by Rachel Hauck
“No, a disaster would be finding Dad’s bucket list after it was too late to do anything.” I shake my head and move to stand. “I was hoping for your support, but I guess that’s too much to ask.”
She reaches across the table to stop me. “I needed you to hear me say it. But now that we’re clear, okay.”
“Okay?”
Lily shrugs. “We’re best friends. If you really think this is something you have to do, then I’m here for you. Disaster and all.”
I melt into the booth. “Good, because I need help planning the wedding.”
Chapter 5
After coffee with Lily, I spend the rest of the day with animals, doing well-checks, diagnosing various ailments, prescribing medicine, and administering vaccinations. Edna Pearl, owner of the local dance studio, brings in her parrot, Polly, right before I close, under the pretense of sickly behavior. Really, I think she wants an excuse to pepper me with questions about the engagement announcement. I end up staying fifteen minutes past five, poking and prodding a perfectly healthy parrot to the backdrop of, “Squawk! Can’t believe it. Squawk! Jake and Emma.”
As soon as Edna and Polly leave, I head over to my parents’, hitch Dad’s minitrailer to the back of my Honda, and drive out to Sawyer Farm—passed down from Al Sawyer to his son, Wayne, who now runs it with his son, Steve. They stock the town with Christmas trees in the winter, strawberries and raspberries in the summer, and every imaginable size and shape of gourd and pumpkin in the fall. Since Lily grudgingly agreed to help me with the wedding, the least I can do is help her with the decorations for Mayfair’s Fall Harvest Festival, and the best place to get decorations is Sawyer Farm.
As I drive the backcountry roads, the crisp air whips strands of hair from my ponytail. I crank up Miranda Lambert and try to lose myself in the colors—green leaves surrendering to red and orange and gold, their foliage made brighter against a bruised sky. It’s best if I don’t think—not about Jake or that kiss or the ring on my finger or Lily’s disapproval or my pesky doubts or Dad’s waning life. Instead, I belt along with Miranda until I turn down the road that winds toward the farm. Gravel crunches beneath my tires as I catch sight of a familiar Chevy parked amid a smattering of pumpkins in front of the Sawyers’ big barn. I turn down the music and squint at the plates, but of course it’s Jake’s truck. The rust is in all the right places.
What’s he doing here?
I pull up beside his truck and step outside, twisting the ring around my finger. Pumpkins, gourds, hay bales. Decorations for the town square. That’s what I’ve come for.
The screen door to the farmhouse squeals open and out steps Wayne, then Jake, then Wayne’s wife, Sandy, who spots me first. As soon as she does, her storklike legs take her down the porch steps and eat up the short distance between us. She wraps her long arms around me and nearly lifts me off the ground. “I knew you two would get married someday!”
Apparently, they’ve heard the news.
“If Papa Al hadn’t told us, I’m not sure Jake would have made a peep. I’ve been trying to get him to share the details ever since he brought over my new rocking chair, but you know Jake. Never one to blather.”
I glance toward the men.
Wayne gives me a friendly wave, skirts around the new rocking chair—polished walnut, beautifully designed—and steps off the porch. “Congratulations, Emma.”
“Thanks.”
“Jake tells us the big day isn’t too far away.”
“October twenty-fifth,” I say, silently scolding my erratic heartbeat. It’s Jake. I have no reason for the sudden bout of nerves. Except for the whole kissing thing.
Jake steps off the porch, too, and stands by my side.
“We insisted you have the wedding here at the farm, but Jake said he’d have to speak with you about it first.” Sandy looks at me eagerly, as if waiting for me to make the decision here and now. “It’d be a free venue. And with the date approaching so quickly, it might be the only one available.”
Wayne wraps his arm around Sandy’s waist, highlighting their height difference. While she is tall and lanky, he is short and stocky. On any other couple, the disparity might look awkward, but not on them. “Give the girl time to breathe, Sandy. She just got here.”
“I can’t help it. I’m just so excited.”
Wayne pulls Sandy closer, kisses her cheek, then nods toward a tractor hitched to a hayrack near the barn. “You ready to load up?”
I nod. Next week the farm will open to the public. Not only pumpkins and hayrack rides, but a petting zoo and a corn maze bigger than any other in northern Wisconsin. Sawyer Farm puts our tiny town on the map. “Thanks for giving us first pick. Lily will be thrilled.”
“Not a problem. Now, how about I give you two a ride out to the patch before the rain starts up? Jake, you can help your fiancée load up for the festival and discuss the location of your wedding along the way.”
“Oh . . . um . . .” I peek at Jake, who wears an inscrutable expression. “You probably have to get back to the hardware store.”
“I have time for a hayrack ride.”
“Good. Let me just pull the tractor around.” Wayne heads off while Sandy begins explaining the many benefits that come with having the wedding at the farm. She doesn’t quit until Wayne pulls up on his tractor and Jake and I climb into the hayrack. We settle onto the bench in the back and wave at Sandy while we slowly ride away.
When she’s out of earshot, Jake clears his throat. “About that kiss . . .”
I let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Me too.” We ride over some rough terrain. I set my hands on the bench and curl my fingers beneath the wood so as not to jostle up against Jake. I don’t want to set off any more alarms in his head. Between Liam’s comment about my childhood crush last night and Jake being forced to kiss me this morning, he no doubt has plenty going off already. Poor Jake is probably worried I’m getting false ideas, reading too much into his offer.
He wipes his hands down his jeans. “We should probably come up with a plan.”
“So it doesn’t happen again.”
He gives me a self-deprecating, sideways smile. “I was thinking more about how we’re going to play this out.”
“Oh.” The hayrack ride brings us closer to a field dotted with rows and rows of orange.
“I mean, the Bunco Babes will probably expect a certain level of . . .”
“Affection?”
His dimples flash. “Only if you can stand it.”
And just like that, the tension seeps from my muscles. I loosen my grip on the bench. Jake is such a good sport. “So what exactly do you have in mind?”
He looks down at my hand, then takes it in his. “This seems easy enough.”
Swallowing, I stare at our interlaced fingers—his large and tan, mine small and a bit paler. “Not too horrible,” I tease.
“Almost natural.”
“We’ll get there.”
He relaxes back against the bench.
I smile. “You didn’t know what you were signing up for, did you?”
“I knew.”
Smiling, I look around at the rolling hills, dotted with maples and oaks. “So we’re getting married at Sawyer Farm?”
“Only if you want.”
A pinch of giddiness wiggles in my chest. I can imagine it—the crisp weather, an azure sky, the melody of Canon in D or maybe even “Ave Maria” as the guests stand and I slip my arm around Dad’s. “I think it’s perfect.”
“Good.”
We ride the rest of the way in comfortable silence—the kind carved from years of knowing one another. When Wayne pulls to a stop, Jake helps me off the hayrack and we wander up and down the rows of pumpkins—large, small, circular, oval, lumpy, and smooth. It’s a wonderfully diverse crop this year.
“Emma?” Jake asks.
I straighten from examining some gourds.
Jake nudges a pumpkin with his shoe.
“Why did you break your engagement to Chase?”
The question escapes into the cool air and floats between us. This is a topic we haven’t talked about. When it first happened, Jake was living in Milwaukee. He kept in contact with Liam but not me. When he came back to Mayfair a year and a half ago, he was a wounded man, picking up the pieces of his grieving family after Ben’s death. My broken engagement didn’t seem important. Since then we have always managed to skirt around the issue. Chase and Jake were friends, and I hurt Chase badly when I called things off. I never, ever intended to, but intentions don’t mean much when someone’s hurting. I got the feeling Jake wanted to stay out of it. Yet now he asks. I stuff my hands into the pockets of my corduroy jacket. “I’d just found out my dad had cancer.”
He cocks his head.
“Something like that has a way of making you think, you know? Make a good, hard assessment of your life.”
His eyes contain an ocean’s worth of understanding, because Jake knows.
“The diagnosis changed him.”
“Chase?”
“No, my dad. He started living with so much courage. I realized that when I said yes to Chase, it wasn’t because I loved him. It was because I didn’t want to lose him.” I gather several gourds into my arms, Jake grabs two pumpkins by their stems, and we make our way back to the hayrack to drop off our first load. “It’s ironic.”
“What is?”
“I called off my wedding because of my dad’s cancer. Now I’m having another one because of the same thing.”
A hint of pain flickers across Jake’s face, only I don’t know what it’s for. Or who it’s for. “Do you wish you never would have called off the first one? I mean, if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t be in this mess now, pretending to be engaged to me.”
I grab some smaller pumpkins nearby and place them beside the two big ones. “No regrets.”
Chapter 6
They’re what?” I stop in front of To Have and To Hold, the only bridal boutique in the county, so fast that Lily bumps into me from behind.
“Golfing, honey,” Mom says again.
“Liam, Dad, and Jake?”
Mom scrunches her forehead as if I am being purposefully obtuse, then bustles Lily and me through the front doors. Dresses of every fabric and design spill off racks. Chiffon, organza, satin, and lace. Ball gowns with exorbitantly long trains, short gowns with no train at all, and everything in between. Along with veils and shoes and jewelry galore. The place is like an overstuffed wedding turkey. I turn around, ready to continue my line of questioning with Mom, but I’ve already lost her. The sudden onslaught of white has mesmerized her, drawing her in like an insect to the light. This is her happy place.
Me? I can’t seem to find one.
We are five days from October, a full week into my engagement, and only four weeks from the wedding day. Two emergencies at the clinic—one of which resulted in euthanizing an eight-year-old Lab—on top of all my regularly scheduled appointments hurled me into a put-out-the-fire mentality. All this week, I’ve managed to avoid Lily completely and Liam for the most part. Dad has been his usual rocklike self. And Mom has turned into a spaz. According to her, “We have no time!” Which is exactly what I don’t want to hear, because on the other side of that aisle is a reality I’m not ready to face.
“Emma, you have to try this on.” Mom glides to the nearest display, her hand outstretched like she can’t resist touching the poufed skirt.
I take in the layers of bustled organza and wrinkle my nose. I did enough of this two years ago to know what looks good on my body and what doesn’t. Bustled organza might work for stick-thin, tall models. For a five-foot-four gal with some muscle on her bones? Not so much. “Mom.”
She turns. “What?”
“Why are Dad, Liam, and Jake golfing?” Jake doesn’t even like putt-putt.
Mom arches her eyebrow. “Why are you so fixated on the golf?”
“I just . . . Jake . . . doesn’t golf.” Never mind that this means Jake will be spending the entire morning with Liam, when both of us have gone out of our way to avoid him. I ran into him once this past week over at Mom and Dad’s, and the entire time he grinned at me like I was free entertainment. Now Jake is partaking in the one sport that drags on into an eternity with my smirky-faced brother, who will no doubt use that eternity to razz my poor fiancé.
Mom slides a few dresses along one of the racks. “Your father loves golf, and now that Jake is officially a part of the family, he invited him to go along.”
I worry my lip. This is no good.
Mom pulls a mermaid-style dress with one too many sequins off its hanger and holds it up to my body. “What do you think, Lily?”
Lily rubs her chin, beholding all the sparkles, then scrunches her nose and shakes her head. “How’s Liam doing?” she asks. “I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“He’s fine.” I avoid looking her in the eyes when I answer. I can tell by the tone of her question that she’s inquiring about more than Liam’s general well-being. She wants to know what he thinks about the engagement.
A young woman with bangles on each wrist offers to start us a room. Mom hands over the two dresses that have caught her attention.
“We should all get together tonight,” Lily says. “Hang out.”
“That’s a wonderful idea!” Mom runs her fingers along the train of another dress. “We could make use of the fire pit. We haven’t done that in a long time.”
I eye my best friend. She’s had a thing for my brother ever since we realized cooties were a plot devised by parents to keep boys and girls apart for as long as possible. What I can’t figure out is whether her suggestion is an excuse to hang out with Liam or if it’s her attempt to find out if Liam knows the truth.
“It could be our reward for a day of hard work.” Lily holds up her iPhone. “I’ve got a whole list of things we need to accomplish today if we’re going to pull off a wedding by the twenty-fifth.”
“The first backyard fire of the season. Your dad will love it.” Mom squeezes my elbow and gives me a reassuring smile. “Now, let’s find you a dress.”
So that’s what I do. Or try, at least. It’s hard to muster up the enthusiasm when my mind keeps playing out golf course scenarios, wherein Jake crumbles beneath the weight of Liam’s questions and spills the truth to not only him, but also my dad. I imagine the disappointment and hurt on Dad’s face. And that uncrossed item on his bucket list. It would taunt me for the rest of my life. To add even more angst to the situation, sporadic flickers of giddiness at the memory of Jake’s kiss and our hand-holding at Sawyer Farm bubble to the surface.
I need to get a grip.
Doing my best to attend to the task at hand, I nod or shake my head at the dresses Lily and Mom select, until I grow tired of all the white and head over to the bridesmaid section. I hold up a periwinkle monstrosity with an impossibly short skirt and puffy sleeves. “Hey, Lily! How about this for the maid of honor?”
She steps away from a rack and joins me.
I hang the dress up and pull out another—calf-length and seafoam green. “This would bring out your eyes.”
“Are you asking me to be your maid of honor?”
“Isn’t that assumed?”
“Wow. I’ve never been a maid of honor at a fake wedding before.”
“Shhh!” I dart a look over my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, she can’t hear.” There’s an undercurrent to Lily’s words. I can tell she wants to say something more, but she presses her lips together.
I should be grateful that she’s keeping her opinions to herself. After all, I asked Lily for her support. But her silent disapproval rankles. “You should be thrilled about this, you know. I’m giving you an excuse to dance with Liam.”
“That is one way to look at things.” She peeks at Mom, then dips her chin and leans closer. “Does your brother know?”
I shake my head, then wander toward Mom, eager to escape Lily’s questions.
She follows. Halfway there I stop. Directly in front of me is the dress I’ve always envisioned wearing on my wedding day, all the way back when I was a little girl obsessed with Cinderella. It’s the dress I scoured every boutique across the upper Midwest for two years ago but could never find. Yet here it is, in this bridal shop not more than twenty minutes from my home. A strapless ball gown with a sweetheart neckline, a chapel train, intricate beadwork, and an accompanying jacket.
“It’s beautiful,” Lily says.
“It’s perfect.” I run my fingers along the lace sleeve of the jacket, then check the tag. “And it’s my size.”
Lily and I smile at each other. Fake wedding or not, we can’t help ourselves. I take the dress off the rack and hurry toward the changing room. The woman with the bangles assists, zipping and buttoning and adjusting, while Lily and Mom wait impatiently outside, telling us to hurry up already.
When I step out of the changing room, Mom’s eyes fill with tears.
I take in my reflection, and that giddy feeling swells. I twirl, relishing the rustling sound the skirt makes, and smooth my hand over my waist.
Mom dabs her eyes with a wadded-up tissue. “I have to buy it for you.”
“No way.” The words come too quickly, but there’s no way I’m letting her spend a dime on this wedding. Even if it weren’t fake, even if Jake and I were planning on actually being married, my parents have a mountain of medical bills to climb. “I have money saved up.”
“And it’s half off,” the woman with the bangles adds.
The front doors of To Have and To Hold swing open, letting in a gust of chilly autumn air. Jake strides inside, so out of the blue I don’t have time to react. When he spots me in front of the mirror, he stops, his dark hair ruffled from the wind. His attention travels up the length of the dress, then lands on my face, but before I can decode his expression Mom jumps out of her seat and throws herself in front of me like a shield. “Jake, you can’t see her!”
“Mom—”