Save the Date (52 page)

“Positive,” Zoey said. “I gotta get to a car wash before this mess soaks into my upholstery.” She looked over at Poppy, and then at Cara. “Gross.”

Cara stood perfectly still while Zoey slammed the VW into first gear and pulled away from the curb.

She held up her right hand and gave a soft finger wave. “Buh-byeeee.”

66

The bells at St. John’s were just tolling six. Cara led Poppy through the lane and into the courtyard garden. She fetched the galvanized tub and the bottle of dog shampoo from the toolshed, and filled it with water from the hose. Then she held a dog treat beneath Poppy’s nose, and gently coaxed the puppy into the tub. Cara squeezed shampoo into her hand and worked it into the dog’s fur, training the nozzle over Poppy’s fur.

“Zoey’s gone,” she told Jack, who still held a tight hand on the pink collar around Shaz’s neck. “And the coast is clear.”

“I was inside, crouched down, watching through the front window,” Jack said. “I figured, if Zoey tried to argue with you, I’d come out and try to buy her off. What did you say to get her to leave Shaz behind?”

Hearing her name mentioned, Shaz stood, her ears pricked up. Jack released his hold on her collar and she edged over to watch the proceedings.

“Does she like a bath as much as Poppy does?” Cara asked, looking over at Jack.

He looked chagrined. “Uh, I guess. I mean, when I take her to the groomers, she’s okay with it.”

Cara gave him a look of reproof. “She’s half golden retriever. Most retrievers love the water.

“Come here, you,” Cara said, and Shaz propped her front paws on the edge of the washtub. She looked over at Jack. “Put out your hand.”

He did as he was told, and she squeezed a dollop of shampoo into his open palm. He gave a disdainful sniff. “Smells like flowers.”

“Deal with it,” Cara said. She trained the hose on Shaz’s head and then body, deliberately splashing Jack’s legs.

“Come on,” he said, choosing to ignore the water. “What did you tell Zoey?”

Cara scrubbed at Poppy’s coat with both hands, working up a thick lather of suds. “I told her my vet says all goldendoodles are subject to carsickness. Because it’s hereditary.”

“That’s bullshit. Shaz has never gotten carsick. I’ve taken her over to South Carolina, to Cabin Creek, plenty of times. It’s a forty-five-minute drive, one way. She loves riding in the truck.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Cara said. “I totally made it up. Luckily, Zoey was happy to buy my lies.”

“Luckily,” Jack said.

“In the end, she basically told me I was welcome to the guy, and the dog. I guess she decided you were both more trouble than you were worth.”

He got up from the chair and gazed down at Cara, still bent over the tub, washing her dog. He’d never noticed the fine sprinkling of freckles across her shoulders and the back of her neck. Then he stood up, grabbed the hose, and trained it on her exposed neck and back.

She gave a yelp of surprise. He grabbed her hands and pulled her to her feet. “I don’t know about the dog, but I do know that I’m definitely more trouble than I’m worth. I still can’t believe what you just did for me out there. Thank you. Thank you so much, Cara. You let Zoey take Poppy, not really knowing if she’d bring her back, if your crazy scheme would work. You risked everything for me.”

Cara sighed. “Sometimes, you just have to trust your gut.”

He took her hands and placed them on his own hips, then wrapped his arms loosely around her shoulders and tilted his forehead until it was resting on hers.

“Sometimes you have to trust your heart, too. You give what you think the other person needs, and hope they know that you’re doing it out of love.”

Cara raised her chin and smiled. “It took me a while, I’ll admit. I wasn’t very gracious about accepting your gift. But I think maybe I’m ready now, for whatever you have to offer.”

His lips found hers. He pulled her tighter, then whispered in her ear. “All of it. Everything. Darlin’, everything I have is yours.”

She felt her knees buckle, which forced her to clasp herself tighter against his chest. “I love it when you call me darlin’.”

There was a chattering just then, from the top of the crape myrtle. Poppy scrambled out of the washtub, and dashed after the squirrel in mad pursuit, with Shaz hot on her heels. The two wet, soapy dogs crouched at the foot of the tree, snouts pointed upward, barking in perfect unison.

“We are not taking those dogs on our honeymoon,” he muttered.

“Honeymoon?”

“Will you marry me, darlin’?” Jack asked.

She fluttered her eyelashes like a true Southern belle. “Since you put it like that, of course I will.”

Epilogue

Afterward, Ellie Lewis, the wedding coordinator, would swear that this was the sweetest, most romantic wedding she’d ever witnessed. But in the middle of the melee, she merely swore.

When she arrived at Cabin Creek shortly after five that sunny day in early October, all was chaos. She found the bride in the barn, dressed in blue jeans and a faded T-shirt, putting the finishing touches on the tables for the reception, and the groom, also clad in jeans and a T-shirt, standing at the top of a ladder, fastening the last of the vintage-wagon-wheel chandeliers he’d made under Cara’s tutelage.

A pair of nearly identical fluffy white dogs lounged in the vicinity of the kitchen, staring with hopeful black button eyes at the crew of caterers who were starting to chop the pork butts that had been on the smokers all afternoon.

Each of the fifteen handmade tables was draped in an artfully paint-spattered canvas dropcloth, and Cara was buzzing from table to table, fluffing the centerpieces of local wildflowers mixed with sunflowers, pink and coral dahlias, and lime-green bells of Ireland arranged in a variety of mismatched antique white ironstone vases, pitchers, and jugs.

“Cara!” Ellie was out of breath by the time she caught up with the bride. “What are you doing? Your guests start arriving in an hour. You’ve got to get dressed, get your hair and makeup done.…”

“Almost done here,” Cara assured her, pinching a less-than-perfect petal from a stem of blue salvia. Cara stood back, hands on hips, and nodded in approval. “Okay, that’s it. Now I can get dressed.”

“And you!” Ellie stood at the bottom of the ladder, staring up at the groom. “Jack, you were supposed to finish those chandeliers last night. You promised, after the rehearsal dinner…”

“They’re done now,” Jack said, climbing down. “Anyway, it’s Cara’s fault. She decided at midnight last night that we had to wire vines and flowers and moss around those old wagon wheels. And by we, she meant me.”

“Scoot!” Ellie made shooing motions toward the open barn doors. “And what about your brother? And your sister and Harris? And Torie? Are you telling me that not a single member of my wedding party is here yet?”

Jack grinned. “Torie’s up at the house nursing baby Betsy.” He glanced at his watch. “Ryan ought to be back any minute. He just made an emergency bourbon run. Meghan and Harris? Hell, I don’t know.” He jerked his chin skyward. “Check up there in the hayloft. Everytime I look for those two I seem to find them in some kind of compromising position.”

His voice echoed in the high-ceilinged barn. Sure enough, a moment later, Harris Strayhorn poked his head over the loft railing, frantically buttoning his shirt. “Hey, I heard that! We were just, uh, checking the acoustics up here. For the bluegrass band.”

“Since when does a sound check require the removal of clothing?” Jack demanded. “You better not be dishonoring my baby sister up there.”

Meghan Finnerty peeked over Harris’s shoulder. “Mind your own business, Jack Finnerty!” She deftly plucked a stalk of hay from Harris’s hair. “And don’t you say a
word
to Mama or Miss Libba, or I’ll tell both of ’em what I caught you and Cara up to in that hay wagon after the rehearsal last night.”

“I don’t care what any of y’all have been up to,” Ellie screeched. “I need everybody who is going to be in this wedding to get up to the house right this minute and get themselves cleaned up and dressed for this wedding.”

Harris scrambled down from the loft, with Meghan following a moment later. He turned, caught her by the waist, and swung her to the ground, his hand lingering at her waist just a second longer than was absolutely necessary.

“Tell ’em, baby,” he urged.

“Tell us what?” Jack asked.

Meghan gave a quick shake of her head. “Nothing.” She grabbed Harris’s hand. “Come on. Ellie’s right. My mom will have a fit if I’m not dressed and ready for the photographer in fifteen minutes.”

“Wait.” Jack grabbed Meghan’s left hand and held it up. A large diamond solitaire twinkled in the late afternoon sunlight. “What’s this?”

Meghan gave Harris an exasperated look. “It was supposed to be a secret. Until after the wedding. I don’t want anybody to think we’re trying to upstage you and Cara.…”

Jack pounded Harris on the back. “You son of a bitch! Congratulations! That’s great.” He gathered his sister into a hug. “Do Dad and Frannie know?”

“I managed to get your dad alone to ask his permission after the dinner last night,” Harris said.

“Daddy burst out crying!” Meghan said. “And when Mama walked over and saw Daddy crying, she started in.…”

Harris rolled his eyes. “Which will be nothing compared to the way my parents are gonna react when we tell them.…”

“You can tell everybody later,” Ellie said. “After the wedding. Which starts in forty-five minutes.” She fumbled in the pocket of her all-purpose light blue wedding-reception dress and pulled out a small bottle of pills. “I swear, I am never doing another wedding professional’s wedding. Ever again.” She popped a pill, swallowed, and mopped her face with a crumpled lace hankie.

*   *   *

Torie Fanning Finnerty tucked her slumbering infant into the bassinette, kissed her fingertip, and touched it to her daughter’s velvety cheek. She turned and gave the bride an appraising look followed by a smiling thumbs-up.

“You are absolutely the only girl I know who can get away with wearing an antique pink wedding gown and still manage to look fabulous,” she said.

“Thanks.” Cara turned with her back to her almost sister-in-law. “Can you zip me up? My hands are sweating, I’m so nervous.”

Torie grasped the metal zipper and slid it upward. “How old is this thing, do you think?”

Cara turned around and tugged at the dress’s heavy satin bodice, revealing an additional inch of her cleavage. “Hmm. Well, portrait necklines and cap sleeves like these were all the rage in the fifties. And the full ballet-length skirt with the tulle petticoats were in back then too. So it’s at least sixty years old.”

“Do you think somebody dyed this wedding gown this shade of pink?” Torie asked.

“Oh no. This is the original color. And it was a cocktail dress,” Cara said. “I bought it years ago, when I worked at a vintage-clothing shop in Columbus. It’s a knockoff of a Pierre Balmain, who was a famous couturier back in the day.”

She fluffed her skirts and stepped into her pink satin pumps. “And I’ll tell you something I haven’t shared with anybody else. I bought this dress thinking I would wear it to my first wedding. But Leo—and my dad, and Leo’s mom—were
appalled
that I’d even consider not wearing white … or a brand-new bought special wedding gown.”

Cara shrugged. “So I did what I always did back then. I gave in and bought this big, stupid expensive virginal white dress that made me look like an overdecorated lampshade.”

Cara twirled in front of the three-paneled mirror in Libba Strayhorn’s guest bedroom, and smiled when she caught her own reflection in the mirror.

“When Leo and I moved down to Savannah, I couldn’t wait to donate my wedding dress to Goodwill. But I kept this one.” She smoothed her hands over her hips. “It’s been tucked away in pink tissue paper all these years. Just waiting for the right moment.”

“And the right guy,” Torie said. “And here you are.” She reached for the velvet-lined box on the dressing table and carefully lifted a single strand of pearls from the satin lining and fastened it around Cara’s throat. “Here’s your something new. Jack’s dad gave me a set of pearls just like this the day I married Ryan.”

The bathroom door opened, and Meghan hurried into the room, dressed in bra and panties. “I’m late, I’m late, I’m late,” she singsonged, grabbing her deep coral dress from a hanger and slipping it over her head. She turned her back to Torie. “Zip me?”

Torie picked a piece of hay from her sister-in-law’s hair and held it up for Cara to see. “Can you guess where baby sister’s been and what made her late?”

“I don’t judge,” Cara said, laughing. She gave Meghan a wink. “What goes on in the barn, stays in the barn, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Meghan leaned into the mirror, a mascara wand poised in her right hand.

“Hey!” Cara said, grabbing Meghan’s left hand. She held it up to Torie.

“Whaatttt?”

“You’re engaged?” Cara asked. “Since when? I can’t believe it!”

Meghan smiled and flashed a set of dimples. “Harris asked Daddy’s permission last night, at the rehearsal dinner. But he didn’t bother to ask
me
, until just now, in the, er, barn.”

Torie held Meghan’s hand and studied the ring with an experienced eye. She held her own left hand up to Meghan’s. “Baby girl, that is a serious ring. Bigger than my diamond, for sure.”

Cara held her left hand on top of the others. Her engagement ring was made up of a circlet of smaller stones, with a single raised one-carat cushion-cut diamond in a platinum band. “Mine too,” she said carelessly.

“Way bigger than the ring Harris gave Brooke,” Torie pointed out. “By at least a carat.”

Meghan frowned for only a moment. “This was Harris’s grandmother’s engagement ring. She left it to him in her will, but he bought a new ring for Brooke, because he thought that’s what she’d prefer.”

Torie gave Meghan an apprehensive glance. “Has anybody heard anything from, uh, her?”

Meghan laughed. “It’s okay. You can say Brooke’s name in front of me.”

Cara said, “We text. That’s the only way you can communicate with Brooke. She’s still down on Cumberland Island. I think the thing with Pete, the park ranger, is heating up, but she says she has no plans to marry anytime soon. She’s working for the Georgia Conservancy, and is still feuding with the Park Service over any issue she can think of. I think Brooke is finally in a good place.”