Montana Welcome

by Melinda Curtis

  “I’ve never been to a themed wedding.” And Lily was incredibly relieved that she hadn’t wanted the best of everything for her canceled ceremony. The cost for Pepper’s wedding had to be astronomical. She made a mental note to devise a payment plan to repay Rudy.

  “I prefer less pomp and more ceremony,” Rudy whispered.

  Lily shushed him, glancing around to see if Conner was a guest or working. But she didn’t even see her Blackwell cousins, let alone their hired hand.

  Pepper had chosen midmorning for the ceremony to avoid the afternoon heat. Guests continued to fill seats. A minister took his place beneath the gazebo, and the families of the bride and groom, including Big E and Dot, found their seats in the front row. Dot wore a pale pink cowboy hat the same color as her pink dress and boots.

  “Distinguished guests,” the minister said. “The bridal party is about to arrive. We ask that you stay seated while the horses move through the aisle.”

  “Wouldn’t want a stampede,” Rudy whispered.

  Lily didn’t bother shushing him this time.

  The sound of horses’ hooves on pavement had everyone turning.

  Ben Blackwell released his hold on the lead horse and stepped back to allow Ken center stage as he rode the big black horse toward the center aisle. Behind Ken, his groomsmen rode smaller brown horses. The groom and groomsmen wore simple black tuxedos, black boots, hats and string ties.

  Three of Lily’s Blackwell cousins made their way around the rows of chairs to the hitching post on the left. Ben, Ethan and Jon wore black suits and black hats. They stepped up when the groomsmen dismounted and tied up the horses for them.

  Ken took his place next to the minister, staring at the far corner of the guesthouse.

  Lily turned, expecting to see a mounted bridesmaid.

  Conner walked next to a reddish-brown horse, holding its bridle. With a soft word, he released it and stepped back, allowing the bridesmaid to head for the aisle.

  Lily should have been noticing how the cut of the bridesmaid’s gray dress resembled that of a schoolmarm, if said teacher had a dress made of silklike fabric. Instead, she noted how handsome Conner looked in a black suit and hat.

  He didn’t seem to see Lily, being busy watching the bridesmaids ride sidesaddle down the aisle, before he and Tyler Blackwell moved around to meet them at the left hitching post.

  Natalie approached. Both she and her horse had red ribbons in their hair.

  “Woop-woop,” Lily said softly as she passed.

  Natalie grinned at her.

  Soft exclamations arose from the crowd as Pepper made her entrance on a palomino guided by Chance Blackwell, the man who’d given the concert in the desert on Sunday night.

  Pepper looked stunning in a simple satin gown accented by her mother’s strand of pearls. Her train and long veil were draped over the horse’s rump. Red ribbons were tied in the palomino’s mane and tail. Her bouquet was made of white and red roses with red and silver ribbons trailing toward her toes.

  Instead of letting her ride sidesaddle alone down the aisle, Chance escorted her to the hitching post. Before he could help her down, Natalie’s horse reached out and nibbled on Pepper’s veil.

  Chuckles arose, none louder than Pepper’s. This may not have been exactly what she’d planned—no white horse—but she was rising above anything thrown her way.

  Ken came over to escort Pepper to the gazebo, and the wedding service began.

  * * *

  “YOU KNOW, I was expecting to grit my teeth through that ceremony, but it was truly heartfelt.” Rudy pushed his brunch plate away.

  “I’m happy to call her family,” Lily said, meaning it. Her gaze sought out Conner but his back was to her.

  The toasts had been given and first dances made. The DJ was calling on others to find their place on the dance floor.

  Rudy gestured to the ranch’s long driveway. Big E’s motor home sat in the far distance. “Are you going to be all right if I leave today? It seems—”

  “Well, here’s a surprise.” Danny sat down at their table, one eye ringed in sickly yellow. “Lily, you’ve been hard to find lately. I wanted to tell you ahead of time that I’m Natalie’s date.”

  “Woop-woop,” Lily murmured, although the only person who’d understand the joke was Conner, who wasn’t near enough to hear.

  “Did you bring a date? Perhaps your evil, hot-tempered cowboy?” Danny slurped his champagne and grinned, glancing toward the pair of Blackwell tables up front where Conner sat.

  “You mean the cowboy who was kind enough to transport me back to the bosom of my family?” Really, if Danny was going to exaggerate the truth, why couldn’t she?

  Beside her, Rudy shifted, drawing himself up to come to her defense. Lily laid a hand on his arm. She needed to fight her own battles.

  “Like Conner did it out of the goodness of his heart?” Danny was in a mood, perhaps a bit drunk. “He was paid to keep you on that motor-home trip for days. Away from me. And he’s still being paid to keep you safe and happy here on the ranch for Big E.”

  “Enough,” Rudy said sharply when Lily wanted to hear more.

  Her stomach clenched as her mind put together the pieces that she’d been too distraught to on earlier occasions. Conner speeding away from the church. Hovering nearby at every turn. Hesitating when she pressed him about Big E not wanting her to train mustangs.

  Danny scoffed. “You’re right, Rudy. It is enough. I made a promise when I was seven years old.” He got to his feet, only wobbling a little. “I love you, Lily, but you’re right. We’re not in love. And we’re different people now.” He waved to Natalie, who was frowning. “Gotta go. I see my date. We’re going zip-lining tomorrow.”

  Lily stared at Danny’s retreating back blankly, brain otherwise occupied with putting two and two together. She didn’t care for the sum she was coming up with.

  “Ignore Danny.” Rudy raised his champagne glass. “Let’s toast to new beginnings and a successful search for Thomas Blackwell.”

  Lily refused to be put off so easily. “What did Danny mean when he said Conner was being paid to keep me out of trouble here? For that matter, what did you mean when you said the other day that Big E had promised to look out for me?”

  Her father studied her carefully before speaking, which was never a good sign. “You want that cowboy of yours to have been nice to you because he liked you. And maybe he does. But what Danny said is also true. Conner was well compensated to watch over you and make sure you arrived here safely.”

  “I knew that,” Lily said slowly, stomach dropping to the floor and taking her heart with her. “I could leave at any time.” That should have come out with more confidence.

  “If you say so.”

  She was empty. So very empty. Her fingers twitched.

  “Now, Lily. Let’s not blow this out of proportion,” Dad said in that efficient way of his.

  “It’s a big deal to me. I’ll blow it out if I have to.” Lily leaned forward, keeping her voice down because the dining room was filled with wedding guests. “Don’t you see? I can’t be someone’s responsibility, someone’s burden, someone’s charge.” She stood up. “I won’t be.”

  Across the room, Big E handed Conner something that looked suspiciously like a check. The DJ played a slow song about love but it might just as well have been a song about love lost.

  “Where are you going?” Rudy asked.

  “To find Conner.” To hear the truth.

  And to tell him a few truths of her own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “DANCE WITH ME.” Lily claimed Conner right after Big E had handed him a large check. She dragged him on the dance floor the way his mother had once dragged his ten-year-old self out of Brewster’s during a clearance sale in the toy department.

  “You lied to me.” Lily kept her voice down
as she swung around and into his arms, face flushed and eyes blazing.

  Conner didn’t like that look. Not at all. He held her loosely, smiled weakly and tried to avoid a scene. “Lied? About what?”

  Lily smiled tensely at Pepper as she danced nearby with Ken. She pressed herself close, holding on to his shoulders, and spoke softly in his ear. “You pretended to just be a chauffeur, as if I was in charge of where I was going and when I’d get off the Blackwell bus.” These weren’t sweet nothings she was whispering. “You asked me if I was having second thoughts or wanted to see Danny to gauge my flight risk. You suggested I express my feelings on postcards instead of calling home. You stood behind me at the shooting range, kept me at your side during the concert, sat with me at Rustlers. You kept a close eye on me and let Pepper and Natalie roam free.” Her grip on his shoulders tightened. “When I said I was considering going back to my family. When I said I was thinking about going no farther than Las Vegas with you. You said it was up to me to stay or go, but you were paid to keep me happy and deliver me here. Paid. To. Keep. Me.” Finally, she turned hurt eyes on him. “Deny it. Go ahead.”

  He couldn’t deny that. “Lily, I told you I was doing a job.”

  “What you were doing was manipulative. Okay, it was more subtle than my family or Danny, but still.” She huffed. “You really were a kidnapper. Even here at the ranch. And I thought that you and I...that we...” Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Lily.”

  “Don’t you Lily me!” She drew back, looking like one more hard truth would make her revert to that small, insignificant woman she’d left behind.

  They were on the dance floor. Wedding guests glanced over, as eager for gossip as the ladies who went to the beauty parlor in town.

  “Let’s take a moment.” Conner steered her toward the door, keeping his voice down. “Yes, I was offered a bonus to deliver you here. But I didn’t know you then. You’ve seen the Rocking H. If our situations were reversed, you’d have taken the cash.”

  “No.” Lily lurched out of reach, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have. I would have respected your right to choose, not come up with ways to keep me placated. You’re no better than my father or Big E, deciding what’s best for me when you don’t even know me.”

  He knew her. He knew every nuance, every strength, every sore spot she considered a weakness. He loved her. She made him want to reach for things he hadn’t dared reach for in a long time—despite his mother’s being laid up with a bruised hip, despite the hard road ahead and the pride he needed to swallow.

  “I told Conner to ease your doubts.” Big E had followed them into the large common room. He’d changed out of his tuxedo earlier and wore jeans, boots and a black shirt with a black bolo tie—his traveling clothes. Rudy appeared behind him. “Unlike most folk, Conner doesn’t bury his nose in a phone. He listens to people and I thought you could use that.”

  Lily grimaced. “You stuffed me into a motor home as if I were a child who couldn’t stand up to the mess I’d made. I broke my word. I cost my family thousands of dollars. And now I find out the people I thought were helping me have actually been trying to direct my life. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire.” She ran out the door before Conner could stop her.

  “Wait.” Conner started to follow, but Big E stepped in his way. “Let her go, son.”

  Rudy joined them, echoing Big E’s sentiment for giving her space.

  “I need to apologize,” Conner said, heart breaking. “Make Lily understand my perspective.”

  “Your role in influencing her, you mean.” Big E wasn’t one to sugarcoat things. “Did you think you’d keep this a secret from her forever? Is that how you planned to play your relationship out?”

  Rudy scowled.

  “There is no relationship, sir.” Not yet. “I have responsibilities and—”

  “Stop right there.” Big E brushed Conner’s excuses aside with a wave of his hand. “I have eyes. I can see how you two feel. If it’s real, if it’s true, who am I...who are we—” he gestured to himself and Rudy “—to stand in the way of love? If we did, we’d be the world’s biggest hypocrites. And...” He squinted at Conner, which only served to push his bushy brows forward. “What was it you were saying about responsibilities? Let’s be clear. Love isn’t a responsibility. It’s a gift. When you find the right woman, she will be a true life partner, easing your burdens, not adding to them. Unless you mean...” Big E frowned at Conner. “You think my granddaughter is a burden because of her finger issues.”

  Rudy made a sound suspiciously like a growl.

  “No, sir.” Conner held up his hands. “I meant I need to get my house in order first.”

  If anything, Big E’s frown deepened. “Let me repeat. Love is not a responsibility. Do you know what responsibility is?” He didn’t give Conner a chance to answer. “Responsibility is taking your friend’s son by the hand and rebuilding his confidence after near catastrophe. Responsibility is finding a way to let that boy shine. Responsibility is showing your friend’s son how to run a ranch.”

  “Stop.” Conner shook his head. “You didn’t hire me.”

  “That may be true, but after a few months, when your mother realized you planned to work here permanently, I took you in hand.” The way he said it... Like he had accepted it from the very start, no thinking or fretting or deciding required. “Not that I didn’t find your way with these guests that my family revels in bringing here beneficial.”

  “But...” Katie... The books... Stock management... Being a cowboy concierge... It was all useful information. Useful experience. But now he knew how Lily felt. Guided, cornered, trapped.

  “That’s right. You see it now. The bigger picture.” Big E clapped a hand on Conner’s shoulder. “You’ve bandaged your life by working here. You need to return to your own ranch and your own passions. And if Lily loves you the way I think she does, she’ll understand and come back to you.”

  Conner lifted his gaze to the old man’s. “And if she doesn’t, will you orchestrate things so she does?”

  “No,” Rudy said.

  Big E puffed out his chest, like a startled rooster about to crow with alarm. “The way things stand, my boy, that’s none of your business.”

  An engine rumbled to life outside.

  A familiar engine.

  Big E lifted his head, practically sniffing the air for clues.

  Conner didn’t wait for the old man to put the clues together and come up with a hypothesis.

  The engine was the motor home’s. The shop had delivered it this morning ahead of schedule.

  Considering no one else on the ranch would get behind the wheel of Big E’s beloved vehicle, the driver had to be Lily.

  * * *

  “I AM SO STUPID.” The road blurred behind Lily’s tears.

  She didn’t even know if she was driving back into town. She just knew she had to get away from Conner, Rudy and the Blackwells. She’d hopped into the motor home in the ranch yard and driven away. Off the property. Down the road.

  She approached a ranch gate. The Rocking H.

  Impulsively, she turned down the driveway. Before she left Montana, she’d say goodbye to Pearl and Mouse.

  She pulled into the ranch yard. Over in the corral, Pearl and Mouse lifted their heads to look at her. Parsnip leaped a fence to join them.

  Nothing moved at the ranch house, although Karen’s truck was there. Lily was relieved. She wouldn’t have to pretend not to have a broken heart. She got out and went to the corral, where she was greeted by Pearl, ever in search of a good ear rub.

  “I’m going to have to find a place for you, Pearl.” She noticed Mouse looking at her. “And you, too, big fella.”

  Parsnip reached over the top rail and attempted to nibble her hair.

  “I may feel empty inside, but I’m not made of straw, buddy.” Lily pa
tted his neck. “I wish Conner would finish your training. Don’t give up on him.” Not the way she was. She closed her eyes, squeezing them against the onslaught of tears. And when she opened them, Royal stood a few feet away, staring at her. “Good girl,” Lily said automatically.

  Royal glanced away, but a few moments later she looked back.

  “Good girl. I bet Karen and Conner have been giving you a big welcome.” She stepped away. It was time to go. She’d have plenty of time on the drive home to California to think about what she did next.

  Maybe by the time I reach Vegas, my heart will be on the mend.

  Wishful thinking.

  “Hey. To what do I owe this surprise visit?” Karen stood on the porch, leaning on a walker. The orange tabby twined around her feet. She wore lived-in-looking baggy gray sweats and her hair was tousled as if she’d just gotten out of bed, even though it was well past noon. “I wish I could offer you a cookie or some lunch, but I’ve been on bed rest.”

  “Why?” Lily forgot some of her heartache and crossed the ranch yard.

  “Conner didn’t tell you?” At the shake of Lily’s head, his mother tsked. “I had a little accident. Ventured out where I don’t belong, beyond the fence where Conner thinks it’s dangerous for me, given my troublesome legs. I thought I could handle it but I had a little fall. Bruised my hip.” She made it sound like no big deal. But she was on bed rest. It was a big deal.

  “I bet Conner was terrified.” The way Rudy had been when she’d broken her arm skydiving. His face at the hospital had been white as a sheet. Karen may think it was no big deal, but Conner must have been worried sick. “Why did you do that if you knew it was dangerous?”

  Karen jerked her shoulders back as if offended. “I had a good excuse.”