And then came the moment she dreaded. Anthony signaled the band and they switched to the Wedding March. Brenna’s stomach lurched. This was it. It was really going to happen.
Lori Luckly, wearing a headset and a pencil skirt with her cowboy boots, flung back the door to the van. She held out her hand to Roberta.
Roberta took it, stepping down, bringing her small bouquet of yellow flowers up, holding them before her in both hands. And then she was doing the wedding walk, all slow and stately, toward Trav, Steve and Jasper at the end of the dirt aisle. The soft hem of her yellow skirt fluttered in the slight wind.
Lori shot Brenna a bright smile. Numbly, Brenna touched the crown of daisies she’d chosen instead of a veil. Lori spoke softly into her headset and then held out her hand to help Brenna down. Careful of her long skirt, Brenna stepped to the ground. “Slow.” Lori mouthed the word, handing Brenna a big bouquet of daisies and shiny white ribbons. “It’s your moment,” she said very softly. “Make it last.”
Brenna’s feet felt disconnected from the rest of her body. But somehow, with great effort, she got them to move. Going slowly was no problem. Every step was a monumental effort of will.
She focused on Trav’s dear face and made herself move toward him.
Too soon, she was there, standing beside him as the Wedding March ended. Roberta took her bouquet and Trav took her hand. By then, she couldn’t look at him. She swallowed convulsively as they both turned to face Jasper.
The man in black opened the gold-tooled Bible in his hands and cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved...” Jasper’s lips moved, and Brenna stared at them blankly, not really hearing the words he said.
And then the wind came up. It made a high, keening sound. Like someone lost and crying. Brenna’s skirts belled out, and her hair whipped wildly around her face.
And she...
Well, she just couldn’t.
“Trav.”
He squeezed her hand. “Bren? What...?” He tried to pull her closer. She dug in her boot heels and held her ground.
Jasper stopped his droning and cleared his throat again. “We got a problem?”
Oh, you bet we do. “I can’t, Trav.” It came out a ragged whisper as she pulled her hand free of his hold. “I’m so sorry. I just...well, I can’t.”
And then she picked up her big white skirts and sprinted off across the pasture toward the fence and the forest and the faraway mountains.
People shouted at her, but she didn’t listen. And she didn’t look back. Her heart breaking to bits inside her chest and her eyes blurry with tears, she just kept on running as fast as she could.
Chapter Twelve
Brenna was over the fence before Anthony and Roger started shouting. Anthony began barking orders to get a camera crew to follow her.
Trav knew he had to stop them. “Let her go!” he shouted as Brenna vanished from sight into the trees. The director, producer and crew ignored him.
At first.
But then he bellowed, “Let her go or I’m outta here, too. I will run and keep running. You won’t catch up with either of us.”
Steve said, “Me, too!”
And Roberta chimed in, “And me!”
And then the bleachers erupted. “Let her go!” shouted Fred Franklin.
“Leave her be!” hollered Wally.
“Leave her alone!” cried Leah Stone.
Even Summer joined in. “Back off, you damned idiots!”
Director, producer, wedding planner and every last soul on the crew—they all froze and stared, openmouthed, at the bleachers, where the cast of The Great Roundup shouted and stomped their feet, every one of them scowling, looking downright dangerous, like an unruly mob.
Trav grabbed Steve’s arm. “Keep them here.”
“You got it, man.”
Pausing only to rip off his body mic and toss it to the ground, Travis took off across the pasture after his runaway bride.
* * *
She didn’t go all that far.
A quarter of a mile or so into the trees, he found her sitting on a fallen log, looking like a sad and slightly lost redheaded angel in her white dress, with her crown of flowers drooping down her brow.
She shoved the flowers off her forehead and then, with a frustrated cry, she grabbed them and yanked them off her head altogether, tossing them angrily over her shoulder. “Trav.” She blew a hank of hair out of her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I’m really, really—”
He put a finger to his lips. Then he mouthed, “Your mic.”
She only moaned and hung her head, but at least she wasn’t going anywhere. He dared to get closer. She didn’t even look up when he sat down next to her, didn’t object when he plucked the microphone from the front of her poufy dress and pulled it free of the transmitter. Rising, he tossed the mic off into the trees.
“Now.” He sat down beside her again and captured her hand. At least she didn’t pull away. He took heart from that. With a finger, he guided a swatch of hair behind her ear. “I think it’s time you maybe talked to me.”
She took a shaky breath. “Yeah,” she said in a tiny voice. “Yeah, I guess it’s time.”
“Come here.” He put both arms around her.
She sagged against him, resting her head on his shoulder with a surrendering sigh. “I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t marry you.”
He smoothed her tangled hair. “It’s okay. I get it.”
“Do you?” She sounded so lost, so completely alone.
He took her chin and made her look at him. “I mean it. It’s okay. I’m with you. It’s wrong. I see that. It’s wrong, and we’re not going through with it.”
She sagged against him again. “I really thought I could, you know? I told myself, Just focus on the win, just do what you have to do. But I...I love you so much, Trav. I think I always have, through all the years, forever and ever, since you came to my rescue the first time when I was six years old. I can’t marry you—not when I love you, and know that I have to divorce you. I just can’t do that. I’m sorry. That is just too wrong.”
Does every man have a moment when it all comes together?
When all at once his whole life makes total sense?
Travis did.
And that moment?
It was now.
He tipped up her chin again. The tears that shone in her eyes started falling. They ran down her cheeks.
She sniffed and swiped a hand under her reddened nose. “Ugh. I’m a mess.”
“I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you, Bren. Never in my whole life.”
She blew out her cheeks with a hard breath. “Yeah, right.”
“It’s true. And you...” His voice got snagged up. But he tried again and managed to ask the question in a low, rough growl. “You love me, Brenna? You really do?”
Tears dripping off her chin, she nodded.
“Good,” he answered fervently. “Because, Bren, I love you, too.”
She gasped. “Oh, Trav.” She sniffed and then asked in a small voice, “You do? You really do?”
He brushed at her soft cheeks, wiping the wetness away. And suddenly the right words were there. He opened his mouth and let them out. “I love you, Brenna. Only you. I know I’ve fought it, my love for you. Fought it my whole life. At first you were too young for me. And then, well, somehow, I got stuck on a certain idea of myself, of being all about freedom, of not being the kind to settle down. But, Bren, if you love me, it all starts to make sense. Because why would I ever want to settle down with some other woman if you could be mine?”
She stared at him, her mouth a soft O. “Trav.”
“What? Bren. Dear God. Please believe me.”
She laughed. “Oh, Trav.” And then she framed his face between her hands.
“You’d better kiss me. Do it now.”
He had absolutely no problem with that. Leaning in, he claimed her tearstained lips in a slow, ever-deepening kiss, a kiss that whispered of forever, a kiss that promised he would hold on tight to what they had. That he’d at last become the man she needed. The kind of man who would always be there to help her win every challenge she took on, to catch her if ever she needed a safe place to fall.
“Good,” she said with a trembling smile when he finally lifted his head. “It’s you and me, together.”
“Together forever,” he vowed.
And then she asked with a long sigh, “But what do we do now?”
“I know this much. I still want to marry you if you’ll have me.”
Her eyes gleamed so bright. “Oh, Trav. I will have you. I will never, ever let you go.”
“Just not today. Because I want you to have the real thing in our little white church in Rust Creek Falls, with your sisters for your bridesmaids and our families filling every pew.”
She widened those sea-blue eyes at him. “We are so gonna get sued. You know that, right?”
“I do—and yeah, it might get a little messy, breaking our contract.”
She made a snorting sound. “A little messy?”
He kissed her red nose. “Think positive. Ryan Roarke is a hell of a lawyer, and he’ll get us out of it somehow.” She gazed up at him, her tear-filled eyes full of equal parts wonder and worry. He squeezed her shoulder. “So for today, we’ll go back, face the others and tell them we are not saying our sacred vows on a reality show.” He started to rise.
“Wait.” She pulled him back down.
“What?”
“I just want to make this crystal clear. You are asking me to marry you—I mean, really marry you.”
He took both her hands as he stood. And that time, she rose with him. “I am.” He held her eyes. “Brenna O’Reilly, I love you. Please say you’ll marry me. Please tell me yes.”
“Yes,” she said, out loud and clear. “Yes, absolutely, I will marry you.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” And he picked her up and whirled her around. She braced her hands on his shoulders and laughed, the sound echoing upward through the canopy of green over their heads. When he set her down, he grabbed her hand. “Come on now. Let’s get it over with. We’ll go tell Roger and the rest of them that we’re not getting married on The Great Roundup.”
But she held him back. “This is real, right? I mean, this is really happening?”
“Real as it gets. Let’s go.”
But still she wouldn’t budge. “Wait, Trav.”
He gave in and turned to face her fully again. “What now?”
“Well, I’m thinking that if it’s real, if we’re getting married and staying that way—”
“Brenna. It’s real and it’s true and I can’t wait to marry you.”
“Well, then. You don’t have to wait. Because I would love nothing so much as to get married to you right now, today, on The Great Roundup, where we finally found each other.”
He frowned. “You know, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound half bad.”
“Well, then. Let’s do it.”
He felt honor bound to remind her, “We would still have months ahead of us pretending that we’re not married. How are we going to hold up through that?”
“I’m thinking I’m renting the apartment over the beauty shop right away. And I’m also thinking you’re going to be visiting your fiancée just about every night. People will be whispering how that wild Travis Dalton can’t keep away from Brenna O’Reilly.”
“That sounds amazing.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I think so, too.”
“And then, next year, if we win—”
“Oh, Trav, there’s no doubt in my mind now. We’re gonna win.”
“When we win.”
“That’s better.” She made a low, throaty sound of approval.
“I want to build a house for us on Dalton land.”
“Yes. And I want to buy Bee out.”
“Absolutely.” He clasped her shoulders. “Look at me.”
“Oh, Trav. I am.”
“Are you sure?”
She didn’t waver. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my whole life.”
That did it. He grabbed her close and kissed her again.
And then again. Because he loved her. Because forever stretched out in front of them and it looked full of promise now, bright as a new day. But whatever the future brought them, they would own it together.
From this day on.
“We need to agree on how to handle them,” he whispered finally. “This, you and me, just now, it belongs to us. Nobody else. But we need a good story for the show.”
“I have it. We tell the truth, just not all the truth.” And she pulled him down to whisper in his ear.
* * *
“I see them!” someone shouted as Travis and Brenna emerged from the shelter of the trees. “They’re coming!”
Brenna felt wonderful. She had it all now. She had Travis at her side and his promise to be there for the rest of their lives—a promise she believed in, a promise she returned.
He led her to the fence and helped her over it.
“You ready for this?” he asked as he set her down on solid ground.
“Oh, yes, I am.”
* * *
Roger was furious, and Anthony seethed.
Brenna told them sweetly that she and Travis were ready now.
“Mic them up again!” Roger yelled. “Makeup! Wardrobe!”
A half an hour later, Brenna had a new body mic. Her makeup was flawless, and her hair was sleek and smooth, crowned with yellow daisies.
Roger called for OTFs. Brenna did hers sitting in a corner of the bleachers, her puffy skirts pulled up enough to show her purple boots, her wedding bouquet in her hand.
“I just got so emotional,” she said with a long sigh. “I needed a minute to myself. You know, to deal with all the powerful, overwhelming feelings I was experiencing. And also, well, I did need a time-out with Travis, just the two of us.”
“But you ran away,” chided Roger. “How did you know he would follow you?”
“Of course, I couldn’t be sure he would follow me when I ran. But, oh, I did hope that he would. I needed to hear his words of love. I needed him to hold me in his strong arms.”
“And how do you feel now, Brenna?”
“Now that I’ve gotten exactly what I needed, now that I’ve dealt with the enormity of this big step before me and spent a little time with my man, now I am definitely ready, willing and able to proudly and happily say ‘I do.’”
By then, everyone was smiling, even Roger.
They all found their marks.
And Brenna O’Reilly married Travis Dalton in the middle of a pasture on The Great Roundup. They did it for real and forever—and for all the world to see.
Epilogue
That evening, after Brenna and Travis shared their first dance, Steve got down on his good knee and proposed to Roberta. Roberta burst into happy tears and cried out, “Yes!”
Three days later, Roberta was eliminated. Two days after that, Steve followed her.
The final challenge would pit Bren against Trav. They both loved that. No matter how it came out now, they’d won.
The next day, the bleachers went up again in the pasture where they’d said their wedding vows. The entire cast came out to watch.
The challenge: hay bale racing.
Trav knew he was beaten before the race began. Bren had taken more than one ribbon running barrels at the local rodeo. And she got that great little mare, Ladygirl, to ride.<
br />
But he got Applejack, a fine, fast gelding, his favorite of the mounts in the High Lonesome stables. And he gave the race his all, knowing Brenna would expect nothing less of him. He didn’t mess up the cloverleaf pattern, and his time was damn good, too.
Hay bales or barrels, though, Bren still had what it took. She and Ladygirl looked like they were flying as they raced around those bales.
She beat his time by more than two seconds.
And that was how Brenna O’Reilly Dalton won a million dollars on The Great Roundup.
Or rather, that was how Brenna and Travis won. Together, they claimed both first and second prize and they would share their winnings equally, as they’d always agreed.
They had it all now and they both knew it. They had the money for a new start.
And most important, they had each other.
For the rest of their lives.
* * * * *
Look for the next installment of the new Harlequin Special Edition continuity MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE GREAT FAMILY ROUNDUP
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Keep reading for an excerpt from SERENITY HARBOR by RaeAnne Thayne.
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The Maverick Fakes a Bride! Page 18
