Shay didn’t even own heels. “My boots’ll have to do. Button the back?”
Miss Lucy waddled forward, turned Shay toward a small wall mirror flecked with time, and began working the tiny pearl buttons.
Shay’s breath caught at her image. She forced its release, then frowned. Wedding gowns were bad luck. She’d sworn she’d never wear another. If someone had told her yesterday she’d be wearing this thing today, she’d have said they were one straw short of a bale.
Miss Lucy moved up to the buttons between her shoulders, and Shay lifted her hair. The dress did fit, clinging to her torso like it was made for her, wouldn’t you know. Even the color complemented her olive skin.
Still, there was that whole bad luck thing.
And what would everyone think of Shay Brandenberger wearing this valuable piece of Moose Creek heritage? A white wedding gown, no less. If she didn’t have the approval of her closest friends and neighbors, what did she have? Not much, to her thinking.
She wanted to cut and run. Wanted to shimmy right out of the dress, tuck it into that box in the storeroom, slip back into her Levi’s and plaid button-up, and go back to her ranch where she could hole up for the next six months.
She checked the time and wished Miss Lucy had nimbler fingers. Of all days to do this, a Saturday, when everyone with two legs was in town. And she still had that infernal meeting with John Oakley.
Please, God, I can’t lose our home . . .
“I’m obliged to you, dear. I completely forgot Jessie was going out of town.”
“No problem.”
“Baloney. You’d rather be knee-deep in cow dung.” The woman’s marionette lines at the sides of her mouth deepened.
“It’s one hour of my life.” A pittance, after all Miss Lucy had done for her.
Miss Lucy finished buttoning, and Shay dropped her hair and smoothed the delicate lace at the cuffs.
“Well, bless you for being willing. God is smiling down on you today for your kindness.”
Shay doubted God really cared one way or another. It was her neighbors she worried about.
“Beautiful, just beautiful. You’ll be the talk of the town on Founders Day.”
“No doubt.” Everyone in Moose Creek would be thinking about the last time she’d worn a wedding gown. And the time before that.
Especially the time before that.
Third time’s a charm, Shay thought, the corner of her lip turning up.
“Stop fretting,” Miss Lucy said, squeezing her shoulders. “You look quite fetching, like the gown was made for you. I won’t have to make a single alteration. Why, it fits you better than it ever did Jessie—don’t you tell her I said so.”
Shay tilted her head. Maybe Miss Lucy was right. The dress did make the most of her figure. And she had as much right to wear it as anyone. Maybe more—she was born and raised here, after all. It was just a silly old reenactment anyway. No one cared who the bride and groom were.
The bell jingled as the door opened behind her. She glanced in the mirror, over her shoulder, where a hulking silhouette filled the shop’s doorway. There was something familiar in the set of the man’s broad shoulders, in the slow way he reached up and removed his hat.
The sight of him constricted her rib cage, squeezed the air from her lungs as if she were wearing a corset. But she wasn’t wearing a corset. She was wearing a wedding gown. Just as she had been the last time she’d set eyes on Travis McCoy.
2
Travis McCoy stopped just past the threshold of Miss Lucy’s store. He paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light before letting himself believe it. Shay Brandenberger really was standing in the middle of the doll shop in a wedding gown. He pulled off his hat even as his stomach dived for his heels.
In the mirror, her green eyes turned toward him. A split second later they widened in recognition.
She turned, as if double-checking. Her features had matured. Time had been her friend, had rounded out the sharp angles, filled out the curves. But it had also stolen the sparkle from her eyes, the easy smile from her lips.
Or maybe he’d done that.
Shay’s mouth flattened and her spine defied gravity. She faced the mirror.
Okay. He deserved that. His gaze swept over the gown, his mouth going dry as Sandstone Creek in the middle of August.
“Travis,” Miss Lucy said, “what brings you in? Did you come to see my girls?”
He scanned the rows of handmade dolls. “Ran into Mrs. Teasley at Pappy’s Market. Asked me to tell you about an emergency meeting tonight at seven.”
Shay was fussing at the high collar with those long elegant fingers. Fingers that used to—
“Land sakes, what can that woman want now?”
It wasn’t like he hadn’t known Shay still lived in Moose Creek. That he’d run into her sooner or later. In fact, that had been the plan. But not here. Not today.
Not with her in a wedding gown.
He squeezed the brim of his best hat as he nodded. “Shay.”
She tossed her head, flipping her mahogany hair from her eyes, not looking. “Travis.”
He’d heard rumors of her and Beau Meyers. But they were just going out casually, was the way he heard it. Having some fun. Kicking up their heels on a Saturday night.
“She say what it’s about?” Miss Lucy asked.
“No, ma’am.”
A wedding gown, just like the last time he’d seen her. Only this time she wore it for another man. He tried to quell the panic rising high and fast. The rumors had been wrong. Dead wrong.
“That woman.” Miss Lucy fussed with the dress. “Mountain out of a molehill. I think that’ll do, Shay.” She made one final brush on the skirt.
“Little late, aren’t you?” Shay met his eyes in the mirror for a split second, long enough to make her point. “Fourteen years, that about right?”
“I’ll just be in the back room,” Miss Lucy said.
His girl still had fire. The thought kicked up the corner of his lips. Then he remembered she wasn’t his girl anymore. That she’d be unleashing that fire on someone else.
“Who’s the lucky guy?” The words nearly jammed in his throat.
She stopped her fidgeting. Met his gaze in the mirror, and he saw something. Just as quick, it was gone.
“Not you.”
Tell him something he didn’t know. All these years. All the waiting, the wishing. Hope rushed down the drain. He tried to plug the hole, but it was useless.
“Beau Meyers?” The name tasted sour on his tongue. Shay was a Thoroughbred, Beau a Clydesdale. He’d never be able to handle her. Maybe that’s the way she liked it now.
“Been chewin’ the fat with our neighbors?”
Beau would never make her happy—couldn’t she see that?
She turned toward the back room. “If you’ll excuse me.”
Desperation propelled him forward. He had no right anymore. No right to take her slender arm. No right to touch her, no right to say it. “Don’t do it, Shay.”
Her eyes challenged him. “What’s it to you, McCoy?” The question hung in the air between them, a loaded shotgun.
“Sure you want to know?” She wasn’t ready to hear his answer, and she wouldn’t believe it anyway. Not that he could blame her.
She pulled away, surprisingly strong, and he released her.
“Cool your heels. I’m not marrying Beau, I’m playing Prudence Adams in the Founders Day ceremony.”
The reenactment. Relief flooded through him, leaving his legs rickety. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You.
She pulled open the storeroom door, then turned back suddenly, her eyes sparking. “And for the record, Travis McCoy, if I do choose to marry Beau Meyers, or anyone else for that matter, it’s no business of yours.” She hitched up her skirt, crossed the threshold, and slammed the door behind her with a force that shook the frame.
Travis stared at the door while his thoughts searched for a new gear. This was not the way he’d planned
their first meeting. Not even close.
It was hotter than a furnace inside the infernal dress. “Unbutton me, please.”
It took everything in Shay to keep her voice level. She turned her back to Miss Lucy and held her hair off her damp neck, still shaking. She felt the woman’s fingers at the buttons.
Sweet merciful heavens. Why’d he have to show up today—with her in a wedding gown, of all things? The irony would’ve made her laugh if it didn’t make her feel like her bones were disintegrating.
It didn’t help that Travis McCoy had transformed from lean, wiry boy to brawny cowboy, complete with bull-wide shoulders, slim hips, and long legs. And those stormy gray eyes . . . those hadn’t changed at all. They still had the power to suck her under. Cussed man.
She wiped the dampness from her forehead. Could Miss Lucy be any slower?
“Pretty tough on him out there,” the older woman said.
“He left me high and dry.”
“It was years ago, child.”
“At the altar.”
“Courthouse steps, I recall.”
“Same difference.”
“It was foolish and selfish.”
“Blame right.” She had returned to Moose Creek alone. The whispers and stares were almost as bad as losing him. The rejection. Almost as bad as lying on Miss Lucy’s couch night after night smothering her sobs in her pillow, yearning for his touch.
“Figured you two would’ve run into each other by now.” Miss Lucy finished the last button and helped Shay peel the dress from her arms. “But I guess not, with you buried away at your place like you’ve been.”
“I wasn’t hiding.”
Miss Lucy’s brows popped over her frames. “Didn’t mean that, dear.”
The woman’s soft voice tweaked Shay’s conscience. “Sorry. I’m touchy.” She stepped from the gown and removed her boots.
“Don’t be. You got a lot of troubles, and you surely didn’t expect chemistry to come waltzing through the door this morning.”
“That wasn’t chemistry, it was animosity.”
“Enough sparks between the pair of you to light the town at midnight.”
Shay snatched her Levi’s off a box. “Hogwash.”
“Had me a hot flash and I’m way past that.”
Shay heaved a sigh, torn between frustration and humor.
Miss Lucy folded the gown, tucked it into the box, and slipped the lid back on while Shay finished dressing. She still had the meeting at the bank, and she needed a moment to gather herself before she faced that particular hurdle.
Who was she kidding? She’d had fourteen years to get over Travis McCoy, and it still hadn’t been long enough.
3
Shay tucked her hands under her legs and forced her gaze to John Oakley’s beady little eyes. She’d had about two minutes to recover from her encounter with Travis, and her nerves were shot. The bank had just closed up for the day and was silent as a tomb.
John laced his fingers, rested his hands on his desk, and gave her the look. She’d seen it the last three times she’d been in. Had to beg for this meeting today.
Please, God. I need some help here. A miracle would be good.
“We’ve been through this before, Shay,” he said in his nasal voice.
“I just need more time.”
“You’ve had time.” The look turned smug. He poked his glasses up with his index finger.
Shay pressed her lips together. She wanted to remind him he was no older than she was, no more important just because he had money. She wanted to remind him of the time he peed his pants on their first-grade field trip and point out that his hairline had receded two inches since graduation. But none of that would help her cause.
“May I be honest, Shay?”
She bit the inside of her mouth. Hard. “Sure.”
“I know the property’s been in your family awhile—”
“Three generations.”
He tucked his weak little chin. “Right. A long time, no one’s arguing that. Your folks both worked it hard and barely kept it afloat.”
“I made regular payments for years. I wasn’t so much as a day late—”
“Until a year ago. I’m not the enemy here, Shay. When your husband was here running the place, the payments weren’t a problem, right? Now, it pains me to say it, but Garrett’s desertion, not my bank, put you in a bind. God rest his soul.”
He did not just go there.
“It takes two to handle a ranch the size of yours. We’ve given you plenty of notice, and you’re months behind. The bank demands payment in full or an auction date will be set in thirty days, just as the letter said.”
A public auction. Could there be a more humiliating scenario? She imagined her neighbors walking the property, judging the upkeep—or lack thereof—and putting in low bids on the property that she and her ancestors had sweated and bled over.
She’d beg if she had to. “I can’t lose it, John.”
If Olivia wasn’t going to have a father, she was at least going to have a place to call home—a place with roots that went deep.
“Please. It’s the only home Olivia’s ever known . . . the only home I’ve ever known. And I have a hand to consider.”
“Manny’s just a part-time high school kid. And as for your daughter . . . children are very resilient.”
What did John Oakley know about children? He hadn’t even managed a date for the high school prom. Shay wanted to smack the smug look from his face.
Instead she tried again. “Just sixty days, then. I’ll come up with the money somehow.” She could sell her truck and some cattle.
John’s chuckle made her neck hairs stand on end. “Shay, honey, I’m sorry. I’ve done all I can.” He checked his watch.
“Please, John. As a friend.” That was stretching it.
“Best thing you can do is start packing your things. Look for an apartment here in town. You could make those little baskets full-time.”
Her barbed-wire baskets were hardly going to put a roof over their heads and food on the table, and John knew it. Besides, the ranch was her legacy, such as it was. Her home.
John stood, his chair rolling backward as he extended his hand. “Wish you the best, honey.”
Begging had gotten her nowhere. Shay gritted her teeth as she stood and shook his hand. She lifted her chin and straightened her back as she left the bank, a posture she’d perfected long ago. She heard John locking up behind her.
What now, God? I need money and soon. A burning started at the back of her eyes. You have to do something. Anything. Please!
She was going to have to let Manny go. Somehow she’d find a way to pay him for the last two weeks. But it wasn’t fair, his working for nothing, not with his own family struggling. It was why she’d hired him to begin with.
Shay crossed the street, narrowly missing a sedan with an Idaho plate when it didn’t yield at the pedestrian walk. She restrained the impulse to scream. She was dangling by her last thread. She wanted to yell or kick something. Or better yet, crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head, and sink into oblivion.
Instead she hopped the curb and entered the bustling diner. Olivia was seated at the counter sipping a chocolate milk. A dollar twenty-five.
Her daughter turned at the bell. “You’re late, Mom, and I—What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Shay said, then caught sight of Travis in a nearby booth.
“Your eyes are red,” Olivia said.
Shay fished in her purse for her wallet, her fingers clumsy. “Ready to go?”
“Mrs. Franklin said it was on the house. I didn’t even order it.”
“You thanked her?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s go, then.”
“Hold on.” Olivia slurped her milk.
Shay could feel Travis’s eyes boring into her back. At least she was wearing her best shirt and jeans. At least she wasn’t in a wedding gown. The confrontation in the shop returned to mind, piling
on top of the disaster at the bank. The weight of it tugged at her shoulders.
“Come on.”
“Sheesh, Mom.” Olivia drained her cup and then hopped off the stool.
Shay hooked her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and hustled her from the diner. “Got work to do.”
Lots of it. Not that it would do any good.
As she crossed the street to her beat-up truck, she could swear she felt Travis’s eyes on her every step of the way.
4
Travis dismounted Buck and led him into the barn. He wasn’t sure why his folks had been so reluctant to leave the Barr M all these years, or why they’d asked him to watch over it while they went on their long-term mission trip. The place ran like clockwork under the foreman, Jacob Whitehorse.
Jacob entered the barn as Travis pulled the saddle from Buck. Jacob had the thick black hair and strong bone structure of his Indian ancestors.
They worked in silence like two men born to the job. Two men who were weary after a long day in the saddle.
“Good weather today,” Jacob said.
“Not bad for June.”
“Must be tame compared to Texas.”
“In more ways than one.” The rodeo circuit had been good for Travis’s wallet and good for his ego. But pulling his truck into Moose Creek was coming home.
“Heard from your parents?”
“When they arrived in Guatemala. Told ’em you had everything under control. Not sure why I’m here.”
“You know your dad. ’Sides, someone has to keep up the books. Math’s not my thing.”
His dad liked all his ducks in a row. That was one reason the Barr M had prospered while so many other ranches had gone under. Ranches like Shay’s.
The sight of her leaving the bank three days earlier pricked at him like a burr. Even through the diner’s smudged window he’d seen her distress. It was written in the rigid set of her shoulders, in the straight line of her spine. She was a proud girl, always had been.
After he’d left the diner, he stopped to see Miss Lucy, hoping to find out what was going on. If Shay was in financial trouble, maybe he could help. John Oakley clearly hadn’t offered any assistance. But Miss Lucy had been a closed vault.
Big Sky Romance Collection Page 25
