Free Always the Designer, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker Page B

spread across his round face like a warm pat of butter.
    "Ah! Katarina Ivanov."
    "Yes. But I can't take credit for it. I was born in Abilene."
    The man turned to Fee and looped his arm into hers, pulling her toward him. "America is indeed the melting pot of the civilized world, is it not, Fiona Bianchi?"
    "We're a smorgasbord," she replied, deadpan.
    "You," he said, pointing his finger at Kat's face. "You come to eat in my restaurant. I make you some borscht, a little tabaka. Yes?"
    "That would be lovely," she answered, and Audrey knew Kat well enough to recognize the forced smile. "Thank you."
    "Come on, Aunt Soph," Emma interjected. "I'm trying a new recipe, and I really need your help."
    "Oh," the woman sputtered. "Well, all right. Anton, you don't mind, do you?"
    Anton raised his hand and waved it, giving Sophie a hint of a smile. "Somehow, I carry on without you." After the elderly woman had passed, he shrugged at Kat.
    "Chechnya," Audrey said as they rounded the corner and headed back into Emma's kitchen. "Who are you really, Katarina? I don't know a thing about you."
    "And yet I know everything there is to know about you," she teased in reply. "Hmm. Quite a conundrum, isn't it?"
    Before Audrey had the chance to respond, Sherilyn Drummond flew past her, nearly knocking her over as she tore into the kitchen and landed on Emma's heels.
    "What's up with you?" Emma asked as she recovered.
    "I'm so late!" Sherilyn cried.
    "Then why are you stopping to tell me about it?" her friend countered. "Where do you need to be?"
    "No!" Sherilyn exclaimed, looking around at the group of women gathered at the stainless steel table in the middle of the room. "I'm LATE!" she shouted.
    "I heard you," Emma answered, taking a bite of a cookie and handing another to her aunt. "So why—"
    "Emma Rae!"
    "What?"
    Fee stepped over to Emma and slipped her arm around her shoulder. "Dude. She's telling you that she's late." Emma thought it over for a moment, still not making it to the same page.
    "I think I'm pregnant!" Sherilyn bellowed. With her hand on her hip, she shook her head and added, "Sheesh, are you on a sugar high, or what? . . . And what are you doing eating cookies?!"
     

     
    Kat and Audrey made their way across the lobby, and suddenly Russell appeared from around the corner. His chiseled face brightened at the sight of Kat.
    "Just the kitty-kat I was hunting," he said, taking her hand between both of his.
    Audrey suppressed the inward groan. Not now! she wanted to shout at him. Instead, she just kept on walking toward the elevator.
    "What are you doing here?" she heard Kat ask him.
    "Getting out of the boys' hair for a bit. Me thinks J. R.'s had a snocker full of me, so I brought my suit and headed over early. How's about a spot of lunch?"
    Audrey pressed the call button and waited, hushed tones of their conversation wafting here and there, and she wondered if J. R.'s day had already been wrung out too. The elevator doors opened, and she stepped onboard. She pushed her floor button and leaned back against the glass. Just before the doors closed, Kat slipped between them and stood next to her, grinning like a ridiculous schoolgirl.
    "None of that," Audrey said, facing forward.
    "Pardon?"
    "No happiness today."
    "Oh, all right."
    "Thank you."
    Kat remained silent for a moment, then asked, "No one?"
    "No one, what?"
    "No one is happy today?"
    "No one."
    "What about Carly?"
    Audrey groaned. "Right. A wedding. Yay."
    "So just to be clear. Carly can be happy, but she's the only one."
    "Yes."
    "Got it."
    As she opened the door to the bridal suite, an invisible burst of unmistakable "happy" puffed right out at her. She hadn't even laid eyes on Carly yet, but she could feel it, all of that unbridled joy on the other side of the doors.
    "I'm so glad you're back," Carly bubbled, fiddling with the thin purple rollers knotted all over her head. "Can you help me with my hair? Oh, and I had your dress steamed and pressed. It's hanging on the