Second Chance Bride (Montana Born Brides) (16 page)

And Mitch pulled Scarlett around the side of the barn.

“We don’t have long,” Scarlett said, but her eyes were bright and hopeful and he was hopeful too.

“This won’t take long.” He took a breath. “Scarlett, I had to come because I had to tell you something. Something I didn’t have the courage to tell you back in Broome and something I thought I’d get over when I got back to work, but I didn’t, and I kept looking at that note you left me, and I had to come and find out if you felt the same way.”

Her eyes were wide and waiting, her breathing hitched. “Tell me,” she whispered.

“I love you, Scarlett. And I need to know if you could love me too.”

“Oh Mitch!” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh yes, I love you! I’m crazy about you. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Didn’t you know? Couldn’t you tell?”

He was spinning her around, laughing and so filled with joy, there were tears in his eyes. “I was too afraid to hope. I was too wrapped up in my own misery.” His heart was filled to bursting as they kissed, but there was still room for more. There was still more he had to ask.

“I know this is sudden,” he said, “but I don’t have long and I know you’ve probably had a gut
ful of weddings for a while, but I need to know.” He swallowed. “Scarlett, will you marry me?”

Scarlett stood there, like a deer in the headlights. “You know about my
mom, I told you about her sickness. You know there’s a chance...”

“Everything in life is ruled by chance, Scarlett. And maybe there’s a risk of something happening down the track and maybe there isn’t, but I do know that if I don’t take this chance on loving you, then I’m the loser, whatever happens.”

Her eyes filled with tears, she put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Mitch. I love you so much. So yes,” she said nodding. “Yes, of course I will marry you.”

H
is heart crowed—
buckadoodledoo
!—and the music started up while they were kissing again and Scarlett said, “We have to go inside.”

“
One more thing,” he said. “I don’t have a ring for you, but I do have this.” He pulled a pouch from his pocket and a string of pearls with one single teardrop pearl in the center. The one that matched her earrings.

And as he fixed it around her neck, he let his lips brush her skin, and felt the heated charge that came with being with this woman, and knew that it was right.

“Where’ve you been?” whispered Tammy as they took their seats under the crisscrossing fairy lights strung across the barn as the music wound down, “They’re about to introduce the couples.”

“Mitch asked me to marry him.”

“Oh!” Her mother slapped her hands over her mouth. “And what did you say?”

Scarlett smiled. “I said, yes, of course.”

“Oh my lord!” Tammy said, and at least a half dozen tables turned their way at the commotion. “First Tara and Simon, now you and Mitch. You have made me the proudest mama.”

Scarlett smiled up at Mitch and mouthed, “I love you.”

Miss Scarlett Buck became Mrs
. Scarlett Bannister a month later under a warm spring sun on the lush lawns of Marietta’s Bramble House, an 1890’s Queen Anne mansion built on Bramble Lane by one of the founding families of Marietta.

Her aunt Margot gave her away, with Scarlett wearing a gown of organza and tulle with a
ruched bodice and long floaty skirt that she’d found at Married in Marietta, though not on the sale rack this time, and not with, Scarlett had made sure, a past. In her hands were the sweetly scented roses that clever Risa Grant from Sweetpea Flowers had formed into a bouquet, and at her throat and on her ears were the pearls that Mitch had given her.

O
n her finger was the rock he had bought for their official engagement. A one carat Kimberly pink diamond. Nestled right up to the matching wedding band.

Her sister, Tara, looked stunning in her sapphire bridesmaid dress. She and Simon hadn’t semi-
finalled that night at the barn dance, and while Simon had seemed disappointed, it hadn’t fazed Tara at all. She’d just blown off the disappointment and gone back to making their wedding plans the way she’d expected to all along.

Tammy was in her element, her blonde hair back combed to within an inch of its existence, her leopard print silk jacket floating over a gold pantsuit.

Afterwards they had cocktail hour on the white balustraded balcony and bride and groom mingled with their guests, both far-flung and local. An intimate wedding by wedding standards, but definitely a good one.

Mitch’s mum
was over from Melbourne, loving every minute of it, and loving Scarlett’s mom and Aunt Margot into the deal. This end of town was like her part of Melbourne. She could do leopard print and new age crystals with the best of them.

Robbo
had made the trip over too, to be Mitch’s best man, and he’d brought a glowing Sharon along with him. “We’re getting married ourselves,” he admitted after the ceremony, as he pumped Mitch’s arm to congratulate him. “Sometime in spring back home, we’re hoping. And we’d really like it if you could both be there. Um, especially since we’d like you to be best man, Mitch.”

Mitch laughed. “Best man again, huh? Maybe
this time I’ll get it right.”

“You just did, sweetheart,” said Scarlett, punching him in the arm, before reaching across to kiss them both, “We’re thrilled for you.”

And even Robbo’s parents had made the trip, just as they’d promised they would.

“A beautiful wedding,” sighed Virginia. “I’m hoping our next has a bit less drama than the last.”

Andrew wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “You know, we had a lucky escape from the daughter-in-law from hell. We’re not sure which of you two we owe the most to, but we just wanted to say thank you.”

It was a small wedding, but it was a great wedding. And after all the meet and greets had been
done and dusted, and as soon as there was a break in the traffic, Mitch plucked two glasses of champagne from a tray and took his new bride aside.

He wrapped his arm lovingly around his new wife and planted a kiss on her lips before handing her a glass. “How do you feel, Mrs
. Bannister?”

“Special. Loved. Like my life is starting over. Like I’ve been offered a second chance at everything. A second chance at life. A second chance at love.”

“A second chance bride?”

And she looked up at him. “Yeah, but this time, I got it right.”

“That you did,” he said, as he pulled her into his kiss. “That you did.”

The excitement is building in Marietta, Montana, with a series of stories centered
around the 100
th
Anniversary of the Graff Hotel and—as part of the celebration—an incredible Wedding Giveaway.

The Graff Hotel has enlisted the entire town to stage a spectacular 100-year repeat of the Great Wedding Giveaway of 1914. Photographs and posters of the original event inspired a look back to an elegant time. Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States and King George V ruled England. High fashion drawings featured long skirts and elaborate feathered hats. As the dance craze swept the world, everyone was learning the tango… hemlines started to rise and “dance shoes” became popular.

Today’s Great Wedding Giveaway seeks to recapture the style and grace of Marietta’s past and launch a campaign to make Marietta a wedding destination. So couples from all over the country are invited to enter the contest and compete for the works—air fare, bridal gown, flowers, photography, food, the wedding suite at the Graff, a honeymoon, and more.

The stories in the Montana Born Brides series bring you the heart, humor, and charm of Marietta and the people who want to get married there (or not). Some brides are sweet, some are sassy, and all are as unique as Montana snowflakes. Watch for new releases… you won’t want to miss a single one!

Click here to learn about Montana Born Brides releases:

www.MontanaBornBrides.com

If you enjoyed Second Chance Bride, you will also love…

What
A Bride Wants

Kelly Hunter

“Yes, I know he’s perfectly presentable and possibly a very nice person. Second-born son from a good ranching family. All good things. It’s just that when he looks at me he sees Emerson Holdings and award-winning bloodlines – money on the hoof. He doesn’t see me.”

Ella Grace Emerson leaned against the walnut desk and watched with fond exasperation as her father paced the length of his study. He stopped and stooped to add another block of wood to the fire that sat snug within the stonework of the study’s western wall. A huge picture window took up most of another wall and in the distance loomed the soaring, snow-clad Crazy Mountains of Montana. The charity dinner they’d just returned from had dragged on late into the evening. They’d been seated at a table of eight that had included Joe Carter and his middle son Max, and the blatant matchmaking efforts of both fathers had been enough to set Ella’s teeth on edge.

Max’s half-baked interest in her good-self had done the rest.

“It was worth a try,” her father argued. “You and Max have similar social status, similar interests. It could have worked well.”

“That’s what you always say. And it never does. Daddy, I am not a cow to be bred. You need to let me find my own man.”

“But you don’t.” Samuel T. Emerson threw up his hands.”

What a bride wants…

Ella Grace Emerson adores her father, but he keeps trying to marry her off to every eligible rancher in Montana. When he puts an ad in the paper on her behalf – for a docile house-husband – Ella retaliates with one of her own, pinned to the noticeboard of the local saloon. No husband required, housebroken or otherwise. What she wants is the perfect lover.

What a bride needs…

Newcomer Cam Sawyer is perfectly willing to tear up the sheets with Ella and be her partner in chaos. She wants a bad boy and he’s had experience aplenty. But what she really needs is a strong and loving partner, and until Sawyer stops running from his past he can never be that.

Sawyer’s
the one Ella wants. But can he be the man she needs?

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