Page 4 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

She’d kissed Link Glover plenty of times, and these past five, kissless months had been torture without him.

I don’t want to be used.

Some of his last words to her, and Misty had never felt so guilty. She’d also never cried over anyone…until Link. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she also still didn’t have plans to stay in this small town in the Texas Panhandle, and she hadn’t found the courage to reach out to him and apologize for “using him.”

She hadn’t thought at the time that she was, but as she’d had some time to reflect in his absence, she’d been able to see their relationship from his side. “Link,” she started, but the wedding march started in that moment, and they all got to their feet again.

He’d grown his hair out, and Misty found she couldn’t look away from him, though the bride and her father were walking down the aisle on her opposite side.

“Are you gonna stare at me all night?” Link murmured out of the side of his mouth.

“No.” Misty linked her arm through his, marveling that he didn’t shrug her off instantly, and turned to look at Nicki Johnston in her gorgeous wedding dress. As she moved, her shoes flashed with blue, and that made Misty smile. She did love a good wedding, but until she met Link, she’d never wanted to be the one with the glowing eyes, the painted lips, and the pure joy radiating from her.

She couldn’t believe she was even thinking about it right now.

It was Link’s cologne, infecting her mind and confusing her, twisting her thoughts and making her wonder if there were indeed good men in the world.

Of course there are, she thought. She and Link had been out on double dates with Alex and Nicki, and she’d seen how Alex treated his almost-wife. He absolutely adored her, and he’d never belittled her or spoken ill of her.

Link had treated Misty the same way, and when she’d started to feel him getting too close, slinking in too close, she’d had to remind him that they weren’t serious. Misty couldn’t be serious with anyone.

Especially not someone from this tiny town Misty had been planning to escape since the moment she’d arrived.

As Nicki reached Alex, he took her into his side and pressed his lips to the side of her face. Nicki’s eyes drifted closed in bliss, and Misty found herself sighing. The love permeating the air seemed to scent the orchards with roses instead of blossoms, and baby powder and everything sweet and pure and good.

“Alex and Nicki would like their wedding party to come forward,” the pastor said. “To act as witnesses to their union.”

Link cleared his throat and moved his arms to button his suit coat before he moved away from her without a word. Mitch went with him, as did the two brunettes they’d been talking to before Misty and Ralf had arrived at the table.

Misty watched him walk away in those matte cowboy boots, every stitch of clothing on his body exactly right. She could admit she found him incredibly attractive, and something inside her absolutely needed to be next to the magnetism inside him.

“So you’re not over him,” Ralf whispered from over her shoulder, and she ducked her head, finally breaking her stare on Link. She said nothing, because she didn’t have a defense and she’d been working to be honest in all things. With herself. With her friends. With her family. With God.

“All right.” The pastor beamed out the same love and sunshine that Alex and Nicki possessed as she surveyed the guests. “The very best part of my job is performing ceremonies like this.”

Willa Glover carried such a good spirit with her, and Misty could admit she’d attended a few of the woman’s sermons simply because she liked the idea of a female pastor. She’d always been glad when she’d attended church with Willa at the pulpit, and she smiled at the woman now.

She said, “There’s nothing more amazing than two people in love, willing to commit to each other—and God—that they’re going to work together, sacrifice for each other, and build a family.”

Misty let her words sink into her ears and really sit there. So much more existed inside the curves and dips of the letters, and Misty had never thought of marriage as something to work toward. Something to want. Something…good.

All the examples she’d had in her life had convinced her from age ten to never, ever trust her happiness to a man. By then, her mom had been married three times, and each husband had brought massive complications to her life, Misty’s life, and her younger brother’s life.

Danny currently sat in prison for his role in a bar fight, and Misty’s heart suddenly felt too big for her chest. Everything hammered and throbbed through her, because neither of them had been protected by a mother or father, and Misty wasn’t even sure she understood what a family looked like.

She held an ideal in her mind, and she simply didn’t want to be disappointed. It had been when Link had wanted to start introducing her to his family that Misty had panicked and reminded him that they weren’t serious.

But with his aunt officiating the ceremony, Alex and Nicki must know the Glovers. With the amount of people here in this massive outdoor ceremony center, surely the Glovers had been invited. That meant his parents could be here.

Misty glanced around, trying to determine which of the cowboys she saw could bear Link’s last name. Before she knew it, cheering and whooping started, and she yanked her attention back to the altar, where Alex had his wide smile pressed to Nicki’s.

They laughed and turned toward the crowd, and they stepped down off the stage where they’d been a few feet higher than everyone else. Their wedding party parted, and Misty started clapping along with everyone else as the bride and groom walked back down the aisle together.

“Ladies and gents,” someone said into the microphone. “They’re just going to mingle for a few minutes, and then we’ll settle down to dinner.”

Sure enough, Alex and Nicki came back down the aisle to the front tables to hug their friends and family members. Nicki stepped into her mother’s arms, both of them emotional, and Misty’s stomach clenched and swooped.

She didn’t have that relationship with her mom. If Misty were to ever get married, she wasn’t even sure her mom would come. She’d never left New Orleans, where she currently lived in a tiny apartment that surely had mice and bugs for how unclean it had been the last time Misty had seen it.

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