Friday afternoon, the wedding party gathered and did the walk-through outside under the clear, sunny sky, in front of the big, wide-open doors of the yellow barn. That evening, Bella and Hudson hosted the rehearsal dinner at their house.
Amy and Derek didn’t get back to his place until after midnight. They were so close now to the end of their friends-with-secret-benefits agreement. After tomorrow, it would happen at last. They would talk about the future, decide what came next for them.
If anything, she thought and shivered a little. But that was just fatalism rearing its ugly head.
She wasn’t going to be negative. Uh-uh. Because she definitely believed they did have a future, she and Derek. She wanted it so much. And she was almost positive that he wanted it, too.
She longed to get going on it, get her dreams for the future out in the open. But really, the best thing at this point, she decided, was to stick with the plan, to get through the wedding tomorrow, to enjoy the party afterward.
And then, over breakfast Sunday morning, she would do it. She would tell him that she loved him, that she’d realized now she’d never stopped. She would say she wanted another chance with him. She wanted to stay here in Rust Creek Falls with him and get busy on the rest of their lives.
“You’re really quiet,” he said, holding her close after they’d climbed into bed.
She wavered. Why not just tell him everything right now?
But in the end, she chickened out. “I keep going over my toast in my head. I hope I get it right.”
“It’s a great little speech,” he soothed, stroking her hair.
“Little is right. Because short is always best.” And I love you and I want it to work out for us this time. At last. Oh, Derek. I want that so bad...
“It’s gonna be fine,” he promised, catching a random curl and wrapping it around his finger.
She lifted her chin and captured his gaze. “You sure?”
“No doubt.” His eyes were bottle-green in the light of the bedside lamp, and beneath the covers, she felt him stirring, growing hard against her bare hip. He said her name, “Amy,” like a promise. Or a plea. His wonderful mouth dipped down and claimed hers.
She kissed him back with all the love and yearning in her heart.
It was going to work out this time.
It had to work out.
There was no other possibility but happiness for them now. After all these long years apart, they deserved to share a future together. And Sunday morning, over coffee and pancakes, they would start planning the rest of their lives.
* * *
At three o’clock the next afternoon, beneath the blue Montana sky, the groomsmen and the groom took their places at the makeshift altar in front of the yellow barn. The six-piece band launched into the traditional wedding march and the bridesmaids, in a rainbow of bright dresses, took their walk down the aisle. They carried bouquets of sunflowers and lavender phlox. As the maid of honor, Amy came last.
When she took her place with the other bridesmaids, three cherubs appeared—Jamie Stockton’s two-and-a-half-year-old triplets, Jared, Henry and Kate. Kate came first in a ruffled blush-pink dress, tiny cowboy boots on her feet. She scattered petals as she went. Jared and Henry, the ring bearers, were right behind her, perfect little cowboys in jeans, boots, blue shirts, tan vests and hats to match. The three made it almost to the bridal party assembled at the end of the aisle.
But a few feet from their destination, something caught Henry’s eye. “Horsie!” he cried, veering off at the end of the white carpet and racing toward a gray gelding standing at the pasture fence twenty yards away. A murmur of laughter rose from the guest.
Fallon, the triplets’ stepmother, moved fast. She caught little Henry before he made good his escape. Jamie corralled Jared, just in case he got ideas from his brother. Kate never wavered. She took her place with the rest of the wedding party, head high, her angelic face composed.
Then the music changed, and a lone guitarist played Pachelbel’s Canon in D. More than one pair of eyes brimmed with tears as Eva, a vision in white except for the teal-blue toes of her cowboy boots peeking out beneath her skirt, her bright hair covered in a filmy veil, emerged from the bride’s tent set up a few yards from the foot of the white carpet. She carried sunflowers, purple phlox, white roses and yellow snapdragons.
Not far from the tent, Ray Armstrong waited. He offered Eva his arm and whispered something to her. She murmured a reply. Even through her veil, her pretty face seemed to glow.
Ray walked his youngest daughter down the aisle, stepping aside at last to leave her facing her groom. A sigh went up from the rows of white chairs as Luke turned back her veil.
Their eyes only for each other, they said their vows and exchanged their rings. Then, as Luke kissed his bride, Amy’s gaze strayed to Derek. He was already watching her. They shared a secret smile.
Tomorrow. The word echoed in her head.
Tomorrow would be their day, hers and Derek’s. She couldn’t wait to tell him everything, to open her heart to him, to claim again what they’d lost all those years ago.
For the wedding dinner and reception, Viv Shuster had worked a miracle in the old barn, with twinkle lights and long plank tables. She’d hung gorgeous old crystal chandeliers from the overhead beams and created a bower effect with yards of filmy white fabric draped from the rafters. There were flowers in mason jars everywhere.
It really was perfect, Amy thought. Eva had never looked so radiant, so gloriously happy.
As for Derek, he was sweet and attentive. But as the afternoon became early evening, he seemed to grow distracted—distant, even. As though something was preying on his mind.
* * *
Derek couldn’t quite put his finger on what was bugging him. A lot of things, really. Amy had been too quiet the last couple of days. He wasn’t sure what was going on with her, but it kind of made him nervous.
He had hopes, he really did, for a future with her. And he’d made a secret trip to Kalispell two days before because this time, he intended to offer something a whole lot better than an imitation diamond when he made his big move. But maybe he’d jumped the gun.
Maybe she was only thinking that it was almost time for her to go.
Or maybe it was this perfect country wedding messing with his head. It was like a dream, with Luke and Eva so happy, their whole lives ahead of them and nothing standing in their way. And it reminded him too painfully of how different his own wedding day had been, of him and Amy at the courthouse with strangers for witnesses, of the forty-dollar wedding ring and the tired-looking bunch of daisies she’d clutched in her hand as they vowed to love and care for each other as long as they both should live.
This wedding brought all the old hurts to fresh life again, reminding him how much he’d loved her and how wrong it all went, how little he’d had to offer her then.
His plan was to speak of the future with her tomorrow, to tell her he still loved her and always would. How was that going to go? He couldn’t be sure what she’d say when he asked her to be his again in front of the world—forever this time, no matter what.
He tried to take heart from the tender looks she gave him, but playing the “just friends” game was really getting to him. He hated it now. He wanted to shout to the world that she was his. That they were together.
At dinner, it was open seating for everyone but the bride and groom, who sat at a smaller table up on a dais. Derek and Amy sat together. He rested his arm across the back of her chair and she didn’t remind him that he was pushing the boundaries of their friends-only act.
Instead, she leaned close to him and whispered how handsome he looked in his jeans and dress boots, his blue shirt and tan vest. She even straightened his white rose boutonniere, the way a woman does for her special guy.
He was feeling pretty good about everything, gaining confidence about how it would go between them tomorrow when he asked her for forever.
But then Brandi Foster, who lived in Kalispell but sometimes spent her Friday nights at the Ace, pulled out a chair across the table from them. “Derek! How have you been?” She raised her mason jar of wedding punch. “Been a while, huh?”
Yes, it had. About five years, if he wasn’t mistaken. They’d hooked up at the Ace one Friday or Saturday night back when he was spending too much time meeting women in bars. She’d given him her number before he left her place. He’d never gotten around to calling her back.
“Hi, Brandi,” he said, going through the motions, being polite. “I’m doing well. How ’bout you?”
“Can’t complain.” She kind of scowled as she said it. Her gaze shifted to Amy. “If it isn’t the maid of honor. I’m Brandi.” She offered her hand across the table.
Amy took it and gave it a quick shake.
Brandi had a million questions for Amy. Did she live in town? Oh, well, then, if she didn’t, where did she live and when was she going back? How did she know Eva? And no kidding, she went to high school in Rust Creek Falls and graduated the same year as Derek? “So, you were schoolmates, you two.”
“Yes, we were.” Amy leaned a little closer to him and sent him a fond smile. The warmth in those golden-green eyes eased the knot of tension gathering in the center of his chest. Amy didn’t seem all that bothered to be fielding endless questions from a woman she didn’t know.
But then Brandi snickered and drank more punch. The tension in Derek’s chest fisted tight again. Brandi seemed a little buzzed. He wondered if eccentric old Homer Gilmore, famous for spiking the punch at weddings with his dangerously powerful moonshine, might be up to his old tricks again. Brandi craned across the table and stage-whispered to Amy, “Well, if you went to school with Derek, I guess I don’t have to warn you about him.”
Amy only shrugged. “Of course not. I’m sure I know him a lot better than you do.”
Brandi tossed her blond head. “Oh, you think so, huh?”
“I know so.”
Brandi grabbed her empty mason jar and swept to her feet. “Just don’t expect a phone call afterward, if you know what I’m saying. I need more punch.” She turned and flounced away without giving Amy a chance to say anything more.
Amy sent him a sideways look. “I get the impression that Brandi is not very happy with you.”
Feeling like a first-class jerk, he eased his arm off the back of her chair. “Yeah. Well, she’s right. I never did call her.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Five years or so.”
She leaned in and nudged his shoulder with hers. “Come on. Don’t beat yourself up. It was a long time ago and everybody just needs to move on.”
God, she was amazing, the way she took the awkward, ugly encounter in stride. He dipped his head to hers and whispered, “Thanks.”
She caught his hand under the table. “Hey. It’s okay.” She wove their fingers together, her eyes steady on his, letting him know that Brandi hadn’t bothered her in the least.
It helped, her kind words, her soft hand in his. But not enough, really.
Brandi was living proof of what a dog he’d once been and that made him feel...less. Cheap. Like he wasn’t quite good enough, somehow.
He really needed to buck up. Take Amy’s advice and shake it the hell off.
Dinner was served. And then it was time for the toasts. Derek thought his went over well enough.
Amy’s was so sweet and funny. She had great stories about Eva as a little girl who followed Calla, Delphine and Amy around the Armstrong backyard, asking a thousand questions: How do you know when you’re in love? Does a girl need a good job before she gets married? I know you’re all bigger than me and teenagers and everything—but still, can we please play My Little Pony and can I be Princess Twilight Sparkle?
After the toasts and dinner, there was dancing at one end of the barn. People lingered at the tables or wandered around outside, where the white folding chairs and rows of hay bales provided plenty of seating. The sun sank below the mountains and the outside party lights came on, endless strings of them, looped between the exterior walls of the barn and the nearby trees.
Derek and Amy stayed together. They danced and they visited with friends and family. He was having a great time and had almost forgotten the depressing encounter with Brandi.
But then, after dark, as they sat together on a hay bale under the loops of lights, a guy he didn’t know wandered over.
“Hey. You’re Amy, right?” He offered his hand to her and they shook. “And...?” He turned to Derek.
Derek stood. “Derek Dalton.”
The guy shook his hand, too. But his attention remained on Amy. “I’m Joe Armstrong, Eva’s cousin. Uncle Ray’s my dad’s brother.”
Amy got up, too. “Marion has talked about you.”
Joe grinned. “All good stuff, right?”
“Absolutely. She said you live in Denver.”
Joe was a good-looking guy if you liked the executive type. He wore a pricey suit and tie—and cowboy boots. It was a barn wedding, after all. A guy never knew what he might step in. “I’m an attorney,” he said, “with Bartles, Downey and Smart. Ray said you live in Boulder.”
“For the past several years, yes.”
“We should get together.” Joe whipped out a phone bigger than Amy’s. “Give me your number or an email.” Derek wanted to punch the fool. “Or wait. Are you on LinkedIn?”
Amy started to say something. But before she got an actual word out, Derek took a step forward. “Back off.” The warning was out before he let himself think twice about how rude he sounded or what Joe-freaking-Armstrong might think.
Joe almost dropped his enormous phone. “Hey. Whoa, there.” He actually put up both hands like Derek had a gun on him. “No offense, man. Seriously.”
Derek knew himself to be a jealous fool. He stuck his hands in his pockets to keep them from grabbing good old Joe by the throat. “Sorry. That was out of line.”
“Derek?” Amy sounded worried.
Joe muttered something in a neutral tone.
But Derek didn’t hear it. He needed a serious time-out—like go sit in a corner with his face to the wall. Spinning on his heel, he walked away.
“Derek!” She was coming after him.
He felt like crap and just wanted to go. But no way could he leave her like that, calling his name, trying to catch up with him. He stopped and waited under the night-shadowed branches of a hackberry tree.
She ducked in there beneath the leaves with him. “Derek? Are you okay?”
He had so much to say to her and no idea where to start.
Not that this was the time or the place for it.
The least he could do was apologize. “I...look, I really am sorry. I’m an ass and I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me.”
Cautiously, moving with slow care, like someone soothing a spooked horse, she brushed her palm along his arm. Her touch soothed him. He got a hint of her perfume and relaxed a little more.
When he didn’t pull away, she stepped in close. “We, um, have a lot to talk about. Maybe we should—”
“Not now.” He just wasn’t ready. And what if she said no? Through the darkness her eyes gleamed so bright. “I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t know what I was thinking to jump on that guy like that.”
Her pretty white teeth flashed with her smile. “Well, Ray’s nephew seems a little pushy. But I think he’s harmless, really.”
“I got jealous.” There. He’d admitted it, even though it made him look like even more of an ass.
“Don’t be. I’ve got no interest in getting anything going with Ray’s nephew. You’re the only one I’m looking at.”
“Even when I act like an idiot?”
“You’re not an idiot. No way.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “You’re the best man I know.”
“Well, I am the best man,” he teased lamely and tugged on a loose curl of her pinned-up hair. “You’re kind. A good woman.”
“It’s only the truth.” She caught his fingers, brought them to her lips and pressed a kiss into his palm.
He could have stayed there under that tree with her forever, just looking into her big eyes, feeling her velvety cheek against his hand. But the evening wasn’t over yet. “We should go back. They haven’t even cut the cake.”
“You sure you’re okay?”
He traced the curve of her ear, ran the back of his finger down the side of her throat—and for no logical reason, out of nowhere, the hard things Collin had said that morning at the saddlery filled his mind.
Guys like you and me, we go from girl to girl. And people judge us. They think we haven’t got deep feelings. But could be it’s the opposite. Maybe our feelings run too damn deep...
You were wrecked over her. That girl ruined you. I didn’t understand then, how deep she’d cut you...
Back in the barn, the band was playing “Lost in This Moment,” that Big & Rich song about getting married. Would he ever get there again with the only woman for him?
Yesterday, he’d believed he would. But somehow, tonight, with Luke and Eva’s happiness reminding him of how it all went wrong before, with tomorrow coming on too fast, he just didn’t know anymore.
“Derek?” There was worry in her eyes again.
“I’m good,” he lied. “Never better.”
* * *
They went back to the party. They danced some more. They hung out with Derek’s brothers and sisters and their wives and husbands.
Eva and Luke eventually got down to cutting the gorgeous cake that Eva had insisted on baking herself. It was enormous, that cake, a tower of white frosting and twining frosting flowers, with a cowgirl bride and her cowboy groom perched on top. Inside, the cake itself was yellow swirled with bright ribbons of raspberry filling.
Amy and Derek sat inside at one of the tables to shovel it in.
Bailey strolled up with a giant slice of his own. He took the place across from Amy. “You two.” He smirked at them. “Worst kept secret in Rust Creek Falls.” He pointed with his fork at Amy, then at Derek. “I can’t believe it’s really happened. I never thought it would. But it looks to me like Derek Dalton has finally met his match.”
Derek slid a glance at Amy. She was grinning. He looked back at Bailey and played his part, deadpan. “No idea what you’re talkin’ about, man.”
“Oh, give me a break.” Bailey stuck a big bite of cake in his mouth, chewed it and swallowed before continuing, “You two are together and you’re fooling nobody.”
Amy laughed. “Are you kidding?” And then, cool as the middle of a long winter’s night, she said, “No, we are not together, no way.”
The hair on the back of Derek’s neck stood up. She’s dumping you tomorrow, fool, said a flat voice inside his head. She’s just playing her part, playing the friend game.
What was he, blind? It was all right there in front of him and he needed to open his damn eyes and look at the truth: her laugh, that cold way she’d said that we aren’t together...
Derek knew then with absolute certainty that he’d read this situation all wrong, that he’d been thinking forever but she wasn’t thinking about anything but right now and she never had been.
She’d been honest with him from the first. Friends with secret benefits. That was what they were.
It was all that they were.
And what about Joe Armstrong? The more he thought about the way she’d acted when Ray’s nephew put the move on her, the more he thought that just maybe she was kind of interested in that guy.
Yeah, she’d run after him when he took off like some little boy with a big crush who couldn’t handle his own damn feelings. But that was because she had a kind heart. In a situation like that, she would have run to offer comfort to anyone.
Bottom line: she was just waiting for the damn wedding to be over so she could get back to Boulder and her real life.
What did he have to offer a girl like her? A little house on the family ranch, an ordinary life in the small town she’d left behind years ago.
Past and present were all mixed up together, suddenly. He’d had this dream of a certain girl and now was the part where the dream turned to a nightmare. It had hurt so bad to lose her last time.
And now it was about to happen all over again.
The evening wore on, the party lights twinkling, the band playing one corny love song after another, everyone laughing and chattering, just happy to be there as Eva and Luke claimed a lifetime together.
“You’re quiet,” she said, same as he’d said last night. They were dancing to Jason Aldean’s “Staring at the Sun” and he wished from the bottom of his soul that the damn band could play something that wasn’t about loving a woman forever.
He didn’t answer her, just pulled her closer and leaned his cheek against her soft, sweet-smelling hair and wished that the end wasn’t coming on so damn fast.
“Derek, I have so much I want to—”
“Shh,” he whispered. He kissed the tender indentation just below her temple and pulled her closer still. “Just dance with me. Just dance...”
She made the sweetest, softest little sound and rested her head on his shoulder. They danced on.
At midnight, Eva climbed up to the hayloft to throw her bouquet. All the single women—and more than a few girls nowhere near old enough to get married—gathered beneath the hayloft doors, each one eager to make the catch.
Derek stood with the men, watching the age-old ritual, listening to Bailey grouse about ridiculous traditions.
“Wait!” Amy called from the middle of the tight knot of women.
Above, Eva laughed. “What now?”
“Where’s Mikayla? I don’t see Mikayla!”
Eva held her bouquet high. “Go get her, Amy. I’ll wait. She’s not missing this chance.”
Amy wriggled free of the jostling crowd of eager females. “Mikayla!” she hollered.
The very pregnant little brunette stepped reluctantly forward. “This is just silly.”
But Amy only grabbed her hand and dragged her into the middle of the crowd of women and girls. “Ready!” she shouted to Eva when she had Mikayla where she wanted her.
Derek looked up to the loft and saw Eva turn around as though to throw the flowers blind. But at the last second, she whirled front again and threw them straight for Amy’s outstretched hands.
With a whoop of triumph, Amy seemed to catch them—but then everyone was laughing and shouting. The knot of women loosened and he saw it.
There was Mikayla in the center of the circle with the flowers clutched tightly in her hands.
Yeah, okay, Derek knew it was only an old superstition. No woman really got married next just because she ended up with the flowers that had been the bride’s.
But still, women fought to make that catch. Amy hadn’t. Instead, she’d made sure that Mikayla got lucky.
Because Amy had no intention of getting married to anyone anytime soon.
* * *
A half an hour later, Eva and Luke drove away from the barn in a horse-drawn cart covered in flowers. Viv Shuster had passed out bubble wands and plastic jars of soap and water, along with paper cones of dried lavender for everyone to blow and throw as the bride and groom rode away.
They weren’t really going anywhere. The flower-covered cart only disappeared around the far side of the farmhouse. Eva and Luke would spend their wedding night in their own bed and leave for their honeymoon on Monday.
The party continued. There was more dancing and horsing around. Derek kept up his front pretty well, he thought. He and Amy hung out and joined in the fun.
Around two, as things were kind of winding down, Amy leaned in close. “Let me grab a few things from the house and I’ll follow you to the ranch.”
One more night.
He really wanted that.
But if he got it, he just knew he’d make a damn fool of himself in the morning. When she told him she was leaving, he would beg her to stay. Bad enough she was going. No reason to embarrass himself when she left.
“Listen,” he said.
She gazed up at him through those innocent eyes. “Yeah?”
“Not here.”
“Um. Okay...”
He grabbed her hand and started walking away from the party, out of the glow of the strings of lights, out of sight of the remaining guests.
“Derek?” She sounded confused, like she didn’t have any idea what the hell was going on. He just pulled her farther on, back to the hackberry tree and the deep shadows provided by its leafy branches.
Once they were sheltered from any prying eyes, he let go of her hand and stepped away.
“Derek, what is going on?”
He rubbed the back of his neck which was suddenly stiff and aching. “Look. We don’t need to drag this out, do we?”
Her face was only a shadow, but her big eyes got bigger. “I don’t understand what you’re—”
“What I mean is, I had a great time these last couple of weeks with you. The best time. You’re beautiful and sexy and just about perfect and it’s meant a lot to me, that we could spend this time together, kind of put the past behind us. I think we’ve done that. I really do. I also think it’s better if we just call this over now.”
“Over?” Those eyes shone so bright. “But I thought we were together. I thought we might—”
“Uh-uh.” He couldn’t stand to hear her say those things. He couldn’t let himself believe those things, couldn’t get his hopes up that if he let her keep talking, she might tell him what he longed to hear. That wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t that kind of guy. “No. You have a life. I have a life. It’s not going to work and it’s better if we just face that now.”
“Derek, please...” She reached for him.
“Don’t.” Hands up, he backed off another step. “I don’t want to hear it, okay? I don’t need to hear it. I just need to get going.”
“But I thought that we understood each other. I thought we wanted the same things. I want to be with you.” She reached for him again. “I want to—”
“Knock it off.” He pushed her hand away. “I mean it. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just want to wish you well and say goodbye.”
Her face changed. Even in the darkness he could see it. Her eyes gleamed with tears, but they were furious tears. “Derek Dalton, this is such crap. You’ve been freaking out all night and you really need to stop that. You’re acting like a coward. I don’t believe you’re doing this. I don’t believe you actually think you’re going to—”
“Enough.” He cut her off again. “I can’t take this anymore. I’m leaving now and that’s how I want it, that’s who I am.”
“But we—”
“Goodbye, Amy. Have a great life.”
And he turned and started walking fast, out from under the branches of the tree, straight for his pickup parked along the winding dirt driveway on the far side of the house.
Did she follow? He had no idea. Because he never once looked back.