Faraway Horses by Buck Brannaman, William Reynolds Page B

but I didn’t. I was under the impression that Adrian, who was now twenty-seven years old, had decided she finally needed to take charge of her life and make a decision without her parents.
    Adrian continued to cry. I felt terrible, too, but we went through with the ceremony. The justice of the peace did the honors, and a couple of total strangers were witnesses.
    None of my family was there either. Betsy Shirley, my foster mother, who had raised me through some tough times, was very disappointed. When I called and told her what had happened, she said she understood, but it would have been a special thing for her to be at the wedding.
    Afterward, Adrian wanted to go to her parents’ house and visit them for a minute. Although seeing them was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, I wanted my bride to be happy.
    You would have thought I had committed murder in the first degree. The Logans made me feel like a criminal. Rather than being happy for her, they acted as if somebody had died. It was like a funeral, dead quiet.
    I had my own business and was getting to be successful. I didn’t depend on anybody for anything, and I loved the Logans’ daughter to death, but that wasn’t enough for them. They had plans for her.
    At one time, Adrian had been dating Montana’s secretary of state, a man who was being touted as the next governor until he was killed in a plane crash. Adrian had stopped dating him by then, but her parents remained disappointed that she married a cowboy like me. They still had hopes she’d be the first lady of Montana, I suppose.
    As Adrian walked out to the truck, Pete held me back. With a begrudging handshake, he said, “You better do this right, or I’ll kill you.”
    That visit to her parents had done the trick. Ten minutes after we were married, Adrian began to feel she had made amistake. For my part, I believed that if she came to understand how much I loved her and she came to realize she had to leave her parents and cleave to someone else, as the Bible says, then things would work out.
    It never happened. Adrian and I got along only all right. We didn’t fight, but things never really did improve. I suspect Adrian always figured on leaving me. I know for a fact her parents wanted her to. Many years later I found out that even after we were married, they encouraged Adrian to go out on a date with another man.
    Adrian didn’t go out with him that I know of, but it wasn’t for lack of her family’s trying. We always spent holidays at their house, and one Easter Adrian’s sister Leslie, who was up visiting from Texas, brought up the man’s name at the dinner table. All the Logans started talking about how he was probably going to be the next governor, which led to talk about some of Adrian’s other past boyfriends. Although I tried to be good-natured about it, I thought the conversation was inappropriate in front of me, but it wasn’t my dinner table.
    When Pete said I couldn’t be compared to the politician, I lost my temper. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” I said angrily, “I
can
compete with him as well as anybody because I’m a good man. I try to hold myself up as a good example to other people, and I think I’m a good person, and you can go to hell.” That marked the first time I ever stood up to Adrian’s father. As I got up to leave the table, I told Adrian that she could stay if she wanted to, but I was going home.
    Even though they didn’t apologize, the Logans asked me to stay, and I calmed down enough to finish dinner. There wasn’t much talk for the rest of the meal, and when it was over, I left. Adrian didn’t. She said she’d be home in a few days, so right then and there I found out where her loyalties were.
    Adrian did return two or three days later. For the next couple of years we stumbled along, even with lots of good times. Adrian liked riding colts and helping me out, and the business was starting to grow. I was settled into doing some clinics, and I