Page 12 of Save the Date
Restrained organ music floated from the direction of the sanctuary. Cara clenched her fists on her hips and stared at him.
He stared right back, his jaw clenched tightly. He was smooth-shaven now, his dark wavy hair brushed back from a high forehead.
“Looks like a stalemate,” he said, his hazel eyes unblinking. He picked up the cummerbund, buckled it, then slid the buckle to the back.
There was a brief knock at the door. “C’mon, Jack,” Ryan called impatiently. “Don’t make me send Mom in there after you.”
“Gotta go,” Jack said, gesturing toward the door. “There’ll be hell to pay if I screw up this wedding. I’m already on the bride’s shit list for keeping little brother out all night at the bachelor party.”
“Wait. Did you say Ryan’s your brother?”
He looped the bowtie under his collar. Cara felt an irresistible urge to reach up and tie it for him, even though all she really wanted to do was strangle him with it.
“Ryan is two years younger than me. He’s the nice one. I’m the asshole.”
The door opened and an older woman in a floor-length peach-colored gown stuck her head in the door. “Jack! For God’s sake—get a move on! Everybody’s waiting on us.”
Jack plucked his tux jacket off the hanger. “Keep your shirt on, Mom.”
The woman gave Cara an appraising look. “Who’s this?”
“The owner of the dog your son stole from me earlier today,” Cara said. After a moment of hesitation, she held out her hand. “I’m Cara Kryzik.”
The woman’s dark hair was flecked with streaks of gray, and her head barely met her son’s shoulder. Her hazel eyes crinkled in amusement. “So nice to meet you. I’m Frannie Finnerty. But why on earth would Jack steal your dog? He has a dog of his own.”
“Ignore her. She’s just the florist. And she’s crazier than a shit-house rat,” Jack said. He tucked his mother’s arm through his own and steered her nimbly toward the door.
“Wait!” Cara called.
He wheeled around. “Now what?”
She grasped the ends of his bowtie and quickly tied it. The top of her head barely reached his chin, and he smelled like Irish Spring soap. Magically delicious? Or was that Lucky Charms? Make that maddeningly delicious. Then she plucked the last boutonniere from the cardboard box, grabbed the black satin lapel of his jacket, and jabbed at it violently with the long pearl-headed pin.
“Ow!” He jerked away, opened his jacket, and looked with disbelief at the tiny spot of blood blooming on his starched white shirtfront. “You did that on purpose.”
“Serves you right,” Cara said, jabbing again, until the flower was securely fastened to his coat.
***
“Jack!” His mother tugged at his arm. “Come on. Everybody else has been seated. Torie’s bridesmaids are all lined up. We have to go!”
Jack narrowed his eyes and gave the florist his long-practiced stink-eye. It was wasted on her, he knew. She was a head shorter than he, but she stood her ground without flinching. Her hair wasn’t quite blond and wasn’t quite brown, more of an in-between caramel color, he decided. She had large, liquid brown eyes with surprisingly dark lashes that dominated her heart-shaped face. He was pretty sure she was wearing no more makeup than a little pink lipstick, and even that was wasted, since she was scowling up at him, returning his stink-eye measure for measure.
Finally, she took a step backward. “This isn’t over,” she said softly, under her breath.
“That’s what you think,” he said. And then he allowed his mother to drag him out of the vestry and into the wedding melee.
5
Cara didn’t stick around the church to watch Torie Fanning pledge her troth to Ryan Finnerty. She rarely did. Weddings were her business, not her pleasure, she told herself.
Instead, she raced for the van, pausing only to give the sky an anxious look. She and Ellie Lewis, the wedding planner, had done their best to talk Torie out of an outdoor reception. It was already hot in Savannah, and tornado season to boot. Cara had witnessed way too many weather-related wedding disasters, including one memorable reception where a sudden lightning storm had pinned seventy-five black-tie and cocktail-gowned guests huddled together in terror under the Victorian wooden gazebo in Whitfield Square.
But Torie was determined to have her reception at home, on the back lawn at the Shutters, her parents’ gracious old home on the bluff at the Isle of Hope, facing the Skidaway River. And amazingly, it looked as though the weather was going to cooperate. A fresh breeze was blowing in off the river, and the humidity was actually bearable.
Cara pulled the van into the long driveway at the gray-shingled Fanning house, relieved to see Bert’s car already tucked beside the carriage house, in front of the caterer’s trucks. The brilliant blue sky had faded to a pale lavender—one of Torie’s wedding colors, of course. The setting sun sparkled on the pale green water (also one of Torie’s colors) lapping at the long dock opposite the Shutters.
The Fannings’ dockhouse had been torn down and rebuilt just for the wedding, and now green-and-white-striped canvas drapes fluttered from its open corners, and a large wrought-iron chandelier hung from its peaked ceiling. This was where the guests would mingle and sip cocktails to watch the sunset while waiting for the wedding party to arrive from the church.
