Page 52 of An Unexpected Love

“Carpentry? Mark?”

Shelly’s grin broadened. “He wants to make a cradle for the baby. He’s so sweet I can hardly stand it. You know Mark, he’s absolutely useless when it comes to anything practical. Give him a few numbers and he’s a whiz kid, but when he has to change a lightbulb, he needs an instruction manual. I love him dearly, butwhen he told me he was going to build a cradle for the baby, I couldn’t help it, I laughed.”

“Shelly!”

“I know. It was a rotten thing to do, so Mark’s out there proving how wrong I am. This is his first night, and I just hope the instructor doesn’t kick him out of the class.”

Despite her unhappiness, Jill smiled. It felt good to be around Shelly, to laugh again, to have a reason to laugh.

“I haven’t talked to you in ages,” Shelly remarked. “But then I shouldn’t expect to, should I? You and Jordan are still on your honeymoon, aren’t you?”

Tears sprang instantly to Jill’s eyes, blurring her vision. “Yes,” she lied, looking away, praying that Shelly, who was so happy in her own marriage, wouldn’t notice how miserable Jill was in hers.

“Oh, before I forget,” Shelly said excitedly, “I heard from Aunt Milly.”

“What did she have to say?”

“She asked me to thank you for your letter, telling her about meeting Jordan and everything. She loves a good romance. Then she said something odd.”

“Oh?”

“She felt the dress was meant to be worn one more time.”

“Again? By whom?”

Shelly leaned forward. “You and Jordan were too wrapped up in each other on your wedding day to notice, but your mother and Mr. Howard got along famously. Milly wouldn’t have known that, of course, but…it’s obviously meant to be.”

“My mother.” Now that she recalled her conversationwith Andrew at the wedding, it made sense. In the weeks since their return from Hawaii, she’d forgotten about it. He’d phoned Jill twice, but he hadn’t mentioned Elaine, nor had her mother mentioned him.

“What do you think?”

“My mother and Mr. Howard?” Jill experienced a feeling of rightness.

“Isn’t that incredible?” Shelly positively beamed. Until recently—the arrival of the wedding dress, to be exact—Jill hadn’t realized what a complete romantic her friend was.

“But Mom hasn’t said a word.”

“Did you expect her to?”

Jill shrugged. Shelly was right; Elaine would approach romance and remarriage with extreme caution.

“Wouldn’t it be fabulous if your mother ended up wearing the dress?”

Jill nodded and, placing her fingertips to her temples, closed her eyes. “A vision’s coming to me now….”

Shelly laughed.

“I think we should call my mom and tell her that we both had a clear vision of her standing in the dress next to a distinguished-looking older man.”

Once again, Shelly giggled. “Oh, that’s good. That’s really good.” She sighed contentedly. “The dress definitely belongs with your mother. We’ll have to do something about that soon.”

Jill pretended her tears were ones of mirth and dashed them away with the back of one hand.

But the amusement slowly faded from Shelly’s eyes. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are you going to make me force it out of you?”

“I— I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Don’t forget I know you. You’ve been my best friend for years. You wouldn’t be here if something wasn’t wrong.”

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