"I still can't believe those nasty folks at the prison wouldn't let us send you some fresh fruit at the very least," Miss Fanny muttered, drawing her eyebrows together in a very unladylike frown.
"Like Ford said, rules are rules," Lucy reminded her before glancing at her watch.
"Is it time?" Sophie asked, her mouth suddenly dry.
"Almost."
"Reverend Bendix finally made it," Miss Rose Ruth said as she joined them. As the self-appointed coordinator of the wedding, she'd been downstairs waiting for the minister. "No thanks to you, Frances Ann Bedford."
"What are you goin' on about now?" Miss Fanny demanded peevishly.
"I specifically asked you to request the reverend's presence by one-thirty, did I not?"
"Perhaps that is what you meant to say, Rose Ruth, but you said two o'clock, and that is exactly what I passed on to Reverend Bendix."
Miss Rose Ruth drew a huffing breath. "That is the most blatant untruth you have ever uttered in all your seventy-nine years," she exclaimed.
"Seventy-six," Fanny corrected with a haughty lifting of her head that set the feather in her hat to bobbing. "You're seventy-nine."
"Perhaps you have also forgotten that you and I have always been the same age."
"Now that is not true—"
"Ladies, please!" Katie said, clapping her hands. "Sophie's already as nervous as all get-out. Why don't we all go on downstairs and give her a minute to compose herself."
"Good idea," Lucy said quickly, giving Sophie a hug. "Welcome to the family, big sister," she murmured, her eyes filling with happy tears.
"I've always wanted a sister," Sophie told her, her voice breaking. "I'm so happy it's you." They hugged again, before Katie claimed Sophie for a sisterly hug of her own.
"As your official bridesmaid, I want to say that I am so very happy for you. And Ford. You both deserve all the happiness in the world."
"Exactly my sentiments, my dear," Miss Fanny murmured, kissing Sophie's cheek. "And I am so proud you are to be married in Mama's dress. I just know she and my Johnny Ray are up there right now, smilin' down on us."
"Oh, Miss Fanny," Sophie cried, wiping away a tear. "I hope so."
"Now see what you've done, Fanny," Rose Ruth chided impatiently. "You've make the child cry on her weddin' day."
"Don't blame Miss Fanny," Sophie said, kissing her elderly defender's papery cheek gently. "I feel as though I've been in tears for most of the six weeks I've been away from y'all."
"Why sugar, did you hear that?" Miss Rose Ruth exclaimed. "Won't be long and no one will ever know you weren't born and raised here just like the rest of us."
It took more urging from Katie and some diplomacy from Lucy, but finally Sophie found herself alone in Miss Fanny's room, staring at the door to the hall. Once she went through that door and walked down those steps she was committed.
"Oh, Ford, I hope I can make you happy," she murmured, closing her eyes for a long moment.
Opening them again, she found herself staring at the woman framed by that same door. "Darlene?" she whispered. "Is it really you?"
"Yep, it's really me," Darlene said, laughing. "Or what's left of her after two flights and a bumpy bus ride."
"This is a wonderful surprise," Sophie said when they'd exchanged exuberant hugs. "How on earth did you manage it?" Still on parole, Darlene had been denied permission to leave the state, and Sophie had been crushingly disappointed not to have Darlene at her wedding.
"I didn't. That stubborn man you're about to marry bullied the board into it at the last minute. How he did it I don't know, and I don't want to. All I know is I have to be back in the state in seventy-two hours."
"I can't wait to introduce you to my friends. You'll love them, and they'll love you."
Darlene looked around gingerly, her heart-shaped face reflecting cautious approval. No one looking at her now would take her for the drug-addicted call girl she'd been three years ago. Not only had she kicked her drug habit, but she'd earned a nursing degree in prison and was now working at a free clinic in the city's worst district.
"I've already met one of your friends," she said when her inspection was completed. "Cute guy by the name of Roy something or other."
"Roy Dean," Sophie said softly. "One of Jessie's honorary grandpas."
Darlene smiled. "I saw Ford, by the way. He looks about as nervous as a man can look and still be standing on two feet."
Sophie felt love well in her heart. "I'm so very lucky, Dar," she murmured. "I have so much—Ford, Jessie, my friends. You."
"After what you went through, you deserve it all. And more." She touched a porcelain figurine of a rebel soldier on Miss Fanny's dresser. "Guess they're still fighting the Civil War down here, huh?"
"War of the Rebellion," Sophie corrected, her nerves spiking again.
Darlene shrugged. "Whatever they call it, they sure do raise fighters down here in Dixie. Lord, I never saw a man more hell-bent on beating the Manwarings at their own nasty game than that slow-talkin', slow-walkin' sheriff of yours. He must have talked to a hundred people, trying to find something on Wells to refute their story of the perfect husband and would-be father."
"He might have held the gun, but you provided the ammunition," Sophie said, allowing her gratitude to flavor her voice. "Finding that call girl who knew all about Wells's sexual perversions was a stroke of pure genius."
"I'll accept that," Darlene said with an impish grin. "But Ford was the one who got her to agree to testify at the custody hearing."
Sophie still quaked inside when she remembered the venomous look Anita Manwaring had given her in the judge's chambers that morning. Once the Manwarings had been told about the prostitute and the things she'd been prepared to divulge publicly about their "perfect" son, their righteous insistence that Sophie was an unfit mother deflated like a balloon filled with so much hot air. It seemed that they cared more about protecting the Manwaring name than raising another Manwaring child.
"I almost feel sorry for Anita and Wells," she murmured. "Until I remember what they tried to do."
"Forget them!" Darlene ordered, linking her arm with Sophie's. "Let's get this wedding over with so we can get on to the serious partying."
"Let's."
Sophie was fine until she turned the corner and saw Ford waiting for her at the bottom of the steps, holding Jessie who was dressed in pink to match the healthy glow in her chubby cheeks. He was wearing his midnight blue tux, looking as handsome as she'd ever seen him. He also looked ferociously impatient.
"Treat her right, or you'll answer to me," Darlene said, punching him softly in the arm cradling Jessie against his shoulder.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, bending to kiss her cheek.
Darlene tossed Sophie a good-luck smile before heading for the parlor, her heels clicking impatiently on the foyer floor. Sophie heard music and the buzz of conversation. She saw flowers on every available surface and smelled their perfume. It was her wedding day, the only one she wanted to remember.
"About time your mama showed her face," he growled to Jessie, who giggled.
"It's a bride's prerogative to be late on her wedding day," Sophie murmured, her stomach jumping, and her voice shaky.
"Guess it is at that." He cleared his throat. "You look beautiful."
"So do you."
His mouth quirked. "I feel like a sissy piano player."
Sophie giggled, then pressed her trembling fingers to her lips. "I guess you'd be annoyed if this baby I'm carrying turned out to be a son with a passion for Chopin."
His face went still. Only his eyes moved as he glanced down at her belly, then sought her face again. "You're pregnant?" His voice was scratchy and thin.
"Six weeks along. I figured it happened the night of Mike's bachelor party. We got so involved we forgot to use anything, remember?"
"Are you all right? Healthy, I mean?"
"Blooming, according to Katie."
His eyes turned very dark, and a muscle jerk
ed along his jaw. "A man would be a fool to doubt a lady's word."
Sophie wished she hadn't let Katie take her flowers with her. She needed something to hold on to. "You don't seem very happy," she murmured, trying to keep her disappointment from showing.
"Honey, happy doesn't even begin to describe how I feel." He swallowed hard, then slanted her a look of pure male frustration. "Guess you want me to put it in words, huh?"
"That would help."
He took a deep breath. "Sophie Reynolds, I love you with all my heart, and I love this little hellion almost as much." He kissed Jessie's cheek, then placed a gentle hand on Sophie's belly. "And I love baby, too."
"Even if he turns out to be a girl?"
"Even if he turns out to be a sissy piano player, though I have to warn you, honey, I plan to do my level best to turn him into a macho dude like his daddy."
Sophie laughed, and then she cried. And then she took his arm and walked into the parlor to join the rest of their family.
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THE BACHELOR PARTY Page 27
