Romance: Cowboy Way of Love by Undiscloseddesires2015 Page A

sister, placing one
hand on each of her shoulders. “Isn’t it time you had some sort of
worthwhile man in your life? Someone who could give you some kind
of stability?”
    “ I’ll talk to him,” Peony
said. “But I’m not making any promises. Unless he’s a real stand up
guy, I’m not interested. I don’t know about this whole cowboy
thing.”
    “ What’s the worst that
could happen?” Petunia asked. “Try it, you might just like
it.”
    The wedding photographer
had been engaged for a week. He had lots of ideas, one of which
involved the entire wedding party having their photos taken on
horseback.
    “ How this is going to
work,” Petunia explained, “Is that we’re going to have a few shots
taken here, in front of the ranch, and then,” she reached out and
took Seth’s hand, “my sweetie is going to lead us all on a little
trail ride to a scenic spot he knows. We’ll take a few more
pictures there.”
    Seth’s side of the family
took this announcement without one eyelid flickering. A morning
spent on horseback was nothing new to any of the Shipmans; while
Hunter was the only one of the boys who still worked the ranch,
they’d all grown up in the saddle. Petunia’s family was another
story. She smiled at the dismayed faces that greeted her
announcement. “Come on, you guys,” she urged. “This is going to be
fun.”
    Hunter was fully aware
that his brother spent exponentially more time behind a desk than
on a horse. “Where are we headed on this trail ride, little
brother?” he asked. “Some of the terrain round here’s changed a bit
since you’ve been around..
     
    eth blushed scarlet. “I
was thinking we’d go up on the bluff, where we saw the boars that
time?” Something in his little brother’s voice touched Hunter, and
he remembered exactly when they’d seen the boars – neither of them
had even been twelve years old when a morning ride had brought them
unexpectedly between a Mama sow and her brood of young ones. It was
an encounter that could have very easily gone badly, but the boars
had been just as startled as the boys, and after a few minutes of
awkward staring, each group had bolted back in the direction they’d
come from. “Do you remember?”

 
    Hunter suddenly fully
realized how important this wedding was to his little brother, how
much time, effort, and energy he’d put into making sure everything
was perfect. He gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
“That’ll be right pretty,” he said. “You’ll get some good pictures
out of that.”
    Seth gave Hunter a nod,
and in that moment, the brothers knew they were seeing each other
in a way they hadn’t in quite a while.
    “ You’re not getting my
black behind on no horse,” Mama Rose suddenly proclaimed. She
turned toward Petunia. “I know that’s what you want for your
pictures, baby, and I’m sorry. But I don’t know the first thing
about no horseback riding. I don’t know how to drive the damn
things or nothing.”
    Petunia smiled. “Mama,
don’t you worry. I knew you were going to say that, and my baby’s
got you covered.” Seth nodded toward the tree line, and one of
Hunter’s many cousins emerged on a four wheeler. “Check it out. You
can ride up the trail in style.” Mama Rose looked
pleased.
    “ And when it’s time for
the pictures, we’ve got a special horse picked out just for you.
Her name is Daisy.” Mama Rose looked less pleased at this, but
Hunter grinned. Daisy was the old, gentle mare they used to take
the very smallest children on their first rides; it would take her
the better part of an hour to move ten feet. “I promise you it’s
going to be okay.”
    “ I wish she could make me
that promise,” Peony muttered under her breath.
    “ What,” Hunter asked her.
“You don’t like horses?”
    “ It’s not that I don’t
like them,” she replied, with a smile that made Hunter’s heart skip
a beat. “It’s just that I haven’t had much of a chance to find