Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (35 page)

As Bonnie grinned at her and nodded, Emma wondered for a moment why she felt so comfortable about sharing her personal emotions with a virtual stranger. Yet when Bonnie rolled her hand, inviting Emma to continue, she actually did!

“He really gets me, you know? He doesn’t want to change me or control me or anything like that. He just . . .” She trailed off and smiled.

“Loves you,” Bonnie finished for her.

“Yes.”

“He sounds wonderful, and the spirit of each one of these cakes seems to fit your relationship with him.”

“Welcome to my world. It’s impossible to choose.”

“Not really impossible, Emma,” she said. “The emotion behind what you’re telling me, well, it carries the message of one of these cakes, over and above the others.”

“It does?”

Emma planted both feet on the ground and leaned forward on her elbows. “Tell me, Bonnie. Please.”

Bonnie smiled at her and rubbed Emma’s arm briskly before tapping her finger on the newest sketch. “This one. Absolutely.”

Emma gazed at it for a long moment before she sighed so deeply that it felt as if she’d just taken her first breath in days. As a broad grin wound its way across her face, Emma began to laugh.

“Bonnie Cordova, you’ve saved my life!”

She jumped to her feet and frantically pushed the papers into a pile and held them against her ribs. “What time is your tearoom appointment tomorrow?”

“Two o’clock, why?”

“It’s on me!”

“Oh, no, that’s not—”

“Oh, yes, it is,” she cried as she hurried toward the door. “I’m sorry. I have to go. It was so great meeting you, Bonnie. Thank you so much!”

“You, too, Emma. Best wishes on your wedding!”

And with that, Emma scrambled through the door and took off across the lobby at a full run.

Emma could hardly wait to get to Sherilyn’s. But when she steered around the corner of her street, a familiar sight sent her foot to the brake pedal, and her thoughts to revving. It looked like a repeat performance of her slumber-shower with familiar cars edging the driveway and curb in front of the house. Georgiann’s BMW, Norma’s Camry, Susannah Littlefield’s Taurus, even Fee’s PT Cruiser. The only car missing seemed to be her mother’s.

When she reached the front door, Emma toyed with the idea of carefully turning the knob and tiptoeing inside to see what they had going on in there, but Andy’s dog had a keen sense of killjoy, and he began barking before the thoughts could take flight into actual plans. She pushed the door open and let herself in.

“All right, Henry, all right,” she said as she pushed her way past him. “They all know I’m here.”

When she reached the end of the hall, Sherilyn looked up at her as if she’d just been caught reading her diary. “Emma, what are you
doing
here?”

“I have a better question. Why is everyone I know sitting in your dining room?”

They glanced around the room like thieves caught red-handed, but no one appeared to have an explanation to share.

“I’m not kidding. What’s going on?”

“We’re event planning,
sugah
,” Madeline piped up from the kitchen. “One of Georgiann’s charity functions.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at Fee and asked, “You didn’t think it was worth mentioning to me?”

“Well, you’ve been stressed. Norma thought I could pinch-hit.”

“O-kay.” Emma moved closer and scrutinized the scene before her. “So why do you all look like you’re planning a bank robbery?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sherilyn chimed in. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Without calling. Just dropping in without any forewarning. It must be pretty important . . .”

Old Loose-Lips had resorted to an old mechanism: Anything could be avoided if enough fast words covered it.

“. . . and I’d love to hear what that is. Although if you’d like some tea, I can put on the water for you and make you a nice cup. Would you like tea, Em? Hmm?”

“No.” She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath, and it felt pretty good when she let it out. “No, thanks.”

“So what are you doing here, darling?” Georgiann asked her. “Is something wrong?”

She swallowed. Hard. Then she sighed. “I . . . uh . . .” And it hit her. “Oh! I wanted to dazzle Sherilyn!” She looked at her friend and grinned. “Brace yourself.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“You chose the cake.”

“I have chosen the cake!”

Sherilyn gave a little shriek before lunging at her, grabbing the sketch from her hands, and peering at it.

“Oh, Em.” She chuckled as she added, “It’s perfect.”

“Lemme see,” Fee said, and she got up and snatched the paper from Sherilyn. After giving it a once-over, she smacked Emma’s arm. “Dude. Way to go.”

“Can we all see?” Susannah asked, and Sherilyn took the paper back and held it up for everyone to have a look.

“It’s lovely.”

“Just right.”

“I think it says Emma and Jackson,” Norma added.

Sherilyn glanced over her shoulder and asked, “So how did you finally manage it?”

“I met this really sweet woman at the hotel, and she helped me pick it. Speaking of which,” she said, touching Fee’s elbow. “Her name is Bonnie Cordova, and she and her husband, Ben, are having tea at two o’clock tomorrow. I’d like to comp them. And could you find out if they’ll be around this weekend? If so, invite them to the wedding.”

“God bless you, Bonnie Cordova!” Sherilyn sang, and she hugged Emma around the shoulders. “We have a cake!”

“We have a cake,” Emma repeated with a sigh.

Stretched out across the bed on his stomach and surrounded by half a dozen books of poetry and verse, Jackson landed on something that snagged a heartstring. He pushed himself up and sat cross-legged, a book open to one of his old favorites balanced his knee.

When his cell phone rang, he had to search for it to answer.

“Guess what?”

Emma’s voice tickled the back of his throat, and warmth washed over him.

“You’re leaving me for a better-looking man.”

“There is no better-looking man.”

“Ah. Then what?”

“We have a cake.”

“Don’t toy with me.”

“Nope. I’m not joking. It was a perfect storm of the right conversation at the right moment and the right sketch. We have cake liftoff. What are you doing?”

“I am writing my vows,” he declared.

“We wrote the vows weeks ago, Jackson. We sat there and wrote them together.”

“I know. But Sherilyn said we each need to choose a passage of Scripture or a poem or something to read to each other first. Something that sums up how we feel. Did you do that already?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Oh.”

Emma chuckled. “And you’re just doing that now.”

“Well, I’m just nailing it down now,” he corrected, cringing as he scanned the many books scattered around him. “I’m narrowing down the choices.”

“What have you been waiting for, Jackson?”

“Well, for most women,” he explained with a teasing tone, “the wedding is apparently all about the dress. For you, my love, the cake is the thing. Now that you’ve landed on a cake, I have full confidence that this marriage is going to take place, so I need to kick it into gear.”

“You doubted me? I’m wounded.”

“And I am happy.”

Emma giggled, and it sparked the flicker of a grin on him. A sweet silence followed, and Jackson’s smile melted into an expression of pure tenderness.

His voice went raspy as he told her, “I wish you were here.”

“I can come over,” she offered.

“No. I mean . . . I wish you were here to stay.”

“Ohhh,” she breathed. “Me, too.”

He pushed the book from his leg, closed his eyes, and sighed. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

“What a silly question,” she replied softly, and he pressed the phone closer to better saver the earthy tone of her voice.

After another long silence, he remarked, “You sound tired.”

“I am. But it’s a good tired.”

“Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll see—”

“Hey,” she interrupted. “I walked in on the strangest thing over at Sherilyn’s tonight.”

Jackson chuckled. “Do tell.”

“Nearly every woman we know was there. All three of your sisters, Susannah, Fee. It was like I happened upon the meeting of some secret society of southern women that I hadn’t been invited to join.”

“Maybe your invitation got lost in the mail.”

“Or they’re up to something,” she half-whispered, and Jackson laughed.

“And this would be surprising? Our wedding is in a couple of days, Emma. Of course they’re planning something.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No.”

“Aren’t you curious?”

“No.”

“Okay. If you’re not going to play or be any fun at all, I’m going to sleep.”

“Sweet dreams,” he sang.

“Sweet vows,” she returned. “And make it good, will you? I wouldn’t want to have to trade you in for a sharper model.”

Tips for Writing Your Own Wedding Vows

Make sure you work together to make a plan:

Are you writing separate vows, or writing them together?

Are you going to show them to one another prior to
the ceremony?

Have you agreed on the overall tone of the vows?
For instance, will they display humor, or should they be
serious and thoughtful?