The Week Before the Wedding

by Beth Kendrick

  “My goodness, Bev!” Emily said. “You look stunning!”

  “Mom!” Melanie grinned. “You vixen, you!”

  “Thank you.” Bev ducked her head, embarrassed by all the attention. “Georgia dragged me into town this morning and convinced me to try something new. I can hardly walk in these shoes, though—maybe I should go change into something a little more sensible.”

  “Bite your tongue!” Georgia stood up, makeup brush in hand. “‘Sensible’ is a filthy word around here. And there’ll be no need to walk once we’re at dinner. You just sit pretty in your chair all night long and let the gentlemen fetch things for you.”

  Emily noticed a pendant around her mother’s neck. “Do my eyes deceive me, Mom, or are you wearing some new jewelry?”

  Georgia patted the silver and pink enamel necklace. “Oh, Bev insisted. Isn’t it cute?”

  “Very cute.” Emily tried to downplay her amazement. Georgia had a long-standing policy against any “cute” jewelry. (“I wear only three types of accessories: classic, art deco, and high carat.”) Anything featuring flowers, teddy bears, or hearts went straight to Goodwill.

  “I wanted to give her a present—a nice present—for all her help.” Bev beamed. “She really does have an eye for style.”

  Georgia fluffed her hair. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”

  Bev beckoned Emily in. “Your mother has a real joie de vivre. I feel better than I have since…well, since Stephen. I feel kicky. You’re lucky to have her.”

  “Hear that?” Georgia crowed to Summer. “Who has the perfect family now?”

  Bev pulled a box with a matching necklace out of her bag. “I got one, too. We’re twinsies!”

  “So you’re friends?” Emily grinned at Summer. “You have an actual girlfriend? Oh, Mom, I’m so proud of you.”

  “Shoo, darling, I’m working here.” Georgia brushed off Emily and focused her attention on her new protégée. “Now sit in front of the mirror; your cheeks need a little color.”

  Summer checked the time. “It’s nearly seven. We should probably go.”

  “Yes, the hostess and the bride should be there to greet the guests,” Bev said.

  Summer shot Emily a sympathetic glance. Caroline kept her eyes on her phone, her expression completely neutral.

  “He’s not coming,” Emily murmured.

  “Don’t say that.” Bev fastened her new friendship pendant around her neck. “He’ll be here. He will. He’s just—”

  “Busy,” Emily murmured. “I know.” Grant was always busy, always had been, and always would be.

  And wasn’t that part of his appeal? She remembered what Summer had said about the candlelit dinners and the myth of the “perfect couple.” Her fiancé was brilliant, handsome, and doting—when he was around. But he was so often absent. And she loved him in spite of it.

  Or maybe because of it?

  She turned to Caroline, but before she could utter a syllable, she heard a knock on the door and Grant’s voice, clear and steady on the other side of the door:

  “I’m here, Em. I made it. I’m here.”

  “A toast.” Grant lifted his crystal champagne flute, and all of the guests followed suit. “To my beautiful bride.”

  Emily took his hand and stood up beside him. They held on to each other and faced the sea of familiar faces—the friends and relatives who had banded together to witness the creation of a new family.

  “I had to run back to the city for a few days, but it sounds like you guys have been having a great time without me.”

  Everyone clapped in assent.

  Grant pressed the back of his fingers against Emily’s cheek. “Thank you for being my angel. Since the day I met you, you have been patient and selfless and incredibly supportive. You managed to pull together this whole wedding in two months while I bailed on appointments at the last minute. Which is probably for the best—I have terrible taste in flowers.”

  Someone—probably Melanie—tossed a lily from one of the table vases at him.

  Grant put up his hand for quiet, then continued. “You never complain when I show up late and leave early. You put my needs ahead of your own. You’re sweet and sophisticated all at the same time.”

  Emily heard an outbreak of coughing from the back of the room, and shot a death glare Summer’s way.

  “I don’t deserve you, but I’m hoping you won’t figure that out until it’s too late.”

  The crowd awwwwed when he kissed her. Emily prepared to launch into an equally gushy reply, but broke off when she saw the thin, rectangular blue box in his hands. “What’s that?”

  “Your something blue.” He pressed the box into her hands, watching every flicker of her expression. “Open it.”

  Emily froze for a moment, overwhelmed by emotion. She could feel life unfurling before her, wide and fresh and clean like the rolling green hills surrounding them. “Oh Grant, you didn’t have to.”

  “I know. I did, anyway. Open it.”

  “Yeah, open it!” Georgia yelled. “Don’t keep us in suspense!”

  The crowd took up the chant: “Open it, open it…”

  Emily tugged on the end of the white satin ribbon and lifted the lid of the cardboard box to reveal a velvet jewelry case. She ran her fingertips along the top, wishing she could stop time right here and preserve this moment.

  But she could sense Grant’s excitement and realized that for him, the payoff would come with the presentation rather than the anticipation. And this moment was as much about him as it was about her.

  So she opened the hinged lid. Inside was a beautiful bracelet, a delicate chain of white gold interspersed between bezel-set dots of diamond, dark blue sapphire, and light blue aquamarine.

  “You don’t have to wear it tomorrow,” Grant said. “I know you’re already wearing my mom’s pearls. But I figured—”

  Emily wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. “Shut up. Of course I’m wearing it. It’s perfect.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” She held out her arm. “Would you please help me put it on?”

  He encircled her wrist with the bracelet and fastened the clasp with sure, deft hands.

  She kissed him again and prepared for the onslaught of female attention swarming her way. Everyone had to inspect the bracelet and swoon over Grant’s romantic sensibilities and tell Emily how lucky she was to be marrying such a catch.

  When she disentangled herself from the throng, Grant was turned toward the corner of the room, huddled over his phone. As he walked back to her, she caught a flicker of guilt in his eyes.

  “Oh no,” she said.

  He glanced behind him, then searched her face for clues. “What?”

  “I recognize that look. You have something horrible to tell me.”

  “Nothing horrible,” Grant assured her. “Just a little…hiccup.”

  Emily gripped the back of a white wooden chair. “Hit me.”

  He fiddled with his cuff links and looked around the room, smiling absently at the well-wishers.

  Emily quaffed the rest of her champagne. “Do I need to sit down for this?”

  He finally returned his full attention to her. “You know how we’re supposed to go to Bora-Bora?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “We’re going! Don’t worry, we’re still going. I want to make that clear. We are going to Bora-Bora.”

  Emily lowered her chin, trying to decipher his expression. “But?”

  “But we might need to postpone it. Just for a little while. My patient is experiencing some complications.”

  “The lung guy?”

  He nodded. “The lung guy. I know you’re disappointed—”

  She tried to tell him that she wasn’t disappointed, that she understood, that she could be as selfless and willing to sacrifice as he was.

  But she couldn’t. The best she could muster was a calm, quiet appeal to his emotions. “Grant, this isn’t just some last-minute weekend getaway; it’s ou
r honeymoon. You proposed to me using Bora-Bora as bait.”

  “And we are still going to go.” She could tell from the look in his eyes that he absolutely believed this. “We’ll still be in the honeymoon phase a few months from now. Heck, it’ll actually be better because you won’t be so frazzled from all the wedding prep.”

  She sank into the chair, crossing her ankles and arranging her hands in her lap. “There has to be a balance. I’m worried that if you can’t find that balance now, you’ll never find it.”

  “Be fair.” He crouched down next to her. “You want me to find a balance between saving someone’s life or kicking back on a beach drinking Coronas? That’s not even a choice.”

  “Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s not a choice, for you. It’s the choice I have to make.” Intellectually, she knew that saving a life should win out over beachside Coronas every time. But why couldn’t it ever be enough? Why did it have to be either/or?

  Surgery or beach? Work or vacation?

  Grant or Ryan?

  She flinched at this thought, and Grant was right there to comfort her. “I know it’s hard, Em. But you always make the right decision. It’s part of why I love you.”

  “Please don’t say that.” She laced her fingers together and squeezed. “What if I’m not as selfless as you think I am? What if I’m impulsive and conflicted?” She forced herself to look up and meet his gaze. “I wish I could be that perfect paragon you described in your toast tonight. But I’m not. Full disclosure: Before I met you, my life was a little bit of a train wreck.”

  “Stop.” He rested his index finger against her lips. “It doesn’t matter what you were like before you met me. Give us another fifty years like the one we just had, and you’ll make me the happiest man on earth.”

  Scenes from the last year flashed through her head: scenes of courtship and romance, teamwork and tenderness. But also bouts of incredible stress and loneliness.

  He seemed so confident, so certain that they were doing the right thing. “Be patient, angel. Have faith in me.”

  “I do have faith in you.” Her voice came out clear and firm. “I believe in you one hundred percent.”

  “Then you know I’ll make this up to you. We will get to Bora-Bora if I have to paddle you there in that leaky canoe by the boathouse.”

  “That thing is a death trap.” Emily shook her head. “The hotel’s going to get sued.”

  “If the canoe sinks, I’ll swim the rest of the way. I’ll drag you along. Dead man’s float.”

  “Dead man’s float.” Emily batted her eyelashes. “The words every new bride aches to hear.”

  “You. Me. Bora-Bora. It’s happening.” Grant wrapped his arms around her.

  “It’s happening,” she repeated into his shirtfront. “Just not next week.”

  “It’s happening. Do you believe me?”

  She wanted to. She really, really wanted to. “I do.”

  After the rehearsal dinner, the guys went off to smoke cigars on the porch, the ladies congregated in the bar, Georgia and Bev slipped off to do God-only-knows-what with God-only-knows-who, and Emily tried to sneak away without anyone noticing.

  Summer, of course, noticed. And had apparently sneaked away herself for a little rendezvous with the dark side.

  “Here.” She pulled Emily out to the patio adjoining the bar and pressed a brown paper bag into her hands. “You look like you need this.”

  Emily opened the bag and almost shed a tear of joy at the scent of grease and ketchup.

  “You know that guy I went out with the other night? I had him make a run into town. You looked like you needed a double cheeseburger and a vanilla shake. It’s not fast food, exactly—it’s the Vermont version of fast food, so it’s all grass-fed and free-range.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know.” Summer started to walk away, but Emily caught her arm.

  “Not so fast. This guy, does he have a name?”

  “Yep.”

  “Care to share?”

  “Nope.” Summer surveyed the crowd. “Now get while the getting’s good. I’ll cover for you.”

  Emily hurried along the flagstone path and made her way around the corner to the side of the Lodge, where mosquitoes swarmed beneath a pale sodium light and the view was limited to the cars in the parking lot.

  Including a painstakingly restored silver Triumph Spitfire.

  She froze, burger halfway to her mouth, as she heard the metallic jingle of Ripley’s tags behind her.

  “I told you to leave,” she said.

  Ryan’s voice warmed her from the inside out. “You did. But I’m not finished with what I came to do.”

  “Well, I am.” Her own reaction to his presence infuriated her, and she forced herself to remain chilly. “We’re done.”

  “I’m not running away this time, Emily. And neither are you. When you divorced me, you said I had no follow-through, no sense of responsibility. Well, now I do. I set goals, and I achieve them.”

  She crumpled up the top of the paper bag and turned to face him. “Listen to me, Ryan. I’m not a goal to be achieved. I’m not achievable.”

  He didn’t argue with her. Instead, he leaned back against the split rail fence bordering the forest and motioned for Ripley to sit down next to him. “Let me tell you a story.”

  She tilted her head back toward the Lodge. “I have guests waiting.”

  “I’ll make it snappy. When I was trying to get my first film made, it was the middle of the financial crisis. Funding had dried up. Investors were nonexistent. So I ended up talking to some Russian guys who were a little on the shady side.”

  She rolled her eyes. “A little?”

  “Allegedly.” It was too dark to see his expression, but Emily could hear the smile in his voice. “Anyway, I pitched the film to them and they said no. So I set up another meeting with them the next week, and I told them that my last project had won a bunch of awards. They still said no.” He paused. “I’m not going to lie—I was pushy.”

  “That is shocking. I am shocked.”

  “Next day, I showed up at their offices again. Kind of uninvited. And the head guy—he was like six-five with a big purple scar on his cheek—he said if I ever came back, they’d cut off my finger.”

  Emily sighed and dug the milk shake out of the bag. “So of course, you came back.”

  “Hell, yeah. I wanted to get the project made. I had to come back. And I brought my buddy Joe—big, burly camera guy I’d met on the last shoot. When we knocked on the door, the Russian guy couldn’t believe it. He said, we warned you once and now we’re going to cut off your finger. I said, I know. He said, your friend here’s not going to be able to save you. I said, yeah, that’s why we brought a tripod instead of a weapon. You guys are gonna cut off my finger and we’re gonna film it. It’ll be great for the opening scene.” He reached down and scratched Ripley’s ears. “And the guy laughed and they bankrolled the picture.”

  Emily squinted through the darkness at him. “You’re insane. Like, certifiable. You know that, right?”

  “I wanted to make that film more than I wanted my finger. And I want you more than I want my pride. You want stability? Commitment? Great. I can give you that now.”

  “Ryan, stop. You’re not making a movie against all odds here. You’re messing with real people with real lives.”

  “Yeah, including mine. Including yours.”

  “You don’t want me,” she told him. “Not really. You have this image of me, but—”

  “I do want you,” he shot back. “And you want me.”

  They lapsed into silence for a moment, staring each other down while the fireflies blinked and the sounds of the party drifted out from the hotel.

  Finally, he pushed off the fence post and started back toward the parking lot. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t talk about it. But we both know.”

  Emily’s heart slammed in her chest. “What do we know?”

  “People
who aren’t having second thoughts don’t hang out in parking lots talking to their exes on the night before their wedding.”

  There was nothing she could say to this. The truth—that she’d weakened in the face of temptation—was too obvious to deny and too painful to acknowledge.

  “I’ll be there in the morning,” he said.

  “You show up at that church tomorrow and you really will lose a finger.”

  “Fine. You can take the one that already has your name on it.” He held up his left hand. “And if you marry that guy, I will let you go. I’ll be out of your life forever. But I don’t think you will.”

  She swallowed hard, grateful for the shadows that hid her face and her shaking hands. “You’re wrong.”

  “We’ll see.”

  As Emily crept back to her own room, she heard footsteps and feminine laughter around a corner. Before she could duck into an alcove, she found herself face-to-face with Georgia and Bev. Both of them were shushing each other and carrying armloads of what appeared to be…

  “Shoes?” Emily stopped in her tracks. “Why do you have all those shoes?”

  This set off a fresh round of hysterical giggles.

  “We’re punking Rose and Darlene.” Georgia snorted. “I stole their room key out of Rose’s purse at the bar. We took all of Rose’s right shoes and all of Darlene’s left shoes.” She collapsed against Bev. “They’ll have to wear mismatched shoes to the wedding tomorrow. Although since we know they’re the exact same size, that shouldn’t be a problem!”

  Emily surveyed the assortment of pink flats, black pumps, and tan sandals. “You’re nothing if not thorough.”

  Bev motioned her in and confessed, “And we short-sheeted their beds.”

  Emily started laughing, too. “Are you twelve? Is this summer camp?”

  “Wait, wait.” Georgia dropped a few shoes as she held up her hand. “I didn’t even tell you the best part.”

  “Let me guess: You put Saran Wrap on the toilet seat.”