Going Cowboy Crazy (39 page)

“Of course not.” Jenna retied the ribbon on the back of Faith’s dress. “But you’re the maid of honor, so your dress needs to be different.”

“Different?” She snorted as she leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes. “Oh, it’s different all right.”

With a look of concern, Jenna crossed the room and placed a hand on Hope’s forehead. “Is your stomach still upset, honey?”

Hope sat up and pushed her hand away. “Would you stop fussing over me, Mama! I told you, it was only Josie’s red chili that upset my stomach.”

But Jenna didn’t look convinced. “I know what you told me. But if there is ever anything you want to talk about, you know I’m here for you.”

“Whatever.” Hope rolled her eyes as Jenna headed for the door.

“I better take my place before Cindy Lynn has a conniption.” She gave Faith one more watery look. “I’m so proud of you, honey.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

Once she was gone, Hope grumbled under her breath. “Crazy woman.”

“Did you ever think that maybe she’s just looking for an excuse to keep you here?” Faith said as she reached for her tube of Passion Fruit lip gloss.

“Fat chance,” Hope stated. “Nobody in their right mind would want to live in this godforsaken place. I came back for a visit—only a visit.”

It was a lie, and both of them knew it. Hope had come back for Slate. But Faith wasn’t willing to point that out to her sister, not when she and Hope had formed a kind of truce. Although there would come a day when they would need to discuss it.

Just not today.

The door opened, and Shirlene stuck her head in. “Hey, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, it’s time.” Her head popped back out, and the door clicked shut.

The nervousness that had only heated Faith’s cheeks before came to a quivering boil in her stomach. And her hand trembled as she reached for her own bridal bouquet of ugly purple silk flowers.

“I think they call it the weddin’ jitters,” Hope stated as she dropped her scuffed brown cowboy boots to the
carpet. “ ’Course, if you’re too chicken, I’ll be more than happy to fill in.”

The comment was enough to stiffen Faith’s spine. “Not a chance.”

Hope shrugged. “Well, in that case, little sister”—she pointed at the door—“let’s go get you hitched.”

In the foyer, Burl and the rest of her attendants were waiting in line. Shirlene, Tessa, and grumpy Jenna Jay’s shimmering gold satin dresses were actually pretty, especially when compared to Hope’s. A little blond flower girl, a distant cousin of Burl’s, stood behind Shirlene holding a long gold ribbon attached to the purple collar and tiny pillow around the ring bearer’s neck.

Buster had never looked better. Of course, it had taken a few days for his skin to stop itching from the salon conditioner Faith had used on him during his bath. Luckily, the dog had a forgiving nature. His tail thumped against the carpet when he spied her.

Or maybe he was looking at Hope.

But at least Burl was looking at Faith. Dressed in a black tuxedo and matching felt cowboy hat, he looked handsome… and unhappy.

“You look beautiful, baby.” Burl held out his arm, and when she slipped her hand beneath his elbow, he covered it with his. “But I don’t know if I’m ready to give you up seein’ as how I just got you back.”

Before she could reply, Hope jumped into the conversation.

“You know what they say, Daddy….” She squeezed in front of them, forcing the flower girl and Buster to jump out of the way of her full skirt. “You’re not losing a daughter, you’re gaining someone to go huntin’ with.”

“Big deal,” he grumbled just as Cindy Lynn shushed them.

The controlling woman held a finger to her lips as she and Twyla pulled open the double doors, and Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” started playing through the speakers. Then one by one, Cindy Lynn directed the procession down the aisle, fluffing skirts and whispering directions to everyone but Hope, who warned her with one look.

Then finally it was Burl and Faith’s turn.

“I love you, Faith,” her father whispered right before they reached the threshold of the chapel.

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

She tried to blink away the tears, but it was hard to do when the entire town looked back at her with big smiles that conveyed love and a whole lot of pride. Some she knew by name—Rachel Dean, Tyler Jones, Rye Pickett, Harley Sutter, Lyle and Darla. And some she only recognized as the postmaster, the librarian, and the cashier at the grocery store. It would take time to learn all their names. But she would. These were her folks. And Bramble was her home.

A smile lit Faith’s face as her gaze drifted over the congregation, then along the line of groomsmen in their black tuxes and matching cowboy hats. Dallas, Kenny, Travis, and finally Austin, who looked right at home in the western-cut tux and hat. At last, her gaze settled on the man who waited at the end of the rose petal–strewn aisle. The tall, blond hometown hero who made her heart race and her knees tremble. The cocky cowboy who, from the moment he kidnapped her from Bootlegger’s, held her heart hostage. Halfway down the aisle their eyes met and,
as she slipped inside the deep pools of golden brown and cool green, she realized she’d made a mistake.

Bramble was her town.

Slate was her home.

It seemed to take an eternity to reach him. Then once his hand closed over hers, time slipped by too quickly. Before she knew it, the ceremony was over, and Slate’s lips touched hers in a warm invitation. An invitation she couldn’t ignore. Standing up on tiptoes, she flung her arms around his neck to deepen the kiss, and his cowboy hat hit the floor amid a chorus of hoots and hollers.

After a few sizzling seconds, Slate pulled back, and a brilliant smile lit his face.

“Hang on to that thought, darlin’.” Jerking up his hat, he whisked her down the aisle, through the foyer, and out the door into the bright autumn day, where Bubba’s truck sat next to the curb with beer cans attached to the huge bumper and
Just Hitched
written in white shoe polish on the back window between the peeing boy and the Cowboys football helmets.

Almost, but not quite, obscuring the gun rack.

The town followed behind them, but not fast enough. Slate had her up in the cab and the engine started before Harley hit the first step. The only one to reach them before Slate drove off was Buster. With purple ribbon dragging and empty ring pillow flopping, he bounded out the church doors and leaped from the top step into the bed of the truck.

“We can’t really leave them, Slate.” Faith stared out the back window as the crowd surged into the street. “Not when they’ve done so much work for the reception.”

“Work? They loved every second of it.” He leaned over the steering wheel and tried to struggle out of his jacket.

She reached over and held the sleeve as he pulled his arm out. “I realize that, but we still have to attend. Josephine spent all week cooking, and Jenna says the town hall has been completely repainted just for the occasion. Did you realize the centerpieces are handcrafted antiques?”

Slate laughed as he tossed his jacket to the other side of the seat. “I think Jenna stretched the truth a little.” He tugged on his bow tie until it came undone. “But I’m not planning on skipping out on the reception. I’m just planning a little detour.”

“A detour?” Her gaze followed his deft fingers as he opened three studs, and the crisp pleated shirt gapped to reveal the hollow of his throat and the hard planes of his chest.

His gaze slid over to her. “Is there a reason you’re sitting all the way over there, darlin’?”

Considering she was only inches away, the question made her smile. “This detour wouldn’t have anything to do with making love to me up at Sutter Springs, would it?”

The grin he sent her was pure mischief and all Slate. He slipped an arm around her and tugged her close, bestowing a kiss on the crown of her head. “Only if you insist, darlin’. Only if you insist.”

Behind them, the townsfolk stood out on the highway.

Harley hitched up his pants. “I always knew those two would get together.”

“Yeah, they’re a perfect match, ain’t they?” Twyla said.

“ ’Course it makes sense,” Rachel Dean joined in. “Seein’ how they was both Texas-born.”

“Faith was born in Texas?” Kenny Gene asked.

“Just miles away.”

“Well, that explains it then.”

“It sure does.”

The town turned to head for the reception as, with flags and Labradoodle ears flapping, Bubba’s truck disappeared into the brilliant West Texas sunset.

I
T WAS A DREAM.
It had to be. Where else but in a dream could you be an observer at your own wedding? A silent spectator who watched as you stood in the front of a church filled to the rafters with all your family and friends and whispered your vows to a handsome cowboy you’d loved for most of your life. A cowboy who kissed you as if his life depended on it before he hurried you down the aisle and off to the reception where he fed you champagne from his glass and cake from his fingers, before taking you in his strong arms and waltzing you toward happily ever after.

It was a dream.

Her dream.

“Hog, you gonna eat that piece of cake?”

And just like that the dream shattered into a nightmare.

Hope Marie Scroggs pulled her gaze from the dance floor and looked over at Kenny Gene, who was staring down at the half-eaten slice of wedding cake on her plate.

“Because if you ain’t,” he said, “I sure hate to see it go
to waste.” Without waiting for an answer, he speared the cake and crammed a forkful into his mouth, continuing to talk between chews. “That Josephine sure outdid herself this time. Who would’ve thought that raspberry jam would go so good with yeller cake?”

The fork came back toward her plate. But before he could stab another piece, his girlfriend, Twyla, slapped his hand, and the plastic fork sailed through the air, bounced off one of the ceramic pig centerpieces, and disappeared beneath the table.

“Kenny Gene, don’t you be eatin’ Hope’s food! She needs all them noot-tur-ents!”

Hope didn’t have a clue what Twyla was talking about, and she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was recapture the fantasy. But it was too late. Too late to ignore the fact that she wasn’t the one who whirled around on the dance floor in the arms of Slate Calhoun—the handsomest cowboy in West Texas.

But it should’ve been.

It should’ve been her dressed in her mama’s three-tiered lace wedding dress. Her who sipped from his clear plastic Solo cup. Her who licked Josephine’s Raspberry Jamboree Cake from those strong quarterback fingertips. Her arms looped over that lean cowboy frame. And her face tucked under that sexy black Stetson, awaiting a kiss from those sweet smiling lips.

Her.

Her.

Her.

Certainly not some damned Yankee who had come to Bramble, Texas, looking for her long-lost twin sister, only to steal that same sister’s identity like a peach pie set out
to cool. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. Not when Hope was the one who had done all the prep work. The one who suffered through all the cheerleading practices and homecoming parades and hog-calling contests, all to make her family and the townsfolk proud.

And then some citified wimp with mouse-eaten hair shows up, and their loyalties switched like Buford Floyd’s gender, and she was expected to grin and bear it? To pretend that everything was just fine and dandy? To act like she didn’t give a hoot that her life had just been spit out like a stream of tobacco juice on a sidewalk?

Her anger burned from the injustice of it all, and all she wanted to do was drop to the ground and throw a fit like she had as a child. And if she’d thought it would’ve worked, she would have. But it was too late for that. The vows had been spoken; the marriage license signed.

Besides, she was Hope Marie Scroggs, the most popular girl in West Texas, and she wasn’t about to let anyone know just how devastated she was that the dreams of her wedding day were being lived out by someone else.

Someone who, at that moment, looked over at her and smiled a bright, cheerful smile with white, even teeth that reflected the lights shooting off the huge disco ball hanging from the ceiling. How could some sugary sweet Disney princess have lived in the same womb with her for nine months? It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Nor could she figure out why she smiled back—although it might have been more of a baring of teeth because Faith’s smile fizzled before Slate whirled her away.

“Your fangs are showin’, honey.” Her best friend Shirlene slipped into the folding chair next to her with the soft rustle of gold satin.

Since her daydream was already stomped to smithereens, Hope turned to Shirlene and lifted a brow at the mounds of flesh swelling over the top of the bridesmaid’s dress.