Loving (31 page)

Bailey laughed. “Definitely not.”

They all said goodnights and I-love-yous, and as they shared
hugs and headed for bed, Bailey spent a few more minutes with her mom. “You know what’s strange?” Bailey sat at one of the kitchen counter barstools, one leg tucked beneath her.

“What?” Her mom finished heating up her tea and took the seat next to Bailey. “What’s strange?”

“I thought I’d be sadder.”

Her mother’s expression was tender, understanding. “It’s the happiest time of your life.”

“I know, but all the lasts.” She put her hand over her mom’s. “Even this.” She looked around slowly. “How many times have we sat here and talked?” Bailey folded her hands on the counter, still sorting through her feelings. “But I know I can still come home. We’ll sit here and talk like this a thousand more times, at least. So I guess all I’m really thinking about is tomorrow.” Her smile grew bigger, filling her face. She could feel it. “I can’t wait to be married to him.”

“Which —” her mom gently touched Bailey’s arm and kissed her forehead, “— is exactly how it should be.”

Bailey took her mom’s words with her to bed, and even as she blinked back tears at the sight of her suitcase packed and standing along her bedroom wall, she knew what her mom said was true. God had brought Brandon into her life. Love had walked quietly through the back door of her heart and moved in before Bailey could do anything to stop it. Now, the night before her wedding, the reason was obvious.

God had created Brandon just for her.

M
ARCH
16
DAWNED SUNNY WITH A CLOUDLESS SKY,
the perfect backdrop to the warmest day of the year so far. Bailey ate breakfast with her family and her bridesmaids, who met at the house at nine that morning. Then the group of them headed out to get their hair done. Bailey didn’t plan to wear hers up or in a bun, the
way some brides did. Instead she had the stylist pin up just a few strands, leaving the rest to fall in layers down her back and near her face.

Her bridesmaids followed her home and by one in the afternoon the photographer arrived. By then she and the girls were upstairs where her mom was about to help her into her dress. For the first few seconds Bailey and her mom could only laugh as they took the dress off the hanger and carefully lifted it over Bailey’s head.

“We didn’t snag my hair.” Bailey allowed the giggles to pass. “That has to be a good sign.”

But they both grew quiet the moment the dress was in place and Bailey’s mom zipped it up. “Bailey, you’ve never been more beautiful.” Her mom spoke softly as she fastened the faux silk buttons so they’d lay in a straight row down her back.

“Thank you, Mom. For everything.” They stood side by side as Bailey looked at her reflection in the floor-length mirror. She hadn’t seen it until now, but suddenly there was a resemblance that made her proud to be her mother’s daughter. “I look a little like you did when you got married.”

“You do.” Her mom took a few steps back, studying her, the way the dress looked on her. “The gown … it’s breathtaking. Everything about it.” Her mom’s eyes grew teary, and her voice trembled a little. “But I have to say … it’s nothing to your eyes.” She smiled, despite the very deep emotions between them. “The eyes are the windows to the soul. That’s why yours are so full of light.”

Bailey turned to her and took both her hands tenderly in hers. “You’ve always been the best mom. My best friend.”

“Raising you has been one of my life’s greatest gifts.” She brushed at a few tears on her cheek and blinked. A sound more cry than laugh came from her. “Okay … I need to get a grip. I’m glad I haven’t done my makeup.”

Bailey laughed too, but she stepped closer and for a long while she hugged her mom. “I remember something.” She eased back. “You told me I’d know he was the right guy if he couldn’t leave the room when I was singing.”

“Yes.”

Throughout the wedding planning Bailey hadn’t thought about those long ago words of wisdom from her mom. But they were vivid in her mind now. She smiled. “And all I can see is Brandon in the front row at the theater watching me in
Hairspray
night after night after night. Nothing could’ve made him miss me sing.”

Her mom’s eyes were damp again. “He pursued you like a dying man in the desert goes after water.”

“He did.” Bailey thought of a hundred times when Brandon had done that, fought for her. Even at the end that past Fourth of July when he refused to believe they were broken up. A quiet laugh slipped from her happy heart. “I didn’t make it easy.”

Andi laughed as she walked out of the bathroom. “No, you definitely didn’t make it easy.” At that moment she caught the first look at Bailey in her wedding dress. As she did she drew in a sharp breath. “Bailey! You didn’t tell me it was this pretty.” For a long time she only stared in awe and then, blinking back her own tears, she simply looked at Bailey with a smile that covered years of friendship. “It’s perfect. Like you and Brandon.”

Before Bailey could respond, Katy Hart Matthews and the other bridesmaids returned to the room once more. They circled around her, remarking at the way she looked all over again, and agreeing with Bailey’s mother that no dress could’ve fit better or been more stunning for her than this very one. Bailey was so glad they liked it and as she slipped into her shoes and her mom adjusted her veil she felt like she’d fallen into a fairytale where for this one most wonderful day, she wasn’t just any girl making her way through life.

She was a princess.

B
RANDON ARRIVED AT THE CHURCH AN HOUR BEFORE THE WED
ding and waited with Bailey’s brothers and his parents in the church’s hospitality room, just down the hall from the sanctuary. Security would remain stationed discretely around the church campus in case paparazzi discovered the location, but Brandon didn’t think that would happen. They’d leaked a false date to the press in a release, so the public wasn’t expecting the wedding until two weeks from now. Their guests knew not to say anything about the actual date, and so far the plan seemed to have worked.

Brandon paced the back wall of the small room and tried to grasp what he was feeling. Nothing in his life, no role he’d ever played or powerful business meeting at any studio had ever prepared him for the way he felt as he dressed in his black suit and white shirt and vest, and as his mom helped him fix the knot in his white tie.

The consuming sense had come over him when he woke up that morning and it had stayed strong with him up until this moment. He paced the room, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was a feeling that at any moment someone from some shadowy backstage or out-of-camera angle was going to yell “Cut!” and that would be that. Magical, unforgettable story over. Camera crews would pack up, the cast would say their goodbyes and the love story that was Brandon and Bailey would end the way it started.

Without warning.

Dayne knew him better than any of the guys in the room,
and finally he was the one who pulled Brandon aside. “You okay, man?” His friend studied him, concerned. “You look out of it.”

“Yeah, kind of.” Brandon let loose a sigh that seemed to come from his Italian dress shoes. “It doesn’t feel real.”

An understanding smile lifted Dayne’s expression. “We talked about this, remember?”

They had. When the bridesmaids got together for their luncheon yesterday afternoon, Dayne and Brandon had sat on the back deck of the lake house and talked about marriage, about honoring their wives and protecting them. Learning and lasting when everyone else might walk away.

But most of all they talked about loving.

What it meant to really love, to lay down their own needs and spend a lifetime consumed with those of their wives. And to bravely take a stand for lifelong marriage even in a world where people walked away far too often. How to live with that forever love Francesca Battistelli sang about in her song.

During their talk, Brandon hadn’t felt frightened at all. He couldn’t wait to love Bailey like that, to devote his life to loving her. He shook his head, puzzled by the unsettling mix of disbelief and thinly veiled fear. “It isn’t that. I’m not afraid to take this step.” He rubbed the back of his neck looking for the right words. His single laugh sounded as baffled as he felt. “I’m afraid to lose her. Like I couldn’t handle that, you know? And like I’m not sure I can breathe right until she’s standing in front of me saying, ‘I do.’”

Dayne’s expression relaxed and a smile filled his face. “That, my friend —” he took firm hold of Brandon’s shoulder, “— is exactly how you’re supposed to feel.”

A looser bit of laughter came from Brandon and he remembered to exhale. “It’s like it was one thing to win her love, but to have the gift of Bailey Flanigan all my life?” He looked over his shoulder and off to the corners of the room where the other guys and Brandon’s parents were caught up in talk about the NFL
draft. “Like I keep expecting a director to jump out and tell us it’s a wrap. End scene. Roll credits.”

“Brandon … what happens in the movies when the conflicts are worked out?”

A light began to dawn in Brandon’s heart. His words came slowly. “They live happily ever after.”

“Exactly. And when it’s obvious that’s where the story is headed, what happens then?”

“When they reach the happily ever after?” Brandon laughed. “Roll credits. Story over.” He was suddenly aware of how crazy his feelings had been. “Maybe that’s it, then.”

“Yeah.” Dayne patted his back and grinned. “You’ve lived in the conflict so long you don’t recognize a happy ending when God’s giving it to you. When it’s rushing up to meet you.”

Every uneasy feeling faded like darkness at dawn. “Or walking down the aisle to meet me.” Brandon felt the peace of God for the first time that day. “Right?”

“Exactly.”

Dayne’s words stayed with him while the photographer entered the room and took a couple dozen shots — some serious, some fun — and while the wedding coordinator ushered the guys up the side aisle of the packed church minutes before the ceremony started. As an actor, of course the happily ever after taking place that day would give him a sense that the story was almost over. Now that he understood, he didn’t have to fear what he was feeling.

He would hold onto this happy ending with Bailey for as many decades as God would give them.

They took their places at the front of the church and Brandon let the sight settle in around his soul — the view from where he stood, where he would only stand just this one time. Familiar faces looked at him from every section, friends and family and a few other actors and directors and producers. He spotted Cody
Coleman near the back with Andi’s parents and for a few seconds their eyes met.

Cody smiled politely and gave a slight nod, as if to thank Brandon for allowing him to be here, for understanding that he represented no threat. Not to Bailey and Brandon’s love and not to this, their wedding day. Brandon smiled in return, at peace with Cody’s presence here and how far they had all come to be in the same place this afternoon. Brandon shifted his gaze to the front row on his side of the church where his parents sat. Together they beamed at him, no longer burdened by the guilt of the past but only grateful to be part of this day.

He breathed in deeply. The church was beautiful, the weeks of careful decision making resulting in a gorgeous center aisle. The satin white bows and scalloped draping from one pew to the next framed the walkway and forced people to enter from the outer aisles. The air smelled of subtle cologne from the guys mixed with the sweetness of the spring flowers on either side of the stage. Their own hand-picked music played through the church speakers, filling Brandon’s heart with the promise and depth and enormity of the moment.

The song finishing up now was an old one — a Bryan Adams ballad called “Everything I Do” that Dayne and Katy had used at their wedding. Next was Train’s “Marry Me,” and Brandon wasn’t sure he would hold up, couldn’t promise he would keep his composure. Especially when the artist reached the line about asking his girl to marry him today and every day. Brandon felt his throat tighten. That’s how he felt, how he would always feel. That he would marry Bailey Flanigan every day for the rest of his life if he could.

He had never been more sure about anything.

As that song ended, another Francesca Battistelli song began to play. The pretty ballad was called “Hundred More Years,” a song about wanting moments like this one to never end. It was
the cue for the bridesmaids to walk one at a time down the aisle, starting with Bailey’s high school friends, and then Katy Hart Matthews and Andi Ellison, one at a time.

Help me hold onto this, Lord … every moment
.

Brandon felt his eyes well up. Everything seemed to skid into slow motion as the words of the song surrounded them — how the young couple had waited for love and how the decision had been worth it and how together they wanted to feel this same love for a hundred years.

Brandon stood straight, his heart pounding, more aware than ever in his life of the undeserved favor of their loving God.

A hundred more years. Father, that’s how I feel. Help me treasure every second, every word, every detail today and over the weeks and months and years. And for the rest of our lives
.

After Andi came little Sophie and Devin. Sophie held a small white wicker basket full of rose petals, and Devin carried a white satin pillow. They looked beyond adorable and the reaction from their guests only added to the fact. With his free hand, Devin worked to protect his little cousin, staying at her side, holding her hand and helping her keep balance as she threw flower petals along the runner. But in classic Devin Blake form he also managed to look up at the people watching him and blow a few dramatic kisses. As they reached the front of the church, Devin walked to the second row and left Sophie with John Baxter, as they had planned. Then Devin took his place at the front with the guys.

“Good job,” Brandon leaned over and whispered, patting Devin’s shoulder.

“Thanks.” Devin held the pillow with both hands now. “Good luck on the wedding.” His voice wasn’t as quiet as Brandon’s, and again a ripple of laughter flowed through the pews.

When the crowd settled down, a different song began to play, one Bailey and Brandon had decided on only a week ago for her
walk down the aisle. The song Brandon had used to propose to her, the one Brandon had been singing and humming for the past six months: Forever Love.

The words were haunting and unforgettable, setting the mood that something special was about to happen. The audience stood and faced the center aisle. as the song began.

You are my forever love …

You are my forever love
.

At that moment the church doors opened and from the back Bailey and her father stepped into the sanctuary. Brandon felt tears gather in his eyes, heard the way their family and friends softly gasped at the sight of her. She was a vision, more beautiful than any girl had ever looked on her wedding day or any day. Next to her, Jim Flanigan beamed even as tears slid down his cheeks. Bailey was his only daughter, and Brandon couldn’t imagine how difficult this walk was for him. But Brandon barely noticed Bailey’s father. As the song built and grew and filled the church, his attention was completely on the girl he was about to marry. The words from the song couldn’t have been more fitting — she was truly an angel for him to love the rest of his life.

With everything inside I’ll run to you
.

‘Cause all that I’ve become I owe to you
.

No words could have been more true. She was everything he’d ever needed, far more than he had prayed for. And she was about to be his for all time. Bailey smiled at him and he did the same. She was absolutely stunning, and Brandon knew this was the way she would always look in his mind. Because no matter her appearance in the days and seasons and years to come, he would always see her the way she looked right now.

His one-in-a-million girl. His bride.

As pretty as her veil was, it couldn’t hide her eyes, and for that Brandon was grateful. Because in her eyes he saw enough to set
his mind at ease. They were filled with longing and loving and they were aware of only him as she came closer.

Like the two of them were the only ones in the church.

As she reached him, Brandon became aware of her father again, of what it must feel like in this moment to be finished with the job of raising a daughter. He looked at Jim and the answer came in the quiet tears still on the man’s cheeks. He had raised Bailey from the time she was born. He had held her when she cried and read her bedtime stories at night and taught her to ride a bike. Brandon knew because Bailey had told him all of it, everything that made her relationship with her dad as special as the one she shared with her mom. He had bandaged her knees and tended to her broken heart more than a few times. He had cared for her and protected her and provided for her.

And now he would do the hardest thing of all: He would give her away.

Pastor Mark smiled at the congregation as the song finished. “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”

Jim’s eyes were dryer now. He smiled at Bailey and held her gaze for an extra few heartbeats. Then he looked up at the pastor and in a steady voice he said, “Her mother and I.” With that, her dad carefully lifted her veil and shared one last look with her. A quick kiss on her cheek and he took her hand and placed it slowly, confidently in Brandon’s. There was so much Brandon wanted to say, but this wasn’t the time. He mouthed the words,
Thank you
. Jim smiled and gave him a quick wink. Then he turned and sat beside Bailey’s mother in the front row. They leaned into each other, wiping at their tears and smiling at the same time, the significance of what had just happened clear in their eyes.

With that Brandon took a deep breath and turned all his attention on Bailey, his most beautiful bride. He helped her up the few stairs while Andi tended to her train, straightening it so it fanned out behind her.

“You look gorgeous.” Brandon’s words could only be heard by her and maybe the pastor.

“We’re getting married!” She whispered louder than him. Then she raised her brow and her face lit up in a way that brought another happy response from their guests.

Pastor Mark took his spot and smiled at the audience. “Welcome friends, family. I think everyone here knows what a special day this is, and what a rare and beautiful love Bailey and Brandon share.”

He went on, talking about God’s plan for marriage and the sanctity of the decision to commit to forever. He cited 1 Corinthians 13 and several verses Bailey and Brandon had chosen. Brandon let the words soak into his soul, the truth of God, the strength they would need so they could hold onto what they were feeling right now. Their lives would be built on the Word of God and on faith in Christ. The love they shared would last a lifetime that way.

Their attention was on Pastor Mark, but Brandon caught another glimpse of Bailey and he couldn’t believe that in just a few minutes she would be his wife.

While he watched her, while he let himself get lost in her heart and soul and her loving blue eyes, he remembered their love story, every wonderful detail. The way he felt the first time he saw her and how he hadn’t known girls like Bailey Flanigan existed. He blinked and she was driving him to the Starbucks near the university and being the kindest friend ever as they ran their scenes for
Unlocked
. And she was sitting beside him at Lake Monroe Beach listening to him as he told her things no one else knew.