by Mary Leo
“Everything’s fine, Greta,” she lied. “Just fine.”
“Great, do you have a minute?”
Zoe’s heart sank. This couldn’t be good. The last time Greta had asked her if she “had a minute,” she wanted the delinquent rent payment. Zoe had been able to catch up with the rent because of Carson’s payments for his wedding. Still, Greta had a tone about her that said something was up, and it couldn’t be good.
Zoe stepped out into the bridal shop and there, hanging from a metal rod, all by itself was perhaps the most beautiful wedding dress Zoe had ever seen. Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” boomed over the speakers. She felt as if she’d just been given a Christmas present of her very own and it happened to be the absolute perfect wedding gown.
It had a dropped waist, a full, layered organza skirt, a lace bodice with off-the-shoulder lace sleeves that just nicked the elbows. The entire bodice, both front and back, sparkled with a smattering of beads catching the light from every corner of the room. Any bride would look like an angel in that dress.
“Would you mind trying it on?” Greta asked, sincerity encasing her soft features.
“Sure, but the dress looks perfect. Is there something wrong with it?” Zoe asked.
Greta had to be in her midfifties with a plump but solid figure, a salt-and-pepper pageboy and flowing colorful clothes. Zoe always admired how well she dressed, stylish and comfortable, and complimented her whenever she had the chance.
“Love your skirt, Greta. Especially the color and the way it hits your black boots,” Zoe told her, hoping the compliment would somehow soften whatever misery she was about to lower on Zoe’s head.
“Thanks, sweetheart. Gloria designed and made it for me.” She twirled and her skirt billowed out, splashing blues, reds and lavenders around the tiny office.
“You could have your own line of clothes,” Zoe told Gloria, the shop seamstress, who wasn’t particularly impressed by any of this. She was a much younger woman than Greta, probably in her late thirties, yet the two women were best friends and business partners. “Too much competition, but thanks. Listen, sweetie, you and Marilyn Rose are about the same size and it looks like she won’t be able to get back in time for me to make a lot of her alterations. We’ll be able to fit the bodice the night before the wedding, but because there’s so much skirt, I really need a couple days to make sure I get it right,” Gloria said, looking stoic with a tape measure dangling from her neck along with her reading glasses, a rhinestone-encrusted pair of scissors and a pendant watch she never took off.
“What? Me? No. I can’t... I won’t... I’m sure Marilyn Rose will be here in time.” There was absolutely no way Zoe would agree to such a preposterous idea. “Isn’t it like bad luck for another woman to try on the bride’s wedding dress?”
“Don’t be silly, Zoe,” Greta told her, trying to dismiss Zoe’s anxiety. “A lot of brides rent their dresses now.”
“Maybe so, but not this bride. I’ve met her and I know for a fact she would not want me to try on her dress.” Zoe took a few steps backward, trying to get over to the sanctity of her office, where she would lock the door and throw away the key.
“You’d be doing us a favor, my dear,” Gloria said. “And heaven knows you owe Greta a few favors.”
Gloria had always been the more outspoken of the two, never mixing business with friendship. If it had been up to Gloria, We Do I Do’s would have been cast out into the cold months ago.
Zoe stuck a hand to her hip, a mixture of anger and shock stirring up her emotions. “This is a big...big favor, and besides, I don’t think I’ll fit into that tiny little dress. That’s what, a size two?”
“A size four. And I know for a fact you wear a four from the red gown you bought on sale last year for the annual Cowboy Ball.” Greta had sold her the dress, rung it up and wrapped it in red tissue to make sure nothing rubbed off on the silk fabric. It was the most expensive dress Zoe owned, and it still had the tags pinned on it. She’d never gone to the Cowboy Ball. Instead, she and her cowboy had called it quits three days before the ball right after she’d caught him kissing his secretary.
“Sorry. I’m not convinced this is a good idea. You both know what’s been going on with me and weddings lately. I might rip out a seam or worse.”
“I’ll stay with you the whole time,” Gloria said, looking confident. “No worries. It’ll take me only a few minutes to pin it for the hem. You won’t be in the gown long enough for anything bad to happen. I promise.”
“You’ll have to try it on with these,” Greta ordered, handing Zoe a pair of white satin three-inch heels. Zoe frowned; she was sure to stumble and fall in those shoes, then all her fears would come true.
“They’re too high,” Zoe said. “I won’t be able to walk in them.”
“You won’t have to put them on until you’re standing in front of the mirror.”
The only three-way mirror in the shop was in the middle of the sales floor. Zoe didn’t relish making a spectacle of herself. There was no telling who might walk in.
“Can’t we do this in back? There are plenty of mirrors in the fitting rooms,” Zoe tried to protest, but the two women wouldn’t take no or anything close to it for an answer.
In the end, Zoe slipped out of her jeans, sweater and boots, tucked her bra straps under her arms and, with Gloria’s help, slipped into Marilyn Rose’s wedding dress.
* * *
CARSON HADN’T HAD contact with Zoe since he’d kissed those soft lips of hers last Saturday night. He realized he probably shouldn’t have done it out there in the open, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. She was so dang cute standing there under the moonlight. He really hadn’t had a choice, especially after he’d told her he loved her, which he truly did.
Of course, she hadn’t reacted the way he’d anticipated, and now she was avoiding his calls. Again. He’d thought about showing up at her parents’ house, but knew they more than likely would respect her wishes by not inviting him inside. There was always the option of yelling out her name from their front lawn as Jimmy had for Kayla, but he thought that might not be in his best interest. Instead, he chose to show up at her office inside All About A Bride.
The sky had been threatening a heavy snowfall for the entire morning, and now that it was well past noon, most of the shops on Main Street were closing early. His fear was that he’d be too late and she’d already have gone home like everyone else.
He gingerly placed his hand on the brass doorknob and turned. At once the door opened and the bells overhead chimed his entrance. He could hear voices coming from somewhere in the store, so he headed straight for them. Once he made his way past rows of billowing white dresses, he passed two rows of pastel-colored dresses, along with black and bloodred dresses.
Then he walked beyond the last row lined with children’s dresses, and the voices became at once clear. Zoe was telling someone to please hurry. At last he’d caught up with her and she couldn’t get away now.
He looked up and there, standing in front of him, looking as if she’d recently descended from heaven itself, stood Zoe Smart wearing the most amazing wedding dress he’d ever seen. Her red locks were pulled up off her neck, with wisps of curls caressing her delicate face.
She twirled around in his direction and it was as if all the air went out of the room.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Greta chided as soon as she spotted him, trying to shield Zoe as best she could, but it was too late. He’d already seen the vision of pure beauty.
“I came to see...Zoe.” His voice cracked. All he wanted was to hold her in his arms once again. Did she know the effect she was having on him? “You look stunning, Zoe, incredibly, stunningly beautiful.”
“I’ll be done here in a minute,” Zoe told him, blushing. “Maybe you could wait for me in the front of the store.”
&nb
sp; He strolled up closer to her. “That dress, your hair, you’re the most exquisite bride I’ve ever seen.”
The door bells chimed again, signaling another customer.
“Excuse me,” Greta said as she went to greet the new arrival. “I should lock that door. We’re actually closed. That snow is sure to come down at any moment, and we don’t want to get stuck inside the shop. Maybe you should leave, Carson. It might be tough for you to get home if it starts snowing.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” His gaze never left Zoe. He was sure if he looked away for even a second she would disappear. “We need to talk and I’m not letting you out of my sight until we do. You don’t know what’s really been going on, and you deserve the truth.”
“If it’s about the other night, there’s nothing to say. It was an anomaly. I’ve already forgotten about it, and you should, too.”
He shook his head and stepped up onto the round platform only inches from Zoe. “I don’t believe you.”
He slid a curl behind her ear and she sighed. “It’s true. I’ve forgotten...about...your lips on mine.”
He leaned in just as a woman’s voice boomed in his ears.
“You can’t be in here!” Gloria insisted, then escorted him off the platform Zoe stood on and proceeded to pin the hem on the dress in several different places. Then she moved up to the waist and pinned that, as well.
“Ladies, I need to speak to Zoe and I’m not leaving until I do,” Carson explained, still not able to take his gaze away from her.
“Not while she’s wearing this dress. It’s bad luck. The whole thing is bad luck. You need to leave right now, before...before I finish pinning this dress.”
“I don’t understand. I thought it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding, and clearly Zoe is not Marilyn Rose,” Carson said.
“Then why the hell is she wearing my dress?”
Carson spun around, and there, standing not two feet from him, looking windblown and snow covered, with her arms crossed over her chest, stood Marilyn Rose, the woman he thought he’d once loved.
* * *
“I...I CAN EXPLAIN,” Zoe sputtered, wanting to melt into the floorboards just like the snow Marilyn Rose brushed off her shoulders.
“You’re wearing her dress?” Carson asked Zoe, his forehead furrowed in obvious bewilderment.
“Greta asked me to do a fitting and I—”
“I’m here now,” Marilyn Rose assured her in a calm voice. “I can do my own fitting, thank you very much. Please take off my dress.”
Zoe cautiously stepped off the platform and started to walk away when Carson stopped her. This wasn’t something she wanted to get involved in. She had instinctively known slipping into another woman’s wedding dress was not a good idea. Talk about a jinx. “Don’t take off the dress, Zoe. It’s not hers.”
“Oh, it’s definitely mine, darling,” Marilyn Rose cooed as Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” resonated through the small shop.
Carson turned to his ex-fiancée. “I don’t know what you heard, but I’m not pretending anymore. I was just about to tell Zoe the truth about us.”
“The truth? What truth?” Zoe asked, not understanding any of this. Both Carson and Marilyn Rose were talking in circles and Zoe couldn’t keep up. From the stunned expressions Greta and Gloria had on their faces, Zoe knew they were equally confused.
“The truth is, my darling, when Zoe called me the other night and left a message cataloging everything you were doing for our wedding, I realized how much you truly love me. With that much love coming my way, I decided I was wrong, and when I’m wrong, I’m the first to admit it. So I grabbed the next available flight and came as soon as I could get away.”
Then she walked over to Carson and tried to plant a kiss on him. He instantly moved away from her grasp as if she was the very last person he ever wanted to kiss. Zoe didn’t understand his reaction, but it clearly wasn’t how a loving groom should respond to his fiancée’s advances. He looked more repulsed than loving.
“You called her?” Carson asked Zoe. He seemed surprised.
“Yes, of course I called her. I’ve been calling her. She’s your fiancée,” Zoe told him, hoping she’d made her position clear.
“She hasn’t been my fiancée in weeks.”
“What? No, that can’t be true.”
His words stung Zoe deeper than anything she’d ever felt before. He’d betrayed her trust and was playing her for some disturbing reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Did he purposely want to publically ridicule her on his wedding day, knowing that his bride wouldn’t be showing up? Or was this some kind of game the two of them were playing?
Zoe was completely stymied.
“Uh...you picked out a cake. We have a band, a photo booth, white poinsettias in the church. And all those toys you and the boys chose, why would you do that?” She thought about his catalog of lies as reality struck. “You lied to Father Beau...your own cousin, a member of the clergy?”
But Carson wasn’t listening to Zoe. He was completely focused on Marilyn Rose. “What makes you think you can waltz in here and I’d take you back after you coldly called the whole thing off?”
“Wait a minute!” Zoe interrupted just as John Lennon’s “Happy Christmas” boomed throughout the shop. “She called off the wedding and you didn’t tell me?”
“Yes, but I can explain,” he told Zoe. He seemed genuine enough, but she couldn’t get past why he’d kept up the charade when his bride had dumped him. It didn’t make any sense.
“You little darling,” Marilyn Rose purred. “All this time you kept right on planning.”
“All this time? How long have you known?”
The look of resignation on his face wouldn’t be something she’d easily forget. “I’ve known from the first day you knocked on my door. I wanted to tell you, but things kept snowballing. I was all set to tell you today—”
“Today? You were going to tell me today? There’s less than forty-eight hours before your wedding and now you’re going to tell me? What about your guests? Shouldn’t they have known weeks ago?”
“I have a plan for that.”
“What plan? This isn’t a plan, it’s a fiasco and I’ll be humiliated for it. Everyone will say it was my fault you and Marilyn Rose didn’t get married. How could you do this?”
Marilyn Rose cut in. “He lied because he’s so in love with me, he kept right on going with the wedding plans hoping I’d come back to him.” Her gaze fell on Carson. “To plan an entire wedding all on your own, hoping, wishing I’d come back. You’ve won my heart. Who knew my rodeo hero was such a romantic?”
“I’m not. I mean, I’m not a romantic with you. I’m a romantic with Zoe. I’m in love with Zoe.” The words came out as if he was using them to lash out at Marilyn Rose, not declare his love for his woman.
Anger pulsed through Zoe’s veins. She wanted no part of Carson Grant or his insincere, misdirected love.
“No, you’re not,” Zoe protested. “Someone who loves me wouldn’t have lied to me for weeks. Just tell me one thing. Does this entire town know this wedding is a sham? Am I the only one who didn’t know? Am I the laughingstock of Briggs, Idaho? Again!”
“What do you mean you love her?” Marilyn Rose protested, her voice squeaking in a higher pitch. “You’re in love with our wedding planner?”
“Yes,” Carson told her.
“Get a grip,” Zoe blurted. “Obviously, your fiancée thinks you love her. How many other women do you have lined up across the country? Surely, Marilyn Rose and I aren’t the only two.”
“There isn’t anyone else. I’m in love with you, Zoe. You have to believe me.” He sounded genuine, but Zoe’s complete mortification wouldn’t allow her to listen. She pulled up the skirt on the dress with one hand an
d stormed off toward the dressing room.
“Zoe, please don’t go. Not like this. Please.” She could hear the heartfelt plea in his voice and it stopped her from going any farther.
“Huh, and here I thought that all those wedding plans meant you couldn’t get over me. That you really loved me and would do anything to get me back.” Marilyn Rose shuffled her boot-clad feet and cocked a trim hip. “And to think I dumped Frank for you.”
“Who the heck is Frank? It was Bill Haggerty the bull rider I saw you messing around with.”
“That was months ago. I told you he never meant anything to me, but you didn’t believe me. I’m with Frank Jenkins now.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You will. He’s new to the bronc rider circuit, and he’s sure to win the Nationals next year now that you’re out of the game.”
“Who said I was out?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“I most certainly am not out. Just took a little R & R is all.”
She gave him the once-over. “I heard you haven’t been on a horse since the accident.”
“That’s a lie,” Zoe said, defending Carson. “He was riding just last week.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’ll take a year for you to get back in the game, and by then, my Frankie will be the new golden boy. Best of all, he’s in love with me like you never were.”
“Not anymore, sweetheart,” Carson said. “You just said you dumped him for me, remember? Allow me to remind you that men don’t take too kindly to that.”
She winced. “And a bride doesn’t take too kindly to the groom making it with the wedding planner.”
