Kiss and Run

“You must rehearse in the shoes,” Miss Peach said firmly, hauling Cecily to her feet. “We don’t want any klutziness going down the aisle tomorrow. Now that you’re here we have to get started,” she muttered. “I don’t give a damn who else is missing.”

She got a tourniquet-strength hold on Cecily’s arm and rushed her over to a group of women. Cecily took one look at them and segued from dazed to fashion-panicked. They were perfectly made up and coiffed and were wearing cute little skirts, short but not too short, that showed off endless, thin, tanned legs and were topped with belly shirts that revealed flat, tanned tummies. In the long, droopy bachelor’s-button-printed sundress she’d bought at the Blue Hill Thrift Shop when Vermont had an unprecedented heat wave and it got too hot for jeans, she was hands down the worst dressed among them. Her careless appearance explained Elaine Shipley’s wide eyes. If Cecily’s mother had been there, she would have died of shame.

But then, her mother had vegetated into a person who was incapable of understanding any choice Cecily made, especially her choice to be a veterinarian instead of a—fashion designer, maybe?

“The maid of honor,” Miss Peach said with a note of triumph in her voice, “is present and accounted for.”

A dark-haired beauty at the center of the group, whirled, and her eyes widened just as her mother’s had. “Cecily? Cecily!” she said and pulled Cecily into a bear hug.

The bride, Sally Shipley, daughter of Elaine, was dressed even more sedately than her entourage and even more perfectly pulled together. Cecily got as far as saying, “Sally, it’s been a long—” before Miss Peach, who had to be the wedding planner, interrupted.

“No time for reminiscence.” Much like a gravel truck, she scooped up all of them and hustled them down the aisle, shoving them into place. “Leave a space,” she said to Cecily. “The matron of honor hasn’t shown up yet. Reverend Justice,” she commanded the cleric who already stood facing an imaginary crowd, “go for it. I’ll bring in the others when they choose to grace us with their presence.” Her voice dripped annoyance.

The bride grabbed her groom by the elbow. “This is Gus,” she whispered to Cecily.

Cecily held out a hand. “Nice to meet—”

“No introductions now.” Miss Peach practically yelled the words, then sprinted up the aisle.

Sally meekly turned toward the minister, who intoned, “Dearly beloved…”

Feeling dizzy and disoriented, Cecily shifted her weight from one aching foot to the other. The rest of the wedding party might be dearly beloved by each other, but she wasn’t even dearly beloved by the bride, whose maid of honor she’d foolishly agreed to be. Barely remembered was more like it.

But however reluctant to be in the wedding of a woman she hadn’t been friends with since they were five years old, she now had a mission, one she could start on while the wedding party was…

“…gathered here today to share with Sally and Gus that most sacred moment when they join their lives in holy—”

Hell. Marriage was such a crock. It was a mistake Cecily didn’t intend to make. She’d never do what her mother had done—give up a career to marry a man who largely ignored her.

Her father. He didn’t understand Cecily’s choices, either, the only difference being that he didn’t particularly care. He loved only one thing, making…

“…that most honored of all commitments, most binding of all vows, to love, honor and cherish…”

…news in the academic world by writing brilliant papers in his field, finance. Her mother had wanted her to be a socialite. Her father had wanted her to go into marketing. No wonder she’d chosen to hang with cows.

Cecily took a deep, calming breath. She was in a bad mood because her mother had conned her into accepting Sally’s maid-of-honor position. Because she’d had to get up at four this morning in the frosty cold of May in Vermont to make it to the searing heat of May in Dallas for the rehearsal. But most of all because the four-inch heels with long, witchy toes were killing her feet. Not even a mature, professional woman, a large-animal vet, for heaven’s sake, could go from thirty degrees to ninety-plus, from Teva sandals to torture devices, and still stay grounded.

But as Sally’s maid of honor, she had to act nice. She’d always acted nice, and this was no time for a personality change. Besides, this was merely the rehearsal. Sally, who was doing the wedding two-step for the second time around—as if the disastrous first time hadn’t taught her a lesson—still had twenty-four hours to come to her senses. With any luck, Cecily might be able to kiss these shoes goodbye after one wearing.

And she had her mission to accomplish. There’d once been a boy who might have changed her mind about love and marriage, and with any luck at all, he was here right now, standing in the line of groomsmen winging out behind Gus. Through pure serendipity, this weekend might be her second chance with him. She zeroed in on the last groomsman in the line.

He had bleached light blond hair cut short and charmingly disheveled. Blue eyes. Stone-colored chinos—Hugo Boss. White polo shirt—Calvin Klein. Burgundy loafers—Gucci—no socks. She knew the designers because the logo was visible on each piece of clothing. He was cute but definitely not Will Murchison. Too bad.

It wasn’t that she was hoping she and Will would fall in love and start planning their own wedding. Now that she was a sensible, career-oriented adult, she was determined never to marry, never to make the mistake her mother had made, giving up her own career in business to follow her father from one university position to a better one. All Cecily wanted was a weekend fling with a boy—a man by now—she had, for some odd reason, never quite forgotten.

The memory had come back like the crash of waves on the shore when she had finally, on the plane this morning, looked at the wedding itinerary and seen Will’s name on the list of groomsmen. That boy’s name was Will Murchison. She’d heard him say he was from Dallas, and until the afternoon in the groundskeeper’s cottage, the most exciting thing he’d ever said to her was, “I rode her pretty hard. Give her a good rubdown, okay?”

He’d been talking about a horse. He was a senior at Exeter, the prestigious boys’ school, while she was a senior at a day school in Boston and, because she was already intrigued by the idea of being a veterinarian, worked weekends at the stables where he rode.

She hadn’t said more than two words to him. She might have opened a conversation by telling him she’d been born in Dallas, for heaven’s sake. She might have mentioned that her parents still had friends there. She might have dropped the names of those friends, looking for a connection, and they would probably have found one. But no. She was too shy, too awed by him, to do anything but goggle and occasionally stammer, “You’re welcome,” because he always said, “Thanks,” with a smile that shot heat through her from head to toe.

She eyed Groomsman Number Three, looking for that sexy smile. Blue eyes. Khaki chinos—Calvin Klein. Yellow polo shirt—Lacoste. Sandals—more Gucci. No socks, naturally. Was it possible his hair had blond highlights? But no sexy smile. He wasn’t Will, either. The odds were diminishing.

Will had usually been surrounded by a gaggle of horse-crazy, man-crazy girls, but that stormy afternoon when she’d been sent out to find him on the trail and lead him to shelter, they’d been alone, and he’d tried to kiss her. Instead of accepting a dream come true and kissing him back, whatever the cost, she’d fled out into the storm. The school year had ended and she’d never seen him again. And nobody like him—oozing with an overabundance of adolescent testosterone and still kind and mature for his age—had come along to take his place.

She looked over the second groomsman. Dirty-blond hair and green eyes. The sunglasses perched on top of his head had the Gucci logo on the earpiece. He wore running gear that was covered in logos and sweat and, like her, he wasn’t paying attention to the minister. He was too absorbed in his cool-down stretches.

All the groomsmen had fashion-victim facial hair, Numbers Three and Four with cheeks unshaven and Number Two with a manicured goatee.

They all looked alike, but none of them looked in the least like the Will she remembered. Murchison was an important Texas name. There might be dozens of Will Murchisons. Now disappointment washed through her. But in front of Groomsman Number Two was a wide, empty space. The wedding planner had said something about people missing. There was still hope.

Faint hope. Will had come into her life a gazillion years ago, but she hadn’t been able to stop herself from thinking what if. What if she’d let him kiss her? The psychiatrist her mother had forced her to see had said she was using the memory of him as an excuse not to get involved with anyone else and had suggested in a most un-Freudian way that Cecily should get over it.

Obedient as always, she had. She was happy with her life’s plan—a successful career and a succession of lovers. The career part was going fine. As for the succession of lovers, she was tanking. And that, of course, was why she’d been so excited to see Will’s name on the roster of wedding attendants.

If they connected this weekend, there was always the possibility she might be able to use the opportunity to catch up on her sex life. It wasn’t shoes, sleepiness or submission to her mother’s will after all, she decided. It was her deprived and complaining libido that had put her in a bad mood.

But what if Will did show up among the missing? Why hadn’t she spent a little time in New York checking out current fashion and then bought some of it? And some decent underwear! She shuddered just thinking about the white cotton bras and panties she bought three to a pack at the Ben Franklin store in Blue Hill, Vermont. This might be her chance to…

“…embark on that ship of love that will sail them to the shores of supreme happiness…”

…and she wasn’t prepared! She cast another glance at the beautiful bridesmaids, the gorgeous groomsmen. These were Will’s type of people. She sighed. She didn’t have a chance.

At least the church was pretty—St. Andrews, favored for weddings by Dallas brides, Cecily’s mother had told her. The early afternoon Texas sun shone through the stained-glass windows, tinting the bridesmaids’ pale shoes petal pink and bathing their sharp-featured faces with a rosy glow. The scent of vetiver-scented soaps and aftershave drifted in Cecily’s direction from the collection of groomsmen, while light, summery perfumes emanated from the bridesmaids, as though to compete with the flowers that would soon fill the church.

It was an exquisite scene, but not a serene one. The chaos continued, even increased in motion and volume. Miss Peach dispatched her army of minions hither and yon. A photographer fiddled with lights and tripods in the balcony overlooking the sanctuary. The good-looking man scribbling on a pad must be a reporter. Sally’s mother stood at the back of the church, wringing her hands. Of course, three members of the wedding party were missing the rehearsal, and Gus—tall, broad-shouldered, as heavily muscled as an ox and at the moment, looking tense—appeared capable of murdering all of them. She hoped Sally hadn’t married the Mob. Cecily supposed that was enough to make a mother of the bride wring her hands.

Listening to the minister drone on, sounding as if even he didn’t believe a word he was saying, she swallowed a yawn of the most graceless magnitude. It was too bad she’d known Sally since they were tiny, adorable babies in breathtakingly expensive dresses, Sally looking like a dark-haired devil, Cecily a blond angel—not that Cecily remembered, but her mother had sent a packet of pictures to jog her memory. It was also too bad that Sally, known to be the wild child in her group of friends—a fact sorrowfully confided by her mother to Cecily’s mother—would suddenly reveal her sentimental streak and invite her first friend rather than her best friend to be her maid of honor.

Even in an unaccustomed fit of sentimentality, how could inviting Cecily to be in the wedding have crossed Sally’s mind? By the time they were five their interests had taken them in different directions—Sally to ballet, Cecily to horseback riding. That, plus the fact that Cecily’s father had moved from Southern Methodist University to Purdue, the first of a string of moves, meant she and Sally hadn’t been close friends since they were five and hadn’t seen each other since they were sixteen.

But through all those moves, Cecily’s mother had never lost a friend. Thus it was embarrassingly possible she had suggested to Sally’s mother that since Sally was dead set on leaving her wild reputation behind when she married Gus, inviting her first friend to be her maid of honor would convey that impression—something the wedding reporter might pick up on.

Cecily had tried saying no, that she couldn’t leave Vermont during calving season. Her mother, who’d joined the Mothers in Support of Offspring Guilt Club upon moving to New York, had called to say weepily, “Don’t you care about anything but cows? Can’t you give a passing thought to your family and—”

“…friends are here to witness their vows and share their happiness as they embark upon…”

A dangerous sea in a rickety boat. That’s what marriage was. But Cecily had capitulated, although she hadn’t been happy about it.

“Do you, Gus Hargrove, take Sally Shipley to be…”

If Will appeared, if he showed even the slightest flicker of interest, she’d take him in a New York minute! As far as she could tell, an available, compatible man didn’t exist in Blue Hill or points nearby. To require the services of a large-animal vet, a man apparently had to be married, preferably a long time, therefore both married and old. She worked so hard that these were the only men she came in contact with—plus Dr. Vaughn, of course, but not only was he older and more married than any of his clients, Maddie Vaughn had become Cecily’s surrogate mother. So the part of the plan that involved having a string of casual lovers had reached desperation point. She hadn’t had a date, much less sex, for three years.

A long, steamy twenty-four hours in Dallas stretched in front of her like an invitation to wild and uninhibited behavior. No one in Blue Hill would ever know that their own Dr. Connaught, respected veterinarian, was a tightly leashed tigress inside.

“I do,” Gus said.

“Instead of the traditional vows, Sally will read a poem she wrote in honor of this, the most important event in her life.”