Jenny looked at Colt’s mother through misted eyes. “Thank you, Mom.”
Rebecca grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the dresser and dabbed at the edges of her eyes. “We’d better get moving if you don’t want to be late to your own wedding.” She reached down to pick up the dragging train, brought it around and layered it carefully over Jenny’s arm. “There. Are you all set?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Jenny said.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else you need?” Rebecca asked.
“Let’s see. Something old—my mother’s pearl necklace. Something new—this beautiful gown. Something borrowed—the Whitelaw family Bible you gave me to carry. Something blue—my wedding bouquet of bachelor’s buttons. I have everything I need.”
“Except a groom,” Rebecca said with a laugh. “I’ll see you at the church.”
Once Rebecca was gone, Jenny didn’t linger long in her bedroom. She knew her four brothers were waiting in the living room to escort her to church. As she came down the hall she heard Randy say, “Holy cow!”
The moment she stepped into the living room, her brothers, who’d been lounging on the furniture, all stood up. Sam spoke first.
“I’ll be damned. You’re gorgeous, Jenny.”
Jenny smiled. “Thank you, Sam.”
“Stunning,” Tyler said.
“The prettiest bride I’ve ever seen,” James added.
“Holy cow!” Randy repeated.
Jenny laughed. “I’d love to stand here and listen to more of your compliments, but I think it’s time we left for church.”
The four brothers exchanged looks before Randy stepped forward. “We got together and decided to give you something special as a wedding gift.”
Randy looked into the inside pocket of the navy blue suit jacket he was wearing but didn’t find what he was looking for. He looked in the other side of the coat and pulled out some papers. He stepped forward and handed them to Jenny. “For you.”
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A honeymoon,” Sam said.
“At the Grand Canyon,” James added.
“We figured you deserved a monumentally good time,” Randy said with a grin.
“We’ll take care of the ranch while you’re gone,” Tyler said, cutting off the objection on the tip of her tongue.
Jenny was astonished. “I don’t know what to say.”
“‘Thank you’ might be nice,” Sam said.
Tears filled Jenny’s eyes, and she tried to sniff them back.
“Don’t you like it?” Randy asked, confused by her tears.
“I’m overwhelmed,” Jenny said. “Thank you all.” She held her arms wide, and her brothers moved to hug her all at once. She gave them each a kiss wherever she could reach.
Randy wiped the kiss from his cheek and said, “We don’t have time for any more of this mushy stuff right now. We’re gonna be late if we don’t get outta here.”
“Right, brat,” Sam said, tousling Randy’s hair. “So get moving.”
Jenny laughed, banishing her tears, and followed her brothers out of the house.
Her wedding day had dawned sunny, but the ceremony was scheduled for eleven-thirty to avoid the heat of the day. The reception was being held in the courtyard at Hawk’s Pride, beneath the cool shade of the moss-draped live oak.
Jenny’s stomach was full of butterflies, which she suspected was normal for a bride on her wedding day, but she had put her fears on hold. Today was about joy and love.
Once they arrived at church, she waited by herself in a small room off the vestibule, while her brothers helped to seat guests. In a departure from the norm, Jenny had neither bridesmaids nor a maid of honor. She didn’t have any close girlfriends, and she didn’t know any of Colt’s sisters well enough yet to feel comfortable asking them to stand in such a role. She had asked her four brothers to stand up with her instead.
“If you’re going to be unconventional, I don’t see why I can’t do the same thing,” Colt had said.
“Meaning what?” Jenny asked.
“How about a Best Lady instead of a Best Man?”
“Who did you have in mind?”
“My sister Jewel,” Colt said. “She was like a second mother to me, and we’ve always been close. If you don’t mind, I think she could hang on to the rings as well as one of my brothers. And Frannie will kill me if Jewel gets to dress up and she doesn’t. So I guess I’d better include her.
“Actually, it might balance things better if I use all my sisters for ‘groomsmen,’” Colt mused. “That way, with Rolleen and Cherry, we’ll have an even number of girls and guys coming down the aisle. What do you think?”
“It sounds like a wonderful idea!” Jenny said.
“Who’s going to give away the bride?” Colt asked.
“I don’t know. I forgot all about that.”
“It’s usually a parent or an older relative,” Colt said.
“I don’t have any of those. Any suggestions?”
“As long as we’re being unorthodox, how about my parents? They’ve adopted eight of us kids. I don’t see why you can’t adopt them.”
Jenny smiled. “Done.”
“Then it’s all settled,” Colt said.
“What will people think?” Jenny wondered.
“This is our wedding,” Colt said. “We can do as we damn well please.”
COLT WAS WISHING THEY’D ELOPED. He was standing in his father’s bedroom, dressed in a black dinner jacket, studded white dress shirt, cummerbund and black trousers, fidgeting nervously as his father tried for the third time to tie his bow tie. His brothers watched the comedy of errors from vantage points around the room.
“Hold still,” Zach said as he adjusted the black silk, “and give me a fighting chance to get this straight.”
“It’s too tight,” Colt said, slipping his finger between the bow tie and his throat.
“That’s the marital noose you feel tightening around your neck,” Jake said.
“Just because your marriage didn’t work out—” Rabb began.
“The bride’s got cancer,” Jake said.
“Had cancer,” Avery corrected.
“May still have cancer,” Colt said quietly. “And if she does, we’ll deal with it. I love her. Be happy for me, Jake.” He met his brother’s remote, ice-blue eyes and felt as though they were miles apart.
Jake shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”
Avery hissed in a breath.
“Bad choice of words,” Jake said repentently. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. I hope you and Jenny have a long and happy life together, Colt. I really do. I’ll see you after the ceremony,” he said, backing his way out of the room.
It was clear, at least to Colt, that Jake considered marriage on a par with walking through a minefield barefoot. Which made Colt wonder why his brother had gotten himself engaged to Amanda Carter. And whether Jake would follow through and take a second trip down the aisle. Only time would tell.
“I’d better get going,” Rabb said. “I promised Mom I’d help greet people at the church.”
“Me, too,” Avery said as he followed Rabb out the door.
Colt’s father stepped back to admire his handiwork. “That ought to do it,” he said.
“Any last words of advice?” Colt said.
“Be happy,” Zach said.
Colt saw the tears in his father’s eyes and felt his throat swell with emotion. “Thanks, Dad.”
He took the step that put him within his father’s reach and felt his father’s arms surround him. As a child, he’d found support and succor, even surcease from pain, within these strong arms. Zach Whitelaw had taken a child that was not his own flesh and blood and made of him a devoted son.
“I love you, Dad,” he said.
His father gave him a quick hug, then pushed him away. “We’d better get going. Your mother will kill me if I don’t get you to the church on time.”
“Sure. Then she�
��ll kiss you all over till you’re well again.”
“Maybe being late isn’t such a bad idea,” Zach said with a laugh.
They made the trip to the church in Colt’s Mustang convertible with the top down. The wind ruffled Colt’s hair and left his bow tie once more askew.
“Let me fix that tie,” Zach said.
Colt waved at friends and neighbors as his father arranged his bow tie, then watched his father head for the front of the church. He headed for a door at the rear, where the choir usually assembled, and which was used during weddings for the groom and his “groomsmen.”
The room was filled with his sisters, arranging their hair and putting on makeup and getting dressed. Colt grinned as he observed the cacophony and confusion. It felt like old times. Cherry was walking around in a bra and half slip; Jewel’s hair was still in hot curlers; Frannie was buttoning up Rolleen’s dress, while Rolleen talked on a cell phone.
“Hi,” Colt said.
“Finish buttoning Rolleen for me,” Frannie said. “While I pin some flowers in my hair.”
Colt crossed to Rolleen and began buttoning up her dress. “Who’s that on the phone?” he asked.
“Gavin’s grandmother,” she whispered back. “The baby’s teething and has a little fever.”
“When you finish with Rolleen, can you do me?” Cherry said, pulling her dress on over her head.
Colt crossed to the sister who’d been most like him in temperament, the other rebel in the family. Cherry had come to the Whitelaw family as a mutinous fourteen-year-old juvenile delinquent and ended up—in Colt’s humble opinion—as a damned good wife and mother. “How’re the twins—both sets—and what’s-his-name?” he asked.
“The girls are in the high school pep squad, and the boys are into G.I. Joe. What’s-his-name hit a home run in his Little League game this morning. Why do you think I’m running so late?”
“Tell Brett I said congratulations,” Colt said.
“You can tell him yourself at the reception. He’ll be there, along with forty-three dozen other screaming Whitelaw brats.”
Colt groaned. “Surely you jest!”
“I’m not off by much,” Cherry warned.
“Colt, will you come hold this mirror so I can see the back of my hair?” Jewel said.
“Duty calls,” Colt said as he buttoned the last button on Cherry’s dress. “Hey there, Jewel,” he said as he took the mirror from his eldest sister and held it up for her. “How’s it going?”
“There’s a lump in my hair,” she said. “Right…” She reached up, trying to locate it backward in the mirror.
“There?” he said, poking at a cowlick at the back of her head.
“That’s it. Stubborn little cuss.” She took the mirror from his hand and threw it onto the table in front of her. “Why do I bother? Plain brown eyes, plain brown hair, plain old face. You’d think I’d get used to it.”
Colt tipped her chin up and surveyed her face, which still bore remnants of the faint, crisscrossing scars she’d acquired in the car accident that had originally left her orphaned. “You look pretty good to me,” he announced.
She brushed his hand away and wrinkled her nose. “You have to say that. You’re my brother.”
The organ began to play and Jewel looked at her wristwatch. “Oh, Lord. Five minutes. Is everybody ready?”
Colt looked around. The chaos had ceased. Before him stood his four sisters looking remarkably lovely in pale rose full-length gowns. Every dress was cut in a different style that had been especially designed by Rolleen to make the most of each sister’s assets.
“You all look…wonderful,” Colt said, his voice catching in his throat.
“You look pretty wonderful yourself,” Jewel said, crossing to link her arm with his. “Come on, Colt. It’s time we made our appearance in church.”
They walked out to stand in front of the altar and wait for Jenny to appear. Her brothers had already taken their places on the opposite side of the altar. Colt found his parents sitting in the front pew, waiting for the appropriate moment to give away the bride, and smiled at them. His mother dabbed at her eyes with his father’s hanky and smiled back.
Their choice of attendants might have been unusual, but Jenny had selected Lohengrin’s “Wedding March” as the processional. At the sound of the familiar opening chords, the congregation stood, and Colt searched the back of the church, waiting for his first look at the bride.
Jenny walked down the aisle alone, as she had lived most of her life. Colt felt his throat constrict as he caught sight of her. She looked ethereal. He could see her face through her veil, and her joyous smile made his heart swell with love.
His parents met her and said the words that gave her into his care. He reached out and took her hand, then turned with her to face the preacher.
“Dearly Beloved,” the minister began. “We are gathered here…”
The vows were familiar, but they seemed to have a great deal more meaning, Colt discovered, when you were the one taking them.
“Do you, Jennifer Elizabeth Wright, take this man to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold…to love and to cherish…all the days of your life?”
“I do,” Jenny said.
Then it was his turn.
“Do you, Colt David Whitelaw, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife, to love and to honor…in sickness and in health…as long as you both shall live?”
Colt’s throat was so swollen with emotion, he couldn’t speak. He nodded, but the minister was waiting for the words. He felt Jenny squeeze his hand. “I do,” he rasped.
Putting the simple gold band on Jenny’s third finger somehow linked them together. When she placed a gold band on his finger in return, it felt as though the two of them had been made into one.
Then the minister was saying, “By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Colt’s hands were trembling as he lifted the veil and looked into his wife’s shining eyes. He lowered his head slowly, touched her lips gently, then gathered Jenny in his arms and gave her a kiss that expressed all the tumultuous emotions he felt inside.
The congregation began to applaud.
Colt lifted his head, grinned sheepishly, then slipped Jenny’s arm through his and, to the swell of organ music, marched with his bride back down the aisle.
THE NEWLYWEDS WERE SPENDING one night at the Double D before they left for their honeymoon at the Grand Canyon the following morning, so Randy was supposed to spend the night in Colt’s room at Hawk’s Pride to give his sister and her new husband some privacy.
It had been difficult for Randy to keep his mind on the wedding ceremony, when he knew he had a test of moral courage coming up in a matter of hours. Once the wedding reception was in full swing, he planned to sneak into Colt’s bedroom with Faith—and see what she’d been hiding beneath her prosthesis.
He hadn’t seen Faith before the ceremony began, and in all the excitement afterward, they’d ended up going to Hawk’s Pride in separate cars. He searched for her in the courtyard and spied her near the punch bowl. He hurried in her direction, but stopped ten feet away and gawked.
She wasn’t wearing the prosthetic device.
She had on a pair of white cotton gloves that ended at the wrist, exposing her arms. The left glove had something inside it to fill out the fingers, but apparently the gloved hand wasn’t functional, because Faith didn’t use it when she helped herself to a cup of punch. Her left arm, including the wrist, which was usually covered by the prosthetic device, looked perfectly normal.
It was the rest of her hand—or rather lack of it—he needed to see.
But suddenly he was in no hurry to see it. He stayed by Faith’s side all afternoon. He laughed with her as Jenny cut the wedding cake and stuffed a big piece into Colt’s laughing mouth. He shared a shy glance with her as Colt retrieved the garter from Jenny’s leg, and he cheered with her as Colt’s brother Rabb caught it. He
stood by her side as Hope leaped high and grabbed Jenny’s bridal bouquet.
He even took her with him when he helped decorate Colt’s Mustang convertible. The guys ended up spraying as much shaving cream on each other as on the car, and made water balloons and threw them, too, before finally tying a bunch of old cowboy boots to the back bumper and declaring they were done.
Shadows were growing on the lawn before Randy finally acknowledged that putting off this reckoning wasn’t going to make it any easier. He took Faith’s right hand in his and said, “Will you come with me?”
“Where are we going?”
“Colt’s room.”
He saw the flash of fear in her dark eyes before she gripped his hand and said, “All right.”
The house was built in a square, and it should’ve been easy to find Colt’s room, since he’d been there once before, but he went down the wrong hallway, and they ended up going down three more hallways, full of wandering wedding guests, before he found the one he wanted.
He knocked on the door, in case anyone was in the room, then looked both ways to make sure no one was watching, and stepped inside. Once he and Faith were both inside, he closed the door and locked it. When he turned back around, Faith was sitting at the foot of the bed staring back at him. He crossed and sat down beside her…on her left side.
“I’ve never seen you wear gloves before,” Randy said, unsure how to begin.
“I’ve had this special glove for quite some time. My doctor designed it especially for me. I just never had a reason to wear it.” She held out her hands for him to see. “I look pretty normal,” she conceded. “But it’s more aesthetically pleasing than functional. In an emergency I can use the heel of my hand.” She waggled her left hand to show the flexibility allowed by the bit of palm she had. “But I miss the versatility I get with a hook.”
She was chattering, Randy realized, because she was frightened. And he was listening, because he was afraid to speak. They made a fine pair, he thought wryly.
“Take off the glove,” he said. “Or would you rather I do it?”
“I’ll do it,” she said quickly.
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