A February Bride Read online

  Right. That was like saying the Sears Tower was sort of tall. Just as surely as he knew better than to nab a cupcake at the party before his mom gave official permission, he knew not to underestimate Allie’s hold on him.

  He watched her in the corner with Hannah, whispering furtively before reluctantly taking a seat in a straight-back chair across the room. She couldn’t get farther away from him if she tried.

  And after the lame flirting he’d attempted during her tire change the other night, he couldn’t really blame her. He’d probably given the exact opposite impression he’d been trying to, though on second thought, he wasn’t sure what that even was. The impression that he still cared? That he wanted to be friends?

  That he wanted her back?

  Loaded questions, and zero answers to be found.

  Maybe he should go to Texas for a while.

  He half listened as his sister and his mom explained the rules to some silly shower game involving heart-shaped game pieces and score sheets, and kept one eye on Allie as she scribbled on her sheet of paper. Man, he wished he could know what was going on under those bobbing antennae.

  Which were ridiculous, but it seemed to make Hannah happy to have everyone in goofy mode. Zach, too, apparently, by the way he grinned as Hannah perched on his knee and tried to cheat off his paper. Maybe silly themes and corny games were the way to go—his wedding showers with Allie hadn’t been nearly this fun or held nearly the same amount of laughter and whispers. Even his parents were getting in on the fun tonight. He looked up to see his mom turned to use his dad’s back as a writing board.

  He swallowed and looked away, absently shading in the numbers on his score sheet with a pencil. He’d never admitted this to anyone except Hannah, but he’d always dreamed of having what their parents had. Love that lasted. Love that, like the Bible instructed, never failed. Believed. Endured. His parents’ lives hadn’t been perfect, but they were blessed in many ways. They’d made it so far and were still going strong. He’d envisioned himself and Allie the same way.

  Until she stopped their golden anniversary path dead in its tracks before it could even get started.

  He eyed his parents as they collected the scorecards, then his sister as she squeezed Zach out of the chair and onto the floor, taking over the recliner. Maybe if his and Allie’s prewedding season had been more lighthearted, Allie wouldn’t have bolted.

  If that had even been the problem. She refused to tell him what it’d been, and four months later, he figured asking wasn’t going to reveal anything new. She clearly had reasons for not explaining herself, except maybe for the one scenario that he almost couldn’t bear to imagine—that she just plain didn’t love him and had realized it in time.

  He glanced up at Allie’s smiling face as his parents awarded the door prize to the winner, wanting to smile himself at the way her antennae bobbed so freely on her head. And where in the world had she found that sweater? He wouldn’t use that thing to buff a car. Yet even in that ridiculous pattern, she shone. That was Allie.

  There wasn’t a cruel bone in her body, and dumping him at the altar because she just didn’t want to get married anymore wasn’t Allie. No one changed that completely, that fast. No, there had to be a better explanation for what she had done.

  The question was, would she ever trust him enough to tell him the truth?

  “All right, everyone, we’re pairing up into teams of four for the next game.” Mom clapped her hands to gather the room’s attention. “I’ll number everyone. Ones, gather by the recliner. Twos, you’re over by the far end of the couch . . .”

  Marcus accepted his number and ambled over to his meeting spot.

  Near Allie’s straight-back chair.

  “Hi.” She offered a grin as wobbly as her headgear, and he wished for the tenth time he hadn’t allowed Hannah to put that sticker on his shirt. Though he really shouldn’t be concerned how silly he looked, considering the entire room looked like a Valentine’s Day crime scene.

  “Hey.” He drank her in before remembering to acknowledge the other two people in their group—a red-haired girl he’d seen with Hannah but whose name he couldn’t remember, and one of Zach’s groomsmen, Tyler.

  “Here you go. You have ten minutes.” His mom suddenly shoved a giant roll of toilet paper into his hands. “Pick a bride, and make a wedding dress out of the TP.”

  “Make a what?” He sounded like the expression on Tyler’s face looked. The girls, however, appeared as if they received such instructions every day. “Did she just say wedding dress?”

  Not a trigger for a bad stroll down memory lane there or anything.

  “You should definitely be the bride,” Allie adamantly instructed Redhead, who bobbed her head in agreement. Though who wouldn’t be afraid to argue with the no–nonsense tone in Allie’s voice? Was that sweat forming on her brow? Marcus shook his head. Clearly, the very thought of being in a wedding dress, even of the TP variety, sent her into a mild panic.

  Allie talked about the dress her mom wore in her wedding, back when they were planning their own. Something about her entire family wearing it and passing it down through the generations. Wasn’t that a good thing, though?

  Sure beat constructing one out of toilet paper.

  But she’d said the dress was cursed. At the time he hadn’t thought much of it. He’d been more focused on finishing up Allie’s wedding present—restoring her 1973 Mustang Mach 1. The same car she’d dragged by the hair into his garage that summer—the day he finally realized he didn’t want his sister’s best friend to be her friend anymore.

  He wanted her all to himself.

  But what if something about that “curse” had actually meant more to Allie than she’d let on? What if her joking around about the tainted outcomes of the other marriages in her family hadn’t been a joke after all?

  Judging by the look in her eyes at the moment, her current thoughts weren’t very pleasant.

  The dress mattered. He could sense it. Maybe Hannah could find out . . .

  No, he couldn’t let her get in the middle. She and Allie were just finding their footing again. He wouldn’t risk their friendship to satisfy his own curiosity.

  What would it matter anyway? Knowing wouldn’t change the past. Knowing might even make things worse.

  “What do I do with this?” The groomsman in their group looked terrified as he glanced back and forth from the thick white roll in his hands to Redhead, who stood stock-still with her arms stretched out as if waiting to be wrapped.

  Marcus’s mom strolled the perimeter of the room, grinning and tapping her watch. “Seven minutes.”

  Well, Marcus might not be a dress designer or even a talented seamstress like his mom, but he was an athlete, and that meant one thing—he knew a little something about competition.

  “Give me that.” He snatched the toilet paper and began to unroll it several feet at a time. “Here.” He tore some off and handed it to Allie. “You’re in charge of the sleeves.”

  She hesitated, then lifted her chin slightly and began to fashion long sleeves for their mutual bride, tucking and folding the edges to make the paper lay flat.

  And leaving him to wish he’d been able to see Allie in her own wedding dress that day before she’d left.

  I can’t believe you didn’t tell me it was a coed shower.” Allie tied another pink bow around a white mesh favor bag, snipped the ends with scissors, and set it down on her kitchen table. One down, two hundred to go.

  She really wasn’t in the mood for precision work, especially since she’d just gotten off the phone with her aunt and heard yet another lecture about the dress in her closet and the fact that she wasn’t getting any younger and it was “time for her first marriage.” She yanked the ribbon a little tighter than necessary.

  Hannah filled another bag with pink foil-covered chocolates. “I didn’t realize you were assuming otherwise. Just because your and Marcus’s wedding showers weren’t done that way doesn’t mean—”


  “I know, I know. It’s my own fault.” Allie set the next bag down and ripped open a piece of chocolate instead. “It was just a little embarrassing.”

  “Why?” Hannah frowned.

  Allie popped the candy into her mouth and mumbled around it. “Maybe because I looked like some kind of Valentine-obsessed Martian the whole night?” Her blood pressure shot up just remembering how awkward it had been seeing Marcus’s gaze flit across her sweater and headpiece. Not exactly the impression she’d hoped to leave—though why she was still worried about it, she had no idea.

  “You looked cute. I know Marcus thought so.” Hannah’s eyes widened, and she suddenly focused a little too hard on the ribbon in her hand.

  Allie nudged her leg under the table. “What do you mean?” Oh, she hated the hope in her voice, hated that telltale lilt. Had he said something to Hannah about her?

  Hannah set the bag aside and reached for another. “He’s my brother, Allie. I can tell by the way he looked at you all night.”

  That wasn’t necessarily a serious indication. More like a fascination with how ridiculous one could look at a theme party.

  “If you don’t believe me, bring me your camera.” Hannah stood up, palm stretched out like she expected Allie to pull the thing from her back pocket. “I’ll show you.”

  “It’s in my room. But I don’t see how that’s going to prove anything.” Allie led the way down the hall and handed her the small camera.

  Hannah perched on the edge of the bed and clicked her way through the most recent pictures. “See? Right there. No, wait, not there. Mom’s hair got in the way.” She clicked another one. “There!” She turned the camera around with a triumphant grin.

  Allie took it from her and slowly sank to the bed as she drank in the image. It was a candid group shot Hannah had sneaked of the dress-making competition. In it, Allie knelt in front of their makeshift bride, adjusting the hem of the toilet-paper gown, while Tyler stood back with arms crossed and a nervous furrow in his brow. Marcus hovered next to Allie, holding out a fresh roll of paper, his eyes focused on Allie’s face as she looked up at the bride. But the expression on his face as he gazed down at her radiated light.

  “Now are you going to argue?” Hannah hopped off the bed and began pawing through Allie’s closet. The wedding dress on the back of the door swung slightly from its hook. “And can I borrow your red cardigan?”

  “Yes.” Allie turned off the camera and stared at the tiny blank screen, trying to figure out why her heart rate couldn’t slow down and if Hannah might actually be right.

  And if it changed anything if she was.

  “Yes to the arguing? Or the sweater?” Hannah’s hand hovered near the cardigan.

  “Both.” Allie stood and tossed her camera on the bed, decision made. “Marcus was probably just excited about winning. You know how he gets about competition.”

  “Allie. It was toilet paper. No one beams over toilet paper.” Hannah pulled the cardigan off the hanger and draped it over her arm. She bumped into the dress on her way out of the closet and looked it up and down, nibbling her lower lip. A rush of emotion flickered through her eyes. “Oh wow. What happened here?” She ran her fingers over the rip in the shoulder. “Are you going to fix that tear?”

  The Tear. As in, capital T. Hadn’t that been what sent A February Bride yet another dart of doubt spiraling into place in the bridal room last September? Still, looking at it there—if she had to look at the dress at all—sort of kept her grounded. Like she’d done the right thing. Like that tear could only symbolize their future if she’d marched down the aisle as expected.

  Allie drew a shuddered breath. “It ripped on our wedding day.”

  Hannah slowly drew her hand back. “Wow.” She glanced at Allie, then at the dress, as if she couldn’t look away. “Let me take it to my mom. She can fix it.”

  She reached for the hanger, and Allie barreled into her arm. “No. Wait.”

  Hannah froze, eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Why not? Isn’t your family crazy about this dress? I bet your mom freaked out over the tear.”

  Actually, Mom didn’t know. Allie had made sure she and Aunt Shelly and Grandma hadn’t seen it in the aftermath of the nonwedding. And after they insisted she keep the thing anyway, it hadn’t been hard to hold back the secret. It wasn’t like they ever came into her closet.

  Because if they knew, they’d march straight to the nearest tailor and sew it up tighter than that noose she’d almost slipped around Marcus’s neck.

  It needed to stay torn.

  “I can’t. I mean, she can’t.” No, especially not Julie—Mrs. Hall. How could she ask her to sew up the dress that had betrayed her son?

  “Can’t what?” Hannah folded her arms around the cardigan, hip cocked slightly to the side. “Allie, you’re losing it.”

  “Your mom, I meant. Your mom can’t fix my dress.” Allie reached inside the closet and began to pull Hannah out. “Don’t you see how awkward that would be?”

  Hannah made a half-snort, half-hissing sound through her lips as she shook free of Allie’s grip. “Not at all. She’d be happy to. Being a seamstress is her career, you know.” She reached up and pulled the dress free of the door.

  Allie grabbed for the gown, letting go of the ripped sleeve just in time to prevent further tearing. She gripped the skirt instead. “Hannah. It’d be rude, like throwing it in her face. Your mom was devastated after I left.”

  Hannah rolled in her lip, averting her eyes. “We all were, Allie.”

  Silence hung in the room, thick and heavy like the fabric between them. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you ever going to tell me what happened?”

  Allie loosened her grip slightly. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”

  “So you left him at the altar.” Hannah’s tone filled in any blanks her words left.

  “I did what I had to do. Trust me, he’s better off.” Better off than the men who had gotten tangled up with her mom and her aunt over the years, and been carnage in their wake.

  “Better off than marrying the love of his life?” Hannah tugged the dress closer to her. “Listen, I don’t know the whole story, and you don’t have to tell me. I’m your friend no matter what. But let me do this. Let my mom fix this tear. I think it’ll provide closure, actually.”

  Closure for who? Mrs. Hall or Allie? If the former, Hannah had a decent point. If the latter, well, fat chance.

  Regardless, she had to let go of the dress.

  Allie stepped back and reluctantly let the material slip through her fingers.

  Hannah pulled the gown closer to her and draped it carefully over her arm on top of the cardigan. “It’ll be in good hands. I promise.”

  That might be the problem.

  His little sister might drive him crazy, but unfortunately, she was right. Sometimes. Like about the garage.

  Marcus tossed the handheld remote between his hands, wondering if he could actually go through with pushing the button. Allie’s Mustang, the one he’d bought back for her and restored for her wedding present, still sat inside.

  It’d taken four months to realize that ignoring something didn’t make it vanish, especially something that weighed roughly four thousand pounds, but the time had come.

  He had to deal with the past.

  He quickly pushed the small red button, and the door to the detached garage began to creak open. Shadows and sunlight mingled, illuminating the timid dance of dust particles.

  The Mustang waited under a thin black car cover, exactly the way he’d left it. He’d planned for a groomsman to drive it to the church after the ceremony so it would stay a surprise to Allie until the very last minute.

  It never even had a chance.

  Marcus tossed the garage opener onto the dilapidated bench inside, then gripped one edge of the cover. His dad had come and covered the car a week after the wedding, at Marcus’s request. Dad had asked about it just once since, and after Marcus’s emotional response, he’d wisely neve
r mentioned it again.

  Hesitantly, Marcus began to pull. More dust flew as he maneuvered around the car, peeling back the cloth bit by bit until the entire car was revealed.

  It still looked amazing. Some of his best work. He’d replaced the wheels, completely redone the interior, enhanced the suspension, installed a sound system, and added a custom paint job, turning the entire car from a faded green to a shiny black.

  Allie had always been one of his biggest champions in the garage. Ever since their first conversation years ago about the beauty and power in restoration, she’d been hooked, always eager to see what he’d transformed next with a few tools and a lot of elbow grease.

  But he couldn’t transform everything.

  Over the past several days she’d crept back into his thoughts, despite his heavily guarded walls that proved to be no thicker than the car cover. After helping to create that ridiculous wedding dress at the party, he’d wondered if maybe he could learn to be around Allie and still breathe. Look at her without a knot in his stomach. Even enjoy being around her again, as a friend.

  He missed her.

  But watching her laugh with those crazy antennas on her head, seeing her break into a sudden smile without being able to find out why, watching her shine without being able to embrace that light . . . torture. Like being handed the keys to a brand-new ’Vette and then being told he could just sit in it in the showroom. He wanted it all with her, wanted to keep the vows he’d memorized and still felt running through his heart every time he caught her eye.

  It was all or nothing, and Allie had chosen nothing.

  The car had to go.

  He couldn’t keep stale reminders of the past in his garage forever. Couldn’t keep stale memories of Allie in his heart forever, either.

  Marcus studied the Mustang, ignoring the ache in his chest, and tried to evaluate how much he could sell it for. He wasn’t after profit, but maybe he could break even.