Page 4 of Rebel Bride
I could go on and on, but then I might sound like Mrs. C.
I longed to shout at her that this was what she was getting. A daughter-in-law from the backwoods of Mississippi, who up until a few years ago had only seen centerpieces in waiting room magazines. If the woman had the slightest inkling such dubious blood was about to contaminate her family tree, she would choke on her Van Cleef double string of pearls.
The Carters had certain expectations about the woman their son would marry. She should be elegant, pleasant, attractive, but most of all, malleable. She should be good at fitting in and not too flirty with his teammates. She should be the perfect wife to a hockey superstar. Not that Dash has reached superstar status with the Chicago Rebels. He was good, with the potential to be great, but I always suspected his non-hockey wealth gave him an excuse not to work as hard as everyone else.
Dash Carter’s wife should not be a shack-dwelling swamp child who had lied her way into every good thing she had.
“Summer, you can’t show that on your wedding day!”
Mrs. Carter’s hand hovered over my bare shoulder, not touching, yet I still felt her disdain dripping on me like the creature’s acid saliva in the Alien movies. Though she’d never said so aloud, she didn’t like my name, which sounded like a snake’s hiss on her lips. As if, in trying to speak it, she sensed the truth about me.
Such a liar, Summer. Ain’t no one gonna take you for a society princess.
Oh, shut it, Shelby Mae.
My inner voice had become noisier the closer we got to the big day.
In the mirror Mrs. Carter spoke to my reflection, locking her steely gaze with my decidedly less steely one.
“A butterfly?”
A souvenir of my rebellion from Rusty’s Tattoo Parlor in Biloxi, inked when I was fifteen, the first time I’d run away. I thought I’d escaped for good, that I wouldn’t have to marry Jem Boudreaux. The butterfly was my reward, the symbol of my rebirth.
They found me but I still had the tattoo.
“Her dress will cover it.” Rosie Burnett-Moretti was one of my bridesmaids, though not my maid of honor because Dash’s mother had insisted that exalted position be taken by Dinah, Dash’s sister. Along with Adeline Kershaw, Rosie was the only person I knew in the wedding party. The rest, all cousins of Dash that I had met a couple of days ago for the first time, were chosen by Mrs. Carter.
The old battleaxe sent a disparaging look Rosie’s way, evidently concluding that my bridesmaid’s full sleeve of colorful ink disqualified her from commenting on the appropriateness of my tiny shoulder tattoo. I didn’t think it was the end of the world if it peeked through the gossamer silk bodice, but then I had never been part of a high-society wedding before.
Right now, I wore only the undergarment bustier, panties, and a well-placed towel across my lap. My collarbones poked from my skin like antlers through a tarp. I hated how I looked. Thin, gaunt. Panicked. One of the bridesmaids, Dash’s cousin Genevieve—or maybe Geneva—had spilt champagne on the dress, so I had removed it to clean it up. Now it hung a few feet away, almost daring me to daub it with lipstick. Ruin it before it ruined me.
Mrs. Carter tutted. “I’ll go see if that make-up girl has concealer.”
My unsuspecting cosmetic artist would be seated in the church along with the rest of the four hundred guests. I had wanted something small, but Dash let his mother control the invite list, a concession I made so we could marry in Chicago. (This should be happening at Stately Wayne Manor! Joke. The Carters called their ten-bedroom mansion on Cape Cod The Arbor, which made it sound like a retirement home.)
“If we’re not doing it on the Cape, at least let her have this, babe,” he had reasoned.
So I did. Because I was pliant and malleable, the good girl who did as she was told after years of scratching my way through the dirt.
Things would be better once we were married.
This had been my mantra since we got engaged over a year ago. I’d dated Dash for almost four years prior to the proposal, and up until he asked me to marry him, I had considered our relationship fun and rather unserious. We didn’t live together, hadn’t even stashed extra toothbrushes or claimed a dresser drawer. Dating a hockey player for that long might look like a monumental commitment, but not for me. Only when I started taking an interest in my career did Dash start taking an interest in me.
Babe, it’s time we got down to brass tacks. Marriage, the whole nine yards. You’re twenty-five and my mother thinks we should be three years in with a couple of kids by now.
Not the most romantic of viewpoints, but Dash tended to see things in black and white. I still held out hope that he wanted this independently of whatever his family believed. That he wanted us.
At least I had until this morning when I’d come across a printout of his vows. I couldn’t resist a peek. Positively lovely, they made my heart go boom and assured me that maybe this could work after all.
Then I re-read them and realized he had left the AI prompt in. Write my wedding vows with some love shit.
Love shit, indeed.
With Mrs. Carter gone, I lay my forehead on my arms and took a breather on the vanity. Peeking up, I caught Rosie’s concerned gaze in the mirror. “I know, I know.”
“Didn’t say a word.” She placed her warm hands on my shoulders. “Now what can I get you? Tequila? Nunchucks? An Uber ride?”
All of the above …
