Darkmoon(102)
They left together, taking Lawrence with them. It was a long drive back to Cameron, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t mind too much. After all, they had a lot of catching up to do.
Connor shut the door after they were gone and raked a hand through his shaggy hair. “I don’t — ” He broke off, shaking his head. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“I do,” I said, going to him and putting his hand on the slight curve of my belly. “We can begin right here.”
He let his fingers rest there for a minute, then smiled, as if it had finally hit him that there wouldn’t be any more doubt or worry, no fears that I wouldn’t be around to be a mother to these children. I would see them take their first steps…say their first words. And, since witch blood almost always bred true, cast their first spells.
Connor and I would be there for all of it. Together.
* * *
“Okay,” I told Sydney, since she hadn’t said one word, only stood there staring at me. “You can be honest. Do I look like a complete heifer?”
She blinked, then shook her head vigorously. “No. Oh, God, Angela, you’re perfect. Look.”
Then she turned me around so I could take a look at myself in the full-length mirror. She’d spent all day doing my hair and my makeup and my nails, helping me get dressed, but she hadn’t let me see what she was doing, saying she wanted me to see it all when she was done so I could get the full effect.
Well, I was definitely getting the full effect now.
The gown had a high A-line waist to accommodate my baby bump, but even though I was almost six months pregnant, the crisp raw silk seemed to fall away from my stomach rather than accentuate it. The wide straps and the bodice were sewn with tiny crystals, the only ornamentation on the dress, and they sparkled as I turned to look at myself from different angles. Sydney had also curled my hair and put it up, a simple veil falling partway down my back. The antique diamond earrings Aunt Rachel had loaned me glittered as well. And the makeup was perfect, my eyes looking enormous, my mouth touched with color but not so much that it competed with the way Syd had done up my eyes. Eleanor, the Wilcox healer, had made sure that the cut on my cheek healed without a scar, so there was nothing to mar the perfection Sydney had just created.
“Wow,” I said at last.
“I know, right?” She stepped away, surveying me with a critical eye in case she’d missed anything. Apparently she hadn’t, because she gave a nod and pronounced, “It really is perfect. And you’re looking perfectly boobalicious in that dress. Connor’s going to pass out.”
“Sydney!”
“Well, it’s true. Pregnancy’s done great things for your chesticular region. Makes me want to get knocked up myself.”
“I’m pretty sure there are easier ways to make your boobs look bigger,” I told her, then turned away from the mirror so I could step into my shoes. The heels were pretty high, so I had been putting off wearing them until the last minute. “Anyway, you know how big a pain it was to find a dress that worked for me, so I doubt you’d really want to go through that when your own wedding is only six months off.”
Syd and Anthony had gotten engaged over Labor Day weekend. She was already plotting her nuptials with a vengeance, probably making Anthony very glad that he was currently embroiled in negotiations for purchasing a vineyard down in Page Springs…with a little funding assistance from Connor.
“You’re right, of course.” She went over to the mirror and cast a critical eye over her own makeup, which of course was flawless, as was the fit of the sky blue gown she wore, the beading on the bodice echoing that of my own.
I could hear laughter just outside the room, and Mason and Carla came in, also wearing long bridesmaids’ gowns that coordinated with Sydney’s, only in a soft coral-pink shade. “You’ve definitely got a packed house, Angela. Or I guess I should say ‘packed garden,’” Carla added with a grin.
Well, when you combined the Wilcox and McAllister clans, you ended up with a pretty big gathering. To maintain the fragile peace between the two families, Connor and I had decided to have the wedding in Sedona. It would have been easier in a lot of ways to use the country club near our house, but asking all the McAllisters to go blithely trooping into what a good number of them still considered to be enemy territory felt like a bit much. So we compromised.
Not that having the wedding in a garden overlooking West Sedona with red rock views on every side could really be called a “compromise.”
“Everything’s ready,” Mason added. “Your aunt sent us in here to see how you’re doing.”