“Oh.” Roselyn was waving her hand around. “Anthony’s always teasing me about my memory. You haven’t changed a bit!” She smiled brilliantly and her white teeth were so straight and bright that Aurora felt like squinting. “Mind if I sit?” She ran her hand—perfectly manicured as always and wearing a gloriously oversize wedding set on her ring finger—over the front of her scarlet blouse and Aurora realized the other woman was pregnant.
There was certainly no other reason Roselyn St. James—ever successful, and ever perfect—would have a bump the size of a basketball beneath her undoubtedly silk shirt.
Aurora automatically gestured to the other bench. In contrast to Roselyn’s hands, hers bore calluses on the palm and her nails were perpetually short and unvarnished. “You’re pregnant.”
Roselyn smiled beatifically as she sat. She was wearing a short white skirt with her scarlet blouse that not even unpregnant women would be able to carry off so well, and her long legs were as shapely as ever. “Seven months.” She practically purred with contentment. She rested a languid hand on her belly and her diamonds glinted in the sunlight. “Anthony and I are both thrilled, of course. We didn’t think we’d have any more children after the twins, but—” She lifted her shoulder and gave a throaty little laugh. “They’re nearly three now. And you know how these things happen. Wait until he hears about you.”
Aurora felt a nervous start. She hadn’t seen Anthony since he’d broken the news to her that he needed his diamond ring back, because he’d just eloped with her college roommate. “He’s here?”
“Didn’t I say?” Roselyn rolled the expressive eyes that had helped land her a successful run on a daytime soap opera before she’d even finished her second year of college.
A run that had ended only a few years ago when she’d chosen to give it all up to focus on her family, a decision that Roselyn had somehow managed to turn into a minor media event.
“He has a big meeting with Moore Entertainment,” she was continuing. “They brought him here for a few days to see what he thinks of Cowboy Country. We’re staying in Vicker’s Corners, of course. They’ve put us up in a charming little B&B there.” She pulled the stroller closer to her and peeked beneath the awning at the two cherubic children sitting inside.
Naturally, they had to be perfect, too.
Then Aurora chided herself mentally for being uncharitable. Little Toni and Tiffani couldn’t help it that their mother was unquestionably Aurora’s least favorite person on the planet.
So she leaned closer and smiled at the toddlers. They really were cute. A perfect combination of Roselyn’s olive-skinned exoticness and their father’s brilliant blue eyes. “How is your husband?” she asked casually.
“Fabulous,” Roselyn said immediately. She squeezed Aurora’s forearm. “We have got to get together. It’s been such a long time. There is so much to catch up on!”
Like what? Aurora wanted to ask, but figured the irony would be lost on Roselyn. Besides, her onetime friend surely didn’t mean it. Since she’d left UCLA with a soap opera contract in one hand and Aurora’s fiancé in the other, Aurora hadn’t heard from her once.
Not even when Mark had died two months later and Aurora had left school for good, too.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when Galen appeared next to the table, his cowboy hat pulled low over his brow. “Surprised to see you out here, wife of mine,” he drawled humorously. “Better get moving, don’t you think?” He tugged lightly on her ponytail as he strode past, seeming not to give Roselyn even a second glance.
Aurora pulled out her watch locket, checking the time. It had taken her longer to get back from the airport in Lubbock than she’d planned, so she’d come straight to the park, thinking she’d have just enough time for a dog and a root beer before getting ready for the noon show.
“I’m sorry, Roselyn.” Though she wasn’t. “I’ve got to go.” She gathered up her hot dog basket. “Hope your kids have fun here today. If you want furry entertainment, try the petting zoo. There are three baby piglets there right now that I hear are supercute.” And the petting zoo was on the opposite side of the park, as far away from Wild West Wedding as it was possible to get.
Roselyn was staring at her with a shocked expression. “You’re actually married?” She said it with such astonishment that Aurora’s teeth immediately set on edge. “To that hunk of cowboy?”
“What’s so surprising?” Aurora managed with false cheer. “That I could find a man who’d stick, or that he’d look like Galen?”
Roselyn’s mouth was open.
“Like you said,” Aurora continued, saccharine sweet. “It’s been a long time.” She dropped her hot dog in the trash and leaned over Roselyn, airbrushing her cheek with a kiss-kiss. “Take care now.”
Then she straightened and walked away, following Galen’s route. A part of her felt silly for not correcting Roselyn.
The other part felt more than a little gleeful over rendering the woman speechless.
Even a decade after their time at college, being able to do that felt pretty darn good.
She quickened her step and turned up one of the side streets that would take her backstage. By the time she reached the wardrobe trailer, she was actually whistling.
Though that stuck between her teeth when she entered and found Galen in the process of pulling on his Rusty shirt, giving her an eyeful of very, very bare abs.
“Hey,” she greeted a little breathlessly, and quickly squeezed past him, grabbing her wedding dress from the rack.
“Get your folks off okay?”
“Yup. The plane was late, so my mother was all worried they’d miss the cruise departure. Which is tomorrow. Needless to say, she’s really excited.” She stole a glance at his suntanned chest, intriguingly dusted with a swirl of dark hair, before stepping behind the changing screen. Would that chest hair be soft under her palms, or crisp?
She shook her head sharply and hurriedly kicked off her discount-store tennis shoes, which Roselyn would’ve never been caught dead in. Then she was annoyed for still allowing the other woman to even intrude on her thoughts. She yanked down her khaki Bermuda shorts and bumped her head loudly against the wall when she leaned over to pick them up.
“You okay back there?”
She straightened, rubbing her head. “Yes. Just clumsy. You ever had anyone in your life who gets on your nerves no matter what?” She draped her shorts over the top of the screen, which was much too tall for anyone to see over. “Probably not,” she answered her own question. She tugged her T-shirt over her head and flipped it, too, on the top of the screen, then unclipped her bra since she couldn’t wear it without the straps showing with the costume.
“Why probably not?”
She could hear him rummaging through the drawers. “If you’re looking for your string tie, try the bottom drawer on the left.” She unzipped the wedding gown and stepped into it, wiggling the boned corset up over her hips until she could slip her arms through the lace band that served as the top of the dress, stretching from one shoulder to the other. “The director for the Sunday Go to Meeting choir uses it and that’s where he always sticks it.” She heard him slide open another drawer. “Because you’re so even-tempered I can’t see anyone ever getting on your nerves.”
“Good call. On the tie, that is.”
She pushed aside the long strands of glass beads that hung from the lace band and began working up the hidden zipper beneath her arm.
“But I don’t know about being all that even-tempered,” he added.
She twisted her torso until she could see what she was doing in the narrow excuse for a mirror that someone had tacked against the sliver of wall in the confined space. “Seriously? Even when you went to the town meetings about Cowboy Country and were adamantly against it being opened here, you didn’t lose your cool.” The zipper stuck partway up as it often did, and she carefully worked it back downward again to start fresh. “Daddy, now. He was another story. When I told him I was coming
to work here, I thought he’d split a vein.”
“Didn’t want to lose his best ranch hand?”
“I s’pose.” The zipper caught a second time and she exhaled. Began again.
“So who is it that’s getting on your nerves?”
She twisted a little more and realized the zipper was catching on a thread where the satin stitching was becoming frayed. “It was more rhetorical,” she muttered. Her neck was starting to hurt from craning her head around the way she was and she lowered her arms, shaking it loose again. “Cowboy Country brings people from far and wide. That woman I was with at the Foaming Barrel was my old college roommate.”
“What woman?”
She caught her reflection in the cheap mirror and made a face at herself to stop the sudden silly smile. “Doesn’t matter.”
Feeling immeasurably cheered, she went to work on the zipper again and this time, made it all the way to the top. She fluffed the tulle skirt that extended to her ankles below the edges of the scalloped lace overskirt and stepped out from behind the screen. “Almost ready. Where’s Frank?”
“Saw him out by the buckboard already.”
Which was a good reminder how far behind she was running. She always beat Frank to the buckboard. “I am not going to be late because of Roselyn St. James,” she vowed and shoved her feet—white crew socks and all—into the old-fashioned boots in record time.
Galen retrieved the ringlet-curled hairpiece that was hanging from a display of them while she quickly twisted her ponytail into a knot. “That’s her name?” He handed her the hairpiece. “The college roommate who gets on your nerves?”
“I didn’t say—” She made a face and clipped the hairpiece into place, instantly adding a half ton of spiraling red hair to the back of her head. “Yes. That’s her.” She slid her watch locket down the front of her dress and spread her hands. “There. All set. Ready to ride to my rescue?”
He held his white hat to his abdomen and grinned slightly. “Be my pleasure, ma’am.”
Something inside her belly did a little jig and she quickly pushed open the trailer door, hurrying down the steps. “See you at the altar,” she managed blithely and picked up her skirts to jog toward the buckboard, since the theme music had just started to play.
She was breathless when she clambered up alongside Frank, who gave her a pointed look as he tapped his wristwatch-free wrist.
“Sorry,” she mouthed soundlessly and quickly pulled on her headset and veil. Then the gate opened, and Blackie burst through.
For once, Aurora didn’t even have time to feel her usual surge of nausea. She looked over her shoulder toward Galen and Cabot where they and the rest of the cast were mounting up.
Galen tipped his hat toward her and she grinned before the buckboard turned nearly on two wheels as Blackie raced right on cue toward Main Street. “My daddy will roll over in his grave if the railroad comes through our land,” she cried into her microphone. “I’d do anything to keep that from happening, Frank. But I can’t marry you! I love another!”
Galen realized he was grinning as he listened to Aurora over the loudspeaker.
“Looks to me like you’re having some fun at this,” Cabot observed.
Galen tucked the “deed” into his shirt and nudged along his horse, Blaze, with a squeeze of his knees. “Maybe,” he allowed. But only because he was having fun watching Aurora have fun. He set his white hat more firmly on his head so it wouldn’t go blowing off when they made their mad dash down Main. “But I’m definitely not looking for a career change. Ranching’s in my blood. Only thing I ever wanted to do. Amusing as this might be for now, I’ll be happy as hell to hand over Rusty’s hat to whoever they get to replace Joey.” He took in the other riders as well as Cabot and gathered his reins. “Y’all ready?”
They nodded, and as one, they set off in a thunder of horse hooves.
Eleven minutes later, on the dot, he was pulling Aurora into his arms after “knocking” Frank off his feet, saying “I do” to Harlan’s Preacher Man, and bending Aurora low over his arm while the audience—always larger on a Saturday—clapped and hooted.
Unfortunately for Galen, the longer he’d gone without Rusty actually kissing Lila, the more he couldn’t stop thinking about it as he pressed his cheek against Aurora’s, her head tucked down in his chest.
“Big crowd,” he whispered. The mics were dead and he held her a little longer than usual. Because of the lengthy applause they were getting, of course.
“Too big,” she whispered back. “You going to let me up anytime soon?”
He immediately straightened, and she smiled broadly at the crowd, waving her hand as she tucked her hand through his arm and they strolled offstage.
But he could see through the smile to the frustration brewing in her blue eyes.
He waited until they were well away from the stage. “Sorry about that.”
“About what?” She impatiently pushed her veil behind her back and kept looking over her shoulder as they strode through the side street. She was damn near jogging, and the beads hanging from her dress were bouncing.
“Holding the...uh...the...uh,” he yanked his string tie loose, feeling like an idiot. “You know. The embrace.”
She gave him a distracted look. “What about it?”
“Holding it so long.”
Her smooth brows pulled together. “Don’t be silly. You were showing great timing.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “Oh, crud on a cracker,” she muttered. “Why couldn’t she just take her perfect two-point-five children to the freaking petting zoo?”
Galen looked back, too, to see what had her so agitated. All he saw was the usual line of people waiting outside Olde Tyme and several families moseying around shop windows. “Who are you talking about?”
“Roselyn,” she said through her teeth. Her cheeks looked flushed. “The moment I saw her in the audience, I wanted to bolt. I swear, she’s like a dog with a bone. Acting all sweet and nice when she has to know I’m not buying it for one second.”
Genuinely curious, he glanced back again.
“Oh, sheesh. Don’t look.” Aurora’s fingers dug into his arm.
“Aurora, Aurora McElroy!” One voice in particular separated itself from the general noise and Galen finally saw the dark-haired pregnant woman shoving a stroller ahead of her as she approached. “How could you not see me waving at you back there?”
“So close to escape. Yet so far away.” Aurora finally sighed and let go of Galen’s arm.
She obviously meant the backstage gate that was only a few paces away.
“This is humiliating,” she said under her breath. “Whatever she says, just go with it, okay? I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
He frowned, but she was already turning to face the oncoming woman with a wooden smile. “Sorry, Roselyn. You know how an audience disappears when you’re onstage.”
Roselyn finally reached them and she pressed the flat of her hand against her chest. “Mercy, I am out of breath chasing after you. Why didn’t you mention you were performing in a little show here?”
Galen could feel Aurora stiffening beside him. “I didn’t really have—”
Roselyn didn’t let her finish, though. She’d pulled off her glasses and was giving Galen a head-to-toe look that made him feel sort of like a side of beef being examined by the butcher. “And playing opposite your own real-life husband,” she went on. “How sweet is that?”
Galen stared. Real-life husband?
“I’m just dying to know how closely life imitates art, of course.” The other woman extended her hand, almost as if she expected Galen to kiss it or something. “I’m Roselyn St. James,” she introduced. “I’m sure Aurora has told you all about our time together in college. But I’m afraid I don’t know even the teeniest thing about you.” She smiled flirtatiously. “Which is simply a crying shame, don’t you think?”
Galen wasn’t ill-mannered enough to ignore the extended hand, so he shook it briskly.
And briefly.
“Galen Fortune Jones.” For some reason, claiming the Fortune name just then seemed in keeping with her highfalutin’ attitude toward Aurora. “But I’m afraid Aurora doesn’t share much about her college years.”
“Really?” Roselyn arched her dark eyebrows. “I can’t imagine why. We had so much fun together, didn’t we, Aurora?”
“A blast.” Aurora’s voice was beyond dry. “I’m sorry to cut this short, Roselyn, but we’ve got to get set for the next show.” She waved toward the wooden gate with the small cast-only sign on it.
Galen didn’t react to Aurora’s huge exaggeration.
“Well, let’s get together later, then. For dinner?” One of the tots in the stroller started squawking and Roselyn jiggled the stroller. “Hush, baby. Mommy’s talking.” She didn’t take her gaze off of Aurora. “I’m sure Anthony will be done with his interview—”
“Interview!”
Roselyn’s wide eyes widened a little more at Aurora’s exclamation. “With Moore Entertainment,” she said as if that explained everything. “I told you—”
“You said he was having a meeting.” Aurora’s voice was increasingly tight.
“You’re not bothered by the idea that you might be working for my husband, are you?” Roselyn laughed gaily. “I’m just kidding, of course. You wouldn’t be working for him. But he is on the short list for a really good position with Moore. Not here in Texas. Anthony would never want to come back here for good.” She jiggled the stroller more and gave Galen a confiding look. “Once he left the state, he dusted anything to do with Texas off his hands. He’s a lawyer, specializing in real estate and the entertainment industries.”
“Whoops.” Aurora had pulled out her watch locket. “Look at the time. Really late now.” She grabbed Galen’s arm and pulled. “Tell your husband good luck.”
Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) Page 7