Short-Order Sheriff (River's End Ranch Book 1)

by Kirsten Osbourne

  Kelsi laughed. “They do. I think it’s hilarious.”

  “You’re going to have to start taking his side on everything once you marry, you know.”

  “Why?” Kelsi asked.

  “Because it’s the Weston way.”

  “But I’m going to be a Clapper, not a Weston.”

  “That’s unfortunate. You will still have Weston genes, though, so you’ll have to continue to behave like one of us. Every day for the rest of your life.” Dani smiled, getting to her feet. “We need to have a bachelorette party for you on Friday night. Maybe some slasher movies? Popcorn? Pie?”

  “How do you know me so well?” Kelsi asked with a wink.

  “Because you’ve always been my built-in best friend.” Dani hugged her. “Look at me, getting all maudlin. Don’t expect this to happen again!”

  Kelsi smiled. “I won’t. I know that you’re above the feelings we lesser mortals have. You’re tougher than that.”

  “So true. Don’t tell the others I was nice to you. They might start expecting it, and it’s just not going to happen.” Dani started to close the door behind her.

  “Hey, Dani?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  “Whatever. Me too, I guess.” Dani grinned at her twin and closed the door behind her.

  Kelsi changed into her pajamas, thinking about how special her sister was to her. They may not always appear to be close or get along, and Dani may grumble a lot more than most people, but Kelsi couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather have at her side for her wedding. Maybe she could get her to blond her hair for it, so they could actually look like twins again.

  She shook her head, dismissing the idea before she even proposed it to her sister. She enjoyed having her own identity too much for her to be willing to look that much like her sister again.

  After brushing her teeth, Kelsi climbed into bed and folded her hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling. Her life was about to change in a way she’d never expected. She just hoped she was doing the right thing.

  Shane stayed up late making room in his closet for Kelsi’s clothes and trying to get everything situated. He hoped she didn’t have as much stuff as he did, because there wasn’t much room left in his junk room.

  When he finally got into bed, he laid with his eyes open for a long time, thinking of her. He hoped that marrying immediately was the right thing for her, like it was for him. He didn’t know if he’d have been able to stand a long engagement anyway. After four years of waiting, it already felt like it had been forever.

  Soon they’d be married and he’d be the happiest man on earth. He only wished he could be just as sure of Kelsi’s happiness.

  Chapter Eight

  By Friday night, Kelsi realized she was very nervous about marrying the sheriff, and she couldn’t figure out why. He was a good man, one who loved her beyond her wildest expectations. So why did the idea of the wedding make her so nervous?

  When she met up with her sister and cousin in Jess’s cabin—one that was usually reserved for guests, but she’d claimed as her own when she’d started veterinary school—she felt her stomach rumbling with nerves.

  Jess opened the door to welcome her, and she was surprised to see that Dani was already there. The whole house smelled of popcorn and pie, and Kelsi felt tears well up in her eyes. They’d done exactly what she wanted.

  “You guys are the best sisters a girl could ever ask for.”

  Jess smiled. “I’m glad you wanted to do this. I needed a night off from studying to be with my favorite cousins.”

  “What movie are we watching?” Kelsi asked, excited.

  Dani and Jess exchanged looks. “We didn’t want to have to watch a slasher movie tonight.” Dani looked almost nervous when she told her.

  Kelsi frowned. “So what are we watching? Not a rom com. Tell me you guys don’t expect me to sit here and put up with watching a stupid romantic comedy!”

  Dani sighed. “Jess wanted to watch Notting Hill, but I didn’t think you’d like that.”

  “No! Please tell me you nixed that idea!”

  “I did! I figured if we weren’t going to watch a slasher, we couldn’t watch a rom com, so we compromised.” She pulled a superhero movie from behind her back.

  Kelsi shrugged. “Better than a rom com I guess.”

  “I made popcorn, and I got you some jalapeno-cheddar seasoning for your bowl!” Jess said with a grin.

  “Sometimes I think no one knows me at all, and then I realize you guys couldn’t love me as much as you do if you didn’t know me.” Kelsi sighed contentedly, thrilled about the seasoning. It was such a small thing, but it made her realize her cousin really had thought of her.

  She sat down on one end of the couch, knowing her sister and cousin would want to share a bowl of popcorn. She sprinkled a generous amount of seasoning on her own bowl and waited while Dani put the movie in. “Thanks for bachelorette-partying with me, girls.”

  Dani shrugged. “I can put up with spending time with you two, as long as you’re not expecting me to go to some strip club and stick dollar bills on mostly naked men.”

  Kelsi wrinkled her nose. “I can think of many things I’d rather do!”

  Halfway through the movie they paused it to move on to the pie portion of the evening. “Warm huckleberry pie!” Kelsi said, accepting the plate from Jess. “Did you get it from the restaurant?”

  “Well, I sure didn’t have time to bake it!” Jess retorted, handing Dani a piece of pie, before going back for her own.

  Kelsi didn’t care who made it, but the restaurant had the best huckleberry pie recipe in the whole state of Idaho, so she smiled as she sank her fork into it. “Do you know Shane had never had huckleberry pie until our first date? Who let him live in Idaho without trying huckleberry pie first? It should be a criminal offense.” She grinned. “I think he should have to arrest himself and spend a couple of days in jail.”

  Dani shook her head. “Without you? You want to spend your wedding night alone?”

  “Maybe not right now. I’ll suggest it after our first real fight.”

  “Looking forward to the first fight?” Dani asked.

  “Nope. But I know it’s inevitable. I fight with everyone I love. I’m good at it.” Kelsi knew she was quirky and not always the easiest person in the world to get along with. It was part of her charm.

  Jess laughed and moved around the coffee table to sit down with her own pie. “I hope he makes you as happy as you deserve to be.”

  Kelsi looked at her cousin with her eyebrows drawn together. “I’m not sure if that’s a good wish or a bad one.”

  “Take it how you will!”

  Kelsi met Dani at the ranch's spa the following morning. Jess had claimed to be too busy with schoolwork to take enough time off to be there for the bachelorette party, spa day, and the wedding. She had chosen the two most important, and begged off the third.

  “Are you excited for this?” Kelsi asked Dani.

  Dani sighed. “I’m doing it, aren’t I?” The look on her face left Kelsi with no doubt she was dreading every minute of the experience.

  Kelsi threaded her arm through her sister’s. “I guess for now that’ll have to be enough!” Together they walked to the front desk and introduced themselves. The spa was relatively new, and neither had been there yet. “We’re Kelsi and Dani Weston. We have appointments.”

  The girl at the desk looked up, her eyes wide. “Yes, of course. I’m Angela Myers. You can call me Angie. I’m the manager here.”

  Kelsi smiled, reaching out a hand to shake the other woman’s. “It’s nice to meet you! We want the works.”

  “I have you scheduled for massages, waxing, mani-pedis, and then facials. Am I missing anything?” Angie asked, obviously nervous.

  “That sounds about right. There’s a lunch in there too, right?”

  “Yes, Miss Weston. I’ve ordered the soup and sandwiches you wanted to be brought in from the café here on prope
rty.”

  Kelsi grinned. “I guess we know who’s making our lunch then.”

  Angie gave them a blank smile. Obviously they’d done a better job than Kelsi realized keeping the wedding quiet. Earlier, Kelsi had gone in to see how the wedding cake preparations were coming along at the restaurant before leaving the house, and she was pleased. It was all falling into place.

  She and Shane had gone for their marriage license the previous day, and he’d promised to be on time, wearing his Sunday best.

  Dani and Kelsi were led to a small waiting room and given glasses of water with some kind of pieces of fruit floating in them. Dani hated water with floating stuff, but she didn’t complain.

  “The only service you won’t be together for is your massage. You’ll have facials at the same time in the same room, and your mani-pedis will be together as well. The waxing will be done in the same room as your massages, so I guess that will be apart too.” Angie frowned. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  Kelsi thought hard to come up with a question. “If you were a small animal, what kind of animal would you be?”

  Angie’s eyes widened and she looked at Dani as if to find out if Kelsi really needed an answer.

  Dani shook her head. “Ignore my sister. She lost her grip on reality a long time ago.”

  Angie hurried out of the room, obviously afraid Kelsi was going to ask her something else.

  Kelsi frowned at Dani. “I really wanted to know! She reminded me of one of Jaclyn’s frightened bunny rabbits. Or maybe a squirrel. I could see her as a squirrel.”

  “Hey, Kelsi?”

  “Yeah, Dani?”

  “You’re scary sometimes.”

  Kelsi shrugged. “I don’t mean to be. Sometimes I’m just curious, so I ask the questions I’m curious about.”

  “Sometimes it might be better if you held your questions in.”

  “But what if I explode from wonderingness?”

  Dani sighed. “You won’t explode. You’ll be just fine.” She looked up as someone came into the room.

  “I’m looking for Miss Weston,” the woman said softly.

  “We’re both Miss Weston. Which one?” Kelsi asked.

  “Kelsi,” the woman said. She was obviously nervous as well.

  “I’m Kelsi Weston. Are you going to massage me until I don’t remember my name?”

  The girl laughed softly. “Yes, I will do my very best. I’m Maddie, by the way.”

  Kelsi stood up to follow her. “This is my first massage. You’ll have to tell me how it all works.”

  She waved to her sister as she followed Maddie out of the room and into a small room with a table in the middle. “I need you to get undressed as much as you’re comfortable undressing. You can keep your panties on if you feel more comfortable that way, but the bra definitely needs to go. Then get face down on the table with your head in the hole. Cover up with the sheet. I’ll give you five minutes to get undressed.”

  Kelsi stripped down, leaving her panties on, because it felt too awkward otherwise. She laid face down on the table and waited. It seemed like forever before Maddie stepped back into the room.

  “Are you comfortable?” Maddie asked.

  Kelsi lifted her face from the hole. “I guess so. Why is my face in a hole?”

  Maddie chuckled softly, coating her hands in oil. “To make it so you can breathe. I’m going to start with your back and work my way to your legs. Let me know if the pressure is too soft or too hard.”

  Kelsi felt weird having someone touch her so intimately without knowing anything about her. “Tell me about you.”

  “Well, let’s see. I’m from Iowa, and I went to massage school there. I wanted to see more of the world, so I spent a year doing massage on cruise ships, but that didn’t feel right for me. So I spent a month with my parents, and I saw an ad for a new spa opening at a dude ranch in Idaho. Sounded like the life for me, so I came here. I’ve been here since the spa opened, so about a month, I guess.”

  “What do you think of Idaho?”

  “It’s so beautiful! I would love to stay here forever. This is your family’s ranch, isn’t it?”

  Kelsi and Maddie chatted through the ninety-minute massage. When she was done, Maddie used a towel to dry off Kelsi’s legs. “Your wax is next, but I don’t torture people like that. I bring pleasure not pain.”

  Kelsi sighed. “I’ve never had a wax either. Is it bad?”

  “What all are you getting done?”

  “Eyebrows, underarms, and legs.”

  Maddie frowned. “Legs will be the worst. Just don’t kick Karen. She’s my friend!”

  “I’ll do my best. It doesn’t sound pleasant.”

  “It’s not. I’d rather shave any day.” Maddie left, and Kelsi lay staring at the ceiling, worried about the pain that was coming. Did she have to go through with this?

  Fifteen minutes later, Kelsi met Dani in the waiting room, where they had water and soup waiting for them. “I don’t think I like being waxed,” Kelsi said, rubbing one of her legs. She was wearing the robe Maddie had left for her, but she wasn’t particularly feeling great.

  Dani frowned. “It wasn’t something I see myself doing regularly either. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned razor in the summers, when a razor is needed? I don’t exactly keep my leg hair fashionably shaved for summer.”

  “Who does?” Kelsi asked. “My motto is, if it’s not braidable through your jeans, there’s no need to mess with it in the winter.”

  “Are you still going to do that when you’re married?”

  “We’re going to have to see how I feel about leg hair when winter comes…and if it bothers Shane. Who knows?”

  By the time they’d been pampered all day, Kelsi felt like a noodle that had been cooked a little too long. As they walked home from the spa, she sighed. “That was nice. Now I want to sleep for a week or two.”

  “You seeing the sheriff tonight?” Dani asked.

  Kelsi shrugged. “He didn’t say anything, so I don’t know.”

  When they got to the house, they had their answer. Shane was sitting on the back porch waiting for her. He stood up and walked over, nodding at Dani. “Did you ladies have fun?”

  Dani shrugged. “It didn’t kill me.” Without another word she walked into the house, leaving Shane staring at the closed door.

  “Why does your sister hate me?” he asked, shaking his head.

  “She doesn’t! She thinks you’re good for me. She treats everyone that way.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought you might want to go into town for dinner or something.” He looked down at his hands. “Really? I needed to see you. I had this dream you were backing out, and I needed to make sure you were going through with the wedding.”

  She laughed softly. “Of course, I’m going through with it. Can you see me being the happy wife of Bobby Blakely?”

  “I don’t want to imagine you being the wife of anyone else, happy or not.” He brushed his lips across hers. “Do you want to do dinner?”

  Kelsi thought about everything she needed to do that night and frowned. “How ‘bout we get the restaurant to make us a pizza to share, and you can help me pack up my room.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t thinking about you having to pack tonight.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t have a ton left to do, but it’s enough that I don’t want to put it off. If I’m not here, we can be renting my room out and making money on it.”

  He followed her down a hall to an employees only door and watched as she went through it. “Come on. You’re with me!” She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the kitchen with her.

  She went to the chef, Samuel, who looked at her with a sigh. “You always want something.”

  “Sam, you know I’m your favorite. I just need one little favor…”

  “You fought with your brother in my restaurant again. I told you to stop that nonsense!”

  “He was being a
pain. You know how Will gets, spending every waking moment trying to find new ways to torment me.” She put her hand on his arm. “It’s a little favor…”

  “What do you want? You know I’ll do anything for you!” Sam had been the chef at the restaurant since Kelsi was six, and she’d spent a lot of time cajoling him into making her things she shouldn’t have.

  “We want a pizza.”

  “A pizza? I was trained in one of the finest culinary institutions in this country, and you want me to make you a pizza?”

  She smiled sweetly. “A kitchen sink pizza! Add everything you can find!”

  Sam sighed. “You want chicken again?”

  “Of course!”

  “I refuse to add fish this time. That was disgusting to even look at.”

  “When you grill the chicken, add some of my Cajun seasoning.”

  “Fine. You go. I’ll have it brought to your room.” Sam looked at Shane. “You gonna be in her room?”

  “I was going to help her with something there.”

  “You’ll leave the door cracked. She’s like a daughter to me.”

  Kelsi stood on tiptoe and kissed Sam’s cheek. “Thanks, Sam!”

  She grabbed Shane’s hand and tugged him out of the kitchen and toward her bedroom. “He thinks we’re doing something wrong,” Shane said, frowning at her as soon as they were in her room. “You should have told him we’re getting married tomorrow.”

  “I couldn’t. He has my mother on speed dial.” She walked to a bookshelf and handed him a box. “All the books go in the box. I have my Kindle out, so I can still read before bed.”

  Shane nodded, getting right to work. He noted the titles as he packed them away. All she seemed to have were Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft. “Don’t you read anything but horror?” he called.

  She came out of her closet with her arms full of shoes. “Of course not. Well, I did when I was in school, but thankfully that nonsense is over. Now I read for pleasure, and to me, that means horror.”