Mac’s folks were supposed to host the party but this was Aunt S.’s first wedding, and she was pulling out all the stops. What had started out to be a small, elegant home wedding was rapidly turning into a three-ring circus, in Cindy’s estimation. A small thing like wedding protocol never stopped Aunt S.
All that in addition to trying to keep up with the ordinary demands of a demanding family, and Cindy was pooped. Just plain frazzled. And it was barely midafternoon, with three days to go until the wedding, after which there would be all the undoing and cleaning-up-after.
It was a good thing she was used to it, else she might have blown her redheaded stack.
“One of these days,” she muttered, catching a glimpse of a cupcake wrapper under the hall table. One of these days she would have enough saved up to move out, and this would all seem like a crazy dream.
Meanwhile, it was a good thing she had the hide of an elephant and the backbone of a—well, whatever had the strongest backbone, which was what it took to survive when you had only yourself to depend on.
“Cynthia, have you been messing with my roses again?” Lorna Stephenson called out from the back parlor, where she was currently nursing a headache with a lavender-water-soaked cloth and a glass of medicinal brandy.
“No, ma’am, I haven’t. I think Charlie was playing ball out there earlier, though. You might mention it to his mother.”
If Cindy had had her way, she would have cut every flower in the yard and begged more from the neighbors, and done the wedding flowers herself. At least that way Aunt S.’s precious roses would be appreciated instead of trampled underfoot by a six-year-old hellion who didn’t know the meaning of the word no.
But Aunt S. preferred the stiff, formal arrangements of the local florist over Cindy’s big, cheerful armfuls of whatever happened to be blooming, all intertwined with wild honeysuckle and flowering blackberry vines.
Three days and counting. The house was gleaming. Cindy unexpectedly felt a surge of nostalgia—either that or the half sandwich she’d grabbed on the run for lunch hadn’t settled properly.
Well, no, it was nostalgia, because while indigestion made her stomach burn, it didn’t make her throat ache and her nose turn red. And after all, it was some sort of milestone, she supposed. The courtesy cousin she had practically grown up with was about to marry and leave home. Even though they’d never gotten along particularly well, she would miss her.
The wedding gown. Oh, yes, she reminded herself as she dashed up the back stairs—she really did need to offer a bit of advice, the thing was so blessed plain!
“Steff, about your gown,” she said, rushing breathlessly into the big corner bedroom that had once been Aunt S. and Uncle Henry’s. “It needs something, don’t you think?”
“Don’t you dare touch my wedding gown! It’s a designer original!”
Steff described it as elegant. Cindy called it drab. “It won’t take much,” she said earnestly. “Just a little dab of lace at the neckline, maybe your something old? Or I have some white velvet roses, the really good kind, not the junk from the craft store. I could sort of arrange them—”
“No.”
“You’ll need something borrowed, and they’d look super at the waist. You probably wouldn’t even need to bother with a bouquet.”
Steff rolled her eyes, and Cindy flushed. She knew what they all thought of her hats, even though she’d explained they were only working designs and that the real models, when she could afford to make them, would be far more beautiful “I just thought I’d offer to…you know. Help perk it up a bit.”
It was probably fortunate that Aunt S. called upstairs at that moment. “Cin-dee!”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m coming.”
It was Charlie again. He hadn’t been invited, but his mother, lacking a baby-sitter, had brought him along anyway. Cindy was right on his heels as he went whooping and hollering down the front stairs. Charlie was quick as a weasel, out the front door before she could grab onto his shirttail.
“Go on outside and don’t come in again until he’s thoroughly worn out,” ordered Aunt S., who was of the children-should-be-seen-and-not-heard school of child-rearing.
Cindy’s sympathies were with Charlie. She’d been only slightly older than he was now when she’d first met her courtesy aunt. Old enough to recognize a dragon in a black silk dress, but not old enough to deal with one. Little had changed since then.
They played ball until Charlie smacked one into the rose garden, then they switched to guess what color car passes by next. It was a slow game. At this time of day, there wasn’t much traffic.
“Hey, a squirrel! I’m gonna catch him and put him in a box and take him home!”
“Charlie, leave that animal alone, he’s got teeth that can—Charlie!”
The car came around the curve so fast there was no time to think. Cindy practically flew forward, tackling the heedless child and rolling them both into the azalea hedge across the street.
“Idiot! You blooming idiot!” she screeched at the driver of the luxury car, which had swerved to the curb and come to a tire-squealing stop. Breathless, she was still sprawled across Charlie’s body when the car door swung open and one long, khaki-clad leg emerged.
“Hey, you’re squashing me,” Charlie protested. At least he was still in one piece. Just to be sure, she quickly felt his arms and legs before allowing him to squirm away from her. “You wait right there. Don’t you dare move an inch from this spot,” she warned, and such was her tone of voice that the child gulped and nodded.
“But you scared that old squirrel away,” he accused. Pale, on the verge of tears, he was determined not to let on how frightened he was.
Cindy, still on her hands and knees, was torn between hugging him and shaking some sense into him. “Good thing I did,” she growled. “He’d have bitten your finger off and likely died of food poisoning.”
Struggling stiffly to her feet, she caught her breath as pain sliced through her from an assortment of minor ailments. Gravelly asphalt and hard, rocky earth weren’t exactly kind to tender flesh, even when wearing jeans. She’d raked the skin off both knees and the heels of both hands.
“You little fool, don’t you know any better than to run out into the street without looking?” a man’s voice said. “Wait—don’t move, you might be hurt.”
Fear caught up with Charlie and he began to sob just as Cindy opened her mouth to let fly with a few choice phrases. She closed it again in deference to tender young ears. Charlie didn’t need his already impressive vocabulary expanded. Fortunately she’d had years of practice in the art of swallowing her temper.
The reckless fool from the car had his hands on her thigh. “Stop that! Don’t you know any better than to drive like a bat out of he—heck in a residential neighborhood?” Eyes blazing, she went to shove him away.
“Stand still. Oh, God, your hands are bleeding.” Manacling her wrists, he lifted them for a closer look.
Cindy peered at her stinging
