Page 94 of Love and Other Trials
He rubbed her arms. “You will. Hold on to a vision of you with your feet up in your home in Folly Beach.”
She all but melted against his tall frame. “With you and Sherlock sitting next to me as we watch the sun set.”
Their eyes met when she lifted her head, and they both smiled. He could already see it, and his heart started thumping in excitement like it did before he took off on the airstrip. “I’m already there.”
She touched his chest tenderly. “Me too. Now…all we have to do is make sure everything goes great.”
“You tell them about the wig thing yet?”
“No, but I’m about to.” She rubbed the spot between her brows. “What’s the worst thing that can happen?”
With her family?
The sky was the limit.
TWENTY-THREE
Her mother had a backup wig.
Of course it was the hideous wig she’d originally picked out, the one Dax had gotten her out of buying. Ariel stared at her mother’s hard face and the Kardashian-like hairpiece in her hand while Tiffany chewed into Marshall about wearing a tie, an argument Tricia and Terry had already gone through with the other boys. Marshall had held out the longest. She was tempted to channel his rebellion.
Firming her shoulders, she faced her mother. “Mother?—”
“I’m not listening to another word, Ariel.” She stepped closer, her eyes hard, her hair spray so strong Ariel’s nose twitched. “I knew this would happen, which is why I went to the store and got the wig I’d originally wanted you to buy. As for the wig going missing, Jeffrey was involved in this, wasn’t he?”
She wasn’t going to throw her brother under the bus. “Mother, I really don’t want?—”
“Ariel!” Her mother’s voice put a pause on Tiffany’s mini battle with Marshall in the corner. “You will not be in this wedding if you don’t wear this wig!”
Someone grabbed her arm and squeezed gently. Turning, she watched as Tiffany confronted their mother, lifting her chin with sheer Deverell determination. “Mother, I changed my mind. Bride’s prerogative. I think Ariel’s hair looks perfect as it is.”
Terry and Tricia gasped in their matching pale pink robes, clutching theirmore champagne than orange juicemimosas, their towering bouffant blond hair sprayed into perfectly shaped birds’ nests, if you asked Ariel. Mother must have gotten Botox sometime before the wedding, because Ariel could tell she was trying to lift her eyebrow in derision. Only her perfectly dyed and waxed eyebrows wouldn’t budge.
Tiffany touched the ends of Ariel’s short hair. “I think it’s pretty. Besides, it suits her. Let’s keep that wig for another time. Like always, you have impeccable taste. I might wear it for the next Deverell event.”
As she said it, Tiffany grabbed the wig from their mother’s hand. A brief tug-of-war ensued before Mother reluctantly let it go, long burgundy nails curving into clawlike shapes before resting beside her peach silk pajamas. “Well, it’s your wedding, darling.”
That voice was code for:I’ll remember this and you will pay at a future date.
Ariel was too relieved and deeply moved by Tiffany’s gesture to care. “Great!” she pronounced. “So let’s let the makeup artist do her thing now that everyone’s hair is done, and I’ll go and check on the setup. The sparkler contractor is arriving shortly, and I want to make sure the koi fountain has been installed.”
At this point she would invent an errand to get out of there.
Tiffany half hugged her, jangly but excited. “It’s all coming together, isn’t it? There were moments when I thought the wedding was going to be canceled. Especially when my dress didn’t fit. But Jeffrey took a picture of it and sent it to me, hanging in the bridal cottage. I can’t wait to get into it. Even with the back looking like a bodice. I’m getting married today. Oh, Marshall! Come and hug your mama.”
His shoulder lifted, his entire body tensing in defiance, and he didn’t move until Terry gave him a gentle cuff to the back of his head. He glared at her before trudging forward, so slow a turtle could have beaten him.
Tiffany rolled her eyes toward everyone after pulling her son toward her, careful not to wrinkle her white silk robe. “Honey, today is going to change everything. We’ve got a whole new life awaiting us.”
“I don’t want to move,” he ground out.
She kissed the top of his forehead and firmly took his shoulders. “I know it’s going to be hard to leave Pensacola. I’m leaving my friends too, but San Diego is going to be great. You’ll see.”
His mouth remained mutinous as she kissed him again. Finally pulling away, he stormed out of the resort’s bridal suite and slammed the door.
Tiffany leaned closer to Ariel and whispered, “What I wouldn’t give for a drink.”
She caught herself before she looked at her sister’s flat stomach. She realized she didn’t even know how far along her sister was. Well, there’d be time for all of that after Tiffany made her announcement.
