Page 44 of She Autumn Be Mine

“You made it.” He winked at me when I arrived. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Mama,” Stetson added. The solid gold rings clinked against his little hat brim. I took his other hand, and we three faced the altar together. He didn’t last long, though, roaming between the altar and Dot in the first row, and he at least kept the crowd entertained. Maybe they wouldn’t notice how nerves got the better of me.

One chair in the front row sat empty, Trig’s old cowboy hat resting on the seat. Ivy’s doing, because I’d asked. My eyes stung looking at it. He should have been here. So I made him a promise instead: next visit, I’d describe every single minute of this day until the guard dragged me out.

Before I knew it we were repeating traditional vows after the sheriff said them.

Jake took it a step further. “Sheriff, hold on. I know we agreed not to, but I have three more to say.” He pulled out a slip of paper he’d written on in black ink. “Autumn, what I have is yours. I’ll always try to fix whatever is broken. And if things get difficult, I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.” He chuckled and everyone joined in. Then he reached up and caressed my cheek. “I think I knew the moment I met you that you ought to be mine.”

“I am yours,” I whispered for his ears only.

To think that once, I’d imagined a different wedding, to Brantley, and my stomach used to tie in knots just thinking about it—even back when I thought that feeling was love. Standing here holding Jake’s steady hands, there was no knot. No small voice telling me to check the exits. Just peace coming over me.

Oh. So this was how love was supposed to feel.

“Now the rings,” the sheriff said.

Jake chased my giggling boy up the aisle and wrestled the hat off his head with the rings attached. We exchanged those, and Dot broke first, audibly. Then Nanette. Then—by the sound of it—Cash.

“As witnessed by every soul on this ranch,” Gavin finished strong. “You are husband and wife. Mr. and Mrs. Jacob McCall. You may kiss your bride, Jake.”

My pulse thundered. Half the county held up phones. Our first kiss was about to happen in front of everyone, exactly the way I’d insisted, and why in God’s name hadn’t I taken Jake up on the practicing?

“Ready, Mrs. McCall?” Jake leaned in.

He lifted the black Stetson off his head and held it up beside our faces, providing a wall of good felt between us and every watching eye in Forest Grove. Even Gavin stepped aside, granting us the only privacy we’d probably get all day.

"Don't worry, pumpkin. I got you,” he whispered with a wink. "You kiss me when you're ready." He licked his lips, and waited for me to catch up.

This man. Always going the extra mile.

I stood on my toes and did the thing I’d been dying to do at last. I grabbed a fistful of his crisp white shirt, right over his heart, and pulled him down to me.

Oh. Yes. His lips warmed on mine, and his free hand came up to cradle my face like the answer to a question I’d been asking my whole life. The kiss that I’d intended as a peck lingered longer, and deepened, and lingered some more. I almost forgot where we were, except beyond the hat brim the whole ranch whooped and hollered and somebody, probably Cash, howled like a coyote.

It was everything I would have imagined our first kiss to be, months in the making. We earned every second of it.

When we finally broke, Jake looked half-wrecked, my lipstick faintly stained on his mouth. He said, hoarse, for my ears only: “Worth the wait, Mrs. McCall.”

He had no idea. Or—judging by the smolder as he set the hat back on his head—he had every idea.

They played our first dance before I’d recovered, which in hindsight was a mercy—no time to rebuild a single wall before he had me in his arms. Under those string lights, the man who claimed he got twisted around words with women, did not get twisted around me. In my ear, as he floated me around the dance floor, he told me every hope and wish for us, every desire he had, too.

Nobody had ever planned a future with me in it before. Around me, sure. Despite me, plenty. But Jake talked like a man with ideas of where we were already going—the cabin, the seasons, a porch swing he wanted to build, Stetson as tall as his shoulder someday. Somewhere in the middle of it I realized I was crying on his jacket. I didn’t stop. He didn’t ask me to.

For another song, Jamie handed our son to us. We stood him at our feet and the kid had moves, bouncing in place.

The whole crowd clapped along, and for the first time I let myself believe what they were seeing. The three of us together, we were a family. Built from a promise to a brother, a babysitting arrangement, and one stubborn cowboy’s heart.

Then came the forks. It started at the dessert table—one fork tapping a cup. Then ten. Then every fork on the ranch, plastic on plastic, a sound like rain on a roof.

“They want us to kiss.” He looked down at me, light moving in his eyes, a slow crooked smile arriving. “Better get comfortable with it, Mrs. McCall. This is liable to happen all night.”

By the fourth fork ambush I’d quit blushing. I wanted more and more of his lips and almost tapped my own cup, straight-faced, over a plate of Dot’s spice cake.

Pumpkin patch photographer Rayna reigned over our wedding. The camera found Stetson probably every third frame. The garter toss happened, which Cash caught one-handed without spilling his drink. He surveyed the assembled single women of Forest Grove, and set a heated gaze on Nanette. But it was Jamie who caught the bouquet, which she quickly self-corrected and dumped into Nanette’s hands.

Jake and I made the rounds greeting everyone, with hardly a moment to ourselves. Somewhere through the festivities, we grabbed a drink and caught Knox at the bar, telling a couple of the guys about his brother.