“Six days and three bridesmaids with time on their hands. A dangerous combination.”
“As if you wouldn’t be head mischiefmaker if it was one of them who was getting married.”
Her lips curved. “Did I ever tell you what I did to Sydney when—no, forget I said that. If I did tell you, I shouldn’t have, and if I didn’t, I’m certainly not going to now.”
“Let’s see. I know you persuaded her to get hypnotized the night before high-school commencement, and during the solemn ceremony of graduation, you cued her to stand up and sing ‘Suzy Had a Steamboat.’ I know she was the prime suspect when a certain teacher’s underwear mysteriously disappeared out of his locker and that you used the incident to blackmail her into using quotes from the Kama Sutra in her term paper.”
“I never told you that,” Gentry said with a lack of true concern. “You must have heard it from her.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Because she thought up the term-paper thing on her own. All I did was loan her the book.”
“And the boxer shorts?”
“It’s a mystery to this day how they got up on that flagpole.”
“Loyalty, the mark of a true friend.”
“Syd and I have had our moments. Tonight not being one of the more memorable ones.”
“Speak for yourself. I plan to remember it fondly and often. It’s not every day I attempt to talk a woman into putting on a dress when she says she’d rather parade around in her bra and panties.”
Gentry’s eyes opened with a sparkle of disagreement. “I wasn’t parading and you know it.”
“We’ll ask Sonny. He can cast the deciding vote.”
“Don’t even consider mentioning this to him.” Her voice firmed for battle, and a well-remembered animation shimmered in her green eyes. “He thinks I’m very well behaved and I intend to make sure he never changes his mind.”
“Won’t good behavior be a little wearing on your nerves?”
“No. I have until Friday night to repay Sydney and Hillary for tonight’s prank. After Saturday, I’ll be as good as gold for the rest of my natural life.”
“Which will last roughly until Sunday morning.”
“My natural life or being as good as gold?”
“Don’t change for him, Gentry. He shouldn’t ask it of you, and if he does, you should refuse.”
“Really?” The sudden chill in her voice caught him off guard. “Now, isn’t it funny you should say that? I refused to change for you, Jake, and look what happened.” Pushing up from the chair in a single lithe movement, she walked away, and he had to sit alone in the waiting room and listen to the angry clip, clip of her footsteps as she went back to Sonny…again.
“YOU TWO HAVE A LOT to answer for,” Gentry said without preamble when she returned to the waiting room a short while later to find Sydney and Hillary ensconced on either side of Jake. Despite her annoyance, she was glad to see them. Glad, too, that their presence meant no more private conversations with Jake, no more opportunities for the past to pop up and punch her in the gut, no more looking at her ring on his little finger and fighting the impulse to ask for it back, no more watching him push the wayward dark hair off his forehead and remembering how often she had done that for him…and with such pleasure. Sitting beside Jake had been both comfortably reassuring and distressingly familiar—every glance, every movement, a reminder of all the reasons she had eloped with him two years before.
She moved to the unoccupied chair next to Hillary and sat down. “This is all your fault, you know.”
Three pairs of eyes fastened on her and shared not a trace of guilt among them.
“Whose fault?” Hillary asked. “We weren’t anywhere near Sonny when you slammed the door on him.”
“You’re not trying to blame us because you broke Sonny’s hand, are you?”
“You know exactly what I blame you for and don’t think we’re going to have a good laugh about this later, because it isn’t funny.”
“No,” Jake said. “It certainly isn’t. Just ask Sonny.”
Sydney looked at him and then sighed. “Well, it sounded funny at the time. I’m sorry, Gentry.”
“Me, too.” Hillary made a face. “It was Heather’s idea, anyway.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Gentry knew Heather shared the blame, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out who had made up the deciding majority. “What have you done with her?”
“Sidney and I offered to help, but you know Heather. Since she was the one who snuck the dress out of the house, bribed the limo driver to put it in the trunk, and managed to get the gown into the country club without anyone seeing it, she felt it was her responsibility to return it safely.”
“Heaven forbid that any harm should come to that dress,” Gentry said sarcastically. “How did you find it in the first place? I thought I’d hidden it especially well.”
Hillary laughed easily, with the assurance of long friendship. “We know all your hiding places, Gentry. Just like you know all of ours.”
“Obviously we know too much about one another.”
“Not true,” Sydney said. “There’s one thing Hil and I don’t know.”
“And that is?”
“Did you put on the dress?”
Gentry lifted her eyebrows in triumph. “I never once considered it.”
“Really?” Hillary asked. “Even when Jake came in?”
“Tell me the truth, Jake.” Sydney patted his arm persuasively. “Was she wearing the wedding dress when you walked in?”
His mouth formed that funny little smile, the one Gentry found exasperating and endearing, the one that made her think something amused him, but nothing he would tell. “I’ll plead the Fifth,” he said.
“She was!” Sydney smiled broadly and leaned forward to look across the other two at Gentry. “You were.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then, what were you wearing?” Hillary posed the obvious question and then blinked in surprise at the obvious answer. “Gentry, you weren’t wearing your underwear!”
“She was,” Sydney said in disgust. “You are the stubbornest woman I’ve ever met, Gentry Elizabeth. Is that all you’re wearing now, too?”
“I have on Sonny’s suit coat, as you can see.” Gentry stood so they could see exactly what she’d been forced to wear because of them. “It’s not a precise fit, but it’s adequate.”
Hillary’s forehead furrowed with a frown. “That depends on your definition of adequate.”
“But you were only in your underwear when Jake walked in, weren’t you?” Sydney persisted.
“I closed my eyes,” he said.
“Sure you did.” Hillary called his bluff. “Tonight worked out even better than we hoped, Syd. I can’t wait to tell Heather.”
“Tell her what?” Gentry asked, a new irritation creeping into her voice. “You put Jake in the room with me, hoping what exactly would happen?”
Under Sydney’s cautioning glance, Hillary lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.
“If you thought…” Gentry shook her head, unable to believe the expanding agenda her friends had developed. “Listen, you two, I am going to marry Sonny on Saturday. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it and there’s certainly no reason you should try. Jake has no more interest in me than I do in him.” She looked to him for confirmation. “Tell them.”
“Absolutely true,” he said, and she thought it hadn’t been necessary to say it with such swift conviction.
“See?” she addressed her friends. “If it wasn’t for your pointless interfering, Sonny wouldn’t be in the emergency room with a broken hand.”
“Is it broken?” Hillary asked. “For sure?”
“We haven’t heard yet.” Jake stood and stretched, catching admiring looks from two nurses passing by.
“Stop that,” Gentry commanded, forcing from her mind the image of how he looked when he did that without his shirt…or pants.
“What?” He looked down at her,
clearly puzzled. “You want to see me writhing on the floor with a leg cramp?”
“I’d like to see that.” Sydney scooted forward in her seat. “First the right leg, then the left, if you don’t mind.”
“Get a grip, Syd,” Hillary suggested. “Looks like Sonny is ready to go.”
A nurse’s aide pushed Sonny’s wheelchair into the waiting room. “Harris,” she announced as if she were calling bingo, instead of his support group.
“Here.” Gentry hurried over and knelt beside the chair, glancing first at the cast that reached from his knuckles to his elbow, then into his dilated and hazylooking eyes. “Is it broken?” she asked.
“Smashed.” His reply was a trifle slurred, his answer more than a tad accusing. “You smashed my finger,” he said with a frown.
The nurse’s aide set the wheels on the wheelchair so they wouldn’t roll. “He has a couple of broken fingers and some nasty bruises. The doctor gave him some pain medication.”
“Pills have no effect on me,” Sonny declared with a sagging smile.
“He’s pretty woozy,” the aide explained. “I expect he’ll sleep like a baby tonight. He may not even remember much of what happened.”
“That’s good.” Gentry looked up to meet the woman’s curious stare and smiled hesitantly. “Good that he won’t have any pain, I mean. Will he need more medication later?”
“The doctor gave him a prescription.” The nurse’s aide tapped Sonny’s shirt. “It’s in his pocket. You may not want to get it filled, unless he needs it. Just check in with the cashier, and then he’s free to go.”
“Hey, babe.” Sonny frowned up at the white-haired aide. “You can keep your perskripsh…perskrtsh…pills.”
“Where’s your insurance card, Sonny?” Gentry asked him, but received no response. She caught his face in her palms. “Sonny? Where is your insurance card?”
“I have a high tol’rance…” He moved his mouth around the word, practicing. “Tall-rans. Tall-rans. I have a high tallrans for pain.”
Gentry shook her head and rose. Jake touched her arm, drawing her aside. “I’ll take care of the bill,” he said. “You get Hillary and Sydney to help you take him home.”
“They can’t,” she said, wanting to keep his dependable, reassuring support close at hand. “Hillary’s car only seats two, and even if I borrowed it and you drove them home, I doubt I can handle Sonny by myself.”
“Do you want me to deliver him?”
She did. She wanted nothing more than to go home and forget this embarrassing evening altogether. “I’d better stay with him,” she said. “But if you’d drive us to the hotel, I’d be very grateful.”
“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather have Sydney and Hillary do it?”
“They’d probably take his clothes and leave him wearing the wedding dress.” She met his gaze and knew her motives were more complicated than she was willing to admit. “So, I can count on you?”
“Always.” He held her gaze for another moment, until her heart caught on a sliver of regret. “You’d better rescue your fiancé,” he said, nodding to where Sydney was in serious conversation with Sonny. “No telling what she’s writing on his cast.”
HEATHER FLIPPED ON the light and frowned when she saw the wedding gown in a hastily discarded pile on the floor. She should have known better than to play such a tasteless joke on Gentry. Of course, Gen could have put on the dress and not been so stubborn about it, but still, the whole plot had been Heather’s idea. And now Sonny’s hand was probably broken, Gentry was mad, the party had come to an abrupt conclusion, and she was left to pick up the gown and take it home. Some magic, she thought as she stooped to gather the ivory puddle into her arms.
The fabric flowed over her arms in a cool satin stream and escaped to the floor. Slippery stuff. She scooped the bundle into her arms a second time and straightened…and felt the dress slip out of her grasp to pool on the carpet in a whispery rustle.
With a frown, Heather rubbed her hands down the seams of her linen skirt before she stooped to pick up the dress once again. This time, she couldn’t get enough of a grip on the material even to gather it into a manageable bundle. No matter how she gripped it, the material slid through her fingers like cornstarch, refusing to be bunched, clumped or otherwise crumpled.
This was embarrassing, she thought, and was glad Sydney and Hillary had gone to the hospital to check on Gentry and Sonny. If they saw her struggling to hold on to a dress, they’d never let her live it down.
Standing there in the meeting room, she decided she must be imagining the difficulty. How hard could it be to lift several yards of satin and lace off the floor? With renewed determination, she bent down, picked up one sleeve and held it firmly between her finger and thumb as she rose.
Success. The dress came with her, rising like a harvest moon from the dark-colored carpet. Smiling, she realized she’d only thought she had a good grasp on it before. After all, it was only a dress. But the moment she tried to gather the skirt into her arms, it poured through her hands like water over a rock. No matter where she grappled for a hold on the fabric or how securely she clenched her fist around it, the dress slid away from her and returned to the floor.
Frustrated, Heather braced one foot against the facing on either side of the doorway, bent from the waist and gripped the bodice of the dress with both hands. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and did some mental imaging, preparing herself to get the silly thing off the floor once and for all. After she’d taken herself through the procedure in her imagination, she wiggled her shoulders and decided on the count of three that she’d jerk the dress into her arms in one concentrated move. With a wiggle of her hips, she tightened her grip on the fabric. “One…two…three.”
“Could you use some assistance?” Behind her, a deep, husky voice broke the silence like a karate chop to the center of a brick.
Her heart leaped into her throat and she spun to face the speaker. Within the confines of the door frame, however, she had little room to maneuver. Her foot came down in the middle of the satin train, and just as she recognized Mitch, the dress slid out from under her and she landed on her butt, surrounded by the sneaky satin. She found herself looking up at the only one of Sonny’s friends she had ever found even remotely attractive.
Who was she kidding? Mitch was drop-dead gorgeous. The kind of man women fought over. The kind of man who had his choice of women. The kind of man who dated tall, classy blondes like Hillary, not short, shy brunettes like her. He had a formidable reputation—a new love interest every four months, three a year with zero commitments. He was exactly the kind of man she avoided on principle, and precisely the type she secretly yearned after.
“Heather?” The sound of her name on his lips made her forget all the clever things she might have said, and even the inane reply she knew she actually would say as soon as she got her heart out of her throat. “Are you all right?”
She nodded in sheepish silence.
He extended his hand to her. “I saw you from the clubhouse,” he said. “It looked like you might be having a little difficulty.”
Swallowing her shyness, she determined to make some sort of vocal reply. “A little,” she whispered.
“That’s a beautiful dress.” From a distance, his smile had fascinated her. Up close and personal, it was downright devastating. “What…uh…are you trying to do with it?”
She wished she had a witty answer, but her wits had deserted her…just when she needed them most. As if Mitch would remember anything she said, witty or otherwise. “I can’t hold on to it,” she admitted with a sigh. “The fabric is very slippery.”
“Maybe if I helped, between the two of us, we could do it.”
Heather wasn’t sure she could stand on her own. Her knees felt rubbery and weak. “Maybe,” she said.
“You want to give it a try?”
“Uh, sure.” But she continued to sit on the floor, staring up at him.
“It might be easier to
pick up the dress if you weren’t sitting on it.”
“Right. I wasn’t thinking.” Warmth flooded her cheeks with color. “You make me nervous.”
“Well, you scare me to death, so we’re even. Now, give me your hand.”
She frowned up at him. “Is that your best pickup line?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a smile. “Is it working?”
“I’m still on the floor.”
“Obviously, then, you’re going to take a little extra effort.”
She was flattered beyond reason, and determined not to let him know. He pulled her to her feet, but didn’t let go of her hand. Heather stared at his fingers, long, slender and strong, curled around hers as if he were holding a delicate and perfect rose. When she raised her eyes to his, a sense of wonder made her heart skip a beat. “You’re flirting with me,” she said, surprised to realize it was true. “Nothing about me could possibly frighten you.”
“You’re the kind of woman who makes a man think he could spend the rest of his life just watching you walk, and talk, and laugh. For a guy like me, you’re downright terrifying.”
“I knew you could come up with a better pickup line if you put your mind to it.” She stooped to gather the wedding gown into her arms, wishing she could be like Hillary and know just what to say, how to flirt with Mitch. As she straightened, the fabric slipped through her fingers like sand. Mitch grabbed for it…and it slipped away from him, as well. He laughed. So did she. They stooped together, in perfect sync, and as they touched the satin, something sparked…not as bright as a camera flash, but a definite twinkle of light…and the world stopped turning.
They stood, each holding a shoulder of the wedding gown, looking into each other’s eyes and aware of something electric in the air around them. For what seemed like forever, they stood facing each other, united by several yards of satin and lace, a few feet apart, neither wanting to be the first to let the moment—or the dress—go.
Then, just as suddenly as it seemed to have stopped, the world began to turn again.
“Could we go out sometime?” he asked hesitantly, as if he wanted to get the words just right.
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