Ephraim (Seven Sons Book 5) Read online

  “My kids will have a choice, just like we did. Gideon was the only one who had to stay. The rest of us had every choice in the world.”

  She hid a yawn behind her hand. “I think I need to go home and sleep. I’ll see you at church in the morning.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be the one surrounded by obnoxious teenage boys.”

  “Hey! One of those boys is my brother!”

  “And your point is?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, he’s obnoxious all right.”

  He walked her to her car and kissed her goodnight, watching again as she drove away. This was the first time she’d come to him without him asking. He was pretty sure she was ready. He pulled the ring he’d purchased that afternoon out of his pocket and looked at it. It was just right for her. He knew it was.

  Chapter Ten

  Maria pulled up to the church the next morning at the same time that all of the McClain mini-vans arrived. It seemed that each cabin had two of them, and the boys just piled in to go wherever they were going. It was the first time she’d seen them leave the ranch together, and she couldn’t help but like it.

  Walking over to Ephraim, she nodded toward the van. “Nice wheels.”

  He made a face. “Don’t think we haven’t asked for SUVs. Mom insists that mini-vans are safer for her boys.”

  She laughed. “I guess you can’t always look macho.”

  “I don’t care about looking macho! I just don’t want to look like a soccer mom.”

  She looked him up and down. “Trust me. I look at you, and there’s nothing even a little bit soccer-momish about you.” She slid her hand into his and walked with him toward the church. In his tight jeans and cowboy boots, he didn’t look like anything but what he was—a country veterinarian who helped run a ranch.

  This was her first time at the new church, because she’d just moved to town the week before. She looked around her, smiling as she saw how crowded it was. “How long has your family worshipped here?”

  He shrugged. “Since the eighteen hundreds. I think before the Texas Revolution, but I’m not sure about that. “

  “Your family has been in Texas that long?”

  He nodded. “Yup. When I say Texas born and bred, I really do mean it.”

  They walked to a section of pews at the front on the right, and the McClains and their boys took up the first six pews. “Do you always sit in this section?”

  He nodded. “We might as well put our names on the pews. Everyone knows to leave them for us.”

  They took their seats, and she was happy to sit beside Ephraim, her brother on her other side. He kept grinning at her. “You’re going to marry Ephraim,” he whispered to her.

  “Hush, you!” She couldn’t believe he’d said that in church. “I have no idea what the future will bring, and neither do you.”

  “Sure I do. I watch the McClains. If they go to church and sit with a girl, they marry her. It’s that simple.”

  “Hush!”

  Ephraim put his lips to her ear. “I told you he wouldn’t mind.”

  “Yeah, you were right. Mark it on a calendar. Won’t happen again anytime soon.”

  He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head, finding her more amusing than he probably should.

  A moment later they all stood to sing the first song of worship that day, and she realized he was right about something else. He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. She cringed at his singing, but he raised his voice to praise God good-naturedly.

  After service, which she thoroughly enjoyed, she looked around the big church, feeling welcomed. More often than not, she’d missed service while in college. She’d had to work full time to pay for her room and board, even though her classes had been covered with academic scholarships.

  She followed them out to the ranch, wondering if the other boys were saying the same types of things that Michael was. Everyone seemed to be taking it for granted that she and Ephraim would marry soon, and no one even seemed to think it was a little bit odd that they’d only met a few days before.

  When she got out of her car at the cabin, Ephraim walked over to join her. As he did, he called over his shoulder to the boys, “Get lunch on the table. I’ll be in shortly. I want to see everything ready as soon as I walk inside!”

  “You really are bossy!”

  He grinned. “I like to think of myself as their future-life coach. If I can teach them how to act and behave now, they will be much more successful in the future.” He leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. “This may be my only chance to kiss you all day. The boys are in rare form. It’s Christmas Eve and a wedding day. Their fourth wedding in just a couple of months, so you’d think they’d be sick of them by now.”

  She grinned, trying to picture all of the boys dressed nicely for a wedding. They’d all worn jeans to church that morning. “Do they dress in suits for weddings?”

  “Nah. We McClains are more casual than that. We’ve done jeans for every wedding so far.”

  “Is that what you want when you marry?” she asked. It felt strange talking about it, but everyone assumed it would happen, so why not just be frank about it?

  He nodded. “Unless my future wife wants something different.” He looked her in the eye. “How ‘bout it? Jeans, or something more formal?”

  She swallowed hard. “I’d probably be happy with jeans, as long as I can wear my mother’s wedding dress.” She’d actually tried it on after she got back to the Andersons’ house the night before. It had been in a box wrapped in tissue paper waiting for her for almost twenty-five years. It fit perfectly, so she wouldn’t even need to get it altered.

  “And when do you want to get married?” he asked, sticking his hand into the pocket of his jeans.

  Maria shrugged. “No idea. I’d have to think about that after I was asked.”

  He flipped open the box in his hand, revealing an engagement ring. “Marry me?”

  Her heart started thudding in her chest. She’d heard proposal stories from his brothers, though, and this didn’t seem quite right to her. Why did the others get sweet, well thought out proposals, and she didn’t? “As much as I want to say yes, I want to remember the day of my proposal forever. And this one doesn’t feel super memorable.”

  He frowned at her, but then he had an idea. He’d heard about an ancestor proposing with a poem, and he was sure his mother still had that poem. He would do it right, in front of everyone at the reception that evening.

  “Okay, you want a good proposal, then you’ll get one.” Ephraim kissed her quickly. “Now let’s go in and eat the lunch the boys prepared.”

  She frowned. “They made lunch? It won’t poison me, will it?”

  He laughed. “They’re all still alive, and most are well.”

  Together they went into the house to face lunch. She was a little nervous, but she was sure she’d survive.

  Maria was ready for the wedding an hour early, and she wasn’t sure what to do with her time. She went out to the living room to find the Andersons in their usual places—him in the recliner and her on the couch. She sat beside Mrs. Anderson. “I have a wedding to go to this evening, and I’m going to the cabin where my brother lives first thing in the morning.”

  Mrs. Anderson smiled at her. “That’s nice, dear. We think very highly of the McClains in this area.”

  Maria frowned. “I didn’t until this past weekend when I really got to know them. I blamed them for taking my brother from me.”

  “I believe it was the state that did that, dear.” Mrs. Anderson reached out to pat Jasper’s head. “He’s a really good dog.”

  “Yeah. He’s a trained diabetic assistant dog, so he’s been through a whole lot more training than the average dog.” Maria stood up. “I’m going to go and grab some hot chocolate from Braum’s before the wedding.”

  Mrs. Anderson nodded at her, going back to the television show she was watching with her husband. “Have a nice time.”

  More than anything, Mari
a was nervous. She couldn’t have hot chocolate at Braum’s, and she knew it. She couldn’t really go anywhere in her dress and heels for the wedding, so she’d just drive to the church and wait for people to arrive.

  When she got there, she saw all of the McClain women hurrying into the church together. Lillian spotted her as the others went in, and she came over. “Come with us! You’re one of the sisters now, too. Even if that dense boy of mine hasn’t proposed yet.”

  Maria laughed. “He proposed this afternoon, but I’d heard nice stories of how all his brothers proposed, so I told him to try again.”

  Lillian grinned, linking her arm with Maria’s. “I do like the way you think.”

  Maria was excited to join the McClain women in the bride’s room. There was a lot of laughter as Claire got ready for the wedding. Maria sat in a corner and just observed the others, wanting badly to be a part of the family. Almost as badly as she wanted to be married to Ephraim. That’s when it hit her. She did love him. She’d known him for precisely three days, and she already couldn’t imagine what her life would be like without him.

  She sat and daydreamed while the other women rushed around getting ready, only going out to the front when Lillian came to her. “You’re going to be late for the wedding,” Lillian said with a grin.

  “Sorry, I was lost in my own little world.”

  “I understand!” Lillian said. “Thinking about Ephraim?”

  Maria nodded. “Did I mess up by telling him to come back and ask me right?”

  Lillian laughed, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. My boys all need to learn that life isn’t going to happen the way they want it to. Sometimes they have to work for things.”

  “I’ve never fallen in a man’s lap in my life. I don’t think I ever will.”

  “Good for you.” Lillian pointed to Ephraim, waiting at the front of the church.

  Maria slowly made her way to him, liking how handsome he looked in his jeans and dress shirt. He was wearing a pair of newly-polished cowboy boots, and had a Stetson hat on his head. She wiped at her mouth to be certain she wasn’t drooling, because the man looked good.

  As she got to him, he took her hand, lifting it to his lips. “I want to apologize for my ridiculous proposal earlier. I will do better next time.”

  She grinned at him. “I was just wondering if I’d blown it by not accepting.”

  “Not at all. You’ll get a good one this time.” He sat down and pulled her down next to him, and she saw that her brother was once again beside her.

  “I feel like you’re following me,” she hissed at him.

  “Get a grip. You’re the one who keeps following Ephraim. I have to be with him.”

  Ephraim grinned at the two of them, happy to hear them sound like normal siblings. She was obviously getting over her guilt about not raising him herself. “Daniel decided not to have anyone stand up with him, so I’m here with the riff raff.”

  Maria frowned at Michael. “Am I riff or raff?”

  “I have to be riff, because wasn’t he a character in West Side Story? You’re already a character. And Ephraim keeps singing ‘Maria’ every time he gets in the shower. So annoying. He’s the worst singer of all seven of the brothers, and none of them can sing.”

  Maria chuckled. “Well, hopefully he’ll get it out of his system soon.”

  “I doubt it. That family is insane about musicals. Lillian made us all watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers earlier this month. I think she’s obsessed.”

  “Obviously.”

  The wedding started then, and she paid careful attention, ignoring the gagging sounds that came from the other end of the pew during the kiss.

  After it was over, Ephraim stood up. “Reception is here at the church,” he told her.

  She followed him to the fellowship hall where there was food to feed an army and then some.

  Most of the boys fell on it quickly, as if it was their first meal of the day. Hunter came over to her. “I’m not sure what I can eat here.”

  Maria smiled, happy to have him ask, and she walked away from Ephraim to show him the things that had the best quality protein as well as the lowest fat.

  When she was finished, she turned around to see that Ephraim had appropriated a microphone. She assumed he was going to make a toast, and she smiled, listening to him intently.

  “I asked Maria Villanueva to marry me earlier today, and she told me to plan it out and do it right. So I’m trying again. I’m going to confess that I stole a poem that one of my ancestors used to propose to his wife, but I made it fit my purposes.” He cleared his throat, looking down at a poem in his hand. “I have a feeling he had no more poetic ability than I do.” His eyes met hers across the room before he looked down and read from the paper in his hand.

  “I needed ideas for proposing,

  But I’d rather run away to Korea.

  How will I find the perfect words,

  To ask to marry my Maria?

  I want to rhyme about flowers,

  But I really don’t know how.

  Instead I’ll give you this ring.

  Will you marry me now?”

  There was a lot of laughter from the boys, but everyone in the room looked at her, wondering if she would accept the ridiculous proposal. She wanted to shrink into the ground, but she knew that wasn’t the answer with a man like Ephraim. She had to meet him head-on. “I don’t know! Do you love me?”

  “Why else would I stand up here like a fool spouting bad poetry?”

  She laughed softly, along with everyone else in the room. “I love you back!”

  His face softened into a grin. “Good thing! Marry me?”

  She nodded, tears streaming down her face. The poem had been ridiculous, but the fact that he’d been willing to embarrass himself in front of everyone he loved, made it worth it. “Yes, I’ll marry you!”

  “See you at the same time next week!” Ephraim called out. “I plan to marry her then!”

  “You have to give me a choice about the wedding date!” she called back, trying not to laugh hysterically. This was a truly ridiculous proposal, but she loved it, and she would tell her children and grandchildren about it.

  “Nah! I let you have a choice about whether or not you married me, though. Wasn’t that nice of me?”

  He was still standing on a stage, and she was shouting back to him. That was unacceptable, because she needed to touch him. She needed to kiss him to seal their engagement. Walking across the room toward him, she took his hand and let him pull her up on their little stage, and she pulled his head down for a kiss much to the amusement of the crowd of people watching them.

  “Next week?” he asked softly. “Please?”

  She nodded. “Nothing would make me happier.”

  Epilogue

  The next morning was just as chaotic as Maria imagined it would be. The boys were excited over their presents and running every which way. She waited until she was alone with Michael to give him the gift she’d carefully wrapped.

  When he’d opened it, he looked at her, biting his lip against the emotion displayed on his face. “Thank you. This really means a lot to me.” He ran his finger over the title of the book, obviously remembering exactly why she gave it to him.

  She smiled. “I’m so glad. Because you mean a lot to me.”

  “I’m really glad you’re marrying Ephraim. You two really seem to belong together.”

  “I think so, too.” She hugged her brother tightly. “I’m so glad you’re happy here.”

  He nodded. “And now you get to be happy here too.”

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  Seven Sons Book 5)