Around Which All Things Bend

Nancy Perpall

Description

A wealthy Montana cowboy searching for love and purpose sets down a new path where he meets a beautiful graduate student who lassoes his heart and changes everything.
When he is born the heir to a sprawling Montana ranch, Alex Whitgate’s life is already mapped out: what he will be when he grows up, where he will attend college, and what branch of the military he will enlist in while serving his country.
When Alex returns from Afghanistan, his widowed mother suggests it’s time for him to marry and provide heirs to the family fortune. Dutifully, Alex becomes engaged to a woman who equally shares his passion in the bedroom. But when she makes an outrageous demand days before their wedding, Alex breaks the engagement and travels to Charleston, a city steeped in Civil War history and ghosts unwilling to leave. As a new chapter allows him to shed his legacy, Alex falls in love with Brooke Bryant, a PhD psychology student whose roots are as deeply embedded in southern soil as Alex’s are in Montana. Can their relationship survive the distance and an ex-fiancé whose sights are set on a romantic reunion or are there certain love stories that are not meant to be?
In this tale of passion, hope, and consequences, a wealthy Montana cowboy searching for love and purpose sets down a new path where he meets a beautiful graduate student who lassoes his heart and changes everything.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 22 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665726122
• Langue: English

Extrait

Around Which All Things Bend
 
 
A Novel
 
 
Nancy Perpall
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Nancy Perpall.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2611-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2610-8 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-2612-2 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022912287
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 09/30/2022
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 1
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterwards.
—Benjamin Franklin
I t’s been said that lovers cannot see each other’s weaknesses and shortcomings, and if they do, the glare causes them to turn quickly away from each other. What Alex Whitgate struggled with was why it had taken him so long to see something that was so clear to him now.
His iPhone on the bedside table lit up with an incoming call. Set to “Do Not Disturb,” it neither rang nor vibrated. When the call disconnected, a message banner appeared on the screen. It was Gwynn. Almost immediately, the landline in the downstairs study rang. Although the rooms, stairs, and his closed bedroom door slightly muffled the ringing, it reverberated in his ears.
As he pulled on his blue jeans, he heard a knock on the door and his mother’s strained voice. “Alex, Gwynn just called. She asked me to tell you she has to speak to you. She sounded hysterical. What’s going on?”
Pressing his lips tightly together, he continued to dress. Then, taking a deep breath, he said, “Dang it. Mom, tell her that I’ve already gone out to the upper pasture, and there’s no cell reception.”
He heard his mother mumble something, and then, sounding exasperated, she said, “Really, Alex, Gwynn knows you use a satellite phone when you go up there.”
“Tell her I left the satellite phone home.”
“You want me to lie to the girl you’re marrying in four days? What in heaven’s name is going on?”
He heard another knock on the door but didn’t respond.
“Alex, what’s happened?” his mother called with an anxious voice.
After tugging on his boots, he stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. Alex felt a vestigial flicker of anger loop through his mind as he thought about what had happened. “Mom,” he said in a harsher tone than he’d intended, “I’ll be right down and explain everything.”
A few minutes later, he opened the door, walked down the long hall, and descended the sweeping staircase. When he entered the kitchen, his mother was leaning against the sink, staring out the window above it. He felt his chest clench as he noticed how frail and tired she looked. Definitely not the beautiful, strong, stalwart matriarch Mary Whitgate was known to be. Alex watched as she turned slowly, crossed her arms, and narrowed her green eyes. “Well?”
Alex walked to the coffee pot, gripping the handle so tightly his knuckles blanched. After pouring himself a mug and one for his mother, he motioned toward the table. After taking a deep breath, he said, “Why don’t you sit down.”
“Humph. Telling someone to sit down before they’ll tell you what they have to say isn’t a good sign,” she said sourly, taking a seat.
After placing the coffee mug in front of her, Alex kissed the crown of her head and took a chair across from her. Pressing his back against the chair, he said, “I know this is going to be a blow to you. But the wedding is off.”
“What?” she exclaimed, placing her hand to her throat.
“Gwynn and I broke up.”
“You what?” Mary cried.
“We had a fight, and we broke up.”
“Why? What happened?” she stuttered. “A fight? Over what?”
Alex straightened, hooking his thumb inside his belt. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated?” Mary said, her voice an octave higher. Opening her palms to the ceiling, she raised her arms above her head. “That’s all I get? ‘It’s complicated’?” Then, taking a breath, her eyes laser focused on Alex, she exhaled and, grabbing onto the table’s edge, leaned in. “Let me tell you what’s complicated. Expecting two-hundred and fifty guests in four days, working for months to get this ranch ready for the reception, preparing the house for your guests, who you may remember are arriving in a few hours, and working with Gwynn and the wedding planner for the last six months—”
Alex raised his palm to her. “Mom, I know how hard you’ve worked, and I appreciate everything you’ve done. But I’m not going through with it.”
“But why? Why suddenly out of the clear blue do you decide, ‘I’m not going through with it’?”
Alex pushed his chair back, stood, and, walking to the kitchen window, poked at the air in the direction of the capacious reception tent erected next to the carriage house and the huge fountain standing sentry to the tent’s entrance. “Mom, it’s not out of the clear blue.”
“Well, it seems that way to me,” she huffed, placing her elbow on the table and her hand to her forehead.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t seen what a circus this wedding has become. I mean, that tent is big enough for one. And this wedding has turned into one.” Alex’s eyes narrowed. “This is fucking Montana, and that stupid fountain she insisted on looks like it belongs in front of a casino in Monte Carlo.”
Shaking her head, she said, “Alex, watch your language.”
Shrugging, he continued. “And she’s been spending money as if she’s planning a Super Bowl halftime performance starring herself.” Then after a pause, he added, “And last night when I went to pick her up for dinner, she excitedly presented me with monogrammed toilet paper.”
Mary’s eyes grew wide.
“Fucking monogrammed toilet paper. Oh, and a bill for a hundred and fifty dollars.”
Mary cleared her throat but let the obscenity go. After a long beat, she swallowed and said, “Um, well, she may have gone a little overboard with the wedding. But we did tell her we were paying for everything and gave her wide berth throughout its planning.” Appearing befuddled, she shook her head again. “Monogrammed toilet paper? There really is such a thing?”
“Yeah,” he said, slowly nodding. “And leave it to Gwynn to find it.”
“Alex, please, don’t tell me you broke up over monogrammed toilet paper. Gwynn sounded so desperate to speak to you, maybe she realizes it was … um, what’s the word?”
“Idiotic?”
“Well, yes. Silly. Maybe she intended it as a joke.”
“Yeah, the joke’s on me. I’ve been a fool.”
They sat in silence for a long moment, looking at each other.
“Well, I feel like one too,” Mary said, looking up at the ceiling as if the answer she was looking for was on it. “You’re telling me to cancel this wedding without knowing the real reason why.”
Ignoring the comment, Alex said, “Did I ever tell you how we actually got engaged?”
“No, I guess not. I was surprised. I just remember the two of you came in, and Gwynn showed me the door knocker of a ring on her left hand.”
Alex gave a grunt of a laugh and said, “Yeah, well, we went to the mall to get a wedding present for a friend of hers, and she said, ‘Let’s go into the jewelry store for laughs and look at rings for the fun of it.’” With his chin nearly to his chest, he shook his head. “Anyway, we walked into the jewelry store, and Gwynn latched onto a saleswoman as if she were a life raft. The woman sat us down and brought out trays of engagement rings. Gwynn looked so excited; you’d think she’d struck gold like Grandpappy Whitgate did up on the mountain.”
Alex watched as Mary’s brows furrowed; she opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it.
“What?” Alex asked.
“It’s blindingly obvious to me that you’re trying to avoid telling me what really happened. I’d like to know the truth.” After a long silence, she added, “I think I deserve to know.”
He cleared his throat. “OK, you want to know the truth?” He looked down at the coffee mug and up into Mary’s eyes. “Gwyn