Every Friday night you can find them at Grey’s, playing pool and shooting the shit.” Troy’s lips curved. “Dillon practically lives at Grey’s on the weekends.”

“He’s not driving back to the ranch drunk, is he?”

“Usually he finds a warm bed in town, along with an even warmer woman.”

“Our Dillon is a player.”

“He’s certainly enjoying being a bachelor.”

“No little Sheenans on the way?”

“None that I’ve heard about.” Troy leaned forward, turned up the music and then halfway through the Martina McBride Christmas song turned it back down. “There’s something else I’ve got to tell you.”

Trey glanced warily at his brother. “Brock got cancer?”

“Um, no. Thank God.” He sighed. “But it’s not going to make you happy.”

Trey stiffened. “No?”

“It’s McKenna.”

Trey held his breath.

“I didn’t know how to tell you, or when to tell you, but seeing as you’re out today, now, you’re going to need to know.” Troy’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “McKenna is getting married tomorrow.”

They drove another mile in deafening silence, snow pelting the car and windshield. Trey stared out the window blindly, seeing nothing of the Tobacco Root Mountains and Three Forks before them. Instead he fought wave after wave of nausea. McKenna getting married….McKenna marrying tomorrow…

Unthinkable. Impossible.

His stomach rolled and heaved. He gave his head a sharp shake. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t lose her now, not after waiting four years to make things right.

“Hey, Troy. Pull over.” Trey’s deep voice dropped, cracked. “I’m going to be sick.”

Chapter Two

‡‡

These weren’t butterflies McKenna was feeling. They were giant wildebeests swarming with flies. So no, she wasn’t nervous. She was terrified.

Not terrified of marrying Lawrence, but terrified that if she didn’t marry him, the rest of her life would be just as hard as it’d been the first thirty-three years.

She was ready to lose the Douglas off her name. Ready to no longer be that tragic McKenna Douglas who’d lost five of her immediate family members as a not-quite-fourteen year old in the Douglas Home Invasion Tragedy nineteen years ago. People spoke of it like that, in newspaper headlines.

She was ready to stop being the brave girl folks hovered over, worrying about, petting, protecting to the point that McKenna couldn’t show fear or anxiety or everyone would hover more and worry more and suffocate her with the worrying that changed nothing, and the hovering that made it impossible to breathe. The only one who never hovered and worried was Trey and she’d loved him for it.

And hated him.

But that was neither here nor there. He was the past and today she was stepping into a bright new future as Mrs. McKenna Joplin, Lawrence Joplin’s wife.

She was more than ready to relinquish the title of ‘devoted single mom’. Of course she was devoted, she was a mother. And yes, like all moms, she tried to be a great mom, but she was ready for a partnership, ready for a daddy for her boy, and a warm, kind loving husband to help carry the burden…emotionally, physically, financially.

Lawrence would be a great partner, friend, and father for TJ, and just minutes from now she’d be walking down the aisle, joining Lawrence at the altar. But my God, the butterflies…

The wildebeests…

They were bad. She was shaking. She was this close to throwing up.

From joy, not nerves.

And okay, maybe a little bit of nerves and exhaustion thrown in there, too, as TJ had spent the last week sick with a virulent flu and she’d been up with him, night after night, fussing over his temperature, holding him as he heaved into the toilet, measuring out thimblefuls of fever reducer and pain killer since his five year old body ached and ached so that her normally busy and bright boy was a whimpering tangle of arms and legs against her.

She loved that boy to distraction.