With one long, last look at the mountains that surrounded and protected the valley he loved and called home, HW mounted up and turned around.
He was just coming into the fenced home pastures when a rider approached him waving frantically. He slowed to a stop and waited. The only sign of his tension translated into the fidgety sidestepping of his horse.
Sam rode up to him. She’d lost her hat, her face was red, and her hair all over the place, and she looked absolutely frantic. She slid down from the horse, grabbing onto the saddle to steady herself, and looked up at him.
“I lost my phone! I had to go and pick up my really stupid baby brother who ended up in Morgansville of all places, with no gas, and a deflated tire! And then he wouldn’t get on the bloody horse, and I had to make him, and then he took hours to get back, and I didn’t know what the time was because neither of us wears a watch, and—”
HW dismounted, walked up to her, and pulled her roughly into his arms. The feel of her pressed against him made him bury his face in her hair and just breathe her in. He didn’t pray often, but he was making up for it now. After a little while, she thumped on his chest, and he eased back just a little so he could see her face.
“Aren’t you going to shout at me?” Sam asked.
“Maybe later.” HW swallowed hard. “At the moment I’m just . . . glad you’re here.”
She cupped his chin. “You thought I’d walked out on you.”
“For a little while, yeah, I did.” He sighed. “But somehow I couldn’t convince myself of it, even when all the signs pointed that way.”
“What signs?” Sam asked.
“You not telling me stuff, the lack of any wedding crap in your bedroom . . . that kind of thing.”
“Oh, HW.” She kissed his mouth. “That’s the other thing I didn’t want to tell you.”
“What?” HW tensed again.
“The wedding dress bit.” She met his gaze. “My dress was lost in the mail. I’m going to have to borrow January’s. I was . . . a bit upset about it, and I didn’t want to bother you about something so trivial.”
He regarded her for a long moment. “I’d marry you right now with your hair all mussed up, and your jeans covered in dirt.”
“I know, which is why I didn’t want to worry you about the dress.” She bit her lip. “It was stupid. I just wanted to look . . . nice for one day in my life.”
HW let out his breath. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know, why?” Sam asked.
HW took out his phone. “It’s eleven o’clock. One hour before we get hitched.” He took Sam’s hand. “Do you think you can stay out of trouble for that long?”
* * *
By the time they got back to the barn, it was ten minutes after eleven. One of the ranch hands shooed them both away to get changed and handled the horses. At the top of the stairs of the ranch house, Sam gave HW one last kiss and walked along the hallway to January and Chase’s suite.
The moment she opened the door, everyone started shrieking at her. Sam gave up the effort to answer them all individually and allowed herself to be thrown in the shower. She then sat in front of a mirror where the extremely unhappy makeup and hair people promised to make her look as pretty as possible in forty-five minutes.
She let the ebb and flow of chatter roll over her as she considered what had happened so far that day. Her attendants were already dressed and made up, and Avery was distributing the fragrant posies and corsages Daisy had created for everyone. The smell of spring flowers fought the various perfumes making a heady brew Sam happily breathed in.
“Drink this.”
Sam blinked as Nancy handed her a glass of wine.
“Thanks, I need it.” Sam took a huge gulp. “What a day.”
Nancy grinned at her. She wore a silky dress in her favorite teal and had blue flowers entwined in her silver pigtails. “And they say I’m the troublemaker in Morgantown. I’ve got nothing on you, girl.”
“I’m retiring from troublemaking and intend to become a very well-behaved, happily married woman,” Sam said piously.
“Right,” Nancy snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“Has Yvonne turned up yet?” Sam suddenly thought to ask.
“Apparently, she’s on her way,” January chimed in from the window seat where she was nursing Chase William. “She’s got Rio with her.”
“Where did she find him?” Sam wrinkled her nose making the makeup artist sigh. “I thought he was in Vegas.”
“Yvonne said something about Rio’s father’s company plane, so maybe he picked her up from wherever she went and is bringing her home.”
Sam sighed. “It must be nice to have a fiancée with a billionaire for a father.”
“I guess.” January chuckled. “But I can’t complain myself really, can I?”
The door opened behind Sam, but she couldn’t look round because the hairdresser was directly behind her, and currently had a handful of Sam’s hair.
“Bonjour!” Yvonne called out. “I made it! How’s everything going?”
Sam was fairly certain everyone in the room would be more than happy to enliven Yvonne’s day with their various accounts of how Sam had accidentally almost ruined her own wedding day and sent her fiancé into flat despair. She couldn’t quite believe she’d managed it herself, but now all she had to do was hang in there for another half an hour or so, and it would all be over. . . .
So much for a stress-free small wedding. If she’d eloped to Vegas with HW, what damage might she have done there? She might have taken out the whole city. It didn’t bear thinking about.
“Close your eyes, please.”
Sam did as she was asked and let the professionals do
