The Bride Wore Denim

by Lizbeth Selvig

  “Nope. That’s part of the package or I’ll mutiny.”

  She laughed. “Okay. You won’t be upset if I tell you I’ve all but made a unilateral decision to have the wind power people come in, oh, say, this afternoon?”

  He shook his head in resignation and laughed again. “I don’t care about the oil,” he said. “I just wanted you to grab some mane on whatever horse you chose and ride like hell to save this place. Oil, wind, solar, hell, five thousand trained monkeys blowing on pinwheels. I want to be with you. Having the ranch is a dream bonus.”

  “Pinwheels?” Her smile stretched wide. “I vote for them!”

  He kissed her silly, right in front of her Amazon posse, and suddenly the room was filled with cheers. She pulled away.

  “Now. I have someone I want you to meet.”

  DARKNESS HAD FALLEN like a heavy velvet blanket over Paradise. The stars above the Henhouse Hilton put Chicago’s neon show to shame. Cole leaned against the side of the chicken coop, and pulled Harper to him torso to torso.

  “Heck, we should shove all these chickens into a normal pen and live here. Your daddy was nuts.”

  “Yeah. I think that’s where I got it.”

  He laughed and sighed, looking up into the stars.

  “So this is how you think it’s going to work: We turn the Double Di into an arts guild with Joely as a live-in caretaker for people who pay to use it as retreat center. You set up regular art classes for the community, and people pay to attend. A volunteer board also lines up visiting artists, and people pay to learn from them. Cecelia will start an endowment to fund the infrastructure. We rake in the dough.”

  “You added that last part. We work to make a profit. Over time.”

  “Yeah, yeah. In addition, we build a small wind turbine farm on the far outskirts of the property—fifty miles from the house, in sight of only the freeway and the cattle.”

  “And we become some of the first in this area to hook into the new power grid. We get paid for adding to that grid, and we get free electricity. Oh,” she added, “we also buy a small flock of sheep.”

  “What? That wasn’t in the original business plan.”

  She rubbed his chest, running her palms across the broad planes of his pecs, and he shivered deeply when she squeezed his shoulder and skimmed up his neck with her fingers, exploring what felt like every sinew and every inch of skin.

  “I know,” she said. “I only recently talked about it with the local border collie owner. She needs maybe ten. Sheep not border collies. For Asta to herd and for herself to paint. An experiment. And the yarn shop’s co-op of knitters and spinners will buy the wool.”

  “I see. You really figured all this out in two days?”

  “No. In two months and then two minutes. When Skylar said grown-ups sometimes acted too stupid to live, she was right, and in that instant I knew I didn’t want to be that grown-up in her eyes. But especially not in yours. I spent all this time fighting you every step of the way but never coming up with alternative solutions. When I realized I was waiting for someone else to contact the wind energy company, and I needed to find my own answers, the rest of what I needed to do kind of fell into place.”

  He adopted a rigid stance and locked his gaze on her, making it as stern as he could fake it. “I am amazed, and I didn’t think you could amaze me any more than you already had, but I have one stipulation before I sign onto this craziness. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others. This is a private request.”

  “What?”

  He couldn’t keep his face straight at the sight of her big, round, melted chocolate eyes. “I can’t say yes unless you first agree to marry me and make this partnership permanently official. I refuse to live in sin with you in Paradise.”

  She burst out laughing. She laughed so hard she had to hold it back with both hands.

  “That’s a fine blow to a guy’s ego,” he said.

  “Good.” Her breath came in wheezes through her tears of laughter. “Then you won’t be expecting my answer.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, cowboy. I’ll marry you. Gimme a day to find a white dress and you’re on. Right here by the Henhouse Hilton if you want.”

  “You don’t need a white dress, Harpo. Wear pajamas. Wear a bath towel. Wear your jeans—that’s how I love you best. Cowgirl.”

  He lowered his head and met her in a long, hard, insanely deep and dangerous kiss. He only stopped to check her eyes. They rested on his, thoughtful and suddenly serious.

  “I would.”

  “Would what?”

  “Marry you the day after tomorrow.”

  “Deal.”

  “But I’d like to wait for Joely. I want her here.”

  “Of course,” he said. “She needs to be here.”

  “Is it too fast? Are we being foolish?”

  “No, sweetheart. This is not a new love. I’ve loved you a long time. Ever since you were the wannabe pirate captive princess.”

  “Oh my gosh! You knew?”

  “Of course. I just wasn’t very smart in those early days. I didn’t know how to take what I really wanted.”

  “You didn’t want me.” She scoffed at the idea, sure he was teasing.

  “Hey,” he said firmly. “Don’t argue with a pirate.”

  He scooped her into his arms and gave two bangs on the side of the henhouse with his boot heel. “Listen up, chickens,” he said. “Get ready. Next event around here is a big old Wyoming wedding.”

  “Hey,” she said, stopping the advance of his mouth with a finger. “One more thing I need to say.”

  “Oh?”

  “I love you.”

  His smile was bright and wide as the Wyoming sky. “And I love you. More than any buried treasure from the past,” he said.

  Then he bent his head and plundered her mouth until the past was excised, and the only treasure they cared about was the future.

  Epilogue

  SKYLAR STARED AT the gallery-like wall of beautiful paintings in the community events room of the VA hospital in speechless awe. It was the first time she’d seen it—her painting. The big room was super classy, with wood planks half up the walls and giant floral bouquets on every side table. This was the space where all the winners of the art competition were permanently displayed, and when she’d looked at some of the past winners, Skylar was pretty blown away that her painting was now among them.

  “Nothing like that feeling, is there? Seeing your work in public.”

  Two light, delicate hands floated onto her shoulders and squeezed gently. Skylar craned her neck to find Harper smiling at her, more beautiful than any of the paintings.

  “It’s cool,” she said, trying not to sound too excited or vain. Her mother had warned her about vanity.

  Harper laughed. “You can be a little more excited. It’s okay.”

  Skylar couldn’t stop her grin then. “Okay, it’s the coolest thing ever.”

  “Yup. I think it is.”

  “Oh, well, not really. You and Cole being engaged—that’s the coolest thing.”

  “You know? Under that cowgirl cool exterior of yours, you’re a pretty awesome kid,” Harper said. “Thank you. But we reserved this room to serve double duty—a chance for everyone to see your painting, too. Believe me, I don’t mind sharing the night.”

  Skylar gave the picture one more long look, then she turned to face the room. It was an awesome sight. Fifty people milled around. Denim blue and white streamers swooped along the ceiling in twisted loops. Joely’s wheelchair and a rolling hospital bed took up a spot in the middle of the action. She couldn’t stand or even sit for long yet, but Harper had insisted the engagement party had to include her. At the moment she greeted people from the chair, and she was actually laughing at something.

  The party was like magic.

  “Hey, you two!”

  Skylar met her mom’s smile with a tentative one of her own. Things had been a little better since she’d agreed to let the painting
hang. Even though it wasn’t labeled with her whole name or age—it was okay.

  “Hey, Mel,” Harper said.

  “Nate just got here,” her mom said. “I told him I’d come get you.”

  That was a miracle, too. She was actually allowed to see Nate as long as there were other people around. The miracle would probably burst like a bubble if her mother knew that they’d sneaked kisses, once in the corner of the basement at, gasp, church, and once behind the park gazebo at a co-op picnic. But they’d been plain, ordinary kisses. Fun, but not as fun as heading out riding with Marcus or going to a movie. Or talking. Nate was hyper-smart. And who was going to tell about plain simple kisses? Not her.

  “I’ll go find him,” Skylar said. “Thanks.”

  As she walked away she heard her mother’s voice as it faded, “Thank you for this, Harper. For knocking a little sense into . . . ”

  Skylar didn’t know the whole story, but she knew Harper had somehow convinced her mom to let the hospital hang her painting. She didn’t even know how to say thank you for that.

  She found Nate, and he greeted her with a fist bump. “You look pretty,” he said.

  “I guess you have to wear dresses to an engagement party,” she said, secretly pleased that he liked the jean skirt and boots. The skirt wasn’t as short as she wanted, but at least it was above her knees.

  They ate until they were stuffed with chicken wings and mini cheesecakes. They got sodas at the bar for free, and she showed him where her painting was hung.

  “Next year yours will be here,” she promised.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I’m glad yours is here now.”

  Music from the hired DJ filled the room with a sudden burst of rich, mellow sound and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill sang out “It’s Your Love.” A moment later Harper and Cole were on the dance floor, and the room went still. Skylar stared. Harper wore a fluffy layered white skirt on the bottom with a fitted denim shirt on top and beautiful blue cowboy boots. Cole had on jeans and a shirt to match Harper’s, with a super-hot, long, leather sports coat. They held each other and danced almost like they’d practiced, with slow, intricately swaying steps. They were so close, Skylar didn’t think they could get a feather between them.

  Nate put his arm absently around her shoulders, and she snuggled next to him. For a long, nice moment she rested her head against his side.

  “Aren’t they a sweet couple?” Her mother crept up from behind and budged herself totally between them until she had one arm draped over each of their shoulders.

  Skylar started to protest, but Nate caught her eye. He was laughing. Suddenly she couldn’t be mad either. Her mom was weird. But she was there for her. All the time.

  Skylar watched until the dance ended, and Cole bent Harper backward like she was a fairy princess. He bent over her and kissed her until his mouth melded with hers, and Skylar’s heart went a little funny and mushy. They straightened, but the kiss continued, and pretty soon all the people in the room were clapping and stomping their feet and the whistles drowned out the applause.

  Skylar laughed and clapped, too. Her mother might still be holding her apart from Nate to keep her safe, but Skylar knew one thing for sure. Nobody was ever going to pull Harper and Cole apart—not for a hundred years.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next book in Lizbeth Selvig’s

  Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys series,

  THE BRIDE WORE RED BOOTS

  Available September 2015

  From Avon Impulse!

  An Excerpt from

  THE BRIDE WORE RED BOOTS

  DR. AMELIA CROCKETT adored the kids. She just hated clowns. Standing resignedly beside Bitsy Blueberry, Amelia scanned the group of twenty or so young patients gathered for a Halloween party in the pediatric playroom at NYC General Hospital. She didn’t see the one child she was looking for, however.

  Some children wore super-hero-themed hospital gowns and colorful robes that served as costumes. Others dressed up more traditionally—including three fairies, two princesses, a Harry Potter, and a Darth Vader. Gauze bandage helmets had been decorated like everything from a baseball to a mummy’s head. More than one bald scalp was adorned with alien-green paint or a yellow smiley face. Mixed in with casts, wheelchairs, and IV poles on castors, there were also miles of smiles. The kids didn’t hate the clown.

  Amelia adjusted the stethoscope around her neck, more a prop than necessary at this event, and glared—her sisters would call it the hairy eyeball—at Bitsy Blueberry’s wild blue wig. Bitsy thrust one hand forward, aimed one of those obnoxious, old-fashioned, bicycle horns–with-a-bulb that were as requisite to clowning as giant shoes and red noses, at Amelia’s face and honked at her rudely. Three times.

  Amelia smiled at Bitsy through gritted teeth. “I detest impertinent clowns,” she whispered. “I can have you fired.”

  She wasn’t afraid of clowns. She simply found them unnecessary and a waste of talent, and Bitsy Blueberry was a perfect example. Beneath the white grease paint, red nose, hideous blue wig, and pinafore-and-pantaloons costume that looked like Raggedy Ann on psychedelic drugs was one of the smartest, most dedicated pediatric nurses in the world —Amelia’s best friend Brooke Squires.

  “Look who’s here, boys and girls.” Bitsy grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her unceremoniously to the front of the room, honking in time with Amelia’s steps all the way. “It’s Dr. Mia Crockett!”

  She might as well have said Justin Bieber or One Direction for the cheer that went up from the kids. It was the effect Bitsy’s squeaky falsetto voice had on them. Then again, they’d cheer a stinky skunk wrangler if it meant forgetting, for even a short time, the real reasons they were in the hospital. That understanding was all that kept Mia from cuffing her friend upside the head to knock some sense into her. She waved—a tiny rocking motion of her wrist—at the assemblage of sick children.

  “Dr. Mia doesn’t look very party ready, do you think?” Bitsy/Brooke asked. “Isn’t that sad?”

  “Not funny,” Amelia said through the side of her mouth, her smile plastered in place.

  Bitsy pulled a black balloon from her pinafore pocket and blew it into a long tube. Great. Balloon animals.

  “I know a secret about Dr. Mia,” Bitsy said. “Would you like to know what it is?”

  Unsurprisingly, a chorus of yeses filled the room.

  “She . . . ” Bitsy dragged the word out suggestively, “is related to Davy Crockett. Do you know who Davy Crockett was?”

  The relationship was true thanks to a backwoods ninth cousin somewhere in the 1800s, but Mia rolled her eyes again while a cacophony of shouts followed the question. As Bitsy explained about Davy and hunting and the Alamo, she tied off the black balloon and blew up a brown one. She twisted them intricately until she had a braided circle with a tail.

  “You’re kidding me,” Mia said when she saw the finished product.

  “That’s pretty cool about Davy Crockett, right?” Bitsy asked “But what isn’t cool is that Dr. Mia has no costume. So I made her something. What did I tell you Davy Crockett wore?”

  “Coonskin cap!” One little boy shouted the answer from his seat on the floor at the front of the group.

  Mia smiled at him, one of a handful of nonsurgical patients she knew from her rounds here on the pediatric floor. Most of her time these days was spent in surgery and following up on those patients. Her work toward fulfilling the requirements needed to take her pediatric surgical boards left little time for meeting all the patients on the floor, but a few kids you only had to meet once, and they wormed their ways into your heart. She looked around again for Rory.

  “That’s right,” Bitsy was saying. “And this is a balloon-skin cap!”

  She set it on Mia’s head, where it perched like a bird on a treetop. The children clapped and squealed. Bitsy did a chicken flap and waggled one foot in the air before bowing to her audience.

  “I want a boon-skin cap!”

  A tiny girl, perhaps four,
shuffled forward with the aid of the smallest walker possibly in existence. She managed it deftly for one so little, even though her knees knocked together, her feet turned inward, and the patch over one eye obscured half her vision. She wore a hot-pink tutu over frosting-pink footie pajamas, and a tiara topped her black curls. To her own surprise, Mia’s throat tightened.

  “But, Megan, you have a beautiful crown already,” Bitsy said gently.

  Megan pulled the little tiara off her head and held it out. “I can twade.”

  Mia lost it, and she never lost it. She squatted and pulled the balloon cap off her head then held it out, her eyes hot. “I would love to trade with you,” she said.

  Megan beamed. Mia placed the crazy black-and-brown balloon concoction on the child, where it slipped over her hair and settled to her eyebrows.

  “Here,” Megan said, pronouncing it “hee-oh.” “I put it on you.”

  She reached over the top of her walker and pressed on Mia’s nose to tilt her face downward. She placed the tiara in Mia’s hair and patted her head gently. It might as well have been a coronation by the Archduke of Canterbury. Megan had spina bifida and had come through surgery only four days earlier. No child this happy and tender and tough should have such a poor prognosis and uncertain future.

  “You can be Davy Cwockett’s pincess.” Megan smiled, clearly pleased with herself.

  “I think you gave me the best costume ever,” Mia replied. “Could I have a hug?”

  Megan opened her arms wide and squeezed Mia’s neck with all her might. She smelled of chocolate bars, apple-cinnamon, and a whiff of the strawberry body lotion they used in this department. A delicious little waif.