by Elicia Hyder
As much as she loved how she looked, her shoes, however, were absolutely absurd. They were open toe sandals with a 5 ¼ inch heel, a one inch platform, and blue, cream, and navy swirls. Journey worried that she would break something or hurt someone by the reception.
“Well?” she heard Kara ask from behind her.
She turned around to see her best friend glide into the room in a white satin, trumpet style gown with a sweetheart neckline and embroidery and beading all the way down the side.
Journey covered her mouth with her hands and gasped.
Jann, Kara’s mother, stepped toward Journey. “Doesn’t she look like an angel?”
Journey fanned her eyes so as not to ruin her makeup with tears. “Yes, a really, really freaking tall angel!”
Kara proudly lifted her dress to show off a pair of bright blue heels that made Journey’s sandals look conservative.
Journey doubled over laughing. When she regained her composure, she walked over and embraced her best friend. “I’m so happy for you,” she said. “And for Justin.”
“You’re like my sister,” Kara said. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” Journey sniffed.
Kara pulled back and playfully pushed Journey’s shoulder while dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Now, knock it off, hooker. You’re gonna ruin my mascara.”
The string quartet began playing outside. “Where’s Genna?” Journey asked.
“Your mom has her. She’s ready,” Kara answered.
Journey picked up her bouquet of flowers and walked to the living room behind Kara. She looked around for her mother but didn’t see her in the house or on the lawn. All of the guests were seated in white chairs facing the water and Justin, the minister, and Justin’s brother were all waiting under a flowered arbor. She still couldn’t spot the flower girl anywhere.
“Are you sure mom knows it’s time? I can’t find her,” Journey said, adjusting the top of her dress.
Kara nodded. “I’m positive. My uncle and your mom were getting her settled into the wagon. Relax. You’re more nervous than me.”
Journey laughed.
Kara nudged her forward. “It’s your turn.”
Journey straightened upright and then carefully navigated her way out of the French doors onto her porch. Slowly, she placed one foot gently down in front of the other while going down the steps to the lawn. She prayed the whole time that she wouldn’t face-plant into the grass. Justin winked at her when, by some miracle, she made it to the front of the crowd without incident. She blew out a sigh of relief and then began looking for the wagon that Kara’s uncle was going to pull Genna down the aisle in.
She saw heads turn in the direction of the side of the house. She turned to look but caught both of her parents looking at her with wide, expectant eyes. Her mother had a curious smile. The wagon came into view, and when they started down the aisle at the back row, Journey’s breath hung in her chest.
David was pulling the wagon.
He laughed when she finally realized it was him, and her mouth fell open. Journey looked over at Justin who was smiling at her. Her mother was already crying, and her dad was just nodding his head proudly. When David reached the front, he pulled the wagon toward her and stopped. “Surprise,” he whispered, leaning over to give her a soft kiss on the cheek.
He lifted Genna out of the wagon and sat down in the seat on the front row that was supposed to have been reserved for her mother to hold the baby. Journey looked at him again, trying not to burst into tears in front of Kara’s family and friends. David winked at her and smiled. She realized he was wearing the same light gray suit and cream colored tie as Justin and his brother.
The minister asked everyone to stand as Kara’s father escorted her down the aisle. After exchanging a first glance with the groom, Kara flashed a smile at Journey. “You’ll never beat me at meddling,” she whispered just loud enough for Journey to hear.
· · ·
When the ceremony ended, Journey followed Kara and Justin back to the house. She wanted to tell them ‘congratulations,’ but “what did you do?” came out instead.
Kara turned toward her and laughed. “Don’t make me smack you in the head again. Get your ass out there.”
Journey turned back toward the door and laid her flowers on the sofa. David was waiting at the bottom of the steps, with his hands stuffed in his pockets and a smile plastered on his face. She started toward him and realized she would never make it there in her shoes. She bent awkwardly and stripped them both from her feet.
She ran down the stairs and into his arms.
He spun her around once before placing her bare feet back on the ground. She gripped his jacket. “What are you doing here?” She laughed and cried at the same time.
“I’m doing what I should’ve done ten years ago,” he said, cradling her face in his hands. He bent and pressed his lips to hers and kissed her until she thought the earth might give way underneath her feet.
When he finally broke the kiss, most of the crowd was cheering. He swiped her tears away with his thumbs. “But…” she began.
He shook his head. “There are no buts. Not anymore. I’m never leaving you again.”
He kissed her once more, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. She didn’t need to know the details just yet; she just needed him. She had always needed him.
· · ·
David was happy for Kara and Justin, but he didn’t care at all about their reception. When the evening began to wind down, and the sun sank down in the cloudless sky, he offered Journey his hand. “Walk with me?” he asked.
She slipped her hand in his, lacing their fingers together as he led her along the edge of the water. The last time they had taken that walk, David forfeited six long years of his life with her. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake ever again.
“What happened?” she asked as they walked.
He told her the whole story about coming home from Afghanistan and how Allie had filed for divorce. “I wasn’t lying when I said I was busy. I had the divorce to take care of and the Army.”
“The Army?” she asked.
He nodded. “It was time for me to re-enlist. I didn’t.”
She hesitated for a step.
He stopped walking and turned to face her. “I didn’t want to risk disappointing you, so I decided to wait until everything was finalized before I came home.” Her eyes urged him to continue. “I got Kara’s invitation to the wedding in the mail, and it had her phone number on it, so I called.”
“How long have you two been planning this?” she asked.
He laughed. “For three months.”
Journey dropped her face onto his shoulder laughing. “I didn’t know she could keep a secret for that long.”
He gathered her hands up to his chest and rested his forehead against hers. “I love you, and I’ll spend the next hundred years making up for the last decade if you will have me.”
Slowly, she took a step back from him and pulled her hands away. Her eyes glanced down, and he followed her gaze to where she was slipping the silver band off of her thumb. She held it up in the moonlight and showed him the inscription inside which was barely still legible.
“David Britton,” she said taking his left hand in hers. Purposefully, she slid the band onto his left ring finger. “I never let you go.”
The End.
Or Just The Beginning.
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To Be Her First
The Young Adult Prequel to The Bed She Made
At sixteen, Journey Durant hasn’t yet experienced her first anything. No first boyfriend. No first date. No firs
t kiss. But that’s all about to change. Two boys at West Emerson High are vying for her attention: the MVP quarterback and the school’s reigning bad boy.
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REVIEW THE BED SHE MADE
Turn the page for a sneak peek at Elicia Hyder’s bestselling book, THE SOUL SUMMONER.
The Soul Summoner
1
Wine & Witches
Her hazel eyes were judging me again. God, I wish I could read minds instead.
Adrianne spun her fork into her spaghetti, letting the tines scrape against the china. I cringed from the sound. She pointed her forkful of noodles at my face. "I think you're a witch."
I laughed to cover my nerves. "You've said that before." Under the white tablecloth, I crossed my fingers and prayed we would breeze through this conversation one more time.
A small, teasing smile played at the corner of her painted lips. "I really think you are."
I shook my head. "I'm not a witch."
She shrugged. "You might be a witch."
I picked up my white wine. "I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard that. I could pay off my student loans." With one deep gulp, I finished off the glass.
She swallowed the bite in her mouth and leaned toward me. "Come on. I might die if I don't get to see him tonight! Do you really want that kind of guilt on your hands?"
I rolled my eyes. "You're so dramatic."
She placed her fork beside her plate and reached over to squeeze my hand. "Please try."
My shoulders caved. "OK." I shoved my chair back a few inches and crossed my legs on top of my seat. I closed my eyes, shook my long brown hair off my shoulders, and blew out a deep slow breath as I made circular O's with my fingertips. Slowly, my hands floated down till they rested on my knees. I began to moan. "Ohhhhhmmmm…"
Adrianne threw her napkin at me, drawing the attention of the surrounding guests at Alejandro's Italian Bistro. "Be serious!"
I dropped my feet to the floor and laughed as I scooted closer to the table. "You be serious," I said. "You know that's not how it works."
She laughed. "You don't even know how it works!" She flattened her palms on the tablecloth. "Here, I'll make it easy. Repeat after me. Billy Stewart, Billy Stewart, Billy Stewart," she chanted.
I groaned and closed my eyes. "Billy Stewart, Billy Stewart, Billy Stewart."
She broke out in giggles and covered her mouth. "You're such a freak!"
I raised an eyebrow. "You call me that a lot."
"You know I'm only joking. Sort of."
Adrianne Marx had been my best friend since the fifth grade, but sometimes I still had trouble deciphering when she was joking and when she was being serious.
I picked up my fork again and pointed it at her. "It's not gonna happen, so don't get too excited."
She let out a deep breath. "I'm not."
I smirked. "Whatever."
Our waiter, who had been the topic of our conversation before Adrianne began gushing about her new crush on Billy Stewart, appeared at our table.
"Can I get you ladies anything else?" His Southern drawl was so smooth I had nicknamed him Elvis over dinner. He was a little older than the two of us, maybe twenty-three, and he had a sweet, genuine smile. His hair was almost black, and his eyes were the color of sparkling sapphires. I had drunk enough water that night to float the Titanic just so I could watch him refill my glass.
I looked at his name tag. "Luke, do I look like a witch?"
His mouth fell open. "Uh, I don't think so?"His response was more of a question than an answer.
Across the table, Adrianne was twisting strands of her auburn ponytail around her finger. I nodded toward Luke. "See, he doesn't think I'm a witch."
Luke lowered his voice and leaned one hand on our table. "You're too pretty to be a witch," he added, with a wink.
I smiled with satisfaction.
Adrianne laughed and pushed her plate away from her. "Don't be fooled, Luke. She has powers you can't even dream of."
He looked down at me and smiled. "Oh really?" He leaned down and lowered his voice. "How about you let me take care of this for you"—he dangled our bill in front of my face—"and later, when I get off, I can hear all about your powers?"
Heat rose in my cheeks as I took the check from his hand, and when I pulled a pen from his waistband apron, his breath caught in his chest. I flashed my best sultry smile up at him and scribbled my name and phone number on the back of the bill. I stood up, letting my hand linger in his as I gave him the check. "I'm in town on a break from college for the weekend, so let me know when you get off."
He smiled and backed away from the table. "I will"—he looked down at the paper—"Sloan."
I took a deep breath to calm the butterflies in my stomach as Adrianne followed me toward the front door. She nudged me with her elbow. "You should win some kind of award for being able to pick up guys," she said as we passed through the small rush of dinner customers coming in.
I shrugged my shoulders and glanced back at her with a mischievous grin. "Maybe it's part of my gift."
"Witch," she muttered.
The icy chill of winter nipped at my face as I pushed the glass door open. When we walked out onto the sidewalk, I stopped so suddenly that Adrianne tripped over my legs and tumbled to the concrete.
Billy Stewart was waiting at a red light in front of the restaurant.
Adrianne might never have even noticed Billy's official game warden truck at the stoplight had my mouth not been hanging open when she struggled to her feet. She was cursing me under her breath as her eyes followed the direction of my dumbfounded gaze across the dark parking lot. When her eyes landed on the green and gold truck, she fell back a step.
Her fingers, still coated in gravel dust, dug into my arm. "Is that…?"
I turned my horrified eyes to meet hers when traffic started moving again.
Frantically, she waved her finger in the direction of the traffic light. "That was Billy Stewart!" She was so excited that her voice cracked.
"Yeah, it was." Mortification settled over me, and I pressed my eyes closed, hoping to wake from a bad dream. When I focused on Adrianne again, I realized she had taken a pretty nasty fall. Her blue jeans were torn and her right knee was bloody. "Oh geez, I'm so sorry."
She looked at me, her eyes wild with a clear mix of anxiety and amusement. She glanced down at the gash on her knee. "Can you heal me too?" Her question had a touch of maniacal laughter.
I shoved her shoulder. "Shut up." I tugged her toward the restaurant's entrance. "Let's go to the bathroom and get you cleaned up."
Once we were behind the closed door of the ladies room, Adrianne's curious eyes turned toward me again. She hiked her leg up on the counter beside the sink. "What the hell just happened out there?"
I ran some cold water over a paper towel and handed it to her. "I need a drink." I splashed my face with cold water and, for a moment, considered drowning myself in the sink.
She pointed at me as she dabbed the oozing blood off her kneecap. "You and me both, sister. You've got some major explaining to do."
Alejandro's had a small bar near the front door where I had never seen anyone actually sit. When we pulled out two empty bar stools, the slightly balding bartender looked at us like we might be lost. His eyebrows rose in question as he mindlessly polished water spots off of a wine glass.
"I think I'm going to need a Jack and Coke," Adrianne announced.
I held up two fingers. "Make that two."
"IDs?" he asked.
Getting carded was one of the best things about being twenty-one. Any other time, I would have whipped out my finally-legal-identification with a smile plastered on my face. But in that moment, fear of what the next conversation might bring loomed over me like a black storm cloud that was ready to drop a funnel.
I had already learned the h
ard way not to talk about these things.
People are scared of what they can't comprehend, and the last thing I wanted was for Adrianne to be afraid of me. Despite my unnatural propensity toward popularity, Adrianne was one of the only real friends I had.
I knew the jabs she made about me being a witch were all in jest, but there was a part of her that had been genuinely curious about me since we were kids. Adrianne, above anyone else, had the most cause to be suspicious of the odd 'coincidences' that were happening more and more frequently around me.
Summoning Billy Stewart had been a complete accident. God knows I had tried my whole life to summon all sorts of people—my birth mother and Johnny Depp to name a couple—without any success at all. Sitting next to Adrianne at the bar, I knew from the look in her eyes that seeing Billy at that stoplight solidified to her what I already knew to be true: I was different. Very different.
Swiveling her chair around to face me, she pointed to the dining table we had just vacated. "OK, I was kidding about Billy at dinner. That was some serious David Copperfield shit you just pulled out there, Sloan. Totally creepy."
I groaned and dropped my face into my hands. "I know."
An arm came to rest behind my back, and Luke appeared between our seats with a tantalizing grin that would normally make me swoon. "Did you miss me that much?" he asked.
Adrianne pointed a well-manicured fingernail at him. "Not now, Elvis," she said without taking her eyes off me.
Stunned, Luke took a few steps back.
I offered him an apologetic wink. "We need a minute."
He nodded awkwardly, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and left us alone.
When he was gone, I turned back to Adrianne. "I don't suppose you could be convinced this was all a really big coincidence?"
