Runaway Bridesmaid (3 page)

“Hey, y'all!” Sarah scooted into the kennel, upwards of two dozen noses nudging her calves and knees as she tried to greet them all at once. A laugh bubbled out of her tight throat as one puppy immediately latched onto her sneaker lace and gave it what-for, complete with a fierce growl designed to bring the shoe into immediate submission.

Pointing at the lowering sky, she warned, “Y'all better get inside, now. It's fixin' to rain any minute.” In confirmation, a bolt of lightning split the clouds, accompanied by a crack of thunder that made her jump and several of the puppies scurry toward the open door of the converted barn.

Sarah shooed the rest of the gang inside, shutting the half-door behind them, then swung open the chain link gate to one of the overlarge pens, staring into assorted sets of tiny golden brown eyes.

“I know you don't want to, but you gotta. Come on, now.”

Like children forced to come in when they still wanted to play, the dogs reluctantly obeyed, some of them gazing back outside with what seemed to be genuine regret, as if they knew wonderful wet stuff was going to fall out of the sky any minute. Labs and water went together like biscuits and gravy. Sarah allowed a sympathetic smile.

“Sorry. I'm in no mood to clean up mud today, okay? So whaddya think? Should I go check the babies— Oh,
Lordy!
”

Katey jumped as much as she did.

“Shoot, baby, don't sneak up on people like that!” Sarah lay her arm across Katey's shoulders, as much to steady herself as out of affection. “What on earth are you doing here? Looks like the sky's about to burst wide open.”

Katey hunched her thin shoulders in a gesture Sarah took to mean there really was no reason other than it seemed like a good idea. Or that Mama had asked her to do something, was more like it. “I just figured you were here. And…I didn't have nothin' to do.”

“
Anything
to do.” Sarah pretended sympathy. “And Mama couldn't even find something for you to do in the kitchen…?”

“What's wrong?” Katey asked, squinting. “Why are your eyes all red?”

Rats.
Sarah cleared her throat, forced a smile. “Just got a bunch of dirt in 'em, is all. You know, from the wind?”

Which got a tell-me-another-one look from the little girl. But then the newborns eeked again, and Katey clasped both hands to her chest in supplication.

“Just for a minute,” Sarah said. Wouldn't take much longer than that before her mother sniffed her out, anyway.

Katey skipped over to the pen where mama and pups were quarantined from the rest of the dogs, Sarah following. It was chowtime; the tiny black lumps looked more like oversize fat bugs than dogs as they jostled for position at their mother's teats.

“This is the cutest batch we've ever had,” the eight-year-old solemnly declared, her fingers entwined around the chain
link. Sarah hid her smile. Katey said that about every litter. Without fail. “C'n I hold one?”

“Let's just see how Mariah feels about it, okay?” Sarah slowly opened the gate so as not to startle the mother dog, then entered the pen, settling onto the floor beside the bitch and her six pups whose birth she had witnessed just two days before. Squirming as much as the pups, Katey squatted at her right knee. “Think it'd be okay if I held one of your precious babies for a minute?” Sarah asked, then carefully picked up one of the pups and cuddled it against her chest while the mother dog rooted at her offspring's rump, just to be sure.

Katey sighed, stroking the little furrowed head with one finger.

“Wish I'd've been here when the pups were born.”

“It was two in the morning, baby. And Mama dog did it all by herself. I was just here for decoration.” Sarah traded pups. “Now,
sheep,
on the other hand, don't even know which end the lamb's supposed to come out of.” She thought of last March when she and Doc helped George Plunkett and his pubescent son Joshua usher two dozen new lambs into the world, and yawned automatically. “Except they always decide to do it when it's raining and dark.”

“Well,” Katey announced, unperturbed, “when
I'm
a vet, those dumb sheep will just have to have their babies when I'm on duty.”

Sarah regarded the little girl with a wry smile. Knowing Katey, she probably
would
get the dumb sheep to birth during office hours.

“So…still wanna be a vet?” She touched her forehead to Katey's. “You didn't seem real interested this morning at the clinic.”

Katey squirmed, her dark brows dipping. “Well…” Sarah could almost hear the child's brain fast-forwarding through several dozen possible answers. Then the little face relaxed into a grin as she let a puppy sniff her fingers. “I'm just a kid. I've got a short attention span.”

Sarah let out a laugh, then hugged the little girl to her. No
matter what, this precocious little girl never failed to make her smile. Even more than the pups. “You've never been ‘just' a kid, you know that? Even when you were a baby, you always wore this funny, grown-up expression.”

“I did?”

“Uh-huh.” Sarah pretended to shudder and Katey giggled. “It was freak-y, too, having this little tiny baby look at you with this serious face all the time—”

“Sarah Louise?” The lights flickered in the kennel as her mother's low voice, easily overriding the next wave of thunder, filled the old barn.

“In with Mariah, Mama.”

“Katey with you?”

“Yes, Mama,” Katey piped up.

Clad in her usual attire of oversize man-tailored shirt and jeans, the full-figured woman now blocked most of the light coming into the stall. Vivian never had lost the weight from the last pregnancy. Not that she seemed to care.

Vivian settled what was supposed to be a stern gaze on the little girl. “I believe there's something you're supposed to be doing, young lady?”

The child looked from one woman to the other, then let out an affronted sigh. “Yes, Mama,” she muttered, getting to her feet. Wiping her hands on the already filthy seat of raspberry-colored shorts, Katey unlatched the gate and let herself out of the pen, stoically allowing Vivian to plant a kiss on the top of her glimmering chestnut head as she passed. Size two sneakers ground emphatic squeaks into the smooth cement floor as the child retreated.

Vivian joined Sarah in the cage, huffing a little as she lowered her ample form to the floor, then patted Sarah's knee. “You okay?”

Sarah cuddled the tiny dog to her chest. “The pups needed to be checked.”

That got a snort as Vivian tucked a stray hank of silver-streaked, ash-brown hair back up into a loose bun at the back of her head. “Chicken.”

“Damn straight,” Sarah shot back with an attempt at a grin, then averted her face when her mother tried to look her in the eye.

“You've been crying.”

“What gave you your first clue?”

“Puffy eyes, blotchy face, swollen lips—take your pick.”

With a huge sigh, Sarah said, “I saw him.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Sarah leaned her head back against the whitewashed partition of the pen with a soft thud. “Could you just tell everyone I tripped and drowned in a mud puddle or something?”

Vivian grunted in what Sarah assumed was sympathy. “Now, baby, you knew he'd come back some day.” A beat. “And you knew what that meant.”

Sarah pulled her head forward, concentrating on the writhing mass of pups in front of them. “I just thought for some reason I'd have a little more time to prepare myself.”

“Hah! Bad news never seems to be terribly interested in giving much warning.” Vivian shifted her weight with a soft wince. “What're you going to do?”

With a sigh, Sarah leaned her head back again and shut her eyes, the puppy snuffling the hollow of her throat with whiskers soft as the inside of a daisy. “Kinda liked the mud puddle idea, myself.”

“You could tell him.”

Sarah opened one eye and tilted her head just far enough to see the side of her mother's face, sternly refusing to allow one more emotion into her already overcrowded brain. That didn't stop her face from flushing, however. “Tell him what, exactly?”

The puppies' mewling filled the silence as Vivian seemed to consider her answer. “You still being sweet on him might be a good place to start.”

The two women regarded each other for a moment, then Sarah looked away. “And what makes you think that?”

“I'm psychic.”

Sarah swallowed past the knot of anger in her throat, then
said quietly, “Dean Parrish chewed up my heart and spit it out in little pieces all over Lee County.” Frowning, she shut her eyes and rocked her head from side to side against the wall. “I don't deserve that.”

“That's right.”

Sarah's mouth pulled into a straight line as her voice dropped an octave. “And he sure as hell doesn't deserve
me.
” She let out a long sigh. “You were right, you know. Back then. About our not being suited for the long haul.”

Vivian picked something off her jeans. “Maybe…he's changed.”

“Yeah, and maybe Auburn'll get a major league football franchise next year.” Sarah shook her head, finally opening her eyes, regarding nothing in particular. “You didn't see the look on his face, the night he broke up with me.” She carefully placed the pup back with its siblings.

They sat in silence again for a full minute, Sarah fully aware if her mother touched her she'd start bawling all over again. Except what she did was far worse. “The question is, what did you see in his face
today?
”

Sarah turned away, determined to hold it together, determined not to be the pawn in whatever game her mother now seemed so determined to play.

“Honey, all you can do is take this one step at a time—”

“What's done is done, Mama,” she said sharply. “There's no going back.”

After a long moment, Vivian gently bumped shoulders with her daughter. A conciliatory gesture, Sarah figured. “How you handle this is up to you,” she said softly. “And it's just one week. Dinner tonight, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding. That's all. Think you can manage that?”

Just
one week. Right. With a toss of her head, Sarah said on an exhaled breath, “Doesn't look like I've got a whole lot of choice in the matter, does it?” She stood, then held out a hand to help up her mother, the one person who, no matter what, had been there for her, had helped her through the most painful period of her life. And who, Sarah knew, felt more
than bad about her part in creating the situation now facing all of them.

“There are always choices,” Vivian said with a grunt as she struggled to her feet. No longer taller than her daughter, her eyes met Sarah's dead on. “Always.” She shrugged and draped an arm around Sarah's shoulder as a teeth-rattling thunderclap ripped open the clouds at last, letting loose a barrage of stone-hard raindrops onto the tin roof overhead.

“Like now,” her mother shouted as they stood at the barn door watching the deluge quickly turn the yard into a river of slimy orange mud. “Do we stay and wait it out, or make a run for it?”

“Oh, come on, Mama,” Sarah challenged with a wicked grin. “I've never known you to wait anything out.” She dashed into the driving rain, calling over her shoulder, “Last one to the house cleans dog poop for a week!”

 

Not surprisingly, Sarah lost the bet. It always astounded her how quickly her mother could move, despite her generous proportions. In any case, they were both drenched by the time they made it to the house and up the steps. Flushed with exertion and laughing too hard to breathe, they wriggled out of sneakers that looked dipped in pumpkin pie filling, dumping them by the back door before stumbling over each other to see who got to the kitchen first.

“Oh, yuck!” Jennifer waved a half-peeled cucumber in front of her as if to ward off evil spirits. “You two are
gross!
”

Dripping all over the kitchen floor, Sarah grabbed a kitchen towel to wipe off her face. Still laughing, she threw a broad wink at Katey, giggling and half hidden behind a mountain of corn at the kitchen table, then directed her attention to the flinching Jennifer. “Would somebody
please
tell me how Vivian and Eli Whitehouse managed to produce such a
priss?
It's just water, Jen—see?” She shook her head like a dog, sending a spray halfway across the room, cackling in glee as her sister squealed and nearly tripped over herself trying to back away.

“Mama! Make her stop!”

Vivian, her own hair hanging like tangled vines around her face, shifted her eyes to her oldest daughter, her mouth twitching. “Sarah Louise, stop torturing your sister.”

“Yes, Mama,” Sarah said, tucking her hands behind her back and shuffling one bare foot back and forth over the puddled floor. Then she went after Jennifer with a war whoop and the wet towel, sending her shrieking out the kitchen door.

And sending Sarah straight into Dean's chest, which, along with the rest of him, happened to pick that moment to come out to the kitchen.

She felt strong, rough hands close firmly around her upper arms, her chest and hips meld into his as he steadied her to keep from being knocked over. For more seconds than she wanted to know, his breath, sweet and warm, fanned over her still damp face, making her shiver. Her nipples pebbled, instantly and just this side of painfully. She froze, not sure whether it was her heartbeat or his she felt pounding against her skin.

“Well, now…” One side of his mouth hitched up around a low drawl that was affected and deliberately irritating and made her bare toes curl against the cool lacquered floor. “I see you're just as clumsy as you always were. Nice to see not
everything's
changed about you, Sarah Louise.”