Page 27 of The Rancher’s Bride

Our appointment at the county courthouse is at eleven. It takes fifteen minutes to get there, assuming we don’t end up behind a tractor, and Sabrina is still upstairs doing whatever the hell women do that takes this long.

I tug at the collar of my shirt. It’s too tight. The whole damn thing is too stiff. White shirt, dark pants, polished boots, jacket hanging over the kitchen chair because my mother made it clear I’d never hear the end of it if I wrinkled it before the ceremony.

Ten forty-four.

“Sabrina,” I call, heading up the stairs. “We need to leave.”

“I’m almost ready,” she calls back.

She said that ten minutes ago. I’m not showing up late to marry her. I already left the woman waiting at the train station once. She still brings it up whenever she needs to win an argument, and I’m not handing her fresh ammunition.

“What’s taking so damn long?” I ask as I reach the top of the stairs.

Our bedroom door opens. I stop.

Sabrina steps into the hallway, and every thought in my head gets knocked clean out. The dress she’s wearing is simple. White, fitted around her waist and curves, falling to her knees. Her hair is pinned up, and she’s wearing the little gold earrings my mother gave her.

She looks like Sabrina. Only somehow more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her.

Her smile fades a little when I don’t say anything. “What?”

I walk toward her. “Jesus Christ.”

Her eyebrows lift. “Is that good?”

“You know damn well it is.”

“I was hoping for something a little more romantic.”

I put my hands on her waist. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Her expression goes tender.

“You clean up pretty well yourself,” she says.

“Pretty well?”

She looks me over slowly, dragging it out because she knows what it does to me. “You look very handsome.”

“Very?” I press.

“Extremely.”

“Better.”

She laughs and kisses me. I pull her closer, forgetting the time until she presses both hands against my chest.

“We have to go,” she says.

“You started that.”

“It was one kiss.”

“Should know better by now.”

We make it into the truck with just enough time left that I don’t have to drive like an idiot.

I glance at her as we head into town. “How’re you feeling?”