Snowbound With The Best Man. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ Lulu and many of the valley’s children, hunting for the hearts was a regular pastime. Just the kind of charm Southeastern Nuptials would love to cover. Maybe she should ask Jean to knit up a souvenir heart for the magazine writer to take home.

      “Ooh—there’s one in Mr. Marvin’s window!” cried Lulu. “Maybe he invented a new flavor like reindeer rainbow sherbet.”

      It would be just like Marvin Jennings to whip up a reindeer-or elk-themed flavor. Of all the shops in Matrimony Valley, his Sweet Hearts Ice Cream Shop had been one of the most enthusiastic adopters of Mayor Jean’s Matrimony Valley idea. Patronizing Sweet Hearts was a Saturday tradition for her and Lulu.

      “We should go investigate,” Kelly said. “Right after I send this estimate to a potential August bride.”

      “Tell her we’re wonderful.”

      “I will,” Kelly promised as she hit the Send button on the email.

      “When does the reindeer—elk wedding bride get here?” Lulu loved meeting the brides. What little girl doesn’t love all the fuss and ruffles of a wedding—even if those ruffles are red plaid flannel?

      “Miss Tina, the bride, and Mr. Darren, the groom, both come in on Thursday, the day after Valentine’s Day. That’s the same day Ms. Douglas is scheduled to arrive, too. We’ve got a big week ahead of us. But guess what?”

      “What?”

      “The best man is coming in early—today, in fact—to spend the week vacationing here in the valley. And Miss Hailey at the inn told me he is the father of the flower girl. So you’ll have a new flower girl to get to know for a whole week this time.”

      “That’s worth two hearts. Too bad we only have one,” Lulu exclaimed.

      “I’ll talk to Mayor Jean and see what I can do,” Kelly replied, delighted to see her daughter’s enthusiasm. Meeting any flower girls who came for weddings was Lulu’s greatest joy, for while Lulu had friends in the valley, she hadn’t really connected with any of the girls in that “best friend” way every mother wants for her child. Lulu’s unofficial “flower girl ambassador” role helped to fill that void, and Kelly hoped this wedding’s flower girl would be no exception. She didn’t want Lulu to feel left behind in all the wedding and Valentine tasks falling to her in the next ten days. Of all the events for Jean, the valley’s usual chief wedding planner, to be out of commission for, this one posed the biggest challenge. Jean was right, however—no hired-in planner could handle an opportunity so tailor-made for Matrimony Valley. Kelly would have to step up and serve as both florist and chief planner for this wedding. A whole week with a fun new friend could be the answer to this busy single mother’s prayer.

      Lulu looked out the window at the inn across the street, where nearly all the town’s wedding guests stayed. “I wonder if she likes ice cream.”

      “I think every little girl likes ice cream.” Kelly closed her laptop. “We do, so let’s go get some.” She pulled the “back in 30 min” sign from its peg on the wall and hung it on the shop door. Some day she’d have a brand-new van and more employees who could keep the store open for her while she was out. Some day she could take her daughter for ice cream on a Saturday without a hint of worry if she’d missed any business.

      With Samantha Douglas covering the elk wedding for the whole region to see, perhaps that day would come soon.

      * * *

      Bruce Lohan watched his five-year-old daughter bounce on the hotel bed. She’d been totally unimpressed with the pile of newly purchased sticker and coloring books he’d just produced from a corner of his suitcase. He’d spent a fortune on activity books and had a stack of tourist attraction brochures as long as his arm, but Carly’s attention was captured by the mountain of flowery fabric on her bed. Flowers and ruffles. Her little-girl fascinations were growing more foreign to him all the time.

      “This bed has so many ruffles, Daddy,” she said as she bounced. “Can I have one like it at home?”

      “I’d never find you in all those ruffles. What would anyone do with a pilot who...lost...his own daughter?” His voice hitched just a bit on the word lost, the way it always did when the ordinary word popped up in conversation. Lost stopped being an ordinary word when Bruce “lost” his wife to cancer two years ago. The thought of losing Carly—even as a joke among a mountain of fluffy fabric ripples—was enough to make his heart momentarily ice over.

      He pulled up his mental checklist of father-daughter vacation activities. “Shall we go for a walk and see how the waterfall freezes over?”

      “Nope,” she declined, flopping down from the incessant bouncing to run her fingers along a pillow’s line of tassel trim. “I’m fine.”

      “Well, then, let’s go exploring for animal tracks in the woods. You can wear your new boots.”

      Carly rolled over onto her back. “It’s cold outside.” She wiggled her fingers up in the air. “My fingers’ll get all numbly.”

      Numbly. Back in Sandy’s last days, Bruce remembered praying for numb. Pleading for God to make the pain to stop so that each breath wouldn’t feel like swallowing fire. Now, he wasn’t sure his ever-present “numbly” was any gift at all. These days, the only things he could honestly say he felt were instantaneous pangs of fear and loss. Pangs that kept poking up in his life like trip wires, driving a need to stay busy that bordered on compulsion.

      Action was the only defense he had. Motion was his best protection against the niggling sensation that one of these days he’d stop feeling altogether. Except for Carly. Sweet, precious Carly. There were stretches where the fierce love he bore her felt like the only fixed thing keeping him upright. The only feeling he still possessed. And yet, even that came with the suffocating ache that his grief kept him from loving Carly well. Or right. Or enough. Losing Sandy had hollowed him out inside. Raising Carly seemed to require so much more from him than he had to give.

      “Dad,” Carly moaned, her blond head surfacing from behind a tidal wave of ruffled pillows.

      “What?”

      “You went away again.”

      How poor was a father’s lack of focus if even a five-year-old could pick up on it? No matter how he tried to hide it behind a busy day of activities, Carly still knew when his thoughts of Sandy’s absence pulled him under.

      It was so much easier to hide at work. The precise demands of helicopter piloting were almost a release from the fog of daily interaction. In the air for the Forest Service, Bruce could be engrossed, analytical, responsive, almost mechanical. On the ground, where he had to be human, everything stymied him. He couldn’t hope to be happy, so he settled for busy.

      But busy wasn’t happy. He had to start finding his way toward happy, or at least away from numb. This trip was supposed to help do that, but they’d been here one hour and already he felt as if he was just spinning wheels.

      “Well,” he said to Carly, hoping he masked his sense of emptiness, “we can’t just sit around. You were sitting in the car all the way here.” He’d tried to make the drive an event in itself, taking Carly up North Carolina’s scenic Blue Ridge Parkway on the way to Matrimony Valley. The plan was that the route would launch the whole trip in a special way. Be more fun than slogging down the highway from their home in Kinston, right?

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