Free AVERY (The Corbin Brothers Book 2) by Lexie Ray Page A

nothing. It looked like they'd commandeered metal folding chairs from perhaps either the church or bingo hall -- or both -- and covered them in simple white sheets, securing the fabric with a green-colored bow. I didn't want to look at the people who had come to witness this ranching spectacle, but I was helpless at the front of the crowd. Nearly everyone in town had turned up, people I hadn't seen in years, people I regularly saw at the bar but never spoke with, everyone. One notable exception was Bud Billings, which at least was something. It would've been a hell of a thing to see his smirk sitting in one of those chairs -- thwarted, for now, but cooking up some other plan to get the ranch. That would've meant that none of this was worth it, that I was throwing my life away by marrying Paisley, that everything was a waste.
    How quickly could a person get divorced if this whole save the ranch thing didn't work out?
    All of my brothers sat in the first row, all dressed as nicely as they could manage. It wouldn't have been right to choose one of them for best man; they were equally important to me. But it was hard not to at least resent them for this. They needed me to do this so they could keep on working the ranch, keep our family's dream alive -- even if it was a dream I didn't share.
    Chance, at least, had the decency to look a little sad. If it were up to him, he would've taken the Paisley bullet for the family, but it wasn't Chance she wanted to marry. I was the one who had always been in those crosshairs. That meant that I was the only one who could swing this solution to our financial problems.
    Emmett looked guilty, too, but only because it was his liquor that perfumed my breath. He watched me like he was afraid I would explode -- or, better yet, make a run for it. I wouldn't have made it far. Tucker was perched on the edge of his seat, giving me double thumbs up and grinning. He probably thought he was being encouraging, but to me, those thumbs meant something along the lines of, "you just try and escape, brother." He'd have me tackled and carried back to the altar before I even got fifty yards away.
    Hunter and Hadley were sitting so close together it was hard to see where one began and the other ended. It was perhaps a selfish thought, or a cowardly one, but I wished it were them up here instead of Paisley and me. They were actually in love. That would've been the foundation of their marriage, not economics. If only Hadley had been the daughter of some tycoon or something, if only she'd been a fabulously wealthy medical doctor instead of a gifted physical therapist, if only I'd been born into a different family, if only our parents had never died, if only ...
    I wished I had the balls to let this ranch fail for all of our sakes. Paisley's money would keep us afloat for a while, but once that ran out, all we would have left would be this foolish marriage.
    A guitarist started strumming a vaguely familiar tune and everyone stood up and turned their backs to me. That was the first real relief I'd had since I chugged the contents of Emmett's flask. I was no longer under scrutiny.
    "Your parents would've been very proud of you, you know."
    I blanched and turned to see a doddering minister -- the same shaky old man who had presided over my parents' funeral. I wasn't sure why it shocked me so much to see him there, presiding over my own personal funeral, as he was the only minister in town, but it did.
    "It's perfectly natural to be nervous," he continued, his face craggy and wrinkled. "I married your parents, too, you know, and your father sweated bullets the entire time. Then again, it was the dead of summer and the air conditioning unit in the church had gone out."
    I didn't know how to respond, how to take any of this. It was far too late to back out now. It didn't make me feel any better to know that the minister had married and buried my parents. I remembered that he had been kind to all of us at the funeral, and