Yellowstone: Love and Cowboys

Members of the Wedding

Coralee should have been looking forward to her wedding, instead, she was growing more agitated. She kicked Elena out of the kitchen and cooked breakfast, lunch, dinner, any meal was prepared by her hands.

When she wasn't cooking, she was on her horses, seeking relief in the arena. Though against the Mexican honeymoon, Travis wanted to get her away from anything ranch, or anything horse, but most of all, anything Katie.

She'd fixed the most elaborate breakfast of all, a Dutch apple pancake and mesquite smoked bacon. She made a fresh pitcher of orange juice and a pot of coffee, using the recipe that Gemma Dutton had finally given to her.

The breakfast was delicious, but Coralee's face had a haggard look, she had been this way since she'd heard of Katie's wedding. Katie had called her a couple of days ago, demanding congratulations from her, which she had refused.

"Call her back," Travis urged, "Give her the congratulations she thinks she has coming, but don't hold back on how you feel. Tell her she is welcome to come to your wedding, both her and her husband. It will only be for one day then we are flying to Mexico where there will be no Katie to spoil your mood. We won't be going back to the Yellowstone when we return, we'll come straight here. Then, in a month, we'll be back on the road for the sales and the horse shows."

She poured herself a cup of coffee, and for a moment she almost burst into tears—then stopped herself. "I'm in mourning for the sister I once had," she explained to him, "Once we shared almost everything. Her running into Bob was Kismet, I think. Ryan will always be a cowboy because he loves it, but Bob rides the rodeo. He has more money than Ryan will ever see. Ryan was a way to pass the time and what she did was cruel. I hope living on Bob's ranch in Oklahoma will compensate for what she did to a perfectly nice man who loved her."

He hadn't expected words like that to come out of his wife's mouth, but he knew what she said was true. He'd never really known Katie, she had just been a fixture in her sister's life. Now he was glad he could take Coralee away from her.

He had a surprise for her but now was not the right time. He suspected that Trixie was pregnant and that Hickory had managed to cover her when no one was looking. In about ten months he expected that the little palomino would deliver a foal. In the meantime, he had separated the stallion from the two mares. They could continue to show Trixie for a few months, but when she became bulky, he would give her a rest and let her finish her pregnancy in peace.

"Do you want me to help you clean up?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Well, you don't make that offer very often, but no, I'll take care of it. Hickory will enjoy the chance to munch a little more hay; funny, cooking helped calm me down. I guess I missed it."

"I'm sure Elena appreciated the break. I'll meet you in the arena, I want to watch you go through your routine. After lunch, we'll work Sadie, don't want to let the horses get too lazy before we leave."

They left on a sunny day the week before the wedding. Coralee wanted to divide the twenty-hour drive into two segments, but Travis wanted to do it in one shot and overruled her. It was the way he liked to do things and he would do it whether she wanted to or not.

They pulled a smaller-sized trailer, Matt would bring back Best Boy and another horse that John Dutton wanted to sell. Katie would be pissed that she was taking her horse back, but she had left him in a trailer on the roadside—that was unforgivable. Katie could complain all she wanted, and let her husband buy her a new horse.

She didn't like the twenty-hour drive, but Travis was the best driver she knew. Whenever she wanted to stop, that was what they did, whether it was for a bathroom break, a meal, or just to stretch her legs. She'd learned long ago how to sleep in a car, and she and Matt would trade places when she got tired and wanted to sleep.