And she hadn’t necessarily been wrong. Just unfortunate in where she’d set up that initial meeting. A bit unlucky with the timing, and tardy in stepping forward to rectify the mistake. Scott wound up at the wrong table in the restaurant and, within an hour, was head over heels in love with a quiet mouse of a woman named Molly…instead of meeting Shelby as Ainsley had intended.
Two unbelievably short months later, here they were, Scott and Molly, about to be married.
Two-thirds of the way down the aisle, Ainsley realized how few guests had actually shown up to witness the ceremony. Of course, there’d never been any question of the wedding being anything other than small. Molly didn’t have family, except for her ancient Aunt Beatrice, who was too elderly to travel but who’d sent the couple an enormous soup tureen shaped like a swan. Even Miranda had wondered aloud what use Molly and Scott would have for a soup tureen, since neither of them had any friends. Well, at least, not any close friends, which was why the bridal party consisted of Scott’s four cousins and his two younger sisters.
Another reason this match was all wrong, Ainsley decided as she reached the front and made her final turn, was that the bridal party was out of balance. There was one more bridesmaid than groomsmen. Miranda had tried to fix the problem because she disliked odd numbers, but Scott’s father—who wasn’t that happy about the wedding to begin with—had declared quite firmly that he wasn’t paying for some stranger’s tuxedo just to even out the bridal party. Scott had said he didn’t care, and Molly had agreed because she and Scott agreed about everything.
Which was the main reason this marriage was a bad idea.
Two people shouldn’t expect to be everything to each other. But Molly and Scott seemed to believe it was possible…and perfect. Neither of them possessed much in the way of social graces, so there was little hope either of them would expand the social circle of the other. They were both shy. Both inhibited and unassertive. Between them, they possessed barely an ounce of backbone.
Scott and Molly had too much in common. Ainsley could see that very clearly. While she wouldn’t go so far as to predict that happiness was an impossibility for them, she could not believe it was very likely, either. They’d grow bored with each other, stifled in the narrowness of their lives.
Ainsley was only an apprentice matchmaker, but she knew there was a reason opposites attract. She understood that familiarity could, and often did, breed contempt. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this marriage wouldn’t set the world on fire…or, more important, either one of its counterparts. But no one other than Ainsley seemed concerned.
Then again, she was the only one who knew what a mismatch she’d inadvertently put together. She was the only one who felt guilty for bringing about this ill-fated romance.
Emily, the older of Scott’s two sisters and still young enough to consider her curly red hair a curse, looked worried as she reached the end of the aisle. “Molly tore her dress,” she said to Ainsley in a whispered aside as she stepped into the maid of honor’s place. “She stepped on her train.”
A bad sign.
Ainsley looked toward the entrance, where Claire, Scott’s baby sister, was starting her walk down the aisle, scattering rose petals over the carpet. Claire was also a redhead and, at eleven, too old really for the role she was fulfilling with such exaggerated care…dropping two petals on this side, three petals on that side. Molly had wanted a flower girl and there was no one else. The ring bearer—Molly had wanted one of those, too—had been easier to find. They’d borrowed Calvin Braddock, the five-year-old son of Bryce and Lara Braddock, who, if not close friends of either Scott or Molly, were at least considered friends of the Danville family. Ainsley could see Cal’s white-blond cowlick darting back and forth behind the purple smock of the wedding coordinator, who seemed to be trying to keep the boy from dashing down the aisle.
The music was too loud at the front of the church to hear what was happening at the back. Ainsley was surprised to see a sudden collective stir of activity. The congregation—at least, the dozen or so Danville relatives seated in the first few rows—grew restless and began turning around in the pews to see what was going on. Even Scott, who’d spent the entire processional so far staring anxiously at his shoes, looked up.
“I got to tell the groom somethin’!” Calvin’s little-boy voice broke through the lull between the final chords of Pachelbel and the opening chimes of Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.” “She told me to tell him!”
Cal pulled free of the wedding coordinator’s grasping hands and ran, tuxedo tails flying, down the aisle, dashing past Claire in a move that knocked her off her feet and scattered her rose petals in one thick, damp clump. “She ’loped!” Calvin shouted as he caught sight of Scott at the altar. “The bride ’loped!”
Scott went pale with alarm, but it was Matt who moved forward to calm the ring bearer and ask for a more coherent explanation.
“Catch your breath, Calvin,” Matt said soothingly. “And start from the beginning.”
Cal obediently sucked in a huge gasp of air, his bright gaze darting toward Scott. “Miss Molly,” he said in a rush. “She told me to tell you she’s sorry, but she ’loped.”
“Eloped?” Matt questioned, articulating the word carefully. “Are you saying that Molly eloped?”
Confirming the interpretation with a vigorous nod, Calvin repeated the message excitedly. “She ’loped with Mad Mack in the Mackmobile.”
* * *
Sitting on a low riser under the bridal bower, Ainsley plucked at the pouf of organza bunched around her like a lavender nest and felt guiltier by the second. Calvin’s startling announcement still reverberated in the church sanctuary, picked up by one person after another after another, repeated in a confusing hum of overlapping voices.
She eloped? With a cartoon character?
Mad Mack? Are you sure that’s what he said?
She must’ve had an emergency. Why else would she run off like that?
He said Mad Mack, I’m telling you.
How can the bride have eloped if the groom’s still standing up there?
Mad Mack? The bride eloped with someone called Mad Mack?
That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.
The bridal party of sisters and cousins had stood restlessly for a few awkward moments, not knowing where to look or what to do. Then, one by one, they settled on the altar steps or found a seat in the front pews. And there they sat, awaiting instruction or dismissal, without a clue as to what action—if any—might be appropriate. Matt, being the oldest of the cousins and the best man, had immediately gone to the back of the church, where he could be seen firing brusque questions at Phyllis while he paced from the vestibule doorway to the empty bride’s room and then outside to the front church steps, where he stared at the street. Inside the sanctuary, the clatter of conversation rose and fell in hushed waves. Whispered questions quickly took on an indignant tone and grew louder, becoming quietly outraged that anyone—especially a woman without connections, or much in the way of beauty, brains or personality to recommend her—would offer such an insult to Scott Danville. The entire Danville family, for that matter. Every wedding guest present was, after all, either a member of the Danville clan or a close friend of the family since Molly came, basically, unencumbered with kith or kin.
The clamor stuttered suddenly into a moment’s awkward pause just in time for everyone to hear Uncle Edward’s vehement instruction to his son. “Forget it. You are not going after her, Scott. She just jilted you. You! A Danville. Clearly, the woman is insane. You can’t possibly want her back even if you knew how to find her, which you don’t, and which I wouldn’t let you do, if you did. She’s gone,” he said angrily. “And I say, good riddance!”
Ainsley glanced down the riser to watch Scott, flushed with humiliation, hurt and
anger, give up the struggle like a balloon with a slow leak. She knew the moment the reality hit him full in the heart—Molly was gone!—and he sank like a stone to sit, slumped and stunned, with his head in his hands, devastated, desolate and without a shred of hope to hold on to. In her whole life, Ainsley had never seen more eloquent body language. Even his vividly red hair seemed to have lost its light and become nothing more than a listless covering on his head.
This was her fault. Ainsley knew it all the way to the tips of her lavender-painted toenails. She didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to see herself as the spoiler, but there it was. Molly’s baffling departure wasn’t quite so much of a mystery to Ainsley as it was to everyone else. Unexpected and surprising? Yes. In a million years, Ainsley wouldn’t have predicted Molly’s last-minute dash from the church. But now that it had happened…?
Well, she could think of a possible explanation, a plausible, probable interpretation, one glaring moment at last night’s rehearsal dinner when the apprentice matchmaker had, once again, forgotten the importance of discretion and opened her mouth before engaging her brain.
Obviously, she was still several lessons short of being the prudent, discerning matchmaker she wanted, and was determined, to become.
“I realize this joyous occasion has taken a somber turn, Ains, but you look unaccountably gloomy. What gives?” Handsome as a god, with a smile that quite simply made the world a brighter place, Andrew dropped down to sit beside her, bustling the yards of organza out of his way and fixing her with a persistent, you-may-as-well-tell-me look.
But Ainsley couldn’t confess. Not yet. Not even to her trusted twin. “In case you haven’t noticed, our cousin is devastated.”
“Can’t argue with you there. But since you were completely convinced Scott was marrying the wrong woman anyway, I thought you might see this as some form of divine intervention. Even if it is a little difficult to envision Mad Mack in the deus ex machina role.”
“I never even heard of Mad Mack,” she said with a sigh. “Much less a Mackmobile.”
“You should spend more time watching cartoons,” Andrew suggested. “Mad Mack is a part-man, part-machine superhero and the Mackmobile is the coolest car on television. Well, at least it’s the coolest animated car on the Cartoon Stars channel.”
“You obviously have too much time on your hands.”
“Me and Calvin,” he agreed. “He’s five and I’m still five at heart.”
Ainsley offered a frown, although she adored her twin for trying to cheer her up with his silliness. “I feel awful about this, Drew. Even though I never thought Molly and Scott were a match made in heaven, I never wanted him to suffer. Especially not because of me and my big mouth.”
“You do not have a big mouth.” Andrew slipped an arm around her shoulder and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “Your tongue may run like an outboard motor at times, but proportionally, your mouth is the perfect size for your face.”
She nudged him with her elbow. “This is serious, Andrew. Don’t make jokes.”
“I can’t help myself, Ainsley. The bride eloped with Mad Mack. That’s a little difficult to take seriously.”
“Try,” she urged him, although truthfully, she wished she could see the humor in the situation. Any humor at all.
“Okay,” he said, “but I can’t promise a nonserious remark won’t slip out from time to time.”
“Just so it doesn’t happen here and now or any time Scott is around.”
He nodded, rested his forearms on his knees, clasped his hands together and let the resulting loose knot of fingers rock up and down, up and down, as he contemplated the here and now. “Do you think we’ll still get to have the wedding feast?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “I imagine dinner will be canceled.” He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. “And, please, don’t ask Uncle Edward if you can make yourself a plate for later.”
“Seems a shame to waste all that food. And the wedding cake. Maybe I should take the cake to the studio, take a few pictures for the old Danville scrapbook.”
She lifted the other eyebrow and he went back to contemplating. “No, you’re wrong, Ainsley. Uncle Edward won’t cancel dinner. He’ll want to finish the day on an up note.”
“As opposed to a sour note?”
“As opposed to letting a part-man, part-machine superhero triumph over a Danville. You know, I always thought there was a hint of Bad Belle in Molly.”
“Bad Belle? Let me guess. She’s Mad Mack’s girlfriend?”
“Good guess. Imagine a curvy brunette with super powers and a big black motorcycle.”
“I’m never letting my kids watch cartoons,” Ainsley said.
“Too bad we can’t put Scott in front of the television now. A little time with Bad Belle and he’d feel a lot better.”
“That’s not funny. And even if a stupid cartoon could make him feel better, it won’t make me feel one bit less guilty.”
“Oh, come on, Ains. This isn’t your fault. You can never really know the truth of what’s inside another person. There’s no way you could have guessed Molly would rather take a ride in the Mackmobile than get married today.”
Ainsley caught the advice in his teasing, knew he was telling her she couldn’t take the blame for today’s events. Her siblings, and especially her twin, had always been right there when something in her life went awry, ready with assurances that she—the angelically cute baby of the family—wasn’t at fault, shouldn’t feel guilty, couldn’t truly be to blame for whatever had happened.
But she wasn’t a baby anymore. Despite her family’s reluctance to allow her to grow up, she had. She was, whether they wanted to believe it or not, an adult. And she had no intention of absolving herself from the guilt she rightfully felt. She hadn’t wanted Scott and Molly to marry. She still thought she was right about their chances of finding true happiness together. But she hadn’t wanted her beliefs to cause them unhappiness, either.
She deserved a hefty chunk of responsibility for today’s fiasco and she deserved to feel gloomy that her first attempt at matchmaking had been a complete and utter disaster.
Andrew, however, would never allow her to admit her guilt to him, so she tapped his arm with her bridesmaid’s bouquet. “Let’s talk about something else. Tell me about your date.”
“What date?”
“Your date to the wedding. Jocelyn? A petite brunette? In a pink dress? Where did you put her?” She glanced out at the pool of somber faces, looking for the young woman Andrew had introduced earlier as his date.
“Fifth row, left. In the middle.” He glanced in the general vicinity of the brunette and smiled. “I’d go sit with her, but she’s wearing pink and you know how that clashes with my hair.”
He was the only redhead in their branch of the family and his hair was, in Ainsley’s prejudiced opinion, his second-best feature. It was strawberry-blond, a rich reddish-gold, and thick, with just enough curl to give it great body and texture, and just enough length to identify him as a nonconformist. He didn’t have freckles or the pale, ivory skin of most redheads, either, and his athletic, outdoor tan was a perfect foil for the blue, Danville eyes…Andrew’s best feature of all. He was better looking than Matt, although not technically as handsome. Ainsley, being his twin, might have been slightly prejudiced in his favor, but as she adored both of her brothers, she couldn’t imagine it made much difference either way.
“Do you ever think about getting married, Drew?” she asked, his pet name giving the question a serious lilt and the expectation of a truthful answer.
“Good grief, no,” he said, sounding at least seventy-five percent honest. “I’m planning to live a long, happy life.”
She laughed under her breath. “Marriage increases a man’s lifespan by a good ten or fifteen years. Didn’
t you know that?”
“I said ‘long, happy life.’ There’s a difference. Besides, even if I was inclined toward a monogamous, committed relationship, where would I find a woman who’d willingly put up with my nomadic schedule?”
“Maybe if you dated someone more than once or twice, you’d come closer to finding someone who keeps as weird a schedule as you do.” He was always off chasing photographs, leaving on the spur of the moment, staying gone until he was ready to come home, getting up at dawn to catch the perfect angle of light, camping out for a month, waiting for the full moon or no moon or a sliver of moon or some distant star—whatever he needed in the picture he’d visualized in his head. “Maybe you ought to try dating another photographer.”
He grinned. “Not interested. It’s all I can do to get along with my photography assistants, and you and I both know they only tolerate my artistic temperament because I pay them big bucks to do it. I’m looking for a new assistant, by the way.”
“I thought you just hired one.”
He shrugged. “She left before lunch on her first day of work.”
“Maybe you should hire male assistants.”
“I have. I’m an equal opportunity employer, but it’s mostly females who answer my ads. Consequently, I usually have a female assistant.”
“Do you want me to find someone for you?”
“I don’t think so, Miss Matchmaker.”
“Apprentice,” she corrected. “I’m only the matchmaker’s apprentice.” Obviously not a very good one, either.
“All the more reason for me to advertise for an assistant in the newspaper. No offense, Ains, but you’d hook me up with some romantically inclined Cinderella and I’d have to fire her for mooning over me instead of doing what needs to be done. Don’t give my lack of an assistant another thought. Please.”
Just What the Doctor Ordered Page 2