“What—” No, he wasn’t going to ask her what she thought he wasn’t telling her. That was deceitful, and he couldn’t lie to her. “Wait until your mom gets here. Then we’ll all talk.”
Lucky crossed her arms over her chest. “Now, I really don’t like this. So whatever this secret is, everyone knows but me? Thanks a lot.”
“At least I’m not lying.”
“I guess there is that.” She rolled her eyes.
Ransom didn’t say anything else, but instead grabbed a pair of jeans and a blue polo shirt from his closet and started to dress.
“Are we there yet, darlings? Move it, move it, move it!” Petty ordered from belowstairs.
“Hold your dumplings, Petty! We’re coming. Jeez,” Lucky grumbled.
“That’s fine, dears. Take as long as you like,” Bluebonnet called sweetly. “It’s just we won’t be able to walk and we’ll have to let Pets drive The Beast.”
The Beast was a cherry-red, 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible and while it was a beautiful, pristine piece of machinery, Petty was actually the worst driver to ever sit behind a steering wheel.
Ransom was sure the town had some kind of warning system when Petty slipped the key into the ignition. Townspeople locked up pets, children, and even themselves when Petty Blossom got behind the wheel.
They double-timed it down the stairs.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive,” Petty asked with a big grin.
“No!” All of them said in unison.
“Just asking.” She adjusted her spectacles on the end of her pert, little nose and wrapped a pink lace shawl around her shoulders before heading out the door.
The walk to Cinderella and Fella was a short one and took them along a manicured path that was made of hand-cut pink stone and ended in a carefully planned town square that Ransom was sure was going to be like catnip for the tourists they were hoping to draw here.
Each building was shaped like the business it housed. Cinderella and Fella was an A-line building painted to look like a ball gown. Grammy’s Goodies looked like a fat, old-fashioned, wood-burning cookstove, and to be honest, Ransom didn’t know if that was a good choice in a town that was made of fairy tales. What with witches, candy houses, ovens, and such.
Bernadette’s Beans, the coffee shop, looked like a French press, and Snow’s Market was shaped like a giant apple. The whole thing was just too much.
Honestly, he loved it.
Ransom watched delight wash over Lucky’s face as she took in the little town. He noticed she breathed a heavy sigh, as if she’d just put down a heavy burden. He could tell Ever After was a balm to her.
Maybe this was where she belonged, like the godmothers had said?
The godmothers hurried them along into Cinderella and Fella and when the door opened, glass bells tinkled lightly to announce their presence.
“Rosebud? It’s the godmothers! We’re here with the happy couple!” Bluebonnet called out.
The place smelled of roses, too. Not a heavy, cloying fragrance like old perfume, but the lightest touch of a blooming rose lingered in the air.
Suddenly, Lucky gasped and she grabbed his hand and jerked him over to a far corner. She didn’t stop to look at anything but the silk creation that stood almost like it waited for her. It was impossibly iridescent, almost as if the colors shifted between green and purple. For all he knew, maybe it did.
Gwen was suddenly beside them and they were oohing and aahing together, but Ransom didn’t notice much of anyone besides Lucky.
She reached out a tentative hand to touch the dress, but he watched as she stopped herself and an expression of longing fell like a shadow across her face.
“Go ahead,” a new voice called out. “Touch it. It’s yours, if you want it.”
A young woman came over to the group. She was a pretty little mess. Her blond hair was tucked up into a bun and held there with all manner of pins, fabric scissors, and some other bits and bobs he couldn’t name. She wore a pink sweater set and white slacks, with a pink rose pinned to her lapel. Her pockets were stuffed full, and she had a measuring tape wrapped around her wrist.
Lucky looked back and forth between the woman and the dress.
“Go on,” Petty urged. “It won’t bite.”
“I promise,” the new woman said. “By the way, I’m Rosebud Briar. I’ll be your dressmaker.”
“Nice dress for a fake wedding,” Roderick said as he came up to stand beside him.
“It’s a nice dress for any wedding.” Rosebud narrowed her eyes at him.
“Hi, I’m the maid of honor. I’m Gwen. That’s—”
“Asshole,” Brittany interrupted her mother.
“I see,” Rosebud said, fixing Roderick with a hard glare. Then she turned her attention back to Lucky. “After speaking to your godmothers, I thought this material would suit you best, but this is about you and Ransom. If you don’t like it, we can do something else.”
“How could anyone not like it?” Her hand still hovered over the fabric. “I don’t want to hurt it.”
“My darling, you can’t hurt it. Stainproof.” Rosebud smiled, then looked from side to side, as if she pondered something very important. “Yes, yes, I believe it’s flame-retardant as well.”
“I definitely need that.” Lucky nodded and looked back at him.
For a moment, Ransom forgot that this wasn’t real. He was looking at his bride and she’d found The Dress. The One. She was asking him what he thought and for a moment, his only thoughts were what she’d look like coming down the aisle to him and their future.
He remembered what the godmothers had said. He had to love her unselfishly. His thoughts at the moment were all about himself.
“It’s beautiful, Lucky. You should try it on,” he said.
“Should I? I mean . . . it doesn’t matter, right?” Lucky replied.
“Of course it matters!” Gwen interjected before anyone else could say anything. “You are going to be on national television. You want to look your best. Oh, you’re going to need something new for the press junket, too.”
Rosebud grinned. “I think I have just the thing for that, too. I’ve put together a small selection.”
“If I go with this dress, what colors will we go with for Gwen and Roderick?” Lucky asked.
“I was thinking that we dress everyone else in white and let the bride and groom wear the colors. This is what I was thinking for the groom.” She pulled out an iPad and showed it to Lucky and Ransom. “While you’re looking at that, can I get anyone anything? Water? Tea? Wine?”
“Bourbon?” Roderick asked.
Ransom didn’t need to see Gwen to know that her eyes rolled so hard she was lucky to have kept them in her head.
He turned his attention back to the iPad and saw what Rosebud had planned for him. He’d expected it to be a traditional tux, but this was different.
The military-style tux jacket was double-breasted and cut from the same material as the dress with sharp, precise lines that would mold well to his body, and she’d planned for him to wear dove-gray breeches and shiny black Hessian boots. He’d look just like a fairy-tale prince.
Lucky looked up at him. “You’d wear this?”
“Why wouldn’t I? It’ll make my shoulders and my ass look amazing.” He winked at her.
She snorted. “No trolling for dates at our wedding.”
The godmothers peered around them to look at the iPad and they made the appropriate noises of pleasure and praise.
“My, my. Rosebud has outdone herself,” Jonquil said.
“Lucky still needs to try on the dress!” Rosebud said when she returned with a tumbler of bourbon for Roderick.
“I get a dress, too, Mama?” Brittany asked.
“Yes, but let’s have Aunt Lucky try her dress on first.”
“Oh yes!” Brittany said.
“Aunt Lucky’s gonna be so pretty!” Steven added.
“You’re the sweetest little monsters ever,”
Lucky told them.
“Don’t forget,” Bluebonnet began. “We’re waiting to hear back from the organizer on the junket. Do you need a new suit for that, Ransom?”
“Whatever you think,” he answered.
“This is your event, too. What do you think?” Rosebud asked.
He knew what they were doing. The godmothers wanted them to engage in the process. So they’d feel ownership. So they’d forget it wasn’t real.
“Who am I to say no to a new suit?”
“Fantastic! Let me get Lucky set up in the dressing room and I can show you my ideas.” Rosebud grabbed the dress and led Lucky away.
She turned around to give him one last look over her shoulder and she smiled.
He smiled back, but Bluebonnet’s words echoed in his ears like gunshots.
The press junket.
Where people would forget he was a billionaire philanthropist, and all of his hard work would be erased by four words.
The Boy Who Missed.
That wasn’t who he was anymore. That wasn’t who he’d ever been. He was more than four words. He was more than a single moment.
Ransom knew he shouldn’t even worry about it. If they brought it up, it didn’t matter. He couldn’t spend his life hiding from a stupid moment in his past.
That logic didn’t stop the dread that curled like a serpent at the base of his spine.
Chapter 9
Lucky was the first to admit she was afraid of the dress.
It was too pretty.
Too fragile.
Too pristine.
Things that fell into any of those three categories were not things that Lucky was to be trusted with.
As she was shuffled into a spacious dressing room, she had the urge to warn the pretty Rosebud about what could happen.
“I know you said this was stain-proof and flame-retardant, but I sort of have a thing.”
“Oh, your godmothers told me all about you. I’m prepared,” Rosebud assured her. “You’ll see.”
Eh, Lucky thought it was more likely that Rosebud would be the one to see. Not that she wanted it that way. She hoped against hope that the sweet Rosebud Briar was prepared for Lucky.
Or un-Lucky, as the case happened to be.
She changed out of her clothes and wriggled into the dress.
Then something amazing happened.
Something that convinced Lucky the dress was magic.
Looking at herself in the mirror, she didn’t see un-Lucky Fujiki. She saw herself. She was elegant. She was beautiful.
From the delicate swan arch of her neck to the inherent grace in her movements.
She’d never seen herself that way. She’d never felt graceful or elegant. Not ever.
Lucky decided she was never taking the dress off. It was going to have to rot off of her body. She didn’t want this feeling to end. She couldn’t go back to being un-Lucky.
When she emerged from the dressing room, Rosebud gasped.
“You look beautiful.”
“I feel beautiful,” she said. “How did you do this?”
“Magic, of course.” Rosebud grinned. “Let’s show everyone, shall we?”
Lucky followed her back to the main area, where most of her nearest and dearest waited.
Gwen was the first to speak. “I need to take a picture for your mother!” She whipped out her cell phone and snapped a few shots.
Lucky smiled and the monsters ran up to her, both wanting to be picked up. She didn’t hesitate and hauled one up in each arm.
“You guys are getting too big for that,” Gwen admonished.
“They’ll never be too big,” Lucky corrected.
“Even when I have my big teeth and a white dress?” Brittany asked.
“Well, kiddo. You’re going to get a white dress for the wedding and you’ve got some of your big teeth. Are you too big?”
“No,” she said with a grin.
“When I’m too big, I’ll pick you up, Aunt Lucky,” Steven informed her.
She put the kids down when she felt Ransom’s eyes rake over her. Lucky managed another smile.
“Well, what do you think?”
“He’s speechless,” Roderick answered for him.
Ransom just nodded in agreement.
“It’s absolutely perfect,” Petty reassured her.
Then her stomach growled long and loud.
Rosebud laughed. “Oh dear! I bet you were saving your appetite for the cake tasting. Well, let me just get some measurements from all of you and we’ll get you on your way. If you could all please walk single file through that trellis by the dressing room, it’ll get your biometrics.”
Lucky found it strange that no one questioned that the ivy-covered trellis was going to take their measurements. Everyone lined up single file and they walked through the trellis. It made a strange sound as it finished each one of them.
“I want to go again,” Steven said after his turn.
“And you may, but not until after everyone else has gone. Little boys grow very fast, so we might need another reading,” Rosebud replied.
What they were doing with tech these days was incredible.
“Lucky, you can change now, if you’d like,” Rosebud said.
“No, I don’t like. I want to wear it forever.”
Rosebud’s laugh was like the glass bells over the door. A light, magical sound. “That’s the best compliment you could give me. Thank you.”
It wasn’t a compliment. Lucky never wanted to wear anything else. She wondered if all the clothes from Cinderella and Fella would feel like this dress. She didn’t think it was possible because nothing could be like this dress.
But she trotted back to the dressing room and peeled the dress from her body with reluctant hands.
She sat with it in the room for a long moment, just allowing her fingers to glide over the material, to watch the shimmer of color as she did.
Her stomach again reminded her that while the dress was nice and all, it was time to eat and if she didn’t, there would be actual hell to pay. The first burning sting of hunger erupted in her stomach, and she knew she’d better move her backside if she wanted to enjoy the cake.
When she emerged, she didn’t see Rosebud anywhere and she didn’t know what to do with her perfect, beautiful, holy grail of a dress. She took several tentative steps and heard what sounded like Rosebud singing.
Lucky followed the sound, but she didn’t find Rosebud.
She found a dress form with a lovely pink satin and tulle dress in progress, but that wasn’t what made her stop short.
It was the mice holding bobbins of thread. A doe with her head in the window watching, a rabbit perched on the window sill next to the doe.
And the fattest cardinal she’d ever seen in her life with a needle in his mouth.
She froze.
They froze.
All except for the bunny. The bunny’s nose continued to twitch, and it was as if that kept him free of whatever spell trapped the rest of them.
He looked back and forth between the group of sewing animals and Lucky like he was watching a tennis match, only no one else moved.
Finally, the cardinal dropped the needle.
“Caw?”
Lucky narrowed her eyes. That bird sounded like a human making fun of a bird. This had to be some kind of practical joke.
“Shit, that’s not it.” He puffed up all of his feathers.
Lucky opened her mouth to scream. To her, it seemed as if her mouth had been open for centuries before any sound erupted, but when it did, it sounded like the scream of someone dying.
The deer jerked back and bounced her head on the window sill, the rabbit screamed back at her, the mice scurried away, and the cardinal, bless his heart, tried again.
“Chirp chirp?”
Lucky couldn’t move; her legs were rooted to the spot. She tried to run, but her whole body stiffened and she fell over like a fainting goat.
The cardinal landed on her for
ehead and he put his beak down to her nose. “Got a cracker?”
Suddenly, she was aware she was surrounded by people. The godmothers, Rosebud, Gwen, Roderick, even the kids, but it was Ransom she looked for. Ransom she wanted to see so that she knew she was safe.
He was on his knees next to her in an instant.
“Are you okay?”
The question stopped her cold. Was she okay? No, definitely not. She had to be hallucinating. There was no way she’d just seen an obese cardinal sewing a wedding dress. No way in hell.
It had to be a hunger-induced hallucination.
“I think so,” she mumbled.
Rosebud looked sheepish. “I’m sorry if my dear little Bronx startled you. He has quite the vocabulary, don’t you?”
The bird landed on her shoulder and rubbed his face on her cheek. He really was very cute.
“I could’ve sworn . . .” she started.
“What did you see?” Ransom asked.
Looking around at all the concerned faces, she couldn’t bring herself to utter the words. “Nothing. I think I’m just hungry.”
Ransom helped her to her feet, his hands warm and steady. Just the contact with him calmed her and made her feel safe.
“Good thing I’m done with you for the day and you can get on to the delicious cake tasting! Grammy is an amazing baker. You’ll love everything,” Rosebud assured them.
“When will everything be ready?” Jonquil asked.
“In a day or two. Shall I have it sent up to the castle or to your house?”
“The castle,” Lucky answered.
“Oh, I’ve just remembered one more thing. If the gentlemen will wait outside?” Rosebud asked.
Steven waited with Brittany, but Rosebud shooed him out as well. “No, no. You too, young man.”
“Is it secret girl talk?” Steven asked, but didn’t wait for the answer. “I bet it is. That’s okay. We’ll talk about secret boy stuff.”
When he was gone, Rosebud was instantly on point. “So, I know this wedding is mostly a publicity stunt, but your package includes honeymoon lingerie. I usually match it to the dress, but I thought I’d give you a choice. Green, purple, or do you want it to match the dress?”
“If it matches the dress, will it be made from the same material?”
Rosebud smiled knowingly. “You like that fabric, do you? It’s good stuff. I can do that, but there’s an extra cost involved.”
A Hilarious and Charming Feel-Good Read Page 9