Dancing in the Moonlight
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RaeAnne Thayne
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Epilogue
It was a gorgeous evening for a wedding.
Maggie lifted her face to the cool August air, sweet and lush with the scents of summer and the hundreds of flowers that filled her mother’s bowery on Rancho de la Luna.
The setting sun sent long shadows across the ranch and created a rich palette of colors. The moon was just starting to rise above the Tetons, shining on the tiny lights that twinkled in all the trees.
Her right foot tapped the rhythm of the salsa music as she shifted in her chair at a corner table and cuddled the little bundle in her arms closer.
Jorge Sanchez made a pouty little sound but didn’t awaken, content for now to sleep while his parents danced to the music. She smiled at Carmela and her quiet husband Horatio, who had managed to obtain a green card and returned to Idaho just days before his son’s birth.
Maggie touched the soft cheek of the sleeping infant, remembering the precious wonder of that day. It had been incredible on several levels. She always loved the magical experience of participating in a birth and this one had seemed especially poignant, watching Jake in action and tumbling in love with him all over again as she had watched his quiet calm in the face of a young, first-time mother’s anxieties.
Her own mother danced by in Guillermo’s arms, where she’d been all night, and she smiled at the picture they made—Viviana, feminine and beautiful in her flowing peach dress, and Guillermo, so stiffly dignified in his suit and so deeply in love with his new wife.
It had been a lovely ceremony, quietly moving as Viv and Guillermo had married here beside the stream in this beautiful place created by a man they had both loved. She had felt her father’s presence strongly today and had the oddest feeling that he rejoiced along with the rest of them.
She had felt Abel just as keenly a month earlier during her own wedding, at the little church in town. Her husband—she still wasn’t used to that word—danced past with his niece Natalie in his arms. Jake looked tall and masculine and gorgeous, and she wondered if her breath would still catch just looking at him after they’d been married for fifty years.
He must have felt her watching him. Their eyes met and he smiled, that intense light in his eyes that always made her feel as breathless and overwhelmed as if she were sitting atop those majestic mountains looking down at the world.
As she sat surrounded by everyone she loved and watched Jake twirl his niece, she was bursting with so much joy she didn’t know how her heart could possibly contain it all.
She couldn’t believe a few short months ago she actually had been foolish enough to believe her life was over. When she limped home to Pine Gulch four months earlier, she had been certain everything good and right was gone from her world forever.
Instead of withering away as she had fully expected to do, she had blossomed here. What a miraculous gift these last months had been, full of more joy than she had ever believed possible.
Life wasn’t perfect. She was still struggling to adjust to the prosthesis, still had some unresolved pain issues. But she had her own very sexy private physician on standby at all times. With Jake’s help, she knew she could face whatever hurdles still waited on the road ahead.
Seth Dalton sauntered over and sprawled into the chair next to her. “Hey, gorgeous. What are you doing over here in the corner all by yourself?”
She held up the sleeping infant. “Babysitting duties.”
He made a face. “The little rugrat looks asleep to me. Why don’t you put him in his car seat thingy and come dance with me?”
She shook her head with regret. “Can’t. I’m on doctor’s orders to sit out the fast stuff.”
“What’s the fun in that? Sounds like your doctor’s a real pain in the you-know-what.”
“No question.” She smiled. “But I’m keeping him anyway.”
The flirtation that seemed as much a part of Seth as breathing slipped away for a moment and his entirely too handsome features turned serious. “I can’t imagine two people more perfect for each other than you two. You both deserve every bit of it.”
Touched and warmed, she squeezed his hand. Beneath Seth’s charm and flirtatiousness was the boy she had been best friends with so long ago. She felt blessed that they were finding that friendship again.
She never would have believed this either but one of the perks of falling in love with Jake had been his family. All the Daltons had embraced her, to her shock. They had welcomed her into the family, had instantly seemed to forget her years of antipathy and anger.
The first time Jake had taken her to dinner at the ranch, Marjorie had fussed and cried and hugged her close and his niece and nephews had jumped all over her. Tanner and Cody thought the fact that she could take off her prosthesis and wave it around was just about the coolest thing in the world.
She and Caroline had bonded instantly and she was beginning to feel like Wade’s wife was the sister she’d always dreamed of having. Even Jake’s oldest brother seemed less intimidating these days.
The band suddenly shifted into a slow ballad and Seth stood up and reached for her hand. “Come on, Mag. No excuses now.”
She would have refused if Carmela hadn’t returned to the table then to take Jorge. “Thank you for watching him,” Carmela said in Spanish. “But he’s going to wake up hungry. We must be leaving.”
She gave both Carmela and Horatio hugs as they said their goodbyes, then turned back to Seth. “All right. Let’s dance. But I’ll warn you in advance I’m still not very good on the dance floor. I can’t blame having two left feet anymore since I don’t even have one.”
“Bad joke,” Seth said. He had just started to lead her out to the floor when Jake appeared over his shoulder and her heart gave its usual happy sigh of welcome.
He didn’t say anything, just raised one of those expressive eyebrows at his younger brother.
Seth sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Get my own girl.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem for you,” Jake said dryly. “If only you could narrow the field down to just one.”
Seth grinned. “Now why would I want to do that?”
He kissed Maggie on the cheek. “Thanks anyway,” he said, surrendering her to Jake.
She settled into her husband’s strong arms with a sigh of contentment, wanting to be nowhere else on earth but right here with the summer breeze ruffling her hair and the moonlight gleaming through the trees.
Somehow Jake always seemed to move at just the right pace—not too fast that she had to move awkwardly to keep up with him but not so slow that she grew frustrated.
Here was another joy she thought long behind her but like so many other things, Jake had helped her through.
“It’s been a good day, hasn’t it?” he asked, his breath warm in her ear, and she saw they had moved out of the bowery closer to the creek, secluded in the shade of the trees.
She smiled, her arms tightening around him. “Wonderful. They’re so happy together.”
“What about you, Mrs. Dalton?”
In answer, she pulled his head down and pressed her mouth to his. As he pulled her closer, they stopped moving but she didn’t mind. There would be time for dancing.
They had the rest of their lives.
* * * * *
