“I’ll behave myself,” she said. “Promise.”
A promise of good behavior from Sammy wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, but he would take it. Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that he cared about Pansy so much, he wouldn’t really mind. He didn’t have anything to say about any of this. Nothing at all.
And Sammy could pry all she wanted. He might even tell her. It was just that there wouldn’t be a resolution to it. Not the one she was after.
“We have to all hold on to Pansy’s dress,” Iris said. “It’s going to get dirty.”
Iris, for her part, looked pretty. She didn’t have the more obvious beauty of Rose, who was curvy and impish and always looked a bit like she was up to no good, which put a man in the mind to get up to no good with her. Granted, that could be the chemistry they had. Pansy, also, was more obviously cute. Petite and springy. Feisty.
Iris had always been smoother. Taller, and with a more willowy frame. To him, she had always been a bit nondescript.
Then, she definitely played into that, and in the green bridesmaid dress he could see that there was more green in her eyes than he’d ever noticed before. She would probably be a pretty girl, if she didn’t almost intentionally blend in with the wallpaper.
But none of them could hold a candle to Rose. Not in his opinion anyway.
Biased though he was.
They all gathered pieces of Pansy’s skirt and headed for the door. Then they walked her to the barn, where she took her place. Hidden from any of the guests. Hidden from her groom.
West was waiting at the front of the barn, along with the pastor. And he knew, having seen it already, that everything inside was decorated in a grand fashion, fit for a Hope Springs wedding. They had frosted fat red cranberries with sugar and strung them around evergreen garlands, and there were Christmas trees all situated throughout the room, lit up with bright white lights, and strung with more of the berries. They’d made popcorn strings too, and he’d enjoyed doing some of those on the floor of his cabin with Rose, who had continually taken bites out of his, resulting in him taking a bite out of her neck, and that had ended in them making love on the floor.
Yeah, that was a good memory. And not one he particularly ought to have right now.
They weren’t doing a formal walk down the aisle paired off. There were more men than women, since West was including his half brothers.
His and Logan’s half brothers.
Ryder was walking Pansy down, and then there was his half sister, McKenna, and Sammy, Iris and Rose. When they were all gathered at the back of the barn, a strange tightness overwhelmed Logan’s chest. He thought that it would be fine. That it would feel just...like nothing. Why should it feel like anything? He’d seen Gabe, Jacob and Caleb at school many times over the years. He never met McKenna Dodge, but what did it matter that they shared DNA? It shouldn’t. They didn’t have a connection. But they were right there.
And there was something strange about it. There was also a certain sameness to their features that it was easy to miss when he was standing next to West, but with all of them there, the collection of blue eyes and build was a bit much to ignore. He didn’t have the same nose as West, but his was similar to Gabe’s, his chin a lot like Caleb’s. And they all had those eyes. The same blue.
It was McKenna, petite and without some of the physical similarities the rest of them shared, who looked at him sharply. “I don’t think we’ve met,” she said.
“No,” he responded.
Sammy was watching the interaction closely, and he saw Rose break away from where she was standing by her sister. She moved beside him.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Rose Daniels. I’m Pansy’s sister.”
“McKenna Dodge. West’s half sister.”
“I’m Logan Heath,” he said. Because not introducing himself would cause more questions to be raised than not.
“Nice to meet you, Logan,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but he supposed even in their particular situation it wasn’t the done thing to just ask: who’s your daddy?
McKenna paired off with Gabe and Jacob for her walk down the aisle. Caleb took Sammy’s arm. Iris linked arms with Colt and Jake. Which left Rose and Logan, and he had to wonder if that was a bit by design. He was starting to think their secret wasn’t all that well-kept.
West’s brother was already standing next to him, and when they made their way down the aisle and took their places, the first person whose eyes he landed on in the front row was Hank Dalton.
Yeah, he really hadn’t thought this through. Or thought at all about how impossible it was going to be to ignore the Dalton contingent. They were everywhere.
They were... They were West’s family. Somehow.
They’d never been his. But somehow, they were.
You never spoke to any of them. You could have. You didn’t.
He was not having this breakdown right now. There would be ample time. They’d been living across town from each other for years. There was no reason for it to all come to a head here. Hell, sometimes they were all in the same damn grocery store. It was just, they weren’t usually wearing matching suits. Which did make the whole thing a little bit harder to ignore.
Then Pansy and Ryder started to walk down the aisle, and he determinedly put his focus on them. Decided that he wasn’t going to think about his own shit anymore. There was no time for that. Not here. Pansy was getting married. But still, he found himself looking at Rose, and he felt...something. His whole family was here. And so was Rose.
