Free The Secret Wedding Dress by Roz Denny Fox Page A

row he’d had with Lynn a few days before he decided to move to Briarwood.
    His ex hadn’t been back in Atlanta long, a month maybe, collecting her accolades and preening in the spotlight of her new TV job. Up to then, she hadn’t contacted him or asked to see Rianne. Suddenly, out of left field, she phoned him at the paper and insisted he bring Rianne to a celebration of sorts—a party they were having for her at the station.
    Rianne’s toast popped up just as Joel finished slicing her peach. He buttered both slices, cut them corner to corner and turned the buttered sides together. He remembered with a start that it was how the woman who’d left him this house had served her toast. Iva followed rituals, and rituals created a sense of continuity. Yet she allowed Joel the freedom to be himself. A lack of that kind of tolerance lay behind the growing rift between him and his ex-wife.
    Joel had notified the sitter that he’d collect Rianne early for the party. She’d worn clean jeans, sneakers and her favorite Dora Explorer T-shirt to kindergarten. Joel saw no reason to swing past their house for a change. On arriving at the sitter’s, he’d taken a minute to wash chocolate milk off Rianne’s face and comb her hair. He hadn’t noticed the small chocolate stain that pretty much blended with a flower in Dora’s hand. Probably no one else would have, either, if his so-perfect ex hadn’t made a major production of it. Lynn claimed that Joel had purposely let Rianne come to the station looking like an urchin to humiliate her. She further announced, for all to hear, that he was unfit to raise their daughter. And ended by suggesting that her parents, who lived at a ritzy country club in Florida, might sue for custody. Like they’d done such a bang-up job raising Lynn.
    Granted, when he’d met Lynn, Joel had been attracted by her perfection. Her face. Her figure. Her clothes. That had ledto his buying a ring, and culminated in a huge wedding. It wasn’t until the honeymoon began to fade in memory that Joel saw what it took to maintain twenty-four-hour-a-day perfection. Their first Christmas with Lynn’s parents in their five-million-dollar mansion further revealed the source of his new wife’s need to have the best, look the best, be the best. Lynn, her parents, a sister and an overachieving brother all spent an entire week trying to remake Joel in their image. It had been a rude awakening to discover that the woman he thought he loved, and hoped to live with for fifty years or more, hadn’t married him for what he was but for his potential. As it turned out, he didn’t have enough potential to suit Lynn, after all.
    That day at her la-di-dah party, she made it plain that Rianne didn’t measure up, either. Joel had seen red, and said stuff he shouldn’t have. He’d grown up with parents who fought over everything, and he’d sworn he wouldn’t fight in front of his child. But he had, and it’d been for Rianne. Who could look into the face of his beautiful child and not think her perfect as she was?
    Rianne bit into her toast, and Joel fed Fluffy, then poured himself another steaming cup of coffee. “What I want most in all the world, Rianne, is for you to be happy.”
    She lifted her eyes as her dad slid into a chair across from her. “So…it’s okay if I go see Sylvie? And it’s okay if I let her make me a dress? I want a frilly dress, like the blue one with the shiny ribbons and lace.”
    “This desire to have a girly dress is something new. Generally when we shop for your clothes, you pick jeans and tops with your favorite cartoon characters.”
    Her blue eyes clouded, and she blinked as if warding off tears. “Maybe Mommy will like me better if we send her a picture of me in a dress.” A tear did slid between her lashes, catching on the curve of her cheek.
    Joel’s hand wobbled so much as he lowered his mug, he spilled his coffee. Lord, was it possible Rianne had tapped into his thoughts? Sliding to