Bridesmaid for Hire

by Marie Ferrarella

  There were four more boxes filled with the pastries he’d made for this occasion. They were carefully arranged in the back of his SUV.

  Gina looked in. “You certainly brought a lot.”

  “In my experience,” he told her, “people tend to get very hungry at these things. Better to bring more than not enough.”

  She lifted out a box, then waited for him to do the same. “You are staying for this, aren’t you?” Gina asked him. She had learned that taking anything for granted was always a mistake.

  There was a slight frown on his face which told her that Shane was far from happy about the demands this situation placed on him.

  “Only until it’s politely acceptable for me to make my exit,” he told her. About to reach in to take a box, he paused and looked at her, searching her face. “Why?”

  She didn’t try to sound clever. Honesty was her best policy when it came to Shane. “Because I have to stay,” she told Shane, “and it would be nice if I had a friend to talk to.”

  He surprised her by laughing. “As I recall, you never had any trouble when it came to talking.”

  “I said a friend to talk to,” Gina pointed out, repeating what she’d said.

  Rather than taking Gina up on her offer, he pointed out, “You don’t have to stay.”

  “Oh, but I’m afraid that I do,” Gina contradicted. “My job is to make sure that no emergencies—big or small—arise from the moment the bride hires me until she and the groom have their last dance and make their escape to begin either their honeymoon or start their blissful life together.”

  “Blissful, eh?” Shane repeated. Was it her imagination, or did he look amused? “Is that part of your guarantee, too?”

  “No, that part is up to them,” Gina told him seriously. “I just try to make sure that everything leading up to that point paves the way for that to happen for them. If it doesn’t...” She lifted her shoulders in a careless shrug. “Well, at least I know that I tried my best.”

  For the first time since she ran into him, Shane’s mouth curved in a lopsided grin. She’d forgotten until this moment how much she used to love seeing that.

  “As I recall,” he told her, “your best was more than good enough.”

  It was a moment of weakness and Shane knew it. But he couldn’t seem to help himself. As they stood next to his SUV right over the two boxes of pastries they were about to carry into the house, Shane leaned over and kissed her. The second he did, he was instantly propelled back through time and space, back to when there had been no hurt feelings, no rejections, no oceans separating them and all the things that might have been.

  The second his lips touched hers, Gina felt as if her heart was going to explode right then and there.

  She had never thought she would feel like this again, never thought she could be this happy again. And yet, here she was, being swept away the way she always was whenever he had kissed her.

  Her heart went into double time. She could barely catch her breath.

  And then, just as quickly as it had happened, it was over.

  Shane drew back, the look on his face all but telling her that he felt he had made a mistake. When he spoke, he just compounded the jagged, painful sensations she was feeling.

  “Sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to do that. I guess, just for a second, I forgot who we were.” The words were stilted. Awkward. “It won’t happen again.”

  Her eyes searched Shane’s face, looking for a trace of the man who had once loved her. The man who she still loved.

  He wasn’t there.

  “Even if I want it to?” Gina asked, addressing the words to his retreating back.

  Shane stopped walking for a moment. She thought he was going to turn around and say something to her, maybe even answer her question.

  But he just continued walking as if he hadn’t heard her. Or worse, didn’t think that she deserved an answer.

  Taking a breath, she willed her feet to move and followed Shane into the house.

  “Here, let me help you,” Monica said, suddenly meeting them in the doorway. “These must be heavy.” She raised her eyes to his face. “It took you a while to carry them in.”

  Her words were for Shane, not her, Gina realized.

  The maid of honor took the box from Shane. “You can get the rest—if there’s more,” she added with what Gina was certain the woman thought appeared to be an attractive pout.

  “There’s more,” Shane answered.

  “Wonderful!” Monica gushed. “I’ll tell Allison to make room on the buffet table.” The woman strode quickly with the big box. Putting it down, she looked ready to escort Shane back out to his SUV.

  Gina was tempted to put the box she’d brought in down on the first flat surface so she could go back out and rescue Shane, but then she rethought the matter.

  Maybe he didn’t want to be rescued, she told herself. Maybe Shane preferred someone who he had no history with. Someone with a clean slate, at least where he was concerned.

  In any event, she silently told herself, Shane was a big boy and could more than take care of himself. After all, he had just proved it with her.

  Chapter Twelve

  For the next few hours, Gina remained at the bridal shower, keeping to the background as she watched to make sure that everything at the party went off without a hitch. She felt that it was her job to make sure that everyone had a good time.

  She managed to do it all while staying close to Shane. What made it even better was that he remained with her by his own choice, not hers.

  Because of that, Sylvie’s maid of honor threw her a number of dirty looks, but Gina fended them all off with a smile. She acted completely impervious to them as well as to the scowl on Monica’s face as the latter shot daggers in her direction.

  “I have a feeling that when I leave this party, the maid of honor is going to try to run me over with her car,” she confided to Shane in a low voice. When he looked at her, his eyebrows raised in a silent query, Gina found herself laughing. “I’m just kidding, although I’m pretty sure I won’t be making Monica’s Christmas card list this year.”

  Sitting off to the side, out of the way, Shane took in what was going on around him. He could remember a time when parties were a prominent part of his weekends, but now he preferred to spend his time more quietly.

  He was well aware of the way that the maid of honor was looking at him. Like she was a hungry cat and he was the last morsel of food left in the area.

  Inclining his head toward Gina, he said quietly, “Thanks for doing this.”

  She knew he meant, in essence, having her behave like a roadblock for him. “Hey, I’m the reason you’re here to begin with, so I kind of owe this to you,” she said, shrugging off his thanks.

  “Well, you can get back to mingling in a few minutes,” he told her. “It looks like no one has any complaints about the pastries, so I’m going to be leaving soon.”

  “So soon?” Gina asked, not bothering to hide her regret.

  “Soon?” Shane repeated, glancing at his watch. “I’ve been here over two hours.”

  “Almost two hours. That’s really not very much time. You could stay a little longer,” she coaxed, trying her best to sound casual.

  “Maybe I would under normal circumstances,” he allowed, “but Ellie was coming down with a cold when I left today and I like being around when she’s not feeling well.”

  He had really become a homebody. Who would have guessed? “Does she have a temperature?” she asked him.

  “It had gone down when I left, but you know kids.” The inference in his voice was that he assumed she knew all about the fevers they could run at times.

  “Only by reputation,” Gina quipped. “And, of course, there is my niece. You know,” she recalled fondly, “when I was a kid, any time I was sick, my mother made
me chicken soup—from scratch, not out of a can. And she always gave me comic books to read. It got to the point that I used to look forward to being sick.” Gina grinned at him. “One time I tried to fool my mother by holding a thermometer over an open flame on the stove. It registered really high and I got busted—when the thermometer did.”

  Shane’s laugh blended with hers. Gina felt a warm shiver washing over her.

  “Can’t fool mothers,” he murmured as if it was a private joke that just the two of them shared. Taking a breath, Shane set the glass of punch he’d been nursing for the better part of the last two hours on the table. “I’d better get going.” He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Give me a call in case someone finds the pastries not to their liking.”

  All Gina heard was that he was asking her to call him. It wasn’t easy to keep from grinning from ear to ear. “So you’re really serious about taking in complaints?”

  “I’m open to constructive criticism,” Shane told her.

  For a second, she debated keeping quiet. He might just think she was trying to flatter him. But not saying anything just wasn’t her way, so she asked, “Want my opinion?”

  He looked at her, not sure what to expect. “Go ahead.”

  “You know you’re really good at what you do,” Gina told him. She’d sampled a few of his creations and each one was better than the last. “Those pastries are out of this world. You don’t need to hear some person who’s trying to build up their own ego by coming down hard on what is clearly a wonderful effort. The only way those pastries you ‘created’ could taste better is if they were served in heaven.”

  Shane laughed at that, really laughed. And just as he took his leave, she noticed that the wariness she’d detected earlier was gone from his eyes. The walls between them were finally breaking down, Gina thought with relief. There really was hope!

  Though it wasn’t easy, she curbed her desire to walk with Shane to the front door. She didn’t want him to feel that she was crowding him.

  Just as she was holding herself in check, Gina saw Monica come hurrying over to Shane as he reached the front door. The maid of honor looked as if she was attempting to draw Shane aside under some pretext, but she saw him shaking his head and then leaving within a couple of minutes despite all of Monica’s efforts to the contrary.

  Gina’s triumphant feeling faded as she glanced at her watch. She couldn’t leave yet. There were at least two more hours of this to go.

  Putting a smile on her face, Gina made the best of it.

  * * *

  It wasn’t easy, but she refrained from calling Shane when she finally left the bridal shower some three hours later. Fighting the impulse to fly out of there, she adhered to her obligations. That meant remaining at the bridal shower until the last of the guests had trickled away.

  On the plus side, she knew her client was extremely happy. In addition, keeping her ears open, she was also able to collect a large number of flattering comments about the pastries that Shane had created and brought to the party.

  No one, it seemed, had a single negative thing to say about them—unless she counted the fact that a couple of bridesmaids lamented that the pastries were “sinfully delicious” and impossible to stop eating. Gina had a feeling that there would be several bridesmaids whose dresses would be severely stretched to the limit.

  She resisted the urge to call Shane with her “report.” She even thought about skipping the call altogether and just driving up to his house to tell him in person.

  Giving in to her curiosity, she had done a little research on him and apparently Shane was living in the house where he had grown up. She had always assumed that it had been sold years ago, but apparently he had hung on to it, maybe as a way of keeping the memory of his parents and brother alive. He had mentioned that there was a trust.

  Gina had gone so far as to pick up her keys and head toward her car, but she talked herself out of it. Because going there now would be seen as stalking.

  No, she could call him tomorrow to tell him what she’d heard people saying about his pastries. Calling him tomorrow would seem far less desperate than calling today—or showing up on his doorstep.

  She knew she was doing the right thing, waiting like this. But being right wasn’t nearly as much of a comfort as it should have been, Gina thought with a sigh that went clear down to her toes.

  Being there with Shane in that party setting proved to her just how much she’d really missed him all these years.

  Just then, the phone in the kitchen rang, startling her. The landline sounded so much more demanding and business-like than the cell phone she kept in her pocket did.

  Hurrying over to the landline, she picked up the receiver and put it against her ear. “Hello?”

  “Is it over?”

  It was Shane.

  She basked in the sound of his voice for a second before answering. He had to realize it was over because she was here to answer the phone, but she didn’t bother pointing that out.

  “Yes. It ended half an hour ago. I just walked into the house this minute,” she told him. Glancing around, she spotted a chair, pulled it over and sat down.

  “Half an hour,” he repeated as the words sank in. “And you didn’t call because there were complaints,” he guessed, obviously assuming the worst from her silence.

  “No, I didn’t call because I didn’t want you to think I was stalking you,” she told him honestly. “I was going to call you tomorrow—to tell you that everyone in the wedding party is cursing you.”

  “Cursing me? Why?” he cried, surprised.

  “Because if they don’t fit into their bridesmaid dresses in two weeks, it’s all your fault,” she told him. “You made pastries that they, no matter how good their intentions were, couldn’t resist.” There was silence on his end. Was he worried that she was saving the worst for last? She was quick to relieve his concerns. “There wasn’t so much as a crumb left and believe me, several of the bridesmaids, not to mention the mother of the bride, checked. They even asked me if I was hiding more somewhere. Some of them saw me coming in with you, carrying one of the pastry boxes,” she explained. “I’m lucky that I managed to get away from there without being tortured.”

  “Tortured?” Shane questioned, puzzled.

  “In case I was hiding more pastries somewhere,” she answered.

  That same wonderful laugh she loved echoed against her ear, all but engulfing her. “I forgot how much you liked to exaggerate,” he said.

  “I’m not exaggerating this time. I think you don’t realize just how good those creations of yours really are,” she told him. Because she knew that Shane had always had a hard time with compliments, she changed the subject. “How’s Ellie doing? Did her fever go away?” she asked him.

  “That all depends on what time you’re asking about,” Shane told her. “When I came home, it was almost back to normal. Then an hour later, it started to climb up again. I’ve had three different readings since I got back. If it’s like this tomorrow, I might have to take her to the walk-in clinic. Or the ER,” he said, thinking that the acclaimed hospital right in the area might be his best bet.

  While Gina loved the fact that he was concerned about the child, she didn’t want Shane worrying to the point that he was all but wrapping the little girl in cotton.

  “When they’re harboring a cold, kids under the age of seven tend to run high fevers at certain times of the day, especially in the evening. It can be high when they wake up, drop to normal around noon and then go up again by six.”

  “You have kids?” he questioned, surprised. Shane thought she’d said that she didn’t, but maybe he’d misunderstood. Maybe there was even more about Gina that he didn’t know.

  “No, but I have a niece and I was there when my sister went through this.” Maybe she was butting in where she wasn’t wanted. This was all very new territory to her.
All she could do was tell Shane the truth. “I just wanted you to know this isn’t all that unusual.”

  “Thanks,” he told her and he sounded as if he meant it. “I appreciate the pep talk.”

  “Anytime,” Gina replied. She didn’t hear a childish voice calling in the background. “Sounds quiet.”

  “It is,” Shane agreed. “I gave Ellie some baby aspirin and she fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I’d better let you go, then,” she said although she was reluctant to end the call. They were really getting along rather well at the moment. She was afraid that the second she hung up, things would revert back to what they had been just a little while ago, but that would be selfish of her. “It’s important to get your rest when you can.”

  “That makes sense,” Shane agreed. And then she heard him say, “Gina?”

  About to say goodbye she stopped and held on to the phone with both hands. “Yes?”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  Gina hesitated, torn. She didn’t want to spoil the moment and correct him, but if he remembered this later, he’d know that he’d gotten this wrong. She hadn’t called him, he had called her. She needed to say something now before it got too awkward.

  “Um, Shane?”

  “Yes?”

  “You were the one who called me,” Gina told him.

  There was silence on the other end. And then he said, “You’re right. I totally forgot. Maybe I should get some rest.”

  Gina felt her smile widening. He didn’t take offense at having her correct him. She took that to be a good sign.

  “Good idea,” she told Shane. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  It was only after she hung up that she realized she’d all but told him that she was going to be calling back. And he hadn’t objected.

  So, this was what progress felt like, Gina thought, pleased.

  * * *

  For the first time since she had walked into the bakery and had her world blown apart when she saw Shane standing there, Gina spent a restful night.