Third Time's the Bride! (11 page)

The hotel where Brian, Tommy and his nanny had stayed was one of the best in Venice. One of the top ten in the world, according to Condé Nast. The Gritti Palace’s sumptuous decor had pretty well confirmed that Brian and his corporation had raked in some tidy profits over the years. So had the slick private jet they’d flown home in. And when Dawn had driven into EAS headquarters a few days ago, LauraBeth had pointed to a wall-sized map of EAS’s operations.

But the scope of Brian’s achievements hadn’t really sunk in until this moment. She stared at the photo of a younger, tougher version of the sophisticated man she knew and marveled at what he’d accomplished in such a short time.

He’d learned to fly in the marines. Went back to school afterward. Built a company from the ground up. Married, had a son and lost a wife. And in the process, he’d helped keep these Vietnam-era choppers in the air, along with a dozen other military aircraft she would bet.

Irritated that she hadn’t asked more about the products EAS provided, she vowed to rectify that mistake in the very near future. In the meantime, she had a memory book to create, a quick trip to Boston to schedule, several parties to pull off and a wedding to get through.

Chapter Eleven

W
ednesday evening, Dawn and Brian hosted a celebratory dinner to officially welcome Travis to DC and his new job at EAS. Callie and Tommy helped with the preparations. Their combined efforts had all four of them laughing and left the kitchen a total wreck. They got the mess cleaned up and everything into the oven or on the stove in time to greet their guests. LauraBeth and her husband were the first to arrive, followed by another dozen or so of EAS’s senior executives with their spouses or significant others. They gave Dawn as warm a welcome as they did Travis and Kate, making the whole evening a total delight.

With the images from the memory book still fresh in her mind, she subtly pumped Travis, some of the other execs and LauraBeth for details about EAS operations. The picture they painted remained a little hazy around the edges but still impressed the heck out of her. EAS, she learned had contracts with every branch of the US military and at least two dozen foreign nations,

“You won’t see much of your husband come November,” LauraBeth warned. “He’s scheduled for back-to-back meetings in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman. I’m trying to make sure he’s home by Thanksgiving, but it’s looking iffy at this point.”

Great! Another “if” to factor in to the great Thanksgiving war. She hid a grimace at the memory of the as-yet-unresolved feud between her parents and resisted the urge to beg LauraBeth to book her on the same flight to the Middle East as Brian.

* * *

The following afternoon she and Brian drove down to Charlottesville, Virginia, so he could introduce her to his parents. Evelyn and Tom Ellis were gracious and appeared happy for their son, but Dawn sensed that they harbored some doubts about their short-notice nuptials.

On Friday, Callie and Dawn met Kate for lunch at Tysons Corner. Home to the corporate headquarters of numerous companies and two upscale malls only a stone’s throw apart, it was located just off the Capital Beltway. Dawn hadn’t really been able to afford to shop here as a graduate student. Today she intended to hit every store in both malls if necessary to find a wedding grown that wasn’t as fussy as her first or as absurdly, ridiculously expensive as the second.

“Don’t worry,” Kate assured her over a lunch that included spinach salads, lobster ricotta and, for Callie and Dawn, the light, sparkling Prosecco they’d discovered in Italy. “You’ll find exactly the right dress. Third time’s a charm, right?”

“God, I hope so!”

“How long did it take you to pay off the last dress?” Kate asked curiously. “Six months?”

“Eight,” she said glumly, spearing her spinach. “The pearls on the bodice and train were all hand sewn.”

“What did you do with it?”

Dawn’s expression softened.

“Callie sent me a link to a website for a charity that recycles wedding gowns into angel gowns.”

“It part of the Helping Hands Program,” Callie explained. “They provide comfort and assistance to parents with infants in neonatal ICU’s. So many of the babies are preemies, and so many don’t make it. The NICU Angel Gown volunteers cut down and rework wedding dresses to provide grieving families a precious burial gown or suit for families.”

“Oh, how sad. And beautiful.”

In an unconscious gesture, Kate pressed a palm to her still-flat tummy, as if to assure her baby and herself they’d never need an angel gown. The thought of the grief the parents who’d lost their child had to have suffered, though, prompted her to offer her own gown.

“I’ve still got it packed away somewhere. Send me the link, too, and I’ll donate it.”

“You sure?” Dawn asked. “That could be a little girl you’re gestating. She may want to wear her momma’s dress some day.”

“I sincerely doubt that. If it’s a girl, she’ll probably inherit Travis’s superjock genes and get married in half-laced high-tops. But enough about dresses past. What are we looking for
today
?”

“Something simple.”

“Right.”

“Elegant.”

“Okay.”

“Comfortable.”

“Got it. Now finish your ricotta and let’s hit the stores.”

The big chains—Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s and Neiman Marcus—anchored the two malls. They in turn were augmented by dozens of smaller boutiques offering everything from haute couture to funky chic.

To Dawn’s relief, she found the perfect dress in the second boutique they hit. The tea-length sheath of ivory satin was topped by a lace jacket that tied at the waist with a satin bow. The lace wouldn’t keep her warm if the weather turned nasty, but the two-piece ensemble was so deceptively, stunningly chic that she decided she could shiver for fifteen or twenty minutes if necessary.

And surprise, surprise! The boutique owner just happened to stock a little pillbox hat made from the same lace. Trimmed with only enough netting to give the illusion of a veil, the cap added an unexpectedly jaunty air.

“That’s it,” Kate exclaimed when Dawn modeled the entire ensemble. “That’s so you!”

Callie agreed, but raised a brow pointedly when she read the price tag dangling from the jacket sleeve.

“You think that’s bad?” Dawn tapped a fingertip against the lace cap. “This little sucker costs more than the dress. But the two combined are still not even
close
to what I paid for the last disaster.”

While she took another turn in the three-way mirror, her friends shared quick glances, obviously remembering how long it had taken her to settle on a choice for her previous two trips to the altar. She caught the quick exchange and laughed.

“Don’t panic. This is it. I love it.”

“Then get it,” Callie urged. “We’ve still got shoes, undies and an obscenely decadent negligee to hunt down.”

* * *

The next day was Saturday and the date set for their quick trip up to Boston. She and Callie got up early and grabbed a quick cup of coffee and bagel with Brian.

He would do Tommy Duty over the weekend and had drafted Addy to cover Monday afternoon until he could get home from work. Tuesday, too, if necessary. But he’d adamantly nixed the idea of Dawn and Callie rattling back down from Boston in a U-Haul, towing her car. Instead, the ever-efficient LauraBeth had set up professional movers, arranged for her car to be transported and booked their return flights with the same blinding speed she’d lined up caterers, photographers, a florist and a string quartet for the wedding now only a week away.

Callie and Dawn flew out of Reagan National a little past nine. An hour later they touched down at Logan International. They grabbed a taxi and headed into the city, both feeling a sense of homecoming.

All three—Callie, Kate and Dawn—had been born and raised in a small, western Massachusetts town. They’d attended different colleges and grad schools, after which Kate followed Travis to his various air force assignments. Callie and Dawn had gravitated back to Boston to work, though, and felt the tug of their roots as they drove into the city.

Fall had already wrapped New England in glorious colors. The beltway around the city blazed red and orange and gold. Dawn’s condo was a few miles off the beltway, in an upscale gated community close to the sprawling complex that housed her company’s headquarters. Callie lived closer to her work in downtown Boston, in an older section of the city.

Unfortunately, neither of them had time to enjoy either the foliage or the cool, crisp temperatures. Sorting through what Dawn would ship down to DC and what would go into storage took most of the weekend.

They drove over to Callie’s two-bedroom apartment early Monday morning.
Very
early Monday morning. Neither of them really believed the creep who’d sent those emails was staking out her apartment, but Joe Russo had warned her to be careful.

It took only a half hour or so for Callie to pack a suitcase. They drove back across town and Dawn dropped Callie off to wait for the movers before doing battle with the nightmare that was Boston rush-hour traffic.

Handing in her notice and saying goodbye to her team turned out to be more of a wrench than she’d anticipated, even though their well wishes were colored with some jibes about her previous near misses. Dawn escaped with her smile slightly strained and a surprisingly lucrative offer from her boss to do freelance designs for the company’s ongoing advertising campaigns.

“Damn,” she told Callie later that afternoon as they took a taxi to the airport. “If I’d known I could make almost as much schlepping into a home office in my jammies, I would’ve gone solo years ago.”

“I doubt that. You’re the most gregarious of our threesome. Kate can lose herself in ledgers and spreadsheets. I have to—
had
to—brace myself every time I had to appear in court. You collect friends and admirers without even trying.”

“Speaking of admirers, I got a text while I was at the office. You’ll never guess who’s coming to the wedding.”

“Not that race car driver you hooked up with after you dumped Number One?”

“Good God, no!”

“The attorney who handled that nastiness with Number Two? He seemed pretty taken with you, as I recall.”

“More taken with the hefty fee I paid him.”

“Then who?”

“Carlo di Lorenzo.”

“Your playboy prince?” Callie’s mink-dark eyebrows soared. “The same man who did everything but stand on his head trying to convince you to jet off to Casablanca with him?”

“Marrakech,” Dawn corrected with a wide grin. “Brian called him about some modification to the NATO transport they’re working on, found out he’ll be in New York this week and invited him down to DC for the wedding. Joe Russo’s coming, too,” she added with a quick, sideways glance at her friend. “He had to cancel out of some high-powered international symposium, but said he’d be there.”

“It’s fate,” Callie murmured, unknowingly echoing LauraBeth’s comment of the previous week. “All of us who were at the Trevi Fountain when Kate and Travis renewed their vows will be together again.”

“I know!” Thinking back to that happy scene, Dawn reached across the taxi’s plastic-covered seat and squeezed her friend’s hand. “Remember the first time we watched
Three Coins in the Fountain
?”

“How could I forget? There we were, three gawky teenagers with foam curlers in our hair and bowls full of ice cream, going all dreamy and starry-eyed over Louis Jourdan.”

“Let’s not forget the pizza.”

“Or the mozzarella stringing from our chins. Oh, God! We pigged out on so much that night, I was nauseous most of the next day.”

“Me, too.” Laughing, Dawn brushed off that minor inconvenience. “The really amazing thing is that I never imagined we’d ever make it to Rome, much less to the Trevi Fountain.” Her hand tightened on the friend she’d shared so many dreams with. “Do you know what I wished that day, when we were all there at the fountain?”

“According to legend, you didn’t have to make a wish. Just throwing the coin ensured you’ll return to Rome someday.”

“Well, I wanted that, too. But mostly I wanted a few more days or weeks with Tommy. Okay,” she admitted when Callie shot her a knowing look. “Tommy
and
his dad. Now...” Her eyes misting, she gulped. “Now I have a chance at forever. I’m starting to believe that wish might really come true.”

“It will,” Callie said fiercely. “This time, it will.”

* * *

The following Friday afternoon, Dawn repeated that mantra to herself over and over as she waited for her mother’s flight. Unfortunately, it was delayed by weather out of Hartford. As a result, they barely made it to the hotel in time for the rehearsal dinner.

The blessedly efficient LauraBeth had blocked rooms at the five-star Ritz-Carlton for out-of-town guests. She’d also reserved one of the hotel’s private dining rooms for the rehearsal dinner. Dawn had tried to wiggle out of this pesky tradition. The wedding ceremony would be too simple, she insisted, and the venue too informal to require one.

She caved, however, when LauraBeth pointed out that it might be a good idea for Brian and Tommy and his parents to meet her family before the actual ceremony itself. As a protective shield, Dawn had added Kate, Travis, Callie, Carlo and Joe Russo to the guest list.

Even with her friends’ lively presence, the cocktail hour before dinner turned her inside out. Time hadn’t eliminated her parents’ animosity. They coated their barbs with sugary smiles, but every exchange knotted Dawn’s stomach a little tighter. Her three brothers were older and had escaped before the home environment became completely toxic. Still, Aaron, the closest to her in age, had been exposed to enough of the poison to exert a valiant effort to act as a buffer.

“Hey, Mom. Did you know Travis hung up his air force uniform? He’s now working with Brian?”

“Yes, Dawn told me.”

With her coppery hair only a few shades lighter than her daughter’s, everyone could see Maureen McGill had passed both her coloring and her stubborn chin to her children. The similarities stopped there, though. Her features were stamped with an unhappiness that showed in her face as she sent Kate a sardonic glance.

“I was so glad to hear
your
husband was willing to make some sacrifices to keep your marriage together. Not many are, as I can...”

“Try these, Mom.” Grabbing a crab cake from a nearby tray, Aaron shoved it at her. “They’re wonderful.”

Her father was on the other side of the room, talking to Brian’s parents. Not far enough away, unfortunately, to miss his ex-wife’s comment or refrain from rising to the bait.

“More husbands might be willing to make the sacrifice, if their marriage was worth saving.”

Cringing inside, Dawn wondered again why in God’s name she’d agreed to this gathering. How had she imagined a smaller, more intimate setting might convince her parents to call a truce? She was about to tell them both to forget about attending the ceremony tomorrow when Carlo di Lorenzo stepped into the breach.

“Dawn, you break my heart by marrying Brian.”

His dark eyes were merry above his luxuriant black mustache as he bowed over her hand with exaggerated charm. Having spent several evenings in his company in Italy, she wasn’t surprised when he tipped her hand at the last moment and planted a warm kiss on the inside of her wrist.