All By Herself

by Tasha Blue

  "That's not true." Cliff insisted. "It's just about finding a woman who likes the whole package, including your dedication to your work. She's out there somewhere. I'm sure of it."

  "Maybe." Dan shrugged.

  "Definitely." Cliff said firmly.

  After dinner when Dan had been dropped off outside his elite apartment complex, he entered into his home feeling unsettled by his conversation with the groom. Cliff was right. Everyone that they had gone to college with was married now and only Dan remained. It wasn't that he didn't want those things himself, because he did, but they were just difficult to come by when he also valued his career so greatly.

  Perhaps Cliff was right to say that what he needed was someone completely unlike the other girls he met and perhaps when he found her, he too could experience that moment of transcendence and let life slow down.

  Chapter3

  When Diane caught sight of Carla peering around the doorway of the house where the bridal party was spending the night, she let out a squeal of delight and raced across the hall to throw her arms around her cousin in a loving hug and plant a kiss on her cheek.

  "Little Carl-la-la!" she cooed. "It's been far too long! How have you been?"

  Carla hugged her cousin back tightly and smiled wide. It was good to see her again. They had been as close as sisters growing up, but life had taken them in different directions as they grew older and Carla did not get to see her favorite cousin often enough anymore, although they spoke constantly on the phone and sent each other funny little notes and nonsense gifts in the mail.

  "I am fantastic, darling girl!" Carla said warmly. "How are you? Bride to be! You look beautiful as you are. You are going to be a stunning bride."

  Diane looped her arm through Carla's and began to lead her through the house and up the stairs to her bedroom. It was her mother's house; Carla's aunt, and Carla had many fond memories of racing around these rooms as a young child playing hide and seek with Diane and playing dress-up in all of her Aunt Tania's clothes.

  It made a wave of nostalgia sweep over her when she caught side of Diane's wedding dress hanging at the window and she thought how much time had passed since they had been in the house together as children.

  "It has been manic here, but we're getting there." Diane laughed. "I thought I'd be in pieces by now and panicking about all the details, but all I can think about is that tomorrow I'm going to be Cliff's wife."

  "I'm so happy for you, Di." Carla said sincerely.

  "I wish I could have spent more time with you in the run-up to the day." Diane said regretfully. "I really wanted you to come shopping with me for the wedding dress and to look at all of the bridal magazines together like we used to. Do you remember that?"

  "I do,” Carla said with a light laugh. "You were going to have a Cinderella wedding and I was going to be Sleeping Beauty."

  "Who'd have thought that one day I'd actually be walking down the aisle!" Diane said. Carla looked at her bright smiling face almost brimming over with happiness and felt a stir of envy for the excitement of getting married. Still, she was so happy for Diane who deserved every happiness in the world and so she smiled brightly and hugged her again.

  "I just can't wait to see the dress!" she said.

  "I can't wait to see the cake!" Diane said eagerly. "How did it come out? Thank you so much for doing it. I know it was probably a pain getting it to the hotel, but I am so proud of you and your wonderful bakery! I just couldn't have had my wedding cake from anywhere else."

  "It looks fabulous." Carla assured her. "It's already at the hotel for tomorrow."

  "Wonderful!" Diane smiled. "So that means that you're all ready for today! We've got the rehearsal dinner tonight at seven and while it was supposed to be just the bridal party to begin with, there are so many family members that we never get to see that I just decided to have a lot of them join us for dinner, so it's more like a reunion than a bridal party rehearsal dinner.

  You're sitting at the high table with me, although the arrangement's a little bit different tonight. We're having the rehearsal dinner in the hotel restaurant, but on Sunday, it will be all laid out in the main hall. It's going to be spectacular. Everything is white and pink, just like we dreamed it would be when we were young. Before that we've got the bridal party lunch."

  "I know it's going to be perfect." Carla said warmly.

  "Did you have your fitting for the dress last week?" Diane asked her. "Does it look alright?"

  "Oh, Diane, it's beautiful!" Carla beamed. The dress was a deep purple, full-length silk gown that made Carla look she'd stepped off of the cover of a fashion runway magazine. It complemented her skin tone perfectly and clung to her figure in all the right places. Carla was not used to dressing up in formal dresses, but she had felt like a million dollars when she had tried on that dress in the store.

  "Purple was always your color." Diane told her with an adoring grin. She tugged at Carla’s arm. "Come on! We have so much to do!"

  Soon Carla was caught up in a whirlwind of tying ribbons on wedding favors and allowing hairdressers to experiment with different styles on her hair and then, finally, dressed in a simple floral dress and a pair of elegant heels, Carla accompanied the rest of the bridal party to the hotel restaurant for the bridal party lunch.

  Arriving at the restaurant and seeing the bridal party made Carla remember why she had turned down the last wedding invitation she had received. There was something incredibly depressing about being single at a wedding.

  All the same, Carla told herself to just enjoy the day and let her beautiful smile shine. She looked around at the rest of the bridal party as they began to take their seats and realized that she'd forgotten just how many cousins she had. It took her at least fifteen minutes to take a seat because she kept stopping to catch up with one distant relative or another. It was such a whirlwind that she found herself almost breathless when she sat down at last. She looked around happily as she watched all of her aunts and uncles and cousins kissing and embracing and then turned her attention with curiosity to those people she didn't know. She was so lost in her people-watching that she was startled when someone in the chair beside her,, began to speak.

  He was a very attractive man with fair skin and incredible eyes, unlike any Carla had ever seen before. He sat with one leg crossed over the other and an arm casually laid around the back of his chair in a posture, which was relaxed, but still very refined. He wore an expensive suit and the cut of his hair was sophisticated; he looked like a cover of GQ.

  He looked to her to be about thirty or so. Everything about him emanated refinement and intellect and Carla felt a little shy to be sitting there in the flowery dress she was wearing with her hair still tousled from the experimenting hands of an indecisive stylist. She felt her cheeks get warm before anything had even been said.

  "Bride's side or groom's?" the stranger asked her conversationally. He fixed her with an intense gaze that made it feel to Carla as if she were being held to him by a magnetic pull. Her people-watching stopped. All at once and she was drawn helplessly into deep grey eyes, and captivated by the sophistication of the man speaking to her, so much so, that she stammered over her reply in her shyness.

  “B-bride's." she stuttered and then took a nervous sip of her wine to stop her from acting like a fool in front of this handsome man. She cleared her throat slightly, reminded herself that she was a capable and independent person who enjoyed her freedom as a single woman and then sat up straighter, deciding to meet the stranger's gaze with equal intensity and forcing away her shyness. "And you?"

  "Groom's."

  "A relative?"

  "College roommates."

  "College?"

  "I'm a lawyer, and you?"

  "A baker."

  The stranger suddenly smiled as though she'd said a magic word and he held out a hand to shake hers.

  "I'm Daniel." he said with a wide smile.

  She took his and his grip was firm and gentle at the same time.
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  "Carla." She smiled at him.

  He never once let his piercing gaze slide from her face. Even though Carla was trying desperately not to show it, she found her cheeks flushing once more from the instant attraction she felt for this man and something more which was hard to put her finger on; an intrigue maybe.

  "What kind of law?"

  "Corporate." he told her with an evident pride in his voice.

  "Where did you study?"

  "Harvard."

  "Gosh." she said as her eyebrows rose in admiration.

  If Daniel hadn't been speaking with his best friend just a couple of days before about how a different type of woman could change his life, then perhaps Daniel wouldn't have swooped in on the shy and pretty girl in the corner with the warm smile and a dress that wasn't from the latest fashion season.

  As it was, he had watched the way that Carla had moved so gracefully from person to person in the restaurant and left every group smiling. He had enjoyed the sight of her slender legs and smooth shoulders in a pretty summer dress and the way her loose hair was slightly tousled. The attraction had been instant, but to find that she was a baker was an extra check in the box and Daniel couldn't remember the last time he had heard anyone say ‘gosh’.

  He was used to chasing after corporate girls with pencil skirts and stern expressions. This girl in front of him was someone clearly very sweet and demure who had probably never lived a day of the legal high life. This girl was something different.

  Suddenly Diane stood up in the center of the restaurant and began clapping her hands loudly to get everybody's attention, and then raising her voice to address them.

  "Lunch is about to be served!" she announced. "Please take your seats! Tonight at the rehearsal dinner there will be seating plans - you can find where you are on the board over there - but for now you can sit where you like."

  The bride-to-be finished her announcement and then rushed over to Carla to grab her by the hand and usher her into a seat beside her own. Carla was pulled up and away so quickly that she barely had a moment to look back over her shoulder at the handsome man she'd had barely a chance to interact with.

  He watched her go with a hungry smile and Carla felt something fluttering deep down in her stomach; a chemistry which was hard to ignore and impossible to forget as the lunch was served.

  She kept looking up furtively as she picked at her salmon salad and gazing across the room to where Daniel was sitting with a table of Cliff's college friends. Every time that she looked up she found that he was looking right back at her and every time that she caught his eyes his lips would form an alluring smile which made a heat rise up the back of Carla's neck.

  The bride-to-be couldn't help but notice that her maid of honor was distracted and followed her gaze the next time that she looked across the restaurant. Diane smiled knowingly and leaned closer to Carla to whisper in her ear.

  "He's charming, isn't he?" she said. "He's Cliff's best man."

  "College roommates, he said."

  "You've already spoken to him?"

  "He introduced himself and we talked for a quick minute." Carla told her. "What's he like?"

  "Reserved, sophisticated, and a gentleman." Diane described. "He's also a ladies' man. I can't say I blame him. A guy must have his pick of women when he looks like that."

  "Mmm-hmm." Carla found herself murmuring in agreement, before realizing what she was agreeing to and felt her cheeks warm. Diane grinned wickedly; a mischievous bride.

  “There are still plenty of hotel rooms left tomorrow," she told her meaningfully. She held her gaze just long enough for Carla to realize what she was suggesting and Carla giggled in shock and playfully nudged her cousin.

  "I'm not like that, Diane!" she gasped.

  "Daniel has a way with women, that's all I'm saying." Diane warned her. "Cliff tells me how he always has a different woman on his arm. I've seen him with at least three different girls at one point or another myself."

  "Thanks for the intel, but I wasn't thinking of doing anything like that." Carla whispered back, blushing. Diane simply laughed knowingly and gave a dismissive shrug.

  "Well, I've seen that look in your eye before." she told her. "Tommy Wright. Twelfth grade. Prom finished at midnight and you didn't get home until three."

  "There was an after party," Carla said, taking a swift sip of her wine.

  "Sure..." Diane teased her with a wink.

  Carla made a point after that to not look at the devilishly handsome man anymore, but she could still feel his gaze hot upon her as he continued to watch her from across the room,. After lunch was done and she had returned home to Aunt Tania’s house with the other girls in the bridal party, she still found it hard to shake off the feeling of his eyes upon her. It was unnerving to feel so undone by a pair of intense eyes on a very confident man.

  The rehearsal dinner was later and Carla was very aware of the fact that apart from her beautiful purple dress, which was being saved for the day of the wedding, she had nothing particularly elegant to wear. Knowing that the handsome, sophisticated man with grey eyes was going to be there, made her want to appear more dressed up than her usual simple dress and apron look.

  Unfortunately, all she had was another floral dress for the occasion, albeit a floor-length one this time.

  As soon as she returned to the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner that night, she began scanning the area for signs of Daniel, but she didn't have to look for long. She didn't know if it was coincidence, or Diane being mischievous, but her place card at the high table had her sitting right next to a certain Daniel Towler. When the lawyer arrived and noticed with whom he'd be sitting, he looked immediately pleased and pulled out Carla's chair for her before taking his own seat.

  "Hello again." he said smoothly, smiling that knowing smile, although what he knew about, Carla couldn't begin to guess. His steady gaze made her skin tingle and she became flustered all over again.

  "Hello,” she said with a little laugh.

  There were bottles of wine laid out intermittently along the table and Daniel reached over to open theirs. He filled up Carla's glass and his own and paid no attention to anyone else at the table as he focused in on her. Carla picked up her glass and quickly took a few sips, hoping to stem her nerves.

  Daniel smiled as he watched her become flustered and picked up his own glass with a calm confidence. Carla imagined that he was used to fine dining and drinking good wine. For Carla, life was more of a cup of tea and a cupcake affair.

  "So, you're the maid of honor?" he asked her. He spoke the question with a slow and teasing intonation in his voice. It made even the simple question sound like a line, but coming from a man with such a handsome face, it succeeded in its aim of making Carla's stomach flutter once more.

  "Diane's cousin." she explained. "And you're the best man."

  "It's unfortunate we haven't met before." he told her with a flirtatious gleam in his eye.

  "I work hard." Carla said as way of explanation. "I don't see much of Diane anymore."

  "You're a baker." Daniel remembered. The words rolled off his tongue as though it gave him pleasure to say them and Carla couldn't imagine why. Daniel struck her more as a man who would prefer a corporate doll on his arm than someone who spent her time in less lucrative pursuits.

  "And you're a lawyer,” she stated, in order to break away from the intensity of his interest in her and to turn the attention onto him. "What kind of law do you practice?" she asked, turning the tables to take the pressure from herself.

  Talking about himself seemed to break the spell a little. The lawyer sat back on his chair as he had done earlier that day, with one leg over the other and one arm over the back of the chair as though he owned the place. He felt at ease, making himself comfortable, while Carla sat up straight on the edge of her chair, trying desperately to seem sophisticated and well-mannered in his presence.

  "I work in corporate law." he told her.

  "Gosh. That sounds chall
enging,” she said.

  "Actually, it's thrilling." Daniel told her. The lawyer sat forwards as he began to tell her about his work and his eyes lit up as he did. He told her all about his high-profile cases, his millionaire clients, and the businesses he had seen be made and broken in the courtrooms he worked in, and Carla was utterly captivated by the way he spoke.

  There was confidence in every word that crossed his lips and as he told her of his work.

  Carla was in awe of his intelligence, prowess and knowledge of the law. She felt like a little bird sitting next to a tiger, but the power in him was addictive.

  She was drawn to it more than she had ever been drawn to anything in her life. She barely understood a word he said about the legal complexities of his cases, but she could have listened to him speak forever.

  "Enough about me." He sat back against his chair and looked at her with an interested smile. "I want to hear about you."

  Carla laughed shyly. "What do you want to know?"

  "How did you discover baking? Where do you work? Tell me everything." He gave her a little laugh and it eased her tension some.

  "Well, after high school I was working as an assistant in a food store." Carla told him. "I was bored out of my mind. There were these free magazines that were delivered to the store each week and they had recipes and articles about cooking and baking in them. I used to read them to pass the time and then I started to try out a few of the recipes and I just found I was a natural at baking.

  I started to find myself baking in all my free time until eventually it was all I wanted to do. I quit my job and started to bake full time. At first I was just selling out of my home to friends and family, and going to festivals and things like that, but then eventually I decided to just go for it and put everything I had into opening the bakery.

  It nearly bankrupted me at first, but I got through the first year and then it was like something clicked and it worked like a charm. I've never looked back." She smiled in a little self-satisfaction. She was proud of what she had accomplished by working with such dedication, and she was not afraid to show it.