Page 77 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

He woke to his alarm and the first rays of sunlight coming through a gap in his black-out curtains. Link groaned as he got to his feet. He fumbled to find a shirt, and he slid on a pair of sneakers to go meet his father.

“There you are,” Momma said when Link walked into the house. “Bear, he’s here!”

“I’m not late.” Link took in the breakfast dishes on the bar. “Smiles is gone already?”

“He had an early-morning conditioning session,” Momma said. “The girls are getting ready, and Rock’s out doing morning chores in the family stable.” She set a steaming plate of scrambled eggs with shredded cheddar cheese melting into them on the bar, and Link didn’t hesitate to sit down and take the fork she offered.

She grinned at him. “Thank you for doing the overnight mowing, baby.”

Link had already filled his mouth with food, so he simply nodded and waved his fork like it wasn’t a big deal. It wasn’t, not really. It was a few weeks of a different schedule, and Link could catch up on sleep come October.

“How’s Misty?” Momma asked as Link swallowed, her timing impeccable.

“Busy,” he said. “We don’t see each other as much as we did in the summer.”

“But it’s still going well?”

“I think so,” Link said.

“Hey, good morning,” Daddy said.

“I’ve got eggs,” Momma said. She brought over another plate while Daddy clapped his hand on Link’s shoulder.

“How’d it go last night?”

“Finished the western fields,” Link said. “I’d say we’re eighty percent done with mowing.”

“A few more days,” Daddy said. “We’re baling down on the Kinder side.”

“Mm.”

Momma put breakfast in front of Daddy, along with a plate of sausage links. Link immediately reached for one of those, glad he had such a good mother to feed him. Of course, his thoughts went to Misty, and he glanced over to his father, then looked at Momma.

“Misty doesn’t have much family,” he said carefully, keeping his eyes on his mother. “I imagine if we get married—and I’m not saying we are—it’ll happen here. I just—how long will that take to plan?”

Momma exchanged a glance with Daddy, and Link dipped his head so he wouldn’t have to see them. “Depends,” Momma said. “On what you want. Catering, her dress, the flowers, that kind of thing.”

Link hummed again and got up. “Can I make toast?”

“Sure.” Momma twisted and then turned to watch him go by her and into the kitchen. “You could just ask Misty what she wants. Catering and flowers are pretty easy. You have a venue, and I know she loves Willa, so as long as she’s available—and why wouldn’t she be?—it’ll probably come down to when she wants to get married, and how long it’ll take her to get a dress.”

Link set four pieces of bread in the toaster and pushed down the levers. “Does it matter when you get married? Like, what’s the benefit of—I don’t even know.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Daddy said.

Momma scoffed. “It matters to women,” she said. “She might want to get married in a field of bluebonnets, for example, and they only bloom for a few weeks here in the Panhandle.”

Link turned back to his parents. “So I’ll ask her.” He didn’t think Misty would have a month she wanted to get married. Or a vision for what that looked like. She’d told him she’d never dated seriously before, because she did not want to get married. Ever.

Still, he should probably ask her, so he could make sure she got everything she didn’t even know she wanted.

Thankfully, Daddy moved the conversation to something else before Link’s toast popped up, and then Rock came in, grumbling about his horse needing new shoes, and the girls came downstairs, giggling and gabbing about something.

Link finished his breakfast without having to talk much, and then he retreated back to the Top Cottage to sleep. He dreamt of his wedding, and yes, there were plenty of spring flowers in bloom. He’d never given much thought to the ceremony or what it would entail, but he did stand in True Blue, with his family surrounding him as a woman in a pretty, lacy dress, the veil concealing her face, walked toward him.

He thought he caught a hint of reddish-blonde hair, but then the dream morphed into something else—the unending fields of alfalfa in the headlights of the tractor where he towed the bar mower.

Link’s first clue that someone had arrived at his house was the way Honor lifted her head from his thigh. She looked toward the door, and right as someone knocked, she alerted him by putting her paw up on his stomach.

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