“He just arrived,” Tori answered, finishing with the buttons on Karly’s dress. She walked over and picked up the veil they’d laid out on the bed earlier. “Thank heavens Blake got the road asphalted these past two weeks. I’d hate to see your beautiful dress covered in Wyoming dust.”
Karly nodded. “I couldn’t believe how quickly the crew from the construction company finished surfacing the road from here to the main house.”
“It doesn’t take long,” Tori said as she pinned the tulle and lace to the back of Karly’s loosely upswept hair. When Karly’s new best friend stepped back, she smiled. “You’re going to knock the socks off Blake when he sees you in this.”
“That’s the plan,” Karly said, smiling as she looked at herself in the full length mirror.
After she and Blake returned to the ranch from Seattle, Karly had gone into full wedding mode and, with Tori’s recommendation, hired a wedding planner from Cheyenne. The woman had been nothing short of a miracle worker and once Karly had told her what she wanted and the date, all that had been left for Karly to do was decide on the perfect dress. Fortunately, she found what she wanted at the first bridal shop she and Tori visited and once the alterations were completed there really hadn’t been all that much for her to do.
A knock on the door signaled that it was time for Eli to drive them over to the main house for the ceremony that would renew Karly and Blake’s wedding vows. When Tori opened the door he grinned. “You ladies look beautiful.” Eli kissed his wife. “Blake and I are the two luckiest guys this side of the Great Divide.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Tori said, kissing her husband’s cheek. Turning to Karly, she asked, “Are you ready?”
“I’m more than ready,” Karly said, picking up the bouquet the wedding planner had delivered earlier.
As they made their way downstairs and out to the white horse-drawn carriage that would take them over to the main house for the ceremony, Karly couldn’t stop smiling. She felt a little like Cinderella and knowing that her very own Prince Charming would be waiting to help her down from the carriage once they arrived at the ranch house made her impatient to get there. She hadn’t seen Blake since earlier in the day when Tori arrived to take them to get their hair and nails done down in Eagle Fork and she’d missed him terribly.
When Eli drove the carriage up the drive to the log mansion, Karly’s breath caught at the sight of Blake waiting for them at the end of the sidewalk leading to the patio. Dressed in a Western cut tuxedo, black snake-skin boots and a wide brimmed black hat, he truly was the man of her dreams.
“You’re gorgeous,” he whispered close to her ear as he lifted her down from the carriage.
“You clean up real nice yourself, cowboy,” Karly said, rising on tiptoes to kiss his lean cheek.
“Are you ready to become Mrs. Hartwell?” he asked as he tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and started walking toward the waterfall where the minister and his brother Sean were waiting on them.
“I’m already Mrs. Hartwell,” she said, loving her new last name.
He nodded. “But this time it’s permanent, sweetheart.”
As she glanced toward the Western sky, the sun was just beginning to sink behind the mountain peaks and it was time for her sunset wedding to begin. “I’ve never been more ready for anything in my entire life,” she said as they walked past over a hundred guests assembled on the patio.
* * *
As the last of their wedding guests drove away from the ranch house, Blake took Karly in his arms and kissed her until she sagged against him. “I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said, taking her by the hand to lead her around to the other side of the pool.
When he stopped by the fire pit where he’d lain a small amount of kindling, the woman he loved more than life itself looked up at him like he’d lost every ounce of sense he possessed. “Seriously? Do you really want to build a fire now?”
Happier than he’d ever been, he grinned. “Trust me. I think you’ll like this.”
“I was looking forward to going upstairs to give you a wedding surprise of my own,” she said as she continued to stare at him.