He gave me a hug and let me go, whereupon he gave me a shaky smile so I leaned in to give him another kiss on the cheek.
After the kiss, I whispered, “Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you too, my precious baby,” he whispered back. “Also love that today I’m givin’ you to a good man who’ll see to you.”
I drew in breath.
“Or maybe I don’t love it,” Dad went on. “But at least I can live with it.”
At his words, I gave him a squeeze and another smile.
Then I turned to Krys.
She handed me the box.
I wasted no more time since I didn’t have any and ducked out the side door. Carefully, on my fabulous and fabulously expensive ivory heels, I dashed around the back of the church and went in the door on the other side.
Chace and Rich were waiting for me.
“Is he alone?” I asked Chace.
“Yeah, Emme,” he answered, looking me up and down then his gaze came to mine. Without further ado and absolutely no warning (except the intense look in his eyes), he proceeded to blow me away. He did this by whispering, “Love this, honey. I couldn’t build a better you for my boy.”
At his words, my heart skipped a beat and I had to let go of my skirt and put a hand to the wall to stay standing.
“That means a lot,” I whispered, and it did. From Chace, it definitely did.
“I know,” he replied.
I pulled in breath, and if I kept doing that, I was likely to pass out.
“Darlin’, you gotta hurry,” Rich said, and I looked to him. “You’re both at the church on time but it’s also kinda important for you to be in the sanctuary on time.”
“Right,” I mumbled, and he smiled at me.
Then he bent in to give me a peck on the cheek.
When he was done, I looked between the men, giving them a grin.
Then I went to the door they were guarding to keep visitors at bay. I lifted a hand and knocked.
“Yo!” I heard Jacob call, and that set my lips to again curving.
I turned the knob, put my hands behind my back to hide the box, and walked in. Closing the door with my foot, I saw Jacob standing in front of a mirror tying a dove gray tie.
Dark suit that fit perfectly. Dove gray tie. Charcoal gray vest. Ivory rose in his lapel.
God, he was beautiful.
Suddenly, I understood why a bride didn’t see her groom before the wedding. Because if she saw him in all his splendor, she might not be able to fight back the urge to jump him and consummate the marriage precipitously, forcing everyone to wait to get to the buffet.
Luckily, Jacob and I had done that, repeatedly, and we didn’t have time to do it again, so I was able to fight that urge.
Barely.
His eyes in the mirror came to me and his hands stopped moving.
“Hey,” I greeted.
Slowly, he turned. As he did, his gaze was moving all over me but he said nothing.
Then he said something.
“Didn’t know you could get more beautiful.”
Tears hit my throat and so I wouldn’t dissolve in a puddle of goo, or alternately messy sobs that would destroy my makeup, I quipped, “I aim to please.”
“You excel at that, baby.”
God, he wasn’t making this easy.
He was making it beautiful, but he wasn’t making it easy.
To get past that, I had to suck in a breath through my nose.
“You wanna make out before we get hitched, kinda hard to do with you across the room,” Jacob remarked, and finally I grinned.
“You can’t tell Mom I’m here,” I told him as I started his way.
“I’m more likely to share government secrets with terrorists than tell your mother that,” he told me, and I giggled as I stopped two feet in front of him.
Suffice it to say, Jacob wasn’t a big fan of tradition when it came with being forced to sleep in a whole different town than me, pre-wedding or not. But Mom put her foot down in a way neither Jacob nor I could deny.
That still didn’t mean he was happy about it.
“Hopefully, it won’t come to that,” I replied, and Jacob’s focus intensified on me.
Or, more accurately, the fact that I stopped two feet away.
“Emme, baby, I’m supposed to step in a church in five minutes and I don’t think you’re supposed to be on my arm when I do that. You wanna clue me in why you’re here?”
I pulled the box from around my back and lifted it up between us.
His eyes dropped to it and his body went completely still.
He’d told me about what Dane had done with his kaleidoscope.
It creeped me way the hell out that Dane was following me, so I decided to discuss that with my therapist and find a way to let it go. And I did that.
It hurt way too much to think of Jacob’s kaleidoscope dumped out with the trash.
I didn’t discuss that with my therapist, though.
I did something about it.
“I went back to the store where I bought it, but it’s now a dry cleaners,” I shared. Jacob’s eyes didn’t leave the box but I kept going. “So I asked Chace if he could help. Chace knows some woman in Denver who’s good at finding stuff out and she got the number of the old owners of the shop. She called them and found out who made the kaleidoscopes.”
Slowly, Jacob’s eyes came to me and what I saw in them made my throat close and my nose sting with tears.
I swallowed and my voice was husky when I went on.
“She called that guy and he agreed to meet me. He’s eighty-three and quit making them a few years ago. But when I told him our story,” I moved the box toward him and finished, “he made this for you and me.”
Jacob didn’t move. Not for a long time.
I knew why and it was sweet. Very sweet.
But we were imminently getting married. I needed to move this along.
So I called, “Honey?”
He finally moved. His eyes and hands going to the box, he took it, flipped it open, and I heard his indrawn breath when he saw what was inside.
The old guy outdid himself. The last kaleidoscope was a thing of beauty.
This one could easily be declared a miracle.
I watched, deep breathing, as Jacob pulled it out, set the box aside and turned it around in his hands like it was the world’s most precious entity.
And this time, unlike the last, I knew.
I’d had glorious months and months of knowing that those hands moving on me made me feel l just as precious.
“Do you like it?” I whispered, and his eyes shot to mine.
He said nothing.
He didn’t have to.