by Abby Gaines
Behind Lexie, Angela’s eyes met Sadie’s. The older woman shuddered. Presumably she didn’t think much of Meg’s taste in friends, either. That might make the wedding less pleasant, but it didn’t matter in the long run.
“Just don’t let Meg arrange your date with Trey,” Sadie advised Lexie.
Lexie clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, my gosh, you remember that. The Millennial Centennial dance.”
“I believe the incident merits a whole chapter in the history of Cordova.”
Lexie stared, then snickered. “You’re a hoot. When did you get so funny?”
This was surreal. Sadie felt as if she was in a coming-of-age movie, where any moment now Lexie would tearfully confess that all through high school she’d envied Sadie. For her brain. And because Meg liked Sadie better.
“You were so boring back in the day,” Lexie said.
Or not.
“And, frankly, snooty,” Lexie added. “But Meg always said you’re not like that deep down and I should give you a chance.”
Sadie realized her mouth was hanging open. She swallowed. “That’s good advice.”
Irena finished with Lexie’s dress and moved on to Sadie. The woman must see and hear just about everything in her line of work, Sadie thought.
“What do you plan to wear to the wedding, Angela?” she asked Daniel’s mother.
“I haven’t thought about it.” Mrs. Wilson’s tone said I don’t really care.
Come on, everyone liked Meg. Loved her.
Sadie darted a glance at Lexie to see if she thought there was anything odd about the woman. Lexie’s eyes were narrowed.
“I think it’s great the way Meg makes Daniel so happy,” Sadie said. Theoretically, she did think that. She just couldn’t stomach it in practice.
“They’re the perfect couple,” Lexie added.
She and Lexie were on the same side. Who’d have thought?
“Absolutely.” Angela tried to sound enthusiastic, but Sadie took it with a grain of salt.
Daniel was an only child, very close to his parents. If his mom didn’t like Meg, it could make their married life difficult.
“Are you and Dr. Wilson looking forward to the wedding?” she asked. Confusingly, everyone in Daniel’s family was called Dr. Wilson. His dad was a neurologist.
“Of course,” Angela said. “We’re both very pleased for Daniel. Though the suddenness of the engagement didn’t do much for my heart.” She tapped her chest lightly to indicate she was joking.
Not funny.
“You.” Irena tugged Sadie’s skirt. “You’re the one trying on the bride’s dress?”
“That’s me,” Sadie admitted reluctantly
“What a shame,” Angela said, “that Meg didn’t turn up.”
Didn’t turn up? “You mean,” Sadie said, “how awful for those cabin crew injured in a smash.”
“Of course.” Angela glanced at her watch. “Sadie, dear, you must excuse me—I have a patient at one-thirty. It’s been a delight to see you.” After she left, Sadie let out a long breath of relief.
Lexie’s sigh echoed her. “What a witch. And that’s being polite for Meg’s sake.”
“I’m not sure you need to be,” Sadie said. “I hope Daniel’s dad is nicer to Meg.” But as she remembered him, Daniel’s father was the male equivalent of his mother personality-wise.
“I can’t believe Meg’s getting married.” Still in her bridesmaid dress, Lexie twirled in front of the mirror and gave her reflection a satisfied smile. “She parties harder than I do.”
Sadie wasn’t sure about that. “Marriage will be a big adjustment,” she agreed.
“Is she pregnant?” Lexie asked.
“No!” Sadie’s stomach clenched. “I don’t think—she would have told me.”
“Just checking,” Lexie said. “This whole thing seems so rushed.”
“You told Daniel’s mom they’re the perfect couple.”
“I just wanted to rile the old biddy.” Lexie frowned, but smoothed her forehead as soon as she saw the lines it produced. “I’ve only met Daniel a couple of times. Super-nice guy, but…”
“Not right for Meg?” Sadie held her breath.
“Yeah. He’s too serious, or something. I think he’ll put pressure on her to be more like his family. And then she wouldn’t be Meg.”
At last! Someone else who recognized Meg and Daniel’s romance for the unmitigated disaster it had the potential to be.
“Did you tell her that?” Sadie asked.
Lexie leaned into the mirror to examine her eyes. “It’s not easy—as a bridesmaid you’re supposed to share the love.”
“I’ve said a few things, but didn’t get far,” Sadie said. “It might help if you talked to Meg. Tell her your concerns, check she’s thought this through.”
She’d promised Trey she wouldn’t raise doubts in Meg’s mind. She hadn’t promised she wouldn’t ask someone else to. Ha!
“I guess you’re right.” Lexie rubbed at a little patch of fog her breath had made on the mirror glass. “How about we all have a girls’ night out and I’ll do it then?”
“Or a girls’ night in.” Sadie stepped out of her maid-of-honor dress, and Irena lifted the wedding dress down from its high hook.
“You must be very careful,” the seamstress warned, as if Sadie would plant a galumphing foot through the net petticoats.
Nancy hadn’t arrived with the shoes yet, but judging by the dozens of pearl buttons, it would take a few minutes to get the dress done up.
Sadie stood still, shivering when Irena’s cold fingers brushed her back as she managed the buttons into submission. At last the Russian woman stepped back.
“Dress is good,” she said.
Right on cue, out in the store, the old-fashioned bell dinged. Nancy with the shoes. Irena’s assistant went to the door.
Sadie turned to look in the mirror.
The dress was gorgeous. The boned bodice and cap sleeves blended sophistication and innocence. The heavy satin gleamed expensively. Meg would look incredible. Daniel would be blown away by his bride.
Sadie’s chest constricted. She rubbed in the region of her heart with her fist.
Irena stuck her head out through the curtain. “Ah, you have the shoes, excellent.”
She whisked the curtain aside, leaving Sadie in full view of…Trey?
“What are you doing here?” Sadie asked.
For a moment he froze, his eyes locked with hers in the mirror. Then he strode forward, jeans and boots ultramasculine among the bridal fripperies, his shoulders taking up more space than they had a right to. The white satin stiletto shoes in his right hand did nothing to diminish his virility.
“Mmm, this is a nice surprise,” Lexie purred.
Nice? That wasn’t how Sadie would describe the look on his face. Ominous, maybe.
“Why are you wearing my sister’s wedding dress?” he demanded.
CHAPTER TEN
OH. THAT.
“If you’re indulging some kind of fantasy…” Trey growled.
“Of course not!” Sadie avoided Lexie’s avid curiosity as she explained Meg’s absence. He barely listened, scanning the changing area as she spoke.
“Where’s the coffee?” he interrupted her.
“Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning,” Lexie said happily. “Irena, do you do coffee?”
Trey’s eyebrows drew together. “I meant Sadie’s coffee.” He turned to Irena. “Did she bring coffee in here?”
Irena spread her hands in blank surprise.
“Trey, are you okay?” Sadie asked. “Oh!” Her blood ran hot in her veins. “You thought… That was a joke!”
“What did he think?” Lexie demanded.
That I would spill coffee on my best friend’s wedding dress. He was sick!
“Meg asked me to try on the dress,” Sadie said. “She insisted.”
“It’s true,” Lexie assured him, though she had only Sadie’s word for that. “Tr
ey, I have no idea what this is about, but I think you ought to apologize for yelling at Sadie.”
Sadie smiled her gratitude.
For one moment she thought Trey would refuse Lexie’s suggestion. Then he relaxed.
“Sorry,” he said. Then he actually smiled at her.
Presumably for Lexie’s benefit.
“Apology accepted.” Sadie hoped her excessively gracious tone would annoy him.
But he was busy scanning her figure, starting at the hem pooled on the floor, rising over her hips and waist. When he reached the swell of her breasts over the top of the too-tight bodice—Sadie was curvier than Meg—he stopped.
The sudden heat in his gaze disconcerted her. She almost rubbed her palms down the satin skirt, but a squeak of alarm from Irena arrested her hands short of contact with the fabric.
“You put shoes on now.” Irena pushed Sadie toward a velvet upholstered chair.
“Is there something going on between you two?” Lexie asked.
“Trey thinks I might damage Meg’s dress in an attempt to stop the wedding,” Sadie said as she sat down.
His startled gaze flew to her.
Irena made a half lunge toward Sadie, but stopped herself.
“Lexie feels the same way I do about Meg marrying Daniel,” Sadie told Trey smugly. “She thinks they’re wrong for each other.”
“Totally wrong,” Lexie agreed. “But I’d never have thought of wrecking the dress. That’s evil.”
“I’m not going to wreck the dress.” Sadie took one of the shoes from Trey. And discovered that the boned bodice and full skirt of Meg’s wedding dress didn’t allow her to lean forward enough to put the shoe on.
“She’s talked you into this, hasn’t she?” Trey asked Lexie.
“Really, Trey, Sadie may be smart, but I’m quite capable of independent thought.”
Sadie sat back and lifted the yards of satin to reveal her feet. “You’ll need to put the shoes on for me.” She smirked up at him.
Trey sighed as he knelt in front of Sadie, who was exceptionally glad she’d had a pedicure before Nancy’s party.
“Give me your foot,” he said.
Sadie arched her right foot toward him. He hesitated for one second, then he grasped her ankle with one hand, and with the other slid the shoe on.
The oddest sensation skittered through Sadie. She’d heard the foot was an erogenous zone, but had dismissed it as wishful thinking on the basis of her own limited experience.
But this… The pressure of Trey’s thumb on her ankle bone, the warmth of his palm cupping her heel, the slide of satin and leather over her toes…
He dropped her foot; totally relaxed, it thudded to the floor. “Other one,” he ordered, his tone impersonal.
“Trey, Sadie and I are going out clubbing with Meg soon,” Lexie said. “You should come with us.”
“Clubbing?” Sadie said, dismayed. “I thought maybe a bottle of wine at my place. You know, so we can have that conversation…” She gave Lexie a meaningful look.
“Meg needs a last wild night as a single gal,” Lexie insisted. “As well as her bachelorette party,” she said quickly. “No doubt you have something outrageous planned for that.”
“Umm,” Sadie said, aware of Trey fitting the other shoe to her foot, but determined not to watch this time. “Okay, I guess we can go clubbing. But it’s a girls’ night. He can’t come.” She jerked a thumb at Trey.
He got up—he must have finished with the shoe.
Sadie stood, too. Irena pushed Trey aside so she could view the dress. “Nearly perfect,” she declared, and crouched at the hem with her box of pins.
“What do you think of the dress, Trey?” Lexie asked. While he was busy with the shoes, she’d done a rapid change into skintight jeans and a low-cut top. She winked at Sadie.
Trey cleared his throat. “Uh, nice.” He looked conflicted. The way his eyes roamed her, it was evident he appreciated Sadie’s figure. The frown furrowing his forehead suggested he didn’t like the thought of her in his sister’s wedding dress.
“Okay, I finished,” the dressmaker said. “You take dress off now.”
Trey folded his arms. “You heard the lady.”
Sadie gave him a pointed look. “Trey, could you leave? If I promise not to damage the dress while I step out of it?” She turned to the Russian woman. “Irena, you don’t happen to have a cup of bleach lying around, do you?”
“Very funny,” he said.
Sadie was smiling as he left.
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, Sadie went out on the double date Meg and Daniel had set up with Daniel’s friend Pete.
Her plan was to be sparkling company so that Pete would rave about her to Daniel afterward, and Daniel would be reminded of the great times they’d had together before he met Meg. Just in case he was looking for…alternatives.
It was a far from noble tactic, but she was getting desperate. Lexie hadn’t committed to a date for her talk with Meg, and with every day that passed the wedding was getting closer. Besides, Sadie hadn’t promised Trey she wouldn’t make Daniel jealous.
There was nothing specifically wrong with the date, a dinner at an Italian bistro. Pete was a nice enough guy and he seemed to like Sadie. She was pretty sure he’d tell Daniel that afterward. And Daniel did get a bit squinty-eyed when Pete held her hand across the table. When he asked to take a look at Pete’s cuff links, she had the strong impression it was to get Pete’s hand away from hers.
She should have been ecstatic. She was. Except…Meg was quiet because she and Daniel had argued about the wedding. Daniel’s mother wanted another bridesmaid in the lineup, a cousin of Daniel’s. Meg didn’t.
Sadie was feeling the strain of the fine line she was walking. The idea was for Daniel to want her after he broke up with Meg. And for the breakup to be a source of relief to Meg, once she realized how wrong the relationship was. Sadie didn’t want Meg unhappy.
In an attempt to stay lively through her gloomy thoughts, she drank more red wine in one night than she’d normally consume in a week. Pete drove her home, but she declined his self-invitation to come in for coffee and wove her way dizzily to bed.
He was probably regretting driving her home, she thought. It had been unnecessary, since Daniel and Meg had come back here, too.
Daniel was staying over most nights now. Sadie had taken to sleeping with earplugs, just in case. Tonight she stuffed them into her ears with fumbling fingers, pulled off her clothes, found what might have been pajamas, lay on her bed and begged the room to stop spinning.
She woke at six with a dust-dry throat and a headache that felt like a hundred tiny splinters in her right temple. She fumbled for the glass of water she’d conscientiously left on her nightstand, only to knock it to the floor. Rats.
Sadie rolled out of bed, took a moment to steady herself, then shuffled to the kitchen.
A cold pot of coffee sat on the counter—she’d left when Meg and Daniel were making it, and making out, last night. She poured a mug of the brew and zapped it in the microwave. While she waited, she chugged a glass of water.
The microwave beeped. A slosh of cream and two sugars in the coffee and she was good to go. Squinting through her lashes—she hadn’t been brave enough to attempt a full eye-open yet—she began the shuffle back to her room.
In the hallway she heard a noise. A muffled male voice from Meg’s bedroom. Daniel. A giggle, followed by a squeal. Meg.
The water she’d drunk too fast surged back up her throat. Sadie swallowed, then clamped a hand over her mouth.
So they’d got over last night’s argument, then.
And whatever twinge Daniel had felt over Pete holding Sadie’s hand hadn’t lasted more than five minutes.
All that soul-searching, feeling guilty, for nothing.
Another giggle drifted down the hall.
Outside, she ordered herself, and turned around as fast as her headache would permit.
She stepped out the front door, closing it quietly be
hind her. She took a sip of coffee. “Mmm,” she said, as if all was well with the world, and the man she loved wasn’t in bed—
Not thinking about that. Sadie closed her eyes. Unwelcome images crowded in, so she opened them again. And did a double take.
Huh? How had those plants got on her porch? Pots of something she was too fuzzy to identify were lined up in front of the low wall. Blocking her view of the yard. She rubbed her eyes, wondering if the foliage was a hangover-induced hallucination.
Nope, still there. Sadie scuffed across the porch, feeling about sixty-five years old, to touch a waxy green leaf. Definitely real. Beautiful. An exotic shrub. South American. If her head would stop pounding, she’d remember the name.
“Grista—Griso…” she muttered.
“Griselinia.” Trey’s head popped up from behind the shrub.
“Aah!” Her mug fell to the porch, spilling its contents over her bare feet. “Dammit!” She hopped around, even though the coffee hadn’t been more than warm, because it gave her a good excuse to allow tears to well up and she felt so damn ill and so damn furious with Daniel and Meg…
“Hell, Sadie, are you okay?” Trey took the steps up onto the porch in a couple of strides. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—” He cursed. “You’re crying. You’re burned.”
He made for the front door.
“No!” Sadie’s cry halted him.
“We need a first-aid kit,” he said.
“I’m fine—just need some cold water from the hose.” She pointed to the faucet at the far end of the porch.
By the time he’d pulled the hose over the railing and turned on the water to a gentle flow, she’d dried her eyes. Trey directed the hose at her feet.
“Yow, that’s cold.” Sadie hopped again.
Trey muttered something that might have been I can’t win, but he kept watering her toes.
“Enough,” she said after a few more seconds. The icy water had been bracing enough to make her pull herself together.
“You’re sure? You’re not going to cry again?” Trey twisted the hose nozzle and the water stopped.
She glared. “I needed that coffee.”
“Clearly,” he said. “I’ll get you another one, Ms. Cranky.” He headed for the front door.
