Free The Bride Wore Black by Ally Gray Page B

approached in a grey suit and offered her his arm.
    “May I give away the bride?” he asked in a completely serious voice. Stacy looked at him and nodded through the mist of tears that blurred everything.
    “I don’t understand, what is all this?” she finally asked, her voice catching in her throat.
    “You make this moment possible for so many people, but you couldn’t find the time or energy to make it happen for yourself. So we stepped in.”
    “Wait just a minute… you’re not even the least bit drunk, are you?” she demanded, sounding almost outraged. Jeremiah burst out laughing.
    “Not in the slightest! You had a little bit too much, I think, but the rest of us were toasting with shot glasses of sweet tea! After all, there’s no drinking on the job, remember?” he chided in a sing-song voice.
    Stacy looked frightened for a moment, more frightened than she’d been of ghost stories or plagues of frogs or accidental suicides. She felt a stab of cold fear in her chest at the thought of getting married right that moment.
    “Wait! I can’t get married, I don’t have a marriage license!” she protested, grasping at straws as she fought to stall for time.
    “I took care of that too,” Tori said, turning around and giving her an evil grin. “I look a lot like you with these highlights, don’t you think?”
    “That’s against the law, you know!” Stacy hissed, still walking towards the altar. “I could have you arrested for identity theft! And for impersonating an event planner! And for wrongful elopement with intent to commit matrimony!”
    “Those aren’t even real things!” Tori shot back, still beaming as she and Mandy escorted her up the aisle.
    “Can I be of any assistance?” Rod asked, wide-eyed. Stacy nodded and grabbed his arm.
    “Yes! These people are trying to force me into marriage! They broke the law and everything! Arrest them!”
    “I have a better idea.” Rod stepped in front of Jeremiah, who nodded and stepped aside. Rod laced Stacy’s hand through his arm and continued their slow walk to the altar. He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his handcuffs, clasping them on her wrist and fastening the other end to his.
    “What are you doing?” she cried, trying to figure out what her brain and her heart wanted at that moment and coming up empty.
    “I’m doing what you wanted. You’ve wanted this ever since you first laid eyes on Nathan, but you’ve been too focused on making other people happy to get around to it. Look at what you put yourself through just for tonight. You wore a black robe to an undertaker’s workshop in a wedding that was held twenty feet from where a woman died only days ago, for crying out loud, just because it’s what the bride wanted. Now it’s time to have what you want, and he’s waiting for you right there.”
    Stacy’s gaze followed to where Rod pointed until her eyes settled on Nathan. He wore a look she’d seen hundreds of times in her career, the look of a man whose every dream was about to come true thanks to one woman and her willingness to say yes. In that moment, her own longing for fulfillment flooded her heart with love and desire.
    Stacy couldn’t take her eyes off him. They reached the altar where the justice of the peace waited in what was thankfully the only black robe present at this affair. She barely registered Rod taking the handcuffs off her arm and passing her hand to Nathan after giving her a kiss on the cheek.
    “Hi,” Nathan said softly, a simple greeting for a moment that didn’t need any further explanation.
    “Hi” she replied, still unable to look away from him. “So, we’re really doing this?”
    “Of course not, not if it isn’t what you want. But it’s the grandest gesture I could come up with. If you don’t want to get married tonight, we won’t, and there won’t be any hard feelings. I’ll still love you and chase you and bother you, but we don’t have to do this. I just couldn’t think of