Teresa Hill - Countdown to the Perfect Wedding

Four o’clock in the morning?

She’d planned on getting up at 6:00 a.m. to feed any early risers who might show up in the kitchen soon after that, but 4:00 a.m. was ridiculous.

Still, someone was in there, banging the cupboards shut, fumbling with utensils. She feared if she didn’t get up and see what was going on that she might wake up to an even bigger mess than the one she’d made with the sugar.

She left Max sleeping soundly beside her, grabbed a fresh chef’s coat off a hanger in the closet and put it over her plain, cotton pajamas. She padded into the kitchen and found…

Oh, no!

Victoria!

Amy would have turned and run as fast as she could, but the woman spotted her first, looking like she might throw up at the sight of Amy.

She was still wearing that ultraperfect suit, except it wasn’t so perfect anymore. It was rumpled and wrinkled, the blouse unbuttoned by one too many buttons and coming untucked from her skirt, her hair falling out of that perfect knot it had been in earlier.

Amy decided right then that taking this job was a big, big mistake—a colossal, ultrahideous mistake. She had to find a way out of here right now. She and Max could go running off into the night, never to have to worry about Tate Darnley licking sugar off her again. But then Victoria, looking grayish in the face and clutching her stomach, spotted Amy and looked as miserable to see Amy as Amy was to see her—maybe even worse.

“Are you okay?” Amy asked finally.

“I’m afraid I don’t feel well,” Victoria whispered back. “I was looking for something to settle my stomach, and I couldn’t find anything in the guesthouse where I’m staying. Do you—”

“Let’s try some soda crackers to start with,” Amy suggested, because she knew where those were already. She took the box from the cabinet and handed them to Victoria. “Just nibble, very slowly. And I’ll look for some tea. Ginger is good for settling your stomach. Or mint.”

Amy found chamomile tea. That would do. She quickly grated a bit of fresh ginger to blend with it. There was a tap that dispensed hot water at the touch of a handle, and she soon had medicinal tea brewing in a small pot for poor Victoria.

Had she really made the woman sick? Just from the stress of Victoria finding Amy with Tate?

Then Amy had an even worse thought. Victoria hadn’t eaten anything Amy had cooked, had she? Because already, there were a number of freshly prepared pasta and vegetable salads in the refrigerator, each clearly labeled for the guests to help themselves. Being suspected—or responsible—for giving the bride food poisoning at her first real catering job would be a genuine nightmare.

Victoria nibbled her cracker, looking like she was afraid of every bite she took, like it might come back to haunt her. Amy stared at the tea, steeping it again and resigning herself to waiting a bit longer. With the fresh ginger, it needed a few minutes to brew, and minutes now felt like hours.

“I am so sorry about earlier,” Amy finally said. “I swear, my son was with your fiancé and me most all the time. Even when it didn’t look like he was, he was right back there in the bathroom, taking a shower. He’s only seven, and I left the door open so I could hear him in case he needed anything. He walked back in right after you left.”

Surely Victoria would get the fact that Amy wasn’t going to do anything inappropriate with a man with her son right there. Of course, her son had told Tate that Amy had a sugar daddy who took care of them both, so, if Victoria had heard about that, she might well think Amy would do just about anything.

“Your fiancé was a perfect gentleman,” Amy said.

Victoria made a face, closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her stomach again. Was she that insecure? That worried? That jealous? Was her fiancé that much of a jerk?

Amy steeped the tea bags again, thinking that surely in the entire course of human history time had never dragged by so slowly during the brewing of a single cup of tea. Finally, she thought it was ready. She’d have added sugar but was afraid to even touch the stuff in front of Victoria, so she just got out a mug and poured.

The woman picked up the mug, looked at it like it might contain some deadly poison. Honestly, did Amy look like some kind of food-poisoning home wrecker?

Victoria finally overcame her fears and took a sip of her tea.

Amy waited, Victoria waited, both holding their breath.

“Oh, no!” Victoria groaned as she turned around and threw up in the sink.

Amy fussed over her, brought her a warm, wet hand towel to wipe off with, brought her plain water to drink, got rid of all the crackers and tea in the vicinity, thoroughly flushed the mess in the sink and found some air freshener to try to kill the smell lingering in the kitchen.

Finally, she leaned back against the counter and waited, asking, “What else can I do?”

Victoria sniffled, wiped away a stray tear, looked as if she was trying to think of anything she might say and then just blurted out, “Do you know if, maybe, there’s one of those drugstores that stays open all night anywhere around here?”

Amy nodded. That wasn’t hard. “I passed a drugstore on my way here, but I didn’t notice if it stayed open all night or not. I could search the house for some medicine, if you’d like. There are ten bathrooms, at least. Surely I could find something to settle your stomach.”

Victoria shook her head, more tears falling. “I wish there was something that would settle my stomach.”

“What?” Amy didn’t get it.

“I didn’t think anything about it in the last few weeks, with all the stress of the wedding and everything, but tonight, I checked over my to-do list? It was not my daily to-do list but my master to-do list for the wedding.”

Amy nodded, as if it was perfectly normal to have daily to-do lists, master to-do lists and probably to-do lists in between.

“That’s when I realized,” poor Victoria said. “That…well…I think what I really need is…a pregnancy test.”

Amy waited, letting that fully sink in, managing to say nothing but a noncommittal “Oh.”

Perfect .

She was going to help Mr. Perfect’s fiancée find a pregnancy test? After fearing she might have broken up the wedding with the little sugar incident?

“And I know this isn’t fair at all,” Victoria said, sounding quite human now. “And I don’t really know you, and I wasn’t that nice to you before, and I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. This wedding…this wedding is about to make me crazy.”

“I hear they do that,” Amy said, trying to provide some comfort, wondering how Mr. Perfect felt about kids, hoping for Victoria’s sake and the kid’s sake that he liked them.

“Yeah, well, the thing is…could you possibly not tell anyone anything about this? I know it’s a lot to ask, and I’m sorry, but…could I trust you not to do that?”

“Of course.” Amy nodded. “You’ll want to tell people when the time is right, and I absolutely understand that it’s something you’ll want to tell your fiancé yourself, that it should be something private between the two of you. A beautiful moment for you.”

But Victoria didn’t look like she was expecting a beautiful moment. She looked like she was going to throw up again.

“Does he not want children? Because he seemed great with Max. Really comfortable and sweet with him.”

Victoria shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”

“Well, I know the timing might not be what you expected or planned, but still…You’re in love, and you’re going to have a baby.” Victoria looked even more grim. “Do you…not want children?”

“Of course,” Victoria confided, then backtracked a bit. “I think so. Someday. I just…I never thought that day would be now—or a few months from now. I just…I really don’t know what I want right now.”