Chapter 35 #2
“I’m not wearing that fool dress you left in my room.” Abby chose that moment to stride into the kitchen wearing her doeskin dress and moccasins, carrying her knife.
Gertie looked at Abby. Then her gaze slid to Wade. The two of them broke out laughing.
Wade jumped to his feet and grabbed Abby in a hug that lifted her off her feet.
“Put me down!” She scowled, but at least she was careful not to stab him.
“Good morning.” Wade gave her a loud, smacking kiss.
“Let’s get on with this wedding.” She didn’t smile, acted as though she was being harassed. But it sure sounded as though she wanted to get married.
“Red’ll be here soon,” Wade said as Gertie turned her back and fussed with her frosting again. Wade took a second kiss, much quieter and deeper. And Abby cooperated something fierce.
“Then we will get on with this wedding.” He smiled and tricked a smile out of his woman too.
Tom Linscott picked that moment to slam the kitchen door open. “Get your hands off her, Sawyer.” Tom pulled Wade’s arm away and shoved in between Wade and Abby. “You’re not married yet.”
“We’re going to fix that very soon. Have some breakfast.”
Red was none too swift getting to the ranch. Pa was behaving pretty well, but Wade was ready to strangle Tom by the time the parson showed up.
It was finally time for the wedding, and Wade practically ran to stand by Red’s side in front of the fireplace in Pa’s huge living room. Cassie sat in a rocking chair with both her children in her lap. Gertie settled on the sofa next to Pa in his wheelchair.
Linscott finally walked in escorting Abby, smiling down at her. “I’ll give the bride away.”
“That sounds good, Tom.” Red gave a solemn nod. “This is my first wedding. You come up on Abby’s right, with Wade on her left.”
“Give me away?” Abby’s fingers twitched, and Wade braced himself for her to go for her knife. “As if I now belong to Tom and will soon belong to Wade?”
“You belong to yourself, Abby.” Tom took her by the arm and eased her over to Wade’s side. “No one here doubts that for a single minute.”
Wade watched closely. He didn’t mind Abby loving her brother, but there was no sense getting overly acquainted with the cranky, blond grizzly of a man.
Wade would feel a lot better when the vows were said and they could get out of there.
He had no intention of spending his wedding night under his father’s roof.
Maybe they’d set up camp in the woods, where Abby was happiest. Wade liked that idea.
In fact, he liked that idea so well, he lost track of what Red was saying.
Red kicked him in the shin. “So do you, Wade?” Red glared.
He was missing his own wedding. “I do. I surely do.” Hopefully, Red had asked the question Wade was guessing he’d asked and not something dumb like, “Do you want to go check the cattle before the ceremony?”
Red smiled.
Wade took Abby’s hand, and she let him, so he must have had the right answer to the right question.
“And Abby, do you take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?”
Abby turned those blazing blue eyes right at Wade and said, clear as day, loud enough for them to hear all the way back in the Flathead village, “I do.”
There was more talk, which Wade mostly missed because he was lost in Abby’s smiling eyes. He did catch Red saying, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
And right there in front of his nasty, cranky pa, Abby’s nasty, cranky brother, sweet Cassie Dawson, and the first-time marryin’ preacher, Red, Wade Sawyer wrapped his arms around his brand-new wife and kissed her until no one in the room could doubt that he was staking a claim.
And since Abby was fully cooperative, she must be staking her claim right back.
When he pulled away, he said for all to hear, but looking at only Abby, “We’ll go wherever we need to go to be happy. If it’s not here, we’ll search until we find it.”
Abby ran one finger down his cheek and gave him the tiniest possible nod. “We’ll find home in each other.”
“Wherever you are, that’s where my home will be.” Wade knew it now as he never had before.
“And we’ll have children to fill that home, whether it’s a house or a tepee or we’re camped under the open stars.”
The thought of those children and what was involved in creating them caused Wade to remember very little of the feast Gertie had prepared.
He was polite, surely. Or if he wasn’t, no one pointed it out forcefully enough to get his attention, and both Tom and Pa had a whole lot of forceful they could use on him.
The wedding wore itself out. Their guests all went home, and Wade told his pa and Gertie goodbye.
He and Abby slept under the stars in the woods near Pa’s house, but plenty far away.
When the camp was set and a warm fire crackled in the Rocky Mountain twilight, Wade finally pulled his brand-spankin’-new wife into his arms. “Abby, this is a new beginning for us. A new life. We’ll roam the mountains if it’s what you wish. ”
“I’d like to take a few days and be alone with you, Wade, if that’s all right.”
The very thought made him dizzy. “Nothing has ever sounded as right.” He pulled her close and kissed her.
“I think we will give your whining coyote of a father a chance, Wade. But I want to hunt a few deer, build a tepee out away from his home. Have a place to go when I have to either get away from him or slit his throat.”
“That seems reasonable to me.” Wade could not have been fonder of his wife. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, but the truth was the truth.
“Maybe we can even build a small cabin. That might be better in the winter.”
Wade really wasn’t that interested in planning their whole future right now. The way Abby was going on, he half expected her to start pacing off the land for the building site.
“And when the children come, we might be more comfortable with four strong walls and a stone hearth.”
“About those children…” Wade ran clean out of patience, and for a mild-mannered man who’d spent most of his life fighting fear, he suddenly was almost exploding with courage.
But he wasn’t a foolish man. He didn’t tell her to quiet down.
That was a good way to get her to draw her knife, which she most likely had with her, even on her wedding day.
He tricked her instead, distracted her, kept her mouth too busy to talk. He made sure his feisty little wildflower bride didn’t say a single discouraging word.
It was a joyful beginning to a new life that rarely included Wade’s prayer of old, “Whom shall I fear?”
Because his prayers were now of joy and praise and thanksgiving.
And besides, if he ever was afraid, he had Abby right there to protect him.
Turn the page for a sneak peek of Doctor in Petticoats, the next book in the Petticoats and Cowboys series!