the same thing.
Later, Shelly couldn’t remember speaking her vows, although she was sure she did. The words came directly from her heart. Directly from Mark’s.
They’d been drawn to this place and this time by forces neither fully understood. Shelly wasn’t entirely sure she believed Aunt Milly’s wedding dress was responsible, but as Mark had said, it didn’t matter. They were there out of love. She didn’t know exactly when it had happened. Perhaps that day on the beach, when Mark first kissed her. Something had happened then, something that touched them both.
The love that began as a small spark had grown and flared to life until they’d been brought here, to stand before God and family, pledging their lives to each other.
To love. To cherish. All the days of their lives.
THE MAN YOU’LL MARRY
For Jenny and Kevin
One
J ill Morrison caught her breath as she stared excitedly out the airplane window. Seattle and everything familiar was quickly shrinking from view. She settled back and sighed with pure satisfaction.
This first-class seat was an unexpected gift from the airline. The booking agent had made a mistake and Jill turned out to be the beneficiary. Not a bad way to start a long-awaited vacation.
She glanced, not for the first time, at the man sitting beside her. He looked like the stereotypical businessman, typing industriously on a laptop, his brow furrowed with concentration. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, but noticed several columns of figures. He paused, and something must have troubled him, because he reached for a calculator in his briefcase and punched out a series of numbers. When he’d finished, he returned to his computer. He seemed impatient and restless, as though he begrudged the travel time. Not agood sign, in Jill’s opinion, since the flight to Honolulu was scheduled to take five hours.
He wasn’t the talkative sort, either. In her enthusiasm before takeoff, Jill had made a couple of attempts at light conversation, but both tries had met with minimal responses, followed by cool silence.
Great. She was stuck sitting next to this grouch for the beginning of a vacation she’d been planning for nearly two years. A vacation that Jill and her best friend, Shelly Hansen, had once dreamed of taking together. Only Shelly wasn’t Shelly Hansen anymore. Her former college roommate was married now. For an entire month Shelly Hansen had been Shelly Brady.
Even after all this time, Jill had problems taking it in. For as long as Jill had known Shelly, her friend had been adamant about making her career as a producer of DVDs her highest priority. She’d vowed that men and relationships would always remain a distant second in her busy life. For years Jill had watched Shelly discourage attention from the opposite sex. From college onward, Shelly had carefully avoided any hint of commitment.
Then it had happened. Shelly met Mark Brady and the unexpected became a reality. To Shelly’s way of thinking, her mother’s great-aunt Millicent—known to everyone in the family as Aunt Milly—was directly responsible for her present happiness. She’d met her tax-accountant husband immediately after the elderly woman had mailed Shelly a “magic” wedding dress. The same dress Milly had worn herself more than sixty years earlier.
Both Shelly and Jill had insisted there was no such thing as magic, especially associated with a wedding dress. Magic belonged to wands or fairy godmothers, not wedding dresses. To fairy tales, not real life. They’d scoffed at the ridiculous story that went along with the gown. Both refused to believe what Aunt Milly had written in her letter; no one in her right mind, they told each other, could possibly take the sweet old woman seriously. Marry the next man you meet? Preposterous.
Personally, Jill had found the whole story amusing. Shelly hadn’t been laughing though. Shelly, being Shelly, had overreacted, fretting and worrying, wondering if there
Later, Shelly couldn’t remember speaking her vows, although she was sure she did. The words came directly from her heart. Directly from Mark’s.
They’d been drawn to this place and this time by forces neither fully understood. Shelly wasn’t entirely sure she believed Aunt Milly’s wedding dress was responsible, but as Mark had said, it didn’t matter. They were there out of love. She didn’t know exactly when it had happened. Perhaps that day on the beach, when Mark first kissed her. Something had happened then, something that touched them both.
The love that began as a small spark had grown and flared to life until they’d been brought here, to stand before God and family, pledging their lives to each other.
To love. To cherish. All the days of their lives.
THE MAN YOU’LL MARRY
For Jenny and Kevin
One
J ill Morrison caught her breath as she stared excitedly out the airplane window. Seattle and everything familiar was quickly shrinking from view. She settled back and sighed with pure satisfaction.
This first-class seat was an unexpected gift from the airline. The booking agent had made a mistake and Jill turned out to be the beneficiary. Not a bad way to start a long-awaited vacation.
She glanced, not for the first time, at the man sitting beside her. He looked like the stereotypical businessman, typing industriously on a laptop, his brow furrowed with concentration. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, but noticed several columns of figures. He paused, and something must have troubled him, because he reached for a calculator in his briefcase and punched out a series of numbers. When he’d finished, he returned to his computer. He seemed impatient and restless, as though he begrudged the travel time. Not agood sign, in Jill’s opinion, since the flight to Honolulu was scheduled to take five hours.
He wasn’t the talkative sort, either. In her enthusiasm before takeoff, Jill had made a couple of attempts at light conversation, but both tries had met with minimal responses, followed by cool silence.
Great. She was stuck sitting next to this grouch for the beginning of a vacation she’d been planning for nearly two years. A vacation that Jill and her best friend, Shelly Hansen, had once dreamed of taking together. Only Shelly wasn’t Shelly Hansen anymore. Her former college roommate was married now. For an entire month Shelly Hansen had been Shelly Brady.
Even after all this time, Jill had problems taking it in. For as long as Jill had known Shelly, her friend had been adamant about making her career as a producer of DVDs her highest priority. She’d vowed that men and relationships would always remain a distant second in her busy life. For years Jill had watched Shelly discourage attention from the opposite sex. From college onward, Shelly had carefully avoided any hint of commitment.
Then it had happened. Shelly met Mark Brady and the unexpected became a reality. To Shelly’s way of thinking, her mother’s great-aunt Millicent—known to everyone in the family as Aunt Milly—was directly responsible for her present happiness. She’d met her tax-accountant husband immediately after the elderly woman had mailed Shelly a “magic” wedding dress. The same dress Milly had worn herself more than sixty years earlier.
Both Shelly and Jill had insisted there was no such thing as magic, especially associated with a wedding dress. Magic belonged to wands or fairy godmothers, not wedding dresses. To fairy tales, not real life. They’d scoffed at the ridiculous story that went along with the gown. Both refused to believe what Aunt Milly had written in her letter; no one in her right mind, they told each other, could possibly take the sweet old woman seriously. Marry the next man you meet? Preposterous.
Personally, Jill had found the whole story amusing. Shelly hadn’t been laughing though. Shelly, being Shelly, had overreacted, fretting and worrying, wondering if there
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