Amy frowned.
“Father and…companion?” she repeated, adding as those feathered eyebrows shot up to an all-time high, “Could you perhaps think of a better word to define your relations with me, Cowboy?”
Thomas pursed his lips, getting the sinking feeling he’d just said something wrong—and how.
“Pardner?” he suggested.
Amy shook her head.
“Nope,” she insisted, pursing her own pearl pink lips in a show of distaste as Thomas shuffled his feet beneath him. “Try again.”
Thomas paused, keen awareness dawning in his eyes as—fully and finally—he caught the lady’s meaning.
“Husband?” he suggested. “Could this be the word you mean?” he paused, here, adding as his azure eyes flew wide with the dawning of awareness, “You mean you’re finally ready to become my bride?”
Without awaiting Amy’s reply, an elated Thomas turned to the doctor who in all likelihood just birthed the first of many babies in this house and told him, “Hear that, Doc? You’re my witness. This fine lady here just said she’d marry me.”
Then without hesitation, the groom to be dropped to his knees beside the bed. And this time, the doc noticed as he gathered a gurgling baby Amelia in his arms, Thomas looked once again like he just might faint as he took Amy’s hands in his.
“Miss Amy,” he declared, adding as he stared deep into her eyes, “I love you so true, more than life itself. Would you do me the honor of being my bride?”
Amy smiled.
“Thought you’d never ask,” she cooed with a playful wink, adding in a softer, sincerer tone, “I would be honored, Thomas, to be your bride.”
Surging forward across the bed, the couple’s lips collided in an impassioned kiss; one whose ardent tenderness seemed binding in nature. Thomas seized Amy’s mouth with the fondest ardor, his full soft lips massaging hers as they murmured with contentment.
For just a moment Amy felt their surroundings dissolve around them; leaning hard into Thomas’ kiss as they drew closer together.
Then suddenly she remembered that they were not alone. Eyes flying open in a single smooth flourish, she broke their kiss as she pointed a not so subtle finger in the direction of their family doctor.
“Sorry,” the couple mumbled in synch, averting their gazes to the physician who now shaded Amelia’s eyes as he let loose with an affectionate chuckle.
“You certainly do have two insane parents,” he informed a gurgling Amelia, adding with a wink, “And I do believe that I’ve never met a more fortunate child.”
Five months later
For the occasion of her second wedding, Amy had no desire to revisit the wedding chapel that served as the cornerstone of her provincial hometown. That chapel, she believed, would always be a special place for her and Vance; a place where memories lived.
Instead, and as suited their usual style, she and Thomas did things their own way; choosing to marry right square in the center of their rose field.
“This is the same place where you repeatedly insisted that you never would love me,” he reminded her.
Amy rolled her eyes.
“Go on and rub it in Cowboy,” she chided him, even as she reached forward to kiss him senseless for what had to be the tenth time. That day.
On the morning of their wedding, Amy wore a lush ivory calico concoction that consisted of a polonaise—one boasting a yoke front and back trimmed with ruffled lace—and a frothy bustled full-length skirt with a flounced trim and a lengthy cascading train; one that also came lined with the finest lace. She carried a dew glistened bouquet of radiant golden roses, picked from her own garden; additional florals adorned the strands of her free-flowing reddish gold hair, in the form of fresh grown baby’s breath that completed her ethereal look.
The beams of a brilliant Texas sun guided her tender footfall as she made her way between fresh blooming rows of golden roses; the most splendorous of which stood tall and proud at the center of the garden.
It seemed odd, she figured, to compare her very masculine figure of a future husband to a rose; yet as she beheld the manner in which his flowing blond hair and bronzed face both shone in the light above them and the way that his crystalline eyes came aglow the moment that he saw her, she knew full well that the comparison fit.
Briefly dragging her gaze away from the subject of her keen attention, she beamed at the assembly of family and friends gathered to witness their nuptials that day.
Her smile shone especially bright the moment she saw Amelia, herself adorned in a charming lilac print calico dress with a lace collar, puffed sleeves and full skirt. A matching floral headband atop her still bald head completed the adorable look.