Page 38 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

And then, like a kind of rolling explosion, everyone started talking at once.

And so he sat back, crossed his arms, and enjoyed the show.

The more they carried on, the better the whole thing felt.

“Thank you,” he said when there was a lull in the commotion. “I sure appreciate your love and support.”

And then he took himself off, leaving them to talk about him while they worked on Harlan’s projects without his help. He drove down into town and took great pleasure in parking his truck right outside the General Store. Once he climbed out, he sauntered inside, even though he couldn’t recall the last time he’d darkened the door of the establishment the Lisles had stolen from his family long ago.

Not since he was a kid, he thought now.

There were a few locals already inside, moving down the small aisles and picking over the items in buckets, so Wilder did the polite thing and tipped his hat to all of them. Busybody Marla Sheen, who ran the feed store and considered herself akin to a local newswire, narrowed her eyes as she took in the rare and amazing sight of a Carey in the General Store. Esther Wayne, the deputy’s sister, who Wilder had heard considered herself something of a private detective in addition to her duties at the elementary school, looked at him like he was the newest case she intended to take on. The pastor’s wife, Nevaeh Higgins, who always seemed to know every single thing that was happening to every single person in the community, whether they went to church or not, made no secret of staring at him. And best of all, the person who was probably the biggest loudmouth in the entirety of Cowboy Point—garrulous old mountain man Shane Johnson, owner, proprietor, and bartender at the Copper Mine—was eying Wilder from the canned foods aisle.

He couldn’t have asked for a better cross-section of people to witness this moment.

It was better than a billboard.

He strolled past all of them and made his way to the counter where Cat sat, frozen, her eyes wide as he approached.

And immediately, all that ache and grief and longing, all that pressure and confusion, lifted.

Because her eyes were the blue of true north, and that was all he needed. So Wilder didn’t stop at the counter, he rounded it. He found his way to her side, pulled her up to her feet, and kissed her soundly.

And he took his time with it, for good measure.

“Now you’ve done it,” she murmured when he finally eased away, though her eyes were dreamy and her lips were curved. “There’s no backing out now.”

With her in his arms, even standing here in public with the Cowboy Point gossip machine about to explode, Wilder couldn’t think of a single reason why he would.

Two weeks turned out to be exactly how much time both the Lisle brothers and the county needed for them to plan a sweet little ceremony down at the Marietta courthouse. That part, it was decided during another round of discussions up on Lisle Hill, would be strictly family.

“After the ceremony, we can have a party back here in Cowboy Point,” Cat said, her chin high like she was daring him yet again. “Where everyone knows us.”

“But more importantly, so everyone can see that it’s real,” he finished for her, raising a brow like he was daring her right back.

She didn’t deny it. And Wilder thought that all things considered, he could watch her blush like that forever.

It was true that words like that,forever, echoed in him in a way that made him something a little too close to anxious, but he ignored it.

Because surely this was going to do it. Surely marrying Cat was going to make him a better man. She was his redemption. He was sure of it.

And it didn’t hurt that she was so damn pretty, either.

He took her out on a date because they hadn’t gotten around to that yet. He drove them down the mountain, and then over to glitzy Bozeman. He bought her a ring with a moonstone because that was how they had come together, out in the night with the moon looking down. But with sparkly diamonds all around it, because she was shiny like that.

And because Wilder wouldn’t have anyone thinking he couldn’t give her the best. Or that she didn’t deserve it.

Then he gave her the ring when they got back to his truck.

“Not because I’m not romantic,” he told her gruffly. “But because—”

“This is where it started,” she finished for him, and smiled so wide when he slipped the ring on her finger that he found himself grinning too.

They celebrated in one of Bozeman’s fancy restaurants, where he’d had the presence of mind to book a table. And when he asked if she wanted to go dancing, because they’d never done that before, either, she shrugged.

Then blushed again. “Or you could drive me home. And maybe stop in the woods on the way?”

Wilder was pretty sure he’d never made it from Bozeman to Cowboy Point so quickly, and they didn’t make it out to the truck bed. He turned into that dirt road and the minute he parked, she was on his lap. So he held her there, where she could rock herself against the hardest part of him and drive them both crazy. While he slipped his hands up beneath the pretty dress she wore, finding her hips and that soft swathe of belly, and then filling his palms with the breasts he’d been aware of all evening, right there on the other side of a spaghetti strap.

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