âYouâre getting married?â
âWhen?â
âYou canât! We havenât even met Rainey yet!â
âYouâll get your chance when you come for the wedding,â Buck said with a chuckle. âThe weddingâs a week from Saturday.â
Dropping that little tidbit of information into the four-way transcontinental conference call to England, Buck watched the clock, counting the seconds as he waited for his sistersâ reactions. He didnât have long to wait.
âYou canât be serious!â Elizabeth retorted.
âYouâre darn right heâs not serious,â Priscilla growled. âThatâs what? Ten days?â
âNo one in their right mind can plan a wedding in ten days,â Katherine added. âHeâs joking.â
On the extension, listening to the entire conference call, Rainey laughed softly. âNo, heâs not. Weâre getting married a week from Saturday. I know itâs short notice, but Buck wanted to get married on your parentsâ anniversary. So if we donât get married in ten days, we have to wait another year.â
âThat isnât even an option,â Buck growled. âWeâre not waiting.â
âDonât get testy,â Elizabeth teased. âNo oneâs asking you to wait.â
âJust so we understand each other,â he replied. âWe want the three of you here for our wedding.â
âThen weâd better get off the phone and see about lining up airline tickets,â Priscilla said. âI donât even know if my passportâs current.â
âIn a minute,â Buck replied. âWe need to discuss the honeymoon. Rainey and I are going to Alaska. Whoâs available to stay at the ranch while weâre gone?â
His answer was met with dead silence. âCâmon,â he groaned. âYou canât do this to me! You canât expect me not to go on a honeymoon. One of you has to take my place here at the ranch while Iâm gone.â
âWhat ranch?â
âI donât know anything about a ranch.â
âDid somebody say something about a ranch?â
Buck grinned. âCute. Wait until the three of you want to get married. Weâll see whoâs laughing then.â
âCâmon, Bucky, donât be that way.â
His teeth ground on the hated nickname. âDonât call me that!â
Elizabeth clicked her tongue. âTouchy, touchy.â
âYou know weâre just teasing,â Priscilla said. âWeâll be there for you.â
Despite their teasing, he knew he could count on his sisters. Especially when it came to the Broken Arrow Ranch in Colorado, which the four of them had inherited from their distant American cousin, Hilda Wyatt. The inheritance had come out of the blue. They were the last of the British branch of the Wyatts and had never even met Hilda, the last of the American Wyatts. Sheâd wanted the ranch to go to family, but the inheritance came with strings. One of them had to always be present at the ranch for twelve months. They could be absent for one night, but not for two in a row, or the deed to the ranch would go to an unnamed heir.
Until now, that hadnât been a problem. Buck had spent the last four months at the ranch without needing any of his sisters to substitute for him, but it hadnât been easy. Heâd been harassed and threatened, the ranch had been attacked and vandalized, and Rainey had nearly been killed. He still didnât have a clue who was responsibleâit could have been any one of his neighbors or someone in the nearby town of Willow Bend, Coloradoâbut their motive was painfully clear. If they could scare the Wyatts away from the ranch before the year was out, the ranch would be theirsâ¦if they were the unnamed heir.
âSo whoâs available?â Buck asked. âWeâre just going to be gone a month.â
âA month!â Elizabeth blurted out. âAre you serious?â
âIâm only getting married once, sis. I want us to have a honeymoon weâll remember the rest of our lives.â
Elizabeth blinked back tears at his words. Did Rainey have any idea how lucky she was to have found Buck? He was going to make a wonderful husband, a fantastic father, and Elizabeth wasnât surprised that he wanted to do everything in his power to make sure Rainey had a honeymoon she would never forget. He was that kind of man.
For the span of a heartbeat, Elizabeth felt the tug of envyâshe hoped the man she married would be as thoughtful as her brother. Then she remembered Spencer and the roses heâd sent her every day for the past four days, a dozen for every week theyâd been dating. He, too, was going to make a wonderful husband, she thought with a grin. And he was already talking marriage. Maybe by this time next yearâ¦
âSo do I have a volunteer or not?â Buck asked. âSurely one of you has some time in your schedule.â
Snapping back to attention, Elizabeth didnât hesitate. âIâll do it. Priscilla has a show to prepare for, and Katherineâs in a wedding two weeks after yours, so neither of them can stay. That leaves me.â