"To meet a man," Simone said.
Celie flushed. "Well, yes," she admitted. "But I certainly never thought it would be Jace."
But it was Jace—and she had the ring and the man to prove it. "We're getting married on October third," she told Simone.
Jace had suggested they get married right away. "We can get married on the ship," he'd argued. "People do."
But Celie had shaken her head. "I don't want to get married on the ship. I want to get married at home. In Elmer." It would make up for the last time, for Matt's defection, for having to call everything off.
Jace hadn't been thrilled. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Celie had been adamant. "I want to get married at home."
She was just as adamant now with Simone. "I'm going home. I'm handing in my notice. I don't care if I can't come back. I don't want to come back!"
"Zey all say zat." Simone sighed wearily. "And zen, two months later…" She gave a mournful shake of her head.
Celie ignored her. Undoubtedly Simone had dealt with plenty of starry-eyed young women over the years, women who'd thought they'd met the man of their dreams—only to discover they were wrong, that the men were nightmares.
But she was not one of those women.
And Jace was not one of those men.
It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same at all.
"You are going home? Getting married?" Armand's eyebrows lifted in surprise at the sight of the ring on Celie's finger.
She had spotted him in the staff lounge and had gone over to say goodbye and, maybe if she was honest, to prove that there was another man in the world who didn't think she was naive and basically hopeless.
"Tomorrow's my last day," she told him.
"So soon you quit? Must be very persuasive." He waggled dark eyebrows. "And who is the lucky man?"
"A man I knew at home."
"Ah, yes. Of course." Armand nodded understandingly.
"What do you mean, of course?" Celie demanded.
Armand gave a negligent shrug. "Just that he is, how do you say…? A homebody, too."
"He's hardly a homebody." It was hard to imagine anyone describing Jace that way. As long as she'd known him he'd always been a moving-on, show-me-the-bright-lights sort of guy. But Armand didn't know that.
"Is better for you to be there," he approved. "Is where you belong … in the home with children and puppies, yes?"
He looked her up and down critically, then nodded in satisfaction. "I always think you look like a wife."
Coming from Armand, that was not necessarily a compliment. But Celie couldn't really argue with him. Nor did she want to. After all, a wife was exactly what she had always wanted to be.
She smiled. "Thank you. I just came to say goodbye," she told him. "And, thank you for the … um, education, too." She smiled a little wryly. "It was … interesting."
Armand grinned and winked at her. Then he kissed her lightly on both cheeks. "Always I am happy to educate. Be happy, ma petite."
Artie and her mother were at the airport to meet them.
"Is it true?" Joyce demanded, hurrying toward them, eager eyes going from Celie to Jace and back again. "Artie says you're getting married?" She sounded as if she didn't trust Artie not to be pulling her leg.
But Celie, beaming, held out her hand for her mother to inspect the ring, and Joyce gave a little cry of delight. "Oh, darling, how wonderful." She wrapped Celie in a fierce hug, then reached out and dragged Jace into a three-way embrace.
Then she gave him a smacking kiss. "You dark horse, you," she chided him. "I had no idea."
Artie huffed. "Tol' her, didn't I? An' they say women are the romantics." He shook his head in dismay. Then he winked at Jace. "Told ya so."
Jace grinned, looking both embarrassed and pleased. But then he protested, "I coulda done it myself."
"Yeah, right." Artie snorted. "In which century? Hell's bells, boy, I ain't gonna live forever, an' the rate you two were goin', I'd'a had to. If I wanted to see the two of you hitched, I reckoned it was up to me to kick you in the tail and get you movin'."
"Right," Jace said dryly. "It was all your idea."
"Mebbe not all," Artie allowed as they moved toward the baggage claim. "I can't say I would a picked out such a purty engagement ring." He put an arm around Celie's shoulder and gave her a squeeze. "Sure am glad you're home, missy."
Celie looped an arm around his narrow waist. "Me, too."
"I've got a stew simmering." Joyce herded them down the stairs. "You'll all come and eat with us, of course. And you can stay with us, if you want," she said to her daughter.
In their new home, Joyce meant. The one Walt had just finished building on his ranch. Last year he'd turned the old house over to his daughter, Cait, and her new husband, Charlie.
"Thanks, but I think I'll stay in town," Celie said. "At the house—if you don't think Polly will mind." The huge, rambling two-story Victorian just off the main street of Elmer where they had all lived until this spring still belonged to Polly, after all, even though she and the kids had moved to Sloan's ranch as soon as school was out.
"I'm sure Polly won't care at all," Joyce said. "She'll probably be glad to have someone in there instead of leaving it empty. Now that she and the kids are up at Sloan's place, I think she's planning to sell it."
"She is?" Celie didn't like the thought of that. There were so many memories associated with that house. "Maybe we could buy it," she said to Jace. "It would be close to the store if you're going to stay at Artie's. And I could reopen The Spa," she added eagerly.
"I was thinkin' of building a place out by Ray and Jodie," Jace said as he grabbed their bags off the luggage carousel and led the way toward the parking area. "I'm gonna be training horses out there."
"Whichever," Celie said happily. "We can discuss it later. We have other things to think about now." She grinned. "Like the wedding."
"About the wedding…" Joyce looked at her daughter a little worriedly, and Celie knew she was remembering the last wedding.
"Thought mebbe you'd a got married on the ship," Artie said.
"No." Celie shook her head. "I wanted to get married here. This time it will be perfect," she said, looping her arm through Jace's and smiling up at him.
"Yep," he said equably. He glanced back at her mother and Artie. "Told her I'd get married anytime, anywhere."
"But we had to come back here. We couldn't get married without Artie," Celie said. "Or the family."
"I could have." Jace tossed the bags in the back of Walt's crew-cab truck that Joyce had driven over. "Don't matter to me."
"Well, it matters to me," Celie said.
She had been dreaming about this wedding for years.
Artie was stretched out in his easy chair, his feet stuck up on the hassock, as he regarded Jace over the top of a glass of Jack Daniel's. In his lap was the photo album Celie had given him. He had studied it with considerable satisfaction, nodding and smiling while Celie had been there. But now she was gone and he was looking at it again and still nodding.
"See, what'd I tell you?" He said to Jace. "Worked like a charm."
"Not exactly a charm," Jace countered mildly. He wasn't telling Artie about all the bad times. It was enough to remember them himself. He settled into the sofa, balancing his own glass of Jack Daniel's on his belt buckle. The Jack Daniel's had been his gift to Artie.
He figured they'd need a damn sight more of it before this wedding was done. After two weeks at home, he'd barely had a chance to sit down and take a deep breath. He worked, of course, for Artie and on the ranch, and he trained horses every morning for Taggart Jones. But every second he wasn't working, his presence had been demanded by Celie, and he'd been presented with a thousand options for wedding plans.
"Why the heck should I care whether we have a sit-down dinner or a stand-up buffet?" he groused. "And what difference does it make what kind of paper the invitations are on? Why can't we just call people up and invite 'em to come?"
> Artie sipped the Jack Daniel's and gave an appreciative sigh. "She's gonna marry you, ain't she? Well, then, quitcher fussin'. Everything's hunky-dory."
"And I gotta wear a tux," Jace went on, aggrieved.
Clothing had already been discussed. It wasn't, to Jace's dismay, "optional." Celie was going to do things right and proper, and that, she told him, meant a floor-length gown for her and her bridesmaids and tuxes for him and his best man.
Artie was going to be the best man.
That was the only thing Jace had insisted on when Celie had gone into wedding-planning mode. He owed the old man—and he couldn't think of a better way of paying him back. The fact that Artie would have to wear a tux, too, made it a little bit sweeter.
Jace had wondered if Celie would argue that having a ninety-year-old best man would upset her "perfect" wedding pictures. But she hadn't argued at all. In fact, she'd been delighted at the idea.
She'd only frowned for a moment as she'd wondered: if Artie was the best man, who was going to give her away.
"Walt," Jace had suggested. He was, after all, Celie's mother's husband.
"He could," Celie agreed. "Or Jack." Her ten-year-old nephew. Then she'd brightened. "I know! I'll get Sloan to do it!"
"Don't you dare! He'll turn our wedding into some media circus!" He remembered all too well what a colossal to-do Sloan's presence had made of the Great Montana Cowboy Auction.
"No media circus," Celie had promised. "Very low-key. We won't tell anyone."
"This is Elmer. Everyone will know."
"But everyone knows Sloan, too, so it won't be a big deal. And we'll keep the media out."
"We're definitely keeping the media out." There was no question about that. Not, Jace was sure, that the media would even care that he was marrying Celie O'Meara.
The only person who cared was him. He cared desperately. He loved her desperately. He wanted her to be happy. That was the only reason he was putting up with all of this.
The past two weeks had been insane. Celie had been glued to her wedding planner. She'd been talking nonstop to her mother, to Poppy Nichols, who ran a florist shop down in Livingston, to Milly Callahan, whose dad, John, was a grocer who knew a caterer, to the caterer, to the stationer, to the minister at the local church, to Polly to arrange for renting the town hall.
Jace had wanted to celebrate their engagement by going home, locking the doors and taking Celie to bed.
"We can't do that," Celie had said, horrified.
"We can't? Why not?"
"Because this is Elmer! Everyone will know!"
"They know, anyway," Jace had argued.
But Celie had been firm. She wasn't having Alice Benn or Cloris Stedman or any of the other moral citizens of Elmer scandalized by their behavior. "What would Artie think?" she'd demanded.
"Artie," Jace had said with absolute conviction, "will be all for it."
Now Artie stretched, sipped his Jack Daniel's and said, "Dunno what yer doin' here. How come you ain't over at Celie's?"
"Because," Jace said, "that is Command Central, and if I go over there she will give me a list of things to do."
"Beginnin' as she means to go on, is she?" Artie chuckled.
"I damned well hope not," Jace said. "I hope she comes to her senses. Soon."
He reckoned he could have put together half a dozen perfectly legal weddings and had time left over to brand a herd of cattle in the past two weeks.
"This thing is turnin' into the wedding that ate Montana," he grumbled now, shuddering again at the thought of tuxedos. "What's wrong with boots and jeans?"
"Beats me." Artie yawned. "Shoulda married her 'fore you left the ship."
"I suggested it. She said no."
"Should've grabbed her by the hair and yanked her right up b'fore the captain."
"Now you tell me."
"Well, hell's bells, boy," Artie replied. "An old man can't be expected to think of everything!"
Celie had a list as long as her arm.
Church: check. Minister: check. Reception hall: check. Invitations: check. Flowers: check. Cake: check. Wedding dress: check. Bridesmaids' dresses: check.
Maybe it was as long as both her arms.
She had memorized the wedding planner. She knew the symbolic meaning of every flower, of the candles, of the wedding rings. She knew type fonts and alternate wordings and parchment colors.
Sometimes she wished she hadn't bothered. It had been important before—the first time. With Matt. In fact, the wedding had mattered more than Matt.
Nothing mattered more than Jace.
But it was too late to back out now. Everything was rolling. They'd been home a month. She'd set the ball in motion immediately. She had her dress. She'd ordered her bouquet. She'd bought her veil. She'd chosen the bridesmaids' dresses. She arranged for the flowers. She'd picked out a cake. Just this morning she'd addressed the last of the invitations, and half an hour ago she'd stuck them in the mail.
She could hardly say, "Let's just elope, shall we?"
Though if she did, she had no doubt that Jace would instantly say, "Yes!"
Jace was no fan of big weddings. That was evident. He'd steered clear of all the planning. He'd said, "Whatever you want." He'd only asked that Artie be his best man. The rest, he'd said was up to her.
He had put up with a lot, and Celie knew it. Not just the wedding plans, but her insistence that he go back to Artie's every night, too.
"We've already slept together," he'd reminded her.
"Yes," she'd agreed. "But that was there. On the ship. It wasn't Elmer." It mattered somehow that they didn't scandalize Elmer. "You know Alice and Cloris… And what would Artie think?"
Artie, Jace had assured her, would think he was insane to be spending every night at his place.
But he did it. Every night for the past month he'd trekked back up the hill to sleep at Artie's. Celie had watched him make a point of waving to Alice and Cloris on his way.
"Reckon I'll get to wear white at the wedding?" he'd said last night on his way out the door.
Celie had laughed and kissed him. "Absolutely. And a halo, too."
"God knows I deserve it."
Celie thought he did, too.
The wedding was two weeks away when Polly called and asked them to come up to the ranch for the weekend.
"Sloan will be home," Celie said as she put a salad on the table for dinner. "He's coming back from Hong Kong tonight. And then sometime next week he's going to begin shooting his next film in Mexico."
"And you want to go see Sloan?" Jace said just a little warily.
But Celie shook her head. "I want to see them all. And Polly wants to see you. I don't think she still believes we're going to get married."
Jace, who had been counting the hours for what seemed like forever, sometimes didn't believe it, either. But there were under four hundred hours left now—and it was beginning to feel more believable.
"She would have come down to visit before now," Celie went on, "but she's been on her own up there with the kids while Sloan has been gone, and she hasn't had time. So, what do you say? Do you want to go?"
"A better question is—can you tear yourself away from preparations?"
"For a weekend," Celie said, "yes, I think so. There are several last-minute things to do. But we still have time."
"Too much time," Jace muttered. But maybe going up to Polly and Sloan's would make the hours pass faster. He hoped.
He picked Celie up bright and early Saturday morning. He had no reason to stay in bed, after all.
"Not for another 335 hours or so. Unless—" he looked hopefully at her "—we're sharing a room at Polly's?"
Celie shrugged. "It's up to Polly."
Jace understood that. He hoped his future sister-in-law felt kindly toward him. She had, he reminded Celie, let Sloan spend the night in her house in Elmer. She hadn't sent him up the hill to sleep at Artie's.
"No, he slept in the Jack's bottom bunk," Celie informed h
im.
Oh.
Jace tried not to think about it. He tried not to think about Celie sitting so close to him. Tried not to remember how good she'd felt in his arms. How good she'd felt naked.
"Tell me about these wedding plans," he said desperately. That had to be as deadly as naming presidents or reciting multiplication tables.
Celie told him about the reception. She detailed the menu. She talked about the music. She told him about the flowers, about the symbolic meaning of each one. She talked about the wedding cake, about the bridesmaids' dresses, about her own.
"It's gorgeous." She turned shining eyes on him. "You're going to love it."
Jace nodded. She could wear a sack as far as he was concerned. In fact he thought he'd prefer a sack. "I'll love it," he assured her, "only if it doesn't have a lot of little buttons."
Celie laughed. "It doesn't. Well, only forty or fifty or so."
Jace groaned.
She told him he still needed to go to Bozeman to be fitted for his tux. She hadn't given up on the tux idea, no matter how long he'd put it off.
"You need to take Artie, too," she told him. "And the rest of the men. You'll need five."
"Five? What for?"
"Ushers. Groomsmen."
Jace could just see himself talking five of his buddies into wearing tuxes. It didn't bear thinking about.
"The only one you don't have to worry about is Sloan," Celie told him.
That was news to him. Sloan was the only one he'd ever worried about.
"Why not?"
"He has a tux of his own."
Oh. Right. They were talking about tuxes. And Celie would know that Sloan had one, too, because she'd been to a Hollywood premiere with him.
Far from not worrying about Sloan Gallagher, Jace felt suddenly like punching his soon-to-be brother-in-law in the nose.
The feeling lasted until they got to the ranch.
But there, once Sloan and Polly came out to meet them, the feeling evaporated. He could see how happy Sloan had made Polly—and how happy Polly had made Sloan. He could also see that Celie was equally happy for both of them.
Given that, he couldn't really resent Sloan's single weekend in Celie's life. But he couldn't quite forgive the man for having his own tux.
A COWBOY'S PURSUIT Page 12