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  “Honey, I’d carry a bouquet of stinkweed to get to be in the wedding,” Bridget said.

  “Jewelry?” Pearl asked.

  “Momma says that no one is to bring jewelry. My present to each of you will be your jewelry that day and you will get it at the brunch, which will be held in the church kitchen at ten o’clock that morning. We will eat. Gemma will do our hair. Then we’ll go back to the kitchen for a finger foods lunch. After that we’ll get dressed and the photographer will do a million pictures of us.”

  “That sounds like so much fun,” Bridget said.

  “I’m glad you think so. Pearl, how are you going to manage with the twins?” Liz asked.

  “Momma is coming with me, bless her heart. She and Daddy said they’d help with the boys,” Pearl said.

  “Shoes.” Jasmine spread out four different pictures on the table. “Momma says that they don’t all have to match but for each one of you to choose a style you like and put your name and size on the paper. They are all satin which will be dyed to match your dress color.”

  Three minutes later Jasmine gathered up all the papers. “Did I forget anything?”

  “Wil and I won’t need a room. We’ll be staying at Daddy’s ranch, but what about all these other folks?” Pearl asked.

  “Momma has arranged rooms at the Hampton. Thanks for reminding me. She needs your name and number of people staying in your room and whether you want a room with a king-sized bed or one with two doubles.”

  “Here’s a piece of paper for that.” Pearl ripped a piece out of a notebook beside the phone. It went from woman to woman and Bridget handed it back to Jasmine. “Is that it, then?”

  “I believe we’ve covered it. I’ve got printed directions to the church for each of you. Be there at four thirty on Saturday for the rehearsal. Then Momma and Daddy will lead the convoy to the restaurant where we’ll have dinner. She and Marcella are still working on that. Anybody here vegetarian?” Jasmine asked.

  Gemma laughed. “Honey, if you live in Texas and don’t like steak you are in big trouble.”

  “If that’s it, I’ll take the keys to the truck, Jasmine, and go on to my other meeting,” Lucy said.

  Jasmine handed them to her.

  “And if that’s it, I get to hold one or both of those babies.” Liz pointed toward the two blue bassinets in the corner of the living room.

  “Not if I get there first,” Gemma said. “If you had been nicer when you read my fortune last winter, I could already be married and have one of those on the way.”

  Liz laughed. She’d been raised in a carnival and had read fortunes for a living before she inherited her uncle’s property and traded in her wings for roots. Nowadays, Colleen, Gemma’s older sister, told fortunes in the carnival. She’d fallen in love with Blaze, the engineer for the carnival, last winter and given up her roots for a set of brand new wings.

  “Patience, my dear sister-in-law.” Liz patted her on the shoulder. “When your cowboy comes along, he’s going to sweep you off your feet.”

  Liz had wondered when she read the cards for Gemma’s future if the cowboy might be Ace, since she’d visualized him with blond hair, but it was evident that Ace and Jasmine belonged together, and in reality, Gemma’s cowboy could be tall, dark, and handsome instead of a blonde.

  “I hope he appears wearing nothing but a Santa hat and a big smile and he is ready to be a daddy because I want a house full of these things,” Gemma said as she picked Jesse up out of his bassinet.

  “Be careful what you wish for. What would you do with a naked cowboy in the middle of winter?” Liz laughed.

  “I could think of a million things and none of them involve clothes,” Gemma said.

  Pearl reached across the space left on the sofa when Gemma stood up and she touched Jasmine’s hand. “You okay? Is Kelly drivin’ you insane?”

  “When this whole wedding thing is out of the way I will be,” Jasmine said.

  “Got to remember we are only children and our mothers have looked forward to planning our weddings for years and years.”

  “Be thankful Wil didn’t have six brothers and two best friends.” Jasmine sighed.

  “And that we weren’t married before the wedding.” Pearl smiled.

  “Think Momma will ever get over the Vegas wedding?” Jasmine asked.

  “Oh, yeah. In a year no one will even remember that you got married in Las Vegas. There will be the big picture of you and Ace hanging above the fireplace in the living room, and that’s the wedding everyone will remember.”

  “How’d Austin get away with it?”

  “I think down deep her mother still hopes she’ll come to her senses and move back to Tulsa. No picture above the mantel. Nothing ever happened.” Pearl laughed.

  “Amazing theory. Does it work when people get divorced? Take down the picture and it never happened?” Jasmine asked.

  “Yep, that’s the first step. Take down the picture. Call the lawyer. And poof! It never happened. But we don’t have to worry about that. Wil and Ace would be dead cowboys if there was ever a divorce. Our mothers wouldn’t even hire a hit man. They’d just borrow our two shovels and take care of the problem themselves. The bodies wouldn’t ever be found. Speaking of Wil and Ace, I wonder what our husbands are doing right now.”

  “Playin’ football while we slave over wedding plans!”

  ***

  Ace was still propped up on the porch railing when more than a dozen men and boys shoved their way outside into the bright, hot, sunny day. Six brothers, two friends, and all of his nephews ranging in age from ten to sixteen.

  “Granny says for you to get your hind end in the house so she can talk to you. Make it fast. We’re going to play football out in the pasture,” his nephew, Garvin, said.

  “She didn’t say hind end,” Luke yelled.

  Dalton threw a fake punch at Ace’s bicep. “She said your slow ass.”

  Luke threw a football toward Dalton and Ace reached out over the railing and caught it. “I’m on Garvin’s side. We’ll be right out and whoop y’all, Blake.”

  “Bring it on, big boy!” Blake hollered.

  Boots and socks began to fly into a pile at the end of the porch. Ace tossed his over the side in with the rest and padded barefoot into the house. He found his mother and three sisters-in-law, Megan, Mary Sue, and Holly, at the kitchen table with a notebook and multiple pictures strewn around.

  “There you are. You’re late. I swear to God, you’ll be late for your own funeral. You are just like Grandpa Riley. He ambled around like he had all day to get somewhere and about drove poor old Granny to swearing,” Dolly fussed.

  Ace chuckled. “It didn’t take much to drive Granny to swearing. She could blister the paint on a brand new pickup truck when she was mad at Gramps. Now what do I need to do before I go out there and whoop Blake and his team in football?”

  “Kelly has picked out a bridal bouquet for the wedding. But that’s your job and you should pay for it. Are you okay with what she picked out?”

  Ace nodded. “Whatever she wants, she gets. Send the bill over to the Double Deuce for anything I’m supposed to pay for.”

  “As the groom’s parents, we are supposed to pay for the rehearsal dinner. We don’t know anything about Sherman, so I’ve asked her to pick out a restaurant and make arrangements. Do you have any input on that?” Dolly asked.

  Ace shook his head. “You two make up your minds. Us guys would like a steak house or else a damn good barbecue place. Please don’t ask us to eat Cornish hens like we had at Garrett’s dinner. No offense, Megan, but I’d rather have steak. And Momma, you and Dad don’t have to foot the bill. I’ll take care of it.”

  Dolly’s black eyes said as much as her words. “No you won’t. We’ve done our part for the older three and we will for the rest of you.”

  “Megan, Mary Sue, and Holly are serving at the reception and Raylen and Dewar are ushers,” Dolly said. “Have we missed anyone who should have a part in the ceremony?�
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  Ace opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer. “Nope, I think that covers it. I asked the guys out at the bunkhouse if they wanted to be in the wedding and for a minute I thought they were all going to quit right there on the spot. Barely got them talked into attending it. Can I please go out and play now, Mommy?” He whined like a two-year-old.

  “Oh, shut up that nonsense. I don’t have time for jokes today. One more thing: we are responsible for the groom’s table,” Dolly said.

  Holly flipped her red hair back behind her ears. “That’s the table with your cake and punch. Do you want a flat cake with your names on it? Or how about a two-tiered round German chocolate?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I liked what y’all did at Tony’s wedding when him and Holly got married. Remember that stand-up thing with tiers on it and slices of different kinds of cheesecake?”

  Holly smiled. “That was my idea. We do that up in Waurika at weddings pretty often.”

  “I’ll put that idea to Kelly. I expect she’ll like it fine since she’s going for elegant,” Dolly said.

  “Now can I go out and play?” Ace asked.

  “Yes, get out of here and don’t you come whinin’ like a little girl if the big boys take you down.” Dolly giggled.

  The grass was hot on his feet as he ran out the back door and to the pasture where teams were already chosen. But at least it wasn’t brown and crunchy yet. That would come in August if they didn’t get the right rains. “You ready to work up a sweat? We’re goin’ to make you work for every touchdown you get.” He joined his team: Garvin, Kyle, Rye, Raylen, Dewar, Dalton, and Justin.

  Adam stood in the middle pasture with a cowbell in his hand. “Y’all are goin’ to play fair. No elbows in the eyes. No knees in the balls. Fair tackles. Keep it clean or I’ll set your ass on the sideline and your team will be a man short. You hear this cowbell, you can bet your asses there’s goin’ to be a penalty. So huddle up, boys, and let’s play some good old Sunday afternoon Riley football.”

  Chapter 16

  Monday went fairly smoothly, but Jasmine was antsy all day. Something wasn’t right and yet she couldn’t pinpoint a single thing that was wrong. Bridget wasn’t fighting with Frankie. Pearl hadn’t called in hysterics because something was burning down. Liz and Raylen stopped by for lunch and everything was fine there.

  After work, she went straight to the ranch rather than making the desserts for the next day, and she grew more agitated with every mile. By the time she parked her truck, she was sure the whole world would come crashing down on her shoulders.

  Old Bill and Little Joe were asleep on the porch and didn’t even wake up to wag their tails at her. She made sure they were both breathing and went on into the house. She poked her head into the living room to find Dalton and Blake watching television. Chips and a container of salsa were on the coffee table, but there were no empty cans of Vienna sausage in sight. Lucy must’ve made believers out of them.

  “Where’s Lucy?” she said.

  “Gone to the store over in Terral for cinnamon. She forgot to get it over the weekend in Bowie. Guess she’s makin’ cinnamon rolls for supper,” Dalton said.

  “What are you two doing in the house?” she asked.

  “Ace has got to do book work this afternoon. He’s back in the office. We finished a couple of hours early so we quit for the day,” Blake said.

  The door to Ace’s office stood ajar so she peeked inside. “Got time for a walk?”

  “I’m two weeks behind on computer entries. See you later,” he said without taking his eyes from the screen.

  “Then I’m going back to the café. It might be late when I get back. I probably won’t be back in time for supper. I’ll just grab a plate of leftovers there.”

  He raised a hand and kept working.

  She’d lived in the apartment above the Chicken Fried for a year and a half. She’d come in and out of the empty café dozens of times, but that night the silence was eerie. She turned on the kitchen light and took down the recipe for black forest cake, lined up the ingredients, and greased six round pans. Working with her hands left her thoughts free to go wherever they wanted and they kept drifting back to Ace brushing her off. She knew him well enough to know when he was brooding about something. And he always, always found time for her.

  She mixed, whipped, beat, and poured the batter into the pans. She set a timer, checked her watch to be double sure, and climbed the stairs to her apartment. Everything was the same as it was before she married Ace, but the place seemed empty, as if it had given up on her ever coming back. Picking up the remote, she turned on the television, thinking maybe noise would help.

  It didn’t.

  Ace had been in her life for eighteen months. There had been days when she hadn’t seen him and didn’t even think about it. Then he’d pop back in with a story about some woman who’d thought she could tear down his barbed wire; he’d point at his tat and Jasmine would tell him that no woman would even want his scraggly old cowboy heart. And she’d make him a hamburger and they’d laugh.

  “He was too serious to even look at me, so something is way the hell wrong and it has to do with me,” she said.

  And then the light bulb went off and the anger set in.

  They’d had sex and he was afraid that she would consider that a declaration of love or expect a permanent relationship. Her eyes narrowed and she stomped back down the stairs into the kitchen. Fifteen minutes left until the cakes were done. She’d planned to make the icing and frost them that night, but they were going to wait until morning. She paced the floor and checked the clock every thirty seconds. Finally, the timer dinged and she jerked the cakes from the oven.

  ***

  Ace was sitting on the porch with his feet propped on the railing when she drove into the yard, braking hard and slinging gravel halfway to Bowie. She stomped up on the porch and left no doubt that she was madder’n the devil in a snowstorm. He knew he was in trouble when she stopped right in front of him, propped her hands on her hips, and drew her green eyes into nothing more than slits. Well, she could bring it on because he had a few things to say to her too!

  “We need to talk,” she said.

  “Yep, we do.”

  “We might need to take a walk because I might get loud,” she said.

  “How about we ride down to Bowie and get some ice cream? You look like you could use a coolin’ off.”

  “It’ll take more than ice cream to cool me off. I’ve been thinkin’ and it’s not pretty,” she said.

  “Well, so have I, and it ain’t pretty neither.” He stood up slowly and brushed past her on the way to his truck. Without even a gesture of cowboy manners, he got inside and waited on her to open her own door.

  He’d turned onto the highway heading south toward Bowie when she exploded. “You jackass! We had sex and now you are ready to throw me in the trash like you’ve done with all the others.”

  His jawbones worked knots into his face. “You think that about me? You think I’d do that to you?”

  Her voice raised two octaves. “Not that you would, Ace Riley. You did! What was I? A big conquest. Rinky-dink me into proposing to you…”

  He pulled into an abandoned car lot on the west side of the road, stomped the brakes hard enough that he left skid marks and the smell of hot rubber, turned off the engine, and turned to face her.

  “That is one damn crazy way of thinkin’, Jazzy. My conscience is clear. I did not rinky-do you into jack shit. We had amazing sex, but I’m not ready to put you a trash can! God Almighty!”

  “You sound like my mother!”

  He raised his voice to match hers. “And that’s the damn problem I have.”

  “What? That you sound like my mother?”

  “Hell, no! That you are the strongest woman I know, but you won’t let go of your mommy issues. You don’t want to have this big farce of a wedding. I can see it in your face and hear it in your tone, but you won’t tell her to shove it up her ass
. You say she always gets her way. Well, darlin’, that’s because you let her. If you don’t want to have a wedding then tell her no. As long as you let her control you, then you won’t ever…”

  “Ever what?” she whispered.

  “Ever really be your own person.” He reached across the seat and cupped her face in his two big rough hands. “If you want this big thing, then that’s fine. I’ll do it for you because you’ve done so much for me and I care about you, Jazzy. But if you don’t, then have the balls to say no, and I’ll back you up with my momma too. You decide. It’s been playin’ on my mind all afternoon. Everyone is acting like we aren’t even married and we are, and neither one of us even wanted things to go this far much less mushroom into all this full-fledged wedding shit.”

  “A-damn-men!” she muttered.

  He kissed her softly, then harder, and then with so much heat that she almost whined.

  “We could compromise. A barbecue at the ranch on the day your momma wanted to have a wedding. Dexter could smoke ribs and Tyson can grill steaks. You and Lucy can come up with the rest. Or we’ll call a caterer to do the whole shebang,” he said.

  “No caterers. That’s too much fanfare. Kelly King could make even that into a million decisions. Lucy and I can make desserts and the rest of it.”

  “So?” He shifted back to his side of the truck.

  She leaned forward and pulled her phone from her hip pocket and hit the speed dial for her mother.

  “Speak fast. Marcella and I are finishing the last touches on the invitations and getting all the information down for the dresses,” Kelly said breathlessly.

  “Hold the presses,” she said.

  “No! No changes this late in the game.”

  “Big changes. No wedding.”

  Ace reached across and closed his hand around hers.

  “That is bullshit, Jasmine Marie! You are already married so you can’t back out of an engagement like you did with Eddie Jay.”

  Jasmine took a deep breath. “And that’s why I’m not doing it again. We are married. It does not have the Texas stamp on the paper, but it’s legal and this is ridiculous, Momma. There is not going to be a wedding and I’m dead serious. If you order that dress, you’d better get it in your size because you will be the one who’s wearing it.”