seconds, her voice so low that it was almost imperceptible. “If you’ll be patient.”
He smiled. “I’m always patient.”
She smiled back. What had started as a businesslike proposition was taking on a different form altogether. She was afraid and excited and hopeful and full of wonder.
Jake saw that in her eyes and felt optimistic about the future.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE CHURCH WAS full of flowers of every description, and Jake had ordered a bouquet of orchids for Ida’s wedding bouquet.
He’d gone to the church with Ren Colter, his best man, and Maude was to bring Ida with her. Ida had worried about having someone to give her away, and she was sad that her father had died so many years ago, that he and her mother wouldn’t see her wed. But maybe they were watching from some distant, happy place where they were together.
“You don’t have anyone to give you away, do you?” Maude asked as they reached the church.
“No,” Ida said softly, straightening her veil in the lit mirror in the ranch car. She smiled at her companion. “But it’s okay. I just wish my parents were here.”
“They know,” Maude said comfortingly.
Ida smiled. “That’s what I think, too.”
* * *
THEY STOOD AT the doorway. Ida signaled to the minister. The organist began to play the “Wedding March” and all eyes turned toward the lovely bride, in her elegant white gown, as she walked slowly down the aisle with Cindy and Maude already having taken their place at the altar, with tall, handsome Ren Colter.
Just as she reached Jake, he turned and looked down at her. His expression was impossible to read. He looked surprised, delighted, absolutely without words. He caught his breath and reached down to link his fingers with hers.
The minister smiled at them and began to read the words of the wedding ceremony. Ida had hardly listened to them before. She’d been very nervous and excited when she married Charles, and painfully in love when she married Bailey. She hadn’t heard what the minister said. But this time she heard every word. When he reached the part about “in sickness and in health,” she was remembering how kind Jake had been when she was hurting from her injury, when her horses had been beaten, when her cat had almost died. She looked up at him and loved him so much, so deeply, that she could hardly contain it. But he only thought of her as a friend.
The pain of knowing that drained the blood from her face. Fortunately, with her veil in place, it didn’t show. But her fingers, so closely linked in Jake’s, were unsteady and suddenly cold. His contracted, as if in comfort.
Jake fumbled in his pocket for the wedding bands they’d chosen and let out a faint, almost inaudible sigh when he found them. He slid hers gently into place and then waited while she slid its counterpart, silently pressed into her palm, onto his finger.
The minister pronounced them man and wife, a poignant and mystifying thing that made her heart race with joy. Jake turned to her and slowly lifted the veil away from her beautiful face. He’d never seen her look so lovely. He just stared at her for a few seconds, his eyes full of delight, before he bent his head and kissed her with a tenderness that made her shiver with pleasure. He lifted his head quickly, because he felt the shiver, and he frowned. But she was smiling with her whole heart in her eyes and he relaxed. He smiled, too.
They walked down the aisle to congratulations and, outside the church, confetti that covered them lightly as they made their way to the fellowship hall right next door. The crowd followed them.
Jake chuckled as he and Ida brushed each other off at the door.
“Sorry,” Maude and Cindy murmured together as they joined them. “We couldn’t resist it.”
“Not a problem, and the rain will melt the paper and not cause an environmental disaster,” Sheriff Cody Banks drawled. “I crashed the wedding,” he teased.
They both turned and burst out laughing. “Nobody minds,” Jake assured him.
“Absolutely nobody,” Ida agreed.
He shook hands with both of them, to Ida’s relief, because she was nervous even of nice men. She’d wanted Jake to kiss her—but no other man.
They ate cake and shared punch and socialized with all the people who came to share the special day with them. Only a few had been invited, but it was as if half of Catelow showed up at the wedding.
“I’m so