One Winter Wedding. Barbara Hannay

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СКАЧАТЬ the rapid-fire questions, Kelsey asked, “Where are Emily and Aunt Charlene?”

      “Emily’s still having her dress fitted.”

      “Oh, I’d love to see it.” A designer friend of Kelsey’s had made the dress for her cousin, but so far Kelsey had seen only drawings and fabric swatches.

      For such a gorgeous woman, Aileen gave a decidedly inelegant snort as they walked down the hall. “Nice try. Do you really think you can escape without going over every detail from the first second you saw Connor right up to when you left him—” Emily’s older sister frowned. “Where did you leave him?”

      “At a restaurant.”

      “By himself?”

      “What else could I do, Aileen? Follow him to his hotel and ask for an invitation inside?”

      “Well, that would make it easier to keep an eye on him.”

      “Aileen!”

      Waving aside Kelsey’s indignation, Aileen said, “I’m just kidding. Besides, he doesn’t have a car, right?”

      “Like that’s going to slow him down! Don’t you remember the time Connor got busted for joyriding in a ‘borrowed’ car?” She hadn’t been around then, but her aunt had remarked on Connor’s misdeeds long after he’d left town. In fact, Connor’s name had come up any time Emily threatened to disobey her parents. Like some kind of bogeyman Aunt Charlene evoked to keep her younger daughter in line.

      Her cousin’s perfectly shaped brows rose. “You don’t think he’s still involved in illegal activities, do you?”

      “I have no idea,” Kelsey said, ignoring the internal voice yelling no. Her automatic desire to rush to Connor’s defense worried her. She was supposed to stop him, not champion him.

      “You should find out,” Aileen said as she led the way into the study. The bookshelf-lined room, with its leather and mahogany furniture, was her uncle’s masculine domain, but even this room had been taken over by wedding preparations. Stacks of photo albums cluttered the coffee table.

      “Why me?” Kelsey groaned.

      “You want to help Emily, don’t you?”

      “Of course I do!” she insisted, even if she had to admit her motives weren’t completely altruistic.

      “And you want the wedding to be perfect, right?” Her cousin already knew the answer and didn’t wait for Kelsey’s response.

      “I know Mother exaggerates, but not when it comes to Connor McClane. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried kidnapping Emily again,” Aileen added.

      Kelsey fought to keep from rolling her eyes. “She took off with Connor on prom night and didn’t come back until the next day. I think your parents overreacted.”

      “Maybe, but I guarantee he’ll try to stop the wedding somehow.” Aileen pointed an older-therefore-wiser finger in Kelsey’s direction. “But don’t let him fool you.”

      He hadn’t bothered to try to fool her. Was Connor so confident he could stop the wedding that he didn’t care who knew about his plan?

      Walking over to the coffee table, Aileen picked up a stack of photos. “Here are the pictures Mother wants to show during the reception.”

      “Thanks.” Kelsey flipped through images of her cousin’s life. Not a bad-hair day or an acne breakout in the bunch. Even in pigtails and braces Emily had been adorable. As Kelsey tucked them into her purse, she noticed a stray photo had fallen to the Oriental area rug. “Did you want to include this one?”

      Her voice trailed off as she had a better look at the picture. At first glance, the young woman could have been Emily, but the feathered hair and ruffled prom dress were wrong. “Oh, wow.”

      From the time Kelsey had come to live with her aunt and uncle, she’d heard how much Emily looked like Kelsey’s mother, Olivia. Kelsey had seen similarities in the blond hair and blue eyes, but from this picture of a teenage Olivia dressed for a high school dance, she and Emily could have passed for sisters.

      Reading her thoughts, Aileen said, “Amazing, isn’t it?”

      “It is. Everyone always said—” Kelsey shook her head. “I never noticed.”

      “Really? But they look so much alike!”

      “My mother, she didn’t—” Laugh? Smile? Ever look as alive as she looked in that photo? Uncertain what to say, Kelsey weakly finished, “I don’t remember her looking like this.”

      “Oh, Kelse. I’m sorry.” Concern darkened Aileen’s eyes. “I should have realized with your mother being so sick and having to go through chemo. Of course, she didn’t look the same.”

      Accepting her cousin’s condolences with a touch of guilt, Kelsey silently admitted Olivia Wilson had lost any resemblance to the girl in the picture long before being diagnosed with cancer. What would it have been like had her mother retained some of that carefree, joyful spirit? Kelsey immediately thrust the disloyal thought aside.

      Olivia had given up everything—including the wealth and family that now surrounded Kelsey—to raise her daughter. Emily’s wedding was Kelsey’s chance to live up to her promise. To hold her head high and finally show the Wilsons how amazing she could be.

      With a final look at the picture, Kelsey slid the photo of her mother back into one of the albums. “It’s okay,” she told Aileen. “Let’s go see if Emily’s done with the fitting.”

      “All right. But be warned,” Aileen said as she led the way down the hall toward Emily’s bedroom. “The photographer’s in there.”

      “Really?” Kelsey frowned. “I don’t remember pictures of the fitting being included. Was that something Emily requested?”

      She had long accepted that her ideas and her cousins’ differed greatly, but a seamstress fretting over her measurements would have been a nightmare for Kelsey, not a photo op.

      Aileen shrugged and opened the door just a crack. “The photographer said it was all part of the package.”

      A quick glance inside, and Kelsey immediately saw what “package” the photographer was interested in. Emily stood in the middle of the bedroom, with its girlish four-poster bed and French provincial furniture. Her sheer, lace-covered arms were held out straight at her sides while the seamstress pinned the beaded bodice to fit her willowy curves. Dewy makeup highlighted her wide blue eyes, flawless cheekbones and smiling lips.

      “What do you think, Mother? Will Todd like it?” Emily leaned forward to examine the skirt, testing the limits of a dozen stickpins.

      The photographer, a man in his midtwenties, started snapping shots as fast as his index finger could fly. It wasn’t the first time Kelsey had seen slack-jawed amazement on a man’s face. Too bad she saw the expression only when her cousin was around.

      “Of course he will. Audra is an amazing designer, and she created that dress just for you. It’s perfect,” Aunt Charlene insisted, keeping a narrow-eyed glare on СКАЧАТЬ