Page 3 of Finding the One (River Rain #7)

For Now

Blake

D oesn’t this just cut it , I thought, sniveling and doing my all not to break down in tears.

I’d forgotten to tuck Kleenex in my bodice.

How could I forget to tuck tissues in my bodice in preparation for this very occasion?

Me blubbering like an idiot and ruining my makeup would just put the icing on the putrid cake that had been my sister’s wedding day so far.

It started out okay.

I woke refreshed and ready to roll. I had time to do my under-eye treatment, so my morning puffiness was gone.

Topping that with my turmeric, ginger, mango, peach smoothie to assist with any other water retention I may face that day.

Some stretches to get limber and a nice long hot shower with a deep condition of my hair.

Then nine thirty rolled around, time for the bridesmaids and women friends of the bride’s meeting, and Katie and Gal showed up an hour late.

This was Dair’s fault.

Katie, Gal, their men, Judge, Chloe, Josh, Hailey (Josh’s wife), Sasha, Matt, Sully, Gage, Dru, Dair and Davina had gone on a pub crawl after the rehearsal dinner. They stayed out late…and got totally smashed.

Well, Chloe and Judge had the good sense not to do that. They’d gone home early, not inebriated, and had a good night’s sleep. However, this might have something to do with the fact they were parents, and as such, had a child and needed to get him from the babysitter.

But Gal, Katie and Hailey were crazy hungover.

This necessitated Mika, Nora, Genny, Mags (Rix’s mom) and Elsa (a friend of the family, she was Alex and my age, but she wasn’t in the wedding party) running around making drinks with IV hydration, and passing around aspirin, Tylenol and ibuprofen like they were Tic Tacs.

Yes, you guessed it. Although Mum was invited to this meeting, she didn’t show as one of her many acts of passive aggressiveness sharing she was not at one with this casual, outdoor mountain wedding she had insisted, repeatedly, should be held at our country estate in England (when Rix hadn’t even been to that estate in England).

And when that was not going to happen, she’d pushed for New York (Alex may have grown up in New York, but even when she lived there, she was about as New York as Dolly Parton).

And Gal let slip the pub crawl was Dair’s idea.

Because…

Of course it was.

We got the meeting done in record time so they could keep on top of things just in case I wasn’t around to look after them (though, I’d be around, but it didn’t hurt to have backup).

This segued into the team of makeup artists being thirty minutes late.

Not a disaster, but not optimal.

Which segued into the florist showing with the wrong grass in the arrangements.

At this point, seeing as I was a bit harried, I had to try really hard not to slide backward into the old me, and say sarcastically that we were not launching a revival of Oklahoma!

, but instead having a fucking wedding. And therefore, the grass that looked like wheat which was not in the arrangements we’d agreed (and I had pictures), not to mention, it was atrociously ugly, had to be pulled.

And they had better source the fluffy, feathery grass we’d agreed that Alex just loved and do it toute de suite .

I managed not to be sarcastic, instead only firm, but I managed it by the skin of my teeth.

They did this, though the new arrangements arrived only fifteen minutes before the guests started to show.

This necessitated me running around in my bridesmaid’s gown with my hair all done up and my makeup just perfect, but my feet in flip-flops (the horror!) to help with the setup.

All while stupid, stupid Dair, who’d been invited to hang with the men pre-wedding (because…

of course he had), stood at a split rail fence in his ridiculously well-tailored suit with the collar of his shirt open, exposing the corded column of his throat.

He had one foot up on the bottom rail, both forearms on the top, and all he was missing was the piece of grass in his teeth and the cowboy hat on his head.

And he watched me rush around in flip-flops!

Disaster.

(Even if the flip-flops were Valentino…still!)

He’d done this smiling like a lunatic.

Catastrophe.

He finally approached and said, “Get your arse to Alex. I’ll help them finish this shite.”

I was too freaked out to argue, not about him helping, not about him calling the carefully crafted arrangements “shite.”

Because another part of this debacle of a day was that I had not heard from the cake lady. She was the only person who didn’t answer my confirmation call that morning.

And the cake had not arrived.

But in the now, I needed these fucking arrangements arranged and to make sure my sister was okay, the bridesmaids were all good, and I needed five minutes to fan myself so I wasn’t red in the face and sweaty during the ceremony (or worse, the pictures).

So I ran to get my binder, opened it to the flower arrangement section, shoved it in his hands and ordered, “Follow that…to the letter.”

He stared in open shock at the intricate diagrams I’d made on some software I found, then looked at me, still in open shock.

At this point, I was way too harried to process how he could still be so damned handsome with that expression on his face.

Instead, I jabbed my finger two inches from that handsome face and warned, “To…the…letter, Alasdair. I’ll be checking.”

With that, even if one side of his lips quirked up in an attractive half-smile when I called him Alasdair, I dashed back to the bridal preparation area.

It was only while we were lining up to do the procession when Nora approached to whisper the cake had finally arrived, something I was happy about, but it made me fidgety because I didn’t have time to go see if it was all in order.

Not to mention, Dair still had my binder, and I couldn’t check it off.

The processional processed (and yes, the arrangements were arranged correctly, thank God), and now here I was, standing in a dress unlike any of the other dresses any of the girls were wearing (Alex insisted that everyone wear what they wanted, it didn’t even have to be a bridesmaid dress or formal at all, so we were a mishmash of dresses in shades and prints of green from elegant (Chloe) to boho (Gal) to flirty (Katie) to classy (Hailey) to sophisticated (me)).

And I was holding a bouquet of fluffy grass.

I was also listening to Alex and Rix sharing their heartfelt, handwritten vows, and I was going to lose it.

Good Lord, who knew Rix could be so sentimental? He was a GUY! most of the time, in all caps with the exclamation point.

I loved that he loved my sister so much, but he was doing me in!

I took a breath through my nose, and hoping it’d help me get my emotion under control, I let my gaze wander to the congregation.

Which meant it took in Mum, sitting stiffly beside Dad, wearing a massive hat and appearing like she took a way wrong turn on her way to Westminster Abbey.

The guests might be sitting on wooden folded chairs on flagstone among a bevy of beautifully arranged grass, but everyone had dressed nice.

Even so, Mum still found a way to be OTT.

And that was so Mum.

I succeeded in not scoffing out loud, and continued to scan the crowd, whereupon my gaze locked on Dair, who was staring at me.

The instant it did, he put his long, attractive forefinger under his chin and pushed it up.

God.

The man had noticed I was fighting tears and was encouraging me to keep my chin up.

Who was he to encourage me to keep my chin up?

No one!

Just a childhood “friend” who was half bully, the other half plain annoying.

I glared at him.

His wide, sexy grin made an appearance.

I glared harder at him.

I couldn’t hear it, but with the way his broad shoulders were moving, I could tell he was chuckling.

Gah!

I refocused on Rix who thankfully stopped waxing on about how perfect Alex was for him.

And how he would never have fully healed from what had happened to him if it wasn’t for her (he’d lost both legs below the knees while fighting a wildfire when he was a firefighter—that part had made Mags sob audibly, and Mags wasn’t a sobber, so that in itself shared my struggle).

And how he couldn’t wait to continue making his life with her and adding making babies.

Through all of this, not one tear dropped from my eye.

Success!

Sadly, the wet came right back after the pastor announced they were husband and wife, and the sheer bliss on Rix’s face hit me right in the solar plexus. He then laid the raciest kiss on my sister that I’d ever seen at a wedding or anywhere .

This made people hoot, holler and catcall, and I was fighting tears and rolling my eyes at the same time.

But this meant the ceremony was done.

Which meant I had more check marks to put in my binder.

I waited patiently as my sister and her new husband practically floated up the aisle. Gal and Katie, her co-maids of honor, went next, and I hooked arms with Kevin, a friend and co-worker of Rix’s, and we walked down the aisle together.

I smiled at Kevin when we were clear then peeled off and went down the side of the wooden chairs to get to Dair’s row.

They were waiting for their row to come up so they could file out.

Davina noticed me. I pointed at her brother. She then yanked on Dair’s jacket sleeve, and he turned my way.

I did a circling wave to get him to come to me.

He got up and scooched in front of everyone else in the row to get to me.

“Ye did good, Blake.”

Whatever.

“Where’s my binder?” I asked.

“Sorry?”

“My binder,” I repeated. “The one I gave to you to arrange the flowers.”

“Dinnae see a single flower in this place.”

“The grass then,” I amended.

“Who knew grass could be so pretty,” he murmured, glancing at one of the arrangements that sat at the end of the row.

I slapped a hand on his chest to get his attention, his head tipped right down to stare at it, then it came back up so he could look at me when I demanded, “The binder, Dair.”

“I chucked it.”