Page 28 of On The Rocks

However, deep down, I knew. Those women had terrorized me since I was a little girl. There was no doubt in my mind they’d fired their final parting shot.

The zipper came away at the bottom of the garment cover, and I gently eased the plastic over the white frothy silk, holding the cell phone up for Ash.

A sharp pain shot through my chest, and I whimpered.

“Sweet baby Jesus,” Aislynn breathed down the cell phone. “What the hell did they do? I need to get Callum. Hang tight while I go back inside the church.”

Aislynn’s panicked voice registered somewhere, but her words didn’t sink in. All I could focus on was the monstrosity from the nineteen-eighties falling from the hanger.

Tears sprang into my eyes as I took in the countless deep ruffles falling from the shoulders into a deep V at the tummy area. The seamstress had sewn a cheap-looking choker onto the neckline and attached some weird see-through netting material to connect with the ugly, bunched-up, ruffled lace.

Jesus, help me. It was the ugliest dress I’d ever seen.

A tear tracked down my cheek.

How was I supposed to face people?

How was I supposed to face Callum?

I couldn’t get married, not today, and not inthat.

Those bitches had won.

“Maeve!” a deep voice snapped. “Let me see it.”

My shocked gaze fell to the phone still in my hand.

“Maeve,” Callum’s voice demanded. “Hold the fucking phone up.”

As if on autopilot, I did as I was told.

After a few seconds, he stated, “It’s just a dress.”

My heart clenched painfully at the nonchalance in his tone. “No, Callum O’Shea, it’s not just a dress. It’s my wedding dress, the one my mammy left for me on her deathbed. The same dress I’ve been dreaming of getting married in since I lost her because it meant, in some way, she’d be with me.” My voice rose an octave. “One of my first memories is of laying on my mammy’s bed, gazing at that dress all laid out, while she told me all about her wedding to my da and how she wished one day for me to wear it because it had brought her such good luck, and she wanted the same for me.”

I brought a hand up to rub my tears away and felt a sharp pain in my eye. “Great, and now my contact lens is trying to blind me. Well, isn’t this just the best fecking day of my sad, miserable life?”

My head reared back as a laugh came from the phone, and I whispered incredulously, “Are you laughing at me, Callum O’Shea?”

“Look at me, Maeve,” he ordered gently.

I sighed. “I don’t want to. I just want to put my jeans on and move to the wilds of fucking Canada.”

A brief pause filled the air before Callum softly ordered, “Look at me, wife.”

My heart melted at the word ‘wife,’ and I held the phone up to my face.

My husband-to-be’s handsome face filled the screen, and he smiled broadly. “Where are your glasses?”

“I wanted to wear contact lenses today,” I whispered.

His face softened. “Take ‘em out. Put your glasses on and get into that dress. You’ve got a wedding to get to, and you’re already late.”

My shoulders slumped. “I can’t wear that.”

“And then they’ve won,” he pointed out. “You’re about to become an O’Shea, Maeve, and that means something. O’Sheas are proud and strong. O’Sheas win. You’re gonna get your ass in that damned dress, come to the church, and strut down the aisle like you’re on a fucking catwalk, and you’ll show those bitches who you are. Get it?”

I sighed. “Callum?—”

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