by Liz Isaacson
The wind came in the open window, as this little cottage on the beach that was serving as their prep center didn’t have air conditioning. Meg felt moments away from melting, and the ceremony didn’t start for another half hour.
“Did you see Eli?”
“I sure did.” Laney beamed at her.
So he was still here. Meg wasn’t sure why she was worried he wouldn’t be. She turned back to the mirror, determined not to allow anxiety or self-consciousness to ruin her day. She’d planned everything down to the smallest of details, and so far, everything was going off without a hitch.
Well, at least until she told Eli she didn’t want to move back to Wyoming.
Her stomach swooped, and Amanda came forward with a gift wrapped in silver paper. “Meg, sweetheart, we’re so glad you’re officially joining our family. You and Eli are such a perfect match.” She extended the gift to Meg. “Me and the boys and Laney put this together for you.”
“Amanda.” Meg’s emotions felt like they were on a spiralizer, coiling and twisting every other second. “You guys didn’t have to do this.”
“I can’t seem to get my other sons married off, so we really did.” Amanda laughed, and Laney joined her.
Meg slipped her fingers under the paper just as the door opened again and her sisters entered. Carrie and Brittany were blonde and beautiful, the epitome of the perfect California beach babe.
She hugged them both and said, “I was just opening a gift from Amanda.” She continued with the unwrapping and found a lovely frame inside, with a photo of a man and four young boys. Meg knew instantly which one was Eli—the one with the devilish glint in his eye and his chin tipped too low.
“Now my husband’s here,” Amanda said, her voice just a bit tight. “And you have something to start your life with.” She indicated Meg should turn the frame over.
She did and found an envelope there. She untucked the flap and pulled out a gift certificate for a family photo session at a studio in Coral Canyon. Her throat and stomach both tightened simultaneously, but she managed to say, “Thank you. This is great.”
“So you can get photos of your new family.” Laney smiled at her. “And that’s for the honeymoon.”
Meg pulled out several hundred dollar bills and looked at the four women in the room. “You know Eli’s loaded, right?”
“Oh, honey, this is for you.” Amanda slung her arm around Meg’s shoulders. “Don’t even tell him you got it.” She trilled out a laugh, and her emotions must’ve been riding a roller coaster with how up and down she was. “Now, come on. Let’s put this veil on and get you over to the aisle.”
Twenty minutes later, Meg stood just inside the flap of the only tent that had been set up on the beach. Streamers waved gently in the breeze coming off the ocean, and the sunset framing the altar and the rows of chairs facing it couldn’t have been more picture-perfect.
Her father alone stood at her side inside the tent, and everyone else had gone to take their seats. She’d been texting and emailing her dad a lot over the past six months, and the renewed relationship had healed something inside her Meg desperately needed to fix. And she had.
“Dad,” she said, turning toward him. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
He linked his arm through hers. “Of course you can. I’ve heard you talk about that man. Seen you look at him. You love him.”
“I haven’t told him I didn’t quit my job.”
Taylor had given her two weeks off for their honeymoon through Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, but come June fifteenth, she’d expect Meg back in the office.
Her dad swung his head toward her then. “Meg.”
“I’m going to talk to him.” She wrung her fingers together. “I am.”
“When?” The incredulity in his voice rang in Meg’s ears.
Eli had been carefully kept away from Meg as she’d made her way from the cottage to this tent, and even now, he’d been instructed to stand with his back to her until Graham told him he could turn and look. He stood very still, seemingly without a single nerve in his body doing anything but napping.
Finally, the wedding planner motioned to her, and Meg stepped out of the tent. She’d decided to go barefoot for the wedding, and her gown dragged on the sand behind her. But it was comforting and grounding to feel the sand between her toes as she walked toward where the wedding party waited.
They went first, concealing her. She caught a glimpse of Eli as he turned to watch the procession, and thankfully, he looked as nervous as she felt. With the bridesmaids and groomsmen standing to the side, Stockton made his way down the aisle, the official ring-bearer for his father.
Then it was Meg’s turn, and her gaze locked onto Eli’s and wouldn’t let go. He seemed to devour her as she walked toward him, finally being passed over by her father and latching onto Eli as if he was her lifeline.
Because he was.
“Hey, beautiful.” He leaned in as if he’d kiss her, and Meg pulled away.
The crowd twittered with laughter, and Eli’s face flushed. “I’m messing it up,” he muttered.
“Nope.” She faced the pastor, but a voice was screaming in her head and she turned back to Eli. “I have to tell you something first.”
Eli flicked his gaze to the pastor too, and then to where his mom sat on the front row. “Okay.”
Meg couldn’t swallow, because her throat was so tight, and her whole chest ached as she hadn’t breathed in several long seconds.
“You’re freaking me out,” Eli said, now completely focused on her.
“I don’t want to go back to Wyoming,” she said in a rush. “I didn’t quit my job, and I think you and Stockton should move here.” There she’d said it. Well, yelled it really, and the people around them started whispering.
Eli searched her eyes, shock and disbelief in his. “You didn’t quit your job?”
She shook her head, her tears threatening to ruin the makeup Carrie had spent so long doing that morning. “Wyoming is cold.”
A moment passed. Then two. What would he do? Cancel the nuptials?
“Say something,” she said.
Instead of speaking, Eli tipped his head back and laughed. The sound vibrated through the cloudless sky, sending shockwaves through Meg. He motioned for Stockton to come stand by them.
“Stocky, Meg doesn’t want to come back to Wyoming.”
The little boy looked back and forth between them. “Okay.”
Eli lifted his eyes to Meg’s and said, “Okay,” too.
“Okay?”
Eli faced the pastor and pretended to straighten the bow tie on his beautiful navy blue suit. He hadn’t ditched the cowboy boots for the ceremony, but he was hatless, with a perfectly trimmed beard, and no wrangler belt buckle in sight.
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “I think me and Stockton should move here too.” He cut a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “I just didn’t know how to tell you, because I’d thought you’d quit your job.”
Meg blinked at him and then she laughed too. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”
“Not yet,” the pastor said, a half-smile on his face. “Am I to assume the wedding is still on?”
“Yes,” Eli and Meg said together, and Meg didn’t care if they weren’t married yet, if the pastor hadn’t pronounced them man and wife yet, she tipped up on her toes and gave Eli a kiss right on the cheek.
“I love you,” she said—well, pretty much yelled like she had before. The crowd really seemed to be enjoying this non-traditional start to the ceremony, because when Eli turned and took her into his arms, declared, “I love you too,” and tipped her back for a much more passionate kiss than what she’d done, they ahh’ed and then started clapping.
When he finally brought her back to an upright position, Meg’s whole face was hot and she couldn’t wait to be alone with her husband.
“Can we start now?” the pastor asked, and Meg just nodded this time.
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Read on for a sneak peek at HER COWBOY BILLIONAIRE BOYFRIEND, featuring Eli’s brother, Andrew and the woman who wants to shut down the family energy company. Then go preorder it!
Sneak Peek! Her Cowboy Billionaire Boyfriend Chapter One
Andrew Whittaker cringed as the backdoor slammed shut behind him. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone around to reprimand him, but his childhood memories about not slamming the door echoed through his head.
His dad in particular had not been fold of all the loud noises, but with four boys in the house, some concessions had to be made.
The scent of warm hay and horse flesh met Andrew’s nose and he took in a deep breath of it. He’d never considered himself to be a country type of person. Nor a man who could be content raising and riding horses.
But a strange sense of peace cascaded over him as he started the feeding. It was the same thing each day, and the thirteen horses that he and his brothers owned relied on Andrew to take care of them now that his younger brother, Eli, had moved to California to start a life there with his new wife.
Eli had bought most of these animals, and Andrew had not been happy to have them passed to him. At first. But now…now Andrew craved this early-morning animal care before he had to don the power suit and put on his public face for Springside Energy.
His older brother, Graham, was the CEO of the company, but Andrew had returned to Coral Canyon as the company’s public relations director about a year and a half ago. He had the degree, and his brother needed him.
Honestly, the older Andrew got, the more he realized how much family meant to him. Especially since he couldn’t seem to find someone to fall in love with and make a family of his own.
A cream and brown horse lifted his head over the door and snuffed at Andrew. “Hey, Wolfy,” he said, reaching over to stroke the horse’s nose. Eli liked Second to Caroline the best, but that made sense since his late wife’s name had been Caroline. But Andrew had taken quite a liking to Wolfgang, and the horse always seemed happy to see him, and they’d spent a lot of hours in the mountains surrounding the lodge where Andrew now lived alone.
Well, not really.
“Bree’s doin’ okay,” he told Wolfgang as if the horse had asked. The part-time interior decorator and gardener Graham had hired years ago had become full-time as she’d taken over Eli’s responsibilities around the lodge with scheduling the horseback riding and other events at the lodge.
So much had changed in just the few weeks since Eli’s wedding, with Andrew moving out of the basement and those rooms going up on the website for guests. Bree had moved into the room down the hall from Andrew, and he’d thought it might be awkward at first, with them being the only two living in the lodge now.
But it wasn’t. He’d entertained an idea about asking her out for about five minutes, but there was no spark between them.
Plenty of sparks when she’d accidentally put a bowl with metal around the rim in the microwave and then grabbed it out with her bare hands.
“The bandages are almost off,” he continued as he fed Wolfgang and moved down to the next stall. She still handled everything she needed to, because she could tap on a speaker icon and book groups for the theater room in the basement, or for horseback riding birthday parties, or whatever else she did.
Andrew wasn’t sure what the events at the lodge were, honestly. He spent so much time at Springside, with its building about ten miles northeast of the town of Coral Canyon, that he rarely got home before dark. Even then, he’d stop by the kitchen for whatever Celia had left for him, and stumble down the hall to his bedroom. He didn’t interact with guests or deal with much else at the lodge.
“Goin’ riding today?” he asked Goldie, an older horse at the end of the row. “I know you are. Make sure you edge over closer to a child.” The cream-colored horse was getting up there in years, which made her calm and approachable, but she couldn’t go as far as she used to.
“I’m gearing up for the unveiling of Graham’s robot. October first is the big day.” Not that the horses in the stable knew when October would come, but Andrew had just over three weeks to get everything in line for the huge announcement about a robot that would hopefully make Andrew’s job easier. Everyone’s job should be easier with the invention that would be able to detect the gasses Springside mined without having to drill.
After all, the majority of the protests he dealt with stemmed from the drilling of the Wyoming countryside. His shoulders tensed and he hadn’t even put on the fancy loafers or slicked his hair to the side yet.
He unconsciously reached up and pressed his cowboy hat on his head. He much preferred the simplicity of this life, and that had surprised him the very most about Eli’s departure.
He finished feeding the horses, promised them he’d be back that night, and walked back to the lodge. The scent of coffee met his nose, and he said, “Morning,” to Bree as he peered into the kitchen from the mudroom. He left his cowboy boots there and went to shower.
With the suit on, every crease exactly right, and his tie the color of watermelons with a white paisley stitched into it, he slipped on the expensive loafers and stepped into the bathroom. He sprayed the gel on his hair and combed it until it was just-so. He couldn’t afford to be anything but personable and professional when he left the lodge for work.
Today was no different, though the tension in his chest felt stronger than it normally did for a Wednesday. He drove the ten miles to Springside in a nondescript sedan, just like he had for months. His route took him past the front of the building, where he’d turn and park in the back, behind a coded gate.
As he eased past today, the group of people gathered there made him groan audibly. Another protest. Great. Just what he needed today.
Andrew eyed a woman with slightly frizzy, light brown hair. She attended every single protest, and as she walked from person to person and said something, Andrew suspected she actually organized the demonstrations.
“It’s fine,” he muttered to himself as he turned the corner and headed for the back lot. If they didn’t bother people, they could camp on the sidewalk in this early September heat wave Wyoming was experiencing. Andrew would keep an eye on them from his air-conditioned office on the sixth floor.
His morning passed with the chants beyond his window permeating the bullet-proof glass every half an hour or so. After a while, he didn’t even hear them when they started up again, as he had a difficult article to respond to and a new blog post to write about the robot.
“How’s the Gasman?” Graham asked as he came into Andrew’s office.
“What are you doing here?” Andrew stood and gave his brother a slap on the back.
“I’m in the basement until next week. Only a few more weeks until we reveal this thing to the whole world.” Graham swallowed like he was nervous, which Andrew knew he was. Graham had spent plenty of time in Andrew’s office detailing how nerve-racking it was to have something from his mind splashed on the front page of newspapers and the covers of magazines—and worse, in little headline boxes with click-bait titles below.
Andrew was used to the pressure of journalism and dealing with the media. He had a degree in journalism and public relations, and he’d literally spent his adult life writing press releases, articles, and those Internet blurbs Graham hated so much.
“How’s it going down there?” Andrew leaned against his desk, wishing he could come to work in jeans, cowboy boots, and an expensive polo the way Graham did. He looked polished and professional, and everyone knew who he was, but he didn’t have to wear the suit to be in the electronics lab—or the basement as he’d taken to calling it because of the cold temperatures in the room.
Funny thing was, the huge, floor-sized laboratory was on the third floor, nowhere near the basement of the building.
“It’s going fine,” Graham said, stepping over to t
he wall of windows behind Andrew’s desk. “What are they mad about today?”
“It’s been a while since they’ve been here.” Andrew joined his brother. “I don’t know what their problem is now.” Only about thirty people had gathered on the sidewalk, and only a handful of them had signs. Weak ones too, scrawled on with thick, red permanent marker.
Red? Was that the only color in someone’s purse?
He found the tall, slender woman with the frizzy hair. She’d pulled it back into a ponytail and carried a sign that read MAKE WYOMING FREE AGAIN.
He had no idea what that meant. It wasn’t like the state had succeeded from the Union or anything. And Springside doing the hydraulic fracturing as they extracted the gases in the rocks beneath didn’t bind Wyoming or its residents in any way.
He turned away from the window just as a swell of sound rose up from the crowd. He spun back to find the majority of them swarming a woman as she walked toward the building.
“It’s Mom,” he said, his pulse skipping around his chest.
“Mom?” Graham asked, peering out the window, but Andrew headed for his door. The protestors could march in their circles, chant their rhymes until they went hoarse, and then pack up and go home. But they could not approach visitors to the building, nor employees. The rules had been made very clear.
“Call Security,” he said to Carla, his secretary. “The protestors are approaching a guest.” He skipped waiting for the elevator and practically ripped the door to the stairs off its hinges. So maybe he was a little riled up because the guest was his mother. But she’d been through enough already, and she deserved to come eat lunch with her sons without having to deal with protestors at her late husband’s business.
He burst out of the lobby to a wall of heat, suddenly wishing for those arctic conditions of the Wyoming winter, which he’d cursed for the entire month of February.
