Ain't She Sweet? (46 page)

Which wouldn’t do as far as Winnie was concerned. She called the Seawillows together, minus Sugar Beth, and even coerced Jewel into attending. Since Leeann didn’t have a baby-sitter, they met around her kitchen table, where Winnie took out a yellow pad and got down to business. “We’ll have to plan the whole thing ourselves. Luckily, Colin’s given us an unlimited budget. He told Ryan he wants the ceremony by next Saturday at the latest, which gives us ten days. He’s afraid she’ll bolt if we wait longer.”

“I’ll make sure the video store hides
The Runaway Bride,
” Merylinn said. “No sense in giving her ideas.”

“If Colin wants to keep her from running off, why doesn’t he get back here and see to it himself?” Heidi asked.

Winnie gazed down at her yellow pad so she didn’t have to meet their eyes. “He said he had to finish his book first.”

That didn’t set well with any of them. “You’d think she’d be a little more important than finishing a book.” Merylinn sniffed.

“I’ve never understood that man.”

“I hope Sugar Beth doesn’t figure out how far down she is on his priority list.”

“You know how sarcastic he can be,” Jewel said, doing her best to defend him. “Maybe Ryan misinterpreted.”

But a sense of uneasiness undercut the rest of their planning.

Ignoring Sugar Beth’s wishes, Winnie decided on a Saturday evening ceremony at the Presbyterian Church followed by a tent reception on the front lawn of Frenchman’s Bride. With no time to issue formal invitations, Jewel and the Seawillows called everybody they could think of, and by the time they were done, three hundred people had accepted. Sugar Beth went ballistic when she heard. Winnie told her to shut up and find a dress.

Ryan managed the license, and Leeann dragged Sugar Beth to the lab for her blood test.

Sugar Beth had no idea how Colin was handling his end of the process, and she was too busy nursing her grievances to care.

On Friday morning, the day before the wedding, a crew arrived at Frenchman’s Bride to erect the tent for the reception, and not long after, a rental van appeared with tables and chairs. Sugar Beth strapped a headset over her ears to shut it all out and spent the day petting Gordon and making plans for her bookstore while an old Pearl Jam CD blared in her ears.

There’d been no time to put together a shower or a bachelorette party, which wasn’t a problem, since Sugar Beth wouldn’t have attended either. The night before the wedding Winnie tried to talk her into staying in the Galantine guest room, but she refused to leave Frenchman’s Bride. This forced Winnie to put her alternate plan in place, and at six o’clock on Friday evening Gigi showed up at the door with three large pizzas, Gwen Lu, Gillian Granger, Sachi Patel, and Jenny Berry.

“Mom said we could have a sleepover here. Everybody wants to hear your power speech.

Plus Jenny really needs help with her eye makeup.”

Sugar Beth marched to the phone and called Winnie. “Is this what my life has come to?

I’m being guarded by thirteen-year-olds?”

“You’re a little nervous,” Winnie replied. “I decided you needed a distraction.”

“A
little
nervous! I’ve pegged the Richter scale on nerves! This is all a setup. The final piece in his plan to get revenge. I’ll march down the aisle, and he won’t be there. He’s going to leave me stranded at the altar. I’m telling you right now, he’s not showing up tomorrow.”

“Standing you up at the altar would be overkill,” Winnie pointed out. “He already finished you off when he wrote
Reflections.
”

Sugar Beth hung up on her.

Winnie proved to be right about one thing. It was impossible to brood with a houseful of thirteen-year-olds demanding her attention. Gigi’s new friends were geeky and awkward, but sweet and funny, too. Someday the Seawillows might need to form a junior auxiliary.

She slept badly that night and rose long before the girls. She came downstairs in an old pair of shorts and one of Colin’s work shirts, with her hair hanging in a ratty tangle and a crease across her cheek. Her wedding day. Again.

After she’d let Gordon out, she disposed of the pizza boxes, then sat at the counter, brooding. Her legs needed shaving, her fingernails were ragged, she’d made no plans to have her hair done, and the only thing she really wanted to do was go back to bed and pull the covers over her head. She let Gordon in and did just that.

Winnie woke everybody up a few hours later. She bustled around the house, full of phony cheer and annoying platitudes. Sugar Beth lunged for the jar of peanut butter, then put it back because her stomach was in no state for food.

Ryan was taking the girls to Denny’s for a late breakfast, then delivering them to their homes to dress for the ceremony. Gigi hugged Sugar Beth before she left. “Don’t worry.

You can still claim your power even after you get married. Look at Mom.” And then she startled Winnie by hugging her, too.

After that, Winnie went into hyper drive. “You do have your gown, right? You promised you’d take care of that, and I know you had to buy it off the rack, but you look disgustingly gorgeous in anything.”

“I have it,” Sugar Beth said, “and it’s locked up where you won’t find it.”

“Why can’t I see it?”

“Because it’s a big freakin’ surprise, that’s why! Is Colin here yet?”

Winnie didn’t meet her eyes. “Not as far as I know. But Ryan talked to him. He’ll be here.”

“Yeah, right.” Sugar Beth slapped the counter. “I told you what’s going to happen. He won’t show up. It’s why I didn’t want the entire town invited. But would you listen to me?”

“Of course he’ll show up. He loves you. Now go take a shower. Janice Menken is coming to do your hair at four. You need to be at the church by five-thirty.”

For a moment all of Sugar Beth’s defenses fell away. She gazed at Winnie. “Tell me I’m doing the right thing.”

“I’m sure you are,” Winnie replied, in a way that told Sugar Beth she wasn’t sure at all.

Sugar Beth slammed the barricades back in place. She showered and shaved her legs.

Afterward, she permitted Janice Menken to construct an elaborate hairstyle that looked like a wedding cake had landed on her head. She took it apart as soon as Janice left and reconstructed it more simply closer to the back of her head. She refused to wear a veil, and she kept her makeup subtle, with the emphasis on her eyes and only a tawny gloss at her lips. The familiar rituals did nothing to calm her, and she grew even more agitated as various Seawillows kept sweeping in and out to check on her.

None of them had seen Colin, but they were all very certain he was around somewhere.

She decided the less time she spent at the church the better, so she fetched her gown from the attic where she’d hidden it and got dressed in Colin’s closet. Just as she slipped into her shoes, Jewel and Leeann appeared to drive her to the ceremony. They frowned when they saw her gown.

“You’re not really wearing that, are you?” Leeann said.

“It’s my fourth marriage,” Sugar Beth retorted. “What did you expect?”

Jewel shot Leeann a meaningful look. “Winnie said she was in a bad mood.”

“You still look beautiful,” Leeann conceded. “More than beautiful. But Colin’s going to have a fit.”

“Have either of you seen him?”

“He’s probably with Ryan,” Jewel said uneasily.

“Or on his way to South America.” Sugar Beth kissed Gordon good-bye and stomped out to Jewel’s car, her beaded stiletto sandals making lethal clicks on the pavement.

The nostalgic smells of old hymnals, Pine-Sol, and long-forgotten potlucks enveloped her as she entered the back door of the redbrick Presbyterian church. Winnie, stylish in gold silk, waited just inside. Her eyes narrowed with displeasure as she took in Sugar Beth’s dress, but she wisely held her tongue.

“Tell me you’ve seen Colin,” Sugar Beth said as Winnie steered her toward a small anteroom just off the narthex.

“Ryan’s in charge of Colin.”

“So you haven’t seen him.”

“I haven’t had time to look. There was a misunderstanding about the music, and the altar flowers weren’t right, then Gigi glittered her eyelids. Did you teach her to do that? Never mind.” Winnie’s face set in a chipper smile. “We didn’t do anything about something old and something borrowed. You have a new dress and blue eyes, but we need the rest.”

“When it’s your fourth marriage, you tend to lose faith in superstitions.”

“This is your last marriage, and tradition is important.” She reached into her small beaded bag, drew out Diddie’s pearls, and clasped them around Sugar Beth’s neck. “Don’t get attached. I’m taking them back as soon as the reception’s over.”

Sugar Beth touched them with her fingers, and her eyes filled up with tears. “Oh, Winnie . . .” She turned and hugged her sister. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Winnie replied, and promptly burst into tears herself.

The organist began to play the prelude, and they hopped up and down and waved their hands in front of their faces to stop themselves before they ruined their eye makeup.

Winnie blew her nose. “Colin’s definitely here. Mrs. Patterson never starts to play until everybody in the wedding party has shown up.”

“She’s hated me ever since my ninth-grade recital when I got to dance the Sugar Plum Fairy instead of her precious Kimmie.”

“Everybody in Parrish isn’t involved in a conspiracy against you.”

“We’ll see.”

The prelude came to an end. Winnie thrust a cascading bouquet of white Casablanca lilies into Sugar Beth’s hands and picked up a smaller bouquet for herself, then drew her out into the narthex. Sugar Beth could only see the last two rows of pews, but even they were filled. “What possessed you to invite so many people?”

“You and Colin are going to be a big part of this community,” Winnie retorted.

“Everybody deserves to see you married.”

“If he’s here.”

“Of course he’s here.”

The organ launched into the processional, and Sugar Beth’s teeth began to chatter. “I’m not walking down that aisle until you peek around the corner and make sure he’s there.”

“He has to be. If he weren’t, Ryan would—”

“I don’t want to hear another word about Ryan!” she hissed. “Your husband has reason to hate me, too. He’s probably in on the whole thing.”

“True.” Winnie lifted her bouquet. “And then there’s me.” With those ominous words, she stepped around the corner and disappeared down the aisle.

The music swelled. Sugar Beth straightened her shoulders and fought her fear. As she made her way around the corner, the congregation rose, temporarily blocking her view of the altar. She clutched the bouquet more tightly, her palms sweaty. Four husbands! What kind of fool got married for the fourth time?

A sea of faces turned toward her, three hundred of them, but not the one she most needed to see. Until she took her place at the end of the aisle . . . There he was, with Ryan at his side, both men dressed in black tuxedos. Colin wore his as comfortably as other men wore jeans. The tucked white shirt gleamed against his tan face, which was thinner and more angular than when she’d last seen him. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who’d had trouble eating. The knowledge gave her just enough indignant satisfaction to propel her down the aisle.

Colin’s heart swelled as he watched Sugar Beth approach him. She was dressed entirely in black. He chuckled, and for the first time in nearly two months, he began to relax.

Her gown was beautiful despite its color. Long, slim, and strapless, it had diagonal panels of tiny black beads that grew wider as they reached the hem. She floated toward him, exquisite in form, countenance, and movement, her blond hair and smooth white shoulders rising from the gown like foam from a stormy sea. The brittleness she’d worn like a second skin when she’d first come to Parrish had broken away. She was softer, more exquisite, more precious to him than he’d ever imagined, but the perilous flash of silver in those pale blue eyes reminded him of what a dangerous game he’d been playing.

And it wasn’t over yet.

She stopped at his side and passed over the bouquet to Winnie. He took her hands. They were cold as ice, but his weren’t much warmer.

The ceremony began. He’d have preferred writing his own vows, ones that spoke more personally to the depth of his feelings for this magnificent woman, but then she would have had to write hers, too, and he hadn’t trusted her not to curse. Browbeating her was the only way he’d known to slay the dragon that had held this princess as a prisoner for far too long. They belonged together, and he’d been determined to put her out of her misery as quickly as possible.

The minister’s voice broke into his thoughts. Pastor Daniels was a traditionalist, and it hadn’t occurred to him that he should modify the ceremony.

“Who gives this woman to be wedded to this man?”

There was a long pause. The congregation began to stir uneasily. Colin frowned. Ryan smiled and stepped forward. “I do.”

The pastor came to his senses after that and quickly deleted the
speak now or forever
hold your peace
part, which would surely have sent people hopping to their feet all over the place.

The vows followed. Sugar Beth spoke hers flatly, almost angrily. He understood. She’d lost faith in vows, and this particular ceremony held a lot of unhappy memories for her.

Still, it had to be done.

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur, something to be endured rather than cherished.

She had a ring for him, which was a surprise, a simple white gold wedding band. He slipped a perfect two-and-a-half-carat diamond on her finger. She wasn’t a woman for subtlety.

More vows and the pronouncement. “You may kiss the bride.”

He gazed down at her and, as he drew close, whispered against her lips, “Don’t bite.”

She didn’t. But she didn’t really kiss him back either.

Ryan and Winnie whisked them to Frenchman’s Bride for the reception. The white tent had billows of net at the entrance and a swagged ceiling. Crisp linens draped with sheer gold overskirts covered the tables, each of which displayed a trailing centerpiece of lilies, hyacinths, and ivy. Long serving tables held platters of lobster tails, crab claws, and shrimp, along with an assortment of hot and cold dishes. He couldn’t imagine how Winnie and the Seawillows had managed to do all this so quickly or how he would ever thank them properly. There was no band, no dancing. Winnie knew he and Sugar Beth needed to get through this reception as quickly as possible so they could be alone. He watched Sugar Beth bypass a tower of chocolate-dipped cream puffs for the relish tray.