"I strongly advise you not to go," Kenny whispered.
Ted turned to the Reverend Harris Smithwell. "Excuse me for a minute."
The crowd broke out in an uproar as he strode up the aisle, not looking to the right or the left, but straight ahead toward the woman waiting for him just beyond the sanctuary.
At first, he merely took in the sight of that beloved face framed in a froth of white. Her cheeks were pale, her knuckles white around her wedding bouquet. He stopped in front of her. "Hard day?" he asked.
She set her forehead against his jaw, poking him in the eye with the tiara that held her veil in place. "Do you know how much I love you?" she said.
"Almost as much as I love you," he replied, kissing her gently on the nose so he didn't mess up her makeup. "You look beautiful, by the way. Although . . . I swear I've seen that gown before."
"It's Torie's."
"Torie's?"
"One of her castoffs. It's kind of expected, right?"
He smiled. "I sure hope it was from her wedding to Dex and not her earlier failures."
"Uh-huh." She nodded and sniffed. "Are you-are you completely sure about this? I'm a very messy person."
His eyes drank her in. "There's such a thing as being too neat, sweetheart."
"Except . . . Let's face it. I'm smart, but I'm not as smart as you. I mean . . . hardly anybody is, but still . . . It's possible we'll have dumb kids. Not really dumb, but . . . Relatively speaking."
"I understand, sweetheart. Getting married for the first time can be nerve-racking for anybody, even a courageous person like yourself. Fortunately, I have experience with weddings, so I can help you." This time he risked messing up her makeup to give her a tender kiss on her lips. "The sooner we get through this, the sooner I can strip you naked, lose my self-control, and humiliate myself again."
"That's true." The color finally began to return to her cheeks. "I'm being stupid. But I'm under a lot of stress. And when I'm stressed, I sometimes forget that I'm good enough for you. Too good for you. You're still kind of screwed up, you know, with the people-pleasing thing."
"You'll protect me from myself." And everyone else, he thought.
"It's going to be a full-time job."
"Are you up for it?"
She finally smiled. "I am."
He stole another kiss. "You know how much I love you, right?"
"I do."
"Good. Hold on to that thought." He scooped her into his arms, and before she could tell him it was unnecessary-that she'd pulled herself back together and he needed to put her down right this minute. Before she could say any of that, he'd started down the aisle.
"This one," he announced to everybody, "is not getting away."