The Wedding Plan

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“I—I don’t have a dress,” Merry blurted. As if that mattered.

“You can wear mine,” Stephanie said. “It’s not new, but it’s Vera Wang. Great design doesn’t date.”

Merry whimpered.

“Merry,” Lucas said calmly, “could I see you for a moment?”

In the hallway, he dragged her out of sight of her father’s glass-walled room. “You do realize you need to tell your dad that we’re not getting married?”

“Of course I do!” she hissed.

“Then stop talking about your damn dress, and get back in there and do it.”

Immediately, her hackles rose, the way they had since they were kids. “It’s not that easy. You’re the one who told him the blood test was all that stood in our way.”

“How was I to know there’s no blood test in Connecticut?”

Grouchy Nurse Martin walked by, eyeing them curiously.

Merry waited until she’d passed. “You’re the one who gave me an engagement ring—no wonder he thinks we want to get married.”

“I was trying to look convincing,” Lucas said.

“Where did it come from, anyway?”

“Jeweler friend,” he said. “Let’s get back on topic. Namely, telling your dad there won’t be a wedding.”

She closed her eyes. “How am I supposed to do that when he said he’ll die happy if I get married?”

“He’ll just have to die mildly content,” Lucas said.

Her eyes snapped open.

He swore. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. You know I didn’t, or I wouldn’t have offered to get engaged in the first place.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There must be a way to do this. Let’s think.”

Merry thought.

Presumably, he was doing the same.

“We can come back tomorrow and say we got married,” he said in a flash of inspiration. “We’ll tell them we went to city hall.”

“Dad said he wants to see me get married. I couldn’t do that to him.”

“You won’t be doing it to him. You’ll be pretending to. In the end, he’ll just be relieved we’re married.”

“What if he wants to see the marriage certificate?” She could imagine her sentimental father wanting to admire the document.

“We’ll say we lost it.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You think of something, then,” he ordered.

Silence fell again.

Lucas had the next idea, too. “We could pay someone—an actor—to be a fake celebrant.”

It was a tempting possibility. But…

“Dad will want Reverend Carter from our church to do it,” Merry said glumly. “And I can’t just say he’s not available—Reverend Carter’s coming to visit him this afternoon. Plus we’d still have the marriage certificate problem.”

More thinking.

“There’s only one possibility,” Merry said at last.

“Fire away.”

“We really get married,” she said. “Right here, in front of Dad. And then we get a divorce.”

“Are you nuts?” His voice rose, and the security guard stationed by the elevator looked in their direction.

Merry spoke quickly, quietly. “My friend Sarah got divorced last year, and it’s almost as easy as getting married. From what I remember, we can file for a no-fault divorce on grounds of irretrievable breakdown of the marriage as soon as we like. The day after the wedding. Ninety days later, we’re divorced.”

“No,” he said firmly.

“Divorce isn’t ideal,” she agreed, as if the only problem with getting married would be how to end it. “It means we both end up, well, divorced. We could look into annulment.”

“No,” he said again.

“You were willing to give Dad a kidney,” she reminded him.

“A lot less complicated,” Lucas said.

He was right. But Merry was desperate. “This is your big chance to rescue me. You love to rescue.”

“You hate being rescued. You refuse to be rescued.”

“Not this time,” she promised. “Do you remember when you were ten years old, telling Dad and Dwight you wanted to marry me?”

He blinked, then shook his head, as if shaking off that moment of weakness. “Yeah, and the next day you peed your pants and I changed my mind.”

The heat in her cheeks told her she was blushing. “So I had the occasional ‘accident.’ Shoot me. Look, Lucas, Dad wants us to get married, and right now allowing him to die in peace is number one on my list. Are you going to marry me or not?”

“Not.” He folded his arms across his chest and stared her down.

Merry spun on her heel and marched back into her father’s room, Lucas right behind her. She narrowly missed crashing into Nurse Martin, also on her way in again.

Her father gave her an anxious, hopeful look.

Merry beamed. “Great news, Dad. We’re getting married tomorrow.”

CHAPTER SIX

MERRY TUGGED AT THE BODICE of her blue dress, her backup option in case Stephanie’s bridal gown didn’t fit. This was a bridesmaid dress; it had looked fine, though far from lovely, when she’d worn it two years ago as maid of honor for what turned out to be Sarah’s short-term marriage. Now the sleeves looked ridiculously poufy. Every time she moved, the taffeta seemed to rustle accusingly.

At least the pale blue matched her complexion.

Merry rubbed her cheeks briskly with her palms, watching the effect in her bedroom mirror. She looked as if she were headed to an execution, not a wedding.

There was every chance this wedding would be followed by an execution, she thought grimly. Lucas had been so mad when she’d announced they were getting married, he’d been white with fury. She shivered at the mere recollection. But he’d been too nice, too heroic, to wipe the joy from her father’s face. As she’d known he would be.

This is the lowest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

But for the best of reasons.

And Lucas really would be free and clear of her, and their marriage, after ninety days. No lasting scars.

Which was more than she could say for that night in Baltimore, which still left her mortified six months later. Really, Lucas had it easy.

She was having trouble convincing herself of that, so it was a relief when the buzzer to her apartment sounded. She glanced at her watch. Ten-thirty; Stephanie was right on time.

One hour until the wedding.

Merry pressed the buzzer to open the street door. Her apartment was above a bowling alley, the only location where she could afford loft-style, the rent being low due to the constant rumble of bowling balls beneath her feet from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

Stephanie maneuvered her way inside, hampered by a large, flattish carton with a small wooden chest perched on top. “I brought my sewing kit so we can make any needed adjustments.” She eyed the toast crumbs on Merry’s kitchen counter with misgiving and headed to the coffee table to set down the carton and the chest. “Merry, as your matron of honor, it’s my duty to tell you that the blue dress isn’t good.”

“It’s not that bad. And this isn’t a white satin kind of wedding.” Merry had asked Stephanie to be matron of honor on the basis that the fewer people who knew about this, the better. Though she would have asked her best friend, Sarah, if Sarah hadn’t been on vacation in Mexico. Thankfully, the need for haste meant everyone readily agreed on a small celebration.