Three Reasons to Wed

by Helen Lacey

  “I love it,” she said, her eyes shining brightly with tears as he slipped the ring on her finger and moved to sit beside her. “And I love the girls. And I love you, Grady, and I can’t wait to be your wife. So, yes, I’ll marry you.”

  He kissed her then, long and sweet and full of promise for the future.

  “We’d better get inside and tell them,” he said and grinned. “Before my mom’s face is pressed against the window behind us.”

  Marissa laughed. “I really like your mom.”

  “Well, she really likes you, too,” he said and got to his feet. He pulled her up gently. “In fact, I reckon you’ve just about got every Parker wrapped around your beautiful fingers.”

  She laughed again. “Oh, you’ve done your share of that, too. Anyhow, it goes both ways.”

  “It certainly does. Let’s go,” he said and opened the front door, and all Marissa heard as they walked through the door were delightful squeals of laughter. All three girls came racing down the hall, their arms outstretched. Breanna and Milly hugged her tightly as Grady hauled Tina into his arms.

  “Daddy,” Milly said, all smiles. “Does this mean Marissa is going to be our mommy?”

  Grady grabbed Marissa’s hand and linked their fingers. “It sure does.”

  The girls cheered again just as Colleen, Brant and Rex came down the hall to greet and congratulate them. This was her family. And in that moment, she felt and shared their joy and happiness. And their love.

  Epilogue

  Marissa couldn’t wipe the silly smile off her face. It was her wedding day. And truly the happiest day of her life.

  They were getting married seven weeks after Grady had proposed. Well, proposed properly. She still melted inside when she remembered how utterly romantic his proposal had been. He didn’t like being reminded about his earlier attempts to win her over. But Marissa liked teasing him just a little...especially when they were curled up in bed together. At her place, of course. He had very strict ideas about what was proper when it came to sharing a bed around his daughters. Not until they were married, he’d said.

  She’d found a buyer for her aunt’s ranch quicker than she’d expected. A lawman from Detroit who’d taken a job with the police department had purchased the place unseen and would be arriving the following week. And since Grady’s ranch felt more like home than anywhere ever had, she was looking forward to moving in and starting her new life as his wife and as a mother to the girls. He’d already discussed plans about building her a studio behind the house, and Marissa had found his enthusiasm infectious. She wanted to get back into her craft as soon as she could, and Grady had been incredibly supportive.

  So, here she was, on the first Saturday in winter, wearing the most gorgeous long-sleeved ivory lace gown that Colleen had helped her choose from a boutique in Rapid City, and that she’d cheekily decided to team with her pink cowboy boots.

  As expected, the kids were over the moon and were excited about being flower girls. Brooke had agreed to be her bridesmaid and Brant and Tanner McCord were the best man and groomsman, respectively.

  The wedding ceremony and reception was taking place at the ranch beneath a huge white tent. About one hundred people would be attending, mostly family and friends of the Parkers. But Marissa didn’t mind. The Parkers were now her family, and she loved them all dearly. Especially Grady and the three little girls who had every part of her heart. They hadn’t invited any of Rex’s family to the wedding, as it was too soon for Marissa, and Rex had understood. But she and Grady, along with Rex, were planning a trip to Nevada the following month to meet them, and she was very much looking forward to it.

  “You look amazing.”

  Brooke was in the doorway, dressed in a pale lavender satin halter-style gown that had a matching wrap.

  Marissa smiled. “Thanks. It still feels a little surreal.”

  Brooke checked the thin watch on her wrist. “Well, in about twenty minutes it will be real enough,” she reminded her and walked into the room. “Wait until Grady sees how beautiful you look.”

  “Are you two ready?”

  Lucy Monero, who’d arrived to help Colleen and Brooke get the kids ready, was now standing in the doorway. Lucy Monero had become something of a frequent fixture at Colleen’s place in the past few weeks. Grady had laughed about how his mother was matchmaking again—this time with Brant and the pretty doctor. Lucy didn’t seem to mind. However, Brant appeared to be even more subdued than usual around Lucy.

  Marissa was certain it would all work out. She was too deliriously happy to imagine that it wouldn’t.

  Brooke grabbed the tiara and veil from the bed. “Just about,” she said and placed it securely on Marissa’s head. “There...all done.”

  Marissa smiled. It felt good having friends again. Brooke and Lucy had welcomed her wholeheartedly into their circle, and she genuinely liked both women. “Thank you.”

  “Colleen just left with the girls, and she said to tell you she’d see you at the ranch,” Lucy said and grinned. “Oh, and your dad’s here.”

  My dad...

  Things had developed steadily with her father over the past few weeks. It still seemed a little strange to think of Rex in terms of being her parent, but they were slowly building a father-daughter foundation.

  When she asked him if he would like to give her away at the wedding, there had been tears in his eyes.

  Someone cleared their throat and she saw Rex hovering by the door, dressed in a pale gray suit, white shirt and bolo tie.

  His weathered but still-handsome face crinkled.

  Marissa took a deep breath and turned toward her father. “Well...I guess we should get going.”

  She waited for his reply, saw his brown eyes shine just a little. “You look beautiful, kid.”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat. Rex had gotten into the habit of calling her kid, and she didn’t mind the endearment. It was kind of sweet. Things between them would probably never be perfect, but they were both trying to find the middle ground where they could have a real relationship with one another. Grady’s love and commitment had helped her realize she could have Rex in her life and let go of the past. Even Aunt Violet seemed to have warmed toward the older man. And it was, she realized, as she let herself get drawn into another hug with her father, a whole lot more than she’d imagined she would ever have.

  She blinked away the heat in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  Rex stepped back and gripped her shoulders. “Your momma would’ve been real proud of you. And the way you’ve taken to lovin’ those little girls makes me real proud, too. He’s a good man, kid...one of the best I’ve ever known.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

  Once he’d released her and left the room, Marissa’s mouth etched into a wide smile.

  Things really did have a way of working out.

  * * *

  Grady was nervous. He pulled at the tie around his neck and swallowed hard.

  “Don’t worry,” his brother said quietly as they stood at the altar. “I’m sure she’ll show.”

  Grady gently elbowed Brant in the ribs. “I don’t doubt it for a minute.”

  Brant grinned and then said more seriously, “I see Kieran O’Sullivan is here.”

  “He’s a friend of Marissa’s.”

  “And the rest of your in-laws?”

  Grady shrugged lightly. “Some things are simply too hard to face, I guess.”

  Brant nodded. “You know, I think Liz would be okay with this.”

  “I think so, too.”

  He believed it. Felt it deep within his bones. Liz had known how special Marissa was. That was why they’d been friends. He remembered Liz telling him how Marissa was the most elementally good person she had ever known. And he understood that now. The
way she was with his daughters made it crystal clear. Marissa was kind and caring. Marissa loved deeply, and he was humbled and thankful that she had placed that love with him.

  Most of the guests were seated in the marquee and music had started playing. The celebrant who would officiate the ceremony was checking his watch again, and it made Grady smile. He spotted his mother at the end of the seating rows, organizing his daughters in turn to walk down the aisle. Watching them made his heart flip over. They looked deliriously happy as they headed toward him in their fluffy dresses, tossing tiny petals from the baskets they each carried.

  Brooke followed the girls down the aisle, and he winked at his cousin as she rounded up his daughters and kept them to one side.

  And then he saw Marissa.

  Love for her warmed his blood as she walked down the aisle beside her father. He never failed to be riveted by her beauty and the kindness in her expression. Before she moved beside him, she headed for his daughters and kissed each one on the head gently. He loved that about her...loved how she made his children feel as though they were special and loved. Then she was beside him, and he grasped her hand. “You’re here,” he said softly.

  “Yes,” she replied as the music began to fade. He said thank-you to Rex and squeezed Marissa’s fingers gently. He knew how hard she’d been working to have a relationship with her father and was incredibly proud of her strength and commitment.

  “You look beautiful,” he said so only she could hear as they turned toward the celebrant. “Have I told you today how much I love you?”

  Her brown eyes shimmered. “I’m not sure...”

  Grady smiled at her teasing. “I love you, Marissa,” he whispered. “So very much.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “So...are you ready for this?” he asked as the music finally stopped.

  “Absolutely,” she said and ushered the girls closer while they spoke their vows.

  And that, he thought, was about as good and as real as it got.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss Brant Parker’s story,

  the next installment of Helen Lacey’s new miniseries,

  THE CEDAR RIVER COWBOYS

  Coming soon to Harlequin Special Edition!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from ABBY, GET YOUR GROOM! by Victoria Pade.

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  Abby, Get Your Groom!

  by Victoria Pade

  Chapter One

  “I can’t get married looking like this!”

  Dylan Camden heard his sister’s lament as he went into the kitchen of his grandmother’s home. He was coming from an apology lunch he hoped would gain him a few more good-grace points with his family. He had fences to mend and he was trying to act on every opportunity to do that.

  But the minute he set eyes on his sister he couldn’t help laughing before he caught himself and agreed with her. “You’re right, that is not good hair.”

  It looked like a rats’ nest with bows.

  Lindie and Georgianna Camden—the grandmother they all called GiGi—turned at the sound of his voice.

  “And this is the third try!” Lindie said. “Three different stylists from three different Camden Superstores salons. No wonder revenues in most of them are down if this is their quality of work!”

  “I think I might have a solution that will kill two birds with one stone,” GiGi said. “You know about the visit from the prison chaplain—”

  It had come as a surprise to everyone three days ago when a chaplain from the state penitentiary had shown up at GiGi’s house in the heart of Denver’s Cherry Creek. He’d come a long way with a request.

  In the final week of longtime inmate Gus Glassman’s life, Glassman had asked that the chaplain track down a lockbox of his belongings to be given to the daughter he’d abandoned twenty-eight years ago when he was incarcerated.

  The incident that had caused the man to be imprisoned was something GiGi had read about in the recently discovered journals of her late father-in-law, the founder of the Camden fortune, H.J. Camden.

  During their lives, H.J., his son Hank—who was GiGi’s late husband—and GiGi and Hank’s sons, Mitchum and Howard, had all been suspected of heavy-handed, unscrupulous business practices. Rumors and accusations had flown about ruthlessness, deceit, and callous, cold-blooded and unprincipled practices.

  Nothing had ever been proven. And because GiGi and her ten grandchildren had never met with anything but loving care and kindness from the men, it hadn’t been difficult to deny what had seemed like only false accusations.

  Then H.J.’s journals were discovered, proving that all the accusations were true.

  As a result, the current Camdens were trying to quietly seek out those who were wronged in the past—or their descendants—and atone in some way that wasn’t disloyal to the men they’d all loved, and also didn’t open the gates to unfounded lawsuits.

  Gus Glassman had been sent to the Colorado State Penitentiary for manslaughter when he—working as an enforcer for the Camdens—had gone too far while giving a beating to a factory supervisor who was trying to form a union. The beating was given on H.J.’s orders. GiGi had explored the possibility of making amends to the family of the man who had died, but he’d left no descendants so she’d moved on to other incidents.

  But the prison chaplain had relayed information that there was another person caught in the fallout of Glassman’s deadly errand. An innocent whose existence was unknown until Gus Glassman revealed it to the prison chaplain.

  Gus Glassman had left behind a then-two-year-old daughter.

  When GiGi heard that, she’d assured the chaplain that she would find the lockbox and Gus Glassman’s daughter and take care of everything.

  “I didn’t want this to wait any longer so I’ve been looking into it since the minute I said goodbye to the chaplain,” GiGi went on, “and you aren’t going to believe it, Lindie—she’s a stylist for that salon, Beauty By Design. The one that Vonni said a lot of her brides are using instead of Camdens.”

  “The one that advertises their special-occasion team?”

  The seventy-five-year-old matriarch nodded. “The hairdresser who manages the shop and does the special occasion events is Abby Crane—”

  “Gus Glassman’s daughter,” Dylan contributed. His cousin Cade had just told him over lunch—after Dylan’s profuse apologies to Cade and Cade’s wife, Nati. “But you can’t be thinking that Lindie could find a way to make amends to her in the middle of this sprint to her wedding!”

  “What I was thinking,” GiGi said to him with that putting-him-in-his-place tone that he recognized well, “is that if we could get this group to do the wedding, the girls might all get their hair done the way they want and in the process we’d be establishing contact with Abby Crane.”

  Mellowing her tone, GiGi included Lindie again as she went on. “According to the chaplain, Gus Glassman made sure his daughter wouldn’t know who her father was, or anything about where she came from. All he left her with was a blanket and a note saying her name was Abby. But I have learned that she grew up in foster care, move
d around from home to home—”

  “No telling how happy or unhappy that might have left her,” Dylan interjected. “She could be a pretty tough cookie. So let me do it. That’s why I came by—Cade told me about what you’d found out. And I should be who does this project.”

  “You want your hair, makeup and nails done for the wedding?” Lindie goaded him.

  “I could start with a haircut to get my foot in the door so I can tell her who she is,” he suggested.

  “But we also need someone to do wedding hair,” GiGi reasoned. “That’s two birds with one stone.”

  “And I’m in charge of security for the wedding—and security for everything leading up to it—and trying to keep the circus that’s developed around this to a minimum,” Dylan reminded her. The task was a natural fit for him, given his usual position as head of all Camden business security.

  Lindie had met her fiancé, Sawyer Huffman, only a little over a month ago when GiGi had sent her on her own make-amends mission.

  But Sawyer Huffman had made a career out of mounting very public opposition to every Camden Superstore being opened in the country. So when word had leaked that these two adversaries were coming together—coupled with the fact that any Camden major life event drew the media—it had caused a flurry of attention that was complicating the already problematical planning of a big wedding in a month’s time. A month’s time when they’d begun. Now the wedding was just over a week away.

  “In order to have people outside of Camden Superstores doing anything with this wedding I need to find out if this woman can be discreet,” Dylan reasoned. “I need to check out the salon to see if you girls can go in and get what you need done without photographers taking everyone’s pictures through the windows—”

  “And you do need a haircut before the wedding,” GiGi commented.

  “So give me this make-amends mission and I can start with a haircut. That’ll get me in the door. Then I can approach Abby Crane about doing the wedding and to tell her that I know who she is. After twenty-eight years this shouldn’t wait any longer. It has to be one of the worst things we’ve learned about what was done in the past,” Dylan finished.