Читать книгу Wedding Willies - Victoria Pade - Страница 10

“O h, Kira, it’s even more beautiful than I pictured from your description,” Kit told her friend late Monday when she got her first glimpse of Kira in her wedding dress.

After another long day of dealing with last-minute R.S.V.P.s, the caterer and seating arrangements, it was after five o’clock before Kira and Kit had been able to leave Betty with the twins and get to the tailor’s shop for the final fittings on their dresses. The delay had necessitated Kira calling both Cutty and Ad to tell them to go on their own for the alterations of their tuxedos and that they could all meet up later at the restaurant for dinner.

There hadn’t been anything Kit could do about it, but she’d regretted that she and Ad hadn’t been able to have that walk to the shop together the way they’d planned.

“It’s just beautiful,” she repeated as Kira stepped up onto the raised platform in the center of the open room where the tailor would look at what last-minute nips and tucks needed to be taken.

Kira turned a slow circle so Kit could see the wedding dress all the way around. “It is pretty, isn’t it?” she said, clearly in awe of it herself.

The gown was white satin with a full, floor-length skirt and a fitted, beaded bodice with an off-the-shoulder sweetheart neckline and twenty tiny buttons down the back.

“It’s perfect,” Kit said.

“Do you think it’s okay that the veil only comes down to the my elbows? I didn’t want to be dealing with much more than that. Plus I thought a longer veil would detract from the dress.”

“I think the veil is fine at that length,” Kit assured.

“What about the tiara? Is that too much? I thought maybe the veil should just be attached to a band but it didn’t poof up right.”

The veil was connected to a small, unobtrusive rhinestone tiara.

“No, it’s not too much,” Kit answered after a more studied look at it. “It’s just right. The whole thing is just right.”

“You’re sure? Because I’m trusting you to tell me the truth.”

“What would you do if I said something was wrong? Start looking for a new dress and veil four days before the wedding?” Kit joked. Then she said, “Yes, I’m positive—the dress, the veil, the tiara are perfect. The dress just needs to be taken in slightly at the waist.”

Staring at herself in the mirror, Kira pulled the waist tighter. “It can probably go in about an inch.”

“But that’s it. I wouldn’t change another thing,” Kit said emphatically.

Apparently it was emphatic enough to finally convince her friend because Kira transferred her attention to Kit then.

“How about your dress?” Kira asked. “Do you still like it?”

Kira had come back to Denver so they could shop together for Kit’s dress. Then Kira had taken it back to Northbridge with her and Kit hadn’t seen it since.

“If anything I like it even more than I did when we bought it,” she said, taking a turn looking in the mirror. “I’d tried on so many by the time we found it that I was in a fog and I’d forgotten just how pretty it is.”

Kit wasn’t lying about that, either. She honestly did love the dress she would be wearing for the wedding. In fact, she loved it so much she thought it was something she genuinely might wear on another occasion.

The light-as-air fabric was a coffee-with-cream color, embroidered with a delicate pattern of earth tone wildflowers. It was a spaghetti-strapped chemise that skimmed her figure enticingly all the way to the floor. The neckline was straight across but just low enough for a hint of cleavage to show, and the built-in bra and slight drape of fabric at the bustline gave the illusion that Kit was slightly bigger than she actually was.

“It looks so good on you,” Kira said. “The hem needs to go up a little, but other than that it doesn’t have to have a thing done to it.

“It’s comfortable, too. It’s like I’m just wearing a slip,” Kit said, wiggling a little to feel the dress shimmer around her.

Kira glanced at the door the tailor had disappeared through after showing them to the dressing rooms, but that didn’t make the short, pudgy man reappear.

And since it didn’t, Kira said, “I can’t believe it—are we actually going to have some downtime?”

“Maybe we should lock the door and just hide out here.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? Peace and quiet? No demands? No schedules? No nothing?” Kira said.

But of course neither of them moved to the door to lock it.

Kira did seem to focus solely on Kit for the first time since Kit’s arrival in Northbridge, though. “So, since we have a few minutes, are you okay in the apartment and with everything that’s been going on?”

“Everything that’s been going on?” Kit repeated, thinking instantly of Ad and how her friend must have noticed the odd energy that seemed to swirl around them whenever they were together.

But that wasn’t what Kira was referring to.

“Are you okay with having to be in on all these annoying wedding details?” Kira clarified. “And my not having two minutes for us to just sit and talk and catch up? Having to stay in the apartment instead of with me? Everything?”

“Ah,” Kit said, readjusting her thinking and squashing that initial hope that her friend was giving her an opening. But that wasn’t the case. And even though it was tempting to talk to Kira about the confusion that Kit was suffering over Ad, she refrained. The more she’d realized how swamped Kira was, the more it had seemed selfish to burden her with some silly fretting. So, sometime during the day, Kit had decided she wouldn’t do that. And she didn’t go back on that decision now.

Instead, still opting to spare her friend, she said, “Ad’s apartment is fine. I didn’t come here expecting you to be able to just sit around and gab. I knew you’d be busy. I’m here to help, remember? Not to be entertained.”

“I know. I just feel guilty that I’m in this whirl and everything is about me.”

Kit laughed. “You’re the bride. Everything is supposed to be about you.”

Which was true and saying it only reinforced in Kit’s mind that she needed to keep to herself the little attraction or infatuation or whatever it was that rumbled around in her whenever she was with Ad.

But even so, his name came up.

“You seem to keep getting thrown together with Ad,” Kira said then. “Is that okay?”

“I’m the maid of honor and he’s the best man—getting thrown together is sort of unavoidable, isn’t it?” Kit reasoned.

But still her friend didn’t drop it. “Staying in his apartment with him just next door, using his kitchen for the cake—you’re having to see more of him than just being the maid of honor and best man. Is that all right? I mean, you didn’t look like you were having too bad a time on Saturday night when Cutty and I finally got to the restaurant—neither of you even noticed that we’d shown up—but are you hating seeing so much of him? Should I make something up to get us out of dinner with him tonight so you don’t have to be with him again?”

“No, don’t do that,” Kit said, putting some effort into not sounding as alarmed as she felt by just the possibility of canceling dinner with Ad. “He’s trying to do something nice for you and Cutty—to give you a relaxing night away from everything. And I don’t mind seeing him again. He’s a nice guy.”

Kira smiled a bit slyly. “I was kind of hoping you two might like each other. You know—really like each other,” she finished with a question in her tone.

“I think we like each other well enough.”

“Well enough to fall madly in love and get married so you can come and live in Northbridge, too?” Kira joked.

“No, not that well enough,” Kit countered the same way.

“But you do like him?”

“He’s a nice guy,” Kit repeated.

“Because Cutty was wondering if this dinner tonight was a cover.”

“A cover?”

“You know—a group thing to cover up the fact that Ad really just wanted to have dinner with you.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Kit said.

And she didn’t. She believed Ad’s motives for arranging the dinner tonight were exactly what he’d said they were, to give Kira and Cutty a break.

But it did give Kit a twinge of pleasure to entertain that other possibility. “He’s seen plenty of me,” she added in spite of it. “He’s doing this for you guys.”

Kira just smiled.

The door to the fitting room opened and the tailor came in just then, putting an end to the conversation before it could go any farther.

But even as Kit watched Kira’s gown being pulled and pinned, and even as the hem was turned up on her own dress, she still couldn’t suppress a tiny thrill at even the suggestion that Ad had had her in mind when he’d devised the evening to come.

No matter how hard she tried.

Ad and Cutty left the alteration shop after they had finished having their tuxedos fitted and went to the restaurant to wait for Kit and Kira.

The dinner rush had begun by then but they found two free spots to stand at the bar and ordered beers.

“We missed you at that last game,” Ad was saying to Cutty as his bartender slid frigid bottles in their direction. “Their pitcher had an arm that wouldn’t quit. Struck half of us out and didn’t even break a sweat.”

Ad and Cutty—and several of the other men in town—played seasonal sports on a local team. Summer was softball season and it was in full swing. But Cutty hadn’t been able to participate since breaking his ankle and even though the cast had been removed the week before, he was still in physical therapy.

They each took a swig of beer and replaced their bottles on the bar.

“So tomorrow night you’re just coming to watch? You really can’t play?” Ad asked.

“I really can’t,” Cutty answered. “Kira and the physical therapist ganged up on me. The ankle can be pretty wobbly still and they pointed out that I shouldn’t risk doing damage with everything that’s coming up.”

“They didn’t want you limping down the aisle,” Ad said.

“Or messing up the honeymoon,” Cutty added with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin. “I agreed with that part of it.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

They drank more beer and tossed back a few of the complimentary peanuts from the bowl in front of them.

“We really appreciate you having Kit stay in the apartment,” Cutty said then. “Our guest room is construction central—it’s full of tools and paint cans and light fixtures. It’s a mess. And I don’t know where we would have put all the stuff if we had to clear it out for her—the garage is packed, too. That’s where the wall-board and the new bathtub and the sinks and the rest of the plumbing supplies are.”

“It’s no big deal,” Ad assured. “The place was empty anyway. Why shouldn’t she use it?”

“Yeah, but you’ve been picking up the slack for us as hosts, too. I didn’t mean for you to have to entertain her but—”

“I’m hardly entertaining her. She’s with Kira most of the time. I just did a little kitchen duty last night is all.”

“And you picked her up at the bus station and kept her company for us when we were getting Mel stitched up.”

“No big deal.”

“Yeah, well I owe you.”

“Believe me, you really don’t,” Ad said slightly under his breath, thinking that none of the time he’d spent with Kit had been a hardship on him. In fact, it had been the opposite.

Maybe that had somehow echoed in his tone because it drew a curious look from his friend.

But Cutty didn’t comment on it, and Ad didn’t expound. Instead they both raised their bottles to their mouths again.

When they’d set them down once more Cutty said, “This was a good idea tonight. I’ve been so damn busy it seems like ten years since we’ve just had a beer and a burger.”

“Buying a new house, moving, remodeling, getting married—that’ll keep you occupied all right.”

“’Course I did wonder if it was really my company and Kira’s you were after tonight. Or if maybe you’d just worked up a plan to get a little Kit-time in for yourself—if maybe you’ve liked picking up the slack for us.”

Ad gave his friend a sideways glance. “That’s what you were wondering, huh?”

“Is it true?”

“I invite you for a beer, a little dinner, and you think I have ulterior motives,” Ad joked, pretending he was injured by the suggestion.

“Uh-huh. I notice you aren’t denying it, though. Could it be you’re interested in Kit?” Cutty asked.

“She’s an interesting enough person. We have some things in common—restaurant work for instance.”

“Uh-huh,” Cutty repeated. “So you’re definitely interested.”

Ad took another drink of beer. Then he said, “Nah.”

“Okay. Let me put it a different way. If Kit had been born and raised in Northbridge, would you definitely be interested?”

“Definitely?” Ad hedged.

“Would you be interested?” Cutty said insistently.

“Maybe,” was the most Ad would concede. But it wasn’t because he was playing games with his friend. He really didn’t want to give in to being attracted to Kit, and it seemed as if admitting anything to Cutty would be the first step in letting down his guard.

“But since she isn’t a permanent fixture around here, you aren’t interested?” Cutty finished for him.

“Right.”

Cutty ate some more nuts. “Seems like the number of Northbridge women on your dance card is pretty low.”

“I’ve been out with a few,” Ad claimed defensively.

“One or two dates. You’ve already seen Kit twice and here we are tonight—you’ve bent over backward to arrange number three.”

“I didn’t bend over backward. I called you and said why don’t we have dinner after the fitting. How is that bending over backward?”