isn’t it?” Zach held up a cautionary hand. “Hold on, now, I haven’t said I do yet. I gotta go work on those vows some more, make sure we both say I do it anytime. All the time. Rain or shine.”
The bride blushed.
The maid of honor laughed. “Say what you want, cowboy. I figure a nice long, romantic honeymoon will guarantee me a niece or nephew nine months later. If you don’t get away from the Double D, what you’ll do is exactly what you’ve been doing, which is working your fool britches off.”
“Britches off is step one, Sally,” Zach said. “It’s not much work, and it’s no guarantee, but it’s a start. Right, Hank?”
Hank answered his friend with a look. The conversation had veered into no-comment land.
“I can handle the Double D.” Sally glanced back and forth between Zach and Ann. “I’m fine.”
“We’re here for a wedding,” Ann said, “which is a one-time thing, and we’re doing it up right. Right here. Right now. We’re going to rehearse.” Ann offered a hand for the taking. “Hank?”
“You want me to practice walkin’ and talkin', fine.” Hank took the bride’s hand with a smile. “But I don’t rehearse my songs in public. It’s bad luck.”
“Let’s walk and talk, then. Help me make a list of reasons why Zach should ride horses instead of bulls.”
Sally hung back, watching her sister walk away with two attractive men. Two cowboys. Lucky Annie. As far as Sally was concerned, there were only two kinds of men out West: cowboys and culls. She didn’t know any men from back East.
Sally had been around a lot of cowboys, and most of them were pretty easy to figure. All you had to do was take a look at the shirt. A cowboy wore his heart on his sleeve and a number on his back. He lived day to day and traveled rodeo to rodeo, accumulating cash and consequences. He was addicted to adrenaline, and he’d paid dearly for his sky-highs with rock-bottom lows. By the time he’d filled his PRCA permit with enough wins to earn the right to call himself a Professional Rodeo Cowboy, he’d paid in some combination of torn flesh, spilled blood and broken bone.
Such was the story of Zach Beaudry. He’d been the up-and-coming bull rider to beat until he’d met up with the unbecoming end of a bull’s horn. Like the rest of his kind, he knew how to tough it out. Hunker down and cowboy up. Put the pieces back together and get back on the road. Which had led him to Annie’s doorstep.
Hank Night Horse had the look of a cowboy. He was lean and rangy, built to fork a horse and cut to the chase. But a full place setting required a spoon. Sally smiled to herself as she pictured his possibilities. He looked great going away. She could paste herself against that long, tapered back and snug her thighs under his, tuck his tight butt into her warm bowl and be fortified. She could back up to him and invite him to curl his strong body around her brittle one and make her over. It could happen. In her dreams, anyway.
Hank turned to say something to Annie, who turned to say something to Zach and then back to Hank again. Conspiring. Setting Sally up. She knew what they were up to, and she didn’t mind as long as this crazy body of hers was working properly. The fall from the dock hadn’t been a good sign, but she was back in control now. And Hank Night Horse was turning back, giving her another one of those rousing once-overs. You and me, woman. He was coming for her, and, ah! she saw how fine he looked coming and knew how readily and happily she would come and come and come if the table were set with a man like Hank Night Horse. It wouldn’t matter how much time he had to spare as long as it was—what was the expression? Quality time. Remission from illness was like a blue space between clouds. Either make the most of it, or stay in your box.
“Care to join me in the back row?” he asked.
“Am I your assignment?” She threw her voice into her sister’s key. “If you’re not going to rehearse your song, could you keep an eye on Sally?”
“I didn’t quite catch what they said,” he claimed with a twinkle in his eye. “Something about drink. I’m supposed to buy you one or keep you from falling in. Either way, I could be in for some trouble. Are you a troublemaker, Sally?”
“I do my best. And I know you’re lying, because I’m not allowed to drink.”
“Anything?”
“Anything with alcohol in it.”
“Who said anything about alcohol?” He gave her a challenging look, his eyes growing darker and hooded, his full lips twitching slightly, unwilling to smile. “And who makes the rules?”
“Sensible Sally.” She gave the smile he denied her. “That was her alter ego down at the lake. Shameless Sally.”
“She’s got the right idea. Shame shouldn’t be allowed, either.” He tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. “So, what’ll it be?”
She looked at her watch. “Rehearsal in five. Can’t hardly whip up a good batch of trouble in five minutes. Sensible Sally drinks green tea on the rocks with a twist.”
Hank decided to “make that two,” and they left the dining room, glasses in hand, no hurry in their feet. Sally felt a growing reluctance to catch up with the little wedding party in the lodge library. The lakeside setting for the ceremony would be set up tomorrow, so tonight’s indoor rehearsal was literally a dry run. Sally knew her part. She’d seen it played out a hundred ways in movies, read the scene in dozens of books. Sensible Sally stayed in the house a lot. Shameless Sally couldn’t go out to play until the unreliable body caught up with the willing spirit, and now that the two were working in tandem, she would go where the spirit moved her.
“Look!” She pointed to a window, grabbed Hank’s arm and towed him out the front door on to the huge covered porch. A procession of trail riders passed under the yard lights on their way to the pasture below the lodge. “How was the ride?” Sally called out.
“Beautiful!” said one of the helmeted riders. “Made it to the top of Harney Peak.”
“Let’s go up there tomorrow,” Sally said to Hank. “You ride, don’t you? We should.” She turned to the riders. “Where did you get the horses?”
“We brought our own. We’re a club.”
“But there’s a hack stable close by,” said the last rider as she passed under the light. “Ask at the desk.”
Sally looked up at Hank. “We could go really early.” She turned, cupped her hand around her cheek and shouted at the last rider’s back. “How long did it take?”
“All day!”
Sally scowled. “I’ll bet I could take a marker to the programs and change the time. The lake is beautiful this time of day. Night.” She pointed to the white moon hovering above the ponderosa pines. “It’ll be full tomorrow. Imagine Annie in her white gown, and Zach…well, he’s wearing black, but can’t you just see it? Moonlight on the lake?”
“I did, yeah. Beautiful.”
“They don’t need us. They wouldn’t even notice. Look.” She took his hand and led him to the end of the porch, pointed to the tall, bright corner windows that showcased the rehearsal getting under way in
