Save the Date (53 page)

“I’m glad,” Meghan said earnestly. “Because of her, Harris and I found each other. And that’s the best place of all, for me.”

“This ring is beautiful, Meghan, and it’s totally you,” Cara said. She hugged Jack’s little sister. “I’m so happy for you. Have you set the date yet?”

“Nope,” Meghan said. “And I made Harris promise that he will not go around talking about it today at your wedding. Although I can’t promise he won’t, because he is so excited.”

“He should be excited,” Torie drawled. “After everything he’s been though these past few months. Have you told Libba and Mitch yet?”

“Libba caught me coming into the house from the barn just now. She admitted she knew something was up when Harris ‘casually’ asked her where his grandmother’s ring was last week.”

“I’ll bet she’s over the moon,” Cara said. “And Mitch too.”

“She was very, very happy,” Meghan admitted. “She wants us to have the wedding here, too, of course, and I promised her we would. Oooh. I almost forgot.”

She disappeared into the bathroom and came out with a small creamy satin drawstring bag, which she handed Cara. “Libba thought you might want to borrow these.” Cara untied the string, and a pair of diamond-and-pearl earrings dropped into the palm of her hand.

“Gorgeous,” Torie said, picking up one of the earrings. “And real, too.”

“I don’t know,” Cara said. “I’ve got my little fake pearls I was going to wear.…”

“No way,” Torie said, pushing her gently down onto the dressing stool. She handed the earrings back to Cara. “It’s just a loaner. I’ll be in charge of getting them back to Libba after the wedding.”

The bedroom door opened, and Frannie Finnerty stepped inside. She was dressed in a short sage-green velvet cocktail dress that accentuated her hazel eyes.

“My girls!” she exclaimed, beaming. “My three, beautiful, amazing girls!”

Baby Betsy stirred in her bassinette, and Meghan scooped her up and handed her to her grandmother. “Four.”

“That’s right,” Frannie murmured.

The door opened again and Ellie Lewis poked her head around the doorway. “Everybody dressed and ready? The photographer wants you all out in the foyer for a few pictures before the guests start stampeding.”

Cara took a deep breath. “All ready.”

“Oh, just one more thing,” Frannie said. She picked her gold pocketbook off the bed, opened it, and handed Cara a frilly, beribboned garter. “Here’s your something blue. It’s probably not really your style, but my sister Betty made it especially for you.…”

“I love it,” Cara assured her. She hiked up her dress and slid the garter above her knee.

“Good. Now, can we please get moving?” Ellie said, dabbing at her damp face with her hankie. The other women filed out of the bedroom, with Cara bringing up the rear.

“Wait,” Ellie said. “Where’s your bouquet? We can’t take your picture without your bouquet.”

“Bert was bringing it,” Cara said. “He insisted on making it himself, as a surprise for me. Isn’t he here yet? I swear, if he’s late today, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?”

Bert stood in the hallway at the end of the guest wing. He wore a pair of dark green linen pleat-front trousers with dark red suspenders, a billowy cream-colored dress shirt, a vintage brown tweed three-button vest, and a brown felt fedora.

“You’ll fire me? You can’t fire me, now, I’m your business partner, remember?”

“Oh, never mind,” Cara said, remembering her vow to stay calm. “Did you bring my flowers?”

Bert had been standing with one hand hidden behind his back.

“Ta-da!” he said, bowing deeply.

Cara had been holding her breath. But she exhaled slowly now, holding the bouquet in both hands, turning it slowly to take it all in.

“Oh, Bert,” she breathed. “It’s exquisite.”

“Better than Martha Stewart March 2009?”

“Better than anything, ever,” Cara said.

And this was no exaggeration. The bouquet was an explosion of creamy coral roses, light and deep pink dahlias, and hypericum berries. Tiny sprigs of white feverfew and celosia plumes were interspersed with the larger flowers. The flower stems were tightly wrapped with coral pink satin ribbon and fastened with a sparkly pink vintage starburst rhinestone brooch.

Cara inhaled sharply. “My mother’s pin! This is just like her favorite pin. How did you…”

“You didn’t think I’d skip our trademark Bloom touch now, did you?”

“But … where did it come from? My mother used to wear this when my parents had a fancy-dress party to go to. I used to call it her fairy-princess pin. I haven’t seen it in years.…”

Cara hadn’t seen any of her mother’s belongings since before her funeral. She’d come home from college the day before to find that all her mother’s possessions, her clothes, books, paintings, everything, had been removed from the house, overnight.

Valerie, her mother’s best friend, confided in Cara that she’d done the packing at the Colonel’s request. “It’s too painful for him,” Valerie said. “Seeing her clothes in the closet, her hairbrush on the dressing table, it was just too much. He thought it would be easier for you this way too.”

“Easier,” Cara had mumbled, her mind numb with the pain and confusion of her mother’s sudden death. “Yeah, probably so.”

But in the months and years that followed Barbara Kryzik’s funeral, Cara would silently pine for anything that would be a tangible reminder of her mother.

“The pin was Jack’s idea,” Bert admitted. “He thought you might like to have something of your mom’s. You know, for something old.”

“I still don’t understand how he found it,” Cara continued, shaking her head.

“He called me and asked me if I’d mind bringing it down here.”

Cara’s head jerked up. The Colonel stood in the doorway to the hallway.

“You came,” Cara breathed. “You’re really here.”

Bert took her by the elbow and steered her toward her father. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and whispered in her ear before handing her off to her father. “He’s nervous as hell. So go easy on the old guy, okay?”

Cara nodded, and then Bert was gone, and she and the Colonel were alone, in a small alcove just a few feet away from the entry hall.

With a start, she realized she hadn’t seen her father in over two years. Since before her split with Leo. Was that possible? He’d let his military-issue brush cut grow out a centimeter, and now his once-dark hair was more salt than pepper. He stood erect in a proper charcoal suit with a burgundy tie, but Cara noticed that the collar of his starched white dress shirt gaped a bit. In her memory, the Colonel had always towered over her, but now they were almost at eye level.

“You’re so beautiful,” the Colonel said, his voice shaky. He took her bouquet and placed it on the gilded settee, then took both her hands in his. And true to Bert’s warning, the Colonel’s hands were shaking. As were Cara’s.

He touched a lock of her caramel-colored hair, which she wore down, with a single coral rose pinned behind her right ear. “Your hair is longer,” he said. “I like it that way.”

“Yours too,” Cara pointed out, and they both laughed awkwardly.

“When did you get in?” Cara asked. “I had no idea you were coming. You said you weren’t sure.…”

“I got in just now. Jack’s brother Ryan picked me up at the airport in Savannah and brought me straight here.”

“They told me Ryan was making a bourbon run,” Cara said.

“Oh, we stopped for the bourbon, all right,” the Colonel said ruefully. “I was pretty nervous about seeing you again … after everything.”

“I’m so glad you came,” Cara said, her eyes misting up. “I’ve missed you, Dad.”

“I’ve missed you too, Cara Mia,” he said, squeezing her hands tightly.

“Ahem.”

Ellie Lewis was beckoning them. “I’m sorry, Cara, but if we are going to start this wedding on time, you have to come have these photos taken with the wedding party right now! Jack and Ryan and Harris have already gone over. The barn is filling up, and we only have ten minutes till go time.”

The Colonel shook his head. “Late again. Some things never change.”

“We’re coming,” Cara said, tucking her hand through her father’s elbow.

*   *   *

Cara peeked around the barn doors. She could see Jack and Ryan standing in front of the makeshift altar he’d built just for the occasion, from barn boards and leftover roofing tin. A violinist was playing softly up in the hayloft.

“Go!” Ellie Lewis said, sending Torie and Meghan on their slow march up the carpet runner Jack had tacked down earlier in the morning.

Cara twirled her bouquet in her hands again. “Dad?” she whispered. “Mom’s pin. Where did you find it?”

“Right where it’s been since she died,” the Colonel said. “Valerie put together a box of her things for you. Some of her jewelry, her favorite blue sweater, her watch, that painting of pink flowers that she liked. It’s been at the house, on the top closet shelf.”

Cara raised an eyebrow. “All this time? I thought you got rid of everything.”

“Not everything,” the Colonel said. His piercing blue eyes met hers. “I have so many regrets. About her, about us. You. I thought if I wiped the slate clean, it would all go away. All the hurt. And the guilt. I wasn’t there for her, or for you. And I regret that more than I can ever say.”

“Doesn’t matter anymore,” Cara said, smiling. “You’re here for me now, today.”

“Thanks to this young man of yours,” the Colonel said. “He called me, multiple times. I wasn’t going to come down here, but he doesn’t give up easily, does he?”

“No, thank God,” Cara said fervently. “He wouldn’t give up on me, either.”

“I like him,” her father said. “He suits you.” He took a deep breath and took a step forward, then a quick step back. “Who are all those people in there?”

Cara looked again. Heads were turned in their direction. With a start she realized the barn was full. Full of familiar faces. Vicki Cooper sat on the end of one of the plank benches with her husband, and her son and her daughter-in-law Kristin, Cara’s first bride. Other brides and their families were scattered around. Jack’s extended family took up row after row, aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins. As an only child of only children, she continued to be amazed at how close and intertwined her new family was.

She felt a warm surge of happiness, at the surprising recognition that these were her people, and that finally, she belonged.

“I know Ryan tried to explain this, but tell me again how you’re connected to the people who own this plantation?” the Colonel asked.

“Mitch and Libba Strayhorn are friends,” Cara said, liking the way the word sounded. “And clients. Jack and Ryan totally rebuilt this barn,” she added proudly. “And pretty soon, they’ll be family. Their son Harris just got engaged to Jack’s little sister Meghan. You’ll meet everybody at the reception.”

From inside the barn, they heard a piano softly playing, accompanying the violin. And the first strains of Mendelssohn’s wedding march.

“Okay. Now!” Ellie whispered. The Colonel stiffened and froze.

“Now!” Ellie repeated, waving her hankie like a starter flag. “Go. Go. Go.”

“Dad?” Cara squeezed the Colonel’s arm. “Just this once, maybe I could be on time?”

*   *   *

Every head in the room was turned in their direction. Somebody, probably Ellie, had remembered to turn off the overhead lights and switch on the dozens of strings of café lights that crisscrossed from the barn beams. Their guests’ faces were a blur of golden light.

She floated up the aisle on her father’s arm, hurrying a little to match the Colonel’s measured march steps. At one point, it occurred to her that she hadn’t actually hired a piano player for the wedding. When she glanced toward the altar, she was shocked to see an elderly woman with a shock of white hair pounding the keys of an upright piano she’d never seen before.

Sylvia Bradley? Only Jack Finnerty could have managed such a feat.

Finally, they were at the altar. Jack and Ryan stood at ease, dressed in dark gray dress pants, open-collared white shirts, and mismatched vintage tweed vests. Cara had made their boutonnieres herself, from flowers she’d planted in the courtyard garden at Jones Street, sprigs of dusty miller, lavender, tiny white asters, and blue salvia wrapped with raffia, backed with a single quail feather.

The minister, one of Jack’s high-school classmates, wore a dark suit, and a jaunty straw boater with a sprig of lavender tucked in the hatband.

The Colonel reached out and shook Ryan’s hand vigorously, then shook Jack’s, and after another moment, gave the bridegroom a hug.

He turned, kissed Cara on both cheeks, and stepped quickly away to a spot on the front bench next to Jack’s mother and father and Bert.

Cara was dimly aware of all the faces watching theirs. She heard the minister’s words, heard Jack’s deep voice, firmly pledge to love, honor, and cherish her. She heard herself breathlessly promise to do the same.

“I now pronounce y’all husband and wife,” the minister said. He grinned at Jack. “She’s all yours, buddy.” He nodded at Cara. “And he’s yours.”

Jack Finnerty swept Cara into his arms. She felt her legs buckle, gasped as he dipped her backward, low to the floor, felt his warm lips on hers. When he finally released her, she stood unsteadily.

“Okay?” he asked, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Okay,” she assured him, breaking into a smile that lit up the room.

Ellie Lewis, standing to one side of the altar, exhaled for the first time that day.

The Colonel stood and shook hands with Bert again, as the guests stood and began to make their way to the bar at the back of the room. “Nice wedding,” the Colonel said, doing his version of polite conversation. “I think Cara finally got it right this time, don’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Bert said. “I’m kind of an expert on these things. They both got it one hundred percent right.”

ALSO BY MARY KAY ANDREWS

Christmas Bliss

Ladies’ Night

Spring Fever

Summer Rental

The Fixer Upper

Deep Dish

Savannah Breeze