Page 46 of Bailey

Boston looked down the hall toward the ornate double doors that he would open and secure in place, and that the entire bridal party would then walk through. A hand came down on his shoulder when he still didn’t take a step forward, and Bryce said, “Do you need a minute?”

Boston shook his head. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”

“It’s always hard to take the first step,” Harry said.

He turned back to his groomsmen, searching these good men’s faces for answers to questions he didn’t even know he had.

“We’ll take it together,” Adam said.

Cash bunched up near them as well. “It’s just walking,” he said. “I used to tell myself that when it was time for one of my events. I’d say, ‘It’s just breathing, Cash. You just have to keep breathing. You’ve been doing it your whole life.’”

“It’s just breathing,” Boston said, meeting his best friend’s eyes.

“It’s just breathing,” all of his groomsman repeated back to him.

And so Boston took a big breath, turned around to face the ballroom at the end of the hall, and took that first step.

CHAPTER

TWENTY

Bryce Young didn’t know where to look first once he stepped foot inside the hall. The floor seemed to be made of gold stone, and though Joey and Adam had been married here at Silver Sage, their wedding had been staged outdoors in an amphitheater.

Huge, cathedral-like windows let in light along both sides of the hall, and row upon row of light oak wood chairs calmed down the opulence of the space. Sagebrush and ivory lilies accented the ends of the aisles and brought a cozy feel to the large space.

In front of him, the entire back wall opened up to reveal the barely leafing aspens, as well as the most gorgeous picture of the Teton Mountains Bryce had ever seen. His breath caught in his throat as his emotion surged up. He wanted the same happiness for every single one of his cousins that he’d managed to find with Codi.

Boston hadn’t wanted to walk down the aisle by himself, but in the end, he did, as Bryce had been given strict instructions to let him go all the way to the altar before he took the first step after him. Boston reached a mighty stone pillar at the edge of the hall and continued outside, and Bryce realized he’d have to walk this with everyone staring at him too. He didn’t particularly like the spotlight, but he’d lived in it enough to know exactly how to smile.

He reached up and adjusted his cowboy hat. While Boston wore his fringed brown leather jacket with a matching cowboy hat, boots, and a lighter pair of brown pants and belt, the groomsmen all wore dark brown suits with darker brown hats, boots, and belts. Once Bryce was reassured that his cowboy hat sat in the right place, he checked the button on his jacket, though he’d secured it back in the groom’s room, and he stepped down the aisle right on cue.

Harry was supposed to wait for him to take four steps before he joined him, so Bryce truly wouldn’t be alone for long.

He moved past Ames and Sophia Hammond and their young adult kids, and Cy and Patsy Hammond and theirs. He smiled his country-musician smile to Todd Christopherson and his country-music-famous wife, Violet. She stood with her sisters Lily, who was married to Beau Whittaker, and Rose, who’d married a cowboy doctor named Liam. They had their children with them, along with any of their significant others.

He nodded to Colton and Annie Hammond, who’d been fixtures at the Whiskey Mountain Lodge, where Bryce had been plenty of times to visit Bailey when they’d been dating. He knew Cecilia Zuckerman, who’d married a cowboy named Zach, and they lived up in Dog Valley now. She didn’t work at the lodge anymore, but once had.

Stockton Whittaker stood on the end of the aisle, and he reached out his fist for Bryce to bump, and he did, his own grin only widening. He passed townspeople he didn’t know, and then Eli and Meg Whittaker, and Andrew and Becca Whittaker, and then he caught sight of Bailey standing there with her next-door neighbor, Reeves.

Surprise shot through him that she’d actually brought him to the wedding. Not only that, but her mother and father stood on the end of her row, and Bryce paused to clap Graham on the back and delicately lean in and sweep a kiss across Laney’s cheek, then he quickly got moving again as he heard Harry’s huff of displeasure behind him.

Bryce didn’t mind it all, because he was used to dealing with Harry’s surlier attitude, and he didn’t mind taking time to talk to people the way Harry did. But now he moved into Young territory, where he passed aunt after aunt, and uncle after uncle, all of them sitting on the end to keep their kids contained further down the row. His beautiful wife stood next to Kassie and Reggie, and she held Matthew on her hip.

“Daddy,” Matthew said right out loud when he saw Bryce.

Bryce chuckled and reached out to sweep his hand through his son’s hair. Codi whispered something to him as Bryce continued down the aisle and outside under the glorious Wyoming sky. He hugged Boston, slapping him heartily on the back and barely moving out of the way before Harry arrived to do the same.

“Good call, having him go first,” Harry said. “I swear, he stopped to talk to everyone.”

“I didn’t actually say anything to anyone.” Bryce grinned at him and moved out of the way. He took his spot on the front corner of the altar, Harry moving into position beside him. As the others continued down the aisle—Cora’s sister, her friend and coworker, and then Lark, whose wedding would be the third Young wedding of the year—Bryce prayed he and Codi would be able to attend that wedding later this summer, because his wife was due with their second child only three days after it.

She hadn’t gone into labor early with Matthew, but this would be their second baby, and they’d both heard that second babies could come earlier and faster than firsts. Bryce put it out of his head for now, because it was still three months away, and he’d learned not to stress over things he couldn’t control.

When everyone had walked down the aisle, Bryce’s eyes once again caught on Bailey’s out in the crowd. It did his heart so much good to see her back in town, and she leaned into Reeves and whispered something to him that caused him to lean his head down and duck toward her.

Bryce narrowed his eyes, because when they’d gone to help clean up Reeves’s property, Bailey had not told him the two of them were dating, nor that Reeves was her boyfriend. But the way they looked at each other now…Bryce got the distinct feeling that things had changed a lot since then.

A tiny part of him loved Bailey endlessly, in the most platonic way possible, and he wanted nothing but for her to be happy. She sure seemed like she was, and as the music switched to the bridal march and Cora filled the double doorway with her grandfather on her arm, Bryce told himself that he would find Bailey during the dancing later and ask her a few questions about Reeves. With that settled, he could finally focus on the wedding at hand.