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Annie didn’t seem to mind. She pulled her veil forward and showed Bella the silver thread that had been sewn along the edge.
“Did your friend make your veil, too?” Bella asked.
Annie nodded. “She’s very clever. Would you like to try and catch my bouquet?”
Bella looked at him. Her eyes were glowing with excitement. He opened his mouth to tell her he couldn’t let her out of his sight. He knew she’d be disappointed, but he’d nearly lost her once and he didn’t want to lose her again.
“I could hold her hand.” Rachel caught his gaze and held it. “She’ll be safe with me.”
John glanced at Bella, then back at Rachel.
“Please, dad. I’ll be really careful. I’ll stay with Ms. McReedy and I won’t move from beside her.”
Rachel didn’t say anything. She waited for what he had to say. “Okay. But I’ll be on the edge of the dance floor. We’ll go home after you’ve finished.”
Bella turned to Rachel and held her hand out. “Let’s go, Ms. McReedy. Do you think I’ll be able to catch the bouquet?”
Rachel smiled. “It depends on where you stand. If you want to catch the bouquet, you stand at the front of the group. If you don’t want to catch it, you stand at the back.”
Bella looked up at Rachel, a hopeful look in her eyes. “Where are we going to stand?”
“We’ll go to the front.”
A grin as big as the moon filled Bella’s face. John didn’t know where Rachel would have normally stood, or if she would have been there at all. But he was grateful for her thoughtfulness.
“I guess I’d better get a move on, then.” Annie gathered the skirt of her dress in her hands and stood up. She leaned down and whispered something in Bella’s ear.
Bella tugged on Rachel’s hand and whispered something in her ear. Rachel nodded, then looked at him. “We’ll be back soon.”
John watched them move toward the dance floor. He picked up the blanket and Bella’s half-full cup of hot chocolate. Tonight hadn’t been as stress-free as he’d imagined.
Most weddings had moments when something didn’t go to plan. But in his case, if something didn’t go to plan it could be deadly.
***
The next afternoon, Rachel passed Tess an envelope. They were sitting in Tess and Logan’s loft, the space that had become the official Bridesmaids Club headquarters. “This letter arrived last week. Can we help the bride?”
Tess read the letter and nodded. “The bride lives in Bozeman and can come in next week for a fitting. The only thing I’m not sure about are the bridesmaids’ dresses that she wants. I’ve got a feeling the Cinderella Collection dress went to another bridesmaid last Thursday.”
While Tess checked their database, Rachel walked over to a rack of dresses. They’d divided the bridesmaids’ dresses into four different collections. The Cinderella, Grace Kelly, Exotic, and Winter Romance Collections filled the room to overflowing with color and sparkle.
Of all of the collections, the Cinderella dresses were Rachel’s favorites. With big, puffy skirts and pretty beads, the bridesmaids’ dresses were everything Rachel had dreamed about since she’d been a little girl.
She pulled one of the dresses off the rack and sighed. “When Sally gets married I’m wearing this dress.” Sally was one of their friends and another Bridesmaids Club organizer. Her wedding was supposed to be before Christmas, but they’d postponed it until March of the following year.
Tess looked up from her computer. “Isn’t that the dress that arrived two weeks ago?”
Rachel nodded. The dress was made from a deep blue-green silk. With a full skirt and the loveliest sweetheart neckline Rachel had ever seen, it was romantic without being too gushy, feminine without being frilly.
Tess walked across the room and touched one of the sleeves. “It would look amazing on you. Why don’t you take it home so that it doesn’t get taken by someone else?”
Rachel shook her head. “It wouldn’t feel right. What if someone else wants it?”
“We’ve got plenty of dresses for other bridesmaids to choose. You might as well take it home in case it someone else takes it.”
Rachel bit her bottom lip. “Are you sure no one else will mind?”
“Of course they won’t.”
“I’ll bring it back after the wedding.” Rachel held the dress in front of her and looked in the full-length mirror. Everything about the dress was so perfect that she couldn’t believe she’d be wearing it.
Tess pulled another dress off the rack. “You don’t need to bring it back. We’ve got too many dresses as it is. And speaking of options - here’s the dress one of our Bozeman bridesmaid’s wants to wear.”
Rachel draped her dress over a chair and headed back to the letter they’d been reading. “I’ll find the other dresses and put them in the closet for their fitting.”
The next dress was from their Winter Romance Collection. Everyone had been happy when the weather turned cold and more bridesmaids wanted dresses from this collection. Fur trim, capes, and full, heavy skirts were part of this collection’s design. There was only so much room in Tess and Logan’s loft, and these dresses would have taken up most of the racks if they put everything out.
While Rachel looked for the next dress on the list, Tess hunted through the Grace Kelly Collection.
“Tell me how it felt to catch Annie’s bouquet?”
Rachel ignored the teasing note in Tess’ voice. She looked for the next dress, determined not to spoil a perfectly good day by thinking about John Fletcher.
“I didn’t catch the bouquet. Bella did.”
“You were holding her in your arms. I’d say it was a combined effort.”
“Maybe, but the bouquet never touched my hands.” She lifted a dress off the rack and put it over her arm. After they’d caught the bouquet, Annie had made a big fuss about her catching it with Bella. What Annie didn’t bother telling everyone, was that she’d told them to stand under the chandelier. The bouquet had been aimed straight at them, cruising at supersonic speed toward Bella’s outstretched hands.
Rachel glanced at the rack of dresses, looking for gown number forty-six. “Bella was happy.”
“Was her dad?”
Rachel didn’t know if John had been happy or not. She’d felt his eyes on her the whole time she’d been with Bella. She’d met parents who were overprotective of their children, but he took it to a whole new level. “Do you think it was odd that he kept Bella so close to him the whole day?”
Tess pulled another dress out of the Grace Kelly Collection. “I didn’t notice what he was doing. But it’s winter and it’s been snowing. Bella was lucky you went outside. Otherwise, she might have been in trouble. While we’re talking about last night, why did you go outside in the first place? It was freezing.”
“Jeremy wanted to get away from his ex-girlfriend.” Rachel picked up the dresses they’d taken off the racks and walked into their changing area. She hated stretching the truth, even if it was half true. But there was no way she’d tell Tess the other reason she’d been on the balcony.
Keeping her distance from John wasn’t exactly a sensible and mature thing to do. Bella seemed happy around her dad. He looked after her, made sure she was okay. It was easy to see that they were close. If Bella was lonely, it didn’t show. Her dad, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. Rachel didn’t know what to make of him.
By the time she left the changing area, Tess had put another two dresses aside. “Has Logan told you anything about John Fletcher?” Rachel asked.
Tess picked up a pen and started crossing numbers off the list in front of her. “Only that he’s incredibly wealthy.” She put the pen down and looked at Rachel. “We don’t need Logan to tell us about John.”
“What do you mean?”
Tess walked across to her computer and started tapping on the keyboard. “John Fletcher is rich and gorgeous. There has got to be something about him on the Internet.”
Rachel stood beside Tess and watched pages open and close in quick succession. “You know what you’re doing.”
“I was a model. I used to live and breathe the media. The girls I lived with were obsessed with making sure their photos were spread across as many sites as possible.” Tess pointed to the page she’d downloaded. “Here you go. It looks as though John Fletcher’s been busy. He received the Businessman of the Year Award in New York last month.”
Rachel read the news article. “His wife died in a car accident? That must have been terrible.”
“It’s probably why he left the military,” Tess said quietly. “Bella would have been a baby.”
Rachel read the rest of the story. Her heart felt sad when she thought about what he must have gone through. “How did he manage to raise Bella and start a company?”
“With a lot of hard work and help from other people. Did you know that he’s looking for a tutor for Bella?”
“And you’re telling me this, because…?”
