A Cowboy Wedding Read online

  A Cowboy Wedding

  Wyoming Wildflowers, Volume 7

  Patricia McLinn

  Published by Craig Place Books, 2017.

  A COWBOY WEDDING

  Wyoming Wildflowers series

  Book 9

  Patricia McLinn

  Wyoming Wildflowers series

  Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning (prequel)

  Almost a Bride

  Match Made in Wyoming

  My Heart Remembers

  A New World (prequel to Jack’s Heart)

  Jack’s Heart

  Rodeo Nights (prequel to Where Love Lives)

  Where Love Lives

  A Cowboy Wedding

  Making Christmas

  More romance by Patricia McLinn

  Bardville, Wyoming series

  A Stranger in the Family

  A Stranger to Love

  The Rancher Meets His Match

  A Place Called Home series

  Lost and Found Groom

  At the Heart’s Command

  Hidden in a Heartbeat

  Seasons in a Small Town

  What Are Friends For? (Spring)

  The Right Brother (Summer)

  Falling for Her (Autumn)

  Warm Front (Winter)

  The Wedding Series

  Marry Me series

  The Games

  Copyright © 2017 Patricia McLinn

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-944126-13-1

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-944126-34-6

  EPUB Edition

  Dear Readers: If you encounter typos or errors in this book, please send them to me at [email protected]. Even with many layers of editing, mistakes can slip through, alas. But, together, we can eradicate the nasty nuisances. Thank you! — Patricia McLinn

  The Wedding Party & Significant Others

  Jack Ralston (Groom)

  Valerie Trimarco (Bride)

  Addie Trimarco (Flower Girl)

  Dave (Best Man) and Matty Brennan Currick (Bridesmaid), their children Brennan, Finn (Almost a Bride)

  Hannah Chalmers Randall

  Dax (Groomsman) and Hannah Chalmers Randall, their children Sarah, Chalmers (The Rancher Meets His Match)

  Mandy Chalmers

  Ethan Chalmers

  Paige Underwood

  Cahill and Eleanor Thatcher McCrea, their son Sam (A New World)

  Kiernan McCrea

  Felicity Roberts (Lis Robertson) — sister was Hayley Robertson

  Ed and Donna Roberts Currick (Wyoming Wildflowers: The Beginning)

  Partial Guest List

  Irene and Ted Weston

  Boone and Cambria Weston Smith (A Stranger in the Family)

  Cal and Taylor Larsen Ruskoff, their children Cassie and Rob (Match Made in Wyoming)

  Shane and Lisa Currick Garrison, their daughter Alexa (My Heart Remembers)

  Dr. Zoe Parisi and Matt Halderman (Where Love Lives)

  Walker and Kalli Riley (Rodeo Nights)

  Hugh and Ruth Moski

  Rev. Ervin Foley

  The Widow Brontman

  Bryan and other Slash-C ranch hands

  Doc Johnson

  Polly and Della from the doctor’s office

  Rainie Lester

  Annie and John Gatchell

  Brandy from the post office

  Connor Malloy and son Jarrod

  Other Family and Friends

  Lucy Trimarco — Mother of the Bride

  Jimmy Trimarco — Father of the Bride

  Anthony and Tanya Trimarco, their kids

  Bobby and Melinda Trimarco, their kids

  Manuela Ruiz, The Fishwife

  Trimarco cousins

  Val’s college roommate, friends from Gloucester, Chef and former boss, former colleague at radio station.

  Thomas, Judi, and Becky from the Vance Ranch (The Runaway Bride)

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  The Wedding Party & Significant Others

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Author’s Note

  The Wyoming Wildflowers series

  Also by Patricia McLinn

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Jack Ralston and Valerie Trimarco

  And Addison Rose

  Hope you’ll come join

  The celebration of

  Their wedding

  And their new family.

  Slash-C Ranch, Knighton, Wyoming

  No gifts. Absolutely no gifts. The greatest present is your good wishes.

  Donna Currick stared out to where the Big Horn Mountains lifted the western horizon toward a sky bedazzled in erratic streaks of orange, red, purple, yellow.

  Valerie Trimarco started to hurry past her, bound to the barn to check on the first batch of quilts friends and neighbors had brought by. They would cover hay bales for seating during the wedding ceremony next weekend. Before that they would be hung out to air, according to the Wedding Master Schedule. But for now they were in the barn. Rain was forecast for tonight. The barn roof was tight, but still…

  These quilts had been shared by dear neighbors and friends from around the Slash-C and Knighton, Wyoming. She wanted to make absolutely certain they were safe.

  But something in Donna’s stillness stopped her.

  “Donna? Are you okay?”

  The matriarch of the Slash-C smiled as she said, “I’m fine.” Yet she kept staring at that horizon.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just thinking, dear.”

  “Thinking about what?” Even as she asked, Valerie wondered at herself for pursuing this. She and Jack were getting married next weekend, friends and family would begin arriving Tuesday, and despite their determined effort to keep this wedding simple, fun, low-key, and uncomplicated, with invaluable help from Donna and her daughter-in-law Matty, myriad details — hello? the quilts? — kept popping up like prairie dog holes as far as she could see.

  “I’m thinking about weddings. Do you ever think about weddings?” Donna asked dreamily.

  Val laughed. “Yeah, you could say I think about weddings. Feels like that’s all I’ve thought about these past few weeks. Well, weddings and Gonzo here.” She patted her five months pregnant belly. “And Addie and Jack.”

  “Oh, I know, Val. But I mean weddings in a more general way. The big picture.”

  This dreamy, unfocused tone was so unlike Donna that Val was … not weirded out, because that wasn’t possible with this gracious, caring, practical woman. When Donna had married Ed Currick and come to the Slash-C decades ago to start a life and a family, everyone said it was the making of the man and the ranch. Now she and Ed were enjoying retirement while their son Dave, his wife Matty, and Jack Ralston, as foreman, ran the Slash-C.

  From the small house built for them on the ranch as a home base, Donna and Ed traveled as they pleased, which these days largely revolved around their grandchildren in New York, where their daughter and son-in-law lived.

  A year ago, Donna had been
instrumental in helping Jack and Val overcome a major hurdle to realize they truly loved each other.

  Well, mostly Donna helped Jack overcome it, because he was hard-headed and stubborn. Val, on the other hand, had known they should be together long before he’d recognized it. Something she reminded him of … now and then.

  With all that she owed Donna, Val mentally told the quilts they’d have to wait a minute, and asked the question she thought the older woman wanted to answer.

  “What about the big picture?”

  “Ah,” Donna breathed out in apparent satisfaction. “Have you ever thought about how a wedding is two people, standing face to face, pledging their hearts, their lives, their futures?”

  Oh, yes, she had, and if she could do that right this minute with Jack, she would. She touched her stomach. Already had.

  “Beyond those two, their two families encircle them. From different backgrounds, divergent experiences, distant homes. Coming together, mingling, sharing, all to celebrate the one they already love and the one they are taking into their family.”

  Her family had certainly already taken Jack in during this past winter he’d spent with her in Gloucester, Massachusetts. And loved him. He had no biological relatives that he knew of. His family were the people of the Slash-C, who had already taken Val to their hearts when she arrived here unexpectedly last summer.

  Donna wasn’t done. “Another step from the two at the center of this circle, takes you to their friends, their communities. Wishing them well, celebrating with them.”

  Val smiled, thinking of all the wonderful friends she’d made in Wyoming, as well as the friends from earlier times who would be arriving next week.

  “To another degree of separation,” Donna continued. “Extended family, friends, community. And out to the Plus Ones, who might not know anyone at this gathering except their wedding date.”

  Kiernan’s mystery girlfriend.

  Finally — finally — she and Jack would get to meet her. Kiernan had clearly been head over heels for her last winter, but she and Jack and Addie had returned to Wyoming before he introduced her to anyone in Gloucester. Val had heard reports from her cousin, Eleanor, and El’s husband Cahill, who was Kiernan’s older brother.

  Now she’d finally get to meet Felicity, The Mystery Woman herself.

  And make up her own mind.

  Kiernan was all grown up, and a handsome devil, yet Val felt oddly protective of the now-man who towered over her.

  “All these individuals brought together, all these paths crossing that might otherwise never have crossed, all these other hearts, lives, futures that can be changed forever during the celebration of a wedding, all started by two people falling in love.”

  Donna turned toward Val, the vagueness gone, replaced by a smile.

  “I’m so pleased that our long-time friends the Westons agreed to come for several days. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to spend any extended time together, between our running ranches and raising kids, and then all the traveling Ed and I have done. It’s wonderful that you invited them.”

  “It was all Jack’s doing. He got to know them through Dax and Hannah Randall. He and Dax connected over abused horses. It’s too bad Cambria and Boone can’t come for the whole time, but at least they’ll be here for the wedding,” she said of the Westons’ daughter and son-in-law.

  “And we’re sure hoping Hannah can talk her sister and brother and his girlfriend to come, too — they’re staying at the Circle CR now.”

  Donna put her arm around Val’s shoulders. “We have you and Jack to thank for bringing Irene and Ted here. And now Dax Randall and his wife and her family. That’s what I was thinking about. How weddings bring all these people together … and all that it can set in motion.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Circle CR Ranch

  Bardville, Wyoming

  “A wedding?” Ethan Chalmers repeated his older sister’s words, but without her enthusiasm.

  Paige sat back, quietly prepared to wait out what would come.

  She’d known the Chalmers most of her life. For nearly as long she’d been in love with Ethan Chalmers.

  “It’ll be fun,” Hannah said firmly. She was a decade older than Ethan and his twin sister, Mandy, and had taken on raising them when their parents died before the twins started high school.

  Ethan showed no sign of hearing her. “Why didn’t you tell us you were going to a friend’s wedding? We wouldn’t have come—”

  “That’s exactly why she didn’t tell you,” Mandy said.

  “—out this week.”

  “That’s why,” Hannah confirmed. “You take so little time off and get out here to the ranch so seldom that I didn’t want to give you any excuse to not come.”

  “If he weren’t such a workaholic, he could come as often as I do,” Mandy, said immediately. “And—

  “Being responsible does not equate with being a workaholic. You might not—”

  “—bring Paige because she loves it here in Wyoming, too.”

  He turned and looked at her in mild surprise. “Do you?”

  “I do. I love the views and the air and the sky. And, most of all, I love seeing Hannah and Dax and the kids. But, about this wedding…” She looked at her boyfriend’s older sister. “We don’t know these people, Hannah.”

  Boyfriend.

  Rather a strange term for this tall, broad-shouldered, handsome, grown-up man she intended to spend the rest of her life with. But maybe because she and Ethan Chalmers had started dating so young, it fit.

  “I think it will be fun,” Mandy said.

  “As Paige said, we won’t know any of the people. We’ll stay here.”

  She looked over at him. Two reactions — both familiar and long-standing — welled up in her simultaneously.

  How much she loved him.

  How smart he was about most things and astonishingly dim about a few others.

  For example, you’d think he’d know his twin — for that matter, both his sisters — better by now.

  “Just because you’re a dour grump who objects to romance because you think it doesn’t fit The Plan—” Mandy started.

  “That is inaccurate and—”

  “—which is so rigid you probably have when you and Paige can kiss on a schedule, much less when you can—”

  “Mandy,” Hannah inserted before she got too personal.

  Ethan ignored the interruptions from his sisters and continued on. “—nonsense borne of hyperbole. Hyperbole is the antithesis of logic.”

  “Logic? Sheesh.” Mandy’s expressive face twisted. “We’re talking romance. A wedding. Fun. Dancing. Toasts. Watching two people be blissfully happy about starting a life together.”

  “I have nothing against that at the proper time. And—” He looked at Hannah. “—when it involves people I know.”

  “Proper time,” grumbled Mandy. “Paige’s biological clock will be well past its sell-by date—”

  “Mixed metaphor.”

  “Ethan,” Hannah scolded. If the twins started critiquing each other’s comments, this would not only get off track fast, but it could go on forever.

  “—before Ethan Scrooge over here thinks he’s got sufficient piles of money to do anything. You’ll end up childless, which might be a blessing for the kids of the world, except Paige would be a great mother.”

  “If it comes to that, we’ll adopt,” he said calmly.

  “I wonder if Jack will adopt Addie — that’s Val’s little girl. Did you know that’s how they met, Paige?”

  She and Hannah had been doing this distract-the-twins-from-squabbling for years. “Oh, yes — how he delivered the baby in a snowstorm when her car got stuck. That’s amazing.”

  “I know, but it wasn’t until Valerie came back last summer, with Addie a toddler now, that she and Jack connected for good. Jack and Addie adore each other. When they came up to deliver a young horse he’d worked with, it was clear they’re already a family, and
now they’ll have another one late this fall.”

  “She’s already pregnant?” Ethan asked.

  Mandy jumped in. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. You know, if anyone else said that I’d accuse him of being a judgmental prig. But you’re worse. You’re disapproving because it’s poor planning.”

  “It is. It makes far more sense to—”

  Mandy threw up her hands. “Sense? It’s a baby, Ethan. They love each other and they’re having a baby together. I think it’s marvelous.”

  “A baby needs to be housed and clothed and fed, plus a lot of needs beyond those basics. Medical bills and orthodonture and education. That all has to be provided. It all has to be planned for.”

  “You forgot love and understanding. Can’t buy those.”

  He ignored Mandy’s point. “A stable foundation in life and career are vital before raising a child.”

  “Because Hannah did such a lousy job of bringing us up after Mom and Dad died,” Mandy shot back.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “She scrimped and saved and managed and struggled—”

  “All the more reason we should avoid that situation, since we saw what she went through. She had to struggle with difficult circumstances, fight against not having a stable foundation.”

  “—yet she did a great job with us because she loves us.”

  “She overcame obstacles. Absolutely. There is no reason, however, to repeat those obstacles when you can avoid them. And there’s no reason to attend the wedding of people you don’t know when you can avoid it by saying no thank you.”

  “That’s—”

  “You’re being—”

  “Dax?” Hannah invited her husband into the fray.

  As usual, he’d stayed out of the twins’ tiffs. In general, Paige agreed with that strategy, because the only thing that got them wound up more than each other was anyone — anyone — saying something about the other twin.

  The exceptions for Dax’s noninvolvement were if Hannah asked him to step in or if he thought anyone got too rough with her, in which case he stepped in, asked or not.

  “You’ll know people. Ted and Irene are real close with the Curricks,” he said, referring to the older generation of the Westons, who owned a neighboring ranch to the Circle CR. “Don’t know if Cambria and Boone will get back in time. But Ted and Irene will be there for sure. Plus some others you’ve met over the years of coming here to visit.”