I’m tired of being thought of as Miss Goody Two-Shoes . . . the girl next door, Miss Happy-Go-Lucky.
Doris Day
Spending time with Casey’s family at Sam’s turned out to be a blast. Funny how I could slip back into the “nothing’s changed” gear with such ease. For that hour, I was Katie Fisher from Fairfield—Peach Queen and all-around happy-go-lucky small-town girl.
Mrs. Lawson had apparently forgotten Casey and I weren’t dating, because most of her stories revolved around the two of us. Even the waitresses seemed to have forgotten. A couple of different times I had to whisper, “We’re not a couple” to the folks who engaged us in conversation as if we were a duo.
Casey was his usual jovial self, acting as if he’d never moved away to Oklahoma in the first place. At one point he slipped his arm over my shoulder. I used that opportunity to get up and walk to the dessert table. I didn’t care much for the feelings that swept over me at his nearness and did my best to push them aside.
Alva seemed a little bugged by Casey’s attempts to flirt with me, but the coconut cream pie distracted her. By the time we settled into the car for the drive back to Dallas, she seemed to have left her angst behind. She settled in for an afternoon nap.
I spent my time behind the wheel thinking through all that had happened. I felt so conflicted. Half of me really loved being back in Fairfield. The other half could hardly wait to see Brady again.
Brady. The sound of his voice had worked magic on my heart. Now, to get back to where I belonged—the bridal shop.
Unfortunately, the next few days we were so crammed full of work-related things that my sweetie and I hardly had a chance to be alone. We tried, but chaos reigned. I made up my mind to focus on my job. God would take care of my love life.
On Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m., I met bride-to-be Carrie Sanders. As anticipated, she arrived with quite the entourage: her parents, the groom’s parents, even the handsome groom-to-be. Very odd. We’d had a few of these gatherings before, but having the groom in attendance never settled well with Nadia or Madge. They were of the opinion that the groom shouldn’t see the bride’s gown until the moment those back doors of the chapel were opened. I agreed.
Hmm. Brady had seen my gown before. He’d even been photographed standing next to me when I wore it on the cover of Texas Bride magazine.
Not that Brady had proposed.
Carrie was a gorgeous young woman, probably twenty-six or so, with perfectly styled blonde hair and picture-perfect makeup. She looked very stylish in her Dolce & Gabbana jeans and trendy blouse, but what really got me were the cowgirl boots. I wanted to kneel down to take a closer look but didn’t dare. I knew Lanciottis when I saw them. Wow.
When the Sanders family entered, I couldn’t help but notice the Spurs shirt Mr. Sanders wore. The minute he saw Brady hobbling our way, his eyes widened. “Brady James?” Instead of the usual boisterous welcome we’d come to appreciate from fans, this fellow crossed his arms and remained silent.
“Yes sir.” Brady gave him a polite nod and extended his hand. The fellow took it hesitantly. “Welcome to Cosmopolitan Bridal. I’m the acting manager while my mom’s in Paris.”
“You’re Brady James.” The groom-to-be extended his hand. “Jimmy Dennison. Great to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.” A smile turned up the edges of Brady’s lips.
Mr. Sanders turned and glared at his future son-in-law. “What is this? Some sort of setup?”
Jimmy shook his head. “Hey, I’m completely innocent. I had no idea Brady James would be here.”
“I’m thrilled!” The other older man in the group stepped toward Brady and extended his hand. “Marcus Dennison. Father of the groom. I’m a huge Mavericks fan. We all are.” He gestured to the group.
“Not all.” Mr. Sanders turned his glare on Mr. Dennison. “I believe I’ve made it clear where my loyalties lie.”
Oh boy.
Not that Mr. Dennison seemed to notice. He kept his focus on Brady. “So sorry to hear about the knee. We really miss seeing you out there.” The fellow placed his hand on Brady’s shoulder. “Things just aren’t the same without you.”
Brady flinched but managed a quiet “Thanks.”
“Oh yes, it’s such a shame.” A lovely woman stepped into place alongside Mr. Dennison. “I’m Julia, by the way. Marcus’s wife. We just adore the Mavericks. Always have. We lived in Dallas years ago and fell head over heels for the team. Even had season tickets for a time.” She put her hand on Brady’s arm. “I do hope your knee will be okay. I tried to get the ladies in my prayer group to add you to our list, but we live in San Antonio. I’m sure you understand.”
“They won’t pray for a Mavericks player in San Antonio?” Madge asked.
Mr. Sanders gave her a hard glare. “I thought we drove all the way to Dallas to pick out a wedding dress, not talk basketball.” He muttered something under his breath about how talking about the Mavericks didn’t mean we were truly talking basketball anyway. I prayed Brady didn’t hear it.
Unfortunately, someone else did.
“What’s that you say?” Stan’s voice rang out from behind us. “We have a duel going on here?” He slapped Brady on the back. “Don’t worry, folks. One more little surgery to get out of the way and we’ll have this boy back on the court.”
“You’re still under contract?” Mrs. Dennison looked hopeful.
“He will be.” Stan plastered on a fake smile. “Next season. Now, if you don’t mind, folks, I need to talk to my boy here about an article for the paper. Got to keep his name in front of the fans, you know.”
Brady excused himself to his office, but I could read the concern in his eyes. We didn’t often get basketball quarrels at the dress shop. Bridal gown quarrels, sure. Money quarrels, always. But, basketball disputes? Never. Here in the Dallas area, it was the Mavericks all the way.
After Brady left, I did my best to reel everyone back in and focus on the bride.
“Let’s start by looking at available dresses.” I gestured to the rows and rows of gowns. “If you don’t find anything you like, we’ll involve Dahlia and her team. What’s the wedding date again?”
“January 8th.” The bride put her hand up. “I know, I know, we don’t have long. But we don’t want to wait until after the playoffs to get married.”
“You’re setting the date based on a basketball schedule?” Madge looked mystified by this. “Gracious.”
“Now, what about that dress designer?” Mrs. Sanders asked. “Nadia something or other? She’s the one who’s so famous, right? Everyone raves over her, so we want her to design our Carrie’s gown.” She giggled. “Can you imagine the look on Janine Parker’s face when she finds out that my daughter’s dress came from Cosmopolitan? She’ll be green with envy.”
Alrighty then. That was how this game was played.
“Nadia James is Brady’s mother,” I explained. “She’s the designer you mean. But she’s in Paris right now. So Dahlia would be the one to—”
“No mother of a Mavericks player is going to be designing my daughter’s dress.” Mr. Sanders crossed his arms. “Gotta draw the line somewhere.”
“But Mr. Sanders . . .” Wrinkles formed between Jimmy’s brows. “It’s Carrie’s big day and this is what she wants.”
The puffed-up father of the bride softened a little at that comment.
“To be honest, Nadia has designed many of the gowns you see here in the shop,” I explained. “So even if Carrie picks out something off the rack, it will likely be Nadia’s design.”
“Then we might need to rethink this plan. I want the best for my girl, but I’m sure there are plenty of other dress shops between here and San Antonio,” Mr. Sanders said.
“Now, Frankie, you’re just being silly.” Mrs. Sanders patted her husband on the arm. She turned to me and sighed. “He lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes basketball. You should see our house. Everything has the word Spurs on it. And we’ve got season tickets, of
course, so dragging him up here to Dallas this late in the season was the equivalent of taking the man for a root canal. Maybe worse.”
“That’s why we’ve come on a Thursday morning,” Mr. Sanders said. “No game today.”
“Ah.” So we had to work everything around the bride’s father’s obsession with the Spurs? And doing so meant that Nadia was out? “Maybe we need to think about choosing something from one of the other designer lines.” I pointed to a row of expensive gowns. “These are just in from New York. And we have several from Paris as well. Would you like to start there?”
“I think that’s my cue to exit.” Jimmy gave his bride-to-be a kiss on the forehead. “My parents and I are headed to the party supply store to pick up some things. We’ll be back in a couple of hours. Sound good?”
“Sounds great.” Carrie gave him a tender kiss on the lips and waved as they headed out the door. Then she followed on my heels as I pulled several gowns for her to try. In spite of her beautiful figure, none of the dresses seemed just right. She was short-waisted with long legs. Carrie tried on nine gowns in all but couldn’t seem to find the perfect one.
After an hour of fretting, her mother came to the only obvious conclusion. “Honey, I really think we have no choice. We’ll have to have something designed just for you.” She turned to face her husband. “Don’t you agree, Frankie?”
“Not by a woman who produced a Mavericks player.” Mr. Sanders shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“Now you see my problem, Katie?” Carrie’s eyes flooded with tears. “Welcome to my life.”
And what a life it was.
“Just ignore him, Katie,” Mrs. Sanders said. “We’ll have something special designed for our girl by Nadia James. Carrie will look lovely.”
“Like I said, Nadia is in Paris right now,” I pointed out. “She’s not even here to design the dress. And our other designers are working against the clock for other customers.”
“See?” Mr. Sanders said as he approached. “I knew this was a bad idea.”
“Oh, but we must have a dress from Cosmopolitan.” Mrs. Sanders looked as if she might panic. “We’ve told everyone and they’ll be expecting it.”
I did my best to keep Carrie’s parents calm, finally suggesting they visit the Mexican restaurant next door for an early lunch while I took Carrie to discuss the problem with Dahlia.
Once I was alone with the bride-to-be, she was free to let the tears flow. “See. What. I. Mean?”
“Mm-hmm. How do you do it?”
“Oh, trust me, I don’t. I try not to get involved. I’m not even a basketball fan, but please don’t tell my parents that. To be honest, Jimmy isn’t either. He’s an engineer.”
What that had to do with anything, I couldn’t be sure.
As I led her back to meet with Dahlia, we passed Brady in the hallway. He gave her a warm smile and extended his hand.
“Sorry about all of that,” she said. “It’s nothing personal with my dad.” She paused. “Actually, I guess it kind of is. If it’s not the Spurs, he’s not interested. And now that he’s retired from the oil and gas business, he has way too much time on his hands.”
“We’ll work around your dad, and no hard feelings. I’m not playing right now anyway.” Brady seemed to flinch as he said those words. “And the Spurs are a great team. I’m good friends with a couple of the players.”
“That’s good to know. I’ll tell him.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “But honestly? This whole wedding experience was supposed to be about me, not about a stupid ball team.” She put her hand over her mouth. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Again, no offense. Trust me when I say I’m at the point where I’m ready to admit there’s a lot more to life than basketball.” He shrugged. “I can’t believe I can actually say that and mean it, but I can.”
I couldn’t believe it either, but I was happy to hear it with my own ears.
“Let’s see what the design team has to say about coming up with a new dress, okay?” I pushed open the door to the studio.
Had I known what I’d be walking into, I never would have taken Carrie back there. I found Dahlia in a puddle of tears. I rushed her way, alarm bells ringing in my ears. “What happened? Dahlia?”
“Oh, Katie.” She threw her arms around my neck and sobbed. And sobbed some more. I tried to calm her down, but she would not be soothed. Carrie came to stand next to me, handing Dahlia tissues. The noise must’ve alarmed the folks up front because Madge showed up at the door, followed by Twiggy. They all rushed our way.
“Who died?” Madge grabbed a box of tissues and pressed it into Dahlia’s hands.
“I—I don’t know.” Perhaps Dahlia had received bad news from back home in Europe. One thing was for sure—with her carrying on at this rate, we’d never know.
Remarkably, Carrie got her to calm down at last. “Now, tell us what’s wrong so we can help.”
Dahlia released a slow breath and took a seat in front of her favorite sewing machine. “It’s Dewey.”
“Dewey?” My heart sailed straight to my throat as she spoke my brother’s name. “What’s happened to Dewey?”
“He . . . he . . .” She reverted to sobbing again. Off in the distance Eduardo looked on, his eyes wide. Hibiscus continued to work, but Jane seemed to be in a puddle too.
“Is he okay?” I knelt down next to her chair. “Tell me. Please.”
“Physically, yes, he’s fine.” With a wave of her hand she dismissed any concerns in that area. “But he won’t be . . . after I kill him!”
12
Here We Go Again
I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source.
Doris Day
Okay then. Dahlia planned to kill my brother.
I stood up and tried to gather my thoughts while I willed my hands to stop trembling.
Dahlia threw her tissues on the table in a wad as her words tumbled out. “He. Just. Broke. My. Heart!”
Hmm, maybe someone needed to kill my brother.
It took a few minutes to get the rest of the story, but apparently my brother had indeed broken her heart. Not in the “I’m seeing another woman” sort of way, but rather the “Maybe we should take some time to think this through” way. Just like Casey had done to me.
Jerk.
“He said we needed to step back.” Dahlia sniffled. “He wasn’t sure he could handle the long-distance relationship. Can you believe that? It’s only, what—an hour and a half to Fairfield? Two at most?”
“Long distance, my eye,” Madge sputtered. “That boy’s in Dallas more than he’s home in Fairfield. He just needs to get a job here and settle down.”
“That’s what I told him, but he doesn’t want to leave Fairfield and I can’t leave the shop. I just can’t. He thinks that we should get married and have fourteen kids and live in the country.” Dahlia gestured to her trim physique. “Do I look like I could carry fourteen kids? And live in the country? I don’t think so!” She dissolved into a haze of tears again.
“My goodness, I don’t know this man you’re referring to, but I do believe he’s in need of some wise counsel.” Carrie took a seat. “I daresay he needs a swift kick in the backside as well. Not that I know you either, so you can take or leave my advice.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Carrie Sanders, by the way. Just came back to see about having a dress designed.”
“Oh no!” Dahlia looked dismayed by this news. “Not another new dress! When do you need it?”
“January 8th.” Carrie spoke so softly I had to strain to hear her.
“January 8th?” Dahlia swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Are. You. Serious?”
I had to get this train back on track. “Let’s go back to what we were talking about. I want to understand, Dahlia. Are you saying that my brother loves you enough to want to marry you, but the two of you can’t settle on how you could make it work? Or
are you saying that he broke up with you? Because I’m confused.”
“Oh, wow.” Carrie gazed at me. “The guy who broke her heart is your brother? Awkward.”
“I—I guess I broke up with him.” Her lashes brimmed with moisture. “Because I can’t have fourteen kids. Don’t you see that? I just can’t.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t really want you to have fourteen kids,” Carrie said. “Likely it’s a misunderstanding.”
“He wants me to become a . . .” Dahlia cried in earnest now. “A . . .”
“A . . . what?” Carrie sat on the edge of her seat.
“A Baptist!” She seemed to choke on the word. “I can’t become a Baptist! All of my people are Lutheran! If I have to leave the Lutheran church, my mother will never forgive me. And my Aunt Regene, God rest her soul . . . she will spit on me from the grave. Don’t you see? I can’t do it!”
Eduardo, who had kept silent all of this time, rushed Dahlia’s way with another box of tissues in hand. Hibiscus and Jane came behind him carrying an open box of imported chocolates.
“This’ll make everything better, honey.” Jane thrust the box of chocolates in Dahlia’s direction.
“Eat two. They’re small,” Hibiscus added as she grabbed one and popped it into her mouth.
Carrie’s eyes widened as Dahlia carried on. I started to apologize but she put her hand up. “Are you kidding me? This makes my situation look like small potatoes. If this poor girl can live through fourteen babies, becoming a Baptist, and having her dead relatives spit on her, then surely I can handle two families that quarrel over basketball.”
I wasn’t so sure about that last part but didn’t say so. Then again, I was a little distracted by Dahlia, who now had chocolate all around the edges of her mouth.
“You are a saint, Dahlia,” Carrie said. “Truly.”
Dahlia gazed at her with newfound respect. “Here. Come and have a chocolate.”
Carrie rose and walked over to grab a couple of chocolates. “Thank you. Don’t mind if I do. I tend to agree that chocolate is a cure-all. It makes everything better.”