The Husband Show

If he turned out to be Sam’s problem, then Sam could deal with him. If he was really Sam’s brother—and Aurora had had time in the car to ponder the resemblance between the two men, deciding they did share certain physical characteristics—then Lucia would no doubt explain the situation to Meg and Aurora the next time they met for coffee or lunch or a glass of wine.

Planning this wedding had given Aurora what Lucia called “girlfriend time.” Now that she’d experienced it, Aurora intended to continue the practice. Between girlfriend time and quilting lessons, she was slowly filling the lonely hours with friendships instead of compulsively scrubbing woodwork in the bar.

In the past four years since moving to Willing, she’d discovered it was easy to cry and scrub at the same time. Aurora thumbed her iPod and listened to Joshua Bell’s new release.

Three young men flagged her down after she’d navigated the long road to the main house, a large white building that looked as if it were a ranch house on a movie set.

Les, the youngest member of the town council and a sweet young man, stepped over to her car.

“Hey, Aurora.”

“Hey, Les.”

“We’ll park it for you,” he said. “The yard’s still a little muddy, so Owen has asked everyone to walk on the gravel and go straight to the barn. Unless you’re going to the house...? You can go on the grass to the front, because it’s not so bad. Ms. Loralee and Shelly are in there with Meg.”

“All right. Thank you.” She stepped out, ignored the appreciative looks from the young men and retrieved her bag and her purse, then trudged across the grassy yard to the front steps of the wide covered porch. She stepped out of her muddy boots and left them off to the side before opening the heavy door and walking inside.

One of Lucia’s little boys greeted her. “Hi, Miss ’Rora. You look nice.”

“Thank you, Matty.”

“The baby won’t stop crying,” he said, peeling paper from a frosted cupcake. All dark hair and dark eyes and wearing a white button-down shirt and black pants, six-year-old Matty was adorably rumpled. Aurora suspected the shirt wouldn’t be clean for very much longer.

Sure enough, a baby wailed from another room. “Uh-oh. Is that Laura?”

“Yep.” He carefully licked the frosting violet from the top of the dessert. “Grandma says she needs a nap. My mom made a lot of these.”

“How many have you eaten?” She suspected this wasn’t his first. She also suspected his mother didn’t know he’d been sampling the dessert.

“Today?”

She nodded.

He frowned in concentration, trying to remember accurately. “Four.”

“Wow.” Aurora had little experience with children and absolutely none with young boys. Lucia’s three children often seemed like strange, energetic creatures who made a lot of noise and couldn’t sit still.

“I ate seven last night,” he confided. “Without frosting. For supper.”

“Aurora!” The cupcake eater’s mother came rushing into the hall. “We were getting worried about you.”

“I was delayed. Sorry. I had a—”

“Matty! I thought I told you no more cupcakes.” She plucked the half-eaten cake from her son’s sticky fingers. “Go to the barn. Now. Tell Sam you’re all supposed to stay with him now.”

“Okay.”

“And stay in the barn this time,” she said.

“Where’s Mama?” Mama Marie was Lucia’s mother-in-law and a devoted grandmother. Well known in town for her Italian cooking and generous nature, she was known to everyone as “Mama Marie” or simply “Mama.” Aurora was a little afraid of her. She often had the impression that Mama Marie looked at her and disapproved of what she saw.

“She’s keeping Loralee from driving Meg insane.”

“Is the mother of the bride giving the bride more advice?”

“She keeps fussing over Meg’s hair, wants her to put on more mascara. You know the drill.”

“Right.” Loralee was not known for subtlety. Flamboyant, softhearted and outspoken, she was best experienced in small doses. “What can I do, besides guard the dessert and distract Loralee?”

“We’re going to get everyone out of the house and into their seats in the barn. I imagine the groom is getting edgy.”

“The groom has been edgy for weeks.” Aurora wondered if Owen thought Meg would change her mind again, the way she had done when she was eighteen and refused to run away with him for the second time. According to Meg, the first elopement hadn’t gone according to plan.

“And please tell Meg she looks beautiful. She’s stressing over her hair.”

“I’ll bet she’s gorgeous,” Aurora said, following Lucia up the wide mahogany staircase to the second floor.

“She is,” Lucia said. “Even if she doesn’t think so.”

“Does Sam have a brother?”

Lucia stopped at the top of the stairs. “Yes. Why?”

“I think he’s in town.”

“In town? This town?”

“You weren’t expecting him?”

“He and Sam have talked a couple of times, but Sam didn’t say anything about him coming here. They’ve wanted to reconnect, though. It’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other.” She seemed puzzled. “I thought we were going to fly to Nashville this summer, after the—”

“I told him you were here,” Aurora said. “He wanted to know why everything in town was closed, so I explained about the wedding.”

Her friend looked thoughtful. “I’ll tell Sam to call him right away. I made him turn his phone off this morning so we could get out here early. Otherwise it’s insane. The phone never stops ringing with business calls.”

“Is he planning another trip to, um, the jungle?”

“He’s always planning another business trip, another documentary,” Lucia said. “And then there’s the book project. But we have a wedding and a honeymoon in Belize first. At least that’s what Sam says now.”

“I think he’s more than ready for the wedding,” Aurora said. “When is it going to be?”

“Soon. But we’ll do something small,” she confided. “Something this summer, after school is out. By the way, I love your boots.”

“Thank you.”

“Vintage?”

“No.”

“They’re so original I thought maybe—”

“Aurora! Thank goodness.” The bride, who looked stunning in a simple ivory scoop-necked lace dress that skimmed her slender body and stopped below her knees, fairly flew out of her room to where they stood at the top of the stairs. She’d refused to consider a traditional wedding gown and had instead ordered her dress from Nordstrom, online.

A bold move, Aurora had thought at the time. But typical Meg and totally beautiful.

“What do you need?” she asked the bride.

“What time is it?” Meg smiled, but she looked a little harried. “Time seems to be moving very slowly this morning.”

Lucia checked her watch. “You have five, maybe ten, minutes. Guess what. Aurora found a man this morning.”

Meg seemed impressed. “What kind of man?”

“Sam’s brother, or so he says,” Aurora answered, following Meg back into the bedroom, Lucia trailing behind them. “They do look alike. A little.”

“What did you do with him?” Meg went over to the window, as if by looking outside she would spot him. The large, freshly painted pale blue room faced the back of the house, with three tall windows facing the barns and the hills beyond. Lace curtains hung to the polished wood floors and an enormous bed, its mattress covered in an exquisite blue and white Irish chain quilt, took up most of the space.

“I left him in town, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he followed me here. He knew that Sam was at the wedding.”

“Wow. What does he look like?”

Aurora frowned. “Handsome, of course. Like his brother. And he’s very confident.”

“Confident,” Lucia repeated, frowning a little. “What does that mean? He’s obnoxious?”

“No,” Aurora said quickly, not wanting to insult Lucia’s future brother-in-law. “He seems very self-assured, as if there isn’t anything that bothers him.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s as if any kind of trouble would slide right off the man.” She sat on the bed and ran her hand along the delicate stitching.

“Sam’s calm like that, too.”

“Maybe it runs in the family,” Meg suggested.

Lucia joined her at the window. “It could. They had a pretty rough childhood and haven’t seen each other in years. Sam’s going to be thrilled he’s here.”

“He’s here, all right,” Aurora said. “His daughter is—”

“Daughter?”

“You didn’t know he had a daughter?”

Lucia shook her head slowly. “I didn’t even know he was married.”

“Not exactly a prerequisite,” Meg pointed out. She smoothed the front of her dress nervously.

“No, but Sam didn’t say anything about Jake having a daughter. How old is she?”

“Eleven, twelve, maybe? It’s hard to tell with kids these days.” Aurora had absolutely no experience with children, unless she counted the rare times she was with Lucia’s boys. And they were special, sweet children who had excellent manners. She secretly adored the littlest one. There was something about those big dark eyes that got her every time.

“Eleven,” Lucia mused. “I can’t wait to meet her. We could use a girl in the family.”

“Chances are he’s in the barn talking to Sam right now.” She wouldn’t be surprised at all to discover he’d made himself one of the wedding guests.

“Well, let’s get this wedding going so we can check the guy out,” Meg said.

“You’re not supposed to be thinking about men other than Owen,” Aurora informed her. “You’re supposed to be gazing at yourself in the mirror and worrying about your hair. Which is beautiful. As is the rest of you.”

“I’ve done that and I agree—

I look pretty good.”

“More like radiant and gorgeous and very happy,” Aurora assured her. “You’re the prettiest bride in Montana.”

Lucia leaned over and adjusted the seed pearl headpiece that held an elegant lace veil intended to fall down Meg’s back. “I like this. It’s not too fussy, but it’s very bridal.”

“The boots are a nice touch,” Aurora said.

“I splurged,” Meg confessed, looking down at the white pointed-toe Western boots that peeked out from under the hem of her dress. “My mother was beside herself with joy.”

Lucia finished fussing with the veil. “When you’re marrying a Montana rancher on his ranch, in a barn, you’d better be wearing the appropriate footwear.”

Aurora noticed Lucia’s own deep purple boots, along with her long-sleeved, formfitting brilliant yellow dress. She was a petite woman, with black hair that could only come from her Lakota Sioux grandmother. Intricately beaded purple-and-yellow earrings hung almost to her shoulders. She had great taste, an eye for color and, as a widow and single mother of three, needed to live frugally.

Aurora hoped that the “frugal” part would change once she married Sam, but she doubted her friend would quit going to secondhand stores. She liked the thrill of the hunt too much to stop.

Aurora wondered what Lucia would think of her new future brother-in-law.

There was a mystery here, but if anyone could get to the bottom of it, Lucia would. And Aurora couldn’t wait to find out.

* * *

“WILL YOU TAKE this woman to be your lawfully wedded bride?”

“I will,” Owen MacGregor declared amid impromptu male cheers. There was shushing and sniffling and a baby cried.

Aurora didn’t know whether to laugh or burst into tears. Since she never cried in front of people and wasn’t much for bursts of laughter, she sat quietly next to Loralee and hid a smile. Leave it to the rough-and-tumble men of Willing to cheer during a wedding ceremony.

She opened her little yellow purse and pulled out a tissue, which she handed to Loralee, the weeping mother of the bride. She, Loralee, Shelly, Lucia, Sam and the children were seated in the front row as Meg and Owen exchanged simple and moving vows.

“And will you, Margaret Ripley, take Owen MacGregor to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“After all this, she’d better say yes,” Loralee muttered.

“I will,” Meg said, prompting another burst of cheering from the congregation gathered in the historic and enormous barn. Aurora wondered how Owen had cleaned the place so quickly. He didn’t own cattle or horses yet, but she assumed that as he revived the once thriving cattle ranch, he’d use the barn for practical purposes.

Or rent it out as a wedding venue.

The rings were exchanged as the crowd watched in respectful silence. Aurora had heard that Owen’s mother was too ill to attend the ceremony, but Meg had confided that the woman had never approved of Meg and her relationship with her son. And that some things in life never changed.

So Loralee, the only family member, continued to sob quietly into Aurora’s tissue. Tony, Lucia’s youngest, climbed over his mother, stirring up a little cloud of hay dust, and settled himself against Aurora to examine the charms on her gold bracelet. Aurora held her arm still so he could peruse them to his heart’s content.

Someone from the church sang while Meg and Owen held hands and smiled at each other.

Yes, Aurora decided, all cleaned up like this, it was the perfect place for a wedding. Her own bar, the Dahl, was overdue for a makeover, too. But something more extensive than the good scrubbing Owen had given this barn. She’d been working on reno plans for months, not telling anyone what she intended. It was to be a surprise for the women in town.

We’ll have a patio, she mused. And a lovely room for bridal showers and bachelorette parties. The bathrooms, which she’d upgraded when she bought the place, would be enlarged and brightened. She wouldn’t do anything to change the log walls, of course, because the original building had an ambiance that was impossible to replicate, but she would definitely replace the stinky old wood paneling.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the minister announced. “You may now kiss the bride.”

The crowd roared its approval. Loralee pumped a fist in the air. Tony climbed from his seat beside her on the hay onto Aurora’s lap and surprised her with a wet kiss on her neck.

Life in Willing was about to improve in all kinds of ways.

CHAPTER TWO

AS THE GATHERED guests began to stand and mingle and the bride and groom signed official papers, the mayor of Willing, Jerry Thompson, sat trapped on a bale of hay between the town’s teenaged unwed mother and the infamous mother of the bride, a woman married so many times she’d lost count. As a young man deeply committed to improving the small town, Jerry was accustomed to being in situations where the utmost tact was called for. He was the master of small talk, of mingling, of schmoozing.

Unfortunately he was not comfortable sitting next to a woman who was feeding her baby in a very, um, natural way. There was a blanket, there was no skin showing, but still...

Awkward.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, there’s another one.” Loralee, mother of the bride and self-appointed grandmother to Shelly’s baby, wore a slinky purple dress and pale pink boots with purple embroidery on the shafts. She was sixty-two and, as she’d told Jerry earlier, not ready to wear a polyester housedress and serviceable shoes.

“Another what?” Shelly shifted her lump of baby against her chest. Little Laura didn’t make a peep.

“Another man hoping to meet women from California. Some of these men think that single women by the busloads are running rampant on Main Street.”

“So?” Jerry entered the conversation against his better judgment. Like eating half a chocolate cream pie, he would regret he’d done it. He didn’t bother to notice who Loralee was staring at, having decided to look straight ahead and avoid any risk of seeing the breast-feeding process.

“The word’s out.”

“That was the whole idea to begin with,” Jerry muttered. “Attract people? Make the town viable again? The word being out is a good thing, remember? Besides, he’s probably a friend of Owen’s from Washington. There were quite a few coming, weren’t there?”

“Not with a child. I pretty much memorized the guest list, having gone over it so many times with Meg.”

“He’s very handsome, too,” Shelly murmured. “He seems a little familiar. Are you sure we don’t know him?”

Jerry finally turned to look. An unfamiliar tall man stood inside the barn door and looked around as if he was hoping to see someone he knew. A young girl with gold short hair stood close to him. The stranger leaned over and said something to her and she shook her head.

“I’ve never seen him before. Maybe he’s another reporter,” Jerry said. “I’ll go find out.”

“Don’t give him an interview. This is a private party.” Loralee sniffed. “Publicity is okay, but not at my daughter’s wedding.”

Jerry paid no attention to Loralee’s complaint. He lived for publicity. He’d engineered the town’s involvement in the reality dating show and he’d welcomed the Hollywood crew to Willing. His girlfriend produced the show, which had resulted in at least one of the town’s bachelors finding the woman of his dreams, and the show was due to be aired the last Monday of April. He’d had many calls from many reporters, but he hadn’t talked to anyone who’d intended to come to Willing six weeks early.

He hadn’t talked to anyone who was interested in the MacGregor wedding, either, because it had nothing to do with the upcoming show.

“I’ll check him out.” Jerry lifted himself from the bale of hay and brushed off his pants. The barn, decorated in a real Western flavor, could be used for many wedding receptions in the years to come. They’d filmed one of the big moments of the show here this winter, and since then Owen had kept it empty. It was a huge space, undivided by stalls or stanchions or whatever barns had inside them. It would have held a lot of hay, if that’s what it was originally used for.

The wooden floor was faded and worn, but it had charm and character. The huge beams sparkled with ropes of tiny white lights.

“One whole day,” Les said, pointing to the beams as Jerry paused beside him. “That’s how long it took us to string those lights. We strung some for the show, but Meg wanted more. A lot more.”

“It looks good.”

The young man glanced toward Shelly, who was now holding her baby upright and patting its little back. “It’s a good place for weddings.”

Jerry agreed. “Owen and Meg could do a nice business here, with the barn and the catering and the whole rustic Montana historic ranch thing going on.”

“It holds more people than the community center, or the café,” Les added.

“If it looks good on the show, they’ve got it made. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.”

“No, sir, you can’t.” Les’s attention moved back to Shelly. “I’d sure like to get married. This wedding is pretty big, though. And it sure must cost a lot. It would take me a real long time to save up for a wedding.”

“Your money’s best spent elsewhere,” Jerry agreed. The young man’s love for the once homeless teenager was sweet, but Shelly had issues. She was only nineteen, had a baby with a rodeo charmer who’d turned out to be married and lived with Loralee in one of Meg’s cabins. She worked as a waitress and lived off tips, plus the extra money she made cleaning houses.

She wasn’t Jerry’s idea of the perfect love interest, but to each his own.

“I’m saving up for a house,” Les said. “I’m thinking about building something small, out at my grandparents’.”

“It’s good to have a plan.” Jerry pointed out the man near the doorway. “Do you know who that is?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I’m going to go find out. Loralee doesn’t want any wedding crashers.”

“I saw that movie. She’s right. Owen wouldn’t like that.” Les narrowed his eyes. “Whoa! The guy’s talking to my grandfather.”

Sure enough, Lawrence Parcell appeared to be helping the stranger out, pointing to the tables where the food was being set up. “He could be one of Owen’s city friends, but Loralee doesn’t think so.”

“Why would a wedding crasher bring a kid?”

“Good point.” Jerry edged away. “Let’s go see.”

He didn’t really think the guy was trouble, but it was as good an excuse as any to move through the crowd, shake some hands, spread goodwill and accept congratulations for the success of the filming of the TV show.

Jerry wanted to bask in the glory of the first of many Willing weddings. In fact, he’d offered to give a toast before dinner. To the first of many Willing weddings, he’d say, lifting a glass of champagne. To the first of many blissful couples, to happy brides and brave grooms and to populating the Willing school with more students. To new businesses. To tourists. To increased tax revenues.

No, he couldn’t go that far. But it was tempting.

He’d been advised by Owen to keep it personal. No campaign speeches, the groom had ordered. Keep it simple.

Jerry wasn’t fond of simple. He was up for reelection in a year and a half.

He eased past his constituents, a boisterous group who talked to one another as if they hadn’t been out of their homes in months. Well, winter could do that, make you feel as if you lived in a cave with a television set and a phone and a freezer full of fish, beef and maybe some venison. Thankfully he lived in the middle of town and could get out whenever he wanted. He could walk to the café, to the Dahl, to the community center for the various meetings and social activities.

Tracy had wanted him to come to California for the winter, but he couldn’t get away for more than a week at a time. And once a month, if he was lucky. He played bingo with the seniors on Saturday nights, competed in the Dahl’s Trivial Pursuit contest, organized the annual film festival—a collection of local residents’ home movies—and managed every detail of his town’s involvement with the television show.

Tracy thought he was insane.

“Really? Charles Russell?” the stranger was saying.

“They’ve got a museum in Great Falls,” Mr. Parcell said. “You can see where he painted. Pretty impressive, if you like art.”

“I like art,” the man replied. “Maybe my daughter—”

“Ever heard of Charles Russell, young lady?”

The child nodded. “I studied artists of the American West last year. Charles Russell was known as one of the greatest and produced over four thousand works.”

“Well, now,” Les’s grandfather drawled. “I’m impressed with your education. Where’d you go to school?”

“I used to attend Lady Bishop Pettigrew’s,” the little blonde girl replied. “But I was recently expelled.”

“Why?” Jerry interrupted, stepping into the small group. He couldn’t help himself. This angelic-looking child didn’t seem at all like a troublemaker. But maybe Lady Pettigrew’s had a stricter code of conduct than the schools in Montana.

“I have severe psychological issues.”

“Don’t we all?” Jerry said into the following silence. He held a hand out to what looked like the girl’s stunned father. “Jerry Thompson, mayor,” he said. “Since we haven’t met, I assume you’re a friend of the groom?”

“Not exactly,” the other man said, flashing a quick smile. “I’m Jake Hove, and this is my daughter, Winter.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet both of you.” Jerry shook hands with them. The man seemed friendly enough, though he kept scanning the crowd as if he was looking for someone. Winter didn’t seem severely disturbed. Jerry thought she seemed like a nice enough kid. She didn’t have any obvious piercings or tattoos. She was expensively dressed, in designer jeans and a hoodie. Growing up in Los Angeles had taught him to recognize high-end clothing. “Did you say Hove? Any relation to—”

“Sam,” Jake said. “My brother. We’re not attending the reception,” he added quickly, glancing at the girl. “We’re in town and I wanted to see—”

“We waited outside during the wedding,” Winter broke in. “We didn’t wish to be rude.”

“The bride and groom wouldn’t have cared or even noticed,” Mr. Parcell said. “The whole town was invited. Of course, they know everyone in town, so it was only right.”