the driver’s seat following the sermon, and he hoped he didn’t choke today. After all, the wedding would be a lot longer than a Sabbath-day sermon.
“Matthew,” a man said, and Matt turned toward the pastor himself.
“Hello, Pastor Benson.” Matt stood up again, a smile dancing across his face. “Is she ready?”
“She seems to be.” Pastor Benson shook his hand, his smile warm and his eyes filled with kindness. “She’s actually asked me to find you. She wants you to come to the bride’s room for a minute.”
“Really?” Matt glanced around as if someone would tell him the pastor was lying.
“Do you see Gloria?” Pastor Benson asked. “She’s supposed to go back too.”
“I haven’t seen her.” Matt turned to survey the rows and rows of chairs, which had started to fill since he’d arrived. Jessa flitted from this item to that one, and the noise inside the dome increased as more and more people streamed through the doors in the back.
Matt swallowed at the sheer size of this place. It must hold five hundred people, and he suddenly very much wanted to escape.
“There she is,” he said, a measure of relief filling him when he spotted Gloria’s soft, wavy hair and freckled face. “I’ll grab her, and we’ll go back.”
“Thank you,” Pastor Benson said. “I need to get set up at the altar.” He smiled and walked that way. Matt had listened to Molly detail how her father would walk her down the aisle first, then perform the ceremony. He supposed Pastor Benson did need to get some things organized before he went to join the wedding party.
Matt paused next to Elise and said, “Molly asked for me and Gloria to come back for a minute. Are you okay with the kids?” He looked at Keith, who nodded.
“We’re fine, Dad.”
“They’re fine,” Elise assured him.
He nodded at her, his gratitude for the woman reaching new heights. When she’d first come to Ivory Peaks, Matt had wondered what Gray Hammond had been thinking. She wasn’t a city slicker, but she didn’t understand farm life. Elise had learned, one day at a time, and she’d been fearless.
Matt admired that, and as he walked toward Gloria, he couldn’t help admiring her too. Physically, she was downright gorgeous, with strong arms and shoulders that still looked feminine. Today, she wore a bright blue dress that hugged her curves and fell to her knee, along with a pair of black heels that put her closer to Matt’s height. Maybe only a couple of inches shorter, in fact.
Since she’d arrived in Ivory Peaks, he hadn’t been in a place to do much more than work with Gloria on the farm. They’d talked about their lives back in Montana, as she’d been born and raised in the nearby small town. They’d even dated for a while in Sugar Pond, and looking at her now, Matt wondered if he could have a second chance with the woman.
His heart boomed in a weird way, something it hadn’t done in a long, long time. He nearly tripped over his own feet as he tried to figure out what was different now that hadn’t been yesterday.
Maybe you’re ready, he thought. He’d come to Ivory Peaks only a few months after his divorce, and he hadn’t been thinking about getting a new girlfriend or wife.
Maybe now you are.
“Gloria,” he said, his voice actually breaking as if he were the fifteen-year-old talking to the girl he had a crush on.
She turned from one of Hunter’s aunts and looked at him. Her eyes slid right down to his polished and pristine cowboy boots and back to his face. Something glinted there, and Matt cocked his head.
“You look nice,” she said, and for Gloria that was a huge compliment. She was task-oriented, always greeting him with something more like, “We have eight stalls to shovel this morning, and then I’m going to need your help with moving that stubborn bull out to the second pasture.”
Matt was sure she’d never complimented him before. “Thank you,” he managed to say, though he reached for his tie to adjust it. “You look amazing, as always.” He glanced at Bree, who smiled at him. “Uh, Pastor Benson said Molly wanted to see us for a moment.”
Gloria’s eyebrows went up. “Oh. Okay.”
For some reason, he offered her his arm, and for a reason wildly unbeknownst to him, she took it. Warmth spread through him, and his pulse increased until he could feel it fluttering in the vein in his neck. “I’m not