Page 1 of Worth the Trouble

CHAPTER ONE

Cecelia Williams was fairly certain she was the only guest at this wedding rooting for the bride and groom without ever having met either one of them.

Well. That wasn’t entirely true.

“Smile, Cecelia,” her father murmured at her side. “We’re being gracious.”

Gracious. That was the word Roxanne Carter had used, too, when the invitation arrived. We may be on opposite sides of a zoning map, Reginald, but I’ve known your people for thirty years, and I won’t have it said that I left you sulking in a hotel. Her father had grumbled about optics and then accepted, because attending the wedding of the town’s favorite son was the cheapest goodwill money couldn’t buy.

So here they were. Guests of the aunt of the bride, tolerated on a technicality.

Cecelia had worn a simple sundress and her boots, and it turned out to be the right instinct. Half the guests looked like Rocky Ridge and the other half looked like they’d stepped off a runway. Roxanne’s people, faces Cecelia recognized from a hundred charity galas. None of them gave her a second glance. Out here, in a sundress, she was nobody at all.

She was surprised by how much she liked it.

The ceremony had been lovely. She could admit that even from the last row of chairs. It wasn’t until the groom turned to walk his bride back down the aisle that Cecelia’s breath caught.

She knew that face.

The cowboy from the lodge. The one who had come through the lobby doors like a storm front, demanding to see her father, all fury and worn boots. The one who’d let her talk him down over a cup of coffee he never touched. Tate Dennison. She’d wondered, once or twice since, whether he’d gotten anything he wanted.

Apparently, he had. He was looking at his bride like they were the only people in the world.

Cecelia smiled into her lemonade and decided that weddings made her sentimental.

It was later, after the chairs were cleared for dancing, somewhere between the toasts and the cake, that he was across the lawn again and her heart turned over. Because the groom was on the dance floor with his wife.

And the man standing by the barn, hat in his hands, was wearing the same face.

There were two of them.

Identical, and not. She couldn’t have explained the not. This one stood unhurried, taking in the party as a man takes in weather rolling in. The cowboy from the lobby had burned hot. This one had a much lower flash point.

He was steady.

She was still staring when a bridesmaid grabbed his arm and towed him off toward the photographer, and Cecelia turned away, cheeks warm, grateful nobody had caught her at it.

“Cecelia.” Her father was at her elbow, phone already in hand. “We’ve made our appearance.”

Down the lawn, the best man was being arranged into photographs, an arm around a laughing sister, somebody’s hat shoved onto his head. As if he felt her watching, he glanced up and scanned the crowd.

She would never know what made her step back into the shade of the tent, out of his line of sight.

You’re the enemy’s daughter, she reminded herself. There’s no version of this where you walk over and introduce yourself.

She didn’t let herself look back on the way to the cars.

The wedding was behind her now, and Cecelia was still thinking about that lawn, which was ridiculous, and she knew it. She went for a run anyway.

Her father’s company built resorts in places like Rocky Ridge. City comforts with a mountain view, for people who’d pay a great deal to breathe this air for a week and then go back home to their rat race. There was a parcel out past the ranches that he’d had his eye on for months, and the town had caught wind of it back in the summer and thrown a fit. Every hearing since had been postponed, rescheduled, or tossed out on a technicality. Now the council was talking about scheduling another meeting so the community could air its grievances. Of course it was.

What was supposed to be a two-week stay had stretched into something that looked a lot more like indefinite, and her father had insisted she stay out of the limelight while things were in process.

She’d asked him again this morning about starting her own firm. He’d given her the answer he always gave. Not yet. She didn’t have the experience. He was protecting her. She loved him for being honest, and she was tired of it, and running was the only place the two things fit together.

Was it confusing that she was more upset about her father’s disappointment in her than about how he’d uprooted her life so they could work this out in person? Probably. She loved him. She respected how he saw what he wanted and went after it, and he’d inspired that same drive in her. She only wished he was the kind of man who could give her a little push and tell her she’d soar if she spread her wings wide enough.

She started her playlist and pushed harder. He kept pace anyway. Mistakes were made. Something fell through the cracks. Do better. Like it was her fault that people paid attention to what happened where they lived.