Gin Fling (Bootleg Springs, #5)(93)

Love was a physical presence here.

I’d been to weddings before. I’d watched brides and grooms share their vows over the murmured complaints of guests who didn’t really want to spend their day celebrating. But today was different. Every single person in attendance was here because they loved Bowie and Cassidy and wanted to be here. To celebrate with them. To shed tears with them. To be there on the most special day of their lives.

The music changed, and I chanced a glance at my brother. Bowie’s eyes were squeezed closed.

Cassidy appeared on the arm of Sheriff Tucker, a vision in blush and lace. She floated rather than walked to the head of the aisle. And when she arrived, when she paused to take in the moment, Bowie opened his eyes.

The moment was so powerful, so moving, I heard an intake of breath rise up from the chairs. Followed immediately by sniffles. Mayor Hornsbladt blew his nose noisily into a handkerchief.

When Bowie bent at the waist to catch his breath, I found Shelby again in the audience. Beaming through tears. I remembered back to when I thought maybe there was a possibility that I could see myself as the faceless groom in Rene’s Pinterest vision.

This was different. This was real.

I wasn’t some guy trying to fit himself into someone else’s ideal. I was a man in love with a woman. And I wanted what Bowie and Cassidy had. What Scarlett and Devlin found. What Leah Mae and Jameson discovered. What George and June built.

And I wanted it all with Shelby.

Sheriff Tucker nudged his daughter forward, and they started down the aisle. Bowie was so excited he met them at the front row. The sheriff, with glistening eyes, let go of his daughter long enough to hug Bowie hard.

“Proud of you, son,” he whispered.

They were words we all needed so desperately to hear.

Jameson cleared his throat next to me. Gibs was swiping at the corner of his eye with his jacket sleeve.

I looked for Shelby again. She was watching me.

I love you, she mouthed.





52





Shelby





The wedding was picture perfect. There wasn’t a dry eye in the backyard when Cassidy and Bowie pledged their love to each other, and it wasn’t just because the caterer had opened the bar early.

No, Bootleg Springs was as enamored with the happy couple as they were with each other. After the vows were spoken, the toasts made, and dinner served, I finally got a slow dance with Jonah.

“You look beautiful, Shelby,” he told me as we swayed under strings of lights. I was barefoot in the grass in the arms of the man I loved under a starry summer sky.

“You look pretty great yourself,” I said, plucking at his collar. He’d removed the tie, shed the jacket, and rolled up his sleeves after the pictures were taken. And looked even more delicious now with his suspenders showing than he had in the suit jacket.

“How you feeling?” he asked, swaying us in a slow tick-tock that made it feel like time was standing still.

“I feel… magical,” I decided. That was the perfect word for what I felt.

“You’re not too sore?” he pressed, pausing to dip me backward in a slow-motion arc. The lights and stars above us blurred in happy confusion.

I grinned as he pulled me back to standing, his arms banding around me. “I will be tomorrow and the next day and the next day.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Jonah said, leaning in to rest his lips on the top of my head. I was really glad I’d taken a second pass with the shampoo in the shower.

“I’m pretty proud of me, too.”

“How did your parents take the ‘hiding a diagnosis from them’ news?” he asked.

I glanced over to where my parents were feeding each other cake. “Better than I expected. Though they still got in a parting guilt trip.”

I wanted to tell him about the sketch. About what it meant. But the moment was so perfect. I selfishly held on to it.

“Speaking of parents,” I said, nodding over Jonah’s shoulder.

He turned us and spotted his mother dancing with Bowie.

“Everybody needs a mom,” I whispered.

Jenny was laughing as Bowie spun her away from him. And then Gibson captured her other hand and took over the dance.

“This is what she always wanted,” Jonah confessed. “A big, complicated family.”

“It doesn’t get much bigger or more complicated than the Bodines,” I teased.

“Uh, excuse me you two.” Jimmy Bob Prosser looked like his necktie was choking him. He was a big man with broad shoulders and work-roughened hands.

He was also sweating profusely.

“Hi, Jimmy Bob,” Jonah said amiably, and I loved him just a little more for it.

“Hi,” Jimmy Bob said. His Adam’s apple worked in his throat. “I just wanted to, uh, tell you, well, reassure you that…” He got that look that people got when the words they wanted to say up and evaporated right out of their head.

“Jimmy Bob, would you like a glass of water?” I offered.

“Oh, no thank you, Shelby. I’m just trying to work up the nerve to tell Jonah here how much I like his mama and how I have nothing but honorable intentions toward her,” he croaked.

Love was in the air.

“That’s good to hear, Jimmy Bob,” Jonah said, giving the man a pat on the shoulder.