by Liz Isaacson
“Yes,” she whispered, leaning over to kiss him. The sweet, gentle movement of her mouth against his made this kiss with his fiancée one of the best of his life.
“Let me put it on,” he said, pulling away. He slipped the simple ring on her finger, and she held her hand out for them both to see.
“I love it.”
Dave did too. It was more than just an engagement ring. It was a symbol of everything they’d been through together.
“Let’s talk about a date in the morning,” he said with a yawn. “I’m exhausted.”
She agreed, and he walked her through the cabin to her car in the driveway, where he kissed her and stood in the road while her taillights left the ranch. He didn’t like that, and he wanted to get married as soon as possible so she didn’t have to drive away from him at night.
I’ll talk to her in the morning, he told himself as he went back inside the cabin to find both dogs already on his bed.
Chapter 21
Sissy found Dave’s truck parked next to the administration building when she pulled in the next morning. He sat on the steps in front of the glass doors, his cowboy hat hiding his face as he looked at his phone.
When she got out, he looked up and then stood up. “Morning, sweetheart.” He leaned down and kissed her, his cowboy hat falling to the gravel at their feet. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh, sounds dangerous.” She stooped to get his hat, setting it on his head. “I’ve been thinking too.”
He straightened his hat. “You go first. Then I’ll know what to say.”
She went up the steps, pulling her keys to the building from her purse. “Okay, but I just want to say it, and you can tell me I’m crazy or not afterward.”
“I can do that.” He held the door for her as she went in, following behind her.
Sissy’s mouth turned dry. But she’d been up for hours, texting her mother and then her girlfriends. She went into her office and put her purse down before turning back to Dave, who’d paused in the doorway. “I want to get married as soon as possible.”
He stood there and stared at her. Several moments passed while her heart beat out of her chest. Had he changed his mind? She swept her arms out in front of her. “That’s all. That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”
“Oh,” he said. “I thought you said I had to wait until you were done, and I thought there’d be more.” He ducked his head, and when he lifted it again, he wore a sexy, cowboy smile.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking too,” he said, taking a slow step toward her. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d marry you tomorrow and get to work on those babies.”
Sissy’s whole body filled with heat. “I’d like a couple of weeks to put a few things together. Nothing big.”
“You’re sure?” he asked. “You’ve never been married. You don’t want the everything?”
“Oh, I want everything,” she said. “But I’ve already been talking to my mom, and we think we can do everything and have a beautiful wedding with our friends and family in a month.”
“A month,” Dave repeated. “So we’re talking August.”
“August tenth,” she said. “It’s a Friday, and I need to talk to Scarlett, but my mom’s not working that weekend, and that gives her and Jessie time to come. My dad and his new wife will want to be here.” She rolled her eyes. “But yes. It’s thirty-five days.” She swallowed, the tasks in front of her daunting to say the least.
“I suppose I can live without you for thirty-five more days,” he said.
“You’re not without me,” she said, slightly confused.
“Oh, but I am.” He moved right into her personal space, swept her into his arms, and kissed her. Just as quickly as he’d done that, he stepped back, leaving Sissy woozy and slightly disoriented.
“Okay.” She patted her hair, because he’d ran his fingers through it, and stepped around her desk. “Thirty-five days.”
“Thirty-five days,” he repeated. He touched the brim of his hat, smiled, and said, “See you later.”
With him gone, Sissy collapsed in her desk chair, a wide smile stealing across her face. A word ran through her mind, one she hadn’t truly thought of before.
Wife.
She couldn’t wait to be his wife.
“They’re meant to echo wildflowers, Mom,” Sissy said a week later. “That’s what I want. We’re getting married on a ranch. We don’t need a zillion roses in ten different colors.” She ran a washcloth over the table where her friends would be gathering in a couple of hours. “So I’m happy with them.”
Not only that, but the florist she’d talked to could deliver them on time.
“As long as you’re happy,” her mom said, but it didn’t really sound like that was true. Sissy had decided she didn’t care. Yes, she needed her mother’s help, but she herself was paying for everything. So if Sissy wanted the smaller, simpler bouquet, that was what she was going to get.
“Did you get pictures taken?”
“Yes, just last night,” she said. “She said she’d rush them, so I can get announcements out.” She hadn’t even wanted to do announcements. They felt dated and old-fashioned, but her mother had insisted.
“You’ll want something to remember the event with,” she’d said. Sissy thought wedding day pictures would be enough. She had social media; she could alert those she cared about. Besides that, all of those people knew already. It had finally come out that her mother wanted Sissy to send the announcement to her father and his parents, as if they wouldn’t attend the wedding without a formal, printed, and mailed announcement.
“And the cake?”
“Karla is going to make it,” she said. “And I’m going shopping for the dress again this weekend.” Things had come together fairly fast and all the parts of a wedding had solidified pretty easily.
Venue. Check. Flowers. Check. Cake. Check. Guests. Check. Groom. Check.
She just needed a dress.
“Do you want me to come help with the dress?” her mother asked, and Sissy paused in her cleaning of the kitchen. The very real feeling like her mother wanted to come spread through her, and while Sissy was more than capable of going shopping herself, or taking one of her girlfriends, she said, “I thought you had to work this weekend.”
“I can take it off,” her mom said.
“Then yes,” Sissy said quickly. “I’d love to have you come help me find my wedding dress.”
“Great,” her mom said, her voice pitched much too high. “I’ll see you Friday night.” The call ended almost immediately after that, and Sissy wept silently as she finished cleaning up her kitchen.
“Thank you, Lord,” she whispered, so much to be grateful for.
The weeks passed, and it took her mother driving to LA for two weekends in a row before Sissy found the just-right dress that she could afford at one of the boutiques in the city. Her mother had actually found it, and Sissy may or may not have buttoned herself into the dress every night since purchasing it.
And now, she just had to wear it one more time to become David Merrill’s wife.
Her nerves shot through her like cannons, and she couldn’t hold still while Kirsten pinned up another lock of her hair. “Girl,” her friend said, letting the piece back down.
“I’m trying,” Sissy said. “I’m just so nervous.”
“Why?” Clara said, moving in front of her with the foundation again. Sissy had specifically said not to put on too much make-up, but Clara seemed to have developed selective hearing as Sissy already wore false eyelashes.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“It’s Dave,” Hailey said as she came in with another flower arrangement. “And these boutineers are gorgeous. Who am I walking down the aisle with again?”
“Ames,” Sissy said.
“I can’t believe you stuck me with Gray,” Kirsten said, pulling a bit too hard on Sissy’s hair.
“Hey, he’s totally your type,” Sissy said.
�
��Really?” Their eyes met in the mirror. “You made him sound like a conceited, arrogant cowboy. That’s my type?”
Sissy just smiled at Kirsten. She did like the fussier men, and Gray never went anywhere without being pressed and polished and perfect. They’d look great together, and she closed her eyes as Clara leaned in to put powder on her face.
“At least you didn’t get a throwaway,” Clara said. “Cache has a girlfriend he’s just not talking to at the moment.”
“They broke up,” Sissy said. “He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
“Right,” Clara said. “Didn’t Dave say he’d be shocked if they weren’t back together by the wedding?” The brush went swish, swish, swish across Sissy’s face. She wished she hadn’t had Dave over for dinner with her girlfriends. But he’d wanted to meet them all, and as these were the two most important halves of her life, she’d merged them.
She’d just need to tell him that, in the future, he couldn’t give away any cowboy secrets from the ranch.
“Scarlett just hired someone new,” Sissy said. “I can switch him and Cache, if you want.”
“What’s his name?”
“Cook.”
“His first name.”
“That is his first name. Cook Winchester.”
Clara scoffed and the brush disappeared from Sissy’s face. “That’s the most ridiculous name I’ve ever heard.”
“So I’ll switch him and Cache.”
“All right,” Clara said off-hand, like she didn’t care. But she clearly did. And then Karla and Cache could walk down the aisle together, and maybe they could make up. They were cute together, and Sissy thought they probably just needed to work through a few things the way she had. Then they’d have their own wedding at Last Chance Ranch.
When she was buffed and pinned and brushed, she piled in the car with her friends, and they drove her up to the ranch. The huge tents they used for the ranch-wide picnics had been set up in the field just east of the administration building. Her mother’s car was already parked there, and she and Jessie emerged from the building as Sissy got out of the car.
She held her skirts up so they wouldn’t drag in the dirt and hurried up the steps when her mom said, “Dave is almost ready. His mother just left to go take her seat.”
Sissy nodded and went inside the building and ducked into the first room on her right. A conference room they never used, her mother had set up their main operations there. Piles of napkins and plates waited on the table.
“Everything went okay with the decorating?” she asked. The wedding would take place outside, but the reception and dinner would be right here, in this building. With everyone who worked at the ranch, plus her family and Dave’s, they were feeding seventy-five people.
“Didn’t you see the table when you came in?” her mother asked.
Sissy hadn’t, so she stepped back over to the door and looked out into the expansive foyer. A huge flower arrangement had been set on the center table, and beside that, a picture of her and Dave. Their engagement picture.
A book lay next to that, and Sissy smiled. “It’s perfect, Mom.”
“So people can write you a message,” she said. “And then go down the hall to eat. We’ll come back out here to cut the cake and do the dancing.”
“You think there’s enough room?” Sissy had worried about it for weeks. She didn’t need a formal dinner and dancing, but Scarlett had offered her full use of the ranch. She and Adele had gotten married here on the ranch as well, but they’d had their after parties in the barn.
Sissy wasn’t the barn-loving type, and she’d opted for the place where she worked all day long.
“There’s plenty of room,” her mother assured her. “Let me fix that strap, and then we better go take our seats too. Your dad will be here any minute.” She stepped over and lovingly tucked and smoothed part of Sissy’s dress along her shoulder.
“You’re stunning, darling.” She pressed a kiss to her cheek, and she and Jessie bustled out of the building and across the street. Sissy moved to the window and watched as several more people arrived and got out of their cars. The tent appeared to be full, but she couldn’t really tell from here.
She wrung her hands, wishing she’d asked someone else to walk her down the aisle. She wasn’t particularly close with her father, and she’d been a bit surprised when he’d accepted.
“Sissy,” a man said, and she turned to find her father filling the doorway
“Daddy.” She hurried over to him, smiling and weeping at the same time. She didn’t want someone else to walk her down the aisle anymore, as he hugged her tight and whispered how much he loved her.
Maybe there was more to say. Or maybe it was just that easy to forgive someone she cared about. No matter what, she said, “I love you too, Dad,” and straightened her dress so she’d be flawless when it was finally her turn to walk down the aisle.
Chapter 22
Dave thought Sissy would never be ready. He worried she’d gotten cold feet and fled the state. He stood at the altar with Ames’s brother—the pastor who’d spoken to Sissy’s heart and soul in Huntington Beach, his eyes glued to the other end of the aisle.
Everyone seemed to be in position. Her family, minus her dad, had come in several minutes ago and taken their seats on the front row. All the bridesmaids and groomsmen waited in line just outside the tent. He couldn’t see past them, and that was the whole point. Sissy didn’t want him to see her until she was almost to the altar.
She’d asked everyone and their cowboy to be in the wedding party, and he’d done whatever she’d asked him to over the last thirty-five days. She needed something picked up in town? He could do that. She needed him to stay home so she could go shopping with her mom? He’d done it. She wanted his opinion on what to serve for their wedding dinner? He’d eaten and sampled and given his opinion.
But all he really wanted was her to walk down the aisle and say “I do.”
Just when he was about to stride out of the tent and find her, a murmur lifted into the air. The bridesmaids and groomsmen at the end of the aisle straightened up, and the music began to play from the speakers Hudson and Scarlett had set up. They were pros at outdoor weddings, as this was the fourth one on the ranch in the last few years.
People moved, and he grinned at Sawyer, and Cache, and Lance.
Finally, Sissy and her dad came into view. She wore a strappy dress that flowed around her body like water, with her dark hair all pinned up with pearls. The fabric seemed like it was made more of air than anything, and the glorious smile on her face stole his breath away.
Her dad leaned over and kissed her forehead before passing her to Dave, who could only stare at her, dumbfounded.
She’d shown up.
And she was beautiful. She was his.
He kept her arm tight against his as they faced the pastor. He felt inadequate to be her husband, but he knew she struggled with similar feelings about being his wife. They’d work on it together.
“What a joyous occasion,” Pastor Golden started, the happiness on his face and in his voice absolutely infectious. “To see two people pledging their lives to one another always brings my soul such joy. Today, we celebrate the love and life of David Merrill and Cecily Longston.” He continued with his speech, promising peace and love to everyone if they simply followed their hearts and listened to the Lord.
Dave could see why Sissy had liked him so much. When he said, “Cecily, do you promise to love, honor, and respect David?” she gave the right answer.
And when it was his turn, he said in a loud, clear voice, “I do.”
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Pastor Golden grinned. “Let’s see a kiss.”
Dave grinned at Sissy, happier than he’d ever been. Surely this life couldn’t get any better, no matter where they went or what they did. He held onto Sissy and kissed her like a man in love with her.
Because that was what he was.
Sissy wouldn’t stop crying, and Dav
e didn’t know what to do about it. He’d told himself over and over that it was fine. She was allowed to cry over things. Hard things and happy things.
“We’re here,” he said when he pulled into the parking lot at the hospital. Neither of them made a move to get out. “You still want to do this, right?”
Because adoption wasn’t cheap, and their whole lives were about to change.
“Yes.” She strengthened her shoulders and wiped her eyes. “I want this so much.” She looked at him, her face crumbling again.
He’d asked her before why she cried when she was happy, but she’d said she didn’t know. He’d learned over the past six months that it was just a release for her. A release for good emotions, and for bad.
“Come on, then,” he said as he got out of the car. They held hands on the way in, Sissy clenching his so tight, he thought he might lose feeling in it. The birth mother they’d been talking to for three months had gone into labor last night.
She hadn’t wanted anyone there with her. Not her mother. Not her boyfriend. Not even Sissy and Dave.
He’d been praying with everything he had that she hadn’t changed her mind. That the baby was healthy. That everything had gone well. He had no reason to believe anything would be wrong, but she was only seventeen years old, and Dave couldn’t help the nerves and worry streaming through him.
He pushed the button to go up to the maternity ward and said, “Do you want to text her that we’re here?”
“Yes.” Sissy removed her hand from Dave’s and started texting Lola. By the time the elevator spit them out on the fourth floor, Sissy said, “She’s ready for us. Room 4127.”
Dave’s heart started banging around in his chest, and his eyes barely worked. He managed to get them going in the right direction down the hall and around the corner. Of course room 4127 would be the farthest one away, just like the table where he’d met Sissy for their second chance. But soon enough, they stood outside the appointed door, their baby on the other side of it.