Loving

  Jenny thanked him and linked arms with Bailey. When they were around the corner down the aisle where he’d suggested they go, they both stopped and burst into quiet laughter. “He hates us!” Jenny whispered. “What did we do?”

  “I don’t think it’s us.” Bailey covered her mouth, her eyes dancing. “He doesn’t like customers.” She, too, kept her voice to a whisper. “Like they have a customer avoidance program or something.”

  After a minute they caught their breath and began sorting through the dresses on the rack. The first had an empire waist and a high neck. Bailey studied it for a moment, thoughtful. “No … not that one.”

  It went that way through a simple country dress of antique silk and lace and another one with a dramatic ten-foot train. The moment felt familiar in a long-ago sort of way. And suddenly Jenny remembered. “I was just like this.” She gave Bailey a side hug. “I hated looking for my wedding dress. I didn’t think I would look good in any of them.”

  Before Jenny could explain further, a round woman with a warm smile and red cheeks came around the corner. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Gwen.” She winced. “You met Albert?”

  “Yes.” Jenny and Bailey swapped nervous looks. “He didn’t like us.”

  “He doesn’t like brides.” She waved at something in the air in front of her. “Shucks, he doesn’t like weddings.”

  Their confused faces must’ve propelled her to finish the thought. “He owns the place. Inherited it from his parents, who loved weddings. His frown’s nothing personal. It’s part of him.”

  “Whew.” Bailey looked glad. “I thought maybe it was us.”

  “Not at all.” Gwen adjusted a few dresses on the rack. “Anyway, what have we found so far? We can only take three dresses into a fitting room at a time. Otherwise it gets overwhelming. This is a big moment, big day. Most important dress you’ll ever wear.” Gwen squealed a little. She was a fast talker, whose enthusiasm for wedding dresses and brides more than made up for her boss’s shortcomings. She raised her brow, hopeful. “Did we find any?”

  “We aren’t really—”

  “It’s late to try on any—”

  Jenny and Bailey spoke at the same time, and the combination of their excuses only made Gwen happier.

  She clapped her hands a few times. “I love when brides aren’t sure.” In an efficient matter of seconds she selected three gowns from various spots on the rack and took off for the dressing room. “These look about your size. Follow me,” she called over her shoulder. “This will be fun!”

  Jenny looked at Bailey. “It can’t hurt.”

  “Albert will be furious. He’ll have us arrested.” Bailey didn’t look sure about any of this. “We’ll make him late for dinner.”

  “Girls!” Gwen’s shrill voice called out to them.

  “I guess we don’t have a choice.” Jenny giggled and then cleared her voice, smoothing out the wrinkles in her sweater. “Coming!”

  From the moment they reached the fitting room, Gwen was completely in charge. “I’m working with two brides at once so I’ll have to be on my A-game.” She looked at a late thirty-something bride-to-be standing on the pedestal next to the one Bailey would use who was admiring the wedding dress she was wearing. Gwen supervised an exchange of names and wedding dates. The other bride — Betsie — was getting married in June.

  And with that, Gwen flashed a practiced smile at Jenny. “You’ll wait over there. I’ll help Bailey with each dress.”

  Jenny felt the slightest sense of disappointment. Since Bailey’s engagement, when she thought about this day, she pictured being the one to help Bailey slip in and out of each dress. That’s okay, she told herself. I can be patient. But as Bailey and Gwen came out of the dressing room with the first dress Jenny could tell immediately from Bailey’s pained smile that she didn’t want a stranger helping her.

  The dress was very pretty, strapless with a flair into an A-frame skirt that was embellished with swirled sequins. Bailey waited until Gwen’s attention was on the other bride. “Mom!” Her whisper was beyond urgent. “Help! I look like I’m playing dress up.”

  Jenny felt along her daughter’s middle. “What’re you wearing underneath?”

  “I have no idea.” Her whisper remained intense. “Some kind of corset thing. It’s cutting into my ribs.”

  Jenny was trying to think of a way to sneak Bailey back into the dressing room to remove the cumbersome undergarments Gwen had chosen, when the other bride let out a scream. “Is that blood?”

  “What?” Gwen jumped back, and sure enough there was a red smear around the waist of Betsie’s dress. “My goodness this is awful.” She looked down and grabbed her finger. “Oh, dear, I seem to have cut myself. Paper cut from the tags maybe. I’m so sorry. Heavens, this is terrible.” She hurried off holding her finger and talking to herself.

  Betsie looked horrified and at the same time the grumpy guy up front caught wind of the disaster and hurried to the scene. As Gwen disappeared into the back room, Jenny hurried to Bailey’s side.

  “This is our moment,” she whispered. She took her hand and ushered her into the dressing room. “Let’s get you out of all those under things.”

  Bailey’s eyes were wide. “Glad it’s only a paper cut.” She shut the door behind them. “Can you imagine? Poor Betsie!”

  Jenny helped Bailey out of the dress and the various corsets and hip-trimmers Gwen had instructed her to use. “There.” Bailey exhaled. “I can breathe. Okay …” She thumbed through the other two choices. “How about that one?”

  It was a simpler dress without a train, antique white with layered lace and cap sleeves. Jenny helped her daughter hang up the other dress, and then she unzipped the second one and slipped it over her head. As she eased it past Bailey’s long hair, the zipper snagged and Bailey dropped with the dress to the floor of the fitting room.

  “Help!” Bailey laughed as she quietly cried out. “I’m caught!”

  This whole experience was becoming a comedy of errors. Jenny worked quickly trying to untangle Bailey’s hair from the zipper. “Now I see why Gwen has this job.”

  “No, it’s okay. I want you.” Bailey was crouched on the floor, the dress gathered around her like an off-white tent. “Am I free?”

  Jenny worked another few seconds. “There. I think so.”

  Tentatively Bailey stood. Jenny eased the dress up and zipped it, and together they walked out of the fitting room looking a little guilty, like the class troublemakers. Neither Gwen nor Albert were in sight, and Betsie was talking to an older woman — probably her own mother.

  “Here.” Jenny pointed to the pedestal. “Step up.”

  Jenny straightened the back of the dress as Bailey positioned herself. But almost immediately she shook her head. “No. It’s wrong.”

  “It is beautiful.” Jenny offered, one brow raised, doubt ringing in her voice. “Maybe for someone else?”

  “Yes. Definitely.” Bailey’s shoulders sank. “I don’t like the other one in there either, Mom. Let’s go. This isn’t the place.”

  Jenny was about to agree when from behind Bailey she spotted a row of gowns they hadn’t seen before. “Hmm. What are those?”

  “What?” Bailey turned and looked. A mild interest showed in her eyes. “Probably nothing.”

  “There’s a few white ones mixed in.”

  “See if you can find one. Just one.” Bailey didn’t sound hopeful. “Then we need to go, please?”

  “Okay.” Jenny thought about the last half hour as she hurried to the new section of dresses. This wasn’t the dreamy memorable trip she had pictured, but they would remember it all the same. Gwen was still missing, still tending to her paper cut, no doubt. But Jenny didn’t have long until she’d be back. And then she’d lose this chance to work with Bailey. She sorted quickly through five dresses, and a sixth, and as she came to the seventh she stopped. The dress was white, strapless with a sweetheart neckline, the kind Bailey had admired a few times in magazine ads. T
he skirt was hard to make out in the thick plastic bag, but it looked lovely, a mass of silk lace and layers that came out from a banded waist, just above the hip. Jenny stared at the gown. She had a feeling about this one. “Bailey,” she took it from the garment bar and held it up. It was heavier than the others, for sure. “What do you think?”

  “That?” Bailey hesitated but she shook her head. “It’s pretty, but I don’t know. Maybe we should come back another day. Gwen’ll be back and then she’ll take over.”

  Jenny studied the dress again. “You’re already here. It’ll just take a minute.”

  “Mom …” Bailey allowed a little whine in her tone. “That’s not it. I can tell.”

  “Think of it this way.” Jenny carried the dress to Bailey. “Try it on and you can rule out this style. That’ll take us one step closer to figuring out what you do like.”

  They watched Gwen hurry from one back room to another. She still seemed to be talking to herself. Bailey giggled and it was proof that she’d given in. “Okay. Let’s go fast.”

  Together they took the new dress into the room and when Bailey was out of the simple off-white one, Jenny helped her into the new one. “The skirt weighs a ton.” She was careful not to catch Bailey’s hair this time. “It’s so pretty, Bailey.”

  “I don’t know.” There were no mirrors in the small dressing room, so it was tough to tell.

  Jenny zipped it up and admired the round silk buttons that ran down the center of the back. “Okay … let’s see.”

  The dress had a pretty train that trailed maybe four feet behind her. Jenny picked it up and walked behind Bailey as they left the fitting room and headed for the pedestal. Bailey stood on it and faced the myriad of mirrors. Jenny fanned out the train and together they took in the sight of her.

  Bailey breathed in sharp and held it. Her eyes softened and lit up all at the same time. “Mom!” She sounded dreamy and shocked at the sight of herself. “It’s absolutely perfect.”

  “Wow …” A smile started in Jenny’s heart and quickly became tears in her eyes. “It’s like it was made for you, honey.” The waist cut at an angle, and the satin that made up the middle of the dress shirred and gathered at the same angle. The effect was everything Bailey had hoped for in a dress.

  “I can’t believe it.” Bailey turned one way and then the other, clearly disbelieving what she was seeing. “It’s timeless and elegant and vintage and sexy and fashionable.”

  Jenny laughed through her tears. “Probably the only one in all the world.”

  Just then Gwen bustled over, her face a mask of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry about that terrible cut. So nasty. I’ve never had anything like that happen in all my days as a consultant and this would be just the time when —”

  She stopped cold, stopped moving and talking and by the looks of it she might’ve even stopped breathing. “Bailey!” She stared at the image in the mirror. “You … you look like a vision.” She called to the back. “Coco … hurry. You have to see this.” She looked at Jenny. “Coco is our seamstress.”

  An older woman appeared from the back. She had a pincushion in her hand. “Yes?” She walked toward them and as she reached Bailey, like Gwen she made a sudden stop. “My goodness … are you a model, dear?”

  Bailey laughed, but even she couldn’t take her eyes off the dress. “No.”

  “Well, no one’s ever worn that dress the way you’re wearing it.” Gwen’s words came more slowly now. “This is why I do this job.” She seemed choked up as she looked at Jenny. “I could just cry. Your daughter is stunning.”

  Jenny couldn’t think what to say or how to hold on to this most precious moment. She took a veil from a rack a few feet away and carefully placed it at the crown of Bailey’s head. Her tears were immediate and she blinked to keep them from falling. In the mirror, her eyes locked onto Bailey’s and like so many times over the years since Bailey was a very little girl, there were no words necessary.

  Jenny knew only that here and now her daughter had found the dress. The perfect dress. The one she would wear to change her name and become Brandon Paul’s wife. It had happened in a single instant, at the most unexpected place and the most unexpected time. On a day when they had laughed till they cried and when there had been no warning or signs that something deeply significant was about to happen.

  Jenny came alongside Bailey and hugged her. “This is it.”

  “Yes.” Bailey dabbed her fingers beneath her eyes again. “Brandon will love it.”

  And like that Gwen began talking about payment plans and how the dress was made by a designer, so they would order Bailey her very own and that the process might take three months and …

  Jenny could only see Bailey … her sweet blue eyes and the love that was so clearly inside her. For God and her family, and at this moment for Brandon. Here in her wedding dress, for him most of all.

  Never mind if this wasn’t the dreamy way either of them pictured Bailey finding her dress. They were together, and because of that this day would always be special. The way every day with Bailey had been special in its own way since she was a little girl.

  In no sort of hurry, Jenny helped her out of the dress, listening while Bailey gushed about the gown and about how she would feel on her wedding day when Brandon would see it.

  Jenny listened, but deep inside she was seeing Bailey at two years old walking around in Jim’s cowboy boots singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” And at six when she was being dropped off at her first day of kindergarten, looking nervously back at the classroom door because she didn’t want Jenny to leave, and when she was eight years old coming home from school saying that she wanted Jesus as her Savior. Only Jesus. Always Jesus. And at thirteen with braces, crying because the boy she liked had liked someone else and a few blinks later when she was smiling for her high school senior portraits.

  Where the time went, Jenny had no idea. Because here they were buying a wedding gown. Her sweet Bailey, her precious one-in-a-million girl, was getting married. The wonderful truth seemed much more real now that she’d found the dress. In no time Bailey would be married and she would start her life with Brandon. But despite all the times gone by, Bailey’s wedding could never be an ending to what she shared with her only daughter. Rather it would be a beginning.

  The most beautiful beginning of all.

  Twenty-Six

  BRANDON WAS ABOUT TO PUT HIS PLAN INTO MOTION, AND HE could hardly wait. He pulled up in front of Bailey’s house and climbed out of his new Acura. He had moved to Indiana fulltime now, especially in light of the deal he had worked out last week. The same week Bailey found her wedding dress.

  He smiled to himself as he jogged up the steps to her front door. She wouldn’t tell him any details — which was fine with him — only that he would love it. The idea of Bailey walking down the aisle toward him in her dream wedding dress was almost more than he could take. He was filled with passion and desire and at the same time an ocean of love he couldn’t begin to fully grasp.

  For now he lived with Ashley and Landon in their spare bedroom. But in a few weeks he would move into a house. Their new home. Which was the surprise he had for her today. He’d been back and forth to Los Angeles wrapping up loose ends until just this week. Still, the amazing thought of not having to say goodbye for a very long time didn’t seem real.

  She appeared at the front door and for a long time they only looked at each other, their eyes lost to everything except each other. “Every time you pick me up it’s something crazy, some wild surprise or dramatic moment.” Her voice was soft. “But not today.”

  “Not today?” He stifled a laugh. If she only knew.

  “No.” Without looking away, she came closer and eased her hands around his waist. “Starting today we get to do life together.” She leaned up and kissed him. “Because you live here. You really live here.”

  He looked into her eyes, at the trust she had for him. “I don’t care if I ever see Los Angeles again.” Laughter came
from him but he was more amazed than humored. “Paparazzi even chased me to the airport.” He hesitated, because their closeness didn’t need constant conversation. “And guess what?”

  “What?” They swayed slightly, neither of them wanting to let go.

  “My realtor says he has someone interested.”

  Bailey stepped back, her brow raised. “Really? Brandon, that’s wonderful!”

  “They might want it quickly. A month-long escrow.”

  “That’s great!”

  Brandon had expected the sale to take a year or longer. Either way he didn’t care. He would have a few of his things moved here, the ones he’d designated for his new life in Bloomington. Otherwise he would enjoy shopping with Bailey, walking through antique stores and furniture showrooms looking for the pieces that would bring their touch to the place he’d just bought. Whether the offer came through now or not, Brandon was willing to wait. He saw no reason to hold onto the Malibu house. He wasn’t Dayne Matthews. No matter what offer came up, he and Bailey would not move to LA. Not unless God sent them a direct message telling them to go.

  Otherwise they were here, and they were home.

  “Let’s go.” He ran a little ahead of her, loving the way he could tease her and play with her. They had more fun together than any couple he knew. At least it seemed that way. “The surprise might not be there if we don’t hurry.”

  She laughed and easily caught up to him. Once they were in his vehicle she turned smiling eyes to him, eyes that became more serious. “I don’t need another surprise. Having you here, that’s all I need. Not having to Skype and steal moments on top of the Empire State Building.” She took his hand. “I couldn’t want more than this.”