released a shaky breath.
“It’s going to be okay,” Mrs. Payne promised as she opened the bride’s dressing room door and ushered Tanya inside. Sunshine bathed the room, setting its soft pink walls and white wainscoting aglow.
And Tanya nearly believed her. She had always had so much admiration for Mrs. Payne. Tanya’s mother had wallowed in self-pity after her husband chose money over a life with her and her daughters. But Cooper’s mother had lost the love of her life through a horrible tragedy and yet she had put aside her own anguish and heartbreak to be the rock her children had needed her to be.
Tanya had leaned on her all those years ago herself. And she leaned on her now, giving her a big hug. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Mrs. Payne patted her back. “You’re like one of my own, sweetheart. I would do anything for you.”
That was the kind of mother Tanya hoped to be someday. But when would that day be? She had to live through this wedding and subsequent annulment to have hope of ever having another wedding—a real one.
“I’m so sorry that I’m putting your family in danger,” Tanya continued. The Paynes had already been through too much tragedy. She hoped she wouldn’t bring another one upon them.
“You are not responsible for any of this, Tanya.” Mrs. Payne chuckled. “And, honey, my boys have been putting themselves in danger since the day they were each born. Climbing trees too high. Riding bikes too fast. Then joining the police force and the Marines.” She shook her head and sighed.
When Cooper had joined the service after high school, Tanya had been almost relieved that they had never taken their relationship beyond friendship. She would have been so worried about him, so devastated if anything happened to him...
“Isn’t that hard on you?” Tanya asked. “After what happened...”
“To their father?” Mrs. Payne uttered another sigh, a wistful one, and her face softened—the faint lines she had entirely disappearing so that she looked like the young girl she must have been when she fell in love with Mr. Payne. “Having them act so much like their father has kept him alive for me—and probably for them.”
“But they put their lives at risk...”
Mrs. Payne let out an indelicate snort. “Living puts our lives at risk—driving a car, taking a bus, going to the mall or a movie...bad things happen everywhere. Not just Afghanistan. Cooper survived that—he can survive anything.”
Tanya wasn’t as confident of that as his mother.
The older woman gave her a slight nudge toward the garment bag hanging from the hook on the wall. “Start getting dressed, honey. Your sister and Nikki are on their way.”
“Rochelle?” She tensed with shock and concern. “She’s still going to stand up there with me?”
“She’s your sister. Family sticks together.”
The Payne family definitely did, but not the Chesterfield family. Money had always divided them and probably always would.
Knuckles wrapped against the door. “That better not be Cooper. I told him to stay away from you until the wedding.” She opened the door to Tanya’s grandfather’s lawyer.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Mr. Gregory said. “But I really need a word with Ms. Chesterfield.”
“Tanya,” she corrected him as she so often had had to over the years. Her grandfather may have demanded formality but it made her uncomfortable.
Mrs. Payne studied the handsome gray-haired man intently before nodding. “You’ll do...”
The lawyer’s face reddened and he uttered, “Excuse me, ma’am?”
Mrs. Payne had been single a long time. Perhaps she was finally ready to envision a future for herself instead of just helping brides and grooms get ready for theirs.
“Tanya needs someone to walk her down the aisle,” Mrs. Payne explained. “I was going to enlist my eldest boy, but it would be better to have someone who’s been part of Tanya’s life.”
Arthur Gregory had been a part of her life for a long time—since before his hair had gone gray and he’d developed lines around his dark eyes and his tightly lipped mouth.
“I’m sure Ms. Chesterfield would rather—”
“No,” Tanya interrupted him. “I would be happy to have you walk me down...” To her stand-in groom. If not for Stephen’s disappearance, Cooper probably wouldn’t have even attended the wedding.
“I’ll leave you two to discuss it,” Mrs. Payne said as she bustled from the room and closed the door behind herself.
The lawyer stared after the petite woman. “She’s something else...”
If Tanya remembered correctly, Mr. Gregory had never married. “Mrs. Payne is wonderful.”
“But misguided,” the lawyer said.
“I’m sorry she enlisted you in the wedding,” Tanya apologized. “If it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to participate.”
“The whole wedding makes me uncomfortable,” he admitted.
She had a million reasons of her own, but she asked, “Why?”
“I’m worried that these people may be taking advantage of you.”
If anything, it was the reverse, she was taking advantage of them. “They are helping me.”
“But you wouldn’t need help if Stephen hadn’t disappeared,” he said.
“Exactly.”
“He disappeared from here.” The lawyer stared at her as if that meant something.
She arched a brow in question.
“And immediately after that, she suggested that her son take his place.”
Tanya wasn’t exactly certain why Mrs. Payne had pushed Cooper into that—unless she wanted them together. Had she been aware all those years ago that Tanya had had a crush on her son?
“That was very sweet of her to help me out. I only have a couple of days until I turn thirty.” And Stephen hadn’t been found yet. She didn’t dare wait until the last day—in case that ransom demand was made.
“It was perhaps too convenient,” Mr. Gregory suggested.
“What are you saying?”
“Your grandfather always worried that you and your sister would be taken advantage of because of your inheritance.”
Like their father had taken advantage of their mother. What little money her father had left her, their mother had used to track down their father. She’d obviously intended to use it to buy back the man’s love that her father had bought off. Tanya and Rochelle hadn’t seen or heard from her since she’d left.
