The Husband Show

Aurora frowned. “Handsome, of course. Like his brother. And he’s very confident.”

“Confident,” Lucia repeated, frowning a little. “What does that mean? He’s obnoxious?”

“No,” Aurora said quickly, not wanting to insult Lucia’s future brother-in-law. “He seems very self-assured, as if there isn’t anything that bothers him.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s as if any kind of trouble would slide right off the man.” She sat on the bed and ran her hand along the delicate stitching.

“Sam’s calm like that, too.”

“Maybe it runs in the family,” Meg suggested.

Lucia joined her at the window. “It could. They had a pretty rough childhood and haven’t seen each other in years. Sam’s going to be thrilled he’s here.”

“He’s here, all right,” Aurora said. “His daughter is—”

“Daughter?”

“You didn’t know he had a daughter?”

Lucia shook her head slowly. “I didn’t even know he was married.”

“Not exactly a prerequisite,” Meg pointed out. She smoothed the front of her dress nervously.

“No, but Sam didn’t say anything about Jake having a daughter. How old is she?”

“Eleven, twelve, maybe? It’s hard to tell with kids these days.” Aurora had absolutely no experience with children, unless she counted the rare times she was with Lucia’s boys. And they were special, sweet children who had excellent manners. She secretly adored the littlest one. There was something about those big dark eyes that got her every time.

“Eleven,” Lucia mused. “I can’t wait to meet her. We could use a girl in the family.”

“Chances are he’s in the barn talking to Sam right now.” She wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover he’d made himself one of the wedding guests.

“Well, let’s get this wedding going so we can check the guy out,” Meg said.

“You’re not supposed to be thinking about men other than Owen,” Aurora informed her. “You’re supposed to be gazing at yourself in the mirror and worrying about your hair. Which is beautiful. As is the rest of you.”

“I’ve done that and I agree—

I look pretty good.”

“More like radiant and gorgeous and very happy,” Aurora assured her. “You’re the prettiest bride in Montana.”

Lucia leaned over and adjusted the seed pearl headpiece that held an elegant lace veil intended to fall down Meg’s back. “I like this. It’s not too fussy, but it’s very bridal.”

“The boots are a nice touch,” Aurora said.

“I splurged,” Meg confessed, looking down at the white pointed-toe Western boots that peeked out from under the hem of her dress. “My mother was beside herself with joy.”

Lucia finished fussing with the veil. “When you’re marrying a Montana rancher on his ranch, in a barn, you’d better be wearing the appropriate footwear.”

Aurora noticed Lucia’s own deep purple boots, along with her long-sleeved, formfitting brilliant yellow dress. She was a petite woman, with black hair that could only come from her Lakota Sioux grandmother. Intricately beaded purple-and-yellow earrings hung almost to her shoulders. She had great taste, an eye for color and, as a widow and single mother of three, needed to live frugally.

Aurora hoped that the “frugal” part would change once she married Sam, but she doubted her friend would quit going to secondhand stores. She liked the thrill of the hunt too much to stop.

Aurora wondered what Lucia would think of her new future brother-in-law.

There was a mystery here, but if anyone could get to the bottom of it, Lucia would. And Aurora couldn’t wait to find out.

* * *

“WILL YOU TAKE this woman to be your lawfully wedded bride?”

“I will,” Owen MacGregor declared amid impromptu male cheers. There was shushing and sniffling and a baby cried.

Aurora didn’t know whether to laugh or burst into tears. Since she never cried in front of people and wasn’t much for bursts of laughter, she sat quietly next to Loralee and hid a smile. Leave it to the rough-and-tumble men of Willing to cheer during a wedding ceremony.

She opened her little yellow purse and pulled out a tissue, which she handed to Loralee, the weeping mother of the bride. She, Loralee, Shelly, Lucia, Sam and the children were seated in the front row as Meg and Owen exchanged simple and moving vows.

“And will you, Margaret Ripley, take Owen MacGregor to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“After all this, she’d better say yes,” Loralee muttered.

“I will,” Meg said, prompting another burst of cheering from the congregation gathered in the historic and enormous barn. Aurora wondered how Owen had cleaned the place so quickly. He didn’t own cattle or horses yet, but she assumed that as he revived the once thriving cattle ranch, he’d use the barn for practical purposes.

Or rent it out as a wedding venue.

The rings were exchanged as the crowd watched in respectful silence. Aurora had heard that Owen’s mother was too ill to attend the ceremony, but Meg had confided that the woman had never approved of Meg and her relationship with her son. And that some things in life never changed.

So Loralee, the only family member, continued to sob quietly into Aurora’s tissue. Tony, Lucia’s youngest, climbed over his mother, stirring up a little cloud of hay dust, and settled himself against Aurora to examine the charms on her gold bracelet. Aurora held her arm still so he could peruse them to his heart’s content.

Someone from the church sang while Meg and Owen held hands and smiled at each other.

Yes, Aurora decided, all cleaned up like this, it was the perfect place for a wedding. Her own bar, the Dahl, was overdue for a makeover, too. But something more extensive than the good scrubbing Owen had given this barn. She’d been working on reno plans for months, not telling anyone what she intended. It was to be a surprise for the women in town.

We’ll have a patio, she mused. And a lovely room for bridal showers and bachelorette parties. The bathrooms, which she’d upgraded when she bought the place, would be enlarged and brightened. She wouldn’t do anything to change the log walls, of course, because the original building had an ambiance that was impossible to replicate, but she would definitely replace the stinky old wood paneling.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister announced. “You may now kiss the bride.”

The crowd roared its approval. Loralee pumped a fist in the air. Tony climbed from his seat beside her on the hay onto Aurora’s lap and surprised her with a wet kiss on her neck.

Life in Willing was about to improve in all kinds of ways.

CHAPTER TWO

AS THE GATHERED guests began to stand and mingle and the bride and groom signed official papers, the mayor of Willing, Jerry Thompson, sat trapped on a bale of hay between the town’s teenaged unwed mother and the infamous mother of the bride, a woman married so many times she’d lost count. As a young man deeply committed to improving the small town, Jerry was accustomed to being in situations where the utmost tact was called for. He was the master of small talk, of mingling, of schmoozing.

Unfortunately he was not comfortable sitting next to a woman who was feeding her baby in a very, um, natural way. There was a blanket, there was no skin showing, but still...

Awkward.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s another one.” Loralee, mother of the bride and self-appointed grandmother to Shelly’s baby, wore a slinky purple dress and pale pink boots with purple embroidery on the shafts. She was sixty-two and, as she’d told Jerry earlier, not ready to wear a polyester housedress and serviceable shoes.