Always the Designer, Never the Bride

by Sandra D. Bricker

  "Anyone who inspires my brother the way she does is a blessing in my book."

  Devon and Carly were next down the center of the two lines on the dance floor, and Audrey shook her head.

  "You mean, inspires him to dress like a nerd?"

  "There's that." After a chuckle, J. R. turned serious. "But also to have such joy waiting for him when he comes back from a place like Afghanistan."

  Audrey looked up into J. R.'s steel-blue eyes and nodded. "She doesn't talk about it much, but I think she's all about creating a safe, inviting home for him to return to. It's really important to her."

  "God bless her then."

  Audrey swallowed around the lump in her throat. "And him."

  "Amen."

  They shared a smile, and Audrey sighed. "Do you suppose they have root beer floats in this place?"

  "What kind of fifties joint doesn't have a root beer float on the menu?" he teased. "And if they have it with a burger and fries, I'm right there with you. Let's go find a booth."

  Kat's eyes sparkled like perfect round diamonds over Russell's shoulder as Audrey passed the dance floor with J. R. The music had changed, and Russell took her into his arms for a slow dance to "I Only Have Eyes for You."

  "There's one!" J. R. exclaimed, and he snatched up her hand and led her through the clusters of partygoers.

  He stood back and let her slip into the red vinyl booth ahead of him. The chrome and laminate tabletop held squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard, and copper-topped salt and pepper shakers. Miniature jukeboxes displayed the menu in plastic pages that turned inside.

  "There you go!" J. R. told her. "Root beer floats. D-32." He pressed the buttons on the jukebox to place the order. "Cheeseburger and fries?"

  "Perfect."

  "B-8," he said as he pushed the correct order buttons. "This place is really unique."

  "Just like Carly," she remarked.

  "Did you see the cake she and Emma designed?"

  "No. Where is it?"

  J. R. pointed out the chrome counter at the front of the diner. A massive jukebox cake looked more like art than confection, and the top layer displayed the moves of two sock-hop dancers in dark silhouette.

  "Good grief!" she exclaimed.

  "I know," he said, shaking his head. "Emma is some kind of cake genius, isn't she? And she's diabetic to boot! Can you imagine?"

  "Not at all."

  The two of them shared a brief chuckle before Audrey turned serious and looked into J. R.'s eyes.

  "Listen," she started, then flicked the edge of the laminate table with her fingernail several times. "About my behavior last night . . . you know, in the hallway before dinner."

  "Oh. Yeah." He teetered on the edge of a smile, never quite giving in completely.

  "I was rude."

  "Ha! Yeah, you were."

  Suddenly defensive, she countered, "Well, you really shouldn't hover that way and surprise a person, you know. And the way you just gawked at me—"

  J. R. reached across the table and touched the top of her hand. Audrey went immediately silent.

  "I can see that I bring out the worst in you, for some reason," he observed.

  "Oh, no, it's not that—"

  "No use denying it, Audrey. A man senses these things. But the fact is you haven't gotten to know me yet, or given me a chance to show you that I'm not really rude. The fact is I only gawk when I'm overwhelmed by unbelievable beauty. And you, my friend, are . . ." He shook his head from side to side as he withdrew his hand. ". . . breathtaking."

  "Oh. Well, I . . ." His smile finally uncurled and spread across his face like a sudden sunrise. ". . . I don't really know what to say to that."

  "You could try thanking me."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  She nodded, returning her attention to the tabletop as he slipped out of his jacket and tossed it to the booth next to him. She hadn't seen his bare arms before, and her whole body tensed up like a clenched fist at the suntanned and chiseled muscular arms before her. One of them sported a colorful masterpiece of a tattoo depicting a Harley-Davidson, a desert horizon, and a cross standing tall at the top of a hill.

  "And now," he continued, "you could say something reciprocal back to me," he suggested.

  Audrey couldn't stop the grin that blossomed. "Like . . . ?" she began. "Oh, I know. How about this: Grease is the word!"

  He casually ran his hand along the side of his head, not actually touching the slicked-back pompadour, and Audrey laughed. "Or maybe I could say, 'Nice ink you're sporting there on your arm.'"

  He shot a glance down at his right arm and the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

  "Or how about, 'Cool pack o' Lucky Strikes rolled up in the sleeve of your T-shirt'?"

  "You could say that," he said, considering it carefully. "Except that they're candy cigarettes because I don't smoke."

  Audrey chuckled. "In that case, chuck 'em out on the table, Fonzie. Let's share a smoke then."

  J. R. kind of took her breath away when he grinned at her. "Maybe later." With a nod toward the waitress heading their way, he added, "Here comes our burgers."

  "Two root beer floats," the girl said as she unloaded the tray. "Two deluxe cheeseburgers and fries. Anything else?"

  "That should do it," he answered.

  J. R. felt certain he'd never met a woman as competitive as Audrey the wedding dress designer.

  "Last frame," she announced, hovering over his chair behind the score table. "You and Russell both need strikes, or Kat and I wipe the floor with you."

  "Promise?" Russell interjected, and Kat encouraged him with laughter.

  Grabbing Kat by the hand, Audrey forced an over-the-top jitterbug to the Coasters tune crooning at them from the overhead speakers.

  "Speaking of yakety-yak," J. R. tossed at her, referencing the song and punctuating it with yak-yak mimes between his fingers.

  She pulled away from her dance with Kat and stood over him, her hand on her shapely hip. "All right, smar—"

  "Smarty pants!" Kat dove in and finished for her as she sank down next to Russell on the bench. "That's what she was going to call you. Smarty pants."

  "Sure it was."

  "Just get up there and throw your gutter ball," Audrey taunted, "so we can call this a victory for The Pink Ladies."

  Kat and Russell sat side by side, Russell's arm around her shoulders, and Kat's hands folded neatly in her lap. When he noticed J. R. glancing at them, Russell nodded toward the alley.

  "Go on then. Show 'er how it's done, mate."

  J. R. stood up, and Kat leaned forward and looked up at him. "Try to ignore her," she said, nose wrinkled. "She's stressed."

  "So that's her excuse," he remarked, and he picked up the dark green bowling ball from the rack.

  Audrey followed him, standing so close that he could smell faint traces of her perfume.

  "You wanna back off a little here, Jesse James?" he pointedly asked. "Give me some room to slaughter you?"

  "In your dreams."

  He raised the ball to his chest and held it there, glaring at her until she took two large steps backward.

  "Thank you."

  Just as he extended the ball and started to pull it back for a roll, Audrey shouted, "You're so welcome!"

  J. R. lowered the bowling ball and stared hard at her for a moment. "What is with you? Compete much?"

  Russell and Kat snickered, and Audrey raised her hands in surrender and joined them on the planked wooden bench. "Go ahead," she told him. "The alley's all yours. Do your stuff."

  J. R. cracked his neck and stretched it out. What an annoying little delicacy this one had turned out to be.

  "Go on, J. R." Russell encouraged. "Take it home, buddy."

  Clenching his teeth, he took careful aim . . . stepped forward—one, two, three—and he sent the bowling ball sailing down the alley. He held his breath as it rolled, releasing it with a shout when the ball exploded against the pins and knocked
every one of them over.

  When he finally turned around, she made quite a picture with her face all pinched up that way. He unabashedly broke into laughter.

  "What's the matter, Jesse? Nothing to say now?"

  She seemed to think it over for a long moment before perking up. "Well, Russell still has to make a strike. And that's not very likely." With an apologetic glance at Russell, she added, "No offense, Russell."

  "None taken, love."

  "Get up there and show her how it's done," J. R. told him.

  Russell unfolded from the bench and stood there looking at them for a long and frozen moment before he turned to Kat and reached for her hand. When she took it and started to follow him around the bench and away from the alley, J. R. shouted, "What are you doing?"

  "You can't walk away now!" Audrey countered. "You have one more frame."

  "Russell," J. R. called after him. "What are you doing?"

  When Russell turned back, his face was deadpan serious. "Saving you two from yourselves," he stated. Grinning at Kat, he added, "Karaoke, my pet?"

  She nodded. "Sounds good. What will you sing?"

  Audrey appeared at J. R.'s side, both of them with their hands on their hips and elbows touching as they watched Russell and Kat scoot away.

  "I don't believe he just did that."

  "I never liked him," Audrey added.

  "Yeah, me neither."

  "We would like to thank all of our family and friends for being with us tonight," Devon said into the handheld microphone from the karaoke stage. "You've all supported our relationship in some way, or you wouldn't be here, and we want each of you to know how much you mean to us."

  Leaning across Devon to talk into the microphone in his hand, Carly said, "I'd like to introduce everyone to a very special person in this room. At least I know for certain she is beloved and treasured by my husband."

  "Sorry, honey," Devon cracked, and Carly kissed his cheek.

  "Emma Rae, can you come up here, please?"

  Emma looked around in shock before her fiancé, Jackson, stood up and let her out of the booth. Audrey could see how uncomfortable the attention made her.

  "When my wedding planner, Sherilyn, introduced me to Emma Rae Travis, it was to talk about our wedding cake," Carly announced, with her hand affectionately placed on Emma's shoulder. "It's going to be fantastic, by the way. But while we were talking about what she could do for us, I told Emma about tonight's party, and she dreamed up the design for this fantastic jukebox cake right over there."

  Audrey noticed that the cake had been wheeled into the room, parked next to the stage.

  "When I told her that Devon's best childhood memory was the marble layer cake his mom used to make on special occasions, she baked two different versions, and Sherilyn had us all over for a tasting."

  "You can see where this is going," Devon interjected, and the crowd rumbled with laughter.

  "So I am pleased to tell you all that you are going to experience the ecstasy Devon and I were allowed to experience that night at Sherilyn and Andy's house. So, Emma, on behalf of this entire room of, what, about thirty of our friends and family members, we thank you."

  "Now, honey?" Devon asked pathetically, and Carly nodded. "Yes! The wife says, 'Let us all eat cake!' Thank you, Emma, from the bottom of our hungry, cake-loving hearts."

  Applause filled the karaoke room, and Emma escaped the stage as quickly as she could. When she slid back into the booth beside Jackson, Audrey caught her eye, and Emma shook her head and grinned.

  A photographer snapped away as Carly and Devon made the first cuts, and Audrey thought one more time that she'd seldom seen her friend as happy as she seemed to be with Devon. Her heart squeezed a little as she watched them, playfully sharing a slice of cake, pausing for a loving kiss.

  Forcing herself to look away, she landed on Sherilyn and Andy, but the way they looked into one another's eyes at just that moment did nothing to dilute the regret pulsing through Audrey.

  Wait a minute.

  Happy couples were everywhere, in fact. Fee and Sean, as unlikely a pairing as Audrey could think of, their heads tipped close together and chatting as if no one else existed in the room; Jackson, delivering a cup of tea to the table and setting it down in front of Emma, and he kissed her hand as he slid in next to her; even Kat and Russell Walker had paired off. Audrey looked around eagerly, almost desperate to find one other single in the room. But they were all squared off neatly, the whole room of them, as if cordoned into two-by-two segments by some invisible coupling tape.

  What is this place? Freakin' Noah's Ark?

  And then her eyes landed on J. R. Hunt.

  Watching her again, of course. He smiled one of those smoldering, casual smiles at her from the other side of the room.

  Oh, for crying out loud. Quit your gawking.

  There had to be someone else uncoupled in the place, and Audrey set out to find them. Her gaze moved to and fro, from table to table to table, until she found one, two—no, three!— apparently unattached singles in the immediate vicinity.

  Not one of them looked even remotely interesting, however, and she noticed that her disappointment sort of sucked the air out of the room. She grabbed her bag and wove her way between the tables until she finally reached the front door and pushed through it. Standing outside in the cool night air felt good as she inhaled deeply. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the concrete wall of the building.

  When she opened them again, Audrey jumped to find J. R. standing next to her.

  "Smoke?" he asked, extending an open package of candy cigarettes in her direction.

  Her first inclination had been to swat him for scaring her, but he looked almost adorable, so she shrugged and took one of them from the pack and held it loosely between her lips.

  "Well?" she said with one eyebrow arched.

  "Well, what?"

  "Got a light?"

  J. R. Hunt unexpectedly charmed her with a wave of laughter that sounded as sweet as church bells on a distant hill. And Audrey didn't have the good sense to listen to the other bells— the alarm bells—sounding off in her head.

  "How about you take me for a ride on that motorcycle of yours," she suggested.

  And five minutes later, Audrey lifted her petticoat, tossed one leg over the bike and hiked herself up to the back of the seat. With her cotton poodle bag pressed into his back and her arms tucked beneath J. R.'s warm leather jacket, Audrey held on tight as they flew over the hill and rode straight out of Sandy Springs.

  "It's one of my favorites," J. R. said from atop the picnic table where he and Audrey had parked near the mill in Roswell. "I bought this bike and restored her with the intent of resale, but I just couldn't bring myself to let her go."

  "Her?" Audrey repeated. "I sense a bit of a love affair going on here."

  "You could say that."

  "Does she have a name?" she teased. "Tell the truth. You've given her a name, haven't you?"

  He waved her off at first. How could he admit to her that he really had dubbed his bike with the moniker of his all-time favorite female? Then, on a spontaneous whim, he shrugged and confessed.

  "Tillie."

  "Tillie!" she echoed with a laugh. "Tillie Harley-Davidson Hunt. I like it." After a moment, she coyly asked, "So? Out with it. Who's Tillie?"

  "My family's cocker spaniel when Dev and I were growing up. I have very fond memories of my summers with Tillie."

  Audrey's laughter twirled around him like a lasso, and it snagged him by the heart suddenly, tightening until he could hardly breathe.

  "She's a '57 Sportster," he managed, shoving through to another subject beyond the living doll seated below him on the bench of the picnic table. "That was the year Harley-Davidson introduced the Sportster. I guess I've put six grand into restoring her, but she's a fine bike now."

  Audrey pulled the candy cigarette he'd given her from the zippered compartment of her bag and lifted it toward him. "Well. Here's to Tillie
," she said in a sort of a toast before she took a bite out of it and fed him the other half.

  The moon hung low in the midnight blue Georgia sky, casting a silverish glow over Audrey that made her look a little like a porcelain doll in her petticoat and angora sweater. Her platinum hair turned to pewter in the moonlight as she stared out into the sky. Then, without so much as a glance in his direction, she sighed.

  "You're doing it again, aren't you?"

  "What?" But he knew what. And yes, he was staring at her again. He couldn't seem to help himself.

  "You're watching me."

  "Yeah," he admitted softly. "I am. How do you know?"

  Audrey turned around and narrowed her brown-gold eyes. "I can feel it."

  "Can you?" he asked, and he reached forward and sifted his fingers into the hair at the base of her ponytail.

  She stunned him a little when she moved into his touch, and she closed her eyes for a moment as he tightened his grip on the back of her head. Vowing not to let a moment like this one pass, he dropped from the tabletop down to the bench beside her in one quick swoop, his fingers tangling into her hair until he pulled the ribbon and the cloth band clean out of it. Digging both hands into her loose silky hair, he pulled her face gently toward him and pressed his lips to hers.

  They were soft and pliable, and she tasted like frosting. Wondering if she would let him, J. R. deepened the kiss. Slowly, cautiously. It was a little like stepping into a caldron of warm, simmering water, and J. R. could think about nothing more than the pleasure of plunging completely into it for a swim.

  With no forewarning whatsoever, Audrey inhaled sharply. And then she gave him the biggest surprise of his adult life when she slid her arms around his neck and pulled him toward her enthusiastically.

  J. R. thought he heard the distant sound of . . . angel's harps?

  "She's a nightmare. As Kat often reminds me, there's absolutely no chance of actually pleasing her. And yet I continue to try because . . . well, because I need her."

  "Look, you're a talented girl," J. R. commented as he stood over the sketches scattered across the table before them. "Certainly, there's another client that can offer you what Kim Renfroe can, minus all the drama."