A Rancher's Pride

Epilogue

One month later
Kayla looked around the café.

She and Sam, Dori had assured them, would have the best wedding reception Flagman’s Folly had ever seen, right there at the Double S.

She’d certainly lived up to her promise.

Tables and chairs had been rearranged to create a spacious dance floor. Food and drink appeared without end. The doors and windows had been flung wide to let in the music from the quartet playing out on the patio. The mixture of mariachi tunes and old favorites kept everyone dancing.

Kayla’s parents took yet another turn around the room. Over in one corner, Lianne was holding court, with a couple of cowboys around her and Jack standing in the wings.

At the edge of the dance floor, Sam stood holding Becky’s hand.

Her heart swelling, Kayla watched him go down on one knee before Becky.

In halting but clear signs, he told her that they were now one family. “Daddy. Mommy-Kayla. And Becky.”

Her niece—no. Their daughter reached up and wrapped her hands around Sam’s neck. He rose and swung in a circle, holding Becky close. When he set her on the floor again, they exchanged a special message. Kayla had taught Sam the signs for the individual words weeks ago, but it was only last night that she and Becky had surprised him and taught him the special handshape.

Now, Sam and Becky each held one hand upright, their palms directed toward each other, fingers spread, the middle and ring fingers tucked down against their palms.

“I love you.”

Kayla’s eyes misted.

They turned, flashing their hands her way.

A tear trickled down her cheek. She returned the sign, then reached into her sleeve for the dainty hand-embroidered handkerchief Sharleen had delivered to her from Ellamae early that morning. A blue handkerchief, taking care of the something blue.

Sharleen had loaned Kayla a string of pearls to wear with her wedding dress.

The something old, they had decided, laughing, had to be four-year-old Becky.

And the double somethings new were, of course, the adoption papers and the marriage license Kayla had signed that morning.

Never would she have believed, when she’d driven up to Sam’s ranch house just a few weeks ago, that she would become a wife and mother so soon afterward. And both on the very same day.

Becky kissed her daddy’s cheek and ran out to join Ellamae and the judge on the dance floor.

Sam crossed the room to Kayla. “What’s all this?” He reached up and brushed away a fresh tear.

She shook her head.

He chuckled. “If you can’t get the words out, then sign them to me. We’ll see if I can understand.”

She simply raised her hand again, in the handshape she’d never let go.

He smiled. “Me, too.” He signed the shortcut and touched his palm to hers. “And I promise you, whether I speak or sign those words, you can trust they will always be true.”

“I don’t have a doubt in the world about that, Sam.”

The sudden gleam in his eyes told her she’d said exactly the right thing. Smiling, he raised his brows, touched the fingertips of one hand to his mouth, then brought all his fingertips together in front of him.

So she kissed him.