THE DECISION

appeared fifteen minutes earlier, it would have been really embarrassing.

"I am so embarrassed. I'm supposed to be setting a good example, not sleeping with cowboys." Rose tossed back the sheet and started to leave, but Andrew turned and caught her arm.

"Cowboys?" he echoed. "Plural?"

"Quit teasing," she told him. "We've got to get out of here."

"Rose, you are a grown woman. Surely you are allowed to have a sex life."

"In front of my virgin niece? I don't think so." She rose up enough to give him a quick kiss and then scooted out of the bed. "Come on. I think something's really wrong."

"If it was an emergency they would have waited downstairs," he insisted, but Rose was halfway across the room picking up her underwear. Andrew leaned against the pillow and closed his eyes for one brief moment. This time Rose wasn't tiptoeing from his bed while he was asleep, but he had the sinking feeling that she was leaving him just the same.

MARTY SHRUGGED. "I dunno, Ms Marti. They lit out of here really fast."

Rose hopped down from the truck and gave Gus an absent pat on the head as he greeted her. It had taken too long to return to the ranch and they'd missed Francisca and Bobby. The trip seemed longer because of the silence that had stretched between Rose and Andrew the entire way. There didn't seem to be anything to say until they talked to Bobby and Francisca. "How long ago?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes," one of the twins said, holding onto her horse's reins. "We were just coming back from a ride and we said hi, what's up, and Francisca Handel said something about leaving."

"Leaving? To go to town?" Rose asked.

The twin on the left brightened. "Maybe she was going home, you know, to Rhode Island."

The other twin shook her head. "I bet they were eloping."

Marty shook his head. "Nope. Bobby didn't look real happy."

"Eloping?" Rose echoed. "Why would they do that when they're supposed to get married in two days?" She turned to Andrew. "Do you know anything about this?"

"Only the kid said Francisca had been crying a lot."

Andrew frowned. "Do you think she's called the wedding off?"

Rose didn't know what to say. "I hope not," she told him, but he looked skeptical. "But nothing Francisca did would surprise me."

Andrew swore under his breath and looked down the drive as if he expected to find all the answers in the empty road. "Well, I can't say you didn't warn me."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Me, too." Then realizing that the twins and Marty were staring at them, he took Rose's arm and drew her aside. "I guess I should have believed you when you said this would never work. You said this was no life for your niece."

Her heart landed in her abdomen as she saw the bitterness in his expression. "I didn't..."

"Cooking and cleaning and living far from town and having babies, I think that's how you described it," he said, his voice rough. "I guess Francisca Handel finally figured out that you were right all along."

"I didn't want to be right." Rose wanted to be wrong about cowboys and Eastern women, wanted to believe that love conquers all. She put her hand on Andrew's arm.

"Everyone's different," she said, wishing with all her heart he would ask her to stay with him. She'd love the babies and the cooking, tolerate the cleaning and maybe even substitute teach at the high school once in a while if she discovered she missed working. She wanted to spend her days and her nights on that ranch, with that rancher under those quilts.

He wouldn't even look at her, so she dropped her hand and turned toward the house. He was angry the wedding was cancelled, she realized. Disappointed that his plans for his ranch would have to wait. And anxious to be rid of her now that the wedding was off. Her job as chaperone was finished and so was their brief affair.

She hurried to the ranch house, hoping to find a written explanation on the kitchen table. Since there was no note in the kitchen, Rose headed upstairs and prayed that Francisca hadn't done anything foolish. Surely this latest drama had something to do with the wedding---something simple, such as the wrong flowers had been ordered or the Steak Barn had mixed up the menu.

The door to Francisca's room stood open, and the note was on the bed.

'Aunt Roro,' it read. 'Don't be mad. I will call you soon." It was signed with a familiar rounded F and a little heart. The closet door was open, Francisca's few clothes were gone with the exception of the beautiful wedding dress, still encased in plastic. The suitcase was no longer on the floor under the window.

Rose blinked back the sting of tears. Would a bride elope without her new dress? No way.

Francisca was gone. Bobby would be heartbroken. Andrew was furious. She had wanted to believe that love at first sight could blossom into something lasting, that strangers could find each other again and live happily ever after. She had even started to think she might make a good ranch wife.

The romance was over. It was time to get out of Texas, after all.

*****

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