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“Excuse me?” she blurted out, shifting her purse over her shoulder.
“Beth would probably prefer to ride with her sister,” Cord said with a shrug that said he’d made a logical choice.
“Yes, of course.” Katie looked around the room seeking an ally. Everyone seemed to be content with the plan. Everyone but Beth, who cast a jealous look at her as she left with her sister. Julie, whom Katie thought might be a friend, just smiled and hurried out of the room.
“I’m really sorry,” Katie offered as she walked out the front door with Cord.
He smiled at her. “Katie, if you want to go to church, you should go. And if I have to go, I prefer taking someone I can at least have a conversation with.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t know if it was the correct response, but what else could she say? Once again she’d been put in a box, the one labeled Friend. She told herself she was good with that. After all, she’d been a new-and-improved Katie for the past year. No more chasing after love. No more insecurity. Friend was safe. She wanted safe.
* * *
Cord had to count to ten as he walked around the front of his truck to the driver’s-side door. He didn’t know exactly how his perfect fishing day had turned into a date, or was it church, with Katie? But here he was climbing in his truck and heading for the main road and church. With Katie at his side.
Once again his dad was the one to thank.
In the seat next to him, Katie toyed with her purse, fiddled with the necklace hanging around her neck and then watched out the window as the scenery passed them by. Did she see what he saw? That it was a perfect morning for fishing? The air was brisk and smelled of drying leaves and pine. There were a few white clouds chasing each other across a perfect azure sky. They wouldn’t have many more mornings like this.
Well, maybe God would appreciate his sacrifice and bless him with some decent trout. Not that God worked that way. He wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t still believe, still pray, still take time for the Almighty. He just had a few issues to work out.
“I’m sorry,” Katie finally said. Her voice was clear, bright, sweet.
Strong.
He had the overwhelming impression of strength when he looked at Katie. But there was more to her than that, there was something in her expression, something a little lost about her.
“Why are you sorry?” He glanced her way and then refocused on the road.
“That you’ve been stuck with me again.”
“I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I’m going to be honest with you, I’d feel stuck no matter who they put in my truck. I think my dad put me in charge of this wedding thinking it would make me all romantic, give me ideas about forever and the like.”
“And?” She smiled a big smile and those green eyes twinkled. For the first time since he walked into the main ranch, he felt a little easier on the inside.
“It makes me want to run as fast as I can in the other direction. Your sister and her fiancé seem decent but I’ve heard more bickering and arguing in the past week, since the couples for the wedding arrived in town. There is a couple staying with a family in town. She knows this wedding is vintage but she’s got this dress ordered from New York, and why can’t she have her own cake, and what about her aunt Milly from Oregon?”
“I think I met that bride last night. Andrea, I think. You’re safe with me, though. We can be birds of a feather.”
Smiling came a little easier. “I’m glad to hear that. So, you think they were going to toss Beth my way?”
“She’s pretty and very sweet. They’re going to throw the most tempting package at you.”
“And you think you’re not...” Well, now, how in the world did he continue this conversation and not sound like a jerk or the world’s biggest flirt?
“Tempting?”
“You think Beth is more tempting?” He cleared his throat, feeling pretty uncomfortable with this whole conversation. But she was laughing now and he enjoyed her laughter. When he looked at her, she shrugged in answer to his question.
If he was going to have to go to church, he might as well have a good time. He wouldn’t have enjoyed it with Beth at his side. He’d met her two days ago and she’d made pretty big hints. No, not hints. She’d outright asked him to show her the town. The next day she’d told him she’d heard about the café and the homemade pies but she was stuck with her sister.
His phone buzzed and he gave her an apologetic look and answered because it was finally the wedding planner. “Cord Shaw.”
He listened. He tried to argue. He counted to ten, more than once. And then he tossed his phone on the seat.
“Bad news.”
“Yeah.”
“They put your name down with Beth’s as the fiftieth couple?”
He smiled and he hadn’t meant to smile. “No. That was the wedding coordinator. She’s quitting. She was doing this pretty much free and she got a better offer, one that pays.”
“Ouch. So now what?”
“I’m not sure.”
He pulled into the parking lot of the church that his family had been attending for generations and that he’d been avoiding as much as possible for a few years. Avoiding because he and God hadn’t seen eye to eye on several things. A broken engagement when he was twenty. And then at twenty-nine a fiancée who ran off with his best man two weeks before they were to get married in this very church. Those were his reasons for avoiding relationships. His reason for avoiding God had more to do with Marci. He shoved the thought away because he couldn’t go there right now, not with Katie sitting in his truck waiting to go to church. The look on her face was something close to a kid’s on Christmas morning.
He shook his head, amused in spite of himself. He hadn’t expected to go to church when he woke up that morning. He really hadn’t expected to be there with a woman he barely knew getting out of the passenger side of his truck. But there he was, standing on the sidewalk, the rustic church with wood siding, stone and stained glass behind him.
The sign out front with the name Mountainview Church of the Savior also had smaller print telling the history behind the church. Most folks just called it Mountainview now, and everyone knew which church they meant.
“With no coordinator to help, will you call off the wedding?” Katie asked as she stepped next to him.
“No.” He couldn’t explain to her that there was too much at stake. The town needed this wedding and the money it would bring in. They had a bridge in need of repairs and a museum they couldn’t finish without more funds. “I’ll just figure out how to pull off a wedding for fifty couples, maybe get some media attention for Jasper Gulch and hopefully not mess up anyone’s life.”
“I think you’ll do just fine. Remember, it’s all about the dress.”
“How long are you going to be in town, Katie?” He placed a hand on her back and guided her up the sidewalk that had a few uneven places.
“I’m not sure. I’m supposed to be helping my sister, but she seems to have escaped and left me here.” She sighed and glanced at him. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. Gwen is in a residency program and of course her time off is limited. And Jeff has a practice to tend to. I have several weeks of vacation and several personal days that I planned on taking so I could be here to help Gwen.”
“Do you always give up your time to help your sister?”
She looked away and he was sorry he had asked. Especially when she smiled at him a moment later, a hint of sadness in her eyes. “She would do the same for me.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean...” What had he meant? “It’s really none of my business.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m okay with being here, and with helping her.”
“Do you think that as long as you’re here...”
He didn’t know what to say. They were standing in front of the massive wooden doors that led to the church. She had a slightly red nose from the cool morning air and her lips were tinted with pink gloss. As long as she was there, she could be a friend. That wasn’t what he’d planned to say but the thought framed itself as a question in his mind.
She was studying his face, waiting for him to finish.
“Maybe you could help me with this wedding?” He asked the question that had originally been on his mind.
“Me?”
“You obviously have more fashion sense than I do. For me, dressed up is a sport jacket with my jeans and a pair of boots that I only wear to town or for special occasions.”
“I see. I thought maybe you wanted me to run interference and keep the single women at bay. Hands off Cord Shaw, that kind of thing.” As she said it, somehow her palm came to rest on his shoulder as if they’d been friends forever.
It was the strangest and maybe one of the best feelings. It tangled him up and made him lose track of the reality that he was standing in front of church. People he’d known his whole life were walking their way. The door could open at any moment. And for the first time in years a woman had made him feel at ease.
“That wasn’t what I was thinking,” he finally said. “But your plan does have merit.”
“Of course it does.” Her hand slipped away and she took a step back.
“So, you’ll help me?”
“Keep the women at bay?”
“With the wedding?”
“I’m not sure I want to be that involved.” Her voice was soft. “I already have to be my sister’s right-hand woman. I’m not sure I can be that and help you.”
“I would be forever in your debt.”
“The times I’ve heard...” She smiled and didn’t finish. “I’ll think about it. But I think you probably need someone local who has more knowledge of the area and what’s available. I’ve been a bridesmaid a few times. That is my total experience with weddings.”
“I’ve never made it down the aisle, so you have more experience than me.” He pushed the double doors open and then with a hand on her arm he guided her down the aisle to the pew behind his family.
He glanced behind them, looking for Marci and her grandmother. He’d promised to take Marci riding after church. No matter how busy he was during the week, he always managed to spend time with her on Sunday. It was their day. It was his way of keeping a promise to a friend.
He hadn’t been to church too often since the day of Marci’s mother’s funeral.
And yet, here he was, sitting next to Katie Archer, trying not to weep over the loss of a friend, a girl without a mother, and soon...
He couldn’t think about soon, or about what Lulu Jenson, Marci’s grandmother, was going to face in the near future. In the seat next to him, Katie moved, turning to look around the old building. He tried to see it through her eyes, with the golden glass of the windows, the polished wooden pews, the history.
At the back of the church and on the opposite side he saw Marci with Lulu. The two waved and he smiled. Both of them looked a little too happy to see him there. In the pew in front of him his mother turned to smile, the look in her eyes saying she thought a prayer had been answered. He was back in church. It had been a while.
He settled back in his seat and ignored the woman next to him and the questioning look she gave him. Because she was the one person he didn’t really have to worry about answering to. She’d be gone in a month. Their stories weren’t connected.
But he couldn’t ignore her, not completely. Not when he caught a scent of the oriental perfume that had followed him into his house last night, clinging to the jacket he’d slipped over her shoulders.
She was temporary in this town, and in his life. What was permanent for Cord Shaw were the people in this church. The people connected to him each and every day, counting on him to be there for them.
Right now it felt as if there were a lot of people needing him to pull off this Old Tyme Wedding. There were fifty couples counting on the wedding of the century at the end of the month. Jasper Gulch was counting on him. They needed this wedding. They needed it to bring in funds. They needed it to keep them all united.
He needed a wedding coordinator. The woman next to him moved, her arm brushing his. He didn’t glance her way because he wasn’t going to be obvious, but it was obvious to him that she might be the best person for the job. He knew she worked in fashion. She knew what it would take to put this event together. And bonus, she didn’t appear to be a woman on the hunt for a groom of her own.
Chapter Three (#ulink_7d291617-a105-5e53-a973-247cb3a581fd)
The church service ended with a prayer and a closing song. Katie sat for a moment, reflecting on the words of the sermon, a sermon about faith and persevering in troubled times. She couldn’t say that she’d ever really had troubled times. Her life hadn’t been perfect, but she’d never gone without or faced real tragedies.
Next to her, Cord moved and stood. She wondered if he would leave now and continue with the fishing trip he had planned. Before she could ask, a lightning streak of a girl zoomed down the aisle of the church and grabbed his hand. She appeared to be a preteen, perhaps ten or eleven years of age. Her blond hair was braided and she wore jeans and a sweater. With a look she dismissed Katie.
“Cord, you’re at church!”
“Yes, I am. Don’t act so surprised.”
She laughed and held on to his hand, at the same time shooting Katie a curious look. “But you never come to church. I thought you would pick me up at Grammy’s.”
A daughter? Katie watched, wondering but knowing it had nothing to do with her. She stood and glanced around, looking for Julie, because with Cord’s younger sister she felt as if she had a friend in the strange world she’d been left in. She would thank Gwen for that. For making her feel like a pet left on the side of the road.
Cord was speaking to the girl and Katie overheard part of the conversation. “Since I’m here I don’t have to pick you up at your grammy’s.”
“Who is she?” the young girl asked.
“She’s Katie and she’s staying with my parents. Don’t be rude.”
Miss Preteen stared Katie down, curious and territorial. “Are you getting married?”
“No, my sister is,” Katie answered.
“Then shouldn’t she be here?”
Katie smiled at that, liking the girl even if she asked a lot of questions. “She should, but she had to go to work. Now, you know a lot about me, why don’t you tell me your name.”
“Marci.” Marci had big brown eyes and nothing about her features, her hair or eyes, resembled Cord Shaw.
“I see. And are you going fishing with Cord?”
Marci shook her head. “No, he was supposed to go fishing and then take me riding.”
Katie couldn’t help that she wanted to know who the girl was to Cord. But neither Marci nor Cord seemed to be giving up details.
“That sounds like fun,” was all she could think to say. She glanced around, still looking for Julie. She saw her finally, holding the hand of her fiancé, Ryan, and chatting with a group of people similar in age. She knew from Julie’s sister, Faith, that Ryan Travers had come to town for the rodeo and stayed. The reason for his putting down roots in Jasper Gulch was pretty obvious as he smiled at the young woman holding his arm. Katie looked away, uncomfortable with that easy gesture between Julie and Ryan.
The sun shone through the golden stained-glass windows of the church, catching everything in the warm light. Katie forgot the crowd of people. She forgot the turmoil of the past few days. She allowed Cord to step away with the girl, Marci, the two deep in conversation that had nothing to do with her.
The golden light, the soft scent of wood polish and the hum of conversations, it all melded together and Katie felt the peace she’d been looking for. When she went home to Missoula, she would find a church like this one.
Or maybe she would never leave Jasper Gulch. The thought took her by surprise. It was a silly idea, one that came out of nowhere and made no sense. She couldn’t stay here. She didn’t have a job, probably couldn’t find a job and she didn’t have family in the area. What would she do in Jasper Gulch?
“Katie, there you are.” Julie appeared in front of her and Katie managed a smile, shaking free from random thoughts of moving, leaving behind the life she had in Missoula.
“Here I am,” she responded with a smile.
“We’re all going to town for lunch. Do you want to join us?”
Katie looked around, searching for Cord. He’d walked off and was a short distance away, Marci next to him. The older woman he was speaking to had to be Marci’s grandmother. As the two adults talked, Marci shifted from foot to foot. The girl turned, caught Katie’s gaze on her and smiled. Katie returned the gesture but then focused on Julie’s question about lunch. Cord had moved on with his own plans. She could move on with hers. Not that she really had plans.
“Lunch would be good,” she told Julie. “Where will we go?”
