A Day Late and a Bride Short

by Jacobs, Holly

  Donovan seemed obsessed with feeding her. And yet—she speared the last bite of potato from her plate—he did manage to feed her such wonderful things. She pushed the plate back and stared at a sailboat zigzagging through the water.

  “Oh, Sarah, we got so much done today,” a decidedly female voice said.

  Sarah turned and saw Mrs. Wagner and Donovan in the doorway. “Come into the living room, dear. The girls are setting things up.” Mrs. Wagner turned and bustled back through the sliding glass doors.

  “How did they find me here?” Sarah whispered.

  He looked guilty, and said, “I might have mentioned to Leland that you were moving in.”

  “So now everyone knows I’m living with you?” The very thought made her uncomfortable.

  Donovan shrugged. He didn’t look the least bit concerned as he answered. “Like I said, it makes us look more like a couple.”

  A couple of fools, that’s what they were. Thinking this marriage could work out. Sarah stalked into the living room and forced herself to smile as she looked at the women’s excited faces.

  “Oh, Sarah, sit down, dear,” Mrs. Wagner said. “Just wait until you see what we’ve accomplished today.”

  “I have a tent reserved. We don’t want rain ruining your day. And they have heaters, too. Just in case it’s cold,” Brigitta said.

  “We are living in Erie, after all. Even July can get a cold front.” Hanni laughed and so did everyone else.

  The standing joke in town was that if you didn’t like the weather in Erie you just had to wait a few minutes for it to change.

  Mrs. Wagner patted the cushion next to her. “Sit down, dear. We can be overwhelming, but I promise we won’t bite.”

  “Speak for three out of four of us. Remember that time Brigitta bit me when we were...oh, I don’t know, seven and eight? She left a scar.” Liesl pointed to a spot on her arm.

  Sarah didn’t see anything, but she nodded as she took her seat next to Mrs. Wagner.

  “That’s okay, you cut my hair, remember?” Brigitta said.

  “As you can see, raising the girls was sometimes more like being a lion trainer than a mom,” Mrs. Wagner said with a laugh. “Now, I talked to Leland’s friend, Mathias—”

  “That’s Judge Long, for those who didn’t grow up in the courthouse,” Liesl said, interrupting.

  Her mother shot her a warning look and continued, “—and he’d be honored to perform the ceremony. Donovan knows him.”

  “So now the big question is...dresses?” asked Hanni.

  “Dresses?” Sarah had just barely started to adjust to the idea of marrying Donovan, but she hadn’t really thought about what a wedding would entail. Dresses, tents, judges...and probably flowers and food.

  What had she done? She didn’t want all this. If she was going to go through with this sham of a marriage, maybe she could talk Donovan into just eloping somewhere.

  But one look at the four women’s excited faces, and she knew she couldn’t do that. They were all so delighted.

  “Dresses,” she said with a sigh. “I hadn’t thought about them.”

  “You haven’t thought about much,” Liesl said. “That’s because this is all moving so fast.”

  “But we love Donovan, despite the fact he’s not teddy-bear cuddly. He puts on a tough front, but underneath we always suspected there was a warm mushy side, and it’s more evident with you around. We just can’t see the two of you waiting a year for the wedding of your dreams,” Brigitta said.

  “Yeah, if I weren’t married,” Hanni added, her voice soft and conspiratorial, “I’d snap him up for myself and see if I could thaw the Iceman.”

  “But you are,” her mother reminded her. “Don’t make Sarah nervous. We’ve never seen Donovan look at anyone the way he looked at you Saturday night. That’s why we don’t want you two to wait. Now, about the dresses.”

  “For you and the bridesmaids,” Liesl clarified. “Donovan can take care of tuxes,” Hanni said.

  “How many?” Brigitta asked.

  Sarah felt as if she’d been sucked down the rabbit hole with Alice. “How many what?” she asked.

  “Bridesmaids. How many do you think you want?” Mrs. Wagner said.

  “I hadn’t thought about it, about any of it other than to think a fall wedding would be lovely,” she confessed.

  “And it will be,” Mrs. Wagner soothed. “I went to a wedding once with eight bridesmaids, but I thought that was overkill. I had three.”

  “I only had one,” Hanni said. “That’s all you really need. Just someone to witness the wedding for you.”

  “One,” Sarah said, shooting Hanni a grateful look. “I guess just one. I don’t have a big extended family, and I’m an only child. So there are no feelings to hurt.”

  “Small and elegant. Oh, you have such good taste,” Liesl said.

  “Here.” Brigitta plopped a stack of magazines on Sarah’s lap. “Let’s see what you’re leaning toward. Maybe this weekend we could actually go try some on.”

  “Now, who’s your bridesmaid going to be?”

  Chapter Seven

  DONOVAN HID IN THE kitchen, doing the dishes—that was his excuse if anyone asked. Although no one had. Doing dishes was a good excuse though. Avoiding the women was the real reason. He figured traditionally the groom just had to show up at the wedding, and that idea worked for him.

  He was a traditional sort of guy.

  But as much as he didn’t want to plan the wedding, he couldn’t help sneaking a look at the women from time to time.

  Mrs. Wagner, Hanni, Liesl and Brigitta surrounded Sarah. They bombarded her with plans. And at first Sarah seemed ill at ease, but as they studied wedding gowns in the magazines, she seemed to relax and started to enjoy herself.

  Bits of the conversation made their way into the kitchen.

  “...No, no, dear. You want something to emphasize your beautiful hair. Not a full veil,” Mrs. Wagner scolded.

  “It’s red,” Sarah said. “I always thought I looked like a giant red Popsicle. Tall, skinny and red. Yuck.”

  “Are you crazy?” one of the girls asked. He wasn’t sure which. “Not skinny, slender. And tall is good, especially next to Donovan’s height. And your hair is gorgeous...”

  It was, Donovan reflected.

  There was such a mix of colors in her hair. Red, of course, but there were streaks of lighter, almost blond, strands. And the small curls seemed to take on a life of their own, on occasion. There was one curl that had escaped Sarah’s clip and wrapped itself around her left ear at dinner. It drove him nuts. He wanted to reach over and tuck it in. And conversely, he wanted to reach over and pull out the clip and let the rest of her curls free.

  He’d dreamed about her hair...about her. Sarah, leaning over him, those red curls spilling down and tickling his face. He’d reached up to touch them, to pull her to him...and woke up to find his hands full of a pillow.

  He’d tossed the thing across the room and spent the rest of the night wide awake and restless. That’s when he started to worry about Sarah, alone in a building with no security. Sleeping on a couch. A bathroom with no shower.

  By the time the sun had crept over the horizon, he had himself worked up into quite a state. It was easier to blame Sarah’s living arrangement than his dreams.

  He’d just put the last plate away when Mrs. Wagner called, “Donovan, come out here, would you?”

  His living room was a blizzard of papers and magazines. Remembering Sarah’s comments about his messy office, he wondered how she was dealing with his now messy living room. A mess that was entirely her fault.

  He smiled at the thought. “Yes, Mrs. Wagner?”

  “This is your wedding, too, and we’re trying to convince Sarah that we should go all out. She keeps trying to rein us in.”

  “I just want to keep things small,” Sarah said. “I don’t want a huge ceremony. Just something small and tasteful with a few friends.”

  “And family,” Bri
gitta added.

  “And family,” Sarah parroted back.

  Though she was smiling, Donovan could detect the lack of enthusiasm in her expression. He could read her with surprising ease. She was thinking of expense and worrying about the less than romantic aspect of their nuptials.

  “So what do you think, Donovan?” Mrs. Wagner asked.

  “I think that whatever Sarah wants is fine with me.”

  “I just can’t see spending all kinds of money on—” Sarah stopped short.

  She was going to bring up the whole business-relationship thing—would have if they weren’t surrounded by some of the very people who couldn’t know the real nature of their relationship.

  Donovan quickly filled in, “On something that is a private, solemn ceremony. Two people joining their lives and their hopes. Two people sharing their dreams and working to see them come true. Two people agreeing to take life as it comes...together,” he supplied. “You’re right, Sarah. Something small and special is just what I want to commemorate that type of agreement.”

  He turned to Mrs. Wagner and her daughters. “That’s why your hosting the wedding at your home is so wonderful. It just adds to the intimacy of the day.”

  “Why, Donovan,” Mrs. Wagner said with a small sniff, “I didn’t realize how...well, poetic you could be, dear.”

  “I didn’t either, at least not until Sarah came into my life.”

  “Oh, Sarah, you’ve done wonders for our Donovan. Leland was simply worrying himself to death over the boy’s ambitions. He, Leland, not Donovan, always says that ambition is all well and good, but family...that’s what makes life worth living. When the girls were young, he was still working to establish his career and the firm, but no matter what he had going on, the girls came first. At the beginning of each month, he’d pull out his planner and write down all their important events. Basketball games, track meets, open houses, various ceremonies. He bent over backwards to get to all of them.”

  “I can’t think of anything important Dad ever missed,” Hanni said. “He was always there. Most nights he was home in time to read to us before bed when we were small.”

  “When we got older,” Liesl agreed, “he’d come in and listen to all three of us try to tell him about our days at once.”

  “That’s what he wants for you Donovan,” Mrs. Wagner said, her voice soft. “He says he thinks you’re such a talented attorney. He just wants you to take some of that talent and drive, and funnel it into something that will matter long after practicing the law is a memory. Family. He’s so pleased that you’ve found out what matters.”

  Donovan didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

  Silence. That was comfortable and familiar. This? All this talk about emotions and family...he didn’t quite know what to do with it.

  He’d never quite figured out what led him to accept a position at Wagner, McDuffy and Chambers. It wasn’t the job he’d always dreamed of, and yet, when the offers started rolling in, it was the one that felt right. And though he wasn’t a man who usually made decisions based on feelings rather than facts, he’d done just that and accepted the position with Leland Wagner.

  Sarah reached over and squeezed his hand. “I have no doubts that Donovan is the best attorney at the firm, and he’s already given me so much that I think you can assure Mr. Wagner that he knows what’s important. Now, about the flowers, I was thinking we could just pick up some inexpensive mums. It will keep with the fall theme and...”

  He realized that Sarah was still holding his hand as she led the women into a new conversational direction. He gave it a quick squeeze of thanks and didn’t let go as he tried to process the impact of his conversation with Mrs. Wagner.

  When they’d had the meeting about partnership, Leland had said the same thing...balance. He wanted that for Donovan. And balance is what Donovan feared he’d never have. That’s why he’d put off having a family. He wanted to make sure he was at a point in his career that he could find time for them.

  But would that time ever come?

  Once he made partner and established himself in the position, would he cut back enough on his practice to build a relationship, or would he continue to steam forward, always looking for more acclaim, more power, more money?

  What was enough?

  Would there ever be time for the type of relationship he wanted? A relationship like Leland had with his wife?

  Donovan didn’t know. What he did know was that he didn’t want the type of relationship his parents had. Family was secondary to business. Whenever something happened at school, it had been his grandmother who’d been there. Most of his friends never met his parents.

  He fingered the ring—his grandmother’s ring—on Sarah’s finger. He wanted...

  He wanted what Leland and Mrs. Wagner had. What his grandmother had had with his grandfather.

  But the way he was going he’d never have it. He’d have power, he’d have a practice other lawyers envied, but he’d never have this...a room full of people laughing and talking. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone over to his place before Sarah.

  He studied her. She’d had his attention long before this fake engagement. What was it about her that was different than all the other women he’d known?

  “You’re awful quiet Donovan,” Mrs. Wagner said.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About what? Oh, don’t answer that. I could see the way you were looking at Sarah and I can imagine what you were thinking,” she said with a laugh. “Believe it or not, Leland and I were young once, too.”

  “I’ve seen how Dad looks at you, Mom. I have no doubts that age isn’t what matters, feelings are. That’s what all of us wanted in a relationship, what you and Dad have. That’s what we insisted on. And it looks like that’s what Donovan wanted as well,” Liesl said.

  “Oh, there’s the door,” Hanni said. “I invited Amelia over, and I think she said there were a few other ladies who were coming with her.”

  The door opened and there was a wave of women crashing into Donovan’s quiet home.

  “I think it’s time for me to let you ladies go at it,” Donovan said, standing, and letting go of Sarah’s hand as he did so.

  “We’ve got pizza,” Amelia called as she rushed into the room, pizza boxes in her hand followed by a swarm of other women.

  “Nice digs, Donovan,” Pearly said. “It took Sarah to get us here. Ah, but that’s what women are for...to force a man into sociability. Why, did I ever tell you all about my Uncle Turtle? He spent three years living on his own in a tiny cabin middle of nowhere. Then—”

  Josie, Snips And Snaps’s big-haired, bubble-gum- blowing manicurist, interrupted Pearly. “Now, don’t you start on another one of your stories. We’re here to plan a wedding not to talk about some recluse uncle—”

  “—Uncle Turtle was only a recluse until—”

  “Oh, hush,” Mabel, Perry Square’s acupuncturist, scolded. “Now, Sarah, darling, Libby said you just plan on everyone getting their hair done at Snips And Snaps before the wedding. She’ll be here as soon as she gets Meg tucked in for the night.”

  “Oh, honey,” Josie said, finding a space on the floor next to the coffee table that was now loaded with pizza, “I have this great new polish called Bride’s Blush we’ll do your nails with and...”

  “Have fun,” Donovan called as he walked out of his living room and back toward the quieter clime of his office, sure that he’d never be missed.

  “Coward,” Sarah called.

  He turned and gave her a small nod, admitting his cowardice. He could face a judge and a jury, but there was no way he could face a room full of women with weddings on their minds.

  Sarah laughed at his silent admission, and the sight of her surrounded by people in his living room laughing caused some strange constriction in Donovan’s chest.

  Something he didn’t quite understand and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  ~~~

  Sarah wasn’t
laughing two hours later when the place was quiet. She picked up pizza boxes, stacked magazines, and wondered how on earth she’d ended up here.

  While everyone was talking and planning, she’d fallen into the spirit of things and forgotten the true nature of her situation.

  She was engaged to be married, living with a man and planning a wedding. A man she hardly knew and didn’t love. Oh, maybe she lusted over him, at least a little.

  That first time she’d met him, when he’d burst into her office as she tried to unpack...oh, how she’d lusted. He’d been dripping wet and his monosyllabic responses hadn’t been enough to dim the immediate rush of desire that swept through her body, leaving her feeling a bit breathless and weak in the knees.

  But desire wasn’t any more satisfying a reason to many than business was.

  How had she gotten here? she asked herself for what seemed like the hundredth time.

  “Are they gone?” Donovan stage-whispered as he walked into the room.

  “Coward,” she repeated.

  “No. Simply wise.”

  “You deserted me,” she said.

  “You seemed to be enjoying yourself.” He helped her by picking up the pizza boxes.

  “I did. At least part of the time. Then I’d remember that this was all pretend and...”

  “I wish you’d stop that.”

  The annoyance in his voice caused her to snap her focus onto him. “Stop what?”

  “Worrying about clarifying exactly what our relationship is. It’s whatever we make it to be. Maybe it started in an unconventional manner—at least unconventional by today’s standards—but it’s a valid and meaningful relationship.”

  “Valid as a means of attaining a partnership.”

  “It’s whatever we make it,” he said again.

  “Are you going to put that into the prenup? This relationship is whatever we make it? You can add it to our growing list. Let’s see, you cook, you pay for everything—”

  “Hey, you’re buying groceries,” he pointed out.

  “And I get visitation with the deck. And I’m redecorating your office, as well as a few other potential jobs.” She paused. “Somehow it seems I’m coming out way ahead on this deal. There must be something else you want.”