The Perfect Homecoming (Pine River #3)

Emma smiled at him. “Pig.”


“You know I love it when you call me that,” he said wearily. “Could you put it on ESPN?” he asked, his gaze finding the television again.

It was so difficult to lose two men Emma had come to care for. It was the cruelest reality—after all the years of being unable to connect, of sabotaging any chance for true happiness, Emma had found two chances here in Pine River. And both of them were gone. One, gone from her heart, and one who would eventually be gone from her life.

Emma kept stumbling toward the wedding, almost blindly putting one step in front of the other, her heart breaking with each step. What else could she do? To stop was to surrender to her grief and let it consume her.

The tent that the veterans had hauled up to Homecoming Ranch for the wedding came down the mountain to the house on Elm Street at the end of the week, along with the chairs Libby had worked so hard to dress in silk and the arbor Madeline and Luke had built together. “What do you think?” Madeline had proudly asked Emma as she’d admired the arbor.

“I think it’s ugly as hell,” Emma had said.

Madeline had laughed.

The day before the wedding, the tent was erected in the middle of a driving rain that was forecast to turn to sleet overnight.

“This is a disaster,” Madeline groaned ruefully. She was standing at the kitchen sink at Homecoming Ranch, peering out the window. Just yesterday, she’d arrived home from Denver where she’d gone to collect her best friend and maid of honor, Trudi Feinstein.

“It will be fine,” Libby said. “This will pass and tomorrow will be beautiful. It always happens that way.”

But it didn’t happen that way. New Year’s Eve was just as cold and as wet and dreary as the day before.

Sam came up to the ranch that morning to collect the women. “I don’t like the way the roads are looking,” he said. “I don’t want any of you driving down. We need to go on before the roads are impassable.”

“But where will we dress?” Madeline exclaimed. “I have to get ready, Sam! I’ve got a wedding dress and flowers, not to mention my shoes. Oh my God, my shoes!”

Sam looked uncertainly at Libby for help.

“Well?” Libby snapped irritably. “What about her shoes?”

“I . . . I don’t know about her shoes,” Sam said carefully. “I just know if you want to get married today, Maddie, you’ve got to come down this morning.”

“Listen, I’ll just call Bob,” Emma said. “I’m sure he won’t mind if we use a couple of rooms at the house.”

But Bob did mind. “I got every relative here right now and then some,” he said. “I got three rooms, two tiny baths, and a living room that will hardly fit Leo’s chair. Where do you suggest I put all these people, Emma? Where do you suggest I put all this gosh-dern food?”

Emma’s years of event management problem solving kicked in. “Bob,” she said calmly, “it will be okay. A little hectic, I agree, but I’ll figure something out.”

“I guess you better,” he said, and clicked off.

Emma called Jackson Crane. “I need an RV,” she said.

“Okay,” he said without missing a beat.

“I mean today, Jackson. Right now. I need one on Elm Street, plugged in, ready to house at least four women who need to dress for a wedding.”

“Oh. As in, this is an emergency,” he said. “Got it.”

“Can you deliver?” Emma asked him as she stuffed herself into Sam’s truck next to Trudi. “Because if you can’t, I need to know right this minute.”

“Give me a little credit, Emma,” Jackson said jovially. “Go worry about something else, like the weather.”

An RV—one of the big ones, with pop-out dining—arrived an hour later. Jackson himself maneuvered it into the drive directly behind Leo’s van. Behind him was the truck with the propane space heaters Luke had thought to arrange when they’d decided to move the wedding to the house for Leo.

Emma donned a heavy down coat she’d borrowed from Bob, and together with Sam, they rolled out tarps for the ground and set up the chairs under the tent and arranged the propane heaters. The sleet was coming in sideways, so Sam and Jackson rigged some plastic sheeting along one side of the tent. The arbor that Luke and Madeline had built was also covered with tarps to keep the bride and groom and pastor dry. “That’s a good thing,” Emma said to Luke. “That way, it won’t spoil your pictures.”

Luke had looked a little startled by her thoughts on his arbor, but Sam had laughed.