by Liz Isaacson
“I’ve never been on an airplane.”
“What?” Liam searched her face then, but the lights went out completely, arousing another cry of surprise from the crowd. His lips brushed the side of her face and touched her earlobe. “Then this is going to be a grand adventure for you. I can’t wait.” He straightened as the first float came toward them. It was lit with blue and white light, creating a heavenly atmosphere as it advanced down the street slowly.
It was the Three Rivers town float, with a cowboy standing on it, along with a pretty woman in a pioneer dress. A statue of this woman sat in the square too, and she’d been a jilted bride, left by her cowboy boyfriend in the middle of the Texas Panhandle.
Now, she seemed like an angel, and Callie clapped as the float went by. She stood when the American flag marched by, one hand over her heart. She sang the national anthem with the hay wagon singers, and she clapped along when the high school marching band went by, lights sewn into the seams of their uniforms and laced around their big bass drums.
Liam didn’t bring up their rules, their honeymoon, or their wedding during the parade. They just watched, and laughed, and ate too much red licorice, which Wyatt had brought as his contribution to the family snack pile.
Callie enjoyed every minute, and she had no idea people lived like this. Without fear that the envelope they’d been dreading would be waiting for them in the mailbox when they got home. Without the weight of so much debt piled on their shoulders. Without the debilitating panic that had been following her for years.
The parade, concert, and fireworks ended before midnight, and Callie helped clean up the area where she and all the Walkers had been sitting. A woman laughed, and she looked over to find Jeremiah talking to Whitney Wilde.
Not just talking. Flirting. The man was flirting with her, a wide smile on his face as he ducked his head. She said something else, and Jeremiah nodded before she left with a teenage boy.
Callie’s first instinct was to go find out what in the world that was all about. But she held back, because she didn’t need to be involved in Miah’s life quite so much anymore. A pang of sadness ran through her, because she loved Miah like a brother.
“I’ve got it, sweetheart,” Liam said, and Callie blinked. Turning back to him, she picked up the blanket he’d brought and smiled. “You ready?”
“Yes,” she said. “Did my father get everything?”
“Yeah,” Simone said. “They’re off already.”
Callie stepped off the curb with Liam and headed through the parking lot to his truck. “That was so much fun.”
“I think so too,” he said, loading everything into the truck bed. He took her into his arms, and Callie gazed up at him. A measure of love moved through her, and she tensed. She’d liked Liam for a long time. He’d always made her heart beat wildly in her chest. He’d replaced Jeremiah as her best friend, despite the setbacks they’d had over the last several months.
He was going to help her keep the ranch, and so much gratitude filled her.
“Cal,” he whispered, taking off his cowboy hat. He ran his nose down the side of her face, and she closed her eyes. “I’m falling in love with you. All the way. For real.” He kissed her before she could respond, and she poured her emotions into her touch, hoping he could feel that she was falling for him too.
When he finally pulled away, Callie was breathless, and the parking lot was almost empty. “I’m not ready for the night to end,” she said.
“No?” Liam swayed with her. “I bet we could find somewhere that’s open. We could watch the ball drop.”
Callie really wanted to kiss him at midnight. She wanted to start a new chapter of her life with this man. Get the new year off to the right start.
“We can do that at the ranch,” she said, because then she wouldn’t have to kiss him in public.
You literally just did, she thought.
Liam nodded and walked her over to the passenger door. “All right. Let’s head back to the ranch.”
At the Shining Star, Simone was nowhere to be found. Callie wondered if she’d decided to sleep at Evelyn’s that night. She sent her a quick text so she’d know, and then she snuggled into Liam’s side.
He fell asleep during the concerts and chatter on the New Year’s Eve show on TV, but Callie woke him up with five minutes to spare. “It’s almost time,” she whispered.
“Time for what?” he asked, still groggy.
“Time for us to celebrate a new year together.” She looked at him, watching him become more alert.
“This is important to you.”
“The last few years have been terrible for me,” she admitted. “And here I am, with you, and all this possibility in front of me.” Callie wasn’t quite sure how to articulate what it all meant to her. “It’s just…amazing. You’re amazing, and I want you to know how much I appreciate you, and what you’re doing, and just…everything.”
Liam cradled her face in his hand. “I think you’re amazing too.”
“I want to start this year right,” she said. “And I want to be with you.” She kissed him, even though it wasn’t quite midnight yet. Even though no one had counted down. Even though the ball hadn’t dropped.
And she was still kissing him when all of those things happened, hopeful that the coming year could be the one where she finally found true happiness.
The next day, she opened her closet and took out a dress she hadn’t looked at or thought about in a very long time.
Her mother’s wedding dress.
The bag crinkled as she pulled it from the back of the closet, behind so many other things Callie never looked at, thought about, or wore.
“Mama,” she said, though her mother had been gone for a long time now. She lovingly laid the dress on her bed and unzipped the garment bag. The dress was old and frail, yellowed along the collar and the cuffs. But it held so much of who Callie was that she hadn’t been able to let it go. Just like the ranch.
She wasn’t going to wear the dress to marry Liam. No, she and her sisters would go to town tomorrow to find something that would work in a pinch. She didn’t have time for tailoring, and she honestly didn’t even care if the dress was white.
But she needed something of her mother’s for the wedding, and while she hadn’t sat behind a sewing machine for a while, she could still make a straight line. She’d made a handkerchief for Evelyn’s wedding out of part of the train of their mother’s dress, but Callie was thinking this time, she could make something out of the lace.
A necklace. A coin purse. A pillow. Maybe she wouldn’t have to sew at all. She carefully clipped a section of lace from the back of the dress, preserving the front, and rezipped the dress into the bag.
After carefully replacing the dress in the back of the closet, she held the lace in her hand and closed her eyes. “I wish you were here, Mama,” she said. “Did you love Daddy so much when you married him?”
Of course, Callie believed her mother and father had been desperately in love. She wanted that kind of love with her husband too.
“And maybe you’ll have it,” she whispered to herself. Callie had been abiding by all of Liam’s rules. She’d been very open minded and hearted toward him. So much so that she could feel herself falling for him after only a week. She hadn’t told him he couldn’t buy things, and in fact, he was financing a frivolous honeymoon to Hawaii. She’d stepped back from Miah, and she’d been confiding in her husband-to-be.
So maybe, just maybe, her happily-ever-after was on the horizon after all.
Chapter Fifteen
Liam looked down at the sheets of paper in front of him. Unlike Wyatt, he didn’t need glasses to see them, and he could plainly tell that he had enough good men and women ready and willing to show up to the ranch on Monday morning.
Problem was, he didn’t have anywhere to put them until the cabins were cleaned out.
“They can do it,” he said. “Day one: clean up your own cabin. Go buy what you need to live there.” He
could leave a credit card here while he and Callie flew to paradise. He’d spent three days interviewing cowboys and cowgirls, and now he just needed to make some offers and get people out here.
He was getting married in two days, and there was so much to do. Not for the wedding itself. No, Liam had a perfectly pressed suit ready to be worn. A really nice dress hat. His best boots polished and ready.
Jeremiah was going through the menu with him that night, and he’d shop for everything tomorrow. Callie had gone to town with her sisters that morning to find a dress. Everyone in the family had been invited and confirmed they be there. Not only that, but Skyler was a licensed minister, and he’d agreed to marry Liam and Callie.
So even if the I-do wasn’t very real, at least no one else needed to know about it. Liam wouldn’t have to look at Pastor Daniels and feel guilty for taking him from his family to perform a fake marriage.
“It’s not fake to you,” he muttered to himself. In fact, he’d been dreaming of the day he could marry Callie Foster, long before he’d found out about the financial troubles at her ranch. In the week since he’d logged on to her bank and paid her mortgage, she’d completely transformed.
He realized he’d only seen glimpses of the woman she could be without the threat of financial ruin and eviction, and he’d still fallen in love with her.
Judging from the way she’d kissed him on New Year’s Eve, Liam didn’t think Callie was faking much with him. She liked him a whole lot. He wasn’t so far removed from the female species that he couldn’t tell when a woman liked him. But he didn’t think she loved him, and he’d never imagined himself marrying a woman who didn’t love him.
Wasn’t that why he’d ended things with Portia permanently, left Austin, and came to Three Rivers in the first place?
Yes, his brain said. Doesn’t matter, his heart said, pounding loudly as if to get its point across. And he sided with his heart. It didn’t matter that he’d left Portia because she couldn’t commit to him. Because she didn’t love him.
Callie wasn’t Portia, and she could fall in love with Liam. They just needed more time. He once again had the thought that he should postpone the wedding. Surely Callie wouldn’t lose the ranch now that he’d caught up her balance and put money in her accounts at the bank.
He felt uneasy for some reason, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. He wanted to get the Shining Star up to its full operational capacity, and he’d do that whether Callie married him or not. But she wouldn’t let him unless they were married.
So they had to get married.
He couldn’t believe he was still going back and forth with himself about this.
All at once, the sky opened, and a beam of heaven’s light shone into his mind. He knew why he didn’t want to marry Callie this way. He felt like he was forcing her to do something she didn’t want to do. He’d given her a big enough incentive to say I-do, and she was going to.
But she didn’t want to.
And he didn’t want to be someone she didn’t want.
He sighed, his head aching from all the circular thoughts. Why couldn’t the stars just align, and he could meet a woman who fell madly in love with him from the start?
Someone came in the back door, and the house creaked as boots hit the floor. Liam shook his head to clear it and picked up his phone. He didn’t know what to do about the wedding, but he knew he could make phone calls and hire the people he needed to work the ranch.
No, not him. The people Callie needed to work the ranch.
He frowned as he dialed the first number, making his voice falsely bright when Cayden Murphy picked up. “Heya, Cayden,” he said. “It’s Liam Walker, out at the Shining Star. I’d love to have you on full-time. Are you still available?”
“Absolutely,” Cayden said.
“And you need a cabin?”
“Yep.”
They’d already talked about all of this. Liam went on to explain a bit about when the job started—bright and early Monday morning—and that Jeremiah would be there to give out assignments. “He’ll be in charge while I’m on my honeymoon,” Liam said. “And it’s going to be an intense two weeks. I already know that. I’m going to be asking you to work fourteen or fifteen hour days, seven days a week. I’m willing to pay double-time for every hour during those first fifteen days.”
He took a breath, realizing what he was asking people to do. “Do you think you can do that?”
“I can try,” Cayden said. “Does the ranch really need that much work?”
“It really does,” Liam said. “If you’d like, I’m going to be doing a tour of it tomorrow morning.” The idea came into his mind as it came out his mouth. “Then you’ll be able to see. We can take care of paperwork then too, if you can make it.”
“Name the time,” Cayden said.
“Let’s say nine,” Liam said, scratching out a new note on the pad on his desk. Figure out paperwork for hiring. His to-do list never seemed to get any smaller, and he held onto the thoughts of a serene, sandy beach in Hawaii, Callie beside him, as they dozed in the sun. He wouldn’t have to worry about his to-do list then.
“See you at nine,” Cayden said, and Liam put a check mark next to his name on the list as the call ended.
Before he could make another call, someone stepped around the corner. “Fifteen or sixteen hour days?”
He looked up at the feminine voice, thinking his careful plans to surprise Callie with a complete overhaul of the ranch and homestead had just been blown wide open. His adrenaline surged at the woman standing there.
“Simone,” he said, breathing out. “You scared me. I thought I’d just spoiled everything for Callie.” He was anticipating her being angry about the renovation already, but that would happen after it was already done. If she found out before…Liam might not get a chance to make her his wife and give her the time she needed to fall all the way in love with him.
Simone smiled and entered the office. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Of course.” If Simone was back, so was Callie, and he’d need to close the door on his office before he made the rest of his phone calls.
The youngest sister, Simone was definitely the quietest of the three Foster women. She was smart and resourceful, though. And very artistic and talented. “It’s about a cabin,” she said, looking him straight in the eyes. “I want to live in one of them.”
Whatever Liam had been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. “Oh.”
“I know that only leaves you with five for cowboys and whatnot,” she said. “But I don’t want to live at the homestead with you and Callie.” She dropped her chin to her chest and studied her hands. “You two need your privacy, and I’ve been toying with the idea of moving out anyway.”
“You have?” Liam didn’t dare think too much about why he and Callie would need their privacy, and it was easier to focus on Simone leaving the Shining Star.
“I mean, a little,” she said. “I work there, obviously. But I’m not as tied to the house as Callie is.” She looked up at him. “I can fix up my own cabin.”
“Yeah, okay,” Liam said, because he didn’t know how to deny her. It was her ranch, not his. “I’m sure we can build more cabins too. Micah’s really good with that kind of stuff.”
“Not in fifteen days,” Simone said.
“Well, we’ll see how many of these people need housing,” he said. “Maybe we can put some of them here for the time being.” In fact, most of the bedrooms upstairs here at Seven Sons were empty. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”
Simone nodded and stood up. “Thanks, Liam.” She took a few steps toward the door and then turned back. “I’m glad you and Callie are doing this, you know.” She smiled, and Liam felt her good spirit beaming right out at him.
“Me too,” he said. “Thanks, Simone.”
She left, and Liam got up and closed his office door, actually surprised he knew how to do that. He never closed the door, because people were always welcome h
ere. But he didn’t want Callie walking in while he was explaining the situation to her new ranch hands. He turned back to the desk, many more phone calls to make—and they weren’t going to dial themselves.
Later that night, he stood on the opposite side of the bar while Jeremiah bent to take a huge Dutch oven out of the oven. “Wow,” he said. “Smells good.”
“I hope so,” Jeremiah said. “It feels like stew weather, doesn’t it?” His brother had been in an unusually good mood the last few days, and Liam wondered what had happened on New Year’s Eve.
“Sure,” Liam said. “Is this what you’re serving at the wedding?”
“I think so,” he said. “It’s full of heart, and it’s easy. Put it together in the morning, serve it that afternoon.” He looked at Liam for approval, and all Liam had to give him was utter gratitude.
He cleared his throat, because there was so much emotion there. “Thank you, Jeremiah,” he said, and everything was laid out between them.
Jeremiah tossed the oven mitts on the counter and came around the island to take Liam into a tight, brotherly hug. “I’m so happy for you. I know you’ve liked this woman for a long time.”
“Too long,” Liam whispered. He backed up quickly and blinked back the moisture in his eyes. “What if I’m doing the wrong thing?”
“Impossible,” Jeremiah said. “You’re the only one who can help her, and who knows? Maybe you two will get your real wedding like Tripp and Rhett.” He went back around the island and opened a drawer. He put spoons on the counter and lifted the lid on the Dutch oven. “Now, let’s taste this.”
Liam didn’t need to say more than had already been said, so he picked up the spoon and dipped it in the broth. It looked thick and delicious, and the scent of beef and tomatoes and spices had his mouth watering while he blew on the piping hot stew. “You’re going to tell me about Whitney, right?”
Jeremiah put his spoonful of stew in his mouth, and Liam did too. A groan came out of his throat, and he nodded. Smiling, he said, “Yes, this is perfect. Wedding stew.”