Emergency Engagement (Love Emergency 1)

“But you know we shouldn’t rush to a decision,” Savannah insisted and sent her sister the best Help me! stare she could manage.

Sinclair lifted one slim shoulder and let it drop. “You love the dress. It’s straight out of your dreams. What reason do I have for suggesting we sleep on it?”

She could think of three thousand reasons, but she couldn’t utter a single one.

“Please, Savannah, let your mother and me do this. You don’t know what it means to me to see Beau take another chance at love, marriage—sharing his life with someone. What happened with Kelli and Abbey shook his faith in everything, including himself. Trent and I feared he’d never open himself up to love again.”

Mercy, what could she say? “His ability to love so intensely is part of what makes him so amazing.”

“He does love intensely. I see the intensity when he’s with you. He reaches for you. He seeks comfort from you. He lets you in. You’re good for him, and he’s needed something good for a long time. We all have.”

Savannah sank into the empty chair on the other side of her mom. Condolences leaped to her tongue, but she held them back because she noticed Mrs. Montgomery’s voice remained stable and her eyes dry. This woman would burst into tears at the first hint of joyful news, but she’d learned to be strong in the face of adversity. She’d learned to be strong for her son.

Her heart broke for them all over again. “I can’t imagine how awful it was, for all of you.”

Cheryl nodded. “I don’t wish the experience on anyone, but I do wish I’d handled it differently.”

“You were there for him—”

“No, we were there with him, but not really for him. Trent and I allowed our grief to distract us from a troubling reality. Beau coped with his pain, and his profound sense of helplessness, by emotionally withdrawing from everyone. He took the same detachment he relies on to do his job effectively and applied it to all aspects of his life. Oh, he went through the motions of interacting, and maintaining relationships to a degree—a very superficial degree—but he wasn’t truly connecting anymore. We told ourselves to be patient. He’d let people back into his life when his heart healed. We also made excuses. Trent and I told each other, ‘It’s only been a year. Give him time.’ A year stretched into two, and then three, and we started to fear he’d never take down the wall he’d constructed around himself. And

then suddenly he did, and we have you to thank.”

No words could express how badly Savannah wished the sentiments were true, but they weren’t. He still had the wall, and all she’d done was help him camouflage the barrier so the people who cared about him wouldn’t detect it. She stared at the floor because she couldn’t look anyone in the eye. “Please, don’t thank me. He loves you.” At least she could say that much honestly. This whole stupid deception arose out of his love for his parents and his desire to ease their concern. “Your patience and love made him realize he couldn’t lock his feelings away. Trust me, what Beau and I have wouldn’t exist if not for you.”

“You have it, and that’s what’s important,” her mom insisted. “Fate’s full of surprises, and some of them are happy ones. When the happy surprises come along, we grab on to them, and we celebrate.” She turned to the saleswoman and handed over her credit card. “We’ll take the dress.”

Sinclair gave Savannah a told-you-so look and Savannah recalled her sister’s prediction. You and Beau are going to end up married through the sheer force of Mom’s will.

Cheryl sniffled. “Beau’s going to lose his mind when he sees you in that gown.”

Savannah and Sinclair responded at the same time.

“No doubt.”

Chapter Sixteen

The laughter echoing in the stairwell gave them away. Beau opened his door and stepped into the hall in time to see four tipsy women meander up the stairs, pausing every few steps to talk over one another and then dissolve into fits of giggles. His mom and Laurel had their arms looped around Savannah. Sinclair brought up the rear. Laurel leaned across Savannah and in a loud whisper said to his mom, “Now I just need to find someone for Sinclair, and then I can sit back and wait for grandbabies.”

Sinclair sighed, gave him a pointed look, and checked her watch.

Correction. Three tipsy women and one sober one—though he doubted Sinclair would stay that way for long after her designated driver duties ended. She herded everyone to the landing. Savannah looked up at him with wide, owlish eyes and hung back.

Hmm.

The moms spotted him. His called out, “There’s my boy!” The next thing he knew he was the recipient of two sloppy, unsteady mom hugs.

“Hey”—he caught each woman in an arm and supported them—“seems like you all had fun.”

Sinclair rolled her eyes and peeled the moms off him. “‘Fun’ is not the word. These two are mine. This one’s yours.” She nudged Savannah his way. “She’s hammered.”

He tucked Savannah under his arm and looked down at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “Lil’ bit.”

She smelled like tequila and…tequila. He knew she could handle her whiskey. How much tequila did it take to get her drunk?

“We went out to dinner, to celebrate,” his mom chimed in. “We found the perfect—”