Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,144

and indicated the front door. Standing there, grinning also, were John, Bess, Jenny, Mrs. Charters, and Miss Parsons.

* * *

The wedding was the social event of Medicine Ridge for the summer. Kasie wore a beautiful white gown with lace and a keyhole neckline, with a Juliet cap and a long veil. She looked, Gil whispered as she joined him at the altar, like an angel.

Her excited eyes approved his neat gray vested suit, which made his hair look even more blond. At either side of them were Bess and Jenny in matching blue dresses, carrying baskets of white roses. Next to them was John, his brother’s best man, fumbling in his pocket for the wedding rings he was responsible for.

As the ceremony progressed, a tall, blond man in the front pew watched with narrowed, wistful eyes as his godchild married the eldest of the Callister heirs. Not bad, K.C. Kantor thought, for a girl who’d barely survived a military uprising even before she was born. He glanced at the woman seated next to him, his eyes sad and quiet, as he contemplated what might have been if he’d met Kasie’s aunt before her heart led her to a life of service in a religious order. They were the best of friends and they corresponded. She would always be family to him. She was the only family he had, or would ever have, except for that sweet young woman at the altar.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Mama Luke whispered to him.

“A real vision,” he agreed.

She smiled at him with warm affection and turned her attention back to the ceremony.

As the priest pronounced them man and wife, Gil lifted the veil and bent to kiss Kasie. There were sighs all around, until a small hand tugged hard at Kasie’s skirt and a little voice was heard asking plaintively, “Is it over yet, Daddy? I have to go to the bathroom!”

* * *

Later, laughing about the small interruption as they gathered in the fellowship hall of the church, Kasie and Gil each cuddled a little girl and fed them cake.

“It was nice of Pauline to apologize for what she did in the Bahamas,” Kasie murmured, recalling the telephone call that had both surprised and pleased her the day before the ceremony.

“She’s really not that bad,” Gil mused. “Just irresponsible and possessive. But I still didn’t want her at the wedding,” he added with a grin. “Just in case.”

“I still wish you’d invited your parents,” Kasie told Gil gently.

“I did,” he replied. “They were on their way to the Bahamas and couldn’t spare the time.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry the subject, Kasie. Some things can’t be changed. We’re a family, you and me and the girls and John.”

“Yes, we are,” she agreed, and she reached up to kiss him. She glanced around them curiously. Mama Luke intercepted the glance and joined them.

“He left as we were coming in here,” she told Kasie. “K.C. never was one for socializing. I expect he’s headed for the airport by now.”

“It was nice of him to come.”

“It was,” she agreed. She handed a small box to Kasie. “He asked me to give this to you.”

She frowned, pausing to open the box. She drew out a gold necklace with a tiny crystal ball dangling from it. Inside the ball was a tiny seed.

“It’s a mustard seed,” Mama Luke explained. “It’s from a Biblical quote—if you have even that amount of faith, as a mustard seed, nothing is impossible. It’s to remind you that miracles happen.”

Kasie cradled it in her hand and looked up at Gil with her heart in her eyes. “Indeed they do,” she whispered, and all the love she had for her new husband was in her face.

* * *

The next night, Kasie and Gil lay tangled in a king-size bed at a rented villa in Nassau, exhausted and deliciously relaxed from their first intimacy.

Kasie moved shyly against him, her face flushed in the aftermath of more physical sensation than she’d ever experienced.

“Stop that,” he murmured drowsily. “I’m useless now. Go to sleep.”

She laughed with pure delight and curled closer. “All right. But don’t forget where we left off.”

He drew her closer. “As if I could!” He bent and kissed her eyes shut. “Kasie, I never dreamed that I could be this happy again.” His eyes opened and looked into hers with fervent possession. “I loved Darlene. A part of me will always love her. But I would die for you,” he added roughly, his eyes blazing