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Rather, she’d joked it had given her a freedom and autonomy her other siblings could only envy.
Poppy inhaled deeply. “I mean, what are our chances of ever finding someone else who thinks our situation is ideal for the children she’s relinquishing?” There was a long pause. “We just have to comply with the agency’s requirement and demonstrate our lifelong commitment by getting married.”
Well, put that way...he supposed it didn’t seem too much to ask.
“You’re right,” Trace said finally. “This is our chance.”
Poppy took another deep breath, the action lifting the soft swell of her breasts, and then slowly released it. Steadfastly, she searched his face. “So you’re okay with a marriage by proxy?” she asked.
Trace pushed any lingering reservations he felt aside. This was Poppy they were talking about. A woman who knew her own mind and had more than proved over the years she wouldn’t go all fickle on him, no matter what happened.
He nodded. “It’s not as if a piece of paper or a marriage pretty much in name only is going to change anything between us.”
Poppy smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners in the way that always made him want to take her in his arms and hold her close. “Right,” she said.
Wishing he was close enough to hug her, Trace continued. “And if it sets Anne Marie’s mind at ease, so much the better.”
Visibly relaxing, Poppy laid a hand over her heart. “So you’ll do it? You’ll request a marriage by proxy?”
Trace knew he owed Poppy this much—and more. Hoping this would finally balance the scales between them and allow the last of her lingering grief to slide away, he nodded. “Yes, darlin’,” he promised. “I’ll talk to my commanding officer right away.”
* * *
“ABOUT TIME THE two of you decided to tie the knot,” Jackson McCabe said when Poppy stopped by the hospital to inform her parents of their plans.
Her dad had just come out of surgery and her mom was winding up a long day on the pediatrics floor.
“I agree.” Lacey beamed, looking as lovely as ever in her blue scrubs and white doctor’s coat.
As always, feeling a little in awe of her super-successful, still-wildly-in-love parents, Poppy followed them into her father’s private office. She held up a hand. “You both understand that Trace is still going to continue on with his life’s work in the military and I’m still going to be running my design business here. Right?” That was actually a blessing in disguise. There would be no risk of getting too romantically entangled, since they both wouldn’t be under the same roof most of the time.
“You may change your mind about that when the babies actually get here,” her mom predicted.
Her dad nodded. “Little ones have a way of changing even the best-laid plans.”
“Well, not ours,” Poppy said stubbornly.
If there was one thing she loved—and Trace was adamantly against—it was living in the rural Texas town where she’d grown up and he’d moved to briefly as a teen. Luckily, the two of them had attended the same college, where they’d gotten even closer, and had almost everything else in common.
“We’re just doing this because it’s required of us if we want to adopt the twins from the Stork Agency.”
“It’s still cause for celebration!” Lacey picked up the phone with a wink. “And that means family!”
Half an hour later Poppy was ensconced at her parents’ Victorian home in downtown Laramie. Her folks were busy opening champagne and setting out food, picked up from a local restaurant. Trace was once again connected via Skype, as were her San Antonio-based twin sisters and their families. The triplets had arrived with their families, too. And, as always, everyone had an opinion about what would be best for the oldest of the Jackson and Lacey McCabe brood.
“You can’t get married at the courthouse,” her mom said.
Poppy caught Trace’s handsome countenance on the monitor. His expression might be carefully casual, but she could tell by the look in his hazel eyes he was as opposed to all the calamity as she was. What, she wondered with a pang, had she gotten them into? Why hadn’t they just eloped via proxy?
But it was too late now.
The news was out.
“All five of us want to be your bridesmaids. It’s tradition,” the ultra-romantic Callie declared via Skype.
Poppy wished she could lean up against Trace’s muscular six-foot-four frame and take the comfort only he could give. Since that wasn’t an option, she did her best to throw a monkey wrench into the plans.“What about groomsmen, though?” She looked at Trace, expecting him to bail her out.
Instead he shrugged. “I’ve got fellow airmen stationed at the military base nearby I can call on to escort them down the aisle.”
Poppy moved closer to the computer camera and gave him a look she hoped only he could see. To her frustration, Trace remained as ruggedly composed as ever. His brawny arms were folded in front of him, his broad shoulders relaxed.
And his chest. How well she knew the sculpted abs and lean waist beneath his snug T-shirt. Not to mention...
Oblivious to the direction of his daughter’s privately lustful thoughts, Jackson asked, “What about the best man?”
“I’ll arrange for that, as well as the groom, sir,” Trace promised with his usual calm command. “It will all be military. If that matters in terms of color scheme or anything.”
Poppy rubbed her forehead, already exhausted just thinking about this. “It’s too much trouble,” she declared, doing her best to take charge of her very overbearing family. She turned away from Trace and made eye contact with everyone else there in person and on the additional laptop screens. “Especially given the fact that Thanksgiving is just a few days away and for the adoption to proceed as planned, Trace and I need to get married in the next week.” Couldn’t anyone see a big McCabe shindig was impossible?
Again, she looked to Trace for help.
Instead he said, “I’m fine with whatever Poppy wants.”
“Well, what Poppy wants—what she deserves—is a wedding every bit as wonderful and meaningful as we all had!” Callie insisted. “I mean, it’s not as if this is ever going to happen again for either of you, is it?”
Poppy and Trace exchanged glances and simultaneously shook their heads. Not in this lifetime... This one marriage that wasn’t really a marriage was it. At least they were both on the same page about that.
“Well, then, there you go,” Callie’s twin, Maggie, an event planner, said. “Poppy’s wedding to Trace needs to be every bit as special for her, as all of ours were for us. Luckily, I can pull a ceremony and reception together for you and Trace, even on very short notice.”
Poppy had been afraid of that. When her five sisters put their minds to something, there was nothing they could not achieve. Especially in the romance milieu.
“I’ll handle the wedding announcement and invitations,” veteran publicist Callie volunteered.
Lily smiled and squeezed her husband’s hand. “Gannon and I will take care of everything on the legal end that needs to be done here through our firm.”
Rose leaned against her rancher hubby, Clint. “I’ll donate all the food for the reception from my wholesale business.”
Physician Violet looked at her doctor-husband, Gavin. “We’ll hire the caterers to cook and serve it.”
“We’ll provide everything else,” her mother said. “Down to the flowers, venue and dress!”
“And anything else you might want or need,” her dad finished quietly.
Aware she actually felt a little dizzy, Poppy had to sit. She rubbed at an imaginary spot on the knee of her jeans, wondering how her life had gotten so far out of her control so fast. Especially when she had worked so hard not to let events overtake her, not ever again.
Inhaling slowly, she lifted her chin. “I know you all want to give me a beautiful wedding, and I truly appreciate it, but don’t you think that’s all a little over the top since the groom in question won’t actually be here? Except to watch via Skype—”
Trace, who never made a promise he couldn’t keep, cut in. “I may not actually even be able to do that.”
Her father frowned, knowing, as did the rest of them, that military orders could change on a moment’s notice.
Lacey moved to stand beside her husband. Her arm curved over Jackson’s bicep as she studied Trace’s image on the screen. “What about your family?”
This time Trace did grimace, Poppy noted, glad to see she wasn’t the only one who felt events had spiraled completely out of control.
He squinted. “I haven’t told them yet but I imagine my parents will both want to come.” He paused, reluctantly adding, “My mom and dad will likely want to be seated well apart from each other, though.”
Poppy groaned inwardly. It didn’t matter what the situation, Trace’s parents never got along. Never had. Probably never would.
Jackson seemed to read her mind and again deftly nixed his daughter’s effort to call off this calamity before it happened. “It’s important you both have family there, so whatever we need to do to ensure your folks are comfortable, Trace, will be done.”
“After all,” Poppy’s mother added, “the two of you are making a lifelong commitment, not just to each other but to the twins you’re planning to adopt. So it’s important you do this right. Or as right as can be, under the circumstances.”
More excited chatter followed.
Not sure whether she was going to suffocate or to scream in frustration, Poppy picked up her laptop and headed upstairs. “I need a moment alone with Trace before he signs off.” She ducked into the bedroom she’d had as a teen and shut the door behind her. “Still there?”
“Oh, yeah.” This time he didn’t bother to hide his exasperation.
“We should call this ridiculous wedding off now,” Poppy declared, “before it goes any further. And just find a way to elope by proxy instead!”
Looking ruggedly fit in his desert fatigues, Trace folded his arms across his brawny chest. “You really think that will work—with your family?”
He had a point. “You’re right. It’s probably best to know what they’re planning rather than be surprised at the courthouse.”
Trace gave the look that usually preceded him taking her into his arms and holding her until all her troubles eased. “Exactly.”
She rubbed her temple. “Besides, given how complicated this marriage by proxy is, it’s probably best we have all the help we can muster.” She studied the taut planes of his handsome face. “Have you talked to your commanding officer?”
“The paperwork from our end is under way.”
Another silence fell; this one only slightly less tense. He studied her, too, his expression gentling. “You going to be okay?” he asked in that tender-tough tone she loved.
Poppy thought about the family she had always wanted, the twins just waiting to be born and about to come home to her. “I don’t have any choice,” she told Trace. “I have to be.”
So she would be. It was as simple—and complicated—as that.
Chapter Two (#ulink_05fc0467-a89a-54eb-8508-245ccad9c135)
“I can’t tell.” Violet peered at her older sister closely, four days later, as the two of them stood in Poppy’s old bedroom at her parents’ home. “Are you about to cry—or burst into the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’?”
Poppy grinned at the reference to her favorite Christmas music compilation playing in the background. “How about a little of both?” she quipped as she stepped into the wedding gown her sister held out. The truth was she was incredibly happy about fulfilling her long-held dream of having babies of her own in just a few short weeks. But not so thrilled about being pushed into a marriage neither she nor Trace wanted. What if it ruined what they had? Changed their relationship in a way neither expected?
“Everything has happened so fast,” she admitted as the heart-pumping finale of the “Messiah” ended and the more bluesy sounds of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” began. “It all feels a little surreal.”
Violet secured the hook at the top of the bodice and then moved around for the full effect. “Well, you look absolutely gorgeous, sis.”
A little sad Trace wasn’t here to see her in the gown, Poppy moved to the mirror to check out her reflection. “I just wish we’d arranged for the ceremony to be at the courthouse instead of the community chapel.” The downtown venue had been the site of many a McCabe wedding. And, unlike hers, the marriages embarked upon in the century-old building, had been hopelessly romantic, incredibly satisfying and long lasting!
Violet studied her sister with a physician’s caring intuition. “Are you also wishing Trace was going to be here—in person—instead of just watching someone else stand in for him?”
Yes, and no, Poppy thought, pausing to pin on her tiara and veil. Having him here beside her would make it feel as if they were entering into a traditional union instead of the modern arrangement they had agreed upon. So she was glad, in that sense, her best friend in all the world was thousands of miles away.
But not having Trace here depressed her on a soul-deep level, as well, since she always missed him when they weren’t together.
The twins burst into the room, both looking elegant and beautiful in their silver satin bridesmaid dresses. “When did you say Trace’s buddies were supposed to arrive?” Maggie asked.
“I’m not sure,” Poppy admitted, trying not to flush. “I haven’t actually been able to contact him for a couple of days.”
Callie did a double-take. Romantic as ever, she pressed a hand to her heart. “He hasn’t called you?” Or video-chatted or answered her emails. Poppy slipped on her satin pumps, once again feeling like the odd woman out, since not only was she the only non-multiple among the six McCabe daughters, but the only one not gloriously in love with her man, too.
“He might be out on assignment.” Otherwise, there was no explanation.
As expected, all five of her sisters exchanged worried glances. Luckily, just then, Jackson McCabe appeared in the door. “I just had a text. The military contingent from the air force is about ten minutes out. So we better get a move on if we want to get to the chapel before they do.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Her sisters chatted excitedly as they all made their way downstairs.
Poppy, with her voluminous skirt, entered the limo, along with her mother and father. Her sisters and their spouses and children followed in a caravan of pickups and SUVs.
Thanksgiving had been two days before.
Yet the downtown streets were already decorated for Christmas. Wreaths with red-velvet ribbons had been strung on every lamppost in town. Twinkling lights and decorations adorned many of the front yards as well as the businesses that lined the major avenues.
Once again, it seemed to Poppy, time was passing far too quickly.
The limo idled in front of the century-old chapel. Her mom got out and went in with her sisters and their families, and a steady stream of guests.
Finally even that dwindled. “Nervous?” Jackson asked gruffly.
Awaiting her grand entrance, Poppy nodded at her dad. More so than I ever have been in my life. Though she was damned if she knew why.
After all, Trace wasn’t even going to be here.
It was just her...and whomever he had chosen to stand in for him. And maybe, if she was lucky, her groom was back from wherever he had been and would be watching the ceremony via Skype.
So there was absolutely nothing to be anxious about.
A few more minutes passed. Finally her dad’s phone chimed. He grinned as he looked at the text message. “Trace’s military buddies have arrived. They just went in through the rear of the chapel.”
Another few minutes. Another text. Jackson opened the door and got out. “Showtime!”
Her jitters increasing, Poppy inhaled a bolstering breath. Accepting her father’s hand, she gathered her skirts in her other palm and stepped out.
Her hand tucked securely into the crook of her dad’s elbow, they stood at the top of the steps, out of view, and awaited their cue as the rest of the bridal party entered to the strains of Pachelbel’s Canon.
Finally, it was time. Poppy and her father glided through the vestibule and into the chapel.
