Thirty-Four Going On Bride (The Spinster Series Book 3)

by Becky Monson

  Next to those is a card with the words “Mr. and Mrs. Moody” written on the envelope. Holy crap. After today—in just a couple of hours, actually—I’ll be Jared’s wife. It’s kind of hard to believe I’ve even made it here.

  I take a quick shower and then start doing my hair. I keep it simple, leaving my hair down but with soft curls (I still suck at using a curling iron, but I’m sort of getting it). I was actually planning on putting it up, but I forgot bobby pins. No wonder I have packing anxiety, because I never can seem to remember everything. I wish I could say that I feel like that was the only thing I forgot, but there’s a little warning in the back of my head that makes me think I’ve forgotten something important. I wish I could remember what it was. Clearly, it wasn’t just bobby pins.

  After my hair is done, I do my makeup. I keep it natural because, let’s face it, that’s all I know how to do.

  My phone pings as I finish up my mascara. It’s probably a text from Jared telling me how much he can’t wait to marry me. Sigh. This whole thing is seriously so romantic.

  Nope, it’s Anna. So not romantic at all.

  Thoughts on setting off fireworks at the end of the reception?

  And she’s back. I should’ve known my reprieve would only last so long. I text back a quick “no thanks,” and she sends me back her obligatory “fine.” She probably has it on auto response.

  A feeling of guilt washes over me as I think about what I’m going to do—and Anna has no clue. She’d be hurt for a myriad of reasons if she ever found out about the eloping … that she wasn’t here and also that she’s spending all of her time planning my big day, which will no longer be my “official” wedding day.

  I’ve got to think of me, though, even though I feel oodles of selfishness when I say that. But it’s true. Plus, doing all of this big wedding stuff was never for me, it was for everyone else. Maybe if I would’ve put my foot down, I wouldn’t have ended up fainting at the gala. Of course, my brain was probably wired for anxiety. It just needed a big buildup before all the crazy came spewing out.

  I look at the time on my phone and see that there’s only ten minutes left. Time to get dressed. Earlier this week I was able to score a simple, white strapless cocktail number online using my half-hour of allotted screen time. I had it sent overnight because if it didn’t work, I’d still have time to find something else. But it was perfect.

  I was surprised that I was able to pick out something so easily, and without Anna’s or Brown’s approval. Not that I didn’t want their approval, mind you. I had come up with a bunch of scenarios (read: lies) that I could use as an excuse for a reason to ask them what they thought, but in the end I realized it’d be too hard to keep so many secrets from them. This time it was all on me.

  I spin around in front of a huge, full-length mirror just outside the master closet. I feel like I’m in a fairytale. I sort of am. If only Lisa could see me now. I’m certainly not “dowdy” today. Although I’m sure she’d find some way to make me feel that way. “Oh Julia! Look at that adorable white dress you’re wearing. I can’t believe you dare to go there when white is clearly not your color.”

  Nope. I’m not letting Lisa ruin this day. Even if it’s only made up in my head.

  I walk out to the living area and find Jared there waiting for me. His head is down as he swipes his thumb over his smart phone. I clear my throat and he looks up.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi,” he says back.

  Our smiles are huge as we look at each other. Jared looks more than handsome in his black fitted suit, white shirt, and black tie. He pulls me into his arms and hugs me tight.

  “Isn’t it bad luck to see the bride before the wedding?” I ask after a few seconds of us hugging in silence.

  “Nah,” he says, his chin resting on top of my head. “I’ve never bought into any of that crap.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask, feeling weird butterflies in my stomach. I can’t believe this is all happening.

  “Marry you, or elope?” He asks with a mild teasing tone.

  “Uh, both,” I say and he laughs.

  He pulls back so he can look me in the eyes. “I don’t care how it happens, Julia Dorning, I just want to be married to you.”

  Okay, mega swooning happening right now. I don’t know how I could ever regret this whole eloping thing. It’s seriously the best decision I’ve ever made.

  CHAPTER

  22

  This might be the worst decision I’ve ever made.

  Jared and I were all movie-sequence romantic. All the way down the elevator and into the lobby we kept stealing kisses, looking at each other, and smiling. It was seriously out of an incredibly dreamy film.

  That was until, like a record player screech, everything came to a complete halt as we met the officiant. He was there waiting for us like he was supposed to be. But what he wasn’t supposed to be was someone that looked like he’d just come from a Bob Marley concert.

  I’m no expert here, but I’m pretty sure he’s high. Like, just-smoked-a-fatty high. I’m not even sure what a “fatty” is. It’s jargon I’ve overheard at the bakery by my new munchie-craving clientele. The officiant—who asked us to call him Blaze, I kid you not—is wearing a white linen button-up shirt, with what looks like a grease stain on the right pocket. He’s got on khaki cargo shorts and a pair of fairly nice looking dress shoes. No socks, of course. His unkempt blonde hair is loosely pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck.

  Presently I’m listening to him and Jared discuss everything we need, and it appears that Blaze—even though he’s clearly smoked a joint not long ago, and sounds an awful lot like Tommy Chong—is ready to officiate this wedding. He’s done two other weddings already today.

  Jared grabs my hand as we follow Blaze out of the resort and walk toward the chair lifts. We look a little ridiculous as we walk behind Blaze and he high-fives a bunch of people we don’t know and uses the word “dude” in a variety of different ways. Proper name (Dude!), nickname (duuuuude), in the form of a question (dude?), and then there was one exchange where that was the only word spoken and it went on a heck of a lot longer than one would think it should … or could.

  “Sorry,” Jared whispers in my ear.

  I crinkle my brow. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one who should be sorry. I made you do this,” I say, feeling oodles of guilt.

  “First of all, you didn’t make me do anything. And secondly, I want this. I want something for just us,” he says and then takes the hand that’s holding mine and places a kiss on my fingers.

  I smile. “You know, I don’t really care who marries us, I just want to be married to you.”

  He lets go of my hand and puts his arm around my waist, pulling me tight to him.

  So apparently we’re taking the chair lifts up the side of a mountain. I really should’ve considered wearing hiking boots. But I had no idea what the plan was. I guess I should’ve asked. I think Jared wanted it all to be a surprise.

  When we reach the lifts, Blaze turns to us before we’re about to get on.

  “So who are the witnesses?” he asks, looking behind us like maybe they’d been following us all along.

  “I didn’t think we had to have them,” Jared says.

  “It’s up to the officiant, and I prefer at least one witness. Liability and all that.” Blaze brings his hand up to shade his eyes as he looks out toward the resort. “No worries, man, I’ve got a couple of guys that can help.” He points over toward the resort where a group of people are standing.

  He run-walks over to the group. They’re about five yards away, but we can hear the greeting as he approaches the group. Hands are slapped on backs and even a hug is exchanged with one of them.

  We see Blaze gesturing over toward us and saying something that makes them all laugh. Fabulous. And then I see a person peek out from behind the group, someone who’d be easily covered because of her short height.

  “Julia!” A sickly-sw
eet voice yells over to me.

  Oh dear heavens. It’s Lia.

  “Julia!” She yells again as she runs (well, it’s kind of a waddle) toward us.

  I look to Jared and he looks back at me, his brow scrunched.

  “We’ve been caught,” I say, almost in a panic.

  “Caught?”

  “It’s Lia, from the bakery,” I say, and his brows change from the scrunched position to a much higher place on his forehead.

  “Julia,” Lia says as she approaches us, very much out of breath. “What are you doing here?” she asks, looking from me to Jared and then back to me again.

  “Uh,” I say trying to think up something, but it’s kind of obvious.

  “Oh my goodness, you’re getting married!” she yells, bouncing around in her spot. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Lia this animated.

  “Why are you here?” I ask her.

  “I’m here for the festival,” she says, her tone indicating that I should totally know that. I guess I should have known.

  “Lia,” I say stepping toward her, “yes, we are getting married. But you can’t tell anyone.”

  “Oh, of course not,” she says, bringing her hand up to her lips and miming them zipped.

  “We’re still having our big wedding,” I say and look to Jared and then back to her. “We just wanted something for ourselves.”

  “That’s so romantic,” she says with a sigh. She clasps her hands together, her eyes look twinkling in the sun that’s just begun setting.

  Blaze walks up to us with two men that also look like they came from a Bob Marley concert. Both have long hair, one is in dreadlocks, and they too look high.

  “Here we go,” Blaze says, gesturing with his hand toward the two men, “your witnesses.”

  I gulp, rather loudly. This is so not how I pictured things going.

  “Oh Julia, you need a maid of honor,” she says stepping toward me.

  “No,” I say a little too quickly, “I mean, it’s totally okay, Lia. It’s really just going to be Jared and me.”

  “You can’t get married without a maid of honor,” she insists, her head nodding so quickly I wonder if she’ll get a headache.

  “No really, Jared doesn’t even have a best man,” I say pointing toward Jared.

  “We can find you one, man,” Blaze says.

  “No!” Jared and I say at the same time.

  “Please let me be your maid of honor, Julia?” Lia says, her hands clasped together and pulled up toward her chin and she looks to be actually begging.

  I look at Jared and he looks back at me and shrugs.

  “Okay,” I say, conceding, but only half-heartedly.

  She does a little cheer and then, directed by Blaze, we all walk toward the ski lifts. Jared and I in our semi-formal wedding attire surrounded by what looks like a bunch of hippies.

  If my family could see me now…

  CHA

  PTER 23

  The lift takes us to the very top of the mountain and then a quick walk up a small trail finds us standing on a hillside full of wildflowers. It’s breathtaking. Like, I actually forgot to breathe.

  “You okay?” Jared asks, wrapping an arm around my waist to steady me.

  “It’s amazing,” I squeak out, looking up at the pink and gold dusk sky that backdrops this magnificent location.

  “I’m glad you approve,” he says, pulling me into him. He places a kiss on the side of my head.

  “You ready, man?” Blaze asks, and just like that I’m pulled out of my pretty mountainside-wedding cocoon. Jared’s look of deer-caught-in-headlights pretty much says he’s also been brought back to reality.

  Besides this beautiful locale, nothing else is what I imagined today would be like. Our officiant is high, our witnesses look like they belong at a Phish concert (and they smell like it as well), and my maid of honor is a witch.

  Honestly, I should’ve expected this. Nothing ever goes as planned in the life of Julia Warner Dorning.

  “Here Julia,” Lia hands me a small bouquet of wildflowers that she must’ve picked on the way up. “Every bride needs a bouquet,” she says.

  Okay, that’s pretty sweet. I mean, we were in such a rush to do this I totally forgot about a bouquet. I take the small gathering of flowers from her and thank her. She reaches for me and pulls me into a tight hug. All right fine. Having Lia here isn’t so bad after all. It’s kind of nice to have a familiar face.

  “Let’s get started, man,” Blaze says.

  We all start moving into our places, not exactly sure where we should be going. The only person that knows anything about weddings here is Blaze. I’m not so confident in our leader, but somehow he sets us up right. At least the way he wants us to be, anyway.

  He’s got Jared and I facing each other with him on one side of us and the witnesses (or Dooby Brothers, essentially) on the other side, and Lia to the right of me and slightly behind.

  “Let’s begin,” Blaze says, and Jared reaches for one of my hands, my other one holding the makeshift bouquet.

  Jared looks to me and we lock eyes. And just like that we’re in our own little world. This whole eloping thing may not have gone according to plan, but since nothing truly does in my life, it’s kind of turning out perfect in its own way. At least it will be a great story that we won’t be able to tell anyone. Maybe our children.

  Blaze starts the ceremony and within a minute, my mouth has dropped open and I’ve noticed that Jared’s has as well. Maybe it’s the pot talking, but Blaze’s words? Well, they’re … they’re beautiful. He speaks of marriage as a promise to each other, that we should trust our love and honor each other as individuals. His words are eloquent, and deep, and poetic even.

  Once the shock has worn off, I feel myself start to get all emotional. I notice that Jared’s eyes are also looking a little glossy. Good heavens, who would’ve known that our weed-smoking officiant would bring us to tears? I’m feeling sort of bad that I ever underestimated this guy.

  “The love between you now joins you as one,” he says as he ends his very short ceremony. Short and, honestly, perfect.

  Then Blaze has us say vows, and thank goodness they’re only the repeat-after-me kind and not the spur-of-the-moment speech I half-expected him to ask us to do. Next we exchange rings.

  “And now that you’ve exchanged vows and rings, in front of God and all who are assembled here, I pronounce you husband and wife,” Blaze says and Lia squeals with delight.

  A broad smile spreads across Jared’s face and I join in. We’re married. Jared and I are married!

  “Dude, kiss your bride,” Blaze says, a wry smile on his face.

  Jared takes a small step forward and, putting his hands on my waist, he starts to pull me toward him. It’s then that I feel something tickling my arm. I look down and there perched on my wrist is a huge brown spider. Maybe the biggest brown spider I’ve ever seen, and certainly the biggest one I’ve ever had on me.

  “SPIDER!” I scream as my arms go flailing in the air, the bouquet of flowers flying all around us. I’m doing this crazy shaking-twisting-jumping thing, trying to rid myself of what I can only assume is a Brown Recluse. I mean, it’s probably not, but that’s all I can think of. I can’t even look to see if it’s gone, I just keep throwing my arms all around and basically doing a jerking and writhing dance.

  Yes. The perfect ending, really.

  “Jules!” Jared says, trying to calm me. He grabs my hands and holds them down to keep me from doing my spider dance. Then he inspects me hands, arms, wrists.

  “Check my hair,” I say, wrenching my hands from his and spinning around. I’m wiping my hands all over my body, thinking it could’ve crawled anywhere on me at this point.

  “Julia,” Lia says, in her sickly-sweet voice, “a spider is good luck!”

  I want to scream “in what world?” Of course a witch would say that.

  After a full inspection, Jared declares me spider free and because I know the spider exists som
ewhere in this now-tainted mountainside field, and that it probably has siblings, I make a beeline for the lifts, leaving everyone in my dust.

  “Julia, wait up!” Jared yells from behind as I run as fast as I can in these shoes, which is actually impressively fast, if I do say so myself.

  Jared catches up to me just as I’m about to get on a lift.

  “Were you just going to leave me?” He says, barely out of breath, a half smile on his face.

  “Sorry,” I say, and then I grab his arm and pull him toward me just as the next chair lift arrives.

  We hop on and as the lift makes a turn around the corner, we see the rest of the group getting on the next one.

  I’m out of breath and still freaking out. I know it was only a spider, but it was a freaking huge spider and I swear it was about to dig its fangs into my flesh. It might’ve even wriggled its eyebrows at me in a super devious manner. I’m pretty sure this spider had eyebrows.

  “You okay?” Jared asks as he tries, unsuccessfully, to stifle a giggle.

  “Not yet,” I say, and a large shiver runs through my body as I imagine the creepy feeling of the spider on my arm.

  He scoots over, making the lift swing a little, and pulls me into him. “I had no idea you were that scared of spiders,” he says, the amusement still obvious through his tone.

  “I had no idea either; I’ve never been that close to one before.” My upper body shivers once again.

  “You’ve never had a spider on you?” Jared says, his voice full of disbelief.

  “Not one that big,” I say, looking to his face, which now has that familiar smirk on it. The one I used to want to slap. I kind of want to right now.

  “Hey!” We both turn as we hear Blaze yell from the lift behind us. “You never kissed your bride!”