Free Tall Tales and Wedding Veils by Jane Graves

Regina said. “It isn’t like you to sleep with strange men! What would your mother think?”

    Heather couldn’t believe this. Her
mother?
Did Regina tell the other bridesmaids that their
mothers
were going to be horrified if they slept with strange men?

    “For God’s sake, Regina,” she said. “Will you give me a break? I’m almost thirty years—”

    Heather stopped short. Wait a minute.
Mother?

    The tiny hairs on her arms stood straight up, little vibes of dread sprinting along every nerve. No. She couldn’t have done what she thought she’d done. She
couldn’t
have.

    She told Regina she’d see her back in Plano and hung up. She grabbed her cell phone, powered it on, and hit the CALL HISTORY button. And there it was. Last night, at eleven thirty, she’d called her mother. And not just to say hello.

    “Oh, no,” she moaned.

    “What?” Tony said.

    “No, no, no!”

    “What?” Tony said again.

    “I called my mother last night!”

    “You did?” His eyes shifted back and forth. “Oh, yeah. I remember that. After we left the wedding chapel. I even talked to her, didn’t I?”

    She’d called her mother. How could she have forgotten that?

    Because by that time last night, she’d guzzled about a gallon of champagne. By all rights, she should be in a coma right now.

    “I take it this is going to cause a problem?” Tony said.

    He had no idea.

    In her drunken state of pure ecstasy, she’d told her mother all about their wedding. How wonderful her new husband was. How handsome. How entrepreneurial. On and on and on.

    It was all coming back, and it horrified her.

    At first her mother had sounded stunned. She’d asked the questions any sane mother would have under the circumstances, questions designed to determine whether her daughter had lost her mind. But when Heather had assured her that her new husband was from Plano, that he wasn’t a total stranger, and that she did indeed know what she was doing, her mother had let wishful thinking take over, probably writing off her daughter’s drunken delirium as the exhilaration any new bride would feel. After all, Barbara was getting something she’d wanted since Heather turned eighteen years old: a married daughter. Then she’d told Heather,
You be sure to bring that new husband of yours by the house the minute you get back in town!

    And Heather had promised to do just that. Only now she was going to have to tell her mother that she really didn’t have a son-in-law after all, and those grandbabies she wanted so much weren’t going to be popping out anytime soon. Could this situation get any worse? Was there any
way
it could get worse?

    “So you regret everything you did last night?” Tony said.

    “I think I’ve made that pretty clear by now, haven’t I?”

    Tony reached into his wallet and pulled out the check she’d given him. “Even this?”

    That really irritated Heather. “I wasn’t incapacitated the entire evening. I knew perfectly well what I was doing when I gave you that money. It’s yours, Tony. You can keep it.”

    He looked at her warily. “Are you sure about that? I don’t want you coming back later and telling me I cheated you out of twenty thousand dollars.”

    “I
said
you could keep it, didn’t I?”

    “It’s just a lot of money, that’s all. You said last night you’d feel guilty if you didn’t give it to me. To tell you the truth, I’m feeling a little guilty for taking it.”

    “No,” she said. “I know how much you want to buy McMillan’s. I’d never take that money back from you. I really do want you to have it.”

    Finally he nodded and returned the check to his wallet.

    Heather took a deep, calming breath, trying to put this whole thing in perspective, telling herself this situation was manageable if she handled things logically. She ticked off her to-do list in her mind:
Order coffee from room service. Drink three cups. Change plane reservations. Find out how to get an annulment.