Page 75 of River Legacy
He smiled at the thought and felt himself get emotional.
Elaine rose to put an arm around his shoulders. “I’m so happy for you.”
Long before the sun rose, Tilly Stafford McKenna finished feeding her baby daughter and put her down again to sleep. She knew she wouldn’t be able to go back to bed herself, not with the wedding today. She and Oakley were the attendants. She told herself that this was really happening.
So why was she worried? Because she’d grownup worrying about what her mother might do. True, Charlotte seemed to have changed. She was a grandmother now, and she was getting married to the man she had always loved. So what was the problem?
Tilly shook her head. If CJ and Treyton were alive, there would be reason for concern. It would have been just like her brother to try to ruin the wedding. Maybe there wasn’t anything to worry about, she thought as she climbed in beside Cooper just for a few minutes, she promised herself. He took her in his arms. His body was so warm with sleep and felt so good. She wouldn’t fall back to sleep. She just needed this because it was the one place she felt everything would be all right.
Ryder lay studying the woman in the bed next to him and smiling. He told himself he had no reason to be this happy. The ranch was gone, he didn’t know what he was going to do tomorrow, and all he knew was ranching.
But he was in love, so nothing seemed to matter except Vicky.
She looked so beautiful, so peaceful, so damned sexy lying there. He realized with a start that he trusted this woman not just with his heart, but his life and future. She opened her eyes as if feeling his gaze on her, smiled and closed them again.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Dreaming about you,” she said.
“That’s good. The wedding is today.”
Her eyes opened. “I know. I’m excited,” she said, no longer looking sleepy. “I finally get to meet yourwhole family.” He groaned at the thought. “What?” she said, eyes widening. “You don’t want me to meet them?”
“It’s not that. It’s my family.” He leaned over to kiss her. “They’re going to love you. But you might regret getting involved with me.”
“Never,” she said, closing her eyes as she reached for him. “Come back to bed.”
Ryder hadn’t asked Vicky how her meeting with her father had gone at his hotel. She’d been quiet ever since. He wondered if she could truly be happy living on a ranch in Montana with him. He was sure her father wondered the same thing.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked finally. “I never asked how things went with your father.”
She blinked and sat up. “My father thinks he can change. He seems determined to do so. He says he’s going to make amends for the things he’s done. I think the plane blowing up and him finding out the bomb was meant for him has really shaken him. He did say he canceled the methane drilling on the ranch. He was surprised we were staying here on the McKenna Ranch since he has yet to take over yours.”
Ryder couldn’t help being skeptical. Once the shock of the jet blowing up passed, he figured Wendell Forester would go back to what he seemed to enjoy most: making money. But he held his tongue. “That’s good. So it went okay.”
She nodded. “It just felt sad. He looked so awful. This really did take a toll on him. I’m sure he’llsnap back fast enough and probably change his mind about a lot of things... You’re sure it’s okay for you to bring me to the wedding as your date?”
“There is no way they would have let me come without you,” he said as he leaned over and kissed her. Their relationship had happened so quickly that neither of them had really defined it, he realized. “Tomorrow, after this wedding is over, let’s go for a horseback ride. Would you like that?”
“I would love that,” she said, smiling, eyes bright. “Now, come back to bed.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Victoria had been to her share of huge, extravagant weddings. She’d thought that she’d seen it all, until the wedding of Charlotte Stafford and Holden McKenna. People, it appeared, had come from far and wide. She was shocked when Ryder told her that it was an open invitation. No actual invitations had been sent out. Everyone in the entire county and beyond was invited.
“That’s ridiculous,” she said as he tried to find a place to park within two miles of the church. “How would the caterer know how much food to prepare?”
He laughed. “Caterer? No, you forget we live on two huge ranches. Holden has had his ranch foreman Deacon Yates cooking enough barbecued beef to feed the entire county, and that doesn’t even count how many hogs they have cooking in the pits. I hate to think how many gallons of baked beans and potato salad Elaine has made for the event. Trust me, there will be plenty of food. The only thing that was ordered, from what I heard, was the cake,” he said as they got out and walked toward the church with the crowd headed that way. “There’s a woman in town who makes weddingcakes. Jodee has probably been baking for a week. At least my mother had the good sense to move the reception out to the fairgrounds.”
“The reception is at the fairgrounds?” she asked and laughed. No wonder most of the people attending the wedding were dressed in jeans and boots and fancier Western shirts.
“There are lights out there for the dance. Remember that band that played at the bar the night we went into town?”
“The Deacon Brown Blues Band,” she said.
“They’re coming up from Wyoming for this. But there will be a half-dozen different bands that will play before the night is over.”
She shook her head. “You people really know how to throw a party.”
