lost him, I’d still want you to live with me for the rest of my life.”
She wanted to believe him, ached to trust his words, and the raw emotion twisting his features nearly convinced her.
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said, his voice ragged, his soul bare. “You can work. We can live in L.A. Whatever, but I’d like to start out here. Just you and me…and then when the baby comes, the three of us.” The fingers over her hand tightened. “I love you, Gina. That’s the bottom line. I loved you from the moment I saw you in Dallas.”
Her heart felt as if it would burst. Tears drizzled from her eyes.
“Marry me, Gina.” His voice cracked with raw, undisguised emotion.
She couldn’t say no. Wouldn’t have if she could have, because the truth of the matter was that she’d waited for this moment, longed for it, even when her pride had been battered, her bravado masking her pain. “Of course I’ll marry you,” she whispered, and felt his lips claim hers again. This solitary man loved her and she believed him. His lips molded over hers tenderly, with the promise of tomorrow and when he lifted his head, their future shone in his eyes. “I love you, too.”
“I know.”
A smile began to stretch from one side of his face to the other.
She actually giggled. This was serious. They were going to get married. She was going to be Mrs. Trent Remmington. She laughed out loud and Trent’s deep chuckle echoed around the room. He held her tight and she clung to him. Oh, God, how could she have ever doubted him?
“Glad you’re back with us.” Garrett Kincaid was suddenly at her bedside, with Blake. “You gave us all quite a scare.”
“Especially Trent,” Blake added, touching her hand. “Now—” he looked at Garrett “—I think we should let the nurses’ station know that the patient has awakened and then these two—” he hitched his chin toward Trent and Gina “—can have a few minutes alone before the real doctor comes along.”
“So now you’re a fake,” Trent said, smiling. “I suspected it all along.”
“I’m just not the M.D. in charge.”
He and Garrett walked to the door, but Garrett turned and said, “You get better right quick, Gina. You still have another one of my grandsons to find.”
“Will do,” she promised.
“After you marry me,” Trent insisted, and then, next to the hospital bed, he knelt and took her hand in his. “I came back to Whitehorn with this,” he said, reaching into his pocket and extracting a ring—a gold band with a single diamond that winked brightly under the harsh hospital lights. “And then I thought that I might not ever be able to give it to you. Maybe I should do this the right way.” He lifted her hand and, disregarding the IV drip, slipped the ring onto her finger. “Gina Hender son, will you marry me?”
Tears flooded her eyes. “I don’t know what to say. I, um, I think you have me at a disadvantage here.” She motioned to the IV stand. “No tellin’ what they’ve slipped into my bloodstream.” He lifted that damnably sexy dark eyebrow and waited. “Didn’t I already say I would?”
“I’d like to hear it again.”
“Okay, Remmington. It’s a date. I’d love to marry you,” she said saucily.
Again he laughed. “Then we’ll make it as soon as possible. Just so you don’t change your mind.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. As soon as I get out of here.”
“You’re on, lady.” He leaned over and kissed her lips.
Gina’s heart melted. God how she loved him.
Footsteps thundered in the hallway. In a second her brother Jack burst through the door. “Gina? My God, I’m sorry I couldn’t get here any faster.” He strode to her bedside and ignored Trent. “Are you all right?”
“Just fine,” she said, seeing the worry in his eyes. “And there’s something else you should know—you’re going to be an uncle.”
“Wait a minute—A what?”
“And I want you to give me away.”
“Hey, slow down a minute. Are you delirious?”
“Not a chance, big brother. This handsome man here is Trent Remmington. He’s about to become your brother-in-law.”
Two weeks later Gina stood at the top of the stairs of the Kincaid house. With the help of the local wedding planner, Meg Reilly, she’d managed to put together a quick wedding. All of Trent’s half brothers had shown up.
“You look beautiful,” her mother said, kissing Gina’s cheek as Meg adjusted her veil. All three women’s faces were visible in the small cracked mirror over Gina’s bureau.
“And you look pretty good for a grandmother.”
Her mother pulled a face. “I’m much too young to be a grandmother,” she said, then laughed. “But I’m delighted, nonetheless. Now, I think I’d better take a seat downstairs,” she said. “I just wish you were going to live in L.A.”
“I told you that’s impossible. Trent and I agreed to stay here in Whitehorn. And besides, I still have another one of Larry’s sons to find, a baby.”
“Work, work, work. You’ll have a baby of your own to take care of.”
“Yes, and he’ll probably be born before I find that last one,” Gina teased, and thought Meg seemed uncomfortable with the conversation.
“I think
it’s about time,” Meg said with a wistful smile. “Your mother’s right. You look fabulous.”
“Thanks.” Gina glanced out the window to the sprawling acres above which the vast Montana sky stretched. Cattle were grazing and a lone white stallion raced along the fenceline, his head lifted high and proud. She felt as if she belonged here in Montana, on the ranch. With Trent.
The first chords of the piano announced her entrance, so she hurried to the top of the stairs where Jack, as nervous as if he were the bridegroom, waited. “You sure about this?” he asked.
“More sure of it than anything in my life.” She descended the stairs, following a trail of rose petals Mitch Fielding’s twins had spread.
Jack’s arm was steady and as they walked through the French doors to the backyard, Gina smiled brightly. Her family and Trent’s family, along with a few of the good citizens of Whitehorn, Montana, had gathered around a hastily built arbor where Trent, dressed in a black tuxedo, was waiting for her. Joy pulsing through her veins, she released Jack’s arm and walked forward to join the man who was going to be her husband.
He didn’t wait for the reverend’s approval, but lifted her veil before the ceremony and placed a kiss upon her lips. “For luck,” he whispered, and her heart squeezed.
“Believe it or not, I don’t need any,” she confided as if no one else could hear. “Today I just happen to be the luckiest woman in the world.”
Epilogue
“Well, Laura, that’s that. Trent and Gina are married,” Garrett said as he stood on the outside of the crowd. Colored lights had been strung on the porch and a band was playing country music. The bride and groom were dancing together, holding each other tight, acting as if no one else in the universe existed, though there were others on the makeshift dance floor with them.
“I didn’t expect that, but it’s a good thing, and that little great-grandbaby of ours deserves this.” He chuckled and refused to think about the fact that Jordan Baxter seemed determined to make trouble for them.