But Lauren already had an arm around her, urging her from her chair, supporting her around the edge of the dance floor. As Jack watched, Lauren brought her to Kate.
Jack couldn’t hear what was said over the flow of the music, the buzz and hum of laughter and conversation. But he saw Kate’s face, naked and vulnerable, and he saw Lauren’s nod before she literally pushed Brenda into her daughter’s arms, and then Brenda was crying and the two women were hugging and Luke was running his finger under his collar and looking relieved.
“Well done,” Jack said softly to Lauren when she came back to him. He offered the glass of champagne.
“Thanks.” She sipped. Shrugged. “It’s not hard to get people to do what they really, secretly want to do.”
He gave her a slow smile. “I’ll have to try that.”
She beamed back at him. “You won’t have to try very hard. I already told you I like wedding sex.”
Fourteen
JANE TOOK ONElast careful survey of the dessert table and tugged off her apron. Nothing more to do until it was time to cut the cake.
Across the sunlit yard, the mother of the bride hugged her daughter tight. Even as Jane smiled at the picture, her eyes stung. The summer garden blurred.
There had been no mother-daughter moments at Jane’s wedding. No contact at all.
But Jane was glad for Kate.
When Jane met the bride for her cake tasting, Kate had Luke and his little girl along to gobble up samples and offer their opinions. Tess Fletcher, Luke’s mom, had accompanied Kate to the final consultation, approving the bride’s choice of round tiers over square, of fondant over buttercream, of gum paste seashells over real or sugar flowers. Clearly, the Fletchers had welcomed her warmly into their family.
But no one took the place of a mother.
Jane curled her toes inside her sandals, trying to ignore the straps cutting into her arches. She’d been on her feet since four this morning.
“Wow.” Lauren stopped beside the dessert table. “That cake looks amazing.”
Jane blinked away her tears and the pang that came with them, turning her attention to her work instead.
The cake design was one of her favorites, each tier decorated with a piping of lace coral, white on cream. Delicate shells, starfish, and flowers in various shapes and sizes tumbled over the edges. Cookies, in the same shapes and iced with the bride and groom’s initials in yellow, surrounded the base.
Jane smiled. “Thanks.” She was good at giving expression to other people’s dreams.
“You must have been up early this morning,” Lauren said. “To get all this done.”
Jane was up early every morning. But she smiled and said, “I finished the cake last night, to give it time to set. And I’m taking the afternoon off.”
“You should be dancing, then.”
“My feet hurt.”
“So take off your shoes.”
“And I don’t have a date.”
“You don’t need a date. I bet you know everybody here.”
Jane smiled ruefully. “That’s part of the problem.”
The dating population in a small town was limited to the people you grew up with. Most couples had been together since they were, like, twelve. And if they ever did break up, and you got over the awkwardness of dating a guy you basically regarded as a brother, you still ran the risk of running into his ex every time you left the house.
Not that she was looking for romance anyway.
Lauren grinned. “Well, then, you can hook up with an attractive stranger. Lots of hunky Marines around.”
“I don’t do strangers, either.”Not since Travis. “And I’m definitely not interested in some gung ho guy with a gun.”
