“I forgot to ask you, how was The Admiral when you told her that you didn’t want to have the rehearsal dinner at the yacht club?” Cat asked, shoving another bobby pin into her hair and examining her work.

Cat’s pet name for Lacey’s mother was an apt one, and she’d responded exactly as Lacey had expected her to. With disdain and annoyance. “About the same as she was when I told her we were having the wedding at your parents’ lake cottage.”

Cat pulled the last of the pins from her pursed lips and let out a low whistle. “Well, she handled herself well last night. I saw her talk to three of my relatives and none of them left crying, so that was a bonus.”

Actually, it had gone pretty smoothly, now that she thought about it. Even the fire Rowena had spit initially over the issue of where to have the wedding had seemed a little less passionate than usual. Sure, there were a few half-hearted insults about the “stock” Galen came from and her friend’s expecting better than some “crawdaddy shindig” at a “shack on a pond”, but it felt a little phoned in. Maybe it was resignation, or age, or maybe she was just tired from so many daughterly disappointments. Whatever it was, Lacey wasn’t about to complain.

Cat turned her to face the three-way mirror and smiled. “You look like a motherfucking princess.”

Lacey stared at her reflection and her eyes stung. This dress was everything her last dress hadn’t been. The other had been quiet, tasteful and sophisticated, just like her mother had wanted. This was celebration. The silvery-white lace fit her like a glove to the waist where a baby-blue sash sat, tied into a neat bow in back before the whole thing exploded into a princess ball gown with wads of tulle and sparkle. It was fabulous.

“You are the best friend anyone could ever ask for,” she whispered.

Cat sniffed suspiciously and turned away, muttering about allergies, which made Lacey smile. Cat had always been the tough one. The one she could count on to hold her up when she was falling.

“We didn’t get picked.”

The words were out before she could stop them, and Cat straightened, the question plain on her face.

“For the baby. The girl Sarah we interviewed with.” She swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed on. “She picked another family.”

“I’m so sorry, honey.” Cat held out her arms and Lacey stepped into them, letting her friend’s hug warm her from the inside out. It was such a relief to say the words out loud. Like maybe she could start to get past the disappointment now that she’d acknowledged it.

“So what now?” Cat asked, plucking a tissue from the coffee table and handing it to Lacey.

“Now I don’t know. I haven’t told your brother yet. I want to wait until after the honeymoon.” She dabbed at her eyes and forced a smile. “He’s going to say he’s fine because he won’t want me to feel worse, but it’s weighing on him, too, all this stuff.”

Cat nodded. “I get that, and I don’t blame you for wanting to keep it quiet for a few more days, but don’t wait too long.”

“I won’t. I just want him to enjoy this week without worrying about me.”

“Okay.” Cat gave her a reassuring smile. “Now let’s get this show on the road. Fifteen minutes.” Cat hit her with one last blast of hairspray and slid the sheer veil over her face. “Yep. Perfect.”

The two stood back and admired their handiwork, and Cat motioned for Lacey to spin in a circle. She must have passed muster because her friend’s eyes filled with tears.

“Lace, seriously, you look—”

A sharp knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” Lacey called.

“Unless you’re Galen,” Cat yelled, dashing her hand across her eyes.

The door swung open and The Admiral swept into the room. She looked fabulous. Her white-blonde hair was in a looser coif than the one she usually wore, and her ultra-slim, ramrod straight frame was accentuated by a fitted cream-colored suit that fit her like it had been sewn on by a team of captive birds. Too bad her face was far more wicked-stepsister than Cinderella.

“Mary Catherine, give me a moment alone with my daughter.”

Rowena didn’t wait for a response in spite of the fact that they were in Cat’s parents’ house and she was the one intruding. She just crossed the room and stood next to her daughter, waiting for her friend to leave. Cat’s face went flush, but she nodded and pasted on a smile that was more a baring of teeth. “Absolutely, ma’am.”

Lacey gave her a grateful smile. “I’ll be out in a few minutes. Can you make sure Uncle Roscoe didn’t start eating the wedding cake?”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Cat said, and headed out.

“You look very nice today,” her mother said stiffly.

High praise. It was a shock she managed to hold in her tears at this Hallmark moment. “Thanks, Mother.”

“I wanted to speak with you about something, if you’ll permit me a minute or two.”

Her wedding was scheduled to start down on the dock by the lake in fifteen minutes, but since her mother had made the effort, she wasn’t about to cut her off.

“Sure, what is it?”

“I just wanted you to know that…” She twisted her hands together in a nervous gesture that almost made Lacey feel sorry for her. She’d never seen her mother so ill at ease. Scratch that. She was never at ease. She was typically locked up tighter than Fort Knox, but she looked so anxious and out of her element. “I know I was never good at it. I’m fully aware of that, you know.”

“What are we talking about here, Mother?” Lacey asked carefully. She gently took Rowena’s arm and led her to a small velvet settee in the corner, where she sank down gracefully and crossed her legs. Lacey pushed the bulky dress to one side and sat across from her.

“Parenting. Motherhood. I sucked at it.” She let out a short, bitter laugh. “I remember the day I brought you home. You cried, and I gave you a bottle of formula. Once you finished eating, I burped you. Would you believe that was what I was good at? You let out a belch that shook the walls.” Her steely gray eyes shimmered with tears and Lacey felt the same filling her own. Her mother. The Admiral. Crying?

“My first thought was, ‘Look at me. A natural. I’m succeeding at this, like I do at everything else.’ And then you started to scream.” Her lip curled in distaste, and Lacey’s tears dried. “You squalled for three straight months, and I swear, I thought I would go crazy. Your father took over, and he was so good at it. He never got angry or upset. He just walked you around in circles, for hours some nights, until you stopped. I didn’t have the patience for it. I knew then that I’d made a mistake.”

Shocking that after all these years of subtle—and not so subtle—jabs that they could still hurt, but damn it, they did. Lacey shifted in her seat and tried instead to picture Galen’s face when he saw her. He’d be so happy, and they would exchange their vows, and they would—

“Not for having you. But for thinking I’d know what to do with you.” Her mother leaned forward and reached out to take her hand. Lacey pulled away instinctively. All her life, whenever she’d gone to Rowena for comfort when she was hurt or sad, her mother invariably drew back. Any contact was incidental or forced when they were in public. This time, though, Rowena held firm.

“I want to apologize to you.”

Lacey stared at her mother, her brain buzzing a thousand miles a minute. Apologize? Apparently it would be a day of firsts. Unless of course this was a typical backhanded insult thinly veiled by the “apology.”

“I failed you. I made a choice to have you; you never chose me. And I failed you.” Her slim fingers crushed Lacey’s and her thin upper lip trembled. “I would do just about anything to fix it. The part that’s broken in me. But it’s too late for that. You’re grown now, and I was too stubborn to change when it would have mattered for you.”

Lacey wanted to say something. To tell her that it still mattered. That it would always matter. If she could have some kind of relationship with her mother, it would fill a huge hole that had been present in her life for so long. But she couldn’t say the words. Maybe Rowena was right. Maybe it was too late. She stayed silent, and her mother’s sad but accepting gaze flickered away from her own.

“I have to live with that. And frankly, that’s not why I wanted to speak with you. I just wanted to tell you on your wedding day that I’m proud of you. And that you’re nothing like me. If you decide that you want to be a mother one day, I didn’t want me to be the reason you didn’t do it. I didn’t want you to look at me, and our relationship, and promise yourself you would never…” She paused and cleared her throat before she continued. “That you would never do that to a child, you needn’t worry. You don’t have it in you. You’re loving and sweet and selfless, just like your father.” She squeezed Lacey’s hand again and then rose. “I know deep in my tiny old heart that you will be a wonderful wife and an even better mother. And if you give me half the chance, I think I could whip myself into good enough shape to be a half-way passing grandmother, as well.”

Lacey kept her gaze locked on the gleaming pine floor, afraid if she looked up, she might burst into tears and undo two hours of makeup and hair.

“I’ll let myself out. And you fix your rouge and maybe reconsider that garish shade of lip gloss, hmmm?”

With that, Rowena strode from the room and closed the door behind her. Lacey stayed seated for a long time, replaying the world’s weirdest mother-daughter wedding speech of all time in her head. She’d never confided in her mother about her problems conceiving or even that she and Galen wanted to start a family right away. They didn’t have that kind of relationship, and her mother would have been horrified if she’d known that Lacey’s fertility issues meant that time was of the essence, and they’d had to start trying before they even got married. So to have her come forward now and give her blessing for a baby that Lacey might never be able to have, after being so vocal about her disapproval of…well, everything else in her life, it was bittersweet. In baseball terms, it was much more like hitting a single than a grand slam, but compared to where they’d started, she’d take it. Maybe, in the years to come, they could build on this small but seemingly heartfelt attempt at connecting and make something worth having one day. Lacey sniffed and patted a tissue on the corners of her eyes.

Ironic, though, that it only added to the feeling that today, on what should be the happiest day of her life, she was a total failure. She was failing Galen. Now, she was even failing her mother.

All the emotions she’d managed to keep in bubbled to the surface, and she sobbed like her heart was breaking.

…

Galen stood with Shane by his side, staring impatiently at the pathway, shifting from foot to foot. The wedding march had been playing for longer than he’d expected, and frankly, he was getting a little nervous.

Then, there she was. His beautiful bride wrapped in white lace, on her father’s arm, weaving their way toward where he stood on the dock. The crowd turned in their little white chairs, whispering and snapping pictures. It was a surreal moment for him as he met her bourbon colored eyes through her veil. She was still fifteen feet away, and he wanted to run over, scoop her up, and carry her the rest of the distance because he literally couldn’t wait to slip that ring on her finger. She was his. He was hers.

He’d taken a dozen blows to the face from Manny Hermosa in a heavyweight title fight and hadn’t shed a tear, but now, his eyes burned and his vision went a little blurry. Lacey Garrity had laid him down for the count, and he loved her like crazy.

Finally, she was standing there, staring up at him, and his whole world felt right. Her father released her arm and took his seat, and Galen took her hand in his. The minister spoke.