Saying Yes To The Dress!. Сорейя Лейн

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       CHAPTER TWELVE

      AFTER THAT BECKY was “in.” She and the J’s and Drew became a family. They took their meals together and they played together. Becky soon discovered this crew worked hard, and they played harder.

      At every break and after work, the football came out. Or the Frisbee. Both games were played with rough-and-tumble delight at the water’s edge. She wasn’t sure how they could have any energy left, but they did.

      The first few times she played, the brothers howled hysterically at both her efforts to throw and catch balls and Frisbees. They good-naturedly nicknamed her Barnside.

      “Barnside?” she protested. “That’s awful. I demand a new nickname. That is not flattering!”

      “You have to earn a new nickname,” Jimmy informed her seriously.

      “Time to go back to work,” Drew told them, after one coffee-break Frisbee session when poor Josh had to climb a palm tree to retrieve a Frisbee she’d thrown. He caught her arm as she turned to leave. “Not you.”

      “What?” she said.

      “Have you heard anything from Allie recently?” he asked.

      “The last I heard from her was a few days ago, when she okayed potted lavender instead of tulips.” She scanned his face. “You still haven’t heard from Joe?”

      He shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

      But she could tell it was. “I’m sorry.”

      He obviously did not want to talk about his distress over his brother. Becky was aware that she felt disappointed. He was okay with their relationship—with being “friends” on a very light level.

      Did he not trust her with his deeper issues?

      Apparently not. Drew said, “It’s time you learned how to throw a Frisbee. I consider it an essential life skill.”

      “How could I have missed that?” she asked drily. As much as she wanted to talk to him about his brother, having fun with him was just too tempting. Besides, maybe the lighthearted friendship growing between them would develop some depth, and some trust on his part, if she just gave it time.

      “I’m not sure how you could have missed this important life skill,” he said, “but it’s time to lose ‘Barnside.’ They are calling you that because you could not hit the side of a barn with a Frisbee at twenty feet.”

      “At twenty feet? I could!”

      “No,” Drew informed her with a sad shake of his head, “you couldn’t. You’ve now tossed two Frisbees out to sea, and Josh risked his life to rescue the other one out of the palm tree today. We can’t be running out of Frisbees.”

      “That would be a crisis,” she agreed, deadpan.

      “I’m glad you understand the seriousness of it. Now, come here.”

      He placed her in front of him. He gave her a Frisbee. “Don’t throw it. Not yet.”

      He wrapped his arms around her from behind, drawing her back into the powerful support of his chest. He laid his arm along her arm. “It’s in the wrist, not the arm. Flick it, don’t pitch it.” He guided her throw.

      Becky actually cackled with delight when it flew true, instead of her normal flub. Soon, he released her to try on her own, and then set up targets for her to throw at. The troubled look that had been on his face since he mentioned his brother evaporated.

      Finally, he high-fived her, gave her a little kiss on the nose and headed back to his crew. She watched him go and then looked at the Frisbee in her hand.

      How could such a small thing make it feel as if a whole new world was opening up to her? Of course, it wasn’t the Frisbee, it was him.

      It was being with him and being with his crew.

      It occurred to Becky she felt the sense of belonging she had craved since the disintegration of her own family. They were all becoming a team. Drew and his crew were a building machine. The pavilion went up, and they designed and began to build the dance floor. And Becky loved the moments when she and Drew found themselves alone. It was so easy to talk to each other.

      The conversation flowed between them so easily. And the laughter.

      The hands-off policy had been a good one, even if it was making the tension build almost unbearably between them. It was like going on a diet that had an end date. Not that they had named an end date, but some kind of anticipation was building between them.

      And meanwhile, her admiration for him did nothing but grow. He was a natural leader. He was funny. He was smart. She found herself making all kinds of excuses to be around him. She was pretty sure he was doing the same thing to be around her.

      The days flew by until there were only three days until the wedding. The details were falling into place seamlessly, not just for the wedding but for the week following. The pagoda and dance floor were done, the wedding gazebo was almost completed, though it still had to be painted.

      Usually when she did an event, as the day grew closer her excitement grew, too. But this time she had mixed feelings. In a way, Becky wished the wedding would never come. She had never loved her life as much as she did right now.

      Today she was at the helipad looking at the latest shipment of goods. Again, there was a sense of things falling into place: candles in a large box, glass vases for the centerpieces made up of single white roses. She made a note as she instructed the staff member who had been assigned to help her where to put the boxes. Candles would need to be unwrapped and put in candle holders, glass vases cleaned to sparkling. The flowers—accompanied by their own florist—would arrive the evening before the wedding to guarantee freshness.

      Then one large, rectangular box with a designer name on it caught her eye. It was the wedding dress. She had not been expecting it. She had assumed it would arrive with Allie.

      And yet it made sense that it would need to be hung.

      Becky plucked it from all the other boxes and, with some last-minute instructions, walked back to the castle with it. She brought it up to the suite that Allie would inhabit by herself the day before the wedding, and with her new husband after that.

      The СКАЧАТЬ