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  “How did you get engaged?” Kate asked next, her excitement over this wedding infectious. Ivory was excited, of course, but she hadn’t really let herself get too deep into the thought process of it. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave a single thing out.”

  “Oh, boy,” Jennika said with a smile. “I forgot how much you love weddings.”

  “I love them,” Kate said with a laugh. “Now come on, Ivory. I want to know exactly how this Tripp Walker got you to say yes.”

  Ivory grinned at her and Jennika, but she couldn’t talk. She reached the end of the sidewalk and bent over, her hands braced against her knees.

  “First,” she said, panting. “I need to get in shape for the wedding. Then maybe I can tell you.” She sucked at the air, feeling a little light-headed.

  “What does that mean—how he got her to say yes?” Jennika asked.

  “Oh, Ivory doesn’t date,” Kate said so matter-of-factly. “She actually told me once that she’d never get married again.”

  Ivory straightened and met her friend’s eye. She had said that, because that was exactly how she felt.

  Kate’s whole soul seemed lit up from the inside. “Something huge must’ve happened.” She nudged Ivory with her hip, her smile playful but her eyes a bit predatory. “So start talking, girl. What did he do that got you to agree to tie the knot?”

  Ivory swallowed the part about Tripp catching up with her mortgage and providing the means she needed to fight Daniel’s custody challenge. “He’s a great guy,” she said. Not a lie. In fact, absolutely, one-hundred percent true. “And I don’t know, I just fell for him.”

  “She’s caught her breath,” Jennika said. “So how did he propose?”

  “He took me to Sevano’s yesterday,” Ivory said, a sigh already slipping between her lips. “For lunch.”

  “Sevano’s isn’t open for lunch,” Kate said, her eyebrows drawing down.

  “I know,” Ivory said. “He called the chef, who he’s apparently friends with, and they opened just for us.”

  “Wow,” Jennika said at the same time Kate sighed.

  “How romantic,” her friend said, linking her arm through Ivory’s. “I’m so happy for you.”

  And the funny thing was, some of that joy seeped into Ivory. She hadn’t felt anything but desperate and tired for so long now.

  Thank you, she prayed, giggling with her two new walking friends. Thank you so much, Lord. I promise I won’t hurt him.

  Ivory had four dry cleaning shifts under her belt now, and she almost had the computer system memorized. Almost. She worked from eight to five each day, and she went home at night, utterly exhausted. Except for her lunch hour, she spent all of her time on her feet, running here and there to fetch garments, take payments, hang up new items that needed to be cleaned, wiping the countertops after sticky toddler fingers had been on them, and dozens of other tasks.

  With each day that passed, her happiness grew. She hadn’t even realized how stifled she’d become, sitting in front of her laptop, trying to find a new way to advertise her jewelry. She hadn’t even been in her jewelry studio since last week, when she’d finished her pieces and gone to the post office, only to be served with custody papers on her way out the door.

  She’d been making lists and checking them twice, just the way Santa Claus did. Most weddings had plenty of moving parts, but Ivory had spoken true when she’d said she didn’t want a big wedding.

  She couldn’t afford one, that was for sure.

  So she’d put the venue on her list, and Tripp had said he’d talk to his brother about having their nuptials at the ranch. That was free.

  She was getting the bouquet from Kate. She’d need a cake, but Tripp had said one of the Foster sisters could do it. Their ranch butted up against Seven Sons, and Tripp said the two families were close.

  Since Ivory had never actually been out the ranch, she wouldn’t know.

  He’d also said he’d cater for their dinner, and she’d argued with him. In the end, though, they did need food, even for a small wedding, and she’d simply added it to her private list of things she’d pay him back for.

  She wasn’t doing anything huge for décor. Just tables and chairs for the ceremony and dinner.

  Flowers.

  Cake.

  Venue.

  Dinner.

  Décor.

  Music.

  She couldn’t afford a band, and she’d told Tripp they’d be dancing to recorded music, on a speaker system. He’d said he and Liam would figure out all the technical logistics of that. Since he was a computer engineer, Ivory felt confident leaving that task in his capable hands.

  Everything was coming together, and it had only been four days. The only thing she needed was a wedding dress. She had some serious research skills when it came to the Internet, but she hadn’t been able to find a dress she could afford that didn’t look like it was made in 1922.

  The back door slammed, jolting her out of her mind. There were a few lulls at the dry cleaner, but Harmon wanted her to be busy all the time. So she reached down below the counter where she checked people out and picked up the duster.

  “Afternoon,” the older man said as he joined her up front. “Can you see if you can find this for Verona?” He handed her a ticket, and Ivory smiled at him.

  “Sure thing.” She traded him by passing over the duster, and then she went into the depths of the building. Verona’s didn’t have all the fancy equipment the bigger places did in bigger cities, and Ivory had to physically walk through the racks of clothes to find the garments she needed.

  And this ticket was old, and as she went further and further into the racks, she started to feel a little claustrophobic. She finally located the blouse in question and had just pulled it down from the rack when her eyes caught on the white satin of a wedding dress.

  “Oh,” she whispered, her pulse going from zero to sixty in a single breath. She pushed the clothes around the dress out of the way and looked at it. Yes, it was an older style, but not last-century old.

  She took it down from the rack too and examined the slip of paper stapled to the plastic sheeting. No name. Just a number.

  Feeling brave and like perhaps God had put this wedding dress here for her to find, she took it with her up to the front counter, where Harmon waited. The duster lay on the counter next to the cash register, and the old man was asleep with his arms folded, sitting upright on the barstool.

  “Harmon,” she said, and the gentleman snorted as he woke. “Whose dress is this?”

  “I have no idea,” he said in a crotchety voice. “Did you find the blouse?”

  “Right here,” she said, passing it to him.

  He took it with a “Thank you, Ivory,” and started for the back exit. Ivory wanted to call him back and ask him more questions about the wedding dress, but she didn’t.

  She’d look it up herself first.

  After typing in the number on the ticket attached to the dress, she got the name of the woman who’d dropped the dress off-thirteen months ago. With that same recklessness flowing through her, she dialed Millie Montgomery.

  “Hello?” she said when someone answered the line.

  “Yes?” a woman said.

  “Hello,” she said, putting in her professional voice box. “My name is Ivory Osburn, and I work for Verona’s dry cleaning in Three Rivers, Texas.” She paused, hoping for some sort of recognition, but none came.

  “Anyway,” she said, some of her earlier bravery fading away under the silence. “We have a wedding dress here that’s ready for pick up.” Way past ready, but Ivory wasn’t going to say that. In fact, she wanted this woman to say she didn’t want the dress and Ivory could keep it.

  “Oh, yes,” the woman said. “That was my daughter’s.”

  “Okay,” Ivory said, expecting more. No further explanation was provided. “Is she going to come pick it up?”

  “I don’t see how,” the woman said. “She lives in Key West now.”

 
“Can you come pick it up?”

  “Heavens, no,” Millie said. “She didn’t need it to actually get married in, and I don’t want it. If she hasn’t picked it up by now, I doubt she wants it.”

  “Oh, okay,” Ivory said. “So what should we do with it?”

  “I don’t really care,” Millie said. “Is that all?”

  “Yes,” Ivory said, hanging up more confused than she’d been going into the phone call. But her mind worked quickly, and she pulled out her phone to call Harmon.

  “Hello, Ivory,” he said.

  “Hey, Mister Wheelwright. So I called on that wedding dress, and the woman says they don’t want it. What should I do with it?”

  “Put it back on the shelf, I suppose,” he said.

  Ivory bit her lip. “I was actually wondering if I could…borrow it.”

  “Borrow it?”

  “Yeah, I’d pay to have it cleaned afterward. I’m kind of getting married in a few weeks, and I need a dress.”

  A pregnant beat of silence came through the line. Then Harmon asked, “You called the owner?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And they’re not going to come pick it up?”

  “She said it was her daughter’s dress, and she lived in Key West now.”

  Another long silence, as if Harmon was wrestling with his thoughts to get them to line up the way he wanted. “Then it’s yours,” he said. “You can have it.”

  “Have it?” Ivory asked, her surprise matching her excitement.

  “That’s right,” he said. “We don’t need to store something no one is ever going to come pick up.”

  A squeal built in the back of Ivory’s throat, but the chime on the front door sang, and she turned toward the customer, not truly seeing him. “Someone just came in, Mister Wheelwright. I have to go. Thank you so much.”

  “Ivory, wait,” he said. “Maybe you should go through all the clothes that are more than a couple of months old and contact the owners.”

  “Sure thing, Mister Wheelwright,” she said, feeling happier than she had in a long time. She hung up with a massive smile on her face. She’d just gotten herself a free wedding dress. “Hello,” she said, blinking out of her euphoria. “How can I help—Daniel?”

  Her ex-husband stood at the counter, his eyes very, very angry as they bored into hers. “You’re engaged?” he clipped out between his perfect teeth she knew he paid to whiten. He was just that vain.

  “Yes,” she said, her pulse bouncing around in her chest for an entirely different reason now.

  He shook his head, a cruel laugh coming from his mouth. “This isn’t going to work, Ivory.”

  “Where’s Oliver?” she asked, looking past him.

  “A friend’s,” he said.

  Oliver had not mentioned any friends when he went to his father’s, but Ivory didn’t argue with Daniel. She knew that was a fruitless activity she didn’t want to deal with.

  He leaned into the counter, a deep growl in his throat. “When’s the big day?”

  “July fourteenth,” she said, because she and Tripp had discussed things that far ahead since her walk a few days ago. “And I’m going to fight you on your custody challenge.” She lifted her chin. “I have a job, and I can provide Oliver with everything he needs.”

  Daniel just shook his head, his exasperation coming off him in waves. “You’re four months behind on your mortgage.”

  “That’s not true,” she said. “Those bills were caught up this morning.”

  Daniel blinked, clearly not expecting that. “Did your sugar daddy pay out?”

  “No,” she said, because technically, Tripp was only three years older than her. He was wealthier and more successful, but she wasn’t his sugar baby, because they were close to the same age. “My fiancé helped me get back on my feet.”

  “This isn’t going to work,” Daniel said again. “I’m a lawyer, Ivory. I can smell a fake marriage from a hundred yards away.”

  She didn’t say anything, because she’d rather not lie to anyone. And she definitely didn’t want to fight with her ex where she worked.

  “That’s it?” he challenged.

  “I’ll see you in court,” she said quietly. “And we’ll let the judge decide.” Every cell in her body trembled, and she prayed that Daniel would just leave her alone. Someone on high still liked Ivory, because Daniel scoffed, turned, and strode out of the dry cleaner as quickly as he’d come in.

  Ivory sagged against the counter, beyond glad he was gone. She glanced at the wedding dress, some of her earlier excitement returning. Daniel had never wanted Oliver, and she wasn’t sure why he was fighting for him now.

  The chime sounded again, and Ivory warily looked up. Only this time, the cowboy walking toward her was a welcome sight. “Tripp,” she said, surprised.

  “I brought lunch,” he said, holding up two brown paper bags from Triple Roast Beef Deli.

  “Bless you,” she said, rounding the counter and slipping herself easily into his embrace. She tipped up onto her toes and kissed him, because she had the very real feeling that Daniel was watching.

  He wanted a show?

  He’d get one.

  Chapter Nine

  Tripp wasn’t sure why Ivory had kissed him, but he wasn’t complaining. He’d told her he’d bring her lunch today, and he hadn’t even gone anywhere nice. He cradled her face in both of his hands, kissing her back as enthusiastically as she’d started this little game.

  “Wow,” he said when she finally pulled away. “You must be starving.”

  She trilled out a little giggle that didn’t sound entirely like it belonged to her. “You’ll never guess what I found just now.” Her blue eyes lit up, and Tripp chuckled.

  “No, I don’t suppose I will.” He bent down and picked up his cowboy hat. He put it back on and busied himself with pulling out the sandwiches he’d bought for lunch. When Ivory didn’t say anything, he looked up.

  She stood behind the counter, a wedding dress in a bag held up against her body. Tripp blinked. “Isn’t it bad luck to see the bride in her dress before the wedding?”

  Ivory just laughed. “You’re not my real groom,” she said, clearly not understanding the punch those words carried.

  Tripp ducked his head again, this time taking the potato chips out of the bag. “Right,” he said, mostly to himself. Because Ivory was beaming as she admired the dress.

  “I found it right here,” she said. “In the back. The woman who dropped it off isn’t going to come get it, and Harmon said I could have it.”

  “Great,” he said, but he didn’t really mean it. “I told you I’d buy you a dress.”

  “And then I’d just have to pay you back for it,” she said, her smile losing some of its shine. “This way, I can bedazzle it with some of my beads or something, and we’re good to go.”

  “Good to go,” Tripp repeated, forcing himself to put a smile on his face. He knew this wedding was fake. He knew Ivory didn’t have any money. She’d given him the username and password for her mortgage company, and he’d logged on that morning to get caught up on her mortgage. It had literally taken him five minutes, and he wouldn’t miss the money.

  Heck, he could buy her the most expensive wedding dress in the world and not miss the money.

  He smothered his sigh and looked around for somewhere to sit. “Is there another stool back there?” he asked.

  “Let me get the chair from the office,” she said, hanging the wedding dress on the hook where she usually put customer’s garments. She scampered away from him, and Tripp let her go. She returned, and with his chair behind the wall so customers wouldn’t see him, they sat down to eat.

  “How’s everything else coming?” he asked.

  “Great,” she said. “With the dress, I have everything we need for a wedding.”

  “What about pictures?” he asked.

  “Pictures?”

  “Yeah.” Tripp looked at her. “Callie Foster asked me if we were going to send announcem
ents. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, and she knew it.” Tripp shook his head, the humiliation of that conversation filling him again now. “She said most couples get engagement pictures, have someone at the wedding taking professional pictures, all of that.”

  “Wedding photographers are very expensive,” she said. “We don’t need to do that.”

  “What are you doing?” he asked, wondering if any of his wants would make it into the wedding. Because he’d love a professional picture of him and Ivory. Foolish, he knew. Pathetic, even. But he couldn’t help wanting the pictures all the same.

  “Well, my friend Kate is making my bouquet,” she said. “We’re having the wedding at your ranch, and you said you’d take care of all the tables, chairs, décor, and food for that.”

  “Right,” he said, because he didn’t want to tell her he’d done none of those things. He hadn’t even talked to Jeremiah again since Monday night. His brother got up early and he ignored Tripp in the evenings.

  “And you said one of the Foster sisters would make my cake.”

  “Callie,” he said. “I did talk to her about that. She said she’d love to.” He didn’t mention that the Fosters were about as bad off as Ivory was, and that he’d be paying for whatever Callie needed to make the wedding cake.

  “Your brother is dealing with the sound system. I found a dress.” She ticked off her last finger. “That’s everything.”

  Tripp nodded and stuffed another bite of sandwich in his mouth, buying himself some time to figure out how to insist on pictures. He hadn’t discovered a way to start a hard conversation with his brother, and Ivory was twice as hard to argue with.

  Finally, he just looked up and said, “I’d really like to have someone take our pictures. Callie gave me the name of someone who’s great, and you don’t have to pay me back.”

  “Tripp—”

  “The groom pays for some things, doesn’t he?” he challenged.

  Ivory searched his face, and Tripp didn’t know what to hold back from her so she couldn’t find it. He didn’t want to hide anything from her, but the ground they were on felt fragile.