What's Cooking (16 page)

By the time the doorbell rang, she had nearly convinced herself to change. She ran her hands down her stomach one last time, sucked in her breath again, and walked to the door.

At the sight of Mitchell in a tux, her heart skipped a beat, then started racing. His neatly styled hair sported a fresh haircut and was gelled into perfect order, showing no trace of the orange and blue she'd spotted only yesterday when she sat beside him on the couch at his parents' house.

The cut of the suit emphasized the width of his shoulders and tapered down to his narrow waist, trim hips, and long legs. The cummerbund wrapped around his midriff for that finishing touch of potent appeal.

The pristine formal wear made Mitchell look older than his years, which was another perverse reminder of how young he was. Still, the suit also emphasized his handsome face and physique, and when he smiled, that adorable dimple appeared in his left cheek. The combination of the total package of Mitchell Farris sent Carolyn's brain into a tailspin.

For lack of anything to say that wouldn't sound like a besotted teenager, she stood on her tiptoes and reached to straighten his slightly crooked bow tie.

He stiffened at her touch, which only confirmed her fears that she hadn't been seeing herself honestly in the mirror when she purchased the dress. To her surprise, when she wiggled his bow tie, his large hands settled on her hips. In a way, the contact helped to steady her but at the same time made her shaky inside.

She was in over her head. Way over her head.

Mitchell cleared his throat, then he reached up to touch the bow tie she'd just worked so hard to straighten. “You look great, Carolyn.”

At his words, heat stained her cheeks. She sank to allow her heels to touch the floor, gave the bow tie a quick pat, and backed up a step. “You look great, yourself. I'm almost ready to go. I just have to get my shoes and a sweater in case it gets cool this evening.”

She backed up another step to the closet, but instead of waiting outside, Mitchell also stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing? I thought we had to go.”

His voice came out in a low growl. “This is going to be my last chance to kiss you today.”

Before she knew what was happening, he'd backed her into the wall. He rested his hands on her shoulders, then used one index finger to tip up her chin, and their eyes locked. She knew what he was going to do, and she knew why he stopped. He was asking her permission.

All her hesitations crumbled. She was in love with him, right or wrong, and today was all they were going to have. All night long, she'd tossed and turned, trying to decide what to do. She had decided to enjoy the day with him, and then she was going to tell him it was over. This wasn't just her last chance to kiss him today. It was the last chance she would have to kiss him ever.

Carolyn closed her eyes and let her lips part just a little, and his mouth descended on hers.

This was not a sweet, chaste kiss. This time he kissed her like he meant it.

Carolyn melted against him. She slid her hands under the suit jacket and around his back and held him tight, then kissed him back in equal measure because she meant it, too. No one had ever kissed her like this before, and she knew no one ever would again.

When they separated, she could feel his reluctance as if it were a tangible thing. Slowly, he backed up, and his eyes fluttered open. “You're right,” he ground out. “We had better go.”

Carolyn continued to lean against the wall, needing the support.

Silently, they stared at each other. Mitchell's cheeks were flushed, his eyes were glazed, and his breathing was labored. She didn't want to think of what she looked like.

As they continued to stare at each other, they both started to smile.

Carolyn couldn't help herself. She actually giggled. “You're wearing lipstick.” Another giggle escaped. “There's a man in a tuxedo in my house, wearing lipstick.”

Mitchell smiled wider, but he didn't giggle. “That's really strange, because I'm looking at a beautiful woman all dressed up, who isn't wearing any.”

She couldn't stop herself. Carolyn continued to giggle as she straightened herself, took one step toward Mitchell, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him into the bathroom.

Instead of being embarrassed, Mitchell pursed his lips at his reflection in the mirror, made a loud smooch in the air, then smiled at himself. “Mm-mmm, I do look good.”

Carolyn handed him a tissue. “Quit fooling around. Wipe off the evidence. You have to be there early.”

While he wiped the lipstick off, Carolyn reapplied hers, and they were soon ready to go.

She slid on her shoes and glanced at him one more time, and in so doing, she once again felt the heat in her cheeks. “Wait. You didn't get it all off. You're going to be in a lot of pictures today. I'd better do it.”

They returned to the bathroom, where he sat on the edge of the bathtub while she diligently dabbed off the last smear.

The situation they were in could have been quite intimate, if they weren't in the bathroom and she didn't have a wad of lipstick-smudged tissue in her hand.

“There. You're manly once more. Let's get going, or you'll be late.”

“Carolyn, wait. Before we go, there's something I almost forgot to tell you.”

“Oh?” She smiled on the outside but cringed on the inside.

“I have to warn you; you'll really like Uncle Vince, but don't let him get started talking about fishing or you'll be sorry.”

Seventeen

Once at the church, Carolyn sat and watched the preamble to the wedding from a different perspective than at any other time she had attended a wedding. She watched Mitchell, Gordie, Roland, and even Jake run around checking on last-minute things.

“Mind if I sit with you for a while?”

Carolyn looked up to find Mitchell's father standing beside the pew.

“Of course not.” She slid over to the side to make room for Roger, surprised that such an important figure in the coming proceedings would take time to say hello to her.

“The father of the bride isn't allowed with his daughter until she's ready to walk down the aisle. I guess I'm at loose ends. A little nervous, too, I don't mind saying.”

Carolyn smiled. “It's an important day.”

“Yes, it is. I think not only for my daughter.”

Carolyn's stomach tied itself into knots. His expression told her he had something specific in mind.

Roger sat and turned sideways to face her. “I think I'm just going to be blunt, because I don't know how much time we'll have before I have to go. Mitchell seems to be very serious about you.”

All Carolyn could do was nod.

“I know you have some concerns about Mitchell being younger than you are, and it doesn't help that Kim and I are not all that much older than you.”

She nodded again. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation, today of all days, and with Mitchell's father—not that she'd done much talking.

Roger continued. “I don't know how much Mitchell has told you about the start of Kim's and my relationship.”

She cleared her throat, but her voice still came out far too unsteady. “I know you were both very young and were married when Mitchell was three.”

He reached up and wiggled the knot of his tie. “That's right. We were young and stupid, and it was because of our age that we faced a lot of opposition, for a number of reasons. I know it's not quite the same for you and Mitchell, because Kim and I are the same age and we had each other.” Suddenly, his ears turned red, making it apparent whom Mitchell got the trait from. “Kim is actually a few months older than I am. How about that, huh?”

She acknowledged that bit of information with a shaky smile, and he went on.

“All our friends were out having fun and letting their relationships mature the right way, before marriage, and especially before having children. Obviously we did it in the wrong order. Our parents helped, yet they didn't make it easy for us. We struggled and worked hard for a lot of years, even after we were married and managing on our own.

“When your kids are small, you tend to spend your time with people whose kids are the same age as your own. Because of that, we were ten years younger than the parents of Mitchell's friends, the people with whom we had the most in common and ended up spending most of our time with. We felt it then and we still do to a degree, but now that we're older, it doesn't make as much difference. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know what it's like to face opposition and to struggle because something in your relationship is very different than the rest of your peers.

“Because we were so different than everyone in our circle, and because we made a lot of mistakes, Mitchell had to mature very fast for his years. Being so much older than all of his cousins and our friends' kids, he was the one to do all the baby-sitting and provide a good example. I wanted to ask you to give him a fair chance, based on Mitchell the person, not Mitchell the younger man.”

Roger's presence and heartfelt words only confirmed what she already knew. Mitchell was serious—too serious to think she could fool herself into being just friends. They could never be just friends. With Mitchell, it was all or nothing.

Roger was called away, and soon it was time for Jake and his groomsmen to stand at their places at the front of the church. Of course, Mitchell looked the best of all of them. As the bridal procession began, Carolyn watched Ellen's friends making their way to the front, but she couldn't help sneaking a peek at Mitchell when Ellen and their father began their march up the aisle. She could see the play of emotions running through him from pride to confusion, then something else she couldn't even begin to guess as he discreetly glanced from his sister to his best friend.

Even though she didn't know anyone well except for Mitchell, Carolyn found herself getting misty-eyed.

At the end of the touching ceremony, Carolyn stayed as much in the background as she could, standing silently by Mitchell's side as he chatted with other guests in the attached banquet hall.

She heard Mitchell's name being called in the background.

“Oops. I have to go to the park for the pictures now. Do you want to come?”

She shook her head. “It's okay. I see a few people I know from the school. It will be nice to talk to them.”

He smiled, and Carolyn's foolish heart fluttered. “I'm glad you feel comfortable doing that. See you soon.”

She walked with him to the church parking lot, where Mitchell slipped behind the wheel of Jake's vividly decorated car. As he drove the newlyweds to the park, he looked so happy that it made her regret what she would have to tell him at the end of the evening. Today was a wedding, a day to celebrate love. Despite what Roger had told her, it was not to celebrate hers and Mitchell's.

The guests mingled in every conceivable spot of the building, waiting for the wedding party to return. Carolyn recognized a few couples as former students or parents of present students. She strengthened her resolve and determined to see them as friends of the bride and groom. She was so successful that time passed quickly, and she was surprised when someone called out that Jake and Ellen had arrived.

Those who had not already found a table were quickly seated.

The speeches began, drawing everyone's attention to the front. Carolyn nearly cried at Mitchell's tender speech about his sister, then laughed at the way he expounded on Jake's not quite finest traits, and the entire group roared at his comments concerning his best friend marrying his sister.

After the toasts to the bride, Mitchell's pastor prayed, then the room buzzed with conversation and laughter as the meal was served. After the meal, there was a short video presentation of Jake and Ellen's childhood and courtship.

When the official program ended, the wedding party left the head table to socialize, starting with Jake and Ellen cutting the wedding cake and visiting with their guests.

Mitchell slid into the chair across from Carolyn.

As quickly as he had sat, he stood. “I don't want to sit here and call to you from across the table. Come on, let's go someplace else where we can talk without having to raise our voices.”

Carolyn glanced from side to side. Small groups congregated everywhere, standing and sitting, and many people had already filtered into the lobby to talk where it wasn't so noisy.

She stood. “Sure.”

❧

Mitchell led Carolyn out of the banquet room, through the nearly empty lobby, all the way outside. The sky was alive with the pink and purple hues of the sunset. The evening air was cool with the setting sun, and it was the perfect opportunity to wrap his arms around her, just to keep her warm because she'd left her sweater inside the banquet room.

“Mitchell?”

“I wanted to look at the sunset. It's kinda romantic, isn't it?”

“Romantic? It's the wedding getting to you.”

“Maybe.” He smiled and ran one finger over Carolyn's cheek. While he felt romantic, it had nothing to do with the beautiful sky or being at the uniting of two people before God. It was because he was with the woman he loved.

Despite the romantic atmosphere of the wedding and now the pretty sunset, all day long he'd had the nagging impression that something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It had started long before the actual ceremony, when he arrived at Carolyn's house to pick her up. She'd been almost too responsive when they'd kissed earlier, like she knew something he didn't.

His stomach churned, despite his quickening heartbeat at the memory of a kiss that had rocked him to his soul. It was like the last kiss before the hero of the movie rode off into the sunset, never to be seen again.

Mitchell reached for her hand and twined their fingers together. This hero wasn't riding off into this sunset. He was staying, hopefully forever. Today, tonight, he was going to ask Carolyn if perhaps one day in the not too distant future, she would consider marrying him.

He wasn't going to rush her. After all, they hadn't known each other long, but all day he'd tried to squelch the panic he felt rising up, the fear that if he didn't do or say something right away, he was going to lose her.

“Listen! Do you hear the crickets chirping?”

He blinked, bringing his attention back to Carolyn beside him, which was what he had intended, not to go outside with her and be lost in his own little world. “There's a big piece of undeveloped land next door.”

“Did you know that you can tell the temperature by a cricket's chirp? You count the number of chirps a cricket makes in fifteen seconds, and then add forty.”

“That's very interesting. I never knew that.” He almost started counting, but he stopped himself and squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn't there to learn about insect trivia. For weeks, he had waited for just that right moment to give her the promise ring, and it never happened. Then when he'd made his own moment after class, the wrong moment had turned exactly right.

Right moments didn't just happen, they were made, and he was going to make one right now.

He forced himself to relax, gave her hand a small squeeze, then turned and smiled at her. “Carolyn, I've been thinking. I know this is going to sound sudden to you, but will you—”

“Mitchell, wait.”

Mitchell frowned. “Wait? But—”

“I know why you're doing this, and it's not necessary. You don't have to feel sorry for me.”

“Sorry for you?”

“Because of Hank.”

“But I—”

Suddenly, a voice called out. “Mitchell! Come on! Jake and Ellen are leaving.”

“You have to go.”

“No, we have to finish this.”

“We can talk when everything is over. I have something to say to you, too.”

❧

Once the last guest had left, Carolyn pitched in, and the cleanup progressed quickly. The mundane chores provided her the opportunity to be alone and allowed her time to think.

She could tell Mitchell knew what she was going to say to him. He wasn't his usual smiling self, and he was unusually quiet, while Gordie and Roland were unusually loud.

Also, his acquiescence meant that he had accepted what she was going to tell him.

To tell him she couldn't see him again was the most painful decision of her life. Over the last few days, she'd done a lot of thinking and even more praying, and she had concluded that Mitchell was not the man she'd been asking God for. She thought about all the qualities and criteria she asked for in the man who would be her husband, and of them all, Mitchell only met one—he was a Christian. She'd asked for God to show her whether Mitchell was right for her or not. For all her prayers, she hadn't seen anything that showed her Mitchell was the man God had chosen for her to share the rest of her life with.

Therefore, she had to quit fooling herself. A bad case of the warm fuzzies wasn't enough of a foundation on which to base a marriage. Something firm had to come first, something to help the relationship withstand the test of time. She'd had more reminders of everything wrong than the only thing right in their relationship, so she had to accept that as her answer.

There was no middle ground, because for this question, the answer was for keeps.

When the decorations were packed away, the room restored to its original order and properly cleaned, the wedding party left the building and walked to the parking lot.

Carolyn followed Mitchell to his car.

“Let's talk when you take me home. This isn't something I want to do in a moving vehicle,” she said as he located his key ring and opened the door for her.

“Okay,” Mitchell said quietly. He walked around to the driver's side and slid into the seat in silence.

She could tell that he had prepared himself for the worst, accepted it, and taken it like a man. A mature man.

She thought of what Hank had done when she turned him down. The older man, the one who seemed to be everything she'd ever wanted in the man who would be her mate. Mitchell rested one hand on the steering wheel and inserted the key in the ignition, but he didn't turn it. He sighed deeply, then dropped his hands and turned his body toward her. “We don't have to have that little talk, Carolyn. It's okay. I know what you're going to say, and I won't insult you and keep hammering at you. Your decision is your decision, whether it's the one I want or not.”

A burn started in the back of her eyes, but she blinked it back.

“I don't know if I'll have the strength to do this later, so I had better do it now.” He reached behind the seat, pulled out a plastic bag, and handed it to her. “I got this for you. I forgot to give it to you before the wedding. You can ignore the note.”

She opened the bag, reached inside, and pulled out a little plush ram that matched the sheep Mitchell had bought for her at the zoo. Stuck to it was a small note with Mitchell's scrawling handwriting.

To Carolyn.

Husband attached.

Love, Mitchell

She stared at the little ram, then at Mitchell.

He smiled weakly, like he was trying to lighten the heavy moment. “I hope this time you're not going to hit me over the head with it.”

She petted the little ram, which was obviously the husband for the sheep now sitting on her bed, reread the note, and contemplated its message.