Faith and Dallas (Buckhorn Ranch #2)

1. Faith

CHAPTER ONE

Faith

If there’s a checklist for the perfect Christmas wedding, mine has every box ticked.

Designer gown? Check.

Winter roses? Check.

A charming, successful fiancé my father absolutely adores? Double check.

A bride who’s about to hyperventilate into her veil? Big, blinking, neon check.

I grip the edge of the vanity, hoping it might anchor me to the earth. The mirror in front of me is all sparkle and silk, white fabric glinting under a chandelier so bright it could probably be seen from space. My reflection looks calm and glowing, and very December issue of Southern Bride.

But the truth? I’m one bead of sweat away from a full-blown meltdown.

There’s too much perfume, too much tulle, too many people fussing around me, too much perfection. The room smells of roses and nerves. Bridesmaids’ laughter filters in from the hallway, followed by the wedding planner barking something.

Somewhere, faintly, I imagine I hear my mother’s laugh. And it hits me again, sharp and unkind, that she and Charlotte aren’t here.

Not because they didn’t want to support me. Because they didn’t want to come to a wedding that might as well have been a corporate gala, for me to marry a man they barely know, thrown by the black cloud in all of our lives: my father.

Because after only a year of dating Evan and all of a sudden getting hitched, Mom said she felt she would be “attending a shareholder meeting, not watching her daughter get married.” And I really don’t think she can stand to be around my dad for more than five minutes.

And Charlotte… Charlotte just hugged me tight before I left for the city last month and whispered, “If you need me, really need me, call.”

Their absence hollows something out in me. I’m gutted, but I also get it. No one says no to William Ross. Not when he’s in full command mode.

It used to impress me. It’s why I followed him to the city after the divorce, as soon as I left high school. Lately, it just feels like being steered.

“Okay,” I whisper to myself, taking one of those deep yoga breaths I saw on YouTube once. “You’ve got this, Faith. You are fine. You are marrying a man who checks all the boxes.”

Except maybe the one labeled “You actually love him.”

I fan myself with the nearest thing, a card that says “To my beautiful bride” in Evan’s perfect handwriting, and immediately regret reading the note inside. I can’t wait to begin our life together.

My chest tightens. Neither can I, I lie silently, even as the edges of my vision go a little blurry.

I shoo everyone away with the excuse that I need a “moment to center myself,” which is a polite way of saying I need to stop hyperventilating before I faint and ruin everyone’s Instagram stories.

The second the door clicks shut, I sag onto the little velvet bench like a puppet whose strings just snapped. I stare at myself in the mirror again. My curls are perfect. My makeup is perfect. I’m perfect.

And I’ve never felt more wrong in my life.

Evan Carter is exactly the kind of man my dad always dreamed I’d marry. Polished, responsible, talks about mergers like they’re romantic getaways. He’s not cruel, he’s not unkind. He’s just not mine. Around him, I feel like a very pretty business proposal that came with a side of seasonal décor.

I fiddle with the small silver locket at my throat, the one my grandmother gave me when I was little. The metal is cool against my skin, and the hinges squeak softly as I open it. Her picture smiles back, her eyes kind.

She used to say, “Don’t let anyone talk you out of your own heart, sugar.”

“Well, Gran,” I whisper, “my heart is currently trying to crawl out of my rib cage and make a run for it.”

Which, honestly, doesn’t sound like the worst idea.

I push to my feet and cross the room. My knees are shaking, but everything in me feels wildly clear suddenly. I don’t want to walk down that aisle. I don’t want to pretend that this glittering life is mine. I want… a life that doesn’t come with a seating chart and a stock portfolio.

I grab the only thing in this room that feels remotely mine: my old denim jacket. The bridal stylist had side-eyed it this morning like it might stain the air. I press it to my face anyway. It smells faintly of vanilla and home, and the instant I do, my lungs remember how to work.

Nothing has felt right for a long time.

Not just the wedding. Not just the way my dress costs more than my first car or the fact that my flowers were “curated” by a designer with her own reality show.

It’s all of it. The last year. The way my life has quietly shifted into something glossy and heavy, and so far from anything that ever felt like me.

A sharp knock sounds on the door.

“Faith? Sweetheart?” It’s the wedding planner. “We really do need to line you up now. Your father’s asking.”

Of course he is.

A familiar numbness tries to slide over me, the same kind that got me through all the tastings and walkthroughs and seating charts.

Just smile, Faith. Just nod. Just say, “Whatever you think is best, Dad.” He loves you.

He knows what he’s doing. He’s built a life where nothing ever cracks or fails or embarrasses him.

“I just need another minute,” I call, hoping my voice doesn’t betray the fact that I’m hanging on by a fraying thread. “Please.”

A tiny pause. Then the wedding planner’s brisk, “One minute,” follows, and her clipped heels retreat down the hallway.

One minute.

One minute to decide if I’m going to walk out there and give away the next fifty years of my life because everyone expects me to.

I drag in a breath. It scrapes on the way down.

I think of my job. “Our little stepping stone,” as my father calls it.

The one he arranged with his old college buddy, Charles Whitmore, CEO of Whitmore Event Holdings.

It sounds glamorous on paper: assistant coordinator for high-profile events.

Charity galas. Product launches. Holiday parties where you have to sign an NDA just to refill the champagne tower.

What it really means is twelve-hour days, making other people’s nights look magical while they drift past me as if I’m part of the decor.

I design floor plans and draft schedules and remember that Mrs. Stanton is allergic to shellfish, that the CEO’s wife hates sitting near speakers, that the lighting needs to be blue, not purple, because purple “doesn’t photograph well. ”

I don’t get credit. I don’t get thanks. Charles barely looks at me unless it’s to squint over the top of his glasses and say, “Your father tells me you’re still getting the hang of this, Faith. Don’t worry, we’ll get you there.”

We.

Like I’m another one of his little investments that my father dropped onto his desk.

The last event I worked before the wedding was a corporate holiday party in a hotel ballroom just like this one.

White linens. Crystal. A string quartet in the corner playing unobtrusive carols while men in expensive suits talked about fourth quarter earnings, and women in glittering dresses nodded and laughed and pretended they weren’t exhausted.

I stood near a pillar with my tablet, making sure the caterers were on time and the speeches didn’t run over.

Not one person knew my name. Not one person cared.

That’s where I keep ending up lately: in rooms full of people where I’m invisible.

Except to my father when he needs me to smile and to Evan when he needs me to fit into a polished picture.

I am so tired of being a prop.

“Get it together,” I whisper, but my voice shakes.

I press my fingertips into my thighs through the satin, trying to ground myself in something solid.

In the mirror, the bride in the white dress stares back at me with wide green eyes that don’t look like mine. She looks stunned. Like someone painted a smile on a mannequin and forgot to teach her how to breathe.

Another knock, sharper this time. I flinch.

“Miss Ross?” The makeup artist filters through the door. “Just going to do a final touch-up, okay?”

“No!” The word bursts out of me too fast, too loud. I scramble to soften it. “I mean no more preparations, please. Could I just… have the room? For a few minutes? I really do need to center myself.”

There’s a murmur on the other side, multiple voices consulting, before the door eases open an inch and a perfectly contoured face peeks in.

“Are you sure? We’re cutting it close.”

“I’m sure.” I force a smile so my refusal looks less like panic and more like poise. “I just need a moment alone. Really. I’ll be right out.”

They file in one by one to collect their things. The hair stylist, the nail tech, the bridesmaid who was hovering in case I needed a veil adjustment. They move carefully, leaving a fragile statue in the center of the room.

“Don’t smudge your mascara, honey,” the makeup artist says, wagging a brush at me. “We worked hard on that wing.”

“I won’t,” I lie.

When the last of them disappears into the hall and the latch clicks, the silence drops over me like a weighted blanket.

I mean to pace, mean to inhale and exhale, and think rationally, but my body has other plans. The room tilts.

Suddenly, the chandelier seems too bright, its light buzzing in my skull. The walls feel closer than they were a second ago, inching in, pressing down. There’s not enough air. There’s not enough space. My heart starts pounding so hard it shakes my ribs.

Okay. Okay. This is fine. I’m just nervous. Every bride gets nervous.

Except my hands won’t stop trembling. My breath starts coming in short, sharp pulls that aren’t doing anything.

The corset of the dress constricts, satin and boning tightening around my ribs like a vice.

I tug at the bodice, but it doesn’t help.

My lungs can’t seem to remember how to fill all the way.

I stumble back onto the bench, but sitting doesn’t help either. The world narrows. Chandelier, mirror, my too-bright eyes, the door that leads to the aisle. The aisle I’m supposed to walk down.

I can’t. I can’t do it.

“Breathe,” I hear myself rasp, but the word doesn’t fix anything.