36. Summer
Summer
Life is full of surprises: some good, some bad, and some that show up right before guests arrive.
But on the night of Wildflower Weddings’ open house, I’m not in the market for surprises.
I want an uneventful evening that ends with happy brides paying their deposits, full booking sheets, and no disasters involving horses, weather, or best friends freaking out over football players.
In other words, unremarkable in the best possible way.
For tonight, I have officially entered the zone where I’m no longer a farm girl, but a walking checklist in a killer dress. Except I don’t have the killer-dress part yet.
I’ve got two hours until we launch this event, and I’m still in cowboy boots and a trucker’s cap. Last night was supposed to be dress-try-on night at Larissa’s, but it was also the Golden Springs youth hockey team’s first game, and I was not missing that for anything in the world.
Jaxon has embraced his new hobby as the team’s coach, and it’s been the best decision to keep hockey in his life without the pressure or the hundreds of miles of travel.
Golden Springs lost in overtime, by a heartbreaking one goal, but you’d have thought from the look on the kids’ faces that they’d won the Stanley Cup.
After the buzzer, he gathered all the kids on the team bench, and told them: Failure is how you learn.
Anyone who tells you differently has never tried anything worth failing at.
Then he made them do their version of bringing it in, their hands stacked in the middle of their circle, yelling, Go Golden Springs! on the count of three.
It might be the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on that man. Bigger, even, than the morning he told me Rebel finally let him slide a saddle onto her back without getting mad.
I just hope to see that same smile on his face tonight.
We spent the last few days turning this place into the barn of my dreams—greenery everywhere, my prettiest bouquets on every tabletop, lanterns and hanging lights, archways of flowers, and floating candles.
I take one long look at it all coming together and have to remind myself that this is really happening.
All thanks to the Chance brothers and their unwavering faith in me.
I finish adding the last touch to the archway at the door with enough time for me to run home and become a different person. According to Larissa, I need to shed my horsewoman image and glam up tonight.
A week ago, when I told her I owned nothing fancy enough for the event, she took it upon herself to find me a dress.
Within the hour, she’d ordered six gowns from an online rental site made for people like me who wait until the last minute to shop.
Now she’s waiting at my house with all six draped over the couch when I walk inside.
“Finally!” she says, jumping to her feet. “Take your clothes off now.”
“Well, hello to you too,” I say around a laugh.
I strip down to my underwear while my best friend gushes over every eye-popping dress.
“The blue one is gorgeous,” she says. “You’re glowing in it.”
“Am I glowing? Or just embarrassed?” I jut my knee out of the very deep slit. “This slit is so high, I’ll spend all night preventing a wardrobe malfunction.”
“Try the next one,” she says, holding up a mermaid-green one.
I slip off the blue dress and slide my body into the next one.
“Love it,” Larissa says, circling me with approval. “Definitely attention-grabbing.”
“It stops like four inches above where I’m comfortable.”
She gives me a wicked smile. “I’m sure Jaxon wouldn’t mind.”
“A wedding venue manager should not upstage the brides,” I tell her.
She waves a hand. “That’s not your fault. You need to wow your man.”
“My man is a cowboy. He likes me in denim and boots.”
She waggles her eyebrows. “Oh, he’s going to like you in this one, too.” She pulls out the cinnamon silk gown with the low back.
I finger the silk. “I’m not sure about this.”
“Just try it on.” She shoves it into my arms.
Once it’s on, I turn to face the mirror. The dress skims every curve I have and, apparently, never show off, because I spend my life in farm clothes. Then I notice the back. Or rather, the absence of it. It’s not too low by most people’s standards, but for me, it feels like a windy distraction.
“Nope,” I conclude.
Larissa gasps from the doorway. “Why not? You look incredible.”
“I’m hosting an open house, not auditioning for Love Island.”
“You’re creating the dream,” Larissa says, crossing her arms. “Besides, don’t you want to make Jaxon speechless?”
“That’s not important. This isn’t a date.”
“It’s extremely important.” She gives me a look. “That dress was made for you, Summer. And I will be personally offended if you don’t wear it.”
I sigh. “Fine.”
On my dressiest days, I am a boots-and-sundress girl. I do not own anything fancy, because nothing in Golden Springs ever requires formality. We are country people who like our potlucks with Jell-O salad and our boots with a little dirt around the edges.
But I also don’t have anything else to wear, so the cinnamon dress it is.
I curl my hair, then head back to the barn to make sure everything is ready before I get buried under an avalanche of last-minute details.
Three of the Chance brothers, Wyatt, Grady, and Rhett, walk in together in custom suits and their matching cowboy hats. They are, in one word, stunning. I am not an idiot—they’re part of the reason half this town is showing up tonight. I figure the barn will do the rest of the convincing.
“If that doesn’t make an impression, I don’t know what will,” I tell them with an approving smile.
“You really think so?” Wyatt asks, dragging a hand over his lapel and adjusting it. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was nervous. Which is so not Wyatt.
“You think Larissa will like this?” he asks, dead serious.
Rhett barks out a laugh. “That’s why you’ve been acting strange today? There’s a girl.”
“She’s not just a girl.” Wyatt rounds on him. “She’s Summer’s best friend. And an extremely talented performer.” He turns back to me. “Is she here yet?”
“Not yet.” I narrow my eyes. “Wyatt, is there something you’d like to tell me?”
Wyatt adjusts his tie again. “I, uh, wondered if she needs help carrying her guitar.”
“Because you know so much about guitars,” Grady says dryly.
“Is that right, Wyatt?” I ask.
He gives me a golden retriever smile that tells me he has absolutely no idea what we just said. “Uh, what?”
“Nothing,” I say, patting his arm. “Nothing at all.”
Rhett crosses his arms. “He’s been down bad for Larissa since the day they met.”
“I have not!” Wyatt says.
“Oh yeah?” Grady cuts in with a knowing grin. “Then why’d you cancel that date next weekend? With the actress?”
Wyatt’s jaw clenches. He points at both of them. “Not. One. Word.”
The barn door bangs open, and Larissa comes through it sideways, guitar case in one hand, garment bag slung over her shoulder, and hair half out of its clip.
“I am so sorry, Summer!” she apologizes before she’s even fully inside the door.
“After I left your house, I had a string break twenty minutes before I needed to leave, and then I couldn’t find my good capo, not to mention I got behind every single tractor in Golden Springs on the way here, which should not even be possible at six thirty on a Friday night! ”
She stops dead in her tracks, the rest of her monologue fading the second she sees Wyatt standing there in his suit.
“Oh,” she whispers. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Wyatt returns, shoving his hands in his pockets, like he doesn’t know what else to do with them.
He’s impossibly handsome, and my extremely capable best friend, who becomes intensely shy around Wyatt, is turning the same color as my fall mums.
“Let me get that,” Wyatt says, crossing the room for her guitar case as if she’s carrying an impossibly large suitcase.
“Oh, I do this all the time.” She shakes her head. “You don’t have to—”
“Please let me.” He takes it out of her hand carefully, like he’s afraid of messing this up. Wyatt is not the least bit frightened by a linebacker the size of a bear. And yet, he’s looking at Larissa like she’s the most intimidating person he’s ever met.
“I’ll just show you where to set up,” she says, throwing me a panicked look for help.
“Lead the way.” Wyatt gestures for Larissa to walk in front of him.
They head off toward the stage together, while Grady and Rhett both grin mercilessly at Wyatt’s back.
“I’ve never seen that man so flustered before,” Rhett says.
“He even asked me for dating advice,” Grady confirms.
“He asked you and not me?” Rhett grimaces. “That’s a first.”
Grady frowns. “Hey, I know a thing or two about dating.”
“Like how to lose a woman in ten minutes?” Rhett teases. “That’s what happens when you explain the rules of baseball as your pickup line.”
“That was one time. And she asked me.” Then Grady adds, “Besides, when’s the last time you took out a woman for more than one date?”
Rhett pauses to think.
“That’s what I thought,” Grady answers, giving his brother a smug look before heading over to the drink table.
“Hey, where’s Jaxon?” I ask Rhett.
“Don’t know. Went into town about an hour ago.” He checks his watch. “Said he’d be back in time.”
I grab a glass of water as the early guests arrive, fifteen minutes before we’re even technically open.
Colleen and Wanda enter the venue first, gasping and pointing at every little decoration and light and bouquet.
“I can’t believe it,” Colleen gushes. “Never thought anyone would want to get married in a barn. But this is actually quite nice.”
Leroy from the feed store shows up next, delighted to be invited to a party with free food.
Then there are the regulars from the diner and coffee shop, all dressed in their freshly pressed church clothes.
Meredith arrives with Remi behind her, who’s dolled up in a pink dress that is the exact opposite of her hockey uniform.
Earl even sports a bowtie, standing next to sweet Ada Mae, who probably forced him to wear it.