Zach rubbed his forehead.
“And Jaimie?”
“What about her?”
“Will she be there?”
“No,” Caleb said quickly, “no, she won’t. She, uh, she had to go out of town On business.” He hesitated. Told himself not to ask. And asked anyway. “Zach? There was never anything between the two of you, was there?”
“Nothing,” Zach said quickly. “There was never anything between James and me.”
A few more words and they ended the call.
“Well?” Jake and Travis said.
Caleb smiled. “He called her James.”
“Ah.”
“And his voice cracked when he did.”
High fives all around.
And then, they began the long, one-and-a half-day wait.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The day of the wedding dawned bright and sunny.
The wedding itself went off exactly as planned. The bride was beautiful; the groom was handsome. The house was alive with red and white roses; ribbon garlands hung along the bannisters of the wide staircase.
The general gave the bride away. And, at the end of the ceremony, all the guests made their way into the enormous great room and the adjoining dining room where tables had been set up for dinner.
Everybody was having fun.
Jaimie looked as if she were; she danced and drank champagne, but toward the end of the day, when she and Lissa escaped from the crowd to a corner of the living room, Jaimie grew quiet.
“What?” Lissa said.
Jaimie shrugged. “They’re right together.”
Lissa nodded and went for broke.
“You think it’ll ever be like that for either of us?” she said, and the look that swept over her sister’s face told her she’d had it right all the time.
Now what?
Could she be certain Jaimie was in love with Zacharias Castelianos, and that he was in love with her? And where was he? If he cared, wouldn’t he have come here? She’d put things as bluntly as she could. She’d all but told him that Jaimie loved him.
Had she guessed wrong?
Did Jaimie not love him?
Did he not love her?
“James,” Liss said…
Jaimie glugged down a glass of champagne.