Always on My Mind Read Free Page A

darkening sky, screeching. Monkeys screamed back, and mosquitoes sawed in his ears.
    He closed his eyes to his audience.
    Happy New Year.

    If the fifty waiting guests were depending on Raina Beaumont to get the bride to the altar, located in the fireplace room of the posh Summit Hill mansion, they should pack up and head home before the snowstorm buried them all for the weekend.
    Because Raina hadn’t a clue how to answer cute Gina McCune, despite the look of desperation in her young and worried brown eyes.
    “What would you do?”
    Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe” threaded out into the hall, signaling the processional.
    “I . . .” Raina glanced toward the front, connected with Michele, the bride’s mother.
    Oh, boy. They wanted her advice? Did no one notice the fact that their wedding coordinator sported a pregnant belly under her not-so-little black dress? Not that anyone could guess that the father had ditched her long before he even knew about her condition. Still, she hardly felt able to dispense wisdom.
    Maybe, however, no one noticed her swollen ankles or the way she bumped around the room like a tank. Probably today’s activities   —the decorating crew, the cake delivery, the flowers   —simply distracted everyone from her cumbersome girth.
    Even her boss, Grace Christiansen, had refrained from ordering her to sit, put her swollen feet up, breathe through the occasional Braxton-Hicks contractions.
    But given that the elite bash counted as Grace’s first major wedding-catering gig, perhaps Grace didn’t have time to spare a thought for her assistant’s grand mistakes in life.
    Raina and the bride had to figure out their futures on their own.
    Gina blinked, fast, hard, staring at her bouquet of blue hydrangeas and white roses. “It seems right, but it’s the rest of my life. And . . .” She glanced through the half-parted double oak doors to her groom, Kalen Boomer, tall, blond, and swarthy, a hockey goalie for the St. Paul Blue Ox. He stood next to the green-tiled fireplace, beside his best man and the pastor he’d imported from his hometown. Kalen clasped his hands in front of him and stared at the floor.
    Gina turned back to Raina. “How do I know I want this? I mean, yes, I love Kalen   —so much it hurts sometimes   —but how do I know that we’ll be happy ten years from now? That he’ll still love me?”
    Raina opened her mouth, glancing past the petite bride toward the massive dining room, holding the delicious receptionGrace had created. Garlands of white pine boughs wrapped with twinkle lights hung from the windows, the chandelier, the wainscoting. The collection of round tables glittered with gold chargers crowned with red glass plates over an ivory tablecloth, the room fragrant with the scent of cinnamon-stick favors wrapped at the head of each plate.
    Raina held her breath, willing Grace to appear with some pithy words of wisdom. Her roommate always seemed to have something profound for Raina over the past six months as she struggled to figure out the rest of her life.
    “What I wouldn’t give to just . . . know . To see the future and know I’m making the right decision. Some sort of lighted path,” Gina was saying. “I mean, look at you. You’re happy and married and have a baby on the way . . .”
    Oh. So someone did notice. And probably thought Raina had removed her wedding ring to accommodate swollen fingers. It wasn’t like she’d had a deep and personal conversation about her marital status with Gina over the past three months, and Grace had handled all but the most recent in-person planning sessions.
    Gina’s eyes grew glossy. She drew in a breath.
    If Raina didn’t conjure up something, this entire thing could trek south in a heartbeat. A sudden image of the bride escaping through the kitchen, upsetting a tray of champagne shrimp, flashed through her mind.
    But frankly   —good question. How did anyone make a lifelong decision like marriage? Or whether