You're Marrying Her?. Angie Ray

crouched down to look for her thimble. She’d barely talked to Brad since Christmas, eight months ago. She’d just returned to Southern California after a two-year absence, and when she arrived—late—at her mother’s house, she’d been delighted to see him. Only he hadn’t been so happy to see her. He’d been stiff, almost unfriendly. She’d thought at first that her long absence was responsible for his behavior. But as the day wore on and he didn’t loosen up, she’d realized something else was bothering him. She’d asked him flat out what was wrong, but he’d said everything was fine.

      She’d called him several times over the next several months and left messages, but some barrier remained. When he’d made some excuse not to come to Easter dinner, everyone in her family had been surprised. He’d spent every holiday with them since Samantha was fourteen. And suddenly he couldn’t come because of “pressing demands at work”?

      Hurt and confused, she’d stopped calling. He hadn’t made any effort to contact her. Until today.

      Sam frowned at the rose she’d just sewn into place. What could he want to talk to her about now, after ignoring her for so long?

      Jeanette came back out of her office with her purse and a stack of magazines. “Here are the latest bridal magazines. And something else I thought you’d like to see.”

      She held up a tabloid newspaper and Sam stared at the picture on the cover of a man splaying his hand outward in an effort to block his face from the camera.

      Is This Man Too Good to Be True? screamed the headline.

      In spite of his outstretched hand, Sam recognized him immediately. “Brad?” She reached for the tabloid. “Does this have something to do with why he called me?”

      “Maybe.” Jeanette held the magazine out of Sam’s reach and flipped through the pages. “It says that he’s selling RiversWare for $100 million and giving half the profits to his employees. Can you believe that?”

      “He always was generous.” Absently, Sam sewed another rose on the dress. “But what does that have to do with me?”

      “It says in here somewhere…oh, here it is, listen to this—‘although Rivers declined to be interviewed for this article, a reliable source tells us that he plans to use the money to convince his sweetheart to marry him!”’ Jeanette lowered the newspaper and stared at Samantha. “He must mean you, Sammy.”

      Sam pricked her finger with the needle. Swearing under her breath, she sucked at the spot of blood before it could stain the white satin. “You’re crazy. Brad and I were never interested in each other. We were just friends.”

      Jeanette snorted. “What guy is friends with a girl? Brad was in love with you.”

      “No, he wasn’t. He was in love with Blanche Milken, remember?”

      “Ha. He never cared about Blanche the way he did about you. He wasn’t the same after you and Maria Vasquez left on that wild road trip cross-country—and you should have seen his face when Mom told him that you’d decided to go backpacking across Europe!”

      “You should have seen his face when he saw me last Christmas!” Sam retorted. “The rocks at Stonehenge had more expression. He was not welcoming home his long-lost love, believe me.”

      “You always were blind about Brad. But I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve got to run.” Jeanette set the magazines and tabloid on the floor. “It’s past six o’clock. Come lock the door after I leave.”

      Sam automatically complied—Jeanette worried about Sam being alone in the shop after hours—then returned to where she’d been sitting, her brow furrowed. Blind about Brad? That wasn’t true. Sam had known him better than anyone.

      Her gaze drifted to the stack of magazines. The tabloid rested on top. Slowly, she picked up the newspaper and opened it. Inside was another picture, although the caption identified this one as being five years old. Brad stood with his hands shoved in the pants pockets of his ill-fitting brown polyester suit, his shoulders slightly hunched. His gray-blue eyes, the color obscured by the glasses he wore, gazed off into the distance as if contemplating some thorny dilemma.

      Samantha smiled a little. She remembered that suit—he’d bought it at a thrift shop to wear to graduation. She recognized his pose, too—it was so typically Brad. The first time she’d seen him, when he moved in with his grandmother down the street from her parents’ house, he’d been standing exactly the same way. He’d been seventeen, a senior in high school, quiet and serious. Only fourteen herself, she hadn’t seen much of him until one day at school when she came upon some of the jocks—including her boyfriend, Pete—picking on him. Indignantly, she’d told them to knock it off.

      Pete had been annoyed—he’d broken up with her a week later—but she hadn’t really cared. She hadn’t liked having a boyfriend, it was too restricting. But after that, she’d run into Brad a lot more often, and one day she impulsively invited him and his grandmother to Thanksgiving dinner. Her mother, whose rather abrasive personality was offset by her deep-seated maternal instincts, had taken him under her wing once she heard the story of how his parents and sister had been killed in a car crash. Brad—and his grandmother, before her death—had become part of the family.

      Samantha put down the tabloid and sewed two more silk roses into place on the Blogden wedding dress. Even after Brad graduated and went to college, their friendship had continued and deepened. He’d helped her with some of her classes, and she’d made him laugh with her tales of trying to correct the fashion faux pas of her friends. He’d been one of the few people she could really talk to. She’d poured out her troubles and he’d always listened, ever sympathetic, ever patient. He wasn’t like the boys in high school, the ones who got possessive after she dated them a few times. She’d always been able to count on Brad. She’d thought that they would be friends forever.

      His behavior this last Christmas had come as a rude shock. Although she’d tried to pretend nothing was amiss, she’d been uneasy all evening. She’d drunk a little too much wine and chattered too much, acutely aware of his quietness, his stiffness, his stillness. She’d gotten the impression he wanted nothing to do with her, an impression reinforced by his reaction to her phone calls.

      Frowning, Sam knotted and snipped the thread. So why did he want to talk to her now?

      Brad was in love with you.

      Jeanette’s words echoed in Sam’s brain. Automatically, she shook her head. Brad in love with her? The idea was laughable. They’d never even gone out on a date, let alone discussed marriage.

      Well, okay, that wasn’t strictly true. They had discussed it, the summer she’d graduated from high school. But only in the general sense. He’d asked her if she ever wanted to get married.

      “Not until I’m really old,” she’d said. “Thirty, at least.” They’d ridden their bikes along Santa Monica Boulevard to the beach—her mother didn’t like her to go alone—and she’d been sitting in the warm sand, under a strategically placed umbrella. Wearing a new polka-dot bikini, she’d been anxiously surveying her pale skin for signs of any new freckles.

      Giving up on the inspection, she’d glanced up to find him staring at her. He’d looked away quickly, picking up a bottle of sunscreen.

      “How about you?” She watched furtively as he rubbed the lotion onto his chest, the liquid mixing with the sprinkling of hair that had sprouted there in the last year or so. She wondered why he bothered. His skin browned easily, in spite of his light brown hair and gray-blue eyes.

      “Yes. Someday.” His elbows stuck up in the air as he applied lotion to his back. The muscles in his chest and arms—more defined than she remembered from the previous summer—rippled as he did so. “I want children. And a wife to come home to every night.”

      Sam wrinkled her nose. “Sounds boring. I want to travel. I want excitement. I want…” She looked up at the bright, cloudless blue sky, groping for words.

      A seagull glided in the air,