B.J. Daniels - Wedding at Cardwell Ranch

As Jackson started to leave with his brother, he turned to look back at the barn. Just inside the door he saw Allie. All his survival instincts told him to keep going, but his mother had raised a Texas cowboy with a code of honor. Or at least she’d tried. Something was wrong and he couldn’t walk away.

“Give me just a minute,” he said and ran back. As he entered the barn, he saw Allie frantically searching for something in the corner of the barn. His father and brother were still playing at the far end, completely unaware of them.

“What are you looking for?”

She seemed embarrassed that he’d caught her. He noticed that she’d gone pale and looked upset. “I know I put my purse right there with my keys in it.”

He glanced at the empty table. “Maybe it fell under it.” He bent down to look under the red-and-white-checked tablecloth. “The barn is looking great, by the way. You’ve done a beautiful job.”

She didn’t seem to hear him. She was moving from table to table, searching for her purse. He could see that she was getting more anxious by the moment. “I know I put it right there so I wouldn’t forget it when I left.”

“Here it is,” Jackson said as he spied what he assumed had to be her purse not on a table, but in one of the empty boxes that had held the decorations.

She rushed to him and took the purse and hurriedly looked inside, pulling out her keys with obvious relief.

“You would have found it the moment you started loading the boxes into your van,” he said, seeing that she was still shaken.

She nodded. “Thank you. I’m not usually like this.”

“No need to apologize. I hate losing things. It drives me crazy.”

She let out a humorless laugh. “Crazy, yes.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Hey, it’s okay.”

He wanted to comfort her, but kept his distance after what had happened earlier. “It really is okay.”

She shook her head as the music stopped and quickly wiped her eyes, apologizing again. She looked embarrassed and he wished there was something he could say to put her at ease.

“Earlier, I was just trying to comfort you. It was just a hug,” he said.

She met his gaze. “One I definitely needed. You have been so kind....”

“I’m not kind.”

She laughed and shook her head. “Are you always so self-deprecating?”

“No, just truthful.”

“Well, thank you.” She clutched the keys in her hand as if afraid she would lose them if she let them out of her sight.

At the sound of people approaching, she stepped away from him.

“Let me load those boxes in your van. I insist,” he said before she could protest.

As Dana, Lily and the kids came through the barn door they stopped to admire what Allie had accomplished. There were lots of oohs and ahhs. But it was Lily whose face lit up as she took in the way the barn was being transformed.

Jackson shifted his gaze to Allie’s face as she humbly accepted their praise. Dana introduced Jackson to Lily. He could see right away why his brother had fallen for the woman.

“Please come stay at one of the guest cabins for the rest of the wedding festivities,” Dana was saying to Allie.

“It is so generous of you to offer the cabin,” Allie said, looking shocked at the offer.

“Not at all. It will make it easier for you so you don’t have to drive back and forth. Also I’m being selfish. The kids adore Natalie. It will make the wedding a lot more fun for them.”

Allie, clearly fighting tears of gratitude, said she would think about it. Jackson felt his heartstrings pulled just watching. “I’ll work hard to make this wedding as perfect as it can be. I won’t let you down.”

Lily gave her a hug. “Allie, it’s already perfect!”

Jackson was surprised that Lily McCabe had agreed to a Western wedding. According to the lowdown he’d heard, Lily taught mathematics at Montana State University. She’d spent her younger years at expensive boarding schools after having been born into money.

Jackson wondered if the woman had ever even been on a horse—before she met the Cardwells. Apparently, Allie was worried that a Western wedding was the last thing a woman like Lily McCabe would want.

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