Margo started to speak but seemed to change her mind as, silently, she left the room.
When Regan put the teacup to her lips, she was surprised to find she was trembling. The questions she’d asked Margo were what she’d been asking herself and had not been aware of them. What did owning a town mean, anyway? She had friends here, people she’d come to love, but were they any substitute for one special person, someone who loved you even when you weren’t in the best of moods, someone to hold your head when you were sick, a special person who knew all your ugly parts and still loved you anyway?
Remembering Travis’s plantation and Stanford Hall, she knew that Jennifer should grow up there. Travis’s hundreds of relatives’ portraits were on the walls, and they were Jennifer’s ancestors, too. She deserved that sort of continuity, a place that was filled with security and peace, not the ever-changing interior of an inn.
Smiling, she leaned back against the chair. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy to tell Travis he’d won. No doubt he’d gloat and tell her he knew he’d win. But who cared? It meant more to spend her life with the man she loved than to give it all up because of her silly pride. Besides, there’d be ways to repay him. Oh yes, she thought. She’d make him sorry he had ever bragged about anything.
“You certainly look pleased with yourself,” Brandy said.
Regan hadn’t heard her friend enter the room. “I was just thinking about Travis.”
“That would make me smile,
too. So when are you leaving with him?”
“And what makes you assume—?” Regan began, then stopped at Brandy’s laugh. “I know what you’re thinking, and it’s all true. You know, for years I was afraid of Travis, afraid his personality would devour me and I wouldn’t exist any longer.”
“But now you know you can hold your own,” Brandy said.
“Yes, and I realize he’s right, that his plantation is a better place for Jennifer. And what about you? How is it going to affect you if I leave Scarlet Springs? Should I get someone else to help run the inn?”
“No, don’t worry about it,” Brandy said, holding up her hand. “Travis and I have arranged it all. There’ll be no problem.”
“Travis and you! You mean you…and my husband…? Behind my back?”
“The last I heard, he wasn’t your husband any longer. And of course I knew you’d leave here. Travis is not a man a woman can resist very long. Did you know what hell he went through trying to find you after you left? And that he’s been celibate since you left him?”
“What?” Regan asked as warmth spread over her. “How do you know any of this?”
“While you’ve been working, I’ve spent some time with Travis and Jennifer, and if you weren’t curious, I certainly have been. Would you like to hear some of what that dear man’s been through in the last few years?”
Brandy didn’t wait for Regan’s answer before she started on the long, detailed story of Travis’s ordeal. Most of his friends believed Regan had drowned, but Travis kept searching for her in spite of everyone telling him to give it up. At one point a preacher was urging him to conduct a funeral for his dear departed wife, thinking perhaps that would rid Travis of his obsession with her.
An hour later, Regan left the library, her head in the clouds. Ignoring Farrell, who called after her, she kept looking for Travis, eager to tell him she loved him, wanted to marry him, and would return to his home with him.
By the end of the day, when he still hadn’t appeared, some of her enthusiasm left her. Distractedly, she refused Farrell’s dinner invitation and spent the evening with her daughter. When the second night passed and she still hadn’t seen Travis, her euphoric state broke. Jennifer was sulking and shooting angry looks at her mother, Farrell was becoming quite persistent in his invitations, and Margo constantly asked Regan where Travis was.
By the third day, she wished she’d never heard of Travis Stanford. He couldn’t have left her after all he’d done to find her! Could he? Oh, please God, she prayed, flinging herself onto the bed that night. Please don’t let him have left me. For the first time in years, she began to cry. Damn you, Travis! she gasped. How many tears had that man made her shed?
Chapter 18
AT FIVE O’CLOCK THE NEXT MORNING, REGAN WAS AWAKENED by someone knocking on her door. Sleepily, she rolled out of bed and pulled on her dressing gown.
Standing in the hallway was Timmie Watts, the son of one of her farm tenants. Before she could say a word, the little boy handed her a long-stemmed red rose and vanished down the hall.
Yawning, not awake, Regan looked down at the exquisite, fragrant flower. Attached to its stem was a bit of paper which she unfurled to read, “Regan, will you marry me? Travis.”
It was a full minute before her mind understood what her eyes saw, and then she gave a squeal of delight, hugged the rose to her breast, and jumped into the air three times. He hadn’t forgotten her after all!
“Mommie,” Jennifer said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Is Daddy home?”
“Almost,” Regan laughed, grabbing her daughter and waltzing her about the room. “This rose, this lovely, perfect rose, is from your daddy. He wants us to go live with him.”
“We are,” Jennifer laughed, clutching her mother as she began to get dizzy. “We can ride my pony.”
“Every single day from now on and forever!” Regan laughed. “Now let’s get dressed, because I’m sure Daddy will be here very soon.”
Before Regan settled on a gown of gold velvet, she threw everything she owned onto the bed. It was while she was in the midst of this mess that someone again knocked on her door. Flying to it, hoping to see Travis, she flung the door open.