His Darling Bride (Echoes of the Heart #3)

by Anna DeStefano

  He told himself not to care what she thought or where any of this was coming from. But a part of him always would. And if he wanted to avoid more circular conversations like this one, he’d have a better shot of dragging whatever was going on out of his mother in person.

  It was just breakfast. And maybe it was a beginning. And maybe . . . while he was sorting out being with Bethany and becoming a part of her life in Chandlerville, he should give his own family another shot at becoming something besides the world that he’d run from.

  “Let your driver go.” He steered his mother toward the stairs.

  He locked up and helped her down the steps this time, looping her arm through his and counterbalancing her skyscraper heels.

  “We’ll walk to the diner around the corner,” he offered. “I’ll drop you at the airport when we’re through.”

  “A diner?” Livy sounded as if he’d suggested they eat out of one of the alley’s garbage bins. “Wouldn’t the Ritz be so much nicer?”

  “Where’s Cowboy Bob when you need to kiss him?” Shandra scowled out the passenger-side window of Bethany’s uber conspicuous truck—at the display Benjie and Norma Carrington were making coming out of Sweetie’s Fairway.

  “Mike is busy handling his own horror of a mother.” Bethany cut the truck’s engine, inappropriately mesmerized by the scene unfolding across the street from the Little White Dress Bridal Boutique. She and Shandra were meeting Dru and the rest of Dru’s bridal party at LWD for their final dress fittings.

  Bethany hadn’t decided yet how to tell her family about how quickly her and Mike’s relationship was deepening. Or about his help with her art. Or his mother’s sudden, less than friendly appearance.

  “You gotta feel a little sorry for the guy.” Shandra propped her feet on the dash, silver toenail polish sparkling in the afternoon sun as she gawked at Benjie, as if she were watching the scene unfold on the big screen.

  He juggled four paper grocery sacks and followed in his mother’s wake. When they reached the trunk of Norma’s Caddie, she slapped her purse toward her son, leaving Benjie grappling desperately to hold on to its straps while she rooted inside for her keys. The woman kept talking all the while. Complaining or nagging or whatever she was doing to Benjie in high-pitched, rapid-fire angry tones. His features were frozen in the same furious, resentful mask as when he’d gotten so angry at McC’s.

  “I don’t know if sorry is what I’m feeling.” Bethany released a sigh that felt like stepping back after one of her painting marathons and trying to understand what had appeared on her canvas. “But it’s hard to keep hating a guy who’s never been taught any better than to despise himself and the world around him.”

  The way it was easy to love a man like Mike, who’d known so little lasting love in his life but couldn’t stop wanting to help and heal other people. His mother had seemed so heartless. While Mike’s artistic soul discovered something remarkable every time he looked through the lens of his camera, and he wanted to share whatever he’d found with the world.

  “Has she always been that way?” Shandra watched Norma leave Benjie to deal with the trunk, while she marched to the driver’s side of the Seville, complaining loudly enough to turn heads up and down the street.

  “Not toward Benjie,” Bethany said after thinking back about it. “But she and his dad used to bicker all the time. Now there’s no one else left, I guess.”

  And Benjie had evidently convinced himself that putting up with his toxic mother and running the family business into the ground was easier than finding something of his own in life that might finally make him genuinely happy.

  He slammed the trunk closed, hung his head, and glanced around to see who had witnessed his latest humiliation. His attention snagged on Bethany. All of a sudden he seemed more lost than angry. And maybe for the first time, as the warm August breeze eased through her truck’s open windows, he looked just a little bit sorry.

  “Do you hate him?” Shandra asked.

  Bethany turned toward her sister, leaving Benjie to stare or go, she couldn’t have cared less.

  She shook her head. “Everybody has problems. Every family has hard times. Hating people and places for that is what breaks things, not the problems themselves. Look at how Darby’s mom is fighting for her family.” And how Mike had stayed in touch with his parents, no matter how hard they’d made it or how much distance he’d needed. “I turned my back on Marsha and Joe when I wasn’t much older than you, because I didn’t understand yet.”

  Shandra picked at the polish on her little toe. “Understand what?”

  “That I was angry at myself, not at them. I was hating the changes I needed to make in me, so my life could finally get better.” Changes that could have spared Bethany from crashing through even more bad relationships after Benjie, hooking up with guys who could never have given her what she needed. “I was convinced that everything was happening to me, instead of realizing that I had a choice.”

  Shandra adjusted the bandanna she’d once more wrapped around her head. “A choice about what?”

  “To make my world whatever I wanted it to be.” Her art. Her family. Her need to love and be loved. “And then I finally chose to come home. So I could change whatever I had to, to stay.”

  Shandra nodded, looking across the street where Norma was pulling away from the curb. She whipped into the steady stream of traffic and cut off another car. She was talking away, gesturing with both hands instead of holding the wheel, while Benjie stared out his window as if looking for an escape route.

  “You never really loved him,” Shandra asked, “did you?”

  “I thought I did.” Bethany remembered Mike’s wonder each time he’d stared into her eyes. His admiration for her work with the youth center kids, and her art, and her dedication to her family. “But when I was your age, I didn’t feel like I belonged in Chandlerville. And back then, being with Benjie made that fear go away, so I could believe I was going to be okay.”

  “But we already had a reason to believe that,” her sister said. “We have our family.”

  We.

  Our family.

  Bethany nodded, smiling with pride, honored that she’d had a small part in Shandra coming so far.

  “We’re lucky,” she agreed.

  And she could feel that now, thanks in no small part to the man who kept assuring her that she was amazing to him, just the way she was. And that even though he wanted to help her, she already had within herself everything she needed to help herself.

  “I’m thinking,” she said to Shandra, “that we’re just about the luckiest two girls in the world.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Mike’s mother?” Selena helped Dru slip into the vintage wedding gown Bethany and her sister had discovered in a high-end Atlanta resale shop.

  They’d just finished up their final fittings for the wedding: Dru and her matron of honor, Selena; her bridesmaids, Bethany and Shandra; and Camille, the most excited flower girl ever. When they’d arrived at Marsha and Joe’s, garment bags in tow and early for dinner, their mother had demanded a fashion show before everyone else arrived.

  Marsha and Camille had disappeared into one of the girls’ upstairs bedrooms to get Camille into her fairy princess dress. From the laughter and squeals that had followed, Camille was enjoying showing off for her audience, while the rest of the bridal party dressed in Marsha and Joe’s bedroom.

  Bethany and Selena and Shandra were already in their gauzy creations. Dru had chosen her attendants’ dresses from the sale catalog of a well-known chain store. The style had been the last of the line’s Easter stock. With off-the-shoulder cap sleeves and an empire waist, the design complemented Dru’s dress to perfection. And each attendant had chosen her own color—lavender for Bethany, Easter-egg blue for Selena, and a buttercup yellow that glowed against Shandra’s deeper skin tones.

  Their head seamstress at Little White Dress was a family friend who’d offered, free of charge, to tailor the lengt
h of the skirts to suit each of them. Shandra had designed a trendy high-low effect for hers that had taken the longest to render. Selena’s tea-length skirt made her legs look like they went on forever. Bethany had laughed at first when Camille insisted her dress should be like a fairy princess’s, too.

  And then Bethany had seen her niece’s short, flirty, and above-the-knee skirt. She’d fallen in love with it, asking to have even more volume added to hers. Dru had wanted them each to pick whatever shoes they felt comfortable wearing all day to the outdoor ceremony and reception at Chandler Park. When Bethany had joked that she would polish her red cowboy boots before the big day, Dru replied that she wouldn’t have it any other way. So that, as they said, had been that.

  While they dressed and waited for Marsha and Camille to return, Dru kept pushing for details about that morning’s scene outside the Artist Co-op. She’d been pushing since she’d homed in on something being different with Bethany when she’d arrived at the Whip that morning to help with prep. Bethany had sidestepped the subject then. But Dru had gotten it out of her at LWD—the high points about last night, and Mike’s offer to collaborate with Bethany’s art, and about his mother showing up.

  “Mike’s mother was waiting outside this morning,” Bethany repeated. “When I . . .”

  She glanced at Shandra, who was studying her reflection in the full-length mirror in the corner.

  Shandra twirled in the three-inch heels she’d borrowed from Selena. “When you were heading home after getting busy with Cowboy Bob?”

  “Yeah,” Bethany said, “that.”

  “Awkward?” Selena asked.

  “Aggressive,” Bethany countered. “Passive-aggressive. She’d just met me. But she clearly knew enough about me that she thought . . .”

  “What?” Dru stepped to the mirror. She turned sideways and ran a hand down her dress, contouring the fabric to her baby bump.

  “Girls”—Bethany took a bow—“I’m officially a gold-digger. For dating a guy who wears jeans and threadbare shirts and hiking boots every day.”

  Selena looked stupefied. “She accused you of being after Mike’s money?”

  Bethany cringed at the first impression she’d made. “You should have seen the woman’s clothes. She looked like she’d just walked out of a Fifth Avenue showroom.”

  “One look at you,” Shandra said, “and she should have known money isn’t your thing.”

  “Ouch.” Dru nudged their sister with her elbow.

  Bethany snorted. “Thanks.”

  Shandra’s eyes widened at her misfire. “I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that other things are more important to you, like painting.”

  “Well, my residency came up, too. Maybe I’ve attached myself to Mike to jump-start my nonexistent art career.”

  Shandra had picked up Dru’s veil. She tucked its comb into her own braids and twirled. “So basically, the woman showed up to throw you shade?”

  Dru sat on the edge of the bed and toed off her wedding shoes. Shandra plopped down next to her and transferred the veil from her head to the bride-to-be’s.

  “I don’t know why she was there.” Bethany knelt to massage Dru’s swollen feet. Her sister groaned her appreciation. “Mike went downstairs first while I . . .”

  “Searched for your panties?” Shandra rolled her eyes at Bethany’s pained stare. “I’m not going to go on a teen mom sex bender, just because you’re finally hooking up with the hot guy you’ve been drooling all over.”

  Selena chuckled. She and Dru and Bethany traded secret smiles at the bond Bethany and Shandra had formed. “What did Mike say?”

  “He tried to defend me.”

  “Tried?” Dru asked.

  “His mother’s not wrong about how it looks.”

  “Who cares how it looks?” Selena looked pointedly at Bethany.

  “I don’t.” But it had been a bad scene.

  And something about Mike’s reaction had been worrying her ever since. She’d felt lousy leaving him to deal with his mom on his own. But he’d almost seemed relieved to have Bethany go. And she hadn’t heard from him yet. Not that they’d said they’d call.

  But still . . .

  “I’m just being oversensitive,” she said. “It sounds like things with his parents have been bad for a long time. If his mother doesn’t like him seeing me, Mike will deal with it.”

  “Seeing you?” Selena asked. “Is that what you call last night?”

  “Last night, the last few weeks, have been . . .” Bethany didn’t have the words.

  “Magical?” Dru said for her, adding a dreamy smile. “Exactly the way storybooks say love is supposed to be?”

  Bethany recalled those chilly moments with Mike’s mother. And her meltdown yesterday morning, with Clair and Nicole.

  “It’s a little terrifying, actually,” she confessed.

  She helped her sister to her feet and led Dru to the mirror to view the full effect of her dress and veil. A radiant bride, Dru hadn’t always had the most magical of love stories, either. She and Brad had never given up on each other, though, never completely. And now she was glowing with happiness over her pregnancy, and exchanging vows of forever and ever with her one true love in just two short weeks. Bethany wanted to believe that was possible for her. Maybe even for her and Mike—a man whose loving heart had been wandering for years, too.

  Selena stepped to Dru’s other side. Both women smiled at Bethany’s reflection, concerned, understanding, reassuring.

  “Love knows when the time is right,” Dru said, “whether you think you’re ready or not.”

  Shandra pushed off the bed and hugged Bethany’s waist. Their over-the-top dresses made them look like one of the confections Leigh and Dan created to top the Easter cakes people special ordered each spring.

  “You love Mike, don’t you?” Shandra asked.

  “I do.” Bethany wiped at her eyes.

  She loved him deep, all the way in, even if her heart were racing while she wondered where he was and what was going on with his mother and whether for some reason—or maybe for any reason he could find—he might be regretting the wonderful dream he’d given her.

  I haven’t known a lot of love . . . but whatever there is of it inside me, it’s already yours.

  “It’s just all happening so fast,” she admitted. “And he . . .”

  “Scares you to death?” Marsha said from the doorway.

  Camille rushed in from the hall and straight to the mirror.

  “You’re so beautiful.” Dru lifted Camille into her arms.

  “I know.” Camille preened at her reflection, then gasped when she glimpsed Dru’s dress. “You’re a fairy princess, too. I want to take pictures. Mom said I could.”

  Bethany’s niece dashed to her mom’s purse for Selena’s phone. Camille chatted away as she took her photos, confident that she belonged right where she was, even though a year ago no one would have believed Selena and Oliver would reconcile.

  Everyone modeled and posed and hugged, letting Camille direct them. Bethany checked on Marsha. Her foster mother was watching over the colorful, exuberant scene as if it were the most precious moment of her life. She smiled fiercely when she caught Bethany’s attention. She walked to the mirror, motioning for Bethany and Shandra to come with her. Selena and Dru, with Camille once more in her arms, joined them.

  Wearing khakis and a crisply ironed shirt, Marsha stood like a queen amid a bouquet of pastel tulle and bridal white.

  “I know how scary love can feel.” She gazed at their reflection. “But when it’s meant to be, there’s no use fighting it. And absolutely no reason you should.”

  She took Camille into her arms.

  “The first time I set eyes on Joe,” she said, “my first day on the UGA campus my freshman year, it was over for me. I knew there was no other guy who’d ever make me feel that way. Which was pretty inconvenient, since I was planning on a social work degree and a career helping kids and families, and I didn’t have time
for nonsense like a whirlwind romance and getting married after Joe graduated that spring. I was scared to death of all of it. Him walking up to me that day, me telling my parents I was marrying him. Me walking down that aisle having absolutely no idea why, except I loved Joe with everything inside me . . .”

  Marsha smiled proudly at the three generations of women standing with her with their hearts in their eyes. Even Camille had grown silent, waiting to hear what her new grandma would say next.

  “But I trusted the man I loved,” Marsha said, “more than I trusted the fear. I dreamed of the amazing future ahead of us, and I steered straight into it, every time something impossible came along wanting to steal away what we had. I’ve never let being afraid get its claws into us.” She covered Dru’s hands, where Dru had linked her arm through Marsha’s. Her watery smile into the mirror was for them all. “We’ve worked every single trouble out together. Family takes care of family, no matter what. And just look at what I got in return.”

  “Hi.” Bethany leaned against the Dixon front door, smiling at Mike as if he’d made everything right in her world by simply showing up.

  “Hi, yourself.” He checked his watch. He had five minutes to spare.

  “You made it.”

  He eased by her, hanging in the entryway while she closed the door. “I’m sorry it took me so long. You have no idea how much.”

  “No worries,” she assured him.

  She was wearing a silky peacock-blue blouse and faded jeans. Her feet were bare. And her smile was exactly the antidote he needed to recover from the hours they’d spent apart. So were the sounds of her family milling about, their voices emanating from what seemed like every corner of the sprawling house.

  Mike wrapped an arm around Bethany. “Dealing with my mother can be . . . intense.”

  “But she seemed so pleasant and down-to-earth.” Bethany’s giggle eased more of the pressure in his chest.

  “She wanted to have breakfast”—he let Bethany step back, when every instinct screamed for him to hold on—“which turned into brunch, which turned into spending half the day in the dining room at the Ritz, where she charmed the hostess into letting us hold court in a secluded corner, despite my”—he air quoted—“deplorable refusal to change out of yesterday’s clothes. I told her I’d dressed for the diner down the block. The Ritz could just lump it. I dropped her at the airport for her flight back to New York with barely enough time to shower and get ready to come here.”