“I wish Hope would give up and accept reality,” Faith said. “Jake Whitelaw might be physically attracted to her, but—”
“Might be?” Randy said with a snort. “He practically paws the ground every time he lays eyes on her.”
Faith lifted an expressive black brow. “All right, he’s got the hots for Hope. But he’s going to marry Miss Carter.”
“It sure looks that way,” Randy said, eyeing Jake, who stood with his arm around Miss Carter’s slender waist. “Unless somebody does something fast.”
“Hope has done everything she can to make herself into a potential wife for Jake. She raced through college in three years to get her degree in computer science from Baylor this past summer. And she’s spent the past two summers traveling the world and experiencing as much of life as she can. But—”
“But she can never catch up to him, because he’s lived too much longer than she has,” Randy finished for her.
Faith sighed again. Jake Whitelaw might be only eighteen years older than Hope, but he was ages older in life experience. She didn’t understand her sister’s attraction to the older man, but Hope had fallen head over-ears for Jake years ago, and was still tumbling even now.
“So what are you going to do to help her out?” Randy asked.
“What can I do?”
Randy grinned. “You might have acted like the shy sister growing up, but I know better. Whenever you want something and go after it, you get it. So, I ask again, how are you going to help Jake discover that he belongs with Hope?”
“Do they belong together?” Faith asked skeptically.
“Look at Jake,” Randy said. “His gaze is constantly searching out Hope. And his behavior with Miss Carter is anything but loverlike.”
“Oh,” Faith said as she watched Jake’s eyes scan Miss Carter’s backyard, even though Hope was nowhere to be seen in the crowd. His arm was linked around Miss Carter’s waist, but they stood a good six inches apart. And although they were physically together, Miss Carter seemed to be talking to everyone except Jake.
Faith watched as Hope appeared at one of the five entrances to the gazebo in the center of Miss Carter’s backyard, laughing and flirting with one of Jake’s hired hands. When Hope looked toward Jake to see if he’d noticed her, Jake quickly and carefully averted his eyes. Oh, Jake was attracted, all right. But it looked like he’d be damned before he’d let Hope know it.
“There’s something else you may not have noticed,” Randy said. “Check out Jake’s younger brother Rabb. Look who has his eye.”
Faith searched out Louis Whitelaw, who’d earned the nickname Rabbit as a kid, which had been shortened to Rabb as he’d grown older. Rabb was attractive, with chestnut-brown hair and hazel eyes, but nowhere near as good-looking as his brother Jake, who was easily four inches taller and broader in the shoulders, with chiseled features that demanded female attention.
It was amazing how they ended up being brothers. Zach and Rebecca Whitelaw had adopted eight kids in all. None of them looked much like the others, but they were as close-knit as any family tied together by blood. Maybe more so, precisely because there was no blood tie to bind them. Each kid had a different background, some more horrific than others, but once they’d been adopted into the Whitelaw clan, they’d cleaved to one another like ivy to oak.
Which made the situation Randy had pointed out to her all the more compelling.
Faith watched in fascination as Rabb Whitelaw stared with lovesick eyes at his older brother’s fiancée. “Oh,” she murmured. “Oh, my. That is interesting.”
“Rabb has been eating Miss Carter with his eyes all afternoon,” Randy said. “Surreptitiously, of course. He’d never poach on his brother’s territory.”
“So he’ll let Jake marry Miss Carter, even though he loves her himself?” Faith asked.
“It looks that way,” Randy said. “So you see, you’d be doing more than one person a favor if you helped break up this engagement.”
“Believe me, I’m tempted,” Faith said. “It’s just too late. The wedding’s in two weeks.”
“Consider the fact that Jake and Miss Carter didn’t set the date for their wedding until now, the exact time Hope finished school and has returned all grown up,” Randy said. “What does that tell you?”
Faith pursed her lips and made a humming sound. “You think that Jake’s only marrying Miss Carter to avoid his attraction to Hope? Is that possible?”
“Jake and Miss Carter have been engaged for three very long years. If they were in love, why didn’t they get married a long time ago?” Randy asked.
Before Faith could speak, he answered his own question.
“Because Jake isn’t in love with Miss Carter. Because being engaged to her has kept him ‘safe’ from acting on his attraction to your sister. You told me he believes he’s too old for her. And he was married before to a younger woman, who left him when she got bored with ranch life.”
“Hope loves living and working on a ranch,” Faith said in defense of her sister. “She’d never get tired—”
“I didn’t say she would,” Randy interrupted. “But Jake got burned once. You can’t blame him for wanting to avoid the fire.”
Faith frowned. “I have to admit I thought Hope was too young for Jake when she first told me she’d fallen in love with him. But her teenage crush hasn’t gone away. If anything, she seems more determined than ever to have him.”
“If they’re meant for each other, you’d be doing them a favor throwing them together,” Randy said, “before Jake marries the wrong woman. And if they’re not destined to be together, it’ll be better in the long run to help Jake get over this infatuation he has for Hope before he marries Miss Carter.”
“But the wedding is in two weeks!”
“Then you’d better get started, sweetheart,” Randy said, kissing her on the nose.
“Are you going to help me?” Faith asked.
Randy held up his hands. “Uh-uh. Not me. Matchmaking is for females.”
“You just stood there and talked me into it!” Faith protested.
Randy grinned. “You were going to interfere anyway. I merely gave you the nudge you needed to get started.”
Faith grimaced and then laughed. “All right. I admit it. I can’t stand to see Hope so unhappy. Especially if there’s something I can do about it.”
“You go, girl,” Randy said with a wink.
“I do love you,” she said as she lifted herself on tiptoe and kissed him on the mouth. His arm slid around her waist and pulled her close, deepening the kiss as she leaned into his solid strength. When he let her go, she looked into his eyes, hoping he could read the gratitude she felt.
If
