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Now she was an apprentice mechanic at Brian Delaney Auto Service. The first woman ever to work in their bays. And his little sister had a new goal: she had decided that she would also be the first woman in their chapel.
All the old patches patted her on the head and thought that was cute. They couldn’t imagine a woman wearing a patch, and Hannah was notorious for stirring shit just to work her shoulder, so they didn’t take her seriously. But Duncan thought if anybody could do it, Hannah would be the one to kick open that door. For her whole life, she’d heard the word ‘no’ as a dare.
Also, with Mason patched, the Young Guns had almost half the table. They thought about the world a lot differently than the old Boomers and Xers at the other end, and the two current prospects, Book and Charlie, were in their early twenties. When they took patches, the vote would swing to the other side of the table.
Change was on the horizon.
“WICKY AND FWED!” Ethan screamed into Duncan’s ear. Laughing, he crouched and set his nephew down while his niece dismounted his back. Tildy grabbed Ethan’s hand, and they ran the rest of the way to the petting zoo, which was about ten square feet of temporary fencing. Vin was at the makeshift gate to let them in.
Phoebe sat in a folding camp chair in the corner of the enclosure, wearing a straw cowboy hat and a big pair of sunglasses. He was glad to see her sitting.
With Tildy and Ethan in the competent hands of their Unca Vin, Duncan devoted his attention to his beautiful girl.
“Hey there.” He crouched before her and picked up her hands. “Feeling any better?”
She pulled him close and kissed him. “Lots better.”
“Excellent.” He stayed close and caressed her cheek with his lips. “You give any more thought to my crazy idea?” he whispered.
“It’s a pretty crazy idea, Dunc,” she whispered back, playing her fingers over his beard.
“But is it a bad one?”
They had not planned to start a family, but ... uh ... sometimes they got a little too excited and didn’t completely plan not to start a family, and eventually that occasional laxity had produced a pink cross on a stick. Phoebe was about ten weeks pregnant; they’d be parents in January.
They’d talked plenty about marriage and children and what that would look like in their unusually blended family, but they’d been thinking like five years down the line. However, as soon as that pink cross had popped up, they’d both taken it as a sign to speed up their timeline.
They’d told everyone about the pregnancy right after Phoebe’s first OB appointment. Really their attention had been on that—the pregnancy, if there might be any additional concerns because of her brain injury (her doctor said not really, but they were monitoring her closely anyway), managing her intense morning sickness, starting to figure out how to set up the house for a kid—and they hadn’t talked much at all about the marriage part. On top of the unexpected baby stuff, the idea of planning a wedding made Phoebe’s head noisy.
This morning, as they were preparing to load up the critters and haul everybody the sixty miles that made up his daily commute, a thought had struck him like a lightning bolt. Upon hearing that thought, Phoebe had promptly announced he was nuts. But she’d been grinning, and he’d gotten her to agree to think about it.
“It’s perfect, babe. Everybody we love is already here. Like everybody. We can use this party as our reception, so the planning is already done! And Levi can do the ceremony. He got one of those online ordinations for when he did Kelsey and Dex’s wedding. All I have to do is ask, and I know he’ll say yes.”
“We don’t have a license. We need a license. Can’t get one on a Saturday.”
Those kinds of questions weren’t roadblocks so much as speed bumps. Phoebe wanted this, too. It was her way to poke at what she wanted and find reasons she couldn’t have it. Duncan took it as his mission to find reasons she could always have what she wanted.
And he’d already thought about this one. “So ... okay. You’re right. But that’s just paperwork. We can have a wedding today and do the courthouse thing to make it legal when we get back. Or I’ll ask Apollo to get his friend to backdate a license to make today legal. Or we’ll be in Nevada in a few days—we can do it the legal part there. Lots of options.” The last part of this anniversary weekend was a fun run to Eureka and back. They were stopping in Laughlin and Madrone on the way.
Picking up her hands again, he kissed her knuckles. “I just want to marry you today, with all our friends and family here, and a whole damn carnival for a reception.”
Phoebe pushed him back a little and considered him seriously. “I do love the idea, but I ... I’m only gonna do this once, babe. I don’t want to be wearing cutoffs and a 4H t-shirt when I get married. It should be special.”
“This is as special as the Bulls ever get—and I think you look hot as fuck in those Daisy Dukes.” As she opened her mouth to continue her argument, Duncan put a hand up to stop her. “But I hear you about wanting to look a certain way. Can we bring my mom into this? Because nobody on the planet can put a great party together faster or better than Bulls women.”
“Duncan. They’re already so busy. We’ve all been working on this weekend for months.”
“And what could be more perfect than a wedding in the middle of an anniversary! They will be excited. Trust me, baby. I say the word ‘wedding,’ and they will leap at it.”
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~oOo~
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The women leapt. They shoved Duncan out of the way, grabbed Phoebe, and leapt.
By dusk, Duncan and Phoebe’s impromptu wedding was set up. Duncan had been forcibly stripped and re-dressed, so he was now wearing his best jeans and a crisp white Oxford, and his boots and kutte were newly polished. He had a ring of his mother’s in his pocket and a yellow daffodil from the florist around the corner in his buttonhole. Yellow was Phoebe’s favorite color.
