Page 4 of Falling for You Again

I glanced up. “Almost. Give me a minute.”

“We’re already running late.” He glanced at his watch and approached the workbench. “I thought we agreed on the time tonight. You also said you were cutting back on your hours here.”

“I know, it’s just ...” I sighed, my heart aching over a promise I regretted making as I wiped sweat from my brow. “This piece is special and I want it to be perfect. I’m almost done. Promise.”

His gaze lingered on the chair, his mouth set in a firm line and a slight frown drawing his brows together, conveying his displeasure andfrustration, when a flicker of envy passed over his face. “Do you realize you always put work before everything else?”

I hesitated, my hand clenching the chisel. Paul had once admired my passion for my craft, but lately he’d treated it like competition for my attention. A competition he was losing.

Whether or not he intended to make me feel guilty, his words had that effect on me. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to.” I was going to make us late, but I couldn’t make myself stop working on the chair. It wasn’t that I yearned for the satisfaction of a completed project or was chasing a deadline—I sought my parents’ praise, something I was too ashamed to admit out loud to Paul, or even to myself. Because I sought praise they’d never give. They just didn’t think to do so anymore. That, or they didn’t care.

Paul sat on a nearby stool, his gaze lingering on my hands as I tried to finish my work so we could get out of there. “You know I’d never ask you to give this up, but ...,” he said after a few moments of heavy silence.

Alarmed, my gaze snapped to his. “But what?”

“Nothing,” he muttered, standing. “Let’s go. My parents are waiting.”

“He did ask me,” I said to Uncle Bear as we stood at the entrance of the church where I didn’t want to be. Paul had asked me later that night when he walked me to my apartment door. He’d asked me to give up woodworking. “I can’t do that.”

“And you shouldn’t,” Uncle Bear said. He clasped my hands with palms calloused from years of hard work. “Woodworking is as much a part of you as your left arm.”

I knew he’d understand. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you choose. I’ll support you.”

Whatever I choose . . .

The music inside the church surged, and I glanced in that direction, knowing Paul was waiting for me at the end of the aisle. He had asked me to make a choice, and I’d made the wrong one. I felt that in my soul.I couldn’t give up my craft, and I couldn’t spend my life with a man who expected me to be something less than myself.

I regretted that it had taken me until that moment to realize it. And I anguished over abandoning Paul at the altar. But I couldn’t go through with our wedding.

“I have to get out of here,” I said with mounting panic.

“Where will you go?”

I knew Uncle Bear was worried about me, but I didn’t have an answer for him. “I don’t know. I’ll call you, though.” I just had to go. Go, go, go.

I started vibrating with nervous energy, the instinct to flee nipping at my slingback heels.

He seemed satisfied with my response for the moment, because he slipped his credit card into the beaded clutch that matched my wedding dress, also a loaner from Cheryl. She’d worn the dress for her 1985 marriage to Paul’s dad. “For emergencies,” he said of the card.

Without wasting a second more, without a backward glance at the church, where I’m sure the guests had grown restless, I ran.

Uncle Bear whooped. He chased me down the front steps and hailed a taxi, hauling open the door when one came to an abrupt stop at the curb. I crawled headfirst into the back seat because Cheryl’s dress was massive; everything had been big in the eighties. Uncle Bear scooped up the yards of gossamer as I ordered the driver to take me to the airport.Thiswas an emergency.

“That’s my girl.” Uncle Bear handed me the dress train and shut the door.

I put down the window. “I’ll text when I get to wherever.” My gaze nervously veered to the church behind us.

“I’ll talk to them. Get out of here.” He smacked his palm on the roof.

“I love you!” I shouted as the taxi shot into Boston traffic.

I hadn’t planned to be a runaway bride. I also hadn’t planned to fly to Las Vegas. But I was distraught, and on the taxi ride to the airport, Ibooked the first flight out with available seating. The next thing I knew, I was racing through Logan International in a wedding dress.

I arrived at the gate winded and with only sixty seconds to spare, and I thrust my boarding pass at the attendant. I was flying business class for the first time ever. An expensive ticket, but the last one left.

“You’re one lucky woman, Melissa Hynes. Just in the nick of time.” The attendant scanned my boarding pass, barely glancing at my gown and veil. I gave her a big, relieved smile. I’d saved myself from getting hitched.

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