by Nicole Helm
“I don’t get why we need to protect poor little Will. He’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”
“You don’t know what Will has been through since you disappeared.”
“So enlighten me.”
“I don’t know what Will has been through, but I know it wasn’t good.”
“What? The lingerie wife not rubbing his feet and making him dinner every night? Must be tough.”
So, Tori didn’t know Will had gotten divorced. Another thing that wasn’t his place to talk about. God, life with people was complicated. Why on earth did he want to come back into it and get mixed up in all of these emotions again?
But here he was, and he couldn’t go back.
It was quite the realization. He couldn’t go back to the man he’d been. By stepping incrementally forward, bit by little bit, he had made progress he couldn’t undo. No matter what happened. He was here. He was alive. He was participating.
Little half steps wouldn’t cut it anymore. Because he wasn’t dead. He’d punished himself in grief for years, and now was the time not to timidly ease his way out, but to climb. Certain and confident this was where he belonged.
“You’re going to have to find something to wear,” he offered in light of not having anything else to say.
“I’ve got something to wear. Just keep that asshole away from me.”
“Tori . . .”
“What?”
“You are all important to me.” He struggled with the next words, but he knew he had to say them if he was committed to this change in himself. And he was, more every day. “I love you all, no matter what happens, or did happen. But if you’re going to force me to take sides, I have to take the side that saved my life. Not the side who disappeared.”
Tori didn’t say anything to that, she just turned around and left, much like Will had.
Sam let out a long breath. It was going to be a hell of a day.
* * *
Hayley had been nervous a lot of times in the past year: being in Gracely, the few attempts she’d made to approach Brandon and Will in the past few months. Nerves had assaulted her then, and most of her life.
She wasn’t sure why the nerves were even bigger right now, when she was supposed to finally be settling into this life.
Okay. Maybe that wasn’t true. She wasn’t clueless. This was her first family function as a partial member of the Evans family, and that had to be tied up in why she felt nauseous.
She was going to watch her half brother and his fiancée promise themselves to each other. In a very intimate ceremony that only a few people were invited to.
Hayley wasn’t sure what the dress code for an outdoor wedding was, but she had seen the florist putting the flowers on the arbor and chairs that were elegantly lined up. Even though it was outdoorsy and rustic, it was super classy. Lilly had obviously planned it to the last meticulous detail.
Hayley didn’t want to look out of place. She’d bought a dress in Benson a few days ago, probably the most expensive item of clothing she’d ever owned. She’d purchased a pair of heels to match. Heels. Which she’d only ever worn when forced by her mother. She’d spent too much time trying to apply makeup, even longer trying to tame her hair.
When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t even recognize herself. She looked like someone sophisticated and classy. She looked like an adult and . . .
And someone who could absolutely earn the attention of Sam Goodall.
That thought only made the nerves flutter harder. She wanted to impress too many people, and accomplish too many things. But there wasn’t time to dwell on it. She got in her car and drove to the parking lot of Solace Falls.
Hayley was downright giddy at the thought of Sam seeing her like this. She knew it would surprise him, and he would have a reaction, and she was beyond eager to see what it would be.
There was still an underlying strangeness to everything, because she’d had that weird kind of fight with Will. Plus, she wasn’t quite sure how she should act around Tori, considering she’d received only the most superficial explanation of how they all knew each other.
She didn’t know how she fit into this circle of family and friends. Luckily Brandon had assured Hayley that his mother wouldn’t be there, and though Hayley felt a little bad, she was relieved. She wasn’t sure if Brandon and Will’s mother even knew about her existence.
She parked her car, noting only a few others. It was probably the smallest wedding she had ever attended, and there was something really cool about that, that Brandon and Lilly were going to make their vows in front of the people who truly mattered to them. People who cared about them as individuals, and as a couple. People who would be there every day to support them as they became parents.
Hayley so desperately wanted to count herself among those people. It was like a physical ache.
But she tried to ignore that as she parked her car and got out of it. This was Brandon and Lilly’s day and she wanted to celebrate it.
A cute wooden sign was posted at the beginning of the trail to Solace Falls, which read Evans–Preston Wedding in pretty painted script, with an arrow at the bottom, pointing to the trailhead.
A man sat in a little ATV that would take guests who didn’t want to walk—or like her, couldn’t in their heels—the short way to the wedding site. She thought Skeet was supposed to have been the driver, but the man sitting in the driver’s seat looked nothing like the grizzled old member of Mile High.
But the closer Hayley got, the more she realized that’s exactly who it was. He’d cut off the gnarly white ponytail he usually sported, and though he’d kept his beard, much like the Mile High boys, he’d trimmed it.
He was even wearing a suit. A really nice one. He looked like any kindly grandfather might.
“Stop staring at me, little girl. Never seen a man clean himself up before?”
Hayley grinned. He might look different, but he sounded the same. If a little less grunty. “Not so well. I barely recognized you.”
Skeet preened a little bit and Hayley tried not to giggle.
“You’re looking quite fancy yourself. Get in. I’ll take you down to the ceremony.”
Hayley slid into the passenger seat. The ATV had clearly been cleaned very well to accommodate guests in nice clothing.
“I’m sure he told you, but as someone who’s been with these boys since they started Mile High, I wanted to make sure you knew that it does mean a lot to Brandon that you’re here and part of this.”
Hayley blinked at the man who she’d pretty much only ever heard grunt before today. “Thank you. That . . . that actually means quite a bit coming from you.”
Then he did what she was far more used to Skeet doing: He grunted.
They bounced along the short little drivable trail to where the wedding would be held. It looked even more beautiful than it had when she’d left this morning. The arbor, which was gorgeous in its own right, was draped with big white flowers and dramatic greenery. The mismatched chairs that somehow looked perfect were lined up on either side of an aisle covered with a beautiful white runner. On the edges of the aisle chairs were more of the big white flowers and greenery.
A few people sat in the chairs. Hayley waved at Patty, her old boss at the café, who’d flown in from Denver. She knew the man sitting next to her ran the Gracely Lodge. There was the baker from town, who had been in charge of the cake, and the florist from Benson.
Brandon, Will, and Sam were standing toward the front in their suits, looking . . . She didn’t even know how to explain how they looked. Still bearded, but a little bit more clean shaven than usual. In their fashionable, dapper suits. It was nearly incongruous—nice clothing on these men who were more like the mountains behind them and the sky above them. Big and strong and vibrant. They had certainly been made for these mountains that they loved so much.
Good men with good hearts and painful pasts. She wanted to give them each a big hug . . . Maybe a little bit more than a hug to Sam, but
that was beside the point.
She tentatively climbed out of the ATV and smoothed down her dress before taking a few nervous steps toward the cluster of chairs.
She’d sit down and wait for the ceremony to start. She’d let everyone else set the tone for how involved she should be. But before she could take a seat, all three of the Mile High men approached her.
“Thanks for getting the arbor here. Everything looks great,” Brandon greeted cheerfully. She could read the nerves and excitement in him, and she went with that first instinct that she’d tried to fight. She reached out and gave him an incredibly awkward hug. He patted her back and whispered a thank-you, and she knew that even though it was awkward, the gesture meant something to him.
“Who knew you three could clean up so handsomely. And Skeet . . . I’m surprised Lilly doesn’t just run away with him.”
She was gratified when they laughed at her joke, even more gratified when Will smiled. Whatever tension had been between them was forgotten, at least for today.
“Oh, there’s the minister. Things should be starting soon.” Brandon excused himself, and the easy smile on Will’s face immediately disappeared. When Hayley glanced at where Brandon had gone, she noticed Tori was getting out of the ATV that had just brought the minister as well.
Hayley wished there was something she could do to fix this or ease things. It didn’t have all that much to do with her, but she’d also been the one to spill the beans about Tori, so she felt a kind of responsibility for the situation.
“I’ll go sit with Tori,” she offered, hoping that it would ease Will’s mind. She’d sit with Tori and he could stay away. But Will didn’t say anything, just scowled and turned around and stalked to the arbor.
Hayley gave Sam a pained look. He squeezed her shoulder, the briefest of touches, though it was soothing for that brief second. “I think you should sit with her. She’d probably appreciate that.”
Hayley managed to smile. Even though it was silly and beyond selfish, she was bummed he hadn’t said anything about how she looked. Which was not fair. He was preoccupied. How she looked was beyond the point of today.
Besides, he liked her when she was wearing her ratty workout clothes. At least, she thought he did. Probably. He’d kissed her when she’d been in hiking clothes and all.
Oh, she really had to get over herself.
She walked toward Tori, plastering a smile on her face. Though she had talked to this woman, she still hadn’t gotten a sense of the type of person she was. Tori was definitely . . . prickly. She wasn’t easy to talk to, by any means, but if this was how Hayley was going to give Brandon and Will something for the wedding, as their familial guest, well, then that’s what she was going to do.
“Hi, Tori.”
“Hayley.” The woman smiled thinly if at all. “Sam send you over here to keep the fireworks at bay?”
Hayley blinked. “No, I offered to sit with you. I wasn’t sure if you knew anyone who isn’t in the wedding party. I don’t, really.”
Tori tried to smile and failed. “Thanks. You seem really nice, and I’m sorry that, well, I’m not. At all. This is . . . a lot, actually. Though please tell no one I said so.”
“Yeah, I understand that. I mean, not because I have any idea what’s going on. But, you know, things being a lot, I definitely get that.”
Brandon walked by with the minister, but he paused briefly to give them each a squeeze on the shoulder. “Wedding is about to start.”
Hayley smiled, and Tori grimaced, but they took seats next to each other as Brandon, Will, and Sam arranged themselves at the front with the minister.
“They sure are a good-looking group of assholes,” Tori said grimly.
“Well, I’m related to them, so I guess I’ll have to agree objectively.”
“Only two of them,” Tori said with the closest thing to a real smile Hayley had seen, and then a wink. It was the first time Hayley had felt particularly friendly toward her.
When the ATV came again, it was carrying Lilly’s sister—Cora. And then the nephew who’d helped move the arbor this morning.
The boy went down the aisle first, acting as ring bearer for the ceremony. He handed the rings to Will, who was standing as Brandon’s best man. Cora followed her son down the aisle, clearly emotional.
There was no music aside from the sounds of wildlife and the rushing of the falls not too far away. Hayley was surprised at how effective it was, this soundtrack of mountain life. It made the wedding all that much more personal. Hayley might not know much about how Lilly and Brandon fell in love, but she knew that it had been in these mountains, and this setting seemed so incredibly fitting.
Even though Hayley knew she shouldn’t, she glanced up at Sam. He was standing in the front next to Will, his hands clasped in front of him. He was ridiculously handsome with the blue of the sky above bringing out the blue in his eyes. Here was a man who was caring despite himself. So strong and so . . . He was so certain of the changes he’d made. For as strongly as he’d resisted them, he stood there looking like he knew exactly what his life was supposed to be. She envied him. And she really, really liked him.
Not that she knew what to do next. Wait, maybe. And hope.
* * *
Lilly hadn’t expected to be nervous. She’d agreed to marry Brandon with her eyes wide-open. She loved him, and she knew they would work so hard together to make their marriage work. Their parents were crappy examples, and they wanted to be so much better.
But nerves assailed her anyway. She was promising to commit to and cherish someone for the rest of her life. How could that not be scary and nerve-racking?
She was sitting in a beautiful dress, with a bouquet of beautiful flowers in her lap, a man named Skeet driving her in an ATV, and how had this become her life? Her wonderful, amazing life.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, because even though she still couldn’t feel anything going on down there, except the gradual swell of a bump, the baby was part of this too. Just another thing she’d never expected, but she wanted.
The ATV came to a stop and Skeet looked at her. “Ready?” he asked gruffly.
She blinked at him, noting that he looked a little teary. Which prompted her very-close-to-the-surface tears to get even closer. “Don’t you dare cry, you old troll.”
His bleary blue eyes twinkled as he grinned at her. “Thank you for asking me to do this,” he said, far too seriously, before he hopped out of the ATV.
He came around to her side to help her down, then offered her his arm.
“Thank you for being you,” she managed to say, though her throat was tight. He was a strange old man, but he’d fussed over her when no one else had. As her father wanted even less to do with her than she wanted to do with him, it was nice to have . . . someone. Someone to walk her down the aisle.
His bushy white eyebrows furrowed together. “I don’t think I’ve ever been thanked for that.”
They walked with linked arms to the beginning of the runner that would lead her to Brandon. Lilly’s tears started to dribble over. She tried to dab at them with her fingertips so she didn’t ruin her makeup, but she was walking up the aisle to the sounds of the rushing of Solace Falls, which had been the soundtrack to so many big, important moments with this man she was going to marry.
Skeet led her up to Brandon and gave her arm a little pat as he let her go. “I know you two will be good for each other,” he said, and he couldn’t have said anything to her that would possibly mean more.
Then she had to step forward to Brandon. He wasn’t crying of course, Brandon was too strong and determined for all that. But there was a sheen to his eyes and he swallowed as though there was a lump in his throat as he took her arm.
Even as the minister began to speak, Lilly couldn’t take her eyes off of Brandon. Those beautiful hazel eyes that she may have fallen in love with before she fell in love with the rest of him. She didn’t look away as she promised to love him forever. Because they were sta
nding in front of their friends, in this beautiful place, with their baby growing in her stomach.
For the first time, with absolute certainty, Lilly knew that she could do it. She could love this man forever.
Chapter Twenty-One
Sam wasn’t exactly ignoring Hayley in the aftermath of the reception, he was just trying to be very careful about who saw them talking. He was being careful not to dominate all of her time, even though that was all he wanted to do.
Of course, if he stood next to her in that dress for too long, he was pretty sure he was going to lose that promise to himself. To take it slow. To ease into things when it came to Hayley.
Didn’t you decide earlier that you couldn’t ease? That you needed to fucking climb and move forward?
That had been about life, not about Hayley. Certainly not about sex.
Sex. He really missed sex.
It was that dress. It was driving him insane. It wasn’t particularly short or low cut, but it hugged all those graceful, slender curves in ways that were patently unfair. All of that normally covered-up skin soaking up the fading light of evening, that warm, brown depth to it, something he couldn’t get enough of.
But Will had warned him off. And he and Hayley hadn’t actually talked about what a relationship looked like.
Sure, he had mentioned that he hadn’t been with anyone in a while, but did she understand how much that meant? Did he?
“If you stare any harder, I think your eyes are going to pop right out of your head and start rolling toward her.”
Sam glared at Tori. “No one asked you.”
She grinned. “I know. That’s why it’s so fun to offer my opinion. Why are you trying so hard to avoid her, when it’s clear you want to jump her?”
“I am neither avoiding her nor wanting to jump her.”
“Ha! I know it’s been a long time, but you’re still Sam Goodall, and I remember the Sam Goodall stare.”
“There was never a Sam Goodall stare.”
“Oh, yes there was. You, Brandon, and Will each had your own, and had it down to an art. Brandon would target a girl, offer her a drink, start a conversation with her. Will would flash that obnoxious smirk and a girl was suddenly naked without ever knowing what hit her.”