Meet Me at the Chapel by Joanna Sims

strode out onto the porch. He walked straight ahead to the railing post and rested his hand against it, his head lowered. He shook his head a couple of times before he banged the post with his closed fist.
    â€œYou ever been married?” he asked her without turning his head.
    â€œNo,” Casey answered him quietly. She hadn’t meant to know this much of his business; they were becoming friends of a sort, but they weren’t confidants.
    â€œI’m surprised.” Brock took the rocking chair next to her. “You seem like the settling kind.”
    She didn’t respond. She had always wanted to get married—hoped that she would while she could still have several children. Women were still having children into their forties, with some assistance from modern medicine, so she still had time. But she had considered freezing her eggs, just in case Mr. Perfect didn’t show up in the next couple of years.
    â€œI’m the settling kind, too.” Brock seemed like he needed to talk.
    Casey didn’t mind listening.
    â€œI always wanted to be married—have a wife, kids, the white picket fence. My mom took off when I was young. Hell, I wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her in a picture. Matilda. Pop used to say her name like he was talking about a saint—she broke his heart. Left him to take care of me. Then Clint’s mom broke his heart a second time—he adopted her kid and then she takes off, too. But, this time, good ol’ doormat Dave—he didn’t recover. He smoked himself right into an early grave. And I got stuck raising Clint who never failed to do the wrong thing.”
    At least now she knew why Brock hated her sister’s husband so much—he blamed Clint and his mother for his father’s death.
    â€œI wanted that family I never had growing up. I wanted it so bad that I think I pushed it on Shannon.” He nodded his head at himself. “I did. I pushed it on her. She never really wanted this life. Truth be told, between you, me and that fence post...” His voice lowered so that his next words would only reach her ears. “She never wanted to have kids.”
    Casey had been staring straight ahead at the darkening horizon. When Brock confessed to her that Hannah’s mom might not have wanted her, she couldn’t stop herself from sucking in her breath and turning her head to look at the man beside her. She understood why many women didn’t want to have children. That was what they wanted out of life and that was okay. But to know this about Shannon and Hannah, it made her feel sad for all of them.
    â€œI’m sorry.” It was trite and stupid—yet it was all she could muster.
    Brock stopped rocking and leaned forward so his elbows were resting on his thighs and his head was in his hands.
    â€œAll of this—all of this fighting about custody and about selling the house—that’s not really what all of this is about.” He sat back up. “Months of mediation, and the plain truth is that she’s not going to stop until she gets what she wants.”
    â€œWhat does she want?”
    â€œTaj.” Brock gave a small shake of his head. “She wants Taj.”
    * * *
    â€œHey! Can I interest you in a ham and Swiss on rye?”
    Casey appeared at the top of the hill, her face flushed from the wind and the climb up the hill to the chapel. She was smiling that smile that he had grown very fond of over the last several weeks. That smile transformed her girlish, impish, unremarkable face into something quite lovely. It had not escaped his notice that he had been staring at the top of that hill for fifteen minutes waiting for his tenant. It also had not escaped his notice that he felt a sense of excitement and anticipation on the days he knew Casey was going to meet him at the chapel for lunch. He would think about her arrival all morning—and much to the amazement of his men, he would let