Wedding Willies. Victoria Pade

back to Denver so they could shop together for Kit’s dress. Then Kira had taken it back to Northbridge with her and Kit hadn’t seen it since.

      “If anything I like it even more than I did when we bought it,” she said, taking a turn looking in the mirror. “I’d tried on so many by the time we found it that I was in a fog and I’d forgotten just how pretty it is.”

      Kit wasn’t lying about that, either. She honestly did love the dress she would be wearing for the wedding. In fact, she loved it so much she thought it was something she genuinely might wear on another occasion.

      The light-as-air fabric was a coffee-with-cream color, embroidered with a delicate pattern of earth tone wildflowers. It was a spaghetti-strapped chemise that skimmed her figure enticingly all the way to the floor. The neckline was straight across but just low enough for a hint of cleavage to show, and the built-in bra and slight drape of fabric at the bustline gave the illusion that Kit was slightly bigger than she actually was.

      “It looks so good on you,” Kira said. “The hem needs to go up a little, but other than that it doesn’t have to have a thing done to it.

      “It’s comfortable, too. It’s like I’m just wearing a slip,” Kit said, wiggling a little to feel the dress shimmer around her.

      Kira glanced at the door the tailor had disappeared through after showing them to the dressing rooms, but that didn’t make the short, pudgy man reappear.

      And since it didn’t, Kira said, “I can’t believe it—are we actually going to have some downtime?”

      “Maybe we should lock the door and just hide out here.”

      “Wouldn’t that be nice? Peace and quiet? No demands? No schedules? No nothing?” Kira said.

      But of course neither of them moved to the door to lock it.

      Kira did seem to focus solely on Kit for the first time since Kit’s arrival in Northbridge, though. “So, since we have a few minutes, are you okay in the apartment and with everything that’s been going on?”

      “Everything that’s been going on?” Kit repeated, thinking instantly of Ad and how her friend must have noticed the odd energy that seemed to swirl around them whenever they were together.

      But that wasn’t what Kira was referring to.

      “Are you okay with having to be in on all these annoying wedding details?” Kira clarified. “And my not having two minutes for us to just sit and talk and catch up? Having to stay in the apartment instead of with me? Everything?”

      “Ah,” Kit said, readjusting her thinking and squashing that initial hope that her friend was giving her an opening. But that wasn’t the case. And even though it was tempting to talk to Kira about the confusion that Kit was suffering over Ad, she refrained. The more she’d realized how swamped Kira was, the more it had seemed selfish to burden her with some silly fretting. So, sometime during the day, Kit had decided she wouldn’t do that. And she didn’t go back on that decision now.

      Instead, still opting to spare her friend, she said, “Ad’s apartment is fine. I didn’t come here expecting you to be able to just sit around and gab. I knew you’d be busy. I’m here to help, remember? Not to be entertained.”

      “I know. I just feel guilty that I’m in this whirl and everything is about me.”

      Kit laughed. “You’re the bride. Everything is supposed to be about you.”

      Which was true and saying it only reinforced in Kit’s mind that she needed to keep to herself the little attraction or infatuation or whatever it was that rumbled around in her whenever she was with Ad.

      But even so, his name came up.

      “You seem to keep getting thrown together with Ad,” Kira said then. “Is that okay?”

      “I’m the maid of honor and he’s the best man—getting thrown together is sort of unavoidable, isn’t it?” Kit reasoned.

      But still her friend didn’t drop it. “Staying in his apartment with him just next door, using his kitchen for the cake—you’re having to see more of him than just being the maid of honor and best man. Is that all right? I mean, you didn’t look like you were having too bad a time on Saturday night when Cutty and I finally got to the restaurant—neither of you even noticed that we’d shown up—but are you hating seeing so much of him? Should I make something up to get us out of dinner with him tonight so you don’t have to be with him again?”

      “No, don’t do that,” Kit said, putting some effort into not sounding as alarmed as she felt by just the possibility of canceling dinner with Ad. “He’s trying to do something nice for you and Cutty—to give you a relaxing night away from everything. And I don’t mind seeing him again. He’s a nice guy.”

      Kira smiled a bit slyly. “I was kind of hoping you two might like each other. You know—really like each other,” she finished with a question in her tone.

      “I think we like each other well enough.”

      “Well enough to fall madly in love and get married so you can come and live in Northbridge, too?” Kira joked.

      “No, not that well enough,” Kit countered the same way.

      “But you do like him?”

      “He’s a nice guy,” Kit repeated.

      “Because Cutty was wondering if this dinner tonight was a cover.”

      “A cover?”

      “You know—a group thing to cover up the fact that Ad really just wanted to have dinner with you.”

      “Oh, I don’t think so,” Kit said.

      And she didn’t. She believed Ad’s motives for arranging the dinner tonight were exactly what he’d said they were, to give Kira and Cutty a break.

      But it did give Kit a twinge of pleasure to entertain that other possibility. “He’s seen plenty of me,” she added in spite of it. “He’s doing this for you guys.”

      Kira just smiled.

      The door to the fitting room opened and the tailor came in just then, putting an end to the conversation before it could go any farther.

      But even as Kit watched Kira’s gown being pulled and pinned, and even as the hem was turned up on her own dress, she still couldn’t suppress a tiny thrill at even the suggestion that Ad had had her in mind when he’d devised the evening to come.

      No matter how hard she tried.

      Ad and Cutty left the alteration shop after they had finished having their tuxedos fitted and went to the restaurant to wait for Kit and Kira.

      The dinner rush had begun by then but they found two free spots to stand at the bar and ordered beers.

      “We missed you at that last game,” Ad was saying to Cutty as his bartender slid frigid bottles in their direction. “Their pitcher had an arm that wouldn’t quit. Struck half of us out and didn’t even break a sweat.”

      Ad and Cutty—and several of the other men in town—played seasonal sports on a local team. Summer was softball season and it was in full swing. But Cutty hadn’t been able to participate since breaking his ankle and even though the cast had been removed the week before, he was still in physical therapy.

      They each took a swig of beer and replaced their bottles on the bar.

      “So tomorrow night you’re just coming to watch? You really can’t play?” Ad asked.

      “I really can’t,” Cutty answered. “Kira and the physical therapist ganged up on me. The ankle can be pretty wobbly still and they pointed out that I shouldn’t risk doing damage with everything that’s coming up.”

      “They didn’t want you limping down the aisle,” Ad said.

      “Or