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Chapter 34.2
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LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 35
All the way to the hospital on the hill at the south edge of town Amy kept her mind blank. She couldn’t allow herself to think. She scarcely allowed herself to breathe. An accident. Riley. Deer. Truck. Ditch. The words hurled themselves at her one after the other, like heat-seeking missiles.At the last stop sign before the hill, she hit her brakes too hard and her tires slid across the intersection. She was lucky no other cars were coming. She held her breath until the car straightened out, then eased up the hill and skated into the parking lot of the hospital.With a prayer on her lips, she rushed into the hospital and demanded to see Riley.They told her she should sit down. They told her it shouldn’t be long.They told her she had to wait.She told them, “Point me toward Riley Sinclair right this minute and you might live to see the end of your shift.”“Security!”“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Amy said as she started down the hall. “If you’ve got a security guard here in the middle of
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 35.1
“Okay, bring them to the den. We’ll let him sit in his recliner while we doctor him,” Amy suggested. She craned her neck to peer down the hall.Seeing no sign of Riley, she led the girls a few feet away into the kitchen and gave them a conspiratorial wink.“Here’s the deal, girls. Your daddy’s barely hurt at all. No more than one of you falling off your bicycle and getting a few scrapes.”Pammy poked out her lower lip. “Are you sure?”“I’m sure. I was there in the hospital when the doctor checked him over.He does have stitches on the side of his head, but not much else. But the thing is, guys are different than girls. Guys are bigger and stronger than we are. At the same time, when they get the least little scrape, or catch a cold, they turn into helpless babies. They need help with every little thing.”That got a round of smiles out of the girls.“I’m telling you this so you won’t worry about your daddy just because he moans and groans now and then over his aches and pains. It’s jus
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 36
The rest of the week until Christmas passed in a blur. Amy spent much of it with Riley and his girls.There were errands to run. There was more shopping to do, both in town and beyond. There were videos to rent and watch and a movie to see in Waco. There were friends and neighbors to meet.Amy wondered what those friends and neighbors thought of Rileyshowing up with her, but they were all friendly. They were especially nice when Riley told them that she had served with Brenda. That served as a good, acceptable reason for them to be together without too much overt speculation.They were seldom alone, she and Riley. There was little time for it with the girls always around. But Amy didn’t mind. There was always time for a few heated kisses when they weren’t looking, or after their bedtime if Amy drove herself home.She had her own last-minute Christmas things to take care of, too.Things she could not do around Riley or his girls. But with a few phone calls, a quick trip here and there
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 36.1
“How…? When…?”“Brenda had the photo with her. She knew she wanted to do something, but all she could think of was to blow it up. I ran across a guy on the Internet who does oil paintings from photos. I thought she would like that.”“What is it, Daddy?” Jasmine asked. He couldn’t move.“It’s us,” Pammy cried. “Mama and us girls in the backyard.”It had always been one of Riley’s favorite pictures of Brenda and the girls. In fact he had a copy of it right now in his wallet. Brenda, sitting in the grass, with Pammy and Jasmine on either side and Cindy in her lap. He had taken the picture himself just before Brenda shipped out, nearly two years ago.The artist had enlarged it and copied it in oil. It was perhaps the most beautiful portrait he’d ever seen. His vision blurred.“Lemme see, Daddy, lemme see,” Cindy cried.When he finally looked up at Amy, he didn’t know what to say.She leaned toward him and kissed each of his eyelids, then his mouth. “Merry Christmas, Riley.”Amy was gratif
LOVE IN TEXAS chapter 1
It had been a long two years, but Wade Harrison was grateful for every second of that time. He was lucky to be alive, and he knew it. He knew, too, that he wouldn’t have survived if not for the death of a stranger and his generous gift. He owed his life not only to his team of doctors, nurses and therapists, but also to a man named James Donald McCormick, who’d had the guts to sign an organ donor card.Wade wasn’t supposed to know the name of the man whose heart now beat inside his chest, but money and tenacity could find out just about anything, and Wade had plenty of both and wasn’t ashamed to use either. The least he could do was make certain McCormick’s family was getting along all right.Funny, he thought as he stood on Main Street in Tribute, Texas, and looked up at the neon sign that read Dixie’s Diner. He hadn’t been this nervous when he’d chaired his first board meeting, yet here he stood, palms sweaty and stomach jumpy. To give himself a minute, he plunked coins into the mac
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 1.1
“Yes. Palms up.”Wade tucked the newspaper beneath his arm and held his hands out, palms up, suddenly grateful for time spent on the tennis court.She grasped his hands and ran her thumbs over the slight calluses along the pads of the fingers of his right hand. “Well, I guess you’ve done some work before.”He just shrugged. “I’ve worked.” Not manually, not for many years, but he’d worked his butt off in more than one boardroom. He thought it ironic that playing tennis, which he did to relax, would turn out to be more important in getting him a job than having been CEO of the nation’s largest media conglomerate. The latter had not put calluses on his hands.“Were you interested in night cooking or daytime dishwashing?”While he could cook—he was a bachelor and didn’t like to starve—he doubted his repertoire matched the diner’s menu. Also, the woman before him was the key to the boys he was looking for, and she obviously worked days. Sticking as close to her as possible seemed his best
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 1.2
Maybe she was coming down with a bug.“How’s it going?” she asked. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why did she feel the need to speak to him, to get him to speak to her?He shrugged. “You tell me.”Dixie blinked. Oh. He was responding to what she’d said, not what she’d thought. Thank God.She looked around. The tubs of dirty dishes from the breakfast shift were gone. Trays of clean glasses stood stacked in their proper place alongside stacks of clean plates and a stack of napkin-wrapped cutlery settings ready for use.“Wow,” she said. “You’ve been busy.” She hadn’t expected so much work out of him so quickly.“That’s what you’re paying me for,” he said with a smile.How could anyone be so damned cheerful while washing dishes? Dixie hated washing dishes. She’d hated it from the day she’d opened the diner and realized what a horrendous job it was cleaning up after so many customers all day long.Not that she minded the customers! God love and bless each and every one of them with a hearty appet
LOVE IN TEXAS Chapter 1.3
“Yeah, but you’re a girl.”Pops made a strangling sound and tried to look as innocent as an angel.It wasn’t working.Dixie glared first at Pops, then at the boys. “And that means…?” She propped her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes at Ben.“Oh, uh…” Ben hung his head, shuffled his feet and peeked up at his mother with a small grin. “Uh, gee, nothing, Mom.”“You’re darn right, nothing.” She nodded sharply. “Unless you’re worried that you, as a mere boy, might not be able to do as good a job as a girl could.”“Aw, Mom.”“Aw, Mom,” she mimicked back at him with a smile.Wade watched the byplay, and, as trite as it sounded even to him, he felt his heart melt. And why not, he thought. It was their father’s heart.“What kind of homework do you have?” their mother asked them.The youngest one, Tate, made a face, complete with gagging noises for sound effects. “Ugh. Yucky math.”“Poor baby.” She smoothed a hand over his head and smiled.“Huh. You think that’s bad,” Ben said, “I’ve gott
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