I Choose You (Perfect Dish Romances Book 3)

by Tawdra Kandle

  “You two never hang out, what with your job and his. Go do something fun.”

  He’d hesitated only briefly. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t want Beetle thinking I’m paying too much attention to you and forgetting him.”

  I elbowed him in the ribs. “We’ve been spending way too much quality time together, Giff. Last night I dreamed we were picking out flowers, and you kept yelling at me. Then you turned into my mother . . .”

  “Okay, enough!” Giff clapped his hands over his ears. “I get it. Go and do your girly stuff, but I’ll be in constant contact with your mother via text. If you don’t finish the day with a dress bought and paid for, I’m going to pick it out myself. Got it, princess?”

  I mock-saluted him. “Heard and noted. Go forth and be manly.”

  Work for both Liam and me had been nearly all-consuming over the past month. He’d finished his graduate degree on schedule in August, though he’d elected not to participate in the December graduation, since the date was too close to the wedding. He was covering classes in the history department for a professor who was on sabbatical. We weren’t certain what would happen after that position ended, but we hoped Birch would offer him a full-time professorship of his own.

  I’d been handling two challenging new clients, both of whom had almost no experience with social media. Suzanne trusted me to guide them through the process of establishing accounts.

  “No one else has your patience, Ava. When they call for the third time to ask me about their password for ‘the Twitter,’ I want to scream.”

  Between our jobs and the wedding plans, my social life was practically non-existent. It’d been almost a month since I’d seen Julia, though we texted often and chatted on the phone at least once a week. I was looking forward to getting some time to catch up with her today.

  I was the last to arrive at Martin’s Bridal and Formalwear, and everyone else was sitting in the small waiting area. My mother stood up and greeted me with a hug.

  “Here she is, the blushing bride.” She kissed my cheek and then stood back, examining me with a critical eye. “You’ve lost weight. Are you eating?”

  “Ma, please.” I shook my head. “I’m eating, but I’m eating less. And I’ve been running with Liam. I want to look good for my wedding, right?” I turned to smile at Mrs. Bailey, who offered me her cheek.

  “And look here at my nephew!” I leaned over the baby seat, rocking it gently as I touched his tiny nose. “Hello, Joey! Oh, you’re getting so big.” I glanced up at my sister-in-law. “He’s so beautiful, Ange.”

  “If he’d sleep as much he ate, we’d all be happy.” Angela yawned, but she was radiating new-mama happiness. I hugged her tight and thanked her for making the trip up to help me.

  Julia sat next to Angela, and I felt a pang of worry when I took a good look at my friend. Her face was pale and pinched, and she had dark circles under her eyes.

  “Jules, you okay?” I sank onto the sofa alongside her as my mother went in search of a sales associate to help us. “You look exhausted.”

  She shook her head and attempted a smile. “Of course, I’m fine. Just working hard. You know how it is.” She pointed over my shoulder at the racks of gowns. “So no luck so far?”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “I just can’t find what I’m looking for, you know? I narrowed it down to three, but all of them have something I don’t like. Maybe I’m kidding myself, but shouldn’t my wedding gown be exactly what I want?”

  “Yep. Absolutely.” Julia nodded. “Well, today is the day. We’re not leaving until you’ve chosen it, even if you have to try on every dress in the store.”

  And for a while, it felt like that was what it was going to take. I stood in the dressing room in just my control-top underwear and my strapless bra, dutifully putting on and taking off gowns. Once the associate had strapped, laced or buttoned me into the new dress, I’d step out onto the small round dais and spin slowly for my audience of critics.

  Inevitably, there’d be two who loved it and two who didn’t, which meant I had to go back into the stall and start the whole process all over again.

  It was nearing lunch time when Julia poked her head into the dressing room. “Hey, can come sit with you for a little bit?”

  I patted the bench next to me. “Sure. What’s the matter, are they driving you nuts out there?”

  She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “No, I just wanted a change of scenery. Your mother and Mrs. Bailey are in the racks, looking for new possibilities, and Angela is feeding the baby. I thought I should give her some privacy.”

  “Oh, that was nice of you. Isn’t he the cutest thing? I can’t believe he’s two months old already. Did I tell you he was almost born in the restaurant?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “Yeah, it was funny. Well, now it’s funny, but at the time it was damn scary. Angela wouldn’t stop working, you know, even though my parents and Carl kept threatening to take away her keys to the car. She said she felt better being at the restaurant, so she kept coming in. Liam and I went down there on a Friday night to see about some things at the church for the wedding, and we were all back in the kitchen—all of us but Ange, who was up front working the hostess stand—when this customer comes running back, saying we need to call the ambulance, because some pregnant lady’s water just broke all over the floor. We actually sat looking at each other for a few minutes before we figured out it was Angela. We got up front, and she was bent over, having contractions. I guess she’d been having them all day without really knowing. She started screaming how the baby’s coming now, and Carl started freaking out that his kid was going to be born in the front of the house.”

  Julia’s eyes were huge. “What happened?”

  I waved my hand. “Oh, it was fine. The ambulance came, and they got her to the hospital in time to deliver him. I was so glad it happened when I was actually at home, you know? Liam and I got to hold him right away.”

  She licked her lips. “Does Liam like babies? I mean . . . are you going to have kids?”

  “I hope so. Eventually. Not yet, though. We’ve talked about it, and we both want to wait until a few years after we get married. We’ve got time.” I elbowed her in the ribs. “You know how it is. You want to be newlyweds for a while. Have fun without having to worry about being responsible all the time.”

  To my shock, Julia’s eyes filled with tears. She dropped her face into her hands and began to sob.

  “Jules! What’s the matter? What is it?” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder.

  She said something, but it was so muffled by her hands and weeping that I couldn’t understand her. “What was that?”

  Lifting her face, she screwed her eyes shut. “I’m pregnant.”

  My mouth dropped open in shock. Julia, pregnant? I knew she loved kids—or at least she loved Jesse’s little brother Desmond—but she’d always said she wanted to wait and have children after her career in journalism was established. She’d been working at an online publication for just a little over a year. I couldn’t imagine she’d done this on purpose. Of course, her sobs supported that theory, too.

  “We didn’t plan it.” She wiped at her face. “It happened on our honeymoon, but I just found out about three weeks ago. I had to have tests done, because I was on birth control the whole time.”

  I found my voice at last. “If you were on birth control, then how on earth did it happen?”

  Julia pulled a tissue out of her purse and blew her nose. “Don’t you remember the shtick from health class? ‘No birth control is a hundred percent effective except abstinance.’” She shook her head. “The doctor said it might’ve been because my times were screwed up with flying to Hawaii, and I took it too late, or maybe even missed a day. I don’t know. She said even if you’re very responsible and vigilant, sometimes things just happen.” She pulled her loose shirt tight over her stomach, where now I could see a firm bump. “So this just happened.”

  “Is everything
okay though? With the baby?” I couldn’t imagine how worried she must be.

  Julia nodded. “As far as they can tell. I had to have an amnio and a bunch of blood tests and ultrasounds.” She managed a small smile. “It’s a girl, in case you wondered.”

  I swallowed. “Well, that’s wonderful, Jules. Congratulations.”

  Her smile disappeared, and she began to cry again. “No, it’s not wonderful. Jesse. . he flipped out. He’s not ready, not at all. And between the stress of buying a new house, and his job as a speech pathologist, and now this—” She pointed at her waist. “He’s barely talking to me.”

  Anger washed over me. “That’s not fair. I mean, like my mom always says, it takes two to tango. It’s not like you went off and did this on your own.”

  “I know. And he knows. He’s not really mad at me, so much as he’s just . . . worried.”

  “Ava?” My mother’s voice floated through the louvered doors. “Can I come in a minute?”

  “Uh, sure, Ma.” I shrugged helplessly at Julia, who began wiping at her face.

  The door swung open, and my mother slipped in. I could see from her expression that she’d overheard. How much, I couldn’t be sure.

  “Girls, I’m sorry. I’m not an eavesdropper, but I went to knock on the door, and I heard Julia crying.” She sat down on the other side of my friend and pulled her into a tight embrace. “Sweetie, it’s going to be okay. Don’t cry. Don’t worry.”

  A new batch of tears rolled down Julia’s cheeks. “But—what’re we going to do?”

  Ma sighed. “I don’t tell this story because I don’t want to hurt feelings, but now may be the right time.” She glanced at me over Julia’s head. “But this doesn’t leave the three of us, understand?”

  We both nodded, and my mother continued.

  “When Anthony and I first got married, he was working at the restaurant all the time. It was his family place, you know, and he wasn’t making much. I was going to school nights. I was going to be a lawyer.”

  A wave of shock hit me. My mother—a lawyer? This was all news to me.

  “I wanted to wait and get married after I finished school, but Anthony talked me into marrying him beforehand. He promised he’d support me while I was going to college, and we both said no babies until I’d graduated, passed the bar and had worked for at least two years. We had it all planned out.” She smiled, a little sadly.

  “We were married all of three months when I started getting sick in the mornings. And then falling asleep on the bus, in the middle of class. I thought I was dying, but of course when I went to the doctor, he told me I was going to have a baby. I was devastated. I felt like my life was over. All my dreams were dead.”

  “But why?” I felt the need to right the wrongs done to my mother—wrongs that I was just learning about. “Why couldn’t you’ve had the baby and then gone back to school?”

  Ma shook her head. “Ava, think about it. Your father was working crazy hours at the restaurant. He still does, but now he has the boys to help him. Then, it was sometimes twenty-hour days. I’d have had to put the baby into daycare. For one, we couldn’t have afforded it, and for two, I wouldn’t have it. Once I felt that life inside me, I knew no one could take care of him but me.”

  “So you quit school.” I wanted to cry for my mother, for the dreams that had been lost.

  “I did, but Ava, don’t you look so sad. Because I’ll tell you, the minute I looked at my baby’s beautiful face, I knew I’d found a better dream. Carlos was worth more than a hundred law degrees. And so was Vincent, and Antonia, and you.” She touched my cheek.

  “Julia, you don’t have to give up your career. You can keep your job, I’m sure. Things are different now, and your situation is different. But I just want you to remember that things happen for a reason. Babies seldom show up at convenient times.” She met my eyes, and I knew we were both thinking of Antonia and little Frankie. “Try not to be upset. And trust your husband. He’ll come around. With men it sometimes takes a little longer, because they don’t have the life inside them. But he loves you. He’ll be fine. You both will.” She laid one hand on Julia’s stomach. “You all will.”

  “Ava, I found a dress. I may be completely wrong, but it made me think of you.” Mrs. Bailey’s face peeked through the door, and her eyebrows shot up at the sight of the three of us. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Nonsense, you’re not. We’re just having a little talk.” My mother patted Julia’s leg and stood up. “Let’s see this dress, Laura.”

  Mrs. Bailey held it back. “Let’s let Ava try it on and then we’ll all see.”

  Ma and Liam’s mom went out to wait, and the attendant came back in to help me into the gown. She didn’t let me look in the mirror the whole time she fastened the buttons and hooks, but I heard Julia’s small gasp of pleasure. I crossed all my fingers as I opened the dressing room doors and stepped out onto the small raised platform.

  “All right, you can look now.”

  Ma, Mrs. Bailey and Angela all looked up at me, and for the first time, I saw what I’d been waiting for. The expression on their faces told me the truth: this was the dress.

  It was in ivory, since we’d discovered that stark white didn’t do a thing for my skin tone. The top of the bodice was all shirred chiffon, a style I’d been avoiding because I was afraid it would make me look too top-heavy. But somehow in this gown, it held my bust in place, accenting without making me look blowsy. It crossed in the front, but with enough fabric that I was decently covered, and then it rose to my shoulders, where it was gathered and accented by tiny seed pearls. There was a band of ruched around my waist, giving me the appearance of an hourglass figure. The skirt flowed seamlessly in layers of weightless chiffon; no ruffles or flounces, just soft cascades that fell to the hemline.

  “Oh, Ava.” Unshed tears filled my mother’s voice. “Oh, you’re beautiful.”

  “Turn around and let us see the back.” Angela was all business, but I could hear the underlying emotion.

  The back of the gown was simple, with a plunging V to the waistband and a chapel-length train. Small hidden buttons ran down over my backside, but there was no flair or pleating to make my butt look bigger.

  “Laura, you found Ava the perfect dress. Thank you.” My mother reached over to take Mrs. Bailey’s hand and squeeze it.

  Liam’s mother actually blushed. “I wasn’t sure, but it just looked like your style, Ava. The sales lady said it was really for a beach wedding, but I thought, who’s going to care what the labels say? If it works, that’s all that matters.”

  I stepped down from the dais carefully and bent to hug my future mother-in-law. “Thank you.” I didn’t say anything else, but she held me close just a little longer than necessary, giving me what was probably the first genuine embrace we’d ever shared.

  “Liam’s going to love it.” Julia stood to the side dabbing at her eyes. “I can’t wait to see his face when he spots you in the church.”

  “What about a veil?” Angela moved the baby to her shoulder and began whacking at his tiny back for a burp.

  I glanced at Ma. “Will Nonna’s veil work with this gown?”

  “Absolutely.” She pressed a hand to her cheek. “It’ll be perfect.” She turned to the other three women. “Ava’s wanted to wear my mother’s veil since she was a little girl. It’s old-fashioned, but it’s simple. It’s going to look wonderful.” She glanced at me, her face glowing. “My little girl is going to be the most beautiful bride.”

  “Fabulous. Does that mean we can go have lunch now? I’m famished over here.” Angela bent to lay baby Joey back in his car seat. “I’m still eating for two, remember.”

  “I’m hungry, too.” Julia drew in a deep breath and met my eyes. “I’m also eating for two.”

  There was a second of surprised silence, and then Angela shrieked. “Julia, you’re pregnant? Oh, congratulations!”

  Jules nodded. “I probably shouldn’t have said
anything, since I haven’t even told my own mother yet, but . . . yeah. I’m due in March.” New tears began to leak from her eyes, but this time, I had the feeling they were happy ones. “Jesse and I are having a little girl in March.”

  There followed the requisite hugs and congratulations, until Ange clapped her hands once. “We can go celebrate this over food. We got a pregnant lady and a breastfeeding lady. Ava, go get out of your perfect dress and let them measure you, or whatever they have to do to make it happen. Ma, grab the tag and go pay the lady.” She took Julia’s hand. “Julia and I’ll go ahead to the restaurant to get us a table.” She picked up the car seat handle and tugged Jules behind her.

  The woman assisting me had vanished, so I turned to Liam’s mom. “Mrs. Bailey, could you help me get out of the dress?”

  “Oh, of course.” She followed me into the dressing stall and began hunting in the back of the gown for the closures. I watched her in the mirror.

  “Isn’t that wonderful for Julia and Jesse?” I was being wicked, but I couldn’t help myself. “Hmm. Just think, if Liam had stayed with Jules, you might be having your first grandchild next year.”

  Mrs. Bailey paused, her hands stilled. “Oh. Yes, I guess that’s true.”

  “It was a surprise, though. They didn’t plan to start a family so early.”

  “Hmm.” She straightened up and eased the sleeves from my shoulders. “These things can happen.” Her fingers closed on my upper arm. “But Ava . . . you’re very carefully, aren’t you? I mean . . .” She sighed. “I’m thrilled that my son is marrying you. I realize things haven’t always been smooth between us, but I know that Liam loves you. And I can see how much you love him. But all the same, I’m just getting used to the idea of being a mother-in-law. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for grandmotherhood yet.”

  I reached back to cover her hand on my arm. “Yes, we’re very careful. Don’t worry, Liam and I aren’t ready to be parents yet either.”

  “Good.” She smiled at me in the mirror. “Speaking of me not being a grandmother, I wanted to ask you something. Do you think Liam would have a problem with me bringing Alec to the wedding as my date? I don’t have to. He understands how it is, but I’d like to have him there. If it’s okay with the two of you.”