Healing Beau (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 6)

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  But as for the Pepto-Bismol wedding: apparently no detail had been overlooked—flowers, cake, nine course dinner for two hundred, floats, trapeze artists, and unicorns shipped in from outer space—all festooned with pink hearts, lace, and ribbons.

  Everything was ready to go except, apparently, the bride. After a fashion, she was ready to go too—but not to the portable altar that had been upholstered to match the bridesmaids’ dresses and assembled in the Beauford Bend ballroom. No. On the very eve of the wedding, when she didn’t show up for the rehearsal dinner, it was discovered that she had been more of a mind to go to Mexico with one of the groomsmen and all the cash wedding gifts.

  The groom had cleared out pretty quickly, taking all the parents, wedding party, and assorted guests with him, leaving Firefly Hall empty, with a bunch of uneaten food and unsmelled flowers at Beauford Bend, all paid for. According to Emory, the father of the bride, unwilling to lose everything, had packed up a cooler full of raw beef tenderloins and taken two cases of wine. His wife hadn’t even wanted that—said she couldn’t stand to think about all the trappings much less look at it.

  Emory had done what she could to help them recoup some costs, less deposits—canceled the swing band, limos, and such. But there was nothing she could do about most of it, and a contract was a contract. Emory was not in the charity business, and unlike Aunt Amelia, she wasn’t going to take a loss just because a spoiled brat bride had gotten an itch that only a groomsman could scratch.

  So it seemed that despite his distaste for the whole surreal World’s Fair meets matrimony, it would be Beau and Christian kneeling on the pink satin portable altar, cutting the pink heart-shaped ten layer cake, and dancing in a forest of portable trees that had been painted white and decked out with silver glitter and—wait for it—what had to be ten thousand pink roses. And ribbon, God knows ribbon. There was enough ribbon around Beauford Bend to hog-tie Gabe’s entire football team and Jackson’s band.

  Gwen and the sisters-in-law were beside themselves with glee. They’d been cheated out of an extravaganza when Gabe and Neyland had run off to Las Vegas, and they weren’t about to miss this opportunity to see one of their tribe united in holy pink matrimony.

  But pink birdcages with live doves for centerpieces? Really? Wouldn’t they poop and make a lot of noise?

  “Look, I know it’s tacky,” Emory said. They’d all been summoned for an early morning powwow shortly after the remaining bridal party had cleared out of Firefly Hall. First they’d been given a tour of the decorated ballroom, which had left everyone pretty much speechless, and not in a good way. Now, the women were seated around the dining table in the family wing, and the men were grazing off the buffet of food that was to have been the bridesmaids’ breakfast. “A lot of it is awful. I tried to make other suggestions, but that bride had a mind of her own. But everything’s ready, and the food will be delicious. The whole staff has worked so hard it would be a shame for it to go to waste. Your marriage and your baby are blessings. We should celebrate.”

  “I kind of like the decorations,” Neyland said. “Did you see all the tulle on the staircase and those hearts hanging from the chandeliers?”

  “It might be a little overdone,” Hope said. “But it’s sweet in its own way.”

  Beau leaned over and said to Gabe in a low voice, “Which is another way of saying it looks like a brothel.”

  Gabe laughed. “When did you get to be such a snob? How do you even know what’s tacky?”

  “How can you not? You were raised here the same as me.”

  “I don’t care about one bit of that. And from the looks of it, neither does Christian.” Gabe put an entire mini quiche in his mouth and said around it, “Look at her.” Given Gabe’s love of talking and eating, the two were bound to occur at once from time to time. Beau didn’t point this out, as he might have done on a different occasion, but directed his eyes to where Christian sat between her mother and Abby.

  Beau was well aware that he vacillated between eerily intuitive and totally obtuse, without much in between. This was one of those intuitive times.

  Christian was sitting forward on the edge of her chair, eyes wide, but focusing on nothing. If ever there had been a daydream in a woman’s eyes, there was one in Christian’s. She wanted this prefab wedding—though, probably not precisely this. He couldn’t see her choosing that huge flower-covered heart surrounding the double doors of the foyer or providing guests with miniature heart-shaped bubble wands and bubbles, but maybe she thought it was better than the chapel at the church and the private dining room at Mill Time.

  Wait. Guests? Who was going to eat all this food? And look at all this pink? And drink all that booze?

  Abby was writing furiously on a pad. “I’ll invite people. I’m writing down the names I can think of. If everyone else will do that, I’ll compare the lists and make the calls.”

  “Email will be faster,” Gwen said.

  “Good point.” Abby nodded. “I’ll do some of both.”

  “Beau,” Aunt Amelia said, “this is beyond shameful.”

  “Look at Christian, Aunt Amelia. She wants this.”

  “So it would appear. What about you? Do you want it?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

  “I don’t know about this,” Christian’s mother said. “Christian’s dress was chosen for a quiet ceremony in the chapel, not a large, formal evening wedding. I think people will talk.”

  And just like that, Christian looked stricken and disappointed.

  Time to be a soldier.

  Beau stepped behind Christian’s chair and put a hand on her shoulder. “Miss Willa, I don’t know from dresses. You’re probably right. But if people want to pick something apart, with all there is going on here, I don’t think Christian’s dress is what they are going to take away.”

  Everyone laughed except Willa. “I didn’t want to point that our precisely, but now that you mention it …”

  “Christian doesn’t want to go to the chapel and Mill Time,” Beau said. “She wants more. So, Willa, how long do you think it would take you to plan something like this, but not so pink?” He knew he answer to that question, he’d been around the party planning business too long not to.

  The woman gasped. “At least six months. More like a year. But we don’t have that kind of time.”

  Everyone else had been happy about the pregnancy. To say Willa Hambrick had taken it in stride was pushing it—though Christian said she would come around.

  “Then, I guess this is it,” Beau said. “It will forever be known as the Pink Wedding, not to be confused with the Game of Thrones’ Red and Purple Weddings.” At least he hoped not.

  For the first time during the exchange, Christian turned her face to his with a mixed expression of joy and gratitude.

  Mission accomplished.

  • • •

  Most women dreamed of what their weddings would be like all their lives, but Christian had only dreamed of who the groom would be. Nothing else mattered—or so she had thought. In truth, if the wedding had turned out to be the tiny affair in the church chapel and lunch in the restaurant, she would have been happy. After all, she’d have Beau.

  But the minute Emory had called them to Beauford Bend and started talking about the possibility of the abandoned wedding becoming her wedding, she had wanted it.

  Oh, the trappings were hideous—all those pink hearts, tulle, lace, and doves—but that didn’t matter. She wanted to walk down an aisle and stand in front of a lot of people and make promises to Beau. She wanted to dance and cut a big, tiered cake, even if it was heart-shaped and covered in spun sugar cupids. She wanted a real celebration.

  And best of all, when her mother had shown reluctance, Beau had stood up and made sure it happened.

  “Thank you all.” Emory, Gwen, Neyland, Abby, and Hope stood around her in Emory’s newly decorated bedroom. They would be her bridesmaids, when she would have had none before. It didn’t matter that their dresse
s didn’t match. They were happy about her marriage and her baby, and they would stand with her and show their love.

  As soon as she and Beau had told them the news, these women had summoned Noel and whisked Christian off to Miss Laura’s. They had hugged, cried, and celebrated. There was no time for a bridal shower, but they promised to make it up to her in a few months with the nirvana of all baby showers. Christian was sure that on some level, they were worried and would get around to asking if she was truly happy and if there was a chance of real love with Beau, but for now, they just celebrated, and she was thankful.

  “Pretty.” Christian’s mother ran her hand over the beading on the neckline of her simple ivory silk sheath. It had come off the rack at White Lace and Promises Bridal Attire and could have been a prom dress.

  “You’re not still worried about my dress being inappropriate?”

  Her mother smiled. “I suppose you could have worn the runaway bride’s dress, since she left it in her room at Firefly Hall.”

  They all laughed. “Even if she hadn’t been five feet tall, I don’t think I could see myself in a ball gown that required a hoopskirt and fourteen crinolines.”

  “But it goes so well with the tulle skirts on the tables,” Abby said.

  “Darling, you couldn’t be lovelier.” That was the thing with her mother. She might get rattled in the beginning, but she always stepped up. “But I do have a little something for you that’s a nod to the wedding time of day.” Willa retrieved a box from behind the bed, opened it, and lifted out a simple, ivory veil. “Try this. If you don’t like it, you can still wear the flowers you were going to wear originally.”

  Christian let her mother pin the veil to hair and lead her to the mirror. When she saw her reflection, she gasped. “I really am a bride!” They all laughed and hugged. Could there be a better day than this? This was how it was supposed to be for a bride when she dressed for her wedding—happy and sentimental, with her mother and best friends around her. She had not thought she would have that. “Thank you, Mama.” She turned to her friends, the sisters of her heart. “And thank you all for being my bridesmaids. I’m supposed to have gifts for you, but I don’t.”

  “Never mind,” Emory said. “We have gifts for you. Though in my case, I’m only lending.” She removed the fabulous pearls Jackson had given her for her own wedding and fastened them around Christian’s neck. “Something borrowed. This day will make you no more my sister than you’ve always been, but I’m proud our babies will share blood and we’ll share the same last name.” Emory placed her hand on her stomach and then on Christian’s.

  Share the same last name. Beau’s name. Why had that not dawned on her? Was it because she’d been so busy, or because she’d still been afraid to hope too much? But the time was here. She would be Christian Beauford.

  Neyland stepped forward. “Since we’re going out of order, I’ll go next. I have something new. In fact, it’s so new, I only finished making it two hours ago. I thought I had until tomorrow.” She held out a silver elongated cone embellished with ornate piercing and pearls. “It’s a tussy mussy holder. Your bouquet will fit perfectly.”

  “Oh, Neyland,” Willa Hambrick said. “It’s exquisite. What a treasure. Christian, one day your daughter will carry this in her wedding.”

  Daughter. The baby she was carrying might be that daughter. And she wouldn’t have to walk down the aisle on her own, as Christian was going to do. It was unthinkable that Beau wouldn’t be there that day to kiss his daughter and give her his arm.

  “I’m next,” Noel said. “I have something blue.” The garter that Noel handed her was even more beautiful than the handcrafted quilts she made and sold for thousands of dollars. The pale blue silk was embroidered in Carolina blue—just like Beau’s eyes—with a fancy letter B surrounded by bells, bows, bees, birds, butterflies, and finally a whimsical little bicycle and bat that made Christian laugh.

  “What?” Neyland said after examining it? “No bullfrog or buffalo?”

  “I wanted to do a bear and a bugle, but I ran out of room,” Noel said.

  “I have something old.” Abby pressed a whisper of a little linen handkerchief into Christian’s hand. The lace that edged it had to be handmade. “My great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, and I all carried this in our weddings. It’s dried thousands of happy tears, and I want you to add yours today.”

  It came in handy at that very that moment. “Thank you, Abby. I’ll take the best care of it and get it back to you.”

  “No.” Abby shook her head. “I want you to have it for now. But when our girls get married—and that includes Gwen’s Julie and any little hockey-playing-quilting Glazov girls who might come along—I’d like it passed to them for their happy tears.”

  And in that moment, they could have all used a handkerchief.

  “Dry it up!” Gwen stepped forward, wiping her own eyes. “My gift isn’t so sentimental. I got it off eBay. But every bride should have a real sixpence for her shoe. Circa 1951.”

  They all laughed, hugged, and cried a little as loving hands gathered around Christian to put the garter in place, tuck the handkerchief into her sleeve, and place the sixpence in her shoe.

  “It’s almost time,” Emory said as Christian’s mother straightened her veil and Neyland handed Christian her nosegay of ivory tea roses, all the more lovely in the silver holder. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.” How could she not be? No matter how it had come to be, Beau was waiting for her.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  With the kind of notice they’d gotten, Beau would have bet every dime he had that only a few people would show up for the wedding—and he would have ended up flat broke. Either it was a slow night, there was nothing on TV, or they suspected that Jackson would sing. Maybe all of that. Either way, the house was so full one had to hope the fire marshal wasn’t in attendance.

  He had to hand it to Emory. She knew how to run a party. He didn’t know how, but he’d been in the wings enough to know how hard it was to make it go smoothly. After the ceremony, she had efficiently directed everyone downstairs for drinks and an hors d’oeuvres buffet, while her staff rearranged the ballroom for dinner, with the round tables along the walls, leaving room for dancing in the middle.

  Things had never gone that well when Aunt Amelia had been running the show. She’d been more of big picture/concept person who hadn’t given as much thought as she should have to exactly where the band was going to plug in equipment and the true price per person for a meal.

  Jackson, who was old enough to remember a little better, said Around the Bend ran better and was more profitable before their mother died. Not surprising. Hadn’t everything been better before that?

  Beau glanced at the ring on his left hand. It would take some getting used to. He’d never worn a ring before. Jackson had insisted on buying him a class ring, but he’d never worn it. Some girl—maybe Mary Charles—had ended up with it. He wasn’t much for jewelry of any kind on a man unless you counted dog tags, which you really couldn’t. They were meant for identifying the dead, not adornment.

  So the vows had been said, the meal eaten, and Jackson and his band, the Barroom Brawlers, were on stage. He was singing his heart out and happy about it—and so were the guests. There were as many people standing around watching the show as dancing, but Christian was dancing with Gabe. Maybe. Could be Rafe. They were pretty far away.

  She looked pretty. Her dress was like her—classy and understated—and he liked that it was short enough that it showed a little leg. She’d cried during the ceremony. So had Gwen, Noel, and the sisters-in-law—at least he thought Noel had cried. He was still afraid to look at her. As for Christian, she had looked like a woman who was getting exactly what she wanted. He hoped that was true and that he had looked that way, too.

  “Hey, groom-boy, what are you doing standing over here all by yourself? Come dance with me.”

  Missy stood before him, already posed with one hand ready to go on hi
s shoulder and the other ready for him to take. She never for a second considered that he would tell her no.

  He took her hand, and they slid easily onto the floor in perfect rhythm and step.

  Missy laughed with delight. “We dance like two people taught to dance by Amelia Beauford.”

  Out of the blue, like a ball shot from a cannon, those words landed deep in Beau’s gut and set off his early remembering gene, causing that first memory of dancing in his mother’s arms to speed up his heart, slow down his brain, and dry out his mouth.

  If he hadn’t been a soldier, he would have fallen to his knees, but soldiers danced on. his mother had smelled good—like birthday cake—and her cheek had been warm on his. This started a whole series of memories. Aunt Amelia might have refined his dancing, but she hadn’t taught him. His mother had.

  She’d been young, pretty, and happy, and she’d loved to dance. She had always bent down to teach him to waltz, two step, and foxtrot, but she’d also taught him the electric slide, the twist, and others with names he couldn’t remember.

  He ought to be dancing with her tonight at his wedding. Not Missy.

  “I remember how I didn’t want to come to Miss Amelia’s charm school that summer,” Missy said, “but Mama made me. I argued at the time that Miss Amelia wasn’t our blood relative, but Mama told me she was near enough, and I was going to that charm school and show her respect, even if I was too stubborn to learn anything. It turned out to be some of the most fun I ever had. I’m so glad Emory’s still doing it. When her time comes, you can bet I’m sending Lulu.”

  “You should,” he said as if twenty-seven tribal chieftains weren’t fighting to the death in his gut. “Every girl in America should be forced to attend A Fortnight of Refinement and Training for Young Ladies. Watch out when Beau’s sixteen. She’ll want to import him for the dance the last night. I ought to know.”