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“It’s nice to meet you, Shane. I’m so excited to help plan your mother’s special day.” She smiled brightly.

His mouth went full-on scowl, and he merely grunted before turning back toward the hallway.

Well, grunting, irritable men was something Cora Preston had learned how to deal with in the past year and a half, and it looked like she was going to be putting that experience to good use.

* * *

Shane walked down the main hall toward the back room his mother used as an office. He did his best to get his simmering irritation under wraps, because so far his disapproval of all this nonsense had only served to make Mom dig her heels in harder.

When she wasn’t in her office, he headed through the back hallway toward the kitchen. “Mom?”

“Deb, the voice of doom is calling,” Grandma’s wavery voice said from somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen.

He stepped into the kitchen to find Mom and Grandma at the small table they never actually ate meals at. Bridal magazines were spread everywhere. Shane tried not to scowl.

“Your wedding planner is here,” he said as pleasantly as he could manage.

“Oh, shoot.” Mom glanced at her watch. “I lost track of time. Poor girl. Didn’t scare her off, did you?”

“Why would I do a thing like that?” he asked innocently.

Grandma gave her raspy laugh, and Mom rolled her eyes as she got to her feet. “Why indeed,” she murmured loftily. “Where’d you leave her?”

“In the entryway.”

Mom started toward the front of the house, and Shane trailed after her, trying to come up with some way to change her mind that wasn’t antagonistic.

So far everything he’d tried had failed. He’d told her all his suspicions about Ben—that there was no record of his supposed ex-wife, that the man was the laziest ranch hand they’d ever had, that he’d lied about his references, and, most of all, that four months was not enough damn time to know someone and marry him.

Then there’d been the very foolish conversation where Shane had outright forbidden his mother to get married.

At every instance Mom went on as if he hadn’t spoken at all.

His mother was too smart for this, and Shane didn’t understand her insistence on forgetting that. No one in the family thought Ben Donahue was anything other than a hustling no-account. Except the two people who most needed to: Mom and Grandma.

“Where’s Ben? Was he working the fence line today?” Mom asked, working her way toward the front of the house.

“I don’t know where he is.Benmade it very clear I wasn’t in charge of him.”

“Oh, you two.” Mom flung a hand into the air. “Acting like dicks doesn’t make yours any bigger.”

“Christ, Mom.”

He’d lived with his mother and grandmother for thirty-two years and still wasn’t used to the frank way they discussed some things a mother and son or grandmother and grandson shouldneverdiscuss or even be in the same house while discussing.

Mom approached where he’d left the wedding planner, and Shane felt the same wave of desperation he’d been feeling since Mom had announced her engagement to scheming, lying,thievingBen Donahue.

“She’s skittish around horses,” he blurted. “The wedding planner, that is.” If he could stall this whole insane charade, maybe he could prove Ben was only using his mother.

Mom didn’t even stop. “Good thing I’m not paying her to work my horses.” Mom patted him on the head like he was a little kid, not her thirty-two-year-old son almost a foot taller than her. “Will you unload all that dirt in my truck and take it down to the garden before you head back to the cows?” Then, without waiting for a response, she swept into the entry with grand greetings and apologies for being late.

Shane sighed. Maybe moving the dirt would give him a few minutes of thinking to figure out how to nip this in the bud.

His siblings weren’t too keen on the wedding either, but Gavin’s solutions were all too violent and illegal. Lindsay and Molly had both insisted that, even if they didn’t approve, they should mind their own business, and Boone wasn’t around to voice an opinion at all.

Shane was the oldest, though, and, after Dad had died, the reins of this family had fallen to him. Not that he’d ever say that in front of Mom or Grandma. Still, he couldn’t wait around, twiddling his thumbs,hopinghis mother didn’t make the biggest mistake of her life. He had to act—without getting thrown in jail, as Gavin’s plans would surely get them.

Shane walked out the back and around the house to the garage and keyed in the code. He hung his hat on the hook, then went over to Mom’s truck. He hefted two sacks of dirt out of the trunk and over his shoulder, relaxing as his body got into manual-labor mode.