Always The Wedding Planner, Never The Bride Part 35

"You mean, losing your wedding dress?"

"Twice," she pointed out.

"But you said you love my mother's dress even more."

"And how you went all deer-in-headlights about buying the house."

"I told you, that was momentary."

"Still. And Maya wanting you back."

"But . . . I don't want her back."

"Not even to mention me being allergic to you!"

"To Henry. Well, his shampoo."

"But I thought it was you."

Andy sighed, and he couldn't help the smile that made his cheeks ache.

"Did you mean to hurt him?"

She looked up at him and frowned. "No. But-"

"You probably could have handled it differently, but you didn't mean for things to go the way they did."

"No. I didn't."

He watched her search for another objection, some fragment of a reason why she deserved the wrath of a vengeful G.o.d to tumble down upon her horrible little head. But she couldn't seem to find one. Or if she found one, she didn't share it.

"I tried to be the woman Cristian needed me to be," she finally admitted. "Right up until the morning of our wedding. But I just couldn't do it. Then when I heard what he'd done . . . what I'd driven him to do . . ."

"No, Sherilyn," he whispered, and he pulled her toward him. She buried her head into the curve of his neck as he told her, "That's not how it works."

"I was in the car with Emma on the way to the church, and I just turned to her and said, 'Please. Keep on driving. I can't do it.'"

Andy thought it over, picturing that morning in his mind's eye. Imagining himself in Cris's position, he felt like something heavy had fallen on him.

"Are you doing that with me?" he asked her.

"Doing what?"

"Working hard to try and be someone you think I want."

She looked up and sighed. "I guess that's what's scared me the most. With you, I haven't had to work at all. We just are who we are. From the very beginning, we're just . . . effortless."

"Why does that scare you?"

"I think about what Cristian went through, and I know I don't deserve to be this happy. So I keep waiting for the thing to happen that will take it all away."

"Or maybe, in seeing what you went through, G.o.d has decided to show you instead what love can truly be like when it's right."

He could see that she'd never even considered that possibility before. As the gears turned the idea around inside her mind, tiny furrows formed at the top of her nose between her arched eyebrows.

"I'll need to call Cristian," she said, and Andy's heart lurched slightly.

"Why?"

"It's been far too long. I need to tell him how sorry I am."

Sherilyn awoke with a pillow tufted awkwardly under her neck, and Andy's Blackhawks comforter pulled over her so that she felt a little like a burrito. She blinked several times before the clock came into focus.

5:42.

The bedroom door stood open just a couple of inches, no sign of light on the other side of it. She dropped her legs over the side of the bed and dangled them for a moment before hopping to her feet and straightening yesterday's clothes. She picked up her shoes and carried them with her down the stairs. The wood creaked beneath her bare feet as she padded down the hall into the family room.

Sprawled across the length of the sofa and draped with a Blackhawks throw, Andy breathed deeply in more of a hum than a snore. Sherilyn crossed to the kitchen, and her first step past the counter brought with it a deep stab in the ball of her foot. She tried not to scream, but her attempt to drown it only succeeded in stretching it out.

"What? What's wrong?"

Andy sat on the edge of the couch, one of the cushions on the floor next to him, and the fleece throw wrapped around his foot.

"I'm sorry," she said, hopping to the tall stool on the other side of the counter. "I stepped on gla.s.s."

"Emma must have missed some of it," he remarked, shaking the sleep from his head as he marched toward her. "Let me see."

He flipped on the lights and sat down on the stool next to her, lifting her foot to his leg.

"Youch."

"Hold still, I've got it."

He pulled the splinter of gla.s.s straight out and set it on the counter before reaching over the width of it and rattling several paper towels from the roll next to the kitchen sink. Folding them up into square after square, Andy finally pressed the wad to the bottom of her bleeding foot.

"Thank you."

"Any time."

His tussled, disheveled hair flopped into his eyes, and Sherilyn thought that Andy looked more handsome at that moment than he had in all the time she'd known him. She ran a finger along his hand before squeezing it until he looked up at her.

"I love you," she said. "You know that, right?"

"I do know that."

She waited. It seemed like an hour.

"And you still love me, right?"

"Right. I love you."

Something poked at the hollow of her chest, just above the ribcage.

"But?"

"But," he repeated. "I want you to get things sorted out before we take one more step toward a wedding."

The tiny poke morphed into a stabbing pain.

"Andy. What does that mean?"

"I want to marry you," he said, taking her by the hand. "More than I can even tell you."

"Try."

"But you have issues over what you went through with Cris, and I think you need to work those out. Not only with him, but within yourself."

"Issues," she repeated. "That's what you said you had about Maya."

"I just want you to play this out, Sherilyn. Make sure you're heading down a road you really want to travel."

"Andy-"

"This has nothing to do with my love for you," he tried to rea.s.sure her, without success. "This is all about you. Remember how Emma said you'd changed since she'd known you before?"

She nodded. She did remember, bitterly. "So, what? You want me to play soccer? Go to a Bob Seger concert?"

"I want you to find that girl again, and make sure she's interested in marrying a guy like me. If she is . . . tell her I'm right here waiting for her."

"What does that mean? Are you broken up then?"

"I don't know."

"What else did he say?"

"Nothing else. He just told me to go find that rocker chick you told him about."

Emma just stood there with the rolling pin poised in her hand, in mid-air.

"Why did you tell him that, Em? Now he thinks he doesn't even know me, when the truth is hardly anyone knows me as well as Andy does."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to . . . I'm sorry, Sher."

Sherilyn eyed the dough halfway rolled out on the table.

"What are you making?"

"Petta."

"What's petta?"

"I'm not entirely sure yet. I think it's a kind of cookie. Georgiann is giving a luncheon to honor a member of her women's guild. Mildred Something-avich. And they want an entirely Serbian menu. Norma's had Pearl and me researching all of this woman's favorite dishes for a week."

Sherilyn pinched a piece of dough from the edge and popped it into her mouth.

"Sher! Don't eat raw dough like that!"

"Mm. It's tasty."

"Wait until you see what's in the filling. Walnuts and sugar and cocoa, all the greats."

"Okay, you are under penalty of torture if you don't save me some of the finished product. I want me some panda."

"Petta."

"Whatever. I want some."

"Georgiann is coming in this afternoon for a sampling. You can join us."

Sherilyn headed for the door, pausing for a moment before pushing it open. "Time?"

"Four o'clock."

"Location?"

"Right here."

"I'll see you at 3:55."

"And afterward," Emma said, "you can come along with me to Zumba."

"Where's that?"

"Not where. What! It's an exercise cla.s.s."

"You're joking."

"It's either that or kick boxing."

"Or neither," Sherilyn stated.

"Do you want to come to the sampling or not?"

"Em."

"Then you're going to go sweat it off with me afterward."

Sherilyn let the door swing behind her as she left.