The image in her head wavered like a flag blowing in the wind.
She exhaled deeply and stared at the leaf. When she lifted her hand and released the tiny stem, the vaguely star-shaped leaf caught the breeze just long enough to land on the granite marker.
“If you were here,” she said, sighing, “I’d tell you I love you.”
Then she just lay there on grass that was cooler than the air around them, watching the clouds slowly drift in the sky. And when she pulled on the gold chain and checked the time on her grandmother’s watch locket hanging beside the drugstore ring, and saw that it was now too late to make it to the last show of the night, she finally rolled onto her knees again.
The sweet-gum leaf was still sitting on her brother’s marker. She smiled a little and left it there.
Then she got back in her daddy’s truck and drove home.
* * *
The next morning, Aurora knew the moment that Galen entered the wardrobe trailer even though she was behind the changing screen.
There was an unmistakable shift in the air.
And she was glad for the meager protection the screen provided as she carefully pulled up the zipper on her dress because there was a new batch of fraying threads after Sophie’s use of the costume the day before.
“Frank.” She heard his deep voice greet their cast mate.
“Galen.”
She pressed her lips together a moment, almost but not quite able to be amused at the brief male exchange.
She heard the slide of drawers. The shuffle of hangers. All too vividly imagined Galen’s bare chest before he pulled on Rusty’s shirt. His thick dark brown hair before he replaced his own black Stetson with Rusty’s white one.
She didn’t even realize she was holding her breath until she heard the trailer door open and close again, signaling his exit.
She blew out a low breath. Checked the zipper under her arm one more time, and the buttons on her old-fashioned boots. She already had on the hairpiece of ringlets and was as ready for the first show of the day as she could be.
Which meant hanging out behind the changing screen was the same thing as hiding.
She slipped from behind the screen, then felt the world’s axis seem to tilt a little.
Because it wasn’t Frank standing in front of the big mirror, gelling up his eyebrows and admiring his reflection.
It was Galen, leaning back against the bank of drawers, his arms crossed over his wide chest.
“Hi,” she said on a puff of air.
“Wondered how long you were going to hide back there.”
She flushed. “I wasn’t hiding.”
His lips twisted. “I knew you were here. I parked right next to your truck in the parking lot.”
“Oh.” In the lexicon of brilliant responses, that had to be right up near the top.
“Congratulations.” He shifted, unfolding his arms to cup his big palms over the edge of the drawers on either side of him. The position made his wide shoulders seem even wider. “Hear you and Frank are heading off to Branson.”
Her mouth felt unaccountably dry. “That’s a little premature. Frank’s going. I’d need to be offered a part first.”
His eyes were unreadable. “Have it on good authority that’s a foregone conclusion.”
She swiped her hands down the sides of her dress, fussing a little with the way the lace was lying. “Says who?”
“Diane in casting.”
“Oh.” There was that brilliant response again.
He was silent for a moment. From outside the trailer, she could hear the muffled sounds of voices and the clip-clop of horse hooves. “She found a new Rusty.”
She actually felt a little faint. “What? Just like that?”
His lips twisted. “Just like that.” He shifted slightly. “And I think Caitlyn’s got no reason to worry anymore about Cowboy Country’s authenticity.”
“Finally earned an A?”
“I can hang up Rusty and my clipboard after today.”
“You must be relieved.”
He nodded once, his expression unsmiling. “So, you gonna go to Branson?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. “I...I’d need to talk with my parents first.”
“They’ll be back in a few days.”
She nodded jerkily and started to nervously pull out her watch locket, but narrowly remembered not to. Instead, she imagined the feel of the silly drugstore ring burning against her breast. “I have to pick them up from the airport in Lubbock Friday night. After the last show.”
“And? Are you gonna go?” he asked again.
“Do—” She broke off and swallowed the knot in her throat. “Do you think I should?”
His jaw shifted to one side, then slowly centered. “That’s not something for me to say.”
Her chest hollowed out. “That’s answer enough,” she managed huskily.
He looked pained. “Aurora—”
She lifted her hand. “It’s okay, Galen. We are who we are and nothing can change that.” He loved being a rancher more than anything else.
It was only her lot in life to realize she loved him more than anything else.
She couldn’t look at him and swiped her hands down her skirt again. “I’d better make sure my mic and veil are in the buckboard. It’s almost time to start.”
He nodded silently.
It took everything she possessed to move past him to the door. To circle the knob with her sweaty palm and actually get the thing open without fumbling with it.
He followed her outside, but headed over to the picnic table where Serena was standing, stretching out over her foot propped on the top of the table.
His pretty first-kiss girl gave him a wide smile.
Aurora looked away and headed to the buckboard. The mic and veil were just an excuse. The production crew would already have ensured everything was where it belonged, regardless of who last wore Lila’s costume.
Frank was already sitting on the buckboard bench and he knocked his shoulder against hers when she climbed up next to him. “Branson, here we come.” He angled his head toward hers. “Got some good times ahead for us, Rory.”
She couldn’t even summon enough interest for her usual annoyance. “Why does everyone assume I want to go?”
“Because why wouldn’t you?”
Why indeed?
Only exercising more self-control than she knew she possessed kept her from looking back at Galen.
“How long have you wanted to be a performer, Frank?” Because that’s what they were. There was no serious acting going on here. Just good old entertainment for a crowd.
“Ever since I can remember.” He toyed with the white roses on the band of her veil. “I like the applause,” he murmured, then gave her a leering smile. “And the girls.”
Her lips stretched. “You remind me a little of my brother.”
He gave a wounded laugh and slid his arm around her shoulders, leaning his face close to hers. “That is not what I like hearing.”
She rolled her eyes and lifted his arm off her. “How’s Cammie taking the news of your leaving?”
“Devastated, of course.” He twirled his handlebar mustache.
“In other words, she’s already moving on,” Aurora translated.
“Some kid with a Mohawk who works on the Twin Rattlers line.”
She actually found a chuckle from somewhere at that. “Glad you’re not suffering a broken heart.”
He smiled wryly. “What about you? Performing in your blood, too?”
She heard the phrase “hog-tying” over the loudspeaker, and pulled on her mic piece. “I used to think it was.” She fit on the tight veil. “It’s fun, but—” She broke off and shrugged. Now it was just a poor substitute for everything that really mattered.
And for once, when Frank dropped his arm around her shoulder and squeezed, she let him.
Because in the end, he was harmless. It took a man like Galen to make a true impact.
An impact she was going to carry for the rest of her days whether she went to Branson or not.
“We’ll give ’em a helluva show,” Frank said in her ear.
“Sure thing, Frank.” She smiled. “Why not?”
Watching from behind them, Galen’s hands tightened on Blaze’s reins at the sight of Frank and Aurora’s heads so close together. Tightened so much so, the horse started backing up.
He immediately released, and the horse stopped and bobbed his head a few times. “Sorry, pal.”
“Here.” Cabot handed him the prop deed and for what felt like the millionth time, Galen tucked it inside his shirt while the theme music started playing.
Ahead of him he watched Aurora tip her head back in those few seconds before the buckboard would hurtle past the gate, and waited with a knot inside his chest where his heart was supposed to be for her to glance back at him.
She didn’t.
And a moment later, her passionate voice carried through the park. “My daddy will roll over in his grave if the railroad comes through our land!”
Beside him, Cabot and the others were heading through their gate. It was a good thing Blaze knew his part well, too, because if it weren’t for the horse, Galen would have been left behind.
He got through the next ten minutes by rote. Couldn’t have remembered a single thing he did or said until he rode, hell-bent for leather, up Main Street toward the stage and Aurora, whom he could see struggling mightily against Frank’s grip. He heard the crack! of Frank’s pistol and Harlan’s Preacher Man’s nervous words. “Take Lila to be your wife.”
“I do,” Frank yelled, pulling Aurora closer than the script had ever called for. She bent almost backward trying to get away, her long red curls nearly sweeping the floor of the stage as Galen jumped from Blaze’s back to storm up the stage and tear her away.
“She’ll never be yours, Frank. Not ever!” He clean forgot about the deed inside his shirt that he was supposed to wave at the man. Forgot everything except the fact that Aurora was going to go off to Branson with the other man. And if she didn’t go to Branson, she’d be going somewhere else. Somewhere else without him.
Sal the Sheriff suddenly charged up the stage, ably covering Galen’s gaffe as he dramatically announced that Rusty held the deed to the contested ranch; he’d seen it with his own eyes!
Galen was close enough to see the surprise in Frank’s eyes, but he rolled with the situation and pulled Aurora back to his side with a proprietary leer, lifting her right off her feet. Her legs swung around, kicking in the air. “Wife or not, Lila’s mine,” he vowed and turned the fake pistol on Galen. “I’ll be the one kissing her,” he goaded with a truthfulness that had Galen seeing red.
Aurora had always dismissed the man, but Galen knew better. Knew that Frank wanted her. And once he got her away from Galen, maybe he’d even get her.
“That’s right, cowboy,” Frank was continuing. “I’ll be the one—”
Galen’s fist plowed into Frank’s chin, and the other man’s head snapped back, his eyes rolling.
Aurora yelped as Frank started to fall backward off the stage, taking her with him, until Galen managed to grab her from behind, hauling her back from midair by her wedding dress, which let out an audible rip while the audience stomped their feet and cheered.
Sal the Sheriff and his deputies were scrambling around, trying to cover the fact that Frank wasn’t acting as he groggily landed in the center of the in-ground airbag well-disguised below the pile of horse poop.
Aurora’s eyes stared into Galen’s, looking shocked.
Suddenly, you could have heard a pin drop.
“I didn’t think you’d catch me,” she whispered.
“I’ll always catch you.” He didn’t care that there were at least a hundred people below the stage hanging on every word. Didn’t care about a damn thing but Aurora. “I don’t want to lose you.”
She blinked hard against the tears turning her blue eyes to sapphire and pressed her hands hard against her breast. “Why?”
He’d split his knuckles when he’d punched Frank, but that wasn’t what made his hand shake as he gently touched her cheek. “Because I love you.”
Her lips parted. Her eyes searched his. “You...do?”
“Stay with me. I know you deserve more. Want more. But—” His chest ached. “Stay,” he finished hoarsely. “Marry me. And have little girls with red curls and little boys who’ll make us old before our time.”
“Stay,” someone from the audience yelled out, and Aurora let out a watery chuckle.
She touched his cheek. His lips. Took his hand in hers and gently kissed his split knuckles. “I love you, too. More than I ever thought I could love anyone.”
“He he he,” Preacher Man laughed loudly, waving his Bible in an obvious attempt to get things back on track. “All this love going around, anyone wantin’ to get hitched?”
Aurora swiped her hands over her cheeks as Galen’s teeth flashed. He tucked his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward the mayor. “I do,” he said loudly.
“And I do, too,” Aurora agreed.
Harlan gaped for the audience, who laughed. “Well, then, I guess I pronounce you husband and—”
“Wife,” Galen finished, and bowed Aurora deep over his arm. “I love you,” he murmured, and in full view of God and Cowboy Country, he covered her mouth with his.
Epilogue
She wore white.
Her red hair danced down her spine in a swirl of curls while she clutched a bouquet of yellow daisies in her hand. And on her feet, below the dress that dragged a little in the grass because there’d barely been any time allowed for planning the wedding they held in his mama’s backyard, she wore her favorite Castleton boots with the blue stitching.
Galen was certain there’d never existed a more perfect bride since she’d stepped right out of his dreams.
The mayor—though Galen supposed he might have had the authority to do so—did not marry them.
A real preacher did that. With a real Bible held in his hands while Aurora and Galen said their vows under a perfectly blue Texas sky, and he slid a ring—a real ring and not that drugstore one, which she still wore on a chain with her grandma’s watch—on her wedding finger.
Fortunately, Jeanne Marie had had a lot of practice of late putting on weddings in her backyard, which came as a relief to Aurora’s folks, who were back from their cruise barely a week and still dazed over finding their daughter engaged and anxious to marry their longtime neighbor. Jeanne Marie knew how to organize her family—even the newer members of it—and everyone had done their part.
So while the time for planning might’ve been short, the results were not.
White chairs were lined up in precise rows in front of his mama’s prized flower beds. Delaney and Stacey had spent an entire hour tying ribbon bows around each of the chairs.
He still wasn’t real sure why, though he had to admit the end effect was pretty enough. And Aurora had looked all misty-eyed over it, so in Galen’s book that counted for a lot more.
Even Deke’s ancient truck had been banished from view. In the spot where it usually sat, there were tables instead. Covered in white cloths and bearing food from not only Jeanne Marie’s kitchen, but Pru McElroy’s, and the Hollows Cantina. And the cake, made by Wendy Fortune Mendoza, was the centerpiece of it all. A towering thing that somehow managed to look as airy as Aurora’s dress, with daisies sprinkled around to match the blooms that were woven into the hair hanging down Aurora’s back.
Galen was looking forward to the time when he could get her alone and he’d slowly tug those flowers free. But that time was yet to come.
When he’d questioned the size of the cake just that morning, Jeanne Marie had assured him the thing had needed to be so large, since it was feeding half the town. Or so it seemed when a person started counting up all the Fortunes, the Fortune Chesterfields, the Fortune Joneses, the Mendozas and every other iteration of Fortune tha
t Galen could imagine.
There were guests who weren’t related at all, of course. All of the cast and crew from Wild West Wedding. Even Frank Richter, who’d put off leaving for Branson for a day so he could be there. He still sported an ugly bruise on his jaw, which he could have rightfully held against Galen. But according to Aurora, he’d decided the bruise only added to his appeal with the ladies. There was also Roselyn St. James, who managed to cause a stir among anyone who recognized her from television. She and Anthony sat in chairs toward the back where they tried to keep their twins relatively contained.
It was a futile effort. But Toni and Tiffani weren’t the only tots chasing around on short legs. They had plenty of company.
Galen didn’t know what would happen between Aurora’s ex-fiancé and his wife. Didn’t much care, now that he knew the other man didn’t leave even a lingering memory in Aurora’s heart. Aurora, though, believed the couple would find their way.
But that was Aurora.
For now, he stood with his arms around her shoulders, holding her cradled in front of him where he could smell her hair and watch over this place and these people that he loved almost as much as he loved her.
Not surprisingly, it was his mother who corralled the wildly varied guests together when the toasts started. She dragged Deke up beside her. Galen figured his dad wasn’t as reluctant as he liked to act, though.
Because, like everyone said, he and his eldest son were a lot alike.
“I want to thank y’all for coming,” Jeanne Marie said, holding up a plastic cup filled with the expensive champagne her brother James Marshall had insisted on contributing to the event. “There’s never anything more joyous to bring family and friends together than two people committing themselves to each other.” She smiled up at Deke, who’d closed his big hand over her shoulder. “Except maybe when those two people start bringing children into their lives,” she added pointedly, earning a ripple of laughter.
“Particularly when you’re not getting any younger,” Liam inserted loudly, which earned him an elbow from Julia.
“You’re not far behind him,” she pointed out, which earned another ripple of laughter.
Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) Page 18