Heart's Desire (3 page)

CHAPTER THREE

M
RS
. B
EABOTS
SMOOTHED
the skirt of her black silk dress with the red-rosebud print and white starched collar that she loved so much. It was the last dress her husband had bought for her before he died, and therefore, it carried great sentimentality for her. It was important for her to wear something special today. Despite it being Valentine’s Day, today was a most remarkable day in her life and that of Sarah’s as well. Mrs. Beabots was here at Bride’s Corner to give her opinion and advice about this most auspicious of all dresses a woman would ever wear—her wedding gown.

She was honored that Sarah had sought her counsel, but she had also told Sarah she would tell the unvarnished truth. “You look like a strumpet,” Mrs. Beabots said evenly. “It’s not that I don’t like it, it’s just not what I pictured you would want.”

“Come on. This is a designer dress. It was featured in two of the fourteen bridal magazines I bought. I thought it was...” Sarah looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. “I thought it was sophisticated and the clean lines made me look a bit taller. Thinner.”

“Stay away from Maddie’s cupcakes and you won’t need to worry about your waistline,” Mrs. Beabots said with a smile on her face that nearly dripped honey. She knew exactly how to deliver the truth when the truth was not exactly what was expected. She swept her eyes over the yards of white peau de soie that were tucked and wrapped around Sarah’s perfect figure. The dress was strapless, in the mermaid style, which was all the rage, Mrs. Beabots had been told. A bolero jacket covered Sarah’s bare shoulders with dozens of lace and silk flowers around the collar and bottom of the jacket. At the lower hips, the tightly wound section ended, and the skirt flared out into a long fantail of peau de soie. It was sophisticated. It was extraordinarily elegant. But it wasn’t Sarah.

Maddie sat next to Mrs. Beabots on the faded gold brocade settee that faced the large front window in the store. On either side of the window, angling in toward the room were enormous cheval mirrors.

Sarah looked at Maddie. “What do you think?”

“It’s too low-cut for St. Mark’s, that’s for sure.” She tilted her head to the right and then the left. “It’s a beautiful gown, but I always thought of you in something wistful and dreamy, with a train of little boys in white satin knee pants behind you.”

Sarah turned and observed her backside in the long mirror. “Maybe I’m not the city sophisticate I thought I was.”

“I doubt that’s how Luke sees you, dear,” Mrs. Beabots said flatly. “I know I don’t. You’re too sweet.” Mrs. Beabots shuddered. Being sophisticated was a bitter-tasting idea.

“True,” Sarah replied. “I just look too...”

“Poured in,” Maddie said, getting up. “The dress is lovely, Sarah, but this mermaid style is so formfitting that no woman but a very confident supermodel would be comfortable in it. You need...” Maddie wandered over to a rack of spring wedding dresses that Audra Billingsly, the owner, had just rolled into the front room.

Audra pressed a clump of errant red hair back with her palm as she bent down to put the brake on the rack. “These just came in, Sarah. None have been ironed, but maybe there’s something here that suits you better. I’ve got several top designers as well as some very affordable gowns. My yummiest is this Carolina Herrara, with embroidered cabbage roses along the tiered second hem. It’s frightfully expensive, though.”

Sarah shook her head as she looked at the price tag. “It’s gorgeous, but out of my league.”

“This Claire Pettibone has a knee-high hem in front and falls to a train in back, and look at all the appliquéd spring flowers. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

“It is,” Sarah agreed, “but it’s still not quite right.” Sarah sank onto the settee next to Mrs. Beabots. “I had no idea this was going to be so difficult. I can’t seem to choose—they’re all so beautiful. I like these dresses with the high-low hem, since we’re going to be on the beach for the reception. But if I spend more on the dress, I don’t think I’ll be able to afford flowers. And as much as I envision a church filled with flowers, I’m afraid my budget can’t stretch that far.”

“Don’t worry about flowers now, Sarah,” Mrs. Beabots said. “I’ll be planting a new rose garden for you this spring and we’ll have plenty.” She nodded reassuringly.

Sarah gave her a hug. “You are always a step ahead of me, aren’t you?”

“I should be. I’ve been around longer.”

Maddie perused the rack of new gowns and took a dress off the rack and held it up to herself. “Sarah, now,
this
is your dress.” She turned to Audra. “Who’s the designer?”

“You have exquisite taste, Maddie. It’s an Oscar de la Renta. Why don’t you try it on. It’s a six, just your size.”

The elegant, A-line, white peau de soie skirt was embroidered with green-and-white lilies of the valley. With the green-and-white strapless bodice, the dress would give the impression that the bride had just walked out of a forest garden.

“That would be fun, Maddie,” Sarah urged. “You and I are about the same size and both blonde. Let me see what it looks like on you. Besides, it will take a crowbar to get me out of this gown, and we’d be here till dinnertime if we had to wait on me.”

Maddie couldn’t tear her eyes from the gown. “I’ve never seen anything like it. May I?”

“Absolutely. Let’s go into room two. I’ll help you with the dress.” Audra led Maddie toward the fitting rooms.

While Sarah and Mrs. Beabots discussed floral arrangements for the church and possible plans for their spring gardens, Maddie went to the dressing room and let Audra help her into the gown.

Audra supplied a white lace strapless corset and bra, and a straight white nylon half slip. Then Maddie donned a horsehair net underskirt that would allow the A-line of the skirt to bell out. Over that, she pulled on a second underskirt of white silk. Audra handed Maddie a pair of thigh-high, elastic-topped white hose to wear and a pair of white peau de soie pumps with two-inch heels. Finally, Maddie stepped into the gown and Audra zipped up the back and fastened the white satin ribbon that encircled Maddie’s waist, tying a bow in back. In the center of the bow she pinned a tiny fabric nosegay of lily of the valley. The entire bodice and skirt were covered in eight-inch leaves in varying shades of green. The flowers were embroidered in white silk, and in the center of each was a crystal bead, so that each time Maddie turned under the chandelier in the dressing room, she sparkled a if dew had just settled on each flower.

“It’s absolute magic,” Maddie gushed in an awe-filled whisper as she looked at her reflection in the gilded mirror. “I had no idea...”

“That you were so beautiful?” Audra finished the thought for her.

Maddie was spellbound by her own reflection. She honestly didn’t know who that woman with the sparkling green eyes could be. She’d been so used to working in jeans, corduroys, sweatshirts and aprons nearly all her adult life that she’d never once stopped to think of herself as a girl who wore pretty dresses or gowns, or even as a...bride.

And you aren’t a bride. This is just pretend. Standing in. Wishful thinking.

Dark shadows filled Maddie’s eyes as she continued to look at herself. Was it possible that only today, the flutter of a memory of Nate Barzonni, her first love, a high school romance, had haunted her? Even now, as she recalled his blazing Mediterranean-blue eyes and the intoxicating, addictive kisses they’d shared, her emotions were a storm of anger and pain. Nate had abandoned her eleven years ago, and she still felt the heartbreak.

If she ever saw him again, it would be too soon.

But then, there was the very real fact of Alex’s flowers—real and aggressive. He was spinning her dream for her, and though he would be gone for nearly a month, he promised to call and text her often. He’d told her they were close to finding an investor. Alex knew there was nothing more important to her than her business.

“You’re beautiful, Maddie,” Audra said. “This dress was made for you. The green in the lilies matches the green of your eyes. I can watch your thoughts in your eyes. Did you know that? Your eyes change from light green to dark green along with your mood.”

“My mood?”

“Uh-huh. When you first saw yourself in the mirror, you were happy, and your eyes were a sparkling, light spring green. Then they turned darker, as if you were thinking of something disturbing.”

“Hmm. Disturbing,” Maddie grumbled. Nate was always a disturbance. “You could see that?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know I was so transparent.”

Audra hid her smirk by bending down and passing her palms over the skirt to smooth out a few wrinkles. “I see a great deal in my business. Weddings are like funerals. People usually reveal part of themselves at both events, and it isn’t always the best side that I see, even though people think of weddings as being a happy time. It’s a very stressful time. All big decisions are.”

“But it’s not my wedding,” Maddie said. “So, I’m off the hook.”

“I’m thinking that you wish it were your wedding,” Audra offered, leveling her brown eyes on Maddie.

“Not hardly,” Maddie retorted.

Audra waved away her objection. “I’ve always found it just as interesting to watch the bridesmaids and maid of honor as to watch the bride. There are so many little dramas going on around us every day. Dozens of innuendos and intrigues, mistakes and missed fortunes. Lives being slowly knit together and others, sometimes sadly and methodically, being torn apart. Most people are oblivious to these little underpinnings of life. But they are what form the structure of our lives and create our finales for us. Me? I pride myself on observations.”

“Well, there’s nothing to observe here. I have no fiancé. No boyfriend. And to be honest, I have a lot of world to conquer before I get tied down with marriage.”

Audra smiled. “Is that right?”

“Absolutely.” Maddie looked at herself again. “Still. It’s a very pretty dress, isn’t it?”

“It was made for you. Just you.”

“I think it would look marvelous on Sarah.”

Audra chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully and walked around Maddie, studying the dress from all angles. “I have another theory. It’s taken me over twenty years in the bridal business to come to the conclusion that there really is one perfect wedding dress for every woman, and when the dress finds her, sometimes it’s an omen of changes to come.”

“I bet you believe in soul mates, too.”

“I wouldn’t be in the wedding business if I didn’t.”

Maddie stared at Audra as if she was nuts. This wasn’t the kind of conversation she needed to have, today of all days. She came here to help Sarah pick a dress, and now she was standing here, looking frankly fantabulous—better than she ever knew she could look—and this woman was telling her this dress had “found” her and was mystically going to change her life. Maybe Audra had been hitting the champagne a bit early. Or maybe she was just trying to make an extra sale.

“Well, let’s see what Sarah thinks of the gown, shall we?”

Audra took the change of subject as her cue to open the dressing room door. “We should, indeed.”

Maddie walked into the main showroom and up to the front window where there was a step-up round riser. She lifted her skirt and heard the swishing of all the underskirts and the peau de soie next to the horsehair net. She stood still and looked at herself in the two cheval mirrors. The gleam of the light from the crystal chandelier overhead pirouetted off the crystals in the dress.

Mrs. Beabots clasped her hands together and brought them to her smiling lips. “You are a vision for my eyes, my dear!”

Sarah was dumbstruck and could barely speak. “It’s you, Maddie. The dress is like the angels made it for you.”

“I can’t deny I feel like Cinderella,” Maddie said, admiring herself once again, still not believing her own reflection. Maddie turned back to Sarah. “But I thought it was perfect for
you
.”

Mrs. Beabots and Sarah stared at Maddie and allowed her to revel in the moment.

“Let me see the back,” Sarah said.

“Oh, I just love the little bow and nosegay,” Maddie said, turning toward the front window.

Maddie stared. Then she blinked. Twice.

At first, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. She peered into the darkening day.

There, underneath the black, wrought-iron Victorian street lamp, the evening fog drifting along the sidewalk, stood Nate. He looked directly at her, and when their eyes locked, he smiled.

Her heart thrummed in her chest and she could feel a pounding of hot blood at her temples. She felt dizzy for a moment, but steadied herself by using the mind-over-matter techniques Sarah’s uncle George had once taught her.

In the eleven years since Nate had abandoned her, Maddie had not had a single boyfriend. She had dated a few men here and there, but all her energy had gone into her business. She had convinced herself that she was strong and willful, that she owned her own power. She firmly denied and crushed any idea that she might fear being rejected again by a man, especially Nate, and moved on. She purposefully fanned and fueled the fires of her anger against Nate to mask even the tiniest possibility that she still had any feelings for him. Maddie didn’t dare think about Nate and love in the same thought. Such musings could lead to her ruin. For eleven years, Maddie had told her friends over and over that Nate Barzonni was the devil to her.

Maddie continued to stare at the vision outside the window.

If it was at all possible, Nate was more handsome than ever, with a man’s face and a man’s physique under a double-breasted black wool coat. His dark hair was worn shorter than she remembered, but still parted on the right side. He wore a grey, black-and-white-plaid scarf around his neck, and suddenly she realized it was a scarf she’d bought for him their last Christmas together, in his senior year of high school. His hands were shoved into the pockets of the coat, and he did not raise one to wave to her.

He only stared.

She was spellbound.

There was no way Nate was actually standing outside Bride’s Corner. No way.