A Wedding on Primrose Street (Life In Icicle Falls Book 7) (4 page)

Their GPS took them from the downtown area to a small street lined with older homes, all beautifully maintained. “This is it.” Kendra pointed at the sign. “Primrose Street.”

“I wonder if everyone has primroses in their flower beds,” Anne said. It was hard to tell what anyone had right now, since the lawns were buried under a couple of feet of snow. She knew Primrose Haus had them because she’d seen them in the flower beds in one of the pictures on the website.

“There’s the house,” Kendra said.

Even under a blanket of snow, it was charming, and Anne felt herself overcome with house lust. “What would it be like to live here?” A quaint house in a charming little town...

“It would be work. Old houses always are,” said her sister, the happy new-construction owner. “Remember all the money you guys poured into your place?”

“Think of the value,” Anne retorted.

Kendra acknowledged that with a nod. “You lucked out. Finding a house on Queen Anne for under a million these days is next to impossible. If you ever sell it you’ll make a fortune.”

“We’ll probably be there until we’re old and gray,” Anne said, getting out of the SUV. That was fine with her. She loved their Queen Anne house, enjoyed the neighbors, liked being near her family.

But then Roberta Gilbert opened the front door and they stepped inside and the house lust was back. This place was so...romantic.

“Your house is lovely,” Anne gushed once Roberta had settled them in a front parlor where a fire blazed in a marble-trimmed fireplace.

“I’m fond of it,” Roberta said. She was an attractive older woman, slender with short, gray hair and pretty brown eyes. Like her house, Roberta was a class act, dressed in black slacks and a pale blue cashmere sweater accessorized with a pearl necklace and matching earrings. She’d brought in a tray with teacups and a pot of tea and the proper accoutrements, as well as a small plate of cookies.

Kendra picked one up and took a bite. “Oh, my gosh. This is absolute bliss.”

“Lavender cookies,” Roberta said. “They come from the tearoom here in town and I must confess I have a weakness for them. We also have a bakery that specializes in gingerbread cookies. Cass, the owner, makes lovely wedding cakes.”

“Do you have a florist in town, too?” Anne asked. They probably did. She’d seen some of the wedding pictures on the Primrose Haus website, and the floral arrangements were exquisite.

“Oh, yes. Lupine Floral does a wonderful job,” Roberta said and then went on to tell them about the various vendors she used for weddings. The women discussed prices and exchanged wedding tales, and after an hour Anne felt she’d made a new friend.

“Would you like to tour the house?” Roberta asked.

“Absolutely,” Anne replied. Looking at all the beautifully furnished rooms took her from lust to love. “This is such a great venue,” she told Roberta as they walked back to the parlor.

“Thank you,” Roberta said. “I enjoy hosting weddings here, although I have to admit it’s beginning to feel more like work than it did ten years ago.”

“I can imagine,” said Kendra. “Keeping this place up looks like a lot of work.”

“We manage.”

“Do you ever do other events, like birthdays or anniversaries?” Kendra asked.

Roberta shook her head. “Rarely. We’re too busy with weddings.”

“I’d like to book this for my bride and bring her and her mother up to check it out next week if that’s possible,” Anne said to Roberta.

“Of course.”

“And I see you have the last Saturday in June open. I wonder if I could give you a deposit to hold that for me. My daughter just got engaged. I really want her to see this place.”

“Beats a pirate ship,” Kendra joked.

Roberta was obviously too polite to comment, but she did cock an eyebrow.

“Right now we’re exploring a number of ideas,” Anne explained.

Roberta nodded. “Brides these days have some unique ones.”

True, but if you asked Anne, unique wasn’t always good.

“That could be the perfect place for Laney to get married,” she told her sister as they drove away.

“It
is
great,” Kendra agreed. She brought up TripAdvisor on her cell phone and pulled up the information on Icicle Falls. “Looks like there’s lots to do there.”

“Let’s go by the chamber of commerce and pick up some brochures to take back,” Anne suggested.

Maybe they could find some
unique
experience for Laney, like getting married in a mountain meadow. Then they could have the reception at the pretty house on Primrose Street.

Compromise. Life was all about compromise. So were weddings, and Anne was sure that here in Icicle Falls she and her daughter would come up with just the right one.

Chapter Four

Laney, the Bride-to-Be

S
he and Drake were getting married! Sometimes Laney could hardly believe it, even though they’d known each other, like, forever. They’d shared the same circle of friends since middle school, been in the same church youth group, taken the same classes. Funny how she’d thought he was such a goofball and no one she’d ever end up with. She was always crushing on guys who played in rock bands or high school sports heroes with their beefed-up muscles who swaggered down the hall on their way to class.

In middle school Drake had been skinny with a colony of zits on his face, and his highest ambition was to beat the video game “Halo.” In high school his ambitions changed and he’d turned out for football. He was still skinny and spent most of his time warming the bench, and Laney had teased him about that. (Gosh, she’d been mean!) But he’d persisted, and as high school went on, he began to change from a scrawny goof to something a lot more interesting. She found herself stealing glances at him in English class; he was usually tapping his pencil or sneaking looks at his cell phone, bored out of his mind.

“I don’t care about Shakespeare,” he’d complained once when a bunch of them had gone to Dairy Queen for Blizzards. “I’d rather work a math problem or do stuff on my car.”

“Everybody should read Shakespeare,” Laney had argued.

“Why? Who understands that shit? It isn’t even English.”

“It is, too,” she’d said, rolling her eyes. “It’s early modern English.”

“Well, they need to update it.”

“Mrs. Krepps says you shouldn’t try to update Shakespeare,” Laney had told him. “You lose the beauty of the language.”

“Bullshit,” Drake had said, showing what he thought of their high school English teacher’s opinion. “They have modern translations of the Bible. Shakespeare’s not more important than the Bible.”

Laney hadn’t been able to find a good comeback for that. She’d had to settle for “You’re such a loser.”

That Christmas she’d given him an edition of
Romeo and Juliet
that put Shakespeare’s language side by side with a translation into modern English. She’d given it to him as a joke, but to her surprise he’d actually read it.

“Not bad” had been his assessment. Then he went back to Dean Koontz and Stephen King on audiobooks when he tinkered with the old muscle car he’d found on Craigslist.

She couldn’t give him too hard a time about that because, when it came right down to it, she wasn’t that crazy about Shakespeare herself.

Come senior year, he finally made first string on the football team and became one of the guys who swaggered down the hall on his way to class. He barely passed English, but he aced his math and science classes.

He’d been happy when Laney was accepted at the University of Washington but equally happy that he was going to train to be an auto technician. “I don’t want to sit in an office all day or make kids read Shakespeare. I want to do something hands-on,” he’d said.

That had triggered a vision of him doing something hands-on with her. Yes, things had changed since middle school. The more Drake talked about what he wanted to do with his life, the more she wanted to share that life with him. Traveling, mountain climbing, kayaking in Puget Sound, visiting cities like San Antonio and New York and LA. He’d been to Disneyland when he was little. Now he wanted to go back and get his picture taken with Donald Duck. He wanted to go to Vegas and play craps and see Criss Angel. He wanted to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, maybe go to Mexico and build houses for the poor. With his goofy smile, big heart and sense of adventure, Drake was special and Laney didn’t want to see him fall for another girl. She wanted him to fall for
her
.

When he started talking about taking some new girl he’d met at the beach to the Fourth of July fireworks at Green Lake, Laney had gotten pissy, told him he had no taste in women.

“I don’t know. She’s pretty hot,” he’d said.

“So am I. Why don’t you take me to watch the fireworks?”

He’d looked at her oddly and said, “Yeah, why don’t I?”

They had their first kiss on the Fourth of July as the fireworks exploded over the lake, and that was it. She knew, she just knew.

And now they were getting married. Squeee!

She’d been dreaming about her wedding day since she was a little girl. In fact, growing up, she’d been sort of a wedding addict. Her mom had hooked her the first time she brought Laney home a slice of wedding cake. She could still picture that piece of cake with its pink-frosting rose and small silver dragées, could still remember licking the frosting off her fingers. Mom subscribed to
Brides
magazine, and Laney had never gotten tired of looking at the pictures of all those models showing off gorgeous gowns. Every wedding movie she’d watched had sold her on the big “I do.” She used to imagine herself getting married in some old English castle with glittering chandeliers, saying “I do” to a guy who looked like Prince Charming. As she got older, Prince Charming began to look suspiciously like Zac Efron or Orlando Bloom. Now, of course, Prince Charming looked exactly like Drake.

She had to celebrate. So on Wednesday, Drake’s night for gaming with the guys, she invited her friends over for a girl party.

The revelers consisted of her longtime bestie, Autumn, who was actually always “over” since she and Laney shared a funky house in Fremont; Laney’s friend from college, Ella; and Drake’s younger sister, Darcy.

She’d just put out the fondue when Darcy arrived, bearing a gigantic bag of corn chips. “I’m so excited,” she squealed, hugging Laney. “I finally get a sister.”

“Me, too,” Laney said, hugging her back. Her life growing up as an only child had been great, but she’d always wanted a sister. Now she had one.

Her friend Ella was next. “I’m so jealous,” she said. “At the rate we’re going, I won’t be engaged until I’m fifty.”

“I’m not getting married till I’m thirty. I’ve still got things I want to do on my own,” Autumn said as she took the salsa out of the fridge.

“What do you want to do on your own that you can’t do with Ben?” Ella scoffed.

“Live in Paris for a year, study fashion design.”

“You could do that with Ben,” Ella pointed out.

“I can’t flirt with Frenchmen when I’m with Ben,” Autumn said with a grin.

Ella rolled her eyes and flopped down on the fake-leather couch Laney had bought at a garage sale. “So spill,” she said to Laney. “How did Drake propose?”

“He took me to the Space Needle. I had a feeling he was going to propose.”

“How’d you know?” asked Darcy. “He didn’t even tell
me
.”

“’Cause he was acting all nervous. He was checking his pocket every five minutes, like there was something in there he didn’t want to lose, and when we were at our table he kept fooling with the silverware and drinking water.”

“That’s so cute,” Ella said dreamily. “So did he get down on one knee and everything?”

Laney nodded. “Yep, just before dessert.”

“And you said yes right away,” Darcy prompted.

“You should’ve made him sweat,” Autumn said and took a sip of her pop.

Darcy frowned at her. “That’s mean.”

“No, that’s psychology,” Autumn argued. “Make ’em sweat. That way they really appreciate it when you say yes.”

“I still think it’s mean,” Darcy muttered.

“Have you set a date?” Ella asked Laney.

“We don’t have the exact date yet, but we’re talking about June.”

Ella’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, that doesn’t give you much time to plan the wedding.”

“It’s plenty of time, especially if we go to Vegas.”

“Ooh, baby,” said Autumn. “Slots and shopping and glitzy pools and big, huge fancy drinks.”

“And hookers.” Ella wrinkled her nose.

“Don’t worry. Nobody’s gonna proposition your man,” Autumn said, and Ella stuck her tongue out at her.

“It’s not for sure yet,” Laney told them. “We might get married here.”

Her mom had made a good case for that—a big guest list, catered dinner, getting married by Pastor Ostrom, who had watched her grow up. He was going to retire at the end of the year. She’d probably be the sweet old guy’s last wedding.

But Vegas sounded like fun, too. She and Drake had already looked at the Treasure Island website. The packages weren’t cheap, but were definitely cheaper than what they’d pay if they stuck around Seattle to get married. And she loved the idea of being down there in the center of all that excitement.

“Let’s check out Vegas,” Autumn said, grabbing her phone.

The images for Vegas weddings were all impressive. Her mother had thought a Vegas chapel would be tacky. Mom must have been thinking about the old days, because what Laney and her friends were seeing was totally glam.

“Drake thinks Vegas would be really cool,” said Darcy. She frowned. “But I’m not twenty-one yet. I can’t drink. At least if you end up getting married here, somebody will let me have a glass of champagne.”

“Well,
there’s
a reason not to go to Vegas,” Autumn cracked. “What do you want to do most?” she asked Laney.

A series of images flashed across Laney’s mind—the royal wedding with all its pomp and splendor, the church weddings she’d attended growing up, images from the many websites she’d peered at over her mother’s shoulder when Mom was working. Everything felt so wide-open she almost didn’t know what to choose. But then she looked at those pictures on the Treasure Island site and smiled. “I want to go to Vegas.”

Except Mom had called the other day to tell her about a place she’d found that would be perfect for the wedding. How the heck was she going to get out of that?