Fools (Licking Thicket 3)

I’d snorted. “In a hundred years?”

“Amos Nutter is immortal,” Dunn had said solemnly, his green eyes back on mine. “You’ll never convince me he’s not a vampire.”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality precludes me from confirming or denying,” I’d said primly.

“Precludes.” Dunn’s lips had twitched. “Have I mentioned how your vocabulary turns me on?”

I’d shaken my head, and Dunn had poked me in the side.

“Stop being sexy, Tucker. Shit. I’m tryna focus here. Where was I?”

“Amos Nutter is a vampire?” I’d blinked innocently.

“Shush. Before that.”

“All our stories are Thicket stories?”

“That’s right.” He’d cleared his throat. “And this story—the story of you and me and how we got married—I want that to be our story. Just us.”

“Okay.”

“So I think we should just… just do it. Fly to Vegas. You and me. We’ll spend the rest of our lives with my family, but this one day I want to be ours, eating tater tots and watching the Vegas sunset, side by side.”

“Okay.”

“And besides which, if we get married, that will provide a more stable home life for Bernadette, which would improve her longevity.”

I’d laughed out loud and brought my hands up to frame Dunn’s face. “Baby?”

“Yeah?”

“I said okay.”

“You mean…” He’d frowned. “You mean okay-okay? As in, you agree with me? About getting married.”

I’d nodded. “I mean, I was on the fence, but now that I know it’s for Bernie…”

Dunn had poked me in the side again, and I’d sobered.

“You are all I’ve ever wanted, Dunn Johnson,” I’d told him, pushing his hair back from his face. “Only a fool would say no to you. I can have us packed for Vegas in an hour.”

Except, as it turned out, it hadn’t quite happened that way.

I mean, first we’d had to spend another hour or so in bed, doing what Dunn called “pregaming the wedding night,” and then, before I could even get out my phone to check my schedule or book us a flight, Lu had called from the barn to say Trippy, one of Dunn’s heifers, was in labor and it looked like a tricky one.

And then Mossy and Melaina had calved too.

And then one of the Carpenter kids from out on Winter Church went to sleepaway camp and came down with the flu on her first night back… but not before sharing her water bottle with her brother, sisters, and at least three other kids in the neighborhood.

And then, somehow, April had become June, skipping May entirely, and it was time for the monthlong wedding festivities.

Thicketeers tended to get pretty excited about June in general, what with the fields all abloom, and the bass running, and the kids out of school for the summer, and the annual Lickin’ on the horizon.

Thicketeers with a June wedding on the calendar were even more excited.

And Thicketeers preparing for the June wedding of their former town golden boy, Brooks, and their favorite adopted son, Malachi? Well, that went beyond excitement. The air had fairly buzzed with electricity for weeks, and they’d lost their minds with the thrill of it all. What had resulted was a jaw-dropping, once-in-a-lifetime, no-holds-barred bovine spectacular.

The celebration had begun with a two-day family-friendly bachelor extravaganza. There’d been a barbecue cookoff with Parrish Partridge judging the meats, Diesel Partridge judging the vegetarian entries, and little Marigold Partridge toddling around presenting the winners with kisses.

There’d also been a dance contest, which Amos and his Emmaline had won hands down both in the technical skill category and the endurance category—although Amos been heard telling Emmaline after the fact that he’d had to keep dancing for hours, since his hip had locked that way.

And there’d even been a town-wide tree house raising at the playground across from the elementary school, led by Ryder and Colin Richards and the Richards Renovations crew, to commemorate the tree house over at the Iveys’ place where Mal had slept when he’d first come to town.

A week later, Cindy Ann had assembled us for a Bovine Bike Parade, in which we’d all dressed up in cow paraphernalia and ridden from the town square, to Diesel Partridge’s salvage yard, to the town sign, to commemorate what Cindy Ann was calling Mal’s “historic trek” to find just the right cattle brush to finish his sculpture. It had been such a good time, they were thinking of making that an annual event… which I guess was how most of the Thicket traditions had become traditions, if I stopped to think about it.

And then last weekend, there’d been a photo shoot for the wedding party out in Amos Nutter’s field by the town sign. Amos had once again painted his herd for the occasion, arranging them to spell out “LOVE LOVE LOVE!” in rainbow letters. It hadn’t been his fault the poor cows got startled by Mac Davis riding past on his Harley just before the photographer snapped the pictures and ended up spelling out “EVOL VOLE OLÉ!” (or that Juniper, the other “V,” refused to come out of the trees until milking time). Fortunately Malachi hadn’t seemed to mind this at all, if the way he threw his arms and legs around Brooks, kissed his face off, and said, “Thank you, Brooks Johnson, for giving me this town,” was any indication.