Page 1 of Bride ’N Boots

CHAPTER ONE

“Sugar, can I help you with something?”

I looked at the tall, wiry woman with a silver braid streaming down her back. She sat at a table with another customer—a dimpling woman with rosy cheeks.

“No,” I said. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” the dimpling woman asked. “You look a bit frazzled.”

Frazzled was a polite way of putting it.

I was currently on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

My phone buzzed, and I scooped it out of my wedding-dress pocket.

Arden

We are so undelightfully fucked.

It was 6:30 in the morning. I was wearing a wedding dress, full makeup and hair, and a pair of cowboy boots that were a size too big for my feet.

I’d hit the small-town bakery’s early morning rush. The tables were full of customers and there was a line at the counter five people deep.

And wouldn’t you know it, most of them were looking at me. How often did a woman show up at a bakery in a wedding dress?

The baristas were flying to make drinks and the cashier was writing orders on to-go coffee cups and lining them up.

“You’re not from Huckleberry Hill, are you?” the wiry woman asked.

I shook my head and peered around the bakery.

Curious stares abounded, but I ignored them.

A man in a cowboy hat and a black and red buffalo checkered shirt was sitting alone in the corner booth. He was enjoying a coffee, his eyes scanning the local paper. He seemed to be the only one in the room who hadn’t noticed me.

I stalked through the bakery, making a mental note to come back another time for a sample platter because the place smelled so incredible.

I slid into the booth seat across from the man in the cowboy hat. “I need you to be my groom,” I blurted out.

He looked up slowly; his angular jaw covered in dark stubble. Blue eyes, bright with curiosity, landed on my face. He casually leaned back in the booth and examined me.

“Can I at least know your name before we get married?”

I blinked. “We’re not getting married.”

“Little early for Halloween then, isn’t it?”

“It’s not a costume.”

He put the paper down and gave me his full attention. “Let’s start over.”

“Great, yeah, so I need you to be my groom.”

His beautiful lips curved into a smile.

Yikes.

“I meant, your name,” he clarified.