“I DON’T UNDERSTAND how you’ve managed to live in this tin can for as long as you have,” Dalia grumbled. “There’s hardly room to turn around.”
“Well, there aren’t usually three grown women and an infant in here getting ready for a wedding,” Lauren said.
Having Claudia and Dalia together in Vincent Van-Go was an exhilarating experience. They were both such ruthless, efficient, take-charge people that it was a wonder the van could hold their combined energy and not burst.
Dalia was in charge of makeup, and Claudia was on wardrobe and hair. They barked orders to Lauren one after another. Hold still. Turn your head. Look up. Look down. Close your eyes. Hold your breath. Between the two of them they had Lauren looking so good she hardly recognized herself.
Little Ignacio watched from his infant seat on the mattress, round-eyed, his shock of thick dark hair sticking straight up.
Lauren turned sideways to look at herself in the full-length mirror that had been moved into the van from Dalia’s bedroom. “How pregnant do I look?”
“Not very,” Dalia said.
“What do you mean, not very? What kind of a maid of honor are you? You’re supposed to say not at all. Really, in this dress I don’t think I show.”
The dress had been Claudia’s contribution, and she’d insisted on making it as a gift. Lauren couldn’t even imagine the cost in terms of materials and labor. The design was from the eighteen-twenties, a transitional period between the neoclassical-influenced Federalist style, with its high waistlines and columnar silhouette, and the full-on Victorian, with its wide skirts, big sleeves and tiny corseted waists. It was more fitted than Lauren’s first historical gown, the one she’d bought from Claudia at the festival, while still accommodating to a second-trimester shape.
It was soft ivory in color, and off-the-shoulder, with light drapes of tulle around the neckline, gathered at intervals with tiny clusters of silk flowers. Delicate embroidery edged the hem.
“You don’t,” Dalia said. “But as skinny as you are overall, the only reason you wouldn’t have a dress fitted through the waist would be if you were pregnant. That’s just common sense. It is a terrific look, though.”
“Pregnant or not, you look gorgeous,” said Claudia. “You’re going to blow Alex’s mind.”
Claudia seemed almost as happy about the wedding, and about the saving of the ranch, as Lauren and Alex were. There were still some legal things to sort through, but the handwritten will appeared to be in good order, and Claudia said she thought it was only a matter of time.
With the estate reopened and things moving along, Alex was allowing himself to talk about things like fixing the fence here or taking out some mesquite brush there. His ultimate goal was to be able to ride a horse in a clear path around the perimeter of the fencing. Some of his reenactor friends had volunteered to help with the work, evidently thinking fence-mending and brush-clearing sounded like fun.
Once the property was secured, it would take time to get the house ready to move into. In the meantime, the bunkhouse would be Alex and Lauren’s home. Dalia had wanted to do all the bridal prep there, but Lauren had said no. The bunkhouse was for her wedding night. Getting ready for the wedding had to happen in Vincent. So what if it was a little cramped? The van had been her home for so long that she wouldn’t feel right getting ready anywhere else.
They’d had two months to pull the wedding together. Lauren had felt a little funny about that at first. It wasn’t even a full year since her first wedding, let alone her divorce. But Alex had wanted it settled and done, with the two of them in their own home well before the baby came.
He’d also wanted a real wedding, not just a trip to the justice of the peace, as Lauren had suggested. And when she’d realized how much it meant to him, she’d given in, and contented herself with resolving to make this wedding all about him. She’d already been a bride once, but he’d never been a groom. She would give him the beautiful wedding he deserved, surrounded by the people who loved him. It didn’t matter about her.
But she’d ended up being overwhelmed by how the community’s affection for him had enveloped her as well—not just as Alex’s wife, but for her own sake.
“Carlos came by earlier,” said Dalia.
“Did he? What did he say?” asked Claudia.
“I don’t know. I just saw him talking to Tony. He didn’t stay long.”
Carlos had not responded well to the appearance of the new will. He’d done everything from accusing Alex of forging the whole thing to pleading with his sons to divide the property with him voluntarily—which, considering what short shrift he’d given Alex when Alex had offered to pay him for a portion of the land, was really adding insult to injury.
Lauren couldn’t tell whether she was relieved or sorry that Carlos hadn’t stayed for the wedding. He’d been invited, which had been a tough call to make. If he had come, he might have been perfectly charming, or he might have ruined the day. There was just no telling. But in the end Alex had decided to err on the side of magnanimity and send him an invitation.
“I feel sorry for him,” Lauren said.
“It’s his own fault,” said Dalia. “He’s hurt his family again and again, and he’s never even sorry. He just tries to shift the blame and justify himself. He’s had more second chances than he had any right to expect and squandered them all.”
“Oh, I know. But don’t you think it must be awful for him, to realize at his age just how bad he’s messed up? Crouching down in that corner he painted himself into, cramped and cut off, and knowing he has only himself to blame? His charm isn’t going to save him forever. He’s not going to be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
“I agree it would be awful to realize all that,” Dalia said. “But I doubt he does.”
A knock sounded on Vincent’s door, and her dad’s voice said, “Lauren, honey, it’s time.”
Lauren took one last look at herself. Claudia had done her hair in ringlets, with a high gathering of curls at the crown and a few tendrils hanging loose at the hairline and neck. A strand of Lauren’s mother’s pearls completed the look perfectly—and, according to Claudia, period-appropriately. Her skin looked creamy and smooth, and her eyeliner was perfection itself. No one did eyeliner like Dalia.
Claudia opened the van door. Lauren’s dad stood waiting, beaming and immaculate, in a dark green frock coat borrowed from Ron the gunsmith. He was such a youthful father to a grown-up daughter, so trim and handsome.
They had to exit the van in single file. Her dad held out his hand and helped Claudia down, then Dalia with Ignacio in her arm, then Lauren.
“Here, give me the baby,” Claudia said.
Dalia handed him over and picked up Lauren’s bouquet and her own from the little enamel table beside the van. The bouquets were rounded bunches of pink floribunda roses from an antique rose that had been growing on an arbor at La Escarpa for as long as anyone could remember.
Suddenly everything seemed to be happening fast. Claudia disappeared down the aisle with Ignacio. Dalia gave Lauren her bouquet and squeezed her hand. The guitar music shifted subtly into the Spanish ballad chosen for the processional, and Dalia headed down the aisle, back straight, head high.
Lauren took her father’s arm and started walking, past the improvised seat rows decorated with native cedar and holly, past the various guests, some in historical dress and some not, past the grape trellis and the ivy-covered stone wall to the arbor, where the antique rose was blooming like crazy.
Zander, playing guitar, winked at her. As Alex had said, “He may be a punk, but he sure can play.”
Alex stood waiting, stiff and tall in his new black breeches and jacket and silk stockings, with a clenched jaw and a face tight with the strain of holding it all together, except his eyes, which glowed like sunlit amber.
Jay performed the ceremony, using a seventeenth-century reproduction of the Book of Common Prayer. The words of the old marriage service were beautiful and dignified. With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow. How could any modern wording possibly improve on that?
From the moment their eyes locked until the kiss, it felt as if she and Alex were in a warm bubble together, with everyone else present but peripheral. Tony, as best man, looked a little self-conscious in his own historical outfit; Dalia seemed perfectly comfortable in hers. Durango, spruced up and clean with a spray of holly in his collar, sat bolt upright just outside the arbor; Dalia had told him to stay. Cats ambled in and out at their leisure.
Only afterward, when the ceremony was completed and they turned around, did Lauren see Claudia standing near her dad, where her mother would have been. She must have done it by accident; the rows were a little haphazard, and people were informally grouped.
They looked good together.
LAUREN WAS GIVING Chester a nibble of cheese off her plate when Alex stole behind her and whispered into her ear, “I love all these people, but I can’t stand this anymore. I have to get away from here. I want to take you into the bunkhouse this minute. Or take you in the van, or the rose arbor if no one’s there. Basically I just want to take you.”
A delicious shiver ran down her spine. “I think it would be wrong to ghost our own reception.”
Alex brushed her ringlets back and dropped a light kiss on the curve of her neck. “We don’t have to ghost it completely. We could just sort of absent ourselves for a while. We could do it right now. No one’s watching us. We could be locked in the bunkhouse inside of two minutes.”
Lauren set her plate down, turned to face him and put her arms around him. “Oh, no. We’re not leaving and coming back again. Once I have you alone behind closed doors, I’m not stepping outside until sometime next week.”
She felt his muscles tighten, and he drew in his breath with a hissing sound.
“Please, please, can we go right now?” he asked.
She thought fast.
“We’ve had a chance to greet all the guests. We just have to say goodbye to your mom and my dad, and Tony and Dalia.”
“That sounds risky. We might get bogged down.”
“We won’t let ourselves. How long does it take to say ‘thank you, I love you, goodbye’?”
“Let’s find out.”
THE BUNKHOUSE WAS QUIET, peaceful, and spotlessly clean—and Lauren and Alex had it all to themselves.
The harvest table in the dining room held an arrangement of bare twigs and leafless holly thick with berries. An old Spanish cupboard that Alex had restored stood in the kitchen, topped with a blue-and-white pitcher and two green glass wine jugs, all found inside the bunkhouse when Lauren was first cleaning it out. A fire burned in the hearth—the hearth she and Alex had remade together.
“What is that in your hand?” Lauren asked.
Alex looked at the small gift bag. “Oh. It’s from my dad. He left it with Tony. I was talking to Tony and somehow I ended up holding it.”
“What is it?”
“Ugh, no telling. Do we even want to know? I haven’t exactly been his favorite person since...well, ever.”
Lauren took it from him. “It feels light.”
“Could be a hateful letter.”
“Or maybe it’s a peace offering.”
She reached inside and pulled out something red and white and soft.
“A little Christmas stocking. Look, there’s money inside. Tens, twenties, fives, ones. It looks like a wad of random bills. And here’s a note.”
“Is it hateful?”
“No. It just says congratulations on your marriage, and that there are a lot of back payments included here.”
Alex took the note and read it. They looked at each other, both mystified.
Then Alex smiled and said, “I know what it is. It’s the money he would have spent on scratch-offs.”
“You’re right! It is a peace offering.”
“I guess. But I’m not sure. It might turn out to be some subtle passive-aggressive thing.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t overthink it. You know what they say. Best not to look a gift horse...”
She smiled. “I know just what to do with it.”
She took one of the wine jugs down from the cupboard. “We’ll put it in here. It’ll be the start of your horse fund.”
“Brilliant! What a brilliant woman I’ve married.”
He put the bills in the jug, and Lauren added the penny from her shoe.
“Lot of empty space left in that bottle,” Alex said.
“We’ll add to it as we’re able,” Lauren said. “Spare change and windfalls.”
Alex set the jug back onto the cupboard, then held out his hand to Lauren and bent at the waist in a courtly gesture so graceful and perfect that it made her ache.
She took his hand, and he led her down the hallway.
There were various objects hung on the wall that Lauren had found in or around the bunkhouse: a small rusted gear of some sort, an iron horse that looked like it might have topped a weathervane once, a random letter R. The R was a mystery. After unearthing it, she’d expected to find more letters in the area that spelled out a word, but no others had ever appeared, so R it was. R for restoration, for romance, for Ramirez, for Reyes.
In the baby’s room, the cradle Alex had made stood ready, carved and polished to perfection. He’d started it for his nephew, in case Calypso the cat refused to vacate the antique heirloom original, but a month or so before Ignacio’s birth, Calypso had found a cashmere blanket in the linen closet and started bedding down there instead. So now Ignacio had the heirloom cradle, and the reproduction waited for Lauren’s baby. A soft blanket, crocheted by Tamara, was waiting inside—yellow, like the esperanza blossoms that would be covering the shrub outside the door by the time the baby was born.
They’d talked about naming her Esperanza, but they weren’t sure yet. Esperanza was a lot of name. They might call her Peri, or maybe Essie. Or maybe they’d go with the anglicized version, Hope.
Alex pushed open the door to the master bedroom. Twinkle lights glowed above the solid oak headboard of the sleigh bed.
“We did a good job with the place,” Lauren said.
There were still details to be sorted out, like some empty gilt picture frames Lauren wanted to arrange on the living-room wall, and what kind of rug to put in the bathroom, but that was true of any house. For now they were both content to be here, and dream and plan the restoration of Alex’s grandparents’ house and ranch.
“Yes, we did. And so did our cowboy.”
The imaginary cowboy had a full-blown story by now—a bizarre, convoluted, somewhat contradictory story that was constantly being added to or amended. On the spot, Alex made up an appendix about the guy bringing his new bride there for the first time.
“And that was all very nice for them,” he said. “But they’re not here now. We are. I’m not the imaginary cowboy, or even Alejandro Ramirez. I’m just me, and you’re you. And this is our home, not anyone else’s.”
“Don’t you mean our home for now?”
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the palm. “I mean exactly what I said. Wherever you are is my home—mi alma, mi vida, mi corazón.”
My soul. My life. My heart.
She cupped his cheek. “And you are my adventure, Alejandro.”
He leaned into her touch. “I love it when you call me that. I always have.”
“Everything sounds better in Spanish, doesn’t it?”
“Sí. Ahora deja de hablar y bésame.”
Yes. Now stop talking and kiss me.
So she did.
Keep reading for an excerpt from All They Want for Christmas by M. K. Stelmack.