Westmoreland's Way - Brenda Jackson [3]
“Yes, but look what he’ll be getting. Our home and the most beautiful single woman in Gamble,” Jill pointed out.
“A single woman who isn’t getting any younger and who will be turning thirty in a few months. Don’t you think it’s time I get married?”
“Yes, but not to him,” Jill implored. “Anyone but him.”
Pam glanced at the kitchen clock that hung on the wall. Fletcher was coming to dinner and would be arriving any minute, and she needed to make sure her sisters put this behind them. They had to accept that she was now an engaged woman and move on.
She of all people knew that Fletcher had his flaws and could be arrogant at times, but she could deal with that. What she refused to deal with was letting her sisters lose the only home they knew and a chance to fulfill their dreams by attending the colleges they desired.
She couldn’t help but wonder what her father had been thinking to put a second mortgage on their home—a mortgage for which the full balance was due within a year of his death. There was no way she could come up with a million dollars. Fletcher, in the role of a friend, had made her an offer that she couldn’t refuse. It would not be a love match, he was fully aware of that. She would, however, as agreed, perform her wifely duties. He wanted kids one day and so did she. And Pam was determined to make the most of their marriage and be a good wife to him.
“I want the three of you to make me a promise,” she finally said to her sisters.
“What kind of promise?” Jill asked, lifting a suspicious brow.
“I want you to promise me that you will do everything I ask regarding my engagement to Fletcher. That, you will make me, as your oldest sister, happy by supporting my marriage to him.”
“But will you be truly happy, Pammie?” Paige asked with an expression that said she really had to know.
No, she wouldn’t truly be happy, but her sisters didn’t have to know that, Pam thought. They must never know the extent of her sacrifice for them. With that resolve in mind, Pam lifted her chin, looked all three of them in the eyes and told a lie that she knew was going to be well worth it in the end.
“Yes,” she said, plastering a fake smile on her lips. “I will truly be happy. I want to marry Fletcher. Now, make me that promise.”
Jill, Paige and Nadia hesitated only for a moment and then said simultaneously, “We promise.”
“Good.”
When Pam turned back to the sink, the three girls looked at each other and smiled. Their fingers had been crossed behind their backs when they’d made their promise.
It was probably inconsiderate of him to show up without calling first, Dillon thought, as he turned into the long driveway that was marked as the Novak Homestead.
He had arrived in Gamble, Wyoming, earlier that day, with his mission on his mind. What had happened to his great-grandfather’s other four wives, the ones he had before he married Dillon’s great-grandmother, Gemma? According to the genealogy research James Westmoreland had done, Gamble was the first place Raphel had settled in after leaving Atlanta, and a man by the name of Jay Novak had been his business partner in a dairy business.
Dillon would have called, but he couldn’t get a signal on his cell phone. Roy Davis, the man who owned the only hotel in Gamble, had explained that was because Gamble was in such a rural area, getting a good signal was almost impossible. Dillon had shaken his head. It was absurd that in this day and age there was a town in which you couldn’t get a decent cell signal when you needed it.
He had finally gotten a signal earlier to contact his secretary to check on things back at the office. Not surprisingly, everything was under control, since he had hired the right people to make sure his billion-dollar real estate firm continued to be a success whether or not he was there.
Dillon parked his car behind another car in the yard and glanced up at a huge Victorian house with a shingle roof. It was very similar in design to his home