Christmas Wedding Read Free

smoothly.”
    He hugged her. “Everything will be perfect. She’ll take one look at you and fall madly in love with you the same way I did.”
    I studied the pair of them, and thought to myself, I sure hope he’s right. But how often does a mother take one look at the woman her son is sleeping with and fall madly in love? Doesn’t happen. The woman has got to prove herself first; prove that she is worthy.
     

 
     
     
     
    3
     
    “ Now ain’t this house grand!” Kiki exclaimed. “This place is palatial. Melanie done good for herself, kiddo.”
    On Monday, after our final bridal fittings, and trying on the lace jackets that we’d had designed and sewn to cover our arms when we were outside, I picked up Kiki at The Verandas and brought her out to Melanie’s newly restored lodge to show it off.
    “ Say, Ashley, do you remember that one-bedroom apartment on lower Fifth Avenue that we shared with two other girls back in our Parsons’ days?”
    Kiki and I had been roommates when we were students at Parsons School of Design in New York City.
    “ How could I ever forget? A pull-out sofa in the living room for the other two girls. You and I were lucky enough to share the tiny bedroom, two twin beds pushed against the walls and still there was barely space to walk between them. I remember keeping my clothes in my trunk at the foot of the bed because there simply wasn’t closet space. And forget about a dresser.”
    Kiki was trembling with laughter. “I remember that well. We used to kid you and ask you when you were hopping on the train.”
    “ Still, I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything,” I mused aloud. After earning my BFA at Parsons, I’d returned south to get a Master’s degree in Historic Preservation from the Savannah College of Art and Designe. Then I’d come home for good, to take up my profession of old-house restoration.
    “ Come on,” I said to Kiki, “let me show you around inside.” We strolled on flagstones through the great arched entrance into a reception hall that extended past a broad oak staircase and led back to the waterway side of the house.
    “ Here’s the lowdown on this house, Kiki. It’s an old hunting lodge that was built during the Gilded Age when gentlemen acquired hunting preserves and constructed lodges as retreats for themselves and their buddies. Then they’d get drunk as skunks and shoot at anything that moved.”
    Leading her into the drawing room, I pointed to the upper portion of immensely high walls. “There were buck heads mounted up there. I took a great deal of pleasure in removing them. A barbaric tradition.”
    We strolled to the center of the huge drawing room. “Melanie bought this house from a friend of hers from their pageant days, Crystal Lynne, recently widowed. She’s one of the bridesmaids. You’ll get to meet her at the bridesmaid’s dinner.”
    “ Wednesday night, right? I’ll be there with bells on.”
    “ Yes, Wednesday. How are you getting along with Aunt Ruby? She’s looking after you and Ray, isn’t she?” I asked, mindful of Melanie’s suspicions that Aunt Ruby was not behaving like herself.
    “ She’s a grand lady, that aunt of yours. She and Ray were driving the singer to the church so she could practice Ave Maria with the pianist there. You remember how Ray loves the opera.”
    “ Oh, good,” I said, relieved that the plans were proceeding on schedule.
    “ Kiki, you should have seen this place. Falling apart. Holes in the roof that let in rain. Anybody with a truck and a screw driver would drive up that lane, and raid the place of irreplaceable valuables. It has taken Jon and me and our general contractor Willie Hudson and his crew almost a year to bring things back to close to their original state. Better, actually, because we don’t use dead animals as decorative accessories.”
    “ You did a splendid job, gal friend, and I’m proud of you. The style reminds me of the Biltmore House,” Kiki said.
    “ It’s