Page 99 of Love and Other Trials
“I don’t know what else to do here.” Ariel was tapping a pen against her temple, standing on their front porch with Sherlock pressed against her leg, looking at the map of the resort. “Where else can we look? Dax, we’ve got an hour until the wedding starts. Guests are starting to arrive.”
“Keep calm.” He took the pen away and held her hand while Sherlock nuzzled it. “Let’s brainstorm. We haven’t found the dress. We need a plan if we don’t.”
She lost even more color.“A plan?”A wild laugh escaped her. “It’s a wedding dress! You don’t exactly go out and buy one of those.”
“Why not? I’m not saying it’s going to be the ideal dress?—”
“This is Tiffany we’re talking about!” Ariel’s voice quavered with stress. “Besides, there’s the fitting and pressing and the— Someone is going to have to convince her to wear a different dress. One of her sundresses. Oh God! This is awful. In every wedding nightmare I had, this one never came up.”
She cradled her face in her hands. Dax could understand. Tiffany’s threat had pissed him off. She could lose her grandma’s house here. He’d lost his best friend. He looked off in the direction where his buddies had stashed Rob so he wouldn’t go after him again. They’d had to practically drag him back to his cottage while the bridal party, minus Ariel, had taken Tiffany back to the bridal suite after Terry and Tricia had started asking their sister nonstop questions about her marriage and pregnancy. Ariel’s mother hadn’t said a word but her entire face had tightened as if by screws. Dax didn’t want to be in either cottage.
Jeffrey appeared, running toward them, his loafers slapping on the path. When he reached them, he put a hand on Dax’s arm, breathing heavily. “Tiffany is insistent. There won’t be a wedding if she doesn’t have her dress. It doesn’t matter to her that she’s already married. She will not go through with her perfect day?—”
Ariel slumped against him. Dax usually had a good head on his shoulders in stressful moments, but even he felt knots forming in his stomach. Her worst fear was here, and he felt helpless in the face of her desolation.
“Then it’s all over,” she whispered hoarsely. “I won’t get my grandma’s house. Everything was for nothing. Oh God! How could this happen?”
Dax still didn’t know. A wedding dress did not just disappear. “Do you think Sherlock could find it?”
She rubbed the dog under the ears as she shook her head. “I already thought of that, but Tiffany’s scent is all over the resort. Yours and Jeffrey’s too. It would be like going after a needle in a haystack.”
He’d been afraid of that. “Do we start calling bridal boutiques with her size and asking if we could pick up dresses for the bride to try on, this being an emergency?”
Jeffrey took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I already called the most famous wedding dress boutique downtown. They said they couldn’t just send us all the dresses in Tiffany’s size. Too much liability if something happened to them. I called two other boutiques and got the same answer. No surprise, I guess. We have trouble with a capital T written all over us. The shopkeepers couldn’t believe we’d lost the wedding dress. One said she’s been in the business for over forty years and never heard of such a thing.”
“Great, we’re a first.” Ariel tipped her head back up toward the sky. “I usually have an answer. In every disaster, there’s often something that can be done. Even if it’s small. But not today. We simply have to convince Tiffany to wear something else.”
Jeffrey clutched his now-rumpled cravat. “Ariel, she swore on Grandma Deverell’s grave that she won’t do it.”
“She has to. She just has to.” Ariel uttered a pained moan and started walking down the steps and then onto the path leading in the direction of the bridal cabin. Dax caught up with her after putting Sherlock back in the house—better he be out of the way right now. Jeffrey was on his heels.
“Ariel, you don’t have to go in there,” Jeffrey called out. “You know how it’s going to be.”
“I know! But I can’t give up without trying.”
She sounded so dejected his heart squeezed. “We’ll be a unified front.”
“I’m not sure you should go in there, Dax.” Ariel’s pained face glanced his way. “Let me talk to her.”
He stopped short. “Wait, you don’t think I stole it, do you?”
Her mouth parted. “No, of course not! But Tiffany does, and she will rain hellfire on you.”
Jesus, Ariel was right. What would it be like for him and Ariel going forward after this? Her mother and the Three Tornadoes would probably bar him from every family function. What would that do to her? God, he didn’t want to put her in that position, but he also wasn’t a man to hide from anything. “I told you from the beginning that I’m your wingman. That doesn’t stop now.”
“I agree, Ariel,” Jeffrey declared, locking arms with her. “I’m not going to let Tiffany or anyone else unload on you. This is not your fault. Or Dax’s for that matter, so you don’t need to protect him. This is the Deverell wedding curse. I was with Dax. We left the cottage together. The dress was there, and I have the photo to prove it.”
“When has common sense ever mattered?” She groaned. “I should have put guards on the door. I should have?—”
“Hey there.” Dax couldn’t stand to see her blaming herself. “Let’s not go there. We’re both getting knocked around for something we didn’t do. We need to remember that. So you go in there and hope she can see that marrying Robagainis the most important thing—not the dress.”
Jeffrey let out an anguished shriek. “Not the dress! Dax, please don’t say that out loud.”
Ariel gave a tormented nod of agreement.
Dax patted them both on the back as they reached the bridal cottage. He just didn’t get it. Maybe it was a guy thing. But how could you let something like a dress stop you from doing something really important? Like getting married to the person you loved? It was even crazier given they were already legally married.
Jeffrey opened the door for her after adjusting his rumpled cravat. Lifting her chin, Ariel walked inside in determined strides. Tiffany was surrounded by her sisters, crying in front of a mirror. Stormy was holding a large highball filled to the brim, sitting in a nearby chair.
