Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

"Do you want some tea or something, sweetheart? Coffee, maybe?" Caitlin stood up, smiling fondly at Michael, who was sitting in the chair next to hers at her kitchen table.

"Coffee would be great." He grinned. "Do you still have that hazelnut creamer?"

"You got it." She kissed his forehead and made her way to the kitchen counter, where she busied herself with pouring coffee for herself and her fiancé. She gave them both hazelnut creamer and added a little oat milk to her own mug. When she returned to the table, Michael was flipping through the wedding magazines that they had spread out across the table.

"You want to get married in Hawaii?" she teased, nodding toward the picture he was looking at as she set down his coffee mug.

"No." He chuckled and took a sip of the coffee. "Mm. That's delicious. Thank you, sweetheart."

"You're welcome." She sat down next to him and they shared an affectionate kiss. "I don't know why I brought out these magazines, anyway. Most of them are a little outdated, and I don't want a big wedding again. I've been thinking about it a lot, and it just doesn't feel right to me. I don't need all kinds of fancy, expensive things to feel good about marrying you. I just want you ."

"Well, in that case…" He playfully closed the magazine he'd been looking at and tossed it away to the other side of the table.

She laughed and took a sip of her coffee before opening her notebook and clicking her pen open.

"So. We've decided on a date for our wedding," she said, sighing in satisfaction as she checked off the first item on her to-do list. "A spring wedding will be lovely. And I think two weeks before Alissa's due date is early enough, don't you?"

"Fingers crossed," he said, grinning. "I think it's definitely best to have the wedding before Alissa and Dane's baby is born. They'll have too much to deal with after that happens."

"And we want to be back from our honeymoon by then, so that we can help out," she said, nodding in agreement. She was determined to give Alissa all the support her twin sister could need when she welcomed her first child into the world. "But I don't think we need to worry too much about Dane and Alissa being stressed out by our wedding, even if the baby is born first. Let's just do something simple, without any fuss. A quick marriage at the courthouse. Dane and Alissa can be our witnesses, but they won't have to plan on spending a long day doing wedding party activities. That way they won't feel too overwhelmed as they're getting ready for the baby to be born."

He nodded. "So that's what you want?" he asked. "Just an informal wedding?"

"I do, if that's all right with you! I know men usually don't like all the wedding fuss anyway. I figure this way we can both get what we want and be married that much more easily."

"You sure you don't want to get married in Hawaii?" he teased.

She laughed. "No. I don't need a big celebration to feel good about marrying you. I just need Pearl there, and some witnesses, and you, of course."

He chuckled and kissed her cheek. "I think it's really sweet that you feel that way."

She beamed at him and took another sip of her coffee. She turned back to her to-do list and laughed. "Besides, look at how short this list is! If we were having any kind of a big wedding, it would be pages." She pretended to grimace and glanced at him, expecting him to be smiling. Instead, he was staring into space with a slightly troubled expression.

"Everything all right?" she asked him, touching his arm. She got the sense that something was off, but she had no idea what it was.

He turned to her with his wonderful smile. "Absolutely. I was just—"

At that moment, Pearl came rushing into the room. "It's snowing!" the little girl cried, waving her arms up and down as if she was choreographing a new kind of dance. "Let's go outside!"

Caitlin and Michael turned to each other, laughing.

"I would be up for some playing in the snow, what about you?" he asked her, grinning.

"Sure." She laughed and closed her notebook. "Wedding planning can wait for another time."

"I smell a snowball fight," Pearl said, with the dramatic flair that only eight-year-old girls can muster.

"Oo, game on," Michael said, rubbing his hands together.

They got on their coats and hats and gloves and boots and tramped out into the snowfall together. Delicate white flakes were swirling down from the sky, and Pearl took off across the yard, whooping. Laughing, Michael and Caitlin followed her, holding hands.

I'm so happy, Caitlin thought. I don't need a big wedding to feel like our love is important. I could marry him tomorrow with no trimmings or trappings and have no regrets at all.

A snowball sailed through the air and landed on her leg.

"Oh, good shot, Pearl!" Michael crowed, and Caitlin laughed as she dusted off her leg.

The snow fell faster as the late afternoon turned into dusk. The three of them stayed outside, laughing and throwing snowballs as the lights of the house grew warmer and brighter against the darkening day.

"How about Claude?" Dane suggested, scrunching up a piece of paper before lobbing it toward Alissa's desk.

She shook her head at her husband, amusement filling her as she uncrumpled the wad of paper that he'd tossed at her from inside his office. She adjusted her glasses, then looked down at the long list of names that was written on it. All of them had been crossed out except for the last one, which was Claude.

"That makes me think of some French guy in the early nineteen hundreds," she said, shaking her head with a wry look. She crossed the name off the list with a flourish.

Dane groaned. "What's wrong with French guys in the early nineteen hundreds?"

"Nothing—but I couldn't possibly call a baby Claude." She laughed, tapping her pen against her chin as she tried to think of another name to write down.

"Honey, there's been a wonderful invention. Let me tell you all about it. It's called a nickname."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he grinned.

They were alone in The Outlet offices that morning, since the newspaper and magazine only employed three people. The company's other employee, Josie Garner, had yet to arrive, something that was unusual for her. Dane had already texted her to make sure everything was all right, and she'd replied that she was fine but she was running late. Dane and Alissa had been shirking their duties and teasing each other about baby names instead.

"Hmm, how about this name?" she said, writing one down on the paper. She crumpled the list back up into a ball and threw it across the room to Dane. It landed just behind his desk and he bent over to pick it up. His eyebrows went all the way up when he saw the name that she'd written.

"Augustus?"

She crowed with laughter. "Sounds very dignified, don't you think? Besides, there's that wonderful invention of the nickname. We could call him Gus."

"Serious names only," he said firmly, writing down another name. He tossed the paper back to her and she opened it eagerly. At the bottom of the list was written the name, "Cheesy Potato."

She groaned, covering her face with her hands and laughing. "We're never going to get this kid named."

"Sure we will." Dane was laughing so hard over his own joke that he had to wipe away a stray tear. "What's wrong with Cheesy Potato?"

"What am I going to do with you?"

"You can send me another name."

She sighed, laying her forehead down on her desk. "I'm out of name ideas. We should go to the library and get a book or something."

"I wish we both hadn't gotten distracted at our dinner party. That would have been a great time to ask people for name suggestions."

"I know." She grinned a little. "All of the tension between your mom and Everett had me totally distracted."

"Me too. It was sweet of Marsha to try to set them up, but I don't think she realizes quite yet just how much of a city girl my mom really is."

Alissa nodded. "I think she'll become less of a city girl the longer she's here—but I know what you're saying. I can't see her falling for someone like Everett."

At that moment, the front door of The Outlet opened and Josie stepped inside, looking flustered.

"Hey!" Alissa turned to her in concern. "Everything okay?"

"Oh, not really." Josie exhaled, pressing her lips together. The ordinarily well put-together secretary was looking a little frazzled. Her long blonde hair was somewhat unkempt, and the travel mug she was holding had a rivulet of coffee running down the side. "There was a huge snafu with my—oh, never mind. I'm sorry I'm late."

"Don't worry about it," Dane said, frowning in concern. "A snafu with what?"

Josie sighed as she set her purse and coffee mug down on her desk. "I got the wedding invitations in the mail this morning," she said, breathing shakily as if she was trying not to cry. "And they're a disaster."

"Oh no!" Alissa exclaimed sympathetically. "What happened?"

Josie exhaled. "Overall, they look amazing. The design is beautiful, and it's just what Wesley and I wanted. But as soon as I started reading it, I saw that they misspelled my last name! They printed ‘Garter' instead of Garner."

"Oh," Alissa moaned, wincing a little. That was a bad mistake. She could understand how Josie would feel embarrassed to send out a wedding invitation with a mistake like that on it.

"Can you ask for a refund?" Dane asked, also looking sympathetic.

Josie shook her head. "No." She bit her lip. "They don't give refunds, even when it's their mistake. That's why I was late—I checked the fine print of the order this morning as soon as I saw the typo. I should have done it before ordering the invitations! Now I'm stuck with a full box of invitations with a huge mistake on them. And besides, we don't have time to wait for another printing—or to order new invitations from a whole new place. We're running a little late on getting out the invitations out as it is. The wedding is coming up fast." Josie bit her lip, blinking back tears.

Alissa's heart went out to her friend. She hurried across the office toward her and gave the other woman a hug. "Don't stress about it. We're going to fix it, okay? We'll get the rest of the girls together and we'll all work on your wedding invitations together. We'll get them fixed, addressed, stamped, and sent out. We can turn it into a party."

Josie smiled gratefully, inhaling. "Would you? That sounds absolutely incredible."

"You got it." Alissa squeezed Josie's shoulders. "We can't have you being stressed about your big day. Besides, many hands make light work. This way, we'll knock out the problem together and it won't feel like that big of a deal at all."

Josie sniffled back the rest of her tears, looking relieved. "Thank you. I'm lucky to have a friend like you."

Alissa's heart warmed to hear Josie's words. "Just you wait and see. It'll all work out great."