And then my life would be playgroups with my kids’ cousins and coffee and wine with my sisters-in-law, and days and nights of love with my husband.
When we reached the end of the aisle, Jimmy’s dad lifted my veil and smoothed it back over my hair.
I smiled at him, trying to look pretty and blond enough for their family.
As I’d integrated into the Johnson family over the years, my dark brown hair had acquired highlights, then streaks, and then the blond had overwhelmed my maple brown hair. Fussing with my roots had become a hobby.
Mason smiled down at me, which was hopefully a good sign, and left me at the altar.
Jimmy held my hand in his warm fingers as we turned toward the minister together.
The evangelical Southern Baptist minister—for Jimmy and his family hadinsistedthat the minister be sufficiently evangelical to support their family’s conservative Christian values—smiled over our heads and invoked that fatal, terrible challenge, “If anyone here knows why this man should not be joined with this woman in holy matrimony, speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
There should have beensilencebehind us.
The heavy wooden beams that held up the chapel’s roof should have absorbed even the tremors of breeze from theair conditioning, and the air should have been completely, absolutely shocked-still.
No one should have goddamnbreathed.
But a woman’s voice cried out, “James! I can’t stay silent. I love you, and we belong together.”
Jimmy jolted like a ghost had shoved him, and his horrified glance at the chapel widened his light hazel eyes.
Ice condensed on my skin under the polyester and scratchy lace of my dress, needling inward, solidifying my skin and muscles, and I froze.
CHAPTER 4
her
LEXI BYRNE
Her voice wasthe satiny croon of an alto singer in the comfortable center of her range.
“We’ve been together for four years, James, all through engineering school at Penn State,” were her words. “I knew you had someone at home, but what we have wasneverjust a college fling. We’ve lived together for two years, drinking coffee on weekend mornings and studying late into the night together. I tutored you through Calculus with Analytical Geometry Three so you could ace the final and not have to repeat a semester. We havea dog,Lucy, a golden retriever, together.”
Her sundress was a pale blue waterfall shimmering over her slim curves, sophisticated and beautiful. A spotlight showered a cone of angel light around her in the dim chapel, shimmering on her blue-black hair.
Her tone rose a few notes, a key change signaling rising passion. “I get it. I really do. Lexi is absolutely gorgeous, so pretty and blond, and I’m just your typical engineering studentwith Coke-bottle glasses and split ends. I understand why youthinkyou should marry her, because you’ve been together since high school and especially since she told you she’s pregnant.”
Gasps whispered through the crowd in the Las Vegas chapel, rising through the warm air to the spinning ceiling fans hanging from the crevice of the A-line ceiling far above.
The whispers started with the bridesmaids muttering, their words breaking through the air.
“Lexi’spregnant?”
“She doesn’t look pregnant. Why would she say she’s pregnant?”
“The wedding does seem to have been planned fast, just since March. The invitations just went out last month.”
“Wow. I never thought Lexi would dothatto trap him.”
Her voice crackled with emotion as she called from the crowd, “But Lexi is obviouslynot pregnant.You told me after spring break that Lexi said she was knocked up, which meant that you must’ve gotten her pregnant atChristmas.She’s obviouslynotsix months into a pregnancy in that form-fitting wedding gown.”
Jimmy gaped, his light-brown eyes bulging as he swiveled like his tuxedo’s peach-orange bowtie was strangling him. He looked down and glared into my eyes. “Did youlieto me?”
Her words steeled, becoming thrown knives.“It doesn’t matterwhether Lexiliedor whether she lost the baby, James. Whatever happened, it obviously doesn’t matter anymore. She’s obviouslynot pregnant now.”
Her athletic form jutted out of the crowd, a swaying, speaking shadow in the throat-clenched, heart-clutched crowd. “You told me you loved me. You told me I was everything you’d ever wanted, smart and funny and able to go places with you without embarrassing you. We were supposed to go to India together to celebrate our graduation and meditate at an ashramfor a month, attending Buddhist festivals and studying the civil engineering of ancient Indian temples.”
