Bridesmaid for Hire

by Marie Ferrarella

  Feeling suddenly incredibly hungry for more, Shane wrapped his arms around her, drawing Gina closer to him as he deepened the kiss. Just for a moment he lost himself not only in the kiss but in all the old, wonderfully familiar feelings that kissing Gina had once again brought back to him in all their vivid glory.

  He could have sworn that those feelings had all died long ago, lying buried in some forgotten grave where broken dreams went to die. Yet here they were back again, just as strong as ever.

  Stronger.

  Feeling insatiable, Shane slanted his mouth over and over against hers, each kiss deeper and full of more longing than the last.

  Heaven help him, he wanted her, wanted to recapture all those emotions that had once pulsed so vividly between them.

  Shane’s heart quickened as his pulse raced faster and faster. And then, from some deep, distant nether region, common sense pushed its way to the foreground. Strengthening, it took hold of him.

  With effort, he drew his head back and slid his hands from her waist up to her shoulders. Exercising extreme control, he held her away from him.

  “I should get back to Ellie,” he said, his voice tight, hoarse.

  “Right,” Gina heard herself agreeing.

  Her brain caught up half a beat later. What had she been thinking, kissing him like that? It wasn’t as if she could lure him into making love with her, not with his niece sleeping in the family room and liable to wake up at any second.

  “You can’t leave her alone,” she said, embarrassed that for a few moments, she hadn’t been thinking of Ellie, only of how it had once been for Shane and her. “Go,” she urged him, waving him toward the family room. “And thanks for the pastries,” she added belatedly. Her brain was having a lot of difficulty processing what had just happened out here to her.

  “Thanks for the soup—and the comic books,” he added with a smile that quickly burrowed straight into her chest.

  She nodded, reluctant to see Shane leave despite what she’d just said about his going to his niece.

  “Don’t mention it. And please let me know if there’s anything else you need,” Gina added. She was stalling and she knew it.

  C’mon, Gina, get those feet moving toward your car. Go home.

  “I will,” Shane told her.

  The look in his eyes told her more than that, but Gina was afraid that she was letting her imagination read far too much into it.

  Shane had kissed her, she thought, kissed her the way he used to, with abandoned passion, and that was enough for now, she told herself.

  She could build on that.

  * * *

  Gina didn’t remember driving home. Didn’t remember walking from her car into her apartment. All she was aware of the entire time she was going from here to there was the golden glow that was radiating within her.

  The golden glow began to dissipate the second she saw the light blinking on her landline. Someone had left her a message. It was probably Sylvie calling with another mini-emergency for her to handle. Gina closed her eyes. She was certainly earning her money with that one.

  Why hadn’t Sylvie called her on her cell? Gina wondered, opening her eyes again. Oh well, she’d find out soon enough.

  Sighing, she kicked off her shoes, got comfortable and played the single message on the phone.

  She stiffened the moment she heard the voice. It wasn’t Sylvie calling her, it was her mother.

  “Hi, Gina. Haven’t heard from you for a while now. Just checking to see how you are. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Gina sighed again, louder this time.

  Her five-foot-two mother was the only person in her world who could say those words—“I’ll talk to you later”—and make them sound like a threat.

  She pressed her lips together, thinking. Just as she was debating whether or not to call her mother back—“not” was winning—the landline rang. Caller ID identified the number as belonging to Anna Bongino.

  “Not really the patient type, are you, Mom?” she murmured to the telephone.

  Gina knew that if she didn’t pick up the receiver, she was fairly certain that her mother would have the police dragging the nearby lake for her body. Taking a deep breath, she brought the receiver up to her ear.

  Summoning a cheerful voice from somewhere deep within, Gina said, “Hi, Mom.”

  “Hello yourself, Gina,” her mother responded. Gina knew something was off immediately. “I just thought I’d call and ask what’s new in your life.”

  And that confirmed it. She knew that all-too-innocent tone of voice. Rather than beat around the bush and try to feel her mother out, she went straight to the question at the heart of this call.

  “You know, don’t you?” she accused.

  “Know what, Gina?” Anna asked, taking her innocent tone up an octave.

  Gina rolled her eyes. Her mother knew. Knew about Shane suddenly reappearing in her life. This was all her own fault. She should have never said anything to her sister.

  “Mom,” she said, doing her best to see the funny side rather than lose her temper, “your abilities as an actress really leave a great deal to be desired.”

  Rather than become defensive, Anna merely said, “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re referring to, Gina.”

  She wasn’t about to drop this. “Yes, you do,” Gina responded. “You’re calling me because you’re hoping to pump me for information about Shane.”

  “Shane?” Anna repeated so innocently Gina almost believed her, emphasis on “almost.”

  “Do you mean that really nice boy from college who would have made such a wonderful husband for you? That Shane?” she asked.

  And now she oversold it, Gina thought. “Yes, Mother,” she replied, at the end of her patience. “That Shane.”

  “Are you telling me that he’s back? He’s here in Bedford?” Anna cried.

  Gina sighed. “Still not cutting it as an actress, Mom.”

  Ignoring her daughter’s sarcasm, Anna plowed ahead. “When? How? Are you seeing him again?” her mother asked with enough enthusiasm to make Gina harbor a sliver of doubt, just enough to give the woman the benefit of possibly not knowing about this supposed “happy” development in her life.

  “Slow down, Mom,” she cautioned. “Oddly enough, I ran into him while helping my latest client with all her wedding requests.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Eerie silence. And then her mother almost wailed, “Don’t tell me he’s the groom.”

  Okay, maybe her mother really was on the level, she thought. “No, Mom, Shane actually ‘creates’ wedding cakes. That’s how I ‘ran into’ him. My client sent me to him to ask that he do her wedding cake. It seems that Shane is very much in demand.”

  She heard her mother chuckle. “I’ll bet,” Anna interjected. “So, did you talk? Did you catch up on old times?”

  She really wished that her mother would drop this. “It’s not that easy, Mom.”

  “Of course it is,” Anna insisted. “Talking was always easy for you. You said your first sentence when you were nine months old,” she said proudly.

  Gina closed her eyes. “So you’ve told me, Mom,” she said wearily. “But this takes a little more finesse than that.”

  Anna seemed to be unfazed by her daughter’s protest. “So? You’ve had thirty-two years of practice. Finesse already,” Anna urged. Then, before her daughter could say anything she wouldn’t welcome hearing, Anna went on with her sales pitch. “He really was such a very nice young man. Maybe I should invite the two of you over for dinner sometime.”

  And so it starts, Gina thought. Maybe she could put the skids on her mother’s plan, at least for now. “You’d have to set three places at the table.”

  “You don’t want your father there?” Anna questioned, confused. “I know he can be irritating at times, but stil
l, he’s your—”

  “No, Mom, that’s not it,” Gina protested, stopping her mother before this got completely out of hand. “I’m saying that you’d need to set three extra places if you invite us over.”

  Her mother was quiet for a moment again. Then, in almost a hushed voice, unhappy voice, she asked, “Shane has a wife?”

  She should have just taken her chances and not answered, Gina thought. “No, Mom, he has a four-year-old niece. And before you ask, he’s her guardian.”

  “Oh my lord, he’s even nicer than he used to be,” her mother enthused.

  Okay, she knew her mother meant well, but this was just agitating her at this point. “I’ve got to go, Mom. I’ve got a lot of details to see to if this wedding is going to be a success.”

  “Let me know how it’s going!” She could hear her mother’s voice practically radiating from the receiver as she started to hang it up.

  “If there’s anything to report,” Gina replied and then quickly disconnected the call before her mother had a chance to say anything further that was just going to annoy her.

  Gina took a deep breath, willing herself to get her agitation under control. She really couldn’t blame her mother for being like this and taking up Shane’s cause. Shane had charmed the woman from the first moment her mother had laid eyes on him.

  Same as her, Gina thought.

  Although she tried to will herself to go to sleep, she just couldn’t seem to manage it.

  Gina had finally managed to drop off to sleep when her alarm went off. The shrill alarm mingled with the sound of her ringing cell phone. Bleary-eyed, she reached for the alarm clock, shut it off and glanced at the time.

  Seven o’clock.

  By her calculation, she had gotten under five hours’ sleep. Lord, she hoped she didn’t look it, she thought. Pulling herself together, she reached for the cell phone and brought it up close to her face.

  “Hello?” she mumbled into what she hoped was the right end of the cell phone.

  “I’m sorry, did I just wake you up?” she heard Shane apologize.

  Her eyes flew open. Instantly, she could feel her brain scrambling in a frantic attempt to focus itself. She dragged air deep into her lungs, praying that would do the trick.

  “No, I’m up,” she protested, then repeated, “I’m up. I’ve been up for hours.”

  “Your voice doesn’t sound like it,” Shane told her.

  Gina sighed. “That’s because I’m lying,” she admitted. “I had trouble falling asleep last night.” Then, realizing what that had to sound like to him—that she was telling him that he was the reason she couldn’t sleep—she quickly said, “My mother called when I got in and, well, you know how she is.”

  “Charming, as I recall,” he answered with an amused laugh.

  “No,” she contradicted. “That’s just my mother’s gentleman caller facade. Her real persona is a lot different,” Gina insisted. Not wanting to go into any further explanations about the woman—or what they’d discussed—Gina changed the subject back to the reason that he had called her in the first place. “What can I do for you?”

  Shane got down to business. “I usually do a trial-run cake before I create the actual one for the wedding,” he told her. “And since you told me that the bride was being extremely careful about not eating anything that she feels might make her gain weight, I was wondering if you’d like to be her stand-in.”

  All sorts of ideas ran through Gina’s head, none of which really made any sense to her in this particular context.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What I’m asking you is if you would like to come in and sample the wedding cake I’m creating for Sylvie? Provided that you’re not too busy,” Shane added. He sounded completely serious.

  “I’m never too busy for you—um, for your cake,” she managed to amend at the last minute. “When would you like me to come by your shop?”

  “How does two o’clock sound?”

  Perfect. But then, any time he would have suggested would have been perfect, she thought.

  “I’ll be there,” she answered brightly. “How’s Ellie doing?” she asked, wondering if the little girl was still sick.

  “Great,” he answered. “She bounced up out of bed early this morning like she was never sick.”

  “I told you,” Gina said, pleased.

  “You did,” Shane acknowledged, “and deep down inside, I knew you were right, but I still couldn’t help worrying.”

  “That’s because you’re a good dad, I mean good uncle,” she corrected herself.

  “Actually,” Shane confided to her, “a lot of times I feel as if I’m both an uncle and a father to that little girl.”

  There were a thousand things Gina wanted to say to him. She came very close to blurting out that her mother had asked about him, but she felt she was still in uncharted territory. That meant that she needed to be as cautious as possible so as not to endanger any progress that might have been made so far. She was intent on building things up between them, not in having them disintegrate.

  So Gina curbed her desire to say all sorts of positive, possibly over-the-top things to him and just went with something relatively neutral.

  “There should be a way to hyphenate that in your case,” she told him. “You know, like Uncle-Dad.”

  He laughed. “Like that’s not going to confuse Ellie at all.”

  Gina grew serious. “Does she know what happened to her parents?”

  “Yes. I told her the first time she asked about them. I put it in terms she could understand—that Mommy and Daddy had been in an accident and they went straight up to heaven to keep God company. That seemed to satisfy her at the time. She doesn’t feel that they abandoned her if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking of that,” Gina said honestly. “After all, she’s only four.”

  “A very bright, precocious four,” Shane pointed out. “She certainly keeps me on my toes.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet.” She could listen to the sound of his voice against her ear all day, but she knew he had work to do. Just as she knew she needed to let him get to it. “All right then, I’ll see you at two—unless you call and tell me that you want me there later.”

  “No, two will be fine. Unless the stove blows up. I’m kidding,” Shane assured her when he heard silence on the other end. “That hasn’t happened to me for a while now.”

  “You’re still kidding, right?” Gina asked uncertainly.

  “Actually, it was this ancient stove that I used when I was in Uganda and no, I’m not,” he told her. “It really did blow up.”

  “Okay, my cue to leave,” she said. She knew that if she didn’t force herself to hang up now, she never would. “Bye.”

  “Goodbye, Gina.”

  The sound of his voice echoed in her head for the rest of the morning, keeping her company and whispering of things that were to come.

  Maybe.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You look exhausted.”

  It wasn’t what Shane had intended to say to Gina when he saw her walking into his shop that afternoon at exactly two o’clock on the dot, but her wearied appearance caught him totally by surprise.

  Gina swept into the shop and went straight toward one of the two tables in the showroom. “Flatterer,” she quipped, dropping her shoulder bag on the table.

  “No, I’m serious.” Shane came around the counter and joined the woman on the other side. He searched her face. “Is everything all right?”

  “It is now—I think,” she replied uncertainly.

  “And before?” he asked, waiting to hear the explanation behind why she looked as if she’d been on a forced march for the last eighteen hours.

  She sighed. “Before it was like being in a canoe, paddling madly while trying to navigate in the middle
of a torrential storm.”

  Shane pulled out a chair, silently urging her to sit down. He waited until she did, then he dropped into the one opposite her before he said, “You are going to translate that into English so that the rest of us can understand, right?”

  She sighed. She supposed she was carrying on a little bit too much, but she had earned it after what she’d gone through.

  “I can’t wait until this wedding is over with,” she told him with a sigh.

  He got up and poured her a cup of tea from the stand he had set up to the side for his customers. “I kind of thought it might have something to do with that. What happened?” he asked.

  She looked up at him with a smile. “Well, aside from my having to sweet-talk a wedding cake from the much sought after ‘Cassidy’—which turned out to be a good thing,” she quickly added, “and finding a contractor who could repair an unexpected large gaping hole in the church roof in time for the wedding, not to mention securing a decent photographer to replace the one who suddenly remembered he had a conflict—two weddings at the same time taking place in opposite directions—I just spent the whole morning negotiating with a florist who tried to tell me that carnations made a better statement decorating the church than the lilies that the bride wanted.”

  She paused to take a sip of the tea, then sighed as the hot liquid curled its way through her system. “I had no idea that florists could be so temperamental and hard-nosed.”

  Listening, Shane nodded and looked properly sympathetic.

  “Who won?” he asked when she paused to take another breath.

  About to take another sip of tea, Gina raised her eyes up over the rim of the cup. Her eyes met his. “Who do you think?”

  Shane laughed. “I don’t have to think, I know. You always were persuasive,” he recalled fondly. She really did look wiped out, though, he thought. “Look, if you want to go home and unwind, we can do this tomorrow. There’s no huge rush.”

  “I am unwinding,” Gina informed him. Being here with him like this was having an oddly tranquilizing effect on her, she realized. She had gotten past the tense, nervous stage with him, so that was a good thing. “Right now, what I need most is a friendly face.” She smiled at him. “You qualify.”