Free Spoonful of Christmas by Darlene Panzera Page B

carving table for turkey and roast beef.
    She’d waited her whole life for this once-in-a-lifetime day. She, Rachel Marie Donovan, was about to walk down the aisle behind her most cherished friends, unite with the man she loved, and have the Cinderella wedding of her dreams.
    So why were both of her bridesmaids’ eyes brimming with tears? If anyone should be crying, it should be her, from sheer happiness.
    “Andi, what’s wrong?” she whispered. “Are you okay?”
    Andi, dressed in the holly green gown her mother had been able to fix, let out a soft, audible sob. “I can’t help it. I love this place.”
    “I love it, too,” Rachel soothed. “That’s why I chose to have my wedding here.”
    “I meant Astoria. I love Astoria. And I love Creative Cupcakes.”
    Rachel pretended she understood, but Andi had been acting weird, and now she was all emotional. She turned to Kim. “What about you?”
    “I overheard Nathaniel talking to your cousin,” Kim said, her face grim. “I thought he was flirting with her.”
    “Stacey?” Rachel laughed, then covered her mouth, hoping no one being seated in the other room had heard. “The woman can’t even dress herself. Yesterday she wore a tie-dyed skirt and zebra print top beneath her red apron.”
    “He told her he plans to go away soon—to New Zealand—which is halfway around the world. He didn’t mention this to me, so I doubt he intends to take me with him.”
    Rachel elbowed her. “Kim! Don’t you see? That’s what he’s getting you for Christmas! Travel tickets.”
    Kim nodded. “But that’s not what I want.”
    The door opened, and Grandpa Lewy, a dashing sight in his black tuxedo, looked a far cry from the sick man he’d been six months earlier. “Is there anyone here who wants to get married?”
    “That’s me,” Rachel said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Are you the man they broke out of the senior center to give me away?”
    Grandpa Lewy chuckled, and then a tear slipped down his cheek, too. “I’m going to miss you.”
    “I’m getting married,” she told him. “I’m not leaving you.”
    He wiped his eyes. “Mike said he made an appointment to visit a real estate agent while you’re down in Hollywood for your honeymoon.”
    Rachel hesitated. “He did?”
    She only thought he suggested moving to California so she’d stop working and have babies, but now that she’d told him she’d like kids, she didn’t expect to move .
    Her flower girls, Mia and Taylor, came up the stairs to join them. They both wore white dresses and had their hair piled up on their heads with a floral circlet. Then the door opened, and one by one they all made their way down the aisle. The flowers girls went first, followed by Kim, then Andi.
    The music changed, and Rachel’s heart leaped into her throat. She swallowed hard, but she feared she might have to make a run for the bushes like Andi did the week before. Grandpa Lewy pulled her arm. She took a step, then looked down the long aisle and saw all eyes staring at her.
    Mike’s brother, Tristan, and his wife, Danielle, whom she’d first met at the Crab, Seafood, and Wine Festival, were there, seated next to Mike’s parents. Guy Armstrong was next to her own mother—how did that happen?
    Grandpa Lewy’s sweetheart, Bernice, and the ladies from the Saturday Night Cupcake Club were looking back at her. The Tuesday Afternoon Romance Writers—who were saps for anything romantic, including Mistletoe Magic cupcakes—were, of course, misty-eyed. One of them had even requested permission to include them all in one of her books, and Andi had agreed.
    Andi’s stern-faced father and Ian Lockwell and his family were there. Their Creative Cupcakes employees, Eric, Heather, and Theresa, sat with her cousin, Stacey. And Caleb, Jake’s friend from a local media crew, stood with his video camera facing her, ready to film her every expression, her every move . . .
    Usually she loved the limelight. But today she