by Peggy Jaeger
“Tell me you paid him anyway, please? He’s a sweet old man.”
“Of course I did. And I’m taking care of his next litter free of charge. Or Pat is,” he added, with a grin. “I just need to tell him.”
Moira smiled and pulled his face down to hers. Her kiss was at once soft and tender, and yet so full of yearning and desire it almost knocked them both back.
“I love you,” she said against his mouth.
“Please don’t ever stop saying those words.”
The puppy settled between them, his back against Moira, his legs pillowed on Quentin.
“Oh, man, what is it with people in this family?” Alastair stopped at the front door, his backpack dangling from his hand, giving them a look of total revulsion. “Dad’s slobbering all over Mom in the kitchen. I can’t even get something to eat before school. Now you two are out here swapping spit. It’s morning, for God’s sake. Get a room.” He shot down the porch steps.
Laughing, Moira yelled after her brother, “Congratulate us, Steps. We just got engaged.”
He turned to them and she could see he was fighting the smile he wanted to give her. But being her brother he had to say, “about time. Guy’s been drooling after you since I was in diapers. Later.” He jumped in his car and gunned the engine.
“Of all our children,” Moira heard her father say, “he’s the most like you, Rene.”
“You mean perceptive and insightful?” she asked.
“Sure I do.”
“Got room for one more?” Serena asked them from the doorway, Roy in her arms, Seamus’s arm around her.
Quentin nodded and Serena put the puppy down so it could run over to them. Quentin scooped him up and held him next to his brother. The two puppies sniffed at one another and then dragged excited puppy licks across their new parent’s hands.
“Our first grandbabies,” Serena said on a sigh. She leaned against her husband, her hand on her heart.
With a laugh, Seamus added, “I think they look more like my side of the family than yours.”
Quentin bent and kissed Moira again as the puppies wriggled between them.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Are you nervous?” Tiffany asked, adjusting Moira’s veil.
“I keep thinking I should be,” she said, “but for some reason I’m not.”
“I’d say it’s because you’ve performed in public for most of your life,” Delilah said, sipping her champagne. “You’re used to being stared at.”
“You’re probably right,” Moira said. “But I don’t have my piano to hide behind this time.”
“Why would you want to hide behind a piano when you look like this?” Tiffany asked, surveying her cousin’s reflection in the full-length mirror. “You look like you stepped off the cover of Bride Magazine.”
Moira examined herself in the mirror. Her gown had the barest of straps slung along the outer part of her shoulders. The dress itself was a rich, ivory silk and draped her body beautifully. The back fell straight and open, to start the skirt at just a hint above her waist, the front swooping low along the bodice. It was nipped in at the waist, showing off Moira’s curves to perfection, and came just to the floor, no further. The veil was a simple comb with a long swatch of tulle. Moira’s waist length hair was held back with a pearl encrusted comb, adorned in a simple chignon
“You do look lovely, Baby,” Serena told her.
“Hey,” Pat said, knocking and entering Moira’s crowded bedroom. “Show’s about to start. Dad wants to know if you’re ready.”
“As I’ll ever be,” Moira said. She turned to him with a smile.
“You look nice.”
“High praise, from you.”
Delilah downed her champagne and grabbed her soon-to-be-daughter-in-law in a hug, mindful not to wrinkle her wedding dress. “If I could have special ordered a daughter from heaven, it would have been you,” she said, her green eyes glistening. “You can’t possibly know how happy David and I are the two of you are together.”
Moira tossed her mother a quick look and saw her own blue eyes shining. “Oh, I think I have an idea,” she said. “You two conspired enough over the years to make sure it happened.”
“How insulting,” Delilah said her mouth twitching up at the corners like her oldest son’s was wont to do. “Accurate, but insulting.”
She kissed her quickly on the cheek and left.
“Do you have everything, Baby?” Serena asked, making a visual swoop of the room.
“Old, new, borrowed and blue?” Tiffany asked.
“I’ve got everything I need,” she told them. “Can I have a sec with Pat before we go down?”
“We’ll see you outside,” Serena said. Coming to her daughter, she too, enveloped her in a hug as Delilah had. “I love you so much,” she whispered. “Be happy.”
“I am,” she whispered back.
When they were alone, Pat crossed to her and took her hands in his. Just staring at one another, mirror images, both smiled.
“When did you grow up and become so beautiful?” he asked.
“High praise, indeed,” she said with a laugh.
“You’re sure about this?”
“More than I’ve ever been about anything.” She squeezed his hands. “I love him so much, Pat, I can’t breathe some times.”
“He said the same thing about you.” With a shake of his head, he added, “I can’t believe I never saw it. I’ve been around the guy almost every day of my life, and the whole time he’s crazy about you. I must be slipping.”
“You’re not slipping. Just as intuitive as ever, I’d say. But he kept his feelings hidden until he was sure I’d feel the same way. He’s a good man, Pat.”
“Next to you, he’s my best friend. And he’s marrying my beautiful sister. I just want you to be happy.”
She dropped her hands, threw them around his waist and hugged him. “Mom said the same thing. I am, Pat. I deeply, truly am. And I love you, too.”
He sighed and pulled her away from him. “Okay then, let’s get this show started.”
Moira took one more glance around the room before she let her brother escort her down the stairs. She was wearing her grandmother’s pearls, borrowed from Aunt Carly; she had the one-carat square cut diamond studs Quentin had given her for their engagement in her ears. On her wrist, she wore a delicate gold chain with two small sapphires, one for Rob and one for Roy her parents had given her. She pulled her bouquet of white and pale pink roses and baby’s breath from the box on her bed, and took her brother’s arm.
Out on the porch, Seamus was waiting for them, along with Tiffany, Moira’s maid of honor to Pat’s best man. Liam, the official ring bearer, held a small white pillow in one hand, and a leash in the other, at the end of which were two fast growing pups, and the elder Rob Roy, resplendent in a tuxedo dog collar.
“Daddy, you look great.” Moira kissed her father’s cheek and took his arm.
“I’ll see you in a few,” Pat told them.
“Ready?” Tiffany asked them all.
She nodded to the harpist and they lined up, Liam and the dogs, Tiffany, then Moira and Seamus.
“Remember, Liam,” Tiffany said, leaning down to whisper in her son’s ear. “You’re in charge of these dogs. Don’t let them lead you. You lead them. Got it?”
“Got it, Mommy. I’m in charge,” he told the dogs.
With a small shove to his back, she sent him on his way down the runner.
As the guests all stood and turned to watch the procession, Seamus leaned down to his daughter and said, “I married your mother in this garden twenty-nine years ago. It was the best day of my life.”
Moira squeezed the arm she held, touched.
“Until the day you two were born,” he added. “And now today. Baby, if you know a tenth the love and joy with Quentin your mother and I have had, then I’ll be a happy man the rest of my life.”
“I love you, Daddy. So much.”
He turned to her, his eyes
shimmering in the afternoon glow of the sun.
Moira turned to smile at her guests and keep a watchful eye on her godson and the pups. They were behaving nicely, prancing up the aisle, following the elder Rob Roy’s example. She saw the rest of Tiffany’s clan, Michael holding a sleeping Alaina in his arms, Thomas standing watch next to them. Tiffany had shared with her once they’d brought the baby home, overnight Michael had turned into a different person, causing Cole to question if he’d been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a clone. It seemed Michael was the one Alaina responded to best when crying. The moment he held her she’d quiet and coo. He took it upon himself to change her diapers and helped his mother care for the baby in any way he could. Tiffany joked Liam and Thomas were growing jealous of their older brother’s baby-hogging.
Moira smiled at Clarissa Rogers, her new best friend, as she stood next to Carly and Mike. The two had become fast and intimate friends since the birth of Alaina, and Moira was glad to have another female in her hub to laugh and do girl things. The fact her serial dater brother still hadn’t asked the young doctor out was annoying, but as Quentin had told her, Pat was just biding his time. Today Clarissa was decked out in a form fitting pale blue silk sheath. Auburn hair hung in soft waves around her face, which were, for once, free of her glasses.
If Pat didn’t step up to the plate soon, Moira thought, some other guy would.
She found Serena’s eyes on her next and almost started crying when she saw her mother take a handkerchief and dab at her eyes. Passing her, she mouthed, “No crying.” Serena laughed and nodded. Dennis and Alastair standing next to their mother were both beaming. The men in her family, Moira knew, sure were handsome specimens on a daily basis. Decked out in tuxedoed finery, they were heart stoppers, all four of them.
Reaching the alter Moira and Seamus stopped, and for the first time she allowed herself to look at the man she loved. He stood with her twin and both of them looked so handsome, liked they’d stepped out of a movie screen.
But Moira only had eyes for Quentin. His black tuxedo jacket fit him to perfection, outlining those massive shoulders and trim waist she loved to hold. The white bowtie at his throat offset the deep tan on his face being outdoors with the horses so much had graced him with. He’d gotten his hair trimmed, but not short, just as Moira had requested, telling him, “A girl likes to have something she can fist her hands into.” Quentin promised her he’d never cut his hair short again.
Seamus handed her over to her husband-to-be as the minister began the ceremony.
With her hand tucked securely in Quentin’s, Moira took a deep breath and relaxed and reflected.
Who would have ever guessed when I came home battered, bruised, and defeated, I’d be standing in my parent’s garden marrying my best friend and the best man I know? Or I’d be surrounded by unconditional love and joy, and the future looked so perfect?
Smiling, she gave herself a mental shake. Her favorite line from her favorite movie jumped into her head: there really is no place like home.
After the vows had been spoken, the minister smiled and looked both of them in the eyes. “It is with the greatest of pleasure I pronounce you, husband and wife.”
“Can I kiss her now?” Quentin asked, grinning widely, making Moira laugh out loud.
“Please do,” the minister replied.
Quentin turned and swooped Moira up into his arms, spinning her around a few times, her laughter echoing in the trees surrounding them. Then, he pulled her close and kissed her with all the love and longing inside of him.
Off in the near distance, Moira heard Tiffany sigh and knew her cousin was remembering her own first marriage kiss.
Quentin pulled back and, with a grin, whispered into her ear, “I finally got a second chance. Better than when we were thirteen?”
“You have no idea.” She whispered back and kissed him again, as the audience clapped. When the puppies began yipping and scrambling, startled by the noise, Quentin laughed, took the leashes from Liam, and led his new wife and their first babies down the aisle to start their life together.
A word about the author…
Peggy Jaeger has been a lifelong lover of words. Her favorite Christmas present when she was eight? A dictionary. She has won numerous short story, literary, and non-fiction awards, has had two children’s books published and has been included in the Chicken Soup For Every Mother’s Soul Anthology. She writes in her attic loft in her home in New Hampshire when she is not painting or cooking.
http://peggyjaeger.com
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