Wedded
THIRTEEN
Autumn
My wedding dress was simple. Nothing flashy.
Floor-length, thin straps, a silky cut with no lace or any other adornments, and it fit my body like a glove—not quite white, not quite ivory.
Exactly what I would have picked for myself in a world where I got to pick things instead of borrowing something from Ivy.
All dressed at last, the women in the cabin stared at me and got misty-eyed.
“Don’t make me cry.” I dabbed my eyes with one hand and fanned myself with the other.
“You, stunning bride, are going to make Jake never forget this day,” Ivy breathed. She’d insisted on completing my look with white cowgirl boots, and had a cream felt cowboy hat for me to wear during the reception, all compliments of her Wylde West Outfitters shop in town.
Nanette still fussed around me with my hair and makeup. Jamie made sure I ate some fruit and stayed hydrated.
Dot took care of all the old, new, borrowed, and blue. Nobody ever taught me the rhyme—my mother wasn’t that kind of mother. Dot covered all of it without being asked, as easy as setting her table for a dinner with unexpected guests.
Old being the engagement ring. New being a shiny silver dollar tucked into my bouquet.
The borrowed item was a small satin purse, with beadwork sewn on it from her own wedding, that dangled from my wrist. And my something blue was a thread from Stetson’s favorite baby blanket, sewn quickly into the hem of my dress.
I had to turn away before anyone saw my face, and take deep breaths. That was the thing about the McCalls I tried wrapping my head around. They loved like it cost nothing and expected nothing in return.
Drunk with his newfound walking legs, Stetson paraded about the cabin in his tiny tux and buckaroo hat with the rings tied to the brim on ribbon.
“Rings on the hat? Whose idea?” Nanette asked.
“Jake’s,” I answered.
Everyone in the room made the same aww sound at once, and I concentrated very hard on breathing.
A week ago I’d have stood in this cabin, telling myself the marriage was all for the court case. I couldn’t even pretend that anymore. Somewhere between a goat farm and a pulled-over truck and a knuckle kissed over an engagement ring, this had quit being a strategy, and turned into a marriage.
I was marrying Jake McCall today because I wanted to. In many ways, the wanting scared me more than the Eatons did. I let it scare me. Baby steps.
“Hey.” Nanette found my eyes in the mirror, steadying the veil on my head. “Whatever you’re doing in there, stop it.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“I know you and your overthinking ways.” She pinned the veil, and planted her hands on my shoulders. “It’s your wedding day, honey. Just this once, let the good things happen to you.”
I cast the best, most reassuring smile I could muster.
When I walked down the aisle I was on nobody’s arm. My choice, the only part of the day I’d insisted on, and not one soul had argued with me. I was too old for someone to give me away. Without any father ever there for me, and Trig sitting in a cell, I held my chin high and walked myself.
The funny thing was, I’d walked alone my whole life. Out of Wyoming in the dark. Into this town knowing nobody. Up the stairs to a tiny apartment above a coffee shop with a baby on my hip. Alone was the only way I knew how to walk.
But this was different. This time, alone was a choice—and every step took me toward someone. That made all the difference in the world.
Straight up the aisle I marched, eyes focused solely ahead at my handsome groom, and by his side, standing with his tiny hand in his, was my son.
Everything became a blur from that point on.
I hardly noticed the silk floral arrangements covering the rough wood arch.
Or the number of people in attendance. The bright hues of orange and green and gold decorating everything in our pumpkin patch wedding, or the pretty dresses Nanette and Jamie wore as our maids of honor.
But I’d never forget my two handsome men standing there in matching black tuxes. Jake beamed ear to ear, his eyes watering, raking down my body and back up.
“You made it.” He winked at me when I arrived. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Mama,” Stetson added. The solid gold rings clinked against his little hat brim.
I took his other hand, and we three faced the altar together.
He didn’t last long, though, roaming between the altar and Dot in the first row, and he at least kept the crowd entertained.
Maybe they wouldn’t notice how nerves got the better of me.
One chair in the front row sat empty, Trig’s old cowboy hat resting on the seat. Ivy’s doing, because I’d asked. My eyes stung looking at it. He should have been here. So I made him a promise instead: next visit, I’d describe every single minute of this day until the guard dragged me out.
Before I knew it we were repeating traditional vows after the sheriff said them.
Jake took it a step further. “Sheriff, hold on. I know we agreed not to, but I have three more to say.” He pulled out a slip of paper he’d written on in black ink.
“Autumn, what I have is yours. I’ll always try to fix whatever is broken.
And if things get difficult, I’m not going anywhere.
You’re stuck with me.” He chuckled and everyone joined in.
Then he reached up and caressed my cheek.
“I think I knew the moment I met you that you ought to be mine.”
“I am yours,” I whispered for his ears only.
To think that once, I’d imagined a different wedding, to Brantley, and my stomach used to tie in knots just thinking about it—even back when I thought that feeling was love.
Standing here holding Jake’s steady hands, there was no knot.
No small voice telling me to check the exits. Just peace coming over me.
Oh. So this was how love was supposed to feel.
“Now the rings,” the sheriff said.
Jake chased my giggling boy up the aisle and wrestled the hat off his head with the rings attached. We exchanged those, and Dot broke first, audibly. Then Nanette. Then—by the sound of it—Cash.
“As witnessed by every soul on this ranch,” Gavin finished strong. “You are husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob McCall. You may kiss your bride, Jake.”
My pulse thundered. Half the county held up phones. Our first kiss was about to happen in front of everyone, exactly the way I’d insisted, and why in God’s name hadn’t I taken Jake up on the practicing?
“Ready, Mrs. McCall?” Jake leaned in.
He lifted the black Stetson off his head and held it up beside our faces, providing a wall of good felt between us and every watching eye in Forest Grove. Even Gavin stepped aside, granting us the only privacy we’d probably get all day.
"Don't worry, pumpkin. I got you,” he whispered with a wink. "You kiss me when you're ready." He licked his lips, and waited for me to catch up.
This man. Always going the extra mile.
I stood on my toes and did the thing I’d been dying to do at last. I grabbed a fistful of his crisp white shirt, right over his heart, and pulled him down to me.
Oh. Yes. His lips warmed on mine, and his free hand came up to cradle my face like the answer to a question I’d been asking my whole life.
The kiss that I’d intended as a peck lingered longer, and deepened, and lingered some more.
I almost forgot where we were, except beyond the hat brim the whole ranch whooped and hollered and somebody, probably Cash, howled like a coyote.
It was everything I would have imagined our first kiss to be, months in the making. We earned every second of it.
When we finally broke, Jake looked half-wrecked, my lipstick faintly stained on his mouth. He said, hoarse, for my ears only: “Worth the wait, Mrs. McCall.”
He had no idea. Or—judging by the smolder as he set the hat back on his head—he had every idea.
They played our first dance before I’d recovered, which in hindsight was a mercy—no time to rebuild a single wall before he had me in his arms. Under those string lights, the man who claimed he got twisted around words with women, did not get twisted around me.
In my ear, as he floated me around the dance floor, he told me every hope and wish for us, every desire he had, too.
Nobody had ever planned a future with me in it before.
Around me, sure. Despite me, plenty. But Jake talked like a man with ideas of where we were already going—the cabin, the seasons, a porch swing he wanted to build, Stetson as tall as his shoulder someday.
Somewhere in the middle of it I realized I was crying on his jacket. I didn’t stop. He didn’t ask me to.
For another song, Jamie handed our son to us. We stood him at our feet and the kid had moves, bouncing in place.
The whole crowd clapped along, and for the first time I let myself believe what they were seeing. The three of us together, we were a family. Built from a promise to a brother, a babysitting arrangement, and one stubborn cowboy’s heart.
Then came the forks. It started at the dessert table—one fork tapping a cup. Then ten. Then every fork on the ranch, plastic on plastic, a sound like rain on a roof.
“They want us to kiss.” He looked down at me, light moving in his eyes, a slow crooked smile arriving. “Better get comfortable with it, Mrs. McCall. This is liable to happen all night.”
By the fourth fork ambush I’d quit blushing. I wanted more and more of his lips and almost tapped my own cup, straight-faced, over a plate of Dot’s spice cake.
Pumpkin patch photographer Rayna reigned over our wedding.
The camera found Stetson probably every third frame.
The garter toss happened, which Cash caught one-handed without spilling his drink.
He surveyed the assembled single women of Forest Grove, and set a heated gaze on Nanette.
But it was Jamie who caught the bouquet, which she quickly self-corrected and dumped into Nanette’s hands.
Jake and I made the rounds greeting everyone, with hardly a moment to ourselves. Somewhere through the festivities, we grabbed a drink and caught Knox at the bar, telling a couple of the guys about his brother.
“I found out why Maddox wasn’t at my reception.
” His jaw clicked under the beard. “Fucking around with a woman like I suspected—one of my mother’s friends.
Twice his age. Can you believe that?” He shook his head.
“Hockey fame’s ruined him. Montana has gone wild for their hockey team, like Frostbite fever has taken over.
One of these days somebody’s going to knock Maddox’s ego flat, and I hope I’m there to see it. ”
Poppy Wylde, drifting past with two plates of cake, overheard every word and executed an eye roll of championship caliber. “And to think I wore heels for that man,” she muttered, and kept walking, but I was probably the only woman to hear it.
I filed that away. Something told me the story of Maddox Alexander wasn’t done in this town.
Ivy and Colt found us at the dessert table to say congratulations.
I thanked Ivy for the hundredth time and she waved it off with: “Are you kidding, this was the most fun I’ve had all year.”
Colt snickered, “Imagine how much fun your own wedding might be.”
“You really should set a date. Best day ever, in my opinion,” Jake pulled me into his side, his eyes heating on me.
“We’re trying, but we have two hometowns, two time zones, and too many opinions,” Colt slipped a mint into his mouth.
“We’ll figure it out. We’re in no hurry,” Ivy took a bite of cake.
“Really? I know for a fact you’ve been trying on gowns in Billings when you say you’re picking up shop supplies.
So waiting’s not the real plan either, is it, my little boss babe?
” He tried to kiss her cheek but she turned away.
“I know what you want. I’m standing right here wanting the same damn thing.
What I don’t know is why we keep letting the details win. ”
I went still beside Jake, wondering if we should be watching this or not.
Ivy set her plate down, crossing arms over her chest. “You want to know what I learned this week, planning this?” She gestured at us and everything, two hours of magic she’d conjured up in five days.
“These two didn’t plan a wedding. There wasn’t time.
They just wanted to be married, and everyone rallied together to make it happen.
So maybe we shouldn’t be planning a wedding. ”
That got Colt’s back up. “What are you saying?”
“We should plan a marriage and let the wedding be whatever’s left over.”
Colt nodded slowly, everything dawning on him. “I’m thinking of just the two of us and a witness.”
“Yeah. Something impossibly simple,” Ivy said, stepping closer. “Just us. Soon.”
“How soon?”
“Let’s discuss the details in the morning.” Ivy grabbed that cowboy by the collar and kissed him in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with event planning. Colt kissed her back with both hands in her hair, almost bending her over the dessert table.
Jake and I inched away and we didn’t see the two of them for a while after that.
The send-off happened at full dark. Everyone held sparklers, lighting a path to Jake’s decorated truck. The ranch crew had tied soap and tin cans to the bumper, and a full set of deer antlers were zip-tied to the grille.
We said our thank yous and goodbyes, until only one goodbye remained. The hardest one.
Dot held Stetson, sound asleep against her shoulder. The bag I’d packed for him was already in the McCalls’ truck. This would mark my baby’s first night away from me in his entire life, and everybody could guess which of the two of us it was going to be harder on.
I held him for a long time, with Jake softly caressing my back. My eyes were swimming by the time I made myself hand him back. My makeup was likely ruined, and I didn’t care who saw.
We’d counted every one of Stetson’s firsts. This one was mine. The first night of his whole life without him. Nobody warned me how a first could feel like this. Like handing somebody your beating heart and asking them to drive carefully.
Dot eased him into the car seat. “Stop by late in the morning to pick him up. I’m making pancakes, and this young man will likely be wearing most of them on his sweet face.
Come hungry. I’m sure you’ll work up an appetite.
” Then, quieter, just for me, with one warm hand to my wet cheek: “He’ll be loved and safe every single minute.
That’s the whole job of a grandmother, honey. Go on, now.”
Mr. McCall shook Jake’s hand at the truck, quietly nodding his approval. They drove home.
We drove on to the cabin, but with only part of my heart. The rest of it stayed with Stetson.