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CHAPTERTEN
Travis Cooper shoved against the dairy cow in front of him, finally getting the Bertha into the chute. The sun beat down on his back, and the clock had barely reached seven. His phone blared as he got the last cow where she needed to be, and relief sagged through his whole body.
He needed a break, bad.
After tugging his phone from his back pocket, he read the message from his fiancée. Shayla Nelson was going to be his wife in just eight hours, and Trav’s heart pulsed with love and desire in the same beat.
We’re getting married today!she’d sent, and Trav couldn’t help smiling at the words. He could feel her joy in them, and he hoped with all the energy of his soul that he could make her as happy as she was today every day of her life.
Some of us are working, he sent back to her.
You should be done by now, she replied.You said you were only doing the first milking.
He was, and he had just finished it. Well, as soon as this line of Berthas made it into the milking shed, then he’d be done. He reached to close the gate, tucking his phone away. He’d call Shay as soon as he was on the way back to his cabin.
Their cabin.
When the two of them returned from their honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies, Shay would move into the cabin Travis had previously shared with Will. His older brother was taking the next shift of milking, and then the cowboys at Sweet Water Falls Farm would do the third shift before boogying over to the tents that had gone up yesterday evening for the wedding.
That evening, their cowboys would do the last round of milking, and then Lee said he had everything handled for the week Trav would be gone. He couldn’t wait to leave the Texas heat behind, because he did desperately need the break.
He rolled his shoulder, which ached slightly, and got all the gates closed as the first Berthas who’d gone in for milking had already started to come out of the shed. Some of them agreed with the morning milking, as they’d gone all night without relief, but some of the more stubborn cows always had to be pushed and prodded.
Sometimes Trav felt like one of the Berthas he had to babysit into their milking chutes. He knew what he needed to do, and yet he had to be pushed and prodded to do it. Thankfully, he’d gotten out of his own way with Shay, and once the cows were only three deep going into the shed, he got out his phone and called her.
“Good morning,” she said, carrying some of the joy he’d seen in her texts in her voice.
“Howdy,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“Headed back to my cabin to shower,” he said. “I’m not going to be late.”
“It’s just that once we arrive at the farm, we’ll be separated, and I want my wedding day breakfast.”
“You’re going to get it,” he said, smiling. “I’m fifteen minutes away from leaving. No one’s going to stop me.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard those exact words before,” she said dryly. Trav chuckled, because he couldn’t argue with her. The work on the family farm never ended, and he couldn’t control a lot of the variables. Winds kicked up, and cows got out, and Trav had to be there to help.
Lee had hired a couple of new cowboys in the past few months, and that had helped a lot. Will wanted to see Gretchen as often as he could, and Travis had the same desire for Shay. They simply couldn’t work fifteen hours every day anymore. Travis didn’t want to, and he saw the exhaustion on Will’s face most mornings.
Their paths crossed at the farmhouse each and every day, as they both arrived separately to see what their parents needed for the morning. Lee ate lunch with Mama and Daddy every day, and he made sure they were comfortable for the afternoon.
Rissa stayed after dinner—which the family ate together nearly every night at the white farmhouse—and that way, Mama and Daddy always had someone they could call on should they need help.
“Did you get the reservation at The Culinary Cabin?” Trav asked, his cabin coming into view. His long legs had eaten up the distance from the corral to the rolling hills pretty easily.
“I did,” she said. “Ingrid said we’d be the only ones there, and it’s going to be so amazing. Gretchen was right.”
“I can’t wait,” Travis said. “Fifteen minutes, Shay.”
“See you then, cowboy.” She ended the call, and Trav jogged the last hundred yards to his cabin. He soaped and shaved, keeping his beard for the wedding. The day Shay had told him how “sexy” his beard was became the day he’d vowed he’d never shave it off.
He barely glanced at his wedding suit hanging in his closet as he pulled on a fresh set of clothes. He wore the same thing almost every day—blue jeans, cowboy boots, long-sleeved shirt. Sure, the Texas heat could suffocate a man inside a long-sleeved shirt, but Trav would rather be hot and sweaty than sunburned to a crisp or covered in bug bites.
He jogged back down the steps, his stomach roaring at him to eat. As he trundled down the dirt lane that led past the other cowboy cabins to the main farm road, he adjusted the volume on his radio, setting it to the station Shay liked best.
When he pulled up to her house, he found her sitting on the front steps, a dozen or so boxes littering the ground in front of her. “What’s this?” he asked as he got out. The brunette beauty looked up from her phone, her smile instant.
