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Cole had just made his permanent move to Montana.

I still hadn’t met Asher. He was following in another few weeks. He’d gotten a wedding invitation from us, but we’d never gotten a response.

While Cole might be warming up to family a little, Asher obviously wasn’t going to be present at family gatherings anytime soon.

“Cole isn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy guy,” Devon reminded me. “He’s basically an asshole. We know there’s a decent human buried inside his body somewhere, but he’s pretty rough around the edges.”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t think that’s the problem. Lauren can usually get along with anyone, even if they aren’t exactly friendly. She’s insightful and she connects with people wherever they are. She seems uneasy whenever he’s around. I can sense it, and that’s weird for her.”

“It’s not like they have some kind of bad history,” Devon mused. “Lauren was still a child when Cole and Asher left Montana, and they haven’t been back since then. Maybe she just doesn’t like him.”

Honestly, Cole wasn’t the easiest guy to like, but I sensed it was more wariness than dislike coming from Lauren.

It was almost like she was fearful for some reason.

Lauren tried to hide it, and when she saw me looking her way, she smiled like she was having the time of her life.

I wasn’t buying it though.

There was something about Cole that made her nervous.

But maybe Devon was right.

Maybe Cole was so intimidating because of his gruff demeanor that it made her uncomfortable, although I found that hard to believe because she’d put up with the Remington brothers most of her life.

In fact, she had no problem giving their bullshit right back to them.

I smiled back at Lauren and filed my thoughts away for a later time.

Eventually, I’d ask her why Cole made her nervous.

Lauren and I had gotten extremely close, but I knew she wasn’t going to be honest with me right now because it was my wedding day. She’d blow off the question because she wouldn’t want to talk about anything unpleasant today.

She’d actually fretted about being the only plain, chubby woman in my wedding party, which had made me crazy. She’d dieted and exercised like a madwoman over the last several weeks.

In reality, Lauren wasn’t chubby, nor was she plain. She was naturally curvy. It was just the way her body was built. She lamented over the dimples in her cheeks, never realizing that when she smiled, her face was radiantly gorgeous.

I reminded myself that we were going to work on her self-esteem when I got back from my honeymoon.

She saw herself as an unattractive nerd, but I suspected she’d always felt that way because men were intimidated by her genius IQ and her intelligence.

She didn’t need to diet like crazy or exercise like she was training for a marathon.

Lauren needed to accept herself as beautiful exactly the way she was, and I was going to help her do exactly that.

She didn’t need to change a damn thing about her appearance, and she was one of the kindest women I knew.

I filed that thought away in my brain, too.

Lauren and I would talk when all of the craziness of my wedding and honeymoon was over.

“Are you excited about our honeymoon?” I asked Devon. “I can’t wait to get to South America.”

He tightened his arm around my waist. “I’ll just be happy when we’re alone and I can get you naked for the first time as my wife.”

I swatted his shoulder playfully. “How can you be thinking about that when we’re in the middle of our wedding reception?”

“Sweetheart, I’ve got news for you,” he said in a husky voice. “I’malwaysthinking about that.”