One Love

But the trouble hadn’t stopped there. The zipper on my dress broke, and my mom had to do a quick makeshift repair so that it would stay up. The clasp on my diamond bracelet wouldn’t catch until my dad came in and used one of the tools on his pocketknife to clamp the metal together. Then Kate, my daughter, pitched a fit and wouldn’t calm down until she saw her mommy. So my mom brought her to the bridal prep room when they should’ve been taking their place in the first row where she could’ve waved at her daddy who was already waiting for me.

By the time I calmed her down, we were running almost a full hour late. But I refused to allow anything to take away from my dream wedding day. I pasted a big grin on my face while my mom carried my daughter out of the room.

Audrey thrust a glass of champagne into my hand. “Here, you look like you could use this.”

Everyone giggled over how quickly I gulped down the drink. Charlie brought the bottle over and filled my glass again. “If you drink that fast enough, I just might be able to pour you a third before we have to go.”

“That’s probably not a great idea.” Faith yanked the glass out of my hand when it was still half full. “With everything that’s gone wrong today, you’d probably end up breaking something if you try to walk down the aisle after three glasses of champagne.”

I’d barely eaten anything today and wasn’t much of a drinker, so I couldn’t argue with her logic. “You make an excellent point.”

Allison eyed my stiletto heels and strode across the room to grab a few French pressed sandwich bites from the tray my mom had dropped off when she arrived. After dropping them onto a small plate, she brought it over to me. “Here, you’d better eat something while you still can.”

I shoved one of them in my mouth and hummed in pleasure at how delicious the sandwich was. I only managed to eat one more before the wedding planner knocked on the door to announce that it was time to line up. Setting the plate down to grab my bouquet, I heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”

Faith was the first one to the door as she mumbled, “If I ever fall in love, I’m going to give serious consideration to eloping. Then I won’t have to worry about all the stress of a wedding.”

After how our dad had reacted to the news of my courthouse wedding, I briefly considered warning my sister off an elopement. But then I decided against it because I could remind my dad of what she’d done whenever he complained about how Hudson and I got married.

I followed my bridal party out of the room and eyed the bathroom door. Figuring I had just enough time to run in and swish my mouth out with water before popping a mint—since I didn’t want to taste like champagne and sandwiches when Hudson kissed me—I poked Audrey in the back. “I’ll be back in a second.”

“You better hurry up,” she warned.

“I’ll be super quick,” I promised as I darted down the hall to the bathroom. Even though it didn’t take me long, Audrey was already all the way down by where my dad was waiting to walk me down the aisle. In my rush to join them, I tripped over my dress and would’ve probably broken something like Faith had said if someone hadn’t caught me from behind and settled me back on my feet. Glancing over my shoulder, I mumbled, “Thank you,” to the guy who’d saved me. He was wearing a black suit that looked as though it had been made for him and added to the air of danger he exuded. I didn’t recognize him, but Hudson had invited some people from work, and I could easily picture this guy doing heavily classified black ops work.

“No problem,” he assured me on a raspy growl.

My dad must’ve rushed over because he gripped my arm and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I probably should’ve gone with a smaller heel.” I lifted the hem of my dress and wiggled my foot. “Luckily, someone was here to rescue me from myself.”

“Who?”

I glanced over my shoulder and realized it was just the two of us in the hallway now. It was as though the guy had disappeared into thin air, reinforcing my belief that he was someone Hudson worked with. But it didn’t really matter who he was because the music shifted to the bridal march. “Never mind, we need to get in there before anything else goes wrong.”

“Be careful, sweetheart. You don’t want to jinx yourself,” my dad rumbled as he tucked my hand in the crook of his elbow and guided me toward the doors.