The Accidental Bride

by Denise Hunter

  Not that she gave a hoot.

  She’d heard countless tales of the rodeo circuit from Maddy’s dad, Wade. He’d reached national celebrity status before he escaped it in favor of anonymity in Moose Creek. Then God had led Abigail here to be Maddy’s nanny last summer, and the rest, as they say, was history. Now they were married and living happily ever after, and Wade’s notoriety had done nothing but help the local economy.

  But Travis wasn’t like Wade. Whereas Wade had run from the trappings of fame and fortune to settle here in relative peace, Travis had left the tranquility of Moose Creek in search of fame and fortune. And he’d leave again, even though he’d already found both. Let other cowgirls fawn and flatter all they liked, Shay preferred a man with staying power. But since there didn’t appear to be any of those left, she’d settle for no man at all.

  Her cell rang, and she pulled off her gloves and answered.

  “ ’Morning, sunshine.” The blaring band in the background left little question about his location.

  “Hey, Beau.”

  “Where ya at?”

  “In my barn.”

  “I saved you a seat.”

  He was getting too presumptuous. Beau was a fun distraction come Saturday night, but that was all. Last thing she’d meant to do was lead him on. “Thanks, but I’ve got too many chores.”

  “Meet me later? There’s a band onstage at three, supposed to have a great guitarist.”

  If she never saw another strutting guitarist, it’d be too soon. “Gotta get ready for the ceremony.”

  “Aw, you’re breaking my heart.”

  “I’ll see you at Bridal Falls.”

  “Not my idea of fun, watching my gal say vows to another man.”

  My gal? She had to put an end to this. “It’s pretend, goofy.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard. Say you’ll be my date for the picnic, and all is forgiven.” There was a smile in his voice. “The Silver Spurs are onstage afterward. We can dance the night away.”

  She wasn’t planning to go, but she had to break the news sometime. “All right, fine.”

  “I’ll save you a seat on the fairgrounds. When you get out of that fancy getup, meet me over there.”

  The phone buzzed. “All right. Gotta go, another call coming in.”

  She said good-bye, then she glanced at the screen to see Abigail’s name and answered. The band blared in the background. Good grief, she may as well be there.

  “Hey there,” she said.

  “You’re not coming?”

  “Too many chores to catch up on.”

  “Aw, rats.”

  She’d never meant to burden her friend with babysitting. “You want me to come get Olivia?”

  “Of course not. They’re having a blast.” A tuba sounded as it passed by. “Literally,” Abigail shouted.

  “I’m going to the picnic with Beau later, but no reason we can’t all sit together.” She’d squeeze in a chance to break his heart at some point. “And of course, I’ll be at the reenactment.”

  “Should I bring ‘something borrowed’?”

  “You’re killing me here.”

  After they got off the phone, Shay finished the barn, grabbed a quick lunch, and spent the early afternoon with her head in the books—the picture wasn’t pretty. By the time she finished, she had an hour to clean up and present herself at Bridal Falls.

  She’d grown progressively nervous as the day waned. By the time she was showered and ready to slip into the gown, she was shaking.

  She’d been a failure at marriage, and the whole community knew it. Scared off her first groom and chased away her second. Well, they had nothing to worry about. Both times the rug had been jerked from under her, and she wouldn’t be subjected to that again, thank you very much.

  Shay pulled the gown from its hanger and stepped into it. Would the ceremony stir it all up again? The gossip around her husband’s desertion, the humiliation of being second to the rodeo circuit and a musical career?

  Somehow, despite the fact that Garrett’s desertion was more recent and seemingly more heinous, it was the memories of the one before it that made her hands shake as she pulled the dress over her hips.

  It hadn’t helped that she’d returned from her disgrace in Cody, Wyoming, by bus. That she’d had no change of clothes and had stepped off the public vehicle into the busiest intersection in Moose Creek on a bustling Saturday night in her wedding dress. Alone.

  It had taken years to live that down. People still told the story to their young daughters, a cautionary tale against premature marriage. She was going down in the Moose Creek annals just like Prudence. Maybe someday they’d do a reenactment of her bus stop arrival.

  Bridal Falls was situated eleven miles south of town, just across the Wyoming border. As the story went, Joseph Adams had ordered himself a bride after striking gold in nearby South Pass City. When his bride-to-be, Prudence Wilcott, arrived by stagecoach, it was love at first sight—or so the legend went.

  With no permanent church in the settlement, the couple exchanged vows at Bridal Falls before a handful of friends. Their honeymoon took them north a short distance, where they camped by a bubbling brook in Paradise Valley, snuggled between the Gallatin and Absaroka Mountain Ranges. The first morning they awoke to find a moose and her young in the middle of the creek and named the stream Moose Creek. Later they settled in the area, and the name stuck.

  Shay cared about none of this as she made her way down the wooded path beside Miss Lucy. All she wanted was to get through the next fifteen minutes. She hiked the dress to her knees, careful of the delicate fabric. Last thing she needed was to be known as the woman who destroyed the town’s most precious relic.

  Judging by the cars lining the road and filling the grassy meadow, all of Moose Creek had turned out. When she and Miss Lucy emerged from the forest, Shay stopped, dropping the skirts to the ground. Folks were gathered on the grassy shoreline, a short distance from the falls, leaving a path down the middle for her.

  Someone spotted her. “She’s here!” All at once, the mass of people turned to stare.

  Shay’s spine stiffened. “They’re staring.”

  Miss Lucy tugged her forward. “Of course they’re staring. You’re the bride.”

  “Pray for me,” Shay said.

  “I always do. And don’t forget . . . you look beautiful!”

  As they approached the rear of the group, Miss Lucy left Shay to walk the grassy aisle alone. She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

  I don’t care what anyone thinks. I. Do. Not. Care.

  Whispers tickled the air. She blocked them all and focused on the gentle whoosh of the distant falls. On the call of a magpie from a nearby branch. On the swish of her boots through the grass. Don’t let me fall, God.

  “Oh my word . . .” The whisper, so close, was impossible to miss. “Does she . . . groom?”

  Warmth flooded her cheeks. She looked toward the groom’s spot but couldn’t see Riley Raines for the crowd. She forced her eyes to Pastor Blevins’s round face at the end of the pathway. At the tuft of hair the wind pulled across his balding head. At the black Bible in his hands, burgeoning with papers and bulletins and notes.

  She wondered if Missy Teasley’s eyes were shooting darts into her back. It was no secret Missy had gotten her mama’s possessive genes. She’d probably made poor Riley wish a thousand times he’d just said no. Why hadn’t Miss Lucy just asked Missy to fill the role? But of course, the dress would hardly fit her plump frame.

  A paper slipped from Pastor Blevins’s swollen Bible, and he stooped to retrieve it. His shoulder knocked into a wooden pedestal. It wobbled precariously, then he grabbed it, steadying it. That was new, the pedestal. Pastor Blevins poked his spectacles back into place with his index finger.

  Fifteen minutes. Just fifteen minutes and this will be over.

  On the other hand, if the preacher became distracted, he had a tendency to go down bunny trails. He could stretch this into thirt
y, easy.

  By the time it was finished, Shay would be ready to go home and hide. She was already regretting her decision to join Beau and the others at the picnic.

  But the quicker she walked, the sooner it would be over. She picked up her pace. Almost there. The only other person who wanted this thing over with was nearly in view. She turned a sympathetic smile in Riley’s direction as his plaid sleeve came into view.

  Yeah, I know. Me too, her grin said.

  The sleeve became a shoulder, and the shoulder became a face.

  But the face wasn’t that of Riley Raines.

  6

  Gravity plucked at the corners of Shay’s mouth. At her shoulders. At her heart.

  Her step faltered, and Travis’s hand went out. But she caught herself before he touched her.

  She wanted to smack the cocksure grin right off his face.

  How could he do this? How could Miss Lucy?

  “Isn’t he the one . . . ?” someone whispered.

  “Did she know?”

  “Maybe he won’t run for the hills this time.”

  She stopped in front of the lopsided pedestal, facing Pastor. Her jaw clamped down. She felt her nostrils flare and wondered if steam was rising from the top of her head.

  Pastor started talking, and the whispering quieted.

  Please, God. Get me through this.

  He began a message on the sanctity of marriage, droning on. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t even a real wedding. Thank God, she thought, remembering who was at her side.

  Travis stood close, his arm touching hers. Its warmth added to the furnace inside the dress, and a sweat broke out on the back of her neck. Her shallow breaths challenged her heart to a race. Hard to say which was in the lead.

  Breathe, Shay, breathe.

  How did this happen? He must’ve talked Miss Lucy into it somehow. Lied to her or something. The woman would never put her through this agony intentionally. She was the one person who knew the depth of pain Travis McCoy had caused. Knew exactly how the gossip and rumors had about been the death of her.

  She was going to kill him. As soon as this was over. As soon as the crowd left. She would tighten that bolo tie until his face went tomato red.

  No. She would hold him under the falls until he begged for mercy.

  Better yet—

  “Face one another, please,” Pastor Blevins said.

  She turned and followed the pearly white buttons up Travis’s shirt. Up past his stubborn jaw, past his crooked nose, to his gray eyes.

  She narrowed her own and hoped he could read her every thought. Self-absorbed, bigheaded, egotistical—

  “Joseph Edward Adams,” the pastor continued, “wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her so long as ye both shall live?”

  You man enough to say it this time?

  “I will.” His voice boomed, deep and certain.

  Easy enough when you’re pretending, isn’t it?

  “Prudence Jane Wilcott, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony?”

  Not a chance in—

  “Wilt thou love, honor, and keep him, in sickness and in health . . .”

  Ha!

  “. . . and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him so long as ye both shall live?”

  Won’t be long for you, anyway. She unlocked her jaw and squeezed the words out. “I will.”

  “Joseph, take your bride’s right hand.”

  Travis took her hand. The grin had slipped from his mouth and wariness had crept into his eyes.

  “Say after me the followeth: I, Joseph Edward Adams, take thee, Prudence Jane Wilcott, to be my wedded wife.”

  “I, Joseph Edward Adams . . .”

  She had to pull it together. Her profile was in full view of the crowd. She lifted her chin. Don’t let them see how riled you are. Do not dig your nails into his palm.

  Pastor Blevins fed the next lines, and Travis continued. Shay forced herself to look him in the eye.

  “To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”

  The steadiness of his gaze, the words, spoken softly and firmly, reached deep into her core. Despite her best efforts, the knot of anger began to loosen.

  She remembered their times down by the creek, just the two of them, when they had a lifetime of love stretching ahead. Remembered the first time he’d kissed her, at sixteen, in her parents’ barn, on a dare.

  “To love and to cherish,” Travis continued. “Till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I pledge thee my love.”

  How could graceful words sound so masculine? How could she be so angry with him one minute and want to fall into his gray eyes the next?

  He’s only acting, Shay Brandenberger, and don’t you forget it. The man had a future in Hollywood.

  But the real problem was plain to her now. The hold he’d had on her way-back-when hadn’t gone away. Not after a painful desertion, and not after a fourteen-year separation. It was like he’d never left. Like her emotions had picked up right—A squeeze on her hand pulled her to the present. Pastor Blevins and Travis stared expectantly. “Oh, uh . . .”

  Words! A trail of sweat trickled down the center of her back.

  “I—” she began. “Prudence Jane Wilcott, take thee, Joseph Edward Adams, to be my wedded husband.”

  The pastor fed her the remaining lines, and she repeated them, taking care to steady her voice.

  As she spoke, Travis’s face softened, his eyes taking on a sadness she hadn’t seen in forever. Not since his dog Sparky had been trampled by a horse when he was sixteen. He’d shed actual tears as he’d told her, then she’d cradled his head in her lap and had run her fingers through his hair.

  There were no tears now, but she wondered if that wasn’t regret mingling with the sadness in his eyes.

  “Let us pray.”

  She closed her eyes. Wished she could keep them closed until her neighbors were gone. Until Travis was back in Texas where he belonged. How could his parents have asked this of him?

  “. . . through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Joseph, take the ring and repeat after me. With this ring, I thee wed, and with all my worldly possessions, I thee endow.”

  Travis placed the cheap gold band on her finger and repeated the words. The ring. That’s where all this had started. Or rather, where it all had ended.

  Pastor Blevins handed her a band and instructed her to do the same. She placed the ring on Travis’s thick, squared ring finger, then wetted her parched lips and repeated the vow.

  As she finished, a gust of wind blew, and a paper on the pedestal sailed off. They both reached for it, but Travis caught it and replaced it.

  “Forasmuch as Joseph and Prudence hath consented together . . .”

  The ring on her finger felt cool and alien. She thought back fourteen years and wondered if Travis had ever gotten her that ring at all. If he had, he’d probably sold it at the nearest pawnshop on his way to fame and fortune.

  Had he even wondered how she’d get home from Cody, or had she disappeared from his mind the instant he’d left? Had he grieved the end of their love? The end of their friendship?

  Her eyes swung to his. Did you even love me? How could you end what we had? You were my first love, my everything. Was it really that easy to give me up?

  Time had etched fine lines at the corners of his eyes, and the sun had permanently stamped them. His face was more angular, his jawline square and strong, and his hair longer. He’d always turned heads, but he was handsomer now than ever.

  A breeze came and ran its fingers through the dark strands, taunting her. She used to do the same thing. He had a ticklish spot behind his ear—

&nb
sp; Stop it, Shay.

  She had to be on guard. He was her Achilles’ heel. Her kryptonite. Her—

  “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Pastor Blevins’s smile bunched his chubby cheeks.

  Almost over. Almost over. Almost—

  “Joseph,” the pastor said, “you may now kiss your bride.”

  7

  Travis watched the emotions flicker over Shay’s face and wished they weren’t standing in front of the whole town. Wished they weren’t in the middle of a solemn occasion so he could say something to erase the hurt in her eyes.

  Instead, he tightened his hand on hers and prayed for a quick ending.

  Minutes ago she’d been mad as a hornet, his little wildcat, her olive eyes spitting amber sparks. In her younger days she would’ve smacked him then and there. Anger had always been her default, and that hadn’t changed.

  And she had plenty to be angry about.

  Her composure had fallen as the pastor spoke words of love, and that’s when the hurt surfaced. Now he just wanted to take her in his arms and say he was a hundred kinds of sorry.

  Sorry he’d hurt her. Sorry he’d been too young and foolish to realize how special she was. Sorry, he thought, watching the ache wash across her face, that “sorry” might just be too little, too late.

  “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

  It was almost over, and he felt the moment slipping through his fingers like floodwaters through a barbed wire fence. His hand tightened on hers.

  “Joseph,” Pastor Blevins said, “you may now kiss your bride.”

  She widened her eyes, parted her lips.

  Founders Day tradition dictated a peck on the cheek, but Travis had never been a follower.