A Bridesmaid to Remember

by Amy Vastine

  “And now?” Bonnie couldn’t see what he would object to anymore.

  “Now, I want you both to be happy, and I think you’ll be happiest together.”

  She couldn’t agree more. As soon as her dad left, Bonnie fell into Aaron’s arms.

  “Alone at last,” she said.

  He pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “It’s funny you say that, because I was just thinking about how nice it is that we don’t ever have to be alone again because we have each other.”

  His words melted her heart. “I love that.”

  “I love you.”

  She pulled back and looked up at him. “I love you, too.”

  He bent down and kissed her in a way that made her feel that tingle all the way in her toes. She felt so safe in his arms. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t worry about what the next day would bring. She wasn’t afraid of what someone was going to think about her. There was such a feeling of contentment deep in her soul that assured her everything was going to be all right.

  “I don’t know about you, but I am starving,” Aaron said as they swayed back and forth in a tiny circle even though there was no music.

  “I could eat.”

  “Please tell me you have some marshmallows at your house, because I am craving some PBM sandwiches.”

  “I do not,” Bonnie said. “But I am no longer banished from the town market. I can go in there and buy whatever I want. No one will stop me. Is it wrong that part of me wants to go into every place that refused me service and be like, ‘Whose money aren’t you getting now? Mine!’ The other part of me wants an apple danish from The Bean right now.”

  “I think we should give people a second chance. Everyone except Tim over at Tim’s Taqueria. I don’t want his tacos, and his margaritas aren’t that good. The day we went there was his second chance, so too bad, Tim.”

  Bonnie giggled into his chest and waved her hand. “See ya, Tim.”

  Outside the skies were getting dark. The shadows began to grow longer in the house, and the world seemed just a bit quieter. Aaron took her hand and spun her around and pulled her close.

  “You know, had Lauren and Mitch got married, we would have been dance partners that night at the reception,” Aaron said.

  “That’s true. We missed out on our first dance because of those two.”

  “I hope we dance a lot. I could see us dancing right here twenty years from now. We’ll have four kids.”

  “Four? I am an only child. I wouldn’t know what to do with four children.”

  “Fine, three.”

  “Two.”

  “I read somewhere that the average couple has two and a half. Let’s split the difference,” he joked.

  “You think we should have a half of a kid?”

  “Maybe we share him with another family. We get him Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and every other Saturday.”

  “I think that could work.”

  “You think so?” Bonnie nodded her head. “Yeah?” She shook it. “No?”

  “No, I don’t think that will work,” she said through the giggles. If the rest of her life was this lighthearted and silly, she’d be a happy girl.

  “Me, either. Let’s stick with two or three. We round up or round down depending on how we feel after we have two. Two can be draining, especially when the second child is like Lauren.”

  Bonnie stopped. “Promise me our children will only be like Good Lauren.”

  Tipping his head a little, Aaron replied, “I’m not sure we get to decide their personalities. I feel like that’s determined before we get our hands on them. But if we get a firecracker like Lauren, we will teach her to be kind and patient, like her mama.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “I don’t think I can sell this house,” Aaron said. “We just decided how many kids we’re going to have here, and I’ve imagined dancing with you when I’m old and you’re gray.”

  She smacked him lightly on the arm. “I am not going to go gray. I’m blonde—I’ll stay blonde.”

  “Fine, I’m going to get old and gray and you will stay young and forever blonde, but I want to do it here. We put so much work into it, and you picked out all your favorite things.”

  Bonnie shook her head. “This house is very nice and it has a lot of things I like in it, but this is not our home. Trust me, when we find our house, we’ll both know it.”

  “Are you sure? I mean, your dad had three near-death experiences in this house. That gives it character, right?”

  “Rule number one when flipping a house—don’t get too attached,” she reminded him. “Don’t break the rules on the first flip.”

  He resumed their dancing. “You’re right. Good thing I’ve got you here to keep me on the right house-flipping path.”

  “Always.”

  * * *

  THE OPEN HOUSE was set to begin at noon, but Aaron was there a little early. He’d walked around the outside of the house four times. The landscaping looked good.

  “Everything looks amazing,” Bonnie assured him when he came inside and couldn’t stop pacing. “Don’t worry.”

  That was easy for her to say. She had been there all morning setting up vases of fresh flowers, organizing her materials, dusting everything for the third time. Her nerves had already been worked out.

  “This is my big day. This is my house-flipping final exam. Whatever grade I get here will determine my final grade in the class.”

  Bonnie slipped her arms around the back of his neck. “If I was handing out grades, I would give you an A.”

  Panic shot through him. “Not an A-plus? What’s wrong with it? Is something not right? I can have your dad over here in a couple minutes to fix whatever made you say A instead of A-plus.”

  Bonnie put both hands on his cheeks. “Aaron. Relax. I didn’t realize your grading scale allowed for pluses and minuses. This place is an A-plus. Someone is going to buy it and give you enough money to do it all over again with a new house. There’s a good one that just went up on Timberland. We should check it out this week.”

  How could she be ready to move on to another house when they still owned this one? Aaron was a one-house-at-a-time man. He needed to see this one through to the end before he could focus on the next one.

  “What time are you meeting my dad?” Bonnie asked, moving the brochures back to where she had them after he moved them an inch to the right. “You know you can’t be here when the open house starts.”

  He’d been told that repeatedly. Everyone was so worried he was going to oversell the place. He had to trust that Bonnie knew what she was doing, so Sasha and David were coming to get him and they were going to shoot pool until the open house was over.

  “They should be here any minute.”

  “Wow! Look at this place!” Sasha’s voice boomed through the house. “It looks so different with stuff in it.”

  “Please get him out of here before he wears a path into the wood floors with his pacing. Go, have fun, and when you come back, I’ll tell you all about the nice people who want to make an offer.”

  Aaron scanned the open living area one more time for any noticeable flaws. There were none. This place was perfect. He left with Sasha to meet up with David, who was sitting in the car.

  “You did good, kid. For your first flip, you handled all the setbacks with grace,” David said once they got to the pool hall and ordered their round of drinks. “I hope you feel like you learned something.”

  “I learned don’t go poking wasps’ nests behind old pantry doors, never give Bonnie a sledgehammer and don’t trust this guy—” he pointed at Sasha “—to be paying attention when using a nail gun.”

  Sasha tried to defend himself. “It was one time. And it was Bonnie’s fault for distracting me.”

  “Well, hopefully you learn from some
of my successes as well as my slipups,” David said.

  “You were a great teacher.” Aaron held up his glass. “I can’t wait to see what we learn on the next house.”

  “When we can hire a bigger crew,” Sasha said, raising his.

  “And can use local contractors,” David added, holding up his ice water.

  “And don’t have anyone breaking in to wreck it right at the end.” Aaron clinked his glass against theirs. “Seriously, I could not have asked for two better people to get me through this first flip. I really appreciate all your hard work. Drinks and pool are on me today.”

  Sasha and David readily agreed to that. They spent the next couple hours laughing and giving each other a hard time. Before he knew it, the open house was over and Aaron could go back and find out how things went.

  David gave him a little pep talk as they walked inside. “Now, just remember, an open house hopefully brings in some potential buyers, but it also attracts nosy neighbors and people who want to see what you did to update the place. You’re going to get people looking at this place for the next couple weeks. Open houses give Bonnie feedback. Don’t be upset if people don’t go write up offers today.”

  Keep expectations low was the overall message Aaron was getting from that little speech. Bonnie was cleaning up in the kitchen when they arrived.

  “How did it go? Please tell me it went well even if you have to lie to me.”

  She wore an easy smile. “It went great. Lots of people. Lots of questions. Lots of interest. I had a few Realtors walk through so they could speak about it to potential buyers down the road. They thought we had it priced right. They loved a lot of the things you did here. It was a good day.”

  “Anyone talk about making an offer?” he asked, forgetting all about lowering those expectations.

  “I did have one couple say they might go home and talk about it.”

  “Really?” Sasha said. “But did you have anyone actually write up an offer like this one?”

  Aaron’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

  Sasha pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket. “Bonnie and I wrote this up last night. I think you’ll find the offer is quite fair.”

  Aaron snatched it out of Sasha’s hands. Sure enough, his redheaded friend wanted to buy the house for five thousand dollars over the asking price.

  “You want to buy this house?”

  “I love this house. I love this town. My family is here. My friends. I think it’s time I settle down, and I can’t think of a better house to do that in than this one.”

  Aaron was speechless. He wrapped his arms around Sasha the best he could and hugged that giant of a man hard. “Why did you torture me all day when you knew I had a sale all along?” he asked the three of them.

  “We wanted you to have the full experience,” Bonnie said. “You won’t be selling every house to the guys who helped you build it moving forward.”

  He knew that would be the case, but he was happy that the first one would be somewhere he would be welcome to visit in the future.

  “I guess we can go look at that house on Timberland.”

  “Which house on Timberland?” David asked.

  “Bonnie wants me to look at a house over there for my next flip.”

  “Not the house on Timberland?” David asked Bonnie, who shrugged coyly.

  David shook his head and laughed.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Bonnie replied, giving her dad a warning look.

  “It’s clearly not nothing. What’s up with the house on Timberland?”

  “It’s her dream house.”

  “It’s not my dream house. It was my dream house when I was little. Who knows how I’ll feel about it as a grown woman?”

  Aaron placed his hands on her hips. “You want me to flip your dream home?”

  “So much for flipping houses your crew won’t want to buy,” Sasha noted.

  “If I flip your dream home and you buy it, I’m going to have to live in it with you. Forever.”

  He leaned down and kissed her so she’d know without a doubt he meant it. She was the only one he wanted to spend forever with. When she pulled back, the smile on her face made his heart skip a beat. There was no question she felt the same way.

  Bonnie put her arms around his neck and tickled the hair on his nape. “I’m counting on it.”

  * * *

  Be sure to look for Amy Vastine’s

  next Harlequin Heartwarming book

  in May 2020!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Healing the Doctor’s Heart by Shirley Hailstock.

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  Healing the Doctor’s Heart

  by Shirley Hailstock

  CHAPTER ONE

  DR. LAUREN PETERSON’S feet pounded the New York City sidewalk with the same force as her heartbeat. The point of no return was still ahead. She should turn around, dash down the steps to the subway and go back to the Brooklyn brownstone she was giving up at the end of the month. She still had time. No one would know. No one would be hurt. Disappointed, maybe, but not hurt.

  She could almost feel herself doing it, reversing course and heading home, the ghost of her skirt plastered to her legs in the wind as she made her attempt to run away from what she was hurtling toward. The traffic, pedestrians all seemed to crowd around her, slowing her footsteps.

  “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” Lauren said out loud. Since her decision was dumb and foolish, she had no problem having people on the street thinking the same about her.

  Maybe she should care.

  Why had she allowed Caleb Masters to go on interviewing her for that job, especially when she realized Jake Masters wasn’t there? She stopped abruptly and looked at the sky. Two people careened into her and she backed up against a building, accepting their angry looks as she let them pass.

  “What was I thinking?” This time her voice was barely above a whisper, since she knew the answer could come from only her own mind.

  People around her moved aside, giving her plenty of room. Many looked curiously at her. She was talking to herself without a phone near her mouth or earbud cords streaming down to some concealed electronic device. Thankfully, she was clean, well dressed and carrying shopping bags, but that wasn’t proof that she had all her faculties.

  Resuming her steps, Lauren thought of the recent interview with Caleb, only two days ago. She’d gone to it hoping Jake would be there, as well. It was her way of reconnecting with him. They hadn’t met in years. She was going to explain who she was, but that approach changed when the only person in the room was Caleb. She should have left before she made the mistake of asking about Jake, explaining that they went to college together. Caleb’s interest piqued when she said that. Of course, she was Lauren Graves back then. Everyone called her Lori. Caleb then offered her the position. She accepted it and walked away.

  And that was the stupid thing.

  She objected to his argument that she was perfect for the job after she’d told him she wasn’t a therapist. She was a pediatrician, dealing with children and overanxious mothers.

  “He’s seen too many doctors and refuses to see another one,” C
aleb said. That’s when he told her he didn’t want Jake to find out her profession.

  She should have refused, left the room as fast as her spiked heels would carry her. Lauren didn’t really want a job. Not now. She’d sold her practice. Her plans were to leave New York, move to a small town near the ocean or out west and reestablish her pediatric office. How could she let herself be talked into a job as a nonmedical aide for a man she hadn’t seen in decades and conceal who she was? She was a doctor and proud of it.

  And he was a broken man at that.

  The schoolgirl crush she’d had on Jake Masters was preoccupying at the time, but she was an adult now, thankful that Jake was ignorant of her prior feelings. As a junior to her freshman in college, Jake didn’t even know who she was. She was sure he wouldn’t recognize her. But she wanted to see him anyway. She couldn’t explain it other than to say she wanted to know if he was still as good-looking as he’d been in college and if that foolish crush she’d had on him was still there.

  In the years since she finished school, she’d thought of him in passing, usually when she was online with a school chum, or if she went to a social event with college friends. In medical school, she wondered what he was doing. Once, she’d looked him up on the internet and found a reference that he was entered in a tennis tournament. He’d been good at athletics and she was surprised that he hadn’t pursued that as a line of work.

  Until Caleb told her Jake was a trauma surgeon, she wouldn’t have thought the two of them had medicine as a common denominator. Now she was about to find out what else they had in common.

  Lauren had reached that imaginary line.

  * * *

  HER HEART THUMPED the moment Jake came out of the office building. Caleb had said he was in. Looking down at the ground, seeing the imaginary line, she hesitated for a long moment, and then watched him moving toward her. Taking a deep breath, she rushed forward, the bags and packages in her hands swinging back and forth as she sped toward some pretend engagement. There were plenty of people on the street. Not only was it the end of the lunch hour, but also the tourists in this section of the city were thick and unpredictable.