29. Red
29
RED
“You sure don’t waste time, do you?” Rhett says from a seat across from me. All of us men are using Rod’s trailer to get ready while the women use the one Mags and I have been staying in. “Then again, when you know, you know.”
“Amen to that ,” Toby adds, lifting his beer bottle in the air. “Our women are the best thing to ever happen to us.”
Every single one of us toast to that .
I may have organised this surprise wedding, but making a mad dash across the state at my request wasn’t enough for the ranch family. They decided to go one step further and stopped in Anchorage to get us all matching black shirts with white stitching along with black bolo ties with a silver bull head slide on it to go with our matching dark denim jeans and black cowboy boots.
A hand clamps down on my shoulder and I look up to find Austin grinning down at me. "You ready for this?" he asks, his eyes shining with genuine happiness.
“Never been more ready in my life.”
“Good, good,” he says, before a little hint of mischief appears. “Also, since you’re marryin’ my future mother-in-law, does that mean I can call you Dad?”
The rest of the guys burst out laughing. I just smirk and narrow my gaze, rubbing my beard for good measure. “Hmm, that means I could still say no when you ask us for Char's hand in marriage.”
“What? No, I mean… wait. You wouldn’t?” Austin stutters, rolling his eyes when my grin widens.
“He got you good, Austin,” Colt snickers.
“Yeah, bein’ in love makes Red Grayson funny, who’d have thought,” Toby adds.
“Hey, what is this? ‘Pick on Red day’?”
“Better than ‘Pick on Landry’ day,” the man of the same name replies.
Colt laughs. “ Touché . At the rate y'all are goin', Lee and I will be the last to get married even though we were the first to hear the Call.”
“Austin’s not engaged yet,” I say, sliding my gaze to Charlie’s partner. “And I figure he’s got a lot of butterin’ up to do considerin’ Char’s goin’ to be my stepdaughter.”
The man smirks. “If you threaten to get your shotgun out to protect Char’s virtue. I’ve got to say, you’re goin’ to–” Rhett covers Austin’s mouth to shut him up.
“Shh. Don’t poke the step-daddy bear. He’s never been one before, you don’t know how he’ll react when provoked,” Rhett stage whispers, making me laugh.
“Don’t worry, Austin. You know where all my shotguns are and the combination to the gun safe, so you know you’ve got nothin’ to worry about. But if it’ll make you feel better, you’ve already got my blessin’ and that of my soon-to-be bride. We just want you to make an honest woman out of Char. You're draggin' the chain a bit."
“Hey,” Austin laughs, “not all of us go away for two weeks with our best friend and come back in love and married.”
I shrug. “What can I say? The mountain’s Call is a wonderful thing.”
“Says the man who said—and I quote—’I won't be hearin' it, and I don’t want to’,” Rhett retorts.
“I’ll be the first to admit I protested a little too much. But how was I to know that my One was sittin’ right under my nose.”
Rhett grins. “Well, the spirit knew.”
“Yeah, about that,” I say, grabbing my beer and taking a healthy swig. “I guess there’s somethin’ else I should tell y’all.” That gets everyone’s attention, all of the men giving me their eyes as they wait. “Mags had a letter from Anna that she’d written before she passed, and she never opened it.” I look at Austin who wears a guilty expression. “It’s fine, Austin. I’m not mad about it. I’m happy you were there with Char to help Mags since just seein’ it again would’ve been hard for her.”
“Where did the letter come from?” Landry asks.
"Duck Norris came into our apartment with an envelope in his beak. It was the same day we moved Char's bookcase in," Austin says. "We gave it to Mags because we could see it was Anna’s handwritin’. It had been packed away in a box in the attic and somehow the damn duck found it.”
“OK…” Colt says, brows now pinched.
“The last anyone knew, the letter was left in Mags’s kitchen, until it showed up in her duffel bag in our cabin on Thursday mornin’.”
That earns a few dropped mouths and wide eyes. Even Toby, who is known to be a little hit-and-miss with concentrating on anything or anyone that isn't his beloved Delilah is giving me his undivided attention.
“Wait… what?” Austin asks. “I swear, Red. We had nothin’ to do with it. Char even told Mags that we couldn’t find it.”
“It’s OK. I think either the duck did a little meddlin’ again, or a higher bein’ made sure that the letter was put somewhere that we’d find it.”
The trailer falls quiet for a spell. “Like the mountain spirit,” Rhett murmurs, breaking the silence.
“Yep. Like Anna.”
Everyone’s heads snap up, their eyes a mixture of surprise and confusion. Then there’s Colt who slowly smiles. “You know what? I can totally see that.”
"You're tellin' me. She was always a romantic. She wanted everyone to be as happy as we were. Remember when she tried to set Rhett up with that lady farrier down in Juneau ten years ago?"
“And any time we’d see a buckle bunny at an event, she’d be nudgin’ my shoulder askin’ whether I thought they were cute,” Landry muses.
Rhett meets my eyes and there’s no missing the respect, pride, and love I see in his gaze. “She wanted you and Mags to be together, didn’t she?” I nod, my tight throat making it hard to speak.
“It all makes sense now,” Austin replies. “Anna bein’ the mountain spirit at Bull. That’s why it felt like home as soon as we found it and how we all knew that it was the right place for all of us to settle down. She’d already chosen it for us, and then she set out to bring all of our soulmates into our lives.”
“Wow,” Toby breathes, looking as astounded as I felt a few days ago.
“So, this weddin’. It isn’t you and Mags rushin’, this is you two catchin’ up,” Colt says and I still, letting his words truly sink in.
“I like that. Thank you, Colt.”
“What did I do? I’m just statin’ facts. Believe me, Lee and I have seen our fair share of mountain Calls, and this is one we’d hoped would happen but started to doubt ever would.”
“Well, that’s better than the two of us,” I say. “Neither one of us saw it happenin’ and even when it did, we still didn’t believe it.”
“Let me guess, it was after you sang Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton at the karaoke bar?” Colt teases.
“Wait, wait, wait. What?” Toby says, his eyes darting around the room before stopping on me. “ You sang karaoke? In public?”
“Sure did,” I say, taking another swig of beer before putting my bottle down on the counter.
“But the last time we tried to get you up on stage you told us you had the voice of a donkey durin’ matin’ season,” Toby continues, looking put out.
“Did I?” I fight back a smile. “Funny, I don’t remember that.”
“Oh, I’m so gettin’ you up on stage at the Cow one night,” Toby says. “I’ll let you and Mags keep Kenny and Dolly to yourselves. Maybe all of us could get up and sing a boy band number or somethin’.” That earns Tobes a round of groans.
Rhett’s phone vibrates on the dining table. He picks it up before his eyes meet mine. “You ready to get married, Red?”
I take a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves that flutter in my gut like a herd of spooked mustangs. It’s not that I’m worried, it’s that I want Mags to be mine already. In name, in body, in everything .
I may have sprung this surprise wedding on her, but the look of absolute amazement and wonder on her beautiful face when I told her is one I won't soon forget.
We took our sweet time realizing that we were soulmates, but as far as I'm concerned, life's short, and I want all the minutes, hours, days, and years I have left on this earth with Maggie Gallagher—soon to be Grayson—by my side.
With one last deep breath, I nod at Rhett. “I’m ready.”
“Good, because we’ve got one last surprise for y’all.”