The Week Before the Wedding Read online

  “Where are we going?” she asked, though she already knew the answer: his dorm room, his off-campus apartment, or his car.

  He surprised her again by saying, “Want to see a secret?”

  “Depends. Is it the kind of secret where I end up dismembered under your floorboards?”

  Because he was still ahead of her, leading her farther and farther into the dark, she couldn’t make out his next words, but one of them sounded like “tunnels.”

  “What?” she asked. “Did you say ‘tunnels’?”

  “Yeah. There’s an underground tunnel system below campus.”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “Yes, there is.”

  She laughed and squeezed his hand. “Look, I know you’re new here, but the underground tunnel story’s just an urban legend. Like jackalopes. Or snipe shooting.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive. I know everything about everything at this school. Why don’t we just go back to your room?”

  He turned suddenly and tugged her up a flight of stone steps to a dormitory. She assumed he’d seen reason and was going to lead her up to his room, but once they were inside, he took her down three flights of stairs to the basement, where the bluish glow of the vending machine lit up the deserted laundry room.

  “Here.” He turned a corner and pointed to a battered metal door, which had been marked with a triangular sign depicting a bolt of lightning: DANGER! KEEP OUT!

  Exasperated, Emily snatched back her hand and folded her arms. “That’s not a secret tunnel—that’s a bunch of circuit breakers.”

  Why were the cute ones always crazy?

  The guy sifted through the flotsam in his jeans pockets—lighter, lint-covered mints, ticket stubs, and coins—until he fished out a brass key, which he inserted into the door lock.

  “Where did you get that?” Emily demanded.

  A puff of warm, stale air wafted out as he pulled the door open, revealing a narrow corridor with no discernable destination.

  “The tunnels,” she marveled, sticking her head into the blackness. “They’re real. How the hell did you find this?”

  “I like to know things no one else does.” His hazel eyes met hers and his smile was slow and subversive. “When they built these dorms in the seventies, they dug tunnels between some of the buildings so students could go to class without freezing their asses off in winter. But there were problems with asbestos, so they sealed off the whole system.”

  Emily took a step over the threshold, into the dark. “So we’re not supposed to go in.”

  “Automatic expulsion if you get caught.”

  A little thrill ran up and down her spine. Rules? Made to be broken. Lines? Drawn to be erased. “Well then, we better not get caught.”

  She walked farther into the darkness, trailing her hand against the gritty stucco wall, and he joined her, closing the door behind them.

  For a moment, she experienced total sensory deprivation: no sound, no sight, nothing except the cool solidity of the wall. Then, slowly, she registered the rush of her own heartbeat in her ears and the steady, shallow rasp of his breathing. She could smell the cologne as he came nearer, and her own breath caught in her throat.

  There was a faint metallic click; then a flickering light cast a warm golden halo around them as he held up his cigarette lighter.

  “I’m Ryan, by the way. Ryan Lassiter.” He watched her face. “But you already knew that.”

  He waited a beat for her to introduce herself, and when she didn’t, he straightened up and illuminated the path stretching out in front of them.

  Emily rubbed her nose as the stale, humid air settled back into stillness. “You’d think it would be freezing in here, but it’s warm.”

  He nodded in agreement, then pulled off his flannel shirt to reveal a well-worn white T-shirt. Through the dim, flickering light, Emily could make out the logo of her favorite band.

  She rounded on him, pressing her palms against his chest as he ran into her. “Where’d you get that shirt?”

  He glanced down at the block of text, which read WAKE UP WILL. “I saw them at a club in Minneapolis two years ago. Right before they broke up.”

  “Lucky.” Emily traced the W with her index finger, both envious and desperate for more details. “I’d kill to see them play live. Hell, I’d kill for that T-shirt.”

  The tunnel went dark again as he released the lighter. Through the blackness, Emily heard the soft rustle of cloth and felt the heat of his skin inches from hers.

  Then, his voice, low and warm in her ear: “Put your hands up.”

  She didn’t hesitate, not even for a moment. She didn’t know what he was going to do to her, and she didn’t care. She knew only that whatever it was, she wanted it.

  She felt his hands on her shoulders, then sucked in her breath as the damp air hit her stomach. He pulled her shirt over her head, then skimmed his hands along her sides as he pulled the soft, worn cotton of his shirt down over her.

  She turned her head and sniffed the shirt’s collar. It smelled like him, warm and spicy.

  “You just gave me the shirt off your back?”

  “What can I say? I’m that kind of guy.”

  She reached out blindly until her palm connected with his chest again. He’d just held her hand for five minutes, but this skin-on-skin contact felt completely different. “What kind of guy is that?”

  She could hear the smile in his voice. “A literalist.”

  “I like it.”

  His lips brushed against her cheek as he asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Emily.”

  “Nice to meet you, Emily.”

  She responded by kissing him in a manner that would warrant immediate expulsion, tunnels or no tunnels. And the thin, flimsy layer of cotton between them only served to intensify the slow, steady slide of his body against hers.

  Both of them were laughing and panting by the time they came up for air.

  “Emily?” Ryan said.

  She traced his lips with the tip of her tongue. “Mmm?”

  “You’re kind of unbelievably hot in my shirt.”

  “I’m that kind of girl.” She wrapped both arms around him and whispered in his ear, as sultry and sinful as any soap opera vixen, “A temptress in a T-shirt.”

  They collapsed, still laughing, his body cushioning her from the floor.

  And just like that, in the middle of the tunnel, in the middle of the night, they fell in love.

  Ten years later

  The world’s most perfect man had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on Emily’s thigh.

  She settled back into the Audi sedan’s spotless leather upholstery and smiled at her fiancé. “I’m so glad you could make the drive up with me.”

  “Right on time, too.” Grant took his gaze off the road just long enough to glance at the Swiss watch on his wrist and amend that to, “Okay, almost on time. I told you I’d be out of surgery before rush hour.”

  “You did, indeed.”

  “And I made it. Even with a ruptured artery.” He gave her a look of mock innocence. “I don’t know how you could ever doubt my word. I’m the picture of punctuality.”

  “Uh-huh.” She placed her hand over his on her leg. “I’ve heard all this before, buddy. You just want to get me into bed.”

  “I want to get you down the aisle,” he corrected. “But yes, bed sounds pretty good right now.” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “We can do a little catching up before all the guests get here tomorrow. My mom should be at the airport around ten, and what time did your mom say she’d arrive?”

  “Who knows?” Emily stifled a sigh, trying not to ruin the soft pink glow just before sunset with thoughts of impending family drama. “She operates on Georgia Standard Time. And she’s on the prowl for a new ‘beau’, so you’d better lock up your male relatives.”

  Grant laughed. “I seriously doubt Georgia would want anything to do with my great uncle Harry.”
/>   “If he’s got a healthy stock portfolio, she’ll take him.” Emily had long ago given up trying to reform—or even understand—her mercenary, man-eating mother. “Don’t underestimate her—that’s how she sucks you in.”

  Grant’s smile was warm and indulgent. “Don’t be too hard on her, angel. She’s not as smart or responsible as you are, but she raised a great daughter.”

  Emily bit her tongue and changed the subject. Men, regardless of age or marital status, were incapable of seeing Georgia as she really was. Which was why Georgia, still an incorrigible and indiscriminate flirt in her fifties, preferred male company to female. “Women are so catty and two-faced,” she would remark while filing her nails or trying on earrings sent by a besotted suitor. “You just can’t depend on them. But men! So charming and agreeable!”

  Georgia manipulated men for security and profit, and Emily had rebelled in her adolescence by selecting boyfriends who could provide her with thrills, drama, and explosive physical chemistry, all of which she categorized as “fun.” She treated love like a double dare, a tightrope without a net. But while Georgia continued to search for men to keep her safe, Emily learned to rely on herself. She’d spent the last ten years accumulating an MBA, a closet full of understated dark suits, and a conservative, well-balanced investment account. And despite the vow she’d made to her college friends a decade ago, she’d worn panty hose just that morning.

  Emily didn’t take double dares anymore. She preferred the sure thing.

  “You’re quiet tonight,” Grant said. “Everything okay?”

  “Absolutely,” she assured him. “Just going over my to-do list in my head.”

  “How many items are on that list of yours?”

  She tilted her head, considering. “Seventeen…no, eighteen thousand.”

  “Make you a deal: You forget the list exists for the next few hours, and tomorrow I’ll take care of at least ten thousand items.”

  “Done.” She reached over and touched a button on the dashboard console. The soft, soothing strains of a violin concerto poured out of the speakers as the car dipped and rose along the road leading them up through the Green Mountains.

  “We’re here,” Grant announced as they passed a painted wooden sign welcoming them to the town of Valentine, Vermont.

  Emily gazed out the window at the abundance of green branches and vibrant summer blooms. “This is gorgeous.” Her voice was hushed. “I didn’t know towns like this existed outside of Nick at Nite reruns.”

  As they turned off the highway onto a charming little Main Street lined with shops, Emily saw children digging in a sandbox at a grassy park and couples walking hand in hand to a little shop advertising homemade fudge and maple syrup candy. Families carrying beach towels and coolers strolled back from the lakeshore. A pickup truck, complete with hound dog sticking its head out the window, rumbled by on the opposite side of the road. It was like a promotional postcard come to life.

  And the air! Emily lowered the car window to breathe in the crisp, fresh mountain breeze. If this air couldn’t clear her mind and cleanse her soul, there was no hope for her.

  Planning a wedding in Vermont while relocating from Minnesota to Massachusetts for Grant’s new job had been a logistical nightmare, but Emily felt sure that all the hard work would be worth it.

  “You were right about this place,” she said. “It’s the American dream come to life, right down to the white picket fences.”

  “And the eighteen thousand items on your to-do list.” Grant squeezed her hand again. “Not everyone could plan a wedding in two and a half months. When I first told my family we were setting the date for the Fourth of July, they didn’t think we could get everything done, but you pulled it off.”

  “Not yet,” she cautioned. “We’ve still got a week to go.”

  “Yeah, but the hard stuff’s done, right? We just have to figure out a few last-minute details.” He regarded her with pride and admiration. “You’re amazing.”

  She laughed, relieved and grateful that none of her last-minute details could rupture an artery and bleed out on the operating table. Organizing an out-of-town, black-tie wedding for a hundred and fifty guests in eleven weeks, all the while coordinating a cross-country move, interviewing for a new position in a financial firm, and house hunting for a classic Cape Cod in a good school district had required the strategy, discipline, and cunning of a top secret black-ops military mission. But Emily had always been decisive, and her years of experience in the business world had taught her how to prioritize and keep her eyes on her goals without ever glancing back. “Fix it or forget it” had been the mantra of one of her B-school professors.

  And fix it she had.

  In a perfect world, she would have had a year to sample caterers, deliberate over first dance songs, and pore over bridal magazines for bouquet and centerpiece ideas. But on the night Grant proposed, he mentioned that he wanted to hold the wedding at a rustic family resort called the Lodge in Valentine, Vermont—the site of his parents’ and grandparents’ weddings. The Lodge was special to his family, and Emily desperately wanted to become part of that history and tradition.

  When they’d called the resort to ask about available dates, they’d discovered that the Lodge had recently been featured on a national talk show as an “ideal destination wedding locale,” and every weekend for the next sixteen months had been booked.

  This hadn’t deterred Grant. Like most surgeons, he wasn’t known for his ability to take no for an answer. He’d asked for the resort’s manager, made small talk for a minute or two, reminisced about his family’s summers at the inn, and then said, “You know my mother has her heart set on me getting married at the Lodge. There must be something we can do.”

  He’d listened and nodded, then hung up the phone in triumph. “Great news,” he reported to Emily. “There was a fiftieth anniversary bash scheduled for the Fourth of July, and the husband just died.”

  “Score!” After they high-fived in triumph, Emily said, “We’re going to hell.”

  “Why? It’s not like we killed him,” Grant said. “Anyway, the manager says we can have our wedding that weekend if we book it today.”

  “Fourth of July?” Emily did a quick calendar check in her head. “But that’s only two months away.”

  “It can’t be that hard to plan a wedding, right?” Grant shrugged. “It’s just food, flowers, and invitations.”

  “Aw.” She’d patted him on the head. “You’re so pretty.”

  “What? It’s not just food, flowers, and invitations?”

  She tried to explain. “It’s more like planning a full-scale invasion of Russia. With ground troops. In winter.”

  He considered this for a moment. “Then forget it. You’ve got enough on your plate, and I’ll be too swamped with starting the new job to help much. If you can’t do it, we’ll find someplace else and my mother will just have to deal with it.”

  “No, no, no.” Emily held out her palm. “Hold on. I didn’t say I couldn’t do it.”

  “You said Russia with ground troops in winter.”

  “Yeah, and Saint Petersburg is going down.” She drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter as she mulled over her next move. “Family traditions are very important.” Or so she’d heard.

  “Not more important than your sanity.”

  Emily pressed the phone into his hand. “Call them back and tell them we’ll take the Fourth of July.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure. I’ll make it happen.”

  And she had.

  As she looked around the idyllic village, she felt a little pang for the kind of upbringing she’d wanted but hadn’t had. “It must have been great to grow up here.”

  “Yeah, Mom and Dad booked a cabin at the Lodge for the whole month of August every year. There were no TVs, no video games. My sister and I used to drive them crazy, complaining about how bored we were.”

  “But somehow you survived.”

  “Hey
, when you’re eight years old, all you need for hours of entertainment is a really big stick. And then, when I was ten, they sent me to the summer camp on the island in the middle of the lake.”

  “Was this camp called ‘Alcatraz,’ by any chance?”

  “I loved it. When I was in college, I came back to be a counselor.”

  “I didn’t know you were a camp counselor,” she said. “But you know, I can totally see it. I bet you were super cute in your hiking boots and your khaki shorts.”

  “I was in charge of water sports. Sailing, canoeing, water-skiing.”

  She smoothed the crisp fabric of her white linen skirt. “That didn’t happen. You’re just flipping through an L.L.Bean catalog and making stuff up now.”

  “I won’t even tell you about all the archery and the capture-the-flag tournaments.” He grinned. “Didn’t you ever go to summer camp?”

  “Right. Do you really think my mother would send me into the woods with a bow and arrow? We honed our survival skills at Nordstrom’s semiannual sale. That woman will shed blood to get the last pair of Ferragamos in her size.” Emily laughed at the memories. “She never understood the appeal of the great outdoors.”

  “The summer camp’s still going, as far as I know,” Grant said. “Maybe we’ll send our kids someday.”

  He turned the car off the main road and onto a gravel path that wound through towering pine trees until the forest opened up to a vast lawn featuring putting-green-quality grass, white Adirondack chairs, a charming gazebo, and an actual croquet set.

  Emily’s eyes widened as she stared at the hotel. “This was worth every second of wedding planning insanity.”

  The Lodge looked like something out of a Hollywood film set—luxury accommodations downplayed by a rugged and rustic exterior. The main building was long and low, with porch railings and window casings inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and a roof that the property’s Web site claimed was shingled with antique slate sourced from a nearby quarry. All of the guest suites were outfitted with high-thread-count linens and cavernous spa tubs, and many had fireplaces and screened patios. Every night, the housekeeping staff distributed truffles from a local chocolatier. Beyond the porch, Emily could see the sparkling shoreline of Valentine Lake, dotted by a tall lifeguard’s chair, a string of white buoys, and a long wooden dock.