Page 49 of Desert Sky (RB MC #4)

JD

I wasn't the kind of man who got misty over weddings.

Hell, I was the guy who flinched at flower arrangements and once told a woman the only ring I’d ever give her was for fighting.

But Skye?

Skye had ruined all that. All my hardened ideas about love and loyalty and what it meant to belong to someone had gone to hell the minute she came back into my life. And now that she was here—really here—there was no way I was letting her go again.

So I was gonna marry her.

No proposal. No kneeling on one knee like some Hallmark movie hero. Just a straight-up ride-or-die situation. She’d wake up a girlfriend and fall asleep my wife.

Regan sat across from me at the bar in the Clubhouse, sipping iced tea like it was vodka and spinning a wedding binder thicker than a cartel ledger.

"You're serious," she said, eyes flicking up at me. “You really wanna just do it? No ring? No speech? No warning?”

I leaned back, arms folded. “I gave her that ring six years ago, and she still wears it on a chain under her shirt like it’s a damn relic. We already wasted too much time. I’m done waiting.”

Regan grinned, full of mischief. “You romantic bastard.”

“Don't make me regret asking for your help.”

“Oh, shut up. This is gonna be epic. ”

She flipped a page and jabbed a picture. “Desert. Sunset. You, her, a soft breeze, and a string quartet if I can bribe the Santa Fe orchestra.”

“No violins,” I grunted. “I want grit. Fire pits. Whiskey barrels. The Club and the canyon sky. If I wanted a wedding out of a magazine, I’d let Clarissa plan it.”

Regan rolled her eyes. “Okay, outlaw fantasy wedding. Got it.”

I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. “Just... make it beautiful. But still us. I want her to feel like a damn queen. Like every second she ran from me was worth surviving because it led her back to this.”

Regan's smirk faded into something softer. “You love her that much?”

I met her eyes. “I never stopped.”

There was silence between us, broken only by the slow hum of a blues guitar from the jukebox in the corner.

Regan stood, snatching her binder. “Then let’s give her the kind of wedding that makes every other woman in town throw rocks at their boyfriends.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“One last question,” she said, pausing at the door. “When do you wanna do this?”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Soon. Before her fear talks her out of it again. Before someone else tries to take her from me.”

Regan nodded. “Alright, JD. You handle the bride. ”

She winked.

“I’ll handle the magic.”

Three Weeks Later

No one was allowed to say a goddamn word.

Regan had the wrath of a thousand pissed-off MC queens behind her if anyone so much as breathed the word “wedding.” I watched full-grown men—the same ones who took bullets, started bar brawls, and smuggled cartel weapons—flinch when Regan strutted through the clubhouse with that glint in her eye and her massive to-do list.

“You really trust her with this?” Edge asked, rubbing the back of his neck like the very idea gave him a migraine.

“Brother, I trust her more than I trust myself. She knows Skye. Knows what’ll make her heart explode. I just want to show up, say the words, and make her mine for good.”

Edge snorted. “You’re already hers, dumbass.”

Yeah. Maybe I was.

We decided on a “birthday” bash for Skye.

Just enough cover to get her all dressed up without suspicion. Regan told her the whole MC wanted to celebrate the “new life she built,” and that we were going full fall glam—cowboy boots, candles, bourbon flights, string lights hanging from oak trees out on Cal’s ranch, the works.

Skye bought it.

Mostly.

She’d started giving me side-eyes when I disappeared for hours “running errands,” or whispered with Regan and Amber and then shut up when she walked in. She was smart. Her instincts were sharp. But she didn’t push.

Which only made me fall harder .

Regan ordered the dress from a designer in Taos. Silk and lace, ivory and desert rose. A mix of biker-goddess and barefoot bride. The seamstress took Skye’s measurements one day under the excuse of “a cute fall outfit for her next date.”

“I had to practically threaten her with a flat iron to stand still long enough,” Regan told me later. “But trust me—when she puts it on? She’ll cry. Then kill you. Then cry again.”

“Perfect,” I muttered, fighting my own damn emotions.

I’d already picked the rings. Simple. Bold. Mine had her initials burned into titanium. Hers had a black sapphire set in white gold, our son's birthstone embedded on the inside of the band.

Because yeah—this wedding wasn’t just for us.

It was for Jackson too.

He was part of our story now. Part of the blood and the bond.

I wanted him to remember the day he watched his mom become a queen.

“Y’all realize if anyone blows this,” Regan said, slamming a folder shut in the main room where the MC sat half-drunk on bourbon and nerves, “I will personally make your lives a living hell.”

Tarak raised a hand, mock serious. “Define ‘blow this.’”

“If you so much as hint that this ain’t just a birthday party, I’ll sic Amber on you with glitter nail polish and a clipboard. And don’t think I won’t make y’all choreograph a TikTok dance at the reception.”

Groans echoed like gunfire.

Edge choked on his drink. “I’m terrified and turned on.”

“You would be,” River muttered.

Regan shot him a look. “You, groomzilla, are on tux duty tomorrow. I had it steamed and hidden in my SUV. Show up clean, show up early, and if I find one wrinkle?—”

“I got it,” I said, laughing. “Just make sure the minister doesn’t run when he realizes who he’s marrying.”

“Oh he won’t.” Her grin widened. “He’s my cousin. He owes me.”

“Damn,” Edge muttered. “This is really happening.”

Yeah.

It was.

The MC would be there, the entire ranch cleared, lanterns and fire pits glowing like something out of a dream.

Skye thought she was walking into a bonfire bash for her “birthday.”

But instead?

She was walking into forever.