Heart's Desire. Catherine Lanigan

In the center of the bow she pinned a tiny fabric nosegay of lily of the valley. The entire bodice and skirt were covered in eight-inch leaves in varying shades of green. The flowers were embroidered in white silk, and in the center of each was a crystal bead, so that each time Maddie turned under the chandelier in the dressing room, she sparkled a if dew had just settled on each flower.

      “It’s absolute magic,” Maddie gushed in an awe-filled whisper as she looked at her reflection in the gilded mirror. “I had no idea...”

      “That you were so beautiful?” Audra finished the thought for her.

      Maddie was spellbound by her own reflection. She honestly didn’t know who that woman with the sparkling green eyes could be. She’d been so used to working in jeans, corduroys, sweatshirts and aprons nearly all her adult life that she’d never once stopped to think of herself as a girl who wore pretty dresses or gowns, or even as a...bride.

      And you aren’t a bride. This is just pretend. Standing in. Wishful thinking.

      Dark shadows filled Maddie’s eyes as she continued to look at herself. Was it possible that only today, the flutter of a memory of Nate Barzonni, her first love, a high school romance, had haunted her? Even now, as she recalled his blazing Mediterranean-blue eyes and the intoxicating, addictive kisses they’d shared, her emotions were a storm of anger and pain. Nate had abandoned her eleven years ago, and she still felt the heartbreak.

      If she ever saw him again, it would be too soon.

      But then, there was the very real fact of Alex’s flowers—real and aggressive. He was spinning her dream for her, and though he would be gone for nearly a month, he promised to call and text her often. He’d told her they were close to finding an investor. Alex knew there was nothing more important to her than her business.

      “You’re beautiful, Maddie,” Audra said. “This dress was made for you. The green in the lilies matches the green of your eyes. I can watch your thoughts in your eyes. Did you know that? Your eyes change from light green to dark green along with your mood.”

      “My mood?”

      “Uh-huh. When you first saw yourself in the mirror, you were happy, and your eyes were a sparkling, light spring green. Then they turned darker, as if you were thinking of something disturbing.”

      “Hmm. Disturbing,” Maddie grumbled. Nate was always a disturbance. “You could see that?”

      “Yes.”

      “I didn’t know I was so transparent.”

      Audra hid her smirk by bending down and passing her palms over the skirt to smooth out a few wrinkles. “I see a great deal in my business. Weddings are like funerals. People usually reveal part of themselves at both events, and it isn’t always the best side that I see, even though people think of weddings as being a happy time. It’s a very stressful time. All big decisions are.”

      “But it’s not my wedding,” Maddie said. “So, I’m off the hook.”

      “I’m thinking that you wish it were your wedding,” Audra offered, leveling her brown eyes on Maddie.

      “Not hardly,” Maddie retorted.

      Audra waved away her objection. “I’ve always found it just as interesting to watch the bridesmaids and maid of honor as to watch the bride. There are so many little dramas going on around us every day. Dozens of innuendos and intrigues, mistakes and missed fortunes. Lives being slowly knit together and others, sometimes sadly and methodically, being torn apart. Most people are oblivious to these little underpinnings of life. But they are what form the structure of our lives and create our finales for us. Me? I pride myself on observations.”

      “Well, there’s nothing to observe here. I have no fiancé. No boyfriend. And to be honest, I have a lot of world to conquer before I get tied down with marriage.”

      Audra smiled. “Is that right?”

      “Absolutely.” Maddie looked at herself again. “Still. It’s a very pretty dress, isn’t it?”

      “It was made for you. Just you.”

      “I think it would look marvelous on Sarah.”

      Audra chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully and walked around Maddie, studying the dress from all angles. “I have another theory. It’s taken me over twenty years in the bridal business to come to the conclusion that there really is one perfect wedding dress for every woman, and when the dress finds her, sometimes it’s an omen of changes to come.”

      “I bet you believe in soul mates, too.”

      “I wouldn’t be in the wedding business if I didn’t.”

      Maddie stared at Audra as if she was nuts. This wasn’t the kind of conversation she needed to have, today of all days. She came here to help Sarah pick a dress, and now she was standing here, looking frankly fantabulous—better than she ever knew she could look—and this woman was telling her this dress had “found” her and was mystically going to change her life. Maybe Audra had been hitting the champagne a bit early. Or maybe she was just trying to make an extra sale.

      “Well, let’s see what Sarah thinks of the gown, shall we?”

      Audra took the change of subject as her cue to open the dressing room door. “We should, indeed.”

      Maddie walked into the main showroom and up to the front window where there was a step-up round riser. She lifted her skirt and heard the swishing of all the underskirts and the peau de soie next to the horsehair net. She stood still and looked at herself in the two cheval mirrors. The gleam of the light from the crystal chandelier overhead pirouetted off the crystals in the dress.

      Mrs. Beabots clasped her hands together and brought them to her smiling lips. “You are a vision for my eyes, my dear!”

      Sarah was dumbstruck and could barely speak. “It’s you, Maddie. The dress is like the angels made it for you.”

      “I can’t deny I feel like Cinderella,” Maddie said, admiring herself once again, still not believing her own reflection. Maddie turned back to Sarah. “But I thought it was perfect for you.”

      Mrs. Beabots and Sarah stared at Maddie and allowed her to revel in the moment.

      “Let me see the back,” Sarah said.

      “Oh, I just love the little bow and nosegay,” Maddie said, turning toward the front window.

      Maddie stared. Then she blinked. Twice.

      At first, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. She peered into the darkening day.

      There, underneath the black, wrought-iron Victorian street lamp, the evening fog drifting along the sidewalk, stood Nate. He looked directly at her, and when their eyes locked, he smiled.

      Her heart thrummed in her chest and she could feel a pounding of hot blood at her temples. She felt dizzy for a moment, but steadied herself by using the mind-over-matter techniques Sarah’s uncle George had once taught her.

      In the eleven years since Nate had abandoned her, Maddie had not had a single boyfriend. She had dated a few men here and there, but all her energy had gone into her business. She had convinced herself that she was strong and willful, that she owned her own power. She firmly denied and crushed any idea that she might fear being rejected again by a man, especially Nate, and moved on. She purposefully fanned and fueled the fires of her anger against Nate to mask even the tiniest possibility that she still had any feelings for him. Maddie didn’t dare think about Nate and love in the same thought. Such musings could lead to her ruin. For eleven years, Maddie had told her friends over and over that Nate Barzonni was the devil to her.

      Maddie continued to stare at the vision outside the window.

      If it was at all possible, Nate was more handsome than ever, with a man’s face and a man’s physique under a double-breasted black wool coat. His dark hair was worn shorter than she remembered, but still parted on the right side.