The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [124]
“I still don’t know why he did,” she began.
He chuckled. “He told me. He wanted to see if I was jealous of you. I gave him hell all night until Sims showed up. He laughed all the way back to the ranch. So much for lighting fires under people,” he added with a faint grin. “I’ll let him be best man, I guess, but he’s going to be the only man in church who doesn’t get to kiss the bride!”
She laughed. “What a wicked family I’m marrying into,” she said as she reached up to kiss him. “And speaking of wicked, we have to invite K.C.,” she added shyly.
He froze, lifting his head. “I don’t know about that, Kasie…”
“You’ll like him. Really you will,” she promised, smiling widely.
He grimaced. “I suppose we each have to have at least one handicap,” he muttered. “I have a lunatic brother and you’re best friends with a hit man.”
“He’s not. You’ll like him,” she repeated, and drew his head down to hers again. She kissed him with enthusiasm, enjoying the warm, wise tutoring of his hard mouth. “We should go and tell the babies,” she whispered against his mouth.
“No need,” he murmured.
“Uncle John, look! Daddy’s kissing Kasie!”
“See?” he added with a grin as he lifted his head and indicated the front door. Standing there, grinning also, were John, Bess, Jenny, Mrs. Charters, and Miss Parsons.
The wedding was the social event of Medicine Ridge for the summer. Kasie wore a beautiful white gown with lace and a keyhole neckline, with a Juliet cap and a long veil. She looked, Gil whispered as she joined him at the altar, like an angel.
Her excited eyes approved his neat gray vested suit, which made his hair look even more blond. At either side of them were Bess and Jenny in matching blue dresses, carrying baskets of white roses. Next to them was John, his brother’s best man, fumbling in his pocket for the wedding rings he was responsible for.
As the ceremony progressed, a tall, blond man in the front pew watched with narrowed, wistful eyes as his godchild married the eldest of the Callister heirs. Not bad, K.C. Kantor thought, for a girl who’d barely survived a military uprising even before she was born. He glanced at the woman seated next to him, his eyes sad and quiet, as he contemplated what might have been if he’d met Kasie’s aunt before her heart led her to a life of service in a religious order. They were the best of friends and they corresponded. She would always be family to him. She was the only family he had, or would ever have, except for that sweet young woman at the altar.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Mama Luke whispered to him.
“A real vision,” he agreed.
She smiled at him with warm affection and turned her attention back to the ceremony.
As the priest pronounced them man and wife, Gil lifted the veil and bent to kiss Kasie. There were sighs all around, until a small hand tugged hard at Kasie’s skirt and a little voice was heard asking plaintively, “Is it over yet, Daddy? I have to go to the bathroom!”
Later, laughing about the small interruption as they gathered in the fellowship hall of the church, Kasie and Gil each cuddled a little girl and fed them cake.
“It was nice of Pauline to apologize for what she did in the Bahamas,” Kasie murmured, recalling the telephone call that had both surprised and pleased her the day before the ceremony.
“She’s really not that bad,” Gil mused. “Just irresponsible and possessive. But I still didn’t want her at the wedding,” he added with a grin. “Just in case.”
“I still wish you’d invited your parents,” Kasie told Gil gently.
“I did,” he replied. “They were on their way to the Bahamas and couldn’t spare the time.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry the subject, Kasie. Some things can’t be changed. We’re a family, you and me and the girls and John.”
“Yes, we are,” she agreed, and she reached up to kiss him. She glanced around them curiously. Mama Luke intercepted the glance and joined them.
“He left as we were coming in