A Bride for Jericho Bravo

“It’s a promise.” She caught both of Tessa’s hands. “You were always on my side—well, except when we were little. Then you tried to run my life.”

Tessa looked suddenly prim. It was a look she used to wear a lot when she was a kid, back when Marnie would constantly razz her, calling her Saint Teresa. “You were a wild child,” Tessa said. “You used to swear like a sailor on shore leave, remember? And you were always running away, freaking everybody out….”

Marnie felt her shoulders slump. “Looks like I’m up to my old tricks, huh? Only minus the wild part. Somewhere I lost track of that—of my wild side. Lately, I’m about as wild as a stale slice of white bread.”

Tessa pulled her close again, whispered, “You’re still wild at heart. You know you are.”

“Oh, yeah, right.”

“You are.”

Marnie couldn’t help asking, hopefully, “You think?”

“I know.” Outside, Jericho’s chopper roared to life. The sisters were quiet as the rumbling moved along the driveway and then faded away down the street. Then Tessa spoke again. “I’m so glad you and Jericho seem to have worked out your differences.”

“I hated him at first.”

“No kidding.”

“But you know, I can see now that he’s an okay guy after all. A really good guy, actually.”

“He’s got a lot of heart. And in the past few years, he’s turned his life around.”

Marnie wondered what exactly that meant.

But before she could ask Tessa about it, Ash came in. Marnie apologized again for everything.

Ash said he wanted to let bygones be bygones. “I’m glad you came to us. And I meant it when I said you’re welcome to stay as long as you want to.”

Marnie told them good night and went back to the guesthouse, where she drew a bath and sank gratefully into it, sighing in pleasure as she let the hot water ease all her tensions away.

Things could be worse, she was thinking. And then she laughed at her own sudden optimism. Her life, after all, was still a great big mess. But somehow, she felt better about it.

It wasn’t even forty-eight hours since the breakup, but she was already beginning to see that her relationship with Mark really hadn’t been that good for her. In the years they were together, she had slowly relinquished her life to him, until she lived in his shadow.

His friends became her friends. His world, hers. He had a big trust fund set up for him by his dad. And he also made a lot more money than she ever would. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to just stop working, to let him support her. After all, her jobs never brought in much anyway.

Without Mark to pay the bills, she had almost nothing to call her own.

But there was a bright side. All of a sudden, she was nobody’s shadow. She’d stepped into the light. She could see her life clearly now. Too bad what she saw wasn’t all that great.

Mark had offered her money “to hold her over,” when he told her they were through. She had proudly refused him, which had seemed really noble at the time—but was actually kind of stupid, when you got right down to it. Bottom line, she was on her own with five hundred dollars in her checking account. She had two years of junior college and a hodgepodge of subsistence-level work experience to recommend her to a prospective employer.

But she could get crazy all over again if she started dwelling on her chances of finding a decent job with her minimal skills in a not-so-great economy. She closed her eyes and let her body float in the cooling bathwater and tried to turn her wayward mind to soothing things.

For some reason, her thoughts drifted to Jericho. She could see him now, behind the dark screen of her shuttered eyelids, in the hard glare of the Mercedes’ headlights, when he caught up with her on his bike.

He’d held out his arms to her.

It was the last thing she’d expected him to do.

But he had done it.

And somehow, that moment—when his big, tattooed arms closed around her—that was the turning point. That was when she knew: in time, she was going to be all right.

The world had simple kindness in it after all. How strange that a big, scary biker guy like Jericho Bravo had ended up being the one to make her see that.

Chapter Three

“Are you sure you don’t mind if I stay a few weeks?” Marnie asked the next day.

It was after nine and Ash had gone to work. Marnie and Tessa were sitting at the table in the kitchen, the morning sun pouring in through the glass panes of the French doors, Tessa with a cup of herbal tea and Marnie with her third mug of coffee. Mona Lou, the bulldog, was curled up in her doggy bed nearby.

Tessa said, “The guesthouse is yours for as long as you want it. And Ash and I discussed it some more, last night after you left and we—”

“Don’t tell me. He said he wished I would go away and never come back, but since he’d told me I could stay, he felt honor-bound to stick by his word.”

“Oh, stop. He said no such thing. Now, will you let me finish?”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“Well, we were talking about your situation and we got to discussing the money thing.”

Marnie shrugged. “You want me to pay rent? That’s reasonable.”

Tessa set her cup in the saucer with a sharp clink. “Of course not.”

“Tessa, it’s fair. I don’t mind at all.”

“You are not paying us rent.”

“Tessa …”

“I don’t want to hear any more about that.”

“Okay, okay.” Marnie put up both hands. “Since you insist, I’ll be more than happy to stay in your guesthouse for free. And if you weren’t talking about my paying rent, then …?”

“Look. Do you need money? If you do, just say so. We would be only too happy to—”

“No. Thanks. But no, thanks.”

“Don’t be so proud.”

“I’m not.” She rethought that. “Well, okay. I am. Pride’s about all I have left at this point.”

“It’s not a big deal,” Tessa insisted. “Don’t make it one. If you’re planning on staying for a while, you’re bound to need a little cash to tide you over. ”

“I have a little cash.” Very little cash, as a matter of fact. “Also, I’m planning to earn my way while I’m here.”