THE COWBOY CRASHES A WEDDING

by Anne MacAllister

  And then, in the silence—and it was silent, because virtually everyone in the hall had stopped dead at the sight of Mike turning Milly into Cash's arms—he did.

  He looked straight into her eyes and said, "I love you." His voice was low and ragged, and this time Milly didn't think anyone heard him but her.

  "Don't leave," he said equally quietly. "Please don't leave." He swallowed, and she saw the pain in his eyes. "Or take me with you if you do."

  Milly blinked. She didn't speak. Her thoughts, which had been in a whirl so long she'd grown accustomed to it, suddenly seemed to stop. Her anger—the anger she'd lived on—stilled. It was as if a great crashing storm had abated, as if the noise and clamor had ceased, as if the clouds had lifted and rolled away—and left her there looking clearly for the first time at the man who had been the reason for it all.

  He looked back, not speaking—just looking—his heart in his eyes.

  Cash. Whom she loved. Who loved her.

  She knew that now. Perhaps she'd always known it. He wouldn't have come back if he hadn't.

  She'd accused him of crashing the wedding to embarrass her, of pulling his grandstanding trick to win himself some more time to play before he ever—if he ever—got serious.

  But it wasn't true.

  She knew it hadn't been true. Not since he'd turned around wherever it was he'd turned around—and come back to her. Then. Not on Tuesday.

  He had learned. And he was here for the long haul, not for eight seconds. He'd come to stay. He'd proved that.

  But she hadn't been willing to admit it.

  Because, she admitted to herself now, she was scared, too.

  It was easier to blame him than to admit that she was scared she wouldn't be enough for him, that he'd get bored with her, that someday he'd leave her because she wasn't enough of a woman to hang on to a man like him.

  It seemed safer not to let him in than someday to be the one left.

  Was she going to go through life playing it safe forever?

  Forever, as Mike pointed out, was a very long time. A long time to do without love. A long time to live without Cash.

  She didn't want to live without Cash.

  She wanted to live with him—to share the risks of life with him. It wouldn't even be living if she had to be without him. All the anger, all the fury, had been a cover—a protection.

  She felt as if they'd both been stripped bare—all their needs, all their hopes, all their inadequacies visible to each other.

  It was scary, yes. But it was good. It wasn't pretence; it was real.

  "I love you," she whispered, and tears started to run down her face. "Oh, Cash, I love you, too."

  He hated it when women cried.

  One woman, anyway. Because of him. Because she loved him.

  It didn't make sense. Why on earth would you cry because you loved someone, unless you thought he was going to leave you, which Cash absolutely and definitely was never ever going to do?

  He was Milly's—heart and soul, mind and body, for ever and ever—if only she'd quit!

  "Aw, hell, Milly, don't!" he begged, gripping her hands. "Don't cry. I don't know what to do when you cry!"

  "Hold me," she muttered against his shirtfront. "Just hold me."

  So he did. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her hard against him. He pressed his face into her hair and breathed deep. A shudder ran through him, a shudder of need, of longing, of promise unfulfilled. It had been so long, so very long.

  "Love me," she whispered.

  He jumped. "Here?" he exclaimed; aghast, looking around at the crowd of a couple of hundred interested wedding guests.

  Milly giggled. She pulled back and looked into his eyes. "Kiss me here," she said. "Love me at home." She tipped her face up to his. "For the rest of our lives."

  "Oh, yes," he promised. And then he slipped his arms around her again and touched his lips to hers—at first gently, then deeply, then soul shatteringly.

  Somewhere in another galaxy he heard applause and laughter and kids whooping and hollering.

  When at last he stepped back, Mike gave him a thumbs-up sign, Dori gave them a nod of satisfaction, Jake looked at his mother and beamed. Milly's parents looked at each other, then at Cash and Milly, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  The minister blinked, then smiled bemusedly, looking as if he'd been there, done that—and expected that he was going to have to do it again sometime very soon.

  Cash pretty much thought he was dreaming.

  A part of him fully expected to wake up in the middle of the night and discover that he was alone.

  But when he awoke, it was with Milly in his arms. It was with Milly's arms around him. He sighed. He stretched a little, then eased himself back to look at her in the moonlight that spilled through the window, to convince himself that this—that she—was real.

  As he did so, she stirred and slowly opened her eyes. She smiled at him.

  It was the smile he had been afraid he would never see again. It was the most precious, the most beautiful smile on earth. He smiled, too, then felt something damp at the corner of his eye.

  Oh hell, he wasn't going to cry, too, was he?

  And then he thought, so what if he did? It didn't matter. What mattered was Milly. Loving Milly.

  It had taken him long enough to realize it. He wasn't going to forget it in a hurry. There would, he hoped, be lots of laughter and maybe a few tears for them over the years. But whatever there was, they would share it—together. Here. Denver. Wherever life took them.

  None of it mattered but that they were together.

  Milly eased herself up and kissed the corner of his eye. She tasted the tear and then she kissed him again with all her heart. "Ah, Cash. I love you," she said against his lips.

  "I love you, too," he told her, his voice rough with emotion.

  And he always would.

  * * * * *