Meant-to-Be Mum

His phone pocketed, Cole turned to his daughter. “Your grandmother’s aunt Lizzie asked me to take her to a wedding on Saturday. Meaning you guys get to go, too.” He frowned. “Do you even have a dress?”

A look of utter horror flashed in his daughter’s eyes. “I have to wear a dress?”

Just shoot him now.

Chapter Three (#ulink_c7df53fc-aff0-56b4-ab59-efd3682e6d42)

As Cole drove through the retirement community gates to pick up his aunt, the kids merrily bickering behind him, he grumpily acknowledged that it was a perfect day for a wedding: bright blue sky, puffy clouds, the barest breath of a breeze set at exactly the right temperature.

Unlike his own wedding day, which had been marked by miserably cold, torrential rains, the tail end of some far-reaching hurricane. Not that it would have mattered, the ceremony being a justice-of-the-peace affair with only their immediate families in attendance. Because neither he nor Erin had wanted a fuss. As if getting married was no big deal. Like buying a couch.

Except, looking back, they’d probably discussed the pros and cons of Ikea over Pottery Barn far more than they had whether or not to make things legal between them.

He still had the couch. Ikea. Erin’s choice, and Cole pretty much hated it, but she hadn’t wanted it when they broke up, and the thought of buying another one made Cole’s brain hurt. So there it was, along with the rest of the crap from his apartment, in storage. Although even he had to admit, after more than a dozen years of food spills, ground-in city dirt and more than a few unidentifiable stains, he supposed he should really think about buying a new one. Couldn’t be any worse than dress shopping with his daughter, right?

Mercifully, the kids called a cease-fire as he drove around to Lizzie’s apartment, a ground-floor unit with a courtyard view.

“I’ll go get her,” Wes said, bounding out of the car and up the short walk before Cole could ask, the beginnings of a swagger evident even though the kid’s legs hadn’t yet acclimated to his growth spurt. Of course, that might have had something to do with his “cool” outfit, all of the kid’s choosing—khakis, designer sneakers, untucked dress shirt with preppy tie. Cole released a sigh, relieved that the boy seemed to be getting his mental feet under him again, at least, even if not his virtual ones.

Lizzie popped through her apartment door the instant Wes knocked, all dolled up in something flowery and floaty Cole vaguely remembered from his sister’s wedding twenty years before. But with a floppy yellow hat and gold ballet slippers to complete the look. And jewelry. Lots and lots of jewelry, dangling and jangling as she made remarkably fast tracks toward the car, jabbing her cane into the sidewalk so hard he half expected to see sparks.

Wes scurried up from behind to open the car door for her, earning him a squeal of delight and a pat on the cheek. Even if she had to reach up a foot to do it.

“Such a good boy!” she said, carefully arranging sticklike limbs as she lowered herself inside, giving off enough mothball scent to fell a horse. “So rare to see good manners these days. Thank you, honey,” she said to Wes when he climbed back into his seat. Then, as Cole backed out of the parking space, she twisted around to smile for Brooke, letting out a little gasp of delight. “And don’t you look pretty, sweetheart! Is that a new dress?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”

“It’s okay, I guess.”

Chuckling, Lizzie turned back around. “Tough customer,” she muttered over the soft whirr of the car’s airconditioning, and Cole thought, with a smile, You should know. He’d seen pictures of his aunt in her glory days, the stunning blue-eyed redhead who’d lived, with five other girls, in a two-bedroom Brooklyn walk-up through the war. So Lizzie definitely knew tough. And now, even though a maze of wrinkles obliterated the dimples she’d said she’d always hated because they’d made her look like a kid, nothing was gonna dull the mischievous spark in her eyes. Or the joy.

Brooke could do a lot worse than to take after the old gal.

“What an absolutely gorgeous day,” she said as they headed toward the church on the other side of town, closer to his old neighborhood. Behind them, both kids plugged into their phones, probably playing games. Cole couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or relieved. “It’s funny,” Lizzie went on, “how as you grow older you learn to appreciate all the crap you took for granted when you were younger. Like pretty days.” She poked his arm. “And weddings.”

Cole grunted. Weddings. Yeah. Not his favorite thing. Especially weddings where Sabrina Noble would be present—

“So what are you up to these days?” Lizzie said. “Still messing around with all that computer stuff?”

“Same old, same old,” Cole said, grateful for the subject switch, even as he mentally shook his head at his aunt’s take on his work. Although he supposed “messing around with all that computer stuff” was how it appeared to most people. Hell, there were plenty of times it seemed pretty trivial to him, too...until he opened his monthly statement from his investment broker.

“I’ve seen some of the people here playing that game on their whaddyacallits, those little flat TV screens you carry around?”

“Tablets?”

“Right. Those things. Or their phones. Your mother tried to convince me I needed one, but really, where do I go that I need to carry a phone around with me?” She let out a cackle. “The laundry room?”

Fortunately, she easily kept up both their sides of the conversation for the rest of the way to the church—a lovely, nineteenth century stone relic, built in a time when most of the then-predominately Catholic community went to mass every Sunday. To someone whose only church experience had been the occasional visit to the Quaker meeting house downtown, All Saints felt ridiculously overdone. Until he got inside, where a syrupy light filtered through jewel-toned stained glass windows, and giant ceiling fans gently hustled air pleasantly thick with the scent of flowers and ancient, much-polished wood.

Both kids were suitably awestruck. “It’s really pretty in here,” Brooke whispered, taking Cole’s hand. Ahead of them, Lizzie clung to Wes’s elbow, chattering a mile a minute, her voice ricocheting off the rafters. Amazingly, his son didn’t seem to mind. Brooke giggled, then gave Cole a sheepish smile.

“I’m glad I’m wearing a dress.”

Smiling, Cole squeezed her hand. “So’m I. Even though it’s scary.”

Pale blond brows scrunched at him. “Why?”

“Because you look way too grown-up in it.” He shuddered, which got another giggle. Because she was still his little girl. At least for the next five minutes.

They slid into a pew, the wood smooth as glass. “I forget,” Lizzie said around the kids, sitting between them, “how peaceful old churches are.”

In theory, Cole thought as he caught a glimpse, through all the hats and hair, of Sabrina near the front, trying to keep a wriggling baby—a boy, he guessed, judging from his little blue outfit—from launching out of her arms. Beside her sat a younger woman, with another, younger baby, who was sound asleep. With a start Cole realized the tiny blonde must be Sabrina’s baby sister Abby, whom Cole hadn’t seen since she was five or six.

Then, because he was clearly a masochist, his gaze drifted back to Sabrina. Damn, she was gorgeous, her dark hair loosely piled on top of her head, a pair of dangly silver earrings grazing easily the most beautiful neck in the world—

“Dad? You okay?”

Cole smiled for his son, even as he thought, Dude. Get a grip. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

“Aren’t the flowers pretty?” Lizzie said, nodding in obvious approval at the simple floral displays on the altar, large cut-glass vases overflowing with branches of mock orange blossoms. “That’s her grandmother’s doing, I’ll bet my life on it. We have a million of those bushes on the property. She probably got them from there. Absolutely gorgeous. Oh! Isn’t that Sabrina? Sitting down there with the family? My goodness—she hasn’t changed a bit, has she?”

Physically? Maybe not. He doubted she’d gained five pounds since he’d last seen her. But the pretty teenager he remembered had nothing on the fully ripened woman sitting twenty feet away, her smile—as she kept up a conversation with the babbling baby on her lap—twisting his heart even more than it had the other night.

A heart he didn’t dare let be twisted. Not now, not by anyone...but especially not by Bree.

Some guy in official, churchly garb appeared in front of the altar, along with a good-looking blond dude wearing the standard nervous/happy look of the about-to-be-wed—Sabrina’s younger brother Tyler, obviously. And that could only be Bree’s brother Matt beside him, darker and broader and more imposing than ever. The processional began, starting off with an adorable, curly-headed tot in a frilly white dress scattering rose petals, closely followed by a boy of maybe nine or ten whose chief job was apparently to keep the little girl on track. Next down the aisle was a stunning redhead—an almost unrecognizable Kelly, radiating confidence. Joy. Cole smiled, genuinely pleased for her. Then everyone stood for the bride, a trembling, sparkly-eyed brunette in a poofy, pale pink gown that threatened to swallow up the much older woman walking her down the aisle.

“That’s Marian,” Lizzie whispered across the kids, loudly enough that everyone in front of and behind them could hear. “Laurel’s grandmother. Isn’t that sweet? And don’t they both look gorgeous...?”

But Cole wasn’t paying attention, because he was once again watching Bree as she kissed the baby’s head, only to stifle a laugh when an eager little hand clutched a fistful of hair and tried to stuff it in his mouth.

Too late, Cole wrenched his gaze away. Because the sweetness of the scene was now wrapped every bit as tightly around his heart as the baby’s hand in Bree’s hair.

The good news was, at least once the wedding was over and he’d delivered Lizzie back home, they were done. Since he was hardly going to crash a wedding reception, was he?

* * *

Even before he reached Kelly in the reception line, she let out a squeal loud enough to make Matt flinch beside her. Not to mention the groom, who almost fumbled the baby in his arms. The baby, Cole realized, Bree had been holding.

“Ohmygod!” Kelly shrieked, her hand flying to her mouth. “Cole?”

So much for the shy, mousy girl who, when they were in school together, seemed quite content to drift in the wake of Sabrina’s effervescence—much like Cole had, he thought on a sigh as the maid of honor yanked him into a fierce hug, her wild red curls tickling his nose.

“This is crazy!” she said, holding him apart. “Holy moly, you look amazing, I almost didn’t recognize you! What are you doing here? When did you get back? Why are you back? And are these your kids?”

“Honey?” Matt said on a chuckle beside her, even as Cole wondered why Bree hadn’t told her. “There’s like a thousand people behind him. Catch up later.” This said while Matt clasped Cole’s hand in a firm handshake, a hundred questions in his dark brown eyes. “Dude. Last person I expected to see.”