The Art of Love (The Windswept Saga) (47 page)

“Thanks, Mark.”  Chandler smiled and a meaningful look passed between the two of them.

“Last man standing,” Mark asserted, “until today.”

Chandler nodded.  “I had to start going with my gut, huh?”

“Head, heart, or gut—whatever works, bud.” 

They were interrupted by two balls of fire that raced into the room.  Chandler scooped a nephew into either arm and laughed.  “You cowboys ready for your big debut?”

Little Chase tugged at his miniature bowtie.  “Mom says I look handsome.”

“What
about me?” Max asked.

“You both look like your dads,” Chandler stated firmly.  “That makes you handsome by default.”

CJ ran through the door, half out of breath.  “Anyone told you this house is too danged big, Picasso?  Those two got away from me before I even know what was happening.”

“That has nothing to do with the house,” Mark joked, “and everything to do with you helping your wife into her dress.”

“I gotta hand it to Taylor,” CJ said.  “Those dresses don’t show an ounce of skin but still make our wives look sexy as…”  He trailed off as Chandler gave him a comical look.

Chandler set the two boys on their feet and gave them gentle pats on the back.  “Go check out the playroom but don’t get dirty.”

“Playroom?” CJ asked once they were out of earshot.  “Planning ahead, eh?”

Chandler fumbled with the ends of his tie again.  “
Can you think of a more fun thing to do on your honeymoon?”

CJ looked to Mark, and then back to his brother.  “No,” he replied.  He slapped Chandler on the back.  “Need any advice?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod.  “How do you keep a woman happy, year after year?”

“That’s the great mystery of life,” Chase said, stepping swiftly into the room.  “Sorry it took me so long to get up here.  Your mom is, well, falling apart, but in a good way.”

Chandler turned to face him.  “How bad is it?”

Chase took the ends of Chandler’s bowtie in his aged fingers and knotted them deftly together.  A professional couldn’t have done a better job.  He straightened it, appraised his son, and smiled warmly.  “She
won’t be able to bring herself in here and talk to you beforehand, so advice falls on me.  Hope I do I good job.”

“Don’t be so modest, Chase,” Mark countered.  “You’ve never steered any of us wrong.”

“Give him hell, Dad,” CJ said with a wink as he and Mark took their leave.  “See you in a few.”

“How nervous do I look, Dad?” Chandler asked his father.  Chase gripped him by the shoulders and smiled broadly.

“When you were a little boy, I put you in the saddle and you showed no fear.  Maybe you were too young to know any better.  Things are different now, son.  You’re all grown up, got a better head on your shoulders than I did when I was your age.  It’s funny.  Sometimes I feel like you didn’t need me at all.”

“That’s crazy, Dad.  If anything, I needed you
more because I was the youngest.”

Chase shook his head.  “Your brother needed my guidance to show him how brave he was.  I’ll be damned if it didn’t work.  Your sister needed me to remind her how strong she was.
  She’s such a great teacher that kids don’t wanna leave her classroom.  But you were different.  I taught you how to ride a horse and afterward you seemed to know that it was all inside you.”  He rested one fingertip over Chandler’s heart.  “You’re gonna be a great husband and father because there’s no limit to the amount of love you choose to give.”

He felt his eyes sting and his throat well up with emotion.  “I learned from the best.”

Chase pulled him into a tight hug.  “I haven’t cried this much since you were born.  I’ll see you downstairs, son.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

When Chandler was alone, he took one final look in the mirror and exhaled until he was sure there was nothing left in his lungs.  “Let’s do it.”

***

“Come on, you look great.”

Taylor glanced at herself in the large bathroom mirror in the m
aster suite.  Alison was perfecting her hair and securing it into place.  “You’re sure this looks okay?”

“Please,” she replied.  “Chandler is going to see you walking down that aisle and lose his mind.”

Christa entered the space, having just fed Matt.  She wasn’t even sure how much longer he’d be able to sleep in a crib; he was growing faster than she wanted, and had this wedding taken place a week later his small suit would no longer have fit.  “Chris,” Alison inquired, “how are you going to corral Matthew
and
be a bridesmaid?”

“In a word?  Mark.”  She smiled at each of them.  “We’re all in the wedding, even your mom and dad.  It was kind of hard figuring out what to do.  I certainly wasn’t going to pawn him off on Grandma and Grandpa.”

Alison shook her head.  “I should know better than to ask a teacher how she deals with kids.  The answers are always too well-thought.”  She glanced around anxiously.  “Speaking of which, where are my two?”

Christa remained composed, as per usual.  “Our boys are in the playro
om, behaving like tiny gentleman.  Bree is with Mom and Susan.  And our husbands are waiting for us in the hall.”

“I’ve gotta watch them closer,” Alison chastised herself.  “This is a big damn house.”

“The balcony and staircase are both safety-gated,” Christa reassured her.  She surveyed Taylor’s makeup.  “You look as nervous as I did on my wedding day, but otherwise beautiful.”

Taylor frowned.  “I’ve been through all of this before.  Why am I scared now?”

“Because this time,” Alison reminded her, “it’s for good, and you know it.  To love, and be loved infinitely, is an incredible feeling.  Enjoy this day,” she implored.  “You make such a beautiful bride.”

“And you get the two of us in the deal,” Christa pointed out.  “How can you refuse?”

“I almost forgot that part,” Taylor said, smiling at each of them in turn.  She saw Bryn standing in the doorway, a stalwart woman turned emotional by the day’s events.  She moved into the room, and Alison and Christa stepped outside to provide them a private moment.

“Y
ou look lovely,” she said, her voice raw and uneven.  “Incredibly beautiful.”

“Thank you, Miss Bryn.  You and my mother put this wedding together in shotgun fashion, and I can’t thank you enough.”

“It was my pleasure,” she said, taking Taylor’s hands in hers.  “I had wondered, prayed, and worried over Chandler for so many years.  He’s a remarkably empathetic human being, but there were times I wished he’d just go with his instincts instead of being so darned rational.”    

A small laugh escaped Taylor’s m
outh.  “I know that feeling well.  I love that part of him, too.”

“That’s why you are going to be such an amazing partner to him.  You bring out the best in him, love his flaws, and show him the promise of unending love.  I see Chandler duck his head and g
aze into your eyes so lovingly, and it’s like looking into the past.  Chase has always given me that same look, from the moment we fell in love.”

Please,
Taylor thought,
let my makeup be waterproof
.  “That means so much to me,” she replied with the tears evident in her voice.  “I’m touched, and grateful to be a part of your family.” 

“You’ll fit in very well with us,” Bryn assured her.  “It takes a lot of grit and stubbornness to love a cowboy, and you’ve got both in spades.”  She placed her lips to Taylo
r’s cheek.  “That’s a compliment to your character.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

Bryn nodded.  “I know your mother has been anxious to speak with you, and it’s nearly that time.  See you soon.”

Taylor watched her go, still overwhelmed by Bryn’s admission.  A
lice was the next person to enter the room.  “Mom, I…if Daddy couldn’t be here to walk me down the aisle, there’s no one else I’d rather have at my side.”

Alice gave her a light hug, mindful not to leave any makeup on her eggshell-colored dress.  “You’ve
never looked lovelier, sweetheart.”  She linked arms with her daughter, readying her for the march down the aisle.

“I feel kind of bad about leaving you again,” she admitted.  “I want you to come live with Chandler and
me.”

“No,” Alice stated firmly.  “I’m
not so old that I don’t remember what it’s like to be a young bride, and all that entails. I doubt the two weeks you’ve spent under this roof have dampened any of your enthusiasm.”

Taylor blushed slightly at her mother’s candor, then laughed.  “
Point well taken.”

“I saw your fella before I came in here,” Alice said confidentially, “and he was looking mighty handsome.  If you weren’t marrying him, I might throw my hat into the ring.”

“Mom,” Taylor replied in a teasing manner, “try to refrain from kissing him on the mouth.”

“No guarantees,” Alice rejoined, a joyful smile crinkling every line in her face.

***

The front of the house had been transformed into the perfect stage for a wedding.  A final gasp of summer greeted the guests on a day where a few wispy c
louds kept the sun in check.  Bouquets of flowers were arranged on the porch, its posts wrapped with twisted greenery.  Chandler walked up the aisle, a solitary figure in black cowboy boots.  He stopped along the way and shook hands with a few people.  The crowd had been kept purposefully small; he wanted today to be about him and Taylor, not a mound of invitations.  He spoke briefly to the minister, whom he’d known since he was a child.  In a lot of ways he still felt like a yearling, not a man getting ready to commit his heart for a lifetime.  He recognized that feeling as the butterflies Chase had told him would be in his stomach that day.

The wedding march began, and all eyes were trained on the front door.  Bree emerged first, the perfect flower girl, w
ith stems and blossoms threaded carefully through the blonde ringlets of hair.  She’d reached the age to not only understand the ceremony but also revel in it.  She and Chandler exchanged a small wave as she dropped petals to the ground, her tiny blue eyes and lips bright and happy.  Someday in the distant future, CJ was going to have to fight the boys off his front porch with a shotgun.

Little Chase and Max were next, twin ring-bearers walking side-by-side.  Their personalities were slowly but surely bubbl
ing to the surface.  Little Chase slipped into his father’s stubborn, tenacious shoes easily, his chin lifted high and proud.  Max was a little more unassuming in the way he carried himself, but a mischievous glint in his brown eyes told the world he knew just how smart and skilled he was.  Chandler tried and failed to suppress a grin, though he was glad the boys were working in tandem rather than competing for attention.  He shook their small hands as they arrived at his feet.

Mark and Christa were next, l
ooking as happy as if they were the ones getting married.  Matt was held securely in his father’s arms, wearing the world’s smallest penguin suit, a smile affixed to his lips as his father goosed him.  Mark gave Chandler a sly wink, as if to say, “You’ve got this, man.  No need to worry.”  Chandler could see both the pride and tears leaking from his sister’s eyes, felt a stab of emotion as their gazes met.  Her gentle pleas had kept him from leaving Wyoming, and now his dreams had come true.  Either he owed her big-time, or they were even.  In her own head, she held the latter position.

CJ and Alison came next, and they carried on their faces identical grins.  Chandler wondered how they’d managed to synchronize their reactions
; something they’d done for too many years to count.  CJ lifted the tail of his jacket just long enough for Chandler to catch a glint of that damned gold buckle, and he had to stop himself from laughing his head off.  Leave it to his big brother, cocky, confident, great friend and advice-giver, to add some levity to the proceedings.  Alison, his friend, confidante, and business partner, who’d been so welcoming and friendly to Taylor once she’d been hired—he owed her a debt of gratitude, too, but knew she’d never try to collect on it.

Sam
and Susan followed—if he’d never been as close to them as his siblings now were, he still thought of them as a second set of parents.  He’d spent a lot of hours at their house, accepting their guidance and calm fortitude.  If they owed his parents their entire relationship, then he in turn owed them for committing their lives to the Big I Ranch and giving him an incredible friend in Mark.  With their families forever intertwined, they had more than graciously accepted his offer to be in the wedding party.

C
hase and Bryn brought up the rear, their faces lined with years of love, happiness, and joy.  Chandler was pretty sure they were both crying, but each tried to hide it in their own special way.  Chase’s smile appeared to take up fully half of his weathered face, and his blue eyes shone through like a beacon.  Bryn used the bouquet of lilies in her hand to cover the absent dabbing of her eyes, knowing that she wasn’t fooling anyone.  He only hoped he’d be able to expend even a tenth of their unconditional love on his own wife and children.  When he told people he’d never wanted for anything in life, he wasn’t talking about money or possessions.  They took their final places on either side of him, the wedding party almost fully formed.