Liz nodded. “I sure did. Star needed some company since he’s gotten big enough to go live in the barn.”

Raylen chuckled. “And Dewar spends more time with them than she does.”

Liz smiled. “He’s got more time than I do. When he finds a good woman, the Vanners will take a backseat. Isn’t this pretty close to your first anniversary, Pearl?”

“Wil and I were married a year a couple of weeks ago. Colleen doesn’t know how lucky she has it. Maddie is so laid back and calm about everything. My mother about drove me bonkers on my wedding day. You two did it the right way. Get married and then tell Mama. Only if I’d done that, we’d have had a funeral instead of a wedding.”

“Yours or hers?” Liz asked.

Wil patted Pearl on the thigh. “Red’s, to be sure. Her mama was determined to have a wedding.”

Liz pointed at Pearl’s pregnant belly and asked, “How are those twins coming along?”

Pearl patted her stomach. “Doc says they’re doin’ fine. Identical boys. We just found out yesterday. Daddy is ecstatic and so is Wil. I don’t know one thing about raising boys but I guess I’ll learn.”

“And now the whole wedding party,” the photographer said.

“That’s our cue,” Liz said.

Later, after pictures and after the bride and groom had danced to “I Cross My Heart” by George Strait, Raylen and Liz laid down their fiddles, and he led her to the dance floor.

He wrapped his arms around her, letting them rest on the small of her back. “You really aren’t disappointed that you didn’t have all this?”

“Our wedding was perfect, and I got exactly what I wanted. A house with no wheels and a sexy cowboy, and I got it all just in time for Christmas, including my wedding. Now kiss me, please. Weddings, a sexy cowboy, and good fiddlin’ always turn a girl on,” she whispered.

Keep reading for an excerpt of the next heartwarming novel by beloved and bestselling author Carolyn Brown

Lainie Cornell was a real runaway bride. She had crawled out the window of the county club, gotten into her car, and driven all the way from Dallas to Houston before she stopped and finally answered her father’s call.

She had no doubts that she was doing the right thing. When it came right down to it, she didn’t love Eli, and she hated the way he tried to dominate her. But to wait until the minute she was to walk down the aisle was unforgivable. She knew that.

Her two cousins, Becky and Jodi, had been her bridesmaids, and they had already made their way down the aisle to the front of the church when Lainie decided to run.

She promised herself that she would call each of them and apologize for embarrassing them so badly, but not until a couple of days had passed. It would take that long for Becky to stop cussing loud enough to melt the stained-glass windows in the church. Jodi would be angry for maybe the rest of the day and a night, but then she would understand, or at least Lainie thought she would. No doubt about it though, today was not the time to try to explain why she had taken off to any of them.