As we pulled into the parking lot of Cosmopolitan Bridal, the most horrifying odor emanated from the backseat. Mariela let out several squeals in a row. “Ew, Mama! The baby’s stinky!”
“Baby’s stinky!” Gilly repeated.
“My nose isn’t broken, thank you very much. I plan to change him in a minute, right after I call your daddy about the house.” Lori-Lou rolled her eyes.
Me? I rolled down the window.
My cousin shook her head as she glanced my way. “You have a lot to get used to, Katie.”
“Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
The minute she put the car in park, I bolted. She hollered, “Chicken!” out of the open window. I didn’t hear the rest of what she said, though, because I barreled through the front door of the bridal salon lickety-split.
Brady greeted me with a huge smile as I entered the store. In fact, I very nearly ran him down. Not that a five-foot-two girl could run down a six-foot-something basketball player, but I did manage to startle him a little. As I landed against him, I felt his muscles ripple underneath his white shirt. I did my best to still my quickening pulse but found it difficult.
“Well, hello there,” he said as I took a step backwards.
Hello there, Mr. Go-To Guy.
“Mom said you were coming back today. Good to see you.” He reached to steady me as I lost my balance and nearly toppled into him again. From the twinkle in his eye, I got the feeling he really was happy to see me. But he wouldn’t be if I told him my news, would he? He’d be booting me out the door.
“Hi. Good morning. Is your mom ready for me?”
“Almost. She told me to offer you a cup of coffee when you got here to stall a few minutes. I think she’s made some progress on the design since Saturday, but probably won’t have the final details until she’s had more time to pick your brain. She wants you to be happy.”
“Oh, I’m sure I will be.” If I can just get past feeling so guilty. “I’d love a cup of coffee.” I stifled a yawn. “Long night. The baby kept me up. Teething.”
“Baby?”
“Oh!” I clamped a hand over my mouth. “Not my baby. My cousin’s.”
Brady nodded. “Ah. The gal with the cell phone?”
“That’s the one.”
“She’s not with you today?” He glanced toward the door as if expecting her to materialize.
“She is, actually.” I gestured to the parking lot. “She just needed to . . . well . . . get some last-minute work done while she was still in the car.”
“All work and no play, eh? Sounds a lot like my mom. And me too, for that matter.” As if to prove the point, he readjusted the mannequin with the $6,700 dress on it.
I stifled another yawn.
Brady laughed. “C’mon, sleepyhead. I’ll lead you to the coffee machine. That way you’ll be fully awake when you approve your wedding dress design. Otherwise you might okay something you don’t really care for.”
As Brady took his first few steps, I couldn’t help but notice that he still favored his left knee. I followed behind him as he led the way to the workroom at the back of the store. All the while I wrestled with guilt, the pastor’s sermon on lying replaying in my head. A guy this sweet didn’t need a fake bride stringing him along. Wouldn’t it be better to go ahead and tell him now? Why oh why had I agreed to go along with Madge’s plan?
After filling a cup for me, he offered me cream and sugar. I took both. “That’s what I like,” he said. “A girl who’s not afraid to dump a few calories into her coffee.”
“Hey, what’s coffee without the good stuff?” I gave it a good stir and took a little sip. “Ooh, hot.” I stirred it again. “I work long hours, so I need my caffeine.”
“I’m a workaholic myself, so I get it,” he said.
“Looks like we have a lot of things in common then.” I took another little sip of my coffee. Mmm. Sweet.
“Oh? We have a lot in common?” He quirked a brow as he reached for another cup to fill. “You play basketball too?”
“Ha. Very funny.” I looked up at him. Way up. Of course, I had to get past the strong athletic physique first. Not that I minded the side trip before settling my gaze on those gorgeous blue eyes. “I work for my parents too. We own a family-run business. So there’s one thing we have in common. Besides liking sugar and cream in our coffee, I mean.”
“What kind of family business?” He filled his cup and then dumped in three packets of sugar and a ton of creamer.
“Hardware store.”
“Oh, that’s right. I remember reading it in your essay. I feel like I learned a lot about you. Great writing, by the way. You should think about adding ‘professional writer’ to your résumé.” He stirred his coffee and then tried to take a drink. He pulled the cup away from his lips at once. “Gets me every time.”
I laughed. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’ve had worse injuries, trust me.” He glanced down at his left knee and winced.
Poor guy. I decided to change the subject. “Anyway, working for the family is . . . different. There’s no way out, though. If I ever left the hardware store, I don’t know how my dad would survive without me. He depends on me for so much.”
“Totally get that.” A wistful look came over Brady. Just as quickly, his sadness seemed to lift. “So, what does one do in a hardware store? Besides waiting on customers, I mean.”
I thought through my answer. How could I make the hardware store sound glamorous? “I, um . . . sometimes I do the window dressings. And I rearranged the lawn and garden section last week. I like putting things in order. Well, in the order that makes sense to my mind.”
“I like to put things in order too. I guess you could say I’m calculated in my approach. Did you happen to notice the shoe display at the front of the store?”
“Of course. I saw at least five or six pairs that I’d love to own.”
“You just proved my point. See, they weren’t selling. It occurred to me that brides don’t come into a bridal salon looking for shoes. They’re an afterthought. Brides come in looking for a gown, but if we’re savvy, we put the other things they’ll need in strategic places so they’ll have to trip over them on the way out. That’s how I decided to put the shoes where you saw them.”
“Right.” I’d hardly given any thought to wedding shoes until seeing the display. Not that I needed wedding shoes. “Wise move on your part.”
He shrugged. “Just trying to think like a bride.” A grin followed. “Not that I’m good at that part, but you get the idea. I’m giving it the old college try.”
Madge walked into the workroom at that very moment. She grinned as she listened in. “Brady’s going to make a lovely bride someday. And he’ll know just where to find the perfect heels to make his ensemble complete.” She patted him on the back and then looked at me. “Good to see you again, Katie. Nadia will be with you shortly.”
“Oh, I know. Brady told me.”
“Brady. Right. Keep forgetting he’s the manager now.” Madge elbowed him and smirked. “He’ll always be Nadia’s little boy to me. All six feet four of him.”
Well, that answered the question about his height, anyway.
Madge took a couple of swigs from a cup of coffee, then tossed the rest in the trash and left the room.
“Working for family is a dream come true.” Brady rolled his eyes. “Anyway, that’s my take on it. What about you? What do you love about the hardware store?”
“I love the customers. Love ’em.”
“What else?” He took another sip of his coffee.
I thought about it for a moment before answering. “Honestly? I love the designing aspects. Laying out the specials. Decorating for holidays. Making sure people are . . . I don’t know . . . entertained?”
“Entertained by a store?”
“Well, I like to make sure the window displays are entertaining. Eye-catching. And I guess you’re right about the writing. I write most of the copy for the stor
e. Put together ads for the local paper. That sort of thing.” I glanced down at my watch.
“Getting anxious?” Brady asked. “I could see if Mom is ready for you now.”
“No, I’m actually just wondering about Lori-Lou. She’s been in the car a long time.”
“On the phone.” We spoke in unison and then laughed.
“It’s part of her anatomy,” I added.
“Let’s go back to the front of the store then,” Brady said. “Maybe she’s already come inside and is looking for us. But we’ll have to finish the coffee first. No food or drinks in the store. Too dangerous.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” I did my best to take a few more sips of the coffee, but it was still too hot for comfort. I ended up tossing what was left in the trash can by the door. Brady did the same. What a waste of good cups of coffee. Still, I understood his point about not having food or drinks around the dresses. I could only imagine the possibilities for disaster.
He led the way out of the workroom, glancing back at me as we made our way into the shop. “Hey, speaking of phone calls, I had one this morning from the Texas Bride reporter, Jordan Singer. He was just double-checking the date for the interview.”
“July 15, right?”
Brady looked concerned. “Well, that’s the photo shoot part. We need five weeks to pull the gown together. But the interview will come first. Didn’t Mom mention that he’s going to be here next Monday—June 15—to interview you?”
“Next Monday?” Oy vey. “No. Pretty sure I would’ve remembered that. I thought he would interview me at the photo shoot. And that brings up something very important I need to talk to you about. Do you mind if we speak privately, Brady?”
To my left, Madge cleared her throat. We looked at her, and she put her hand on her neck and mumbled something about having a cold. Then she flashed me a “don’t you dare” look.
At that very moment, the front door of the shop flew open and Lori-Lou stumbled inside, baby in her arms and two squabbling kids at her side. The wind must’ve done a number on her hair. She looked a fright. Not that anyone could make out her face underneath the mass of windblown locks, in any case.
As soon as Crystal, Twiggy, and Dahlia saw her enter, they all gasped.
“Oh no!” Crystal put her hands over her eyes. “Anything but that!”
“What?” I asked.
“Incoming Mama Mia!” Twiggy whispered.
“Cleanup on aisle four!” Madge threw in. She reached into her pocket and came out with a walkie-talkie, which she raised to her lips.
“Mama Mia? What’s that?” I tried to follow her gaze but only saw my cousin and the kids. “Code word for the mother of the bride?”
“No.” Dahlia shook her head. “A testy mother of the bride is called a Mama Bear. Sometimes known as a Drama Mama if she’s making the bride overemotional during the fitting.”
“But . . . Mama Mia?” I asked.
“A bride with small children. In this case, three. And she’s bringing them with her.”
“Oh, that’s no bride-to-be.” I laughed. “That’s my cousin Lori-Lou. You met her on Saturday, remember? She tried all morning to get a sitter but couldn’t.”
“That’s Lori-Lou?” Dahlia seemed stumped by this. Well, until my cousin brushed the unruly hair out of her face and stopped hollering at Mariela.
“She might not be an incoming bride, but she’s still a Mama Mia,” Twiggy whispered. “You can’t deny that she’s a mama.”
Crystal nodded. “Every time we get one of those, we feel like pulling our hair out by the time they’re gone.”
“Code pink and blue,” Madge said into the walkie-talkie. “Code pink and blue.”
Brady flew into gear, moving the mannequin wearing the $6,700 gown and other merchandise up out of reach. Madge went to the jewelry case and closed the glass panel on the front, then got on her walkie-talkie again and radioed the news to a teenage boy in the back of the store, who headed our way and started pulling the shoe rack up out of reach.
Lori-Lou didn’t seem to notice any of this. She’d decided to pacify her children with some M&Ms. Perfect. Just the solution in an ocean of white satin and crepe.
Twiggy sighed as she looked my way. “We get at least two of these a day. I adore kids—in theory, anyway—but they wreak havoc on the place.”
“You wouldn’t believe the thousands of dollars small children have cost us over the years.” Madge shuddered. She shoved the walkie-talkie into her pocket.
I’d have to remember to tell Lori-Lou later. Right now she was busy giving Gilly a juice box. Grape. Lovely. I could see it now—all over the ivory silk gown directly to the child’s right.
“What is it about mamas?” Madge asked. “So many are preoccupied.”
“They don’t pay attention to their little dah-lings.” Crystal’s Southern accent thickened. “So those precious children just run a-mock.”
“That’s amuck, Crystal,” Dahlia said.
“Amock. Amuck. It’s all the same thing. They tay-uh the place up and Mama Mia is ob-liv-ious. Then when she’s gone, we all have to work double time to put the place back ta-gay-thuh.”
“Remember the kid with the chocolate bar?” Twiggy visibly shivered. “I’ll never forget that.”
“Four hundred dollars just to get the stains out of that taffeta dress.” Dahlia’s eyes moistened. “I worked for weeks on that dress, only to see it covered in chocolate like a kid’s T-shirt after a day at the circus. Horrible, horrible.” A lone tear trickled down her left cheek.
“If Nadia sees the kids with the M&Ms, we’ll have to call in a therapist,” Twiggy said. “Someone needs to talk to Lori-Lou before any damage is done.”
I raised my hand. “I’ll do it. She’s my cousin, after all.” I’d just gathered the courage to say something to Lori-Lou when the door of the shop swung open and an older fellow, mostly bald, stepped inside. Tall and thin, he seemed especially out of place in a bridal gown shop. And judging from the expression in his eyes after he pulled off his sunglasses, he felt a little out of place too.
“Ugh.” Madge slapped herself on the forehead. “Just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, the devil himself has to show up.”
“The devil?”
“Well, a distant cousin, anyway.” Madge turned to the others, eyes wide as she said, “Alley-oop!”
Brady, who’d been hyper-focused on Lori-Lou and the messy kids, startled to attention. “Shoot.” He raked his fingers through his hair and groaned. “Here we go again.”
I watched as the older man took a few steps in our direction, his focus on Brady. Unfortunately, he didn’t happen to see that Gilly had taken up residence on the floor directly in front of him. The poor guy tripped right over her. This led to bloodcurdling screams from the toddler and a look of hatred from my cousin, who’d only seen enough of what had happened to think the man had deliberately hurt her child.
Gilly continued to wail, the older fellow groaned and grabbed his foot, and Lori-Lou carried on like a Mama Bear. Or would that be Drama Mama?
Then Mariela burst into tears. The baby started crying too, probably scared by all the noise.
I started to rush toward them, but Madge took hold of my arm. “Let it be, girl.”
“But—”
“Let it be. That old guy’s got it coming to him. A little time on the floor will do him good.”
“Really? What did he do?”
“He won’t leave our Brady alone, that’s what. Tries to wear him down. Get him back in the game before it’s time. He’s a barracuda.”
“Leave him alone? Huh?”
I watched as Brady helped the older man to his feet, then went over and comforted the children.
“I really wish that old fart would give our boy some space. Brady doesn’t need to be rushing back onto the court, no matter how popular he is with the fans. He needs time to recover, physically and emotionally. The doctors agree, which is why they’ve placed him on medical l
eave.”
“Is that . . .”
“Stan is Brady’s agent. And he’s all business, trust me. Never gives Brady a minute just to . . . be.”
Stan now stood aright, but I could tell from the way he favored his foot that he’d been injured. Madge and Dahlia headed over to Lori-Lou and offered to take the kids in the workroom to have their snacks. With the wailing behind us, I was finally able to focus on Stan and Brady as an agent-player duo. The older man reminded me of a fellow back in Fairfield—Mr. Harkins, who worked at the bank. I couldn’t help but stare at Stan’s shiny bald head and his somewhat crooked nose. What really got me, though, was his voice. He might look scrawny, but he came across as authoritative and strong.
“See there, boy?” The fellow slung his arm over Brady’s shoulder. “You’re in fine shape. You came to my rescue, just like you’ve done a thousand times for the team.”
“You were on the floor, Stan.” Brady chuckled. “Taken down by a three-year-old.”
“Two-year-old,” I added as I took a few steps in their direction.
“Taken down by a two-year-old.”
“Still, you’re missing my point.” Stan pulled a hankie out of his pocket and swiped it over his sweaty head. “Point is your knee must be healed or you couldn’t have moved so fast. I’d say you’re nearly ready to get back in the game.”
“I’m in the game, Stan.” He gestured to the shop.
The older fellow swiped his head again, then shoved the handkerchief in his pocket. “I refuse to believe you’ve traded in your Mavericks jersey for a wedding gown. Please tell me it ain’t so.”
“Well, when you put it like that, no. Of course not. But I’m where I’m supposed to be for now. I’ve tried to tell you that before.” Brady gave him a pensive look and I suddenly felt like an intruder. I stepped aside and pretended to look at one of the wedding gowns.
“It takes time to heal.” Brady spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“Well, sure, but remember, my boy, men who take their time come in second. You’ve never come in second. Besides, the fans are clamoring for you. You wouldn’t believe the calls I’m getting. And the owner of the team wants to make sure you’ll be back next season.” Stan gave Brady an imploring look. “You are coming back, right? I mean, this wedding biz thing is just a temporary assignment while the knee heals. Right?”