Page 20 of The Wedding Toast
Ava looked up at her.“I thought you were only going to have one bridesmaid – your friend Callie.That’s why I’m a flower girl.”
Becca smiled.“I said I was only having one bridesmaid because I couldn’t ask your mom and all my other friends here.”She shot a quick smile at Hannah.“If I asked everyone, there’d be a dozen of us standing at the front.So, I stuck with my oldest friend, Callie.I told you that she and I promised each other when we were seven that we’d be each other’s bridesmaids, didn’t I?”
Ava nodded, and Becca reached out to touch her arm.“But I wanted you to be part of it, too, so I asked you to be flower girl.But if you’re not happy about it…”
“Oh, I am happy, Auntie Becca,” Ava cut in.“I’m so happy that you asked me, and I’m sorry.Iamhappy to be your flower girl.”
“We can call you a bridesmaid if that would make it better,” said Becca.
Ava stared at her for a long moment.“Would I still get to throw the flowers if I’m a bridesmaid?”
“I don’t see why not.This is my wedding, and I think I can have it however I like.So, how about you can be my bridesmaid who throws the flowers?”
Ava glanced at Hannah, who nodded.“Thanks, Auntie Becca.I love you.”
When she stepped forward and flung her arms around Becca’s neck, Becca hugged her tight.“I want you to be part of the wedding – but only if you’re happy about it, and only if you’re comfortable.”
“I am.I’m very happy now.”She went back to the small basket of freeze-dried rose petals that Becca had brought over with her.“These are awesome.Do you think there’ll be any left after the wedding?”
“I have a feeling that there’ll be more petals than any of us know what to do with,” said Hannah with a laugh.“Walt wasn’t impressed when Uncle Jacob asked him about freeze-drying petals at first.Now I think he might be setting up a cottage industry producing them.”
Becca had to laugh with her.“You might be right – and from the way he and my dad have been talking about it, it wouldn’t surprise me if Dad set up his own freeze-dried rose petal business back home either.”
“I wish your mom and dad could come to live here,” said Ava.
“I think they’ll be around a lot more now,” Becca told her.“They can’t move here because they have the farm, and because my brothers and my sister are back home in Kansas.But they love coming to visit.”She tapped Ava’s nose.“And we all know they love coming to see you.”
“And I do.I love seeing them,” said Ava.
They all turned when Scooter, Hannah’s Dalmatian, ran to the patio doors, barking.
Becca got to her feet.“Sounds like you have visitors.I should get going.”
“It’s okay,” said Hannah.“There’s probably nobody out there.He just gets all barky when he hears cars lately.I think it’s just because there’s been so much more traffic on the estate than usual.”
Becca gave her a guilty little smile.“And there’s going to be even more traffic for the rest of this week – and it’s all my fault, isn’t it?”
Hannah grinned.“Don’t be ridiculous.It’s wonderful.I’m so looking forward to the wedding – and I’m looking forward even more to you officially becoming my sister-in-law.”
She came and gave Becca a hug.“We’ll see you later and give me a call if we can do anything.”
Ava took Becca’s hand as they walked her outside.
“You’re already my Auntie Becca,” Ava told her.“I hope you’re going to hurry up and give me cousins.”
Becca laughed with Hannah and said, “I hope so, too.”
~ ~ ~
Jacob found, as he neared the gatehouse, that he was a few minutes early – just as he’d intended to be.He’d thought that he’d have the chance to talk to Slade while he waited for Alara and her daughter to arrive.
The sight of a dusty white Suburban parked beside the gatehouse suggested that he was wrong.It looked like the kind of vehicle that belonged to a woman who was driving up the coast with her camper and her daughter in tow.
He parked behind the gatehouse, and Slade gave him a nod.
“Your visitors are here,” he said with a smile that Jacob couldn’t quite read.
“So I see.What are you thinking?”Jacob asked when Slade kept smiling at him.
