Chapter 21 #2
The venue is beautiful in that quiet, unassuming way.
It feels like it’s been holding stories longer than any of us have been alive.
The air smells like worn wood and melted wax, the floor creaks under foot like it’s whispering secrets, and the light cuts through stained glass in ribbons of color, painting the pews in blues and golds.
Up front, two arrangements of white flowers rise tall and simple.
I walk down the side aisle with Dom a step behind me. People turn. Heads shift. There’s a murmur that rises and falls as I pass, like the sound of a wave breaking then pulling back.
“He’s so handsome,” I hear someone whisper to the left.
“He looks just like Estelle,” someone else says.
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Or disappear.
Dom takes his place beside me, adjusting his jacket as he does, calm as ever.
He nods at someone across the room—probably Riley or Crew, who I can’t see yet.
Some of my brothers are still in the back, probably making inappropriate jokes with Miller and Lark, who’s wrangling her dress while trying to keep the twins from climbing the walls.
Emily’s probably already lined up, clutching her bouquet like it might combust.
I let out a slow breath. Plant my feet. Keep my hands at my sides.
This is the part no one talks about—the waiting.
There’s nowhere to look. Nowhere to go. Just a few hundred people in front of you and a very long thirty seconds stretching into what feels like half your life.
I glance toward the side aisle once, then again, like maybe the door’s going to open early. It doesn’t.
Dom leans in slightly. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
I huff out a breath that’s almost a laugh.
The music changes—some soft string arrangement I don’t recognize but assume Wren chose—and people start turning in their seats again, this time toward the back.
I shift my weight. Flex my fingers. Remind myself that this is for one year. Just one.
The pastor claps a hand on my shoulder, firm and warm.
“Congratulations again, Mr. Hart,” he says, his voice low but cheerful. “We’ll get started in just a minute.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
He smiles and steps back toward the altar, flipping open a small black binder. I’m not even sure what his name is—he’s a person you only meet once, remember vaguely, and then somehow end up tying your entire day to.
He clears his throat and steps forward, voice steady as he begins. “Welcome, everyone. Thank you for being here today as we gather to witness the joining of Wren Wilding and Sawyer Hart in marriage.”
I breathe in. Not deep—just enough to keep the room from tilting.
I glance down the aisle toward the front row. My dad’s sitting with his legs wide, one arm slung over the back of the chair next to him like he’s at a damn rodeo. And sure enough—there’s a toothpick tucked into the corner of his mouth.
I swear to God. The man is in a suit, in a wedding venue, and he still has a damn toothpick. You can take the man out of the ranch, but you can’t ever take the ranch out of the man, I guess.
Mom’s next to him, a handkerchief pressed to the corner of her eye. Of course. Even though she knows this whole thing isn’t real, she’s still crying. That’s how she is. Tenderhearted and entirely unable to fake indifference.
And Nora—five years old and wild as ever—is crawling all over Mom’s lap, knees in her grandmother’s skirt, little shoes kicking against Dad’s shin like she’s got no idea this is supposed to be a quiet moment. She probably doesn’t. Nora hasn’t been still a day in her life.
It makes me smile. Just a little.
The pastor’s still talking—something about love and commitment, about coming together as a community—but it drifts in and out. I don’t hear all of it. The room’s too full. My mind’s too loud.
The music shifts again—violins this time. Softer, maybe slower. I don’t know. I’m not exactly a connoisseur of wedding soundtracks, but it does the trick. People sit up straighter. Heads turn.
The back doors open, slow and silent, and the processional begins.
Lark is the first to appear, her arm looped through Crew’s.
He’s in a black suit and tie, buttoned clean, jaw set like a man who didn’t grow up wrangling cattle.
She looks stunning, obviously—her dress is a silky emerald green that Wren picked for all of her bridesmaids.
The dress catches the sunlight pouring through the stained-glass windows and turns it into something borderline celestial.
Her hair’s curled, makeup flawless, her posture straight.
Next are Riley and Miller. She looks perfect. Chin high, bouquet held in that exact effortless-but-intentional way she pulls off. Her heels click like little punctuation marks. Riley’s smirking like a man with a secret. He probably whispered something crude right before they stepped out.
Then Mason and Sage. She looks beautiful. All quiet confidence. No wasted movement. Mason looks like he’s doing breathing exercises in his head just to stay vertical.
And then Emily comes, walking between Nathan and Luke. She’s glowing—proud and completely locked into the moment. I’ve never seen her look so grown up. Nathan looks like he’s thinking too hard. Luke’s definitely not thinking at all.
They all file in and line up in place. Emerald green dresses on one side, black suits on the other. Clean. Symmetrical. Just the way we planned.
And I’m standing here, still trying to convince myself this is just a formality. Just part of the plan. Just a thing we’re doing to get from point A to point B.
That traditional wedding song starts—predictable, ceremonial—and the second it does, the room goes still.
Then the doors swing open.
And fuck me.
There she is.
Wren steps into the doorway between Ridge and Boone, and the everyone reacts like they’ve just witnessed something holy.
A ripple of whispered wows and gasps moves down the pews.
Somewhere behind me, someone says “she’s beautiful,” but even that feels like an insult. Beautiful doesn’t begin to cover it.
She looks like sin wrapped in satin.
Her dress is off-the-shoulder, white and smooth and clinging to every curve like it was designed specifically to fuck with me.
The bodice wraps across her chest, lifting her breasts high enough to make my mouth go dry.
And the slit— Jesus. It’s high. Way too high for a wedding, but just high enough to make me want to drag her into the nearest room and find out how far up it goes when I’ve got her leg hooked around my hip.
Her skin is golden, like she was dipped in honey. There’s blush along her cheekbones, mascara darkening already-long lashes, and mauve lipstick that turns her mouth into something I can’t stop looking at, no matter how much I know I should.
Her hair is curled and silky, tucked behind one freckled shoulder. Her collarbone is bare and perfect, and all I can wonder—without meaning to—is what it would feel like to press my mouth right there. To kiss lower. To feel her pulse against my tongue.
She’s wearing strappy little white heels that make her bronze legs look like they go on for miles. I follow the line of her body—ankle to thigh to hip to waist—and land on the way the fabric clings to her ass like a fucking prayer.
Underneath all of that—beneath the want, the ache, the restraint I’m gripping in both fists—is one quiet, staggering truth: She’s the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever seen.
And I’m already ruined just looking at her.
I’ve seen Wren a hundred different ways. In jeans. In mud-covered boots. In old, over-sized sweatshirts covered in horse hair and paint. I’ve seen her patiently guiding horses in a round pen. I’ve seen her determined and pissed off and barefoot and quietly brilliant.
But I’ve never seen her like this . And I’m not sure I’m going to survive it.
And I definitely shouldn’t be thinking about sliding my hand under her dress in the middle of our goddamn wedding.
But I am.
I’m also thinking about the sound she’d make if I did. And her silky hair, soft and shiny, looks like it’d slide right through my hands if I let it. If I fisted it once. Twisted it. Pulled just enough to make her tilt her chin up.
I wonder what she’d taste like. Between her breasts. Along the inside of her thigh. If she’d let me kneel for her. Take my time. Make her forget everything outside the two of us.
Then she steps in front of me and just like that, every thought snaps into silence. Boone and Ridge unhook their arms from hers—Ridge presses a kiss to her cheek and she gives a small smile in return, one that’s not quite full, not quite steady.
She’s nervous.
I can see it in the way she exhales. In the way her fingers flex slightly at her sides. She hates being the center of attention. Hates being watched, measured, expected to perform.
This—walking down an aisle with every person she’s ever known staring at her—probably feels like some hellish nightmare.
But she’s doing it anyway. For her family. For mine. For the land. For something bigger than either of us, and I know what that costs her. I’d admire the hell out of her if I could stop fucking gawking at her long enough to think straight.
Then she looks at me, her eyes on mine, and for a second, everything else disappears. The crowd. The weight of all the pretending.
It’s just her. And me.
I inhale. Slow. Controlled. Then again.
If I don’t remember to breathe, I’m not sure I’ll make it through the next ten minutes.
She steps in beside me, and even though she doesn’t touch me, I feel her—the warmth at my side, the subtle shift of air when her dress moves, the way her presence drags my focus back to center like gravity.
I told myself this was about land. About water. About getting in and getting out without anyone getting hurt.
One year. Three hundred and sixty five days, and then it’s all over.
But standing here, shoulder to shoulder with the woman I’m supposed to lie about loving, I already know I’ve made a big mistake.
Because nothing about this feels like pretending anymore.
And I’m not sure I want it to.