The Bride Wore Starlight (6 page)

J
OELY
C
ROCKETT
F
OSTER
was funny, which was not what Alec had been led to expect.

He found himself shaking his head and laughing more than once during the next hour's photo session. As he coaxed Joely more and more often into leaving the confines of her chair for pictures, she loosened up, and he got a tiny taste of her natural humor and ability to perfectly time a great snarky comment. After a little while she seemed to lose the little black cloud she'd dragged with her to the wedding.

“Talk to Joely. Maybe compliment her a little. She needs someone besides her family to cheer her up.” Gabe had come to him that morning, and along with the request he'd told Alec about her horrendous car accident, the interminable rehab she was still undergoing, and its limited success.

Alec had agreed equitably, with no ulterior motives. Talking with a woman would be easy enough. Bringing her a drink and complimenting her dress were tricks any decent pickup man had learned in high school. All were acts that would be as easy for him as falling off a bronc and just as quick to perform. He'd looked on Gabe's request as a chance to rack up a good deed for the weekend.

But from Gabe's simple request, Alec had formed a mental picture of a sad, shy, somewhat frightened young girl with a broken body. The permanent images in his brain of all the frightened-faced, broken men he'd seen in Afghanistan had only fed the preconception. When he heard “injured limbs,” that's simply where his mind went.

He couldn't have been more mistaken. Joely Crockett was not only crazy beautiful, she was strong and stubborn if a little self-pitying. It didn't matter that she couldn't walk a step without help, she had the sculpted, attractive arms of a gym rat, which told him she wasn't weak. So she had a six-inch scar that zigged from mid-ear to her throat. It took nothing away from her heart-shaped face, flawless complexion, and piercing blue eyes. It was those eyes that had told him how wrong he'd been. They did show sadness, but not in a scared, shy way. Her sorrow went far deeper than the loss of mobility or the insult to her face. It was the kind of sadness that spoke of failure, and he recognized it. He just didn't know her well enough to understand why she believed she'd failed.

Once the photographer was finished and Alec had secured all the bridesmaids into a borrowed van with Joely secure in the passenger seat, he climbed behind the wheel and twisted to look at the full load of gorgeous females ready for the trip back to Paradise Ranch.

“All aboard and settled?” he asked.

“Drive on, Jeeves,” one of the triplets replied.

He couldn't tell them apart, even though they all wore slightly different dresses in slightly different shades of blue or purple—or peri-friggin'-winkle as someone had corrected him earlier. The three were as alike as cookies from a mold, and they'd been dressing the same and confusing the hell out of everyone for two days now. Good thing they were sweet as chocolate and cute as baby lambs. Though they were hardly babies, he admitted.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. “Joely, you feeling safe enough with us?” A chuckle escaped. “Now that I have you out of the open I aim to get you to tell us about this would-be assassin from your childhood. You can't get out of telling me anymore now that I'm within her sights.”

“For crying out loud.” She rolled her eyes but then smiled. “I should never have brought it up.”

“Are you talking about the Heidi story?” Another triplet giggled. “You have to tell him. It's the stupidest funny story he'll ever hear.”

“Darn right,” the first triplet said. “One thirteen-year-old attempting to kill another using a skunk? It never gets old.”

“I suppose,” Joely said. “It is the story of one of the world's true masterminds. And in fairness you did ask if you needed to beware of her.”

Skylar Thorson leaned forward between the front seats. “What's the Heidi story?”

“It's ridiculous is what it is,” Joely said.

“It's entirely book-worthy.” Laughter spilled from the third triplet, who sat in the far rear of the van. “I might just try my hand at a murder mystery where that's the killer's signature. When I start my next career as an author.”

Skylar tapped Joely's shoulder, grinning already. “Tell me!”

“It was fourteen years ago.”

“It was her first beauty pageant.”

“It was
not
a beauty pageant, Kel,” Joely said adamantly.

Kelly—in the light blue dress. Alec made a mental note.

“It was a made-up competition to see who could be princess attendant of the high school rodeo team. Something extra between being junior and senior princess. Practically every junior high girl entered, so it wasn't anything that cool. All you had to do was sell the most Rodeo Booster buttons. If you did, you got to ride your horse around the arena during the fall high school rodeo and then be the official helper to the senior princess and the high school rodeo queen.”

“Was it a big deal?” Skylar asked.

“I thought it was kind of ridiculous to tell you the truth. Sell buttons, be a sort-of-a-queen. It was so lame, as we used to say, but it was something to do for the heck of it. Heidi, on the other hand, wanted this more than anything and worked her butt off. She even semicheated by offering sales on the buttons and free gifts if people bought them—like mini candy bars and things. She'd been a junior princess in grade school and had been trying for three years to get this title, too. She had a step-by-step plan for her life: junior princess, attendant, senior princess, high school rodeo queen, Miss Rodeo America. As far as she was concerned, there was no other career track back then.”

“But you beat her, right?” Skylar clasped her hands beneath her chin as if praying for the happy ending.

“By thirteen buttons.”

“Thirteen was her unlucky number!” Skylar sat back in her seat. In the rearview mirror Alec watched her grin as if all of this was just unfolding. “I'll bet you didn't cheat.”

“It's embarrassing to admit now, but I didn't even really try all that hard. My dad just knew a lot of people, and we went into town a lot. I asked anyone I met, but I honestly didn't expect to win. I don't remember the details anymore, but when I did end up winning and Heidi had lost her last chance? I was shocked, and she was steaming mad.”

“So Heidi threatened to kill her,” Kelly said. “Nobody would have paid any attention, except she said it, screamed it really, right in front of the whole gymnasium full of kids and families. We were all, what, ten or so?” She looked from Grace to Raquel, who nodded as one.

“Seriously?” Skylar nearly choked on laughter. “If we said anything like that today, we'd get hauled out of school in handcuffs.”

“I don't think it came out like ‘I'm going to kill you,' ” Joely said. “It was something on the order of ‘You stink so bad Joely Crockett. You deserve to die like a stinky skunk, and I know where there's a family of them. I should put them all in a room with you and kill you with their smell.' ”

“The really ridiculous thing is, she actually did try,” Raquel-or-was-it-Grace said. “She had three brothers. The oldest one was a pretty creepy guy who's long gone from Jackson, thank goodness. He was the one who helped her catch two juvenile skunks and sneak them in Joely's open window.”

Alec turned his head and stared at Joely in disbelief. “That must have been ugly.”

“It was, although I only lost a fake bearskin rug, a pair of boots, and the dust ruffle on my bed. It didn't kill me because even though they put a towel under my bedroom door, they forgot to close the window all the way.” Joely laughed. “It could have done a lot more damage. Fortunately, the animals were young and only had tiny stinks. Dad and Skylar's grandpa, Leif, live trapped them and sealed the trap in an airtight container long enough to release the little guys.”

“I hope that Heidi person got into a lot of trouble,” Skylar said.

“She did. She never forgave me for that either.”

“And there was karma,” Kelly said. “Joely went on to win both the senior princess title and the high school rodeo queen competition. The year after that, she was homecoming queen. Every time, Heidi was first runner-up.”

“All right!” Skylar pumped her fist in the air.

“What about Miss Rodeo America?” Alec asked.

Joely shook her head. “I never competed for it. Someone talked me into participating in the Miss Wyoming pageant and then I won so—”

“I remember when you won!” Skylar said. “My whole family was there!”

“I remember that, too.” Joely looked back at the girl. “That was really special.”

“So did you become Miss America, too?” Alec asked. “Did I miss that?”

“It would have been Miss USA, but no. Thank heavens. Way, way too much pressure.”

“She was in the top ten, though,” Kelly said. “And she got to have a really big stage for her platform, which was preventing animal abuse. She shut down a half dozen abusive facilities throughout Wyoming that year.”

“I didn't personally do it. I just told people about them. It's true, that was a great vehicle for promoting something I felt strongly about.”

“Two small poultry operations, three super-awful puppy mills, a man who had fifteen or so starved and neglected horses, and one fox farm where they were electrocuting the foxes by—”

“Stop!” Joely cut Kelly off with a sharp order. “I don't need to relive it—I saw it in person.”

“I'm impressed,” Alec said. “An animal rights advocate. Brave indeed.”

“I wasn't affiliated with any organization,” she said. “I was generically for the rights of animals not to be abused. My platform was that we humans are supposed to be the smart mammals—but instead we can be downright cruel sometimes.”

“Is this a soapbox?” he teased.

She bristled visibly, and her ruffled feathers pleased him. She did have fight beneath the passive, slightly depressed face she presented in her wheelchair.

“And what if it is?”

“I say stand on it,” he replied. “Sounds like you know how.”

He could tell she was going to snap at him again—he already recognized the quick set of her lovely mouth and the storm settling in her eye. She apparently hated even oblique references to her standing or moving like a normal person, no matter that they were inadvertent and intended as compliments. Somebody, or several somebodies, had allowed her from the start to assimilate with her wheelchair like a Star Trek Borg. She now considered using crutches an unpleasant way to move and barely considered standing as feasible, despite being able to manage both with help.

He didn't see Joely as a diva, but clearly she'd gotten used to things being easy for her throughout her life, with her gorgeous face, beauty pageants she couldn't lose, and her family's overprotectiveness. She was stuck and wallowing in her circumstances now with no tools that would allow her to dig out of the defeatism. He wouldn't pull rank on her yet, but he could see that others seemed blind to the fact she hadn't accepted hard work as her only way forward. Maybe he'd be the one to give her an object lesson in fighting for herself. Maybe not. But somebody had to tell her that no crown was going to appear on her head and make this reality show all better. Unfortunately, it didn't look like it would be her family. They clearly adored her too much.

“Didn't you want to be a veterinarian?” Skylar asked, interrupting any words Joely had been going to let fly. “I remember that from your Miss Wyoming interview.”

“Do you have, like, an eidetic memory or something?” Joely asked. “That was five years ago.”

“No.” Skylar scoffed at her. “I remember because I used to want to be a vet, too, but I can't do math, so I'd never get into vet school. Say, can you learn
how
to have an eidetic memory? Then I wouldn't suck at math, and I
could
be a vet.”

Laughter broke the last of the tension that had started to form. Out of the mouths of babes, Alec thought, often came logic so warped it made sense.

“I wanted to be strictly an equine vet,” Joely said. “But my dad made me see that horse and small animal veterinarians didn't have much use around here. When you live in cattle country on a cattle ranch, you need to concentrate on cattle—even take a public health or food production specialty. That wasn't my thing at all, so I gave that idea up and went for saving all animals with a soapbox instead of with medicine.” She sent Alec a sideways micro-glare. “It's all for the best. I suck a little at math, too.”

“You do not!” Kelly said.

“Okay. Maybe it was organic chemistry.” Joely scowled and turned back to stare out the window.

“You're hilarious.” Kelly snorted. “Harper was the artsy fartsy one, you and Mia were the scientists. You even studied animal science. I figured you just changed your mind about vet school.”

“Let's go with that.”

There was something in Joely's tone—a weak undercurrent of anger, a note of resignation—that told him she was done with the whole subject of vet school, even though her answer was clearly sarcastic. The woman was growing more intriguing with every passing mile.

A
LEC STOOD ON
the expansive, multi-tiered back deck at Rosecroft and couldn't help the sense of amazement that hit every time he visited. All a person had to do was walk into the little foothills town of Wolf Paw Pass adjacent to Paradise Ranch lands, and the reputation of the Crockett's legacy crashed into him. Whether it was the picture of Eli Crockett in the general store he'd started, the map of the area with Paradise boundaries outlined in red hanging in the post office, or talk of the new, successful windmill farm on the enormous spread's southeastern border, Alec had heard enough about the fifty-thousand-acre spread by the first time he'd visited to be awed.