Brenda Minton - The Rancher's Christmas Bride

“Need a lift?” he asked, hoping they could get back in the dry warmth of his truck soon.

Better yet, she could tell him she had a ride already on the way to pick her up. But a bride without a groom? That didn’t exactly spell wedding bells and happily-ever-after.

“I’m fine.” She said it with her chin raised a notch, even as the rain picked up pace. He was losing objectivity because that little lift of her chin showed some pride and big eyes that rivaled the stormy sky.

“Ri-i-i-ght.” He said it slowly. Did he point out to her that she was miles from anywhere, wearing a wedding dress and standing in the rain?

“You can go on. I know where I’m going.”

He looked around, at the open fields, pastures full of cattle and nothing else. He glanced back at her and grinned, because they both knew she was bluffing.

“I know we’re taught from the time we’re little not to get in the car with a stranger. But I think even your mama would want you to get in out of the rain.”

Hands up so she could see them, he took a step toward her.

She reached for the bag slung over her shoulder. “Don’t come any closer. I’m armed.”

He glanced at the bag and the object pointing through the thin cotton. “With a high-heeled shoe?”

“I’m warning you.” She issued the command with a startling amount of conviction as rain poured down from the steel-gray sky. She was a tiny thing with a pixie face and a massive amount of brown hair piled on top of her head.

Rain dripped down her face and she swiped it away with her shoulder. That chivalrous side of him kicked into gear. He jerked off his jean jacket and held it out to her. She eyed it the way a stray kitten eyed a bowl of milk, but didn’t take it.

“Well, I’m not really worried you’ll shoot me with a shoe.” He grinned as he said it, hoping to put her at ease. “But I do think we’re both in trouble if we don’t get out of this rain. I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to get you off the road.”

The rain picked up and he saw her shiver. Her feet were bare. So were her arms. She took another swipe at the water dripping down her face. She eyed the jacket and his truck.

“Listen, we could stand here all night or I can just literally pick you up and put you in my truck.” He did not want to do that. She looked like the kind of female that once a man had her in his arms, he’d want to hold her forever.

He didn’t do forever.

For a full minute she stood there facing him, then she nodded, giving in. He hurried ahead of her to open the passenger door of the truck. As she struggled to get her skirts under control, he took her hand and helped her in.

That hand was like a frail bird’s, cold and fine-boned. He held it gently, afraid he’d hurt her.

“Are we on the way to the church? Or do you have somewhere else you’d like me to take you?” he asked as he climbed behind the wheel of his truck.

Huddled in the seat, her teeth chattered. He turned up the heat.

“Do you know Dan Wilson?” she asked, hugging herself for warmth.

“Yeah, I know Dan.”

“Could you take me to his house?”

He tried again to give her his jacket. This time she took it, sniffing at the collar before settling it over her bare arms.

“It’s clean,” he said, a little defensively.

“I know, I just...” She shrugged a bit and looked sheepish. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. If you could take me to Dan’s...”

“I can, but do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “No, I guess not.”

“Dan isn’t the most pleasant guy in the world. He’s been sick and that’s made him extra cranky.”

“I’m his granddaughter.”

He had pulled onto the road so he shot her a quick look. “Seriously? I mean, not that you can’t be. But I didn’t know Dan even had a granddaughter.”

“He hasn’t seen my mom since she was a little girl. I tried to get him to come to the wedding...” She let the words trail off as her gaze slid to the window. A delicate finger brushed across her cheek.

Tears. He’d never been good with tears. He had two sisters and fortunately neither of them was the type to cry. The Palermo siblings had learned the hard way that tears didn’t help. In fact, sometimes tears made it worse.

His dad hadn’t invented the warning “Do you want me to give you something to cry about?” but he’d definitely put action to the words. He’d put the words into action the night he’d locked Lucy in the tack room of their barn. He had put the words into action the night he’d punched Marcus in the throat. They’d all learned not to cry and they’d learned not to tell.

But that had nothing to do with now and the lady sitting beside him wanting a ride to Dan’s.

“None of my business, but does Dan know you’re coming? I don’t think he’d take kindly to a surprise family reunion.”

From the look on her face, a grim mixture of worry and sadness, she wasn’t amused by his poor attempt at humor. Some things just weren’t that funny. And a bride that was walking down a back road, still in her wedding dress, pretending a shoe was a weapon? He guessed she’d had a pretty rough day.

The road was bumpy, but as they bounced along he managed to open the glove compartment and pull out a box of tissues.

“I’m not going to cry,” she insisted. But a few tears trickled down her cheeks.

“I guess I don’t have a right to ask what happened. But if you need to talk, I’m all ears.” He glanced in the mirror. “Seriously, have you ever seen ears this big?”

She glanced at him and burst into watery laughter, shaking her head as she surveyed his ears.

“They aren’t that big,” she countered. At least he’d made her laugh. He’d always been good for a laugh. And not much more.

“He picked the caterer,” she said quietly into the darkened interior of the truck. Her voice was soft, kind of sweet.

The windshield wipers clicked as they swept back and forth, and Chris LeDoux was singing “Cadillac Ranch.” Alex cleared his throat and shot her another quick look.

“Who picked the caterer? You mean you let him decide what to feed the guests and you’re upset about that? I think you’d need a bigger reason to walk out on a wedding.”

She shook her head vehemently. “No, he picked the caterer.”

He pulled to the side of the road because he couldn’t focus on the road and a conversation that seemed important. She fingered the sleeve of the jean jacket and her gaze slid to the window.

“He picked the caterer,” she said with meaning. “Not the chicken or the beef—the caterer. He picked her. Over me.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, closed her eyes and breathed. The tears disappeared but they’d left streaks down her cheeks. They’d left marks, the way this wedding would leave marks, he knew with certainty.

Another reason he was single and planned to stay that way. People had a tendency to hurt one another. His dad had hurt everyone in his path. His mom had walked out on her own children.

He shifted and pulled back onto the road, trying to find the right thing to say. A few minutes later he drove into Dan Wilson’s driveway.

“I’m sorry,” he told her, knowing his apology wasn’t the one that mattered. She’d been left at the altar by the man she had planned to spend her life with. He could tell her hard lessons about being let down by people who should have cared, but she didn’t need to hear it from him.

He’d let down people, too. He’d let down his siblings. He’d let down his best friend. He guessed he’d let down himself a few times, too. That made him the last person who could really help the woman sitting next to him in the dim light of his truck. He reached to turn down the radio and told himself it didn’t mean a thing. This moment would pass, like so many moments in his life. For these few minutes, though, maybe he could be her hero, the person she could count on.