“Let’s go get married,” Cherry said, smiling at Clarissa with tears in her eyes. She brushed them away and turned toward the door, suddenly very business-like.

  Clarissa needed to pull that page from her sister’s book, because she didn’t want to blubber through her ceremony.

  Today was the first day of the rest of her life, and she wanted to welcome it with a smile.

  Spencer Rust couldn’t believe he’d somehow talked a beautiful, talented redhead into marrying him. Clarissa had never acted for even a moment that she didn’t want to become his wife. Still, his nerves seemed to do somersaults throughout his body, and he couldn’t take a full breath.

  His stomach vibrated, and he shifted his feet, because they felt too close to the altar. He and Clarissa had been working on their venue for the past week, and for as much as he’d prayed that the Texas winter thunderstorms would hold off, Spencer wouldn’t have to utter another prayer for a year.

  And the Good Lord had listened, because not a drop of rain had fallen in Texas yet. He hoped it would drown the state while he was on the cruise with the rest of the Coopers.

  He stood in front of an altar made of straw bales that Clarissa had actually tied together using at least two dozen extra ties. Then she’d started shaping it as if it were a hedge, and she’d made a sculpted altar she’d then directed him and Cherry to put flowers in.

  The straw held them all really well, actually, and she’d put a saddle on the top, which she’d had embossed with an S for him and a C for her. She told him it signified them starting their new life together, both of them along for the same ride, in the same saddle.

  Spencer swallowed as he looked down the aisle, which had chairs lining both sides. Everyone had arrived except for Chrissy, Cherry, and Wayne—and of course, Clarissa.

  In the front row, Lee huffed and looked at his phone, as if he had somewhere else he needed to be. Spencer didn’t see how. After this ceremony, they’d be serving dinner to everyone at the wedding at the pavilion here on the farm.

  Clarissa had wanted a big shindig, and Spencer had learned that Clarissa usually got what Clarissa wanted.

  Spencer was just about to huff too, and then Cherry and Chrissy arrived at the end of the aisle, which started at the doors of another barn. Clarissa had to walk in the evening sunset for about a hundred feet, and Cherry and Chrissy started the journey down the aisle first.

  The guests rose to their feet, and Spencer’s smile stretched across his face as he watched his almost-mother-in-law walk toward him. Chrissy Cooper was one of the strongest women he knew, and he received her into his arms and kissed both of her cheeks when she finally reached him.

  “We love you, Spence,” she said, and there were no better words to him. Both she and Wayne had shown him what it meant to be a parent—a real parent—and he loved and appreciated them so much for their examples.

  Queen Elizabeth, the family golden retriever, trotted down the aisle with Clarissa’s best friend, Leslie, and they both wore an amazing dress that made them look more alive. She nodded to Spencer, and Queenie went to sit beside Chrissy.

  Down at the end of the aisle, Spencer found Clarissa looping her arm through Wayne’s, and his whole world narrowed to just her. She wore a dress of off-white she’d refused to show him previous to this moment, and Spencer tried to drink in every detail as she glided toward him.

  The top half was covered in lace, with blooms every so often that had been touched with the lightest of pink, yellow, and purple. She was an angel—his angel—and his heart beat with love only for her.

  Wayne brought her right to Spencer, his smile just as wide and just as happy. “Here she is, son,” he boomed, not bothering to be quiet. “She’s all yours.”

  “Daddy,” Clarissa admonished him, but Spencer only chuckled quietly and shook Wayne’s hand. Then he took Clarissa into his arms and closed his eyes and he breathed in the scent of her perfume.

  Something with lemons, vanilla, and rose. He wanted to wake up next to it, and tomorrow morning, he would.

  They turned toward each other in front of the altar, and the pastor said, “Welcome, everyone, to the marriage of Spencer Collin Rust and Clarissa Marie Cooper. Isn’t love such a wonderful thing?”

  Spencer nodded along with several others he could see out of his peripheral vision. Part of him wished with every fiber of his being that his mother could be here to see him. He hadn’t tried to get in touch with his father, because everything his dad touched somehow melted into sand and then blew away in the wind.

  That wasn’t how Spencer wanted to start his life with his new wife, and so he hadn’t let his dad know the details of today’s nuptials.

  But his mama would’ve loved Clarissa, and she would’ve loved to have been there to see Spencer tell her he loved her and couldn’t wait to start their life together.

  The pastor gave a nice speech he didn’t pay much attention to, because all he wanted to do was take Clarissa in his arms and kiss her after they’d been pronounced husband and wife.

  Once the line was said, and the cheering had started, Spencer did exactly that.

  He kissed his wife.

  27

  “Yes, Daddy,” Travis said. “We got everything. Now go.” He carried a backpack on his back and dragged two suitcases behind him. One was his, and the other was Mama’s. “Go.”

  “Okay,” Daddy said, totally out of his element as he went to board the huge cruise ship. “I’m goin’.”

  Not fast enough in Travis’s opinion. Getting off the farm this morning had been like herding Bertha’s from one chute to another, and that certainly wasn’t his favorite activity. Shay had come to the farm, and Travis was packed and ready.

  Will too, but somehow, Lee and Ford had had to go back to the farm twice, and Daddy had forgotten his passport on his first attempt to launch away from Sweet Water Falls Farm.

  The drive to Galveston hadn’t taken long, but they’d been waiting to board the ship for a while now. As patience wasn’t exactly the Cooper’s strong suit, there’d been a few…“discussions” in the waiting rows, and Travis and Shay had gotten up and taken a walk during one of the more heated ones.

  Cherry had texted when she was leaving San Antonio, but she hadn’t shown up yet. Travis actually looked over his shoulder as if he’d seen his sister hurrying toward them with a concierge toting along her eight bags.

  She’d have a lot more than the rest of them, that was for sure. Travis tried not to let his foul thoughts about his oldest sister infect him. He was glad she was coming at all, as she’d originally said she might not be able to get away from work.

  Travis had called her every day until she’d finally picked up, and he’d said, “You work for a college. Don’t tell me you’re working over Christmas.” He didn’t have to pull punches with her, and she’d said she’d come.

  She might not like it, but Travis had promised her she could lay by the pool and order as many drinks and chips and guac as she wanted. He’d even told her she could pick out their evening restaurants, as Mama had asked for them to get together once a day, for one meal.

  Since they ate dinner at the farmhouse together every night, dinner made sense. Cherry did have the best taste when it came to clothes and food, and Travis didn’t care where they ate.

  He just wanted to get the diamond ring he’d bought and brought onto Shay’s finger. His heart took a tumble down to his boots at the thought of getting down on both knees and asking her to marry him, but he needed to do it.

  He wanted to do it.

  A few hours needed to pass before he’d have the chance to get out the diamond and create the romantic atmosphere he wanted to create.

  “To the right,” Will called over his shoulder, and he led the way toward their oceanfront cabins. Ford and Lee were sharing, as were Mama and Daddy, and Spencer and Clarissa. But Will, Trav, Shay, and Cherry each got their own suite.

  The moment he opened the door, Travis wondered if he’d even fit in here by himself. Because of what it had taken to get them all off the ranch, Travis had started doubting his decision to take Mama on a cruise. Seeing the room only solidified that.

  He towed his bag inside and left it beside the door to the bathroom. He’d definitely have to turn sideways to get in there, but he dismissed the concern. It was a few days, and cruise ships weren’t meant to be enjoyed from the suites.

  He shed the backpack and dumped it on the bed, then took his mother’s bag back out into the walkway. She and Daddy were directly across the hall, and he raised his fist to knock.

  “Comin’!” Daddy opened the door a moment later, and Travis wondered if he’d take his cowboy hat off on this trip. He hoped so, because cowboy hats didn’t really go with swimming trunks.

  “Mama’s bag,” Travis said, pulling it past Daddy, who held open the spring-loaded door. Mama stood at the window, and Travis put the suitcase at the end of the queen bed. “You okay, Mama?”

  She turned, and tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Trav, it’s amazing.”

  Travis’s heart boomed in his chest, and he took the few steps to his mother. He wrapped her in his arms as she said, “Thank you. Thank you for giving this to me. I’m so happy.”

  “I’m glad, Mama,” he said, his voice thick. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “Happy tears,” she said.

  “Anyone heard from Cherry?” Lee asked, also crowding into the room. Ford came right behind him and he already had his swim trunks on.

  “Not since she said she was leaving San Antonio,” Travis said.

  “Do you think she got in an accident or something?” Will asked over Lee’s shoulder. “Did you see the balcony on our side, bro?”

  Travis hadn’t had time to check out the room fully, and besides, there was nothing better than hugging his mother. She stepped back and wiped her face, and both Lee and Will zeroed in on her.

  “Mama, you okay?” Lee came further into the room, concern written in the lines around his eyes.

  “Just so happy,” she said, and she opened her arms to Lee, then Will, and Daddy. Shay appeared in the doorway, and she took in the scene in the blink of an eye.

  Travis waved her toward him, and he put his arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Will says the balconies on our side are amazing.”

  “I went out there for a minute,” she said. “It did seem spectacular.”

  “Cherry might not make it,” Clarissa said, drawing everyone’s attention toward the doorway once again. She held her phone to her ear. “She got stuck in a huge freeway closure, and she’s still twenty minutes away.”

  A beat of silence filled the tiny cruise ship suite, and then Lee said, “I’ll go talk to someone. See what her chances are.”

  “They said it takes hours to load a ship,” Daddy said.

  “Does this mean we can’t go swimming?” Ford asked.

  Travis wasn’t sure what he could do, and he really wanted to take in the sea air with Shay. So he let Daddy and Lee deal with swimming and Cherry, and he took Shay into his suite.

  “Yours is just like mine,” she said.

  “Microscopic?”

  “Hey, you booked the tickets,” she teased.

  Travis gave her a grin and wondered if he needed to put on a big show for the woman. She didn’t particularly like the spotlight, and he had no real plan anyway. He’d been hoping to talk to a concierge and get some roses for dinner tonight. He’d been hoping to separate from his family so he could be alone with Shay in a private, romantic booth. He’d been hoping they could wear their fancy clothes on the very first night.

  He realized as Shay continued over to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room that he didn’t need to wait. He hadn’t let the diamond too far from him, and he unzipped the front pocket of the backpack and took out the black, velvet jewelry box.

  Shay took a deep breath and let it out, then slid open the balcony door and stepped outside. “Come on, Trav,” she said over her shoulder. He did join her, and the two of them filled the whole balcony. They leaned against the chest-high railing, and they exhaled simultaneously.

  He too wore his cowboy hat still, and he tilted his head to shade the two of them from the sun. “Shay,” he said, and she turned toward him.

  He held up the black box and kicked a smile in her direction. “I bought you somethin’.”

  “This is not the proposal,” Shay said, her eyes locking onto the box. She looked up at him. “You bought me something?”

  Travis’s heart flailed against his ribcage. “I’m in love with you. You mean the world to me. Will you marry me?”

  Shay softened, and Travis took a moment to crack open the lid of the box. “You said you liked a nice, round diamond. That’s what I got. I know you like simple. This is a white gold band; just nice and simple.”

  She looked from the ring to him, and Travis thought he saw love in her eyes. “I should’ve planned better,” he said. “I just…it was me and you, and I’m so excited to be your husband.”

  Shay took his face in both of her hands, and Travis loved that more than anything. It felt like she claimed him as hers, and there was nothing he’d rather be than hers.

  “I love you, Trav. This was perfectly…you.” She kissed him, but Travis still hadn’t heard a yes or a no.

  He kissed her anyway, because he wasn’t going to say no to that. When she pulled away, he whispered, “I’m going to take the kiss as a yes.”

  “Yes,” Shay whispered, leaning her head against Travis’s. “Put the ring on me, cowboy.”

  He did what she said and the two of them stood there in the bright Christmas sunlight and looked at the glinting gem. Travis sighed, pure happiness streaming through him. “Springtime?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Shay said. “Let’s call my mom.” She pulled out her phone and started swiping. “Then she can be checking things out while we’re cruising.”

  “Smart,” Travis said. “And sexy.”

  Shay giggled as he took her phone and put it in his back pocket. “One more kiss,” he said. “Then we’ll call your mom.”

  “Okay, fine,” Shay said like kissing him was the worst chore on the planet. But when his mouth met hers, she certainly didn’t act like that.

  Travis kissed his fiancée, in complete wonder and awe at the changes in himself, and the results he’d gotten because of them. He’d finally gotten someone to stay longer than two months, and now Shay was going to stay for a lifetime.

  Keep reading for the next book in the Sweet Water Falls Farm series, GRUMPY COWBOY, which features Travis’s brother, Will!

  Grumpy Cowboy

  Book 2

  1

  William Cooper scanned for a parking spot, the lack of one sending annoyance through him. He should’ve known better, in truth. Everyone and their dog, and their dog’s uncle, came to the New Year’s Beach Bash.

  He normally didn’t attend things like this at all. It took a lot to get him off his family farm, which sat about a half-hour outside of Sweet Water Falls. No, that wasn’t entirely true. He worked a lot with the hundreds of acres and thousands of dairy cows the farm had, and that prevented him from getting out into society.

  He almost scoffed at himself for thinking the word society. If there was one in Sweet Water Falls, he certainly didn’t belong to it.

  An empty space caught his eye, and he swung his truck around the corner to get to it. The early evening sunlight glinted off his windshield, but he made it into the stall. There he sat, trying to decide if he should get out or not.

  He’d come all this way…

  Which in and of itself would be a dead giveaway to everyone who got within ten feet of him and Gretchen Bellows. For the life of him, he couldn’t stop thinking about the woman. He’d tried, and just when he managed to go a few hours with his focus on milk, money, or muffins, the blonde woman would get reintroduced into his life.

  She’d been at Shayla’s big tent reveal, and Will had been too. His brother was now engaged to Shayla Nelson, and Will had wanted to be helpful to both of them. He currently lived with Travis in a cabin on their farm, but things would definitely change come springtime.

  Trav hadn’t said anything to Will about where he’d live with his new wife, and there was another cabin out by Clarissa and Spencer, who’d just gotten married a few weeks ago.

  They’d have the hard conversations, because they didn’t hold back on those in the Cooper family. They had enjoyed a very nice cruise over the holidays, and even Will could admit he’d enjoyed himself more than he thought he would.

  In fact, he could use a waiter to bring him a plate of tacos and a tropical smoothie right about now.

  The weather in the Coastal Bend of Texas never really got cold, though it did rain in the wintertime. Not this winter, however, and Will finally killed the engine and got out of his truck. Heat assaulted him, and he learned the weathermen Daddy liked to listen to in the mornings hadn’t been kidding.

  His truck would be a furnace by the time he returned to it, though the sun should be long down by then.

  Will took a deep breath and faced the beach. He’d found a spot on the second row over, and he smiled at his good luck. Someone had probably come early and then had to leave for an emergency. A sick child or one who wasn’t behaving.

  Will thanked his lucky stars, his eyes moving automatically to the food truck arena—and straight to the brightly colored vehicle with the caramel apples on the side of it.

  Gretchen’s truck.

  He told himself he wouldn’t go there first. He could check out the other festivities first. There was a beach volleyball tournament happening, and he could stand there and watch that for a while. Travis and Shayla were already here, and he’d told them he’d meet them for dinner. Rissa and Spence too.