Page 75 of Silos and Sabotage

“Thanks for being here, Johnny.” Ella sent him a grateful smile. After what had happened to her uncle, they weren’t taking any chances on security today.

“Fair warning.” He broke into a rapid two-step. “You’d better step aside after the ceremony, because I intend to catch the bridal bouquet.”

She burst out laughing. “Aww! You’re that tired of being single?”

He cocked his thumb and forefinger at her.

She shook her head at him in mock dismay. “If you catch the bouquet, I’ll have to abandon my theory about your wife and six kids, once and for all.”

“Yep.” He snickered as he waved them into the living room.

Uncle Raleigh was standing by the mantle with one of the ministers from the church on the lake. Though Ella remembered his face from a Sunday service she’d attended recently, she couldn’t remember his name. He and her uncle were talking like old friends. Uncle Raleigh looked so at ease in his ivory tuxedo that Ella never would’ve guessed he’d taken a through-and-through shot to the left shoulder a week earlier — by his own brother, no less. The story was blowing up across social media. For once, however, the Bolanders had something positive to offset their latest round of bad news. The timing of Raleigh and Avery’s wedding couldn’t have been more perfect.

As soon as she and Gage took their places at the front of the room, Walker Radcliffe led her mother through the doorway. He’d once been a tall man, but he was stooped over and moving much slower these days.

The pinched set to his mouth made Ella’s heart go out to him. Though he had a reputation for being an unpleasant man, she sensed he was in pain — the physical kind. He walked with such a heavy limp that, at times, it appeared her mother was holding him up instead of the other way around.

Ella ventured a quick peek at her Uncle Raleigh and found his eyes glowing like blue fire as he watched his bride approach. Warm reassurance nestled in her heart at the affirmation that her mother was marrying a man who cared deeply for her.

The kiss they shared at the end of the ceremony further corroborated her theory. It was so slow and tender that it made Ella feel like blushing.

When Gage escorted her from the room, his voice sounded low in her ear. “I’m going to kiss you the same way later on.”

The wedding reception took place on the covered boat dock. A long wooden table with benches had been placed out there and dressed with white linen and roses.

Ella was seated with Gage on her left and an achingly familiar face on her right. “Grandmother?” Though she’d called the woman a few times since her arrival in town, all she’d gotten was her voicemail. According to her mother, Betsy Lawton hadn’t been “right” since the brutal loss of her only son. She’d lived like a recluse ever since in a cozy little cottage away from the other employee cabins. She was rarely seen outside the compound, choosing instead to have her groceries and other necessities delivered to her door so she could pass her time doing the only thing that gave her an ounce of peace these days —puttering over the flowerbeds and shrubbery she’d spent her entire career nurturing and sculpting across Bolander & Sons Ranch.

The petite, bird-like woman jolted at the sound of her voice. “Ella!” Her exclamation was accompanied by an intense flash of pain across her features. “It’s so nice to see you again.” The tremor in her voice gave lie to her words, suggesting their encounter was anything but pleasant for her. The pink A-line dress she was wearing had white piping around the collar and the cuffs of its sleeves. It looked like something straight out of a 1950s or 1960s clothing catalogue.

“I tried calling you,” Ella said softly.

“I know.” Her grandmother stared at her plate, blinking. “It’s just so difficult…to be here. Every bit as difficult as I feared it would be.” Despite the hint of a sob in her voice, the irritated look she gave the man to her right had a surprising amount of energy and passion in it.

Ella was surprised to note that her grandmother’s comment had been aimed at none other than Creston Bolander. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” She didn’t know what else to say.

“For what?” Her grandmother snapped out the question. “None of this is your fault. None of it,” she repeated fiercely. “Or mine. The only reason I put on my makeup and showed up today is because I was goaded into it.” It was unclear if she was referring to the tragedy she’d endured or some deep-seated resentment against the Bolanders at large. Or both.

Creston leaned her way to announce in a dramatic rasp, “I choose to believe her presence today is at least partly due to her soft spot for my macaroons.”

“I adored macaroons long before I sampled yours,” she retorted stiffly. However, a faint twinkle had crept into her eyes that was at odds with the rigid set to her shoulders.

“Macaroons that I promised to serve with the side of justice she so righteously deserves,” her grandfather added in a fiercer tone.

Betsy Lawton briefly closed her eyes. “If you do that for me, Creston, I might just have to admit my weakness for your macaroons and bury the hatchet.”

The longing in his gaze as he absorbed her words wasn’t lost on Ella. It dawned on her that she was looking at the prime reason the billionaire owner of Bolander & Sons had never remarried. Whether her grandmother realized it or not, she was his one and only.

It was yet another bittersweet discovery about their dysfunctional family.

* * *

Ella wasn’tsure how Gage did it, but he managed to shake Johnny off their trail after the wedding reception.

“There’s something I’d like to show you,” he announced as he drove her back to his homestead. “It’s gonna require you to change into something you don’t mind getting wet in.” He kept glancing through his rearview mirror, making her dart a few glances over her shoulder. She saw nothing out of the ordinary, so she wrote it off as paranoia on her part.

As for what he wanted to show her, she sincerely hoped it involved a return trip to the lake.I’m so very much my mother’s daughter.There was something about the sparkling, sun-drenched water of Heart Lake that enchanted them both.

Like Gage always did, he parked between the farmhouse and the guest house. “Need me to carry you inside, so you don’t scratch your heels on the gravel?”

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