Holding Out for Christmas (The Christmas Tree Ranch #3)(70)
The weather was perfect for a parade, the sky crystalline blue, the warm sun taking the edge off the chill. The sleigh’s steel runners glided on the packed snow that covered the street. Brass bells jingled on the horses. Christmas lights twinkled overhead. Marching bands from three different high schools played Christmas songs that clashed and blended in a festive cacophony.
Behind Conner in the sleigh, Hank Miller, Travis’s father, made a magnificent Santa, waving, laughing, and tossing wrapped candies to the kids on the sidewalk.
“Conner! Conner!” A familiar voice caught his attention. Glancing to the near side of the street, he saw Daniel with one arm around Katy. He was grinning and waving. Conner waved back. Megan wasn’t with them. Somehow he’d known she wouldn’t be.
What if she’d gone—quit the band and driven back to Nashville? But he couldn’t think about that now. He only knew that if she showed up at the ball tonight, he would be taking the biggest chance of his life. For a man who’d climbed on bucking bulls, that was saying a lot.
*
The Cowboy Christmas Ball wouldn’t officially start till 7:00; however, the doors of the high-school gym opened at 6:30 for people delivering food, arranging the chairs, and setting up the ticket table at the entrance.
Megan, in full Lacy regalia, had arrived an hour earlier to practice with the Badger Hollow Boys and help them set up on the makeshift stage. At the first sign of people coming in, she retreated to the classroom that had been set aside for the band’s use. There she sipped a Diet Coke, leafed through the magazine she’d brought, and waited nervously for the call to go on.
She hadn’t practiced her new song with the band. If she sang it at all, it would be a solo, with no accompaniment except her own guitar. But she wasn’t sure she would sing it. Playing the song at home, she’d realized how personal it was, and how deeply her love for Conner was woven into it. Singing those lyrics before a crowd, especially with Conner there, could turn out to be more than she could handle.
By now, it was after 7:00. Through the closed door, she could hear people arriving and the muted sound of recorded Christmas music over the school PA. They’d be eating first, while the food was hot. Then, about 7:30, the band would start up, and the entertainment would begin, followed by dancing until 11:00, or until the last dancers called it a night and went home.
The music over the PA had stopped. The silence was puzzling. It was too early for the band—wasn’t it? Megan was taking deep breaths, doing her best to stay loose and focused, when Tucker opened the door. “Hey, Megan, you’re missing the excitement,” he said. “Come on out. You can watch from behind the stage. Nobody will see you.”
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“You’ll see. Come on.”
She took off her Stetson and flung a coat over her distinctive leather jacket before venturing out of the room to follow her friend. From behind the raised platform of the stage, she could look into the gym, where something unusual appeared to be happening.
No one was in line to eat. A white cloth covered the food on the long buffet table. Chairs had been taken from their places around the open dance floor and the dining tables. They’d been arranged in two sets of rows, like pews in a church, with an aisle down the center, leading to the tall, glittering Christmas tree at the end. People were settling in their seats, silent now, as if in anticipation.
And suddenly Megan realized why. Something wonderful was about to happen.
A lump rose in her throat as Tracy, looking like an angel in her delicate lavender gown, took her place, standing with her back to the Christmas tree. Two men in cowboy dress came in from the side to stand together, a little in front of her. Travis, still scarred and battered, looked nervous but happy. Beside him, supporting his friend, stood Conner.
The emotion that surged in Megan was so powerful that it brought tears to her eyes. This was what it was all about—the closeness, the enduring friendship that bound these people together. And she had cut herself off from that friendship because of a perceived slight.
So Conner had known she was Lacy and hadn’t told her. What did it matter? What did any of her feelings about Lacy matter? She had made a rival out of a woman who wasn’t even real—a woman who was her.
She could have been out front, sharing this beautiful moment with Conner and their friends. Instead, here she was, cowering like a fool behind the stage, afraid of being seen.
Tracy took a step forward. “All please rise,” she said in a clear voice.
Everyone stood as the piano, which had been moved into the gym, began the first notes of the “Wedding March.” People swiveled their gazes toward the back of the room, straining to see.
First to come down the aisle was Clara, adorable in a long red velvet Christmas dress. Reaching into her silver basket, she scattered rose petals over the floor. A beaming Rush watched her from his place next to the aisle. She looked up and gave him a little grin, as if to say, Don’t worry, Daddy. I’ve got this.
A collective aah rose from the crowd as Maggie appeared. Gliding strong and unescorted down the aisle, she moved like an elegant white swan. Her cream satin gown was simple but beautifully cut, with a raised collar that framed her radiant face. Her veil, pinned to the knot of her auburn hair, floated around her like mist.
The expression on Travis’s face was worth a million dollars.
When Maggie and Travis faced each other to make their vows, Megan had to wipe away the tears that were smearing her stage makeup. They’d been through so much, those two—the long wait until Maggie finished her term as mayor, the ups and downs of the ranch, then Travis’s accident and the loss of the church. But nothing could have kept them from this moment, when their vows and rings would make them one in the eyes of the world.