Mud covered everything, and water still dripped from the eaves, even as the late-afternoon sun came out to warm the chilly air. “Go out and check on the herds, and then let’s get this area cleaned up and put the horses back out in their paddocks.” As he issued instructions, the guys hurried to get started.
A white car slowed out on the road, then pulled into the ranch drive and made its way slowly down toward the house. Dawson shook his head at the fancy car. Who in the hell drove a car like that—a white one, no less—out to a ranch? That thing was going to look like a muddy zebra in, like, five minutes.
Dawson groaned as Lilly got out of the passenger side. Just what he needed, them looking around for wedding stuff while he was working. Still, he waved, and she came around the car. Lilly Meyer was a good lady, and he pasted on a smile.
Then the driver’s door opened and a man in the tightest jeans he had ever seen and a light purple shirt emerged from the car like he thought he was on a stage. Dawson wondered if the man could breathe in those pants and if the denim was cutting off circulation to the guy’s balls. He raised his gaze and, holy hell, a pair of eyes the color of the Texas sky stared back at him from a face that belonged in a magazine or something. Men were handsome and women were beautiful, at least in Dawson’s book, but this one was pretty as hell, and he had to smile as thoughts dirtier than the mud around him raced through his head.
“You really want to have the wedding here?” the man asked, turning to Lilly. “I mean, I’m sure I could do something with that hall in town….” He scanned around him. “What are you going to do, give all the guests shitkickers to keep the mud off?” He shuddered dramatically.
“Hey, Lilly,” Dawson called out, and she came over to give him a light hug. “Congratulations.” He really was happy for her, even if the thought of marriage made him want to find a cave and hide.
“Dawson. It’s good of you to show us around.” She gave him one of her warm smiles. “This is my cousin, Sinclair Llewelling. He’s going to help me plan the wedding. With the time we have, I didn’t think I was going to be able to do everything alone, and he agreed to help.”
“A pleasure,” Sinclair said as though he would rather be roasted over a fire than be here. Still, he extended his hand, and Dawson shook it, taken aback by the energy in the touch and the way Sinclair’s expression changed to a slight smile, his eyes widening in surprise for a fraction of a second.
“Same here.” Dawson pulled back his hand, wondering what the hell that was about.
“Where do we start?” Sinclair asked with all the enthusiasm of a visit to the dentist.
“Well…,” Lilly began, “the yard out here is big enough, and there are all those trees that will give us shade. We could put chairs there, and set tables out under the trees….”
“That will be covered in sap. These are sweet gums, and they could make a real mess,” Dawson supplied. “You could get married on the porch with the chairs on the lawn, but….”
Sinclair sighed. “Maybe,” he said flatly. “That would be ok for the ceremony, but we need someplace with a little ‘wow’ factor for the reception. And what do we do if it rains?” He turned to Lilly. “What we need is a place indoors that we can use. What about that?” he pointed at the barn. “It certainly is country enough.” Sinclair turned his gaze to Dawson, and he felt the heat of a summer day rise from inside.
“The horse barn?” he asked.
“It’s big enough,” Sinclair pressed, and started picking his way across the muddy drive, making faces as his shoes sank in despite his best efforts. Dawson followed and pulled open the barn door, and Sinclair peered inside. “What are all those boxy things?”
“You mean the horse stalls?” Dawson asked, trying not to roll his eyes.
“Okay.” Sinclair looked around again and backed out. “Let’s try somewhere else,” he told Lilly. “There has to be a place on this huge ranch with enough room to hold a wedding. I mean, how hard can it be?” He put his hands on his hips and turned to Dawson as though he were supposed to have the answer.
“This is a working ranch,” he snapped at Sinclair, then turned to Lilly, gentling his expression. “There aren’t any buildings that aren’t in use.” He shrugged. “It isn’t like one of those television movies that Rita watches where there’s always a building that’s largely empty except for a few forgotten carriages or something. Everything here is put to work.”
“Dawson,” Brad said as he and Ryder hurried up. “Do you want us to take horses or four-wheelers out to check the herds before sunset?”
“You’d better use the four-wheelers with the time you have before sunset.” Dawson hated the way they could gouge the grass after a rain. “But be careful not to tear anything up.” He fixed Brad with a glare and got a nod in return. Brad and Ryder headed off to the equipment shed and pulled open the large sliding doors.
“What’s that?” Sinclair said as he looked to where the guys had gone inside.
“The equipment shed,” Dawson explained. “It’s where we keep the tractors, four-wheelers, and the other stuff we use here on the ranch.” He shook his head as Sinclair and Lilly made their way over.
“It’s big enough and it’s wide open,” Sinclair said as he stepped inside, then coughed as the men started up the engines and zipped out and over the land toward the herds. “There’s plenty of space.” He lifted his gaze upward. “And look at those beams. We could run bunting along them or, wait, candles in jars. It would light up the entire ceiling and make it dance.”
Dawson was speechless.
“Do you think so?” Lilly asked, like she wasn’t convinced, and Dawson always knew she had a good head on her shoulders.
“Yeah. Imagine this place with all that junk out of here and that pile of… stuff… whatever it is—” He waved at the tractors dismissively. “—all of that gone. The floor is concrete. We could fill this place with flowers, and oh….” Sinclair grinned and clapped his hands. “How about two crystal candle chandeliers hanging from the ceiling? It would add elegance to the rustic space.”
The guy was out of his mind.
“Lilly,” Dawson said, trying to bring some reality to all the fantasy that was threatening to take over. “Do you really want to have a wedding in the equipment shed? This place is where we repair tractors. There’s a pit over at that end so we can get under the equipment.” He shook his head like they were crazy.
“We can build a dais over that and cover it up. The equipment can be moved out, as well as all that stuff over there. The building has great bones, and all it would take is some work to make this pretty spectacular. Fabric could cover what we don’t want seen, and we could use candles and lots of country accents to create the right mood.” Sinclair had clearly fallen off the deep end as far as Dawson was concerned, but he had been asked to show Lilly and her cousin around the ranch. If they wanted to do something crazy, it wasn’t his circus.
“Whatever you want to do. It’s no skin off my nose. If you want to have a wedding in the equipment shed, just talk to Rita about it.” Already he could see that Lilly was taken with the idea. But it didn’t matter, as far as he was concerned.