Chapter 25
"Will an hour give you enough time?" Jake asked as they neared River Bend.
"Can we make it 90 minutes?" Sam looked over at him.
"Sure," Jake nodded. "It will give me enough time to tell Mom and Dad. If you need more time than that, call me or text me and let me know."
"Okay," Sam's eyes were locked on his.
Jake met her eyes as he turned into the ranch yard. They saw Blaze starting to bark before he recognized the truck and who was in it.
"Call me if you need me before that too," Jake said.
"I will but I'm sure it will be all right," Sam responded.
Jake nodded as he parked his truck.
"Thank you Jake," Sam told him again.
Jake shrugged.
"I am thankful," Sam insisted.
"Okay," he murmured. Jake watched as Sam got out of the truck and headed towards the house. He had a hard time thinking of her as his wife.
Jake knew she really wasn't. She was only his wife because the man she had wanted to marry had died. Jake was second best, at least.
As he sat in his truck, he wondered again if he was prepared to live his life in a loveless marriage. That's exactly what he had signed up for and he knew it. He sighed a long-suffering sigh and headed towards Three Ponies.
When he pulled into the ranch, he looked towards the pasture and saw Chip and Digger gone. Good. That meant Nate and Quinn were out on the range. He wanted to talk to his mother before he had to explain to them what was going on.
"Hi honey," Maxine greeted him as he came into the big stone house. "You looked awfully dressed up. Where have you been?"
"I took Sam to Reno," Jake told her, sitting at the kitchen table looking up at her.
"What? Why?" he could see his mother's confusion.
"We got married," Jake said.
"You what?" Maxine yelped.
"She's pregnant with Bryan's child," Jake was quick to explain.
Maxine collapsed in a chair across the table from him. Her hand waved in the air as the tears welled up in her eyes. "Start from the beginning."
Jake told her what had happened between Bryan and him the night of the fire. Bryan had asked Jake to watch over Sam and his child if anything happened to him. Then Jake explained his conversation with Sam and how they agreed to go ahead and get married as she had planned to do with Bryan. This way her unborn child would be an Ely as Bryan had wanted it.
"His child," Maxine murmured, overcome by the reality that Bryan had a child on the way.
"He didn't want Quinn with Sam," Jake went on.
Maxine met her youngest son's eyes.
"No, I can see where he wouldn't," Maxine nodded. "I love Quinn dearly, but he's not the most monogamous person on the planet."
"Mom!" Jake yelped. Jake wasn't ready to discuss his or his brothers' sex lives with his mother.
"Don't 'mom' me," Maxine told him. "I know my sons, young man. I know that you all aren't innocent. I don't need details of course, but I'm not stupid, Jake."
Jake squirmed in his chair.
He heard his mother sniffle and looked at her, surprised to see the tears in her eyes.
"You can't imagine what it is like to lose a child," Maxine told him, wiping her eyes. "At least Bryan will live on though his child."
Jake nodded.
"Which is why I married Sam," Jake said. "To make sure the child had our last name."
Maxine gave him a look. She knew her youngest son was either kidding himself or lying to himself. Nothing could have made Jake marry someone if he didn't care something for them. Not even a promise to his dead brother. She knew that Jake had always cared for and loved Sam, even before he had realized it himself.
"We'll put her in Bryan's room," Maxine announced. "Unless she wants to share yours of course."
Jake's head shot up to look at his mother.
"I doubt that," Jake murmured.
"Hmm," Maxine mused, still watching her youngest son. He started squirming in his chair again.
"I've got baby albums of Bryan that Sam can have so she can share them with his child," Maxine continued.
Maxine stood up and hugged her son.
"Thank you, Jake," Maxine told him. "Bryan would be happy to know you cared enough about him and Sam to do this."
Jake nodded.