Charlie’s pulse had just dropped back down to its normal rate when Bridezilla’s endless emotional faucets opened back up—with a vengeance.
“I can’t marry Will,” she sobbed.
Charlie’s brain couldn’t process this statement. It may as well have been in Swahili. She kept driving. Then she swerved onto the shoulder of the highway and braked hard. “What did you just say?”
“I can’t get married,” Felicity wailed. “I just figured it out . . . All this time I’ve been trying to plan the most perfect wedding anyone’s ever seen, and—” At this point, her words degenerated into an unfortunate stream of howling and honking.
Charlie gazed at her, stunned. She looked around the car for anything resembling a tissue and came up with a crumpled fast-food napkin from the driver’s-side door pocket. Wordlessly, she handed it to Bridezilla, who snatched it gratefully and blew her swollen red nose into it.
“It’s not the dress,” she bleated. “It’s not the flowers, or the cake or the church or the pastor. Charlie, it’s the groom.”
Even now, with the Old Barn burning thanks to Felicity’s antics, with the Silverlake Fire and Rescue crew’s lives at stake, it was all still about her. Unbelievable.
Now she was ditching Will?
And Charlie had to deal with her, cosset her while putting aside her own fear for Jake.
Felicity looked like a madwoman crossed with the most pathetic orphan child ever. Her eyes were red-ringed, like a piglet’s, and smudged underneath with the last of her mascara. Her once-perfect foundation and blush had been smeared around into a greasy, liverlike yellowish paste. Her nose could have guided a sleigh, and she had gnawed off all her lipstick.
Charlie resisted the urge to open the door and push her out onto the highway. “The groom,” she said carefully. “My cousin Will? What exactly is wrong with Will?” Do you want to return him, have him hemmed, switch out his color scheme?
“Nothing’s wrong with Will,” whimpered Bridezilla. “It’s me, not him.”
You got that right, sister. But Charlie didn’t say it aloud.
“Will is an amazing guy,” Felicity said. “He’s handsome and charming and successful and p-p-perfect for me on p-p-paper.”
“But?”
“He’s so proper and uptight—”
“Will?” Charlie folded her arms. “Will and three other lacrosse players put paper bags over their heads and streaked across the football field during his senior year of high school. Is that too uptight for you?”
“Charlie, don’t take this wrong—”
“How am I supposed to take it, Felicity?” Charlie asked, her temper rising. She was done with soothing, done with tact, done with this crazy girl who was risking Jake’s life—and the other guys’ lives—for the sake of her narcissism.
“Will is my cousin,” said Charlie. “I’m the one who introduced you two in college, and I’ve watched you manipulate him for years now. You hounded him for a ring, threw down an ultimatum, and got him to propose. You’ve been planning and replanning this wedding for over a year now, you’ve driven everyone in this town crazy, and today you set the Old Barn on fire! Now you’re saying you want to switch Will out, like one of your dresses or a party favor? Are you kidding me?”
“You don’t have to be so mean,” Felicity whined. “I already feel bad enough about everything.”
“No, I’m not sure you do. Will loves you. Do you get that? Do you understand that you don’t order that from Bloomingdale’s? And you don’t return it on a whim.”
“Please stop with the sarcasm. This isn’t a whim,” Felicity said miserably. “I’m sorry that I’m upsetting you, but it’s really not right. I can feel that it’s not right. And wouldn’t you rather that we figure that out before the wedding than after?”
“Sure. Whatever you say.” Charlie drove Bridezilla the rest of the way to the Hotel Saint-Denis in total silence and only remembered as she pulled up to the building that they were in Will’s BMW. “I need to stop by the apartment and get some decent shoes before I head back to the barn,” she said. “Tell Will I’ll leave the car in front with the keys in the ignition.”
Felicity got out and then stared at her own feet, unable to meet Charlie’s gaze.
“Please don’t hate me,” she said.
Charlie sighed. “Look, Felicity. I’m not very happy with you right now, but I don’t hate you. I just feel really, really bad for my cousin . . . and incredibly uncomfortable that I know this before he does. Why don’t you take a little time to think about it before you talk to him? Are you sure that this isn’t just a bad case of prewedding jitters?”
Bridezilla shook her head. “I—I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“Well, only you know what’s in your heart. But if you’re truly not in love with Will, then you can’t marry him. It’s not fair.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That’s why I can’t go through with it.”
Charlie looked at the woebegone would-be bride. “Okay. Then you have a really hard conversation ahead of you. And though a part of me wants to smack you, another part of me respects you for having the guts to tell him.”
Bridezilla nodded, then sniffled and cleared her throat. “Thank you for all your help . . .” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
Charlie waited for her to say that she was praying for the crew and the Old Barn.
But all Bridezilla said was, “I guess I probably won’t see you again, at least not anytime soon.”
Wow. Just . . . wow.
Charlie shrugged, then shook her head. “Probably not,” she said in the kindest tone she could manage. She couldn’t bring herself to hug her. “Take care of yourself, Felicity.”
Once she got to the apartment, Charlie ditched Will’s BMW and flew through the door, flipping off her pumps and peeling off her skirt and blouse as she ran down the hallway to Granddad’s bedroom. Within moments, she was zipping up a pair of battered boyfriend jeans and pulling on a sweatshirt, jamming her feet into sneakers, and running back out the door. She threw herself into Progress and gunned the engine. The wheels squealed in protest as she backed up and rumbled out of the parking lot.
She pressed the pedal to the metal and drove the virtual antique as fast as it would go, roaring back toward the Braddock homestead, deeply afraid of what she’d find.
Was everyone okay? Jake and the guys, battling a five-alarm fire—with the added horror of it being Jake’s own family’s property. With the added stress that—intentionally or not—Charlie had just demolished their paychecks.
She would never forgive herself. Never. She’d allowed Granddad to manipulate her, to play her like a fiddle.
Progress’s engine rumbled like fury beneath her, the seat squeaking with every bump and pothole in the road. Cold wind blew like malice through the poorly sealed windows, even though she’d kept them rolled up. And with each yard of asphalt she hurtled over, Charlie felt like a worse and worse person.
Jake would never speak to her again—and who could blame him—but she had to know that he was alive, unhurt. The thought of anything happening to him scared her spitless.
It terrified her at a primal level, in an emotional place she hadn’t even known she possessed.
She might never get to spend her life with Jake, but she knew she simply couldn’t go on if he didn’t exist.
How did Granddad get out of bed in the morning? How had he done so, without Grandma Babe, for the past twenty-odd years? She felt a fresh wave of grief and pity for him, a bone-deep comprehension and empathy that nobody outside the family had—except maybe Jake.
What had it been like for Granddad, to lose his soul mate that awful night, not to mention his entire home? Still, he had to move past his bitterness. He was letting it destroy not only the rest of his life, but other people’s lives.
Charlie stomped on the accelerator, and Progress groaned, lurched, and rattled some more. The double yellow line in the center of the road urged her on. Fence posts, mile markers, side roads, and stop signs flew by in a blur. More wind howled through the cracks. And her heart beat in her own ears like thunder. Self-hatred streaked through her like lightning.
Jake. Jake. Jake.
Please, oh please, God. Let him be okay. Let all the guys be okay.