Free Yesterday's Embers by Deborah Raney Page B

But she had more DeVore blood in her than Thomas. Her features were sharper than the delicate Thomas profile the other kids had inherited. Still, Kayeleigh was every bit as pretty as her mother, even if she was in that gawky preadolescent stage. He’d noticed with chagrin that her figure had begun to take on the slightest of womanly curves. He didn’t even dare to ponder how he’d face that aspect of raising daughters without Kaye.
    He pulled into the parking lot of Community Christian Church and parked beside Pete Truesdell’s truck. Kayeleigh already had her hand on the door handle.
    “You have that card?”
    She held up the oversized—and overpriced—wedding card she’d helped him pick out. Shoot, the card cost almost as much as the crisp twenty-dollar bill he’d tucked inside. He could almost hear Kaye chiding him for being such a cheapskate, but he had his kids to think about and money was going to be tight until after harvest. Assuming his wheatdidn’t get hailed out. He climbed out of the pickup and peered up at the sky. Clouds swirled threateningly overhead. “Let’s go…before we get rained on.”
    He went around the truck and grabbed Kayeleigh’s hand, and they ran across the parking lot. He opened the door to the church and followed her inside. The vestibule was all decorated in candles and ribbon. Kaye would have been in hog heaven. Kayeleigh was . She looked up at him, beaming.
    A girl in a fancy dress handed each of them a program, and a tuxedoed usher—one of the Brunner boys, he thought—met them inside the sanctuary. “Friends of the bride or groom?”
    Doug shrugged. “Both, I guess.”
    The usher held out his arm for Kayeleigh. Snickering, she took it, but had to practically run to keep up with the long-legged fellow. He stopped at a pew five rows from the front and motioned for Kayeleigh to go in.
    Doug followed her to the middle of the pew, feeling the eyes of the guests in the pews in front of them turn to gawk. He was grateful when they were seated and the rows behind them began to fill up. Two empty spaces separated him from the aisle to his left, and he settled in to the padded bench, grateful for room to stretch his legs. It didn’t last long. He had to straighten in his seat when another Brunner brother deposited Mickey Valdez beside him.
    He smiled and mouthed a hello. Mickey cleaned up mighty nice, if he did say so himself. Instead of her usual ponytail, her dark hair fell around her shoulders in waves, and she wore sparkly earrings and a little lipstick or gloss or whatever the shiny stuff was called. Kaye had always said lipstick was the one makeup she could never live without.
    Kayeleigh leaned around him and waved to Miss Valdez. He noticed Mickey was doing that same skirt-smoothing thing Kayeleigh had done all the way into town. Maybe it wasn’t just nerves. Maybe there was a reason behind it.
    A minute later Jack Linder stepped out from a door behind the choir loft, followed by Trevor Ashlock and another man Doug didn’t know. He felt a tug on the sleeve of his suit coat and turned to find Mickey eyeing his wedding program. “Can I look at that for a minute?” she whispered.
    He handed her his program and motioned to the one Kayeleigh was studying. “Keep it. We have another one.”
    The organist held a long note and switched the sheet music with one hand. The very air in the room seemed to change, and he recognized a song he’d heard at weddings before. Maybe even his own. He glanced over Kayeleigh’s shoulder at the program. “Trumpet Voluntaire,” it said. She squirmed in her seat until she was facing the back of the room. Everyone else seemed to be looking there, too.
    Suddenly, as if to some invisible cue, everyone stood up. Doug nudged Kayeleigh, and they stood with the rest, turning toward the back of the sanctuary where a very elegant Vienne Kenney floated down the aisle on Pete Truesdell’s arm. She wore a radiant smile, but she had eyes only for