you will,” Holly said. “It’s back fastening, so I’ll just drop it over your head, like this, and poof. Ooh, butterfly.”
It took a bit more work for them to get her arm out the sleeve, but then she was standing there looking at herself, stunned.
Her hair was flyaway from all the in-and-out of trying on clothes, but somehow that added to the sense of electricity in the air. The dress, the color of licking flame, fit her like a glove, then flared out at the bottom in a mermaid hemline.
“Here.” Holly crouched at her feet. “Let me slip these on you.”
As if in a dream, Jessica lifted one foot and then the other. She stared at herself in the mirror. The heels had added three inches to her height. The cast and sling on her arm might as well have disappeared, the outfit was so attention grabbing, especially with a very deep, plunging neckline.
Holly stood back and looked at her with satisfaction. “This is exactly what I envisioned from the moment you walked through the door. Go show him.”
Should she? What was the point? It didn’t feel fun anymore. It felt strangely intense, almost like the moment she had walked toward him down that long aisle in her wedding dress.
She was going to protest, but when Holly held open the door for her, Jessica sucked in her breath and walked out. Holly slid away.
Kade didn’t look right away. “Don’t drop it!” he yelled at the TV. And then he turned and saw her. Without taking his eyes off her, he turned off the remote. The television screen went blank. He stood up. His mouth fell open and then he shut it, and rocked back on his heels, looking at her with eyes narrowed with passion.
This was what she had missed when that moment she had glided down the aisle toward him had been replaced by the pressures of everyday living, by disappointments, by hurts, by misunderstandings.
“Jessie,” he whispered.
This was what she had missed. She leaned toward him.
JESSIE LEANED TOWARD HIM, looking at him with heavy-lidded eyes.
Pretty woman...walking down the street... The music seemed to explode into the small dressing room and waiting area. Jessica gasped and put her hand to her throat, wobbled on the high heels.
Kade was in front of her instantly, looking down at her with concern.
“Sorry,” she said. “I keep startling from loud noises.”
He cocked his head at her. The room flooded with Roy Orbison’s distinctive vocals. Kade took one step closer to her. He held out his hand, and she didn’t hesitate, not for one second. She took his hand. Kade drew her to him and rocked her against him.
And then, as if they had planned it, as if they had never stopped dancing with each other, they were moving together. Even though the tempo of the song was fast, they did not dance that way.
They slow danced around the waiting area, their bodies clinging to each other, their gazes locked. The music faded, but they didn’t let go, but stood very still, drinking each other in, as if they could make up for a whole year lost.
Holly burst in. “How cool was that, that I found—” She stopped. “Whoa. You two are hot.”
Kade’s arms slid away from Jessica. He stepped back. He swept a hand through his hair. “We’ll take it,” he said.
“That dress?” Holly said.
“No. Everything. Every single thing she tried on.”
Jessica’s mouth opened, but the protest was stuck somewhere in her throat, and not a single sound came out. She turned and went back into the change cubicle.
“Wear this one,” Holly suggested, following her in. She dug through the pile of clothing to the very first outfit Jessica had tired on, the jade top and skirt.
But she didn’t want to wear that one. Her world felt totally rattled by what had just happened, by how spontaneously she and Kade had gone into each other’s arms. She wanted to feel safe again.
“Where’s the dress I came in here with?”
Holly giggled. “He told me to throw it away.”
“What?”
“Yeah, he said to grab it at my first opportunity and dispose of it.”
“And you just listened to him? That’s outrageous.”
“He’s very masterful,” Holly said with an unapologetic sigh. “Besides—” she winked “—he’s the one with the credit card.”
Jessica thought of the frank male appreciation in his eyes as she had modeled her new outfits, and she contemplated how she was feeling right now.
Alive. One hundred percent in the land of the living, the life force tingling along the surface of her skin. Did she really want to go back to safety? To reclaim that familiar wooden feeling she had lived with for so long?
Why not, just for today, embrace this? That she was alive? And that her life was alight with the unexpected element of fun? And with the unexpected sizzle of attraction between her and the man she had married.
They left the store with Kade’s arms loaded with parcels, and with her feeling fresh and flirty and like a breath of spring in the first outfit she had tried on. He had paid for everything.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said. He had insisted on buying every single thing she had donned, even the evening gown.
Since the theme of the day was fun, she’d given in. But buying the gown? That was just silly. She had nowhere to wear an evening gown. Her future plans did not involve anything that would require formal wear. In fact, she needed to be stocking up on comfy pants and sweatshirts that could hold up to baby puke and other fluids associated with the delights of motherhood.
But she had been so caught up in the moment, and the dress had made her feel so uncharacteristically glamorous—sexy, even—that she had actually wanted to be silly. She had wanted to purchase that piece of silk and gossamer that had made her feel better than a movie star.
She should have protested more—she knew that when the bill was totaled—but the look in his eyes when he had seen her had sold every single outfit to her. She’d had a ridiculous sense of needing those clothes, though in her heart, she knew what she wanted was the look in his eyes. “Once we sell the house, I’ll pay you back,” she said firmly.
“Whatever. Hey, this stuff is already heavy. Look. There’s one of those rickshaw things being pulled by a bike. Have you ever been in one of those?”
“No.”
He juggled the packages to his left arm, put his two fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. The driver, a fit-looking twentysomething guy, pulled over.
“Where
