The Wedding Kiss (12 page)

“Try to relax and enjoy yourself tonight, Rose. Everything will be fine.”

“Anne, you’d say that if there were a five ton weight hurtling towards you.” Which was exactly how Rose felt right then.

“We wouldn’t let you down, Rose.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” she said softly, even though twenty-four hours ago, it had seemed like the whole wedding was on the verge of disaster.

Phoebe, Anne, and Julie were more than just her employees. More than just friends. They, along with Whitney, had become her family. Even so, it was hard to see how they could
have solved her wedding’s technical problems in so short a time.

She had to know, “How could you possibly have solved everything that was going wrong so quickly?”

“RJ,” Phoebe said simply. “He knew a guy who knew a guy who could supply all the roses we need at short notice.”

“He came through on the catering too,” Julie said. “It turns out that he knows someone with a crab boat who does it as a pretty serious hobby, so I won’t have to change the menu too much now, which meant I easily had the time to re-work the cake to make it gluten-free.”

“And I know he found Tyce a rehearsal space,” Whitney said, “so that the string quartet will be perfectly in sync with one another by the time they actually play.”

Rose looked at Anne. “What about you? Did RJ find you more of that thread you couldn’t get?”

“No, where would he have possibly found that?” Anne replied just when Rose was starting to think that RJ could do nothing wrong. “Although,” her friend added, “he did
point out that if I quickly dyed the same make of thread a different color, I wouldn’t have to redo the whole thing. I really should have thought of that.”

So RJ
had
saved the day there as well.

He’d done so much, had put so much effort into making her wedding perfect, even though the idea of her marrying Donovan was tearing him up inside. And before that, he’d put everything he had into making the Rose Chalet a success. Whenever things had gone wrong, whenever she was starting to panic, he’d always been there.

How, she wondered helplessly, could he continue to give so much to her when she knew his heart was breaking?

And how could she possibly keep her heart from breaking too?

Whitney reached out to touch her arm, not saying anything, and Rose was glad she didn’t. Because one sweet word would have had her bawling her eyes out in the back of the limo.

They arrived at the spa, just outside the city, with beautiful hilltop views. Twenty minutes later though, while she was in the middle of a massage that she couldn’t manage to enjoy even the tiniest bit, her cell phone rang.

“Can’t you leave it?” Phoebe suggested.

Rose shook her head. “It’s Donovan.”

He didn’t know about her crying in RJ’s arms. He didn’t know about what had happened in the bar, or even about how much RJ had done to pull off the perfect wedding for her.

“Hi Donovan!” she tried to sound as bright and happy as she could, but failed miserably around the lump in her throat.

“Rose, I just wanted to phone and see how my blushing bride is doing.”

Desperately, she tried not to think about RJ kissing her, or declaring his love for her, or taking care of every last detail of her wedding.

“I’m at the spa with the girls,” was all she could manage by way of a reply. She couldn’t have forced out the lie that she was “fine” if her life had depended on it.

“I wish I could be with you tonight,” Donovan said.

In response, Rose couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You deserve so much better than me.”

That seemed to take Donovan momentarily aback. Finally, he said, “Rose, you’re a wonderful woman. I wouldn’t be marrying you otherwise. I know I’m not exactly the most demonstrative of men, but I wanted you to know that I love you.”

“I
—
” Rose didn’t know what to say. “That’s
—
”

She knew that she should be saying ‘I love you too,’ but with the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her, she couldn’t get the words out. Her problem was solved by Phoebe taking her phone from her.

“Donovan? This is Rose’s bachelorette party and it’s girls-only. I’m hanging up now, and then I’m hiding her phone. Bye.”

Trust Phoebe to do something like that. Something Rose would never have dared to do, but which she’d desperately needed
someone
to do right then. Because even as Phoebe put her phone down, Rose’s tears started falling.

Anne rushed over from her facial, and both Julie and Whitney were quick to join them after waving away the aestheticians who had been giving them their treatments.

“Rose?” Anne said, “You need to talk to us. What happened?”

“It’s RJ. He told me
—
” Her voice broke. “He told me he loves me.”

“Of course he does,” Julie said in a gentle voice. “And it’s about time he finally told you.”

She wasn’t even surprised anymore that everyone knew. Besides, what did it matter if everyone knew how RJ felt about her when she was marrying another man?

“He also told me he’ll be leaving the chalet after the wedding.”

“I understand why he would need to do that,” Phoebe said, “but what I don’t understand is why you’re still marrying Donovan when RJ told you he loves you.”

“Because I accepted Donovan’s proposal and we have a house we’ve built together and...it’s all been arranged forever! But now I feel so guilty for thinking about RJ whenever I’m around Donovan, and I feel guilty when I’m with Donovan for not clearing things up with RJ.”

“Oh, Rose,” Anne said, moving in to wrap her arms around her friend. The others joined in.

“I need to apologize for trying to push you and RJ together,” Whitney said. “I was so sure it was what you both wanted.”

“Me too,” Phoebe admitted, “but we’ve just been making things harder for you, haven’t we?”

“All I want,” Rose told her friends, “is to get through this wedding in one piece.”

Anne spoke for the others. “If that’s what you want, then we’re going to make sure you do. We promise.”

Chapter Eighteen

Rose stared at herself in the mirror.

Several minutes ago Anne had finished helping her into her wedding dress and Phoebe had put the finishing touches on her makeup. So many months of working towards this moment, and now she and Donovan were about to be married the way they’d planned.

The wedding dress Anne had made for her was perfect, probably the best work Rose had ever seen her do, and Phoebe had done a fantastic job with her hair and makeup.

“If you’re ready,” Phoebe said in a gentle voice, “everything’s all set to go.”

Amazingly it had all come together. Julie had stayed up most of the night putting last minute touches on the cake decoration, and the finished product was astonishingly beautiful. The flowers were in place, covering so much of the interior that it seemed like a rose garden. Tyce’s musicians had sounded fantastic during their rehearsal earlier. The guests were waiting in their seats. The officiant was there.

All they needed for the wedding to start was for the bride to actually walk outside.

Anne put a hand on her arm. “Rose
—
”

“I just need another minute, okay?”

Phoebe and Anne gave each other a look before Rose’s best friend said, “We’ll be right outside.”

But Rose didn’t hear anything her friends said as she stared at the total stranger standing in front of the mirror. Her stomach was roiling, her heart was racing, and her fingertips were numb as she pressed them hard into her palms.

A knock sounded on the door, and even though Rose didn’t call out for the person to come in, her mother stepped inside. Susie Martin was wearing a deep rose-colored dress that Anne had made for her. She looked beautiful, and was suddenly the only person in the world Rose wanted with her.

Her mother moved beside her in front of the mirror. “Your friends told me that something wasn’t right.” Their eyes met in the mirror, her mother’s warm, Rose’s full of deep-seated panic.

“I just need a few more minutes to wrap my head around all of this.”

“Oh, honey,” her mom said with a smile, “you know you can tell me anything, don’t you? Just like when you were a little girl.”

Rose remembered coming to the bowling alley after school on days when some boy had made her cry, or when one of the mean girls had made awful comments about her being a poor girl who couldn’t afford the right clothes. She’d always tried to hide things like that from her mom, because her mom had been doing the best she could for both of them. But her mother had always known exactly what Rose was going through, without her having to say a word. That was when her floodgates would open up and she would tell her mother everything, until she felt better.

But today Rose didn’t know what she could say. She simply didn’t know how to explain the way she felt, or what good it would possibly do if she did.

She’d made up her mind, and now there were hundreds of people out there waiting for her. Her friends. Donovan’s friends. Their families.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart.”

Her mother’s arms came around her just as Rose whispered, “I feel like all this isn’t real. Like
I’m
not real. I look in that mirror, and I see a beautiful bride. But it isn’t
me.
”

“Do you know what I see when I look in the mirror?” her mom asked. “I see the little girl who used to have to come to the bowling alley after school because I couldn’t be at home. I see the girl who managed to make a good life for herself even when I couldn’t give her everything I wanted her to have. I see a beautiful woman who has worked hard to get into a position where she can do anything she wants. I’m so proud of you, Rose.”

Rose reached up to wipe away the tears before they could streak her makeup. “Then why don’t I know what to do right now?”

“I’ve made some bad decisions in my life, so maybe I’m not the best person to give advice, but I’ll say one thing. There have been times when I thought your father was one of those mistakes, but if I hadn’t met him, then you would never have been born, and you are the one thing I’ll never regret. I love you, and I don’t think you ever can go wrong trusting in what you love. And it also occurs to me,” her mother continued, “that if there’s one person in this room qualified to give advice to a bride on her wedding day, it isn’t me. It’s you, Rose. If there were another bride standing in your place and she told you that she felt the way you do now, what would you say to her?”

Rose was stunned at the simplicity of her mother’s advice. Advice she suddenly had no choice but to heed now that it had been given.

Yes, she was a nervous bride, but not because she was excited at the prospect of spending the rest of her life with Donovan, not out of anticipation of seeing him at the end of the aisle waiting to take her hand in marriage.

No, the truth was that she was almost broken with nerves because she could see the sheer scale of the mistake that she was about to make, and she had let herself be trapped by all the expectations around her. She was about to go through with the wedding because Donovan wasn’t a bad guy, and because she didn’t want to be a woman who upset people.

And yet, if a bride had come to her and said any of that, she knew exactly what she would have told the woman:
“Don’t go through with the wedding unless you’re sure you’re marrying the one you really love.”

Rose knew whom she really loved.

And it wasn’t Donovan.

“People are going to be so angry with me.”

Her mother squeezed her tighter. “Let them be angry. They can take it up with me if they want to be angry. You think Vanessa McIntyre is going to be any nastier than some of the people we get in the bowling alley on a Friday night? So long as you’re happy, I don’t care if the whole world is angry.”

Rose had underestimated her mother so much. What did it matter if Susie Martin still worked at the bowling alley, or if she didn’t have the same social graces as Donovan’s family?

Her mother would do anything for the people she loved, and that was what really mattered.

Rose had been trying to deny that she loved RJ. She’d been trying to tell herself that Donovan was the one she wanted, but as much as she liked him, she didn’t love him. Not the way she loved RJ. Liking someone wasn’t a good enough reason to marry them, even with two hundred and fifty people waiting for her to make her way down the aisle to the wedding march.

Rose turned fully into her mother’s arms. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too, honey.” Her mother pulled back to grin at her. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

People had been saying that to her all week. Finally, Rose believed it might be true.

Rose went to the door and found Anne just outside.

“I need you to bring Donovan here.”

“But it’s not good luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding.”

“That’s okay,” Rose said. She took a deep breath and explained, “There isn’t going to be a wedding.”

Anne’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”

Rose nodded. “Seriously.”

Anne reached out a hand for one of Rose’s. “Oh. That’s…that’s
incredible
.”

“I’m sorry you went to such trouble with the dress.”

“Forget the dress,” Anne said. “I’ll go get Donovan.”

Less than sixty seconds later, her mother was gone and Donovan was walking through the door to her dressing room.

“Rose, what’s going on?”

God, she hated hurting him. He didn’t deserve it. But she knew it would only be worse if she drew things out any longer.

“I’m sorry, I know this is the worst possible timing, and you’re a wonderful man, but the wedding’s off.”

“Off?” Donovan repeated the word like he didn’t know what it meant.

“I’m sorry,” Rose repeated, “but I just can’t go through with it.”

“Oh, is that all this is,” Donovan said, sounding relieved. “Rose, you’re suffering from wedding day jitters. I’m sure every bride goes through them, but once you start walking down the aisle, you’ll be fine.”