“Now, ladies,” the wedding coordinator continued snapping orders. “I want you hidden back behind these terraces until after the music starts tomorrow.”
She put each bridesmaid where she wanted them, had them pretend to hold their bouquets. Then, at designated points in the song, she sent each woman toward the podium where the groom and his men waited.
McKenzie was the second bridesmaid out from where the bride would take her place after all six women had made their way to the front.
McKenzie never looked toward Ryder during her jaunt down the aisle. She just stepped up front to where the wedding coordinator had told her to go, stood holding her pretend bouquet, and kept her gaze trained toward where the other bridesmaids came down the aisle one by one until it was time for Reva to make her grand entrance.
It might be only a rehearsed ceremony, but McKenzie’s cousin’s appearance garnered everyone’s attention, including her groom’s, as if she were truly making her grand entrance.
Ryder hadn’t met Jeremy yet as the groom and his groomsmen had spent the day on their own adventures. The smile on his face was genuine, as was the love in his gaze when it landed on his bride.
McKenzie was also smiling, but something was off. Ryder wasn’t sure it was something anyone else would pick up on, but the way she held her body, the way her smile didn’t reach her eyes tugged at everything in him, making him want to go wrap her in his arms and promise to make right whatever was bothering her.
He wouldn’t be doing that. At least, not for real.
The couple ran through a mock ceremony with the wedding coordinator stopping them time and again to redirect anything not exactly as she and the couple had previously discussed. When they’d finished and the last of the wedding party had exited the area, she clapped her hands and the handful of people sitting in the pews followed suit.
“Now, this time, we’ll run through without interruptions,” the coordinator instructed. “If you mess up, just keep going as if this is the real deal. No stopping. Pronto.”
The petite woman might have been a drill sergeant in a previous life.
As everyone was resuming their previous places, Ryder moved to one of the pews near the front. Several family members and friends of the wedding party sat in the area, chatting while they waited for the rehearsal to begin again.
“You must be McKenzie’s Dr. Andrews.”
Ryder glanced up at the man who slid into the pew next to him and nodded.
The man stuck out his hand. “I’m McKenzie’s big brother, Mark.”
Ryder shook the man’s hand. “Ryder.”
“I grilled her on you over the phone, but she didn’t have a lot to say. Just that I’d like you. She said that about the last guy, too.”
“You planning to grill me now to see if you have better luck?” Ryder guessed.
The man gave him a stare down that belonged on a certified interrogator. “It’s a big brother’s job to look out for his little sister. For the record, she was wrong. I didn’t like the last guy.”
“Fair enough, and to be honest, I wasn’t crazy about him, either,” Ryder admitted, earning a quick snort from McKenzie’s brother. “What do you want to know?”
“How long have you been seeing my sister?”
“A few weeks.”
“Yet she brought you to Tennessee to meet her family? That seems fast.”
“Bringing me here may be why she’s with me at all,” he admitted, sticking with the truth. “I got the distinct impression coming alone wasn’t an option she was willing to accept.”
Her brother studied him. “You might be right. My mom worries about her.”
“As does her brother?”
“Yeah, he does, too, although she’s seemed happy enough when I’ve visited Seattle.”
“You get out to see her often?”
“A few times a year. Enough to have my opinions on the guy you replaced. Good riddance.”
Ryder waited for him to say more.