“Good.” Lance leaned closer. “Because I know where you live.”
Liam and Reverend Halpern were both a little shocked, but beside him Noah laughed. “That was a pretty good Steel imitation,” he told Lance.
“Been working on it.” Lance took his seat, and Liam and Tory turned to the reverend.
“I’m a little afraid to ask if anyone has just cause to stop this wedding,” Halpern joked.
“If anyone was going to object, it would have been me,” Virginia spoke up from a nearby seat. “Get on with it.”
“Of course, Virginia.” Halpern suppressed a smile, cleared his throat and intoned, “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today…”
Tory couldn’t keep her eyes off Liam. She was clinging to his hand so hard she was probably giving him a cramp. She couldn’t help it. All she could think about was how close she’d come to stubbornly sticking to a plan that would have eventually taken her far from Chance Creek.
Now she knew this was her home for good, which meant a change in her field of study. She wouldn’t get to specialize for several semesters anyway. When she did, she wanted to learn everything she could to help the residents of this small town. She’d already spoken to Jonah about joining his practice full-time when she was ready. Like her mother had said, he was thinking of slowing down soon, and he liked the idea of having an understudy, as it were, waiting in the wings to take on his clients.
She’d thought her mother would open a practice of her own or be the one to partner with Jonah, but Enid surprised her by saying she was going into consulting and also might partner with Mary and Leslie on a venture. What that would be seemed up in the air at the moment, but the three women were having a blast scheduling business lunches at DelMonacos and filling pads of paper with ideas.
She and Liam had decided to settle at the Flying W but to work together to get both ranches certified organic. Doing the publicity for the cookout fundraiser had taught Tory she had a knack for such things, and she was already researching ways to brand their beef to make it stand out from the crowd.
When Liam slipped a wedding band on her ring finger, Tory’s heart soared. To her it symbolized more than their love. It symbolized the choices they were making together. To stay here in Chance Creek, to care for their families’ land, to commit to bettering this town.
This was the meaning she’d always wanted in her life.
And this was the man she’d always longed to spend her future with.
“You may kiss the bride,” Reverend Halpern said, but Liam was already bending to take her into his arms. Tory wrapped hers around his neck and answered his kisses with her own.
This was exactly where she wanted to be—now and forever.
“Happy?” Liam asked when he pulled away a moment later.
“Very,” she said. And kissed him again.
Steel slipped away between the trees, satisfied his sister was safely married and would be cared for by the man she loved. He would have liked to tell her how happy he was for her, but it would be a long time before he could walk openly in Chance Creek again. He’d worked too hard to get to this point in his investigation. A killer was on the loose. Had been for over thirteen years. It was up to Steel to stop him.
It took him more than an hour to make his way across several ranches to the place where he was camping in a ramshackle barn on a property whose owners were much too old to ever make it out to this neglected corner of their land. In the morning he’d get back to work searching for Rod Malcom. The man had answers to some of his questions.
He was sitting in the doorway of his makeshift home shortly after midnight, idly stargazing while he marshalled his thoughts, trying to calm his mind in preparation for sleep, when the wind shifted and a cool breeze ruffled his hair.
Steel straightened, but it took him a moment to realize what had roused him.
A smell. A certain heaviness to the air.
He looked to the sky again—to the west where already clouds obscured the stars. A storm was gathering. He watched it come his way.
And smiled as the first drops of rain began to fall.
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Other books in the Turners v. Coopers Series:
The Cowboy’s Secret Bride (Volume 1)
The Cowboy’s Outlaw Bride (Volume 2)
The Cowboy’s Hidden Bride (Volume 3)
The Cowboy’s Forbidden Bride (Volume 5)
Read on for an excerpt of The Cowboy’s Forbidden Bride.
The Cowboy’s Forbidden Bride
By Cora Seton
Chapter One
Steel Cooper was sick of hiding. Sick of hanging out with criminals. Sick of playing a part that had no bearing on who he really was or what he wanted from life. Sick of watching everyone else live out loud, unfettered by their pasts or their obligations. He’d spent half his life hiding. More than that, really, if you counted all the years he ran cover for his father’s petty crimes, the way children do when their parents skirt the law.
As he stood in the shadows of a grove of trees that skirted Thorn Hill, spying on his sister’s wedding reception, he vowed that all the secrecy in his life would end soon. He’d finish the job his father, Dale, had started, would catch the killer that had preyed upon Chance Creek, Montana, for far too many years, and would finally—finally—take his place in the sun.
He wasn’t sure when he’d hit the wall. Maybe it was witnessing each of his siblings marry this summer, one after the other, finding a kind of happiness that seemed out of his grasp.
Maybe it was knowing that no one but him even believed the rash of overdose deaths
