Dying To Marry

by Janelle Taylor

“Have you told Dylan about these incidents?” Holly asked.

  The waitress returned with their lunch, and silence settled over the table.

  Lizzie popped a fry into her mouth. “Yes,” she finally responded. “I did tell Dylan. And he dismissed them, too. Someone’s just being immature. That’s all.”

  Flea put down her turkey sandwich. “But it didn’t start until you and Dylan announced your engagement,” she pointed out. “It sounds to me like someone isn’t too happy you’re engaged.”

  Holly could imagine more than a few people who weren’t too happy about the engagement.

  “Well, the Dunhills have been quite civil to me lately,” Lizzie whispered. “They’re making an effort. And once they’re on board, the entire town will be on board.”

  But it shouldn’t have to be like that in the first place! Holly wanted to scream.

  “How’s my bride-to-be?”

  Holly whipped her head around and there was Dylan Dunhill. Tall and muscular with thick blond hair, dark blue eyes and dimples, Dylan truly looked like a movie star. He pulled over a chair from the next table, sat down next to Lizzie and kissed her on the cheek, then held her hand on top of the table.

  “Holly!” Dylan exclaimed. “How nice to see you! Lizzie, you didn’t mention Holly was coming home.”

  There it was again: home. She couldn’t be farther from home.

  “I wanted to surprise everyone,” Lizzie explained. “And you know what a gossipy town this is—if I told one person, it would have been all over Troutville, and I wanted to surprise Gayle and Flea and my mother.”

  “No one’s as surprised as I am,” said a deep male voice from behind Holly.

  Jake Boone!

  Holly whirled around again. Jake Boone, ten years older, more handsome than ever, and tall and strong, stood before her, very little expression on his face. His green eyes gave nothing away.

  No, it can’t be, she thought. The same man Pru Dunhill was all over at the train station.

  Jake Boone and Pru Dunhill? she thought wildly, her stomach lurching.

  “Hello, Jake,” she said.

  She half expected him to say, Who’s Jake? I’m so-and-so. But no, there was no mistaking Jake Boone close up. And close up, she could understand why she’d been unable to recognize him at the train station. The Jake she’d known had run around in jeans and T-shirts with his mop of thick dark hair in his eyes. The one suit she’d seen him in, on prom night, had come from the thrift store, where she’d bought her prom dress. This Jake wore a very fine suit and tie, and his silky hair was expensively cut. The ten years from teenager to man had done him very well.

  “Jake’s my best man,” Dylan said, standing up and slinging an arm over Jake’s shoulder.

  Holly’s mouth dropped open and she quickly shut it. What? Jake Boone was Dylan Dunhill’s best man? Jake had grown up next door to Holly and was treated just as she was, worse maybe. He hated Dylan’s crowd in high school.

  And eventually he’d hated Holly, too.

  From the look in his eyes before he muttered quick good-byes and walked away, it was clear that hadn’t changed.

  Between the “little pranks,” the knowledge that Jake Boone was in town, and the sight of Lizzie and Dylan sitting thigh to thigh with their arms around each other and occasionally nuzzling each other’s necks, Holly’s head was spinning and her appetite had completely vanished. In the half hour they’d been in the Troutville Café, Holly could plainly see that Dylan and Lizzie were absolutely madly in love. They gazed into each other’s eyes, played absently with each other’s hair, told cute story after cute story about the other, tapped each other’s noses and said “I love you.” When Dylan had left a few minutes ago, they’d hugged as though they were parting for months.

  “Wow, Lizzie,” Holly said as the foursome headed outside.

  “Oh, Holly,” Lizzie breathed. “I love him so much!”

  Holly smiled. “I saw. And he clearly loves you so much, too.”

  “I could do without the PDA, though,” Flea said with a grin.

  “Yeah,” Gayle agreed. “You two could go into the Guinness Book of World Records for Public Display of Affection and the Loviest-Doviest Couple.”

  “And this is during the day,” Flea added, elbowing Lizzie in the ribs with a wink. “You should see her and Dylan when they’re out on the town at night.”

  “I swear, people shout ‘Get a room!’ to them,” Gayle said, laughing. “You’ll see next weekend, Holly, if not before then.”

  “Next weekend?” Holly repeated. Then she remembered all too well what next weekend was.

  “The reunion,” Lizzie said. “We’re all going. Oh, Holly, you have to come! It’ll be fun, I promise.”

  The Troutville Senior High School reunion, fun? I don’t think so.

  “I don’t know,” Holly said. “I’m not too interested in reliving high school.”

  Especially with Jake.

  “I’ll second that,” Flea put in. “But it won’t be like that. It’ll be just us, enjoying ourselves, celebrating a milestone.”

  “Flea’s exactly right,” Gayle said.

  “So which dress did you decide to wear to the reunion?” Flea asked Gayle. “The red one I made you for your company Christmas party last year?”

  Holly looked from Gayle to Flea to Lizzie as though they were all crazy. First of all, they seemed to have forgotten all about the so-called pranks and incidents. Second, they were actually looking forward to the reunion? Holly had no doubt the “threats” were the handiwork of a former classmate, someone who enjoyed throwing around names like Lay Me Lizzie and Holly the Whore.

  I don’t get it, Holly thought.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you—I bought a new dress at the mall,” Gayle told Flea. “Greg’s already seen me in the red one, and he’s the only one I want to impress, so I bought something new. Very slinky, very gold lamé.”

  “Gayle!” Flea scolded. “I told you that you should just bring me any dress you want and I’ll copy it for you. Why pay good money for a dress when I could make you the same thing for free?”

  “Flea, you’re so sweet,” Gayle said, squeezing her hand. “I appreciate you so much. But you’ve been working yourself to the bone lately. You have the big order for dresses from Clark’s Department Store, and your private clients. Your friends are supposed to give you a break, not beg you for favors.”

  Flea adjusted her scarf. “Trust me, I’d rather make free dresses for my friends than expensive ones for those snotty Up Hillers any day.”

  “What are you wearing to the reunion, Flea?” Lizzie asked. “That gorgeous black dress you made a few weeks ago?”

  “I don’t know,” Flea said, “That one’s a little showy for me. Something a little more simple.”

  “I’m wearing a royal blue matte jersey dress with a plunging neckline,” Lizzie said. “Dylan loves me in royal blue. But I’m sure the town snobs will have a lot to say about the dress’s ‘inappropriateness.’”

  “Who cares what they think!” Holly snapped.

  “Actually, we’ve turned what they think into a game,” Gayle said. “Sometimes we show up in really wild clothes just to give ’em something to talk about. Like my orange spandex, leopard-print jumpsuit that I wore to the mall last week. You should have seen the look on some of the faces!”

  Holly sat back, impressed. This new attitude was a long way from the tears and insecurity they’d experienced as teenagers.

  “You are going to the reunion, aren’t you, Holly?” Gayle asked. “I know it must seem crazy, given how miserable we all were back in high school, but now we just have fun as a group and say the hell with everyone else.”

  “Yeah,” Lizzie said. “And there are a whole bunch of people from Down Hill who are going. It’ll be a blast! Plus, it’ll be a nice way for you to get to know Dylan.”

  The thought of going to the reunion filled Holly with dread. But for Lizzie, she’d go. “All right. I guess it doesn’t sound
too bad.”

  Lizzie clapped. “All right! Serious progress has been made!”

  After making plans for the foursome to meet at Bettina’s Bridal salon the next morning to shop for dresses, Gayle and Flea headed their separate ways to work, and Holly and Lizzie headed Down Hill toward Lizzie’s house.

  “Why didn’t you tell me Jake was friends with Dylan?” Holly asked Lizzie.

  Lizzie glanced at Holly. “Honestly, Holly, I didn’t realize I should have. I mean, you haven’t spoken to him in ten years, since prom night, right?”

  Holly nodded around the lump in her throat.

  “Hol, are you okay?” Lizzie asked.

  “I’m just surprised,” Holly finally said. “I didn’t expect to see him. Didn’t expect him to be Dylan Dunhill’s best man. How did that happen?”

  “They’ve been best friends for years,” Lizzie explained. “They’re so close now that it’s hard to remember they were once in very different crowds.”

  Different worlds was more like it, Holly thought.

  “When did he and Dylan become friends?” Holly asked, trying to appear nonchalant. Best friends? How was that even possible?

  “Seven, eight years back maybe,” Lizzie responded. “Jake’s very close to the entire Dunhill family. He helped them out with something, some sort of scandal, and he’s been practically a family member ever since.”

  “Scandal?” Holly asked. “What kind of scandal?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “I don’t know. I asked Dylan how he and Jake became friends, how Jake became so close with the Dunhills, but he said the scandal was something he’d rather not talk about, that it was all water under the bridge. Jake was a cop then, and apparently, one of the Dunhills was in some kind of trouble and Jake sorted the mess out.”

  “Was a cop then?” Holly asked. “Isn’t he still?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “He left the force a few years ago to start his own private investigation firm. He’s very in-demand. A few months ago, he tracked down the Cardwells’ kidnapped daughter.”

  “A private investigator,” Holly repeated.

  “Hol, I would have told you all about these things and others,” Lizzie said. “but you were adamant that you didn’t want to hear anything about what was going on in Troutville, that you wanted to put your life and the people here behind you, so I respected your wishes. But I can see you’re interested in what happened to Jake Boone,” she added with a wink.

  “Lizzie, don’t you go matchmaking. Jake Boone and I aren’t exactly friends anymore.”

  “Oh, Holly, that was so long ago,” Lizzie said.

  So long ago, Holly echoed in her mind.

  As the two cousins walked down the slope, Holly noticed that Down Hill was in much better condition than it had been when she’d left. There were new stores, including a cozy coffee bar with some overstuffed couches and brightly painted walls. A few establishments and homes that Holly remembered as rundown or boarded up were now well maintained and beautifully painted; lawns that had been brown and uncared for were now shimmering green.

  “Down Hill looks great,” Holly said in wonderment, taking in the small house next to the gas station that she’d grown up in; her father had managed the station for years. The house, which her parents had taken great care of, was now even nicer, with a bigger porch and a swing. A new playground and an enclosed dog run had been built in the square next to the small park; children played and dogs frolicked, chasing Frisbees and balls. “I can hardly believe it.”

  “I told you things have changed, Hol,” Lizzie said, smiling. “There’s my house,” she added, pointing at a cheerful yellow bungalow at the end of the road.

  “I always loved that bungalow,” Holly said.

  “Wait till you see all my photographs on the walls,” Lizzie said. “I’ve been making great progress, Holly. I’ve even had a bunch of photos published in the Troutville Gazette.”

  “That’s great, Lizzie!” Holly said.

  “I mean, my photography isn’t generating enough income for me to give up my job at the bar,” Lizzie said, “but at least I’ve got a portfolio started. Maybe next year.”

  “But—”

  “What?” Lizzie asked. “You think just because I’m marrying Dylan Dunhill I’m not going to work anymore?”

  “Well, yes,” Holly admitted. “Unless that’s one of the things in Troutville that’s changed—the Dunhills are now poor?”

  Lizzie laughed. “Nope, they’re richer than ever. I’d never stop working, Holly. Being a barmaid at Morrow’s has been good to me. I’ve met a lot of people, including the editor at the Gazette, who loves the pub, and it’s not as mindless a job as people think. I like working with people. Plus, I like working with my mom and chowing down on her home cooking.”

  “And Dylan doesn’t have a problem with you working as a barmaid?”

  “Dylan doesn’t have a problem with anything about me, Holly,” Lizzie said.

  Holly glanced at Lizzie and saw that her cousin was quite serious. “So I’m dying to know how you and Dylan got together. Tell me the whole story.”

  They sat on a park bench across from the seesaws, and Lizzie’s launch into Boy Talk reminded Holly of the old days when the cousins would discuss their crushes for hours in this very spot.

  “He and Jake came into Morrow’s one night about a year ago to watch the Yankees,” Lizzie explained. “They ordered a platter of wings and a pitcher of beer, but instead of watching the game, Dylan kept asking me for things—another napkin, an extra plate. At first I thought he was making fun of me, enjoying ordering me around, waving around his money, but he kept engaging me in conversation, asking me cute questions, complimenting me on this or that.”

  “Did he remember you from high school?” Holly asked.

  “Yup. He said he always thought I was beautiful and vibrant and he always noticed me, but he had a steady girlfriend, Arianna, the quote unquote right girlfriend, and back then he’d been so under his father’s thumb that he hadn’t thought to do anything but toe the line. And then something terrible happened in his family several years ago—I still don’t know quite what—and Dylan said it changed him, he broke free of who he thought he was supposed to be and started being who he was, who he wanted to be. His own person. So he started doing pro bono work, which enraged his mother, he moved out of Dunhill Mansion, and a few months ago, he started dating me.”

  Holly let everything sink in. “So what’s he like?” she asked, and Lizzie’s eyes lit up.

  “Oh, Holly, he’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of. Romantic. Kind. Sweet. He calls me five times a day for no reason, just to hear my voice. He brings me little gifts—wildflowers that he picked in the woods, a book of photography that he thought I’d like. He makes me feel like the most special person in the world.”

  “Oh, Lizzie, I’m so happy for you,” Holly said, and meant every word. “You deserve this.”

  Lizzie squeezed Holly into a hug. “He proposed last month, and we decided to do it as fast as we could. In just a few days, we had the invitations printed. It was the happiest day of my life.”

  “Well, I’m honored to be your maid of honor, Lizzie. Is the bridal party just the four of us?”

  “Well, it would have been five,” Lizzie said, frowning, but—”

  “But what?” Holly asked.

  Lizzie stared down at the ground and didn’t answer.

  “Lizzie?”

  “I asked Dylan’s sister to be a bridesmaid. But Pru declined,” Lizzie explained. “I asked her in person, too. I told her I’d be honored if she’d stand up for me as one of my bridesmaids, and—” Lizzie took a deep breath.

  Holly let her cousin take her time. Clearly, this was painful for her.

  “Pru just stared at me for a moment, and then she laughed. She actually laughed, right in my face. ‘You’re not serious,’ Pru said. ‘You can’t possibly be serious.’ And then she walked away.”

  Holly’s mouth hung open. “That bit
ch.”

  “Holly ...”

  “How dare she!” Holly growled. “Did you tell Dylan?”

  “I prettied it up for him,” Lizzie said, “but he got the idea. He was upset about it and said he was going to have a word with her. I told him it was okay, that we might never be friends, and he said that Pru and I were going to be family and that his sister had better start showing me respect.”

  “Has she?” Holly asked.

  “If dirty looks and innuendos could be construed as respect,” Lizzie said, then giggled. Clearly nothing could sink her buoyant mood.

  Holly shook her head. “Well, you don’t need Pru Dunhill. You’ve got your three best friends as your bridal party.”

  Lizzie hugged Holly. “C’mon. Let’s go. I can’t wait to show you my house!”

  They hopscotched to the end of the walk as they always did as girls and teenagers, then crossed the street and walked down Piper Lane to Lizzie’s house.

  The moment Lizzie opened the front door, she broke into a huge smile. “Dylan is so sweet! He left a trail of rose petals!”

  Holly followed Lizzie inside the cozy home, and there, indeed, was a line of rose petals leading to a door at the end of the hall. She felt so happy for her cousin. “Lizzie, you’ve got one romantic guy.” She glanced around the bungalow. “Your home is so cozy and wonderful. I love how you decorated the place.” Lizzie’s favorite color, fuchsia, was everywhere, in accent pillows and rugs and even on the walls.

  “Thanks, honey,” Lizzie said, picking up a rose petal and bringing it to her nose. “Ahhh, I could smell roses all day.” She gestured toward the end of the trail of rose petals. “That’s my bedroom,” Lizzie said, grinning. “I’ll bet Dylan’s covered my bed with dozens and dozens of roses! Oh, Holly, he is so romantic.”

  Lizzie ran down the hall and threw open the door. But there were no roses on the bed. Only a pile of dirt, on which was a note:

  You’re nothing but dirt.

  Lizzie gasped, then dropped to her knees. In an instant, Holly was beside her.

  “Come on,” Holly said gently. “Let’s get out of here.”