Chapter Nine
O nce it was settled, it was like a runaway train.
“As long as she’s happy, you get to stay in one piece,” Tennessee told Wilder that first night when he and Dallas took it upon themselves to walk their new brother to the truck he’d left in the woods.
Wilder laughed. Not because he didn’t think that Tennessee would love to throw a few punches and was looking for a reason. Not that he wasn’t slightly more concerned about Dallas, who was quieter, but actually trained. But because he hadn’t been kidding when he told Cat that he wasn’t afraid of them.
“It’s a hell of a thing to think about how hard we went at each other on the football field, even though we are supposedly on the same team,” he drawled as they walked back down Lisle Hill. “And now here we are. The Careys and the Lisles, finally laying the past to rest. Makes your heart sing, doesn’t it?”
“It makes my stomach heave,” Dallas replied.
“As long as she’s happy, Wilder,” Tennessee growled. “I’ve never cared what you do and I don’t intend to start, except for that.”
“Sure thing,” Wilder said, with what could only be considered a shit-eating grin on his face, purely for his two new brothers-in-law, like what he needed was more brothers. “Anything for family, am I right?”
And watching the two Lisle brothers flinch at the word family gave him life.
So it was not until he bid farewell to Tennessee and Dallas, complete with a jaunty wave, and then drove off down a bumpy dirt road through the woods that the enormity of what had happened really hit him.
Not what had happened , Wilder corrected himself. What he had gone and done of his own volition and free will. Following an ache and an urge that he could hardly bring himself to admit was still there inside of him, the same as ever.
Even now when he’d gone ahead and completely messed the whole thing up.
He drove home in a daze, now that needling Dallas and Tennessee was off the menu. When he got there, he sat outside his cabin for far too long, not even sure that he could remember the actual act of driving his truck out of the little valley, over the hill, and onto the wide expanse of Carey land.
Wilder wasn’t sure how long he sat there, either.
In the morning, the usual check-in texts brought everyone to the ranch house for breakfast, which was unusual. They usually decided on the day’s tasks over their texts and ran into each other later, or not at all. But today Harlan figured that if all the brothers showed up and pitched in together, they could get a head start on a few of the ongoing projects that they needed to finish up before the first frost came in.
It was going to be soon. They could all feel it in the chill each morning. The mountains were letting everyone and everything know that it was serious, the coming season. That it was going to come in hard.
Wilder went through his coffee ritual, but couldn’t say that he enjoyed spending any more time with his thoughts. He showered, but the hot water didn’t clear his head either. So he went over early, because meeting up in the mornings required that they wait for Boone to finish up with his morning milking.
That was how he found himself sitting in the kitchen of the ranch house like he was a kid again, drinking the coffee that Belinda had handed him when he’d arrived. It was not coffee by his definition. It was always either too fruity—because Belinda liked it that way—or something better resembling sludge that he knew was Zeke’s contribution, and it always reminded him exactly why he’d chosen to teach himself how to make a proper cup of coffee in the first place.
Still, nostalgia was a thing.
Today he thought it might devour him whole.
He could hear Belinda charging around the house, muttering under her breath the way she always did. When they were small, she’d told them that she was simply saying her prayers, and Wilder had believed that a whole lot longer than he’d believed in Santa Claus.
And he could still remember how scandalized he’d been when he’d realized that she was using curse words . The horror!
Then, naturally, he and Ryder had taken great pains to horrify Boone and Knox with this same shocking news.
He laughed at the memory, took another swig, and looked out the wide-open windows that looked over the garden. He could see his father out there, when the garden was usually Belinda’s domain. So he was likely doing some of the work that she considered less pleasant.
Zeke had never bothered to pretend that he was doing anything but cursing up a blue streak as he went. These days he was quieter, and slower, and Wilder found himself scanning the old man’s body for signs that he was.
This was the music of his childhood, Wilder thought then. Two different streams of creative curses, weaving through him and this house like a single drawn-out song.
He was suddenly struck with something more like grief than nostalgia, so hard and so fast that he found himself coming awfully close to having to grip the table to stay upright.
When his phone buzzed he fished it out and was maybe more relieved to see Ryder’s story about mixing it up with a go-go dancer in Vegas than the story itself deserved.
I’m glad that you’re finding ways to manage your deep concern for Dad so productively , Wilder texted back.
Oh, I’m real productive , Ryder replied with a few suggestive emojis that made Wilder roll his eyes. You better believe it. Besides, I know that if anything changes there, you’ll let me know.
Funny you should mention that , Wilder wrote back without thinking through the ramifications. Or maybe he didn’t care if there were ramifications. Maybe because that grief was still sitting heavy inside him, all sharp edges and unbearable weight. Maybe because he thought Ryder should worry more about the life he’d left behind too easily. As it happens, I’m getting married. And fast, so I sure hope you can work that into your busy schedule.
And it wasn’t a surprise when the phone rang about one second later. He debated not answering it because he knew that would irritate his brother, but something in him had shifted. It was something about the fact that he’d put that he was getting married into words. It felt a lot like the way he’d sat there outside his cabin last night, staring off into nothing.
It wasn’t that it was bad. It was that it was real.
Wilder had asked Cat Lisle to marry him and she’d said yes.
This was real .
When he answered the phone, it would be even more real.
“Did you get hit in the head?” Ryder demanded when Wilder picked up.
“You’re the one who gets dropped on his head all the time,” Wilder pointed out. “You tell me. Have you ever woken up after a run-in with an ornery bull, feeling all matrimonial?”
“If you want me to call home more, you should have said so.”
“I do say so. All the time. And that hasn’t gotten you to reach out. I was starting to think you never would.”
“Never fear, the next time you tell me potentially life-altering news, I’ll assume that you’re baiting me as usual and ignore it.” Ryder laughed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a den of iniquity to lose myself in all over again—”
“Oh I wasn’t joking about the getting married part,” Wilder said, and he leaned back in his chair, suddenly feeling a little more… right with the world, maybe. Or with his decisions, anyway. And if poking at his twin was how he got there, well, he supposed that was because he’d been doing it since they’d been in their mama’s belly. “If I had to guess, I’d say the wedding will be about two weeks from now.”
That had been the general consensus last night, standing there in Jenny Lisle’s living room with Cat’s arm around him. He’d thought then that there were precious few things he wouldn’t do if Cat asked him to, and instead of being horrified at that, he’d… kind of liked it.
He knew better than to tell Ryder that, however.
“Who did you get pregnant?” Ryder demanded, sounding a lot as if Wilder had told him that he too was dying, and quicker.
And maybe that was why it didn’t sit right on him. Or maybe it was the very idea that he would ever have gone and gotten Cat knocked up, even though he knew perfectly well that no matter what he or she said, that was going to be the prevailing thought around here.
“Obviously I did not get anybody pregnant,” he told Ryder, witheringly. “I’m not an animal.”
He looked up then and saw that Belinda was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, her arms crossed and her brows raised. He had the urge to hang up the phone, but that wouldn’t change the reality here. It wouldn’t change anything, so he nodded at his stepmother. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see Harlan behind her.
“Why did you go all quiet?” Ryder asked in his ear. “Did you get drunk and elope? Was there a gun at your back? Is there a gun at your back now ? Or, wait, is this some kind of ransom situation?”
Wilder let his twin spin out on that theme, because the kitchen was getting crowded. He decided that it was better that way. He put Ryder on speaker and everyone else gathered around, Boone and Knox looking at each other and then out the window to where Zeke was standing, as if he come up to ask a question and it stopped dead because everyone else was, too.
Then they all stared at Wilder. A better man might have been nervous, but Wilder only lounged in his chair and smiled.
“I am not hung over or being coerced in any way,” Wilder said, and he was definitely not too far gone not to enjoy the various looks of confusion that flashed around the ranch house kitchen. “And nobody is pregnant. But I am delighted to announce that the biggest blood feud in Cowboy Point has come to a screeching finish, folks. Cat Lisle and I are getting married.”
And he let that sit a while, because he suspected that would take some digesting.
Maybe a whole lot of digesting.
“It’s nonnegotiable,” he added when he saw the faces around him change to a kind of incredulity that he was pretty sure would lead to raised voices in a moment. “And it was entirely my idea. In case anyone here gets the bright idea to mount a posse or something else equally embarrassing to go charge Lisle Hill.”
There was a silence. Even from the phone.
Wilder waited. And waited some more.
And then, like a kind of rolling explosion, everyone started talking at once.
And so he sat back, crossed his arms, and enjoyed the show.
The more they carried on, the better the whole thing felt.
“Thank you,” he said when there was a lull in the commotion. “I sure appreciate your love and support.”
And then he took himself off, leaving them to talk about him while they worked on Harlan’s projects without his help. He drove down into town and took great pleasure in parking his truck right outside the General Store. Once he climbed out, he sauntered inside, even though he couldn’t recall the last time he’d darkened the door of the establishment the Lisles had stolen from his family long ago.
Not since he was a kid, he thought now.
There were a few locals already inside, moving down the small aisles and picking over the items in buckets, so Wilder did the polite thing and tipped his hat to all of them. Busybody Marla Sheen, who ran the feed store and considered herself akin to a local newswire, narrowed her eyes as she took in the rare and amazing sight of a Carey in the General Store. Esther Wayne, the deputy’s sister, who Wilder had heard considered herself something of a private detective in addition to her duties at the elementary school, looked at him like he was the newest case she intended to take on. The pastor’s wife, Nevaeh Higgins, who always seemed to know every single thing that was happening to every single person in the community, whether they went to church or not, made no secret of staring at him. And best of all, the person who was probably the biggest loudmouth in the entirety of Cowboy Point—garrulous old mountain man Shane Johnson, owner, proprietor, and bartender at the Copper Mine—was eying Wilder from the canned foods aisle.
He couldn’t have asked for a better cross-section of people to witness this moment.
It was better than a billboard.
He strolled past all of them and made his way to the counter where Cat sat, frozen, her eyes wide as he approached.
And immediately, all that ache and grief and longing, all that pressure and confusion, lifted.
Because her eyes were the blue of true north, and that was all he needed. So Wilder didn’t stop at the counter, he rounded it. He found his way to her side, pulled her up to her feet, and kissed her soundly.
And he took his time with it, for good measure.
“Now you’ve done it,” she murmured when he finally eased away, though her eyes were dreamy and her lips were curved. “There’s no backing out now.”
With her in his arms, even standing here in public with the Cowboy Point gossip machine about to explode, Wilder couldn’t think of a single reason why he would.
Two weeks turned out to be exactly how much time both the Lisle brothers and the county needed for them to plan a sweet little ceremony down at the Marietta courthouse. That part, it was decided during another round of discussions up on Lisle Hill, would be strictly family.
“After the ceremony, we can have a party back here in Cowboy Point,” Cat said, her chin high like she was daring him yet again. “Where everyone knows us.”
“But more importantly, so everyone can see that it’s real,” he finished for her, raising a brow like he was daring her right back.
She didn’t deny it. And Wilder thought that all things considered, he could watch her blush like that forever.
It was true that words like that, forever , echoed in him in a way that made him something a little too close to anxious, but he ignored it.
Because surely this was going to do it. Surely marrying Cat was going to make him a better man. She was his redemption. He was sure of it.
And it didn’t hurt that she was so damn pretty, either.
He took her out on a date because they hadn’t gotten around to that yet. He drove them down the mountain, and then over to glitzy Bozeman. He bought her a ring with a moonstone because that was how they had come together, out in the night with the moon looking down. But with sparkly diamonds all around it, because she was shiny like that.
And because Wilder wouldn’t have anyone thinking he couldn’t give her the best. Or that she didn’t deserve it.
Then he gave her the ring when they got back to his truck.
“Not because I’m not romantic,” he told her gruffly. “But because—”
“This is where it started,” she finished for him, and smiled so wide when he slipped the ring on her finger that he found himself grinning too.
They celebrated in one of Bozeman’s fancy restaurants, where he’d had the presence of mind to book a table. And when he asked if she wanted to go dancing, because they’d never done that before, either, she shrugged.
Then blushed again. “Or you could drive me home. And maybe stop in the woods on the way?”
Wilder was pretty sure he’d never made it from Bozeman to Cowboy Point so quickly, and they didn’t make it out to the truck bed. He turned into that dirt road and the minute he parked, she was on his lap. So he held her there, where she could rock herself against the hardest part of him and drive them both crazy. While he slipped his hands up beneath the pretty dress she wore, finding her hips and that soft swathe of belly, and then filling his palms with the breasts he’d been aware of all evening, right there on the other side of a spaghetti strap.
But when she went to unbutton his jeans, he stopped her.
“Can’t we…?” She was breathing against his mouth, rosemary and sugar all over him. Lavender like a shot of whiskey. “We’re properly engaged, Wilder.”
“Catalina Lisle, I am shocked and appalled,” he murmured, but he kissed her mouth, all along her jaw, and then down to those places on her neck that made her shiver and throw her head back. “We are getting married in a week. Don’t you want to wear white on the big day?”
She laughed and leaned down so she could press herself all over him, testing his resolve in ways he honestly didn’t know if he could resist—
“I’m thinking it’s going to have to be off-white,” she murmured. “Possibly beige, at this point.”
Wilder smoothed his hands back down to her hips, and then found his way between her legs, using his fingers to play her like his favorite instrument until she sang out his name.
And when she shivered and shook, breaking apart while he held her, he laughed. “I’m thinking maybe a red dress, kitten. Just to be safe.”
The day before the wedding, Wilder sat out on his porch in the early morning, thinking it was about time he introduced a jacket to this ritual, because it was getting to where even born and bred Montanans like him had to admit that it was, in fact, cold.
He heard an unusual sound penetrate the usual morning quiet, and it took him a moment to realize it was a vehicle coming down his drive. He braced himself for an intervention, like the kinds his brothers had been trying since his announcement.
Harlan had even sent in Kendall to do his dirty work.
It does seem awfully quick, doesn’t it? And she’d laughed when she’d asked that. I realize that’s the pot calling the kettle black.
I didn’t put an ad out, he told her. If that’s what you’re asking.
And he didn’t comment on the quickness one way or another.
Boone and Knox had come over together one evening, shouldering their way inside without an invitation, rifling through his refrigerator like they were starving teenagers, and then taking up residence on his couch, one on either side of him.
By all means, Wilder drawled. Come on in.
Just want to see if you have a gun to your head on this, Boone had said. It being so out of character and all.
And it was out of character. Wilder understood that. But he also understood that any discussion about that would blow back on Cat, one way or another, and he couldn’t live with himself if he let that happen.
So he looked at Boone, straight on. I imagine everything seems sudden in comparison to a lifelong unrequited crush on a woman who could have dated you in high school, but married someone else instead.
And while Knox was laughing at that, Wilder took him in, too. Or, just to pick a possibility at random, creeping around in the middle of the night with the headlights of your truck off, sneaking in to see a woman I’ve never seen you with in the light of day.
Boone glared at Knox. What woman?
Knox stood. I think that concludes this intervention, he’d said gruffly. Hope you’re very happy with your shotgun wedding, Wilder.
So really, Wilder figured as he sat there with his coffee done just right, which was supposed to be a good omen, he had to brace himself for any eventuality as the sound of the approaching vehicle got closer and closer.
But the truck that swung into view was one he hadn’t seen in a minute. And he was already grinning when it stopped and Ryder stepped out, like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to be back on Carey land at this hour of the morning. And unannounced.
His twin had a limp that he hadn’t had the last time Wilder had seen him, but he was smiling too. He came over, climbed the steps of the porch, and tossed himself down beside Wilder and that really did feel like the most normal thing in the world. Wilder handed Ryder his mug and they sat like that a spell, passing the mug of coffee back and forth between them like a flask.
“I’ll admit you make a fine cup of coffee,” Ryder said.
Wilder laughed. “I didn’t realize there was some kind of debate.”
And he felt something in him settle, the way it always did when Ryder was near. They both stared out at the view and found himself wondering what his brother was looking at when what Wilder saw was the magic of it all, the ridges of mountains rolling on and on, like they were the only real thing in the world. Once he would have known as well as he knew what he saw, but this wasn’t the same Ryder who had lived pretty much right next to him for the first eighteen years of his life. This Ryder was the one who’d left.
Ryder was the one who’d gone out there in the world and explored all kinds of places that Wilder had only heard about. Sure, he’d sent back pictures and he’d told stories, but it wasn’t the same.
Looking out at all the mountains, a whole mess of them snowcapped on this cold, almost bitterly crisp morning, and knowing exactly where High Mountain Ranch sat in the middle of it all, Wilder still thought he’d made the better choice.
“So,” Ryder said. “Cat Lisle.”
And there were a thousand things that Wilder could have said. He could have mounted arguments. Or told him that it was none of his business, but that didn’t really work with a twin who was as much him as he was. He could have laid the entire situation out, end-to-end, because he wasn’t worried about protecting Cat from Ryder. Ryder took as much delight in poking and prodding Wilder as Wilder did him, but that was between them. That was theirs. They were and always had been their own safe space.
He could have claimed that he was following in Harlan’s footsteps, getting in on that final request that Zeke had put out to them. And maybe there was more truth than he wanted to admit, because even thinking that seemed to… stick a little bit.
Wilder even could have told Ryder that he was pretty sure that Cat had called his bluff because she knew that he’d figured she might balk, though now, looking back, he couldn’t even say that was true. He couldn’t seem to remember not having asked the question, much less not wanting to ask it.
Instead, he looked out at the mountains and let them work their magic inside him. He could feel them, the way he always did. As if he was a part of them.
He shifted against the cold step. “Do you remember when we were about five, we thought it would be such a great idea to climb up to the top of that rock and throw ourselves into the swimming hole to see what would happen?”
Ryder nodded. “I do.”
They’d been holy terrors. Everyone had said so.
Looking back, he could see why everyone thought that—and he still carried a ton of regret about it—but on the other side, there were moments like that day at the swimming hole.
There’d been no one around. They had run off from whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. Given their age, it was likely because their mother had been sick. They probably escaped the watchful eye of mean old cousin Roberta, who had made no secret of the fact that she thought that having such rambunctious twins had gotten Alice sick in the first place.
She’d shared that opinion pretty freely, as Wilder recalled.
What he remembered that particular day was streaking off across the yard, neck in neck with Ryder. They’d run and they’d run, back when they were small and running had felt like flying, and they had headed directly to the place they knew they weren’t supposed to go. The place they had been expressly forbidden to ever go.
The rules were clear that they were only allowed near bodies of water when in the presence of an adult, but they hadn’t much cared about rules. They’d climbed a tree, but had deemed it not dangerous enough to excite them. Then they’d eyed that rock, big and imposing, that stood on one side of the swimming hole, jutting out from the mountainside, and they’d known. That was the one.
It had been so steep that they’d had to do it together, hauling each other up and sliding down—repeatedly. There’d been scrapes and maybe a few tears, but they’d finally gotten to the top. It was flat up there and for a couple of small kids, it provided the optimal running start.
Wilder and Ryder had looked at each other. Then they’d grabbed hold of each other, and they’d taken off.
They’d run as fast as they could, catapulting themselves off the side of that rock, and for a single, glorious moment, they’d gotten some hang time.
Wilder remembered it perfectly.
It had been a bright summer day. The sky above had been too blue to bear. The water below had matched it. And for that long, perfect moment, it was like they were suspended there in all of that blue eternity.
It had been still and sweet and exhilarating beyond the telling of it.
It had been pure magic.
Beside him, now, Ryder nodded like he was remembering it all, the same as Wilder.
“Okay, then,” was all he said. “Cat Lisle it is.”
That was all that was needed. And just like always, Wilder figured that if he had Ryder’s support, he could handle anything else that came his way.
And that was how he felt the next day, his wedding day. He drove down to Marietta with Ryder in his passenger seat and Boone and Knox in the second row. They were all dressed in button-downs, jackets, and their best boots, like they were going to church. Harlan and Kendall followed with Zeke and Belinda behind them.
Once they drove through Cowboy Point Wilder could see Tennessee’s truck and behind it, Jenny’s, already winding their way down the same mountain road toward Marietta.
Like a little caravan of a blood feud, he thought.
“You can still back out,” Knox said from the backseat when they made it to the bottom of Copper Mountain. “And honor Matthew Carey as our family has always done until now.”
“He’s not backing out,” Ryder said. He reached back and cuffed Knox on the shoulder. “Try shutting up and maybe you’ll understand what the adults are talking about. Pipsqueak.”
This was particularly entertaining to everyone in the truck except Knox, since he was, in fact, over six feet tall and not a pipsqueak of any kind.
“I’m sorry,” he replied. “Who are you again? I thought this was a family-only wedding?”
Ryder laughed, lounging there in the front passenger seat as Wilder drove into Marietta proper. “If you think that just because it’s Wilder’s wedding day I won’t kick your ass, you have another think coming, little brother.”
And the sudden, robust discussion of the possibility of actual fisticuffs kept Wilder from anything like nerves the rest of the way to the courthouse.
Once there, Knox took it upon himself to go and clap both Tennessee and Dallas on the back, loudly calling them brother right there on the street with an ear to ear grin that made them both look murderous.
Harlan stood with Kendall’s hand tight in his, looking amused. Zeke, Wilder couldn’t help but notice, looked distressingly smug. And awfully chipper for a dying man.
But all of that faded away when he saw Cat.
She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in all of his life. How had he ever thought about anything else when he was near her?
Today she wore a simple dress that he noted was not red, but more of a cream. She held a bouquet of bright, happy flowers in her hands, but he couldn’t have identified them if his life had depended on it. There was only her.
He took her hand when she walked to him smiling, and he forgot about everyone else.
He didn’t care about the glares he was getting from her brothers. He didn’t care about the speculative looks he was getting from his. He was happy that her mother didn’t look upset, but the truth was, he wouldn’t have cared if she had.
He took her hands in his and he played with the ring he’d put there. The moonstone gleamed. The diamonds sparkled. But nothing shined the way Cat did.
It seemed to take a lifetime before they were in front of the judge.
And Wilder liked to pretend he wasn’t an introspective man, but he was. And he knew his failures far outnumbered his strengths.
He knew that Cat deserved better.
But when the judge asked him if he would take her as his lawfully wedded wife, he didn’t have to think. He said, “I do.”
And maybe there was a part of him that hoped as much as feared that she would call it off, there at the end.
But she didn’t.
“Do you, Catalina Lisle, take Wilder Matthew Carey to be your husband?” the judge asked her. “From this day forward, to honor and cherish him, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, and will be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”
And that aching in him took over the whole of his body, then, but it was as he’d told Ryder. It was like he was suspended between the sky and that water, because her eyes were so damned blue.
And when he looked at her, every time he looked at her, that was what it felt like.
Like flying.
Like he could stay there forever, and should.
And so, after she whispered, “I do,” looking straight at him, he got to hold her hands in his. He got to wear the ring she’d brought for him.
And there, before all of their families and in spite of the long-running blood feud between them, he kissed his bride and made her his wife.
Even though he knew that if he really was any kind of a decent man where it counted, or at all, he would have cut her loose instead.