Catherine made her way over, and she took Leah’s hand with a gentle look on her face. Meg braced herself for bad news. “Brittany is going to come in on the first plane tomorrow morning, Leah. She had a little difficulty finding accommodations, and she didn’t want to trouble me by staying at our place.”
There was no way that the hotels in the valley were full, Meg thought. That only happened on rodeo weekend. Besides, Bozeman was little more than an hour away. Weren’t there plenty of rooms there? “Yeah, well,” Leah said. “It’s very kind of you to say that, Catherine. She didn’t need to be here for the rehearsal, anyway. She had already told me she didn’t want to walk me down the aisle. She said it would make her feel old.”
“Oh, honey,” Catherine said. “I’m so sorry.”
Leah nodded.
Catherine turned her gentle look on Meg. “Meg, your parents had some business in Billings today. They’re working on transporting some clothing to Burma for a nonprofit there. They thought they might make it back in time for dinner, though.” Meg smiled and nodded. They wouldn’t make it, of course. She tried not to let it set her on edge. After all, she would be around all weekend, and their latest project might not.
“Well, is anyone hungry?” Leah asked.
Meg was finally put to work filling up plates and setting them in front of her aunts, uncles, and cousins, and one strange Texan. When she could finally sit down she realized how tough it all must be on Leah. None of these people were her family. She fit right in, though. And so did Gage, she realized, as he seemed to have everyone around him laughing about something.
Her uncle Jeffrey quieted his own raucous laugh and stood up. “Let’s say grace.” It only took about three lines. She decided he’d given his abbreviated breakfast version. Either that or the smell of bacon, eggs, French toast, biscuits, and orange juice were getting to him, too.
It was a long meal, with everyone eating too much and talking too long. They finally got around to deciding where the chairs would go, where the aisle would be, and when Leah would come out into the little meadow in front of the cabin, and the official rehearsal began.
For some reason it never occurred to Meg that she would have to walk down the aisle with Gage. They had to leave first, being the best man and the honorary maid of honor. He held his arm out for her, she placed her hand in the crook of his arm, and he placed his other hand over hers. She was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hold her hand like that, but it felt comfortable. They parted ways near Uncle Jeffrey.
Next were Joshua’s brother and sister, Caleb and Cadence. Cadence was wearing a tube top over a string bikini and short shorts. Meg remembered what Catherine had said, something about Cadence needing a dose of modesty. When you’re nineteen and pretty, it’s hard to remember that someone else’s wedding rehearsal isn’t the best place to dress for attention.
But if the truth was told, Meg envied Cadence’s slim body. Most of all, she envied what seemed to be her absolute comfort inside that skin. At nineteen, all Meg had ever worn was baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts.
Meg suddenly had an idea for another Mouse the Montana Moose character—an animal who wore extra fur because she didn’t like her own. Or maybe she wore moose antlers because they made her feel pretty. Meg could see the images forming in her mind’s eye, and she almost missed the fact that Leah was walking down the imaginary aisle.
When Jeffrey got to a summary of the vows, both Joshua and Leah got giggly. Then Uncle Jeffrey started snickering. This could make for an entertaining ceremony, Meg thought. She glanced sideways and caught Gage staring at her. He wasn’t laughing, he was just staring. It made her feel so awkward that she had to look away. Was she doing something wrong? Fly undone? A bug in her hair?
As soon as the rehearsal was over, they all got busy decorating. Swags of cloth and white solar Christmas lights went everywhere. Meg had plenty of ideas, and Leah had a good critical eye. With two ladders and willing workers, they managed to turn the meadow into something very special. Meg wouldn’t say it out loud because it would sound silly, but it looked like a fairy circle to her, a magical place made out of lights and trees and carpeted in wildflowers and silvery grass. She couldn’t wait to see it lit up tomorrow night, but for now all the solar cells were tested and then turned off. They would have to wait to see how it looked tomorrow afternoon.
Cars started arriving shortly after noon. The drive of choice of Joshua’s many friends and relations seemed to be beat-up pickups, and soon the place looked like it was half fairy circle and half used car lot. There was a lot of laughing and unpacking, and the woods around the cabin sprouted tents like overgrown wildflowers. Catherine was able to convince most of the guests to drive down to the valley and park there to ease the crowding. And besides, now was the perfect time to head down the road: the tug-of-war was scheduled for three o’clock.
Joshua’s Monster was there to carry many of them, a half-destroyed, half-restored old Hummer he and Uncle Jacob loved to work on. Everyone insisted Leah ride shotgun, leaving Meg and a herd of Joshua’s high school buddies to find a place in the back where they could hold on. Gage was late getting to the Hummer, and there was a lot of good-natured groaning as everyone had to readjust to make room. As he climbed up, stepping on someone’s leg by accident, she noticed he still had his jeans and work boots on. “You sure you want to swim in those?” she asked, pointing.
Gage looked down at his shoes, looked down at her, and grinned. Then he stepped on a few fingers as he altered his route and plopped down beside her, right on top of her messenger bag. She yanked it out from under him and hoped nothing in it was broken. “I won’t be swimming,” he said.
“You’re not going to be in the tug-of-war?”
“I am. But I’m going to be on the winning side.”
“Aha!” Joshua called from the front. “You must be on my side, then.” The engine roared and smoke belched out in a cloud all around them. She waved it away, thinking a swim sounded good, just to wash the fumes off.
Meg noticed Leah had a stiff smile on her face. Her wedding was filled with Joshua’s friends, family, and allies. They must have seemed kind enough, but their ties went deep with Joshua. Most of the people here had probably spent as much time at this cabin, at one time or another, as Meg had. It had been in the Parks family for generations, and it was everyone’s favorite gathering place. Something about Catherine attracted stray kids like some people attracted mosquitoes.
Meg needed to even the score for Leah.
“I see,” she said to Gage. “Yours is the hairy, smelly side. You guys can all buddy up with Joshua, chest butt each other, high five, grunt, whatever. I’m sure none of you would want to be on the bride’s side. You might get girl germs.”
One of the young men raised his hand and almost got knocked off the Hummer as it lurched forward. Once he righted himself he said, “I’ll be on the girls’ team. I’m secure in my masculinity. I’ll be even more secure surrounded by women.”
There was a chorus of responses that seemed to run about fifty-fifty for each side. The conversation degenerated from there as everyone debated whether it was strategically better to be on the smelly team because of the intimidation factor or if being on the smelly team could deplete your oxygen supply and make it harder to win. She tried to catch a glimpse of Leah, but Gage was blocking her view.
Please, God, let Leah know we want her to be part of the family, she prayed. For the first time Meg wished that Leah’s real maid of honor Brie wasn’t sick, not just because she would be free of the dress and all the rest, but because she didn’t want Leah to feel alone. Leaving her home to move to Montana was a big enough sacrifice as it was.
She felt an almost itchy feeling. She was pretty sure Gage was staring at her again. He even sat taller than her, so there was no way to sneak a peek to be sure unless she was willing to look straight up into his face. She wasn’t. His voice sounded very close when he said, “I’ll make a bet with you.”
“I
don’t make bets.”
“If I stay dry, you tell Josh and Leah about Mouse. If I get dunked, I’ll be your personal valet for the rest of the day.”
Meg finally turned her face up to his. He was uncomfortably close, but he didn’t seem uncomfortable at all. “I don’t need a valet.”
“You might like it. I’m pretty handy.”
Meg glanced down at her flattened messenger bag. “I noticed that.”
He gave her that same grin, that invitation to trouble. She had absolutely no idea what he was thinking, but it didn’t bode well for her.
There was a large dirt parking lot just down the road, a remnant of the old cattle loading chute and corrals. The wood structures there were still standing. In fact, they were still straight. Her grandparents and great-grandparents had built the corrals, and the cabin, to last. Most of the vehicles followed Joshua down to the lot, and soon everyone was gathered. Even Meg’s aunts and uncles were there, and she was grateful her uncle Jacob was wearing jeans and not shorts. She had seen him in shorts once before and had almost been blinded by his sun-starved legs.
Really, it was a silly sight. Everyone who knew about this particular Parks family tradition was wearing some odd combination of swimming and hiking clothes. Some were smart enough to bring gloves, and Meg wished she had. One year the tug-of-war left her with blisters and a rope burn where she had stubbornly wrapped the end of the rope around her wrist.
They walked a half mile down to where a footbridge crossed the creek below Little Canyon, a place where the creek had found a path through granite, probably along an old fault line. The creek behaved itself through most of the valley, meandering and flooding a wide basin that left easy access for cattle, but here it hit a granite barrier, and when it finally emerged from the canyon, the water pooled in a wonderful, deep swimming hole.
Wedding guests crowded the little footbridge and probably taxed its strength, but the bridge had been tested before and it was still standing. Joshua’s team was on the far side of the creek. She and Leah walked to the other side, the steep side. Meg preferred it. It was better to hit water if you got pulled in than it was to land face first in the muddy slope on their side. She winced at a memory of it.
Jacob, Joshua’s father, lined up at the end of the rope on the far side, with Joshua just in front of him. They’d be the last to go in if they lost. Cadence and two of Joshua’s buddies offered to ferry the rest of rope across to their own side, and after a lot of flirting and splashing they managed to toss the other end up onto the rocky ledge. Catherine took hold of her end of the rope and led Leah backward away from the edge.
The trash talking was in full swing now. As the slack in the rope that hung over the swimming hole was pulled taut, everyone’s competitive juices were flowing. The fall wouldn’t kill you, but if you got tugged into the water about six feet below, you were guaranteed to feel it. Meg got pulled into line just ahead of Leah, and Cadence was next. A few young men jumped at the opportunity to line up with her.
It wasn’t clear who was going to start the actual tug in this war, and legends were bound to be created on both sides, but it seemed to Meg like the team in front of her stumbled backward and she heard a few screams and splashes. However it had started, the war was on.
Meg grabbed hold and started pulling. She could hardly see ahead of her, but her feet were moving in the right direction. Then again, the grass was slick and she could have been spinning her wheels. She turned toward Leah, who looked fierce. Behind her Catherine, their anchor, looked peaceful. “Is that as hard as you can pull?” Cadence said to her team of admirers, and the dirt and grass really started to fly.
It was a good thing the other team had lost a few members in that first maneuver. “You guys pull like girls,” someone from the other side yelled. Ahead of her, Aunt Sonya, Pastor Jeffrey’s wife, yelled back, “Too bad you guys don’t pull like men!”
Meg felt her feet slide and then heard a splash. The rope moved again, and she could hear the other side celebrating. “Pull!” Catherine commanded, and they dug in their heels. Soon there were a few other splashes, all on the other side of the swimming hole. But just when Meg was thinking they had a chance, the rope was jerked out of her hand. Someone had probably “bungeed”—held on to the rope all the way down. Leah landed on top of her, and ahead of her several women were unceremoniously dumped into the water.
Some of the wedding guests who were now out of the game were slowly making their way out of the swimming hole and up onto the footbridge, where they were shouting silly insults or doing ridiculously bad cheers.
At one point the other team was so busy laughing they could hardly stand, let alone pull. Leah must have seen the same thing. “Now!” Leah ordered, and they pulled with all their might. A very satisfying amount of shouting and splashing came from the other side of the swimming hole before things evened out again. All that remained between Meg and the water were two young men and Cadence. Without warning the man in front of Cadence slipped, and he fell off the ledge but refused to let go of the rope.
The rope jerked down in her hands, but Meg held on. Somehow they managed to pull two people from the other team off their side, but the last young man on the bride’s team was trying to pull and lift his buddy back onto the ledge at the same time, and after a flailing somersault they both landed in the water. Cadence was suddenly facing the ledge, and on the other side of the swimming hole there were three men: Gage, the groom, and the groom’s father. It did not look good.
Worst of all, Gage was up front, standing there in his jeans and T-shirt and his nice, dry boots.
Meg didn’t want a valet. And she didn’t want to lose, either. Cadence was giggling and shrieking all at the same time, and Meg and Catherine were pulling with all their might, but the rope was moving the wrong way.
Her foot twisted in a strange way, and a thought came to her. Not a very nice thought, but there it was.
“Ow!” she cried. She hopped onto her other leg, letting go of the rope with one hand to reach down and touch an ankle that didn’t really hurt at all.
Meg wasn’t the type to cry out, let alone cry wolf, and so the response on the other side was instantaneous. All three men stopped pulling and stood straight up. Still hunched over, Meg turned to Leah, who had a worried look on her face. “On the count of three,” Meg whispered. “One, two…” Luckily, by the time she reached three, both women had realized the deception. “Three!”
It looked to her like Gage was the only person actually pulling on the other side, and as Joshua and Jacob suddenly fought to dig in, Gage went flying. He tried to catch himself. A bad idea. He slid boots first down the first part of the slope, tried to stay on his feet, and arms and legs spinning like windmills, he went face first into the water. It was an epic moment, and the crowd went wild.
As it turned out, the two men on the other side were still better than Meg, Leah, and Aunt Catherine combined. Meg fought hard, and when the end came, she went in after uttering the war cry: “Get him, Leah!”
The jerk on the rope spun her backward and she landed hip first and cockeyed. She came up sputtering. The other two women were still on the ledge. Shocked, she treaded water over toward Joshua’s side. Oh, he was in a pickle now. Was he really going to pull his fiancée and mom into the swimming hole? Or for that matter, would Jacob pull in his wife and daughter-in-law to be? The wedding guests were shouting for both teams to pull. Meg saw the agony on their faces and started to laugh. Just then there was a hard pull on her ankle and she went under again. She came up spitting water this time. She looked around and saw movement under the water. Gage.
Meg started swimming hard, but she didn’t get far before he pulled her down again. She came up a third time feeling miffed and facing a grinning best man. For someone swimming in work boots he sure moved fast. “Ankle feeling better?” he asked.
She splashed him. He ducked under and popped up several feet away. “Don’t you dare,” she said.
“Or wh
at?”
Desperate, she said, “You said you’d be my valet. Valets don’t dunk.”
He considered that as he circled her. There was no way she could swim fast enough to get away, that was clear. He hadn’t planned on getting wet, but he seemed awfully comfortable in the water.
She looked up again. Joshua was holding the rope still, and the women were pulling with all their might. Finally he shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said, laughing. “Why don’t we just call a truce?”
Oh, the groans and shouts from the crowd. Even Gage stopped circling her long enough to register his disapproval. As Joshua was trying to quiet the crowd with outstretched hands the people in the water responded by trying to splash him.
Then two amazing things happened. First Jacob, strong and silent and steady Jacob, put one meaty hand on his son’s back and shoved. Joshua fell to the water below. The crowd was unanimous in its approval, and Jacob bowed his head slightly to acknowledge it.
Then Leah, the Austin city girl whose makeup and hair were perfect, stepped away from the edge. She got a two-step running jump and flew into the air. For one perfect moment she looked like an angel, flying through the air with her arms outstretched, although angels probably don’t say “Whee!” The next moment she was a wet mess like the rest of them.
On either side of the swimming hole Catherine and Jacob blew each other a kiss and dropped the rope. “The war must be over,” Gage said. His voice came from right behind her. She spun around in the water to find him very close. She could see the muscles in his shoulders welling up with each slow stoke of his arms. “And no casualties. Not so much as a sprained ankle. Looks like I’m at your disposal, Mouse Girl. Next time I’ll check the fine print on any contract with you, though.”
Meg's Best Man: A Montana Weekend Novella Page 3
