Accidental Bride(3)

Kelly hadn’t. She’d never had an alcoholic beverage in her life, except a few sips of beer that she’d found incredibly unpleasant. She’d just never had the urge to do things like that.

She’d always been hard-working and boring and responsible.

“But don’t go too crazy,” Rose put in. “Don’t get drunk and go off with a stranger or anything. Make sure you’re with someone you trust.”

“Peter will be there,” Kelly said. “I’m sure I’ll be staying with him most of the time.” When she saw her sisters exchanging looks, Kelly rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Peter and I are just friends.”

“Of course, you are,” Deanna replied with a smile. “That’s always what they say.”

“But it’s true in our case. There’s never been even a hint of anything else between us. He goes out with other girls, you know.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get all upset about it. You’re just friends. I’m sure you’ll find another smart, good-looking, funny, sweet guy like Peter one day—who you’ll be more than friends with.”

Kelly just frowned. She was used to the teasing. She’d been friends with Peter for more than three years now, having met in the first college class she’d taken. They’d both been majoring in Hospitality Management, although he was older and farther along in his degree. They’d hit it off immediately and soon they’d been hanging out most of the time together, but neither one of them was interested in anything romantic.

It didn’t matter if no one else in the world believed that men and women could be friends in a completely platonic way. All that mattered was what she and Peter knew to be true. She liked her life as it was. She didn’t need anything else.

It had been hard for her when her sisters had left home to get married. She’d tried to be happy for them, but their departure had left huge holes in her world. At least they were still in town, though, so she could see them often. It had been a change, but not a brutal one.

Kelly was hoping things would settle down now that their romantic lives had been satisfyingly resolved. It wouldn’t be the same for her, but it would still be good.

Rose evidently realized Kelly was getting annoyed because she changed the subject. “So you’ll get there tomorrow late afternoon, and you’ll go to the hotel, and then buy your new outfit. When are your friends planning to get married?”

“Since everything is in one night, we’re having the bachelor and bachelorette parties first, in the early evening, and then Gus and Veronica will be getting married at nine or ten. They want to have some honeymoon time afterwards, but they have to get back here by Monday morning, so they’re just jamming everything into one night.”

Deanna chuckled. “All right then. So you’ll have to jam in a lifetime of being wild into one night. Do you think you can do it?”

Kelly was going to buy something pretty to wear, and she was even going to have a few drinks. But she had absolutely no intention of doing anything genuinely wild.

But what she said was, “I’ll do my best.”

***

“I do not understand why you feel the need to make such a silly trip.”

Kelly smiled at her grandmother, despite the lofty disapproval in her tone. “Gus and Veronica are good friends. I want to be at their wedding.”

“But it’s such a foolish way to get married.”

“It’s not our wedding. It’s theirs. They can get married any way they want.” Kelly had lived with her grandmother nearly all her life, since she’d been very young when her parents had died. She knew how to manage the old woman’s eccentricities, and they almost never bothered or upset her the way they sometimes still upset her sisters.

Grandmama was who she was. She wasn’t going to change. There was no reason for her to change. Kelly loved her, and there was no one else like her in the world.

“That is no excuse for a foolish wedding. I expect better of you.”

Kelly laughed.

“It is no laughing matter,” her grandmother said with a frown. She was a tiny woman—eight inches shorter than Kelly—and she always wore old-fashioned black dresses, since she was still in mourning for her husband who had died forty years ago. Despite her small size, she had a dignified manner that many people found intimidating. “I expect you back tomorrow evening without delay.”

Kelly had never been intimidated by her grandmother. “What else would I do?”

“I do not know. But young ladies are sometimes foolish when they leave home for pagan cities like Las Vegas.”