Tess in Boots

by Courtney Rice Gager

  That’s it. Just focus on the freckles, Tess.

  I couldn’t stop staring at them. If I did, I would start spinning again, the world around me becoming a blurry haze. So I kept counting, concentrating on how the dots could be connected to form various shapes: an oblong triangle on my forearm, an upward-pointing arrow near my wrist.

  There. I was breathing again. My pulse dwindled down to a normal speed.

  “Tess?”

  The sound of my name on his lips startled me back to reality. He was still there, I realized; still on his knee, still holding my hand in his, still waiting for an answer.

  I’ve been planning my own wedding.

  The thought was so foreign, so hard to wrap my mind around. I replayed it once more to be sure I wasn’t making it up.

  I’ve been planning my own wedding.

  Yes, it was real. All this time, I was fooled into thinking I was planning a ceremony for strangers. But there were no strangers. We were the strangers.

  How had he managed to pull this off? How had I been so oblivious?

  “Don’t you think it’s a little sudden?” My voice trembled. “A little too fast, maybe?”

  “No. Not to me. I love you, Tess. Marry me. Here. Tomorrow.”

  I looked down at him, trying to steady myself as I studied the bizarre combination of desperation and confidence in his eyes. If I said yes, then tomorrow would be my wedding day. All the preparations were made. Everyone was here, waiting for us. It was excruciating, in a way, to be under so much pressure.

  And yet, it was everything I ever dreamed about.

  No, it was more than that. It was beyond anything I ever even imagined possible. It was the grandest of all romantic gestures. If I set out to plan the ideal proposal, I could never have conceived of anything this amazing. I spent the past few years of my life hoping for something like this, and here it was.

  It was perfect.

  Except, of course, for one thing.

  One very important thing.

  Perhaps the most important thing…

  This wasn’t quite the man I pictured asking the question.

  No, that wasn’t right. Logan was the man I pictured. At least, he once was. But I felt so far away from him. He’d vanished into thin air. How was I supposed to pick up right where we left off?

  Then again, he hadn’t really vanished. I just thought he had.

  Don’t blow this, Tess. Don’t be silly. He loves you. You love him. You’ve wanted this.

  “Tess?” Logan raised an eyebrow and shifted his weight a little.

  “I don’t even have a dress.” It was such a ridiculous thing to say, but it was on my mind nonetheless.

  He gave me a tender smile. “You have three. Annie picked three options for you, and they’re all waiting in the cottage. You can take your pick. There’s a seamstress coming in the morning in case you need her.”

  “You bought me three wedding dresses?” My voice was a stunned whisper.

  “Well, they’re on loan. You can pick one, and we’ll return the others.”

  “How?”

  “One of my clients owns a bridal store, and he owed me a favor.”

  “Oh.” I thought for a moment. “What about my hair? And shoes?”

  “I’ve taken care of everything. I just need you. Be my wife, Tess. Let me spend the rest of my life showing you how precious you are to me.”

  I stared at him for the longest time, taking in the enormity of what he’d done for me and feeling my old life beckoning. A proposal from Logan, a job offer working for Jim. I could slip right back into it like nothing ever changed.

  Of course I would marry him. Wasn’t this what I wanted so much to begin with? This was quite possibly the single most romantic thing that ever happened to anyone. And it happened to me. He had gone to such great lengths. I’d be a fool to turn him down.

  And yet, something felt a little off, a little foggy maybe. It was as if I were in a dream. As if I moved too far to the left or right I would wake up and it would all dissolve into a fleeting memory.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked again.

  It was the weirdest thing. I opened my mouth to answer him, but the words wouldn’t come out. I tried moving my head up and down in a nodding motion. There, that worked. I was doing it. I was saying yes.

  He pulled the ring from its resting place in the box on the table, and I watched in bewilderment as he slid it on my finger. Then, he stood and pulled me up from the bench, wrapping me in an embrace and holding me there for a while. When he pulled away, the desperation in his eyes was gone, and he was the same unshakable Logan I’d always known.

  “You ready to go to our engagement party?” he asked.

  I still couldn’t talk. I nodded again, and he offered me his arm as we began walking toward the barn. I was in such a daze it felt like I was floating through the air, until he came to an abrupt stop and looked at my boots, causing me to jerk to a halt with him.

  “Tess, sweetheart, what are you wearing on your feet?”

  When I saw the baffled look on his face, I forgot all about being nervous and almost let out a laugh. But then I remembered Thatcher, and my stomach twisted into a remorseful knot.

  I cleared my throat with a quiet cough. “They’re boots. I’ll change, of course.”

  “Of course,” he said.

  I didn’t bother asking what he thought of them. I already knew the answer, and besides, I wouldn’t be wearing them anymore.

  CHAPTER 30

  Maybe it was the way the ring sparkled on my finger, or maybe it was the excitement of being surrounded by so many familiar faces, but I felt better.

  The fogginess in my head subsided and gave way to an excitement like nothing I ever experienced before. I was getting married. Tomorrow.

  Jake opened up a few bottles of Restoration Red and hosted an improvised cocktail hour in the barn while we waited for dinner to be served. One of the first things I did, after running back to the house to change out of my boots, was corner Annie.

  “You picked the dresses? Tell me all about them.”

  She laughed. “Hi to you, too.”

  “Sorry.” I gave her a hug. “Let’s back up. Hi. How are you? How’s the new job?”

  “It’s great. I’m really—”

  I interrupted her. “Wait a minute! Why did you blow me off when I called you?”

  She threw up her hands in surrender. “I had to! I couldn’t talk to you. There was no way I could have kept quiet about all this.”

  “How long have you known?”

  She sighed. “Remember the day I told you I saw Logan with someone?”

  “Yes…”

  “Well, later that night, he called to explain everything, and to ask for my help planning.”

  “You knew this whole time? And you let me believe he was seeing someone else?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But I didn’t have a choice, and I knew it would work out in the end. Besides, it’s not like you were going to go out and find anyone else in this Podunk place.” She laughed.

  I forced an awkward laugh of my own.

  Yep, no one around here. Just me and the grapes.

  “Cheese? Fruit?” Jake appeared between us, holding a tray of hors devours.

  “Don’t mind if I do.” I picked a strawberry off the tray.

  “So, were you surprised, Tessy?”

  “I’m still surprised.”

  Jake pumped his fist into the air. “I’m good. Aren’t I good, Tessy?”

  “I’m going to get you back for this someday, Jake Dougherty. You made me run around like a crazy person for the past couple weeks.”

  “I did you a favor. We both know you would have been just as crazy planning your own wedding. Only, it would have dragged on for months. Years, maybe.”

  I shrugged. He was right.

  “Besides, it was fun for me to let you think your little wedding idea was working,” he said.

  Ouch. His words stung for an insta
nt, and then I remembered Natalie. She stood in the corner talking to one of Logan’s cousins. “Hey,” I said. “Have a little faith. I booked another wedding already. See that girl over there? She’s planning to get married here on May nineteenth.”

  He stepped back, a look of surprise on his face. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. So my little wedding idea is working, thank you very much.”

  But one local wedding wasn’t enough to save the vineyard. And with no celebrity story to leak, my media blitz wasn’t going to happen, either. It was over. I knew it, and the look in Jake’s eyes told me he knew it, too. But this wasn’t the time to talk about it.

  “You’re a good sister, Tessy,” he said.

  A tear threatened to trickle down my cheek. I changed the subject. “How’s Mom doing?”

  “All right.” He glanced over to where she stood by the bar talking to Logan’s father. “That guy’s not exactly Mr. Personality, is he?”

  I punched Jake in the arm.

  “I have to go make my rounds,” he said. “Can I come to the bachelorette party tonight?”

  Bachelorette party?

  “Sorry. Girls only.” Annie plucked a cheese square off the tray and popped it in her mouth.

  “Your loss.” Jake gave me a kiss on the cheek, and then whisked the appetizers off to the other side of the room.

  CHAPTER 31

  We were getting married. This was a big deal. A really big deal.

  I stood at the altar in the front of the barn, holding Logan’s hands and staring into his eyes.

  Jake, our officiant, had been going on for a few moments, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The only thing I was aware of was the heaviness of the situation all around me, weighing down on my shoulders, holding me in place.

  Is it hot in here? Because it feels hot.

  I looked around to see if anyone else seemed to be sweltering.

  No. It’s just you, Tess. Relax. Try to breathe.

  “Are you okay?” Logan mouthed.

  I smiled in response, and mouthed back. “Fine.”

  That’s right. You’re fine, Tess.

  Aren’t you?

  Yes. Yes of course you are.

  Well, besides the fact it’s two-hundred degrees in here. Honestly. Would it have killed you to get a fan?

  Next time, I decided. Next time I’d make sure it was cooler in here.

  Wait a minute. There wasn’t going to be a next time. I was done planning weddings. I would be jumping back into my career soon. It was for the best because I couldn’t imagine the idea of me planning weddings for a living going over too well with Logan. He would never encourage me to do anything so spontaneous, not when I already had an established career to get back to. That would be impractical. No, more than that. It would be crazy, by Logan’s standards anyway.

  And besides, maybe I wasn’t so great at this wedding planning thing after all. I’d forgotten the officiant. The officiant, for crying out loud. It was pretty much the most important part of the whole wedding, and it slipped my mind. Good thing Jake was one step ahead of me.

  All right, fine. So I was going back to my old career. So what? It was the right thing to do. It made sense. But it didn’t mean I couldn’t make changes in other areas in my life. For instance, I was not going to slip back into pretending with Logan.

  I was not going back to the symphony.

  I shifted all my weight to my left foot. How long had we been standing up here? My legs ached.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Logan mouthed.

  I nodded.

  It was true. I was okay.

  For the most part.

  It was just… maybe I should tell him about the symphony.

  Because if I didn’t, then I was letting him believe a lie. I was setting unrealistic expectations, pulling the old bait and switch. And maybe the fact I liked the symphony was important to him. After all, it was how our relationship started off. It was time to tell him, I decided. Right now, before it was too late. Before I let him marry a fake-symphony-loving stranger.

  “Logan?” I asked.

  Jake stopped talking midsentence. Both he and Logan looked at me.

  I glanced at Jake, then back at Logan. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course. Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  “Yeah. But I need to tell you something.”

  “Tessy,” Jake said, “you really can’t do this tomorrow, you know.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  I glanced over at Sara and Annie, who came in to watch the rehearsal. It was just the five of us in the room, but even so, I felt uncomfortable saying what I needed to say in front of them.

  I turned to face them. “Can you guys give us a minute?”

  They nodded with wide eyes and skittered out of the barn.

  “I’ll go, too,” Jake said.

  “No.” I held up my hand. “It’s fine. You can stay.”

  “What is it, Tess?” Logan asked. “Do you need to sit down?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great.” I sat down in the first row and Logan took the seat next to me.

  “Logan, I don’t know how to say this. But…”

  He leaned forward as I tried to find the right words.

  “I’m just going to come out with it.” I took a breath. “I hate the symphony. I mean, I can’t stand it. I’ve always hated it. I never, ever want to go again.”

  He leaned back and rubbed his chin.

  I felt uneasy in his silence, so I kept talking. “I should have told you this a long time ago, I know. I meant to. But I never got around to it. I’m sorry, I—”

  “Tess.” He interrupted me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “Tess, calm down. It’s okay.”

  I paused. “It is?”

  “Yes. In fact, now that you mention it, I guess I should come clean about something, too.”

  I felt a sudden sense of trepidation. What on earth did he need to come clean about? Hadn’t he hidden enough?

  “I hate Junior Mints.” He smiled as he said it.

  I let his confession hang there for a moment. As it sank in, I smiled, too. The smile turned to laughter, and soon, we both burst out laughing, bent over at the waist and hysterically snorting into our hands while Jake looked on in confusion.

  When I was able to compose myself, I sat up in my chair and wiped tears from my cheeks.

  Logan sat up too and let out a cathartic sigh.

  “You hate Junior Mints?”

  “Ugh. Yes. They’re terrible. How can you eat those things?”

  “But I’ve gotten them for you hundreds of times. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “And I’ve saved every box. I have quite the collection.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “Well, it’s like you said. I meant to. But then, after a while, it didn’t seem important.”

  “Why were you eating them that night, then? The night we met, I mean.”

  He sat back in his chair, relaxing as he let himself fall back into the memory. “I’ve thought about that a lot. It was almost as if I could sense something big was about to happen. I wanted to change things up. I hadn’t tried Junior Mints since I was a kid, so I thought I’d give them another chance. I ate a few and kept trying to like them, but they’re so awful.”

  “Take that back. They’re not awful. They’re delicious.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. At first, I regretted buying them. And then, I saw you eating them. I don’t know. Sometimes, when I think about it, I’m sure it was fate. How else do you explain it?”

  My heart melted a little. Fate. He was right. It sure seemed like that, didn’t it?

  “So, on the one hand, I hate Junior Mints. But in a way, I love them. Because they led me to you,” he said.

  “That’s… that’s really sweet, Logan.”

  “It’s true. Do you feel better?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded and looked at Jake. “Sorry about that.”
/>
  “Don’t worry about it, Tessy. Now where were we?”

  CHAPTER 32

  “All right, all right. Say good night, you two.”

  Annie beckoned for me to follow her back to the cottage.

  After my big confession, we finished up the rehearsal and ate dinner at the picnic tables amongst the grapevines. There was a lot of laughing and talking, and Logan made a toast. I realized, when he was almost finished, that I was only half-listening. I was too busy taking in all the faces at the table, checking to make sure I said hello to everyone. When I turned my attention back to Logan, he was lifting his glass and thanking Jake and Sara for hosting the event.

  Now it was dark, and most of the guests had gone back to the hotel in town. Logan and I stood under the tent, playing with the dimmer switch to adjust the brightness of the chandeliers.

  “I guess I should go,” I said. “Big day tomorrow.”

  He smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

  He leaned in to kiss me, but Annie interrupted. “Save it for the wedding. Come on, let’s go. Official maid-of-honor business.”

  She grabbed my hand and tugged me away from the tent.

  “Good night! See you tomorrow,” I called over my shoulder to Logan.

  “Good night, Tess. I love you.”

  Annie and I walked up the path to the cottage, arm in arm.

  “I hope you’re not tired, because we have a lot of work to do.”

  The moment she said it, I realized I was exhausted. I’d been running on adrenaline for the past couple of days, even more so after the craziness of the proposal. Still, I was too excited to go to sleep. Which was a good thing, because I had to pick a wedding dress… tonight.

  When we reached the cottage, I unlocked the door and flipped on the light without glancing up. But once I stepped inside and saw how drastically my surroundings had changed, I let out an audible gasp.

  It was incredible.

  There were roses everywhere, and a table was set up with champagne and various desserts. Three dress forms were positioned in the middle of the room, each wearing one of the most gorgeous wedding gowns I’d ever seen. A full-length mirror had been brought in, along with a selection of shoes, jewelry, and veils.