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The $10,000,000 Texas Wedding
Judy Christenberry
TERMS OF A TEN MILLION DOLLAR TEXAS WEDDING(Excerpt from Granny Dawson's will)Stop furrowing your brow, Gabe! Don't like the change to my will? Didn't think you would. But someone had to bring you to your senses. You can be so stubborn…What you thought years ago–that Katie Peters dismissed your love -isn't true. Katie is a wonderful woman who cares about you. Let go of the pain from her rejection. Discover how amazing love is.You and Katie belong together. And once you indulge in the memories that make you ache, you'll know I'm right. This isn't punishment, Gabe. It's the greatest gift I could leave you. Marry the girl, already!
“Gabe! Come over,” the matchmakers yelled. “We’ve figured out the perfect man for Katie to marry so you’ll be off the hook.”
“There’s a rancher with four children. He needs a mother for them. Katie—”
“No! She’s already raised her brothers and sisters.” Gabe remembered Katie’s face when he’d asked if she’d gone to college. His heart ached for her lost dreams.
“There’s the minister. Katie would make an excellent minister’s wife,” Florence said.
“No, I don’t want—” Gabe stopped, frustrated. “Damn! Isn’t there someone who would let Katie be Katie? Who would help her? She deserves the best!”
“Well, of course she does,” Edith said. “I told them that, but they argued with me.”
He nodded eagerly at Edith. “Yeah? Who did you think would do for Katie?” He wasn’t going to marry Katie off to just anyone.
“Why, Gabe, dear, the perfect man is you.”
The $10,000,000 Texas Wedding
Judy Christenberry
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judy Christenberry has been writing romances for fifteen years because she loves happy endings as much as her readers. Judy quit teaching French recently and now devotes her time to writing. She hopes readers have as much fun reading her stories as she does writing them. She spends her spare time reading, watching her favorite sports teams and keeping track of her two daughters. Judy’s a native Texan, but now lives in Arizona.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Cactus, Texas.
Gabe Dawson carefully pulled into a parking space on the town square. He didn’t want to have a wreck on his first day back in town. With memories pouring into his head, he feared he might be too distracted to drive.
He’d grown up here, learning about life, sharing, hunting, camping, riding with his friends. Falling in love for the first time. Katie.
“Gabe!”
The man standing by his car door waited for him to acknowledge his presence. Gabe opened the door and got out. “Mac Gibbons!” he replied, grabbing one of his best childhood friends into a bear hug. “How did you know I was here?”
“I’d been to see Cal. Your new Mercedes caught my eye. Nice car.”
“Yeah, thanks.” The car was a result of his recent success. “I was on my way to see you.”
“About your grandmother’s will?”
Gabe nodded.
Mac reached out and squeezed Gabe’s shoulder in silent sympathy. “Come on, let’s get it over with. Then we can visit.”
Mac Gibbons knew Gabriel Dawson was in for a shock. He decided it would be better not to procrastinate. He hoped Gabe would take some time to think, not make a quick decision.
He led his old friend into his offices. After introducing him to his secretary, an efficient middle-aged woman, he took him down the hall, stopping at the first door.
“Alex, let me introduce an old friend, Gabe Dawson. Alexandra Langford is my partner.”
“Langford?” Gabe repeated, a question in his voice.
Mac nodded. “And Tuck’s wife.”
Gabe smiled. “Tuck always was a lucky man. But I’ll admit, I never thought he’d marry.”
Mac chuckled. “One look at Alex, and he was a goner.”
Alexandra gave her partner a knowing look. “You don’t have room to talk, Mac.”
“Yeah,” he agreed with a contented sigh.
“You remarried?” Gabe asked, astounded. He’d been around when Mac had lived in Dallas. He knew how badly his friend had been hurt.
“He married and is a daddy twice over,” Alex added.
Mac’s grin only widened. “Never mind that. We’ll catch up later. First, we’ve got some business to conduct.”
He led his friend into his office and shut the door.
Before sitting down, he pulled a legal file from his file cabinet. “Your grandmother changed her will last year.”
Gabe’s head snapped up. “Do you mean I’m not the heir?”
It wasn’t that he needed his grandmother’s estate. As an attorney with a large firm in Dallas, he earned a more-than-healthy salary. Then he’d taken a risk on a personal injury case and had won big. Big enough that he’d never have to work again.
But he’d loved his grandmother. He wouldn’t want to think he’d disappointed her.
“You’re still the heir,” Mac assured him, “if you meet certain conditions.”
“Certain conditions?” Foreboding filled Gabe. His grandmother had fussed about his lifestyle. Surely she hadn’t—
“You know how amazed you were that Tuck and I were both married?”
Gabe stared at his friend. What did their marriages have to do with anything? “Well, yeah, Tuck was determined never to marry and you, well, I was there when you went through your divorce. I remember how bitter and hurt you were.”
Mac nodded. “Spence and Cal are married, too,” he added, naming two other friends. “It seems our mothers were frustrated that we hadn’t married, any of us, and made a bet to see who would get the first grandbaby. They were so successful, they inspired a lot of other mothers…and grandmothers.”
“Are you telling me Gran changed her will to—to force me to marry?”
Mac nodded. “Yeah. I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how hardheaded she was.” He lifted several papers and passed them to Gabe before sitting down behind his desk. “You might as well read it yourself.”
Gabe took the will, his brows furrowing. He couldn’t believe Gran would try to force his hand. He’d been engaged once, but Gran hadn’t seemed too pleased with his choice. So why would she try to rush him into something?
He quickly read the papers, noting the requirement that he return to Cactus for one year. Outrageous, but not impossible. It would take him that long to sell her house. In the meantime, he would live there.
But it was the last requirement that had him leaping to his feet. “Marry Katherine? Was she crazy? Katie married over eight years ago. This is insane. When did she write this?”
“About six months ago. Katie is a widow now.”
Gabe swallowed. “I can’t believe she’d agree to this blackmail.”
“I don’t know whether she agreed or not. And there is a provision, saving you from that requirement if Katie marries someone else.”
“Where is she? I’m going to share a few facts of life with Miss Katherine Peters!” he exclaimed, turning to charge out of the room.
“Katherine Hill. And you’ll find her at The Lemon Drop Shop,” Mac obligingly told Gabe, a speculative look in his eyes.
“The what?” Gabe said, coming to an abrupt halt.
“It’s a bakery on the other side of the square. That’s how she supports herself these days.”
Gabe had avoided seeing Katie when he’d come back to visit his grandmother. His trips had always been brief and far apart. He hadn’t even visited the guys very often. He was always too busy.
Gran had come to stay with him at Christmas every year, preferring his bachelor apartment to his parents’ pretentious house in one of those neighborhoods in Dallas where the houses were huge and the lots small.
“She must not have been of sound mind when she made the changes,” Gabe protested.
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to prove that,” Mac assured him.
“Then Katie must have put her up to it. She probably needs the money and thought I’d be easy plucking.” He paced back to Mac’s desk. “Is she still supporting half her family?”
Mac nodded. “Most of the kids are grown. Two are still in high school. And then there’s her mother.”
“That’s what it is. She planned to cash in. Well, she turned me down once. She won’t get that chance again.” This time, when he turned to storm out of Mac’s office, his friend didn’t say anything to stop him.
Gabe stepped onto the sidewalk and saw the bright sign across the square. The Lemon Drop Shop. Every letter was lemon yellow on a white background. There were small tables and chairs in front of the store, with lemon-yellow umbrellas to provide shade. It looked clean, fresh, delectable.
He charged across the street, jogging through the square, past the band shell and onto the opposite sidewalk. His mind was whirling with the news he’d received.
But even more upsetting was the intense anticipation that filled him. Katie Peters. No, Katie Hill, a widow. She’d probably be fat and dumpy, desperate for his grandmother’s wealth. He prayed she was. He didn’t want to see her.
Which didn’t explain why he was running.
Anger, that was it. He was angry that she’d swayed his sweet grandmother to act so irrationally.
A bell jangled as he swung open the door to The Lemon Drop Shop, and he wanted to strangle it. But almost no one paid him any attention.
Until he roared her name. “Katie Hill? Where are you?”
KATHERINE HILL WAS DECORATING a large tray of cookies. She enjoyed making the first few as she transformed the pale dough into bright butterflies. But as her back began to ache from bending over the counter, and she repeated the same designs again and again, she wished she were done.
Especially when someone yelled her name.
Startled, her hand jerked and the blue icing missed its mark. Instead, it shot across the wax paper onto the cookie beside it.
“Damn!” Katherine muttered softly. She took a knife to scrape off the wayward icing. Then she wiped her hands on the big apron she wore and pushed open the door that led into the front room. The friendly smile on her face disappeared, however, when she faced the man standing in the middle of the shop, his hands cocked on his hips.
Gabriel Dawson.
Katherine immediately shut away the memories that wanted to come cascading down through her mind. Another time, another life.
She purposefully swept emotion from her face. “May I help you?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know me, Katie!” he ordered, his voice a threatening growl.
