Читать книгу The Accidental Bride - Christina Skye - Страница 7

IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL wedding.

The groom got sick. The bride overslept. The best man was a dog.

And the day had barely begun.

The anxious bride peeked out the door at the back of the crowded chapel, watching more and more people cram the pews. Everything had happened so fast over the past week. It was still hard to imagine how much had changed.

Right now all she wanted was to have the ceremony over. She wasn’t used to wearing makeup, and she never fiddled with her hair, but the wedding consultant had taken her job seriously.

Jilly O’Hara was stunned to see her image in the mirror, a tall, serene vision of elegance in a long white silk gown. A cream satin sash framed her slim waist, accentuating her height, and a single satin orchid gleamed in her upswept hair.

She could barely recognize herself. None of her friends would have known her, that was for sure.

A few stragglers were being seated, to the backdrop of restless coughing. Standing at the back of the chapel, Jilly’s friend Jonathan made a discreet gesture and smiled as the bridegroom came to stand at the front of the crowd. The groom’s big brown dog sat nearby, alert and perfectly behaved, a vision of canine elegance in his red bandanna.

The organ music swelled. Jilly took a deep breath as the instantly familiar strains of the Wedding March filled the chapel.

She stared down the long aisle, wondering how everything had happened so fast since she came to Wyoming. Marriage was the last thing she had planned for herself. Down the aisle Jilly saw her groom, lean and a little dangerous in a severely cut black suit that looked very expensive.

“Are you ready?” Jonathan stood smiling at the door.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. Explain to me again why I agreed to this,” she murmured.

Jonathan took her arm. “You’ll be fine. By the way, you look gorgeous. Seriously, I wouldn’t have recognized you under all that makeup and puffy hair.”

“Gee, thanks. I think.”

As they walked outside, Jilly focused on not falling in the strappy evening sandals that the bridal expert had insisted she wear.

Every face turned. The music swelled. The big room seemed to blur as Jilly’s cool, thoughtful groom smiled at her from the altar.