by Amy Vastine
Max smiled and hefted the little boy farther up his back. Aidan thought his dad was all that and a bag of chips. It hadn’t always been that way. Max had a difficult time winning over his son when he came to town almost a year ago. Charlie saw how hard he worked to prove himself to be a good father. It was nice to see him reaping the benefits of that effort.
“Where are you headed?” Max asked, joining Charlie on the second-floor landing.
“I am spending my day off planning your wedding. You owe me, buddy.”
Max rolled his eyes. “Nice try. You offered...or have you forgotten?”
“I only offered because you were so worried it was going to be bigger than a royal wedding.”
“I’m sure Emma would love to do it all by herself if you want to quit.” His smirk was as teasing as his words. This was all about spending time with Emma, and Max knew it.
“No, no. I take my role as best man very seriously. I wouldn’t do that to you. Who would make sure you didn’t have to wear a hot-pink bow tie?”
“Ha! Yeah, right. Tell Em I said hello and that there is no way I am wearing hot pink. Okay?”
Charlie planned to lay down the law with Emma today. He and Max had discussed some of the dos and don’ts for the wedding. Emma and Charlie were going to have so much to talk about, they might have to spend the whole afternoon together. He’d have to work hard to repress the nice-guy yearning to come out, but she had to see him as a man, not a pushover.
“I’ve got all your notes right here, Groomzilla.” Charlie patted his pocket and headed down the stairs. He could hear Aidan’s laughter even when he got outside. A new nickname was born.
* * *
CHARLIE SPOTTED EMMA before she saw him. She was examining the menu board in the Triple C even though he was certain she already knew exactly what she wanted. She always knew what she wanted, never hesitated. Her self-assurance was so attractive. He couldn’t wait for the day when she was sure about him.
She had her hair down today. Brown waves cascaded down her back. She wore jeans and a bright red blouse. It was such a great color on her, he decided he’d suggest they change the color of the bridesmaid dresses to red. Red was not hot pink.
He enjoyed watching her as she dug through her bag for a compact and checked her makeup and hair. Maybe she was trying to impress him as much as he was trying to impress her. Crazier things had happened.
“Lucy Everhart, is that you?” he said, coming up from behind and making her jump.
Emma snapped her compact shut and her lips curled upward in appreciation of his collusion. “Well, hello there, Charlie Fletcher. Fancy meeting you here.”
“My two favorite things in one place—Lucy Everhart and ice cream. What are the odds, Lucy Everhart?” He spoke the name loudly so the girl behind the counter would hear it.
Emma gave him a look that warned him not to overdo it. “This is quite the coincidence.”
Charlie threw his arm over her shoulders and stared up at the menu board with her. “You know what would be fun?”
“I can only imagine,” she answered warily.
“If you got the biggest thing on the menu and we split it.” Nice guys would never ask the woman to pay. Of course, she didn’t really have to spend her money, so it made it easier for him to go against his better instincts.
With her eyebrow arched, she contemplated letting him in on her game. “I suppose we could get a double with two spoons. This time.”
Charlie liked that her answer implied there would be another time. Emma ordered while he scouted out a table. He found one in the back, away from the group of middle-school boys who were sitting at a table with cow legs.
Emma grabbed some napkins and sat down across from him. Placing her big bag full of wedding plans on the chair next to her, she watched him stick his finger in the whipped cream and lick it off. They both grabbed their spoons and dug in.
“Don’t even think about taking my cherry,” she said, knocking his spoon away and scooping it up.
“Why do I get the feeling you always get what you want, Lucky Lu?” Charlie asked as he watched her pluck the stem from the cherry between her teeth.
“Because I usually do,” she answered unapologetically. “And don’t call me that.”
“Why? You like Nightingale better, don’t you?”
She shook her head and dug her spoon back in the ice cream. “You and your nicknames.”
Her smile made it nearly impossible to keep the nice guy from finding his way into the conversation. “What’s the next thing you plan to cross off your list of wants, Nightingale?”
“That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think? I thought we were here to talk about the wedding.”
The whole reason Charlie was here was to get personal. “Oh, come on. We’re friends now. We can talk about stuff like that while we eat our ice cream.”
There was a moment of hesitation before she set her spoon down. “Promise not to laugh at me?”
Charlie crossed his heart. Not only would he not laugh, but he would give it to her, whatever it was, if he could.
Emma glanced around as if to make sure no one else was listening. “It’s going to sound stupid.” She paused and the anticipation was killing him. Finally, she gave it up. “I want to fall head over heels in love. Crazy, once-in-a-lifetime love. The kind that makes you feel like anything is possible and nothing is ever going to be the same.”
It was fate. All the stars were now aligned. She wanted the same thing he wanted. The two of them were destined to be together.
“It’s silly, I know,” she said, turning her head and hiding behind her hair.
“No,” he said almost too loudly. Her eyes returned to his. “I think everyone wants that.”
“Maybe, but not everyone believes it exists. My sister, Lucy, for example. She thinks I’m nothing but a hopeless romantic, doomed to be disappointed. I mean, she knows people are capable of loving one another. She’s the product of very real love. Our parents have been happily married for over thirty years. But when it comes to things like soul mates and true love, Lucy believes it’s all a childish fantasy.”
“Sounds like Lucky Lucy hasn’t been very lucky in love.”
“She had her heart broken pretty badly. When someone hurts Lucy, she tends to want to hurt the whole world back.”
Charlie understood how people could become discouraged and lose faith in love when things got bad. He had seen a couple of his sisters’ faith rattled. He’d even been close to losing it himself. The difference between him and people like Lucy was that he believed true love absolutely existed. He just feared not everyone was given the chance to experience it.
“I come in contact with a lot of people. There are tons of great love stories out there. It happens. It could happen to you.”
“Exactly.” Emma licked some more ice cream off her spoon. “I don’t care what my sister says. I know I’m going to have one heck of a story to tell someday.”
Emma was a hopeless romantic and Charlie liked the idea of being written in to her love story. He just had to figure out how to get the part. So far, this new strategy seemed to be working.
“Mr. Right could be closer than you think,” he said with a wink. So close she could literally reach out and grab him if she wanted to.
“Oh, he’s close, all right.” Emma’s eyes lit up and her smile was back in full force. “There’s this new doctor at the hospital and we’ve kind of hit it off.” She giggled like a love-struck teenager. “I’ve never been so excited to go to work or so disappointed to have a day off. That has to be a sign of something special, right?”
The creamy ice cream Charlie had in his mouth suddenly tasted like sand and he had the overwhelming desire to spit it out. The happy little bubble he’d imagined they were sitting in popped. Emma h
ad already cast her hero and it wasn’t Charlie.
He took a deep breath. Better she bruised his heart now rather than breaking it later. There was no way he could pull off being a bad boy, anyway. Nice guys got to be the best friend, the confidant. Here he was listening to her talk about the butterflies she got for another man. The role of friend fit him like a glove.
CHAPTER SEVEN
EVERY YEAR IN FEBRUARY, on the anniversary of the day their mother found out she was in remission, the Everhart family got together and celebrated her win in the battle against cancer. It wasn’t about her brush with death but her love of life.
Emma and her mother had a special tradition all their own, which marked the anniversary of a different day in her mother’s fight—the day she’d shaved her head. Maureen Everhart used to have hair that reached the small of her back when she wore it down. As a child, Emma loved to play beauty shop and put it in braids and funny-looking buns like Princess Leia’s.
Maureen had been told she would have to undergo three months of chemotherapy to shrink her tumor before she would be a good candidate for a double mastectomy. She couldn’t bear watching her hair come out in clumps and had decided that it was best to say goodbye to it all at once. Emma had been home from college for summer vacation and the only daughter still at home, so she had helped her mom shave it all off. They’d both cried as she ran the clippers across her scalp. It was a day Emma would never forget.
Instead of letting that day be nothing but a bad memory, Emma had decided to do something good on the anniversary instead. They would do typical mother-daughter things like shopping and going out to lunch. Then, they would go to the salon so Emma could cut off enough of her hair to donate it to organizations that made wigs for cancer patients. It was their way of showing cancer they could give back whatever it tried to take away.
“Ten inches takes you all the way to here.” Holly, her stylist, held Emma’s hair in a ponytail that began at the nape of her neck. This was going to be the shortest her hair had ever been.
“It’s for a great cause,” Emma said more to herself than Holly. The first year Emma donated, the ten inches seemed like nothing, but it didn’t grow as fast as she cut it. Slowly but surely, she was left with less and less hair. She always knew the day would come when she’d have to wait two years to keep the tradition alive. Six years was the magic number.
“It’s going to be like mine. Good thing you were blessed with thick, fast-growing hair,” her mom said, smiling at her through the mirror. Maureen had kept her hair short once it started to grow back after the chemo treatments ended. It looked good on her; maybe it would work on Emma, too.
Holly checked one more time to make sure this was what Emma wanted. Emma nodded, then shut her eyes. She didn’t want to see anything until it was all over. Holly began to cut and cut and cut. It didn’t take too long before the ponytail was set free to create a beautiful wig for a woman in need.
Emma trusted that Holly would make everything all right. She had been styling Emma’s hair for years and had never given her a bad cut. This haircut was also the plan, and the plan never led her astray. Without being able to see, she focused on the myriad of sounds around her. The swish of the scissors, the chatter of other stylists and clients, the roar of a blow-dryer. It was all strangely relaxing. It took a while for Holly to work her magic. Emma couldn’t imagine what it was going to look like when she was finished.
“Okay. All done. Ready to see the new and gorgeous you?” Holly’s confident tone made Emma feel less nervous.
She opened one eye and then the other. Her hand reached up in search of phantom hair. Instead, the back was cropped close while the front was left a little longer. Holly showed her how she could get cute barrettes and pin the bangs back to dress it up.
Not since she was a baby had her hair been this short. It was shocking. She felt tears prick at the corner of her eyes. Immediately, she understood how brave her mother had been to shave it all off before it fell out. Hair was part of a woman’s identity. People didn’t refer to certain days as good or bad hair days without reason. Hair affected all aspects of life, from work to romance. Cutting it this short was sure to make a statement. She just didn’t know if it would be a good or bad one.
Maureen’s hands gripped her daughter’s shoulders. “Please don’t cry. You look beautiful, sweetheart.”
Emma placed her hand on top of her mom’s. “I’m okay. It just caught me off guard. I love it, Holly. It looks fabulous,” she said to reassure the nervous stylist.
“The fabulousness is all you. Not everyone can pull off this look. You completely own it, though,” Holly said.
Emma turned her head from side to side, checking her new hairdo from all angles. The longer she stared at it, the better it looked. She caught her mom’s eye. “Like mother, like daughter.”
* * *
“SO, TELL ME all about the wedding plans. What have you and Kendall come up with so far?” Maureen asked when they got to lunch.
“I’m still narrowing down a few things for her. I don’t want to overwhelm her with too many choices. This city has so many options. I’m beginning to think I should have gone into the wedding business instead of nursing. What a racket!”
“I hope your sister has been appreciative of all your hard work.”
“Kendall thanks me every time we talk about it. I think I’ll have everything figured out soon now that Charlie has given me the last of Max’s wishes.”
“Oh, I bet those were good,” Maureen said with a laugh.
“Max doesn’t want anything too extravagant. I think he was worried I would get carried away or something. He sent Charlie to spy on me.”
“Charlie’s adorable. I like him.”
Did everyone have the same opinion of this man? He certainly had a way with people. Emma wasn’t oblivious to his charms, either. She smiled at the memory of him talking his way into free ice cream. She had a hard time saying no to him lately. Luckily, the things he wanted to change were doable.
“Has he been helpful?” Maureen asked.
“Surprisingly, he has. At first, I didn’t think he would be, but he’s come up with a few good ideas. My only worry is he wants me to check out this coworker of his who runs a side catering business.” Charlie had somehow gotten her to agree to a taste testing next week at his friend’s house. If the food wasn’t good, she would go back to her choice, friend or no friend. “I’m not too sure we want to go with someone who doesn’t do this full-time.”
“If there’s one thing men know about, it’s food. I’m sure you two will get it all figured out.”
Emma got her mom up to speed on the other wedding plans. Maureen loved the idea of incorporating the boys into the ceremony and approved of the colors Kendall had chosen so far.
“It’s going to be beautiful. It’s a wonderful thing you’re doing for your sister. She’s lucky to have you.”
“I’m just doing the legwork and narrowing down the choices from a million to two or three. It keeps me busy on my days off and allows her to have final say on everything.”
Maureen got misty-eyed. “It makes me so happy that you girls take care of one another the way you do. You have no idea how that matters to me and your father. It’s always been very comforting to know you’ll have each other when Dad and I aren’t around anymore.”
Emma hated when her mom talked like that. She knew her parents wouldn’t live forever, but she certainly didn’t want to think about when they were dead and gone. The worst times in Emma’s life had been when her mother and sister were sick. Watching helplessly as they stared down death was so frightening. It was especially frustrating for Emma because she’d been studying to be a nurse at the time of her mom’s diagnosis. She’d felt as if she should have known what to do, but she had no experience in oncology.
“Let’s talk about something el
se. How about I tell you about the guy I’ve set my sights on?” Emma offered.
Her mother was all ears. She leaned forward and waggled her eyebrows. “Do tell.”
“Well, Dr. Scott Spencer is smart, sophisticated and gives every dreamy doctor on television a run for his money.”
“You and your doctors,” she said with a shake of her head. “Have you two hit it off?”
“We had lunch together the other day.” Emma left out the fact that Dr. Gavin and two other nurses had joined them. Scott had spent most of the time talking to Emma, so it was as if they were by themselves. “I think he likes me.”
“That confirms that he’s smart. I’ll take your word on the good-looking part. What about his sense of humor? Is he funny? Is he sweet?” These were the traits Maureen thought were essential in a husband. Emma’s dad was one of the most good-natured men she’d ever known. He was nice to everyone he met, although he could be a little shy like Kendall sometimes. But once anyone got to know him, they found out he had the best sense of humor. When Emma was a little girl, she’d thought she could marry her dad someday.
Scott wasn’t nearly as funny as someone like Charlie. He was very sweet, though. He was good with his patients and pleasant to work with so far.
“I think you’d like him,” Emma said.
“If you like him, I’ll like him.” Maureen sat back in her chair. “I can’t imagine ever falling for a doctor. In all my years as a nurse, there wasn’t one doctor I ever wanted to take home with me.”
“That’s because you had Daddy waiting for you at home. How could anyone compare?”
Maureen laughed. “Right, that’s why.”
Her mom could laugh all she wanted. Emma’s parents had the kind of marriage she dreamed of having. It was similar to what Kendall and Max had. Their foundation was not only built on love but on mutual respect. They had a friendship as well as romance. There were good times and bad times, but they knew they could always count on each other. Emma couldn’t wait to be involved in that kind of relationship.
