Page 43 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

Dallas laughed at that, but Tennessee only frowned.

“I put that suitcase in the back of your new husband’s truck,” Dallas told her. “Just like you wanted.”

“Thank you,” Cat said. And then they all… stood there.

She had no idea what they were thinking, though she imagined it had something to do with her in pigtails and scraped knees. Meanwhile,shewas hyperaware of the fact that while she was standing around chatting with her brothers as if this was all perfectly normal, everyone knew that she was going off to have sex. With Wilder.

Who was now her husband, but that didn’t make it anylessweird.

It made her feel a little bit giddy, and silly, and it seemed that she could feel the light of the entire Milky Way like little pinprick stars all over her body.

“If you ever need help,” Tennessee told her, “no matter what kind of help, you know that all you have to do is call and we’ll be right there.”

“I do know that,” Cat said softly. “I’ve always known.”

She went over and hugged Dallas, hard, going up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. And she moved to Tennessee and hugged him, too. And when she stepped back, she held onto her older brother’s arms and looked up at him.

“We didn’t have an aisle,” she told him. “But I want you to know that if we did, there’s only one person I ever would have considered walking down it with. I know you’re not my dad. I don’t want you to be my dad.” He stiffened, just slightly, but she held on. “But you’re the reason I know what a good man is, Tennessee.”

And she thought, to her shock and some delight, that her taciturn older brother was about to get emotional. She could see his eyes get a little bit glossy—

But Wilder came up beside her then, took in the situation with a glance, and clapped Tennessee on the back.

She thought that her brother actually looked grateful.

“She’s going to be just fine,” Wilder told both Tennessee and Dallas. “You’ve known me my entire life, and never seen me so much as step on an ant. I’m not going to hurt her.”

“Of course you’re not,” Dallas agreed, with a bland smile that hinted at tightly held mayhem beneath. “But this is our baby sister. This is atrust but verifysituation.”

“As it should be,” Wilder agreed, and then he shook Dallas’s hand.

Then he turned to Cat. And it wasn’t as if she felttorn, really. But this was very clearly abeforeandaftermoment. Nothing would ever be the same. She didn’t want it to be the same. This was exactly the kind of thing she had been longing for. This was an absolute break with everything she knew.

Her new job was training wheels. This was not.

But she’d been so busy looking for the horizon that she’d forgotten—or maybe underestimated—how much she’d always liked what she had right here.

She threw herself at both her brothers and the three of them hugged, hard.

Then she pulled away, and maybe all of the Lisle blue eyes in the vicinity were a little glossy as she very deliberately reached over and twined her fingers with Wilder’s.

“I love you both,” she told them. She looked back toward the crowd, where their mother stood with Zeke and Belinda, and their friends. “Take care of Mom.”

“Just want to point out that we’re not headed off in a covered wagon with the vague hope of striking gold in half a year out west,” Wilder drawled. “She’ll still be right here in Cowboy Point, working in the General Store and for the good doctor, for the foreseeable future.”

“Mom hasn’t lived alone in that house,” Cat reminded her brothers. “Ever.”

“Understood,” Tennessee said. Dallas nodded, his military face on, which was the strongest indication she had that he was fighting back emotion.

Then she let Wilder take her to the door of the truck, opening it, and helping her in. Once she was settled, she looked back out the open door, waving at all her friends and neighbors who were still standing there, watching. She caught her mother’s gaze and smiled, because Jenny hated goodbyes and had refused to come out to the truck. She picked up the bouquet that someone had thoughtfully left in the truck for her, tilted it in the direction of the crowd, and threw it.

But she didn’t watch to see where it landed, because Wilder was closing her door and crossing in the front of the truck to swing himself inside, and once again he was the only thing that she could think about.

And everything seemed to take too long, then.

It took an eternity to drive away from Mountain Mama, down the main road with all its familiar buildings, shops, and little houses, and then start the climb up the hill that led away from Copper Mountain. The rundown old lodge building stood tall at the top, and she wondered what it would be like if the Stark family really did remodel it someday, giving the tourists a place to stay right here in Cowboy Point that was a little more cushy than the odd Airstream rental.

But that, like everything else, was nothing but a passing thought that glanced off her and danced away as they went over the hill and down the other side, then started winding their way along the lazy mountain roads until they eventually reached the one that led into High Mountain Ranch.

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