Page 102 of Pretend To Be My Cowboy
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“Smile!” Aunt Lisa beamed at him from behind the camera.
Nash tried to oblige, but he wasn’t in the smiling mood. From the amount he’d been forced to smile this past hour during photographs and greeting all the guests, he was pretty sure he’d never smile again.
Aunt Lisa checked the photo she’d just taken with a satisfied nod.
Nash didn’t have the heart to remind her that the photographer had already taken hundreds of pictures of him and the rest of the family. His favorite aunt liked to think of herself as the family’s memory keeper, and who could argue with that?
“Now I just need one with your girlfriend.” She frowned down at the camera, like she might be able to find Emma with the zoom feature.
Good luck. He’d been looking for her for the last half hour in between pictures and the chores Casey thrust at him.
She’d disappeared.
Frustration had him fighting to keep his temper. He loved his sister and wanted nothing more than her happiness, but this reception felt interminably long and it had only just begun.
Where could Emma have gone?
“When you see Emma, you make sure I get a picture, you hear?” Aunt Lisa said.
“Yes, ma’am.” He watched his aunt walk away before threading through the foldout tables and chairs that he’d helped to set up. White linen and table dressings hid their cheapness. The hall really had been transformed.
Their father had offered to pay for a big wedding and pull out all the stops but Casey and Ryan had opted to follow in her parents’ footsteps with a relatively simple affair at the church hall.
Simple, Casey had claimed, meant she’d be able to relax and have fun rather than worrying about the details on her big day.
He watched her dancing with Ryan and her bridesmaids to the music that was being piped over speakers from her phone. She and Ryan had put together the playlist and they were grinning like maniacs out on the dance floor.
He chuckled when Delphine, and Ryan’s mother, stepped out onto the dance floor hand in hand to join in the fun. They swayed over to Kit and Cody’s parents, who were dancing with Chloe and Corbin in the middle of the makeshift dance floor.
His eyes scanned the crowd automatically for some sign of Emma, but it was hopeless. He checked his phone once more to see if she’d texted him back, but nothing there either.
“Great wedding.” Cody’s voice was quiet but Nash heard him when he sidled up beside him.
He nodded his response and pointed at the dancing couple. “It’s great to see them so happy.”
Cody cleared his throat. “I thought you might want to know, I took Emma back to the house.”
Nash whipped around to face his friend. “You did?”
“She, uh...wasn’t feeling well.” Cody scratched his temple, squinting in obvious discomfort.
Nash’s heart took a plummet. “Was she…” Ah heck. He and Cody were not cut out for this conversation. “Was she crying?”
Cody’s wince said it all.
Nash muttered an oath under his breath. He hadn’t been able to shake the sight of the pain in her eyes...or the sound of her voice when she’d told his father her life was in Chicago.
But then again, she had said she’d be lucky to marry a guy like Nash. Was she just being kind or had she meant that?
He’d been clinging to those words like a lifeline since he’d heard them, and he’d been itching to ask her if it was true.
“We were supposed to talk,” he said to a no-doubt confused Cody.
Cody shrugged in response. “It seemed like maybe she needed some time alone.”
Nash glowered at his friend. “Did she say that? Did she say she didn’t want to see me?”
