Abby, Get Your Groom!

“He looks like he was a nice guy, doesn’t he? The article said he was a devoted member of his church. That he worked with the church’s youth group and was a volunteer with Big Brothers—that means he was someone who tried to help kids like us. He was about the age we are now when he died. He had his whole life ahead of him and my father took it from him.”

“Okay, your father did something bad. But maybe he wasn’t a bad person. You know I trashed that mean girl’s bike when I was ten, but that didn’t make me bad through and through, did it?”

“The mean girl was sooo mean to you,” Abby commiserated, having heard the story about the year of constant abuse her friend had taken at the hands of the other kid. “But this isn’t the same,” she insisted. “And I don’t know, China. I know I should just be happy to find out something about myself. But—”

“You hoped it would be something to be proud of. But what were the odds, Ab? How many kids in foster care over the years did you run into with the kind of stories we’ve made up about you?”

“None,” Abby admitted.

“It’s like everything else about us—we have to take what we can get and make the best of it.”

“Because if we reach for more, like I did with Mark, we live to regret it,” Abby added.

“That guy was a jerk who didn’t appreciate what he had. Maybe the Camden hottie is smarter than that.”

Abby was grateful for her friend’s loyalty but it didn’t change the facts. “Right,” she said facetiously. “Like there would ever be anything between the Camden hottie and me. You and I also know what it means to be in the systemand the way people see us because of that—even before they hear something like this.”

Add to that the status and prestige of a Camden? She hadn’t even been good enough for an upper-middle-class systems analyst like Mark. She’d really be barking up the wrong tree with Dylan! And it was something she knew she had to keep in mind now.

Now, when—despite having so much to think about with her suddenly disclosed past—she’d still found herself also thinking about Dylan Camden. And recalling every detail about that face and body. And mentally replaying everything he’d said and the sound of his voice as he’d said it. And picturing his every expression, his every gesture, his every nuance. She even kept closing her eyes and remembering how his cologne smelled like a forest filtered through clean mountain air, and the way his hair had felt when she’d cut it, for crying out loud!

“If you don’t want to give him a chance does that mean I can?” China challenged her, yanking Abby out of the reverie she’d drifted into.

“No,” Abby said quickly and firmly, making her friend laugh.

“I didn’t think so,” China said, as if she’d known it all along. “And our hottie wants to help you find out everything you can about your family?”

Abby tried not to recoil at the our part of that and say he was her hottie. Which he wasn’t. But for some reason she was inclined to make that possessive correction and had to fight not to.

“I think Dylan and his family are on some kind of guilt trip over this,” she said instead.

“Well, that says something good about them, doesn’t it? They—or at least their relatives—were the ones who put the wheels into motion that left you without anyone to take care of you. Somebody should feel guilty about that.”

“To answer your question—yeah, Dylan wants to help find out whatever can be uncovered.” And to be by her side when they learned about her family—Abby kept coming back to that and to how much she liked it.

Well, how much she appreciated it. It wasn’t that she could let herself like that he’d be with her.

Because she was out of her depth with him, she repeated to herself like a mantra.

And it was bad enough that she kept having that sense of him as some kind of reinforcement, she certainly couldn’t let herself come to depend on it in some way. She knew better than to depend on anyone. Well, anyone except China.

“I’m still gonna keep my fingers crossed that he digs up good stuff,” her friend said. “Maybe not gold coins or diamonds or a crown, but all good stuff from here, and that you’ve learned the worst there is to learn.”

“I’m gonna hope for that, too,” Abby said.

“But since today isn’t the day somebody waved a magic wand and made us rich, I guess we’d better get dressed and go to work, huh?” China said then, glancing at Abby’s wall clock.

They both stood and took their coffee cups and cereal bowls to the sink.

“Want to get a pizza tonight?” China asked in the process.

“I promised to meet Dylan at the special events shop after work to show it to him—he needs to check it out for security because he says this wedding has stirred up media interest or something. I don’t know how long that will take.”

“I’d say I’ll wait for you but maybe he’ll take you somewhere after...”

“It’s just business. The family wedding and this looking-into-my-background thing—that’s all there is to it and all there’s going to be to it,” Abby insisted.

China smiled. “Still, I don’t want you committed to pizza with me, just in case.”

Abby rolled her eyes as she put their cups and bowls in the dishwasher and her friend left.

But she was aware that she hadn’t jumped in to insist that China wait for her tonight, to tell her friend she would make sure she was home in time for them to have dinner together.

Because even though it would actually give her an excuse she could use with Dylan to hurry him through the tour, deep down she didn’t really want to shorten her time with him by even a minute.

* * *

“Okay, you’re right—I can’t see through those curtains even with the lights on in here,” Dylan said after stepping out the front door of Beauty By Design’s special occasions location and then rejoining Abby inside.

“And we only open the curtains if the wedding or party or whatever is going to be held outside. If it is, we need to make sure the makeup works in sunlight. But if we need the makeup to work in interior lighting, we need sunlight not to be a factor. Since your sister’s wedding won’t be outside—”

“You’ll keep the curtains closed and photographers won’t be able to take snapshots from the sidewalk if word happens to get out that this is where we are.”

“Right.”

“And there’s parking and a door we can use in back rather than coming in through the front. Once the whole group is here I can lock both the front and the back doors because there won’t be any other clients coming in and out,” he repeated what she’d told him as she’d given him the tour. “I think that’s everything, and this should be okay,” he said then, taking one more glance around the opulent-looking open space designed to accommodate private groups having their hair, nails and makeup done.

Unlike either of the other two Beauty By Design shops that could accommodate fifty customers at a time, here there were only two pedicure chairs and manicure tables, and three stations where hair and makeup were done.

Also unlike the regular salons, there was a raised platform surrounded on three sides by full-length mirrors in case anyone wanted to try on their dress or gown for the full effect.

Plus there was a section in one corner with a huge, comfy white sofa and two matching chairs situated around a coffee table where patrons could relax between services and enjoy the finest chocolates along with cocktails, wine or champagne—or other beverages if the group was underage for a birthday, prom, sweet sixteen, bat mitzvah or quinceañera.

The object was to pamper clients in a party-like atmosphere that would be as much fun as the event itself while still making them look and feel beautiful.

“But I’m supposed to ask,” he said, “if you end up doing the wedding—can it be done by you and your team coming to us rather than the wedding party coming here?”

“It costs extra.”

He grinned, and she tried not to like the look of it as much as she did. But that attempt failed because a smile just added so many new elements to how good-looking he was and she couldn’t help noting that.

“The cost doesn’t matter if you’ll just do it,” he assured.

“We do that, yes,” Abby responded. “In fact, I like when we get to.”

“Really?” he asked as he leisurely climbed the steps up to one of the pedicure chairs—and in the process gave her a glimpse of some pretty spectacular male buns in a pair of jeans that knew just how to show off his rear end. Abby caught herself looking where she shouldn’t have been just as he turned to sit and she shot her gaze upward.

Since he seemed to be settling in and she was in no rush, she went to sit in the other pedicure chair, angling toward him as he did the same so they were facing each other.