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Another point for marrying a woman he liked so much. A woman he knew so well. Tonight she would be in his house, not going between houses. Tonight she would be histotally. Then in four days’ time they were getting married. It was good. It was all good.
“Well, I guess that’s our next project,” Hunter said.
“Great. I didn’t want to work today anyway,” Brody said.
But first, they had to get all the stuff moved in, because Lachlan was anxious to get this locked down.
This was the first step.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHEFELTSELF-CONSCIOUS, because she had gone straight from work to Gold Valley to meet the sisters-in-law for wedding dress shopping.
Elsie was dressed similarly casually to Charity, being a fan of nothing more decorous than jeans and a T-shirt herself. But Alaina was effortlessly feminine, and Nelly was slightly less flashy, but very pretty. Then there was Elizabeth, who exuded sophistication, a much slicker sort of beauty than anyone else in the group.
The little wedding boutique at the end of the street in Gold Valley was adorable. There were samples of wedding cake at the door, and several rows of beautiful gowns, and the dressing room area was luxuriously appointed. Some of her self-consciousness about her jeans and sweatshirts faded when Elsie took a seat on the plush chair like she was the queen in residence and smiled.
“Well, this is fabulous,” Elsie said.
The woman attending the shop took her through information on different wedding gown styles and told her that she should try one of everything, no matter what she thought she would like. Charity didn’t know how to tell her that she had no earthly idea what she liked and had never once thought of it before. She hadn’t given any thought to the wedding dress aspect of marriage.
It just hadn’t featured.
The sisters were happily eating cake, and Charity went and started perusing the aisles.
“Probably not something like this,” she said, gesturing to one of the wedding gowns. It looked tight, with a very formfitting sort of shape, and a lace overlay that was completely sheer and wouldn’t conceal the bodice beneath.
“You should try it,” the woman said.
“I’m not...sexy,” Charity said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s not really my thing.”
“What you wear on your wedding day is entirely up to you,” the woman said. “But if you want to be sexy, you get to be. It’s your day. Nobody gets to tell you who you are on your day. It’s all up to you. Completely.”
“I’ll try it. But I might not be brave enough to come out of the dressing room.”
The woman started taking different dresses back to the room for Charity, and Charity was beginning to feel a little bit like a princess.
She couldn’t say she had ever really felt like that before. It was kind of an amazing thing. In the past few days she had felt so taken care of. By Lachlan. By the sisters-in-law. By this random woman at the shop. She had lost so much when she had lost her father, but it was amazing to see all these people in her life fill in these deep gaps. Not that they were replacing him; nothing ever could. Just the ways that people around her knitted together this network of care that made her feel loved in spite of the loss, that made life feel full in spite of the places where there was emptiness.
It was amazing how this fullness could exist alongside emptiness. And she could only marvel at it. It was something of a miracle.
At first, she was embarrassed to have somebody assist her with getting dressed, but there would’ve been no earthly way she could’ve squeezed herself into these dresses without help, so she had to simply grit her teeth and deal with it.
She tried on so many that made her feel like a cake topper, and she was beginning to get discouraged that nothing would feel quite right. Then she looked at the one she had scoffed at initially.
She decided to try it.
It fit her perfectly. That was the first sign. Skimmed over her curves like a second skin and made her...well, actually look like she had curves. She stepped out of the dressing room, and the attendant fanned out the train, which was completely see-through, made entirely of delicate lace. The sun came through the window and shone across the beads, cast light through that part of the dress and highlighted her figure.
Normally, she would be just...so uncomfortable with that. But now she pictured Lachlan’s face. Because now she knew the effect her body had on him.
It felt incredibly exposing to think of that, standing there in front of the other women. But...it was a part of her now. A part of her that was changing.
She had spent so long pushing down this part of herself. Ignoring it. Denying it. And now here she was... Proud of it. Thinking about accentuating it. Because it didn’t matter what anybody else thought; when she thought of coming out in this dress, she saw Lachlan’s face. Saw the way that his blue eyes would glint with electricity and the way that it would ignite an answering heat in her.
Yes, other people would be at the wedding. But it was about them. About this newly formed connection and the vows they were taking to make yet another one.
“Oh yes,” Alaina said, breaking the silence. “That is hot.”
