Chapter 5
Chapter Five
That fucking fuck. Walker was absolutely going to kill him.
By the time he rode his horse back to the scene of the crime, the groom had been freed from the rope, and he was gone.
There were still guests milling around, and the bridesmaids, groomsmen, and of course, Addison’s dad, and a woman he assumed was her mother, though he had never met her.
“Where is she?”
Bob Carey moved over to where Walker was standing, intensity blazing from his eyes, and Walker couldn’t blame him. If something like that had happened to his daughter – if he ever had a daughter, and he wouldn’t, but still he got it — he’d be fit to commit a crime. But Walker also wasn’t his enemy.
“I didn’t figure cleaning any of this up was her responsibility. It’s too bad that Alan didn’t stick around to explain himself.”
Her father regarded Walker with what appeared to be reluctant respect. “Right. That is true.”
“She’s safe and away from prying eyes, no need to worry.”
Her bridesmaids were in tears, but the one that served as her campaign manager was angrier than the rest.
“I am going to kill him. How dare he do this to her? How dare he do this to the campaign?”
“You worry about the campaign,” Walker said. “She shouldn’t have to.”
“I agree,” Anna said. “But practically, there is some worrying to be done.”
“There will be time for that,” Walker said. “What I need you to do right now is get her purse, so that she can have her phone, and any change of clothes that she might’ve left in the staging area.”
Denisha stepped forward. “I’ll do that,” she said. “Anna can do campaign things. But where is she?”
“I’ve got her somewhere private. And no offense to any of you, but I’ll wait to say where that is until she gets her phone back, and then she can let you know herself.”
“Oh no,” said Lydia, looking down at her own phone. “I don’t know… I don’t know if she should get her phone back.”
“Why not?”
“The video is… the video of all that… It’s viral.”
“What?” he asked.
“Somebody posted it online. On several different platforms. It has millions of views already. Oh God. This is going to be on the news. Not just the local news, like… the news everywhere.”
“You’re kidding me,” he said, taking his own phone out of his pocket.
And he didn’t have to go searching, because his algorithm served the video right up to him, and why wouldn’t it? He was local. He was right there at the scene of the crime.
But in the space of forty-five minutes, the video had five million views. And that was just one video on one social media platform.
“Shit,” he said.
“Oh no,” Anna said. “Oh no. We’re going to have to… Oh no. This is… This is really bad. Or… it’s really good. And I need to figure that out. But this is PR on a scale that I don’t…”
“I know a little bit about that,” he said. “And you’re right. It could be really good. But let me go back and talk to her.”
“No offense,” Lydia said, eyeing him with deep suspicion. “But you’re not her friend.”
“I know. Don’t you see why that’s a good thing?”
Lydia stared at him, her expression full of steel.
And he decided he was going to leave that alone.
Denisha returned with the phone and the purse, along with a little bag.
“Here’s what I need from you,” he said to the bridesmaids.
“You contact everybody she knows, you explain that she had nothing to do with this, and that she was completely blindsided. Make sure that most of this communication isn’t put on her, he ought to answer for himself.
Ask people not to contact her. Make sure you start pushing the story that he did this. ”
That seemed to galvanize them. Seemed to make them all a little bit more agreeable to his commands, because they had a job to do.
He had to give it to Addison, she had fiercely loyal friends. And that was something he wouldn’t have thought she would have.
He would’ve thought that she was the sort of person who had frenemies. If he really thought about it. The kind who were more envious of her than actually supportive.
But that wasn’t the case.
He could see that Lydia, Denisha, and Anna would ride into battle for her. And they were ready to do it.
He decided that it was up to him to make an announcement that those that were lingering awkwardly could go and enjoy the reception. The food had been paid for after all.
He went up to the front of the venue, and whistled through his fingers.
“All right now, feel free to go into the east barn and enjoy dinner. There’s a nice meal in there waiting for you, and because a lot of the wedding guests cleared off, there will be extra, and all of the extra will be donated to the local food pantry.
If anybody else would like to make a donation, perhaps of the gift that they bought, let us know, and we will be sure to give you a receipt for a tax write-off. ”
They might as well make something good out of this, and that could be part of Addison’s story.
He was thinking about it even now. Because the video was viral, and there would need to be a story about what happened with all of the things from the wedding, about what kind of person she was in the face of adversity.
Why the hell did he care?
He shouldn’t.
Except, his ranch was going to be attached to this.
And it was a good opportunity for them too.
It was in a video that was going to be viewed by millions of people, and if they didn’t want the ranch to become a bad omen, a sign that a wedding wasn’t going to work out, they had to make it a place that people were fascinated with, that they wanted to visit, that they wanted to get married at, in spite of the fact that the story was going to be that a wedding had collapsed there.
This had to be romanticized somehow.
He looked up, and watched the guests filter out of the ceremony area, then saw his brother Cody headed his way.
“What a clusterfuck,” he said.
“Yeah, agreed. But I know we can turn this around.”
“We better be able to. Because our ranch –”
“I know. We’re about to be famous for a runaway groom.”
“Did you have to lasso him? Because I think maybe if you hadn’t…well, gotten him like he was a naughty steer it might not have gone viral.”
“Did the guests have to post the bride’s humiliation on the internet?”
“Good point,” Cody said. Then he looked at Walker, a searching expression in his gaze. “Honestly though, I’m kind of surprised you didn’t just let her stand there wallowing in her humiliation.”
Walker shook his head, fury burning at the center of his chest. “Hell, if someone’s going to humiliate her, it better be me.
I owe her one, for the prom. But not this.
I’m not letting this be the thing. She didn’t deserve to have to stand there and feel all the questions, all the judgment.
I’m no gentleman, Cody, and you know that.
But there are certain things that are unacceptable.
And that’s one of them. It has a lot less to do with respecting her, and a lot more to do with the kind of shit I can’t respect from a man. ”
“Fair enough,” Cody said. “Where is she?”
“That’s private.”
“Come on. I’m your brother.”
“I know. But I’m going to let her cool her heels for a little bit, and then she can decide what she wants to do.”
“All right. I’ve got everything here then, you go deal with the bride.”
“You sure? Because I can deliver her things and then come back.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve got it handled. I need you on PR detail. Which means putting out some kind of statement about what happened, or something.”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to have to put out a statement. I have a feeling I’m going to get contacted by the media. Given that I’m the one in the video.”
“Well, then figure out what you’re going to say.”
“Yeah, I will. You know me. I’ve always been good at press releases.”
“Sure.”
Which just meant that he had to figure out how to spin it, and it was going to be a little bit tricky, considering all the personal relationships involved here.
But he would figure it out. What was the alternative?
There wasn’t one. This was his business, his livelihood, and he wasn’t going to simply survive this viral moment; he was going to make it worth something. For both of them. Because why the hell not?
He was also going to have to figure out how to tell her that her moment of humiliation had become a global source of entertainment. Because there was no protecting her from that, and he couldn’t just give her the phone back and let her be shocked.
He was a strategist. He wasn’t especially forgiving, and he wasn’t actually all that nice, but what was between him and Addison was between him and Addison.
He would deal with her personally as he saw fit. This was different.
What was good for business mattered too, and he was going to deal with this with an eye toward that as well.
He got his horse put away and took his truck back to his place.
When he got out of the truck and walked into the house, he saw her lying there on his couch, looking like a melted snowman, her dress sadly wilted around her, her posture dejected, her eyes open wide, and dry as she stared up at the ceiling.
“I’ve got your phone.”
She didn’t move. “And I can see that you’re having a little bit of a difficult time with this, and I don’t think that I’m going to make it any better, but I have to tell you, the video of the wedding has gone viral. So, I imagine we’re going to get contacted by media outlets.”
She still didn’t move.
“Now that that’s out of the way, I can give you your phone, but I would advise you against going and looking for the video.”
She still didn’t move.
“Anna is working on how to deal with this as it may affect the campaign. Lydia and Denisha are contacting anyone who may have questions. I have told them not to let anyone contact you. However, a cursory glance at your phone screen suggests that you have still been contacted many times, but you’re under no obligation to respond to them. ”
She still didn’t move.