Page 70 of Just One Summer with the Grumpy

A squeal sounded behind us, and I turned in my seat along with the others. Down the beach, Daphne jumped up and down next to the ugliest horse I’d ever seen before throwing her arms around Chase. Then she led the horse toward us. Would this be a horseback wedding? More drippy, mind-numbing cheese.

But no. She walked the horse right up to me, tied it onto the chair next to mine, gave my shoulder a pat, and bounded into the trees and out of sight.

Huh. Maybe not such a typical wedding after all.

I gave the horse a sideways glance and it snorted, spraying me with every germ known to man and probably horses too.

“Thanks a lot,” I muttered.

The horse actually nodded.

Chase strode to the front, removed his shoes, and nodded to the violinist, who switched songs mid-note to Pachabel’s Canon in D. How original.

A rustle went through the crowd as we stood. Daphne had appeared in the trees again, yet we were supposed to pretend like we hadn’t just seen her sprinting across the sand with her gown hiked to her knees. Clearly somebody had cleaned her up a bit, though, because her curls lay close to her face once again.

The horse tried to pull away from the chair as if to go to her.

“Whoa, Nellie,” I whispered.

Daphne walked slowly down the aisle, wearing a quiet smile. She seemed a little wild but very genuine—not at all the reserved, high-bred bride I’d imagined for Chase. He wore an even wider smile, as if it were he, not her, who’d scored a huge win today. I would support marriage to any woman who could make my ever-somber friend smile like that.

About ten years later, she finally reached the front and the officiator started speaking in broken English.

I felt something on my hair and swatted it away. Not a bug. A horse’s muzzle.

“It’s hair, not hay,” I muttered to the animal.

The ceremony went beautifully until the very end, when it all happened in slow motion.

The horse decided it was done waiting and started walking toward the front, at which moment I realized too late that these chairs were all linked together. My chair tipped and dumped me right into the sand.

I leaped to my feet and grabbed the horse’s leash, or whatever it’s called, to turn it around in the tight aisle. Then I led it to the back again as the audience laughed. Why Daphne had made me the official horse-sitter, I didn’t know, but I could at least keep the thing away from the main event for another minute or two.

The couple finally kissed and everyone stood and cheered. I threw up a half-hearted fist as I stood there, keeping the leash taut and the horse just behind my shoulder.

Which it really didn’t want to do, apparently, because it chose that moment to whinny—right next to my ear.

I yelped and held my poor ear, which now rang like a small-town church on Christmas Day. The audience laughed even harder, including Chase and Daphne.

“Let her go,” Daphne said, reaching out her arms like the horse was an infant.

I tossed the leash over the horse’s neck and gave her butt a pat. “Go see your mommy.”

The horse trotted across the sand and down the aisle, stumbling a bit on the light fabric rug before shoving her way between the newly wedded couple, almost defensively, as if to make it clear who Daphne really belonged to.

The audience practically rolled now. I just wiped horse spit off my sleeve.

“The Everett family,” the officiator called, and everyone cheered.

Okay, not so bad for a wedding. At least the horse had made things interesting.

“Now we know who to leave Rosie with while we’re gone,” Daphne said at the reception that evening, smiling apologetically. “She likes you, Tanner.”

“Yeah. Likes me for breakfast.”

Chase chuckled as a woman came over and pulled Daphne away for a moment, leaving Chase and me alone.

“She seems like an intriguing woman,” I told him.

---