The Construction of Cheer - Liz Isaacson

Chapter One

Bishop Glover looked in the mirror and adjusted his bow tie. He’d been praying for a solid month for two things: that the barn would be finished in time for today’s weddings, and that the weather would be perfect.

The barn had literally been finished last night when Bishop himself had hung the mirror in the bride’s room. As the project had commenced, he’d realized they’d need more than just a huge open space for dancing or eating and a kitchen.

They needed bathrooms. They needed a furnace room. They needed dressing rooms, especially if the barn was going to be used for weddings, which it obviously was.

His cousin had spilled the beans to his brother about the barn project, and Bishop had been annoyed in the beginning. As the construction got started and it outgrew his own vision for it, Bishop had been grateful Bear knew about the barn renovation.

He’d suggested Bishop contact Micah Walker, who’d designed and built the new mansion-like homestead for the family.

Bishop had, and Micah could see way beyond what he could.

So the barn now had bathrooms, dressing rooms, a kitchen, a mudroom, and a control room, where the music and lighting could be programmed or changed with a few taps and presses of a button.

There were two hot water heaters in the barn, an industrial kitchen they’d probably use several times a year, beautiful barn doors that sectioned off the back of the barn for the dressing rooms and bathrooms, and a hardwood floor throughout.

Bishop loved the barn with his whole soul. If he could put a bedroom in the loft, he’d live there.

As it was, the loft was just for show. There was no ladder to get up to it, and it sat above the kitchen and looked pretty with the new posts and pillars Bishop had carved by hand.

In the end, almost everyone—except the two groomsmen for today—who worked on the ranch had put in some labor on the blue barn, which Bishop had affectionately named True Blue.

He’d gone to his mother’s and looked through the old photo albums she had, and together, they’d found several picture of his father and his uncle working on the barn. They’d built it with their daddy and a few cowboys who’d worked Shiloh Ridge Ranch at the time.

Bishop had taken the photos and gone to the genealogical society in Three Rivers. He’d asked for the best way to enlarge them and frame them so the memories wouldn’t be lost. A very nice woman there had helped him, and Bishop had hung those pictures last night too.

“Come on,” someone said, pounding on his door. “We’re going to be late.”

“Coming,” he yelled as he left the bathroom. He exited his suite to noise coming down the hallway from the living room. Until last week, he’d lived in the west wing of the mansion-slash-homestead, but he and his oldest brother, Bear, had switched places.

Bear was going to be married today, and his wife and step-son were coming to live on the ranch.

Bishop’s suite had a large bedroom, a full bath, and a private living area. It was enough for him right now.

His cousin, Ranger, who was also getting married today, already lived in the east wing, and once he and his wife returned from their honeymoon, they’d live upstairs together too.

Bishop looked around at the chaos in the house and thought forward about twelve hours. All of this would be done. The brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles would all go home. The weddings would be over.

Bishop could order dinner, drive down to Three Rivers to get it, and come sit in a quiet house by himself.

Sort of.

His eyes caught on his only sister as she turned toward someone entering the kitchen. Arizona was coming to stay in the house with Bishop while the two newlywed couples were on their honeymoons, because her house needed to be sprayed for termites.

Mother was going to go stay with her sister-in-law in town, and she had plenty of sons to help get her there and back any time she wanted to come to the ranch.

“It’s time to go,” Cactus yelled, and he could have a loud voice when he wanted to. He’d really come out of his prickly shell in the past four or five months, though he still hadn’t found a woman he wanted to go out with more than twice.

The men and women in the house started to move out, and Bishop joined the flow. They could get