The Bride Wore Starlight (4 page)

A mixture of pride, embarrassment, and utter gratitude bubbled into a giggle that helped effervesce a little of the dark hurt away. “I wish I could have read it. You're a little fearsome when you're on a tear, Gram.”

She looked positively affronted and then added a huge grin. “I don't go on ‘tears.' ”

“Not unintentional ones.” Joely grinned, too. “The politically correct term is ‘speak your mind.' ”

“I'll give you that one, child. I'm far too old to do anything less. But my point is that Timothy Foster didn't even do me the courtesy of sending a rude reply much less come and care for you. I don't know many humans who have that little charity in them.”

Joely had never thought of it in terms of Tim lacking a human quality. He'd simply been the man who'd hurt her and she the woman with so little to offer a husband that he'd walked away from her.

“Is it all right if I hate him?”

The words felt guiltily good to say.

Grandma Sadie patted her hands again. “If you can manage not to, after a time, you will feel the better for it. Right now? I'm afraid I'm struggling with a little hatred myself. He hurt one of my babes, and that's difficult to forgive.”

For once the tears in Joely's eyes were tears of relief, and for a few moments the anger and even hatred in her heart were pure, instead of jumbled and guilt-ridden.

“I honestly don't know what I'm going to do,” she said. “If I lose access to my care . . . to my home I—”

“That apartment is not your home.” Grandma Sadie interrupted her without apology. “It's your cave. You've been hiding there to do whatever healing you've had to do, and I'm not saying you didn't need it. But you don't need it any longer.”

The idea terrified her, as it always did. “I promised myself a year,” she said quietly. “That's what the doctors always said. ‘Give your body a full year to repair and recuperate.' Not that it's made so very much difference.”

She lowered her eyes as the truth crashed around her in a familiar tidal wave. She would never walk normally again. She would never tear around the barrels on the back of a gazelle-like horse. She would never . . .

“You are alive.” Grandma Sadie's admonishment cut through the roiling emotions. “Don't look for sympathy about losing your home. It's been waiting for you a long time.”

Speaking her mind. Here was proof her grandmother would speak it to anyone—even one of her “babes.” Joely stared at the table, chastised but not changed. She'd thought so often about returning to Paradise that she could play out the act of moving back in her head like a movie. It never had a satisfying ending.

“I'm not interested in coming back and being a burden to everyone here.”

“Why would you think such a thing?”

“I can't run my own errands. I can't get to my own doctor appointments. I can't go up and down stairs, so everyone would have to move to accommodate me. Harper and Cole will be newlyweds. They don't want a child to care for in their new life.”

A long, patient sigh floated through the air, and Grandma Sadie shook her head. “I could spend from now until the wedding ceremony begins listing the reasons all those complaints are wrong-headed,” she said. “But you're going to have to figure some of them out for yourself. Until then, I will talk with you about your worries any time you'd like, but no more right now. You get yourself into that chair, and we'll go to my room and get each other ready. I want only one promise from you—one sacrifice today.”

“What's that?”

“You put yourself, Timothy Foster, and all your fears away for the day, and you don't let them out again until we can concentrate on them. You were right and kind to keep this news from your sisters for the moment.”

“I'm not totally self-centered. I know it's their day.”

Joely found another smile and her grandmother returned it. Sadie stood. She still held herself with pride and determination, the soft roundness of age only emphasizing the fact that once she must have been a curvy stunner.

“Oh, sweet Joely. You are self-centered. You always have been. But one thing you are not is vainglorious. You have possessed a heart of gold from the day you were born, and you want people to honestly like you. It's time to turn a little of that inner kindness on yourself. Come now. Let's get dressed for the big party.”

S
HE DID, OR
tried to do, what Grandma Sadie ordered. In her grandmother's spacious bedroom suite on Rosecroft's first floor, they spoke no more about Tim, or the foreboding papers he'd sent, or about the injuries that made it so much more of a challenge to do anything she'd once taken for granted.

Grandma Sadie regaled her with stories from her own wedding seventy-five years before. No fancy, frilly white dress for her—just her best blue-and-pink flowered Sunday frock with a single rose pinned to her shoulder. Joely's grandfather, Sebastian, had been “handsome as Gary Cooper and Errol Flynn together” and had splurged on a new tie and a new pair of shoes for the occasion.

There'd been a small ceremony at the same little church the girls were getting married in today and, also the same as this wedding, a huge party here at Paradise with every kind of homemade treat conceivable and a fiddle band that played until all hours.

By the time Joely stopped giggling over the stories of cousins and neighbors plying the main fiddle player with whiskey so he'd play faster, she was dressed and ready to face the mirror.

“Now.” Grandma Sadie stood behind her, gripping her waist as Joely held the foot of the old sleigh bed frame and took a deep breath. “You look at yourself and tell me you don't forget all your troubles.”

The dress was a confection. A floating, swirling combination of blue with lilac streaked through the chiffon layers, the gown flowed from a wide gathered ribbon of purple at her waist into a shimmery full-length skirt that covered her twisted leg. She couldn't help but feel better wearing it. She'd been working hard enough on her upper-body physical therapy that her arms and shoulders didn't even look too bad in the strapless bodice.

“It is pretty, isn't it?”

“The girl in it is pretty. The dress just emphasizes it.”

There was the platitude. Joely turned in place and hugged her grandmother, who looked elegant in a peacock-blue suit worthy of Queen Elizabeth. She even wore a jaunty little fascinator, adorned with a peacock feather and a lavender bow. She was the pretty one.

“We both look good,” Joely agreed.

“Oh, much better than good. We'll catch all the boys' eyes.”

The twinkle in her eye proved Sadie Crockett wasn't just talking to exercise her jaw. She'd lost a husband and both her sons, but she revered life. Two new grandsons were about to walk down the aisle into her world, and she'd already caught their eyes, all right—as the undisputed head and heart of Paradise. And because they were two amazing, good men, Joely knew they'd helped heal a little of the loss in her grandmother's wounded heart. She would definitely dance with them, and other men, at the reception tonight.

Save me a dance.

Joely's heart fluttered at the memory of those words from the arrogant Mr. Morrissey Rodeo Star, and she shut down the annoying sensation with a firm press of her lips one to the other. She still couldn't quite fathom his nerve. The few men she had come in contact with since her accident had been kind, solicitous, understanding.

Cowboys were such . . . cowboys.

I'm not a real cowboy. I wear the boots because they're comfortable.

Jerk.

A quick, snappy knock on the bedroom door preceded it being thrown open. In tumbled the start of the party—five women and a teenager dressed like the blue-to-indigo spectrum of a rainbow. The triplets; Mia's best friend, Brooke, from New York; and Skylar Thorson, Bjorn and Melanie's daughter who'd developed a friendship with Harper because they both shared a talent for art wore dresses in varying shades of blue and lavender in lengths from knee to ankle. Joely's dress looked like a purposeful mix of all of them.

“Oh my,” Grandma Sadie said with a hand to her chest. “You all take my breath away.”

“And you two are gorgeous!” Kelly grabbed Joely in a tight embrace, and they both wobbled. “Sorry! Sorry!” She laughed. “I forgot. You okay?”

“Of course.” She tamped down resentment. This was precisely what coming back here would always entail—people being careful, apologizing, watching out for her.

Kelly backed up. “Harpo and Mia have gone ahead with Mom. Alec is here with the van for us.”

Alec?

Her heart sank. Great. Fantastic. She'd not only have to face him in close quarters again, but she'd have to hear him schmooze them the entire twenty minutes to the church. She pressed her lips together in frustrated compression to keep any hint of a snarky retort behind them.

But suddenly he appeared in the doorway, as if someone had rubbed a rusty horseshoe and summoned him. He looked past all the bridesmaids, who made eyes at his long, muscular body like he was Christmas and dessert all rolled into one package, and caught Joely's gaze with laser-focused hazel eyes, the brown-green color of an autumn forest.

She shook her head, annoyed with the bad poetry invading her brain.

“Why, hello, pretty lady.” He tipped a tan cowboy hat—not part of the official wedding attire, so was that another fake cowboy item that was simply “comfortable”?—and winked. “Looks like you're ready for that dance.”

A spark of annoyance at herself morphed into full-fledged anger at him. “Mr. Morrissey. Even if I could, I wouldn't dance with you if we were the last two people on Earth.”

Her sisters gasped as one, but to her astonishment, Alec burst out laughing.

“Pretty Miss Joely, that's the best challenge I've been issued in a long time. I accept.”

T
HE TWO BRIDES
were already at the small church when the van full of bridesmaids arrived. Joely wheeled herself into the small anteroom where the women would wait for the ceremony to start, and her eyes misted at the sight of her stunning sisters in their gowns. The dresses perfectly reflected the two women Joely loved with all her heart—the reason she was willing to go through this for them.

Mia's dress was traditional: frothed with white ruffles on the bottom and a sweetheart neckline showing off the elegant length of her neck and the graceful sweep of her shoulders. The skirt parted slightly in the front—a subtle slit to her knees—allowing her to show off a pair of beautiful, red cowboy boots, something she'd worn for good luck since she'd been a child. With purple and blue flowers and one red rose in the center of her bouquet, she made a truly exquisite bride.

Harper's dress was a simpler, strapless A-line with a pretty shirred bust. Below the gathers she'd laced a wide, denim belt that showed off her small waist and curvy hips, and the front of her skirt was embroidered with shades of exquisite, denim- and indigo-colored flowers. She looked like a beautiful explosion of fairy asters and bluebells. Her cowboy boots were gorgeous blue leather embossed with white flowers.

Joely momentarily forgot any self-consciousness. “You two could model in magazines. I knew you'd both be gorgeous, but this is way beyond what I'd imagined.”

Mia stooped and wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you, sis. It's still a little surreal.”

“It won't feel that way when the music starts.” Joely touched Mia's cheek. “I'm so happy for both of you.”

Mia looked over her shoulder, smiled at Harper, and reached back to take her hand.

“Who'd have thought only a few months ago that I'd get to know my older sister better than I ever did when we were kids?” Harper asked. “It took two guys to knock some sense into our heads. It would be embarrassing if they weren't so amazing. They brought a whole family together.”

Joely shook her head. “Maybe they were part of it, but this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made steps toward each other. It's true. I know for the most part I've been out of family dynamics for the past eight months, but I've still been watching. The family is healing.”

As soon as the words were out she regretted them. It was true the Crockett family had changed and even improved in some ways since the death of their father, but healing was something she herself would never fully experience. She might not have to spend her life in a bed, but the person she had been would never return. Still, she held her head firmly up and suffered through the smothering hug Harper added to Mia's.

“I'm so glad to hear you say that,” she said. “I was hoping this celebration today would cheer you up and push you to keep moving forward. You're healing, too, Jo-Jo.”

Joely didn't correct her despite the sting of the words. In truth the better term for her status was “stabilizing.” It was where she'd stabilized that had killed her hope.

W
HEN A KNOCK
came on the door and Melanie Thorson poked her head into the room to tell them it was time, everything was ready. A double wedding ceremony could have been chaotic, but this one had an air of perfectly choreographed calm.

Joely felt like the only exception. Once out of the anteroom, after she got her first glimpse of the little church sanctuary, her stomach roiled and she gripped her bouquet of blue asters, white roses, and purple thistle with sweaty palms. The church held a hundred and fifty people, and every pew overflowed with relatives and friends who'd known the Crockett family for decades. In fact, some of their ancestors had known the first-generation Crocketts, Eli and Brigitta, the great-great-grandmother whose name Joellen Brigitta shared, when they'd homesteaded Paradise Ranch in 1916.

She couldn't understand why, even seated, her head suddenly swam as though she'd been slamming back whiskey shots—which normally she and her sisters could do with a fair amount of expertise. Not until a pair of strong hands rested on her knees and a quiet masculine voice pulled her out of her thoughts did she realize how high she'd let her heart rate skyrocket in nervousness.

“Joely? Are you doing all right?” She looked into the eyes of Russ Wainwright, who smiled his encouragement even as his brows knotted in concern. A former ranch neighbor, Cole's father, and now moments from being Harper's new father-in-law, Russ was someone Joely had known her whole life. He was of her parents' generation, and the corners of his deep brown eyes crinkled with crows' feet etched there by years in the sun, rain, and snow.

“I'm okay, Russ.”

“You're looking a little glassy-eyed, sweetheart,” he said. “Can I get you some water?”

“No, I'm good, honestly.” She caught her breath and halted the escalation of her breathing. “I got a little dizzy from anticipation, that's all.”

Russ was paired with her since he was Cole's best man, so he'd be the one pushing her chair down the aisle. When she looked past him and saw that the rest of the groomsmen had joined them in front of the doorway to the sanctuary, embarrassment flared in her chest and rose in the form of heat into her face.

“It's pretty warm in here,” Russ said, as if he could see her flushing. “You'll be fine once we get moving,”

“I will. Thank you.”

She wasn't about to tell him it was the thought of her first public appearance since the acquisition of her chair, a useless leg, and the scar that shone like a hideous banner on her face that made her ill. His features were filled with the exact sympathy she saw and dreaded wherever she went, but he was too kind for her to stomp on with self-pitying words.

“Everyone is right here if you need anything. Don't you hesitate to ask.”

She nodded, her face still warm but her head clearer. She took a long, steadying breath and lifted her eyes. Her gaze slammed straight into Alec Morrissey's hot hazel irises. As if she'd been struck in the back with a sledgehammer, her deep breath was arrested half finished. All the effects of her deep breathing techniques were wiped out in one wildly uneven heartbeat.

Decked out in his full wedding attire—dark denim jeans, a western-styled tux jacket in navy blue with a matching vest, and a black dress Stetson that replaced the battered tan hat he'd worn earlier—he looked like a model for Cowboy Gods R Us. She stared at the snowy-white shirt collar that rested against the tanned skin of his throat, its pointed tabs forming a V beneath his Adam's apple.

Not a hint of sympathy shone in his eyes. He winked and chased it with a bedazzling smile before she could say a word or turn away.

“See you at the altar,” he said and took Raquel's arm.

An instant of jealousy flashed through her belly—not of Raquel but of her perfect, functioning legs. What she'd give to be gliding down the aisle on a handsome man's arm. Not for her own wedding—she'd done that once under the influence of infatuation and naiveté and never would again. But for today, for this wedding, she'd take Russ Wainwright's arm in a half a heartbeat and call herself blessed if she could walk beside him rather than ride helplessly in front of him.

Skylar started down the aisle first with her dad, Bjorn, at her side. Mia's friend Brooke went next with Harper's long-time friend and manager, Tristan Carmichael. Grace was paired with another veteran friend of Gabe's, Damien Finney, and then Alec led Raquel to the doorway.

The music swelled in Joely's brain, and for an instant dizziness threatened again. Angrily she pulled herself together. It was stupid to be such a weakling. Nobody was here to look at her—how many times had she told herself that? She lifted her chin in preparation when Gabe's brother, George, took Kelly's arm. She let herself smile. George Harrison. Everyone, even those her age, who had the slightest love of music, smiled when George introduced himself. His mother had definitely possessed a sense of humor.

Before Joely's nerves could attack again, her turn arrived. Russ placed a warm hand on her shoulder and pushed her to the sanctuary door, then onto the white aisle runner. She forced a smile, felt the scar on her jaw tighten and pull, and then she heard it: the murmur, faint but growing slightly as she progressed until they were whispers and small gasps. The guests stared with a full array of emotions: surprise, admiration, sympathy, and worst of all, pity.

With her eyes fixed ahead, she watched each couple separate and take up traditional spots on either side of the altar. Finally, in the middle, she saw her sisters' grooms—Cole, tall and muscular, a classic, ruggedly handsome cowboy through and through; and Gabe, movie star gorgeous with a long, lean build and a heart of pure gold. At last the murmuring of the crowd disappeared and Joely's heart finally expanded in a moment of unselfish excitement for Harper and Mia. They would both have amazing husbands. If only she'd been so wise in her choice.

The last person in the wedding party stood proudly in front of Gabe—ten-year-old Rory soon-to-be Harrison. He'd been orphaned when his mother, a friend of Mia's, had passed away the past November. But Mia had been named his guardian in the will, and today Rory was in the middle of his own love affair—with his new mom and dad. And they adored him right back. Joely knew the boy held four rings in his tuxedo jacket and jeans pockets—no frilly little pillow for him, thanks all the same—a caretaking duty he'd accepted with the obsessive focus a ten-year-old mustered when he wanted something and wouldn't let it go. Rory wanted this wedding as much as anyone. He knew each ring and to whom it belonged. He had each in a designated pocket and knew right when he needed to produce it.

He grinned at Joely when she passed, and she managed a wink and smile in return.

Russ angled her chair so she could see down the aisle, and once she was settled, the music paused before the old, traditional Wagner Bridal Chorus filled the small space. Joely had to smile again—their mother truly had put her fingers into the planning pie. But the old-fashioned cliché lifted her spirits as almost nothing had done so far. Some things were good when they didn't change.

First Harper, with their mother and grandmother on her arms, got her walk down the aisle. Cole met her with the perfect amount of wonder in his eyes. Joely caught her grandmother's eye as she turned to head back out of the sanctuary and return with Mia. When her red boots took the one little step up to the altar, Mia squatted in front of Rory and gave him a giant squeeze. When she stood to meet Gabe, his eyes shone with unshed tears. Joely's heart melted further.

Two perfect men.

The ceremony passed in a lovely blur. All the men removed their Stetsons and held them reverently, Rory performed his duties as ring bearer flawlessly, Harper snuffled through her vows, and Mia didn't shed a tear—both in perfect character. And when the pastor pronounced the two sets of husbands and wives, the synchronized dips of their brides garnered Cole and Gabe almost as much applause as the two long, long, long kisses that followed.

When the four newlyweds finally came up for air, their groomsmen let out a simultaneous “yee-haw!” and eight black cowboy hats went sailing toward the church ceiling.

Joely cheered with the rest of the party, her self-indulgent melancholy forgotten, and waited for the strains of Mendelssohn's wedding recessional to play out, fully expecting a matching bookend to the traditional entrance—but she was surprised. Not even a cowboy-themed song got air time. Instead, Bruno Mars's “Marry You” twinkled out over the congregation, it's bright, happy, chime-filled tune inviting everyone to stand and dance the brides and grooms out of the church.

Joely even survived the raucous trip back down the aisle. Russ showed his still-youthful side as he jigged behind her and turned her chair in a small, celebratory circle, surprising her but making her laugh. By the time she reached the foyer, she could look back and see the rest of the party totally getting their boogies on. Kelly and George bumped hips all the way down. Alec twirled Raquel under his arm. By the time the entire party was out of the sanctuary, Rory, too, was hopping up and down like a dwarf on speed.

“What did you think of that, pretty Miss Joely?”

She whipped her head around to find Alec looking down at her. He placed a hand on each handle of her chair and leaned forward. The exquisite scent of spice and musk muddled her head, and all she could fashion for thoughts was that her face flamed hot and he looked like a very tall, cold drink of danger-laced water. She couldn't even muster up anger at “pretty.”

“It was a lovely wedding,” she said.

“Lovely?” He grinned. “That sounds a little understated. I saw you hip-hopping your way out here. Thought you said you couldn't dance.”

That did it. The man was nothing but a one-annoying-trick pony. Same lines over and over. Her fog cleared and she leaned forward herself, bringing their faces just inches apart.

“Knock it off,” she said. “I don't like the dancing jokes. I don't like the pretty Joely jokes. Stop ruining the wedding for me.”

Once again he seemed anything but taken aback. He straightened and smiled. “It won't seem like a joke once you've danced with me.”

The smallest hint of something more than teasing glinted in his eye, but she couldn't read it. It had to be the wedding buzz—everything about it, people included, was affecting her brain.

“I'm not dancing with anybody,” she said.

He stood and shocked her again by holding out his hand. “Fine. Then at least walk with me down the outside stairs. It'll be faster than going all the way around the back to use the ramp.”

“I'm perfectly happy to use the ramp.”

“No you aren't. You don't want to stand out, right? Just stick with me and you won't.”

The man was unbelievable. What was his obsession with torturing her?