Bridesmaid for Hire

by Marie Ferrarella

  Ellie had obviously heard Gina talking and came running in from another room to join Gina and her uncle. “Hi, Gina!” she cried. “We’re having dinner. You can eat with us if you’d like. We have plenty—especially vegetables,” she confided, lowering her voice when she came to the word vegetables.

  Shane looked amused. “Ellie doesn’t really like vegetables,” he told Gina needlessly.

  Ellie tossed her head, negating his statement. “I like mashed potatoes.”

  “You need green vegetables, munchkin,” Shane reminded her.

  Ellie pursed her lips in a frown. “My stomach can’t see. It doesn’t know the mashed potatoes aren’t green,” she informed her uncle.

  Delighted by Ellie’s spirit, Gina laughed. “Can’t argue with that.”

  The next thing she knew, Ellie was grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the kitchen.

  “Come to the table,” she coaxed, echoing something she’d heard her uncle say to her.

  Gina looked over her shoulder at Shane to see if this was all right with him.

  Following behind them, Shane gestured toward the kitchen. “You heard the munchkin.” He smiled at Ellie. “Come and eat with us.”

  She didn’t need her arm twisted.

  Gina stayed for dinner, which turned out to be pork loin. There were also two servings of vegetables, spinach and mashed potatoes. She saw Ellie deliberately avoiding the spinach on her plate.

  “Did you know that if you mixed potatoes into the spinach, it doesn’t taste like spinach at all?” Gina told Ellie. She proceeded to mix the two on her plate, then offered a small forkful to Ellie. “Try it,” she coaxed.

  Ellie made a face, then took the tiniest of bites, moving her head in and out like a small bird taking a drink of water.

  “Not bad, eh?” Gina asked. “My mom used to do that to get me to eat my spinach.”

  “You didn’t like green vegetables either?” Ellie asked, surprised and also pleased that she had something in common with Gina.

  “Nope. Would you like some more?” Gina asked. She was aware that Shane was silently observing all this play out.

  Ellie’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes, please. It tastes like crunchy mashed potatoes.”

  Gina nodded, preparing the two vegetables for the little girl. “Good description.”

  After dinner, Ellie begged her to stay so that they could “read these books together.”

  “If it’s okay with your uncle,” Gina qualified, glancing toward Shane.

  “Oh sure, he won’t mind,” Ellie confidently assured her. “He’s a good guy.”

  Which was how Gina wound up helping Ellie read the books that she had brought over. Ellie insisted on reading all of them. Or at least most of them. Ellie’s eyes began to droop by the time they had finished four books. By the middle of the fifth book, she finally lost her battle with her eyelids.

  “You wore her out,” Shane said. “Good job. It usually takes me a lot longer.”

  Moving aside the storybooks Ellie had surrounded herself with, Shane slipped one hand underneath his niece’s body and slowly picked her up, taking care not to wake her up. Gina followed behind him as he carried the little girl up to her room.

  “Want me to change her into her pj’s?” Gina asked him.

  “No, just take off her sneakers. If you start to change her out of her clothes into her pajamas, she might wake up and you would be amazed how recharged Ellie can get by taking a simple ten-minute nap.”

  “Taking off sneakers it is,” Gina responded, slowly slipping off first one sneaker, then the other and placing them side by side at the foot of Ellie’s bed.

  Shane covered his niece with the princess throw she had at the edge of her bed, turned on her nightlight, then tiptoed out as he eased the door closed.

  “You did that like a pro,” Gina couldn’t help telling him.

  “I should. I’ve had more than three years of practice doing it.” He stopped in the hallway and turned toward her. “With any luck, she’s down for the night. What would you like to do now?” he asked Gina.

  She knew that she should call it a night herself. She didn’t want him to think she’d come here so they could pick up where they had left off the other night.

  But for some reason, she couldn’t seem to get her legs to work. Couldn’t seem to make herself walk out unless he told her something that would make her feel she should go.

  So rather than do what she felt was the right thing, Gina looked up at Shane and said, “Surprise me.”

  “I don’t think,” he told her, moving closer to her, slipping his fingers into her hair, “after the other night, that anything I did would surprise you.”

  She could feel his breath along her lips, feel anticipation instantly rising up, full of demands, within her veins.

  “Why don’t we test that theory?” she proposed.

  He cupped her face in his hands as her heart continued to beat wildly in her chest. Her breath froze as he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. When he made contact, it felt like there were multicolored flares going off in her head.

  Stifling a moan, Gina slipped her arms around his neck, rising up on her toes to further lose herself in his kiss.

  After what felt like a blissful eternity, he released her and drew his head back.

  “Too forward?” he teased.

  “Just shut up and do it again,” she told him.

  Humor curved his lips. “If you insist,” he said just before he kissed her again.

  The kiss lasted longer this time, eroding what little there was left of her resistance. And when he drew his head away a second time, something inside of her almost let out a mournful cry.

  “You know,” he told her in a low, seductive voice, “if you’re interested, my room’s just down the hall. We’d have more privacy there, provided of course you want more privacy.”

  This would have been the perfect time to pretend that it didn’t matter to her one way or another. A perfect time for her to play hard to get.

  But she wasn’t interested in playing any games. She was interested in soothing this ache that was building up inside of her, making wanton demands on her. If making herself available to Shane was the wrong way to play this, so be it. Despite the vocation she’d chosen that required her to hold jittery brides’ hands, she wasn’t versed in the games people played. She wanted there to be nothing but honesty between them because at bottom, honesty was all any of them had.

  “Funny man,” she quipped. “Take me to your lair,” she told him.

  His eyes were already caressing her. “I could carry you off,” he offered. “Like Tarzan. Maybe even find a couple of trees to swing from.”

  “Just walk,” she told him.

  He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He took her hand in his and brought her into his bedroom.

  The room all but reeked of masculinity with its sleek, straight lines. There was a framed portrait of a couple with two little boys on the bureau. She assumed that was a family photograph taken when he was a little boy. But other than that, and one framed photograph of Ellie, there were no other pictures, no other personal touches in the room.

  She turned to ask him why the room was so devoid of other photographs of his family but found she couldn’t. Shane had found something better for her mouth to do. And her heart rejoiced over it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The wedding that Gina had seriously felt would never arrive finally did.

  Her mother, bless her, had lived up to her reputation and had somehow brought the bride’s semishredded veil back from the dead, although it had taken longer than anticipated.

  Gina presented it to Sylvie just as the bride had finished getting into her sleeveless, floor-length wedding gown.

  Carefully placing the veil on the bride’s head, Gina kept her
fingers crossed that Sylvie wouldn’t notice that the veil was a little shorter than it had been before Cinnamon had gone to work on it.

  “Oh, it’s perfect,” Sylvie cried with enthusiasm. “Thank you! I never would have been able to survive all this chaos without you.”

  She carefully looked herself over from every possible angle in the floor-length mirror. The mirror was set up in the chamber that had been set aside for the bride and her bridesmaids.

  There was no hiding the pleasure throbbing in Sylvie’s voice.

  It was a quarter to one o’clock in the afternoon and the wedding in the newly repaired church would be starting in fifteen minutes. Gina herself had been up since six, working nonstop almost the entire time. She had been checking and double-checking a thousand and one details so that there were no unexpected surprises, otherwise known as emergencies, cropping up before the festivities had a chance to get underway.

  They were almost at the finish line, Gina thought.

  She would have liked to demur to Sylvie’s comment about not being able to survive without her services, saying something to the effect that Sylvie was stronger than she’d thought and was up to handling whatever emergency came up. But that would have been an outright lie. Sylvie, Gina had come to realize over these last three weeks, was too high-strung to handle a hangnail, much less anything that was more stressful than that.

  Not wanting to insult the woman on her big day, Gina merely replied, “That’s what I’m here for, Sylvie.” She smiled at the bride. “Glad I could help.”

  “I’m telling all my friends about you,” Sylvie promised, looking herself over one last time. “Get ready to have your cell phone start ringing nonstop.”

  Gina merely smiled at the bride’s comment. Most likely, once all this was over, Sylvie wouldn’t remember this conversation.

  The beginning strains of the wedding march wove themselves into the room. “That’s your cue,” Gina told Sylvie. Turning toward the other bridesmaids, including the maid of honor, Gina asked, “Everybody ready? This is it.” She turned back to look at Sylvie again. The latter suddenly began to look pale. “Sylvie, what’s wrong?”

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” the bride wailed, pressing her hand to her stomach.

  “No, you are not,” Gina informed her in a stern voice, then, looking Sylvie in the eye, she instructed, “You’re going to walk down that aisle on your father’s arm and you are going to marry the man of your dreams. Do you understand?”

  Sylvie acknowledged the question with the barest nod of her head.

  “Yes,” she said in a hoarse voice.

  “All right then,” Gina announced, placing one arm around the bride’s waist, guiding the young woman through the door, “we all know our positions. Let’s have a wedding!”

  The five bridesmaids all filed out. Gina hung back until she could create a space for herself right in front of the maid of honor. Sylvie clutched at her one last time, mouthing the words “Thank you,” before she released Gina’s arm.

  The music seemed to swell as Gina walked into the church directly in front of the maid of honor. Moving slowly, Gina kept her eyes focused on the altar. Even so, she still managed to do a quick scan of the immediate area.

  She was looking for Shane.

  According to her schedule, Shane and his assistant should have brought the wedding cake to where the reception was being held an hour ago. That would have given him plenty of time to set up the cake, then change into a formal suit and come to the church. Shane was her plus one.

  Right after the ceremony was over and the photographs were taken, Gina intended to spend the rest of the reception with Shane.

  Provided, of course, that he hadn’t decided to leave after he had set up the wedding cake, she thought. She was beginning to suspect that might very well be a possibility as she came up to the altar and took her place with the other bridesmaids on the left side of the church.

  Temporarily facing the congregation now, Gina quickly scanned the faces of the people waiting for the bride to reach the altar and her destiny.

  Shane was nowhere to be seen.

  Had he changed his mind after all? Gina struggled to contain her disappointment. She had to hold it together. This wasn’t about her. This was Sylvie’s day and she had to keep smiling for the bride’s sake. The photographer was moving around, snapping pictures. Nobody needed or wanted a sad bridesmaid ruining the pictures.

  If nothing else, she reminded herself, Sylvie had already paid her for her services.

  Just as she was moving in closer to the right of the altar and the other bridesmaids, the sound of the outer door, the one leading into the church proper, caught her attention. Sparing one glance to the rear of the congregation, Gina thought she caught a glimpse of Shane. Her heart literally skipped a beat. He looked dashing, dressed in a dark suit.

  She allowed herself one more look as the minister began the ceremony.

  It was Shane.

  He’d kept his word. The smile that took over her face was genuine this time.

  As a relaxed sigh escaped her lips, she allowed herself to enjoy the wedding.

  * * *

  The photographer, Andre, a small nimble man with a sharp eye for composition, was extremely thorough and he seemed to be everywhere, almost at the same time. Although she was the one responsible for finding him and bringing the photographer to Sylvie, Gina began to think that Andre was never going to stop herding them from one spot to another, never stop issuing orders and snapping photographs.

  By the time Andre was finally finished, Gina felt she was wilting. But it turned out that the photographer had just finished this part of it. He and his assistant were coming to the reception hall to continue preserving the wedding with his camera. In addition, a videographer named Suzanne was making sure she was preserving everything that happened at the reception on video, as well.

  Despite all this going on, all Gina saw was Shane. The first moment she was able to, she made her way over to him, a broad welcoming smile on her lips.

  “You made it,” she cried.

  “Barely,” Shane answered. “The traffic getting here was an absolute bear,” he told her. “Some driver decided that his SUV belonged in two lanes at once. Driving like he owned the road, it was only a matter of time before he caused a minor pileup. Luckily, it happened right in front of me.”

  Gina blinked. Had she missed something? “Luckily?” she questioned, stunned that Shane would phrase it that way.

  “Well, if it had happened a mile ahead of me, I’d probably still be on the freeway, trying to get here. And, even luckier,” he continued, “the guy missed me.”

  She smiled, shaking her head. “Leave it to you to bury the headline.”

  The band was playing a familiar slow dance. Shane leaned into her, a warm look in his eyes. “Dance with me?” he asked.

  “I’m not all that good at dancing,” she warned.

  Gina wanted only to sit with him and just spend the time talking. Having him here had sunbeams bouncing around inside of her. Part of her had doubted that he’d actually show up. Granted they had made love several times in the last week, but that was a private thing. Dancing with him was far more of a public thing.

  “C’mon, Gina,” he coaxed. “All you have to do is sway from side to side. Nobody’s grading you on this,” Shane assured her as he took her into his arms. Just as he closed his arm around her, he drew back his head to look at her. “You’re trembling. Are you cold?” he asked, although it didn’t feel cool enough to warrant her reaction.

  She shrugged off his question, then decided to be honest with him. “I was just thinking of you getting crushed by that SUV, that’s all.”

  A smile played on his lips. “Well, if that had happened, there wouldn’t have been a cake for the reception.”

  Gina closed her eyes, searching for strength.
She banked down the urge to shout at him. “That’s not what’s important here,” she told him, gritting her teeth.

  Shane smiled at her. “No point in thinking about what might have happened, Gina. It didn’t,” he stressed, brushing the incident aside. Changing the subject, he looked around as they continued dancing. “You put together a nice wedding.”

  While his compliment warmed her, she didn’t feel right about accepting it. “The wedding was already put together when I took over. I just tweaked it in order to get it on track.”

  “All right,” he allowed, “you do a good job tweaking.” Shane’s eyes crinkled as he grinned at her. “Although it’s a little too grand for my taste,” he had to admit. “I prefer something small and intimate.” The look in his eyes seemed to take her prisoner as he asked in a far more seductive tone, “How about you?”

  “Small and intimate is good,” she agreed, the inside of her mouth growing suddenly dry.

  “You mean it?” he asked, surprised. “You’d be satisfied with a small church wedding? With just a few friends and family members in attendance?”

  “Yes,” she answered, suddenly afraid to breathe because the next breath would undoubtedly dissolve the dream she realized she was entertaining at this moment. “Why?”

  “Before I answer your question, I think we should stop dancing,” he prompted. When she looked at him quizzically, he pointed out, “The music’s stopped.”

  “Oh.” She’d been so intent on listening to what Shane was saying, she had managed to filter out everything else. Including the band.

  Embarrassed now, she moved from the small space set aside for dancing and started to hurry back to her table. She wanted the shelter provided by the guests who were seated there. Shane couldn’t laugh at her if there were other people present—could he?

  Shane caught up to her in a couple of strides. Taking hold of Gina’s arm, he stopped her escape.

  “Don’t you want me to answer your question?” he asked.

  Trapped, she relented. “All right. Why were you asking me if I’d be satisfied with a small wedding?”