Falling for Her Fake Fiancé
Autore
Amie Denman
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CHAPTER ONE
#RainbowsAndHoneymoons
THE WEDDING OFFICIANT walked a few steps away and sat on a park bench, and the photographer put down his camera and unwrapped a chocolate bar. Abigail Warren considered asking for half of it, dangerous though it was eating chocolate on a summer day in a white gown. She glanced down at her wedding dress, hemmed to stop just above her shoes, three-inch heels with an ankle strap, white satin to match her gown.
Her veil caught the breeze coming off the nearby waterfalls and brushed across her face. It picked up a hint of red lipstick, and Abigail brushed the veil back so she could watch the steps coming down to the platform at the top of the Bridal Veil Falls—the most appropriate location imaginable for her wedding. Her best friend, Minerva, Minnie for short, produced a tissue and blotted the red lipstick from the veil. Minnie was a wedding planner and also her maid of honor.
“A picture-perfect Niagara Falls wedding, the best one I’ve arranged,” Abigail’s mother, Ginny, said. And that was saying something. Ginny and Minnie owned Falling for You, a custom wedding business.
The wedding photographer angled in for shots of Abigail with the falls in the background. Abigail heard the thunder of the cascading water and smelled the clean, moist air.
“Any word from Josh?” she asked her mother between shots. She glanced over to the large group of her own friends and family watching the shoot and taking in the scenery. None of Josh’s guests were here yet.
“I bet they got one of those party buses and they’re going to roll up any minute,” Ginny said. “That must be why none of Josh’s friends are here. They’re all coming with him in the bus.”
“Do you think he couldn’t find a parking spot?” Abigail asked Minerva. “Or they’re lost?”
Minerva motioned the wedding photographer away. “Don’t worry, it’s only ten after one. And it’s tourist season. I’m sure that’s what’s causing the delay. Josh selected this location himself, didn’t he?”
Abigail nodded. She’d driven all around the American side of the falls with Josh and given him the options for ceremony locations. After helping her mom and Minerva set up countless outdoor weddings, Abigail had been ready with a list of pros and cons. Josh had chosen Bridal Veil Falls. He’d even made a little joke about the name suiting the affair.
Maybe he hadn’t said affair. Occasion? Blessed event? Happiest day of his life?
No, Abigail thought, head cocked to the side. He’d said affair.
But he had chosen the location for their wedding. Her big day, the one she’d dreamed of all her life as she’d helped her mother and then her best friend pull off wedding after wedding. Some weddings were creative, some intimate and sweet, some loud and joyful, but the hope embodied by choosing another person for life always made Abigail feel a bit teary-eyed, even if she never let anyone see her discreetly dab at her eyes. She hadn’t chosen to join Ginny and Minerva in their business, opting instead for tours and history, but she’d been conscripted into being a witness, DJ and even cake cutter in a pinch.
In fact, she’d met Josh at a wedding three months ago, and it had been so romantic. She’d been slicing and serving cake, and he’d asked her to take off her apron and dance. And from there, they’d seen each other almost every day. There was clearly some magic in the way their hands touched and how he held doors and pulled out chairs for her. He was the one. Was it any wonder that she’d asked him three weeks ago to marry her? She couldn’t take a chance on letting the one get away, not when he’d swept into her life and swept her off her feet.
He’d been surprised, of course, but sometimes love came over a person like that. And he’d said yes after only the tiniest hesitation. Finally, she would get her own happy ending instead of smiling from the sidelines for other brides.
Abigail glanced at her wrist, where she usually wore a smartwatch, but only the lace edge of her gloves greeted her. “One fifteen,” Minerva said, reading her mind. “I’ll call the best man to check in. There’s always an explanation.”
“I’ll run up to the parking lot and check,” Abigail’s dad, Blake, said. “I’ll text any updates.” He gave Abigail’s hand a quick squeeze and dashed off.
Abigail gave up watching for Josh and shifted her glance to the railing right over Bridal Veil Falls. Tourists usually lined that railing all summer long to enjoy the rush of standing on the precipice, where it seemed as if the world fell away under their feet. A group of men and women wearing uniforms, the dark navy blue crisp against their white shirts, stood posing for a photographer. Were they military? Police? There was something familiar about those uniforms. Abigail watched them as the group dissolved and, one by one, the uniformed people got their pictures taken alone with the falls right below them.
She heard a man clear his throat behind her and turned to find Garrett, Josh’s best friend. Finally!
“Uh, Abigail,” Garrett said. He pulled at the collar of his T-shirt. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts for his best friend’s wedding? Something wasn’t right. “Abigail, I’m supposed to tell you...” His words trailed off, and Abigail felt her mother on one side and Minerva on her other side, as if they were offering support for whatever the groom’s casually dressed friend was about to say.
“Josh isn’t coming,” Garrett blurted out.
“What?” Abigail asked. “Is he sick?”
“Stuck in traffic?” Minerva asked.
“Dead?” her mother inquired in a hushed whisper.
Abigail clutched her bouquet as if it were a lifeline for a drowning swimmer. She noticed the photographer holding up his camera, as if he wanted to document this unexpected wedding moment just as he might capture cutting the cake or a first kiss as man and wife.
“He’s not dead,” Garrett said. “He’s gone. He left this morning for Denver. He’s got a buddy with a place in the mountains where he can clear his head and—”
“Denver?” Abigail said, interrupting Garrett’s story of her groom’s preferred destination. “Why on earth did he... Oh.”
She tried sucking in a breath and couldn’t.
“He asked me to tell you he was sorry. Everything moved so fast and he just... Well, he thought he was ready, but...”
“He said he was ready,” Abigail whispered. “He said yes.” She swallowed despite the heavy lump in her throat. The lovely pearls at her neck felt as if they were choking her, and every click of the photographer’s camera felt like a slap.
“Jilted,” her mother whispered in much the same tone she’d used to inquire if the groom had met his demise.
“Oh, goodness,” Minerva said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Oh, Abigail. I did not see this coming. He loves you. I see it when he looks at you.”
Abigail released a long, slow breath and stared hard at her summer bouquet of roses and daisies. The rush of water over the falls drummed in her ears along with her own heartbeat. Josh hadn’t shown up to their wedding. He didn’t want to marry her after all. And he was going somewhere far away, where he could clear his head.
She couldn’t look at her mother and her best friend. Their sympathy and kindness would make her cry, and she didn’t want to cry. Not right here where dozens of tourists were looking on curiously. She’d been attracting their attention all afternoon. Some stranger had even snapped a picture of her earlier. Niagara Falls, land of honeymoons and rainbows. It would be a nice addition to their vacation photos.
It would be an even better snapshot if the groom had shown up.
How could he do this to her? He’d said yes, and they’d bought rings—albeit very simple gold ones at a local souvenir shop—and booked one of the nice hotels on the Canadian side overlooking the falls for their honeymoon. And then he’d sent his friend to tell her he was backing out? He hadn’t even told her in person after all she’d shared with him. All the hope that he was the one and she’d finally be the bride after watching countless weddings—that hope rushed out of her.
Today wasn’t the day for her happy ending.
Anger replaced the hope with a cold rush of reality. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, giving her a fight-or-flight response that had her trembling. She wouldn’t be tossing that beautiful bouquet of roses and daisies in the Falls Inn conference room later as the sound system blasted out the playlist she and Minerva had made. No one would line up to catch the bouquet and linger at the cake table hoping for a corner piece with lots of icing. She wouldn’t be dancing a father-daughter dance.
The flowers shook in her hands as her family and friends stood by silently, shocked and waiting for her reaction. Abigail turned and faced the falls, where majestic whirls of mist rose into the blue sky. That natural wonder had seen plenty of triumphs and heartbreaks. It had stood the test of time—unlike her relationship. The falls gave her solace and hope and peace.
She started walking, bouquet clutched in one hand and a fold of her skirt in the other. No one would catch that bouquet at the reception, but she could give it one big final fling anyway. Her steps became rapid despite her gown and high heels. She felt her veil tug on the back of her hair as the wind off the falls caught it, making it billow out behind her.
Abigail began running, racing toward the brink. No one could stop her from tossing the bouquet, even a groom who’d left her standing there like a fool. She ran faster and faster until she was almost at the railing. She raised the bouquet over her head, prepared to send it sailing out over the falls.
And then the hem of her gown caught her shoe and she was flying, flailing, soaring through the air. Her leg bumped the top of the railing and she let go of the flowers at the moment she knew it was too late to stop the forward momentum sending her over the precipice.
LYMAN ROBERTS LOVED the water. Rivers, lakes, ponds, oceans. All of them. But did he love being home in Niagara Falls? After six years of serving in the United States Coast Guard, he was back where he’d started, wearing a boat captain’s uniform. Not a service vessel, not a rescue ship or an ice cutter. Nope. He wore the colors of the Maid of the Mist, a tourist boat giving visitors a thrilling up-close view of the magnificent Niagara Falls from below, every half hour on the hour, weather permitting.
This was his life—at least for now. He tried to smile for the pictures with the other boat captains. They were all reliable, experienced, sincere captains who knew the waters below the falls and kept thousands of people safe and happy all season long. He liked and respected them, but he’d never thought he’d be one of them, even temporarily. The group photo with three other men and two women went fine. Being the tallest, he was happy with his position in the back of the picture, which would be used on the website and brochures.
But he’d rather be out in a storm at sea than posing for the individual shot the company required. Still, he’d checked his collar, made certain his buttons lined up and brushed dust off his shoes. And then he’d stood near the railing and waited for the photographer to adjust her camera and take a phone call. His boss, Tom, had high expectations for these publicity pictures, and Lyman was in no position to be a curmudgeon about it. Whether people in his hometown believed it or not, he wasn’t the same restless kid who’d left town at eighteen.
He was now a twenty-four-year-old who needed to figure out his future.
He resisted fidgeting but wondered how long the photographer was going to take. Tourists paused and snapped pictures of him. The massive waterfall behind him thundered away as always, the same sound and smell he’d grown up with as the background of his life. Nothing changed around Niagara Falls. The view was the same. The tourists came in a never-ending stream. And, always, there were honeymoons and rainbows, just as the billboards promised.
“Ready?” the photographer asked. She put away her phone and raised her camera.
Finally. He would cooperate and smile, place a hand just as directed on the railing, and then he could slip out of public view. Lyman composed an appropriately cheerful expression, squared his shoulders to invoke confidence and counted to ten in his head in the hope it would all be over soon.
A blur of something white caught his peripheral vision. The white blur grew closer and seemed to be moving faster. Lyman had excellent vision and quick reactions, skills he’d honed in the military. It took all his effort to stay posed for the photo and not turn toward the white object moving at an alarming speed.
“Perfect,” the photographer said. She continued to hold her camera in front of her and appeared to be on the verge of suggesting something, perhaps another pose. But Lyman’s resolve finally broke. He turned to go just in time to watch the white streak resolve into a bride, who raised a bouquet over her head and then tripped over the hem of her long white dress.
Without a second’s hesitation, Lyman half ran, half dived toward her and caught her just as she went airborne and nearly cleared the railing. His arms were full of slippery white fabric and a warm, thrashing woman, and he watched her bunch of red and white flowers fly over the falls, a ribbon following them like the tail of a kite.
Stunned, he gazed down at the blonde in his arms. Their eyes met, and they both breathed heavily. Her cheeks were pink, and he felt the heat in his own face, too. Lyman held Abigail Warren in his arms.
He stared into her blue eyes as her veil flew out on the breeze, and he felt the wild sense of disbelief he saw reflected in her expression.
“This is amazing,” he heard someone say. He heard a camera clicking and glanced up to see a crowd of tourists, phones aimed right at him and the bride in his arms.
“You,” Abigail said. “Of all the rotten days for me to run into you after all these years.” She pushed at his chest and fought to get down. Still shocked by the events of the last thirty-five seconds, Lyman lowered the bride to her feet but kept his hands on her shoulders, steadying her. She’d lost a shoe in her near flight over the railing and stood lopsided. Something kicked over in Lyman’s heart. It might have been his own adrenaline or how vulnerable she looked, the disheveled bride who was clearly not having a dream wedding.
While he struggled for words, she peeled off her gloves and shoved them in a pocket of her gown. Wedding gowns had pockets? Lyman’s brain searched for anything logical to say as he watched his high school sweetheart tug off her veil and shake out her long blond hair.
After years in the Coast Guard, he reverted to his rescuer training. “Are you all right?” he asked.
Abigail let her arms fall to her sides, and the veil dragged on the ground. “Do I look all right?”
“You look—”
She held up a hand. “You don’t need to answer that.”
With relief, Lyman watched her turn and walk into the arms of several women who were running toward her, sparing him from telling her she looked like a beautiful but disappointed bride.
