A hush fell over the wedding guests so profound Constance wondered if she was dreaming. Even the squirming Ramsey children were stunned into silence. The frock-coated preacher stood stock-still, goggling at the bride and groom and their two attendants.
“Beg pardon?”
The quiet stretched on.
Finally the major stepped forward. “I cannot marry this woman in good faith,” he said in a low voice. His blue eyes found hers, and within their depths Constance saw both triumph and defeat.
“I cannot because I do not love her. I love her sister, Constance.”
Nettie turned to her in astonishment. John looked over Nettie’s head and continued in a low voice.
“I tried, Constance. But I have to be honest with myself. I can’t take Nettie when it’s you I want.”
The preacher gripped his Bible with shaking fingers. “What exactly are you saying, Major Montgomery?”
“I am saying,” John replied in a voice that carried to the back of the room, “that I cannot marry Henrietta Weldon.”
Nettie stared at Constance in wordless accusation. The silence lengthened until Constance could hear her own breath pull in and out, and Nettie’s irregular inhalation as well.
Constance took her hand. “Yes, Sister. I am sorry, but I also object.” She spoke so softly only Nettie could hear. “I cannot stand by while you take my only happiness. I have done so all my life, and I can no longer. I do love you, Nettie, but it is time that you stand on your own two feet. And it is time for me to reach out for what I want. For what I deserve.”
Nettie’s face went white. “I—I know it was wrong of me, Cissy,” she whispered. “It was selfish and…well, selfish. Truly, I don’t want you to be unhappy, I just wanted…” Her blue eyes brimmed with tears.
The preacher harrumphed. “Well. Well. I gather that this wedding—” he gestured toward the major and Nettie before him “—is, uh, well…has met an impediment. Yes, that is it. Quite so. And therefore—” He snapped the Bible closed.
“Hold up jes’ one minute, Mister preacher.” Billy West stepped past the major, lifted Nettie’s bouquet out of her grasp and took both her small hands in his.
“I’ve been watchin’ Miss Nettie close up fer some time now. She can surely be a pain in the pincushion an’ a real handful, but fer all that I’ve come to care for her in the deepest way a man can.”
Nettie’s mouth dropped open.
“My full name’s William Martin West. If’n she’ll have me, to marry and learn with, she’ll never in this life want fer nothin.’
Nettie snapped her mouth shut, then opened it again.
“Anything,” she corrected in a soft voice.
While Constance watched in bewilderment, Nettie retrieved her bouquet, stepped to Billy’s side and turned toward the preacher.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” the frock-coated man sputtered. “Same ceremony, different couple.”
In the next moment Constance found herself gathered into John’s arms. “Marry me,” he murmured. “Today. Now.”
Marry him? Oh, she would die of happiness right here before the whole assembly! All she could manage was a nod. Her heart singing, she took her place beside him, next to her sister and Billy.
“I see,” the preacher muttered, bobbing his head. “I don’t believe it, but I do see. First no ceremony. Then a ceremony for a different couple. Then—” he sighed and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling “—a double ceremony.” He flipped his Bible open.
“Dearly beloved,” he recited rapidly. “If-there-are-any-among-you-who-know-of-any-reason-why-these-two…uh…four should not be joined—”
“Skip that part,” the major intoned. He turned to Constance, lifted her hands into his and raised his voice. “I, John Marshall Montgomery, take you, Constance Elizabeth Weldon…”
And so they were married.
When the congratulations and the laughter and the weeping were over, the guests ambling back to wagons and soldiers’ quarters, Billy West and John gathered in the center of the reception hall with their new brides on their arms to hold a hurried conference.
Billy spoke first. “We’ll take the north camp, Major. If’n that’s all right with you, Nettie.” He still held her hand, bouquet and all, as if he couldn’t yet believe she was his.
Nettie said nothing, just pressed her cheek against his shoulder, smiled and blushed a rosy red.
John tightened his arm about Constance, pulling her close. “We’ll ride south for tonight.”
Billy dug the toe of his boot into the plank floor. “What about tomorrow, Major? You thought that fer ahead?”
“We’ll rendezvous at sunup, ride hard to Fort Kearny and straighten all this out. Then we’ll have to ride like prospectors to reach Farewell Bend before the wagon train.”
Billy reached his free hand to slap John on the shoulder. “Told ya it’d work out. I seed it right off.”
Nettie’s soft voice rose. “I saw it right off.”
Billy just grinned. “Well, I shore did.” He smacked a kiss on Nettie’s still pink cheek. “I seed it the minute I ‘layed’ my eyes on you.”
John squeezed Constance’s arm. “Then it’s on to Oregon, all of us together.”
“Oh!” Nettie burbled. “Oh, I am so very happy!”
Constance studied her sister’s flushed, smiling face, then caught Billy’s eye. “We are a family, now,” she observed in a quiet voice. “I am glad we are together.”
She turned to John, looked up into his steady blue eyes. “For better or worse.”
He leaned down to kiss her. “Out here in the West they say, ‘Come hell or high water.’”