A COWBOY'S PROMISE Page 16

  "Never saw so much snow in my life," he muttered as he stood with his arms around his wife and watched a blizzard of white flakes swirl around outside.

  "You haven't seen much snow," Cait reminded him, laughing. "Remember?"

  "I've seen enough," Charlie said darkly. "Seen one snowball, you've seen 'em all."

  "Think so, do you?" Cait challenged.

  "You bet." He tugged her toward the door. "Want to have a little snowball fight?"

  "You just want to show off, now that Tuck and Jed have taught you all they know," Cait said.

  "Well, yeah."

  And he wanted to go outside and roll around with her. Actually he wanted to go to bed and roll around with her, but it was only two in the afternoon, and Walt would look askance if they disappeared upstairs.

  They were living at Walt's for the moment, deciding whether they would build or if Walt would. He'd come back from Vietnam with leads, but so far nothing had turned up. They were waiting. Hoping.

  "I'm a little nervous," he conceded.

  "It's worth the nerves," Charlie told him. If he hadn't gone back after what he'd left behind, he wouldn't be here now. He wouldn't have Cait.

  "Just a few snowballs?" he said now, grinning at her.

  Cait shook her head. "Can't. We have obligations. You have obligations."

  The Elmer Christmas pageant, she meant. When he'd married Cait, Polly McMaster had let them have the town hall for the reception rent free, with one string attached—Charlie would direct the town's Christmas pageant.

  "She won't expect me to come today! It's dumping out there."

  "Haven't you ever heard the old adage, the show must go on?" Cait teased.

  "But—"

  "Come on. The sooner we get there, the sooner we'll get home."

  It wasn't true, but Charlie wasn't going to argue. He'd have his way with her sooner or later—and anticipating it was almost as sweet.

  It snowed the rest of the afternoon. It snowed into the evening. It didn't matter. Everyone within ten square miles of Elmer, Montana, attended—as they always did. No one got stuck in the ditch. No one delivered a baby on stage. Charlene, whom he'd cast as the babe in the manger, never whimpered, Angie whom he had coerced into playing Mary, actually sparkled. And when it was over, he was quick enough to avoid getting stuck bringing home all the rabbits that had doubled as livestock in the manger.

  Grinning as they went out to their truck, Cait told him he was learning.

  He laughed. "Yeah, I guess I am."

  Sometimes he thought he had so much to learn about life and about love that he would never touch the surface of it. Sometimes at night he woke up and just lay looking at the love of his life and marveling that he'd been given another chance.

  Sometimes she would wake to find him lying there and, wordlessly, she would understand and wrap him in her arms. She would love him—and he would love her—and they would come together, two hearts, two hopes, two souls made one.

  They would do that tonight.

  But first they ate a late supper. Then he helped Walt with the chores, and while Cait brushed out her hair, he called Chase and Joanna and regaled them with the tale of his directorial triumph. Then she finished and turned to smile at him, a look of such love in her eyes that his heart seemed to catch in his throat.

  "Gotta go," he muttered to Chase. "Take care. Love you all," he said to Joanna.

  Then he hung up and took his wife in his arms.

  Outside the snow continued to fall. Inside they were safe and warm. Cait drew him down with her onto the bed. She kissed him.

  "Remember once," she said, "when we were in bed and I started talking about love and marriage and family."

  "The first time, you mean?"

  She nodded. "I remember."

  "And you were scared."

  "Yeah."

  "And now you're not?"

  "You'd better believe I'm not," he vowed. "Marrying you is the best thing that ever happened to me. I promise you that."

  "And the rest?" Cait persisted.

  "What do you mean? Love? You know I love you. Family?" The light suddenly dawned. It glimmered. Or it could have been that tears were blurring it. "Caity?"

  She laughed and rolled together with him on the bed, and he held her gently, reverently, and heard words he'd never thought he wanted to hear and knew now were his greatest joy.

  "August first more or less," his wife the midwife told him, "you're going to be a father."

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