Runaway Bridesmaid

“Well,” Katey announced, unperturbed, “when I’m a vet, those dumb sheep will just have to have their babies when I’m on duty.”

Sarah regarded the little girl with a wry smile. Knowing Katey, she probably would get the dumb sheep to birth during office hours.

“So…still wanna be a vet?” She touched her forehead to Katey’s. “You didn’t seem real interested this morning at the clinic.”

Katey squirmed, her dark brows dipping. “Well…” Sarah could almost hear the child’s brain fast-forwarding through several dozen possible answers. Then the little face relaxed into a grin as she let a puppy sniff her fingers. “I’m just a kid. I’ve got a short attention span.”

Sarah let out a laugh, then hugged the little girl to her. No matter what, this precocious little girl never failed to make her smile. Even more than the pups. “You’ve never been ‘just’ a kid, you know that? Even when you were a baby, you always wore this funny, grown-up expression.”

“I did?”

“Uh-huh.” Sarah pretended to shudder and Katey giggled. “It was freak-y, too, having this little tiny baby look at you with this serious face all the time—”

“Sarah Louise?” The lights flickered in the kennel as her mother’s low voice, easily overriding the next wave of thunder, filled the old barn.

“In with Mariah, Mama.”

“Katey with you?”

“Yes, Mama,” Katey piped up.

Clad in her usual attire of oversize man-tailored shirt and jeans, the full-figured woman now blocked most of the light coming into the stall. Vivian never had lost the weight from the last pregnancy. Not that she seemed to care.

Vivian settled what was supposed to be a stern gaze on the little girl. “I believe there’s something you’re supposed to be doing, young lady?”

The child looked from one woman to the other, then let out an affronted sigh. “Yes, Mama,” she muttered, getting to her feet. Wiping her hands on the already filthy seat of raspberry-colored shorts, Katey unlatched the gate and let herself out of the pen, stoically allowing Vivian to plant a kiss on the top of her glimmering chestnut head as she passed. Size two sneakers ground emphatic squeaks into the smooth cement floor as the child retreated.

Vivian joined Sarah in the cage, huffing a little as she lowered her ample form to the floor, then patted Sarah’s knee. “You okay?”

Sarah cuddled the tiny dog to her chest. “The pups needed to be checked.”

That got a snort as Vivian tucked a stray hank of silver-streaked, ash-brown hair back up into a loose bun at the back of her head. “Chicken.”

“Damn straight,” Sarah shot back with an attempt at a grin, then averted her face when her mother tried to look her in the eye.

“You’ve been crying.”

“What gave you your first clue?”

“Puffy eyes, blotchy face, swollen lips—take your pick.”

With a huge sigh, Sarah said, “I saw him.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Sarah leaned her head back against the whitewashed partition of the pen with a soft thud. “Could you just tell everyone I tripped and drowned in a mud puddle or something?”

Vivian grunted in what Sarah assumed was sympathy. “Now, baby, you knew he’d come back some day.” A beat. “And you knew what that meant.”

Sarah pulled her head forward, concentrating on the writhing mass of pups in front of them. “I just thought for some reason I’d have a little more time to prepare myself.”

“Hah! Bad news never seems to be terribly interested in giving much warning.” Vivian shifted her weight with a soft wince. “What’re you going to do?”

With a sigh, Sarah leaned her head back again and shut her eyes, the puppy snuffling the hollow of her throat with whiskers soft as the inside of a daisy. “Kinda liked the mud puddle idea, myself.”

“You could tell him.”

Sarah opened one eye and tilted her head just far enough to see the side of her mother’s face, sternly refusing to allow one more emotion into her already overcrowded brain. That didn’t stop her face from flushing, however. “Tell him what, exactly?”

The puppies’ mewling filled the silence as Vivian seemed to consider her answer. “You still being sweet on him might be a good place to start.”

The two women regarded each other for a moment, then Sarah looked away. “And what makes you think that?”

“I’m psychic.”

Sarah swallowed past the knot of anger in her throat, then said quietly, “Dean Parrish chewed up my heart and spit it out in little pieces all over Lee County.” Frowning, she shut her eyes and rocked her head from side to side against the wall. “I don’t deserve that.”

“That’s right.”

Sarah’s mouth pulled into a straight line as her voice dropped an octave. “And he sure as hell doesn’t deserve me.” She let out a long sigh. “You were right, you know. Back then. About our not being suited for the long haul.”

Vivian picked something off her jeans. “Maybe…he’s changed.”

“Yeah, and maybe Auburn’ll get a major league football franchise next year.” Sarah shook her head, finally opening her eyes, regarding nothing in particular. “You didn’t see the look on his face, the night he broke up with me.” She carefully placed the pup back with its siblings.

They sat in silence again for a full minute, Sarah fully aware if her mother touched her she’d start bawling all over again. Except what she did was far worse. “The question is, what did you see in his face today?”

Sarah turned away, determined to hold it together, determined not to be the pawn in whatever game her mother now seemed so determined to play.

“Honey, all you can do is take this one step at a time—”

“What’s done is done, Mama,” she said sharply. “There’s no going back.”

After a long moment, Vivian gently bumped shoulders with her daughter. A conciliatory gesture, Sarah figured. “How you handle this is up to you,” she said softly. “And it’s just one week. Dinner tonight, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding. That’s all. Think you can manage that?”

Just one week. Right. With a toss of her head, Sarah said on an exhaled breath, “Doesn’t look like I’ve got a whole lot of choice in the matter, does it?” She stood, then held out a hand to help up her mother, the one person who, no matter what, had been there for her, had helped her through the most painful period of her life. And who, Sarah knew, felt more than bad about her part in creating the situation now facing all of them.

“There are always choices,” Vivian said with a grunt as she struggled to her feet. No longer taller than her daughter, her eyes met Sarah’s dead on. “Always.” She shrugged and draped an arm around Sarah’s shoulder as a teeth-rattling thunderclap ripped open the clouds at last, letting loose a barrage of stone-hard raindrops onto the tin roof overhead.

“Like now,” her mother shouted as they stood at the barn door watching the deluge quickly turn the yard into a river of slimy orange mud. “Do we stay and wait it out, or make a run for it?”

“Oh, come on, Mama,” Sarah challenged with a wicked grin. “I’ve never known you to wait anything out.” She dashed into the driving rain, calling over her shoulder, “Last one to the house cleans dog poop for a week!”

Not surprisingly, Sarah lost the bet. It always astounded her how quickly her mother could move, despite her generous proportions. In any case, they were both drenched by the time they made it to the house and up the steps. Flushed with exertion and laughing too hard to breathe, they wriggled out of sneakers that looked dipped in pumpkin pie filling, dumping them by the back door before stumbling over each other to see who got to the kitchen first.

“Oh, yuck!” Jennifer waved a half-peeled cucumber in front of her as if to ward off evil spirits. “You two are gross!”

Dripping all over the kitchen floor, Sarah grabbed a kitchen towel to wipe off her face. Still laughing, she threw a broad wink at Katey, giggling and half hidden behind a mountain of corn at the kitchen table, then directed her attention to the flinching Jennifer. “Would somebody please tell me how Vivian and Eli Whitehouse managed to produce such a priss? It’s just water, Jen—see?” She shook her head like a dog, sending a spray halfway across the room, cackling in glee as her sister squealed and nearly tripped over herself trying to back away.

“Mama! Make her stop!”

Vivian, her own hair hanging like tangled vines around her face, shifted her eyes to her oldest daughter, her mouth twitching. “Sarah Louise, stop torturing your sister.”

“Yes, Mama,” Sarah said, tucking her hands behind her back and shuffling one bare foot back and forth over the puddled floor. Then she went after Jennifer with a war whoop and the wet towel, sending her shrieking out the kitchen door.

And sending Sarah straight into Dean’s chest, which, along with the rest of him, happened to pick that moment to come out to the kitchen.

She felt strong, rough hands close firmly around her upper arms, her chest and hips meld into his as he steadied her to keep from being knocked over. For more seconds than she wanted to know, his breath, sweet and warm, fanned over her still damp face, making her shiver. Her nipples pebbled, instantly and just this side of painfully. She froze, not sure whether it was her heartbeat or his she felt pounding against her skin.

“Well, now…” One side of his mouth hitched up around a low drawl that was affected and deliberately irritating and made her bare toes curl against the cool lacquered floor. “I see you’re just as clumsy as you always were. Nice to see not everything’s changed about you, Sarah Louise.”

She wasn’t sure, but she thought he drew her just a little closer, close enough that she knew with certain dread that two layers of limp, thin, wet fabric were no barrier to his being able to feel her taut nipples against his chest. The half-grin grew downright insouciant. Lightning flickered eerily across his taut features as he said in a voice too soft for anyone else to hear, “But then again, it would appear that some things have improved considerably.”

It would appear the man had a death wish.

Panicked eyes locked with his, a little cry of alarm escaped parted lips…and, exquisitely timed with the next roar of thunder, two surprisingly strong fists crashed down with unerring aim on either side of his collarbone.

The cups in the glass-fronted cupboard rattled like maracas as Dean let go of Sarah with a grunt, then watched as she streaked past him and out the kitchen door. Rubbing one wounded shoulder, he heard her footsteps pound down the hall, up the stairs and down the upstairs hallway to her room, ending with a door slam that rattled the cups in the cupboard all over again.

Whoo-ee—she sure as hell was stronger than she used to be.

Still coddling his shoulder, he leaned against the open swinging door, half in, half out of the kitchen, and shut his eyes for a moment. She’d left more than a set of bruises behind. Her scent, damp and natural, lingered in his nostrils. And the effects of her body pressed against his still lingered below his waist. Although, lingering wasn’t perhaps the most accurate description….

“Well, just don’t stand there like a lump, boy. Get your butt in here.”

With a slight start, Dean shifted his attention to Sarah’s mother, who was toweling off her hair, having already changed into dry jeans and another loose shirt. Dean couldn’t remember ever seeing the statuesque woman in anything fitted, even when he was a kid.

But when would she have changed clothes? His brow wrinkled as he obeyed, letting the door swing to a close behind him. Vivian apparently picked up on his confusion, answering with a loud laugh.

“Laundry day. Seemed to make more sense to pull dry things out of the basket right here than tramp all the way upstairs. Besides, gives me two less things to put away, right?” She tossed the damp towel out into the laundry room, then haphazardly braided her long hair in a single plait at the nape of her neck as tangential strands curled around her broad face. “So tell me…” Yanking open a small drawer next to the sink, she poked around in the jumbled contents until she found a rubber band, with which she tidily finished off the braid. “How’s life in Atlanta?” She settled back on a stool, crossed her arms. “Must make this place look dull as Luke Hanover’s old bloodhound.”

“Sometimes, dull is good,” Dean admitted, not missing the merest hint of a hitched eyebrow. He decided to let Sarah’s mother come to her own conclusions, which she undoubtedly would.

Vivian simply studied him for a long moment, a half smile lifting her full, round cheeks, those gray eyes searing right into his brain. Other than that, she had no reaction. Whatsoever.

Dean leaned back against the counter, his hands gripping the edge. Woman was making him nervous as a cat watching a frog. This prodigal son business was not what he’d expected. Sarah’s mother could just as well run him out of her house with a shotgun at his backside for leaving her daughter like that. Considering Sarah’s devastated expression when she’d fled his room that day, it was a miracle he was still in one piece. That Vivian Whitehouse was actually being friendly was an even bigger miracle.

If not downright weird.

After a few seconds, the smile blossomed. “Still know your way around a bag of briquettes, boy?”

“Excuse me?”

“That no-count brother of yours can’t barbecue worth beans. But I seem to recall your daddy and you used to cook up a storm.”

The knot in his stomach began to ease a little. “Yes, ma’am, I guess so. But…well, I don’t mean to be rude, but…speaking of storms?”

“Shoot…this’ll be over before Katey’s finished shucking the corn. Grab a Coke out of the fridge and take a load off. I’ll be right back.”

Katey sat at the kitchen table in front of a pile of corn large enough to feed the whole county, shucking it so slowly there was no doubt Vivian was right. The child offered him a doleful expression and a put-upon sigh and tugged off another handful of husk.

Dean nodded toward the corn, his brow creased in sympathy. “Think your Mama would mind if I helped?”

“Yes, I would” came the stentorian voice from the pantry. “That’s her job. You just let her be.”

Katey screwed up one side of her mouth. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Sorry, honey,” he said, briefly touching her shoulder. “I tried.”

He pulled a Coke out of the refrigerator and popped the top, surveying the enormous kitchen appreciatively, a room that had always represented love and warmth and security when he was growing up. Even as the angry storm slashed against the windows, this room was bright, inviting, safe. He sagged against the counter and took a swig of the soda, only half listening as Vivian chattered to him from the other side of the door.

The all-white room hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen it. The same handpainted porcelain plates marched across the soffit over the light oak cabinets his father had put in—as well as the butcherblock countertops—when the Whitehouses had first bought the old place almost twenty-five years ago. He’d only been five at the time, but he still remembered coming over and “helping,” and how Vivian had fussed and clucked over him and fed him enormous chunks of hot corn-bread dripping with butter or still-warm peanut butter cookies or that last piece of chocolate cake that “was just going to go stale if someone didn’t eat it real soon,” all of which were courtesy of the enormous converted cast-iron stove, which still took up a good chunk of one wall like a giant sleeping bull.

His focus shifted toward the sink, where he could almost see a teenaged Sarah, like a hologram or something, standing with her hand on her slim waist and a teasing smile on her lips, her long hair rippling like a waterfall over her shoulders as she’d throw him a towel to dry so they could go riding their bikes up to the lake before it got dark.

He swallowed hard, then his eyes wandered back to the pine table where Katey sat at her task, her tongue stuck out in concentration. The table had also been his daddy’s handiwork, and he noted underneath the growing pile of husks it was still adorned with familiar handmade rag placemats and a pot of fresh flowers in the center. He thought of all the dinners and all the jokes and all the laughter he’d shared at that table. And how much he’d missed all that.

And how, if he hadn’t panicked, believing other people knew more than he did, maybe he wouldn’t’ve had to.

He realized his eyes were moist, about the same time he caught Vivian standing in the pantry door, a bag of briquettes in her arms. Conspiracy lighting up her dove-colored eyes, she walked heavily across the old wood floor and shoved the bag into his arms.

“You have one week,” she said in a low voice. So the child wouldn’t hear, he presumed.

“I don’t…” He frowned. “Huh?”

Vivian sighed, then leveled him with a piercing look that could have converted rocks into diamonds. “To win her back, you fool.”

This time he did jump, just as if the frog had sprung into his face. But her earnest expression stilled him immediately. Worried him, too.

“Look, mistakes get made,” she said in a low voice. “And you can either learn from them and try to fix them, or you can give up and be miserable for the rest of your life. So…there’s your choice. Don’t screw it up.”

Before Dean could protest that he seriously doubted whether winning back Sarah’s affections—even if he’d wanted to—was either reasonable, possible, or the best choice for anyone concerned, the kitchen door swung open and the lady herself appeared. She’d showcased those long legs in a pair of white shorts, topped by a blousy white cotton shirt with the top two buttons left intriguingly undone. Whiskey eyes flashed from her mother to Dean and back again as she stood with one hand on the side of the door, the other on her hip.

Leading Dean to wonder exactly how long she’d been standing on the other side of the door.

Chapter 3

Judging from Dean’s furtive expression, she’d been the topic of conversation. Judging from her mother’s, by Vivian’s, choice.

No way was she going there.

So she went instead to the refrigerator—acutely aware of Dean’s appreciative scrutiny of her legs as she passed—pulled out a Coke, then returned to the living room to check out the wedding gifts, leaving her mother and Dean to think whatever they liked.

Played it pretty cool the rest of the evening, too, if she said so herself. Whenever she caught Dean watching her at supper, she rearranged her features into what she hoped was an expression of aloof nonchalance.

Not that the rest of her would cooperate. She forced herself to eat—otherwise four people would have jumped on her case—but the corn and burgers and salad and watermelon and apple pie felt like wet sand in her stomach.

Dean’s own peculiar expression didn’t help matters, a look which she caught far more often than she liked simply because the man would not take his eyes off of her. They didn’t exchange as much as a dozen words during the meal, which nobody noticed what with Jennifer and Katey and her mother all holding forth about the wedding, but she felt as if he was trying to absorb her through his eyes. Just as she was fixing to tell him to perform some physiologically impossible feat, Jennifer came to the rescue.

“So, c’mon, Dean,” her sister wheedled as only she could. “You’ve just gotta tell me what this wedding present is.”

Dean finally tore his eyes away from Sarah and contemplated her sister with an oblique smile. “Oh, I’ve gotta tell you, huh?” he said, winking at Katey. “And why is that?”

“Oh, boy,” Lance interjected with raised hands and a laugh. “You do not want to know what this woman is capable of once she sets her mind to something. Might as well give it up now, while you still have all your toenails.”

“Lance!” Jennifer slapped him with her paper napkin. “You make me sound like Attila the Hun or something. I’m not that bad—”

“Yeah. You are.” Lance caught his fiancée in his arms, eliciting a tiny squeal. “That’s why I love you so much.” He sealed his left-handed endearment with a smacking kiss on her lips.

Jennifer tenderly grazed his cheek with two fingers, then faced Dean again. “So? You gonna tell me or sacrifice your toenails?”

Chuckling, Dean wiped his mouth and hands on his napkin and stood up. “It’s in the truck.”

“The truck!” Jennifer’s eyes grew wide as the watermelon rounds stacked on the plate in front of her. “You left my wedding present out in the rain?”

“Trust me,” Dean said, backing toward the driveway, “when I pack furniture, nothing short of a nuclear disaster is going to harm it.”

“Furniture?” By now Jennifer had jumped up from the table and zipped past Dean on the way to the Dakota, followed one by one by the rest of the family. “Lance said you had enough orders to keep your shop busy through Christmas…” She’d reached the truck and now danced with impatience. “But you found the time to make something for us?”

“Sure did.” Dean swung down the tailgate and hopped up into the bed where a lumpy, canvas-wrapped object nestled near the cab. After several minutes of peeling away layer after layer of protective covering, he picked up the object—which still wore its last layer, like a chaste slip—and jumped down off the truck with it. Now everyone followed Dean and the object up onto the porch, where he set it down and stepped away, nodding toward Jennifer.

“Be my guest.”

Jennifer hesitated, then slowly drew off the last layer of canvas. “Oh!”

The fine handrubbed finish of the mahogany rocker glowed in the last rays of the setting sun like the embers of a dying fire. A Windsor design, with delicate, smooth spindles splayed upward from the seat, the arms were gracefully curved, the rockers perfectly balanced. But everyone there knew just how difficult such a deceptively simple-looking object can be to make, because there was no room for the slightest imperfection.

Sarah blinked, then swallowed. She’d always known Dean was talented, remembering the beautiful pieces he’d build in his father’s workshop. But the care and attention to detail in the chair said it all. She’d always said he’d make something of himself. Never doubted it for a single second.

And would he have gotten as far as he had if he’d stayed? If he hadn’t gone to Atlanta, his talent would have withered like a seedling not given the proper light or food or water. As would have their love, eventually.

It all made sense. Now.

“That is the loveliest rocker I have ever seen,” Vivian, never one to flatter, allowed, and the smile that lit up Dean’s face was nearly Sarah’s undoing.

“Thank you,” he said softly, then addressed his brother and Jennifer, who stood with their arms around each other’s waist. “I just hope the two of you enjoy using it half as much as I enjoyed making it for you.”

“Oh, Dean…” Jennifer slipped away from Lance and took Dean’s hand, stretching up to kiss him on the cheek. “It’s absolutely gorgeous. Thank you.” She giggled and gestured toward the chair. “Can I?”

“Well, ma’am, chairs aren’t meant to be looked at, now are they?”

With another giggle, Jennifer slid into the chair, sighing in contentment. “It really is perfect.” Sarah saw Dean lean over and whisper something that brought a flush to Jen’s cheeks and a hand to Dean’s wrist as she nodded and smiled. Then Dean skipped down the porch steps and back out into the yard, where he was accosted by a vociferous little girl who just had to show him around the property before it got any darker. Vivian then dragged Lance off to help her with some chore or other, leaving the two sisters on the porch.

“So.” Sarah leaned against the railing, arms crossed. “What did he say?”

Her sister went crimson.

“Good Lord, Jennifer—what did he say?”

“Promise you won’t say a word to anyone? Not even Mama?”

“What on earth…?”

Jennifer cleared her throat, stroking the satiny arms of the chair with her fingertips. “He said that…he hoped I’d get to rock our babies in this chair.”