Zoe was certain the seamstress wasn’t to blame, but she wasn’t about to suggest that in case Juliet started to cry again and they lost what little makeup they had left.
“Don’t worry. These things can happen before the big day. It’s totally not your fault at all.”
“Of course it’s not,” Juliet said. “Stupid stress.”
Assessing the expensive wedding dress again, Zoe ran through several options in her head like flipping through a wedding-dress catalogue. The whole room seemed to lean forward, awaiting her verdict. Juliet watched Zoe’s reflection in the mirror, looking hopeful.
Zoe nodded. “I can totally make this work. But it’s going to take stabbing several holes on either side of the zipper. How do you feel about a corset-style back?”
She dug through her fanny pack and drew out an emergency roll of thick, white silk ribbon and a small pair of scissors. Fanny-pack to the rescue!
Juliet’s hopeful look darkened. “You want to ruin my dress?”
“Would you rather cancel the wedding and wait for a few months? And what’s more important about today? The dress? The perfect ceremony? An equal number of groomsmen to bridesmaids? This specific location?”
“But it had to be this church,” she whined. “My parents got married in this church.”
“I know. I totally get it.” Grabbing a tissue from her fanny pack, she dabbed at the mascara streaks on the bride’s cheeks. “And we made it work, didn’t we? Now we’ll make the dress work too.”
Emotions always ran high leading up to the big day, and a good wedding planner knew how to maintain perspective, to be empathetic but remain neutral. Zoe could see the bigger picture. She was objective. She didn’t get wrapped up in all the fantasy of romance and love. It was all bullshit anyway.
Forget the excitement of the day, the silk dress, the gardenia arrangements, the old family tortoiseshell kanzashi comb passed down by a proud mother. Because once you stripped it all away, there was just a man and a woman, and no amount of planning, organizing, and dreaming was going to make him walk down that aisle if he changed his mind. There were some things you couldn’t control—like when her groom hadn’t been waiting on the other end of that aisle for her. He’d been a no-show.
But Zoe knew better now, of course. She’d walked away a stronger person, more level-headed. And because of it, she could organize the best damned wedding a bride could ever dream of—at least that was in her control. She was going to make the Fisher-Wells wedding happen, come heat wave or missing groomsman.
“Today isn’t about all the details,” she told Juliet. “It’s about getting married to the man you love. This is just the first day. It’s the rest of your lives that really matter.”
Whenever Zoe put it like that, it usually brought any errant bride back down to earth, because ultimately, their wedding day was about their union with the man they loved. Right?
Juliet’s eyes, however, were still lit with an argument. Like when she’d argued about keeping the same venue even with the heat wave and lack of air conditioning. Like she’d argued about wanting to push her already-strained budget to accommodate the additional three tiers on the wedding cake. Like she’d argued about the first two dresses that seemed perfect to Zoe but Juliet ultimately ended up selling on eBay.
Finally, Juliet let out a breath like she’d been defeated. “Fine. I suppose. Do what you need to do.” She turned her back to Zoe and faced the mirror.
Zoe checked her watch. Thirty-nine minutes until go-time. She’d have to make quick work of the designer dress.
She began to cut holes into the back of the dress on both sides of the zipper, careful to hide them beneath the folds of the ruching detail. Then with long, deft fingers, she began to thread the silk ribbon through the holes, crisscrossing them in a corset-style.
When Zoe had threaded the last hole, she instructed the bridesmaids to hold the bride steady. “Brace yourself,” she told Juliet. Heaving on the ribbon, she cinched it tight, sucking Juliet snuggly into the dress.
The bride gasped with each jerk. Zoe grunted as she yanked and pulled, maintaining tension until she could put the final bow in place. Then she thought better of it and added a double knot.
Wiping her brow, Zoe stepped back to admire her handiwork. “There. That’s better, isn’t it?” she panted. “I think it adds a certain sexiness to it, don’t you?”
The bridesmaids parted. Hesitantly, Juliet turned her back to the mirror and looked over her shoulder. Her scrutinizing eyes roved up and down the laced ribbon, eventually softening. After a few moments, it was clear she was unable to find another argument, and the collection of colorful bridesmaids released their held breaths.
Zoe had to admit, it looked pretty damn good. Unless you knew it was supposed to be a zip-up dress, you couldn’t even tell. As she stared at her bride’s reflection in self-congratulations, she caught a glimpse of something white streak across the mirror. Her eyes focused on the reflection of the room’s open window as another white object soared by.
She spun just in time to see it clearly: white doves. Sure, they could be any old white doves. It was the outdoors, after all. But considering how the day was going so far, she just knew they were the white doves that were prepared for the newlywed’s grand exit. The white doves that were supposed to be waiting in their cages around the side of the church.
Zoe gasped.
Juliet stiffened. “What? What is it? Is the fabric ripping?” The tulle skirt swished as she twisted this way and that to see what was wrong.
“No! It’s nothing. I just thought I saw a cloud outside,” Zoe lied. “I would hate for the weather to turn on us.”
“Oh, no! I hope it’s not going to rain.” Juliet gathered her skirts and rushed toward the window.
Zoe lunged to block the way, throwing her arms out. She couldn’t let Juliet see the doves and come up with yet another reason to call off the wedding. “No! I … I think I saw the groom outside. I wouldn’t look if I were you.” She shooed the bride away. “Bad luck and everything.”
And they certainly didn’t need any more of that.
The door burst open. Natalie practically fell into the room, a feather clinging to her bangs. She was wheezing for air after clearly running all the way there. Her wide eyes fell on Zoe, and she seemed to make an attempt—however poor—to act natural.
Zoe suppressed an eye roll. She was going to have to give that girl some acting lessons in cool.
“Sorry to interrupt, but—”
Zoe held up a hand before she could finish that sentence. The white feather waving in her hair said enough. “No, not at all. Perfect timing.” She threw on a brilliant smile. “Can you please touch up the bride’s hair and makeup for me? We’ve only got”—she checked her watch again—“thirty-three minutes.”
As Zoe headed for the door, Natalie clung to her arm. “But the—”
“I know.” Zoe plucked the feather out of her hair. “I’ve got everything under control.”
Grasping the door handle, Zoe yanked it open, ready to deal with the next disaster. As it swung open, violent gusts of wind flapped in her face, feathers tickling her cheek and stirring her long hair.
Zoe cried out. She threw her hands up, swatting at anything that might come near. When the flurry in front of her disappeared and she could finally open her eyes, she saw two more doves escaping, headed east on Bush Street.
“What’s wrong?” Juliet demanded. She turned to look just as Natalie held the eyeliner to her lid, effectively leaving a thick ebony streak across her face.
If the bridesmaids had noticed Zoe’s feathered attacker, they were all too scared to say anything to their friend.
Zoe managed to rearrange her face into fake outrage. “Who put the rose topiary out here?” She gestured to the front steps. “This isn’t where it was supposed to go. Do I have to do everything around here?”
Juliet rolled her eyes at Zoe’s dramatics. “It’s okay. They’re just flowers. You know, you’re kind of high
strung.”
Zoe grit her teeth. Look who’s talking, she thought, but managed to give her a confident look. “I’m here to make sure your wedding is perfect.”
“Everything is perfect.” Now that the most recent meltdown had been avoided, it seemed Juliet was the perfect picture of a blushing bride. “So long as you have the horse for after the ceremony, that is. You do, don’t you?”
Zoe quirked her eyebrow at Natalie in question. But she gave a subtle shake of her head. Zoe’s smile only wavered a little. “Absolutely. You can count on me.” Although how she was going to pull it off, she wasn’t sure.
As she turned to leave, Natalie called out, “Oh Zoe! I almost forgot. Levi Dolson is waiting for you in the foyer.”
“Thank you. I’ll take care of it.” She shut the door behind her to go wrangle a seriously late groomsman and some damn birds. Yet another thing to put on the list for the day. Bird herding.
She found it strange that Natalie hadn’t checked on the birds herself. After a year of working together, her assistant still hadn’t learned to take a little initiative. Today, however, she seemed worse than ever, like instead of rising to the challenge, she was adding to it. How could so many things possibly go wrong with one event?
Zoe decided to take the shortcut through the sanctuary and nave. There wasn’t much time to waste. Her heels clicked steadily on the hardwood floor, echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
“High strung,” my ass, she thought. She was nothing if not level-headed, cool, and collected. Her emotions were always in check. At least, they had been ever since her own wedding day. That day itself, however, was an entirely different story. But who could blame her?
Since then, she’d vowed never to let herself lose control like that again. Especially not over a man. Instead, when she felt her temperature rise, her emotions start to bubble to the surface, she pushed them down. Deep, deep down. She imagined bottling them up and screwing on the top. Which sounded perfectly healthy, right?
Zoe never let her bottle-o-crazy get too full, however. She had a way of safely releasing the built-up pressure. Sure, it cost her a fortune in batteries, but what better way to prevent herself from blowing her top than … well, blowing her top?
To everyone else, she appeared tranquil, calm beneath that layer of ice. No one could make waves in waters they couldn’t touch. More than one bitter man she’d turned down over the years had called her an ice queen. And because she was just so cool, they never had to know just how much it hurt. No one had to know what went on beneath her smooth, hard surface.
Marching through the church, she shooed doves down from curtain rods, from St. Mary’s shoulder, and away from the topiaries. So far, she’d counted twelve feathered fugitives. The more she chased toward an open window or swished out a nearby exit, the more Zoe found her cool starting to thaw.
At least one problem was about to be solved. Her substitute groomsman had finally arrived and not a moment too soon. But when Zoe reached the foyer, chasing yet another dove away, there was no groomsman.
There was, however, a man in his mid-thirties, wearing ripped jeans and a wrinkly T-shirt. His hair stuck up in a blond tangle of gelled curls, mashed up on one side like he’d just rolled out of bed.
He turned at the sound of her footsteps, a dreamy smile lighting up his unshaven face, like he’d just stumbled out of his bedroom and not into a church.
For a second, she hoped the man was just sleepwalking and needed directions back to his bed, but then he said the words she dreaded to hear.
“Zoe Plum? I was told you’re looking for me.” He held out a hand. “Levi Dolson.”
2
Stop the Music
Zoe stared at the rumpled man in front of her. She could feel her eyebrow twitch with annoyance as she took in his careless style, his bedhead hair, his sleepy half-lidded eyes that ran up her long, lean legs beneath her tight skirt. It was the kind of look a girl would dream about waking up next to, but at that moment, it was Zoe’s nightmare.
“You’re not Levi Dolson,” she said.
He arched a pierced eyebrow. “I’m not?”
“You can’t be. The Levi Dolson I’m expecting is a groomsman in a wedding. Not a candidate for a sleep study.”
He ran a self-conscious hand over the stubble on his square jaw. “Hey, give me a break. I just woke up half an hour ago. At least I brushed my teeth.”
“Too bad you forgot your hair,” she said, only half-jokingly. The other half was dead serious. This was the last thing she needed. “Late night?”
“You could say that.” He grinned, and Zoe assumed it might have had something to do with the cherry red lipstick mark still bright on his cheek. “You gotta grab life by the balls while you can, right?”
“Looks like it wasn’t just life that had its balls grabbed last night.”
His forehead creased with confusion. Zoe dug into her bridal utility bag and pulled out a makeup remover to-go cloth.
She waved it in question. “May I?”
He nodded so she reached up and wiped the red smudge off his cheek. She showed it to him, and he kind of shrugged sheepishly.
“Nice shade,” she said with a smirk.
Reaching back into her bag, she pulled out a travel hairbrush. She held it up. After he nodded, she began styling his hair as best she could. It was a nice mix of honey and caramel. The sides were faded short but there was plenty of length on top to give it some style.
“Why are you so late?” she asked. “Were you planning on sleepwalking down the aisle in your Snoopy slippers?”
“I don’t have Snoopy slippers. I’m a man, not a child. I have Batman slippers,” he chuckled. “Besides, I only got Owen’s text forty minutes ago that he wanted me to fill in. I came right away.”
“But you were supposed to be a guest. Why weren’t you already here, and”—she gave his curls a final ruffle to add some life—“showered?” She nodded appreciatively at his hair. He had nice locks—if only he’d done them before he came.
“Let me see?” He pretended to think. “Attend the stressful wedding of a guy I knew back in university or sleep in after a late night? Tough call. Besides, I was going to attend the reception. No big deal.”
“Well, it’s a big deal to the bride and groom. And it’s a big deal to me. You’re pushing us dangerously behind schedule.” She checked her watch again. She couldn’t stand tardiness.
Levi’s attention suddenly shifted, following the path of something sailing over Zoe’s head. The nerve of this guy, she thought. He wasn’t even paying attention to her. He opened and closed his mouth a couple of times before he figured out exactly what he wanted to say.
“Are there more birds in this church than usual, or is it just me?”
Zoe gasped. “Crap. The doves.” Spinning on her heel, she raced for the front entrance. “Come on!” she called over her shoulder. “We need to take a detour, and I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
On the way by a replica painting of the Last Supper, she spotted Juliet’s half-cut uncle slouched in a velvet chair. She stopped at the refreshment table in the corner and filled a Styrofoam cup with black coffee.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” Levi said. “I could really use a cup.”
As he reached for it, Zoe swiped it out of his grasp. “If you wanted coffee, you should have woken up earlier. There’s no time.”
He gave her a pathetic pout. Despite how vexed she was with him at the moment, Zoe laughed, but she didn’t relent. Although, that playful look did make her waver a little.
Zoe snuck up on Uncle Wally slouched over in his chair and wrestled the flask out of his hands before he could fight back. “I think you’ve had quite enough of that.”
His bloodshot eyes opened half-way, blinking out of sync before landing on her chest. “But I’m celebrating,” he whined.
“Save the celebrations for later. They’re not married yet.” She handed him the coffee and a Tic-Tac from her utility bag.
; Zoe mentally ticked that item off her to-do list and returned her focus to the top priority.
As she weaved through the last guests filtering into the stuffy church to take their seats, Levi tugged on the neck of his T-shirt.
“Why is it so hot in here?”
“Air conditioning is broken,” she said, trying her best not to sprint out the front doors as she saw another dove soar by.
“And they’re still having the wedding here? Don’t they know there’s a heat wave going on right now?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re pretty sharp for a man who just woke up at the crack of mid-day.”
Descending the steps, she took the paved path to a nook at the side of the building where she was keeping the caged doves until the end. As she rounded the corner, her eyes fell on a small devil in lace and braids, disguised as an adorable six-year-old flower girl. And she was reaching for the latch on the next birdcage.
Zoe fixed her with a hard stare. “And what do you think you’re doing?”
The girl jumped and blinked up at Zoe. “They were sad,” she explained. “They wanted to come out and play.”
“But they will come out and play right after Juliet and Owen get married,” she said. “You’ll see.”
But the flower girl jiggled the latch impatiently like that sounded way too long. “But I want to play with them now.”
Zoe crouched down, ready to spring into action if she opened it. “You can even help let them out if you want. How does that sound? Hmm? Help create the grand finale?”
“Grand finale?” She eyed Levi like she smelled a trick. After a moment of serious consideration, the flower girl nodded.
Zoe clapped her hands together. “Great! Why don’t we find you some cake to keep you busy for a while?”
The girl’s eyes lit up. “Cake!”
There were already seven tiers on the oversized cake. She was sure Juliet wouldn’t miss one little piece. “If I get you some cake, do you promise to behave and carry the flowers down the aisle like we talked about?”
“Uh-huh,” she said around the drool forming.
“Do you think she could really use more energy?” Levi muttered.
A Wedding Tail Page 2
